on: ‘The Impact of Race: Theatre and Culture’ by Woodie King Jr.

notes from my first read, highlighting how Black theatrical legacies reflect a cultural dedication to access.

and, a reading list (scroll down).

“I am witness. I was there.” p 92

on Black business:

“Black businesses sustain themselves because they have a product that Black people need. Black artists create the spiritual and cultural nourishment Black people need.” p 14

“We must find “isms” again because our Blackness isn’t enough. Our Blackness is simply the surface of how we appear to ourselves and to others. We must have some sort of political direction. We must believe in something; we must have a sense of value beyond money.” p 22

“GHETTO ART & ENERGY”

“That’s how it’s always been in this country: the new citizen, angry because it’s not the way he dreamed it would be, but come hell or high water he’s going to make it that way. Those are the fellows that revive our art, our nation’s self respect… (In the near future, Rap and Hiphop will be instrumental in defining the culture.)” p 36

youth theatre, street theatre, the Cultural Arts Program of Mobilization for Youth as a lesson in access:

King discusses the Cultural Arts Program of Mobilization For Youth (MFY) that began the summer of 1965, formed with the intention of giving “young people in the area a real chance at professional experience and training via the arts as they relate to everyday life.“ p36

“While mothers hung out of tenement windows and young boys lounged on fire escapes, many who’d never even seen a play before got their first taste of theatre that related to their lives. In fact, Dope! was so real to some members of the audience that they got up on stage to dance during a party scene and later hissed at the hero when he started to take a fix. They, you see, knew something about the hero’s life thata the hero didn’t know. And they wanted that young man to make the right decisions. An old woman junkie begged the hero not to take the drugs, telling him to look at her, see what dope had done to her. I was reminded of something Malraux wrote in Man’s Fate: “We hear our own voice with our throat, we hear voices of others with our ears.” p 36

on students in the program:

“We expect them to learn to communicate ideas and feelings, to learn to approach simple problems creatively, to understand that to accomplish worthwhile things often requires patience and persistence more than inspiration. We expect them to learn that the human body and the human voice are the vehicle and instrument of the spirit and intellect; the suppressed intellectual energy can be expressed creatively rather than physically. And we expect them to appreciate that the cultivated primary human instrument is capable of enormous power and subtle expression.” p37

“We wanted plays that could speak to ghetto audiences, that, the language of the ghetto would deal with issues meaningful and important to its people. We wanted plays that accurately said what the actors were really thinking as youngsters living in the ghetto.” p 37

“BREAKING THE RULES— EDUCATION ETHICS AND ETHNICITY”

advice for educators:

“The better artists take the human condition, recreate and shape it in a beautiful and artistic art, a beautifully realized, culturally diverse character, a brilliantly executed piece of choreography, a dance, a culturally diverse play … the unique way in which this art is given back is called ‘vision.’ I believe the better educators are also artists and visionaries. They take what a student brings and uses it to help shape that student into a piece of art.” p 72

““Cultural diversity” means absolutely nothing if the student doesn’t have a sense of his own culture. Breaking rules is extremely difficult when your education and Eurocentric institutions exist on rules.” p 72

“JAMES BROWN IN LIBERIA”

favorite chapter. phenomenal storytelling.

“THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN THEATRE OF TOMORROW”

“Karamu is the grand parent of the Black Theatre. It existed all by itself when our minds carried the possibility of something as remote as A Negro in the American Theatre. In 1947 when Edith Isaac wrote her historical book The Negro in the American Theatre, one third of it was about Karamu. It’s an institution that has been presenting plays with Black artists in leading roles since it’s inception. Those who passed through have gone on to some of the highest positions of leadership in the American Theatre, Hollywood Television and the motion picture industry. Karamu also sent those-who-passed-through into leadership positions in business, education and social science. Karamau is the boy scouts.” p 95

“Black institutions (or Black controlled institutions) are somewhat different. Many are so seriously underfunded they look for anything Black that can be booked into the institution and often get productions that turn Black audiences off…” p 102

“Starting in the mid-Eighties, a culturally accepted form of self criticism within Black arts circles (especially circles that worked within white institutions) was overwhelmingly endorsed by white institutions. These artists and thier productions toured constantly.” p 103

the part about BTN, AUDELCO as a lesson in access:

BTN’s inaugural Winona Lee Fletcher Award 1995 Recipients: Abena Joan Brown, Vinnette Carroll, Vivian Robinsosn, Ntozake Shange, Barbara Ann Teer, and Margaret Wilkerson p 105

Vivian Robinson founded AUDELCO:

“In her acceptance speech, Robinson talked about how she formed AUDELCO. In the early Seventies as she attended theatres, she noted very few Blacks attended. She began to form theatre parties to correct this situation. These theatre parties developed into an organization and on April 1, 1973, the Audience Development Committee, Inc., better known as AUDELCO, was founded.

Supported by theatregoers who were part of AUDELCO Theatre Parties, Vivian Robinson felt the need, additionally, to do something to encourage and honor Black artists. When Douglas Turner Ward was nominated for a Tony Award as “Best Supporting Actor” for his leading role in the Broadway production of fJoseph Walker’s The River Niger, Vivian Robinson and the “AUDELCO ladies” went into action and began the Annual AUDELCO Black Theatre Recognition Awards.” p 110

“BARAKA AT THE MILLENNIUM”

“The language in his plays, the focus of his music criticism, and his volumes of essays remind us we’re Africans in a European culture.

What is it about Baraka’s language that calls us to attention? I believe it’s his understanding of the African continuum as well as how it plays on the collective memory.” p 131

cultural anthropology as a basis for creative exploration:

“Milner is a cultural anthropologist as much as a playwright. His plays are deeply rooted in the people and places of his hometown of Detroit. Black people inhabit his plays. White people don’t play any great role in the stage life of Milner’s characters or in his stories.” p 159

“NATIONAL BLACK THEATRE FESTIVAL — AFRICAN HERITAGE AND KINSHIP”

“In a discussion with Pearl Cleage in 1989 about the Festival, she said:

You begin to see the problem. ‘We’ are a wildly diverse group of performers, directors, writers, teachers, designers, producers, and patrons. We have accepted in no unifying creed o r set of values, embraced no collective aesthetic, defined no common enemy and agreed upon no mutually beneficial strategies for survival. We have few, if any, institutions that are not heavily dependent on resources granted to us from outside of the communities in whom our work should be deeply rooted and to whom our work should be of definable use and value… It is madness to consider the future of Black theatre outside of the context of the future of Black America. Any attempt to do so removes us from our cultural traditions and from our historical responsibilities.” p 165

more words on access/building an accessible theatre:

“A theatergoer can feel deeply, yet if what is happening on stage makes no sense he will turn off.” p 181

“Finally, Wilson spoke of “the theatre we choose to work in is European, that it’s based on the Greek theatre designed by Aristotle. We choose to adjust and change it … the American theatre is based on subscription, yet that subscription keeps Blacks out of the American theatre…. they (subscriptions) are the death of American theatre.” p 188

“In South Africa’s Black Townships there are no theatres. Performances take place in community halls, churches, cinemas, and school classrooms, venues which don’t provide facilities nor the conditions necessary for professional performances.” p 193

“A traditional African theatre audience is an active, vocal and participating component of a performance event. Such an audience is often labeled as “noisy” especially by critics who aren’t familiar with African and African American audiences. The African and the African American audience is an integral part of the performance and functions on three simultaneous capacities as spectators, performers, and critics.” p 196

“When asked back them: What does your audience come looking for? Artistic Director Douglas Turner Ward replied, “I find the Black audience doesn’t come with any pre—conception.. They probably were told that there was a play which had something to do with them and one that they could afford. Our highest ticket is $4.95. And we have some preview tickets for only one dollar. We’ve done everything to get the audience we want. One way is to give group rates and to do radio advertising. The Negro Ensemble Company consciously seeks participation of Black audiences.” p 199

an interview to keep digging:

https://www.americantheatre.org/2021/07/09/woodie-king-jr-and-a-lifetime-of-creation/

Zora! Festival Academic Conference Vlog

spend 3 days with me in Orlando/Eatonville/Maitland celebrating big Zor Zor, the illustrious Zora Neale Hurston

“As the grimy globe spins”: Zora Neale Hurston, Care, and Making a Place

Day 1

I originally had not planned on taking the tour of Eatonville because I imagined it to be much like the place my father grew up. To my surprise, it was even smaller. Roanoke Rapids has a Walmart. Eatonville has a Family Dollar.

Rise Mural (Zora Side), Eatonville, FL

Rise Mural (back)

key takeaways:

• Black laborers “rising and returning to the mist”

• J. Andre Smith (Black Jesus murals) & Josiah Eaton (put the money up to found Eatonville)

  • what’s with all the white boys having Black names?

• A.M.E.:

African, because of the Africans who sat in the “nigga pews”

Methodist, the denomination

Episcopal, the order of the bishop

• “LIMITATIONS GIVE BIRTH TO CREATIVITY”- Trent Tomengo

In the evening there was a presentation at Rollins College, ‘Vignettes from ‘Let My People Sing’’ a play the students created about Zora. No shade, it was… what it was lol. I know there are limitations to educational theatre, particularly at the undergraduate level and I’m always hesitant to truly critique these things because they’re essentially children, but really they aren’t to blame anyway. I blame the faculty. I blame the education system.

For some reason, especially in undergraduate productions people feel the need to make everything multicultural and “for all.” Though Zora’s academic life outside of Eatonville included white people, many of these were strictly essential relationships where Zora said and did whatever she needed to in an effort to get what she needed to survive. It was strange to watch young white girls cry about ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’— for them to say they never saw the transformative value or power of performance until they were 18 on a PWI campus doing a student driven production about Zora Neale Hurston. It was actually kind of comical and… disrespectful? My existence has always been political. I’ve never known the art I created or participated in to be anything but that. Even in show choir, my existence was representation— it didn’t matter that we were singing a Disney medley.

Day 2

Day 2 was presentation day for me. I am extremely proud of what I accomplished and I feel like this presentation was even better than the last. I’m still working on pacing and lifting my head up but I think people still appreciated what I was able to share. The day began at St. Lawrence AME where we got to hear Dr.Ruthe T. Sheffey (in her 100th year!) speak about Zora and the festival and it reminded me so much of my grandmother. She told us the same story three times— like the exact same thing— in the way that only elderly people can. Grateful to have that experience.

Our moderator, Trent Tomengo called me Dr. Jefferies all morning. I told him I was not a doctor, but he insisted and I accepted it. Language is powerful. It was spoken (it is written).

During the Q&A portion of my session, we were asked how care shows up in our classrooms and I didn’t get a chance to answer so I’ll do it now:

I introduce myself: name, pronouns, and how I’m feeling. I tell my students that in order to work together, we must consider and respect each other. It is important that everyone knows where we’re starting— if I’m having a bad day, my students need to know that my behavior isn’t personal or about them, I’m just having a bad day. And vice versa. When my students talk over each other, I tell them that what they have to say is important and I can’t hear those important things if they’re all talking at once. I emphasize that I want to hear them. I model care, and I let them know that taking care of each other/considering each other is the first step to creating collaboratively.

reading list from “Zora for Kids: The Place of Hurston in Children’s Literature” by Kenneth Kidd (University of Florida):

• The Brownies Book (W.E.B. DuBois)

• ‘Drenched in Light’ (1926)

• ‘Dust Tracks on the Road’ by Zora Neale Hurston

• ‘Lies and Other Tall Tales’ adapted and illustrated by Christopher Myers

• Dr. Ibram Kendi: ‘Magnolia Flower’ and ‘The Making of Butterflies’

key takeaways:

• Waadi Festival “Beautiful Feast of the Valley” (2055 - 1650 BCE)

  • connecting and honoring ancestors (remembrance)

  • ran several days in Kemet/Ancient Egypt

• ancestral resurrection: calling a name 3x

After those two sessions we hit the streets. We roamed Eatonville, did a scavenger hunt & trivia in the library, and then later we went out in DTO. I was hungover the next day so… you know it was a good time lol.

Care isn’t a concept but an embodied practice. It is in everything I do— in every interaction, every conversation. It is the worry before I speak/the worry after I speak/the consideration of my words.

Care is making a place for myself and for others.

As the world burns,

“as the grimy globe spins,”

I find solace in spaces like these— where we are valued, commemorated, defied and encouraged. I am so grateful to know Zora and truly honored to contribute to her legacy in this way.

Big Zor Zor the conduit you are! The force you are! I can only hope my archive will be as decadent.

check out my presentation with a membership to theblackdramaschool.org

on ‘‘Mule Bone: A Comedy of Negro Life’ by Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes and the complete story of the Mule Bone controversy’

edited with introductions by George Houston Bass and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

‘Another Bone of Contention: Reclaiming Our Gift of Laughter’ by George Houston Bass

“In her writing of Afro-American folklore, Zora Neale Hurston has cited the art of laughter as one of black folks gifts to American culture.” (p1)

Hughes & Hurston used “the vernacular tradition” as the foundation for their drama

“Hughes and Hurston, in other words, were drawing upon the black vernacular tradition to “ground” their drama… but also to “extend” the vernacular itself.” (p20)

“The play’s effect depends largely on the devices of verbal improvisation— sounding, rhyming, woofing— that are centra to Afro-American folklore.” (p176)

“… Hurston and Hughes were attempting to dramatize the “oral-aural worldview” of a black community that contrasts with the typographic-chirographic structure of white middle-class thought. The contest is a ritual, designed to defuse the violence implicit in the conflict, to channel the aggression into mental rather than physical terms.” (p182)

LETTERS

Zora Neale Hurston in a letter to Langston Hughes, January 20, 1931 (p223)

“P.S. How dare you use the word “nigger” to me. You know I don’t use such a nasty word. I’m a refined lady and such a word simply upsets my conglomeration. Whaat do you think I was doing Washington all that time if not getting cultured. I got my foot in society just as well as the rest. Treat me refined.”

Zora Neale Hurston in a letter to Charlotte van der Veer Quick Mason, January 20, 1931 (p226):

“ I wish it were possible for Locke to get him before you and then call me in and et him state his claims.

But my nigger mess aside, I hope that you are well as can be expected and that your dear C. is the same.”

Carl Van Vechten in a letter to Langston Hughes, August 17, 1942 (p279):

“In many ways a vivid and extraordinary story… I’ve also been reading many Negro letters for Yale, including the correspondence re Mule Bone which includes letters from YOU and Zora and Barrett H. Clark and Lawrence Langner and Theresa Helburn. It’s a pretty complete tae and your letter regarding Zora’s tantrum in your mother’s room in Cleveland is wonderful. She had a tantrum in my library at 150 West 55 Street too and threw herself on the floor and screamed and yelled! Bit the dust in fact. You woulda loved it, had it no concerned you…”

I love the way people talk about Zora— how excited they are to speak about her (good or bad).

READING LIST:

Du Bois, W.E.B. “Can the Negro Save the Drama?” Theatre Magazine XXXVIII (July 1923): 12, 68

Van Vechten, Carl “Nigger Heaven”

'Fairview' at UNCSA: Black shows for white audiences, NC Black Rep, and Black southern theatre

I have four pages of notes from the production of ‘Fairview’ at UNCSA.

‘Fairview,’ from a creative standpoint, is all about choices.

a choice was made to write a piece about a Black family, specifically for white audiences.

(though one could truly argue that all shows about Black families with a Broadway or commercial trajectory fall into this category)

a choice is made in producing this show, to hire a white (or predominantly white/white presenting/publicly facing) tech crew to run the show.

a choice is made to have/hire a white stage manager.

to perform for predominantly whwite audiences.

to perpetuate servitude in the Black theatrical community, by having Black actors get onstage and lecture/to do the heavy lifting— to inform white audiences of what they already know:

the stage, the theatre, it’s all for them.

the show does not escape this fate with a Black director. though I’m sure this piece is a fun challenge directorally, I wonder why we don’t take advantage of the other fun directoral challenges. like the ones that aren’t catering to white audiences.

“Damn. this is the kind of work Black rep should be doing regularly.”

I left ‘Fairview’ like “damn. this is the kind of work Black Rep should be doing regularly.”

but it isn’t.

in fact, Jackie Sibblies Drury herself does not think this is a piece to be performed in front of predominantly Black audiences. and perhaps that’s why NC Black Rep Artistic Director Jackie Alexander selected it for his directoral debut at UNCSA.

I was genuinely surprised UNCSA had enough Black students to stage the work. I remember a time when the high school senior drama ten student cohort would only take two Black students.

I understand Alexander’s selection. particularly for a lily white campus. I understand why the choice was made to do this piece, at this venue.

“SUSPECT DOESN’T BELIEVE AUDIENCE CAN KEEP UP OR COMPREHEND NUANCED DRAMATIC WORKS”

my sentiment about NC Black Rep doing this kind of work is more about quality of content than anything else. there is a lack of trust in the relationship between Black Rep and their audience. they do not believe that Black audiences can handle complex plots and content outside of their traditional religious, “urban” selections.

if you are aware that plays like ‘Fairview’ exist/if you are keeping up with contemporary theatre/your season of shows should reflect that.

as a Black theatrical institution, you should be ushering in a new era of drama, encouraging experimental works that push the boundaries of theatre is and can be.

“suspect doesn’t believe audience can keep up or comprehend nuanced dramatic works”

NC Black Rep? guilty.

NCAT? guilty.

NCCU? guilty.

and as a result, we all suffer.