Earlier this summer, demonstrators filled D.C.’s streets to protest the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other victims of police violence. The Trump administration sent in national law enforcement to quell the protests, a move many interpreted as an attempt to limit Washingtonians’ First Amendment rights.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a historic D.C. statehood bill a few weeks later.

A new movie from one of D.C.’s major theaters contends that these events and, more broadly, racial justice and D.C. voting rights, are inextricably bound together.

The 60-minute film “The 51st State” from Arena Stage is available to stream for free starting today. It’s comprised of monologues about D.C. statehood written by 10 local playwrights: Dane Figueroa Edidi, Farah Lawal Harris, Caleen Sinnette Jennings, Teshonne Nicole Powell, Otis Cortez Ramsey-Zoe, Gregory Keng Strasser, Deb Sivigny, Mary Hall Surface, Aria Velz and Karen Zacarias.

The theater connected each playwright to a different District resident, such as a pastor, a Twitter activist and a historian. The playwrights then used their conversations to inform their monologue.

Playwright Karen Zacarías describes the writing process as “a funny marriage of art and reporting.” Arena paired Zacarías with Michael Fauntroy, a Howard University political science professor and the nephew of Walter Fauntroy, D.C.’s first delegate to Congress. She called her monologue “The Professor,” and based it on Michael Fauntroy’s life and family history.

In the six-minute monologue, the actor sits in front of the famous Ben’s Chili Bowl mural on U Street in a professorial sports coat and moss-colored shirt. “The story of Washington, D.C. has been a civil rights story since its inception,” he says. He goes on to detail his family’s story — how his parents and grandparents struggled for years to overcome government redlining and buy their family home. “There’s the Washington of white buildings, and the D.C. of enslaved black men and women who built it,” he explains.

In another monologue, a white man from Arkansas talks about learning about white supremacy in college. In another, a Black woman explores intersections between her religious faith and her commitment to social justice. The film intersperses the monologues with scenes from this summer’s  protests.

The film premiered Wednesday night during Arena Stage’s Supper Club, another one of the theater’s COVID-era creations. “The 51st State” is the third film Arena Stage has produced since the coronavirus pandemic hit the District. The theater closed in mid-March following the Mayor’s stay-at-home orders.

Theaters around the region and the country have also experimented with pivots to film. Round House Theater in Bethesda launched “Homebound,” a fictional web series about life under quarantine. Others have experimented with streaming live-reads of plays and musicals, though Zoom fatigue affects both actors and audiences.

“We’re all learning to pivot,” Zacarías says. “Flexibility is key. It doesn’t replace theater, but it’s nice to do in tandem.”

Molly Smith, Arena Stage’s artistic director, says the movie projects have helped her keep Arena Stage connected to the city while the theater is shut down. (It’s currently scheduled to reopen in late January 2021.)

“We are compulsive storytellers,” Smith says. “When our physical spaces are closed, it’s really important for us to be out in the community.”

To learn more about D.C.’s fight for representation, subscribe to WAMU’s What’s With Washington podcast. 51st, a special six-part miniseries on D.C. statehood, launches Sept. 22.