Jitterbug invited to Emerging Artists Theatre's New Works Fest (NYC)

Jitterbug! is the latest iteration of the award-winning play "Once Upon A Time In Harlem: A Jitterbug Romance" by DC Copeland. Chosen to appear in the Emerging Artists Theatre's 7th Annual New Works Festival, it will be the first reading of the full 3-act play and will include music and dance. A shortened "radio" reading version took place at the prestigious National Black Theatre in Harlem last March. It was directed by noted actress, director, and teacher Petronia Paley. Ms. Paley will also direct this reading. Joining the team this time around will be Emmy-nominated choreographer Jeffrey Page. Dramaturgy by Jaz Dorsey.

Jitterbug! has been nominated for a "Creative Vision Award" by USA Projects the premiere non-profit website supporting artists fundraising and advocacy.

Winner of the Jaz Dorsey Fusion Award from the African American Playwrights Exchange (AAPEX).

Time/Date: 9pm, Saturday, March 23rd.

Place: Tada! Theatre, 15 West 28th Street (Between Broadway and 5th)

All tickets $10.00 through Brown Paper Tickets *

*Please note, a non-profit fundraising tax deductible opportunity has been established with USA Projects for Jitterbug! Please consider donating so we can make this reading all it can be. Thank you.

AAPEX Interview: Nathan James

Nathan James

Nathan came to AAPEX's attention when he brought to life the lead role in DC Copeland's "Jitterbug!" (then called "Once Upon A Time In Harlem: A Jitterbug Romance") which was directed by Petronia Paley last March at the National Black Theatre in Harlem. "Nathan's the kind of actor playwrights dream of," Copeland said. "He took Billy Rhythm off the page where he had resided for so long and made him into a living, breathing, passionate and fearless man. If Billy had been embedded in clay, this would have been in Genesis, James is God, and the world would be much more different than the one we see today."

What role did theatre and the arts play in your childhood and upbringing? 

Being from my neighborhood of Beltzhoover in Pittsburgh Pa, there are not many opportunities provided that enables youth to see past the allure of street life. Many of my childhood friends are dead or in jail as a result of gang activity and drug dealing/use. Theater and good parenting literally saved me from this harsh reality. When I was promoted to middle school from the 5th grade, I had no doubt in my mind that I wanted to follow behind my brother and attend Rogers C.A.P.A middle school (which is now merged with CAPA high school in Pittsburgh). The problem was, my mother and I couldn't figure out a talent which I could enter the school with. My mother finally remembered how good she thought I was in our church Easter plays. She decided to bring me home a monologue from "You're a good man Charlie Brown" in order for me to audition for the acting program. I was accepted in and immediately fell in love with the craft of acting. At our 8th grade performance at the Fulton Theater in Pittsburgh, my comedic character brought the audience to their feet for a standing ovation. I immediately gave up my childhood dreams of wanting to be a scientist, and knew from that moment I wanted to be in this business for the rest of my life 

Tell us about your own evolution as an artist? 

I often found myself living in two completely different worlds as a kid. On one end, I grew up in the hood. On the other end, I was fortunate enough to have parents who scraped together what little money they had to involve me in acting classes and conservatories to keep me too busy to get into trouble. This gave me a unique opportunity to gain a social education by becoming an observer of the two different ways of life (especially since I had never been able to completely fit in to either environment because of my affiliation with the other). I wasn’t “Hood” enough to be completely “Hood” because of my interest in the arts, yet I was too much of a product of my upbringing to be completely accepted among the “Privileged” in my acting classes. The inability to fit completely in to both worlds transitioned from childhood resentment to a sociological advantage in my artistic endeavors. I'm able to see things from both ends of the spectrum when I take on roles, and in my writing 

How do you prepare for a role? 

I first read the entire script to gather all the given circumstances. Then I sit down and create a list of similarities/differences between myself and my character in order to compliment him and find his heroics in the world of the play. After all table work is finished, I put my self on foot and begin to establish some mannerisms and rhythm. 

What's on your agenda for 2013? 

I've recently been granted an August Wilson Center fellowship with the August Wilson Cultural Center, and I will be commissioned to create a new piece of work to be produced at the center. I'm cast in the Off-Broadway production "Easter" with the August Strindberg Repertory Theater at the Gene Frankel Theater (3/3 - 3/31). In march I will be performing in the reading of Michael Dinwiddie's play "The Carelessness of Love" at the Spiral Theatre Studio. Also, for Valentines day, I will be hosting a poetry performance/open mic with fellow poet Ayo "The NigerianNightmare" in SOHO. 

What are a couple of your dream roles? 

My dream roles are: "Citzen" from "Gem of the Ocean," "Othello", and Sgt. Waters in "A Soldier's Play". I would also love to portray "Tupac". 

Website link: http://www.officialnathanjames.com 
Blog: http://nathanjamespoet.blogspot.com 
Twitter: @ImNateJames 
Agent contact: Mary Anne Claro (215) 465-7788  http://clarotalent.net/

Nashville theatre producer Ted Swindley does playwright "Speed Dating" in NYC

Ted with noted director and actress Petronia Paley

representing D.C. Copeland's "dancical"

Once Upon A Time In Harlem: A Jitterbug Romance

at the recent TRU playwright "Speed Date" in NYC.

Our good friend theatre producer Ted Swindley recently participated in a "Speed Date" for playwrights to pitch their stuff in NYC. For over twenty-five years, Ted has directed and/or produced over 200 plays. He is nationally known for creating the hit musical ALWAYS... PATSY CLINE, which opened in New York in June, 1997, while continuing to play throughout the world. Some of his outstanding directorial credits include World Premieres, Classics and Musicals including CARNAL KNOWLEDGE, PACIFIC OVERTURES, FOLLIES, and CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, and rotating repertory projects such as Thornton Wilder's OUR TOWN and THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH and DANGEROUS LIAISONS with THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST.

Once Upon A Time In Harlem: A Jitterbug Romance makes the cut!

Noted director and actress Petronia Paley will pitch D.C. Copeland's "dancical" Once Upon A Time In Harlem: A Jitterbug Romance to a dozen Broadway producers this Sunday, July 22nd at the legendary Players Theatre in NYC. Sponsored by Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU), this is an invitation-only event for selected playwrights. At least one producer has won a Tony and many have been associated with Tony nominated productions including The Scottsboro Boys, The Gershwins' Porgy & Bess, Radio Golf, Clybourne Park, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Legally Blonde, and many more.

The Jitterbug Conspiracy

The Jitterbug Conspiracy

Or Who's dancing it now?

No one in Harlem that's for sure. The great black American city where it was born has abandoned the dance and allowed it to be co-opted by the white world.* With the publication of "Once Upon A Time In Harlem: A Jitterbug Romance" by AAPEX playwright D.C. Copeland, maybe the time has come to reclaim it through our schools and the stage.

Introduction

from the book "Once Upon A Time In Harlem: A Jitterbug Romance"

by Jaz Dorsey

Founder of AAPEX

From 1990 - 1997 it was my honor to serve as the production manager for Biggs Rosati Productions in the NYC offices of The National Theatre of the Performing Arts, producing national tours of bi-lingual French and Spanish classics to high schools across the United States. From this experience, I know what a valuable role the theatre can play in education. Putting a script into the hands of young students, letting them rehearse and research the play, allows them to connect with language and history in a way that no other experience can provide.

There is no area of study that we need to focus on more than that which enhances our greater understanding of the contributions made by African Americans to our country's history and culture. D.C Copeland's award winning script ONCE UPON A TIME IN HARLEM: A Jitterbug Romance offers both students and their teachers a wonderful gateway into an era when American music, song and dance were elevated to genius by African American artists such as Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway and Bill “Bojangles” Robinson to name just a few. Combining history with a fictional romantic storyline, this “radio” play edition is a condensed version of the longer 3-act play. Reimagining the play as a live radio broadcast from the 1930’s was pure genius since it takes a sprawling and expensive production and makes it producible by just about anyone who wants to take it on-- including schools and colleges. This process-- where students read the “radio” script out loud from their desks-- has been proven in many studies as a sure-fire way of getting them involved and remembering what they read. To help that effort, Copeland encourages teachers to “take it to the next level” by turning the reading into a multimedia event by offering free cued MP3 sound effects that can be downloaded from the play’s website-- an offer I hope all teachers will take him up on because the sound effects-- and using the suggested songs from that period-- help make the reading feel like a live radio broadcast from the past. Besides being just down right fun to do, this aural coloring goes hand-in-hand with the writing to bring the lives and times of that period and the memorable characters Copeland created to life and is worth the added effort.

Finally, because of its stand-up-and-cheer ending and uplifting message, ONCE UPON A TIME IN HARLEM: A Jitterbug Romance in any version, is a worthy addition to any theatre’s-- or school’s-- program and I look forward to hearing it “broadcast live” from every theatre and classroom across the land.

Jaz Dorsey,

Artistic Director, The Nashville Dramaturgy Project

Founder and Dramaturg,

African American Playwrights Exchange (AAPEX)

*Aside from The Harlem Swing Society which is made up a handful of Harlemites determined to save the dance-- compared to the time 80-years-ago when there were a handful of ballrooms all over Harlem-- including the legendary Savoy Ballroom with its twin bandstands and a block long sprung wooden floor that could hold 5,000 people any given night.

D.C. Copeland's ONCE UPON A TIME IN HARLEM: A JITTERBUG ROMANCE is now a book

Please click image to enlarge.

DC Copeland's award-winning play Once Upon A Time In Harlem: A Jitterbug Romance is now available as an annotated play book. Based on the "radio" reading version, this book is perfect for students and actors because it includes definitions of period slang, historical facts, and a map to help them better understand the times and places of swinging 1930's Harlem. Copeland has made a cued special effects mp3 soundtrack available as a free download with each purchase from the play's website. The book will make a great edition to any college Black Studies program but it will also afford high school teachers an interactive and fun experience for their students by assigning parts and reading the play aloud in the classroom. The book will soon be released in an eBook format which offers a unique use of technology: when tapped, the annotations in the play "open up" automatically on the page that is being read without needing to go to the back of the book.

Once Upon A Time In Harlem: A Jitterbug Romance is available as a screenplay, a three-act full-length play, and a shortened "radio"/reading book.

To learn more about the dramaturgy behind the play, please click the Harlem Dramaturgy Project label below.

The radio reading version was first performed March 30, 2012 at the prestigious National Black Theatre in Harlem and directed by Petronia Paley.

Harlem Dramaturgy Project, Part 5: Once Upon A Time In Harlem: A Jitterbug Romance

The Jolly Fellows, Herbert White, The Hoofers' Club

& the Jitterbug

Despite Jim Crow laws, Prohibition and the Depression, something magical was happening in Harlem in the 1930's and it was more than just the intellectual rise of the Harlem Renaissance. Something wonderful was going on below the radar of the intelligentsia. A street gang had become without any plan of its own the protector and champion of American "vernacular dancing," i.e., tap and swing.

The Jolly Fellows, was one of the toughest of a dozen "secret" street gangs in Harlem, i.e., they didn't emblazon the backs of their jackets with the names of their gang. But that's not to say you couldn't spot a Jolly Fellow on the streets of Harlem. Thanks to Herbert "Whitey" White, who

organized the gang in 1923, he instilled in his young members that they must at all times dress well and smell good. Described as a cross between a "penny-pinching Robin Hood and a hip Father Flannigan," White was a one-time prize fighter and a sergeant in World War I. He was also as much as 20-years older than most of the gang members who were for the most part "twenty-somethings" by the time my play takes place. To get accepted into the club, one of the initiation rights included walking into a store, punching the store owner and waiting to see what happens. Sometimes you went to jail, sometimes not. By the 1930's, membership had risen to over 600 (and I would suspect there were an equal number of store owners with black eyes, broken jaws, and concussions).

White wasn't a great dancer-- he was better at banging heads, intimidation, and entrepreneurship-- but because he loved great dancing, the Jolly Fellows (and their women's auxiliary the Jolly Flapperettes) became known as the dancer's gang. As the head bouncer at the world-famous Savoy Ballroom (a block long with a double-bandstand and a sprung wooden floor that could hold 5,000 people), his gang could dance as long as they wanted on a certain part of the floor called "Cats Corner." No one else could dance there. If for some reason a couple inadvertently

spent too much time "in the paint," it could mean a good beating (usually given through choreographed Charleston kicks). When it came to defending one's turf or a gang member's honor, it was done in the highest of the GQ style popularized by Edward G Robinson's gangster flicks: Jolly Fellows went to a fight wearing gloves, tight Chesterfields (see picture), and derbies. As a side note, besides not tolerating "coarse language," White also required that women were to be treated with "unfailing courtesy."

The Hoofers' Club

To get into the Hoofers' Club, you first had to enter the Comedy Club next door to the Lafayette Theatre on Seventh Ave ("Boulevard of Dreams") between 131st and 132nd Streets. The Comedy Club was a small storefront for a speakeasy and gambling house. It was also a favorite Jolly Fellows hangout. In an even smaller backroom, was the Hoofers' Club. It was big enough to hold an old, beat-up upright piano and a bench. The splintered wood floor is where men practiced tap dancing and new steps and routines came to life. Jazz Dance says this small backroom was the "unacknowledged headquarters for tap dancing" for nearly 40-years. Everyone who was anyone stopped by to dance including Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, the "Mayor of Harlem." There were only two rules: don't bother guys like Bojangles and John Bubbles with questions about how to do a certain step when they came in to dance and most importantly, don't copy another's steps. "Thou Shalt Not Copy Another's Steps-- Exactly" was the unwritten law. You could imitate anybody inside the "club"-- it was taken as a compliment-- but you couldn't do it professionally, i.e., in public and for pay. It's said when a new act opened at the Lafayette or the Lincoln, as soon as the doors opened, dancers rushed down to the first rows and "watched you like hawks and if you used any of their pet steps, they just stood right up in the theatre and told everybody about it at the top of their voices."

The Jitterbug

By the mid-30's Herbert White began using his entrepreneurial skills to tap into America's growing passion for swing dancing. The earliest version was revealed to the world in June of 1928 through a Jolly Fellow when a Fox Movietone News reporter asked legendary gang member-cum-dancer George "Shorty" Snowden what he was doing with his feet? Snowden never stopped dancing when he replied, "The Lindy." Credited with adding the "breakaway" to the dance so he could improvise steps, Snowden was preparing the world for the dance that was yet to come: the Jitterbug. It was born at the Savoy Ballroom because of the Jolly Fellows. By the time the dance got airborne through "air-steps," it had become known as the "Jitterbug," thanks to Herbert White and Cab Calloway's 1934 recording, Call of the Jitter Bug, which used the word in its earliest iteration as an adjective describing someone with the "delirium tremors" from drinking too much booze.

If you'd like to be a jitter bug,

First thing you must do is get a jug,

Put whiskey, wine and gin within,

And shake it all up and then begin.

Grab a cup and start to toss,

You are drinking jitter sauce!

Don't you worry, you just mug,

And then you'll be a jitter bug!

At the height of the dance's popularity, White was managing as many as seventy dancers and a dozen dance troupes with names like The Savoy Hoppers, The Jive-A-Dears, and his most famous, Whitey's Lindy Hoppers. That troupe (which at one time included Shorty George and his dancing partner Big Bea) toured the world including Paris with a gig at the Moulin Rouge. It also appeared in the Marx Bros movie A Day at the Races (1937) and Hellzapoppin'(1941).

Herbert White (center) and his

Whitey's Lindy Hoppers

You can see Shorty George and his dancing partner Big Bea dancing here.

By the time White died in the 1940's he was a rich man and the Jitterbug had conquered the world-- if only for a short time. By the time I took my play to Harlem this March for a reading at the National Black Theatre, 80-years after the fact proved problematic: finding just one African-American couple who could dance the Lindy (much less the amplified Jitterbug) was nearly impossible. By the early 60's dances like The Stroll and especially the Twist finally took Shorty Snowden's "breakaway" (whether he was aware of it or not, he was reaching back to his African roots where partner dancing was basically unheard of) and made it permanent. Now it appears the only people dancing the Jitterbug today are white people, that they have in fact co-opted the dance born in Harlem. This "retro swing" movement began in the early 80's and can be traced to California and disaffected punk rockers who were exploring swing music. Still if you search hard enough you will find people like Ryan Francois (a black Brit dancing with a white partner) and, as far as I can tell, one of the few African American groups still carrying on the tradition like The Harlem Swing Dance Society-- but who have few, if any, young members (it's interesting to note that a member of that group offers up this explanation for its skewed older demographic: when the great Harlem ballrooms finally closed, no one passed on the dance to their children). Of course, it also had a lot to do with the decline in swing bands and the advent of rock and the natural tendency of the next generation to want to "break away" from whatever it was their parents embraced.

As for Mr. Francois, this dance comes closest to the one I wrote for my main protagonist. Billy Rhythm, dancing under a Harlem street lamp, uses only his feet and body to express his love for Tharbis Jefferson as she leans out of her second story tenement window. When watching it, try to imagine just one guy dancing in this "Romeo and Juliet" moment because what I was trying to capture was the magic of Gene Kelly's memorable Singing in the Rain dance number and reimagining it without singing or music (or rain); stripping it down to its joyful heartfelt African influenced American core: tap dancing.

DC Copeland

You can follow this series by clicking the "Harlem Dramaturgy Project" in the Labels section below.

Jaz Dorsey

Harlem Dramaturgy Project, Part 4: Once Upon A Time In Harlem: A Jitterbug Romance

Cab Calloway's Hi-De-Ho, 1934

When I started writing Once Upon A Time In Harlem: A Jitterbug Romance, I knew I wanted to include the Cotton Club but I couldn't decide on a year-- until I read Cab Calloway's autobiography, Of Minnie the Moocher and Me, and then it became a no-brainer: 1931, the year the Cotton Club built a show around him called Rhyth-mania. This was two years after replacing Duke Ellington and his band at the club when they went to Hollywood to make their first movie, an all-African American short called Black and Tan (1929). Cab was just 22-years old when he took up the Cotton Club baton. He got the gig thanks to Irving Mills, a white music agent and producer who broke down color barriers when he brought black and white bands together to rehearse and to make music for his company EMI. What I didn't know at that time when I started writing was just how original and dynamic a performer Calloway was. This was 30-years before YouTube.com where you can easily click onto a vintage piece of film from that by-gone era and see the man for yourself. As for me, seeing the video reinforces my conviction that I made the right decision. Aside from being the right age-- most of my characters are in their twenties since they're members of of a legendary gang called the Jolly Fellows-- he and my main characters Billy Rhythm and Tharbis Jefferson tap the zeitgeist of that era. Although the Duke was a genius, he was too intellectual and laid back for what I was trying to convey. Cab fulfilled that mission and more-- his Hep-Cat Dictionary helped me nail down the jive from that period.

The first thing that strikes you when watching the video is how handsome and charismatic Calloway was. The second thing, no one ever conducted a band like he did. He was a force to be reckoned with, channeling a daemon that filled his body and soul with uninhibited abandon. The video above shows Cab when he was about 26-years-old when he made a short for Irving Mills called Cab Calloway's Hi-De-Ho to promote his new record. Since it's nearly 80-years-old, it can be forgiven for its lameness and cliches but it does have a surreal element that makes it worth watching until the end. And although parts of it takes place at the Cotton Club, I doubt if it was actually filmed there (the club was much more claustrophobic inducing but it does accurately depict what a "high-yeller" Cotton Club "Tall, Tan & Terrific" showgirl looked like). Still, it gives those who have never seen Cab doing his thing a chance to see what "all the hubbub" was about back then surrounding this young band leader working out of a small mob-ran club in Harlem. Thanks to nightly nationwide live radio broadcasts, Cab and the Club's young Jewish songwriting team of Harold Arlen-- who would later write the music for The Wizard of Oz-- and Ted Koehler were selling records "like hotcakes" and transforming America and the world with the new sound of "Swing."

DC Copeland

You can follow this series by clicking the "Harlem Dramaturgy Project" in the Labels section below.

Jaz Dorsey

Harlem Dramaturgy Project, Part 3: Once Upon A Time In Harlem: A Jitterbug Romance

The Tree of Hope

and the

Lafayette Theatre

They use to look like this:

Lafayette Theatre/Tree of Hope, Harlem, circa 1920's

That's the Tree of Hope in front of the legendary Lafayette Theatre up on 7th Ave at 132nd Street in Harlem.

This is what happened to the tree:

That plaque was put there in 1941 by Bill "Bojangles" Robinson (with the assistance of NYC mayor Fiorello LaGuardia) to mark the spot where the tree had been before it was chopped down to make room for the expansion of 7th Ave (the "Boulevard of Dreams") in 1934. Much of it was sold for firewood but some of it was sold as souvenirs to people who believed it would bring them luck.

Say what? Tradition had it that out-of-work performers would rub the tree for good luck in landing a gig. Everybody who was anybody at the beginning of their careers stopped by to rub the tree with this simple request, "Hope to get a gig." This included future luminaries such as Ethel Waters, Fletcher Henderson, and Eubie Blake. That's what my main character Billy Rhythm does when he returns to Harlem in my play Once Upon A Time In Harlem: A Jitterbug Romance.

As for the 1,223-seat Lafayette Theatre, it was the first theatre in NYC to desegregate when it opened in 1912 and remained that way for a very long time before all the NYC theatres desegregated. This meant that Harlemites could finally sit in the orchestra instead of just the balcony (disparagingly labeled "nigger heaven")-- the only seats they could sit in any NYC theater-- if they were allowed to buy tickets in the first place. Known as "the House Beautiful" because of its ornate Renaissance Revival architecture and interior, it was home to the Lafayette Players, one of the first African-American professional theatre troupes (1916).

In 1936, 20-year-old Orson Welles used the theatre in a reimagined Shakespeare's Macbeth set in Haiti. Because of its African American cast (the Federal Theatre Project's Negro Unit) and setting, it was labeled "Voodoo Macbeth." It sold out for 10-weeks before moving to Broadway followed by a national tour. This is what it looked like on opening night:

Orson Welles' Macbeth opening night

at the Lafayette Theatre, 1936.

It was said "10,000 people stood as close as they could to the theatre," jamming 7th Avenue for 10-blocks and "halting northbound traffic for more than an hour." The New York World Telegram reported that an integrated group of "Harlemites in ermine, orchids, and gardenias, Broadwayites in mufti" had filled every seat. Scalpers were getting $3.00 for a pair of 40-cent tickets. The New York Times reported the audience was "enthusiastic and noisy" and encouraged Macbeth's soliloquies.

In between performances by the Lafayette Players and such, the Lafayette showcased acts of all types and in this regard was the precursor of the Apollo Theatre (which until 1934 was called the "Hurtig & Seamon's New Burlesque Theater" and did not admit blacks. That changed in 1934 when Fiorello LaGuardia campaigned for mayor against burlesque and it reopened as a desegregated theatre with a new name: the 125th Street Apollo). Today the Apollo Theatre is home to what may be the only piece of the original "Tree of Hope" thanks to an enterprising visionary and performer named Ralph Cooper, Jr. He bought a 12" x 18" piece and brought it back to his dressing room at the Apollo where he had it sanded, shellacked and mounted to an iconic column. That night just before the first "Amateur Night at the Apollo" show began, it was placed stage right just outside the curtain so the audience could see it. Since then it's become de rigueur to touch the Tree of Hope for all Wednesday Amateur Night performers.

As for the Lafayette's fate, unlike so many of the famous landmarks of old Harlem-- the Cotton Club, the Savoy Ballroom, and more-- it's still with us but in 1990 it was "reimagined" as the Williams Institute C.M.E. Baptist Church to make it more "church-like." That's too bad because I think God would have been comfortable in the building as it was. Unfortunately, preservationists were too late and this is what we got, a very forbidding and unfriendly structure that appears to be barricading itself against the temptations of the outside world just beyond those massive walls and doors:

Williams Institute C.M.E. Baptist Church

To quote one of my favorite Harlem Renaissance poets, Countee Cullen--who apparently no one at the church was reading at the time of the transformation:

“And what would I do in heaven, pray,

Me with my dancing feet,

And limbs like apple boughs that sway

When the gusty rain winds beat?

And how would I thrive in a Perfect place...

Where dancing be sin,

With not a man to love my face

Nor an arm to hold me in?”

--from She of the Dancing Feet Sings, 1926

I'm sure souls are being saved behind those closed doors, but what a loss for Harlem in terms of its history. I wonder what would have happened if the church had left the building alone. Do you think people would be lining up out front like they did back in the day for Macbeth; banging on the doors in hopes of getting in to get saved and closer to Jesus?

DC Copeland

You can follow this series by clicking the "Harlem Dramaturgy Project" in the Labels section below.

Jaz Dorsey

Harlem Dramaturgy Project: Digging deeper

Part Two

Once I started learning about the legendary people and places of Harlem for my play Once Upon A Time In Harlem: A Jitterbug Romance, it became important for me to keep track of them. I did this through index cards and by creating a map of Harlem, circa 1931.

Please click image to enlarge.

In retrospect, I wish I had included Manhattan in the map to pinpoint the locations of the gangland murders that are relevant to the play's story. Those actual addresses however are found in the play (as is the above map in the playbook). This is a process I used to keep the fictional aspects of the story plausible. As an example, when my main characters Billy Rhythm and Tharbis Jefferson are walking down Lenox Avenue in Harlem and see white gangsters from the Cotton Club taking hatchets and sledge hammers to the rival Plantation Club and then throwing the debris into a bonfire in the middle of the street, I wanted to see if it was plausible for them to have walked to the Harlem River within a reasonable amount of time for the next scene. I discovered it was. My research also found a secondary source-- a newspaper article written about that incident recalled in a book (my first source)-- that backs up the story. As an added bonus, that article gives a voice to the African American perspective of what happened, revealing an underlying resentment to the white gangsters and others who came into their community and opened businesses that would bar Harlemites at the door. That info is included in the annotations found in the playbook. The annotations are there for the actors and the readers to help them better understand the time, place and psychological make-up of the characters in the play. Like the final sentence on the back cover of the playbook, it helps remind everyone that "it all happened in an almost forgotten time in America's most mythic city: Harlem."

DC Copeland

You can follow this series by clicking the "Harlem Dramaturgy Project" in the Labels section below.

Jaz Dorsey

Harlem Dramaturgy Project: The inspiration for Once Upon A Time In Harlem: A Jitterbug Romance

It all began with a book nearly 40-years ago. Jazz Dance by Marshall and Jean Stearns explores what they considered to be one of America's great gifts to the world, what they called "American Vernacular Dance." They traced the jitterbug and tap dancing in particular as an expression of what the body hears and feels when listening to jazz. Jazz, of course, owes everything to African rhythms and improvisation. Since I was taking jazz dance and tap classes at that time, I was intrigued with the Stearns' contention that tap dancing was "America's only true indigenous art form." They did this by connecting the dots between poor African Americans and newly arrived Irish immigrants rubbing shoulders together in Harlem and New York City at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. Basically African Americans added jazz rhythms to the Irish jig. To prove their point, they interviewed over 200 people from "back in the day" who actually were there when dance and music was transforming itself into something that "swings." Many of these pioneers of vernacular dance had already died before the interviews began around the early to mid-sixties but enough were still around to fill the book with the most amazing stories. It was these stories that inspired me to write Once Upon A Time In Harlem: A Jitterbug Romance as a screenplay and then, 30-years later, a play. And then, in the last 5-years, a "radio"/reading version of the play. But it all began nearly 40-years ago with the very same book you see in the picture, one of the few things in the world I actually cherish.

DC Copeland

You can follow this series by clicking the "Harlem Dramaturgy Project" in the Labels section below.

Jaz Dorsey

Saint Petronia: Patron Saint of Playwrights

Please click image to enlarge.

If you're a playwright, you should get to know Petronia Paley. She is an indefatigable champion of playwrights who, if she likes your play, will find stages all across New York City to present your work. Last Friday night she did that for me at the Dr. Barbara Ann Teer's National Black Theatre in Harlem. My play "Once Upon A Time In Harlem: A Jitterbug Romance" received its first "radio" reading of the full-length play that included music and dance at the NBT's black box theatre on the building's third floor. If you've never had your characters come to life before your eyes, you don't know what you're missing. It's life changing. When I went to bed that night, I knew without a doubt I was the luckiest person in the world because my play had just received a powerful performance by some of the most talented people in the New York theatre world at the legendary NBT in America's most mythic city: Harlem. To have your work performed by artists of this caliber is something that can only be achieved in a handful of cities in the world, but to have them do it gratis is a miracle, a miracle that can only be attributed to one person: Petronia Paley. Although I think of her as a saint (who likes her chardonnay COLD) I suspect there is a little of the Godfather in her too. How else can you explain the large cast she was able to wrangle up? Maybe one or more of them asked her for a favor and she granted it and then when it was her turn, she gave them an "offer they couldn't refuse." Either way, the playwright wins.

Or maybe it's Godmother. Knowing I didn't have a lot of money and lived out of town, how else can you explain her finding me a free room to crash in for the night (a thankful shout-out to Michael Manning for offering up his apt while he was away to a guy he never met)? Or meeting me and walking me around the city so I wouldn't get lost?

And the fact that she did all of this-- including chasing down actors she felt were right for the roles and holding rehearsals-- without expecting compensation? Are these not the actions of a saint?

As for the Patron Saint's Church of the Playwright, it can only be Dr. Barbara Ann Teer's National Black Theatre in Harlem. What they're doing up there is so worthy and inspiring. The black box theatre (accessible by an elevator) has a raised stage and tiered seating for about 100 people. It has space set aside in the rear for sound management and a sealed off lighting control booth behind the audience to handle the stage lights hung from the ceiling. In this instance, 15 actors sat in shadow in a row of chairs behind a line of six black metal music stands bathed in light. When it was an actor's time to perform, they would walk up to the stand and place their script upon it to read and when they were done, they'd return to their seats. The dance scenes were interpreted by dancers who danced in and out of the shadows in front of the stage. Just outside the entrance to the theatre separated by a curtain is a small lobby where they set up a table to sell refreshments and goodies to eat. When I arrived at the theatre that afternoon, the larger space across the lobby-- lit by natural lighting by a skylight surrounded by golden African bas-reliefs-- was getting good use as a place for the kids in the neighborhood to rehearse their songs for a future performance. Lots of great voices and energy! The NBT is something all of NYC can be proud of. I can never thank the NBT enough for its imprimatur on my work. As for its staff, I am forever in their debt for making me feel at home. To Shirley Faison, Jacque Jeffries and BJ, you are the greatest! May only good things come your way.

Casting complete for DC Copeland's "Once Upon A Time In Harlem: A Jitterbug Romance" (Harlem)

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Directed by

Petronia Paley

National Black Theatre

2031-33 National Black Theatre Way

5th Avenue between 125 & 126th Street

Harlem

7PM

Friday, March 30th

Please RSVP for the free reading of the play to

212-722-3800

or email info@nationalblacktheatre.org

To learn more about the play and NBT, please click the post's title.

National Black Theatre presents DC Copeland's "Once Upon A Time In Harlem: A Jitterbug Romance" 3/30 (Harlem)

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What: The "radio" reading version of
D.C. Copeland's

award-winning full-length play

"Once Upon A Time In Harlem: A Jitterbug Romance."

Directed by Petronia Paley

When: 7pm, Friday, March 30th

Where: The National Black Theatre

(celebrating its 44th year of "keeping soul alive!")
5th Ave., Btwn 125 and 126th Streets, Harlem

Cost: Free

RSVP: info@nationalblacktheartre.org or call 212-722-3800.

Seating limited.

For more information, please play the video.

Please click the post's title to visit the National Black Theatre website.

The Perfect Broadway Investor

In the October/November issue of Worth, a magazine aimed at those with money to burn, according to Daryl Roth, producer of the 2011 Tony Award winning The Normal Heart, the Perfect Broadway Investor isn't in it for the money. "It's not all about the money. If something is relevant, important and an extraordinary experience, that's the reward."

So why can't I find a producer like that? Once Upon A Time In Harlem: A Jitterbug Romance is relevant, important and an extraordinary experience. For that matter, fellow playwrights, why can't you? Where are they, these producers who aren't in it for the money? How does one catch their eye?

I dunno. I can't even dig up a thousand bucks for my reading. If you approach the process like I do, a playwright who lives very far away from where people live who know how to produce expensive musicals, i.e, Broadway, and hardly knows anyone "in the biz," you throw everything at the wall and hope something sticks. Aside from lucking out having noted NYC director Petronia Paley wanting to do the "radio" reading of my play and Jaz Dorsey, founder of AAPEX, wanting to be the dramaturg, and landing the historical and pioneering National Black Theatre as the venue, nothing has stuck re funding. IndieGoGo reminds me as I type that I have less than 60 hours remaining on my $1,000 fundraising campaign with not a penny raised in 60-days. Without that money, we won't be able to give the actors a stipend or rent the space and pay for other items like a simple program.

So, the question is, what to do? Although I've been getting positive feedback from people who want to attend the reading, who find the storyline appealing and exciting, we're still left unfunded. Worth suggests that $25,000 should be the minimum investment for a Broadway show. Hey, I'm only looking for $1,000-- and a chance at getting in on the ground floor of the next big thing!

Anyway, here are three things the magazine suggests for potential investors looking to put their money in a Broadway show, good advice for any playwright who sees his or her work wowing audiences on the Great White Way:

First, your show should star an A-list celebrity. Yeah, good luck with that one at this point.

Secondly, it should have "pre-existing value, like Mamma Mia (popular songs) or Jersey Boys (ditto)." It does; it has songs from "The Great American Song Book."

Thirdly, get The New York Times' Ben Brantley to love it. "If you don't have a big star, you need The New York Times," says Erick Falkenstein, whose credits include Long Day's Journey into Night and The History Boys. "There's no other industry in the arts that I'm aware of where one critic has so much power."

Hey, Ben, have I told you how much I love your reviews? You're the best their is! So talented! So--

Okay, you get the idea. But I'm not really like that. I can't kiss up. It's not in my make-up. But if you can, more power to you because you gotta try whatever it takes to get your work seen-- even if it means embarrassing yourself and your family.

Finally, if any potential investors might be reading this, please note that Worth says, "Musicals tend to gross more than straight plays: $915.7 million versus $158.4 million in the 2010-2011 season, according to the industry group The Broadway League, due to higher ticket prices and greater popularity with tourists."

Although Once Upon A Time In Harlem: A Jitterbug Romance isn't a musical per se-- it doesn't use original songs to help tell the story-- it fits that requirement since its loaded with music and dance numbers that will have people talking for years to come. Even Ben Brantley, the world's greatest theatre critic, should love it.

Care to know more about the "radio" reading of my play, please click the post's title.

DC Copeland

DC Copeland's ONCE UPON A TIME IN HARLEM: A JITTERBUG ROMANCE will premiere at the National Black Theatre

DC Copeland's award-winning "Once Upon A Time In Harlem: A Jitterbug Romance" will have the premiere of the "radio" reading version of the full-length play at the National Black Theatre (NBT) in January 2012 in Harlem. The NBT is the country's first revenue-generating black theater arts complex and in 2012 will be celebrating 44 years "keeping soul alive."

"It's exciting and an honor to premiere my work at this legendary and important theatre," Copeland said. "Its prime directive from the get-go was to empower playwrights to tell the often overlooked African American story. 'Once Upon A Time In Harlem: A Jitterbug Romance' couldn't be a more fitting, uplifting, choice. I know my director Petronia Paley will do it right."

The production will include music and dancers from The Harlem Swing Dance Society.

To learn more, please click the post's title.