Face on the Dime

Characters

1 F; 1 M

Selma: mid – late 30’s African-American sculptor

Donald; mid-late 40’s African-American doorman in White House

Time/Place

February 1945, Washington DC

Set

Lobby of the White House, circa 1945. Formal furniture. Enormous painting of Washington Crossing the Delaware (Leutze) dominates one wall.

Running time

90 minutes without intermission

Synopsis

Face on the Dime opens on a February morning in 1945 when Selma Hortense Burke (1900 - 1994) arrives at Donald’s door of the White House for her first sketching session with President Franklin Roosevelt. Donald mistakes the sculptor for a domestic, and directs her to a different entrance around back. She asserts her right to be there, and prevails. While sketching the President for the Four Freedoms plaque, Selma learns of an even higher profile Roosevelt design project: a coin. Selma tries to secure the dime commission, but the fast-tracked project is instead assigned to John Sinnock, the white Master Engraver of the U.S. Mint. Sinnock, may or may not have appropriated Selma’ s Four Freedoms image of FDR in his design for the dime; she believed he did. Selma fights to get credit for her contribution to the coin, which results in J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI tapping her phone and trailing her movements.

Despite Donald’s resistance to Selma’s protocol shattering ways, and the havoc her influence wreaks on his reputation, his small life eventually expands, in ways he never could have imagined. Ultimately, Selma has to decide how to direct her life – fighting the injustice or creating art. Face on the Dime examines power, gender and the making of art.

Production/Development History

Semi-finalist 2017 Eugene O’Neill National Play Festival

Opening scene featured in 2018 Scene Showcase, Chicago Dramatists

Written in Will Dunne’s Scene Shop Workshop, Chicago Dramatists