The Taking of Miss Janie is a theatrical drama that displays the relationship between a black revolutionary and a white liberal woman whose rape becomes the play's core symbolism.

Set at a party in California; the play follows the lives of nine young college students trying to make sense of the confusion around the drastic changes and movements of the 1960s. Janie (Robel), bright-eyed and bushy-tailed happens upon a brand new world on the Southern California college scene when she meets Monty (Gaspard) a smooth, black revolutionary poet. Janie is welcomed into a world unlike anything she has ever experienced. She meets Monty’s roommates Rick (McCullough) the aggressive, radical who dispels pure hate for Janie and Len (Johnson) the intellectual-artistic-politically-aware brother. Monty’s sometime girlfriend Peggy (Alexander) is a strong but tender black woman all the while dealing with Monty’s lust for her thirsty for-sex girlfriend, Flossie (Hart). Janie has her skeletons as well, having aborted children from her boyfriend Lonnie (Velkov). Rick’s temper is tested when he meets Len’s girlfriend Sharon (Batcheller) a Jewish girl who is fighting her own demons, while getting a wake up call from Mort (Wendell) a beatnik bum.

The Taking of Miss Janie is one of Bullins most memorable and thought-provoking plays, which stirred strong feminist disapproval. The audience will feel the characters frustration, anger, and pain as the relationship between Janie and Monty develops into more than Janie can control.

Karen Feldscher, writer for NU Magazine wrote that Ed Bullins has been called “one of the most powerful black voices in contemporary American theater”. America’s greatest living playwright. Prolific. Influential. Gifted. Legendary theater critic Clive Barnes has said “he writes like an angel.” You’ve probably never heard of Ed Bullins. But those who know something about African-American theater, especially during the 1960s and 1970s, surely have. They regard him as a founding father.

Bullins, who taught at Northeastern University since 1995 and currently holds the title Distinguished Artist-in-Residence, has written more than a hundred plays. Having a healthy measure of accolades already come to him, this former Black Panther has produced many works including a trilogy of plays—A Son, Come Home, The Electronic Nigger, and Clara’s Ole Man which earned him the 1968 Vernon Rice Drama Desk Award. In 1971, he earned an Obie Award and the Black Arts Alliance Award for both The Fabulous Miss Marie and In New England Winter. The Taking of Miss Janie garnered him a Obie Award and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award in 1975.