AMERICAN THEATRE | New Work By way of New Eyes

After I attended the third annual South Carolina New Play Pageant this August with my husband, Kent Nicholson, it had been 25 years since I stepped foot within the The Warehouse Theatre in Greenville, S.C. It was Kent’s first time touching down within the charming Southern metropolis, situated two hours east of Atlanta and one hour south of Asheville, N.C., however for me, it marked a pleasing return.

Over time, I’ve carried out main roles in world-premiers at Playwrights Horizons, Manhattan Theatre Membership, Atlantic Theatre, Roundabout Theatre, Actors’ Theatre of Louisville, amongst others. I used to be an authentic forged member of the Tony-winning play The People and I not too long ago traveled the nation performing the function of Heidi within the Broadway tour of What the Structure Means to Me. Kent’s previous consists of affiliate producer of musical theatre at Playwrights Horizons, new works director at Theatreworks Silicon Valley, and co-creator of The Uncharted Writers Group at Ars Nova. Presently he serves because the SVP of Acquisitions and Inventive Companies for Broadway Licensing World.

However returning to Greenville took me again many years, to 1999 after I started a year-long actor coaching intensive Journeyman Program and met new classmate West Hyler.

In 2022, West, alongside along with his work associate and partner, Shelley Butler, based the South Carolina New Play Pageant, a bustling weekend of latest work displays throughout 5 venues up and down Greenville’s Primary Road. Kent and I skilled all of this yr’s mainstage choices, together with two new musicals, one new play, a bit for younger audiences, and the pageant’s inaugural fee, a play with music in regards to the legacy of Greenville’s under-recognized celebrity, Josh White. Plus we attended speak backs with members of the group, participated in skilled panel discussions, loved world class circus acts performing road theatre within the parks, and a cabaret live performance that includes Greenville’s very personal Tony nominee, Phillip Boykin.

After our journey, we sat down to debate Kent’s first time on the pageant, what it meant for me to return to the pageant grounds, and the themes we noticed come up all through the weekend of thrilling new works.

CASSIE BECK: So Kent, how’d you want Greenville?

KENT NICHOLSON: It was superior. I had no thought what to anticipate. Come to search out out, it’s a vibrant city with nice eating places and theatres round each nook. We met so many pleasant, beneficiant folks, all of whom appear to genuinely love dwelling in Greenville. I used to be informed it was not too long ago voted among the many 5 greatest locations within the U.S. to reside by U.S. Information and World Report.

What was it like for you being again after 25 years?

CASSIE: After I was there recent out of undergrad, it was fairly dilapidated on that finish of Primary Road. The Warehouse Theatre and its parking zone have been about it. Now there’s a lot nice meals and native boutiques and small companies. I cherished strolling by means of the attractive Falls Park on the Reedy which runs proper alongside the principle drag. It was wild and overgrown again in ‘99. West and I used to climb down the rocks in the summertime to moan over our younger issues, however now it’s a sprawling, accessible, shady oasis. How enjoyable was it to see circus performers and acrobats on the footpaths? Jaw-dropping! Evening life, too, so many locations to fulfill for a cocktail after the exhibits. And what’s with all these James Beard noms in all places?

KENT: Shout out to the SCNPF volunteer airport driver, Khailing Neoh of Sum Bar, who owns the primary Dim Sum restaurant on the town and made an award-winning documentary about her opening.

I can also’t imagine that there are 5 venues for West and Shelley to program readings of latest performs and musicals. Actually stunning areas. I’ve by no means skilled a normal viewers that was so engaged in new work.

CASSIE: Full with all the suitable gasps and laughs and applause. I do not forget that second in The Darkish Girl presentation when the younger of us collectively set free a shocked gasp, after which the older of us chuckled at their response, after which the younger of us giggled again. Can’t beat a three-tiered viewers response.

You already know, I need to ask you about an natural theme I observed throughout the pageant. So many items this yr are having a dialog round what one panelist coined the “Tradition of Silence,” bear in mind?

KENT: Proper. That was throughout the panel for The Josh White Mission.

CASSIE: Which was the very first thing we noticed, and is the pageant’s very first fee.

KENT: Applicable as a result of Josh White was a Greenville native. We realized from the present and that actually nice city corridor dialogue that adopted that he was the primary African American artist to play a live performance for a sitting president (FDR!), and the primary African American recording artist to promote 1,000,000 albums, however was by no means talked about within the native Greenville newspaper.

CASSIE: White’s legacy was principally forgotten till a neighborhood file retailer proprietor, who was one of many panelists in reality, began work on reclaiming his recordings and serving to to reissue them.

KENT: Now there’s a statue of Josh White on the town and Greenville rightly claims him as a local son. However the “Tradition of Silence” was so pervasive throughout his lifetime, his legacy was virtually misplaced.

CASSIE: I really like that now there’s this musical being created to proceed telling his full story, particularly with regard to his activism and philanthropy in addition to his music, artfully crafted by Donnetta Lavinia Grays and directed by Tamilla Woodard. We’re true-blue followers of these two artists.

KENT: They usually have a three-year dedication from SCNPF, in order the piece develops over the following two years, they’ll proceed to current on the pageant.

CASSIE: Did you understand we have been sitting instantly throughout the road from the positioning the place one of many scenes occurred again within the ‘30s, when Josh White was arrested for a “strolling tax”—principally strolling whereas Black? I imply, proper outdoors the foyer doorways. I may really feel it in my bones.

KENT: As we have been exiting, an viewers member turned to me and mentioned, “I’ve lived right here my entire life, and I’m gonna go purchase all his music tomorrow”.

CASSIE: Ooooh, after which there was The Darkish Girl, the brand new musical by Sophie Boyce and Veronica Mansour. It options somebody barely extra well-known, William Shakespeare, however this piece proposes a world by which Shakespeare’s performs have been really ghost-written by Emilia Bassano, a up to date of Will’s and the primary girl to publish a e-book of authentic poetry. That present is speaking in regards to the silencing of feminine voices all through historical past.

KENT: Instantly made me query what number of geniuses have been misplaced to that silence?

CASSIE: Sarna Lapine directed that with Fred Feeney as music director. And, woah, Fred labored exhausting for the folks! He was mixing and layering and doing all types of loopy stuff proper there on the stage.

KENT: The extent of manufacturing and expertise and sound mixing was tremendous spectacular. Identical with All of the World’s a Stage by Adam Gwon. A really totally different present with totally different wants, equally seamlessly offered and directed by Jonathan Silverstein with music route by Andrea Grody.

CASSIE: That additionally introduced this notion of a “Tradition of Silence” house. Set in a Southern city in 1996, a closeted homosexual trainer who loves the theatre tries to assist a lonely pupil win a drama competitors.

KENT: The musical, in my view, fairly deftly grapples with censorship and bigotry. The true takeaway for me was how, by remaining silent, we lose the chance to bridge gaps and create empathy. That it virtually definitely requires private sacrifice to interrupt that silence, however it’s value it as a result of we lose a lot in any other case.

CASSIE: I noticed an viewers member weeping after the present and realized that they have been a trainer coping with e-book bans at this very second.

KENT: Sadly, it nonetheless resonates. But additionally, we all know one particular person could make a distinction, just like the present quietly demonstrates.

CASSIE: Or two folks, like in Jack Brasch’s Journey Across the Solar, directed by the wonderful Shelley Butler, who can be the pageant’s inventive director. I used to be laughing out loud.

KENT: Oh, me too. The laughter was raucous, not silent in any respect.

CASSIE: Proper, extra of a willful silence between the 2 senior characters in that piece. They’re having a delightfully difficult dialog whereas consuming many margaritas and quoting their favourite Jimmy Buffet lyrics.

KENT: Their incapability to emotionally deal with their mortality results in remoted choice making. It’s solely when the difficulty is pressured that they can break the silence—

CASSIE: And are keen to sacrifice—

KENT: Sure, and transfer in the direction of some sort of future collectively.

CASSIE: Dude, I wished a margarita so unhealthy after that present.

KENT: Want they might’ve offered them within the foyer. Lastly, the pageant of readings ended with the theatre for younger audiences present, Stuntboy, within the Meantime. The writers, Melvin Tunstall III and Greg Dean Borowsky, tailored a graphic novel a couple of younger boy who has nervousness over his dad or mum’s separation and divorce.

CASSIE: However, they don’t even say the phrase “divorce” till the tip of the piece. Once more, it’s the silence. Making an attempt to cover it from their son solely makes it worse for everybody.

KENT: I noticed dad and mom who have been moved by it as a lot as the kids they introduced with them. It was directed by Banji Aborisade with musical route by Nick Wilders.

CASSIE: I’m so glad I acquired to return to Greenville, strolling with everybody throughout city with our pageant tote luggage and badges, seeing nice stuff. I cherished it. All of the items bounced off of one another and mirrored the place by which they have been being carried out and created actual conversations.

KENT: What’s it you at all times say, Cassie, about artists as first responders?

CASSIE: That artists are our cultural first responders. We strap on the gear, leap into the fray, and emerge from the rubble to share what we’ve gathered.
I feel the pageant is gonna snowball, don’t you? I do know the items have been skillfully chosen by West and Shelley with that group in thoughts, however the panel conversations and themes revealed throughout the weekend are additionally part of the nationwide dialogue.

KENT: And I feel the skilled group shall be higher for it. I see a future the place theatremakers throughout the nation are rubbing shoulders with Greenville’s enthusiastic viewers, the place folks collect to see a crucial mass of latest work—possibly to take it to their very own communities, or to fulfill new writers and different artists. I hope the pageant can even maintain that native core viewers sturdy. Because it’s uncommon to sit down in a theatre with folks so engaged in staged readings.

CASSIE: Proper, what did you overhear that one viewers member say to their buddy?

KENT: They mentioned, “I actually love a play studying. I can use my creativeness.”

CASSIE: Me too.

KENT: Me three.

Cassie Beck (she/her) is knowledgeable actor primarily based out of New York who makes a speciality of new work. @cassiebeckster