‘A COMPLETELY UNIQUE EXPERIENCE’
Tony Award-winning producer Stovall comes to Norfolk to teach Governor’s school students who are performing his play ‘Immediate Family’
NORFOLK — Paul Oakley Stovall sat facing a semicircle of actors Thursday night in a Governor’s School for the Arts rehearsal room. The students were awaiting the Tony Award winner’s notes on their performance of his play, “Immediate Family.”
Stovall, who is based in Chicago, had flown in for several days to work with the youngest cast ever to do his comedy about race, religion, sexual orientation and family dysfunction.
The day before, he’d watched several scenes. He turned his attention to 15-year-old Kaiden Sivills, who plays the unabashedly unreserved Nina.
“That is a very serious moment,” Stovall said, telling her to embrace Nina’s rare moment of reflective silence in a particular scene. “You’re quiet. But Nina is never silent. The audience will notice; it’s powerful. In this moment is the real Nina,” he said. Sivills nodded and smiled with delight, throwing her hands to her heart out of sympathy for her character.
“Immediate Family” first opened in Chicago in 2012 and has been staged across the country. The Norfolk production opens Thursday and runs through Sunday at the Dalis Black Box Theatre.
Professional adult actors don’t often get personal instruction from the playwright, and the opportunity is scarce for high schoolers, said Bethany Mayo, a GSA teacher and the show’s director.
“I think, initially, it was terrifying for them,” Mayo said. “To get that direct feedback from the only person who really knows exactly what every word means. It’s just a completely unique experience.”
The students know that Stovall is the 2022 Tony Award-winning producer of Broadway’s “A Strange Loop” and played George Washington in “Hamilton” for four years of the show’s first national tour.
When he learned that high school students would be performing “such a mature piece of theater,” he not only gave GSA the rights to perform the script for free, he wanted to also see them rehearse, said Donovan Mitchell, the department chair of GSA’s film and theatre program.
The show centers on Black siblings, now in their 30s, reuniting at their childhood home in Chicago for a wedding. Their father is a minister.
One of the brothers has brought his boyfriend of three years, but he hasn’t told his family that he’s gay — a fact his boyfriend is also unaware of. The boyfriend is white. Being gay and interracial dating are tense subjects for some members of the family and help propel the comedy’s drama.
“These issues are still salient,” Mayo said. “So immediately, almost all of the students who were in the show understand something about this play, because they’ve understood something about themselves,” she said.
“They really get into it. And they love this.”
After getting Stovall’s notes, the cast started rehearsing a scene in which the siblings are gathering around a table to play cards. Evy, played by Tremayia Dotson, is not happy with one of her sisters.
Mayo stopped the scene to finesse the actors’ movements, and Dotson turned to Stovall, who was seated about 10 feet away.
“Should I play it with some shade?” she asked.
“With a thundercloud!” Stovall commanded. “I want to see it in your face!”
IF YOU GO
When: 7:30 p.m. Feb. 15-16. 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Feb 17. 2 p.m. Feb. 18.
Where: The Dalis Black Box Theatre, 254 Granby Street, Norfolk
Tickets: Start at $5
Details: gsarts.org