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China shares its stage

Chinese and African-American performers give a historic performance.

By TIMES STAFF
Published July 4, 2007

BEIJING

With freedom songs, spirituals and hymns, a St. Petersburg resident and four other African-Americans brought the sounds of the civil rights movement to a play about the life and nonviolent social justice message of Martin Luther King Jr. to this capital city. The play, Passages of Martin Luther King, featured actors from the National Theatre Company of China in the roles of the King family, civil rights leaders Stokely Carmichael and Malcolm X, President John F. Kennedy and FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.

The African-American performers served as the choral group that provided vocal and instrumental support for the performance.

The play was based on an original script by Clayborne Carson, a Stanford University professor, and ran from June 21-24.

Director Wu Xiaojiang called the performance historic because it was the first time Chinese actors and African-Americans performed together on a theater stage in China.

In the performance, singers and actors shared in a cultural exchange that included visits to such sites as the Great Wall of China.

September G. Penn, 35, of St. Petersburg and wife of St. Petersburg Times writer Ivan Penn, was selected as one of the vocal performers.

She joined Kenneth D. Alston, a countertenor who sings regularly with the internationally acclaimed group Three Mo Tenors, and Stanford University students Frederick Alexander, Chelsi Butler and Re Phillips.

The singers are scheduled to perform music from the play for the first time in the United States at the Studio@620 in August.

[Last modified July 3, 2007, 20:32:11]