Negro Ensemble Remounts A SOLDIER'S PLAY

To reach an expanded audience, The Negro Ensemble Company, Inc. (NEC) will re-mount its 2017 revival of "A Soldier's Play" by Charles Fuller, directed by Charles Weldon, from February 14 to March 4, 2018 at Gene Frankel Theatre, 24 Bond Street. The piece is historically NEC's most famous and successful play. It was produced last fall at Theatre 80 St. Marks as the culminating event of NEC's landmark 50th season, playing to full houses and glowing notices. The cast of that revival will return intact for the Gene Frankel Theatre run.

"A Soldier's Play" debuted in 1981 at Theatre Four where it ran for two years, earned unanimous praise, launched the careers of many current stars, and subsequently became the basis of a major motion picture, "A Soldier's Story" (1984). The play uses a murder mystery in a segregated U.S. Army base during World War II to expose angers and resentments among African Americans that curiously mimic white racist attitudes. A black Captain is sent to investigate the murder of a black Sergeant. The setting is a segregated Army base in Louisiana where a black officer wielding authority is unprecedented and bitterly resented. The Sergeant is revealed as tyrannical in nature and disgusted with his fellow black soldiers, particularly those from the rural South. The unit is comprised of former Negro Leagues players who were grouped as a unit in order to provide entertainment. Their success playing against white soldiers makes them so popular that it generates talk of them playing against the Yankees in an exhibition game. Nevertheless, they are assigned to menial jobs. The Sergeant's murder at first seems attributable to the local KKK. But when the true murderers are found, surprising and unsettling divisions among the black troops will be revealed. Social forces that might be unveiled, however, will be swept under the rug of history, since the platoon is about to deploy to Europe for the honor of participating in the great Allied invasion. The play won the Pulitzer Prize, an Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Off-Broadway Play, a New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best American Play and three Obie Awards.

The original production of "A Soldier's Play" ran from 1981 to 1983 Off-Broadway and became the preeminent production in NEC's body of work. It gave birth, so to speak, to the careers of Denzel Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, Adolph Caesar and James Pickens, Jr. NEC's co-founder Douglas Turner Ward, who was the play's original director, has written that he was certain of the play's success from the very beginning, not least because he was so certain of its casting, most of the actors having already appeared at the NEC.

In 1984, a faithful adaptation of the play was filmed Columbia Pictures as "A Soldier's Story," directed by Norman Jewison, adapted by Fuller from his Pulitzer Prize-winning script. It won prestigious festival prizes and was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Picture, Supporting Actor (Adolph Caesar), and Screenplay Adaptation (Fuller).

This 50th Season production is directed by Charles Weldon, who acted in "A Soldier's Story" in 1983 at the Mark Taper Forum. His cast-mates also included Robert Hooks, Denny Holiday, Earl Billings, Adolph Caesar, Denzel Washington and Larry Riley. In revisiting the play, Weldon has cast actors who are similar in their effect to those who played the original characters in 1981. The 2017-18 cast is: Gilbert Tucker, Chaz Reuben, P.J. Max, Horace Glasper, Buck Hinkle, Derek Dean, Jay Ward, Arron Lloyd, Adrain Washington, Fulton Hodges, Aaron Sparks and Jimmy Gary, Jr. Their 1981 counterparts were: Adolph Caesar, Charles Brown, Brent Jennings, Samuel L. Jackson, Peter Friedman, Cotter Smith, Eugene Lee, James Pickens, Jr., Denzel Washington, Steven A. Jones, Stephen Zettler and Larry Riley.

Set design is by Chris Cumberbatch. Lighting Design is by Melody A. Beal. Costume Design is by Ali Turns. Sound Design is by Jacqui Anscombe.

Playwright Charles Fuller has been a prominent contributor to the repertory of the NEC, beginning with "In the Deepest Part of Sleep," a four-character domestic drama, and a succession of larger, more historical plays with themes of justice, including "The Brownsville Raid" and "Zooman and the Sign." Other productions with NEC include two epic cycles, "In My Many Names and Days" and "We." He has written about twenty major theatrical works. Although in recent years, he has concentrated mostly on writing for the screen, he tackled the searing subject of sexual assault in the armed forces with a new play, "One Night ...," which was produced at the Cherry Lane Theater in 2013. He was born and raised in Philadelphia and served in the U.S. Army from 1959 to 1962, after which he studied at La Salle University (1965-1967), earning a DFA. He has received a Guggenheim Award and NEA fellowship for playwriting, taught playwriting at Temple University and co-founded the Afro-American Arts Theatre Philadelphia.

Director Charles Weldon has been Artistic Director of Negro Ensemble Company, Inc. for twelve years. He has directed the company's productions of "Colored People Time" by Leslie Lee, "The Waiting Room" by Samm-Art Williams, "Savanna Black and Blue" by Raymond Jones, "Ceremonies in Dark Old Men" by Lonnie Elder and "Hercules Didn't Wade in the Water" by Michael A. Jones. He has also directed and acted prolifically in regional theaters. Weldon began his performance career in 1960 as lead singer with The Paradons, a Doo-Wop group from Bakersfield, CA, and co-wrote and recorded the smash hit "Diamonds and Pearls." He performed in the original San Francisco production of "Hair" and the Broadway musical "Buck Time Buck White" with Mohammed Ali. He joined the Negro Ensemble Company in 1970 and acted in many of its classic plays including "A Soldier's Play," "The Great McDaddy," "The Offering," "The Brownsville Raid" and the Company's Broadway production of "The River Niger." His films include "Stir Crazy," "Serpico," "The River Niger," "Malcolm X" and Showtime's "The Wishing Tree." He has won a "HENRY" (Excellence inRegional Theater) for Best Supporting Actor in "Gem of the Ocean" by August Wilson and an Audelco Award for Best Supporting Actor in "Seven Guitars" by August Wilson at Signature Theater. His TV credits include "Roots: The Next Generation" and many NYC-based police dramas. He co-founded the Alumni of the Negro Ensemble Company.

On Friday, March 2, Negro Ensemble Company, Inc. will hold "A Soldier's Play Social," a fundraising event beginning at 9:00 PM at Londel's Restaurant, 2620 Frederick Douglass Blvd. There will be a DJ spinning comedy, music all night, finger food and a cash bar. Excerpts of the play will be presented and a special auction will be held, "Win a Date with a Soldier," where ladies will have the opportunity to bid and win a date with a soldier from the play. Winners will dine at various restaurants in Manhattan on March 9, 10 and 11. Tickets are $25 and available on www.necinc.org and www.ovationtix.com.

Prior to the 1960s, there were virtually no outlets for the wealth of black theatrical talent in America. In 1965, Playwright Douglas Turner Ward, producer/actor Robert Hooks, and theater manager Gerald Krone founded The Negro Ensemble Company, Inc. (NEC). The River Niger by Joe Walker, originally produced at, St. Marks Playhouse (NEC's home theatre), moved to Broadway and was awarded 1973 Obie Awards for Distinguished Performance by Douglas Turner Ward; Best American Play, Joseph A. Walker, and Distinguished Performance by Roxie Roker. Other works include Peter Weiss' "Song of the Lucitanian Bogey" (1967), Lonnie Elder's "Ceremonies in Dark Old Men" (1969) and Charles Fuller's "Zooman and the Sign" (1980). In 1981, NEC mounted "A Soldier's Play" by Charles Fuller, which won the Pulitzer Prize. A film version, "A Soldier's Story," was released in 1984 and nominated for three Academy Awards. NEC has produced more than two hundred new plays and provided a theatrical home for more than four thousand cast and crew members. Among its ranks have been some of the best black actors in television and film, including Louis Gossett Jr., Sherman Hemsley, Denise Nichols, Esther Rolle, Adolph Caesar Laurence Fishburne, Glynn Turman, Reuben Santiago-Hudson, S. Epatha Merkerson, and Phylicia Rashad; playwrights include Steve Carter (intentionally lower case), Samm-Art Williams, Leslie Lee. NEC continues to be a constant source and sustenance for black actors, directors, and writers as they have worked to break down walls of racial prejudice. On July 31, the National Black Theatre Festival in Winston-Salem, NC conferred an award on The Negro Ensemble Inc. for 50 years of excellence in theater.

Photo Credit: Jonathan Slaff