♪♪ >> William A.

Brown and the African Grove Theatre Company took on classical works amid slavery in the early 1800's in New York City.

At those gatherings, they talked about theater.

They performed works of art.

They sung songs.

Today, we have gathered some of the most prolific voices in theater, as well as students from the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts to dive into Shakespeare, Black actors, and the classical canon.

I'm your host, LeeAnét Noble, here at Shakespeare Theater Company.

I'm on senior staff and the artistic team.

Black Stage: Classical Canon, let's go.

♪♪ >> Award winning theater artist, actor, playwright, director, Ruben Santiago-Hudson.

Actor, playwright, activist, director, Doctor John Kani.

Actress, comedian, director, author, producer, community activist, Miss Phyllis Yvonne Stickney.

Actor, singer, voice actor, Keith David.

Director and professor at the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts, Eric Ruffin.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ >> Our artistic director Simon Godwin, here at Shakespeare Theatre Company.

He defines classical theatre as using the past to explain the present, and I would love to hear each of you talk about your journey into classical theatre and how you define it, and what it means to you.

We can start with Miss Stickney.

>> Oh.

The one who was probably had the most fear of what was considered classical theatre.

We, of course, that was Shakespeare for us.

And so being told that there had to be a criteria that you had to meet.

For me, uh, I had to get over the fear of Shakespeare, first of all, and get over -- get over what was presumed, uh, my lack or my inability to approach the language or to understand the language.

That was number one.

Uh, because I didn't come from academia.

I am one who is naturally gifted.

And so I came to the planet with the tools that I possess.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> So understanding the rhythm of the language and understanding what was the meter and what was the story that was being told.

I knew that I was a great storyteller, so my relationship with classical words or classical theatre really began with my understanding and appreciation of language and how it has colored everything that I do and that we do, how it has included us but has excluded us.

So I started looking for other things that were classical to me, and what was how we told our stories was different than others, how we were included in history and how we were excluded from history in so-called classical works, to me was very interesting.

So I started really at the Public Theater in a workshop with Ed Bullins, the late Ed Bullins and, um, and the rest, as we say, is history.

>> Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Mr. David.

>> Um... To me, language is music.

And you always have to find the rhythm of the language.

Um, and that's one reason I loved Shakespeare, but... And still love Shakespeare.

But I, you know, in the same way that, um, I love August Wilson, you know, I mean, if you -- if you -- if you don't hear the music, then you're missing something.

I mean, it's, you know, and the -- and the, um, the constant search for reality, you know, in, you know, what's real the moment and the relationship.

And then you find once you find that rhythm, you know -- you know, I used to have a teacher who said, "You know how I know you're lying?

The rhythm is wrong."

And you can't -- you can't, you know, you can't, you know, play Shakespeare the same way you -- In fact, you can play Shakespeare the same way you play August Wilson, because you got to find the rhythm of the language.

You know, what is the -- what is the moment you are trying to communicate?

You know, like Phyllis said, you know, I came with a sort of fear of, you know, how do we -- how do I -- how do I say this?

You know -- You know, you sort of taught academically about the media and all that kind of stuff, but I'm, you know, my ear wants to search for the rhythm of the truth.

>> Mm.

>> Mm.

>> And the reason to -- for me, to, you know, get into the academic part of it is to, you know, he does give you, uh, a stress point.

But then I got to find my truth within that point.

>> Yeah.

>> And sometimes -- And sometimes it will -- it will vary greatly, you know -- You know, uh, Earle Hyman, I was having a conversation with Earle Hyman, and he said he always finds a line that you take home.

>> Mm.

>> And, you know, since he was from the from the south and not taking, taking that home.

You know, when, you know, um, I understudied him in a -- in a -- in my first play and he would -- the way he would use that, "Oh," uh, was like, that was us talking.

>> Wow.

>> That wasn't -- That wasn't them over there.

And it wasn't English.

You know, it wasn't Shakespearian.

It was just, you know, and you never really questioned it.

That was -- That was what the moment was about.

>> Right.

>> Mm.

>> Doctor Kani.

>> Well.

I was born in Port Elizabeth, New Brighton, South Africa.

That's where the 1820 settlers landed.

And the first thing they did was to educate the native so that the native would be useful later when the native understands the instructions in English.

So the first thing, even at lower levels of education, we were always required to find some poem, some sonnet that we would, um, deliver when the bounty Inspector white men came to evaluate the quality of education for native children.

If we could quote a sonnet or a poem by Shelley or anybody, then it means we're getting education.

Nothing African in my education.

Except that I was just a student from the township.

So I used to do "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"

No.

Thou art more fair.

I didn't know what that meant.

But you have no idea.

Nor did I have a respect for this guy who writes like the Bible.

Like the King James Version.

So there was an aversion to the colonizing the mind of the Black person by using the Bible.

And first thing you open in Shakespeare is the same language.

So these dudes who know each other, King James and Shakespeare.

So what was like for me, the real introduction was in 1959.

The teacher walks in the class and says, "We're going to do Julius Caesar, but in isiXhosa," it's a translation.

That was the first focus.

So we sit there and listened and we read.

He always said, stand up and read.

You can't read Shakespeare sitting down.

But it's an easy course.

I mean, like, oh, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, that I'm gentle to these butchers.

We didn't learn it that way.

It's on [Indistinct] when I got [Indistinct].

[ Speaking in native language ] If that was so beautiful, later in my life, I bumped into the copy of Julius Caesar, which I call the Shakespeare's version.

>> Mm.

[ Laughter ] >> I said that in Stratford, we were having a discussion, I said then finally I got to see Shakespeare version of Julius Caesar, and some John Button said, "Oh, no, my boy, the other way around."

I said, "No, the other way round."

We saw it from our point of view.

We looked at the play.

We looked at the work.

We looked at the words.

What does it mean to me?

What does it mean to my village?

What does it mean to my community?

What does it mean to my people?

Like saying, what am I actually calling them?

To come in a place, sit down and listen to this wonderful truth being presented.

We needed to find why would they ask or risk their money to come in the theater or -- There were no theaters in South Africa at all -- in a hall to listen to you.

What is the intention?

What was the secret agenda?

Why did you call them?

>> Mm.

>> And that was my introduction.

And that's where I got trained by being the truth teller.

>> And God stepped out on space, and he looked around and said, "I'm lonely.

I'll make me a world."

And God smiled and the light broke.

And the darkness rolled up on one side.

And the light stood shining on the other.

And God said, "That's good."

Then God reached out and took the light in his hands, and God rolled the light around in his hands until he made the sun.

And he set that sun a blazing in the heavens, and the light that was left from making the sun, God gathered it up in a shining ball and flung it against the darkness.

Spangling the night with the moon and stars.

Then down between the darkness and the light, he hurled the world.

And God said, "That's good."

Then God himself stepped down, and the sun was on his right hand, and the moon was on his left.

The stars were clustered about his head and the earth was under his feet.

And God walked and God looked around and stopped and saw that the earth was hot and barren.

So God stepped over to the edge of the world and spat out the seven seas.

He batted his eyes and the lightnings flashed.

He clapped his hands and the thunders rolled, and the waters above the earth came down.

The cooling waters came down.

>> I was introduced to Shakespeare because I wanted to prove to, uh, all the white actors in my school, me being the only Black actor that I'm better than them.

You know, being a street boy from Lackawanna, New York, from a rooming house, I said, who, you know, who speaks just like that's where I'm from.

But also as a doctor, you know that, uh, but when I waxed the language, I waxed the language, and I don't have to become anything else.

It's all -- It's all communication.

It's an elevated language, and I can elevate the language.

But the communication stays still, uh, succinct and direct and intentional.

So once you find out, what am I trying to communicate?

Who am I trying to communicate it to, and what is my task?

How do I tactfully do that?

And then, being people of color who we basically speak in what they call iambic pentameter.

The way we say things, like, "Get your...hands off me."

That word that I didn't use?

>> Yeah.

Somebody grab you, "Get your...hands off me!"

Look at it.

>> Yeah.

>> Speak fluidly.

We have tone, we have levels, we have notes, and we -- we speak in a melodic way.

>> Yeah.

>> And so when you take a person, uh, like a James Weldon Johnson who wrote not only dialect, but iambic pentameter, as they call it, you know, he can do it.

But could Shakespeare write dialect?

>> Mm.

>> He wrote their dialect.

But so we have -- We get multifaceted and it just, it just gives us these incredible, huge scope of being.

And then so when we come on stage, we not only bring this thing that Shakespeare is giving you, you know, uh, "There may be in the cup a spider steeped, and one may drink, depart, and yet partake no venom, for his knowledge is not infected.

But if one present th' abhorred ingredient to his eye, make known how he hath drunk, he cracks his gorge, his sides, with violent hefts."

So we bring that language and we bring this melody that's different than doing Shakespeare from the head out.

We, as Black people, are passionate.

So we bring Shakespeare from the heart to the head to the mouth out.

And the communication is just a little bit more melodic.

>> We have spoken about a series of different playwrights, Black playwrights in particular, who reshape and remold stories that we know, stories that we need to know.

Why do you think there's such a deep connection there?

>> I think what Ruben just said, you know, kind of bridges so many of the challenges and the realities that we face, right?

Um, because, as he said, who are the classic writers?

And who defines what that is?

So our conversation was talking about some of the people -- Steve Carter, "Pecong" -- one of the plays that I think is amazing and the language is elevated, definitely.

The stories about Medea, a prequel to Medea, but we don't see those in the regional theaters.

We don't see those in the so-called classical theater spaces.

Um, I think that Nambi Kelley, who I happen to have spent time with in Italy, that I went to Italy to have a conversation with Lynn Nottage, a writer, because I too write.

But I knew that the realest conversation, unfortunately, was not going to happen on these borders.

So we went there and I discovered the amazing, uh, writing of this -- this amazing young playwright, Nambi Kelley.

Um, P.J.

Gibson, we've talked about, uh, mentioned, uh, off camera earlier.

Some of the people who tell our stories in a way that only we can tell them.

And I think that having been seen through the filter or through the lens of having to meet this certain criteria or this certain, um, expectation based on what classical is, these people sometimes are, you know, fall through the cracks.

We know August Wilson, uh, of course, because of the canon and the wonderful things that he has given to the theater.

But there are others who have been so overlooked that tell our stories, that tell our stories brilliantly.

I was blessed to have been in Lincoln Center's production of "Death and the King's Horseman", which was the first time -- yeah, right -- I was the understudy to Trazana Beverly, which I laugh often.

I was like two -- I was putting her, making her chocolate.

Okay.

[ Laughter ] Right.

Try to make her darker.

And here I was all the time.

But, um...

But I learned Wole Soyinka, and the language and the story that he told, uh, the importance of that story, the significance of that story on so many levels.

So I think that we have classic writers and classical writers as -- as Ruben has said, and we just have to identify them and invite, which is my conversation with the regional theaters, invite you to include it in your season.

>> You mentioned the great Ed Bullins, who was the, you know, precursor for a lot of writers, a lot of people.

August -- August Wilson reading Ed Bullins in Baraka.

>> Wow.

>> You know.

Influenced tremendously by them.

But Bullins, those plays... >> Wow.

The taking of Miss Jane.

>> Going to Buffalo.

>> Going to Buffalo, some of the things that, like I said, you don't see these and we don't talk about them often because it's not necessarily one of the classics or it's not one of the -- the writers that we -- that we have celebrated.

>> Both of you spoke on language.

Um, we're going to go to Silver Throat here.

And if you could speak a bit about what it is about the language that embodies the voice of an actor in these works, in the Wole Soyinka's, in the Shakespeare's.

>> What happens within the language that connects?

>> First of all, and a great playwright who is also a poet, there is something that happens in the language that, um, brings together all, you know, your -- the emotional content and the intellectual content.

You know, poets have a way of -- of languaging that make -- that -- that -- that takes our human experience and puts it in a sentence and you go -- and it of blows the mind because it's like, how did you get so much stuff in so few words?

And, you know, certainly as an actor, to be able to bring that to the, you know, the communication table, because that's what we, you know, I mean, and all of our endeavors, what we're trying to do is to communicate something that we have felt or experienced and -- and to make that universal.

I think, you know, what makes it classic is the universal element.

Because, I mean, it doesn't matter which generation you're from.

You can understand this emotion, you can understand this thought, this process, you -- Doctor Kani said how his education, they wanted it to be all England.

The same things that happened to y'all, and it's funny, over in South Africa, my people there, happened to us our whole education.

>> First.

>> No, to them for -- Well, maybe I was first.

>> Yeah.

>> Our whole education is about what's right and what's white.

We did nothing in nothing that I learned in school.

And until Loften Mitchell and Percival Boyd told me to go into that red building over there called the library, spend an hour a day and write me a 10 page paper, and I'll give you four credits, did I go and start reading our history.

>> Our history.

>> But they taught me everything that was white and right.

Nothing that was Black and glorious.

>> At all.

>> You had to get that for yourself.

>> Right.

>> Yeah.

>> You see, I'm an African and I know from my father and my grandfather and my great grandfather that I'm a descendant of great kings.

Actually I'm royalty, and that's what he told me.

And I knew that my grandmother wasn't very truthful about me being a royal, except that he was preparing me against the onslaught to my humanity that will happen in an apartheid state.

So he readied me so that it doesn't impact on me.

So when I first read "Romeo and Juliet", I said, exactly like Tutuola [Indistinct].

I knew that story.

Almost, I think, somehow someone must have told Shakespeare about this and they stole the idea because the story of [Indistinct] Tutuola is much older.

It's within the foundations of our culture.

A young man is falling in love with the most beautiful girl in the village, but he has to go for initiation.

Winnie Mandela visiting Nelson Mandela on Robben Island, speaking through a glass.

And when Mandela was released on the 11th of February, 1990, it was the first time that Mandela and Winnie were in the same room.

And Madiba, Mandela says, "I didn't have the courage nor her showing me.

We didn't touch.

We were separated by a glass.

Now we're in the same room.

We didn't touch each other.

But every time in Robben Island we put our hands on the glass.

But this time we spent four hours, she was sitting there and I was sitting here."

>> Wow.

>> "And we just looked.

It was almost on the third visit that she came and kissed me on the cheek."

Because that was 27 years.

That for me is a classic.

>> Mm.

>> Mm.

>> That's really come.

>> Yes.

Absolutely.

>> And many of Shakespeare's stories were taken from earlier stories from Africa and Greece.

>> Of course.

Of course.

>> Yes.

>> The story that you told, it's like I was born in North Little Rock, Arkansas.

But I remember my father, 6'4", telling us who we were.

He didn't tell me that I was a princess or...

But he told me that you -- they are no better than you.

>> Than you are.

>> And so when I walked on the planet a lot differently than my peers because my father had given me this strength and this power -- >> Isn't that -- >> ...and this knowing.

>> That's kind of like required for a little Black kid.

You think that didn't happen to me in the rooming house in Lackawanna?

Look at all the people in that rooming house that the world threw away that wasn't worthy to nobody.

And they all, you know, telling me I can be something.

I'm going to be something.

I'm going to be a doctor.

They kind of brainwashed you.

They have to prepare you and give you enough armor to go into a world that's not going to accept you as equal.

So we have to, as the -- as the -- the seniors, the elders, whatever you want to put it, we have to.

It's required that we instill that confidence and self-worth.

And, you know, because, you know, arrogance is -- is no place for that.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> But confidence -- My mom would not let me go and go out into anything and not think that I couldn't accomplish it.

She wanted me to know, "You can accomplish anything, but you have to work ten times harder because they're not going to accept it --" >> Right.

>> "...If you're just even.

You got to be way up."

And so what I just said about being in a classical -- the Hilberry classical Repertory Theater, the only Black student there, not getting one role in the entire two years that I was there for my masters, not getting one lead role, and yet coming out of there, and the only one that's performed on probably the biggest classical stage in New York, the Delacorte Theater.

>> How...slowly...the time passes.

I've been waiting here two hours, but Melinda has not come yet.

What keeps her?

I don't know.

I waited long and late for her last night.

But when she approached me, I jumped to my feet.

I caught her in my arms.

I kept her close to my heart and I kissed away the tears from her moist cheeks.

She placed her trembling hands onto mine and said, "Glenn, I'm yours.

I will never be the wife of another."

I kept her in my bosom, and I called to God to witness that I would ever disregard her as my wife.

Old Uncle Joseph joined us in holy wedlock.

That was the only marriage ceremony.

I looked to my vow as ever binding to me, that I would ever regard my wife, and that a just God will sanction our union in heaven.

>> It's the same way I approach any script today.

I'm looking for the music in the language.

I'm looking for where is the rhythm?

Where is the rhythm of the character and how the -- The highs and lows.

What -- What of my instrument and my knowledge?

How does it inform my instrument to tell this writer's story the best?

>> It's so interesting because my -- my -- my folk are from South Carolina and from the South.

And the first time I read, um, Paul Laurence Dunbar, who was forced to write in dialect.

That's not how he wrote.

>> He'll call somebody else.

>> But he was -- But, you know, uh, his teacher recognized his gift for language and poetry, but said, "You gotta make it sound like this."

And then when you -- when you first hear it, it sounds whacked, because, you know, people don't talk like that.

And then, uh, I remember staying up till 3:00 in the morning listening to my aunt read, you know, Liza.

Bless the Lord.

Don't you know what it is --?

You know, and it sounded like that's how people talk.

>> Sound like "Well, listen".

>> You know how when Melinda sings, you know, it's like -- it's like, wow.

So you can -- you can find the rhythm and the truth of that language.

>> Yeah.

>> You know, even when -- [Stuttering] when they're making you, uh, do it some other way, you know, like all that, the language of, uh...uh, Harriet Beecher Stowe.

What is it?

What is that?

>> "Uncle Tom's Cabin".

>> "Uncle Tom's Cabin".

You know, I mean, you don't want to hear them read it.

You don't want to hear -- But [Stammering] if you -- but if you -- if you, again, if you embrace the moment of what is trying to be communicated, you understand exactly what they were trying to get to.

They didn't get to it because they're trying to, you know, uh, when you, you know, what do you call it when you, um, they're trying to do it sort of phonetically.

>> Yeah.

>> And what they think that they're hearing from -- >> I hate reading it when they write it like them white people.

I said, I'll do that.

I'll drop the accent on it.

I'll drop what you need on it.

Just, you just write it.

>> [ Laughter ] >> I know how to do it.

>> Right.

>> Don't explain it out.

>> But you don't try it, until they've asked you to do the eye thing.

>> Okay.

>> And I was playing Topsy.

And I remember I asked an actor, because I was done.

I could not believe that I was I was being asked to play Topsy in "Uncle Tom's Cabin" with the little pickaninny braids and everything.

And I called one of my actors that was, you know, doing legitimate work.

And she knows, like, what can -- How -- And I was just distraught.

And I remember what they told me.

They said, "Do the work.

Do it your best so you'll never have to do it again."

>> Mm.

>> "Do it now.

This is a part of your career, before anyone knows [Indistinct].

Go ahead and get it out of the way.

So when they -- when you're asked again, you can tell them, 'No, I've already done that.'"

>> I've done that.

>> Yes.

>> And I ain't going back.

>> Right.

Right.

>> I've already done that.

Not going back.

>> It is important that places like the Shakespeare Theatre Company, the Royal Shakespeare, the National Theatre and all these glorious palaces of culture which is foreign to the rest of the people, to sometimes bring in an ordinary play written by other people who are not regarded as classic or have an interpretation of that classic in the present as it impacts to the present people now.

Because if I do it in the Market theatre and I do it in Cape Town, it is a play that anybody gets.

I already have an audience that already converted, but when you come to this secluded for us only places and you bring your work and the audiences are asking themselves, "It's not a classic.

Why is it here?"

And that's why the questions when "Kunene and the King" opened at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford upon Avon was, how did they decide to include it in the Shakespeare season?

And which means for past five years there hasn't been a contemporary play.

It's on and on and on and on.

It's all the 37 plays of Shakespeare done again and again and again.

And what's changing?

Who's playing Hamlet now?

A different actor.

Who's playing --?

>> Well, they said it.

They'll affect you.

Put it on the moon.

Put it in Haiti.

Put it -- >> The same.

>> Right.

Right.

>> So when I got there it was like, okay, nothing.

"Kunene and the King".

I said perhaps that was the saving on me that I did mention in the title King.

>> King.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

True.

>> So when we come here, I mean, I was saying that I've moved from the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford.

I'm now at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C. >> Yeah.

>> It is imperative to be part of educating our audiences.

>> Well, my dear, I'm your pet poodle.

And my hat was over my ear.

And I'm late for the loveliest reason.

That may sound silly, but it isn't.

And please don't "Rachel" me so much.

It was honestly one whole hour ago, I opened the front door downstairs.

I know it was because... Because I heard the postman telling someone it was 4:00.

Well, I climbed the first flight and was just starting up the second when a little shrill voice said, "Lo."

I raised my eyes and they're halfway up the stairs, sitting in the middle of a step was the clearest, cutest doll and this little brown baby boy you ever saw.

"Lo yourself", I said.

"What are you doing?

And who are you, anyway?"

"I'm Jimmy, and I'm winding to New York on the choo-choo tars."

[ Laughs ] Oh, my.

As he looked entirely too young to be going such a distance by himself, I asked if I might go too.

He considered the question and me very seriously, and then he said, "Yes", and made room for me on the step beside him.

Oh.

>> This is why our art is so essential.

This is why "Kunene and the King" and -- And Ed Bullins and August and Joseph Walker and Lonnie Elder are all important.

And , you know, [indistinct] and Alice Childress, because you came in for an evening of theater and end up educated about people who you never would go in that house in "Wine in the Wilderness" or "Trouble in Mind," you'd never be in that arena with that person and hear that person's truth.

>> What inspired you to write "Kunene and the King?"

>> It's a trilogy.

I first wrote, um, "Nothing But the Truth."

As in the truth and reconciliation.

Before you confess for the atrocious things you did to Black people during the struggle, they had to swear on the Bible to tell the truth, but nothing but truth.

So help me God.

I was dealing with forgiveness.

I can't forgive him.

No, I don't know how to forgive.

I call it a work in progress.

From 1994 to 2025.

I still cannot forgive.

I'm working on it.

And then later I wrote "Missing," which was again examining within the rot within political parties.

Right?

That where people are jostling for positions and they cut throat, that Black people themselves become his master's voices by advising the boardroom that he is not good.

He's always asking questions.

If you want this thing to move on, let's try Ruben.

Oh no, not Ruben, let's try Derrick.

You see.

And then finally this complete that.

This one we're celebrating 25 years of democracy.

We're not celebrating 25 years of freedom.

Not a single country since 1955, when Ghana got its independence, the word freedom was available in the dictionary.

Why was it called independence?

So this is that, I'm getting back then.

Africa has gone through all these lies and pseudo and likeness.

So my mind was, what do you think?

I asked a brother what we celebrate in 25 years.

He just said, "Hey, dog, we come from hell.

Whatever the situation is, is better than our past.

>> Mm.

>> Asked another white friend, what do you think was celebrated in 25 years?

I got a list of the mess we've done as Black people in government.

I got all the ugly things.

The failure of the state, the failure of the economy.

And this I thought, wow, their both South Africans, both young and they're both very educated.

So I decided to bring them in one room.

>> Ah.

>> ...and see what happens.

>> It was South African theatre, "Woza Albert."

>> Yes.

>> That changed -- a lot of people don't know the history of my relationship with South Africa and South African theatre.

It was actually Lucille Lortel had done the play in the village, and it was the first time in my life it was Roger Freeman had transitioned.

He was my mentor in the theatre.

Long story short, I kept hearing everywhere I went, no matter where people were talking about "Woza Albert."

The buzz, as we say, there was a buzz about this play.

And so having an opportunity to produce at that time, I told them, we got to have this play uptown.

This will be our introduction as the new Heritage Theatre now after Roger has transitioned, and it will be this piece.

And I had never seen it until the first night that it opened in our theater in Harlem, the first time it was performed for a Black audience, since it left the townships and they were hungry to have the performance in front of the audience for which it was created... >> Created for.

>> My conversation is often now with the regionals who say include us, includes the things that we believe are classics, that we know are classic.

They tell the story.

They tell -- they do just that.

They take the past and tell us something about our present and our future.

>> Like a name you never hear who's a great -- was a great writer is Leslie Lee.

>> Oh, yeah.

>> You never hear anything about Leslie.

I directed the last, one of his plays in New York.

"First Breeze of Summer."

>> "First Breeze of Summer."

Wow.

>> You know?

>> The beauty of classics is that it's written in a code language that must -- the audience must decipher and break it down.

It seems it's simple, and yet it's much deeper than that.

So I read the script and I suddenly understand.

I said, no, no, there's something I'm missing.

I should have been more confused.

I should start by not understanding why you're asking me to do this, you know?

And then when I read the can and I suddenly see, oh, my Lord, how they used that word.

Just that word to just to flip it on the upside down.

Now I understand.

And from there on, you kept breaking it down.

Actors, performers do the state of the nation's address.

You get the world listening.

This is your moment.

>> Yes.

>> And when you speak in an interview, when you speak on the stage, you got the attention of the world.

It's your moment.

>> It's true.

>> We do have some students with us from Howard University.

Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts.

>> To be or not to be, that is the question.

Whether tis is nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles.

And by opposing end them.

To die.

To sleep no more.

And by a sleep to say.

We end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.

Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.

To die.

To sleep.

To sleep.

Perchance to dream.

Ah, there's the rub.

For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil must give us pause?

>> To bait fish withal.

If it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge.

He hath disgraced me and hindered me half a million.

Laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains cooled, my friends heated, mine enemies.

And what's his reason?

I am a Jew.

Hath not a Jew eyes?

Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?

Fed with the same food?

Hurt with the same weapons?

Subject to the same diseases?

Healed by the same means?

Warmed and cooled?

>> Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.

I've come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

The evil that men do lives after them.

The good is oft interred in their bones.

So let it be with Caesar.

The noble Brutus hath told you that Caesar was ambitious.

If it were so as to a grievous fault.

And grievously hath Caesar answered it.

Here under leave of Brutus and the rest.

For Brutus is an honorable man.

So are they all honorable men.

Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.

He was my -- He was my friend.

Faithful and just to me.

>> Sir, spare your threats.

The bug which you would frighten me with I seek.

To me can life be no commodity.

The crown and comfort of my life.

Your favor I do give lost, for I do feel it gone but know not how it went.

My second joy and first fruit of my body.

From his presence I am barr'd like one infectious.

My third comfort starred most unluckily is from my breast.

The innocent milk in its most innocent mouth held out to murder.

Myself on every post proclaimed a strumpet with immodest hatred.

The child bed privilege denied.

Which longs to women of all fashion.

Lastly, hurried here to this place in the open air before I have got strength of limit.

Now, my liege, tell me what blessings I have here alive that I should fear to die.

Therefore proceed.

But yet here this, mistake me not no life.

I prize it not a straw, but for mine honor, which I will free, if I shall be condemned upon surmises all proofs sleeping else but what your jealousies awake.

I tell you this rigor and not law.

Your honor is all I do.

Refer me to the oracle.

Apollo, be my judge.

>> First thoughts after taking in those classic pieces?

>> I actually love the choices that were made above the pieces, because they speak to a now that can be addressed through those pieces.

And I think, you know, I mean, that's -- that was a very good choice.

I don't know who, if the professor made the choice for them or they chose those pieces.

>> I asked.

That was me.

That was me.

I asked them to select pieces that they connected to.

>> Well, I mean, then good on them.

All the better for that because -- because they're very, uh, significant to what is happening now politically.

>> If you could -- if each of you could give a word of advice in connection to being theater artists as they are graduating seniors, what would it be?

And I know there's a lot of words that you would give, but the first thought that comes to your mind in connection to that?

>> Well, for me, it's going to be strange with my word of advice is, but it's real.

Learn how to handle the word no.

>> Mhm.

>> Amen.

>> Oh.

>> Learn how to deal with that.

And you can deal with that.

You'll be all right.

>> Right.

>> You're going to keep learning.

Obviously everybody can tell you got to keep learning.

You got to keep growing.

That's obvious.

What people don't realize is you're going to have to learn how to handle is rejection.

No.

No, you're not the one.

When you get a handle on that baby... >> Yeah.

>> Because you're going to have to keep showing up.

>> Right.

Invest more.

What came to my mind was invest more.

Invest more.

Uh, as an artist, as an individual.

But I'm speaking -- if I was to speak to each one of those the young people that we just saw, invest more in discovery of the work and what you are saying.

Invest more.

>> Mhm.

Mhm.

Mhm.

>> The amazing things is the choice of the these extracts.

And you relate it to the young person that made that choice.

And you're trying to find within you is that why that choice and also the celebration of language, and these were carefully written.

All these three incredible excerpts from Shakespeare.

You know, like you, you feel that the students are trying to feel it in the mouth, the biting, and then it's just for them to realize this is the beginning of the marathon.

So it may not be it.

You still going to grow so much.

You know we always said that all the plays I did in the '80s I wish I could do them now.

Are there any, now that I know more.

Now that I know more.

So there'll always be that willingness or hunger and you could see in their interpretations was trying to find for themselves where am I?

Who am I?

And there were chosen so beautifully.

When you take "Hamlet," you ask yourself what was the situation?

The man knows the uncle mad at his father.

The ghost told him.

He says 10,000 soldiers marching to reclaim a little square foot of land.

And they are prepared to die, and he can do nothing.

And then the text in itself says coward, bravery, death, life, knowing.

Then this guy must have been a philosopher.

And that is Shakespeare, of course.

>> What Phyllis was saying about that's the thing that we all do even now at our place, and that's what we do.

And that, continuing to mine, to dig deeper into the text, similar to what Dr. Kani is saying.

Because what -- when you find because all this talent, what we just saw was talent.

There's a lot of that different, you know, different levels of training, different levels of depth.

And what gives you the edge -- Like, what I said about being able to say no, it's not a negative thing.

I mean, except no or deal with no, it's not a negative thing.

It's knowing that maybe no here but somebody's buying.

>> Yes.

>> So I okay, I heard your no, but, uh, so I can handle that.

That didn't destroy me, I handled it.

But as far as we talking about the work itself, when you have luxurious words, the how you paint with them.

This young lady chose certain words, operatives that were beautiful, that she picked that.

When she said jealousies, different things, that then you start coloring you.

That's your paintbrush.

What's the strokes with that?

Are they -- are they -- But where do you land something and let it ring?

>> Yes.

>> And not ring.

Martin Luther King is the perfect example.

When you see people who are not from America or the South do Martin Luther King, they don't understand how to make a moment buoyant, that nothing is said.

How you still hear it ringing and he stopped the word.

"I was...there in the place and... You know, whereas people from other places like, say, South Africa, more staccato.

You would see a stop and take -- you feel the breath.

>> Yeah.

>> Whereas you gotta learn what which where -- The palate is there, Shakespeare, August Wilson, whoever gives you that palate is there.

What words are you painting with the broad strokes and the fine strokes, you know?

And that's just acting stuff we talk about.

>> I'm gonna pass to David.

What would your advice be?

>> Um, I want to make one comment about what he said about no.

Um, and I mean, a little bit of a dangerous territory here, But, um, there is wonderful power in no, and both being able to accept it as a rejection, but also being able to say, you know, my only prerogative as an -- as an artist is to say, no.

I don't have to take every job you offer me.

I don't have to play any role that you put on my table.

And if there's something, if there's something that really goes against my grain, that really goes against what I feel like I'm about, I got to say no.

Because you will not feel good about going to -- going to work every day when you're doing something that you don't...

They ain't paying me enough anyway.

And I realize, you know, you know, so you got to be, you know, and it's a delicate balance because, I mean, you know, uh, it will mean something to how you eat.

So you better be careful, but don't be afraid of it.

You know, you shouldn't be afraid to take, you know, to take a job and walk off of it when something goes against your principle.

>> If you say it, you got to be able to handle it.

If you say no, you know, thank you.

>> But other than that, you know, let's, you know, you know, be as courageous, uh, as you were in picking these pieces and going out there and being hungry for what it is that you want to do.

>> How do you keep the next generation of actors at the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts?

I have to say it a lot of times.

How do you keep them engaged in these works, in these classical pieces?

And are you also redefining what classical means?

>> So there are two ways that I can answer this.

One is for them to never divorce their politics.

A Black body on a Western stage is political.

>> Yes, it is.

>> You are standing in the in the pulpit and you are representing everyone that looks like you, the various communities you are representing.

And so when you have that kind of power to shape individual and collective conscience, you should be intentional with every choice that you make.

You should show up ten toes down as the young folks say, right.

And use that time to be prescriptive, to give medicine in the work that you offer, to make choices that provide hope for our communities.

They are choosing pieces where they are, um, fighting against the status quo, whether it's a despot.

We're talking Shakespearean cases.

Whether it's injustice or inequities against women, you know, whatever.

They understand those politics, we live with them.

That's what a classic does, regardless of who the author is.

A classic is a work that says of the theme, the subject of this work is universal, and over time it is still part of the human condition.

And we must continue to fight, to advocate, to be activists for change on those stages.

>> Thank you for joining us here today at Shakespeare Theatre Company.

It's important that we share these stories with each other as well as the next generation, so we can continue to explore how to expand the classical canon.

>> Hello.

I am performing "Riot: The Beat of Freddie Gray," a one man hip hop theater piece written by myself, Ty'Ree Hope Davis.

I was inspired to write this play from my own experience of witnessing the 2015 Baltimore riots.

♪ Uh, uh, uh, uh ♪ ♪ F, R, E, double D, I, E ♪ ♪ Respect the name or it's Gray you'll see...

Hold on, hold on, hold on.

Cut it, cut it, cut it.

This ain't right.

I thought it was right, but it ain't.

I mean, if you listen to it and I mean really listen, you see, it's unsettling.

Like, it's -- like it's missing something.

Like it's... Oh, it ain't got no life in it.

That's what it's missing.

Some life.

I can't drop this song to a beat that ain't got no life to it.

'Cause see a beat with life like boils your blood but cools your skin.

It starts with a deep resonant pulse that vibrates up your legs, up across your chest, suddenly somewhere in your gut.

It's that rhythm that compels you to slide to the left when the "Cha Cha Slide" come on or bop your head when Little Scooter come on.

Or sing your heart out to Mario, begging your girl to let you love her.

It's the sound of, of raindrops tapping on the window pane.

The rain, raindrops tapping on the window pane.

It's the force that keeps the ocean water from being still.

It waves and ripples and sometimes crashes.

But what it ain't is that.

What it ain't is lifeless.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪