ARTS & CULTURE
Trodding the Boards Brian Sands bsnola2@hotmail.com
Curtain Up, Computer On
The Company: A St. Bernard Community Theatre presents Flowing Robes, a play that examines the lives of women as the British attempt to invade New Orleans and how they are changed as a result of that. Performances will be at The Azienda Theatre (2000 Paris Rd., Chalmette) July 29 thru August 1. Producer Mark Cortale and Host/ Musical Director Seth Rudetsky have added Norm Lewis (July 19), Megan Hilty (July 26), and Cheyenne Jackson (August 2) to the line-up of The Seth Concert Series, the fabulous virtual cabaret/interview series similar to Broadway@NOCCA. Each show premieres on Sunday night at 7pm (CDT) with a second showing the next day at 3pm (CDT). Tickets are available at www.thesethconcertseries.com.
PAST PRESENT FUTURE IV
For the fourth PAST PRESENT FUTURE, Anthony Bean lets us know
what was going on at the Anthony Bean Community Theater and Acting School (ABCT) when things shut down, what it’s doing now, and what plans he has for its future. Over 8 years, ABCT was nominated for 62 Ambie Awards, winning 14; Bean won Best Director in 2004 for King Hedley II which also won Best Drama. Reviewing that August Wilson play I wrote “Bean coaxed beautiful performances from his ensemble with fluid, unobtrusive direction. His production hurtles along yet properly slows down when characters address the audience with mesmerizing monologues.” Of The Sty of the Blind Pig, which also won the Ambie for Best Drama, I said in 2007 “With his extraordinary cast, director Anthony Bean avoided the play’s excesses and found a rhythmic beauty in its little daily rituals.” After losing its home of 17 years on Carrollton Avenue, ABCT has been operating out of the campus of Southern
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Michael Styles • Engel & Völkers New Orleans 722 Martin Behrman Avenue • Metairie, LA 70005 4826 Magazine Street • New Orleans, LA 70115 +1 504-777-1773 • +1 504-875-3555 michael@nolastyles.com ©2020 Engel & Völkers. All rights reserved. Each brokerage independently owned and operated. Engel & Völkers and its independent License Partners are Equal Opportunity Employers and fully support the principles of the Fair Housing Act.
Anthony Bean with students of last year’s ABCT/NORDC Performing Arts Youth Summer Camp
University at New Orleans for the last three years as the company prepares to relocate this Fall to its own space in the Gentilly area.
PAST
It was a Wednesday, February 26, the day after Mardi Gras in New Orleans. We all agreed that we have to work fast after Mardi Gras to make this August Wilson Theater Festival a significant success. The Anthony Bean Community Theater (ABCT) and the Center for African and African American Studies at Southern University at New Orleans (SUNO) would be hosting the event. Everything is going as planned. We just got a grant from the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, and we are booking flights for our intended guests. We have artistic directors of theaters coming from around the country to help us celebrate the legendary August Wilson, my hero. Elise Felix, my assistant, got the news that there is a virus in Wuhan, China, and it has reached the States. And people are dying. Someone suggested that I should watch the news and be prepared to move this event to the summer months. I immediately said “No.” We needed to have this festival in April. August Wilson was born on April 27, and there will be a national celebration. We will be the first announced festival that will celebrate this man. So, it must be in April. That Monday, March 2, I received the most devastating news. I didn’t think it could get any worse. An executive from the August Wilson Estate called to inform me that we could not
use the August Wilson name for this event. I was confused; I had been communicating with his Estate for the last two months, they were excited that I was having this event and, now, they want to tell me that I can’t use the name. Naturally, I asked why and was told that there would be significant events, including a festival, in his hometown, Pittsburgh, and the Estate has granted his home city exclusive use of Wilson’s name for this period. I was crushed. Why can’t we both do it together? After all, I’m in New Orleans, far from Pittsburgh. They wish me luck and hang up. I immediately called an emergency committee meeting to tell the Board this awful news. So much was planned for this 4-day event. The recipient of The August Wilson Award was going to be renowned actor Samuel L. Jackson, who assured us that he would be here to accept the award. Theater groups from all over the country would present one-act plays. ABCT actors would perform Fences. High School students would participate in the August Wilson Monologue Competition. The schedule also included an ABCT Benefit Gala, where we would honor our prominent donors as well as Oliver Thomas, Irma Thomas, Sally-Ann Roberts, Adella Gautier, and Terry Jones. It would be the first of its kind in the Southern region, and now, you are telling me that I can’t use the festival’s namesake to bring attention to not only August Wilson’s legacy but to this New Orleans community theater, one of the few in the entire country that has performed all ten plays of Wilson’s “Century Cycle”.
6 · The Official Gay Magazine of the Gulf South™: www.AmbushMag.com · July 14 – 27, 2020 · Official Southern Decadence Guide™ · www.SouthernDecadence.com
