Photo by Mark Frohna
Many cultures follow the custom of dressing their Sunday best, but some worshippers go above and beyond. In many churchgoing black communities in particular, women jump at the chance to look their best, adorning themselves in exquisite dresses and suits, pristine white gloves and, most distinctively, large, colorful statement hats. These flamboyant hat—crowns, as they’re sometimes called in the South—serve as proud displays of both faith and individuality. Some women save up for months to buy them.
Those hats were the subject of the coffee-table book Crowns: Portraits of Black Women in Church Hats, by photographer Michael Cunningham and journalist Craig Marberry. And that book, in turn, served as the inspiration for Regina Taylor’s 2002 play of the same name and its popular musical update, a celebration of faith, fashion and the resilience of the human spirit set to joyous gospel standards. Those themes resonated for Sheri Williams Pannell, director of Skylight Music Theatre’s Milwaukee premiere of the musical, who credits her interest in music to her background singing in church as a kid.
“I was inspired by the idea that Crowns could go from the page to the stage, first in the form of a play and then in a form of a musical,” Pannell says. “When I learned that Skylight was producing the musical, my first thought was I wanted to be in it, and then when the opportunity came to direct it I jumped.”
The musical follows Yolanda, a troubled teenager who is sent down to South Carolina to live with her grandmother after her brother loses his life to gang violence. Once there, she discovers a community of churchgoing black women of a certain age who have lived through their own share of hardships. Strong-willed and outspoken, the characters are composites of real women profiled in Cunningham and Marberry’s book.
Stay on top of the news of the day
Subscribe to our free, daily e-newsletter to get Milwaukee's latest local news, restaurants, music, arts and entertainment and events delivered right to your inbox every weekday, plus a bonus Week in Review email on Saturdays.
“I work with children like Yolanda as I go into various schools as a theater educator, so I know this character intimately,” Pannell says. “And here’s an opportunity for a community to come together to help save this girl, to reach out to her, so that she is not lost in a system, lost in her grief. In hearing these women’s stories, Yolanda finds herself, because nobody manages to live a life without hurt, without pain and without the assistance of people who care about us. These are powerful lessons, and we’re obligated, if we’re blessed with enough years on this Earth, to share those lessons, so that a young person can avoid some of those traps, and some of the mistakes we’ve made. Through this production, the young people who come to see it as well as the elders will have an opportunity to experience what it means to feel whole again after a tragedy.”
Pannell rounded up an all-Milwaukee cast for the production, including several Skylight veterans (Cynthia Cobb, Raven Dockery and Una Van Duvall as three of the women, and Ron Lee, in a dual role, as the men who come in and out of their lives) and a company newcomer as Yolanda, Marquette University theater graduate Ashley Levells.
“It was a difficult process casting Yolanda, because we had all kinds of talented women audition who understood how to tell her story, but Ashley brought a maturity to the choices she made during the audition that showed me she would be able to go to the dark place that Yolanda must go and come out whole on the other side,” Pannell says. “I told Ashley, ‘It took Mary J. Blige about 15 years to make this journey, but you have to make it in 90 minutes,’ and she was up for the challenge.”
Crowns is the fourth of five shows in Skylight’s current season about the journeys of women, all directed by women, and the company is hoping that it’ll have a wide appeal beyond just the usual Downtown theatergoing set.
“We want to reach everyone,” Pannell says. “I believe a show like this opens an opportunity for groups in our city who have never really ventured into the Third Ward, who don’t know anything about Skylight Music Theatre, to get introduced to the theater and the quality of work we do here. It’s a family show, so I’m hoping that families of all ethnicities will be present. If you are at all moved by good storytelling, this will speak to you.”
Crowns runs March 4-26 at the Broadway Theatre Center, 158 N. Broadway. For tickets call 414-291-7800, visit http://skylightmusictheatre.org.
