Interview
The Power of Community
We sat down with director Valerie Curtis-Newton to talk about Blues for an Alabama Sky, playwright Pearl Cleage, and the importance of creating theater that builds community.
Director Valerie Curtis-Newton
Seattle Rep: Pearl Cleage’s Blues for an Alabama Sky premiered in 1995 and has had a renaissance in recent years with productions at regional theaters across the U.S. and the National Theatre in London. Why do you think this play resonates so deeply with audiences today?
Valerie Curtis-Newton: What does a play about the 1930s have to tell us today? Cleage has said about Blues, “The story is set in 1930, but it isn’t about 1930. It’s about truth and honor and love and fear and friendship, topics which don’t grow old. Writers are always writing about the complexities of being human. Time and place are merely the specific backdrops in which we chose to place our explorations. If we get it right about the people, the question of relevance is moot.” I believe this. I also believe that the specific background issues of this play are still relevant. Reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ rights, healthcare equity, and economic opportunity are all impacting our lives today. We need to build stronger communities to thrive. Better, more compassionate communities. The questions of how do we get free and what do we do with our freedom remain with us.
SR: In 2022, you directed Blues at PlayMakers Repertory Company in North Carolina. As you return to the play here at Seattle Rep, has it changed for you? Does staging this play in Seattle impact your vision?
VCN: I had hoped that the situation about reproductive rights might have shifted by now, but it has not. Neither has the landscape around any of the other issues that the play raises. So, the reason to do the play is still potent for me. It may be even more resonant for me given current events.
Doing the play in Seattle is very exciting to me because I get to bring it home and have the conversation with my community. Growing community is foundational to my artistic mission.
Ayanna Bria Bakari, Jamar Jones, and Esther Okech Lewis in rehearsal for Blues for an Alabama Sky. Photo by Sayed Alamy.
SR: Besides your recent productions of Blues, you will direct Cleage’s play The Nacirema Society at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis this spring. What brings you back to Cleage’s work again and again? What has it been like to be immersed in her writing so consistently over the last few years?
VCN: Great question. I make theater in general to bring people together. I make Black theater specifically to present Black people in our full humanity. What I really love about Pearl Cleage is her interest in talking about how Black people treat each other within our community. About how characters navigate their relationships. The hard conversations that they must have in order to be in relationship with each other. I do not believe in safe space but in brave people in every space. This play does, too. That is, it's about how you get through struggle, who you lean on, how you lean on them, how you show up as your authentic self, without trying to turn yourself into what someone else wants you to be.
I am lucky that I get to be in rooms with Black people sharing our joy. Sharing not just our pain, but also our love; our kindness and our courage as well as our hunger, desire, and desperation. All of these things are a part of who we are. Our full humanity. It is truly a blessing to be in those rooms. It fortifies me so that I can go out into the world and do my part to add something. Pearl’s plays do that, too. They all set out to tell stories of the humanity of Black people. Sometimes, they want to present it in a way that is light and fun like Nacirema Society and other times they want to present us in a way that provokes. Pearl and most of my favorite playwrights create stories that can break our hearts while they uplift and inspire us. Blues is such a story. All of Pearl’s works—plays, novels, poems, and essays—reveal powerful, poignant truths about the lives of Black women and the Black community. I’ve enjoyed hanging out with her.
Valerie Curtis-Newton and Jamar Jones in rehearsal for Blues for an Alabama Sky. Photo by Sayed Alamy.
SR: What do you hope audiences take away from this show? Anything else you’d like the audience to know?
VCN: I would like the audience to realize that the folks who lived during the Harlem Renaissance did more than dance and listen to jazz. They lived lives much like our lives, full of choices and consequences. Maybe there is something for us to take away from their experience, like the power of community to hold folks above the rising tide.
SR: You have been instrumental as a mentor and teacher to many young theater makers and emerging artists as the Head of Directing and Professor at the University of Washington School of Drama. What advice do you have for young people about making a life in the theater?
VCN: The journey is different for everyone. Everyone will have their own journey. For me the key lessons are:
- Cultivate curiosity about many things. Curiosity is the antidote for discomfort.
- Learn to be resilient. It is a life full of swings and misses. Learn to learn from your mistakes without wilting your passion or your drive.
- Really listen to the world around you. From history to current events, from strangers to close collaborators, listen for the things that will engage you, speak a truth, and spark your courage.
See Blues for an Alabama Sky on stage at Seattle Rep from January 30–February 23, 2025.