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Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart, live from the WNYC Studios in SoHo. Thank you for sharing part of your day with us. Thank you so much if you're a listener donor, your support keeps shows like All Of It on the air. On the show today we'll speak with Jessi Colter, the First Lady of Outlaw Country. We'll talk about the life of restaurant owner Mr. Chow. He's the subject of a new documentary. He'll join me along with filmmaker Nick Hooker. We'll talk about a group of sisters who turn their own family's search for a kidney donor into a way to do good for others. That is in the future. Let's get this hour started with Purlie Victorious.

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In the first ever Broadway revival of Ossie Davis's play Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch, Leslie Odom, Jr takes on the title role of a fast talking preacher whose definition of the truth is a little bit elastic but for a good cause. He wants to build a proper church with some money that was left to a family member, but that family member died. He ropes in an unsuspecting, wide-eyed young lady, Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins, to impersonate the erudite dead woman. Played by Kara Young, the naive Lutiebelle has to convince a plantation owner who is holding the money to fork over the cash. Things do not go as planned.

The show is a comedy/satire/farce about some serious subjects: self-determination, civil rights, and doing the right thing. With Kenny Leon directing, The Guardian describes the production as asserting itself as a play that,"Feels contemporary both in its clarity about lingering racism and its willingness to generate big laughs from that very clarity." Odom and Young's performances were described as thrilling by Variety.

Purlie Victorious is at the Music Box Theater on 45th Street, and was recently extended through February 4th. Joining us now are actors Leslie Odom, Jr. Hi, Leslie.

Leslie Odom, Jr: Hi.

Alison Stewart: And Kara Young. Hi, Kara.

Kara Young: Hello.

Alison Stewart: Welcome back to the show Kenny Leon. Hi, Kenny.

Kenny Leon: Hey.

Alison Stewart: Kenny, reading the script six decades later, after it was last produced, what remained relevant and what did you have to rethink and reinterpret a bit?

Kenny Leon: [laughs] Well, interestingly enough, it's very relevant, 62, 63 years later. It's like Ossie Davis Jr., I mean, Ossie Davis Jr., no, Leslie Odom, Jr.

[laughter]

Ossie Davis wrote a love letter to us in the future. He wrote a love letter to us reminding us what keeps our democracy strong, what keeps our democracy beautiful. He was telling us in 1961 that you have to lean into love. You have to lean into respect of all culture and all differences. If we don't do that, we're in trouble. In that sense, sadly, things that were true in 1961 are even more true today.

Alison Stewart: Leslie, what is important to Purlie Victorious Judson when we first meet him upon his return to his hometown.

Leslie Odom, Jr: I wrote on the front of my script because I find as an actor, if I can really understand what I come into an evening wanting what it is I desire with my whole heart, I can simplify the proceedings for myself in that way. I could just go after one thing with everything inside of me. Purlie, quite frankly, he wants his $500 inheritance. He wants $500 because to him, he says to a character early in the piece, "Freedom, Missy that's what Big Bethel means and we can buy it back for $500. You want it or don't you?"

It's simple. He wants $500. He wants freedom. In that way, Mr. Davis-- It's really such a perfectly constructed piece, an evening in the theater. That way, it's so relatable. People really don't have we found with these audiences that we've discovered. There's just no barrier to entry. It's just so simple.

Alison Stewart: What does Lutiebelle want, Kara, when you first meet her?

Kara Young: We're first meeting a woman who has taken a chance in their lives and is going to go with this man to help assist in this inheritance and help assist in getting back to church. I feel like we meet a person who is at the apex of all of their life desires and wants. They want a husband. They want a family. Lutiebelle wants truly a family. She's met with the greatest gift of all. She gets Missy and Gitlow, and she has this Black family that she's never had before. I feel like she keeps on getting all of the things that she desires as the play goes on but obviously, it's met with some twists and turns along the way.

Alison Stewart: Well, let's listen to a clip of the moment when Purlie and Lutiebelle returned to the home he grew up in. This is from Purlie Victorious.

Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins: "So this is the house where you was born and bred at."

Purlie Victorious Judson: "Yep! Better'n being born outdoors."

Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins: "What a lovely background for your homelife."

Purlie Victorious Judson: "I wouldn't give it to my dog to raise fleas in!"

Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins: "So clean—and nice—and warm hearted!"

Purlie Victorious Judson: "The first chance I get I'ma burn the damn thing down!"

Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins: "But—Reb'n Purlie!—It's yours, and that's what counts. Like Miz Emmylou sez—"

Purlie Victorious Judson: "Come here! You see that big white house, perched on top of that hill with them two windows looking right down at us like two eyeballs: that's where Ol’ Cap’n lives."

Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins: "Ol’ Cap’n?"

Purlie Victorious Judson: "Stonewall Jackson Cotchipee. He owns this dump, not me."

Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins: "Oh—"

Purlie Victorious Judson: "And that ain’t all: hill and dale, field and farm, truck and tractor, horse and mule, bird and bee and bush and tree—and cotton!—cotton by the bole and by the bale—every bit o’ cotton you see in this county!—Everything and everybody he owns!"

Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins: "Everybody? You mean he owns people?"

Purlie Victorious Judson: "Well—look!—ain’t a man, woman or child working in this valley that ain’t in debt to that ol’bastard!—bustard!—buzzard!—And that includes Gitlow and Missy—everybody—except me.—"

Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins: "But folks can’t own people no more, Reb’n Purlie. Miz Emmylou sez that—"

Purlie Victorious Judson: "You ain’t working for Miz Emmylou no more, you’re working for me—Purlie Victorious. Freedom is my business, and I say that ol’ man runs this plantation on debt: the longer you work for Ol’ Cap’n Cotchipee, the more you owe at the commissary; and if you don’t pay up, you can’t leave. And I don’t give a damn what Miz Emmylou nor nobody else sez—that’s slavery!"

Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins: "I’m sorry, Reb’n Purlie—"

Purlie Victorious Judson: "Don’t apologize, wait!—Just wait!—til I get my church;—wait til I buy Big Bethel back—Wait til I stand once again in the pulpit of Grandpaw Kinkaid, and call upon my people—and talk to my people—About Ol’ Cap’n, that miserable son-of a—"

Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins: "Wait—!"

Purlie Victorious Judson: "Wait, I say! And we’ll see who’s gonna dominize this valley!—him or me!"

Alison Stewart: Leslie, how does your training as a vocalist help you with that text?

Leslie Odom, Jr: You kidding me? I'm using everything that I've got. I got to use every part of my-- that's why it's really a great gift when a writer like Mr. Davis sets down to write a role like Purlie Victorious, because it requires all of the training I had in text work, analyzing text, all of my Shakespeare training. You're dealing with that kind of language and that size. I remember we worked on the Greeks.

There was a whole junior year in college. You just work on that Greek text because you're dealing with that big emotion, Medea, and what else? An Antigone, and all that stuff. Just size and passion. Anyway, it's a wonderful gift as a Black artist, as an African American, formerly Negro, to get to sing a Negro song on a Broadway stage. To sing a Black song on a Broadway stage. This is written in my tongue. I understand this language. I understand these emotions, and it's just a real gift.

Alison Stewart: Kara, what muscles do you get to flex playing Lutiebelle?

Kara Young: I feel like Lutiebelle gets to flex all her muscles. I think there's something in the freedom in the act of pretending when we get to that scene. Honestly, as an exploration, it's like, what does a fish out of water actually look like when they land in a place, in an unknown place? What does a young woman coming into a new place, what does the freedom look like within her body? What does freedom look like within the Black vessel when their life has not been free in some regard? What does freedom actually mean to the physical story, to the storytelling of Lutiebelle in her journey?

Alison Stewart: Kenny, what did you see in each of these actors that you realized you could use and really leaned into that became part of the production?

Kenny Leon:  Brilliance. This play would not be what it is without this cast. In many ways, I think we lead with love, and I found artists who want to lean in with love with me, and in a big way, this is just honoring everybody that's ever been that's been an African American artist. It's like every night when I see what these two and the rest of the cast do each night, I see and feel Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee. I see and feel Eartha Kitt. I feel August Wilson. I feel the Nicholas Brothers.

I feel everything that we have given to America as artists, I feel that energy, and that rhythm, and that spirit, and it's a way of honoring that because we're just continuing their work. We're just continuing what they laid down. It's just an honor to have the opportunity because just now when I was listening to them do that scene, you can sit here and hear the portrait, and the beauty, and the beauty of the language, and it's like, "That's just Ossie Davis. That's Ruby Dee."

You can just feel it and you just, "Oh my God." Not every actor is going to give you that to say, "Let's just be that vessel." What I get from them it's them giving themselves up to be the vessel that Ossie Davis breathes life into this stage and to give that to this audience in 2023.

Alison Stewart: We're discussing Purlie Victorious with Kenny Leon, the director, and Leslie Odom, Jr., and Kara Young, who are the leads in the show. It is a big cast ensemble, though, we do want to say that. Something I thought was really interesting that on the show's website, you can find about tickets and all that, but then there's a study guide as well where you can learn about history of the Black church, and civil rights, and suggested questions for after the show like, what does freedom mean to you? What are the different forms of freedom? What is our country today? Where do we need to go? Can you tell us a little bit about the decision to have that vertical on the website?

Kenny Leon: A lot of that came from Leslie Odom, Jr.

Alison Stewart: All right, Leslie Odom, Jr.

Kenny Leon: From the beginning, he said, "We got to have an academic part to this. We have had an extension of this." What's beautiful about this show, 62 years later, is that 19, 20-year-olds come and says, "This is the most exciting thing I've ever seen," and as experience, you may have an 80 or 90-year-old that says, "Thank you for this." That's beautiful.

Leslie Odom, Jr.: It's true. I've had that literal experience in the last week and a half. I had a friend of mine who's in her 90s. She came and said something that-- she's a theatergoer, says, "The best thing I've ever seen." Not that I would, but what she said was that it's everything that the theater should be. Again, that's about Mr. Davis, that ain't about us. He wrote a piece that reruns the gamut in that way. It's so joyful, and it also provides the catharsis that you want when you come to the theater.

The theater is about a conversation to me. We had that literal object lesson in this. There comes a point in a rehearsal process, when as scary as it might be, when you're like, "Okay, we just talking to ourselves now until we have an audience. This means nothing." It is about the conversation. Last night, every Thursday, we have a talk back at the theater. Last night, we were joined by the great Laurence Fishburne who joined us next week.

We have Billy Porter on Thursday night because we found that people weren't even satisfied with just the discussion that was happening inside the theater. They wanted to talk more. Thursday nights, we continue the discussion after the curtain comes down. I turned my dressing room into a little mini saloon. I had it outfitted like a little saloon so people could come and continue the convo. That's the beauty of theater. Martin Luther King Jr. came to see the 100th performance of the original production.

Can you imagine what his calendar looked like? Now, I'm talking to some busy people right here. That man, he took a night out of his busy schedule to come to the theater and be a part of this conversation. I think that's magic.

Alison Stewart: I also want to point out though, it is a comedy. It's really funny. Just to be clear. Kenny-- [crosstalk]

Leslie Odom, Jr.: Kara's really funny.

Alison Stewart: Oh, Kara's really funny. Kara is really funny. Kenny, when you're directing a comedy and a fast-paced one like this that has the far speeds, what's important to understand about how to make physical comedy work without it being too cartoonish or distracting?

Kenny Leon: Truth is truth. Drama is truth. Comedy has truth. All we had to decide was what was the floor of that truth. Where was it? Once we agreed where that was, it gave us freedom to soar. Again, it goes to these wonderful actors. We got people like Jay O. Sanders, who had to agree to stand on that same floor with Billy Eugene, and Heather Simms, and Noah Robbins, they all agreed to stand on that heightened sense of truth and soar from that. Come on, Kara Young and Leslie Odom, I mean, come on. Come on. I'm the luckiest director on the planet.

Leslie Odom, Jr.: V--Vanessa Bell Calloway.

Alison Stewart: Yes.

Leslie Odom, Jr.: V.

Kara Young: V.

?Leslie Odom, Jr.: Vanessa Bell Calloway.

Alison Stewart: Kara, I don't know if you remember, but flashback to all the Natalie Portman's.

Kara Young: I do remember.

Alison Stewart: You're in this studio, and I looked up the date, March 9th, 2020. You're one of the last people to be in the studio before everything shut down. Before we actually understood what was going on, and you guys were so funny, you were Instagram live, and you were so excited, really, it was a breakthrough moment for your stage career, and all that's happened to you starring in Lynn Nottage's Clyde's, Cost of Living.

One of my favorite plays of that year, nominated for Tony's for both. Oh, God, that play is so good. What have you learned about stage work since our conversation three and a half years ago?

Kara Young: Wow, that's a beautiful question. I think that there's an evolution in regards to storytelling for humanity, that this time, this time in the theater, it's only going to happen once. It's only going to happen this once. All of us are so lucky to be in this communal vibration, in this communal space together for this hour and 45 minutes, and that is magic. The stories that I've had the privilege of telling, stories like Lynn Nottage's Clyde's, stories like Martyna Majok's Cost of Living, stories like C. A. Johnson's All the Natalie Portmans, that something is shifting inside of us because something is shifting inside of this play to be a vibration and a telling for humanity, to shift a consciousness within humanity, to be a blessing for humanity in some sense. So that you can see us because I am a Black vessel and there is something about the Black voice being heard in this hour 45, 2 hours, hour 30.

This is something that when our voices have been silenced for so long, there is something about a Black voices literally hitting the back of that theater.

Alison Stewart: Thank you for that.

Kara Young: I don't know if that answered your question, Alison.

Alison Stewart: It did. It did, and actually-- [crosstalk]

Leslie Odom, Jr.: You answered all the questions. You answered some questions she didn't even know she asked.

[laughter]

Leslie Odom, Jr.: You answered some questions she had in her soul.

Alison Stewart: It was actually going to bring me to a question that I had for you, Leslie, because-- so you get the Tony for Hamilton. You decide, "I'm going to strike while the iron is hot. I want to do Purlie Victorious." Someone else had the rights. You had to get people on board. Six years later, it happens, but of course, a lot has happened in those six years. I've been thinking a lot about after seeing the show that what this show means after the spring and summer of 2020, and the reawakening about the struggle for basic rights for Black Americans that this show might have hit differently before 2020, that maybe this--

Leslie Odom, Jr.: Might though.

Alison Stewart: Things happen for reasons at times, right?

Leslie Odom, Jr.: Right. As an artist, I think it's our job-- I speak for myself, it is my job, when I get the inspiration for anything, because I believe inspiration comes from a divine source. I run after inspiration with an urgency. I've been in a sprint for six years. I didn't know it was going to take six years, but what you're hoping to do is to meet a moment, what you're hoping to do is that you-- sometimes that takes six years. It takes six years in a full sprint. Sometimes it'll happen in six months.

Even in Hamilton, you think of, had Hamilton hit 3 years later or 10 years earlier, could have been missed. Down at the public theater, I didn't know. Look at Merrily We Roll Along, this Stephen Sondheim play that's finding all this success. In their original run, they ran 23 performances or 14 performances. You know what I mean? Sometimes it doesn't hit. Something that you believe in, the world isn't ready. The world thinks you are not prepared. We just feel so thankful in a really tough time in the theater that Purlie Victorious has found its way to its people. We hope it finds its way to more people like your audience.

It's time when shows are getting shut down left and right. It's a really hard business. Purlie Victorious has been extended because Mr. Davis's words are connecting with people in 2023 right now. Like you said, in a way that they might not have connected a year ago or six years ago, so it does, it really feels there's a grace for us. I can't wait to get to the theater every night at the Music Box because I believe there's a little miracle waiting there for me. I'm just so thankful to be a part of it.

Alison Stewart: Two last things. One, Josh Gad, was sitting over here yesterday. Josh Gad, and Leslie and Josh Groban, all went to college together. If you go on their Instagrams, it's like group chat [laughs]. You guys all talking to each other, so he says, "Hey." Just letting you know that.

Kenny, right before I came on the air, I got this email blast that you're going to be directing Our Town.

Kenny Leon: Yes.

Alison Stewart: Yes. What can you tell us real quick?

Kenny Leon: An Our Town for our time, and I'm looking forward--

Leslie Odom, Jr.: He's using this same cast. We're telling you right now. We want to be in rep. We're having so much fun. We're like, we want to do a play together every season. This cast will be a part with, I'm letting you know now.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: Until then, Purlie Victorious is playing at the Music Box Theater until February 4th. My guests have been Leslie Odom, Jr., Kara Young, and Kenny Leon. Thank you so much for the time.

Kenny Leon: Listen to Show Me. Show Me by this amazing artist.

Kara Young: Yes.

Kenny Leon: Show Me is a wonderful musical inspiration. Love y'all.

Alison Stewart: Take care.

 

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