The Jukebox musical that garnered Tony award nominations for Broadway Black stars Victor Trent Cook, B.J. Crosby and the illustrious Brenda Braxton, is set for a revival, with rehearsals starting around the end of May, according to an Actors Equity audition posting.  Previews are scheduled for July 19

Original producers Richard Frankel, Steve Baruch, Tom Viertel and Marc Routh are joining original cast Tony-nominated director Jerry Zaks to revive the hit revue.   The show features songs by writers Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, including fan favorites “Hound Dog,”  “Jailhouse Rock,” “I’m a Woman,” and “On Broadway.”  After Midnight Choreographer,Warren Carlyle, has also signed on, along with musical direction by Sonny Paladino.

Smokey Joe’s opened on Broadway March 2, 1995 and despite harsh critical reviews, had substantial commercial success.   The revue earned five Tony award nominations in 1995 including Best Featured Actress, Best Featured Actor, Best Choreography, Best Direction of a Musical and Best Musical.  It also won the Grammy for Best Musical Show Album in 1996.  After a nearly five year run and a bevy of special appearances, including Gloria Gaynor, Lou Rawls and Gladys Knight, the show closed Jan of 2000 after 2,036 performances.

In 2014, nearly 20 years after the first performance, Braxton directed original cast members for reunion concert performance of Smokey Joe’s at the famed Feinstein’s/ 54 Below.

“There’s so much history with us,” Braxton shared with the second of two sold-out crowds. “We weren’t just [together] on Broadway, we were a family.”

Production has yet to announce a venue.

Be sure to check in with Broadway Black for all the latest information!

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Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Alice Walker and the Steven Spielberg-directed motion picture, the musical opened at The Broadway Theatre on December 1, 2005 with a stellar cast that starred LaChanze as “Celie,” Brandon Victor Dixon as “Harpo,” Felicia P. Fields as “Sofia,” Renée Elise Goldsberry as “Nettie,” Kingsley Leggs as “Mister,” Krisha Marcano as “Squeak,” and Elisabeth Withers-Mendes as “Shug Avery.”

It was directed by Gary Griffin, produced by Scott Sanders, Quincy Jones and Oprah Winfrey, with choreography by Donald Byrd and musical direction by Linda Twine. Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Marsha Norman (‘night, Mother) penned the book for the show, with music and lyrics by celebrated songwriters and artists Stephen Bray, Allee Wills, and Brenda Russell.

Oprah, who was nominated for an Oscar as “Sofia” in the movie version, came on as an investor and producer before the show’s November 1 preview to expand its box office potential. Once she signed on, the show was titled Oprah Winfrey Presents: The Color Purple. At that time, her self-titled television show was a ratings juggernaut, averaging 9 million viewers per year. With Oprah’s name on the marquee, it was almost guaranteed a built-in audience.

Despite Oprah’s star power, the show opened to mixed reviews from the critics. Ben Brantley of the New York Times wrote,

Time doesn’t just fly in the exhaustingly eventful world of The Color Purple, it threatens to break the sound barrier. In faithfully adapting Ms. Walker’s incident-crammed 1982 Pulitzer Prizewinner about Southern black women finding their inner warriors, the show’s creators have fashioned a bright, shiny and muscular storytelling machine that is, above all, built for speed. Watching this beat-the-clock production summons the frustrations of riding through a picturesque stretch of country in a supertrain like the TGV. Thanks to the cast’s spirited way with a song, Purple strikes some sparks during its long and winding journey. But it takes a concentration and leisure the show lacks to fan sparks into a steady flame.

From Michael Feingold of The Village Voice, “The feelings that The Color Purple may arouse in you don’t disguise the fact that they’ve been gotten in a comparatively crude and unimaginative manner. The disheartening lack of quality in the material dilutes the quality of feeling with which it’s being put over and makes the meanings behind it look questionable as well.”

On a more complimentary note, Roma Torre of NY1 wrote, “As art, the show is flawed, but it’s also so full of heart, the flaws don’t seem to matter. The Color Purple sings to the soul.”

And Michael Kuchwara of the Associated Press added “Fans of Walker’s novel most likely will not be disappointed in this reverent stage retelling and will embrace it heartily as a live souvenir of the original. Others may crave a little more theatrical excitement.”

However, when it came time for the Tony Awards nominations, the production received tremendous love and recognition, receiving 11 nominations, including Best Musical, Best Original Score, Best Choreography, Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical, Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical, and Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical. LaChanze won the Tony for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical.

The Color Purple closed on February 24, 2008, after 30 previews and 910 regular performances. The Broadway production recouped its $11 million investment within its first year on Broadway. After its three-year Broadway run, the show went on to three national tours and several regional productions. In 2013, John Doyle directed the London production at the Meiner Chocolate Factory starring Erivo as “Celie.” It is this production that is inspiring the Broadway revival this fall.

For tickets to this upcoming production, click HERE.

The post Retrospective: The Color Purple appeared first on Broadway Black.

Caroline, or Change

SHOULD. HAVE. WON. EVERY. SINGLE. TONY. FOR. WHICH. THEY. WERE. NOMINATED.  Okay, I’m good now. This show opened on Broadway in 2004. It’s 2015, why hasn’t there been a revival in the works for the Great White Way? Its score combines spirituals, blues, Motown, classical music, Jewish klezmer, and folk music all in one. What other musical does that, and does so effortlessly? If only in 2004 I had been smart enough to become the theatre nerd I am today, I would have begged my mom to take me to New York City to see Tonya Pinkins, Chuck Cooper and Anika Noni Rose in this show. The musical is set in 1963 New Orleans during the American civil rights movement. Caroline works as a maid for a Jewish family, where she is allowed to keep the pocket change she finds while doing laundry. This becomes a point of pride and even crisis for the maid, who cannot cope with greater changes in her life and the growing civil rights movement.

Carmen Jones

If I had been around in the 1940s I would have been all up in the theatre to see Carmen Jones. Oscar Hammerstein’s take on  Bizet’s Opera Carmen featured an all-Black cast set in the South during the World War II era. This time, Carmen is a worker in a parachute factory; Don Jose is now Don, an army corporal; Micaela is now Cindy Lou, Joe’s lover; and Escamillo is Husky Miller, a boxer. When the show was first conceived, they had trouble finding suitable actors for it because back then, Black singers were discouraged (or practically barred) from becoming opera singers. To make up for this they plucked people from all kinds of non-acting positions–film scraper, cop, etc.

She Loves Me

Nearly every character in this show is white, and it takes place in Europe.  However, WHO CARES? This show has some amazing music. Its tender, hilarious, and entrancing “A Romantic Atmosphere” is one of the most exciting, funny production numbers to ever exist. Also I can see Audra McDonald absolutely KILLING it singing Vanilla Ice Cream. Look up the song if you don’t know. Seriously, Audra would slay that role as Amalia. The plot has been seen before:  it revolves around shop employees Georg Nowack and Amalia Balash who, despite being consistently at odds with each other at work, are unaware that each is the other’s secret pen pal met through a lonely-hearts ad.

St. Louis Woman

If you loved Porgy and Bess, you’ll love St. Louis Woman too. It has an Encores cast recording from 1998, but if you search high and low you’ll find the OBC as well. Starring the Nicholas Brothers, Pearl Bailey, and Ruby Hill, St. Louis Woman tells the story of Della Green who falls for Li’l Augie, a jockey with a winning streak, though she’s already the woman of Biglow Brown, a saloon owner. Brown is eventually killed, but he puts a curse on Li’l Augie that ends the streak and Della’s affection for the jockey.

 Once on This Island

It’s a French fairy tale about a young island girl from Haiti, Ti Moune, who falls in love with the mulatto son (Daniel) of a wealthy landowner. When he’s injured, she makes a pact with the gods that it’s going to be her life for his. He survives and is grateful, but rejects her love (RUDE!). The gods, as a reward for her sacrifice and disappointment, grant her eternal life by turning her into a tree. It reminds me a lot of The Tempest, a little Romeo and Juliet, and even some Little Mermaid just shaken up a bit and a lot more music.

We could probably list more overlooked shows, but I’m curious to know about some shows YOU think are overlooked! Sound off below.

The post 5 Great Musicals You’ve Probably Overlooked appeared first on Broadway Black.

Blackface is when actors, often not of color, paint their faces darker in order to portray a Black person. This form of makeup was used in “minstrelsy,” in which white actors and actresses would pretend to be Black people or, more accurately, how they believed Black people to be. Blackface and minstrelsy gained popularity in the nineteenth century by way of actor Thomas D. Rice, who toured the U.S. with the stage name, “Daddy Jim Crow.” His name later became associated with the racism and segregation that was affecting individuals in the South. A video of one of his performances can be seen here.

Today, if blackface is used, it is the subject of controversy; however, that doesn’t mean that it is completely eradicated. In the 2008 movie, “Tropic Thunder,” white actor Robert Downey, Jr. portrays a Black man. The comedy was lauded for its hilarity and Downey was even nominated for an Academy Award. That leads one to wonder if a Black man playing the same role would have received the same critical acclaim. Additionally, actress and dancer, Julianne Hough, dressed as “Orange Is The New Black’s” Crazy Eyes (portrayed by the fabulous Uzo Aduba) as a Halloween costume. The actress later apologized on Twitter for her blunder, but the damage was already done.

Eric Lott at PBS writes that the legacy of blackface is the stereotypes set in the past are still affecting the mindset of white people’s perception of Black people today. This phenomenon affects Black people because the tropes associated with blackface are harmful. Appropriation of someone’s color or culture is not a form of appreciation. Appreciation is not embodying someone and taking over; it is respecting them for who they are.

The post Appropriation, Not Appreciation: The History of Blackface appeared first on Broadway Black.

Douglas Turner Ward, who understudied Sidney Poitier in the historical play and took over the role as Walter Lee Younger in the show’s national tour, penned a manifesto published in The New York Times that addressed the color barriers in American theatre. His opinion piece, titled “American Theatre: For Whites Only,” published just a few years after the Supreme Court declared segregation of public schools and thereby public facilities, unconstitutional– shed light on the non-existent space for African-American theatre artists.  

A theatre evolving not out of negative need, but positive potential; better equipped to employ existing talents and spur the development of future ones. A theatre whose justification is not the gap it fills, but the achievement it aspires towards— no less high than any other comparable theatre company of present or past world fame.

The article caught the attention of W. McNeil Lowery at the Ford Foundation, who encouraged Ward to apply for a grant to build the type of theatre he described in his essay. Ward was awarded $434,000 and along with fellow castmate, Robert Hook and theatre manager Gerald Krone the Negro Ensemble Company (NEC) was founded in the summer of 1967. Ward and other black writers would now have a platform to showcase their work and young black actors, like the ones who worked with Hooks, were given the opportunity to play complex characters with depth and originality.   

The inaugural season opened with Peter Weiss’ Song of the Lusitanian Bogey in 1968. NEC received criticism on both sides of the racial spectrum. Members of the black community were critical of the NEC employing white staff, playwrights, and funders. NEC continued to serve the African-American theatre talent pool, mentoring the likes of Louis Gossett Jr., Sherman Hemsley, Denzel Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, Laurence Fishburne, Phylicia Rashad, Delroy Lindo and Angela Bassett.

Brent Jennings, Steven Anthony Jones, Eugene Lee, Denzel Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, James Pickens and Peter Friedman in the 1981 Negro Ensemble Company production of A Soldier’s Play.

Even though the NEC broke barriers for many Black actors, directors and playwrights, box-office sales suffered. In the 1972-73 season the resident company was disbanded and major cut-backs of training programs, salaries and productions occurred. The NEC would now only produce one play a year.

In 1974 NEC made its Broadway debut with The River Niger by Joseph Walker that took home a Tony Award for Best Play and went on a national tour. The success of The River Niger bought the NEC more time, and in 1981 A Soldier’s Play by Charles Fuller won the Outer Critics’ Circle Best Off-Broadway Play, the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best American Play, the 1981 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and was later turned into a three-time Academy Award nominated movie.

Ward left the company in 2002. O.L. Duke took his place from 2002-2004 and now Charles Weldon stands at the helm of the historic landmark. Weldon expanded the theatre’s education programs by offering video production, commercial theatre management, producing, advertising and public school training. NEC currently offers workshops in basic acting, actors intensive, playwriting, dance and movement and more.
In January 2015 Weldon was quoted in an article published in Newsweek explaining why he continues to persevere and maintain the company. For him, it means that he gets “to hold on to history. A history that was great. A history that so many great people were a part of.”

The post The Negro Ensemble Company Blazed Trails for Black Theatre appeared first on Broadway Black.

To celebrate the occasion, George Faison, renowned producer, writer, composer, director, dancer and choreographer and of the original Broadway production, will present performances of original songs and dances from the show on August 12th in Central Park (Rumsey Playfield) & August 13-14 at 7:00pm at Marcus Garvey Park in New York.

The performance, The Wiz: A Celebration in Dance and Music, will feature performances by several members of the original Broadway cast. Tony Award-winning actress Phylicia Rashad, who played a munchkin and swing in the original production, will co-host the performance with Faison. André De Shields will reprise his original role as the “Wiz;” Dee Dee Bridgewater, who won a Tony Award for her role as “Glinda,” will reprise this original role; and Ebony Jo-Ann will reprise her role as “Addaperle,” which she played in the Broadway revival of the production. Singer-songwriter Wallace Gary will join the cast as the “Scarecrow.” Damien L. Sneed will act as the musical director and conductor.

The Wiz was the winner of seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Original Score – Charlie Smalls, Best Featured Actor in a Musical – Ted Ross, Best Featured Actress in a Musical – Dee Dee Bridgewater, Best Costume Design – Geoffrey Holder, Best Choreography – Faison, and Best Direction of a Musical – Holder. The production also received five Drama Desk Awards: Outstanding Musical – Ken Harper, Outstanding Music and Lyrics – Charlie Smalls, Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical – Ted Ross, Outstanding Choreography – George Faison, and Outstanding Costume Design – Geoffrey Holder.

Faison, who was the first African American to win a Tony Award for Best Choreography, has created a GoFundMe campaign to help with the costs associated with recreating this groundbreaking musical. To lend your support, visit the GoFund Me that has been setup.

Don’t forget, In addition to the performances at Marcus Garvey Park on August 13-14th, the musical will also be performed August 12 at 8:00 pm at Rumsey Playfield. The performances are a part of Summer Stages 30^th Anniversary season and are free.

The post The Wiz Celebrates 40 Years Of Greatness Hosted By Phylicia Rashad appeared first on Broadway Black.

In 1958, he moved from his Philadelphia, P.A. hometown to California where he studied at Los Angeles City College and San Francisco State College. While there, he encountered his first career critics. One professor told him that he would never make it as a writer and another all but ousted him from the Contemporary Literature Club because of the color of his skin. Nevertheless, he was determined to become a writer.

San Francisco became the birthing place for Bullins the playwright. In 1965 Robert Hartman of the San Francisco Drama Circle produced Bullins’ one-act plays How Do You Do?, Dialect Determinism and Clara’s Ole Man at the Firehouse Repertory Theater.

Black Arts/West was also founded in 1965 by revolutionary and poet Marvin X along with Ed Bullins, Ethna Wyatt, Duncan Barber, Hillary Broadous, and Carl Brossiere. Black Arts/West was a conglomerate of black artists in the Black Arts Movement of the 1950s on the west coast. Members of Black Arts/West convinced Eldridge Cleaver to convert a large Victorian house into what Samuel Hays, author of Ed Bullins: A Literary Biography, refers to as the “birthing place of revolutionary thought and activities in Northern California.”

Marvin X facilitated the connection between Cleaver and Black Panther Party Leaders and, together, the group opened Black House at 1711 Broderick Street. Black House served dual functions, as an outlet for Black revolutionary artists and the headquarters of the party. Bullins became the party’s Minister of Culture but by late 1966 ideological differences between party leader Huey Newton and members of Black Arts/West polarized Black House. Bullins left the party and joined Robert Macbeth at the New Lafayette Theater in Harlem in 1967.

While Bullins was delving into the world of African American theater on the west coast, Macbeth— a product of Charleston, S.C., embarked a parallel journey on the east. He was inspired by the beat of the South. The sit-in movement, bus integration rides and protests awakened Macbeth the artist. As an actor, he understudied the likes of James Earl Jones, Louis Gossett and Billy Dee Williams but the heart breaking images of four little black girls, murdered in a fiery Birmingham church on a Sunday morning motivated him to want to do more. Macbeth set out for meaningful contribution in the 1960s and as he began developing his own theater, a colleague sent him Goin’ a Buffalo written by Bullins. He instantly knew that Bullins was the writer he was in search of.  

“I need something Ray Charles-Mahalia Jackson-Miles Davis-Aretha Franklin-Nina Simone-Curtis Mayfield-Jimi Hendrix-John Coltrane, arranged by Duke Ellington or Sun Ra. I was searching for a creative inspiration. I might not be able to describe it clearly, but I knew I would feel it when I read it,” Macbeth recalled in his commentary Bullins and Me a Remembrance of Past Times.

Macbeth contacted Bullins who then sent him In The Wine Time— the first of his Twentieth Century Cycle. Soon Bullins was contracted and settling into the New York scene with Macbeth and the New Lafayette Theater. Bullins served as playwright-in-residence until 1972 and in 1968 he received the Drama Desk-Vernon Rice Award for The Electronic Nigger. During this time he founded and edited Black Theatre Magazine and later formed the Surviving Theatre in the Bronx.

To understand the importance of Bullins in the Black Arts Movement you have to acknowledge the severity of the times. Macbeth explains working with actors and planning for the New Lafayette Theater on the same day, merely 20 blocks away, when Malcolm X was murdered. In 1968 Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated and the Vietnam War claimed hundreds of young American lives each week. Artists of the movement took on the responsibility of transcribing the Black narrative, investigating and reflecting on aspects of the revolution and informing the masses. While Marvin Gaye wrote What’s Going On, Bullins produced We Righteous Bombers under the name Kinsgley B. Bass, Jr.

His recognition grew in the 1970s. The Fabulous Miss Marie (1971) and In New England Winter (1971) received Obie Awards and The Taking of Miss Janie (1975) won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. Bullins assisted young writers as writing coordinator for the New York Shakespeare Festival from 1975 to 1982 and served as playwright-in-residence at the American Place Theatre.

In addition to the Obie and New York Drama Critics Circle Awards, he also received three Rockefeller Foundation playwriting grants, a grant from the Guggenheim Foundation, a Visionary Leadership Award from the Theatre Communications Group and an honorary doctor of letters from Columbia College. He taught at several colleges and universities including Northeastern University in Boston, M.A.

Bullins has written over 50 plays. His commitment to exploring the complexities of what it is like to be Black and engulfed by racism, family, music, religion, drugs, violence and everything else in America earned him recognition as one of the best American dramatists of all time.

The post Ed Bullins: A Pioneer of the Black Arts Movement appeared first on Broadway Black.

[pdf-embedder url=”http://broadwayblack.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Leslie-Uggams-Arthur-Laurents-letter.pdf”] via leslieuggams.com

Sadly, Mr. Laurents died before his wish came true, but one year ago this July, Leslie Uggams got her turn in Gypsy at Connecticut Repertory Theatre.

“Mama Rose”, like many iconic characters in the American musical theater, was not written as a specific race. Therefore, everyone who is able to best tell the story should have the opportunity. This is not only essential for artists, but also for patrons attending the production so that all people get to see representations of themselves on stage. This awakening in the theater, albeit gradual, is refreshing and impactful because it allows a society’s art to parallel life. People of color are more than what centuries of mainstream America thought — in fact, we are nuanced and complex human beings. Our artists are capable of full and complex characters and stories, such as “Mama Rose” in Gypsy.

Hopefully, last year’s production wasn’t the last time we see Leslie Uggams in Gypsy, nor other artists of color inhabiting beautifully layered characters.

The post A Dream Come True: Leslie Uggams As Mama Rose In Gypsy appeared first on Broadway Black.

Ellington was born in the District of Columbia and went to New York in the 1920s. He is said to have composed over one thousand pieces of music and lead his band from its inception in 1923 until his death.  A career that spanned more than fifty years. The Duke was known for recording and performing music that not only highlighted the unity within his orchestra but individual musicians of particular talent.

Those of us who are theatre enthusiasts are no stranger to the talent of Jennifer Holliday.  She had her Broadway debut in 1971 and later performed in Dreamgirls where she received her Tony and also a Grammy for her recorded performance of “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going.”  Holliday is also the recipient of an honorary doctorate from Berklee College of Music in 2000.

The spectacle of the affair does not stop at the full onstage orchestra, but extends to tap dancers, elaborate costumes, and incredible jazz vocalists. Set in the famous Cotton Club in Harlem. Holliday will perform Ellington hits such as:  “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)“, Sentimental Mood“, “Sophisticated Lady“, “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore“, and “Old Man Blues”. The cast also features : Brandon O’neal, J.P. Qualters, Afra Hines, Brian Whitted, Kenny Williams, and Chanel Haynes-Schwartz.

This show will be opening in Austin on July 15, 2015 and running until August 23, 2015 at the Zach Theatre in the Topfer Theatre on the Karen Kuykendall stage. For more information or to purchase tickete click here.

Watch the original cast give the essence of Sophisticated Ladies below

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