Summer L. Williams spends her school days as dean of students at Brookline High School. On evenings and weekends, she directs a world-premiere play about Black suffragists at the Strand Theatre in Dorchester. Brookline's Public Health Awards Ceremony recently recognized both roles, naming Williams and Company One Theatre as public health champions for their work connecting creative expression to community well-being.
A career that's always run through Brookline High.
Williams co-founded Company One Theatre in 1998 and now serves as its associate artistic director, holding a master's degree in urban education and four Elliot Norton Awards for Outstanding Director. At BHS, she teaches drama and directs student productions — work that echoes into the rest of Company One, where fellow co-founder Mark Abby VanDerzee also teaches improvisation and social justice theater at the school, earning the Caverly Award for Educator of the Year in 2019.
The recognition, reported in a Brookline Interactive Group podcast episode, described Williams as one of the "public health champions in unexpected places" — a nod to how her creative work fosters social gathering, shared processing, and emotional resilience in young people, even outside a traditional health setting.
The play that's putting her in the spotlight right now.
Williams' current production, "A New Era," opened July 18 and runs through Aug. 8 at the Strand Theatre in Dorchester, with all tickets pay-what-you-want and a $0 minimum. Written by playwright Miranda Austen ADEkoje, the play is set in 1895 on the last day of the First National Conference of the Colored Women of America, following seven Black women — including historical figures Ida B. Wells and Anna Julia Cooper — navigating the rise of Jim Crow.
A production that blurs the line between then and now.
"There's a deep incorporation of song and sounds that are blurring the lens of time. You're gonna hear some Doja Cat, some Beyoncé somewhere," Williams told WBUR, describing how contemporary music weaves through the 1895 setting to connect that history directly to the present moment.
A play that almost didn't make it to the stage.
"A New Era" was originally commissioned by the National Park Service through Plays in Place as part of its Suffrage in Black & White series. After federal funding was pulled in 2025, Company One stepped in to produce it anyway, partnering with the City of Boston Mayor's Office of Arts and Culture to keep the project alive. A content advisory notes the play includes discussion of racially motivated hate speech, violence and lynching; the show runs about two hours with one intermission.
More to experience around the production.
A Teen Night Out pre-show event, led by Company One's Boston Arts Interns, is set for Aug. 6 at 5:30 p.m., followed by a post-show conversation, "Carrying the Mantle: Modern Movement Building in Boston and Beyond," moderated by dramaturg Lizzy Cooper Davis at 7:30 p.m. that evening.
