EPISODE SIX - “How Can We All Start Listening?”
In our first episode for 2021, Hal welcomes Kenny Leon to the podcast. During their chat, Kenny shares with Hal how he approached directing the same play for Broadway twice, why he believes the arts are such an important part of education, and the positive ways the pandemic has forced us to be better listeners for each other.
Kenny Leon is a Tony and Obie Award-winning and Emmy-nominated Broadway and Television director. Most recently, he directed Lifetime’s Robin Roberts Presents: The Mahalia Jackson Story set to air this spring. Last year, he directed the Broadway premiere of Charles Fuller's Pulitzer Prize winning masterpiece, A Soldier's Play. He also directed The Underlying Chris at Second Stage Theatre Company and the acclaimed production of Much Ado About Nothing at the Delacorte/Shakespeare in the Park. Broadway: A Soldier’s Play; American Son; Children of a Lesser God; Holler If Ya Hear Me; A Raisin in the Sun (Tony Award; 2014); The Mountaintop; Stick Fly; August Wilson’s Fences, Gem of the Ocean and Radio Golf. Off-Broadway: Everybody’s Ruby, Emergence-See! (The Public), Smart People (Second Stage). Television: “American Son” (adapted for Netflix), “Hairspray Live!,” “The Wiz Live!,” “Steel Magnolias,” “Dynasty,” “In My Dreams.” Author, Take You Wherever You Go. Artistic Director Emeritus, Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre Company.
Follow Kenny on Twitter @iamKENNYLEON and see his latest projects on KennyLeon.com. To support Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre Company, please visit truecolorstheatre.org.
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Transcript Below!
Hal Luftig:
Hi everyone. This is Hal Luftig with my Broadway Podcast Network show, Broadway Biz, where every episode I will chat with my friends, some of the top theater professionals in the business, about the business of Broadway.
Hal Luftig:
My guest today is Tony Award-winning director Kenny Leon. I was so moved by Kenny's direction of Children of a Lesser God and I couldn't have been prouder to have him on my team for that revival. As a director, author, and founder of Kenny Leon's True Colors, Kenny brings incredible care and insights to all of his projects. I am so honored he's here with me today on this episode of Broadway Biz.
Hal Luftig:
We are so lucky today to have one of the most preeminent directors currently working on Broadway. I first became aware of our guest today when he was the head of the Alliance Theater down in Atlanta, which I think he singled-handedly turned into a major player in the regional theater circuit. Let's give a big Broadway Biz welcome to Kenny Leon. Hey Kenny, how are you?
Kenny Leon:
Hey Hal. It's good to be here. I hope you and your family are doing really well.
Hal Luftig:
We are, thank you, and yours?
Kenny Leon:
Everybody is healthy and good, and I just had the grandkids over who live in Berlin. They were over here for three months and now they've gone back. I enjoy the peace that I have now that they're gone but I miss them terribly. It's great.
Hal Luftig:
Kenny, I wanted to start our conversation talking about Raisin in the Sun. It was the first play you directed on Broadway and you, again, as I said, did it in 2004 and again in 2014. In all of my experience in theater I had never seen a director do the same play 10 years apart. The way you mined the gold, if you will, from each production was stunning to me and it blew me away. I wonder if you could talk about how that first opportunity to direct for Broadway came to you.
Kenny Leon:
My first Broadway production of A Raisin in the Sun was produced by the great David Binder. David Binger produced that production. And the one in 2014 was produced by Scott Rudin. I feel that I am lucky and blessed to have had the opportunity to direct such high profile productions of the same play because actually I approach every play the same, whether it's a new play or a revival of a play. I approach the play as if it's a brand new play. In 2004 when I cast Sean P Diddy Combs as Walter Lee and Phlyicia Rashad as Mama, Audra McDonald, Sanaa Lathan, the late great Bill Nunn, that was a production that I will love forever because I had so many different styles. So I'm always trying to approach the play based on who we cast in the play. At that time, Sean Puffy Combs had not even acted ever, so it was my job as a director... I'm always trying to disguise the warts of my actors. In the first couple weeks of rehearsal I'm trying to see where the weak spots are.
Kenny Leon:
With that production, since Sean had not acted before, I kept him still. He was stationary a lot. I wanted him to go for honesty and I didn't want him to think about where he had to move. And you had these women around him. All the women got nominated for Tony Awards that year and Phlyicia Rashad and Audra McDonald won that year. In fact, we had 10 Tony nominations that year and the only category that was not nominated was the directing category. Phlyicia Rashad always jokes with me. She said, "I guess the play directed itself."
Hal Luftig:
I always love that.
Kenny Leon:
With that production, I moved the women physically an awful lot around Walter Lee. In 2014 with Denzel Washington playing that role, I had him moving a lot and I had the women stationary. In that production you had LaTanya Jackson, Anika Noni Rose, and it was a great cast. Very different. We were after the truth.
Kenny Leon:
I'm also thinking about what the audience is going to get from each production. 2004 in our country was very different from 2014. 2014, the president of the United States was the first African American. Barack Obama and Michelle Obama came to the play. I'll always remember having a conversation with Barack. During the play he would tap on my knee and says, "Oh wow, that music you've got. That's Miles Davis. That's from his first album. Wow, that tune there is from 1959." I was so impressed how in tune he was with the jazz I used in that production. In that production I used Miles Davis. In the other production I used original music. In 2014, it was important for me to create an intimate version of a big play.
Kenny Leon:
With the set design, we even had the set move toward the audience. In the first few seconds of the play the stage just moved into the lap of the audience. I thought that was great. Also, as the audience walked in... Before they got to that moment, when they walked into the theater they heard the voice of Lorraine Hansberry in a Studs Terkel interview. That was important to me because people had not recognized the brilliance and the intelligence of Lorraine Hansberry and I wanted the audience to feel that: to feel her voice, to feel her energy, to feel her intellect, to feel her opinionated nature. In 2004, it was more, "Let's look through a keyhole to this family that lived in 1959." Both plays highlighted the discrepancies between the housing market in our country.
Kenny Leon:
We didn't change a word in the play but audiences receive plays differently depending on what's happening in the world, so I always try to attack each play by what does it mean to the audience today, right now. When I was directing the 2014 production I never, for one moment, not one day did I think about that previous production. I treated it like it was a brand new play just written in 2014.
Hal Luftig:
Wow, that is fantastic because as an audience member it certainly felt like that. It felt like the 2004 production was stunning as you said it had Phlyicia Rashad and Audra McDonald and Sean Combs, who everybody agreed, "Wow, he had stage presence." In '14, I remember you had Denzel and people were saying... and this was what's fascinating to me... "He's too old for the part." And I'm not giving away secrets here but the actress who was playing the mother needed to be replaced and Sophie Okonedo... am I pronouncing that right?
Kenny Leon:
Yeah, Sophie was the one.
Hal Luftig:
And she was a revelation.
Kenny Leon:
LaTanya Jackson replaced the great Diahann Carroll, who had to leave our production, but LaTanya was amazing. And I remember when Denzel and I decided to do the play. Scott Rudin encouraged us to work together. It was our second time working together. We had Fences together on Broadway in 2010. Denzel and I met in LA and after we finished eating breakfast he said, "I want to take you somewhere." I said okay. We get in his car and he go to this house. A nice, beautiful home with a nice yard and nice flowers out front. We knock on the door and a woman comes to the door and she says, "He's expecting you."
Kenny Leon:
We go inside and there standing there is the 89 year old Sidney Poitier, who played Walter in 1959. I was like, "Oh my god." On one side I got Denzel Washington and on the other side I had Sidney Poitier. For this country boy from Tallahassee, Florida, who never even could've imagined being or working on Broadway but to be surrounded by two giants in the industry was just... I was speechless. I can the three hours that we spent together, I can take that to my grave as one of the most wonderful moments of my life. I had so much respect for him.
Kenny Leon:
I said, "Mr. Poitier, we've been getting a little pushback when we just whispered that Denzel was going to take on this role. Some people say, 'I don't know. His age may be a factor.' What do you think about that?" Mr. Poitier said, "Let me tell you something. I did that play in 1959 and it was one of the joys of my life. Lorraine was an amazing writer. I don't think there's anyone in our country right now that can do more justice to that role than Denzel Washington." I said, "Wow. But some people say he's 60 years old playing that role. I thought that sense the play is about the realization of dreams, I thought that if the actor was older than it made the situation more desperate. What do you think, Mr. Poitier? They push back and say he's too old." He looked me straight in the face... and I hope I can say this on the podcast... and he says, "Fuck them."
Hal Luftig:
I love it.
Kenny Leon:
I tell you what, when he said that, we had his blessing to not try to duplicate what they did in 1959 but to just carry on the legacy: carry on the legacy of the great performance of Walter Lee played by Sidney at one time, played by Ossie Davis before that, and played by so many African American actors all across our country and throughout regional theater. That was a really important production but I'm so glad that Mr. Poitier blessed it. Whatever work we do, especially in revivals, we have to thank the people who were there when the page was blank: when it was nothing. When we reinterpret it in future generations, we stand on the shoulders of all those artists who were there when the page was blank. That's one of the joys of my life, to have had the opportunity to have directed two productions of A Raisin in the Sun for Broadway.
Hal Luftig:
Wow. I got to say Kenny, publicly, I still find myself in awe when I'm around you and listen to you about how sensitive you are and how forward thinking you are: that Walter Lee at 60 is going to feel more desperate than Walter Lee at 30 because they're... I never thought of that before: that an older Walter Lee would have that desperation. I'm always amazed at your ability to look at things like that in a cotemporary light and bring in the original family and learn from their experience. That's what makes you you, Kenny. That's what makes you you and I'll love to death forever for that.
Hal Luftig:
Kenny, I wanted to take a step back in time and ask you what were some of your goals and how you became the artistic director of the Alliance and when that happened, because you're so goal driven and I don't think anything you do, sir, is done by accident or fly by the seat of your pants. I'm interested in how that was for you at the Alliance and what your goals were for that theater.
Kenny Leon:
As many people may or may not know, I did run the Alliance Theater in Atlanta for about 10 years. At the time, I was one of the very black artistic directors running major artistic institutions. But that was not my goal growing up poor in Tallahassee, Florida. My mother was 15 years old when I was born and she was pregnant with my brother and my sister was two years old. She headed south from Tallahassee, Florida, down to St. Petersburg, Florida, and she left me with my grandmother. My grandmother had 13 children and I always consider myself as the 14th. That time was beautiful. That was a beautiful time in my life, just growing up with my grandmother on a small farm in Tallahassee, sitting on the porch watching cars go by, taking a bath in a tin tub after you warmed the water on the stove and poured it into a tin tub in the middle of the living room. That's how I grew up.
Kenny Leon:
Later on, I went to live with my mother and stepfather down in St. Petersburg, Florida, and ended up being the oldest of five. Together, my stepfather and mother probably made 10,000 dollars a year. I never knew I was poor. I didn't think of myself as poor, but certainly college was not even in the forecast. I got involved with a program called Upward Bound, which was to assist poor income families, low income families, and guide us to college if we had college potential. Angela Bassett, who grew up in my hometown, was also in this Upward Bound program. From 9th grade on, we were taking college classes on the weekends and in the summer time we had to stay on a college campus: take classes and play sports, act in plays. They guided me towards college.
Kenny Leon:
I integrated my class, racially, in high school, so I spent a lot of time with my white friends. So when it got time to go to college I knew I needed to go to a black college. I wanted to know more about my own culture. I couldn't go to Tallahassee because that's where Grandma and my uncles and aunts lived, so I went to the next state up. I had never traveled anywhere and I went to Georgia and Atlanta and then Atlanta and Atlanta university center there was a Clark College. I was a student at Clark College. Across the street was Spelman College: was all female. Across the street from that was Morehouse College, where Dr. King went to college. During that time I met people like Samuel L Jackson, who was an older professional working with college students, and then there was his wife LaTanya who was there and then Spike Lee was studying there. So we all were friends: Angela Bassett, Kenny Leon, Samuel L Jackson, all of us, Spike Lee.
Kenny Leon:
That's where I kind of got the bug. I was a political science major but a theater minor. Long story short, I went to law school for a minute and then I left law school and came back to Atlanta. Six or seven or eight years later I'm still there and I get the opportunity to direct a play. It was a play called The Wishing Place and it was a really odd crazy play with snow in the living room and leaves blowing through the bathroom. It was a crazy play but I loved it because as an actor I felt like I was always just a slice of a pie. But as a director I felt like I have to know what the pie is made of. How sweet are the potatoes? What kind of pan is it in? What are all of the ingredients? And I loved that. I said to the artistic director, "I want to do more of this." He said, "Kenny, I don't think you have the skill set to direct. We think that you could be the next Denzel Washington. You could be just an amazing actor, but we don't think..."
Kenny Leon:
At that time I decided to leave that company. In that same year, an artistic director by the name of [Timothy Near 00:19:24] approached me because she had saw my work with the homeless population. She saw me act in several plays. She saw my work in the community. She said, "We should apply to this grant for the National Endow for the Arts for this directive fellow program. I'm going to be working at the Alliance Theater across the street and you can come in for this one year and be our resident director. We can help diversify that big institution." I said okay. So we filled out all the paper work and the panel decided that I would be one of the six fellows. But they said, "We do not want you to go to the Alliance Theater. We do not want you to stay in Atlanta. You must leave Atlanta."
Kenny Leon:
I had never been anywhere. So I looked at a map. I said, "I want this fellowship. I want to this place. It's called Baltimore, Maryland. Center Stage in Baltimore, Maryland. Why Baltimore? Because it's not New York." I was afraid of New York. It's like, "That's the big city." And then Washington DC, that was very political. So I went to Baltimore. Worked with [Stanvoy Yavaski 00:20:28] at Center Stage and during that year there I took a group of board people to New York to see a play, my first Broadway play, in 1988. That play was a play written by a young African American writer by the name of August Wilson and it was a production of Fences. James Earl Jones and the great Mary Alice were performing in it.
Kenny Leon:
Sitting in that audience, I was like, "I've never felt this before. For the first time, I feel that my mother's rituals and her myths and our storytelling is on a raised stage in front of the whole community. Wow. I know what it smells like in the kitchen when your mother put a straight comb on the stove and put that steam on your sister's hair and straightened her hair. I know what it feels like to sit on the porch and eat a slice of watermelon. I know what it is like when black men gather around the porch on Friday after returning from a job that they hate. I know what it's like when garbage men come home and say, 'Why does the white guy always drive the garbage truck and the black guys always do the lifting on the back?'" I remembered those stories and I said, "Wow. That's what I really want to do now for the rest of my life." I met August after that and he says, "If you ever need me you can always contact me and you always will have permission to do any of my plays."
Kenny Leon:
A year after that fellowship, I was offered two or three jobs in the country. One of those was associate artist director at the Alliance Theater, the theater that I was trying to get through for the fellowship. A year later, I'm hired as their associate artistic director and then two years after that I was named as artistic director: to run that 50 million dollar institution. And then the first play I did as associate artistic director was Joe Turner's Come and Gone by a writer named August Wilson. The play had not even been published yet. Then when I took over as artistic director, I directed a play called Fences by August Wilson. During that all time, August always would come to Atlanta during tech and previews and note the show and we would spend a week together. That's the way I ended up doing all 10 of his plays in Atlanta.
Kenny Leon:
That's my short story about the Alliance Theater. I ran that for 10 years and I found out in my life that every seven, eight, nine years you should try to reinvent yourself. You should try to do something different or you should energize the job that you're in. I found that to be true starting at the Academy Theater. I was there for eight, nine years. Then at the Alliance Theater. Ran that theater for 10 years. Then I thought I was going to come to Broadway and just do plays in 2004, but somebody put on my heart and spirit to start a theater company. So I started a smaller company called True Colors Theater Company: a theater committed to the storytelling of African American writers. Now I'm no longer artistic director, but it has a wonderful artistic director there by the name of [Jameal Jude 00:23:49] and we're in our 18th year.
Kenny Leon:
I'm so proud of that company. I'm so proud of starting it. I'm so proud of my work with the Alliance Theater all those years and I'm proud of the 12, 13, or 14 Broadway plays that I've done, including Children of a Lesser God with you, which I couldn't be more proud of and proud of that cast. I remember we took the chance of casting Lauren Ridloff, who was a stay-at-home mom, deaf woman of color. We cast her and now she's the first super hero in a Marvel picture as a deaf woman. I take a lot of pride in all of the work that I've done collectively with all of these great artists in our wonderful country.
Hal Luftig:
As you should, Kenny. As you should. And congratulations on True Colors. You never cease to amaze me even as I'm listening to what you're saying now, some of which I did not know. You're like a chameleon, if you'll excuse the expression, because you do reinvent yourself. It's not just words. I've actually seen it. You start in one place and you end up morphing into some else which is all about genius and creativity. It was fascinating.
Hal Luftig:
To that end, I want to back up for a second and talk about Children of a Lesser God, if we may. I want to know, if I may ask, what were your thoughts when you first read that play? When it was first approached to you, when you had to read, what did you think about the play at that moment? Do you remember?
Kenny Leon:
Yeah. When I first read it... I remember the film version of the play and I felt like, "This is a pretty good story about a deaf woman being in love with a hearing teacher." I was like, "I love love stories, so I'm going to commit to that," and I feel great that the Broadway has approached me to direct a play that's not necessarily African American specific. When I agreed to do it I was thinking of doing an all Caucasian production of this love story between this deaf woman and a hearing man. I spent time with an ASL instructor because I knew that it was going to be at least two or three people in the play that were deaf. So I wanted to take these classes.
Kenny Leon:
A friend recommended two instructors. One of those people was Lauren Ridloff. I flipped a coin to decide which one to approach and it came up heads on Lauren Ridloff. I approached her and she was my was ASL teacher for a year. Every Tuesday, waiting for us to get a Broadway home or decide how we're going to move the play forward, I was just taking class from her in public places. We would go to public places. One day we would study our colors and the next day we would study transportation. It was a great experience.
Kenny Leon:
Then when the producer, when you, asked me, "We have to do a reading for this play. Who's going to play the roles?" Then it occurred to me, "Why can't Lauren play this role? She's not Caucasian. Right, okay, but who says the woman can't be a woman of color? So if that is a woman of color..." We knew at the time that Joshua Jackson was going to play the hearing teacher. "Okay, she can be in love." Now it's an interracial couple: interracial and challenged with hearing. Who's a mother? It was the foundation of then casting a fully diverse production in every way: age, race, abilities. As a director, I'm always listening to the universe about how to cast or how to make moves or how to build a production. I have to say, going into this I thought I was going to have an all white production and then we had the most production ever. It was the most beautiful production ever.
Hal Luftig:
You're right, Kenny. It's like when the ethos... Talking to you, the reason we had that reading was because Joshua had to decided whether he wanted to commit to this part. It's a great part but whoever played that part really had to learn ASL. He couldn't fake it. It would've been too insulting to the deaf community. He wanted to hear it read. And I just need to tell this to the listeners. I hope I don't embarrass you too much. At that reading, yes, we said, "Let's use Lauren. She knows the role. She a deaf person who signs. So why don't we just use her? It's just a reading. It's really for Joshua. It's really for him." It turned out she was amazing. It also turned out that from the age of 13 she had made a choice not to use her voice. She took a strong stand on "I have a language and it's called sign language. If you want to speak to me, you learn that. I don't want to have to be forced to lip read or use my voice to communicate." She hadn't used it since she was 13.
Hal Luftig:
We got to the part in the reading where Sarah, the character, has to yell back at James, her then-husband, because she's so frustrated. He said, "I won't speak to you unless you speak my language." She made this guttural sound that just slayed everybody, including her mother, who had not heard her voice in all those years. But I looked over at you... and I hope this is not the embarrassing part... and I've never seen this sense. You, like everybody else, were so visibly moved and shaken and I've never seen that before. When I looked over and I saw you feeling that I thought, "This play's going to happen," because it touched you. I think when a good play is done it has to touch the director in that way: deeper than cerebrally. It has to really get inside of him.
Kenny Leon:
Thank you for sharing that. That was a special moment because the day before... it was a two day workshop... Lauren said to me through an interpreter, "I haven't used my voice. Should I rehearse it today?" I said, "No, don't do that. Let's just save it until the performance when there's an audience here." You have to understand Lauren has no idea what the human voice sounds like, so matter what we may feel about how it sounds, we're making the judgment. And she's like, "I'm not giving you that." She can't tell what it sounds like. So on that day when she... and we're all human. When she let that out, I really understood the play in a deeper way then because it taught me as a director and a human being sometimes we're trying to force people to live the way we want them to live and how awful and cruel that this, because the sound that Lauren released was beautiful, it was raw, it was ugly, but it was an ugly act from this hearing person making this person who was in love with him, this non-hearing person, try to communicate with him on his terms.
Kenny Leon:
I'll never forget the last line of our play, which is, "I'll help you if you'll help me." I've taken that with me since that production. Whether we're talking politics or we're talking about the differences in racial issues or gender issues, I think we should say to ourself, "You know what? I got to do my part. I'll go halfway and you meet me halfway. Then there should be some growth there." When you caught me teary eyed and shaking, it was really a human moment where I realized how ugly we can be as human beings to each other.
Hal Luftig:
Right. It's true. And every time I saw the performance it just melted me. It was prophetic, Kenny, because it's sort of like where we are now about the Black Lives Matter movement. People want to be listened to. They haven't been listened to. It's a very important lesson. How do we listen to people who don't exactly speak our language or what we're saying? Continually think as we move further down the road, especially in the theater community... I'm always reminded of the message of that play: listen. Stop talking and listen. That's what James kind of learns at the end of the play. It is one of the most rewarding things I've ever done and I thank you for that.
Kenny Leon:
Thank you.
Hal Luftig:
But now we're going to hop/skip over to the other side of the country and talk about Hollywood. You directed the live version of Hairspray and also The Wiz. Both stunning productions. Can you talk a bit about what the difference was for you as a director, as an artist, working in the two different mediums?
Kenny Leon:
It's interesting that you bring this up the day after the Emmy nominations, which were yesterday. I received my first Emmy nomination for producing and directing American Son for Netflix.
Hal Luftig:
Congratulations.
Kenny Leon:
Thank you. I'm so proud of that. Also, except for the loss of life... I lost two aunts and an uncle to COVID. Except for not being in the room with people like you or with my fellow artists, those are two major things now. I hate that. But everything else about this pandemic and about this attention to issues of race or racism in our country, I think it's been great. It's been a wonderful moment for our country and our world to slow down, to stop, to be still so that we can listen to each other and listen to ourselves so that we may move to a more beautiful place. I'm in a group called Black Theater United and one of the things that we've realized is that police reform and prison reform and community reform and reform in our industry in terms of race is all connected. The tenets of Black Theater United is focused on the integration of all of that and how every area affects another.
Kenny Leon:
When I jumped to the television side... I describe myself as a storyteller. I say some things are meant to be on the stage, some things are meant to be used in a musical way to express yourself through song, some things are meant to be behind the camera. I'm always trying to figure out where is the audience. When I'm in the theater, I know where the audience is. The audience is in the dark breathing the same air as the performers. It's a sacred place. We will probably be the last one to come back because the pandemic has taught us one thing: that we are one of the most sacred places. We are a gathering place to share our stories, to listen to each other. Everything about the pandemic is anti-theater. But I think when we do come back in our fullness, which I think we will, I think people will have a greater appreciation for that sacred holy space we call theater: that gathering place to share and learn about each other.
Kenny Leon:
I think that's... I love being in the theater. When I'm translating a piece of art to the camera, I'm saying, "These people are in their living rooms now. They're in their kitchen." I have to tailor it to that. When we did The Wiz live and Hairspray live, the reason I didn't have an audience for The Wiz live was because... People kept saying, "Why don't you have an audience?" I was like, "This is not theater. This is television. The audience is the people at home, so I want to tailor this for that audience." I shot it in a way that would engage people in their homes. When we Hairspray live, I had a little audience because it lent itself to an audience when the scenes were outside. But when you had love scenes or when people were in their bedrooms, you couldn't have an audience, because I'm always thinking about the viewer: the experience that you're going to have if you're the audience. So where is the audience? Is the audience in a big theater? Is the audience is our homes? Or is the audience in a theater with the actors? And I love that I can do all of that.
Kenny Leon:
When we did American Son, we did the play first and then when I made it a movie I shot it totally different. Just like you said Raisin in the Sun was different from each other, American Son as a film was very different. My subtitle to myself for the film of American Son was A Mother's Worst Nightmare. I shot the movie from Kerry Washington's point of view. What did it feel like for her to be in that room with three men all with guns at 4:00 AM and you don't know where you son is? The reason that is called American Son and the reason I never show... You never did see their son's face in this movie, and that was important to me because I think once we see someone's kid, once we see the face, we're like, "That's a black kid. That's an Asian kid. That's a white kid." I wanted the people watching this film to say, "What if their son was my son? What if all the kids in America, what if they belonged to all of us? Let's look at these people through the lives of mothers and fathers." I wanted everyone to feel that this kid is their son and that way you take the other kind of controversy out of it.
Kenny Leon:
I love television and film, but theater is the one I could never give up.
Hal Luftig:
That's great, Kenny, because we're not letting you go. I'm going to horse tie and you're going to stay in Broadway!
Hal Luftig:
It's funny that you said an audience and their reaction to different mediums. I was also very taken... You did this wonderful production of Much Ado last summer in the park. And by the way, congratulations on your Obie win. But one of the things I was so taken by in that production was your inclusion of the audience. It almost felt like on stage the actors were... we were there like a third character. They talked to us. They looked at us. At one point, I remember one of the actors asked the audience member a question and it was fascinating to me. When you were doing that production, was that on your mind? Of how you can get this vast... because Delacorte's a big theater... how you can bring everybody in? Like, scoop them up and hug them towards the stage?
Kenny Leon:
I'm always thinking about where the audience is. There's 1,800 people at the Delacorte and I said, "What if my father..." who's no longer with me, and he was born in Tallahassee, Florida, a country guy who never got on a plane until 2010 when he came to New York to see my production of The Mountaintop with Samuel L Jackson and Angela Bassett. I would tell the cast, "I want Shakespeare to be clear for my daddy, Leroy." He would be like, "What are they saying?" I find that Shakespeare that's done in our country, a lot of time we try to imitate the Brits and we don't search for clarity and honesty and intentionality. Knowing that the play was a comedy full of music, I never let myself forget that. It's a comedy, but it has subtle messages about the way we're living our lives.
Kenny Leon:
Then setting the play in the future, I had to keep asking myself, "What if Shakespeare was alive today? What if Shakespeare was alive in 2020? What would he say? How would he move this?" So I was on them like... I knew going in. I said, "The play can't be over..." originally I said two hours, but I ended up doing it in a little over two hours. But that was the most important thing, is "Say what you got to say and move on." Because a lot of comedy is in the rhythm and tempo. Sometimes we might not understand everything that is said, but in terms of a delivery, the tempo, the rhythm, has a lot to do with meaning as well. It was important to me to keep the fun in it. It was important to me to have those... it move at such a pace so that when I wanted to slow it down the audience would be with me and slow down with me.
Kenny Leon:
It was a real delicate balance but I'm really proud of that production and I would love to see that play have a future life. I think to see African Americans play those roles and to do Shakespeare really well and to see a plus sized woman play Beatrice, I thought it said a lot about identity and perception of self. I still get many letters about that production from all kinds of people all across the world.
Hal Luftig:
Well, Kenny, you know... full disclosure to our listeners... I want to be one of those producers who will move that production. And maybe a positive: one of the things that was a roadblock was Danielle's availability and theater availability. Maybe one of the positive things that can come from all of this is that theaters will be available. I'm not sure about Danielle's schedule, but even that will open up a bit as production starts ramping up. [crosstalk 00:44:48].
Kenny Leon:
I think you right because if we had gone to Broadway we would be closed now.
Hal Luftig:
That's true. And you'd be talking to a maniac.
Kenny Leon:
And Danielle's schedule... is just Danielle Brooks from Orange is the New Black... it'll open up. In fact, I'm starting a film. September prep and October. I'm shooting this film for Lifetime and they're going to announce it soon, but it's the Mahalia Jackson story with her music and her life. I've cast Danielle Brooks in that lead role. We're going to do that and we'll be done with that by the end of the year. All of next year we available.
Hal Luftig:
As soon as we open up, yeah.
Kenny Leon:
Yeah, who has any idea about that? I just know that whenever we do come back to Broadway theater I think there will be a greater appreciation and love for gathering in the theater and sharing diverse stories.
Hal Luftig:
I agree. It's one of the things that I've noticed that people are truly missing: that experience, that community, that happens: that sharing of energy, if you will, between the actors and the audience. And even some of the stuff that happens backstage, like the jumps over the foot lights, the stage crew and the costume department. All those people working so hard and dedicated to making that performance that an audience member is seeing unique and special. They don't ever take it for granted and I think that we miss that in theater.
Hal Luftig:
Kenny, I just wanted to touch upon one last thing before we have to unfortunately say goodbye and that is, in your Tony acceptance speech, that you said you were looking forward to the day when every child in America could have a piece of theater in their daily educational lives. I am such a supporter of that concept. For the past 10, 15, years I work with TDF to make sure that on Wednesday matinees, whatever show I'm working on, a number of tickets gets donated to the school system so they can take kids in the inner school system that would never have the opportunity to go see a Broadway play into the theater. I'm just wondering clearly why that's important to you. And do you see a way forward for people like myself... producers, management... to be able to make that dream a reality?
Kenny Leon:
I do believe that theater and art and music should be an important of every young person's life in grade school, in junior high, and in high school. I think it's so important to develop our creative minds, to nurture our storytelling. I think it helps with us understanding each other, understanding the lens that everybody's looking at life through. When I talk to young people, I hear young people talk about challenges with being transgender. I hear the voices of young gay people. I hear the voices of the people of color. I think that theater and storytelling, that would help those lives and those minds stay healthy. I think that Broadway producers assist in a lot of that, not only when they're on Broadway but also assisting when the shows tour around the country and make sure that our young people get to see them. A big part of what we need to do is just make sure all of our young people feel good about their life and their stories that they have to share and contribute to the world.
Hal Luftig:
Beautifully said, and especially now. Listen and encourage and support playwrights, directors, artists, actors of colors. Support the notion that they get to tell their story.
Kenny Leon:
Hal, it's important to me that American life have equal access and equal worth. We need to take the judgment away from it and I think we need to be truthful about our past, our history, and some of us we need to study a little more in terms of knowing our history and we got from 1619 to 2020. We have to admit that white racism in this country is foundational: that the country began on the foundation of "We need to sell this cotton. We need free labor. We need that." That's the truth. Let's admit what the truth is, and only from admitting to what the truth is can we create a much more beautiful life for our grandkids. That's what I want to be a part of. I want to be a part of making a much more beautiful country where every life has equal importance and equal beauty. It's all there. The beauty is there. We have just to realize it and help these butterflies fly.
Hal Luftig:
I'm with you, Kenny, and anything I can do... I give you my word, my pledge... to help support that notion or help you support that notion, I'm in.
Hal Luftig:
This has been amazing, as I hoped it would be, because you are one of the most amazing people I know. But before we go, I ask every one of my guests these three... I call them... rapid fire questions. I'm most interested now to hear your answers to these. Here's the first one. Kenny Leon, what is your favorite musical?
Kenny Leon:
The Wiz.
Hal Luftig:
As a director, as an artist, in any role that you've been in the theater, what was the wackiest moment, the weirdest, funniest, bizarre thing you ever experienced in the theater? Do you have one? Can you recall?
Kenny Leon:
I remember one time I was doing a production of Fences and when you have diverse groups of people together they respond differently. For Fences, it was a large group of black audience members that were at this one performance and they talk back. They talk back. The audience, they're engaged. You traditional audience, sometimes they don't understand that. I remember these two women just got up arguing, in the theater, because the black woman was enjoying herself too much. They had this big argument. "Don't you laugh out loud like that! You can't do that! I paid good money to sit here and you can't laugh like that!" "Lady, I paid my money too and let me tell you one thing..." And this big argument... and the usher was stuck in the middle and had to solve it all. But it was just the challenges of trying to put different cultures in the theater together. Some people feel like they are the theater police. So that was funny.
Kenny Leon:
One of the more beautiful things that happened to me... I remember when we did A Raisin in the Sun in 2004 and Sean Combs, who was... He was a rap artist and he had never acted before. He felt a lot of pressure to play every performance. He played every performance until this one Sunday he was really sick. He was just very sick. He had to end up in the bathroom every few minutes and he was just sick. We begged him. "Your understudy... Billy Eugene Jones is your understudy. He's ready to go on. Don't worry." He said, "No, I'm going on." And he did the play in serious pain. He did the first act and he was just in pain and then he came off at intermission and the doctors just wouldn't let him go on. You had to drag him off stage and then Billy Eugene Jones went out and did the second act. That experience of seeing this actor who's new to acting, who gave everything he had, and then an actor who was his understudy, who was a really trained actor, to get the opportunity to go on as well... That audience that night had a special unique performance. I'll never forget that performance of the two Walter Lees.
Hal Luftig:
The audiences love that. Theater producers, directors, are horrified when that happens but the audience... it never ceases to amaze me... they love it when the set malfunctions, when an actor has to be replaced. They just go crazy for it. I think it's because they know it's live.
Kenny Leon:
As a director, I was happy that had happened: that we changed actors in the middle of the show as opposed to at the top of the show having to announce that the star is not going on. It was perfect in both worlds.
Hal Luftig:
Well, Kenny Leon, I cannot thank you enough for joining us today. You've just inspired me and, I'm sure, all of our listeners on ways to move forward and ways to be considerate of other cultures and other people and to look at things with a more sensitive eye and to just look at storytelling in various ways. I cannot thank you enough. I'm sending tons of love to you and your family and I can't wait until we open up and we actually do that production together of Much Ado.
Kenny Leon:
Thank you so much. Just to end on a more positive note about the Black Lives Matter, you have to say black lives matter. Of course we know all lives matter, but the question before us now is does black lives matter? We're in a neighborhood of houses of different colors and the black house is on fire and we have to put out that fire... that black house... we have to put that fire house and that's been burning for 400 years, and once we put that fire out we will learn a lot about all the other houses. So black lives definitely matter.
Hal Luftig:
Beautifully said and a perfect way to end the program. Kenny, thank you. I'm sending you a big virtual hug. I can't wait... the day we can have one of our world famous breakfasts together.
Kenny Leon:
I would love that.
Hal Luftig:
Until then, stay well, stay healthy, and all those good things.
Kenny Leon:
You too.
Hal Luftig:
Thank you.
Hal Luftig: