Expanding the Shelf: A Conversation with the Makers of the Spotlight Reading Series
Long Time Since Yesterday (2018). Photo by Jake Newell.
By Ellen Wiese
The Spotlight Reading Series at Court Theatre is a citywide program that connects the Court’s theatrical resources with community partners to present classic plays by writers of color. Each season, the series presents five plays at a wide variety of venues; since 2016, they’ve hosted readings as far south as South Shore, as far north as Albany Park, and as far west as Austin. Through their partnerships with organizations like the Experimental Station, the Green Line Performing Arts Center, and the American Indian Center of Chicago, they work to expand the classic theater canon to include playwrights of color.
We sat down with Resident Artist Ron O.J. Parson and Community Programs Manager Aaron Mays to hear more about the program, now in its fifth installment.
What’s the program all about? How did it evolve into its current form?
RON O.J. PARSON: Chuck Smith at the Goodman Theatre had done an August Wilson reading series and I was involved in that. So when that was over, I decided to figure out what Court could do to bring communities together and give people an idea of the plays that August Wilson read, the plays before he even became a writer, during the Black Theatre Movement of the sixties and seventies.
So that’s where the idea started. But then it morphed into being a way to bring plays into other communities, Black communities, Native American communities. So I decided to do some of the classic plays that are from other cultures. And we ended up setting up the events of the reading series.
AARON MAYS: The program keeps in line with what Court does as a classical theater. It really serves to define what is a classic, what defines a classic. Oftentimes we think of Arthur Miller, we think of Ibsen, we think of those playwrights as being a part of the canon, but oftentimes playwrights of color are left out of that. They’re not made a part of the traditional or the mainstream, when actually they are part of the classical canon of American theater history. So we wanted to be sure that as we're presenting work on the main stage, we're also presenting work to audiences who may never have heard of Ed Bullins, of Phillip Hayes Dean. Or maybe you’ve heard of James Baldwin, but you’ve never heard of his play Blues for Mister Charlie.
Five on the Black Hand Side (2019). Photo by Crystal Wiley-Brown.
And so this is an effort to make sure that we continue the education and enrichment that happens on the mainstage, that we continue to disseminate that into different neighborhoods. We bring theater to you. Which I think is much more thoughtful and much more inviting as an institution, to make that type of gesture.
It’s inspiring to see what you can do when you’re intentional about programming and the partnerships that you take on to make sure that you facilitate a program that doesn’t just check the boxes, but it also makes sure people are included in such parameters. It’s been inspiring to see how theater can play a part in being an active member of a neighborhood.
I love the idea of the plays that August Wilson would have read. In terms of redefining the canon, how does that interact with the mission of Court as a classical theater?
PARSON: August Wilson is the preeminent writer that a lot of people do know, and I've directed and acted in over thirty productions of his work. So I felt that he’s connected to any kind of theater that we’re going to do, as far as these young writers that are coming up and using his ideology in their writing style. It’s always connected. So again, we wanted people to know about other plays—and he always said that too, August was always like, “Let’s continue to push Ed Bullins and Joseph Walker and Lorraine Hansberry and P.J. Gibson.” And there's a lot of writers from the seventies and eighties that don't get done anymore, so this was an opportunity to put those people back out there. So hopefully people will read them and some theaters would do those plays as full productions. Our kind of thing was just to get it out there, to generate that interest.
How do you decide who you partner with to make that happen?
Burghers of Calais (2018). Photo by Jake Newell.
PARSON: Usually we try to go into the communities. So we don't do any of them in Hyde Park per se. We go to the South Side, we did a couple on the West Side. We did one in a Native American community on the North side. We maintain that we want to establish a relationship outside of where we are. Aaron spearheads the community involvement, he’s the point person with where we do them and the connection with the community. Ultimately the idea is to get people interested in coming to Court Theatre. So by taking it to the community, hopefully it sparks interest. And for people who have never heard of Court Theatre, they know the play and they can potentially learn about us.
MAYS: One, we have to find venues that are performance friendly, that can fit 70 to 80 people. We want to encourage folks to go to these venues, for the community to know they’re there. Two, we find venues that you might call hidden gems in the neighborhood. So maybe it's a local arts nonprofit that we haven't heard of. Maybe it's an art gallery that's really well known, but hasn't had a theater program. Maybe it's a youth nonprofit that's looking for arts programming.
“We were able to see it really come full circle in terms of what community engagement can do. [...] It was this beautiful array of what it means to actually engineer that type of space for people to gather.”
And third, we look for a venue that's accessible and isn't as well known as others or as the Court. How can we join resources, share resources, as a knowledge share between two institutions? Working with the South Side Community Art Center, we can then say, “We’re going to bring you an audience of 70, 80 people and we hope those people will become repeat visitors.” Maybe there are some people who have never been there before. Maybe some people have been to both venues and say, “Hey look, now I'm even more interested in what you do because now I've been a part of something that's a bit different than the traditional art show or exhibition.”
PARSON: We establish relationships with our organizations, you know, you get them to come to see the other plays that we do. It's turned into a real community involvement thing. We have invitations and panel discussions and we talk about the work.
What's your favorite venue that's presented one of the plays in this series?
MAYS: That's a great question. I've been to sixteen or seventeen venues, I'm trying to think which one would be my favorite. For me, I would say probably our last one, Monumental Baptist Church, because it was just—you could see community engagement happening on different fronts, on multiple tiers. Monumental Baptist Church, while it was a venue partner for us for the Spotlight Reading Series, it is also one of our community partners for our Community Partners Initiative. It was great to be able to see that we can extend that relationship into the Spotlight Reading Series, for that to be a bridge. We were able to see it really come full circle in terms of what community engagement can do. And we have other CPI members there, church members who maybe haven’t come to a show at all, people from the community, Board members, folks who come to see Court shows. And so it was this beautiful array of what it means to actually engineer that type of space for people to gather.
How do you curate the specific plays that you present in the series each year?
The Mighty Gents (2019). Photo by Jazmín Corona.
PARSON: I go from my history of some of these plays that don't get done enough. Plays from back in the day so to speak, late sixties, early seventies. As you look at the canon of those days, First Breeze of Summer, Leslie Lee, Ceremonies in Dark Old Men, what people when I was a young actor coming up were reading. There's a multitude of plays that aren't even known by a lot of young African American actors or professionals. So when they did come out, a lot of them were groundbreaking. There's a play called Long Time Since Yesterday by P.J. Gibson, and P.J. Gibson was as big as Lorraine Hansberry in our day. And everybody knows A Raisin in the Sun, but they didn't know this play. Way ahead of its time, dealing with gay culture and different aspects of things that are second nature now, but back then you didn't see many plays about.
MAYS: At first the curation came purely out of Ron's inspiration, plays that really spoke to him or different communities. We’ve also moved to make sure we have plays that are in conversation with our season. So let's say we're doing a Greek classic, we choose another Greek play that's adapted by a black author.
And we also try to find plays that are relevant for the community in some way. So if we do a play in Pilsen, we will choose a play by a Mexican American or a playwright of Mexican descent. If we're in Humboldt Park, a play that's more geared towards themes of Puerto Rico or people of Puerto Rican descent. The biggest thing is trying to find plays that are culturally relevant for the neighborhood and plays that dovetail nicely with our season.
Sometimes the venue is in conversation with the actual play. We did a reading of a play called The Sty of the Blind Pig. It centers around this family in Chicago, in Bronzeville, and they're a churchgoing family. So we said, why not have it at one of our community partners, the Monumental Baptist Church, a historic church in Bronzeville that's been around for 90 years. The synergies were there, the parallels were there. The play is about people who would’ve probably gone to this church, they mention streets that are two blocks away, it’s a play with themes of faith and religion, let’s set it in this church.
And we try to find plays that speak to the mission of Court, that help tell classic stories and help remind us of why the classes are important. You can always find something relevant—for me, the classics are always, always relevant. You can always find something within a classic. Even if it’s dated, there’s still some nugget there.
“You can always find something relevant—for me, the classics are always, always relevant. You can always find something within a classic.”
How has the program evolved over the last four years?
MAYS: One thing we've added to continue to enrich the program, to better serve the community, is local eateries providing free food for the event. As we're working with local venues, nonprofits, arts organizations, things of that nature, I always believe that we should try to champion local businesses in the area. And so it's another way that we can help usher in a better relationship and rapport with surrounding entities in the community. It's doubling down on a way to make art an economic engine as well. How can we do that? How can we not only do civic engagement, but engage folks commercially? How we can make it a reinvestment of resources, more of a virtuous cycle.
How have you seen the impact of this program on audiences? You mentioned community building.
PARSON: When it started off, not a lot of people knew. But now we have a following. Some people who've been to all the readings and some people who know these plays and remember them, or were in theater companies back when they were younger. So it sparks interest, and the ultimate idea of it was to spark interest in the theater. So they come to see plays, they get groups to come to the plays. We have initiatives, programs where we offer vouchers and stuff for people who have come to the readings and things like that. Plus you get a lot of actors, the actors we use in the readings, a lot of those people haven't done it in awhile, they get involved. So it sparks interest in theater, which is the bottom line. And in the classic plays, because Court is a classic theater, so we bring out some of the classics that you don't get here.
Do you have a favorite playwright, or one that is more overlooked in the canon and that everyone should know?
No Place to be Somebody (2019). Photo by Jazmín Corona.
PARSON: I wouldn't say favorite, but when we did No Place to be Somebody, that one. Because when I was a young actor, that play kind of sparked, got my career going. So I had a real affinity for that one. We did that one a while back. It was great. It was a great production. So yeah, if I had to say one, No Place to be Somebody. A lot of people remember that one. Cause in the day, the movie Super Fly was big in the late 60s, early 70s, and the guy who played the main character, he got his career started from No Place to be Somebody. So it brought back a lot of memories for people. And we're hoping the program continues to flourish and build community.
MAYS: I wouldn't say one play is more overlooked than the others. There are many more names that we have yet to present. I wouldn't say dozens—I would say hundreds even. Many names are still missing from our list. We only do five a year, we can only do five plays in our season. There are hundreds of plays that we have yet to be able to present. Just because there's so many that people have never heard of. It's providing a spotlight—that's part of why the name came about—for these plays and these playwrights to share the shelf with Arthur Miller, with Ibsen, with Shakespeare, with other writers who are well known among theater enthusiasts.
Learn more about the Spotlight Reading Series here.