It happens like clockwork every year. Seattle’s Intiman Theatre begins taking calls from patrons looking to buy tickets to one Christmas production in particular. But there is just one problem.
“Black Nativity hasn’t been running for ten years,” said Wesley Frugé, Intiman’s Managing Director. “What is it about that performance that they are missing it every year?”
The good news—theatregoers won’t be missing it in 2023. Black Nativity is coming back to the stage for Intiman’s holiday season. After ten years away, and under the fresh direction of Valerie Curtis-Newton, it won’t look exactly as it did the first time around, but for a production so closely tied to Black culture and community, its evolution proves equally fascinating as its history.
Written for the stage by poet and social activist Langston Hughes, Black Nativity is an adaptation of the Nativity story incorporating gospel music and Christmas carols, traditionally performed by an all-Black cast. The show was first performed off-Broadway in 1961, and productions have continued in the United States and abroad ever since.
Intiman first staged the production in 1998. It was such a success it returned the following year, and kept returning, only ending after a 15-year run. Why it has been so missed ever since might have something to do with the powerhouse team that put the original run together.
The production was directed by theatre veteran Jacqueline Moscou. It featured the vision of civil rights leader and longtime Mount Zion Baptist Church pastor, Reverend Dr. Samuel McKinney, as well as the “First Lady of Gospel,” Patrinell “Pat” Wright, and members of her Total Experience Gospel Choir, among others.
The show may have not been running since 2012, but it was clearly alive and well in the minds of those who now have the chance to bring it back.
“I’ve had so many conversations in last ten years around this project,” said Jennifer Zeyl, Artistic Director of Intiman. The recipient of 2006 Stranger Genius Award in Theatre, Zeyl was named “Best Scenic Designer in Seattle” by Seattle Weekly in 2005. The Stranger said about her, “Jennifer Zeyl is the most exciting scenic designer working in Seattle today….no one rivals Zeyl in pure conceptual power…she has invented as often as she has arranged, and actively conceived as much as she passively evoked. And her work just keeps getting better.”
Zeyl had the chance to sit with Wright, Moscou, and others from the original production in regular anticipation of bringing back Black Nativity, but admitted that for one reason or another the time was never quite right to bring the show back until now.
Part of the hurdle to bringing the show back was that Intiman found itself, for a time, without a permanent home. Founded in 1972, the theatre has presented more than 240 productions to Seattle audiences. Intiman has a track record for producing work that supports diverse voices, encourages conversation, honors activism, and forges and a personal connection between the performers and its audiences. Intiman was formerly housed at Seattle Center in the Intiman Playhouse, but had to forgo the space while addressing mounting debt. From 2015-2020, the company produced in various venues throughout Seattle. In 2020, the theatre moved to Capitol Hill and is now a long-term tenant at Seattle Central College, producing at the Erickson Theatre and Broadway Performance Hall.
Since the original run of Black Nativity, the community has lost both Pat Wright and Reverend McKinney. Zeyl sees the production as an opportunity to pay homage to them and the legacy they helped build, and to do so “to a diminishing Black population.” She admitted that staging Black Nativity in 2023 means something different than it did even a decade ago, and as such has prompted changes to the production.
“The nativity story has not evolved, but our hunger to be in shared space and to share a common experience that is unifying instead of divisive—that is the moment we are in right now.” Zeyl believes the newly remounted show offers a point of view that invites an audience from an even wider array of faith practices, including those of faith who identify as queer.
The original Hughes play is essentially a one-act. Musical Director for Black Nativity,Sam Townsend, said that the music Wright used in what was act one of the original production was “pretty traditional,” and that he is keeping with that tradition, while also revamping to include some contemporary gospel music.
The second half of the show at Intiman originally featured a “revival scene,” or perhaps more descriptively a “fire and brimstone” sermon. That will be no more, replaced instead with a “rousing” audience sing-along, including Christmas carols.
“Coming out of pandemic and not being able to congregate, this production is an opportunity for fellowship,” said Townsend. “We are going to do a sing-along, inviting the audience to be part of the show, the experience.”
Townsend understands he had big shoes to fill on the music and choral side. But Townsend also had the benefit of studying under Pat Wright. In fact, Townsend joined Wright’s Black Nativity chorus three years into the original run and, in time, Wright began asking him to assist in the directing, setting him up well for the current opportunity.
“As a young lad following her lead,” Townsend said, “I saw the way she commanded a choir, bringing an entire audience, believers and non-believers to an equal plane. Black Nativity was the most intimate experience to learn from and under her.”
Director Valerie Curtis-Newton also had a hand in the new direction for the second half of the show.
“We are all interested in reconnecting after three years of not being in the same room together,” said Curtis-Newton. “Singing is one of the things that connects us. The world is in a time that is fraught. Let’s join voices, lets occupy the same space and see what can happen.”
Decorated director and the Head of Directing and Playwriting at the University of Washington School of Drama, Curtis-Newton also had a special connection to the original Black Nativity production.
“When I first moved to Seattle, one of my early mentors was Jackie Moscou,” she said. “I watched her with great interest and appreciation as the whole [Black Nativity] team ultimately pulled something together that really brought the community together.” Curtis-Newton was only a student then, “finding her feet” as a professional, as she described it. “Now,” she added, “I am at a place in my career to be a part and bring back the spirit of the event.”
Curtis-Newton brings more than just her directorial experience, she also brings with her The Hansberry Project that she built. The organization celebrates the work of Black theatre artists, and is a partner in the production of Black Nativity.
All in all, it seems that everyone agrees the time is right, and that the message of Black Nativity is needed more than ever. Is Black Nativity setting itself up for another 15-year run? “Yes,” said Curtis-Newton, “why not?”
“Black Nativity has definitely been missing from our holiday offerings,” said Zeyl. “When your audience cares, you listen.”
Black Naitivity will play at Broadway Performance Hall from December 12 to 30, 2023. Tickets are available at intiman.org.
David Drury is a Seattle-based writer, journalist, and Best American fiction author whose creative work can be found at daviddruryauthor.com.