Origin Story
When ‘Black Panther’ Chadwick Boseman came to Pittsburgh to direct a Kuntu play
In the fall of 2002, a young director with big, deep brown eyes came to Pittsburgh. He was here for four weeks to work with Kuntu Repertory, the venerable community theater group that produced dramas highlighting AfricanAmerican life and culture.
The young man, 24, also was the playwright of “Hieroglyphic Graffiti.” The drama, staged at Alumni Hall in Oakland at the University of Pittsburgh, was based on the Osiris-Isis myth of tragedy and rebirth and modernized as it drew from the playwright’s experiences in the District of Columbia at Howard University and a nearby bookstore. It reflected his admiration for the hip-hop theater scene.
In a review of the production, the PostGazette’s theater critic Christopher Rawson lauded the author’s writing talents.
The fresh-faced man was called Chad. On the title page of his “Graffiti” script, he also called himself Aharon, the name of a Hebrew prophet. Today, he’s Chadwick Boseman. His credits now include the films “Black Panther,” “Avengers: Infinity War,” which opened Thursday, “Marshall,” “Get On Up” and “42,” to name just a few.
But 16 years ago, he was so unknown that the advertising material for the play listed him once as Chadman and another time as Chadwick Boesman.
A look through the Kuntu archives at Pitt and interviews with former theater associates reveal some insight into pre-celebrity “Chad.”
Although understated in his dark jeans and sweaters, the playwright impressed the actors and others who worked with him. He was generous with his time and advice. Introverted and soft-spoken, he talked often of precolonial Africa and the continent’s freedom fighters such as Shaka Zulu of the Zulu Kingdom and Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of the independent Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1960. Mr. Boseman was unafraid to recommend books that he thought might shed light on the history, ethnicities and spirituality on the continent, they said.
His colleagues recalled that he was respectful to all. He was lean, muscular and clean-shaven. He did not smoke, rarely drank and glowed with such intensity of purpose that he left many around him awestruck. Female actors in the cast were asked by their girlfriends, “Can he fly?” A reference to the fact that he seemed so cool, confident, so “perfect” that he must be super.
Vernell Lillie, the founder and artistic director of Kuntu Repertory Theatre (which closed in 2013) and then an Africana studies professor at Pitt, had seen “Hieroglyphic Graffiti” at a national black theater festival in North Carolina and was so enthralled she invited Mr. Boseman to prepare the work for Kuntu.
The theater was celebrating its 28th year and Mr. Boseman launched a special season, called Mentors and Proteges, where younger dramaturgs worked closely with seasoned counterparts.
Ms. Lillie, in her correspondence with the young director, wrote that Kuntu could pay him $600 for the rights to stage the work and $5,000 for four master classes and workshops.
In 2002, Mr. Boseman hadn’t been out of Howard University more than a couple of years, and he’d recently completed a summer fellowship at Oxford University in England, where he studied Shakespeare, Beckett and Pinter.
At Howard, he had been mentored and taught by Al Freeman Jr., the late actor who appeared in the film “Malcolm X,” and Emmy and Tony winner Phylicia Rashad.
“He had impressive people in his life already,” said Vanessa German, who was the female protagonist in the play and now is a nationally acclaimed visual and spoken word artist and activist from Homewood. “He brought all of what he learned to Kuntu. He was humble, but he was generous.”
She said Mr. Boseman was in town about a month before the play opened because he attended auditions.
“I remember the things he asked me to do over, let me know he could see my character and what she needed. He could see my capacity as an actor,” she said.
That kind of tutelage carried over for the run of the play.
“He had a vision, and he taught me to be better,” Ms. German said. He taught the emerging actor about cyclical breathing, emotional range and other techniques. Keep learning, he told her.
Local actor Erick Irvis was the male lead. While rehearsing for the Kuntu production, he was acting in a drama in an old theater in Garfield.
“Chad came to see that performance,” Mr. Irvis said. “After the show, he congratulated me. Then he stayed and mingled. He was a genuine person who cared about the craft and the actor.”
Mr. Boseman exhibited a deep sense of professionalism that belied this youth, said Eileen J. Morris, who served as Kuntu’s managing director.
“His approach to his craft was like that of a veteran artist. That was mostly always prevalent about him,” Ms. Morris said. “He was serious about the art, and it was clear that being involved as a writer, director and performer gave him such gratification.”
Ms. German and Mr. Boseman became friends, she said. He went to dinner at her parents’ home. They went to art shows. She took him to the Shadow Lounge, a former East Liberty coffeehouse and performance gallery, where “he read an amazing poem” that drew applause from everyone, she recalled.
All those years ago, said Ms. German, you could see how brilliant he was.
“It was dimensional. He was intellectually sharp and bright spiritually and emotionally,” she said. “He was beautiful.”
Because “Black Panther” mirrored the same conversations she had with Mr. Boseman all those years ago, on the importance of knowing Africa and the ancestors, when Ms. German saw the film, she said, “That’s so Chad.”
Ervin Dyer, a former PostGazette reporter, is senior editor at Pitt Magazine at the University of Pittsburgh. Renee Aldrich is a freelance writer in Uptown.