A college senior experiences the Harlem Renaissance.
By Dan Eldridge
Pitt Magazine, 04/01/1998
This best thing about college, as any honest student will tell you, is all the free stuff. You know, the plays, the movies--that sort of thing. The tough part, of course, is finding time to cram it all in. With my four years in the Ivory Tower coming to a close, I figured now would be a good time to get cracking. So, it is with a mighty sense of adventure (not to mention obligation) that I've wandered into the Student Union this evening to, well, wait for something exciting to happen.
The situation, at first glance, seems grim. The lobby is hardly bubbling over with students. (This is, after all, a Thursday night.) Instead, a streaming procession of families are passing through, all of them with eager looks, obviously heading off to an event I know nothing about.
Many of them are carrying colorful bouquets of flowers, and every last one is asking the same question at the information desk: "Where's the Harlem Renaissance, honey?" Come again? A Harlem Renaissance in the middle of the Union? Right above the fast food joints and the video arcade? Highly unlikely. But then, a skinny kid wearing a baggy sweatshirt and tennis shoes hands me a flyer. "We're putting on a play tonight," he says. "It's free." Bingo.
The production is the creation of Pittsburgh-based I Dream A World, Inc., a nonprofit group of actors and musicians who divide their performances between prisons and schools, attempting to build cultural awareness and racial sensitivity. Pitt's Black Action Society invited the four-person troupe to bring to campus their blend of comedy, music and audience participation exploring the African-American experience of the 1920s. I claim a spot in the back of the room and watch mothers pass babies back and forth, and old friends chuckle and wave as they notice each other across the way.
Before the house lights have a chance to dim, I Dream A World's artistic director Tracey Turner, bounds across the stage, microphone in hand. "Can anyone give me the names of two black leaders who would've better served the community if they had worked together?" she shouts. "Malcolm X and Martin Luther King!" someone shouts back, to enthusiastic cheers and hollers. The show has officially begun.
The warm up goes on for a few more minutes: "Who knows what percentage of prisoners in this country are black?" (About 70, according to Turner.) "Who knows why so many black people migrated from the South to the North in the '30s?" (For jobs.) "Does anyone know that during the Harlem Renaissance, some of the biggest jazz clubs in New York banned blacks?" (They did.)
The costumes get the kids laughing (think women wearing beards and men donning dresses), while the audience participation gets everyone else going (comments and shouting out are encouraged).
With only four members, costume and set changes are a bit harried. The players trandform from Duke Ellington to Langston Hughes to Marcus Garvey in the space of 10 minutes, while at the same time summarizing the Harlem jazz scene, the uptown literary set, and the political movers and shakers. In between slapstick one-liners and and the low backdrop of a John Coltrane recording, the troupe makes a pitch for support.
"We'll go to schools, we'll go to prisons, we'll even perform in your backyard ," Turner tells the audience, laughing. "In 1998, we have plans to perform in every single prison across the state of Pennsylvania, and we need your prayers."
As I gather up my bags to leave, I see members of the audience weaving through the crowd and moving toward the stage, flowers in hand. Tracey Turner is still hard at work, gathering up costumes and stage props. Her eyes light up as she's handed a bouquet, its flowers in full bloom. The two are a perfect match.
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