Ruben Santiago-Hudson Has a Gift for Audiences: ‘Lackawanna Blues’
Performers
Playwrights
The Tony-winning performer, playwright and director on the healing properties of his autobiographical solo show
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Raven Snook: You joined Manhattan Theatre Club (MTC) as an artistic advisor last October. I know your relationship with the theatre goes back many years and that you directed Jitney for MTC in 2017. How did the position come about?
Ruben Santiago-Hudson: They came to me. With the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and a pandemic that made everyone stop and see what’s really going on in our country, people with big hearts and big minds decided, let’s make a change. And that’s what happened with [artistic director] Lynne Meadow and [executive producer] Barry Grove at MTC. They said, “We really are serious about making a change. You’ve been working hard for parity and inclusion and integrity. We want you here; we want to join you in that fight and help us turn this thing in a different direction.” So, I told them what it would mean, that it was going to cost money, because programs have to be implemented, certain hires have to be made and certain decisions have to be made. Some decisions are financial, and others are spiritual, emotional or intellectual. But, I said, “I’m not gonna stop fighting. I’m not gonna stop advising you when you don’t want to be advised. And the results of the advice will determine how long I stay, and whether I’m being effective or not. If I’m not being effective, I don’t need to be here.” And Lynne wrapped her arms around me, and tears flowed from her eyes and mine. And we said, “It ain’t gonna be easy, but we’ve got to do this.” And so, I came on and they’ve honored that commitment and I’ve honored mine.
Snook: Why did you and your MTC colleagues decide to reopen with Lackawanna Blues?
Snook: What’s it like revisiting this show 20 years after its premiere? Are there lots of ghosts in the room? I know blues great Bill Simms Jr., who developed and toured the show with you, passed away in 2019.
Santiago-Hudson: The spirits are always around me—so many angels above me, you know? Nanny, Bill, Gregory Hines, Lloyd Richards, Douglas Turner Ward, Anthony Chisholm and now Michael K. Williams, who was in the movie [of Lackawanna Blues]. Bill was my partner for 20-some years in this artistic endeavor that we call theatre. He’s the one who pushed me to take Lackawanna Blues to MTC in 2018. [Breaking into an impression of Sims Jr.] “You know, this president done gone crazy, and people killin’ each other and we hatin’ each other. We need Nanny. We need Nanny.” So, we decided to take it to [LA’s Mark Taper Forum], but Bill passed two weeks before we started rehearsals.
When we did Lackawanna Blues at The Public Theater from April to June in 2001, there was no 9/11. When 9/11 hit a few months later, we were totally scattered as human beings. We thought we were at war. We didn’t know where to go, who did what, who hated who. All of a sudden I got a call from Emily Mann, [then the artistic director of the McCarter Theatre]. And she said, “We need Nanny. Who is going to tell us, ‘It’s going to be okay,’ and we can sit back and just say, “Finally, we can breathe. I feel a little more safe. I feel a little more comfort and warmer now.'” So, we did it and it sold out. Other theatre people came to see it, and Bill and I had to take it on the road because everybody was asking for what Emily wanted for her community: a blessing, a prayer, hope. Then it was made into a movie . Even before [COVID-19] hit, there was another pandemic, a social pandemic with a president that still has us totally tattered and tortured and divided. And so, Bill said, “Nanny can bring us together.”
Snook: Have you rewritten Lackawanna Blues significantly for this production?
Santiago-Hudson: Not in big ways, just refining, so when people read it and study it, they can get a little more clarity. I’m not publishing it for other people to do it. I’m just afraid that no one—and this could be my own insecurities—that no one will give these people who’ve always been on the periphery of life the integrity that I know they had. I don’t think [other actors] will make them as whole as I knew they were. They won’t know their sensitivities or their frailties. Instead of these people being the way I drew them up, they will just be caricatures. That’s my fear.
Snook: This fall, , including Lackawanna Blues and Skeleton Crew. That is unprecedented. Do you believe it’s indicative of lasting change, or that next season will be a return to the Great White Way?
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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Top image: Ruben Santiago-Hudson. Photo by Richard Radstone.
RAVEN SNOOK