| UNDER THE SUN | The Play’s the Thing Black Theatre Troupe brings us an untold story. BY ROBRT L. PELA “Because white theater has always bene- fited from theater critics writing about it, but Black theater has always been treated like a stepchild in that regard.” He admitted he hadn’t given a lot of Y thought to social media’s impact on critical thinking and the arts. “Maybe because I do theater that tells Black stories, and a white critic can’t fully embrace those or report on them fully. I think I would have noticed less critical writing about theater if we’d had a lot of it to begin with.” Southers is in town directing a produc- tion of Charles Fuller’s Pulitzer Prize-win- ning A Soldier’s Play for Black Theatre Troupe. A description of systemic racism during World War II, Fuller’s story is a morals tale about why we ask Black soldiers to fight for a country that op- presses them. He admired the play’s beautiful dia- logue, he said, but felt its best value was in the potential education it can provide. “You get to see how the world turned back in the 1940s, stuff that isn’t taught in school. A lot of African-American history isn’t taught because of the brutality. Criti- cal race theory isn’t taught in some schools. We see pictures of ‘white only’ water foun- tains, but if you didn’t live it, then you didn’t have that emotional experience.” That’s what he and his cast, which in- cludes local favorites Mike Traylor and Greg Lutz, are bringing this play to the stage. The play opens on February 4. “I want to say how today, if you’re Black, you may not have a relative that got lynched, but you may have a relative that was murdered by the police. Things have changed, but they haven’t,” Southers said. He had directed Fuller’s play once be- fore, about 12 years ago in Pittsburgh. “I had a community of performers to cast from, so I was able to use a lot of African- Americans who weren’t actors, like spoken word artists, which was a great experience. I brought a guy from Pittsburgh to play the lead, and I’ve got a dynamite cast of local people.” Southers hails from Pittsburgh’s Hill District, as does August Wilson, who men- tored Southers when he was just starting out. “I met August in 1998. I was working as 8 an actor, and he taught a master class in playwrighting. He taught me how, as a playwright, to source material and how to ou’d have to ask a Caucasian about that,” the theater di- rector Mark Clayton South- ers said recently about the death of critical thinking. Laura Durant Mark Clayton Southers is telling a patriot’s tale. make it work.” Five years later, Southers launched Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company, where he’s produced 160 full length and one-act plays, many by new local play- wrights. That company has presented Wil- son’s complete ten-play Pittsburgh Century Cycle. Up until that time, he’d worked 18 years in local steel mills. “I came from no training whatsoever in theater,” he admitted. “I walked away from the steel mills cold turkey to write plays and promote other playwrights. August had inspired me to learn how to be excel- lent at everything, and if you can’t be excel- lent and you’re just being good, that’s okay. Because good can be good enough.” Southers has directed nine of Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle plays in 14 separate pro- ductions across the United States and said he’s the only playwright who worked secu- rity at Wilson’s funeral. “August wrote his own funeral and he had very specific instructions,” Southers explained. “He told me he wanted no pic- tures at his funeral. His wife hired me to do security, and I called a bunch of actors and said, ‘We’re gonna go down and act, and what we’re acting is we’re security guards.’” Afterward, Wilson’s widow asked Southers to send her a bill for the security detail. “I had to explain that there was no security, just a bunch of actors playing se- curity guards. That was a very >> p 13 JAN 27TH– FEB 2ND, 2022 PHOENIX NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | FILM | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | FEATURE | NEWS | OPINION | FEEDBACK | CONTENTS | phoenixnewtimes.com
