Cultural Fusion wants more diversity in Orlando theater
When Kenneth Brown moved to Orlando three years ago, he was impressed by the local arts scene. Yet he believed it could be even better.
“There’s amazing theater being done,” said Brown, 60. “But, disappointingly, there aren’t enough works by African-American and Hispanic playwrights.”
Brown, an actor, writer and director who
worked for years in Ohio, decided to do something about it. Last year, he founded Cultural Fusion, dedicated solely to producing works with a black or Hispanic point of view.
The troupe opens its first show today: “Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First 100 Years” is about a pair of long-lived black siblings who were born at the end of the 19 century.
“There’s not been a consistent outlet for these voices to be heard,” Brown said. “Cultural Fusion intends to fill that void.”
Small theater companies with similar missions have popped up across Central Florida through the years, the most notable being People’s Theatre, an Orlandobased troupe devoted to black playwrights. Founded in 1999, People’s produced two dozen shows by August Wilson and others. Its last show was in 2007, a co-production of Wilson’s “Fences” with Seminole State College.
Troupes presenting works in Spanish also have come and gone. Brown plans to stage shows by Hispanic playwrights in English.
The reasons theater companies close up shop vary, said theater historian Bobbie Bell, but often are related to the intense commitment — with little, if any, financial reward — needed to put on a show.
“Theaters only last as long as people are willing to set their lives aside, raise funds, paint scenery till midnight, build sets,” said Bell, who teaches at Seminole State’s Sanford campus.
People’s Theatre, for example, wound down when its leader took a time-consuming job on a production touring nationally.
Brown said he and his eight-member board of directors won’t overextend themselves: “We’ll produce when we can, where we can.”
But theater companies outside the mainstream can face especially tough going, Bell said.
“Do African-American theaters face more challenges? Do Hispanic theaters face more challenges? Absolutely,” he said. Bell
points to economic disparity, as well as the perception by white theatergoers that the material might not be for them.
Brown said he has been encouraged by the response to Cultural Fusion, which is looking for a permanent home.
“I’ve talked to a number of people who aren’t African-American who said they’d support an AfricanAmerican theater,” he said. “People are excited about seeing these works.”
Bessie and Sadie Delany, the sisters at the heart of Cultural Fusion’s first play, found national fame in 1993 through the best-seller they wrote with journalist Amy Hill Hearth.
The women were born to a former slave in North Carolina, endured the racebased Jim Crow laws of the South and eventually moved to New York City’s Harlem in the early 1900s. After chronicling a century of social change in America with wit and wisdom, they died in the late 1990s.
“They were pioneers in many ways,” said Yolanda Cade, who plays Sadie. The Orlando actress thinks the play has mass appeal.
“Their story is AfricanAmerican history, but it’s America’s story,” she said. “It’s a story of women; it’s a story about the strength of family.”
Mad Cow Theatre has seen good audiences for plays with culturally specific points of view, said executive director Mitzi Maxwell, because strong plays always win over theatergoers.
“It’s all about storytelling and the beauty of connecting with others,” she said. “A good story isn’t exclusive — it’s universal. Our audiences have learned that peeling back the onion on the human condition is meaningful, regardless of your culture of origin.”
Mad Cow’s occasional Spanish-language theater program, Teatro Español, has drawn large crowds to its workshops, Maxwell said.
“There’s a great big audience out there interested in Hispanic arts programming, an interest that is larger than just one theater company,” she said.
Both Maxwell and Brown say there’s room in Orlando’s theater scene for more diversity.
“These stories that can be told should be told,” Brown said. “I just feel that those lives should be out there.”