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CARL CLAY
ISBN # 978-0-9817111-4-0 PUBLISHED BY BLACKCURRANT PRESS COMPANY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. COPYRIGHT (C) 2009 BY CARL CLAY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. EDITED BY CARL CLAY, BEVERLY A. BURCHETT, AND JUDY L. WHITE ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS PUBLICATION MAY BE REPRODUCED, STORED IN A RETRIEVAL SYSTEM, OR TRANSMITTED, IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY MEANS, ELECTRONIC, MECHANICAL, PHOTOCOPYING, RECORDING, OR OTHERWISE, WITHOUT THE PRIOR WRITTEN PERMISSION OF BLACKCURRANT PRESS COMPANY. PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
POOR-DUCING THEATRE & FILM AT BLACK SPECTRUM
A VISION, AN EVOLUTION, AN INSTITUTION
WRITTEN BY
CARL CLAY
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. A Night to Remember 2. School Daze 3. Poetry & Taking a Stand 4. Gym shorts & jock strap $7.48 - Building character in a 17 year old priceless! 5. Marty’s Drugstore 6. Black Love, our first production 7. “17” Means Quiet 8. The Beginning of a Dream 9. Juggling College and a Theatre Company 10. “Black Love” evolved while I attended Pace University 11. Roy Ayers, Red Black & Green, if you think about it, you know what I mean 12. The Barber Shop - The Shaping of Heads 13. 2000 Black, our 2nd play didn’t play well in Albany, N.Y 14. Graduation into the real world of theatre 15. My first experience with the Jim Crow South and remembrance of the Free Southern Theatre 16. If the people won’t come to the theatre...We’ll take the theatre to the people; a new angle? 17. It was our big chance to be famous 18. Okay, so we didn’t become famous, and I decided to teach to pay the rent 19. To reach your destiny, you must go through Far Rockaway 20. Third World Cinema 21. Working for Sweet Sweet Back, “The Godfather of Black independent cinema” 22. Lights, Camera, Action! California, here I come - Greased Lightning 23. Graduate School Turns into a New Direction for Black Spectrum 24. Deadwood Dick Legend of the West or…them Niggers went that a way 25. Linden Boulevard will be our Broadway 26. The anatomy of a hit play, Dr. Deas’s Oh! Oh! Obesity, and the artists who made it happen! 27. Breaking Ground 28. Acting Beautiful – Acting Ugly (The Alien Plot) 29. President Carter and the C.E.T.A. of Destruction 30. One rum & coke to go please! 29. Back to my theatre work! In the final analysis, that’s what it’s all about 30. Big Brother 1984 and the rise of Rudolph Giuliani 31. Finding Tahiti 32. Let’s Get Bizzie, my first feature film 33. In Search of Redd Foxx 34. Trouble in the Promised Land 35. The Decoding and Recoding of Kingfish, Amos & Andy 36. A Night to Remember…continued 37. 2009-A day in the life of a Poor-ducer 38. A speech given at a press conference on the steps of City Hall, June 2003 39. The Future 40. Thank You! 41. Black Spectrum Theatre Rules & Traditions
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A NIGHT TO REMEMBER
othing I imagined could have prepared me for the steps I was now taking into the convention center of Winston Salem, N.C. that warm evening in August 2003. With camera’s flashing and the sound of what seemed like over 100 African drummers, I cautiously entered. The sound was deafening, numbing and soul shaking all at once. There before me was a room filled with thousands of people cheering, and applauding as our line of theatre artists, directors, and producers entered. Among us were seasoned actors, old timers, and TV stars of the present and of days gone by. It was the gathering of a familiar clan of theater elders and icons from all over the country that walked in front of me and behind me. A chill ran down my spine. I wasn’t reading a book or watching a TV show about history, I was living it. It was surreal. Among the crowd were many of my heroes of the Black theatre movement and TV stars I had admired and looked up to for longer than I can remember. Yet, what gave me more of a rush and an unsettled nervousness was that tonight I would be honored as Producer of the Year for Black Spectrum Theatre’s award winning production of August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson. Just steps from me walked one of my biggest idols, Bette Howard, who had helmed the production as Black Spectrum’s resident Director. Tonight, she would also receive an award for her dedicated commitment to the African American Theatre as a Director. I was walking on what I was to learn was sacred ground in Winston Salem, N.C. and I was beginning to understand why. There was this feeling, as I walked through the convention center that night, that the spirits of the ancestors were also gathering. I continued through the room with people reaching out to shake my hand as others flashed picture after picture. Indeed there was something primal going on here, and it was affecting me in ways I can’t exactly explain. Suddenly, flashes of my life in the theatre rushed into my conscious mind, my own beginnings, my parents, my struggles, my failures, my victories. Moments later I am at the honorees’ dais. As I sit I am in awe of those sitting next to me, around me, in front and in back of me. And, more than ever, I feel the presence of ancestors, who I am now convinced are sitting next to me too. There was Sherman Hemsley of The Jeffersons TV show. Over to my right, down in front, was Richard Roundtree of Shaft movie fame. As I looked up to my right, there sat my friend and mentor theatre icon, Woodie King. There’s famed stage and screen actressess Diahann Carroll and Barbara Montgomery a few seats away. Ted
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Lange of TV’s Love Boat, wasn’t far away and Rockmond Dunbar of the TV show Soul Food shook my hand as he took his seat and said, “Congratulations.” Down to my left sat Philip Rose. He waved congratulations. Yet, it was he who deserved the congratulations. He originally produced A Raisin in the Sun on Broadway and introduced to the world what Harlem already knew, that Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, Lloyd Richards and the other members of that play were destined for greatness. Mr. Rose broke down barriers that continue to reverberate to this day. Yet, there he was. As I scanned the table just a few chairs from me sat Joseph Marcell, and a smile came across my face, I had always enjoyed his work as the butler on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. That night I must have shaken hands with hundreds of actors both new and familiar who joined in this ritualized celebration of Black theatre from all over America. There’s Novella Nelson, and Tony Award winning Diva Tonya Pinkins. They’re both congratulating me! I had years earlier gone to see both Novella and Tonya in Broadway shows. Novella gave us Having Our Say, and Tonya had given us Jelly’s Last Jam. Then I traded smiles across the room with my friend and number one queen of keeping it real, Ms. Ella Joyce. She would congratulate me several times that night and put the evening in perspective for me. After all, this was my first time here. I always respected Ella because she started in the theatre like I did and with excellent acting chops and a little good fortune landed on one of the top rated black TV shows of the 90’s, Roc. She’s one of those folks you always hoped would make-good because not only is she extremely talented but also a real and genuine person. Yet it was her down to earth assessment and history about the evening’s guests that now had me bursting with laughter. “Brother Carl”, she said, “You are to be congratulated big time for what has brought you to this convention center tonight as Producer of the Year for the festival. Nobody understands like I understand what it must be to keep a theatre running for more than 35 years.” Ella’s funny, because before I could go into my humble bag, she told me as one of unofficial founding divas of the festival to just sit back and enjoy this. “Larry Leon has chosen you to receive this award this year because both you and Bette Howard really deserve it.” Ella’s kind words sat with me as I thought about what I would say once I got up onto the podium that night. Many times I had watched Woodie King and many others, like the Negro Ensemble Company’s Douglas Turner Ward, and the National Black Theater’s Barbara Ann Teer, and the other elders of the Black theatre movement come forward and accept accolades for their work. But to me, my journey had always been so very different. I always considered myself simply a journeyman in search of the next theatre experience, never quite
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stopping to realize it had been 35 years that I had been doing this. As they began to make the announcements welcoming everyone, my mind drifted off a bit as sounds of more than 2,000 people who filled the auditorium became silent. I thought about how this all came to be, this night. How did I get here? What was it that has allowed me to sustain my theatre for so long? Over 35 years? I knew the answer in my heart. I had never planned any of this. I had no idea that my thirst for creative expression would lead me to this place where the ancestors were now gathering, and the heros and she-ros, and artistic warriors and creative forces of our time would meet to renew themselves. After all, I didn’t have a big name or a big career. All I ever had was a vision, a pen, a belief system and a lot of love to pursue what I thought things should be like in my community. I had no idea it would lead here. There were other honorees that night, and Diahann Carroll and Malcolm Jamal Warner brought them up to share what each of their journeys had been about. I listened to each one of them as they spoke from the dais. They each talked about their lives and how they had gotten to this point. Another rush of consciousness grabbed me and I began asking questions of myself. Going back…deep questions with echoing answers from a time that I thought I had forgotten…going back.
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D ea dw o o d D ic k L e g e nd o f t h e W e s t… o r T he m Niggers Went Thataway
ehind the scenes, in real life we tried as hard as we could to keep Reggie Ayers, who brilliantly played the role of Cherokee Bill, from getting too close to then naïve, Carlease Burke between scene changes. Reggie, had a thing for Carlease and everyone understood why. She was pretty and extremely talented. She was the first actress I had ever seen who could play any female part given to her convincingly. Carlease had stood out in our production of The Leader, You the Jury and, now, was about to show the broader New York theatre community why she was destined for bigger things. Contrasted against the brilliant work of all the actors was the manic-depressive actor who played the Wild Bill Hickcock role. He was brilliant on stage but each night while doing his own make-up increased the size and shape of his eyebrows until they literally connected to his hairline. Yet, Black Spectrum was on the map and everybody in the community was running to see this break out hit on Linden Boulevard in Queens. Brothers would be selling drugs at the red light on Linden Boulevard on the down low and telling people after they made their purchase, “Oh and you need to check out that play over there at Black Spectrum Theatre. It’s the bomb!” One evening the actor Carl Sewell, who played the role of Isom Dart, the meanest gunslinger of the west, went to make one of his routine exists off stage. At the old Black Spectrum Theatre, when actors needed to go off stage, they had to leave by the back door of the theatre and walk outside around the block and come through the front door. On this one night, big bad Isom Dart, the feared gunslinger of the wild, wild west exited Black Spectrum’s rear door dressed in black with two six-shooters on his hip. As he came around the corner to
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Linden Boulevard two New York City cops, with their guns drawn, picked him up as a possible robbery suspect. They kept him detained for more than 25 minutes before the cops believed he was in the show. “Nice outfit,” one of them said, “but stay off the street.” Most of the audience who came to Black Spectrum Theatre was people who had never seen theatre before in their lives. In the early years, I remember having to tell neighborhood folks that in a theatre performance you can’t talk to the actors on stage or ask them questions, that talking during the show was actually disrespectful to the actors. I told them, if you like it, just applaud. It was hard to teach at first, because most audiences have loads of television and movie orientation, but don’t know proper live theatre etiquette. But for Deadwood Dick people seemed ready to follow whatever rules they had to. “Man, I love this show.” “This shit is funny, Yo!” “Go see that show! Them niggers….is fly!” We packed the house show after show, and then we extended it through July of 1979. With reviews in the NY Times, Big Red, New York Voice, Amsterdam News, and on WLIB Radio, Deadwood Dick was declared a hit. But how could we expand the base of the show? Reggie suggested that we expand by doing the show in Manhattan, but how? Based on one of his contacts at the Chelsea Westside Theatre, we decided to do Monday nights for the month of July. It worked! Black Spectrum now had a foothold on Manhattan soil. The crowds turned out from everywhere, and each show seemed to dramatize the fact that Deadwood Dick was the king of off-Broadway that season. Now, we wanted to get more days to run at the Chelsea Westside Theatre, but management there balked. They had seen the crowds, the show and the excitement. On most occasions, we literally had audiences lined all up and down 43rd Street and around onto 8th Avenue. The management saw the excitement, but they didn’t want us to run the show there. I could only guess why. On my first visit to that theatre, I saw the Confederate flag hanging in the lobby. Soon it became evident to all of us that they didn’t want us there no matter how successful the show was. Racism seemed more important than money. But I thought, at least they owned their own space. What could we say? How many could claim that. With nowhere to go, we approached Leon Denmark of the Negro Ensemble Company to give us two or three Mondays at the old St. Mark’s Playhouse, in the Village. This is the theatre where the Negro Ensemble Company started their groundbreaking work in the mid 60’s. Deadwood Dick ran at the St. Marks Playhouse for about three Mondays. And then, after a few more shows at Queens Theatre in the Park, Pace University, and Medgar Evers, we closed the show with the idea of reopening it at the Carter Theatre on 42nd Street. I envisioned running the play off-Broadway for years. It would be easy, I thought,
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technicians and operators at the Billie Holiday Theatre, who had always been a friend of the theatre managed to secure some lights and some old equipment for the space. He never told us where he had gotten some of the lights or sound equipment for us and we never asked. Lloyd Richards came down from Yale to audit the show for the National Endowment on the Arts and I was nervous as hell. Lloyd Richards was the first Black director on Broadway with A Raisin in the Sun. He sat quietly and watched our version of Day of Absence. And when it was over, he signed the playbill and told me, “Good job, keep on experimenting.” ‘Keep on experimenting, keep on experimenting,’ the words ran through my mind like a mantra. I went home that night to look up experimenting in the dictionary, to experiment. Finally, I got pissed because I couldn’t get a handle on what he really meant, like so many words in the traditional theatre world used by critics, words like thought provoking, biting, interesting, marvelous, enlightening, and wonderful. I mean, did you like it or not? I was told at NEA we got a good write-up, so he must have liked the play.
The presentation of our first play crystallized the tone that would be set for all the plays that were to follow out of that space. It would show, in its truest form, the differences between commercial theatre and the struggle to create and present art in our communities. On one hand, I was writer/director, but on the other hand, I was a manager. I learned that the hole in the roof, the toilets, the heat, the foot mats at the entrance of the theatre, the tickets and a million other things must be dealt with, just as much as the clothes, the casting, the rehearsal, the tech-rehearsals, and of course, the very show itself. And my need for perfection in both realms would come back to haunt me again and again. To be honest, it became wiser to struggle for the audience’s needs sometimes than it did to find the right metaphor for a line or appropriate subtext for an actor’s part. Black artists must always remember that it’s always about the work. That’s what survives, not the buildings, or the toilets, not the seats, but the feelings and the thoughts that resonate in the minds of our people when the show is over. By the end of June 1978, we had already put on a few shows and were planning our first full season, an original film and hopefully a hit show. We wanted something that would show the community who we were and what our goals and dreams were for our theater. I remember calling Regge Life, a director whose work I had seen the prior year in NYC. I felt it was time to branch out and use other directors and other actors. I also knew that I couldn’t do it all anymore. The constant arguing and disagreements had already cost the company some of its prize members, Avan Littles, Earl Summers, Romaine Martin and Jenny Kellem. Not to mention the C.E.T.A program (President Jimmy Carter’s federal jobs program) seemed to have caused real riffs within Black Spectrum Theatre Company. Unfortunately, Van and Earl felt
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they shouldn’t have to teach C.E.T.A classes like the newer instructors. But I didn’t know how else to arrange the theatre plus manage a C.E.T.A program and keep the theatre company together. This period was the most painful for me. Avan had been one of the earliest creators of Black Spectrum. He was a few years older than anyone else in the company yet he never wanted to take on more of a leadership role. Things were said, feelings got hurt and suddenly all that we had built started to fall apart. I was a bit stubborn and had a narrow outlook. One of my biggest faults was seeing everybody as the enemy especially when my back was up against the wall. Suddenly, Black Spectrum’s inner circle got even smaller. I distanced myself again from the pressure preferring to concentrate on the physical theatre instead of the emotional one. We put in bleacher seating, and Damani even went back into his bargaindeal hookups again. We threw ourselves into seriously building the space into a theatre. We used every inch of the space too. We had three offices, a stage, two bathrooms, a control room, three trapdoors, storage area seating for 100 people and a box office too in a 400 square foot space. That was just the first floor. We had become space engineers. In the basement we had a scene storage area, and two dressing rooms.
With the summer set, I took a vacation. I went to Bermuda on a ticket my brother gave me, and read a new play from a Mr. Warren Goodson that I was quite excited about, Precious Lee. I remember lying on my back on the top of a boat as it drifted around the coast of Bermuda reading page after page about a young slave girl named Precious Lee who saw her entire family decimated by the effects of slavery. Although I knew that it needed work, I was moved by this story and decided that this was a play that I wanted to direct. I hadn’t directed a real period piece before either, so I felt excited about the possibility. It was a challenge to edit down the 300 page theatre script into a lean and mean 78 pager that I thought would work on stage. Deadwood Dick (our hit show of the 1979 theater season) had raised the visibility of our theatre so it followed that we needed to really think about our next move. “What’s next?” everyone would ask. After many of us went over the script, Precious Lee was chosen. From day one, the playwright, Warren Goodson hounded me. “In three weeks you’re going to take this play to Manhattan right?” “I don’t know. Let’s let the play go up first, Warren.” Warren was a short, heavy-set, light-skinned Black man with the goatee of a Samurai warrior. He was over 50 and it took time for me to understand sometimes that it was his dream to have this play produced too. It was a little like publishing a book. I tried to understand that, but frankly it was hard. Warren fought me relentlessly
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about cuts, and when he wasn’t hounding me, he kept telling me he had discovered the secret to how the pyramids were built in Egypt and was about to publish a book on that subject. I still don’t know if he was delusional or just a good self-promoter.
Casting was simply joyful for this show. I cast Rahemi Ellis as Precious Lee, a brother out of the Karamu Theatre Company in Cleveland as Manassa, Eugene Jordan as the escaped slave, and Damani Henderson as one of the family members. Marvin Wakins did a splendid job on the lighting, and Joe Stevenson out did himself with one of the best researched and realistic sets I had ever seen. I felt Precious Lee was one of the best shows I had ever directed. As luck would have it, Ms. Phyllis Stickney was cast as an understudy for the part of Precious Lee straight from Detroit. It was her first gig in New York. A beautiful Black woman with sass and excellent stage sense, she wanted me to fire the lead actress, Evil Richardson, and give her the part. “I’m better than her and you know it, Mr. Clay.” Phyllis, who was young and eager at the time, might have been partly right, but one rule I had learned from the C.E.T.A program and from an influx of Manhattan actresses was “respect your company’s actors as much as possible, and let the new comers earn their turn on stage.” Phyllis, went on to become a stage, screen, and TV star. The one regret I had, was that the show was never recorded. Warren refused to allow us to tape it. He said it would mess with his TV rights. Man, you talk about killing somebody — that would be the last time I’d ever allow a playwright to dictate to the theatre. After I had spent six months on this play, and over $15,000, I just thought it was incredible that I wouldn’t be able to tape the show as a record of what we had done. In later years, I made sure that all shows at Black Spectrum were taped. I eventually got the cast to mutiny against Warren. Shit, all we wanted was one archival copy of the play. Everybody agreed except for two actors, one whose name escapes me and Janice Jenkins. Janice was a fine actress who delivered solid work. I have made peace with this after all these years, but yes, I did consider choking her back then. Precious Lee opened at Black Spectrum Theatre in the spring of 1980. On opening night a young man approached me before the show started and said, “I am Warren Goodson’s son.” I said, “Pleased to meet you.” But there was more. He explained he hadn’t seen his father in 20 years, not since he was five. Warren had apparently run off and married his wife’s sister and left his kids. As you can imagine, he left a lot of fireworks behind. “Wow…heavy,” I said. So on opening night at the end of the play, I introduced the playwright. The play was great. Then I asked his son to stand up in front of an audience. I went on to explain that they had not seen each
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other in 20 years. Remember, this was five years before Oprah came on TV and ten years before Montel. Anyway, they embraced and a family was reunited. The play went on to play to sold-out houses. As a side note, several weeks later, however, an irate patron came to the show. She’d heard Warren Goodson had something to do with the show and told me she wanted to find Warren and kill him for running off with his wife’s sister. Despite the drama off stage, Precious Lee ran for 15 performances. It never made it to Manhattan because Warren wanted to pursue his TV rights for the show. He passed away several years later. The good news, his dream had been realized, his play made it to the stage.
The New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) only funded us for $7,500 that season, and we didn’t take it sitting down. Most of the other theatre institutions that were our contemporaries and who were White got more. Much more! We went to the N.Y.S.C.A.’s Director’s office and picketed the reception area. Over the next several years, after many pickets and yelling matches with the NYSCA by groups like us our funding slightly increased. Realizing my dream to include children and youth in the process of building Black Spectrum we began to develop a children and youth theatre company and chart new ground with original plays. At the dawn of the eighties, the productions just kept getting better. I always loved teaching theatre to young people. I love the look of excitement kids get when they discover the magic of theatre. Most Black theatres in New York don’t have children’s theater. Some did for a while, but they never lasted. Most have workshops, but not companies. So, often, I’m asked why Black Spectrum has maintained one for more than 16 years. The answer lies back in my own roots of teaching in public and private schools in New York and discovering my love for bringing creative arts to students who have not been exposed to its magic. However, in Black Spectrum history, credit must be given to actor/ director Whitfield Simms Jr. and writer/ stage manager BJ Pierce Astwood, who took over the reins of the children’s theatre program. BJ was a NYU theatre and education major and was exactly what Black Spectrum needed in 1978, a committed locally-based theatre teacher to help cement the program and develop the more than 1,000 participants who came through BSTC’s doors. The Lion that Wouldn’t, The Chief ’s Bride, Enlightenment (which BJ wrote) were some of the children’s productions. Black Spectrum’s kids loved BJ and BJ loved Black Spectrum’s kids. Unfortunately, years later BJ would leave the company after a silly dispute between us that would take years to repair. Whitfield Simms, on the other hand, had his own company, but he found a real niche in developing youth at Black Spectrum Theatre Company. Whitfield Simms was a unique brother who was very committed to the theatre and, as all of us did in those days, he had
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The anatomy of a hit Play, - Dr. Deas’s OH! OH! Obesity and the Artists who made it happen! ne afternoon, Dr. Gerald Deas told me that he had written a new play and he wanted Black Spectrum to do it. It was called Oh, Oh, Obesity. “Hey, Doc, sounds like a great idea,” I said. Of course, knowing Dr. Deas that meant I better get on the horn and find a director ASAP because once Dr. Deas decides he wants to do something there’s not going to be any rest for anybody until it’s done. With that said, I spoke to Harold Youngblood, one of the key organizers of the Black Theatre Alliance (a service organization for African American theatres). We had become friends after he helped us get membership into the Alliance. He knew that I was at work on my second film, Radio a follow up to Babies Making Babies. I explained to Harold my dilemma of trying to meet our contractual arrangements with the NYSCA to do 4 plays and still finish this film. He said, “I’ve got to get you somebody.” A few days later he called and asked if I knew Bette Howard. I said I didn’t. He explained that she would be uniquely suited to working with me because she was a gifted director, easy to work with and had a background in working with groups and ensembles. I remember him saying that he knew I didn’t need any more drama. So with that, Bette Howard was introduced to Black Spectrum for the first time. Harold, who passed on several years later, could never have been more right about Bette Howard. Oh, Oh, Obesity proved to be the beginning of a new time at Black Spectrum. Ms. Howard came in and took the helm at directing Oh, Oh, Obesity. We have, as we did then, always seemed to get along. I can literally count, since those early years, on one hand when we’ve disagreed. I think as it was at the beginning as it is to this day we are well matched with the same form of egos. We really don’t like artists or people who
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come with a lot of ME ‘ISM. Bette has come out of the ensemble process of doing things and so have I. I think that, more than anything, has kept us very cool with each other. More importantly in those early days and working on this show I was concerned if she would get along with Dr. Deas. Would their egos get in the way? To my delight they got along marvelously well. So, we all got to work. On call for the sets was the muralist Joe Stevenson, having had a career at painting murals for social organizations. Joe had done several sets for us in the past (Precious Lee, and The Relationship Game). What made his work nicely suited for Oh, Oh, Obesity was the fact that we wanted to create a billboard type look for all the food that people were eating and saw on the streets in their everyday lives. Joe was up to the challenge and gave us a string of vaudeville looking white bulb lights rimmed around a huge billboard. His mural gave us our outside commercial billboard look. Bette then wanted to create the idea that the actors were coming out of the billboard and coming to life at the beginning of the play. So part of the set had a draped opening for the actors to enter. It was as if the people were coming right out of the mouth of one of the people in the billboard background. It was great - very effective. The actors step through the billboard and appeared on stage salivating as they ate French fries, hamburgers, and chocolate cake. It was a sassy, sexy and sensual opening that the audience never forgot.
The audience knew the topic of food was one of the last areas the media just hadn’t ever touched. But Black Spectrum thought it fair game. Dr. Deas was on to something new and revolutionary with this play. You could almost taste food in the air as the actors continued on with the play. Dr. Deas, was no stranger to using his medical degree to advance people’s consciousness about health issues. Several years before we had done his production of Half Man about how Christ had been born in a tenement. Years before that he had won numerous awards for his crusade against corn starch. Unbeknownst to many, a lot of Black people were eating cornstarch as a habit passed down through the generations. It was a dirty little secret among many southern Blacks to eat it. However, it was becoming a killer and Dr. Deas almost single handedly had launched a successful campaign to stop it. So, doing a play like Oh Oh Obesity wasn’t just an idea for him, but instead a reflection of his years of work in treating obesity and trying to get people to lose weight. Dr. Deas was a man for all seasons, doctor, poet, author and now playwright who wanted to change the community. This play was right down Black Spectrum’s alley and we all knew something wonderful was about to happen. Dr. Deas’ script in its original form was extremely lean when he wrote it. However, Bette Howard believed this was a good thing because it would give her a chance to create this atmosphere of overweight people who simply loved food too much. Dr. Deas was asking to do some re-writes but as
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we all learned this was not Dr. Deas’ strong suit. He just didn’t like doing rewrites. What Dr. Deas did love however, was music and had several strong ideas for this extremely important component to the play. The music had to be special as we all knew and for that we turned to a musical new comer who was recommended by Earl Samples and Wanzo Galloway. It was Wanzo’s brother, Derek Galloway. Derek Galloway, was a young musician who’s genius seemed to come along with his then 6 inch long afro hairdo that was a for runner of the mad professor in the Back To the Future movies. Along with his signature bi focal glasses an enormous amount of energy and the funk to go with it, Derek was young, Black and extremely creative and technically proficient at his craft. Like Earl Summers, the Musical Director who preceded him, he didn’t read music and used his God given talent to make music happen. A student of the Funkadelics, Derek’s beginning with Black Spectrum had come at the perfect time as we were transitioning into a new area. He had been a schoolteacher with several local daycare centers and had an extremely good rapport with kids. At first we called him disappearing Derek and didn’t know if he’d last in his role as the Musical Director of the show, but realizing he was young, we decided he like many others including ourselves sometimes just needed folks to have a little patience while we grew up. Nevertheless, Derek not only survived but hit a homerun with his musical contribution to Oh, Oh, Obesity. Bette skillfully, worked with both Dr. Deas and Derek in those days to bring out these songs as parts of the play that Dr. Deas had invented. First there was the theme song “Oh, Oh, Obesity.” Oh, Oh Obesity see what you’re doing to me! It takes reality to make some people fat.
With Derek’s religious overtones throughout his score, the play at times seemed to take on a kind of church revival for health. What I’ll never forget, however, is the auditions for the show. Bette had taken several recommendations from Dr. Deas and she had several of her own. One afternoon, Dr. Deas, Bette, Derek and I all watched as some of the heaviest people in Southeast Queens file into Black Spectrum to audition for the play. What everyone started to realize was how important this play about being overweight was. For the first time, you could see some of the pain that Dr. Deas was trying to educate the community about. Many of the overweight actors in this play did not live the happy-go-lucky lives many of us believed heavyset people lead. Instead, there was a lot of poor self-image, rejection and lack of success in losing weight. Bette’s sensitivity to this issue is what has always made her a great director. Finding the moments of tenderness has always been one of her trademarks. Getting the right combination of casting and delivering a strong blocking to
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And, of course, how can we forget the Successful Alien Actor. With their mission carried out in Queens, they head out to Hollywood.
“Hello, (name withheld for security reasons) I called to see if you’d like to come back and talk to other actors who are coming along at Black Spectrum….Hello! Hello!”
The phone has gone dead. Another actor from Planet Xenon has successfully taken another step towards the alien plan to control the Earth. They have forgotten who trained them and nurtured their development. The Beautiful
On the other hand, there’s nothing more beautiful than to see an actor who has reached their potential through hard work and dedication to their craft, an actor whose pursuit of excellence, respect for process and appreciation of their fellow actors and above all their audience is their highest goal, and an actor who clearly understands that the creative process and exploration of their character starts from the first rehearsal and never really ends. The beautiful, are actors who are forever searching to find one more emotional connection, facial nuance, or vocal inflection to express the playwright’s intention. There is nothing more elegant that to watch an actor who is aware that creating a character and mimicking one is as vastly different as hand painting a portrait and painting by numbers. Only the truly talented actor uses their creative powers to embody the character without changing the playwright’s lines or intentions or the director’s blocking, but instead uses their creative powers within the framework of the play and its director to make their magic. I believe gifted performers understand this. The Beautiful are actors who, no matter how much success they acquire always know where their artistic and creative home is. I have been privileged to know a few actors in my life who fit such a description. They were actors who are a poor-ducers dream. Some of these actors have risen to the top of their field and others have just kept on enjoying their gift and allowing audiences to do the same. To name a few: Carlease Burke, Ella Joyce, Tommy Hicks, Leon Rogers, Adi Nixon, Fulton Hodges, Ralph McCain, Chris Scott, Marcha Tracey, Tony Chisholm, Phyllis Yvonne Stickney, Doug Wade, Jammie Patton, Shrine Babb, Kim Sullivan, Debra Blackwell Cook, and Debbie Burrell Cleveland. These folks are Talented with a capital T. Many of them are just as talented, if not more talented, than many of the superstar actors we are all familiar with today. Unfortunately, in our community, great actors can be likened to
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the forgotten basketball players that were the wonders of local parks and street corners but never made it to the pros. There are talented and well deserving actors that I believe might have had a tremendous impact on the theatre, but never got the chance. They will never be known outside the realm of our community. They have either changed fields or passed on. Yet, their abilities and creative talents will live on in the minds of those who were fortunate to know their work. At Black Spectrum Theatre we have had our share of those who had the “It Factor.” Among them: Tim Simonson, Reggie Ayers, Earl Summers, St. Claire Reide, Damani Henderson, Lee Dobson, Gil Fitts, Kevin Riddick, and Haki Shuja. It was circa 1981 and the opening night of my first play with Black Spectrum Theater’s Adult Company. The work was called “You, the Jury.”
At this point in the theater’s history, we were housed in a small St. Albans, Queens storefront.
While we actors and actresses prepared in the downstairs dressing rooms, the set was still being finished upstairs! I mean there were hammers going and paint was being applied to the scenery! I just knew the show would have to be canceled. How could we open? However, the veterans and Carl chuckled and let me know that, “the show would go on!” And they were right!
Black Spectrum Theater changed forever how I view live theater. I’m always wondering what’s happening backstage. Furthermore, Spectrum introduced me to “can do theater!” I experienced and learned what could be achieved, when a project is a work of love approached with passion! That remains a valuable lesson for me to this day. Gary D. Stubbs, Medical Administrator
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Marcha Tracey, who came to the rescue at the last minute to finish the designers work because of a dispute over how much he felt he should be paid for each costume even though Marcha was doing most of the work. Later, it would be Marcha Tracey who would take over the reins as Costume Designer and literally make all the rest of the costumes for the show. It was Marcha Tracey who on the final night before the show opened brought in those Kingfish hats and derby’s that made it all come together.
In March 2006 the first performance of Kingfish, Amos & Andy took place at the Black Spectrum Theatre Co. in Queens to a warm and enthusiastic crowd. We knew that night we had a hit. Running a bit long, both Bette and I knew the show would have to be cut. But we knew we had accomplished on the tightest of budgets a real gem of a work that everyone had worked hard to make happen. That night I can say I felt the spirits of those actors who had played these roles on TV and had never gotten their due. The entire audience felt that way too. Nearly 5 performances later we cut the show down to size. I added a new scene and cut out a nearly 10 minute scene between Sapphire and Lightnin’. As a producer I knew the scene had to go, time was important. As a writer of course I shed my tears for what I knew was a good scene that needed to be cut. I’ve always been taught that plays are re-written, not written. Which has always meant for me the process continues after the play opens, so that your play can get tighter and your characters can get stronger. In that spirit the play got better and soon folks were turning up at our doors ready to see this nostalgic visit to the 1950’s with a slice of 21century logic to it. Kingfish, Amos & Andy ran at Black Spectrum for over 64 performances. During that time we got reviews from every major newspaper in N.Y. and were catering to White audiences that were now coming in from Long Island to see the play and as far as West Virginia. When a show runs that long people start to talk hit and trying to move the show to other states and it starts finding its way out on the tour circuit. As a Poor-ducer I used every nickel of the theatre’s resources that year to try and draw more attention to the show. After all, we had just completed a half million dollar renovation of our theatre lobby and I knew having a hit show in our space about now could finally give our location its just due. We did radio, TV, cable and newspaper advertising. We however, were only moderately successful. What we discovered was that people who saw the play loved it. But there was an entire other group of folks who couldn’t get past the title and stayed away for political reasons. “What is the world coming to. Even Amos ‘n’ Andy has returned. Are Black people in that bad a shape?” they’d say. What wasn’t said was that Amos ‘n’ Andy had influenced many of the Black comedies we were now watching on TV. Good or bad the model for all the shows came from Amos ‘n’ Andy. One evening I’m
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9:01 a.m. My lady gives me a kiss and looks me in the eyes and says, “See you later.” I tell her I love her. She's got something on her mind but we both don't have time to talk about it. My son punches me with a karate chop to the stomach. We go through our martial arts moves then give each other a hug. “Bye Daddy!” I think to myself how much all I do now is for them. My dog doesn’t do shit except lay there on the couch and go to sleep. “You lazy beast, when you gonna pay some rent?” He just looks at me. 9:15 a.m. I’m on the phone talking to a community center. “I’m sorry but we can’t wait another week for our check. We need the funds to cover our cash flow problems too. How you gonna sign a contract and then change the payment schedule without asking us?” I could threaten to sue but that would be a dumb move, after all, they thought enough about us to use our services. I change my tone. I know whatever it is, we have to work this out. We need their business next year. “Let’s talk later to see if you can give us a date to get the check to us.”
9:20 a.m. I’m on the phone with a travel company. “How’s our cruise coming? Our actors are really looking forward to this get-a– way/performance after the play Single Black Female closes at the Actors Playhouse. I’m told everything is fine. But I’m getting a bad feeling, something isn’t right. “Okay, I’ll try to reach you later about the tickets.”
9:30 a.m. The phone rings. “Hello, this is Carl Clay. Any word yet on our transportation from the hotel to the theatre for our performance at the National Black Theatre Festival? We are very excited about coming to the festival. After all, it’s the Festival’s 20th Anniversary. Okay, we’ll send our request for the number of people and the time of our arrival.” I think to myself, ‘How hard it is to believe Larry Leon Hamlin, the Founder is not with us any longer. Bless his family! They are keeping it together.’ Sylvia, his wife, is doing a great job keeping it going. 9:40 a.m. Today is an odd day so I’m off from the gym. So I do 300 jumping jacks and 30 push-ups. I look in the mirror and smile at myself. I head to work.
10:00 a.m. I’m running a little late for the new mobile stage orientation. Today we got our new outdoor stage unit thanks to NYC Councilman Leroy Comrie. After three years worth of paper work the stage is finally here. I think to myself, I hope I’ve chosen the right people to get the training. We need to have more young people involved in operating the stage. It’s a way for some brothers to make
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extra money so they don’t have to hit anybody upside the head for money. So far we got four people including two new young men in the job training program. My thoughts go back to us getting our first stage back when I was the one in training. But now after 8 years of working on the stage myself and managing it, at least now I only have to oversee its operation. Derek has even agreed to do some supervision and hands on. He should, it’s a way of making extra money during the summer when our season is down.
10:20 a.m. I’m arriving at BSTC. “Good morning!” Barbara, the receptionist, hands me a message from JCAL. It’s a subject they know pisses me off. I respond by getting loud in the office as soon as I see the message. It’s my way of getting this anger off my chest. Can I meet with JCAL (Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning)? After all this time and these years they want to start over and start new negotiations again? What a waste. They are trying to rip off and get rid of the only two Black groups who helped develop the project from the beginning. We don’t want to do just singing and dancing in this new space. Our theatre deserves what it was promised, a piece of economic pie for putting our blood, sweat and tears into the creation of this project. After all, we’ve given them ten years of unpaid services so that this 18 million dollar facility could be built. I look at the message in my hand and think to myself, will things ever change? It’s a travesty of justice and fairness. To release myself, I start singing a song in my baritone voice.
10:30 a.m. Juliet tells me there’s some things to go over. Two proposal submissions, a rejection letter from a funding source that we need to respond to, checks that need to be signed for the camp, the luncheon, and the coming weeks St. Albans Jazz Festival. Our production stage manager has just submitted all the signed contracts for payment of all the artists. We then begin the conversation about our subscription campaign for the fall season.
10:35 a.m. Barbara, the receptionist, asked me about a program for our production of Single Black Female at the theatre in Manhattan. The guy who doesn’t finish paying his bills, wants his name on the front page of the program. It’s his theatre, I stop and think! Sharing titles is a good thing with this joint production. Okay, put his name on the front cover at the top and put mine on the inside at the top. We’ll take turns with the egos, how’s that? I‘ll be the bigger one about this. Managing egos I just hope he learns to show up for appointments and follow through. Does he realize what a blessing it is to have a facility in the village. 11:00 a.m. I take a call from our Stage Manager for Single Black
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A speech given at a press conference on the steps of City Hall, June 2003 Present were the founding members of the Coalition of Theaters of Color along with actor, Ossie Davis
W
e come here today on the steps of City Hall to dramatize our plight as Cultural organizations of color because we believe we have been neglected and marginalized by the NYC Government for far too long.
In response to this injustice we have established ourselves as the Coalition of Theaters of Color to bring attention to our plight. It's our very existence in New York City that brings us here today. Like the fundamental right of all for food, water and air we demand the resources to sustain our Cultural institutions that we deem vital to our respective communities. We seek Economic Justice! We the (CTC, consisting of Billie Holiday Theater, Black Spectrum Theatre, Thalia Spanish Theatre, National Black Theatre, New Federal Theater, INTAR, H.A.D.L.E.Y. Players, Paul Robeson Theater, and New Heritage Theater) represent by any standard institutions of Artistic excellence, unquestionable commitment and years of dedicated service toward improving the Cultural landscapes of our communities. In short, we got our reputations the old fashioned way. We earned it.
Our organizations names may not make the front page of the daily headline but our work and artistic achievements, awards, citations and testimonials that speak to our work on a city, state, national and international level are numerous. Our organizations have launched the careers of many of the ethnic artists that you now enjoy on your television sets and at the movie theatres. As members of the Coalition of Theatres of Color know our institutions are more than just cultural institutions to our communities. Our organizations are so much more because our communities demand us to be. We are our communities meeting places, mentoring centers. We are our community's tourist attractions, and small business centers. We are our communities Summer Camps and referral and resource centers. We are the places they come to in times of need. Yet, while our collective organizations together have more than 200 years of sweat and toil in helping to make New York the Cultural
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Carl Clay (Founder / Executive Producer) is just finishing his successful run of the hit play “Single Black Female,” and “Kingfish Amos & Andy” which received rave reviews from NY Times, Daily News, Amsterdam News, Queens Chronicle and host of other publications. As the Founder and CEO of Black Spectrum Theatre, Mr. Clay has produced over 150 plays, trained well over 1000 actors and written and directed 15 plays, 25 films aimed at AfricanAmerican youth, including a feature length film now being released on DVD on Netflix and Blockbusters. He’s a lyricist who’s written songs for Roy Ayers, Norman Conners, Black Rob, and others. He has produced over 40 major jazz concerts with such artists as Roberta Flack Freddie Hubert, Roy Ayers, and Najee. And to his credit, Mr. Clay helped launched the careers of such notable actors as Lisa Nicole Carson (The Ally McBeal TV Show) in her first feature film, Desiree Coleman (Mamma, I Want to Sing), and film & television actress, Ella Joyce, Broadway actress Deborah Burrell-Cleveland, Debra Blackwell Cook, and Carlease Burke.
Education: P. S. 15, J.H.S. 59, Newtown High School, Pace University B.A. Education/Theatre, Brooklyn College Graduate School Theatre & TV Directing, Third World Cinema, Columbia University Institute for Non-profit Management, and Rockport International School of Film & Television
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What the heck is a Poor-ducer? Poor-ducing: to dream & imagine with near delusionary belief: To lead and function with inadequate resources: To adapt: to over come impossible obstacles: to bring to market and\or create plays, ďŹ lms, concerts, poetry, while stretching pennies and materials to their absolute outer limits: to eectively bring into being something with nothing, day in and day out. Poor-ducer: to do with less knowing your artistic counterparts have the luxury of doing it with triple the resources that you have. Poor-duce: to squeeze water from a rock while borrowing from Peter to pay Paul.