Suzanne's Mom's Blog

Photo: C. Stephen Hurst.
A production of the play Coconut Cake at the International Black Theatre Festival in July 2024.

One of the interesting things about theater targeted at a particular group is that people from many demographics may be curious to see it. The production may become a kind of meeting place, a place of shared laughter and emotion. Just for example, the plays of Black playwright August Wilson were often tried out in Boston, where a very diverse audience jumped at the chance to see them.

To encourage and support more Black playwrights, several theaters have decided to collaborate.

Dorothy Marcic and Kimberly LaMarque Orman report at American Theatre, “Chicagoan and English professor Melda Beaty started writing plays in 2011 and sent them out to readings, festivals, and theatres, with limited response. Then she submitted to a contest — and won.

“Her life changed when the International Black Theatre Festival (IBTF) awarded her play Coconut Cake the Sylvia Sprinkle-Hamlin Rolling Premiere (SSHRP) Award, presented at the IBTF July 29-Aug. 3 in Winston-Salem, N.C. Named after the co-founder of the IBTF, the SSHRP award includes ‘rolling premieres’ at several Black theatres. …

“The idea for the award came from IBTF artistic director Jackie Alexander, also North Carolina Black Rep’s producing artistic director. Recalling his experiences in New York seeing great plays that disappeared after a single run, Alexander wanted to try another model. As he put it to us, ‘We have these great Black theatre companies in major cities, and if we work together on a worthy play, we don’t need critics, we don’t need funding — we can create a hit of our own.’

“He’d been talking for a number of years with various artistic directors on how to collaborate, including at a dinner with the founder/executive director of Memphis’s Hattiloo Theatre, Ekundayo Bandele, and with the artistic director of Houston’s Ensemble Theatre, Eileen J. Morris, who recalled discussions about what their theatres could do to create art in the most efficient and economical way.

“When Alexander called and asked Morris if her theatre could be one stop for the rolling premiere of a new play about Maya Angelou called Phenomenal Woman, while its writer, Angelica Chéri, was still writing it, Morris noted, ‘For me, that was cool because I believed in the play. I believed in the experience. I believed in the opportunity. Despite not seeing the final script yet, I trusted in the process. The fact the first play was about Dr. Maya Angelou — that was a great selling point.’

Their goal for the first project was to share resources: designers, director, costumes.

“Though they wanted a female director, Morris was already booked to helm several plays in her own season, so Alexander stepped in and directed productions in both North Carolina and Houston; each theatre came up with its own funding. …

“Phenomenal Woman played first in North Carolina, and by the time it opened in Houston it was selling out already because of the buzz from press in Winston-Salem. That success led to Phenomenal Woman to be picked up by producers with an eye on New York. …

“Hattiloo was recently able to produce Beaty’s Coconut Cake, [a] play about five senior men (four Black, one white), who meet every morning at the same McDonald’s to talk about marriages, health, and ambitions, while playing chess and learning important life lessons. This time around, each rolling premiere production of Coconut Cake is being produced on its own, without sharing designers or directors — a structure that allows both bigger-budget theatres like Houston’s Ensemble and theatres with fewer resources to each have their own vision. …

“Coconut Cake has been in the oven for a while; it first appeared at IBTF in a reading in 2017. This was followed by a 2020 virtual reading through Houston’s Ensemble Theatre, in collaboration with St. Louis Black Rep. Ron Himes, St. Louis Black Rep’s producing artistic director, was initially skeptical.

” ‘I was one of those adamantly opposed to streaming theatre,’ he said, ‘and I had told everyone, no, we’re not doing it. Then Eileen called, and I was in. And you know, it worked. It was great!’ …

“Another Coconut Cake cast member was the indomitable Count Stovall, who had been in the original 2017 festival reading. An avid chess player, he had inspired Beaty with some moves she uses, particularly at the end of the play, when the audience sees that the king only can move a couple spaces at a time, while ‘the queen is everything.’ Stovall also told us even though memory loss was not explicitly written into the play, the fact that all actors were in their 60s and 70s meant, ‘It was there — you just didn’t see it.’

“Also joining for the Coconut Cake rolling premiere program was the Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe (WCBTT) of Sarasota, Fla. Founder/artistic director Nate Jacobs had been mentored for years by Sprinkle-Hamlin and her husband, Larry Leon Hamlin, the Festival’s co-founder and also the director of Jacobs’s first production at the IBTF.

“As Jacobs continued attending the festival, bringing other artists, he remembered what Sprinkle-Hamlin had told him about the festival: ‘We Black artists are competing with each other. But we ain’t got anything — no money. We need to unify and become stronger, because no other people are obligated to tell our stories.’

“So when Alexander asked if Westcoast would join the rolling world premiere program, Jacobs immediately agreed. ‘The show was a hit,’ he said of Westcoast’s production of Coconut Cake in June. ‘It popped. I was happy, again, to propel another artist.’ Beaty came and took notes, making changes as the show progressed through the various productions. ‘She’s a phenomenal writer,’ Jacobs told us. ‘And we need quality. [Audiences] such as ours, love Black culture, but they don’t want mediocrity, which means we have to be better than the best.’ “

More at American Theatre here.