AUG. 25-31, 2022 TRIAD-CITY-BEAT.COM AfterStormthe Triad Stage returns after reckoning with Preston Lane, racism by Sayaka Matsuoka | pg. 4 The Triad’s premium dining guide reboots this week! pg. 9
27406 Office: 336.681.0704 First copy is free, all additional copies are $1. ©2022 Beat Media Inc. TCB IN A FLASH @ triad-city-beat.com BUSINESS PUBLISHER/EXECUTIVE EDITOR Brian brian@triad-city-beat.comClarey PUBLISHER EMERITUS Allen allen@triad-city-beat.comBroach OF COUNSEL Jonathan Jones EDITORIAL MANAGING EDITOR Sayaka sayaka@triad-city-beat.comMatsuoka ART ART DIRECTOR Charlie charlie@triad-city-beat.comMarion SALES KEY ACCOUNTS Chris chris@triad-city-beat.comRudd AD MANAGER Noah noah@triad-city-beat.comKirby CONTRIBUTORS Miles Bates, Carolyn de Berry, John Cole, Owens Daniels, James, Douglas, Suzy Fielders, Luis H. Garay, Kaitlynn Havens, Jordan Howse, Matt Jones, Autumn Karen, Michaela Rat liff, Kevin Six, Jen Sorensen, Todd Turner COVER: Triad Stage returns with a new season, new Photooutlook.bySayaka Matsuoka Design by Charlie Marion. EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK WEBMASTER Sam LeBlanc W FOURTHFOOTHILLSPARTYBLOCKBREWING’SSTREETVAGABONDSAINTSSOCIETY SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 3 7-10 PM 638 W. FOURTH ST. FOOTHILLS BREWING PAYING TRIBUTE TO “DURAN DURAN” Produced By The Downtown Winston-Salem Partnership downtownws.com by Brian Clarey More, from TCB More (andwhatmoremorereporting,stories,pointsofentry,moreofyouloveushateus!)for.
24, Greensboro,
1451 S. Elm-Eugene St.
e’re fired theup, core Triad City Beat crew, about the plans we’ve laid that are just beginning to come to fruition. Maybe you’ve noticed some increase in posting on our website, a call for more freelancers, a new bomb-ass Monday newsletter that in its first week has already made our open rates jump. As a group we made a decision: Limping out of the pandemic period (it’s not over!), with readership up and revenues still down, watching as our big-city dailies put out fewer and fewer important stories each week, intrigued by new revenue mod els and the power of collaboration, we decided lean into the grind and just fucking go for it. Damn the torpedoes! So we’re doing more: more report ing, more stories, more points of entry, more topics for your consider ation, more of what you love us (and hate us!) for. Behind it all we’ve got new streams of income ready to be developed, a new sales department to keep the fire lit and new infra structure to keep the trains running on time. In the coming months we’ll be redoubling our efforts, exploring different ways of bringing the news and even rewriting our mission statement to reflect our new man date.How, you may ask, are we doing this?
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Answer: We don’t really know; we’re just doing it — which is kind of the TCB way. Remember, we started this paper on the fly in 2014, with three weeks of editorial lead time and very little notion of what would come next. Slowly the business infrastructure grew, infinitesimally, like a coral on a reef. We’ve ridden through changes in the industry, staff impermanence, soci etal upheaval and, at times, outright hostili ty. We’ve sacrificed We do it because we must. All we ask in return is that you support our work: Read our stories and share them on social media, talk about them with your friends and — most important — use our reporting in your daily life. If you own a business, consider adver tising with us (hit me up at brian@ triad-city-beat.com!); if you’re able, you might want to join our First Amendment Society with a small monthly donation. If not, no matter. At TCB, the news is always free. Box NC
CITY by MICHAELA RATLIFF
SATURDAY Aug. 27 Unity Walk & Festival @ Lebauer Park (GSO) 10 a.m. Nonprofits, community groups and other collectives have partnered for the 5th annual Unity Walk and Festival to change legislation and decriminalize immigration status. There will be family-friendly activ ities, performances and more for you to enjoy. Visit the event page on Facebook for more info.
Vegan Brew N BBQ @ Pig Pounder Brewery Stop by Pig Pounder Brewery for a wide selection of brews and award-winning vegan soul food from Southern Fried Vegan. Menu high lights include Fried Chickun, BBQ and Mac ‘N Cheeze.
SUNDAY Aug. 28 A Leg to Stand On and The Forest exhibits @ Artworks Gallery (W-S) 1 p.m. Artworks Gallery is proud to an nounce two new exhibits on dis play until Oct. 1. A Leg to Stand On by photojournalist Jessica Tefft explores how tragedy and trauma can transform us. In The Forest,” Wendell Myers layers saturated color to produce an active surface with visual depth and detail in this series of trees and thickets. Head to Artworks-Gallery.org for more information.
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LIFE AUG. 26-28
FRIDAY Aug. 26 Paper Dolls: The Labor Series @ Reynolda House Museum of American Art (W-S) 9:30 a.m. Winston-Salem based artist Page Laughlin presents Paper Dolls: The Labor Series, an art exhibit that depicts young women engaged in manual labor and explores how they are defined by the “things they carry.” Find more information and purchase tickets at reynolda.org
From the ashes, Triad Stage returns after reckoning with Preston Lane, racism by Sayaka Matsuoka
SAYAKA MATSUOKA
“The board closed down the company in 2020,” Artistic Director Sarah Hankins told Triad City Beat. “We were asking hard questions about whether Triad Stage should continue or in what way we should continue. We were also hit hard because of the Almostpandemic.”twoyears ago, Triad Stage’s artist director at the time, Preston Lane, was accused by several individuals of sexual abuse as first reported by TCB, leading to a huge rift within the organization. Reporting by former Senior Editor Jordan Green uncovered a toxic and harmful pattern of abuse by Lane, who targeted young actors in the industry, many of them university students from UNCG. In the aftermath of the allegations, Lane resigned and Triad Stage was left without its once-lauded leader. Then came the staff cuts. The organization had already made reductions to staff in March 2020 due to the pandemic, but once the Preston Lane controversy came to a head, Triad Stage’s board slashed staffing to just three full-time employees in December 2020. Hankins, who was working as an associate artistic director at the time, was one of the lucky ones who remained. “It was a really difficult time,” she said. Now, as the organization prepares to finally reopen more than two years later, In 2020, Triad Stage’s former co-founder and artistic director Preston Lane was accused by several people of sexual assult and sexual misconduct. Since then, the organization has been working to rebuild its reputation and its policies to create what they call “a brave space.”
Trigger warning: This article mentions allegations of sexual harassment and assault riad Stage, one of the Southeast’s largest regional theater operations, has enjoyed an influx of publicity in recent weeks as various news outlets report the theater’s upcoming reopening after more than two years of closed doors. And while the notable arts organization is looking forward to their fall opening, this time last year, staff weren’t sure that they were going to reopen at all.
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Hankins shares an in-depth look at the changes Triad Stage has made in the last 20 months in the hopes of rebuilding trust with the community.
Towards the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021, the remaining staff and board members at Triad Stage began looking for a consultancy program, one that would help guide them through the tumultuous and often uncomfortable process of breaking down and recreating their organization’s culture.
“It was not an easy process,” Hankins said. “We had to take a hard look at the decisions we had made in the past.”
As part of the process, a planning committee composed of artists, staff, patrons and board members was created to start conversations. The organization also interviewed 75 community members as part of a listening group and brought on an additional 25 community members as key informants. Like hundreds of other organizations across the country, it was the first time the arts entity had engaged in deep exploration about matters of race, consent and accountability. Soon, staff had developed a diversity and anti-racism statement, a list of community standards as well as more robust reporting avenues for sexual harassment and policies that would more heavily enforce them.
“It gave us a chance as an organization to step back and look at what our role had been and think about what we would like our role to be,” Hankins said.
And so, in the midst of dealing with fallout from Preston Lane, Triad Stage staff realized that there was a lot more to change than just cutting out one cancer from their organization. The problem was, really, in the root.
“Our industry is rife with unsustainable and harmful practices and we commit to creating a brave space where we can come together with patience, humility and clarity,” the statement reads. “A brave space is one that people feel empowered to explore racism and is used as an alternative to ‘safe’ because as a predominantly white institution we recognize that we cannot promise a safe space for people of color but we are committed to engaging in brave conversation and actions.”
A few of the action steps listed in their new policy include providing training, creating a land acknowledgement statement, amplifying the works of BIPOC artists and changing internal procedures including hiring practices, professional development and organizational leadership.
“A lot of cast members come into our space for just a short time,” Hankins said. “We have to be very intentional with bringing people into our space and providing them with resources. As an industry and as a company, we weren’t great at that. This forced us to stop and ask, ‘What should that process look like? What does that first rehearsal look like? How can we create a space that supports and protects them?’”Asapredominantly
“It was more than just community standards about sexual harassment,” Hankins said. “It’s new community standards that encourage all of us to flourish and want W
‘Dear White American Theater,’ reckoning with race hen the Preston Lane allegations came to light in November 2020, the rest of the world was dealing with the traumatic aftermath of the George Floyd and Breonna Taylor murders that sparked an international reckoning with race. While much of the immediate conversations taking place dealt with police violence and accountability within the criminal justice system, arts organizations, too, were forced to take a closer look at the hand they played in maintaining white supremacy within their own walls.
white organization (Hankins is white, as are the two other staff members), Triad Stage’s new anti-racism policy admits that fact up front and includes steps the organization will take to dismantle white supremacy.
“I feel like the reckoning of 2020 in our social world with the protests also made a reckoning in the theater world,” Hankins said. “There was a letter that circulated in the theater world titled, ‘Dear White American Theater’ that was addressing problems that theater had been ignoring for years.”
“It handles in a very honest and loving way, the relationship of a queer young woman and her close family friend who she loves so much,” Hankins said of the show. “It forces everybody to look at what their predisposed biases are and ask hard questions of themselves, and I think that’s where we are as a community and as a world.”
Recently, Triad Stage brought Mitchel Sommers, former executive director of the Community Theatre of Greensboro, as the interim executive director for the organization. But they’re still looking to hire a permanent executive director, and to fill other roles such as director of production, technical director and director of marketing and sales according to their website “We’re in the midst of a huge hiring process,” Hankins said. “I’m sort of ex hausted, I’m not going to lie, but I’m really hopeful for the future.”
“Our productions will center a variety of communities like women, the LGBTQ community, the Black community,” Hankins said. “We also have one play set in Greensboro and another set in Winston-Salem. That’s something that came out of the consultancy program was that people want ed to see themselves on stage.”
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One example of when an intimacy coordinator might be used in a production is during costume changes.
‘Risk does not require harm’ hen it comes to issues of sexual harassment, the organization’s new community standards set the tone: “We recognize that art-making requires vulnerability and risk on the part of all involved. Risk does not require harm, whether physically or emotionally. To this end, we commit to respecting boundaries, issuing content warnings and supporting diverse identities,” the introduction reads.
“It creates discussions from Day One with the produc tion team about boundaries,” Hankins said. “They’re leading the charge as far as asking questions about stan dard behaviors and expanding those questions.”
The thing that gives her hope as they look to reopen this fall, is the amount of work that the organization has gone through in the last two years, Hankins said. “I’m so proud of the work that we’ve done and the commitments that we’ve made,” she said. “And we have a heavy burden that we bear to repair the relation ships and regain the trust of our community.”
As part of a partnership with NC A&T State Univer sity, Triad Stage is bringing in students from the uni versity to work on the set, and the play is being directed by Donna Bradby, an adjunct professor and director of marketing and publicity for the Department of Visual and Performing Arts at NCA&T.
We were asking hard questions about whether Triad Stage should continue or in what way we should continue.
Sarah Hankins “ “
To kick off the 20th season, Triad Stage opens with Rebellious, a play written by Black playwright Mike Wiley. The show opens Oct. 7 and tells the story of four Bennett College students during the Civil Rights Movement in Greensboro.
In an effort to repair relations with the community, Triad Stage will also be host ing a community reading group in which the public will be able to make sugges tions about which productions should grace the stage.
One of the biggest changes the organization has made is the introduction of intimacy coordinators for specific shows. One of the buzziest roles in the enter tainment industry, an intimacy coordinator works with actors, directors and other creatives to ensure safety and transparency when acting out intimate scenes that involve simulated sex, nudity or intimate physical contact. Encouraged by the #MeToo movement, intimacy coordinators have become more common on both TV and movie sets, most notably as major networks like HBO, Netflix, Hulu, Starz and Amazon have hired their own coordinators. There’s even a national organization dedicated to the training process.
Part of that is making sure to ask who has had access to theater in the first place, Hankins said. “We’re looking at what skillsets people can bring and really opening up that conversation,” she said.
6 |NEWSAUG.25-31,2022 NEWS ing to look at things through a lens of diversity, equity, access and inclusion.”
“I think as an industry, we haven’t done a good job in terms of consent,” said Hankins, who started at Triad Stage in 2014 as a UNCG graduate student. “Now
we’re being mindful of physical touch and asking if you can take a photograph. It’s about physical boundaries and emotional boundaries.”
“Like if we have an actor who is doing a quick change, yes, we’ve typically had a quick change booth, but let’s talk about the dynamics of where that quick booth is and who is assisting that person,” Hankins said. “Those are the questions they’re taking on.”
As someone who has been with the organization for eight years, Hankins said that the last two years were a chaotic and heavy time. “It was a heartbreaking time,” she said. “I questioned whether I wanted to con tinue on in the industry. I questioned whether we should reopen.”
In the spring, Revolutionists will hit the stage in a co medic retelling of the Reign of Terror from the per spective of various female characters including Marie Antoinette herself. Finishing out the season is The Cake, by Winston-Salem native Bekah Brunstetter about a gay wedding in the South.
“As we move forward, we’re here listening and responding and we’re excited to have folks back in the space again,” Hankins said. “These last two years have been hard work. We’ve really dismantled a lot of things and asked a lot of questions. I hope that folks will give us a chance and will call us in when we make a mistake and also recognize that we’re humbly making steps to create a more accessible, brave and thriving space.”
Learn more about Triad Stage and its future productions on its website at triadstage.org.
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For one of the shows for the upcoming fall season, there’s a scene in which an actor wears frosting that covers some of their body parts. They hired an intimacy coordinator to navigate that scene.
“A lot of these conversations revolve around consent,” Hankins said. And that’s particularly important for an organization that has a lot of work to do in terms of making people feel physically safe. In reporting the Preston Lane allegations, TCB found that Lane had preyed on young male actors, often coercing them to strip during one-one-one rehearsals and, in the worst cases, assaulting them through oral sex and handjobs. Additional reporting by TCB found that Denise Gabriel, an associate professor at the UNCG School of Theatre, was also accused of sexual harassment and assault by former students. In addition to work ing for UNCG, Gabriel served as a contract movement coach for Triad Stage.
‘I hope that folks will give us a chance’ n addition to internal changes, Triad Stage has been working on diversifying their repertoire in terms of shows and content, too.
“It explores a history that a lot of folks don’t know,” Hankins said. “Many people don’t know that the Bennett Belles were instrumental to the Sit-In Movement.”
Pundits are citing an uptick in voter registrations, noting that many of them come from wom en, as evidence of a groundswell of activity from the left centered around abortion protections.
Since June 18, the last NC voter database snapshot since the Dobbs decision came down on June 24, registered voters have in creased by almost 33,000 — that’s just 0.4 percent of the NC electorate of 7.35 million, not really enough to swing an election even in our state, where the mar gins can be quite close. Breaking down that 33K by gender is… dissatisfying. The NC voter registration form has a section where the applicant can choose from two boxes, “Male” and “Female,” but the section is not required, like date of birth and ad dress. So almost 10,000 of these new voters cannot be identified by gender, as none is indicated. Of the remainder — 22,989 — most of them are indeed women: 12,024 of them, against almost 11,000 men. But women voters outnumber men overall in the state by more than half a million, so the difference is negligible.Genderissues aside, the num bers have a different tale to tell.
The numbers in North Carolina don’t quite support this thesis, though they tell a tale of their own.
SERIESDOWNTOWNMUSICSUMMERDOWNTOWNJAZZ AUG 26 TERENCE YOUNG CORPENING PLAZA SUMMER ON LIBERTY AUG 27 PHASE BAND 6TH & LIBERTY Produced By The Downtown Winston-Salem Partnership downtownws.com
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Abortion, party politics and the NC voter, by the numbers here’s been some talk in mainstream media the last week or so about the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, which left protections for abortions to the states and set back birthing rights about half a century.
EDITORIAL
The unrest,indicatenumberspoliticalwithenoughtidbitsforboththeDsandtheRstoclaimanedge.
In March 2022, NC passed a unique milestone: Unaffiliated voters became the largest political group in the state. As of Aug. 20, UNA voters total 2.6 million, a full 35 percent of the electorate, which is plenty large enough to swing an election, except the independents are not all on the same team. Everyone has their theories as to who they are, but we estimate that perhaps half of them are political moderates who don’t identify with either party; the rest are largely extremists who don’t think their political parties go far enough. Between the Dobbs decision and Aug. 20, the number of unaffiliated voters climbed by 33,551, which is more than the overall total of new registered voters. A lot of them came from the Democrat side, which lost more than 3,000 voters while the Republicans gained more than 2,600. But the Republi cans still have the smallest polit ical cohort besides the Libertari ans, almost 50,000 of which make up 0.6 percent of the electorate, and the Green Party, which as of Aug. 20 had 13 people, which is not bad considering they just got reinstated.Andsothe numbers indicate political unrest — which anyone who looks around once in a while already knows — with enough tidbits for both the Ds and Rs to claim an edge. But they more or less cancel each other out, giving Democrats a slight edge of 3.8 percentage points. The rest is up to the unaf filiated, and nobody really knows who they are.
Special Advertising Section Doubling down at Double Oaks AUGUST 2022 FOOD + DRINK GUIDE
“When we bought the place, it was a private home, and we thought such a grand home ought to be opened up as a place for the public to gather and relax. Double Oaks is one of Greensboro’s grand historic homes, so everything we do here is not only focused on visitors to Greensboro, but also on giving locals opportunities to come hang out and imbue the place with local flavor. Good food and drinks tend to be the best way to draw people in.”
But Double Oaks has slowly been building up a culi nary program that is gaining steam amongst Greens boro’s in-the-know foodie scene.
“We’re always looking for new ways to bring the community in,” he continues.
Amanda jumps in: “Where else in town can you have an intimate, gourmet meal under twinkle lights in a place that feels like the Secret Garden? It’s pretty magical.”
Double Oaks bed & breakfast I 204 N. Mendenhall double-oaks.comSt.336.763.9821
f you know Double Oaks at all, you might know it as a quaint historic bed & breakfast sitting prominently at the entrance to the Westerwood neighborhood off of North Mendenhall and Friendly. For being such a stately mansion, what’s going on there largely stays just below the radar, as they don’t do a lot of promotion.
If you’re looking for a different kind of going out experience, one that feels more like home in all the best ways, Double Oaks might just be your new favorite spot.
Owners James and Amanda Keith attribute the growth, surprisingly, to COVID. Before the pandemic, their regular Wine Wednes days had already become a happening spot for great live jazz and drinks in the beautiful backyard garden. They’d started serving pizzas, including a unique weekly special pizza, with punny names like “The Bleu Steel” and “The Brussel Crowe.”
“Our dinner nights are one of the best-kept secrets in Greensboro,” James says.
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It turns out, the pizzas were the right bridge. During the early days of the pandemic, they started doing takeout pizzas and wine, which was a huge hit espe cially in the Westerwood neighborhood where Double Oaks is nestled. Once it was safe enough to allow out door dining, they utilized the generous backyard space to start doing table service and building up a menu. Thus, the food program was born. They went from two employees at the beginning of the pandemic, to a crew of fourteen between the hotel and restaurant today.Wine Wednesdays are still hap pening, and they’re more popular than ever. If you show up on a fair-weather Wednesday, you’ll find one of the liveliest jazz scenes in the city, and you can hear the music beckoning as you walk up the drive way into the backyard. Attendance has regularly hit 150 plus, and the open jazz session includes any where from five to sometimes 15 or more musicians. The menu still includes pizzas, but now also wings with a killer sauce called Bee Sting created by brothers Jared and Dane Hugg of Hugg the Chefs. For the past year, Double Oaks has added more days of public restaurant service, now serving din ner on Thursday and Friday nights. Their Sunday brunch features goods from other local small busi nesses like Black Magnolia South ern Patisserie and Borough Coffee.
Dinner nights at Double Oaks are a great counterpoint to Wine Wednesdays. Diners enjoy table service and a more extensive menu and beverage choices, though a small selection of pizzas are always available. Chef Jared Hugg conjures up new dinner specials each week as well, to keep things interesting.
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$$ M F T achete opened just three weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic forced all restau rants to close in 2020. The team pivoted from their original vision to takeaway comfort food for several months, then they roared back, landing at No. 18 on Yelp’s Top 100 Places to Eat, and garnering a James Beard Award nomination for Best New Restaurant in 2022. To keep everything fresh and exciting, their seasonal food and cocktail menu changes every three months, with new wines also introduced to match the flavors of the season. MACHETE uses a variety of local NC products from meats and seafood to vegetables, fruits, and mush rooms, but they also like to source unique ingredients from around the world to fulfill their vision of distinctive and delicious tapas-style dining with a global twist. As owner Tal Blevins puts it, “I like to say we’re a farm-to-table restaurant, but that farm may be in Argentina.
ounded in Greensboro in 2010 by longtime cigar enthusiast Phil Segal III, Havana Phil’s features a wide selection of the world’s finest cigars, housed in a beautiful, state-of-the-art walk-in humidor of Spanish cedar that has some thing for every cigar enthusiast.
Mission Pizza Napoletana
$$ 707 Trade St. NW (W S) (reservationsmissionpizzanapoletana.com336.893.8217recommended)
Havana Phil’s is one of the few appointed merchants for Davidoff of Geneva in the Southeast. The humidor features an exclusive and comprehensive inventory of Rockys, Fuentes, Davidoffs, Ashtons, Padrons, Alec Bradley, La Gloria, Camacho, Cohiba, Monte cristo & Romeo as well as a wonderful variety of boutique names.
Guests can experience the outdoor patio in the fair weather, and the Rocky Patel Lounge for a quiet smoke. Members enjoy the private Davidoff Lounge, with a full bar and a sophisticated atmosphere. hink pizzeria. What do you think of? Mission Pizza Napoletana is not what you think. Instead, MPN is a proper osteria; a small, casual tavern serving proper Italian fare with local sensibili ty, and of course, award-winning pizza Napoletana. Since its founding in 2014, MPN has been widely and fre quently recognized among the best in America in its category, by Food and Wine magazine and 50 Top Pizza USA among others, with Chef Peyton Smith receiving a James Beard Award semifinalist for Best Chef Southeast in 2022. Simply, Mission Pizza Napoletana is a singular destination in NC and beyond.
600 C Battleground Ave. (GSO) (reservationsmachetegso.com336.265.8859recommended) $$-$$$ 1628 Battleground Ave. (GSO) (membershipshavanaphils.com336.288.4484available)
HavanaMachetePhil’s Cigar Co.
The Sunshine Quesadilla Breakfast on Saturday, Sept. 10, features a fresh and locally sourced creation from Chef Denzell Berry: a grilled tortilla topped with light and fluffy Massey Creek scrambled eggs, crumbled Neese’s savory sausage, award-winning Goat Lady Diary cheese with sliced Leonard Orchard fuji apples drizzled with Quaker Acre honey, topped with Granolicious orange-pecan granola. Action starts at 8:30 a.m. with music by Doug Baker on the lawn. Fundraising proceeds benefit fresh food security programs which serve neighbors in need of food. The Market supports five food security programs to help fight hunger in our community! Double SNAP/EBT benefits every Saturday up to $15 match.
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Spring House Restaurant, Kitchen & Bar 450 N. Spring St. (reservationsspringhousenc.com336.293.4797(W-S)recommended)
peppelahchallah.com (order online)
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Greensboro Farmers Curb Market 501 Yanceyville St. gsofarmersmarket.org(GSO) $
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$$-$$$ C hen the pandemic dropped, Pepper Segal took to her kitchen and be gan pounding out traditional challah loaves with her children. Her first sale came quite by accident after she posted a picture of a perfect, golden, braided loaf on social media.
Now she makes a whole line of breads including plain, old-school challah, chal lah with toppings, stuffed challah and assorted sweet goods, made in her home kitchen and delivered to your door. Peppelah Challah breads are also available on Thursdays at Kau Butcher Market and New Garden Bagels in Greensboro, where they sell out quickly.
hef Tim Grandinetti’s culinary skills brought him around the world. So it makes sense that he’d settle down in a historic home on the edge of downtown Winston-Salem. Inside what was once the Bahnson House, a 1920s mansion on the National Register of Historic Places, diners can find white-linen elegance in one of the many well-appointed rooms, al fresco dining on a spacious and breezy patio, or a casual experience in the Library Bar, one of the great barrooms in the Triad. Grandinetti and crew create Southern fare “in cadence with Mother Nature,” which means a menu that changes frequently but with consistent quality and creativity. House favorites will always remain, like the Dr. Brownstone’s BBQ Tower, which must be seen to be believed.
The High Holy Days are coming! Peppelah Challah takes Rosh Hashanah pre orders until Sept. 18. Along with her traditional and innovative challah loaves, individual sized sweet honey cakes will be available for Triad pick up and shipping nationwide.
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Peppelah Challah hat’s in season in September? Beans, Corn, tomatoes, melons, tender lettuce, onions, figs, regional grapes and more coming in along with delicious, prepared meals to go and local crafts every Saturday from 70 vendors and events almost every week.
‘Eh-Oh!’ — two letters not just for the Teletubbies. SUDOKU LAST WEEK’S ANSWERS: Across 1. Quicker way to “count by” 5. LBJ’s veep 8. Most proficient 14. “Are you kidding?” 15. “All applicants welcome” 16.letters“___ King” (Burger King spoof in a 2000 “Flintstones” movie) 17. *Current Maori-language name for New Zealand 19. *North African curvy-horned wild sheep that was released in Texas in the 1950s 20. Cul-de-___ 21. Egyptian Christians 23. Ghana’s neighbor 24. Alternative to a business meeting, so to speak 26. Storefront coverings 29. *Series of heart structures that lead to the neck and head 32.arteriesFawns’ mothers 33. Iron Maiden song that’s also an instruc tion for some card games 37. Strand in a lab 38. *New York Times film critic whose Twitter name is still “32 across” six years after his name appeared in the crossword 41. “There’s ___ in ‘team”’ 42. Grueling workplace 44. “Konvicted” hip-hop artist 45. *Tagline that distinguishes a concert or convention from a full-weekend affair 49. Hargitay of “Law & Order: SVU” 52. “Like a Rock” singer Bob 53. Hebrew phrase meaning “to the skies” 54. Musician/producer Ty ___ $ign 56. Indie singer DiFranco 59. *Honshu city deemed one of the world’s snowiest major cities (averaging 26 feet per 62.year)*Items containing free trial software, dubbed “history’s greatest junk mail” by a Vox article 64. Actress Charlize who guested on “The 65.Orville”37-Across counterpart 66. Unkind 67. “MMMBop” band of 1997 68. Pvt.’s boss 69. “Animal House” group, for short Down 1. “___ the night before Christmas ...” 2. “Easy there!” 3. Quaker boxful, maybe 4. Sault ___ Marie, Ontario 5. Valiant 6. Overblown publicity © 2022 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com) © 2022 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com) CROSSWORD 7. Use a microwave on 8. “Defending liberty, pursuing justice” org. 9. ___-country (Florida Georgia Line genre) 10. Ill-mannered 11. ___ a good note 12. Amos Alonzo ___, coach in the College Football Hall of Fame 13. Hullabaloos 18. Berry that makes a purple smoothie 22. Anarchist defendant with Vanzetti 25. Chain members (abbr.) 27. Perk up, as an appetite 28. Home in the sticks? 29. Throws in 30. “Game of Thrones” actress Chaplin 31. Competed with chariots 34. Back end of some pens 35. “Keep talking” 36. Vaguely suggest 38. “To Venus and Back” singer Tori 39. “Old MacDonald” noise 40. Sam with 82 PGA Tour wins 43. Clothes experts 44. 1600 Pennsylvania ___ (D.C. address) 46. Covering the same distance 47. Chew out 48. Edwardian expletive 49. County north of Dublin 50. Word on Hawaiian license plates 51. Soup that may include chashu or ajitama 55. Rowboat rowers 57. March Madness org. 58. Ceases to be 60. “Winnie-the-Pooh” marsupial 61. Quaint motel 63. Global currency org. by Matt Jones
At the time, Speas had just left the opera program at UNCSA and was contemplating making the move to UNCG. In the fall of 2017, he started in UNCG’s theater program.
CULTURE ALEXANDER RIVERA“II
From Sam’s Club to Broadway, actor J. Andrew Speas talks UNCG, leading protests, landing Aladdin by Sayaka Matsuoka
The issue for Speas and the Black students who saw the work wasn’t the play itself. It was the faculty’s lack of awareness and care for the Black students who had to be repeatedly exposed to the traumatic narratives for theirThat’scoursework.whenSpeas crafted a letter. It called out the theater department’s ignorance and lack of diversity in faculty which lit a flame within the com munity.“Ittraveled from our school down to Florida and back again,” Speas says. “It kind of just blew up. I sort of, at the time, became the voice of students of color in the department.”
The school quickly realized its shortcomings and asked Speas to join in consultation meetings and an audit for the theater program. He even helped hire a new theater director, Natalie Sowell, who joined the depart ment in the spring of 2020.
As someone with the acting and singing chops needed to enroll in the public arts conservatory, Speas became a fairly well-known entity in UNCG’s smaller theater program. But coming into the program as a queer, Black man, Speas immediately noticed some things that were amiss.
Speas had been fielding concerns from several Black theater students at the time. One of the biggest issues was the predominantly white theater department’s lack of awareness when it came to a particular production that was put on in the fall of 2018. The work, titled We’re Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as South West Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884-1915, is a play written by Black playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury. While the work is categorized as a comedy and drama, the story tackles heavy topics such as genocide, cultural appropriation and the violence of racism.
“My introduction into the department was that lots of people felt like they were missing opportunities,” he says. “They were missing out on oppor tunities to be cast, and I had a big question about that. There was also a question of how Black students in particular existed in the department and what their function was.”
For the next several weeks, Speas joined other activists in the community and organized and led protests and marches across the city. He learned from those he lovingly calls elders who taught him how to be an activist. And he drew from his theater training, too.
“There weren’t a lot of people who looked like me on the staff,” Speas says. “There were a lot of students who looked like me, but not the staff. All of a sudden, [the university] started cleaning house. They realized that the students had been right.”
Then in June 2020, George Floyd was murdered. And that’s when Speas really amplified his voice. “Doing all of those things at UNCG, I became really aware,” he says. “I remember my best friend sending me a message saying, ‘We have to do something.’ And I took a deep breath and I said, ‘You’re right.’”
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t was just a few years ago that actor J. Andrew Speas was spending his afternoons working part time at Sam’s Club. His big role? Passing out free food. “I had to take the time to grow up,” he says of that period of his life. “I was working at Sam’s Club giving out samples, which is probably the best acting gig you could have.”
“My mother would say, ‘If you don’t like something, you have to change it,’” Speas explains. “I used to hate it, because I was like, I don’t want to do that work. But if I don’t, maybe no one else will, and I would have just exist ed at that time.”
“All of the Black students who had seen this show told me that it was traumatic,” Speas recalls. “And I was like, It can’t be that traumatic, it’s the ater. And I go, and I’m like, Oh no, it’s trauma. By the end of the play, I was in the audience sobbing, convulsively sobbing.”
Now, less than five years later, Speas has been cast as the standby for Genie in the Broadway musical Aladdin. Less than a year out of college, the 25-year-old reflects on the last few years of his life, which have been rife with uncertainty and turmoil. Much of it started that fall in 2017.
Bringing change to UNCG, 2020 protests t was really fulfilling because I came in and was a big fish in a small pond,” Speas says of his transfer to UNCG. “It wasn’t missed by anyone that I had come from UNCSA.”
This was five years ago before the uprisings of 2020, when more in-depth conversations about race took place in society. But Speas, whose mom taught him from a young age to speak up if something was wrong, felt he had to voice his concerns.
J. Andrew Speas grew up in Winston-Salem and attended both UNCSA and UNCG.
“She told me, ‘You’re coming home with me,’ and I burst into tears,” Speas recalls. “Then I moved in with her sister. When you talk about community support and mutual aid, those girls were the blueprint. They joke all the time
“My training helped me realize that I could do lots of things in a short amount of time because a rehearsal is a quick turnaround,” Speas says. “In acting school they say that every single line you say is life and death, and I realized that summer was that it really was life or death. You just don’t expect your voice to be that loud.”
16 |CULTUREAUG25-31,2022 CULTURE Spacious outdoor amphitheater | FREE Midday Mountain Music Music Center Road, Galax, VA | Parkway Milepost 213 (866) 308-2773, ext. 212
As a hail Mary Speas called his boss at the afterschool program and told her what had happened.
Landing his dream role and moving to NY s Speas talks into the camera he smiles warmly, his charisma emanating from beyond the computer screen. He sits in a plain room with white-painted walls and looks at ease. But it wasn’t always this easy.
“I booked Spamilton and then my agent told me that they wanted to see me for Aladdin,” he says. “And I was like, Oh, it’s time.” He was living in Harlem and working for an afterschool program when the person he was renting from kicked him out of the apartment. Suddenly, Speas was homeless.
JASON SPEER PHOTOGRAPHY
In October 2021, a few months after graduating from UNCG, Speas moved to New York City. He had done his senior showcase virtually for school and landed an agent. He felt like he was one of the lucky ones who had made it.
A J. Andrew Speas, seen here performing on stage, says landing the Genie role is a dream come true.
“I had these two big suitcases, a duffle bag and a CPAP machine, and I was running all over the city trying to find somewhere to stay,” he says. “I was calling shelter after shelter. I never thought I would be there.”
“I auditioned in DC when I was a freshman at UNCSA and didn’t book,” Speas says. “But my parents were like, ‘You can speak everything you want into existence.’ So I just started saying things like, ‘I’m going to be on Broadway.’ Now, I can say that 80 percent of the things that I have said, I have accomplished…. You can’t anticipate that your dreams will come true, but my dreams have really come true and I’m only 25; I just left school.”
17 202231,-25AUG|CULTURECULTURE about how they’re always taking in strays. They helped me through all of it.”
“I was like, Oh my god, I get to be me on stage,” he says. “What a joy.”
For the next two months, Speas went through rounds of auditions for the Genie in the Broadway production of Aladdin. It was a role that he had dreamt about since he was a child.
On Aug. 15, Speas was finally able to tell the world about his new role and starting Thursday, he’ll start rehearsals. The tour’s first stop is in New York on Oct. 11. From April 5-9, Speas will be returning to North Carolina for shows in Charlotte. And while he doesn’t want anyone to get hurt or miss a show, Speas says with a sly smile, “If you wish hard enough you may see me as the Genie.”
“Standys are the cornerstones of shows,” Speas says proudly. “They’ve kept so many shows going.”
“I am this boy from Winston-Salem who went to school in Greensboro, and all of a sudden I’m in New York City auditioning,” Speas says. “This was my dream role. Aladdin was the first time I saw a Black man my size on Broadway.”Fordecades, stars like James Monroe Iglehart and Michael James Scott have played the iconic role on stage, which was first popularized by late actor Robin Williams in the 1992 animated film.
After auditions went well, Speas attended a three-day “Genie bootcamp” where he worked the material repeatedly so he would be ready for the final audition to take place in front of the full team in March of this year. Less than 24 hours after his final audition, Speas got the call while he was at work. He had landed the role as a standby for the upcoming tour. (A standby is an actor who is ready to fill the role in the event the lead cannot perform).“Iliterally collapsed into a chair,” he says. “I was crying and I went through this mental list of who has to know.”
Speas shares that the funniest thing about landing the role of Genie is that this isn’t the first time he’s auditioned for the part.
The most fun part about the role for Speas, is how much he brings to the beloved character. Really, he says, the Genie isn’t that different from his own bubbly personality.
“To be here at this moment feels full circle and beautiful,” he says. “To be able to share it with people who have watched me since those early stages in Winston-Salem and Greensboro, I’m beyond thankful. It is one of the most gratifying and world shattering moments in a beautiful way.”
Learn more about the 2022-23 North American tour of Aladdin on the website. Follow Speas’ journey on his Instagram at @jdaspeas.
As for the trials and tribulations he went through to get here, Speas says he has no regrets.
Speas is also a swing for two other characters in the show — Babkak and the Sultan — which means he has to learn the lines and be capable of filling either of those roles at a moment’s notice, too.
Rocky, who’s just arrived at the solitary confinement unit of Cedar Cross Correctional Facility, reads a letter passed to him by the other prisoners — quickly, as communication between inmates is strictly forbidden.
the sun is at just the right angle to allow a little light to shine through the small openings of their cells. When they do make it to the box, Victor takes advantage of the pull-up bar and space for a light jog, but the tease of “free dom” doesn’t last long.
Six gray platforms arranged in a cross serve as prison cells. Three prison ers appear, making their ways to their cells. Jake and Ray wear white shirts, khaki pants and orange Crocs. Victor is barefoot, in a white A-frame tank top and white shorts. He walks as if he’s in pain. He pleads with Correction al Officer Jones for medical attention, who responds by walking away. The inmates go on to explain the isolating, harrowing experience of solitary confinement. Ray says that because inmates are not taken to the box as often as they should, they look forward to spring months, when
The suffering never stops. The fluorescent lights in the inmates’ cells are always on. The cells are decorated with nothing but a toilet/sink combo and a small desk they call “tombstone.” Ray says the cops regard them as wild animals, and remaining sane is difficult when lunch is two slices of bread, an apple, a packet of mustard and bologna that needs to be held under hot water for two minutes to rinse the slime off. Visitation is nonex istent. Phone calls are allowed in the rare instance of a family death. Ten books or magazines in their cell at a time is all the communication to the outside world they have.
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An actor performs a scene from The BOX during a showing in Detroit.
Trigger warning: This article contains mentions of sexual harassment. very day is the fucking same.”
The BOX brings unflinching experience of solitarytoconfinementtheRamkat by Michaela Ratliff
Learn more about The Box: End of Isolation Tour and purchase tickets at endofisolationtour.org and theramkat.com/events
“My universe is eight by twelve feet,” Jake says.
“I haven’t touched another human since I got here,” Ray says. “Except to be cuffed up,” Victor adds. Through its unflinching and harrowing look at the realities of solitary con finement, The BOX forces viewers to sit in the deep discomfort of knowing that hundreds of thousands of people experience this unique hell on a daily basis. And that change, if we want it, must be fought for. As the play progresses, the inmates explain the repetitiveness of each day, and how nothing seems to be changing any time soon. Victor’s been in solitary confinement for three years, Jake for seven years and Ray for 19.
On stage, Shourd aims to bring to light issues faced by incarcerated peo ple and promote political change.
Officer Miller, a woman, is constantly subjected to sexual harassment by the prisoners, while her colleague, Officer Jones, faces internal conflict between doing his job and having a hand in oppressing those who look like him as a Black man.
“Before I know it, the CO’s back to escort me to my cell, where I sit on my ass for the next 23 hours,” he says. The BOX explores prison from the perspective of the inmates, but the guards’ struggles as well, showing that not only the incarcerated are sub ject to humiliation and mistreatment.
CULTURE “E
In it, he learns that while they should be getting ten hours of exercise a week, they’re led to what they call “the box,” a concrete yard outside, for just an hour a day. That’s just one example of the torture the main characters of The BOX face.Through written correspondence and visits with incarcerated people, and the personal experience of being held in solitary confinement for more than 400 days as a political prisoner in Iran, Pulitzer Center grantee and journalist Sarah Shourd was inspired to write The BOX, a play about “collec tive resistance and personal transformation.” The Ramkat, in partnership with Disability Rights NC, MUSE Winston-Salem and NC Justice Center will present three performances of the work on Aug. 25-27. According to the organization’s website, the show isn’t just meant to be a form of art. Its mission “is about beginning transformation.” At its various performance lo cations, the show also “amplifies local programs for collective healing and restorative justice” and after each performance this weekend, a 30-minute post-performance engagement circle will take place for viewers to “collec tively process the experience.”
MATTHEW VAN METER
19 202231,-25AUG.TRIADTHEINSHOT| Plant situation. SHOT IN THE TRIAD BY CAROLYN DE BERRY East Bessemer Avenue, Greensboro
