[NoHo Arts District, CA] – A NoHo Arts theatre review of The Road to Freedom by Yolande Boyom, directed by Billie King and Yolande Boyom, Hollywood Fringe Festival 2025.
This play was the finale to a one-day community event at the Assistance League Theatre, sponsored by Lovy’s Angels Organization in collaboration with B. Angels Production and Blest Media. The event combined theatre, art, advocacy, and action in the fight against human trafficking.
The Road to Freedom is a fictional depiction of one woman’s experience in human trafficking based on Yolande Boyom’s own harrowing story. The story takes us from Africa to Singapore and then on to the US as Yolande’s character is drawn to the big city by traffickers with the lure of work only to be forced onto the streets. Once there, she is once again tricked, this time into travelling to Singapore with the promise of marriage, only to be trafficked again and then finally sold to an American trafficker as a sex slave.
The story is a horrifying one, made even worse by all the women in the story’s naiveté and innocence. Trusting and believing in a fairytale of love and safety, they are used and manipulated, beaten and raped, and even murdered. Although The Road to Freedom is presented as a narrative, the play is also full of incredible dance and music performed by wonderfully talented African performers.
Yolande Boyom’s The Road to Freedom was developed from her documentary of the same name in response to the growing worldwide recognition of human trafficking and forced sex work. As the human population increases, so does the crime, and this particularly devastating story is unfortunately only too common. Yolande shows incredible bravery in creating this play as a means to educate us all about trafficking and to raise the profile of agencies and organisations created to help these women, men and children who are stolen and used in the millions. It’s shocking to think that there are probably houses in all our neighborhoods where people are trafficked and held every day.
With The Road to Freedom, Yolande Boyom has made something bold, brave and extremely useful out of the chaos of her previous life. She is taking on the foul trafficking industry and all its horror in her own way…with her art.
The world is a treacherous place and right now it’s hard to find much positivity, but The Road to Freedom and Yolande Boyom have gifted us a purposeful, meaningful and beautifully crafted play with powerful performances from some truly gifted actors. Bravo!!
If you want to find out more about Yolande Boyom and The Road to Freedom there’s a lot of information on: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27711169/
The Road to Freedom Team:
Yolande Boyom: (Executive/writer/Co-director/Lead)
Billie King (Writer, Director, and Playwright)
Natasha Whitaker (Producer)
Marina DuBois (Producer
Trudynn is a dedicated Production Manager
Dr. Karika Austin is a visionary Writer, Producer, Director, and Creative Strategist
Sir Anthony Kinniebrew (Production stage manager)
Kareen Brown is a Jamaican-born writer, director, and producer
****
To see what shows are playing, check out our theatre guide>>