Kuntu Rep tackles health issues with Woodie King Jr. at helm
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You could call him the godfather of modern black American theater, if the Mafia hadn't ruined the metaphor -- and if godparents generally did more work than they do.
Woodie King Jr.Click photo for larger image.
Call him the guru, then -- or mentor or ancestor-in-the-making -- but by any name, the definitely hard-working Woodie King Jr., 69, is one of the main men of a vigorous but underfunded theater movement with achievement far out of proportion to its size.
He's been that for 37 years, based at the theater he founded, the New Federal Theatre in New York City, where he has produced some 230 plays. In the process, he's nurtured many major black theater artists, including such playwrights as Ed Bullins, Amiri Baraka and Ntozake Shange.
And it's hard to find a successful African-American actor who hasn't performed at NFT, including Morgan Freeman, Debbie Allen, Phylicia Rashad, Denzel Washington, Esther Rolle, Samuel L. Jackson and Laurence Fishburne.
King has also directed on Broadway. But he's more than just a New York theater artist, a citizen of America who has directed at just about every important black theater and many white ones, including several shows at the Pittsburgh Public Theater. Among those was "Home" and the seminal "Sizwe Bansi Is Dead" (1976) that helped inspire August Wilson to turn from poetry to theater.
Where: Kuntu Rep at Alumni Hall, 4227 Fifth Ave., Oakland.When: Through June 2; Thurs.-Sat. 8 p.m.; Sun 4 p.m.; May 26, 1 p.m.; May 31, 11 a.m.
Tickets: $11 to $20; discounts; 412-624-7298.
Now King is back in Pittsburgh, directing Kuntu Rep's world premiere (previews tonight, opens tomorrow) of Bridgette Wimberly's "The Separation of the Blood." The play is about Charles Drew (1904-50), a black doctor who did pioneer work in blood transfusion.
Commissioned by the Sloan Foundation, it won Kuntu's competition for its season of plays about African-American health issues.
Although he directs the full range of plays on the road, at NFT King works mainly with new plays. "You're always learning something new," he says. "What I really love about new playwrights is their arguments, they stimulate me. ... I've never done a play where it was all quiet and nice; it gets intense."
He launches into a short anecdote about James Baldwin and Lorraine Hansberry at the San Remo Cafe, screaming horrible things at each other, then kissing and making up two hours later. "When I lose that [passion], I think it'll be time for me to leave the theater," King says.
When Kuntu's Vernell Lillie, one of the few icons of black theater on a par with King, told him the contest winner he'd direct was by Wimberly, he already knew her work. She's fortunate in her collaborators: Wendy Wasserstein was one, now King.
King notes the recent flowering of black female playwrights such as Suzan-Lori Parks, Kia Cothron and Lynn Nottage (whose "Intimate Apparel," now at City Theatre, met with his strong approval).
He says this has to do with Eurocentric white theaters that "feel it's easier to deal with black women than black men. [Women] have the richness of detail white directors are looking for."
In running NFT for 37 years, King has directed just five of those 230 plays himself. That's because "you cannot be in the rehearsal room and produce -- it could be a great play, but no one will be there," because who's going to sell the tickets and provide support?
"I notice that at all the theaters where the artistic director directs, the theater goes under in five-to-10 years."
King was very early friends with Wilson and his contemporary, Rob Penny. "Rob and August used to catch the bus to New York and see plays, then catch the midnight bus back."
He recalls spending a long night talking with Wilson after that "Sizwe Bansi" at PPT, but he didn't know he would turn out to be a playwright until Wilson sent him the script of "Fullerton Street" around 1981. The result was to change all American theater.
First Published May 17, 2007 6:19 pm
