Dinner with Dinah

Dinner with Dinah is an immersive dinner and performance created, written, and co-directed by Trapeta B. Mayson, and co-directed by Yolanda Wisher, unfolding on the grounds of Stenton Mansion in Germantown.

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The work centers Dinah, an African-descended woman who was enslaved and later indentured at Stenton in the 18th century. Long known through fragments of archival record and oral tradition, Dinah is reimagined here as a fully dimensional woman—mother, grandmother, laborer, beloved, and ancestor.

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The experience unfolds in two acts with a prelude. Act I is a shared, family-style outdoor meal shaped by poetic prompts and guided conversation. Act II transitions into a performance in which multiple performers embody Dinah across interior states and moments through poetry, movement, and music.

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This is not a reenactment. It is a reclamation—using food, land, and performance to explore memory, freedom, and care beyond the limits of the archive, on land Dinah would have known intimately.