Beaty, an award-winning spoken word artist, assumes more than 40 diverse characters in Emergence-See!, which presents the image of a slave ship rising out of the Hudson River in front of the Statue of Liberty in 2006. In a First Person essay for Broadway.com, he explains, "As an artist, I am interested in exploring the truth that we are all connected… I am constantly reminded of how similar human beings are across lines of race, class, gender, religion and sexuality. We all have white bones. We all long to have our dreams realized, to love and be loved."