George C. Wolfe
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“Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things”: George C. Wolfe on Rustin
It might seem strange for an actor to have a breakout year at age 54. To those who witnessed Colman Domingo’s star rise on the New York theater scene in the early aughts and would cringe at now labeling the actor a “discovery”—I don’t disagree! I first encountered Domingo’s stage work in summer 2008, in the Broadway premiere of Passing Strange that would be filmed a few days later by Spike Lee. (Looking over Domingo’s earlier theater credits, I realize now that I would’ve first seen him in the 2003 Shakespeare in the Park production of Henry V, but the […]
by Erik Luers on Dec 5, 2023 -
“… Once a Person’s Voice is Captured, They are Expendable”: Director George C. Wolfe on the Musical Histories of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Black music. White privilege. Chicago. 1927. What could possibly go wrong? Indeed, nearly everything, and it’s chronicled with artful intensity in August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, the second in a cycle of ten plays that compassionately detail the 20th-century experiences of African Americans. Ma Rainey’s was brought to the screen this season in a stellar production directed by George Wolfe that stars Viola Davis in the title role and, in his final role, Chadwick Boseman as the upstart young trumpeter and rake in her band. Wolfe, a Tony Award-winning theater director and writer, is gradually building a formidable resume […]
by Martin Johnson on Feb 23, 2021 -
On the Beat
Chicago in 1927 was a fascinating, volatile place. The Great Migration, which saw an estimated six million African Americans leave the rural southern states for the urban north, was in full effect, and the Windy City was an important destination. By the mid 1920s, an estimated 100,000 Black people had settled in Chicago, making the city a hotbed for new cultural developments, especially in music—Chicago is widely regarded as the second stop in the evolution of jazz after New Orleans. The August Wilson play Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom tells one chapter of that evolution through a dramatic imagining of a single recording session […]
by Martin Johnson on Feb 10, 2021
