Looking Back/Looking Forward

Before I go forward and talk about the NEW cast of  the TOSOS  (www.tososnyc.org) production of Waiting for Giovanni I want to praise the cast of the previous production.

I'm especially grateful because they lived through the edits that Harry Waters Jr. and I were making as we went along.  I swear I never added a page of dialogue the day before a performance!  However it wasn't that easy for the cast as I shaped and re-shaped the story, the sequence of scenes and relationships over the course of the rehearsal period.  I've learned quite a bit since then, and already did my rewrites after the New Conservatory Theatre Center (https://www.nctcsf.org/) production and then more just before the new cast started rehearsal.  And I'm keeping my editing pen to myself!

Pictured above: Lonnie Haley, Desiree Rogers, Christopher Nelson, Liam Hughes and Wm. Hunter (in their arms) along with Fred Pitts, William Giammona, and James Martin. They all worked through my words with kindness and professionalism adding their spirit along the way which helped me through some of the places where my writing faltered.  They were a World Championship Team!

And that doesn't mean we had no conflicts or difficult moments.  But the true test of a team is being able to work through those and go on to create the best work you can.  And they did that. The team also included, of course, all the of the production artists and administrators at NCTC as well as Thomas Simpson of AfroSolo Theatre Company (https://www.afrosolo.org) who was an associate producer of the project.

I'd especially like to acknowledge Wm. Hunter who played Jimmy and has since passed away.  We have many stories to share about William but we'll keep them for our reunion.  But one thing I'm especially proud of is that William had been told he looked and sounded like James Baldwin most of his tough life; and it wasn't always a compliment! With the NCTC production we were able to fulfill one of the greatest dreams of William's life: to play the heroic role of Baldwin.

Next time I'll have pix of the new cast and tell them how lucky they are that I'm staying on the other side of the continent as they shape their roles!  Having seen each of them in the auditions I have such excitement I'm proud of my restraint.  By the time I get to NYC they will be comfortably settled into their parts and I know I'll have the good fortune of seeing my words in a completely new light.

"I know that what I'm asking is impossible. But in our time, as in every time, the impossible is least that one can demand—and one is, after all, emboldened by the spectacle of human history in general, and American Negro history in particular, for it testifies to nothing less than the perpetual achievement of the impossible." 

James Baldwin

I'm reposting this quote from an earlier blog as it becomes more apparent each day that this country (and perhaps the world) is in  the grips of madness.  I say this after listening to newscasts this morning about children being separated from their parents who are seeking asylum in this country.  Small children from 'darker' countries being ripped out of their parents arms and deposited in 'facilities' in Chicago for months for no reason other than the so-called DOJ wants to discourage brown people from emigrating to the US.

I am on the verge of a rant so won't go on because this is stuff we already know.  It's hard to imagine what Jimmy would have made of this kind of bahaviour from leadership in Washington.  Actually not impossible to imagine.  In 1963, when the Black Civil Rights Movement was at its fragile height Baldwin, Lorraine Hansberry and other 'celebrities' went to meet with Attorney General Robert Kennedy in Washington to talk about where the administration was going to proceed on the treatment of African Americans.

I don't want to deify RFK, he did some pretty terrible things as did most of the Kennedy family. (I'm a Bostonian so feel slightly disloyal even now saying that)   But compared to our current Attorney General he looks like a cross between  (fill in some saints!).  As we commemorate the 50th anniversary RFK's assassination and (this is the sad part) the abrupt cutting off of his evolution as a political thinker it's valuable to remember the reasons that the 1960s exuded a sense of possibility.  Many activists of all stripes and positions worked together and didn't imagine failure. RFK was on the road from being simply brother of the president to emerging as an actual activist for human rights.

Despite the despicable nature of the current administration in Washington, the cowardice of the elected officials who stand by and watch our government institutions be dismantled and the dangerous fears of those who support them (say what you want: I love the term 'basket of deplorables')  we have to believe as Baldwin did--we can achieve the impossible.  

If I didn't believe we can achieve the impossible I wouldn't be able to write everyday; then ask others to support that writing by performing and by producing and buying tickets.  Each step is toward achieving the impossible.

See you at the theatre in July  www.tososnyc.org

Got Cast!

Following an amazing run at the New Conservatory Theatre Center WAITING FOR GIOVANNI is preparing to open at The Flea Theater www.theflea.org in TriBeCa (NYC).  It's being produced by the oldest Queer theatre in NY-The Other Side of Silence -TOSOS www.tososnyc.org founded by groundbreaking playwright Doric Wilson.  

It's been great fun to get to know the director, Mark Finley, who did a staged reading of the play a while back.  He rescued me as I wandered around TriBeCa completely lost.  Not having lived in NYC for 25 years and without the anchor of the Twin Towers I couldn't find my way out of a paper bag.  So of course it was easy to meet in front of a McDonalds!

And the board members of TOSOS, have thrown themselves into the fund raising and support for the production like angels.  The idea of having to raise enough money for a full production gives me hives--and I've been a stage manager and a funder of theatre organizations so I have an idea how much this stuff costs.  But they dove and are still going strong: writing press releases from Ireland while attending other arts events; spending the weekend managing the auditions; picking out visuals; working with our promotion person and poster designer.

But it was soooo exciting to be present at the auditions to find the new cast.  It was especially anxiety provoking since we had such an extraordinary cast in San Francisco.  However it was amazing in NYC--each person who auditioned was better than the one before.  Hard to believe how much talent is out there in the world.  Makes me want to write faster to give actors more platforms!

It was so difficult, especially when Robert Di Niro was ushered in to audition as a April Fools-type joke!  He happened to be passing the studio so we all screamed with joy then spend a while calming down to finish the task at hand.  Speaking of hand...he shook all of our hands and I'm never washing mine!  Seemed like an auspicious sign.

We've also planned a great party to celebrate James Baldwin's birthday after the show on August 2!

I'll unveil--figuratively speaking--the cast in my next blog!

Giovanni Returns!

Watch this space as a new production of the hit play Waiting for Giovanni returns to the stage.  After breaking records at its premiere at New Conservatory Theatre Center in San Francisco (Thanks Ed Decker, staff, cast and crew!) the play will have an east coast premiere produced by TOSOS - The Other Side of Silence--originally founded by groundbreaking playwright Doric Wilson.

The play will run at The Flea Theater in TriBeCa from July 12-August 4, Tuesdays-Saturdays! 

TOSOS is holding auditions in May--see the appropriate theatre casting sites--and I'll be posting information about the progress along the way.  That includes when tickets become available.  It's a small theatre so buy early!

I'll be in New York for the run so I hope to see all my old friends there.  And to make some new ones.

In the mean time one of my favourite quotes from the play (hope that's not too egomaniacal to have faves!)...

"...perhaps everything lasts we just aren't around to see it..."

more to come!

Still editing!

                                              ACT I  Scene 5

 

As lights shift Lorraine sings as she enters: ‘We Shall Overcome’ tying on a small apron. She may be folding napkins or setting the table throughout. She goes through a bit of the song then stops. Jimmy sits at his typewriter reading a page from her letter.

 

        LORRAINE

        (Singing) ‘Deep in my heart, I do believe, we shall overcome some day.’ 

        The song seems somewhat incongruous with the act of setting a table

         but believe me, to a woman, nothing is incongruous.  You and I sang

         that song quite a bit, Jimmy.  We all used to sing then. As if the singing

         might wipe the fear and bitterness off of people’s faces.But, there you are  

        Three centuries of hatred need a little more than a four minute melody. 

        You are on the road so much! I missed singing with you at the memorial...

        the anniversary of Emmett Till's murder.       

  

         Most of the Negroes...the black people...in the little storefront were so choked

         with sorrow, Jimmy, they couldn't get the words out.  I was choked with irony.

         How closely tied are sex and blackness in this country?  A boy, no more than

         15 years old, beaten mercilessly and killed--by grown white men--because he's

         perceived to be a threat to white womanhood.

          It is 1956, for Gawd sake! How can I…or you…or Richard write a word

          and hope it to have a single shred of meaning? It’s as if our dark skin is a

          symbol of rampaging desire roaring in their ears! Whatever words Emmett

          Till may or may not have said to that white girl--that store clerk in Money,

          Mississippi--are irrelevant.  Emmett Till had no vice at all.  His skin did all the talking.

 

 

Lights down on Lorraine

Revisiting

One of the dangers of being a writer is reading and re-reading your own work so much you have no perspective at all.  I often tell students that if there's a particular word or phrase that seems to stand out or ring for you, that usually means it's really bad!  If you re-read often enough nothing seems to stand out.  Sometimes the work feels so familiar you can't make a judgment about it at all.

That said when writing a play the number of drafts to be written and re-written can be dizzying!  Which is one reason it's great to work with a dramaturge as I did for several years with old friend and director, Harry Waters Jr. on Waiting for Giovanni.  An outside voice can point out things my eye can't see any more.  

That invisibility is really distressing when you're trying to promote a play that's already been staged locally.  I frequently go back to the script to package it up, refine the description and send out to yet one more theatre that will probably stick it on a stack that is 4 feet high and looms over an  overworked/underpaid play development director. 

It's then that despair can creep in: are those words still sharp, meaningful, funny? Was the audience really laughing with it or at it?  Do those characters jump off the page or merely languish?  Has the impact seeped out of the script down into the floorboards leaving a stack of bound boring pages?  Which is worse: a play development staffer being bored by the script or puzzled?

With Waiting for Giovanni I have the benefit of going back to the video.  Even though video documentation of plays is usually flat and unable to convey the energy of live performance sometimes it is close.  I recently viewed one of the monologues that New Conservatory Theatre posted on YouTube (it's kind of like Googling yourself but less embarrassing) and got the treat of  revisiting the stellar performances of Wm. Hunter as Jimmie and Desiree Rogers as Lorraine.  It's worth a look if only to see what actors can really do!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDeD5PjAfxE&index=5&list=TLNy_CC5nh65o

Still Waiting

I'm just finishing up a residency at Hedgebrook retreat for women writers where I've been working on my new play about Alberta Hunter.  Tucked away in a (practically vine-covered) cottage for two weeks I was able to re-examine the complex and somewhat hidden life of the enduring singer/composer in ways that were very different from working on the Baldwin play.
Baldwin had such a distinct voice, had written so much and was written about so much once I started reading he took up residence in my head.  With Hunter I'm re-reading the one biography about her, mining it for glimpses of the person she was behind the quips and the curtain she drew across her private live.

I'm listening to her music, of course, but that too is somewhat of a curtain around who she was and what she felt.  I glean small facts...her support of the NAACP and love of risqué songs despite her ladylike pose (which I knew from seeing her perform at the Cookery in NYC).  But the residency has helped me dare to imagine some amalgamation of Alberta that isn't in her biography or in her songs.  I turned a corner here and am very grateful I had the opportunity to work in this particular way...no obligations but writing for two weeks straight!

As it comes to an end I find myself returning home and eager to jump back into some strategies for finding another home for Waiting for Giovanni.  I know how hard it is to find a producer for a play, I worked in theatre in NYC for years.  But I refuse to believe that W4G will just sit on a shelf and gather dust.  Baldwin is beginning to re-enter people's consciousness across the country so it's to me to find ways to get the play to enter also.

Rejections should not hold me back, all the best playwrights have rejections!  Having had this chance to move Alberta closer to life gives me the energy to start the search again for a theatre that wants to give W4G a home!  Onward and upward!