Ovation Fellows are current students or recent alumni from Los Angeles area universities. Fellows are paired with a Mentor, currently serving as an Ovation Award voter, and see productions and meet artists around Greater Los Angeles throughout the year. Their articles, posted on LAStageBlog, are intended to be their personal responses to their experiences, and not as critical reviews or representing the views of LA Stage Alliance.
Martin Head is an Ovation Fellow from Los Angeles City College.
The energy in the café of the Fountain Theatre was alive and stirring after last Friday night’s production of The Ballad of Emmet Till. I was honored to have an opportunity to meet and converse with the cast about what had just occurred. As I fumbled to express my sentiments, a fellow patron stopped by our table and said to the actors, “There are really no words. Do you know?” She hit the nail right on the head. The Ballad of Emmet Till is a profound and transcendent experience. So much so, in fact, that writing this article has been quite a challenge for me as words like breathtaking and amazing seem cliché.
The play is like a living organism that expands and contracts through realms of the spirit. I agreed with Stephen Sachs, the artistic director and founding member of the Fountain Theatre, when he later expressed to me, “Theatre, at its best, is a spiritual experience.” The Ballad of Emmet Till lives up to that definition, and then some. This story celebrates life, love, youth and joy while also realizing a horrifying true chapter in our nation’s history.
I was very familiar with Emmet Till’s story and though I knew I couldn’t miss this production, a part of me dreaded seeing this play. Eighteen year old Lorenz Arnell (Actor One), who plays Emmet, shared with me, “Usually, everybody comes thinking, ‘Ok, Emmet, the brother that died.’ I want people to learn about the way he lived. Not just how he died. He was 14 years old. He lived!” Adenrele Ojo (Actor Five) added, “Historically, I like that you get to learn more about the person. And the fact he gets killed…We know we’re gonna get there, we got to get there.” Yes, they get there. In the meantime, however, the ride is so wondrous and the story so interestingly told we become so engrossed we almost forget what we know and what is to come.
Lorenz masterfully embodies the infectious essence of this young, free spirited, adventure- seeking child. I feel I really got a chance to know Emmet. He and the cast, through detailed and inspired direction, costuming and design, mindfully relayed to us Till’s story by way of an intricate series of choreographed movement, rhythm, song and spoken word. Rico E. Anderson (Actor Four) expressed, “I’m a huge fan of abstract. If you don’t let the abstract confuse you, it makes sense. The story flows like it would in a non-abstract play. There’s never a dull moment.”
Ben Bradley was originally set to direct this piece. He and the cast had already begun the rehearsal process for Till when Ben was found brutally murdered in his apartment this year on January 2. Bernard Addison (Actor Two) had worked with Ben previously and shared great success with him in August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, for which Ben received the 2006 Ovation Award and the 2007 NAACP Award for his direction. Bernard recalled, “That production got his name into the echelon of directors and got me in a place where people thought, ‘Oh yeah, I remember him.’” Bernard and the rest of the cast had a chance to rehearse with Ben three times in the month of December. “We were to meet after New Year’s and Ben did not show.” After the discovery, everyone took a few days to catch their breath and the decision to continue with the production was made. Shirley Jo Finney was then brought on as director and rehearsals resumed. Bernard says, “There’s a lot of hope we got it right; that the experience was transferred.” Despite the tragic loss, the cast agrees in addition to tears, there was a lot of laughter and the sharing of old stories. Cast mate Karen Malina (Actor Three) said, “Nobody knew we were doing such a tragic story because we laughed so much.”
It seems clear to me this whole experience has been a powerful, bonding and unifying one for all involved. As an audience member, I am grateful to the cast and to the Fountain Theatre for being courageous enough to produce and bring this heartfelt and very personal experience to life for us to see. I’m grateful to Emmet Till and to all those people who came before me whose blood, sweat and tears helped to make it possible for me to have opportunity and to experience freedom. I thank Ben Bradley for being so passionate about this production and for convincing Stephen Sachs that this story had to be told. What a powerful legacy they have left us! I’ll be seeing this play again and bringing a friend. Bernard suggested that I “bring two.” The Ballad of Emmet Till has been extended through May 30. You don’t want to miss this one.
