When I originally started this project I thought I
was going to be making a short film about Jonathan
Green and the artwork and set design that he did for
the 2016 production that took
place for Spoleta Festival USA that year.
And so I was excited to work with Jonathan Green
and I started reading the actual book Porgy. And I
went to this one last book that I was reading
called, 'The Strange Career of Porgy and Bess' and I went
to the epilogue. This thick
book and I went down to like here, the last pages.
And in the first eight sentences of the epilogue,
I learned about the 1970 production of Porgy
and Bess in Charleston, that it had played all
over the world. But it didn't play in this very
city that it was about, because no one would
agree to perform it before an integrated
audience. I've seen movies and I've heard stories
from my parents about what it was like to
integrate the schools for example. I've seen you
know the the classic Civil Rights footage of
of protests. But what floored me was just how
tense things were in Charleston
leading up to 1970, because you had
the hospital workers strike. You had the
garbage workers strike. It was such a big deal at
the time that Sixty minutes, the LA
Times The New Yorker, all the major national press
and some international press had covered this
event. And that day were
nationally credited with a moment of racial
healing that they received Broadway caliber
critical acclaim. And
I sat there in my in my living room and I was
floored just reading these first eight sentences
because I thought, 'Wait a second. I remember sitting
on some of these people's knees as a child.' And if I
didn't know about this then I know that my
friends didn't know about it. That I, I know that greater
Charleston didn't know as much as I should about it.
And people who could have really benefited from
learning about the hard work that our elders put
in, just to perform art
before an integrated audience, I I knew that not enough
people knew about it. And it's been over eighty
years. And not one person has bothered to ask,
the people from the culture, 'Hey what do you
think?' Again, 'Hey what does this mean?'
So there was there was a
lot of nervousness that you know that that I am
doing this story
I have the power to do this story.
I have the power to do in a way that
voices are un-censored.
Ella Gerber found out about
the Coalese Music Club and chose us to be the
choral core of the program. So it was a coming
together of us who really sang and knew
music and could read music. Porgy and Bess
production involved a whole lot of singing and
being the part that we loved to sing, we fit right in.
Here's a group from Charleston they didn't
have to import folks into the low country. The
talent was already here. Since it was local all of us
were determined to make this a great thing. And we wanted to
make Charleston proud of us. It was like a movie except it
was real. And when they started to
sing, It was like I know that
song and the crowd loved it and
at the end the ovation just went on
and on. There was a great authenticity
to this production that I have never seen elsewhere.
It just now melted out of Ella's heart. She directed that Porgy
and Bess many times. And for the first time she
sought real. We say in music don't be sharp. Don't be flat.
Be natural. That's what I tried to do.
Summertime rings in my ear.
The reason they were able to give such a great
production of Porgy and Bess is because of their
experiences. They had lived much of what Porgy and Bess
existence was all about. That's why I think
they were the best. I think for people who lived through
the 60s, I think that sometimes they
need somebody who's younger than
younger than them to say, 'Hey! What you
did was a really big deal.
And what you went through was a really big deal.
A lot happened in that decade.' And that's when I
knew, I'm working on something
bigger than myself. I'm working on something really
complex and I need to take my time and do it right.