Ross Zentner
Isayah Phillips (left) plays Blood, and Gavin Lawrence plays his father, Acts.
The Mojo and the Sayso tackles a timely topic: police violence in African American communities.
The upcoming production is the result of a rare collaboration between companies in Madison and Milwaukee, cities whose arts and culture scenes rarely connect so directly.
The play — which opened to rave reviews Jan. 28 at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater’s Stiemke Studio and moves to Overture Center’s Promenade Hall Feb. 18-21 — is a co-production of the Madison-based Theatre LILA and Milwaukee’s Bronzeville Arts Ensemble.
When planning for the 2015-16 season, LILA’s artistic director Jessica Lanius and former LILA co-director Mike Lawler sought works that reflected current issues. They read a December 2014 American Theatre article, “The Ferguson Theatre Syllabus,” which was essentially a call to artistic directors across the country to consider plays that deal with race and justice.
Lanius began reading the plays mentioned in the article and was drawn to the imagery and poetry of The Mojo and the Sayso, written by Aishah Rahman, an African American playwright. The 1989 work is based on the true story of a 1973 shooting death of 10-year-old Clifford Glover by New York City police.
Lanius had worked previously with Malkia Stampley, Bronzeville’s producing artistic director, on a 2015 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, co-produced by Theatre LILA and Children’s Theater of Madison; Lanius directed and Stampley starred as Titania.
Eager to collaborate again, Lanius proposed a partnership between the two companies. “Organizationally, our company is primarily white, and Bronzeville is primarily African American,” says Lanius. “We asked each other, how do we work together to do more work that is important for the community?”
As part of that mission, Theatre LILA held workshops at the Overture Center, the Goodman Center and Middleton High School where people wrote and shared their own stories about race. Selections from these workshops, Real Stories about Race, will be presented on Feb. 20 at 5 p.m., between the matinee and evening performances of The Mojo and the Sayso.
Lanius says she left the workshops feeling uplifted, even though some of the participants’ stories were hard to hear: “People showed up and shared a little piece that we don’t talk about enough.”
Three performances of The Mojo and the Sayso aimed at high school audiences will include talk-back sessions; these are already sold out.
Stampley says the collaboration with LILA has been a fruitful one. “One of the biggest lessons I’m reminded of while working together is that even when you have challenges, by respecting each other and thinking about what’s most important — the community and the story — you can get through it.”
