Callaloo Theater cancels production, suspends company
Callaloo Theater Company, which focused on connecting works from the classic canon to theater artists of color and diverse audiences, is indefinitely suspending operation.
Karen Christina Jones, founder of the Albany-based company, made the decision following the cancelation of the company’s upcoming production “Harlem Macbeth,” which set Shakespeare’s famous tragedy about political ambition in a noir-styled 1940s Harlem. Three actors, including the titular Macbeth, and the stage manager had left the production, which began rehearsing in January. The show was set to open this Friday.
“We’ve been working since January, so I couldn’t understand,” Jones said. “If it was the point of saying, ‘Karen Christina, can we change the dates?’ We could have changed the date. Why does it have to go from, ‘I’m just not happy, I’m quitting?’”
The actor playing King Duncan quit following a castwide group text message from Jones telling them to not focus on “affecting an English accent,” Jones said; he had also voiced objections to the Harlem setting. Jones, who was born in Brooklyn and whose mother was born in Harlem, envisioned setting the play in one of those locations since she first read “Macbeth” as an English major, and she felt a film noir approach would enhance the crime drama that unfolds. “Harlem Macbeth” marked Jones’ first time directing a Shakespeare play.
Another actor was removed from the cast following “inappropriate behavior,” including missing a rehearsal without any notice. Three weeks ago, the stage manager quit after voicing concerns to Jones about the production and suggesting presenting select scenes from the play instead, and the actor playing Macbeth, who was friends with the stage manager, emailed his resignation the following morning.
For Paola Jazmin Gonzalez, a local actor and fight choreographer, the cancellation was a big disappointment. She had choreographed fight scenes for other productions of “Macbeth,” but hadn’t had an opportunity to take on any of the roles. In “Harlem Macbeth,” she was set to perform as Banquo and Macduff, which meant a lot to her as a Puerto Rican and transgender woman.
“When I go to auditions, finding parts that I feel like I’m going to fit in is a little bit difficult,” Gonzalez said. “To have a director that will give me an opportunity to play a character like Banquo or Macduff and ignore my accent, that to me is fantastic … (Karen Christina) allowed me to be a part of the show, and not many people would have given me that chance in all honesty.”
The cast tumult combined with frustrations about the theater community led to Jones’ decision to not only cancel the production but also indefinitely suspend Callaloo Theater Company, which has been in operation since 2000.
“When I started Callaloo 20 some odd years ago, there were always people willing to help out,” she said. “I’ve noticed that throughout the years that the theater community has gotten so esoteric and theater companies don’t necessarily help out the little guy and the little gal, especially because other theater companies that are run by women have the same challenges.”
Over its lifetime, the company produced works including “Fires in the Mirror: Crown Heights, Brooklyn and Other Identities” by Anna Deavere Smith, which explored the 1991 Crown Hill riot; August Wilson’s “Seven Guitars,” part of Wilson’s “Century Cycle,” a 10play anthology chronicling the Black experience in America spanning the 20th century; “Milk Like Sugar” by Kirsten Greenidge, which examined inner-city childhood and teenage pregnancy; and Emily Mann’s “Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First Hundred Years,” following the lives of reallife sisters Sadie and Bessie who faced and trailblazed through racist barriers and lived to 109 and 104, respectively.
Jones hopes the interconnectedness and support she felt from the theater community when she first began Callaloo returns, pointing to a potential future Capital Region theater festival that is in the planning phase as an optimistic sign it will. If that returns, she believes, so will Callaloo.