HOUSTONIAN PLAYWRITER, RASHANIQUE WILLIAMS

Rashanique Williams, also known as Rashanique the Writer, is a native Houstonian who has a lot to be proud of by presenting her 15th play as part of the Fourth Annual Houston Black  eater Week at the historic Deluxe theater on Lyons Avenue. Most of her plays have been featured at Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church, however, this one is different. The plot is based on ‘The Wife of My Youth,’ written by Charles Chestnut and published in 1899. Chestnut was born to newly freed slaves and had one white grandfather who was also a slave master. Therefore, his family history gave Chesnutt intimate knowledge of the tangled racial hierarchies he would later explore in his fiction. Rashanique heard of the story over a casual conversation with her soon-to-be producer Roderick Taylor in July 2026. Needless to say, that conversation inspired Rashanique to adapt the story into a play with a few plot twists.

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