07/26/2024
A Throwback Thursday memory from my theatre career. This is the cast and crew of one of the many plays that I directed during my 16 years of teaching at COM. “Fences”, written by one of the most prolific American playwrights of all time, the great August Wilson, will always hold a special place in my heart.
First of all, this production opened on the weekend that August passed away, at the young age of 60 years old, October 2, 2005. It was a devastating loss to the theatre community, and especially the Black Theatre community.
His premature departure coincided with the completion of his famous 10-play cycle of plays that chronicled a slice of Black life from each decade of the 20th Century. It was, and is, a feat unmatched in its abundance of cultural poetic beauty that will live eternally beyond his death.
This group photo of the talented folks who made this production possible is also very special to me. It includes students, as well as artists from the community and professional ranks, who shared with me the collective grief of August Wilson’s loss, as we attempted to give his Pulitzer Prize Winner the top-notch production we thought it deserved.
We, of course, wanted the show to succeed, but there was the added incentive of making sure that August would be proud of our interpretation of his masterpiece. I must humbly say that I felt we knocked it out of the park! 😎 But also, that The Theatre Gods were working overtime on our behalf, and we all knew it!
When I chose to direct “Fences”, I was well aware of the pressure to get it right. I had had the pleasure of being in August Wilson’s presence as an actor for several of his productions during the nineties, and saw first-hand the amount of sweat, and relentless rewriting he would put into a script before, and even after, his plays had hit the stage.
I also knew that August had extremely high standards, and that he didn’t settle for the ordinary. And as a director of his work, neither could I.
And so, that brings me back to this picture. It always amazes me how much the Universe will conspire to help you realize the visions you hold strong enough. I worked hard to find the right people for this project, but the right people...really just showed up.
I want to thank the special people in this picture. Creating theatre is such an ephemeral process...you work with people on a play for weeks, sometimes months, and then P**F!, they’re gone...and you may never see them again.
I'm so glad I had this shot, and now maybe you do too. I’ll never forget what we did together, and I’m willing to bet that August is STILL smiling about our interpretation of his masterpiece.
I love you all, and If you see yourself, feel free to holla back! It’s been a very long minute!! 😎💟🙏
