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Northwest's Eugene Johnson - Theatre For The City

Northwest's Eugene Johnson - Theatre For The City image Northwest's Eugene Johnson - Theatre For The City image
Parent Issue
Day
17
Month
June
Year
1976
OCR Text

NORTHWEST’S EUGENE JOHNSON
… THEATRE FOR THE CITY …
By Frank Bach and Reggie Carter

Although it's been in operation for less than six p months, the City-owned Northwest Activities Center has already provided at least one vitally important but long-neglected service to the people of Detroit – its energetic, ambitious, highly-professional Theatre Program, which is under the creative management of youthful Motor City playwright Eugene Johnson. Many people, in fact, have been attracted to the new center initially through attending something at the Theatre, which this year has shown such musical highlights as the Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, and Mercer Ellington bands, along with a diverse list of other presentations including dance and dramatic work by both amateur and professional companies.

A fervent Johnson explained what's behind the successful program at the NWAC and what we can expect to see there in the future, as he paused last week during final work on his original play Ideas of Ancestry (see insert), which closes the Theatre's first series this month.

"While we had some big bands and I think we needed that," he was anxious to point out, "I think we should have more contemporary music and a lot of local talent. Dizzy Gillespie, you know, that's good for the A Theatre – it made people aware that we exist. Now that they know we are over here, the next question is, 'OK, what are you gonna do?'

"I think the Theatre has a responsibility to the community, and also to the artists in Detroit themselves, that we can give them a chance to get some exposure, a chance to get on a stage and be treated, you know, in a professional manner. I think unless we make ourselves available to them we've failed."

Perhaps no one is more familiar with Detroit's unique theatre scene than Johnson himself. He got involved in it as a 16-year-old student at McKenzie High School, when he was active in the school's Afro-American Cultural Club, "which was pretty radical back then," he relates. "We decided to do something constructive, because people were trying to brand us as a bunch of radical hooligans and such.

"We had a lot of talent in the group so we put on a show. . .and we said, 'Hey, this is good, this is better than marching, it's fun; so we kept doing it." The McKenzie group was the city's first independent student theatre organization and became quite active in the area.

As his seriousness grew Johnson got into productions at the Concept East (a seminal black theatre once headquartered on Adams in downtown Detroit), and had his first play presented there. He later became Director of the D-SACE Playhouse (12th and West Grand Boulevard) before enrolling at Wayne State University, where he "almost graduated" ("no big hurry on that," he explains).

Johnson worked for one year with the Detroit Youth Board, had a play (The Spaces in Between) produced at Howard University, and applied for the job of Theatre Manager at the NWAC last December.

Although his commitment to the community is utmost, his standards are high: "People say 'community'; you know, they say 'local' and they use that to mean 'not up to par'; I'm saying I think we at least have a responsibility of making sure whatever we put on stage is the absolute best we can do, and then a little bit more.

"The Paul Robeson Players, for example, they put in hard, long hours, you know. Most everybody in the cast has another job, this isn't something they do to live – they do eight hours there and then do eight hours here. They average leaving here at 12 midnight."

The initial series at the NWAC opened February 2 with a dramatic presentation by The Carole Morisseu Dance Company, and followed with The Peddy Players' Great White Hope (inspiring a stream of critical acclaim for the work), and La Vice and Company's religious piece, Citrius.

Lorraine (Raisin in the Sun) Hansberry's The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window opened at the NWAC April 23, presented by Norma Moniak's Group Theatre. Ms. Moniak is Executive Secretary at the center, and both The Group Theater and Johnson's Paul Robeson Players use the Theatre to rehearse, as well as present, their work.

Last month saw the impressive Life of a King drama, presented by a professional theatre company from Atlanta led by Rev. Arthur Langford and produced here by Dale C. Evans. An equally serious dramatic work is Johnson's powerful Ideas of Ancestry, which premiered May 28, and after the weekend performances by The Writhm Dance Company (June 5-6-7), runs June 9-27 and completes the NWAC's first season.

Taken together, the entire program represents a pretty strong cultural experience, and Johnson doesn't expect to slack off any. This summer he looks to do a festival of one-act plays, present lectures and theatrical workshops, and develop a comprehensive program for the fall (including a concert by local composer Teddy Harris, The Supremes musical director), for which the Theatre will sell season tickets. And it will continue to consist of the best and most thought-provoking dance and dramatic presentations available locally and otherwise.

Explaining his artistic prejudices, Johnson mused: "A true artist has got to go into the whole humanity thing, and be concerned not just about getting his artistic nuts off, but, you know, about people eating, about the situation with what people around the world are doing.

"Social realism? Yes, but not at the expense of becoming a soapbox. I believe that art that's done well really speaks to it better than all the speeches and proclamations from the stage can do. When you do it so well that people get a feeling of what you’re talking about without your having to say a word, then you really got your message across.

"You can't run up and holler at somebody, all they are gonna do is say, 'I'm tired of hearing it.' This isn't the sixties anymore, you know, folks got

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Theatre

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to realize that. We are in the middle of '76 and those '68 tactics just do not work, especially in the theatre. We got immune to it."

Johnson emphasizes that the "100,000 or so people of this area" have immediate access to the NWAC through the Theatre. His office is open to people who want to get involved producing an event at the Theatre (it rents for fairly reasonable rates) or people serious about theatre work who want to get involved with one of the Detroit production companies that is working at the NWAC.

The Northwest Activities Center is located at Meyers and Curtis in Detroit (phone: 224-7585).