Photo Credit: Jenny Plevin
In 1961, the poet Langston Hughes, aware that African American history is embedded in gospel music and its progeny, crafted “a gospel song-play” named for one of the show’s big numbers, “Wasn’t That a Mighty Day.” The frame was the story of Jesus’ birth, told partly by narrators quoting the Bible but mostly through some two dozen songs performed by African American singers and dancers. Black history and community were the subjects; black music from slave songs through 1950s jazz and blues were the means.
That history was very much still in the making in 1961 as the civil rights movement caught fire. To honor it, Hughes changed the title just before opening night to Black Nativity, a controversial move that provoked resignations from key collaborators, including choreographer Alvin Ailey. Although the Semitic people of Christianity’s foundational story had long been portrayed in the West as Caucasian, could the Angel of the Lord, the Mother of God and her baby look African?
Hughes’ script is largely an arrangement of traditional lyrics. No score is provided. No scenery is called for, “only a platform of various levels and a single glowing star high over a place that might be a manger.” In Milwaukee, the Hansberry-Sands Theatre Company had been performing a version for years. Black Arts MKE (born from the appropriately named Black Arts Think Tank) took over producing responsibilities in 2015 in partnership with the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts, which had embraced the organization as a resident.
Change came quickly. Barbara Wanzo, Black Arts MKE’s executive director, described the Hansberry-Sands production as “traditional gospel with older actors. I knew I wanted someone from a younger generation to direct it, an activist, someone who had something to say.” Wanzo found that person in Malkia Stampley, a founding member and former artistic director of Milwaukee’s Bronzeville Arts Ensemble. A graduate of Marquette University’s theater program, she’d become a professional actress working at The Rep and Skylight Music Theatre and in Chicago and New York. She was still an emerging director when she agreed to helm the 2016 production of Black Nativity.
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Wanzo calls it Black Nativity 2.0. Not only are the Bible characters black in Stampley’s production, they’re presented as contemporary Milwaukeeans. Hughes’ historical concerns are updated with graceful staging and set pieces that reference current social justice issues: Black Lives Matter (2016); Colin Kaepernick and police violence (2017); and #MeToo and Black Girl Magic (2018).
Stampley enlisted her cousin, Antoine Reynolds—music director for the largest black church in Milwaukee, Christian Faith Fellowship—to compose an original score that would cover black music history through hip hop. She asked costume designer Beverly Echols for Afro-punk designs. She cast some of the city’s finest gospel singers, devised important children’s roles and put a whole community on stage. In three years, her Black Nativity has achieved something like legendary status. I’ve reviewed it for three years; it’s a knock-out. Whatever your faith, you can’t help but thrill to the music and dance, applaud the concerns and warm to the performers.
Looking Back to Make Positive Change
Along with Reynolds and Echols, the production team includes choreographer Christopher Gilbert. They began working with Stampley this year to devise ways to address the mass incarceration of African Americans in the 2019 production. Then, big news arrived: Stampley would be moving to New York some weeks before opening to join her husband, actor Chike Johnson. Attempts were made, but, limited by time and funds, a Black Nativity 3.0, so to speak, proved unreachable.
“So, to celebrate our fifth year,” Wanzo says, “we’re celebrating the West African concept of Sankofa—looking back in order to make positive change.” Composer and music director Reynolds is also the stage director for what will largely be a remount of last year’s production, but with new musical arrangements and choreography.
“What’s most important to us is to do the show very, very well,” Wanzo says. “What people come to see is entertainment that’s part of our DNA: the dancing, the music, the people—it’s who we are. And we’re trying not only to celebrate the culture but to share it with everybody, so everyone can value African American culture. Whatever social justice issues we’ll do, we’ll never depart from the dancing and singing. We’ll just make it better.”
“Hughes did an amazing job of humanizing salvation,” Reynolds says, “by putting Jesus in the midst of everyday people. What he did in the ’60s, we’ve just modernized. I honestly believe that if he were alive, the show he’d see here wouldn’t be too different from what he’d have done. In the first act, it’s important to understand that Jesus isn’t far from your own situation. In the second, the unification of church and street is important, and to understand that we’re fighting the same fight from different perspectives.”
Dec. 6-15 at the Marcus Center’s Wilson Theatre at Vogel Hall, 929 N. Water St., with a special Community Night preview taking place on Thursday, Dec. 5. For tickets, call 414-273-7206 or visit marcuscenter.org.
