Who Moved My Theater?

Darryl Lewis

AOA Music Instructor and Theater Director

In 2005, I stood backstage at the original Dobama Theater. Before Dobama moved into their beautiful Cedar Road location they were located in the dusty basement of the Winking Lizard on Coventry Road in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. My lines were memorized, I was in good voice and, with the help of Joseph Hammer, our Director, I felt good about the character that we created. 

It was Friday, opening night and there wasn’t an empty seat anywhere in the theater. It was pitch black backstage but I could hear the patrons talking as they waited for the show to begin. I positioned myself just barely off stage so the audience could not see me. I was nervous and excited at the same time. This was my very first acting gig with no singing.  At any moment I would hear a recorded message reminding audience members to turn off their cell phones, the stage lights would change and that would be my cue to enter and start talking. It was the regional premier of the award winning play, The Exonerated, written by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen, a married couple who are both actors and writers. Written in 2002, this award-winning docudrama was culled from interviews with more than forty former death row inmates nationwide, as well as from public records, that included legal documents, transcripts and letters. The Exonerated premiered in Los Angeles in 2002. During the course of the run, many big-name actors, including Richard Dreyfuss, Mia Farrow, Gabriel Byrne, Jill Clayburgh, and Sara Gilbert, appeared in the play. Susan Sarandon, Danny Glover, Brian Dennehy, Aidan Quinn, and Delroy Lindo starred in the adaptation of the play for Court TV. For the Cleveland premier, I would soon be surrounded by audience members on three sides. Those patrons in the front row could stretch out their arms and touch me if so motivated. This was “in your face” theater and it was showtime. I heard all of my cues, entered a bare stage with my tweed cap, hit my mark and said the following:

This is not the place for thought that does not end in concreteness;

        it is not easy to be open or too curious.

It is dangerous to dwell too much on things:

to wonder who or why or when, to wonder how, is dangerous.

How do we the people get outta this hole, what’s the way to fight,

might I do what Richard and Ralph and Langston’n them did?

It is not easy to be a poet here, Yet I sing.

I sing.

I played a character named Delbert Tibbs and functioned as a sort of Chorus, fading in and out of the action. A black man in his late fifties with a personality like an old soulful song: smooth, mellow, but with a relentless underlying rhythm. He has a great sense of humor. He’s from Chicago and he was on death row. All of the main characters in this play have spent time on death row for crimes they did not commit. Delbert speaks in poetic phrases and spells out a warning. He is thinking out loud about the best way to approach the problem. When he refers to Richard and Ralph and Langston he is referring to African American authors who speak out boldly in their works about racism. Other characters would soon join Delbert on stage. Each taking their turn, telling their individual stories that landed them each on death row. It was a powerful, moving evening of theater when audience members realized that none of these individuals were actually guilty of the crimes for which they were convicted. They are The Exonerated.

The original Dobama Theater had one main entrance, so patrons and actors often mingled when exiting. On my way out of the theater a young lady stopped me at the doorway to share  congratulations and say thank you. She said that this play had caused her to re-think her prior thoughts on capital punishments. She had no idea that so many innocent people were incarcerated, and some executed. She was having a change of heart and I was proud to have  something to do with that change. I was learning that the best art can do more than entertain us. It can engage, enlighten and challenge our points of view.

Theater has long been a place where one can advocate for social awareness and giving voice to the invisible. Today at Andrews Osborne Academy in the school year 2020/2021,  we will lean into the many challenges before us. Acknowledging that we are living with formidable circumstances for public performance and safety. We have been working through the summer to figure out how to best serve our student performers, designers, technicians, and our entire AOA community while preserving a real performance experience through Music & Theater. While our emphasis remains on safety, we are continuing to move forward with productions that are exciting and challenging to both our student population and our patrons. We will build on the groundwork laid by past AOA productions of To Kill a Mockingbird, The Diary of Anne Frank and Laramie Project. Productions in the year 2020/2021 will undoubtedly look, sound and feel different, but we will embrace technology. We will follow all CDC and AOA guidelines. We are a creative force and we will adapt, re-imagine and grow into this new normal. My personal passion of giving students a world class theatrical experience is still alive. So we will challenge ourselves to be innovative and look for new ways to create and protect one another. This is a time for us to learn new ways to express ourselves and forge ahead into the unknown showcasing our passions with renewed vitality. Like many who have trod the boards before us, we have something important to say and the time is now. Stay tuned for more exciting announcements from AOA Music & Theater 2020/2021.