Kadahj Bennett lived in a tough Framingham neighborhood for a few years, and later attended schools in Hyde Park and Wellesley. He tried sports, but the arts pulled him in. Now he’s on stage at SpeakEasy in a modern “Waiting for Godot” that looks at a community of young black men called “Pass Over.”

Kadahj Bennett lived in a tough Framingham neighborhood for a few years, but it didn’t stop him from taking the pulse of MetroWest. He had friends from Framingham, Ashland, Natick. They would step out.

“I remember the Dollar Store, KFC and Store 24 downtown Framingham,” he says. “I love the Market Basket in Ashland.”

His Jamaican-born father, Dwight Bennett, one of 12 siblings, died when Kadahj was 15. His grandmother lives in Natick, so he has a place to hang his hat whenever he wants to get reacquainted with the area, especially the Market Basket.

 

Bennett is 30 now, and deep into a career path he’s felt was his destiny. He played sports, soccer, hockey and lacrosse growing up, but they never took hold. “My real affinity was for the arts.”

There were years when the family didn’t have a television. “In school the kids would tell me all about the shows that were on. I made up my own stories and characters, and acted them out.”

His schooling was a roaming field and culturally diverse. At a Hyde Park charter school “there were no janitors. You had to clean up after yourself. It was a rigid place.” He entertained himself by creating hand puppets.

The K-6 years at Wellesley’s Tenacre Country Day School presented a totally different environment and experience. He got attached to upscale Wellesley Square.

Read the entire article as it originally appeared in The MetroWest Daily News here.