The Gospel at Colonus | |
---|---|
![]() Original Broadway Playbill | |
Music | Bob Telson |
Lyrics | Lee Breuer |
Book | Lee Breuer |
Basis | Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles |
Productions | 1983 Brooklyn Academy of Music 1985 American Music Theater Festival, Philadelphia 1987 Guthrie Theatre, Minneapolis 1988 Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, Broadway 1990 American Conservatory Theater, San Francisco 1995 in Malvern, Pa. at the People's Light and Theatre Co. Freefest 2004 Apollo Theater 2010 Ordway Center for the Performing Arts, St. Paul 2015 Nate Holden Performing Arts Center, Los Angeles 2015 Playhouse on the Square, Memphis 2018 Coatesville Cultural Society at the First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia |
Awards | Pulitzer Prize finalist, 1985 |
The Gospel at Colonus is an African-American musical version of Sophocles's tragedy, Oedipus at Colonus. The show was created in 1983 by the experimental-theatre director Lee Breuer, one of the founders of the seminal American avant-garde theatre company Mabou Mines, and composer Bob Telson. The musical was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The show had a brief run on Broadway in 1988.
The Gospel at Colonus premiered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival in November to December 1983. [1]
The following year it received a production at the Arena Stage in Washington D.C. running from Nov 23, 1984 – Dec 30, 1984 [2]
The musical ran at the American Music Theater Festival, Philadelphia, in September 1985. [3] [4]
A production at the Alliance Theatre, Atlanta Ga, in 1987 included Morgan Freeman and the Blind Boys of Alabama. [5] [6] [7]
The Gospel at Colonus opened on Broadway at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on March 11, 1988, in previews, officially on March 14, 1988, and closed on May 15, 1988, after 61 performances and 15 previews. Directed by Lee Breuer, the cast featured Morgan Freeman (Messenger), Sam Butler, Jr. (The Singer), Clarence Fountain and the Five Blind Boys of Alabama (Oedipus) and the Institutional Radio Choir of Brooklyn. Breuer was nominated for the 1988 Tony Award for his book. [8]
The musical was a finalist for the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. [9] The musical won the 1984 Obie Award as Best Musical. [10]
The musical was produced at the Apollo Theater, New York City, in October 2004, featuring Charles S. Dutton as the Preacher, the Blind Boys of Alabama and the Legendary Soul Stirrers. [11]
The production at the Nate Holden Performing Arts Center, Los Angeles, by the Ebony Repertory Theatre was nominated for the 2015 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards for theatrical excellence. [12] [13]
In 2018 Breuer and Telson reunited most of the original 1983 BAM cast to present The Gospel at Colonus at the Delacorte Theater in New York's Central park. The New Yorker magazine wrote: "Superlatives are increasingly difficult to back up, since most of the world speaks and tweets in exclamation points by now, but I think it’s safe to say that the director Lee Breuer’s “The Gospel at Colonus” is a masterpiece. I first saw it at BAM in 1983, when it premièred, and I left the theatre with my shirtfront drenched with tears and the perspiration of relief: here was a portrait of black life—of black music, joy, and pain—that I could understand. Brilliantly recasting Sophocles’ tragedy “Oedipus at Colonus” as a Pentecostal sermon, Breuer and his incredible composer, Bob Telson, got at the heart of difference and history and how the two helped create America. A limited run of free shows at the Public's Delacorte Theatre, Sept. 4–9, features the legendary groups the Blind Boys of Alabama and the Original Soul Stirrers." — Hilton Als
Breuer and Telson handed the storytelling duties to a black Pentecostal preacher and the choir of his church, who in turn enacted the story of Oedipus's torment and redemption as a modern parable. They employed the unusual device of casting The Blind Boys of Alabama to collectively portray Oedipus as well as the Institutional Radio Choir in Brooklyn and Chancel Choir of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. Other casting innovations in the performance include multiple actors in single roles, such as when The Messenger is called upon to assume the role of Oedipus in tandem with the singer cast when the role calls for stage motion that would be difficult for the blind singer to negotiate alone, the multiplicity of Oedipus's daughters and one son when the children of Oedipus appear collectively (with Jevetta Steele as Ismene, her sister Jearlyn Steele doubling for actress Isabell O'Connor as Antigone, and brothers J.D. and Fred Steele standing in as Polynices and Eteocles, with actor Kevin Davis doubling as Polynices), and, indeed, with different portions of the cast, singly and in groups, assuming the duties of the traditional Greek chorus.
The New York Times's Mel Gussow has expressed the view that the result was the translation of the Greek myth into a Christian parable. In his review of the BAM production, Gussow noted: "It is surprising how organically "Oedipus" can fit within the framework of a gospel musical... the evening has the shape of a church service." [1]
While the traditions of Greek theater as religious ritual are unfamiliar to modern audiences, Gospel at Colonus reaffirms those possibilities by its use of call-and-response and ecstatic, sung re-enactment of a culturally important story.
In 1985 PBS televised the original Brooklyn Academy of Music production, as presented by the American Music Theater Festival at the Annenberg Center in Philadelphia, as part of the Great Performances series. The performers included Morgan Freeman as The Messenger, Carl Lumbly as Theseus, Jevetta Steele as Ismene, and Robert Earl Jones as Creon. In the 1985 incarnation, The Soul Stirrers (credited collectively) and the Institutional Radio Choir assume roles as citizens of Colonus. [3]
The first-act song "How Shall I See You Through My Tears?" was used as the opening number of the 2003 film, Camp .
Sophocles was an ancient Greek tragedian, known as one of three from whom at least one play has survived in full. His first plays were written later than, or contemporary with, those of Aeschylus; and earlier than, or contemporary with, those of Euripides. Sophocles wrote over 120 plays, but only seven have survived in a complete form: Ajax, Antigone, Women of Trachis, Oedipus Rex, Electra, Philoctetes, and Oedipus at Colonus. For almost fifty years, Sophocles was the most celebrated playwright in the dramatic competitions of the city-state of Athens which took place during the religious festivals of the Lenaea and the Dionysia. He competed in thirty competitions, won twenty-four, and was never judged lower than second place. Aeschylus won thirteen competitions, and was sometimes defeated by Sophocles; Euripides won four.
The Pulitzer Prize for Drama is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It is one of the original Pulitzers, for the program was inaugurated in 1917 with seven prizes, four of which were awarded that year. It recognizes a theatrical work staged in the U.S. during the preceding calendar year.
In Greek mythology, Antigone is a Theban princess, and a character in several ancient Greek tragedies. She is the daughter of Oedipus, king of Thebes. Her mother is Jocasta. In another variation of the myth, her mother is Euryganeia. She is a sister of Polynices, Eteocles, and Ismene. The meaning of the name is, as in the case of the masculine equivalent Antigonus, "in place of one's parents" or "worthy of one's parents". Antigone appears in the three 5th century BC tragic plays written by Sophocles, known collectively as the three Theban plays. She is the protagonist of the tragedy Antigone. She makes a brief appearance at the end of Aeschylus' Seven against Thebes, while her story was also the subject of Euripides' now lost play with the same name.
Antigone is an Athenian tragedy written by Sophocles in 441 BC and first performed at the Festival of Dionysus of the same year. It is thought to be the second oldest surviving play of Sophocles, preceded by Ajax, which was written around the same period. The play is one of a triad of tragedies known as the three Theban plays, following Oedipus Rex and Oedipus at Colonus. Even though the events in Antigone occur last in the order of events depicted in the plays, Sophocles wrote Antigone first. The story expands on the Theban legend that predates it, and it picks up where Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes ends. The play is named after the main protagonist Antigone.
Oedipus was a mythical Greek king of Thebes. A tragic hero in Greek mythology, Oedipus accidentally fulfilled a prophecy that he would end up killing his father and marrying his mother, thereby bringing disaster to his city and family.
In Greek mythology, Polynices was the son of Oedipus and either Jocasta or Euryganeia and the older brother of Eteocles. When Oedipus was discovered to have killed his father and married his mother, Oedipus was expelled from Thebes, leaving Eteocles and Polynices to rule. Because of a curse put on them by their father, the two sons did not share the rule peacefully. During a battle for control over Thebes, the brothers killed each other.
Oedipus Rex, also known by its Greek title, Oedipus Tyrannus, or Oedipus the King, is an Athenian tragedy by Sophocles that was first performed around 429 BC. Originally, to the ancient Greeks, the title was simply Oedipus (Οἰδίπους), as it is referred to by Aristotle in the Poetics. It is thought to have been renamed Oedipus Tyrannus to distinguish it from Oedipus at Colonus, a later play by Sophocles. In antiquity, the term "tyrant" referred to a ruler with no legitimate claim to rule, but it did not necessarily have a negative connotation.
Oedipus at Colonus is the second-last of the three Theban plays of the Athenian tragedian Sophocles. It was written shortly before Sophocles's death in 406 BC and produced by his grandson at the Festival of Dionysus in 401 BC.
The Blind Boys of Alabama, also billed as The Five Blind Boys of Alabama, and Clarence Fountain and the Blind Boys of Alabama, is an American gospel group. The group was founded in 1939 in Talladega, Alabama, and has featured a changing roster of musicians over its history, the majority of whom are or were vision impaired.
Jevetta Steele is an American R&B and gospel music singer.
Esser Leopold "Lee" Breuer was an Obie Award-winning and Pulitzer-, Grammy-, Emmy- and Tony-nominated American playwright, theater director, academic, educator, filmmaker, poet, and lyricist. Breuer taught and directed on six continents.
Adrian Keith Noble is a theatre director, and was also the artistic director and chief executive of the Royal Shakespeare Company from 1990 to 2003.
The Prince Theater is a non-profit theatrical producing organization located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and specializing in music theatre, including opera, music drama, musical comedy and experimental forms. Founded in 1984 as the American Music Theater Festival by Marjorie Samoff, Eric Salzman and Ron Kaiserman, for the first 15 years AMTF performed in various venues throughout Philadelphia. In March 1999, AMTF moved into the renovated Midtown Theater and changed its name in honor of Broadway producer and director Harold Prince. AMTF/Prince Theater has produced 92 world premieres and has sent 81 productions to theaters in New York and worldwide.
Robert Eria Telson is an American composer, songwriter, and pianist best known for his work in musical theater and film, for which he has received Tony, Pulitzer, and Academy Award nominations.
Crystal Johnson is an American singer and songwriter from Brooklyn, New York. She has performed in a variety of stage productions and has collaborated with a wide array of well-known artists including Anthony Hamilton, Dr. Dre, Heavy D, Mobb Deep, Pete Rock & CL Smooth, Angie Stone, Usher and many others.
Sheila Dabney is an American actress, best known for her co-starring role in the 1987 lesbian feminist film She Must Be Seeing Things alongside Lois Weaver and directed by Sheila McLaughlin.
14 Karat Soul is an a cappella group from East Orange, New Jersey. They began their active career in the late 1970s. 14 Karat Soul were originally a strictly doo-wop group, but later branched out into other genres. They were featured in the 1980 Mabou Mines short film Sister Suzie Cinema, a 20-minute doo-wop opera by Bob Telson and Lee Breuer. 14 Karat Soul also appeared on Saturday Night Live, Sesame Street, and Between the Lions.
Eric "Ricky" McKinnie is a blind American gospel singer, drummer, radio show host, recording studio owner, stage actor, and songwriter, best known for performing with the Blind Boys of Alabama, a gospel group that has won six Grammy Awards and received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Recording Academy. McKinnie also serves as road business manager for the group. McKinnie has performed with a variety of gospel acts, including the Gospel Keynotes and his own group, the Ricky McKinnie Singers.
The Institutional Radio Choir was a gospel choir that recorded between 1962-2003. The choir began in 1954 at the Institutional COGIC in Brooklyn, NY, under Bishop Carl E Williams Sr. After recording an album entitled: "Well Done," the choir backed up Shirley Caesar on her two albums, I'll Go and My Testimony. Caesar allotted the choir's director two songs on the album, one of which was entitled (When Trouble Comes) Stretch Out. The song went on to become a gospel standard, especially in Pentecostal circles. The choir went on to record over 20 albums, most of which charted in the Top 10 on the Gospel Billboard charts.
J.D. Steele is an American singer, songwriter, arranger and choir director best known for his work with Prince, as the J.D. Steele Singers in "The Gospel at Colonus", in musical theatre, and as a member of the vocal group The Steeles.