Local people inspire play’s story
Elders interviewed for ‘Bronzeville’
Some characters in First Stage’s “Welcome to Bronzeville” may seem and sound familiar to native Milwaukeeans, because playwright Sheri Williams Pannell based them on real local people.
That Sgt. Chaney who goes the extra mile to guide a youth onto the right path? That’s Felmers Chaney, Milwaukee’s first African-American police sergeant, and later the longtime leader of the local NAACP.
The Cleopatra Johnson who gives a deacon’s son an earful of advice? The real Cleopatra Johnson and her husband C.L. opened the Ideal Tailors shop and were pillars of the black business community.
Williams Pannell hopes her play, set in 1957, will evoke positive memories of a Milwaukee neighborhood back then while also speaking to today’s concerns. First Stage will perform “Welcome to Bronzeville” Friday through Feb. 5 at the Marcus Center’s Todd Wehr Theater. The production is aimed at people 8 years and older.
Segregation made local business districts like Milwaukee’s Bronzeville necessary, because African-Americans then couldn’t really shop elsewhere, Williams Pannell noted. But its walk-everywhere closeness also promoted a strong sense of community. “The fact that your doctor, your lawyer, your teachers, your preacher, they all lived on the block, there was accountability,” she said.
In her music-filled play, a group of tween cousins who sing doo-wop hope to win the annual Bronzeville talent competition — after getting permission from their parents, who might look askance at them singing outside church. One youth, chafing under a strong father and neighborhood expectations, has a mild brush with the law that brings his struggles to the surface.
During that segregated era, black performers on the road, with help from the fabled Green Book, often boarded with local families. In “Welcome to Bronzeville,” legendary singer Billie Holiday (portrayed by Malkia Stampley) stays with the Dubois family during her Milwaukee engagement. During her stay, Holiday engages the family matriarch on their different roads not taken in life, and also encourages the young troubadours to cultivate their own voices: “If I’m going to sing like someone else, then I don’t need to sing at all.”
While father and son Dubois conflict, they have a relationship. When Williams Pannell interviewed local elders while doing research for this play, they urged her to remind theatergoers of the intact black families of that time, with fathers who worked hard at A.O. Smith, Allis-Chalmers and Rexnord.
She’s gathered enough material for two further Bronzeville plays: a holiday story set in 1959, and a drama about the demise of Bronzeville in the 1960s, precipitated by the acquisition of property through eminent domain for the freeway system.