Cleveland Director Terrence Spivey, who was responsible for reviving the moribund reputation of Karamu’s legendary Black theater during his 2003-216 tenure there, keeps having these accidental encounters with the work of Pittsburgh playwright August Wilson (1945-2005), considered one of the greatest American playwrights, as well as undeniably it’s most important Black one.
Spivey has directed four of the author’s ten “Pittsburgh Cycle” plays, each taking place in a different decade of the 20th century, depicting the lives and struggles of working-class Black Pittsburghers as they face economic and social obstacles. Most recently, the in-demand freelance director was called upon to guest direct Wilson’s Seven Guitars at Ohio State University’s Theatre and Film Department last fall, replacing another director who bowed out. In addition, he’s directed Fences Weathervane Playhouse, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone at Karamu and Radio Golf at Ensemble Theatre.
Starting this week, he’s joining the Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company, which presents plays by Pittsburgh playwrights, to direct one of the three Wilson plays it’s producing this month. He joins company founder Mark Clayton Southers and his daughter Ashley Southers, who direct the other two. Wilson plays have been a staple of the company since its 2003 founding, and the playwright himself attended one of its productions prior to his passing. Mark Southers shares that when it performs Two Trains Running this weekend, “We will become the first theater company to complete the cycle twice.”
Originally slated to do Two Trains Running, Spivey was plugged into Fences when another director was sidelined with medical issues. With a goal to eventually direct all ten of the Pittsburgh plays, he says that when Southers told him Fences would be performed in the backyard of August Wilson’s old house, now a growing cultural arts center, “That was the sweet spot for me. I’m excited to go by his house and use all the environmentals there. I told the actors they have to use all five senses. I’m excited Mark invited me.”
Mark Southers says that when actor Stephen McKinley Henderson, noted for his roles in Wilson plays including the film, version of Fences, had to step down as director, “I knew that Terrence had been to the August Wilson House before and I knew how important it was to have an esteemed director there. So I asked him to give up Two Trains and do Fences, which he’d already done before, and I’m glad he accepted it.”
While Spivey, a Texas native and Cleveland resident, doesn’t have the ties to Pittsburgh that the Southerses do, he relates to his work powerfully as a Black man who wrote about the lives of ordinary people.
“He really touches the common man, average, everyday Black man, someone people slide by and ignore,” he says. “August’s plays are like history books, In every play he wrote, there’s history, whether it’s political, economic, segregation, integration, gentrification, the Great Migration. He’s touching everything and I love the way he loops the characters. You see a couple of characters from Radio Golf, you saw the character in Jitney. I love the intertwining. Nobody has done that. That’s the uniqueness.”
Mark Clayton Southers will direct Two Trains Running, and Ashley Southers helms Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, both of which will be performed in spaces at the company’s home base, the Madison Arts Center.
Its summer productions are starting to garner a national and even international reputation that Southers hopes to continue to grow.
“The thing that gave me the idea that it would work is the outpouring of support we get,” says Southers. “We sell out six weeks all the time. We do an annual show in the backyard of his childhood home and they sell out every year. So we already knew there was a hunger for it. We have patrons that come from out of town, a handful of people that come from overseas. If you come in on the 16th or 23rd you can see all three plays in one day.”
Spivey interjects, “Mark is humble. He won’t tell you this, but he was a close protégé — August was a mentor to Mark. I just have to point that out.”
Fences runs at the August Wilson House from August 8-September 6. Two Trains Running opens August 9 and runs through August 30. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom runs from August 15-24. If you want to make the trip to Pittsburgh, go to https://www.pghplaywrights.org. And do it soon!
One Response to “Cleveland’s Terrence Spivey Directs Play for August Wilson Celebration in Pittsburgh”
Simmie Davis
Lovely to have Cleveland and Pittsburgh collab on such powerful work, keeping the August Wilson portfolio alive and well