My Own Directions: A Black Man’s Journey in the American Theatre by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McFarland
Published: 2022-09-19T00:00:00+00:00

Cheryl Freeman and the ensemble in the first production of Play On! at the Old Globe theatre, 1996 (photograph by Ken Howard).

During the early days of the casting process for any show, the casting director will often ask you to offer up your “wish list,” the names of actors that you think would be ideal for the roles, even if you think there is no way on earth that you will ever get them to participate. When asked to do that, I suggested some of the finest African American musical theater performers that I could think of (many of them Tony Award winners). Once again, if someone suggested that I dream big, I was ready to do just that! On my “wish list” were Tonya Pinkins, André De Shields, Larry Marshall, and the great and elegant singer Carl Anderson, a huge pop star who also loved working in the theater. When we finished the casting several weeks later, ALL of those actors had accepted roles in the show. The others may not have been on that initial list, but they should have been as they were equally wonderful, right down to all of the ensemble members. In addition to my fine collaborator Cheryl, the creative team included Mercedes Ellington as choreographer and the legendary, ­multi-award-winning, simply brilliant Luther Henderson as musical supervisor, arranger and orchestrator, and a fine group of designers. This was a true theatrical dream team that made the rehearsal period an experience that made us all “Jump for Joy” (another great Ellington song). Every day of those weeks of preparation for our opening was full of love, respect for the material and each other, passion, and a huge desire to serve both Shakespeare and Mr. Ellington well. When we reached that point in the process when we could do our first real ­run-through for ourselves and for the theater staff, there were several moments when I looked around the room and got a look back that said without words but quite clearly, this is something very special. This is going to work!

And it did. From our very first preview, audiences were rapturous and clearly taken with this combination of Shakespeare, the Duke and the stellar performances of this cast of heavy hitters. The Old Globe audience knew well the plot and characters of Twelfth Night, so they responded with “insider” knowledge when the ­Malvolio-based character appeared in his version of yellow stockings cross gartered, which became an outrageous lemon ­yellow-colored zoot suit in Play On! While being faithful to many of the particular characters of Shakespeare’s play, for those in the know, Cheryl and I were careful to construct the musical so that it would stand on its own for those who did not know the source material as well. In this way the show attracted and appealed to the loyal Old Globe regulars but also drew in a new crowd of theatergoers who were more interested in the musical aspects of the show and the great songs of Mr.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.