History is being made on Broadway this season. For the first time EVER, three African-American women playwrights are being produced on the Great White Way at the same time. I made this observation months before the New York Times acknowledged the occurrence on this blog and on my Black Theater Online e-newsletter.
I say all praises, ashé, amen, hallelujah and whoo hoo for Katori Hall, Lydia Diamond and Suzan Lori Parks. Hall and Diamond are newcomers to the Broadway party with their plays The Mountaintop and Stick Fly, respectively. Parks has been invited to the dance before with her Pulitzer Prize winner Topdog/Underdog. She has written the book for the re-imagined musical theater production of the opera Porgy and Bess. Gershwin's Porgy and Bess will make its Broadway debut in a few short weeks.
While I embrace and celebrate the amazing groundbreaking work of these African-American women on Broadway, I find myself completely dumbfounded by the fact that the Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Lynn Nottage has not yet had her Broadway debut.
Why? How come? What is up with that?
The last four Nottage stage plays produced Off Broadway -- Intimate Apparel, Fabulation, Or The Re-Education of Undine; Ruined, and By the Way, Meet Vera Stark -- were hits with critics and at the box office. Additionally, the plays won many awards including the Outer Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Nottage can claim the successful playwright check list: Financial success – Check! Critical acclaim – Check! And a ton of accolades – Check!
I have a thought. Lynn Nottage has not made it to Broadway because she writes about black women. Why else would a play like Ruined, which won every major theater prize, was extended nine times and ran for nine months not transfer to Broadway? It could have run longer, but the producer, the Manhattan Theatre Club, had to begin its new season. Imagine my surprise when I heard that this Pulitzer Prize winning play could not find the financing to move to Broadway for a limited engagement. Potential investors asked, “Who/where is the audience for this show?” WHAAAAT? This is an important question. However, Ruined ran for nine months in front of sold out audiences. Once MTC’s large white subscriber base witnessed the beautiful play, its audience became more diverse, consisting of whites, African-Americans, Africans, women, and students. Small and large multi-generational groups of African American and African women especially, came to see women who looked like themselves onstage.
Most plays produced in the theater are about men. However, the audience is largely comprised of women. That said, wouldn’t it make sense that a woman who writes about women would find a welcome audience among women? I think so.
I believe that any play by Nottage would make a major impact on Broadway. However, I have some friends who believe that her Intimate Apparel, which starred the sublime Viola Davis off Broadway in 2004, should bow on Broadway for a limited engagement and again feature the talents of Ms. Davis. The two-time Tony winner and Oscar nominee is sure to be nominated for every film-acting award for her knock out performance in The Help. Broadway loves movie stars – especially ones who are at home onstage. Davis definitely fits that description! They also want Tony Award winner George C. Wolfe to direct. Wolfe can make a reading of the telephone book seem engaging, engrossing and exciting. Intimate Apparel has an interracial supporting cast and that opens the door for intriguing casting possibilities and a diverse audience.
It is time for Lynn Nottage to make her Broadway debut. Is Intimate Apparel the right choice? Award winning play – Check! Movie star – Check! World-class director – Check! All-star supporting cast – Check! Clearly defined audience for box office success – Check!
Is anyone listening? One can only hope -- Or begin the campaign.
One More Thing: 2011-2012 is not the year of the Black presence on Broadway
The current Broadway season has been lauded in some corners of the media – especially black media -- as the year of an extraordinary presence of African Americans on the Great White Way.
This proclamation is not quite true. Let's take a look at the last five or six years. Since 2005, the productions such as The Color Purple, Sarah Jones Bridge and Tunnel, Hot Feet, Gem of the Ocean, Radio Golf, Fences, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, FELA!, Memphis, Race, Ragtime, 110 In The Shade, Cat on A Hot Tin Roof, Thurgood, Passing Strange, The Scottsboro Boys, and Sister Act have featured the talents of many African Americans onstage and behind the scenes. The productions have run simultaneously or within the same season showcasing big film stars returning to their stage roots, reliable theater veterans and breakthrough performances. Long running productions such as The Lion King and Chicago continue to provide ongoing employment for African Americans. And how can we forget Denzel Washington, Viola Davis, Bill T. Jones and Darryl Waters all winning Tony Awards in 2010?
The best kept secret about the black presence on Broadway is contained within its biggest hit, The Book of Mormon. The musical, created by the forces behind the South Park television show, won nine Tony Awards including Best New Musical in 2011. What is the secret? Half the cast is African American, including Nikki M. James who won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical.
With all that being said, 2011-2012 is clearly NOT the year of an extraordinary number of Black folks on Broadway. What is extraordinary? The visions of three African American women playwrights are being produced on Broadway -- the pinnacle of American commercial theater.
From the producers of the trailblazing 2008 Broadway production of Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, starring James Earl Jones and Terrence Howard,comes a hot new take on Tennessee Williams’ Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece, A Streetcar Named Desire. Leading this sizzling new cast is Blair Underwood (L.A. Law) in his Broadway debut as Stanley Kowalski, Nicole Ari Parker (Soul Food) as Blanche DuBois, Daphne Rubin-Vega (Rent) as Stella Kowalski and Wood Harris (The Wire) as Mitch. Directed by Emily Mann (Artistic Director of Princeton’s esteemed McCarter Theatre) and featuring an original score by five-time Grammy Award® winner Terence Blanchard, this scintillating Streetcar brings a whole new rhythm to Williams’ enduring portrait of sex, class and secrets in one of America’s most fascinating and diverse cities.
