2In a small Midwestern city in the late 1970s, a young actor, on his way from New York to California, takes a detour for a surprise visit to a veteran actor - an actor he's worked with in only one play but to whom he's found himself inexorably, if nearly unwittingly, attached. In a taunt, tense 90 minutes, three people - a black man, a white man, and a white woman - clash over their contradictory senses of marginalization and betrayal and their contrasting perceptions of illusion and reality. "There's an intriguing mystery at the heart of Kermit Frazier's KERNEL OF SANITY ... Namely, why does Roger, a black actor on his way to Los Angeles from New York, seek out Frank, an older white man he once shared the stage with? It's no accident that Frank and Roger are actors. KERNEL OF SANITY turns on problems of identity (and, yes, sanity) ... with the arrival of Roger, whose behavior is deliberate but strange, the play] takes off." -Rachel Saltz, The New York Times "Kermit Frazier is one of the most underrated, under-the-radar African American playwrights of his generation ... His] plays are both lyrical and richly theatrical. And while they typically deal unflinchingly with the landscape of African American life and the socio-political issues of that life, the scope of his work ranges far beyond that culture." -Woodie King, Jr, Producing Director, New Federal Theatre "Kermit Frazier is a wonderful playwright - always willing to tackle controversial subjects through the portrayal of unusual and complex characters." -Cassandra Medley