SYNOPSIS: Minstrel Show; Or, The Lynching of William Brown retells the story of the real-life murder of an African-American man in Omaha, Neb., in 1919, through the narration of two fictional African-American blackface performers.VIDEO: The entirety of Minstrel Show can be watched online, in five parts, as a digital video. Click here to see Minstrel Show.
HISTORY: Minstrel Show was first produced by Omaha's Blue Barn Theatre, under the Artistic Directorship of Hughston Walkinshaw, in March of 1998. The original production was directed by Laura Partridge and starred Jonathan Wilson and David Lewis. It was performed in the rotunda of the Douglas County Courthouse in downtown Omaha, the actual site of the historic lynching.
Since then, Minstrel Show has been produced seven additional times, including a production by Queens Theatre in the Park in Queens, New York, in 1999, and the Connelly Theatre in Manhattan later that same year. Both of these productions were directed by Rob Urbinari, who has directed the play many times.
REVIEWS: "Mr. Sparber has taken a shameful, little-noted event in American history and fashioned a raw, gripping work. He has woven two strands of storytelling artfully and seamlessly into a striking tapestry. ... 'Minstrel Show' is not, to be sure, a comfortable evening’s entertainment. Recent protests about the theater’s use of blackface images in its advertising attest to the work’s power to provoke controversy. But it is a play that bears unrelenting witness, a crucial part of the search for truth." -- The New York Times
"Unsettling and compelling, Max Sparber's 'Minstrel Show or the Lynching of William Brown' re-creates a harrowing true story about the 1919 lynching of a jailed black man, as seen through the eyes of a couple of fictional song-and-dance men. The season opener for New Jersey Repertory Company begins on a light note with a couple of knockabout minstrel comics singing "yahoo" songs from the cotton fields, then quickly turns into a graphic narrative of angry crowd hysteria." -- Variety
"The playwright Max Sparber has taken the startling step of telling the story of a 1919 lynching in Omaha, Nebraska, through the testimony of two fictional blackface minstrels who witnessed it all. It’s easy to forget how much intelligence and sheer talent it takes to transform pain into any kind of crowd-pleasing humor; the triumph of this play — realized by two subtle, powerful actors, Spencer Scott Barros and Tim Cain, and the director, Rob Urbinati — is that the audience is constantly entertained but never allowed to forget about the minstrels’ degrading world. In that context the lynching seems entirely normal — and all the more horrific for it. In the end, what may be the most startling thing about using these entertainers to teach us our history is the disturbing resonance it creates within our celebrity-filled era." — The New Yorker
"A powerful piece of theater ... . It’s a window into the past — and the present." — The Denver Post
"We become dumbstruck bystanders of events too terrible to fully comprehend. And as the reality of what happened that fateful September night slowly sinks in, we ultimately find ourselves rendering the only verdict we’re able — a silent, absolute assent — [at] the drama’s final words: 'We’re witnesses to history. We want it told, and we want it told right.'" — Westword
"It’s a horrific, compelling, masterful story: enough to take the starch out of anyone’s collar." — CurtainUp
"I can’t stress enough that this play is not to be missed. The power of this performance ... is monumental even in its starkness." — The Omaha Reader
"Sparber's impeccable attention to history and its silences underlines the edification and the entertainment the minstrel show and the melodrama offer." — The Independent Weekly
"A hard-hitting, must-see tour de force." — The Omaha City Weekly
"Max Sparber’s Minstrel Show, or the Lynching of William Brown, is artful and entertaining, but primarily a triumph of storytelling that recreates those dark hours with theatrical power. More amazing, it does so unflinchingly, without laying blame or “lest we forget” sermonizing." — The Omaha Reader
"Once in a great while, a locally produced show comes along that truly rates that adjective: great.
Minstrel Show, or the Lynching of William Brown, is historically rich, contemporarily relevant, compelling, evocative - and great - theater." — The Omaha World-Herald
"Riveting and harrowing ... one compelling theater piece." -- The Newark Star-Ledger
COMMENTS: I moved, somewhat without planning to, to Omaha, Nebraska in 1996. I had never visited the city, and so, my first week, set out to read a little about my new home. At the library, I discovered a book written by the Federal Writer's Project during the depression that offered a map of downtown labeled with interesting historical tidbits, such as former brothels and gambling houses. Wandering around downtown, visiting these sites, I eventually reached the Douglas County Courthouse. Standing before it, I read an astounding, horrifying account of a lynching that had occurred on that spot in 1919. William Brown, a man crippled with rheumatism, had been accused of molesting a white woman, and thousands had stormed the massive, bunker-like courthouse to get him. During the course of the assault on the courthouse, the mob even attacked their own mayor, hanging him from a lamppost, where he would have died had not policemen rescued him.
I spent the next year researching this story, reading the newspaper accounts of the era. At the same time, I had become friends with Hughston Walkinshaw, who had cofounded and was then artistic director of Omaha's remarkable Blue Barn Theatre. He had invited me to oversee the theater's late-night season, called Theatre 'Round Midnight. I approached him with the idea of dramatizing the lynching of William Brown, and he at once agreed, placing it on the schedule for the theater's next season before I had ever even written one word of the script.
To our surprise, we were granted the use of the rotunda of the Douglas County Courthouse, the actual site of the lynching, to perform the play. It was the subject of some controversy when it opened: State Senator Ernie Chambers, without either reading or seeing the play, condemned it, calling for a black boycott of the production. He was mostly ignored, and the play enjoyed an extended, sold out run. Shortly thereafter, the Omaha production was invited to Denver, and also played one weekend in Carmel, California.
Rob Urbinati, a director based out of New York but formerly a student in Omaha, heard about the play and requested a copy. He brought the script to Queens Theatre in the Park, where he is an artistic director, and the play inaugurated a minority theater project in 1999. The Queens Theatre also brought the play to Manhattan, coproducing it with Chain Lightning Theatre, later that year, where it recieved generally good reviews.
The play has continued to be produced since then, finding venues in Long Beach, Cal., Colorado Springs, Col., Pittsburgh, Penn. (it had a weekend run at the Warhol Museum), and, most recently, two productions in Durham, NC. In February of 2006, the play returned to Omaha's Blue Barn Theatre, with a brief transfer to the John Beasley Theatre, again under the direction of Rob Urbinati.
DOWNLOAD Minstrel Show here.
To read the script, you will need a copy of Adobe's free Acrobat Reader program. Download it here.
ADDITIONAL MEDIA: Minstrel Show features three songs drawn from field recordings of prison songs, as well as one so-called old-time hokum blues. The original recordings of the songs are available for download below, as a reference tool for productions of the play.
LISTEN TO "EARLY IN THE MORNING":
DOWNLOAD "EARLY IN THE MORNING."
LISTEN TO "I'M GOIN' HOME":
DOWNLOAD "I'M GOIN' HOME."
LISTEN TO "COCAINE" (CONTAINS "FURNITURE MAN"):
DOWNLOAD "COCAINE."
LISTEN TO "NO MORE, MY LORD":
DOWNLOAD "NO MORE, MY LORD."
