Leaving the Blues is one of the most successful shows I've ever done and that's thanks to: the original commissioner, Ed Decker at NCTC as well as the current producers, TOSOSNYC, the director, Mark Finley, the cast Rosalind Brown, Michael Michele Lynch, Cooper Sutton, Benjamin Mapp, Joy Sudduth, Ameera Briggs, Tsebiya Mishael Derry and pianist Erik Ransom.  And then there's the TOSOS board (especial my brother Michael Zegarski)and all of the folks who contributed their art -- from costumes, to musical arrangements, to sound & set design and lights and stage management.  

But the key to success is for me the sense of community that is created when all of these people come together and open to each other's talents and value each other as individuals and artists. How can the audience resist?

That's what I like about the collaboration of theatre.  It tells us so much about what we need in our daily lives.  If we can't open up to each other and take in the talents and needs of others; if we don't value and respect each other there's little hope for a happy personal life or much of a future on the planet if I may be so global!

I take that lesson from any production I work on or any play that I see--big or small.  That collaboration, value and respect is the only way to go!

A LEAVING THE BLUES benefit performance for TOSOS is on Feb 1 to celebrate Black History Month. The evening will feature, in addition to the play, a panel with me, Roz Lee and Malik Gaines AND cocktails! There are tickets still available! It closes Feb 8th.  

Here's a link to a little taste of heaven!

https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2020/01/28/off-broadway-show--leaving-the-blues--showcases-late-blues-and-jazz-singer-alberta-hunter#

Alberta Lives!

                     Rosalind Brown as Alberta

After so many years of missing Alberta Hunter it's such a joy for me to see her brought to life on stage with the work of the marvelous actress Rosalind Brown.  Being a Black, female creative person is a conundrum to many people.  The view of who African American women are is often kept in quite narrow boxes-sultry Beyonce or Aunt Jemima or Bitch famous in hiphop songs are the usual.  

Hunter was a complex, talented, self-sufficient, vulnerable, sensitive, tough woman.  Writing songs for herself and many others including Bessie Smith, keeping the rights to her work, standing on a tiny stage when she was 80 years old was not common for Black women of her generation. But Hunter broke the mold. My favourite thing about Alberta I learned doing research was that she regularly donated to charities from the NAACP to the Y to the Indian schools that always solicited by mail.   

In trying to reveal a full Alberta I decided to give her foil to help bring out her extraordinary qualities as well as mirror some of the difficult parts of a personality that develop when the world is not ready for you.  It's not a simple matter to be tough and one can't just be tough in one aspect of one's life.  It often carries over into other aspects.  If you're walling off a part of yourself for protection how do you know when it's safe to break that wall down?

                    Michael Michele Lynch as Will


In order to explore that secret, sensitive place I created the character of Will, the ghost of a vaudevillian who is the uncle of Alberta's lover.  It does parallel the real Bert Williams but he's a fictional creation.  Top hatted and poetic he challenges Alberta to look at her life, her love for his niece(even though he originally tells her to 'not throw kerosene on the fire' of racism) as well as relive her accomplishments.

The two characters give us an insight into what it meant to be African American artists at a time when lynching was still a local sport and they needed a 'Green Book' to tell them where they were allowed to sleep at night when they were on the road.  I think the cast has captured the energy and excitement of those days as well as caution it took to survive them!

Here's the first review!
http://www.curvemag.com/Culture/New-Lesbian-Play-Leaving-The-Blues/#.XiZLV6fzeOE.facebook
     

Mystery Love

When I started doing research for my play LEAVING THE BLUES I realised that I would be creating a good bit of it from my own head.  Hunter's one biography is a bit sparse, especially when it comes to her love life in general and her long term relationship with Lottie Tyler. And I found only one picture!

I searched on the internet and in libraries but found very little.  And in some ways that was a gift because it meant I could be as creative as needed to make the dramatic action work.
      Lottie Tyler                      

                                                  I did find a website (see below*)that asked the
                     same question I had: Where was the info on 
                     Lottie Tyler?  
                     She was the niece of a very famous song
                     and dance man, Bert Williams, but there was so little it could have only been a deliberate effort to hide her and her life; perhaps by her family; perhaps by writers not ready to explore lesbian relationships.  The only way I found more info was in conversations with the late music journalist Chris Albertson, who'd been a friend of Alberta's at the end of her life

Joy Sudduth
Whatever the reasons for Tyler's invisibility it  increased a sense of urgency to tell a story in which she was not forgotten as so many lesbians have been through out history. It's also one of the reasons I write plays that take place in earlier years.  People of colour and lesbians didn't just pop up out of nowhere.  We've had long, courageous and creative histories in this country and I love to explore how that looked and felt. 

With this production by TOSOS at The Flea (performances start on January 16, 2020) the role of Lettie (based on Lottie) Alberta's lover is play by the amazing Joy Sudduth.  Joy was electrifying in our earlier production of "Waiting for Giovanni." I eagerly anticipate no less in LEAVING THE BLUES next week! Once characters are alive inside of us their memories never fade and the terrorism that made them invisible can't be repeated!


LEAVING THE BLUES performs at THE FLEA -January 16th-February 8th.
 Get tickets:     https://www.tososnyc.org/events/leaving-the-blues

*https://ubleproject.tumblr.com/post/31419751452/whither-lottie-tyler


Please enjoy our Leaving the Blues playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1b1qXMMW7QeFJOb5GsNlXD?si=wwofVsV4SwOdeZEqlEWQrw

The Paper Bag Test

Alberta Hunter worked hard and long to grow her reputation.  She was a prodigious songwriter and that included writing Bessie Smith's first big hit, "Downhearted Blues."  

My grandmother Lydia was slightly younger than Alberta but told great stories about the vaudeville circuit and confirmed the issues of skin colour that were always thrown at Alberta.  Lydia played the piano, sang and maintained her love of music and the theatre although she did not perform as she got older.  We saw many shows and plays together and seeing Alberta Hunter together at the Cookery was one of the best memories of my life.

Doing research for the play it was heartbreaking to read how such a significantly talented person such as Alberta was, as they say, "damned with faint praise."  Critics-black and white-who said she could sing 'despite her dusky appearance' set a certain standard for women of colour.  And the less colour the better.

My grandmother who was part Ioway and Wampanoag Indian said she was often the darkest woman on the chorus line.  African American women dancers had to be light and bright even when dancing on the 'Negro' theatre circuit.  When the June Taylor Dancers of Jackie Gleason fame finally hired a woman of colour she was as light as the white dancers so she wouldn't be noticed (and break the symmetry of the line they said).  The Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall are now figuring out they are in the 21st Century! 

https://nypost.com/2019/04/27/the-rockettes-race-to-reverse-long-history-of-excluding-black-women/?utm_source=url_sitebuttons&utm_medium=site%20buttons&utm_campaign=site%20buttons

The dominant culture's obsession with homogeneity remains true today.  When you look at films the skin tone of the African American male can be as varied as it is in nature.  However, casting directors for films, photo shoots and television still see the beauty in African American women only when they can pass the 'paper bag test,' meaning their skin tone is lighter than a supermarket brown paper bag!

"Leaving the Blues," my play about Alberta Hunter, explores this sad and insulting perspective that has damaged so many of us.  Read Toni Morrison's 'The Bluest Eye' or 'Negroland' a memoir by Margo Jefferson or 'Don't Play in the Sun' by Marita Golden or a long list of books, mostly by African American women, who have observed and/or suffered from this ignorance.  And it is not just African Americans-almost everywhere you go--from China to Cuba--you can see the subtle and not so subtle colourism.

Celebrating the full spectrum of our existence has been my life's joy whether it's skin colour, sexuality, gender, or diverse cultures.  Don't waste time on a narrow view of what's beautiful when you can have the world.

"Leaving the Blues opens at The Flea produced by TOSOS.

Seats available January 15-February 8th www.tososnyc.org

Through the Ether

                           

                             Benjamine Mapp                                               Cooper Sutton

As a writer for more than 30 years it’s still a mystery to me sometimes how ideas form in my head. I’d known since the 1980s when I took my grandmother, to see Alberta Hunter  at the Cookery in Manhattan I'd write something about her. I wanted to capture her infectious enthusiasm, depict her endurance, style and her secret life. Or almost secret life.

But what actually came first was a vision of the Calabash Cousins as a Vaudeville tap dance duo. They were born on the page almost fully formed and I don’t want to say more and give away too much.  The story of these two young men from Louisiana who figure out how to weather the storms of racism and heterosexism and keep their heads (literally)and their sense of humour is at the heart of the play.

They form a kind of parallel story to Alberta's and are a youthful example of what a joy you get from using your talent and embracing love. If you don't take either for granted you can have more fulfillment than you imagine even when times are tough-which is the definition of Vaudeville in the '20s and 30s.

It's said that lightening doesn't strike twice in the same place.  I have little or no scientific knowledge so I've no idea if that's at all true!  But I do know that it is striking twice for me with "Leaving the Blues!"  We had a tremendous cast in the NCTC production a couple years ago.  Each character was fully and skillfully embodied--none more so than the Calabash Cousins who are a tricky duo to capture.

So this lightening strike brings us even more light, heat and excitement with Benjamin Mapp as Cal and Cooper Sutton as Calvino.  Their charm and determination are key to the story and to their portrayals.  And their tap dancing is so extraordinary we had to add more dance routines to the script. After I started writing the play I learned that the calabash is possibly humankind's oldest music instrument and often associated with magic and it sometimes implies something secret. A perfect name for these two.

As I said I've no idea from whence the idea for this duo came...out of the ether? Emerged from the TARDIS? Former life memory? 

Whatever! Come on down to The Flea and dispel your post-holiday doldrums with the terpsichorean delights of "Leaving the Blues"  

 https://www.tososnyc.org/

In the Room Where It Happens

In the Room Where it Happens!

But I wasn't there and that's okay. Having conveyed my own opinions I felt confident I would still be heard among the assembly of TOSOS board members, our costume designer, Ben Phillip; sound designer, Morry Campbell, and director Mark Finley.

But there is always a delicate balance, especially with a mix such as ours.  Being a queer company I think TOSOS-The Other Side of Silence-has put a premium on paying attention to who participates in their projects--on both sides of the table.  At the same time as a mostly volunteer group, really focused on getting the work up on its feet we're always grabbing the bar as it swings our way in mid air.

As a writer of colour I've worked almost exclusively with queer theatre groups: TOSOS and New Conservatory Theatre Center (SF) so I take a lot for granted.  Not that they will always have accomplished the most socially conscious thing possible.  But most important to me: if I raise an issue about ethnicity or gender we can have a productive discussion and see some action rather than simply feel the breeze from nodding heads.

I think most of us act out of our own ignorance--people of colour and queers included.  But since non-POC tend to hold the reins most of the time their ignorance is most evident and damaging.  We only need to look at statistics about how few POC show up in regional theatre productions on either side of the table--acting or administration. I don't want to repeat the sad stories and stats.  Just read a little bit:

https://www.americantheatre.org/2014/09/19/artists-of-color-stand-up-against-discrimination-in-the-field/

https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/AAPAC-Releases-Report-Analyzing-Ethnic-Representation-on-NYC-Stages-20190304

I'm especially thinking about this because this play about Alberta Hunter, Leaving the Blues, (even more than the play about James Baldwin, Waiting for Giovanni) is about colour/racism and sexism.

At one point Alberta admits to a young friend what a reviewer said about her: "She sings well despite her 'dusky' appearance." And this is an attitude that Alberta lived with all her life.  She was not a sleek, fair skinned Lena Horne.  Nor did she turn her life or business over to men-white or black.  Exercising her professional power left her open to being called a 'tough bitch.'  If she'd been a male the phrase would have been a 'self-made man.'

Perception of colour and power is a theme through out the play: how Alberta has survived the negativity about her colour; what it means to work with other women who have fairer skin so automatically assumed to be more beautiful and have more opportunities offered them.  Also the play looks at  how colour and class interrupt Alberta's relationship with her lover. And what the perception of colour means the two young male dancers on the circuit with Alberta.  Then there's her guiding spirit who performed during his professional career in black face.  

Skin colour is never neutral for anyone in this country....that's probably true around the world if we examine closely.  And few of us recover totally from how we were (mis)treated because of skin tones.  My own mother never thought I was fair skinned enough while some kids in my neighborhood taunted me with 'yellowface!' 

But dismissing colour (You know that worn out phrase: I don't see colour") is a disaster not progressive.  In the old days of television make up artists and lighting designers refused to see that people with darker skin or varying skin tones needed different make up and lighting.  People of colour often showed up as greenish or sucked in the light so fiercely our features were unintelligible!  To be real--technically, socially and spiritually--we have to acknowledge the variations and the emotions that go along with colour; it gives us a better sense of everyone's reality not just our own.  And a chance to honestly appreciate who people are.

Next time we look at the actors who are putting on their make up, stepping into the lights and telling us a story we can all celebrate whatever our colour!

***

Post Auditions NYC!

Auditioning for a role in a play is an exhausting and terrifying experience.  And that's just for the director, writer and staff sitting behind the table watching!  

I have such immense respect for the artists who make their careers by standing up in front of mostly strangers and performing--often lines of dialogue they've had 10 minutes to read through or tap dancing to a tune in their heads, or singing a song they hope will not be one the director has hated all of their life!

After two days of auditions we (director, Mark Finley and I) sat with the other staff of TOSOS to discuss who we'd seen and what the likely prospects were.  We were all blown away by the talented people we seen...way more than one might expect considering it was a show with music and very little money!  But we had choices...real choices so we were excited and thoughtful at the same time.

I had to get back to Oakland so didn't attend the final call backs on the next day.  However we'd all kicked around our opinions long enough so Mark got a real hearing about each possible choice.

Michael, the president of the board of TOSOS and I have our meetings about this process over cocktails and chicken wings.  And now we await the white smoke arising from the chimney to see what the final decisions are.  

The show goes up at The Flea in TriBeCa on January 15th no matter what!