After the success of Ain't Misbehavin' I knew I had to take a big risk. Little did I know how big that risk was going to be.
When I was 15 my Mom took me to see The Color Purple at a small movie theatre. To say I was moved was an understatement. I think it spoke to me at that time in my life as it is about overcoming obstacles to find your own happiness. After I saw the movie, I devoured the book and everything I could get my hands on by Alice Walker.
I had heard that they were turning the book/movie into a musical and my first thought was complete and utter doubt. I mean, how could that work? The movie spans almost 40 years. How could they condense that novel into a streamlined 2.5 hour musical? And make it work? Once the show premiered I got my hands on the cast recording the day it came out. (I knew the original double LP of Quincy Jones' brilliant score like the back of my hand.) My initial thought was, where is "Sister" and "God Is Trying To Tell You Something"? The more I listened the more I understood why the authors didn't include them. Those songs were specific to the movie and the iconic women who played the roles. It was a smart choice. They were their own entity.
Marsha Norman, the brilliant playwright was brought in to write the book. Once I read the libretto I was semi-convinced. Of course it is abridged. How could it not be! That massive story and you are adding music! Norman used a Greek Chorus of sorts with three Church Ladies who constantly comment on the action and clue to audience in to how much time had past and fill in exposition. It was a clever devise. I knew there were a couple of transitions I needed to figure out. The one that bothered me the most was when Nettie arrived at Mister's house.
Breakdown: She hugs Celie and 30 seconds later said she had to go to school, she walks across the stage and Mister follows her. There is a horrific sequence where he tries to take advantage of her. Nettie hits him, he kicks her out of the house. Celie sings a powerful soaring section of "Dear God" in which she tells the audience that is has been 5 years since she last saw Nettie and there were no letters. Wow. Now, all of this happens in the spam of 3 minutes. This is what I did. I just let it play. The actors and the lights did all the work. Your first instinct might be to make a set change or a quick costume change for Celie. Don't! There is literally NO time. We started the scene at Mister's House. When Nettie walked to school, we flew in a baton of camo netting and once Celie and Nettie are pulled apart we flew the netting out. THEN, when the house is revealed again I put a light on what should be the focal point, the mailbox. Anyway, at that point you must have faith as a Director that the audience is with you. If they "buy it", it will work. And it did. Still, for me, that is a lot of time passing in 3 minutes. Here is the evidence...
Celie and Nettie reunite at Mister's House
Nettie is attacked and Mister kicks her out...
Dear God...
After another sleepless night, I went in the next day preparing myself for the worst. But I refused to think about a back up show. I didn't want my brain to go there just yet. Same routine. In the office until a little after 7 and when I went out, the staff manning the desk for audition sign ups were beaming. We had 56 people. And they were still coming in! I started breathing again.
After 4 hours of auditions, I was completely blown away by the talent. 90% of the people there I had never seen before and many of them had never been on a stage before in their life. But the voices. It was unbelievable. People had come all the way from Vero, Orlando, Tampa, etc. just to be part of the show. The cast also included four younger kids who became my lifeline. The youngest one just turned 5, who played Young Harpo and the oldest was a girl playing Sophia and Harpo's child, Henrietta. Now this little actress was wise beyond her years. And SO talented. In fact I ended up putting her in the "Miss Celie's Pants" number with her stage Mom, Sophia. She danced to beat the band and her light shined so bright!
My babies...
Since the show moved so fast, I wanted the set to be as simple as possible. We ended up using an empty space with a ramp at the back and a cyc. Then we had several wagons and house facades for Mister and Harpo's homes. That's it. I didn't want to get caught up in anything too grand. And I wanted NO black outs. I wanted one scene to literally cross fade into another one. I also wanted to proscenium lined in old wood. The framing device was like an old house or a barn that you would find in the middle of Putnam Co., Ga. Trust me, I lived an hour from the area Walker writes about.
There was a giant issue that I couldn't figure out how to stage: the Africa section and the letters showing what is going on with Nettie. What I did was relatively simple. I had seen a picture of someone in front of a clothes line reading. Where would Celie go and hide from Mister to read Nettie's letters? In front of the laundry hanging in the yard. So we backlit the sheets so we could see in sillhouette what Nettie was experiencing. This also saved a ton of money on costumes! :)
Then when Nettie and the Olinka tribe have to leave their village, we ripped the sheet down and watched them slowly walk down the upstage platform. It was a truly powerful moment.
After the arduous task of casting, working around conflicts and setting a rehearsal schedule, the hard work really began. I had a cast of 36 and the perfect people for all the parts. But that little voice in my head started to question if I was the right Director to helm this production. Real talk here. And my cast knows this, so I am not spilling anything they don't already know. But, here is a white guy surrounded by these brilliant African American performers. I was nervous that they would question whether or not I was capable of understanding and conveying the material, the struggle, the experience. I certainly knew something about adversity growing up being different in the South. But was it really the same thing? And was I going to be able to dig deep and still myself in a rehearsal. What happens if I get angry, like I do several times a production. Would they think I am being an Uncle Tom?? Just typing that sounds horrific, but think about it for a second. I conveyed some of my fears to my muse during the production, LeRoy, who was playing Ol' Mister. "Hank, be yourself... your passion shines through. You are the only one thinking this...and you are so brave to bring this to the community." He would have to tell me over and over again.
One of my saving graces was I had a support group of people that pushed me forward. A few of them were former students at the High School I taught at, so we had an open dialogue. And they knew how passionate I was about the show. Without them I don't know how I would have gotten through it. BUT, the best part of the whole experience was that we all became a big family. I will get to the closing day in a second.
Rehearsals were an experience. My main phrase throughout the whole journey was, I don't buy it! It got to the point that after we ran scenes the cast would voluntarily say, I didn't buy it! You are dealing with real emotions. Tough scenes with such emotional ferocity. I wanted it all to be as real as possible. If it wasn't, I knew the show wouldn't work. It was tough for some of the cast, many who didn't know each other, to go to these dark places. So I immediately worked on making sure they bonded as quickly as possible. Another huge conflict was showing that the characters were 15 when the show started and around 60 when it ended. That is hard for any actor, but we concentrated a great deal on body language. The way the body moves. What time does to one's body. Trust me, I know about that part.
Now, I would be kidding you if I said that the majority of the rehearsals were stress free. Are they ever? This one was a little more difficult as we were dealing with some people that had never been on stage before, let alone a musical this size. So they had to learn quickly and I was their guide. Plus, you are constantly dealing with all these very raw emotions. I knew that I had to make that rehearsal space a safe place. The actors had to feel completely comfortable expressing their emotion without fear of judgement.
One of the hardest aspects of the show is the relationship between Celie and Shug. The way I staged their first encounter after "Yo sho is ugly", was very quiet and very tentative on Celie's part. She is petrified of this woman. She has also been told by Mister many times that Shug is the love of his life. Celie didn't care about that part, she didn't want love from Mister. All she knows in the beginning of the show up to that point is how to stay alive. Shug is in the bathtub and I put Celie on the opposite side of the stage looking down. Slowly, as the scene progressed I moved Celie closer to Shug as she becomes slightly more comfortable. But Celie WANTS to see her. To see what she looks like, she sings to herself, "I want to see what all the fuss is about..." Celie takes care of Shug, brushes her hair, helps her eat, fixes her dresses. And Shug needs that. And Celie needs someone in her life that won't be taken away. Shug is a safe bet as Mister won't let Shug go, like he did Nettie. You have to convey that instantaneous non-verbal bond even though neither one wants to admit they need each other at that point.
That leads to the scene where Shug finally breaks down Celie's wall. They kiss. It is one of the most beautiful songs and moments in the show. I just didn't know how the audience was going to react. Much has been made of the novel's depiction of the sexual relationship between the two. The movie almost skips over it completely. The musical, while it doesn't dwell on the sexual aspect of their relationship, brings it back to the surface in Act II when Celie admits that she is in love with Shug and wants to spend the rest of her life with her. The movie treats it like two best friends who want to grow old and rock on the porch together watching the sunset. But the musical is braver in that respect. Celie literally gets angry at Shug when she is leaving to meet with another man, "Why do you need a man to make you happy? I'm right here! Don't you love me?" That is Celie's breaking point. She realizes that she can't depend on others to find her happiness. She has to be able to be strong period. Then Celie stands alone on the stage and sings "I'm Here". The actress playing Celie 'played around" with the song for a while. She batted at it like a kitten with a ball of yarn. She didn't attack it. Of course, it sounded amazing, but I knew it could be so much more. I also knew it WOULD be. You can't force an actor to do that. You just have faith that it will come. And boy did it ever. By the way, one thing I can tell you after my many years of doing this, never underestimate the audience. When the kiss finally occurred, people didn't gasp in shock, they embraced it. They wanted Celie to feel what love felt like. The audience was behind it 100%. If what you have done is real, sincere and they buy it, they get behind you!
Now a little about Precious. Precious was an actress in "Ain't Misbehavin'" and she has told me a little about her life story. And it eerily mirrored Celie's. I will post the article about it here. Please take a moment to read it. (http://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/local/2015/01/29/color-purple-lead-draws-dark-moments-soar/22536621/) So Precious was afraid to let her wall down. But, let me tell you one night she literally lost it on stage. I saw someone I had never seen before. A little girl. She was literally living in that moment and everything that had lead her to that second showed on that stage. I have never seen anything like it in my life. It sounded like the song was completely written on the spot. There wasn't a dry eye in the house.
Truly, the hardest part of the show was moving it from a rehearsal room to the stage, with all the set pieces. And I did get frustrated for the majority of it, but so did the cast. I felt like I had to reblock everything. So patience on all sides was running thin. There were words said, but it was all in an effort to make the show as perfect as possible. My heart was so into the show I felt like I had literally lost my mind a bit. I was a man on a mission and nothing could get in my way. I thought of nothing else but the show for 4 months straight. But around tech week is when the massive nosebleeds started. My blood pressure was off the chart. The worst one was watching Act I and something happened and I yelled. Look, every Director has one or two moments during a show where they are allowed to lose it. Well, with in reason. I am certainly a lot better than I used to be. But this one night I was so frustrated with everything. I sat back down. A few minutes later I looked down and my entire notepad and blue jeans were covered in blood. Shara, who played Shug had to drive me home. It literally wouldn't stop. The next day my Doctor said, "Whatever you are doing, stop." HA HA HA I wish it was that easy.
Now a note about publicity. Our photographer Dana and I wanted to do publicity shots of the cast and make them look as authentic as possible. We found an old house and dressed the cast up. Dana spent hours making the photos look like they were taken in 1919. Boy did they get people talking on Facebook about the show.
We made it to opening night and let me tell you, it was magical. The run did have its share of drama backstage. And yes, I got really frustrated. I literally said to them one night, "You have such a beautiful show onstage, but backstage it is a reality TV show. Bad Girls Club unedited!" They still laugh at that. We all knew the last show was looming. And no one wanted to admit that it was going to be over. We had all grown so close. A big giant, loving, dysfunctional family. During the last show no one could get through the finale without breaking down. I was by the sound booth and could barely stand up. The conductor and musicians in the pit could barely get through it. And by the time everything was quiet and Celie sings her last, "Amen". We were officially a wreck.
After the show the entire cast, crew and musicians met in the basement and all we did was hug and cry. It was one of the most moving moments of my life. I will post a few pictures and let them speak for themselves.
Me and My Cookie... who played young Nettie.
Me and Precious.
Our big crazy family after the last show.
It was an event. And experience I will never forget. And I would do it all over again, nosebleeds and all. And in case anyone was wondering, yes we sold out a few times and it was one of the best sellers of last year.
Here are the reviews: http://www.floridatoday.com/story/entertainment/2015/01/25/review-bold-beautiful-color-purple-henegar-must-see/22316063/
http://www.brevardculture.com/2015/01/review-the-color-purple-the-musical-at-the-henegar-center/
Check out more at www.brevardculture.com
For more information about the rights to The Color Purple, follow this link to the Theatrical Rights Website: http://www.theatricalrights.com/color-purple
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