Z Space

Word for Word Performing Arts Company in association with the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre presents:

SONNY’s Blues

By James Baldwin

February 5 - March 2, 2008
at The Lorraine Hansberry Theatre
Directed by Margo Hall
Original Score by Marcus Shelby

The story of two brothers, one a staid and steady algebra teacher, and the other a passionate jazz musician and recovering heroin addict, "Sonny's Blues" has music present in every moment:  the hum of the bars, the sound of the schoolyards, the gospel singers in the streets of 1950's Harlem. Baldwin's magnificent, terrible, and joyful struggle to find the soul of a life is a stunning portrait of a jazz musician. San Francisco's Marcus Shelby has created a score interweaving blues and be-bop, a flawless accompaniment to Baldwin's prose.

"...Then they all gathered around Sonny and Sonny played...It was very beautiful because it wasn't hurried....Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us to be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did."—"Sonny's Blues"

This collaboration with The Lorraine Hansberry Theatre was in partnership with LHT Co-Founders Stanley E. Williams and Quentin Easter, and was the second to last production in the LHT's Sutter Street space. One of Word for Word's most important offerings, the show toured to France with Director Margo Hall, the cast (with understudy Darryl Harper), and our Musical Composer Marcus Shelby. This tour felt especially moving to us because James Baldwin lived in France (including Paris), and died in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, in the south of France.

"Sonny's Blues" was first published in 1957 in the Partisan Review; James Baldwin republished it in 1965 in his short story collection, Going To Meet the Man.

Word for Word’s theatrical production of "Sonny's Blues" won the BACC 2008 Awards for Best Ensemble and for Entire Production.

Directed by Margo Hall
Original Score by Marcus Shelby

Cast

Mujahid Abdul-Rashid*
Robert Hampton
Peter Macon*
L. Allison Payne
Margarette Robinson*
Da'Mon Vann

Designers and Crew

Lisa Dent - Set
Laura Hazlett - Costumes
Tom Ontiveros - Lighting
Marcus Shelby - Sound

David A. Young - Stage Manager

*Member, Actors' Equity Association

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

James Arthur Baldwin (August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) was an American novelist, playwright, essayist, poet, and activist. His essays, collected in Notes of a Native Son (1955), explore intricacies of racial, sexual, and class distinctions in the Western society of the United States during the mid twentieth-century. His works include If Beale Street Could Talk, Going to Meet the Man, the Fire Next Time, Giovanni's Room, Notes of A Native Son. He is the subject of the 2016 documentary I Am Not Your Negro.