A celebratory event scheduled for this Saturday is more than meets the eye. It is, in fact, one happy step in a tortuous creative journey in which two vibrant Great Barrington organizations — Berkshire Playwrights Lab (BPL) and the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center — play key roles.
This Saturday, April 24, at 3 p.m., these two organizations are co-presenting a “hybrid” production of James Anthony Tyler’s play “Some Old Black Man,” starring Wendell Pierce and Charlie Robinson. The term “hybrid” refers to the fact that this fully produced play looks and feels like theater but was shot to be enjoyed on a small screen. Given the constraints of the COVID pandemic, this may very well be the only such fully produced filmed production of a play created and presented in this past year.
The streaming of “Some Old Black Man” will be offered to the public at no charge, followed by a live conversation with its star Wendell Pierce, whom The New York Times called “one of the greatest actors of his generation,” the play’s director and BPL co-artistic director Joe Cacaci, and the playwright James Anthony Tyler. Mr. Pierce plays a middle-aged college professor who reconnects with his father (Charlie Robinson) as the two men confront their experiences with racism and each other. Click here to register for this Saturday’s streaming, followed by the live conversation with Wendell Pierce.
This is a real homecoming of sorts. This play was “born” at the Mahaiwe in the summer of 2015 as a staged reading presented there by Berkshire Playwrights Lab, a Great Barrington-based organization focused exclusively on the development of new plays. Starring Roger Robinson as the father and Peter Jay Fernandes as the son, this work enjoyed such positive audience response that BPL presented it as a full production for three weeks in the summer of 2017 around the corner from the Mahaiwe at Saint James Place.
After the Saint James run, BPL took the play to New York, for a four-week sold-out run at the 59 East 59th Street Playhouse.
In 2020, Wendell Pierce was invited to be Digital Artist in Residence at the University Musical Society (UMS). Founded in 1880 and housed on the campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, UMS is one of the oldest performing arts presenters in the country and was chosen by President Obama in 2014 to receive a National Medal of Arts. To fulfill his residency, Mr. Pierce proposed a remount of BPL’s “Some Old Black Man.” UMS embraced the idea and invited Mr. Pierce, his co-star Charlie Robinson, author James Anthony Tyler, director Joe Cacaci and stage manager Tiffany Robinson to spend a month in Ann Arbor in the fall of 2020. The group assembled there on October 17 and, after several weeks of rehearsal, shot the play the week of November 9.
It is this production, created by BPL with the support of UMS, that the Mahaiwe will be streaming this Saturday.
And it has gotten rave reviews. The New York Times put it on its recommended “theater to stream” list. The Guardian called it “a riveting drama, not only about all that is left unsaid in families, but also the intergenerational experiences of racism in America.” And Clive Davis wrote in The Times of London that “Wendell Pierce triumphs in this US two-hander.”
This is great, right? A real success story. Local theater group makes good. Onward and upward. But this story includes a startling number of twists and turns. What appears to be a classic upward trajectory was hardly a smooth ride. In fact, it’s more like a cross between the Perils of Pauline and Odysseus trying to get home to his beloved Penelope.
So, let me share a little of the back story.
After the successful staged reading at the Mahaiwe in the summer of 2015, BPL moved to mount the full production at Saint James Place in the summer of 2017 with the same Mahaiwe cast – Roger Robinson as the father and Peter Jay Fernandes as the son.
But Mr. Robinson dropped out to shoot the ABC hit series “How to Get Away With Murder.” Then Mr. Fernandes dropped out, also for a television role. This left a production in search of actors at the very last minute. Thanks to a connection with Wren T. Brown, Producing Artistic Director of L.A.’s Ebony Repertory Theater, California actor Adolphus Ward agreed to come east, and take on the role of the father. Leon Addison Brown was cast as the son.
Just before the play was due to open in Great Barrington, however, Mr. Ward developed chest pains. He was taken to the hospital and dropped out of the play. Miraculously, Roger Robinson had just come back from shooting his series and, five days before the opening, rejoined the cast. People who saw the early performances of that production may remember Roger “on book,” still relying on his written script.
Then money was raised for a full New York production, and the play was booked into the 59 East 59th Street Theater for a 4-week run beginning in February 2018, with Roger Robinson and Wendell Pierce. But at one of the final technical rehearsals, Mr. Robinson developed chest pains and was rushed to the very same hospital where Mr. Ward had been taken previously. Over the four weeks of the play’s run, Mr. Robinson was in and out of the hospital. Of the 32 performances at 59 East 59th, Mr. Robinson appeared in only seven, and the understudy Phil McGlaston did 25. But the word-of mouth was so positive that the run still sold out. Sadly, though, Roger Robinson died in August 2018.
More money was raised and another full 10-week run, now featuring Charlie Robinson and Wendell Pierce, was scheduled for the Sheen Center for Thought and Culture on Bleecker Street in New York. Then came COVID, and that production was cancelled.
And then UMS arranged for the cast and crew to spend a month in Ann Arbor in the height of the pandemic. The plan was for them all to be tested daily and to move into a bubble, living and working together in the same house.
After one day of rehearsal, director Joe Cacaci tested positive for COVID; he moved out of the bubble house into a hotel by himself. For two weeks, the actors rehearsed virtually over Zoom, each from his own bedroom, and 14 days later, together in the basement of the bubble house, while Mr. Cacaci watched and directed remotely from his hotel room. To maintain the quarantine, author Mr. Tyler and stage manager Ms. Robinson set all the camera angles under Mr. Cacaci’s remote direction.
And finally, after Mr. Cacaci had quarantined for two weeks, the cast, crew and director came back together at a sound stage in Detroit for the final shooting of this UMS production. UMS streamed it in January and March, and has given BPL permission to bring it to the Mahaiwe for streaming.
So, the moral of this story is “you can come home again,” but the path may be rocky. And director Joe Cacaci, on behalf of Berkshire Playwrights Lab, expresses thanks and appreciation to the Mahaiwe for welcoming them home.
Click on the picture below to watch the one-minute trailer
