Across the pond, Oyelowo is best known for his stage performance as King Henry VI in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 2001 productions of Shakespeare’s trilogy of plays about the king as a part of its season This England: The Histories. In a major landmark for color-blind casting, Oyelowo was the first Black actor to play an English king in a major production of Shakespeare. Although this casting choice was initially criticised by some in the media, Oyelowo’s performance was critically acclaimed and later won the 2001 Ian Charleson Award for best performance by an actor under 30 in a classical play. – source

Othello will be directed by the Tony Award-winning Fun Home director Sam Gold, who said he chose Othello because it interested him and the actors. However, it was Craig that sought out Gold because he wanted work on a project together. It ended up being Othello which led Gold to reach out to Oyelowo through a friend. The actors did a table read of the play and it took off from there.

According to the artistic director at NYTW, the company has not presented anything by Shakespeare since 1990. This production definitely feels right since the company is known for producing great works that focus more on direction and telling the story than anything else. Recall that this is same theatre that gave us Dael Orlandersmith’s FOREVER. This is bound to be great and we cannot wait to be in the house. The theater has not yet announced the production dates or further information on the run. As soon as it’s released, you’ll find it right here!

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McQueen described working on the Robeson project as a dream come true. He first discovered Robeson as a teenager when a neighbor gave him books and articles that he felt the young McQueen would find interesting. One of these articles was about Robeson.

“His life and legacy was the film I wanted to make the second after Hunger. But I didn’t have the power, I didn’t have the juice” McQueen said at the Hidden Heroes awards in New York last November.

With a Best Picture Oscar win for “12 Years a Slave” under his belt, McQueen now has the “juice” he needs. And, as booster shot, he will team with legendary singer, actor, civil rights activist and Robeson friend Harry Belafonte, in an undisclosed capacity, to develop the film.

Belafonte, who regarded Robeson as a role model as well as a friend, once said about the extraordinary entertainer, “…it was from Paul that I learned that the purpose of art is not just to show life as it is, but to show life as it should be. And that if art were put into the service of the human family, it could only enhance their betterment.”

Robeson, the son of an escaped slave, was also an exceptional athlete, cultural scholar, and author. He won a four-year academic scholarship to Rutgers University and, despite violence and racism from teammates, won 15 varsity letters in baseball, basketball, and track and was twice named to the All-American Football Team. He also was a graduate of Columbia Law School but gave up his legal career for acting and singing after experiencing racism at work.

Robeson was one of the first Black men to play serious roles in the primarily white American theatre. In the mid-1920s, he played the lead in Eugene O’Neill’s All God’s Chillun Got Wings and The Emperor Jones. Throughout the late 1920s and 1930s, he was a widely acclaimed actor and singer. With songs such as his trademark “Ol’ Man River,” he became one of the most popular concert singers of his time. He was, perhaps, best known in theatre for his starring role in Othello, which was the longest-running Shakespeare play in Broadway history, running for nearly three hundred performances.

Robeson was not only a star in the U.S., but was revered internationally. He spoke 15 languages, and performed benefits throughout the world for various social justice causes. He believed that the famous have a responsibility to fight for justice and peace. In the late 1940s, Robeson openly questioned why African Americans should fight in the army of a government that tolerated racism.

Unfortunately, his outspokenness and campaigns against racism and social injustice led to the House Un-American Activities Committee, led by Senator Joseph McCarthy, accusing him of being a communist. Once he was labeled a communist, Robeson was blacklisted from film studios and concert venues, and his passport was revoked. Though it was reinstated in 1958, his career never recovered. Paul Robeson retired from public life in 1963. He died in 1976, at age 77, in Philadelphia.

To date, there have been no details on the filming schedule or release date for McQueen’s film. However, the world is waiting for the remarkable story of an extraordinary man to be told.

The post Steve McQueen to Direct Film About Legendary Paul Robeson appeared first on Broadway Black.

The American Ballet Theatre cast a Brazilian dancer, Marcelo Gomes, in the lead role, and Gomes wears dark brown makeup to try to match his skin tone to the moor who describes sin as being “black as mine own face,” much to the chagrin of attendees.

Actor Robert Manning, Jr., penned a letter** to the American Theatre, Lincoln Center, and the Metropolitan Opera condemning the production; he left after the first act, felt it was a “Jim Crow production,” and “will never attend another ABT production and…will encourage anyone…to follow suit.”

Unfortunately, this is not the first time in recent history that a dancer has used dark brown makeup for the role of Othello; for example, in 2002, the San Francisco Ballet used dark makeup on Cyril Pierre. And in the American Ballet’s Theatre 2007 production, Gomes used the same dark brown makeup.

One would think the American Ballet Theatre would pay a bit more attention to this indignity, as one of their soloists, Misty Copeland (the first African American soloist in two decades), has been not only incredibly vocal about race and the importance of diversity in the ballet world, but has been seen everywhere from commercials for Dr. Pepper and Under Armour to the cover of Time magazine, which has helped to bring new audiences to see her perform.

Since Othello’s race is so central to the story, why not cast a dancer whose complexion more closely resembles what Shakespeare envisioned? It is not as though there is a dearth of dancers who could not bring the passion, grace, masculinity, and commanding qualities needed in this role; Desmond Richardson, Antonio Douthit-Boyd, and Vernard Gilmore are dancers who come to mind almost immediately.

The American Ballet Theatre missed an opportunity to cast a talented Black dancer in the role of Othello. The organization cannot encourage Copeland to raise the visibility of its ballet productions on one hand yet simultaneously ignore the legions of diverse audiences who are beginning to take note of ballet on the other. It is a grave disservice to fans of Shakespeare and ballet alike.

**Read Manning’s letter in it’s entirety below:

cc: The Metropolitan Opera

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