Director Charles Randolph-Wright was sitting on some East Campus steps one evening in 1978 when he was inspired to drop the pre-med track and follow his dreams.
The woman he was conversing with that night is the mother of senior Maggie Skoglund, who, after seeing a rehearsal of Wright’s production of Through the Night in New York this summer, worked to bring the show to Duke.
“I saw the show in July, and had never been so viscerally moved by a play before,” Skoglund said. “I was on the subway ride home and it just hit me—how do-able the play would be if I did bring it to Duke.”
The show, premiering tonight in Reynolds Theater, features not only Randolph-Wright’s now-developed directorial prowess, but also the lauded acting of Obie award-winner Daniel Beaty. Beaty plays all six of the show’s roles, employing the multiplicity of characters to address stereotypes concerning African-Americans.
“It starts out and you get these outline sketches of who people are,” Skoglund said. “And as the show goes on, it peels away these stereotypes, and it starts humanizing each character.”
Randolph-Wright sees Beaty’s particular iteration of racial commentary as one of its great universalizing elements, he said.
“What I love about Daniel Beaty’s work is that he really calls upon the state of black men in America...it’s sort of a call to African-American men saying, ‘take responsibility,’” Wright said. “It’s a really important message for everyone—even though, yes, its about African-American men—it’s universal in that we all have to take responsibility.”
Randolph-Wright hopes that the show’s successful artistic execution of socially meaningful themes will inspire other creatively inclined undergraduates to enter theater work.
“It’s very inspiring, especially for those Duke artists like me who wanted to pursue this field. Seeing a work like this will inspire them to actually go after it,” Wright said. “And that’s the point. Try and make a difference, try and make a change, try and go after that ultimate thing you believe in. Why not?”
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