Being Black on the Great White Way!!

Being Black on the Great White Way

As much as I love great film and television (Husband and I watched Bette Davis in All About Eve last night), I love the theatre and live entertainment just as much.  Mama took my grandmother, Lillian C. Jones and me to see Leontyne Price in Thalia Mara Hall before it was Thalia Mara Hall and definitely before I knew how important the event was.  I saw Mama, I Want to Sing with the original touring cast that included Cheryl “Pepsi” Riley at the height of her career.  If there was a play or an event of any kind that provided me with a cultural experience, there was no question about whether we would attend.  My mother’s decision that she and my father would send me to New York to celebrate finishing my Ph.D. was an expected unexpected surprise.   So, in June 2004, I packed my bag and boarded flight to LaGuardia Airport with reservations to the Sheraton Hotel and its Sweet Sleeper Bed (best bed EVER!), tickets to see the revival of A Raisin in the Sun and Caroline, Or Change, and things haven’t been the same since for me or Broadway.  

Broadway was getting a lot of press late in the 2003-2004 season outside of the usual circle, because the revival of A Raisin in the Sun had one of the best ensemble casts assembled—Phylicia Rashad, Sanaa Lathan, Audra McDonald, and wait…Sean “P. Diddy”/Puffy Combs.  Yes, P. Diddy.  Hip hop on the Great White Way?  Really. But here Diddy was.  Phylicia Rashad won the Tony for Best Actress in a Play and was the first African American woman to do so.  Audra McDonald scored a Tony for Featured Role in a Play.  Sanaa was nominated. Puffy was not.  But Puffy’s impact on the theatre world was much more than a gilded statuette. His name alone brought black folk to Broadway even New Yorkers who had never been to a play.   A Raisin in the Sun made its initial production costs back in record time, and its success opened the door to more opportunities for black-oriented plays to premiere in traditional theatre houses. 

That same year, Tonya Pinkins starred in Caroline, Or Change, a musical about a black domestic in a Jewish household in Jim Crow America.  It wasn’t an easy musical to digest.  Musicals are to be uplifting, correct?  Well, Caroline, Or Change, is that but in a different way.  Anika Noni Rose received a Tony for Featured Role in a Musical. Unfortunately, when Caroline, Or Change lost to Avenue Q in the category of Best Musical, the show closed shortly after.   Earlier that year, a revival of Master Harold in the Boys starred Danny Glover, but Glover’s quest for a NY cab garnered more attention than the play.

Since that wonderful weekend in June, I have returned to New York at least two or three times a year for business and personal reasons, which always seems to coincide with a good Broadway play or two.  Since 2004 and I contend, since Puffy’s turn as a beleaguered Walter Lee Younger brought scores of folk to Broadway—black and white—that the barbarians at the gate of the Great White Way have found a way to lure prominent black actors and promote black plays and musicals like never before. 

See for yourself…  Items in boldface means I’ve see it!

2004-2005

Julius Caesar (Denzel Washington—Tony nom, Tamara Tunie, Eamon Walker)

On Golden Pond (James Earl Jones—Tony nom, Leslie Uggams)

2005-2006

Bridge and Tunnel Sarah Jones (one-woman play) (Special Tony Award, 2006)

Oprah Winfrey Presents…The Color Purple (Lachanze—Best Actress in Musical; was also nominated for Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, Best Original Score, Best Featured Actor, Best Featured Actress (2), Best Choreography, Best Scenic Design, Best Costume Design, and Best Lighting) 

2006-2007

110 in the Shade (Audra McDonald has top billing but she’s the only African American in the cast.)

Radio Golf (Harry Lennix, Tonya Pinkins)

2007-2008

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Terrance Howard, Anika Noni Rose, James Earl Jones, Phylia Rashad, Giancarlo Esposito, Lou Myers, and directed by Debbie Allen)

Come Back, Little Sheba (S. Epatha Merkenson)

The Country Girl (Morgan Freeman)

Passing Strange

Thurgood (Laurence Fishburne—one-man play; Tony nom.)

2008-2009           

Joe Turner’s Come and Gone

2009-2010

Fela! (Notable producers: Jay-Z, Will and Jada, Questlove) (Tonys for Best Choreography, Costume Design, Sound Design)

Fences (Denzel Washington and Viola Davis, both of whom won Tonys)

Memphis

Race (Kerry Washington, David Allan Grier—Tony nom.)

2010-2011

Motherf**ker with the Hat (Chris Rock)

Driving Miss Daisy (James Earl Jones)

The Scottsboro Boys

A Free Man of Color (Jeffrey Wright, Mos Def)

Sister Act (Notable producer: Whoopi Goldberg)

This year, Broadway boasts a great season. If you’re interested in seeing your favorite film stars live and in person, now is the time to visit New York.  Let me know if you’d like my travel guide!)

The Mountaintop (Samuel L. Jackson—debut, Angela Bassett)

Check out the website: www.themountaintopplay.com

Stick Fly (Dule Hill, Mekhi Phifer, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, and Condola Rashad (if her name sounds familiar, this is Phylicia and Ahmad Rashad’s daughter) Notable producer: Alicia Keys. www.StickFlyBroadway.com

Porgy and Bess (Audra McDonald, David Alan Grier) www.porgyandbessonbroadway.com

Clybourne Park (This plays imagines the aftermath of the Youngers’s move.)

Magic/Bird

A Streetcar Named Desire (Blair Underwood—debut, Nicole Ari Parker, Wood Harris,

The Best Man (James Earl Jones)

Also in the Works:

Unchain My Heart 

For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow in Enuf

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner

Check www.playbill.com for tickets and discounts.

Magnolias,

Candice Love Jackson