THE CONDUCTOR at Theater for the New City

For the second appearance of his newest play, THE CONDUCTOR, Ishmael Reed has revived the Living Newspaper, a 1930s WPA theatrical form that was shut down by the Republican Party. This form gives the playwright the liberty to respond to current events by adding or deleting passages from the original script.

Ishmael Reed belongs to a tradition dating to ancient times where writers challenge the official versions of events. In "The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda,” he challenged the myth that slaveholder Alexander Hamilton was “an ardent abolitionist.” With “The Slave Who Loved Caviar,” he challenged the rumor that Jean-Michel Basquiat was a “primitive” whom Andy Warhol sought unsuccessfully to civilize.

In "The Conductor," Reed’s tackles the corporate media’s interpretation of the recall of members of the San Francisco Unified School District Board of Education in 2021-2022.  Theater for the New City presents a 3-week, 12 performance return of this play, from August 24 to September 10.  Director is Carla Blank.

Well-schooled in the art of “divide and conquer,” the backers of the San Francisco Recall movement used some minority faces to front the Recall while they attempted to remain in the background. In Reed’s play, the character Shashi Parmar is the face. But his role as a Recall leader is threatened when the downing of a US spy plane over Indian airspace occurs, coupled with the growing tensions between the nationalist Indian leader, Siraj ud-Daulah, and the United States. As a result, anti-Indian sentiment rises on the West Coast. Indian Americans must hide or leave the country. A new Underground Railroad is established to convey Indian Americans to Canada, from whence they can get passage to rejoin family and friends in India. Unlike the 19th Century when Abolitionists harbored fugitive slaves, "The Conductor" of the 2020s is a Black journalist named Warren Chipp, Shashi's rival. Some scenes go off like fireworks as the two debate their positions on the Recall. In this play, the women, Kali Parmar, a women's studies professor and Melody Wells, a journalist, are not innocent bystanders. They have lines too.

This re-run might be one of the most important of the New York Theater season. When CNN was preparing a recent documentary about San Francisco and the Recall movement they filmed portions of a virtual reading of "The Conductor" and interviewed two of the board members who were recalled, Alison Collins and Gabriela Lopez. We were hopeful that CNN would present a balanced view of the issues. Instead, they called and said they'd decided to omit the coverage of our play and Alison and Gabriela's POVs. Their "documentary" went for the one-sided headline: "Progressives are destroying San Francisco." Our play leaves in what they left out.

Ishmael Reed (playwright, composer and musician) is the author of more than thirty books to date, receiving prizes in every category, including poetry, non-fiction, plays and novels. His third novel, “Mumbo Jumbo,” celebrated its 50th anniversary with a new Scribner edition published in November 2022, including a new introduction by Reed. Reed has authored eleven plays to date; The New Yorker hailed him as “America’s most fearless satirist,” and Backstage called him “a modern day Moliere.” Elizabeth Vincentelli described his play, “The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda,” as “Classic activist theater” and “a cross between ‘A Christmas Carol’ and a trial at The Hague’s International Criminal Court.” Reed’s honors include a MacArthur Fellowship, a 2022 Anisfield-Wolf Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2017 AUDELCO Pioneer Award for the Theater, and the University of California at Berkeley’s Emeritus Professor Award of the Year 2020.  Reed, who recently released the CDs “The Hands of Grace” and “Blues Lyrics by Ishmael Reed” plays piano on his original compositions for The Conductor. His author’s website is www.ishmaelreed.org.

Carla Blank is a director, dramaturge, writer and editor. She directed and choreographed Reed’s play, “The Slave Who Loved Caviar,” at Theater for the New City Dec. 2021-Jan. 2022. Among her other directing credits are “The Domestic Crusaders” by Wajahat Ali (2003-2011), “News From Fukushima,” a multidisciplinary performance work by Yuri Kageyama (2015-2018), and a collaboration with Robert Wilson on “KOOL – Dancing In My Mind,” a multidisciplinary performance portrait inspired by Suzushi Hanayagi, the late Japanese choreographer and dancer, which premiered at NYC’s Guggenheim Museum (2008-2010). Following her debut as a dancer and choreographer in Judson Dance Theater Workshop performances of the 1960s, she devoted many years to creating performance works with youth to aged adults. Those experiences provided the basis of “Live Onstage!,” a two-volume performance arts handbook co-authored with Jody Roberts. Blank and Reed co-edited the anthology “Bigotry On Broadway” (Baraka Books, 2021).

The Conductor’s actors are Brian Simmons, Laura Robards, Sri Chilukuri, Kenya Wilson, Monisha Shiva, and Emil Guillermo; understudies are Humza Akbar, Joy Renée LeBlanc, and Aaron Watkins.

Rome Neal, Director of the Nuyorican Poets Café is Production Coordinator. Set designer is Mark Marcante. Set decoration and construction and props are by Lytza Colon. Lighting and Sound designer is Alexander Bartenieff. Costume designer is Diana Adelman. Stage manager is Emily Yarmey.

Ishmael Reed writes: “Carla Blank and I are delighted to be returning to Theater for the New City. We are most grateful to Crystal Field and her staff for supporting our production with their all-encompassing expertise, so necessary to the realization of this work. We feel very lucky to be included under the storied umbrella of this forward looking community.