When Shirley Basfield Dunlap was asked why she decided to direct “Having Our Say” at The Des Moines Playhouse, she simply replied, “They called me.”

Dunlap, assistant professor of theatre at Iowa State, directed “Having Our Say” last year with a group of professional actors. The show traveled from the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre to New York to the Dallas Center Theatre in Texas.

She is now directing the show with actors from the Des Moines area, including Ruth Ann Gaines, Iowa’s Teacher of the Year.

“Having Our Say” is a true-life story about 101-year-old Bessie and 103-year-old Sadie Delany, two daughters of a former slave.

While they are preparing a dinner in remembrance of their father’s birthday, they reflect on 100 years of their family’s life and black history in America.

“This is American history given to us by these women,” Dunlap said. “They are ordinary people who did extraordinary things.”

The real Bessie Delany died about four years ago at the age of 103 and Sadie Delany passed away just this past Monday at the age of 109.

“This play provides a good lesson for today,” Dunlap said.

Over four weeks of rehearsals have been put into the play, and Dunlap has had to work long-distance with a set designer from South Dakota.

She has been faced with one of live theater’s biggest problems: making a play work after the set has been made.

“The set is supposed to revolve and I came to rehearsal one day and found out that it doesn’t revolve,” Dunlap said. “When they asked me what to do I said, ‘How am I supposed to know, I’m not an engineer.'”

Dunlap began her theater career as a high school student in her home town of South Bronx, New York. There was a theater outreach program in the city that sparked her interest, and she was soon hooked after she began going to the theater to watch productions.

“I was fortunate enough to have people that would take me to the theater,” Dunlap said with a subtle New York accent.

When she began college in the ’70s, Dunlap majored in theater and participated in different summer internships around New York.

She began teaching it as a graduate student in 1979.

“Wow, that was 20 years ago,” Dunlap said. “I can feel the gray hairs popping through.”

Dunlap has directed plays throughout the country in places like Florida, Maryland, Ohio, New York, Wisconsin and Iowa.

“Everyone has a soapbox they like to climb on, mine is the stage,” Dunlap said. “It is my way of teaching the world.”

Dunlap exclaims that the best productions she has worked on in her life are her children, but other than that, the best show she has ever worked on was a play called “From the Mississippi Delta,” one she has participated in six or seven times.

“I love doing that one because I have never done it the same,” Dunlap said. “It calls for such imagination because the actors have to play so many different kinds of characters throughout.”

For the time being, the future looks pretty clear for Dunlap. She is currently directing a play for Fisher Theater titled “Fires In the Mirror,” in which she will be working with a guest set and costume designer from New York.

In addition to all these other activities, she is the director for the ISU Minority Theatre Workshop. But as far as her career goes, Dunlap never feels content.

“I’m just an embryo with all that I’d like to do,” Dunlap said.

“Having Our Say” is running now through Feb. 7 at the Des Moines Playhouse, at 831 42nd St.

Tickets are available by e-mail at [email protected], by phone at 515-277-6261 and at the Playhouse box office.