Interview: Rikki Howie Lacewell on CHICKEN & BISCUITS at NextStop Theatre Company

NextStop Theatre Company's production of Chicken & Biscuits, the hit Broadway comedy by Douglas Lyons, is currently running through April 6. Directed by Rikki Howie Lacewell, who returns to NextStop after helming School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play, this heartfelt and uproarious production explores the power of family, faith, and forgiveness—one secret (and one serving) at a time.

BroadwayWorld sat down with Lacewell to discuss her history with the play, how she approached the comedy, and what audiences can expect from the production.

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What initially drew you to Chicken and Biscuits?

I actually saw it on Broadway during the pandemic. So I was in New York, seeing another friend do a show and Chicken and Biscuits was right next door. So after I saw them perform, said, "Let me go see what this is all about." Also during the pandemic, I had taken a producer's class with one of the producers for Chicken and Biscuits. So I knew it was coming before it hit.  So I was like, "Oh, let me go see what this is." So that's kind of what drew me to it. And then, after seeing the show, I realized, I was like, "Oh, this is  my life, my culture. Like I'm familiar with  all of this."

I like doing shows that are rooted in everyday life, but sometimes the stuff that we don't necessarily talk about. So that's what drew me to it.

I know you've said that you wanted to create deeper human portrayals of these characters, instead of letting them slip into caricatures. How have you done that and balanced that with this production?

I do this thing where we're going to go to the door, not through the door. It's this whole thing of just allowing yourself to lean into the comedy of it, but also have those discussions about how you relate to this particular character. So for instance, for Kenny, who is the LGBTQ  character, the gentleman that's playing him is also LGBTQ. And he said, "I can relate to this story." He said, "But I can also see how this story can emotionally get me caught up."

So we have the discussion points of "Where does that emotion kick in for you as an actor playing the role so that we can discuss what about the words that are being said, or the scene that is being done that is making you want to either cry or get so emotional that it interferes with the movement of the piece." It's a lot of collaboration with the actors in order to find out how to ground these characters in reality. Whether it's your reality or a created reality, but finding ways to make that happen for them.

So, he was like, "Well, there's one line where Kenny says he spent his entire life in the closet." He said, "That phrase alone just triggers me." And I said, "Okay, so what can we do from an acting perspective to not have that trigger you in this particular moment, but you still deliver the honesty of it?"

So those are just some of the things that I did with a lot of the actors. We do lean into the comedy, but we make sure as I say, we don't go the Tyler Perry route, which isn't a negative thing, but it's just trying to keep things on this side of the door so the audience will see the funny and they'll see, "Okay,  this might be getting ready to go too far, but then it stops." So it keeps it very honest on this side of things.

I love that saying of going to the door, but not all the way through. I feel like that is such an incredibly grounded way of managing this.

I do that with a lot of my shows, but this one, especially cause I said, Douglas Lyon writes funny stuff. We don't have to add to it. We don't have to add anything additional. We also did that with the costuming, make sure things stayed very ... What do we wear when we go to funerals? What would someone like Beverly wear at a funeral? We kept what people would recognize, but then you you might have a zinger here or there that actually makes sense, but you just don't go through the door.

You said you know these people very well and you know this kind of situation. Are you drawing from that in any sense for this production?  

Yes, a lot of it. We spent a lot of time just kind of sitting around talking about funerals that we've all attended. And a lot of people in the cast are like, "Oh yeah, we had somebody that showed up that it was like, 'Oh, I'm your long lost sister or something.'" You're like, "What?" So that happens. So how did we deal with that when it happened in our real lives and how it translates to this and how to  ground everything in that. Even the gentleman playing Reginald, who's the new pastor of this church where the funeral is occurring, he was like, "You know, I thought about becoming a pastor at one point." So we draw  on that. And these are things that  upon casting, I didn't know. I didn't know a lot of these things, so for me as a director, it's getting to know the cast so that they can be seen on stage versus you see actors portraying a character on stage.  

Do you enjoy doing comedies? Do you frequently work on them?

I'm a mixed bag. I do a lot of comedies, but I also do a lot of really heavy work and try to find the comedy in that I just finished doing For Color Girls. That's heavy, but we found the comedy in it. So I give people a little bit of everything and I let them know: You're gonna laugh, you're gonna cry, you're gonna be shocked, but yeah. Mix it up.

You're returning to NextStop Theatre Company after doing School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play. What do you enjoy about working with them?

They're so collaborative and they're so supportive of just the voices that we, as individual directors, that we bring to the table. They respect our voices, they respect our choices that we make.  I used to perform with them when they were Elden Street, so even before they became NextStop. So, it's not my home theater, but I've seen them grow up. It's a good place to kind of go back and say, "I know this place before it was this place."

You seem like such a collaborative director and such a welcoming presence in a rehearsal room. When you're starting a production like this, how do approach it?

Well, one of the first things that I do is, of course, I tell them just the vision. One of the first things I told this cast when we started, I said, "What we're not going to do is become caricatures  of ourselves, especially when you're playing a show that leans heavily into the Person of Color experience."

People sometimes do expect the caricature of it and the funny or the slights and all of that. I said, "That's what we're not gonna do," and kind of get an agreement that that's where we're starting from. And then I intersperse, literally just getting to know each other. One of the first things we did for this one is I wanted everyone to write down a church experience that they had that could relate to this and also their favorite song. It didn't have to be a religious song, but just when you think about Chicken and Biscuits, what song do you hear? So it gives them also agency because those songs are our pre-show music. They have agency within creating the show that they have. And I also let them know, I was like, "'No' is a word that can be used in the rehearsal room and I'm giving you agency to be a part of creating your own character." So I don't want to come in here and give you line readings. I don't want to come in here and say you have to do this. We're going to figure this out together. And even up until [opening night],  it's still asking them questions. How does this feel? Where are things falling short for you? What else do you need from me as a director so that this can be a success for you as a performer? That's kind of how I've always worked.

Going into your first performances, what do you hope audiences take away from this production and the story?

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