Arts & Culture

Playwright Lydia Diamond provides a mixture of conjecture and fact in her play, “Toni Stone.” If you are familiar with Ms. Diamond’s work, you know that she addresses the ‘human truth,” that we all face --examining, living, and experiencing our daily lives which become our testimonies on race, class, and gender and so much more as the layers of the human complexities reveal themselves.

Toni Stone defies the falsehood that women suddenly woke up in the 60s and ’70s under the influence of the declared Feminist Women’s Liberation movement. Her life is a living testament that such is not the case. Women have always had desires to be self-expressed as doctors, lawyers, teachers, nurses, writers, artists, actors, dancers, athletes, etc., in addition to becoming wives and mothers. She questioned why women must choose between being a mother or pursuing a career. She fought the same oppression forced on women throughout the ages.

Toni Stone’s life as told by Ms. Diamond is absorbing drawing you in as a voyeur and informs us that she was an attractive woman who had a gift of storytelling and loved telling her tall tales, because they spoke to her determination and accomplishment in a man’s world that denied her the ability to boast about what she had done and was doing. Her achievements in a man’s world were immense. Toni Stone was breaking down barriers before such a thought occurred to rally around and make it, “a thing.”

Toni Stone was a woman who was unafraid to pursue her dreams and was unstoppable, so she became the first woman professional baseball player, and she played in the Negro leagues as a full stop. She also hit a mean ball. Note this and be clear about the distinction-- Ms. Stone didn’t play for the white female baseball teams,