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Encore Presentation Mar 1 - 14, 2021 // UMS Digital Presentation

Some Old Black Man
(UMS Digital Presentation)

DAR-Wendell-Pierce
Digital Artist Residency
Digital Event
Events
Performance
 

For three weeks in Fall 2020, the creative team for this digital theater production quarantined in Ann Arbor, rehearsing and putting together this production under strict coronavirus safety protocols.

In Some Old Black Man, Calvin Jones (Wendell Pierce), a hip, coolly intellectual African-American college professor, moves his 82-year-old ailing but doggedly independent father, Donald Jones (Charlie Robinson), from Greenwald, Mississippi into his Harlem penthouse. The play begins with an argument over what to eat for breakfast, then turns into a generational clash over race, opportunity, and a decision that Calvin made years ago. Donald’s grumpiness is peppered with disturbing outbursts, revealing bits of his past, informed by growing up Black and poor in the South. Donald is wary that he isn’t seen by his gifted, accomplished son as being good enough, and Calvin resents Donald as being a self-righteous, relentlessly tough parent. Father-son strife escalates when their generational conflict is lensed through civil rights. Some Old Black Man frames racial prejudice with a bold probity rarely confronted and dramatized

Thank You to Our Sponsors

Encore Presentation Mar 1 - 14, 2021
UMS Digital Presentation

Some Old Black Man
(UMS Digital Presentation)

DAR-Wendell-Pierce
Digital Artist Residency
Digital Event
Events
Performance
Play Video Play
Register now to join our free encore screening
On Demand Mar 1-14

For three weeks in Fall 2020, the creative team for this digital theater production quarantined in Ann Arbor, rehearsing and putting together this production under strict coronavirus safety protocols.

In Some Old Black Man, Calvin Jones (Wendell Pierce), a hip, coolly intellectual African-American college professor, moves his 82-year-old ailing but doggedly independent father, Donald Jones (Charlie Robinson), from Greenwald, Mississippi into his Harlem penthouse. The play begins with an argument over what to eat for breakfast, then turns into a generational clash over race, opportunity, and a decision that Calvin made years ago. Donald’s grumpiness is peppered with disturbing outbursts, revealing bits of his past, informed by growing up Black and poor in the South. Donald is wary that he isn’t seen by his gifted, accomplished son as being good enough, and Calvin resents Donald as being a self-righteous, relentlessly tough parent. Father-son strife escalates when their generational conflict is lensed through civil rights. Some Old Black Man frames racial prejudice with a bold probity rarely confronted and dramatized

Thank You to Our Sponsors

PRESENTING SPONSOR

  • Tim and Sally Petersen

PRINCIPAL SPONSOR

  • Newmarket LLC

SUPPORTING SPONSOR

  • Julia Darlow and John O’Meara
  • Anne and Paul Glendon

PATRON SPONSOR

  • Carol Amster
  • Stephen and Rosamund Forrest
  • Beverley and Gerson Geltner
  • Susan and Richard Gutow
  • Jerry and Dale Kolins and the Kolins Theater Endowment Fund
  • Nancy and James Stanley

FUNDED IN PART BY

  • UMS Sustaining Directors