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    In 'Black No More,' the Evolution of Black Music, and a Man’s Soul

    The new show “Black No More,” inspired by a 1931 satirical novel about race relations, has “the point of view of people who are very much products of now.”A Black man in New York City, during the Harlem Renaissance, is hoping for a life without bigotry. This is Harlem after all, a Black enclave, the epicenter of culture and creativity. Here, he’d have an easier time in getting along.Or so he thought. He soon learns that utopia is an illusion, that racism prevails no matter the location. In the North, he discovers, the racism is subtle: He’s somehow not the right fit for his job, though his supervisor, a white man, says he’s doing well. Others think he’s too uppity, so he is let go.Distraught, he undergoes a procedure to turn himself white and retreats to Atlanta. There he sees how prejudiced whites speak of Black people when they aren’t in the room: The “n” word is tossed around with the hard “-er.” He soon realizes that his new skin tone can’t save him, either. The life he wants means nothing if he loses his soul along the way.This is the plot of “Black No More,” a new musical presented by the New Group and inspired by George S. Schuyler’s 1931 novel of the same name. The show, an expansive, Afrofuturistic take on race relations in America now in previews at the Pershing Square Signature Center in Manhattan, is set against an equally vast arrangement of jazz, gospel, R&B, hip-hop and reggae meant to connect the past and present. By using older and newer styles of music, coupled with the protagonist’s struggles to rise above the same discrimination endured today, the show explores how little race relations have progressed.Jones, far right, working on the show’s choreography with cast members, including Lillias White, center.Douglas Segars for The New York TimesAnd it almost didn’t see the light of day.The screenwriter John Ridley, who wrote the show’s book, was inspired to adapt the story after reading Schuyler’s novel over a decade ago, before he’d written his Oscar-winning adaptation of “12 Years a Slave.” “I read it and was really taken with the wit and unbridled satire,” he said. “So much of the writing was timely and timeless and painful and painless.”He initially wrote it as a screenplay in 2013, but couldn’t get financing for a sci-fi-inspired film about Black existence. Someone suggested trying to have it produced as a play, but that also proved to be a tough road. Of the stage directors he reached out to, Ridley said that Scott Elliott, the artistic director of the New Group, was the only one who expressed interest. He read the novel and thought it would work best as a musical. “It had the possibility to be an amazing theatrical satire, but with humanity in it, with real people, not like ‘wink-wink satire,’” Elliott said.There was just one problem: Ridley didn’t like musicals. “I was like, ‘Well, yeah, but that’s OK,” Elliott said. “Let’s go on this journey together and see what happens.” Ridley’s view on musicals changed after meeting with Tariq Trotter, better known as Black Thought of the Roots, and seeing “Hamilton.” He said that show convinced him that musicals can be vehicles for sending a strong message.They enlisted Trotter, who wrote the lyrics and developed the music with Anthony Tidd, James Poyser and Daryl Waters, and the Tony-winning choreographer Bill T. Jones. Jeffrey Seller, the lead producer of “Hamilton,” owns the commercial rights. And with all the star power (Broadway veterans, including Brandon Victor Dixon, Lillias White and Ephraim Sykes), it seems “Black No More” could very well be destined for Broadway.John Ridley with the show’s associate director Monet during a recent rehearsal. Marc. J. FranklinAmong other themes, the show holds up a mirror to those in the Black community who aspire to whiteness. The protagonist, Max Disher (played by Dixon), decides to lighten his skin after meeting a white woman, Helen Givens (Jennifer Damiano), in the Savoy Ballroom during a night out. That he’d be willing to sacrifice his identity after a chance encounter with the woman is a longstanding critique of some Black men: No matter how much they’re supported by Black women, they still see dating white women as the ultimate societal prize.The musical also delves into the internal baggage that comes with Blackness, the weight of external pressure applied by those who look like you but don’t know your circumstances. How do you stay true to yourself without disappointing your peers? And what does it mean to be real Black anyway?“For me, the lesson to be learned is that there is a cost,” Dixon said. “There is a cost to the choices we force each other to make to become happy, accepted members of society. It’s time for us to re-examine those costs. Is this the construct in which we can really rise and grow and evolve as a human population?”“Black No More” begins amicably, with a flurry of Black and white ensemble dancers gliding in unison across the stage, surrounding a barber’s chair used for the skin-altering experiment. Out walks Trotter, who plays Junius Crookman, the doctor performing the procedure. He paints Harlem as a deceptive place where dreams don’t always come true. “You’ll find all things … both high and low,” he says in his opening monologue. “Here where every Black baby must try to grow.”The music of “Black No More” largely fits this era, smoothly transitioning from swing jazz to big band to soul. Some of the verses have a rap lilt to them — Trotter, after all, is the lead vocalist of the Roots — but his writing here explores a broad range of musical textures, conjuring old Harlem while conveying music’s full spectrum. After Max becomes white, the music becomes softer and more delicate, sounding almost like bluegrass or folkish in a way. Near the end of the show, two white women sing over what sounds like an R&B track, a genre typically associated with Black women. “Black No More” is full of this sort of cross-pollination.“I’ve always been very big on allowing the universe to sort of write the songs, allowing the material to work itself out,” Trotter said. “These songs represent the different elements of Black music. What we arrived at is something that feels like an education in the evolution of Black music, which, at its core, would be the evolution of American music.”Tamika Lawrence and Brandon Victor Dixon during a dress rehearsal.Douglas Segars for The New York TimesThe Harlem Renaissance is widely seen as an artistic movement in which Black creators like Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston and Duke Ellington made landmark work. Indeed, the Renaissance helped change how Black people were viewed culturally; from it came a new, fearless creative generation. Yet the Renaissance had its detractors. Some said the literature only catered to whites and the Black middle-class. Even one of Harlem’s most famous establishments — the Cotton Club — was only for whites. “Black No More” demystifies Harlem as a mecca by wrapping its arms around it, wiping off the glitter while celebrating its charm.“The show, in my mind, is a critique of a critique,” said Jones, who is also choreographing the new Broadway musical “Paradise Square.” “We’re trying to make a musical about a historical novel, but with the point of view of people who are very much products of now. For God’s sake, we are post-George Floyd.”“Black No More” was originally slated to premiere in October 2020. But then the pandemic shut down theaters, forcing shows to postpone or cancel their runs. And in May 2020, Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis by the police officer Derek Chauvin. Protests ensued. Coupled with outcries over the deaths of Breonna Taylor in Kentucky and Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia, these rebellions felt different. The precinct in which Chauvin worked was burned. In New York City, protesters and law enforcement regularly clashed, intensifying the already-strained relationship between certain residents and the police.Near the end of “Black No More,” over an aggressive rap beat, a white antagonist asserts that Black lives don’t matter, a perceived reference to the modern-day Black Lives Matter movement. Within the context of the musical, he’s upset that his sister got involved with a Black man. Yet the subtle nod acknowledges the cloud of George Floyd hanging over this musical.“We just happen to be in a space where certain audiences are ready to receive what we’re trying to say, as opposed to pre-2020,” said Tamika Lawrence, who plays Buni Brown, Max Disher’s best friend. “There are certain cultures in America — white cultures, specifically — that I think are now ready to have tough conversations and ready to see this kind of art.”Trotter concurred. “I think some people may take offense,” he said. “Some people may be appalled, some may take it as a challenge to widen their scope, to tear some of the bandages off these bullet wounds that we deal with as a society.”“Black No More” is presented with the hope that Black and white people can find common ground somewhere. That we can at least see one another’s differences and be respectful of them.Just don’t do something drastic like change your skin color. As the musical teaches us, the grass isn’t greener.“What it says is, ‘Look at yourself, take a look at where we are, take a look at where we’ve come from, how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go,” Trotter said of the show. “It speaks to a commonality that we all share as humans, as people, as inhabitants of this planet. I don’t think we’re ever going to exist in perfect harmony, but I think there’s a possibility for us to coexist in peace.” More

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    ‘Black No More’ to Land Off Broadway This Winter

    The musical will feature the theatrical debut of the Roots’ Black Thought, who will be writing the music and lyrics and be in a lead role.“Black No More,” a musical with a book by the “12 Years a Slave” screenwriter John Ridley and music and lyrics by the Roots’ Tariq Trotter, a.k.a. Black Thought, will finally get its turn in the spotlight.The musical, originally scheduled to premiere in October 2020, was delayed by the pandemic. The production, from the New Group, will now begin this winter.“Black No More,” based on George S. Schuyler’s 1931 novel of the same name, will play a limited engagement, Jan. 11 through Feb. 27, 2022, at the Pershing Square Signature Center. Opening night is scheduled for Feb. 8.“The music transcends genre,” Trotter said in a phone interview. “But most of it feels like Black music. I feel like this play, we might be able to break it down and use it as an education in the origins and history of Black music.”“I didn’t feel like I was confined; I didn’t feel like I had to stick to music of the day,” he continued. “I felt like we were able to tell the story, and make it in very many ways a period piece — without only writing jazz music.”Schuyler’s satirical story, a piece of the Harlem Renaissance canon, follows the development of Black-No-More, a scientific procedure for turning Black skin white, created by one Dr. Junius Crookman. (Trotter, in a theatrical debut, will also play Crookman in the show.)The protagonist, Max Disher (Brandon Victor Dixon), decides to undergo the procedure after being spurned by a white woman for being Black. In the meantime, Black-No-More gains popularity nationwide. The more Black people make the transition, the more obvious the economic importance of racial segregation becomes.“I thought it was mind blowing,” Trotter said of Schuyler’s book. “I couldn’t believe that something of this caliber of science fiction and wit and just dark humor and something with so many layers was written at the time that it was.”Apart from Trotter and Dixon (“Hamilton”), the cast also includes Jennifer Damiano (“Next to Normal”), Tamika Lawrence (“Rent”), Theo Stockman (“American Psycho”), Tracy Shayne (“Chicago”) and Walter Bobbie (“Chicago”). Rehearsals begin in November. Additional casting will be announced at a later date.The show will be coming from a Tony-winning team: It will be directed by the New Group’s founding artistic director, Scott Elliott; choreographed by Bill T. Jones; and have music supervision, orchestrations and vocal arrangements by Daryl Waters.“There’s a very serious look that we need to take at history and at the story of this nation and the ways in which it has been told and will be told, moving forward,” Trotter said. “It’s my hope that this work and work like this are going to compel people to continue that examination.” More

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    ‘Can You Bring It: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters’ Review: Still Making Waves

    A striking new documentary explores the enduring legacy of a dance piece created by Bill T. Jones at the height of the AIDS crisis.What happens to a work of art when time displaces it from its original context, and from the impetus that inspired it? That’s a question that can elicit dry theories. But in “Can You Bring It?: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters,” a new documentary directed by Tom Hurwitz and Rosalynde LeBlanc Loo, the answer is passionate and moving.Jones is the co-founder of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, a modern dance troupe. It grew out of the performing duo that Jones formed with his partner Zane, who wasn’t a dancer when they met in the early 1970s.Zane died of AIDS-related lymphoma in 1988. The movie gives a moving précis of their work-life collaboration before addressing the decisions Jones made in the aftermath of Zane’s death. One of those decisions took the form of the piece “D-Man in the Waters.”The dance was inspired by a series of group improvisations. It was a reflection of the troupe’s experiences, its struggles and its losses. As a piece of choreography, it’s since been performed by dozens of collegiate and professional companies. “Can you bring it?” is what Jones asks a group of dancers at Loyola Marymount College in 2016 as they prepare the piece under the direction of Loo, a former Jones/Zane company member.These students have little knowledge of AIDS, so Jones and Loo ask them to find points of struggle in their lives, as part of a student community and otherwise. The intercutting between vintage footage of the Jones/Zane company and the student production, as well as footage from another contemporary production of the piece — shot with an onstage intimacy that recalls the in-the-ring segments of Martin Scorsese’s “Raging Bull” — make for an unusually lively documentary experience.Can You Bring It: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the WatersNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. In theaters. More

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    New Musical About 19th-Century New York Plans Broadway Run

    “Paradise Square,” a comeback bid by a scandal-scarred producer, is the first previously unscheduled musical to announce its Broadway opening since the pandemic began.“Paradise Square,” a new musical that explores race relations in 19th-century New York, plans to open on Broadway next winter, making it the first previously unscheduled musical to step forward since the pandemic began.The show, which has been reworked and in development for a decade, is about a long-gone slum in Lower Manhattan, Five Points, where, during the run-up to the Civil War, free Black residents and Irish immigrants coexisted until the draft riots of 1863.Not only about the history of New York City, the musical is also about the history of music and dance. It features songs by Stephen Foster, a prominent 19th-century American songwriter who spent time toward the end of his life in Five Points, and it credits the Five Points community with a role in the origins of tap dance. (Tap is an American dance form that is generally understood to have roots in the British Isles and Africa; it has a complex and murky history, but the dancing cellars of the Five Points were an important site of development for the form.)“Paradise Square” is a comeback bid by a storied Canadian producer, Garth Drabinsky, who won three Tony Awards in the 1990s but then was convicted of fraud. He served time in a Canadian prison; charges in the United States were later dismissed.The musical is to star Joaquina Kalukango, a Tony nominee for “Slave Play,” as the proprietor of the saloon in which much of the action takes place. Other cast members include Chilina Kennedy (“Beautiful”), John Dossett (a Tony nominee for “Gypsy”), Sidney DuPont (“Beautiful”), A.J. Shively (“Bright Star”), Nathaniel Stampley (“The Color Purple”), Gabrielle McClinton (“Pippin”) and Jacob Fishel (“Fiddler on the Roof”).The Broadway run is scheduled to begin previews Feb. 22 and to open March 20 at the Ethel Barrymore Theater. Before the pandemic, the plan was to capitalize the musical for up to $13.5 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission; a spokesman said the actual capitalization will probably be somewhat less.The show has a complex production history and an evolving creative team, led by the director Moisés Kaufman (best known as the creator of “The Laramie Project”) and the choreographer Bill T. Jones (a two-time Tony winner, for “Fela!” and “Spring Awakening”). It is based on a musical called “Hard Times,” which was conceived by Larry Kirwan, the lead singer of Black 47, and staged at the Cell Theater in 2012. Then, as “Paradise Square,” it had a production at Berkeley Repertory Theater in 2019, and this fall, before transferring to Broadway, it is scheduled to have a five-week run at the James M. Nederlander Theater in Chicago.The book is now credited to four writers: Kirwan and three playwrights, Christina Anderson, Marcus Gardley and Craig Lucas. The score, which includes original songs as well as some attributed to Foster, now has three writers: Jason Howland, Nathan Tysen and Masi Asare.Kaufman said the interruption of the pandemic provided the creative team “an opportunity to think.”“At Berkeley we learned that our story is epic, but we needed to continue focusing on our individual characters,” he said. “And that’s the work that’s occurred.”Brian Seibert contributed reporting. More