The Cast of Nina Simone: Four Women; Geva Theatre, Rochester, NY

In a powerful and enlightening interview, I had the privilege of sitting down with the creative team behind Nina Simone: Four Women, currently being performed at Geva Theatre, as well as a delightful opportunity to host a live talkback at the theatre as well.

Javannah:

So I'm sitting here with the cast of Nina Simone: Four Women. First, we have the director Charlotte Brathwaite. Next, we have music composer/actress X’ene Sky, co-composer/light designer YATTA (aka. Ricky Sallay Zoker), and Actor Garnet Williams. So my first question, and I guess this is for each of you, what inspired your involvement in this production?

Charlotte Brathwaite (Director):

So Christina Hamm, who's the playwright, gave me a call and asked me if I wanted to be involved. She sent me the script. And, at first, I was excited because similarly, like, Nina Simone is, like, an incredible being, in terms of the world of music, but also just, like, her artistry and just how she used her artistry as a kind of, you know, her weapon of choice, so to speak. And so when I spoke to Christine after reading the play initially, I said, wow. This is like a really incredible play you've written, but I see the play may be really different from other productions of the play. And I would like to explore doing this play from the point of view that I see it, that the different women who are on stage are not particularly completely different women, but they are just kind of other beings, in relation to how Nina has survived the world. Right? So just as I mentioned, like, survival tactics, you know, so to speak. And so I kinda see this piece as coming about as a metaphysical in a metaphysical telling, and, she was down for that, and she was really excited about that. I also said that I wasn't particularly interested in doing a jukebox musical, but that I thought that if Nina Simone was alive, she would keep reinventing her music and her sound. And so I wanted to work with musicians who would reinvent the sound for us today. And so she said yes to all of that and I was excited. So that's when I came on board.

X’ene Sky (Composer/Young Nina):

Yatta reached out to me. We've had a relationship before this and then connected with Charlotte. I'm super excited to be a part of bringing, like, the pianist portion of Nina to life. I'm a classically trained pianist. I've been playing since I was four and studied in school. And yeah. Piano, we often talk about, like, lineages. So you'll hear, pianists refer to, like, oh, I'm in the lineage of Beethoven or Liszt. And I always feel really, like, it's important to say Nina's name in that moment because she really was a pianist, first and foremost, and she really felt very proud about that. And so I'm really proud to exist in that lineage as a black classical pianist, and really kind of just live in that, you know, in this space.

YATTA (co-composer/lighting design):

So Charlotte asked me, I was looking back just, you know, reflecting. I was looking through my images and I saw in 2016 I posted something about Nina and it reminded me that I've always been inspired by her fire. I trained as a jazz singer and then taught myself how to produce and make music electronically. I found myself playing punk music and also improvising in a jazz setting. I believe that she was unbounded and that's something that is dangerous in our society. So I think that's important to share to the world when we can as Black people. Unfortunately, the safest places for us to do that have been on the stage, but that comes with another extraction that, you know, it's not, it becomes not safe. But, through this process, I've just been meditating on wildness and chaos and how we have to alchemize that to stay alive. So that's kind of where I'm coming from. With the music, it's been, I've been thinking of ways to collapse time because I think she existed outside of time. Because she was so connected to herself regardless of where she was, I think she was able to transcend her moment. So the sounds that I've been processing are playing her music backwards. I feel like her music was spells used to claim her space. I think when you play things in reverse, it releases those spells. So things like that.

And I think it's been exciting and a very interesting challenge to figure out how that weaves in with the piano. And I think in doing that, we're creating a new sound, which is exciting.

Javannah:

And that kinda brings me to my next question. Nina used her music in many ways as her protest, as her cries for freedom. Do you feel that when you're creating music, or giving it your all on stage, do you feel that, especially in this day and time, that that's kind of your war cry, your protest for what you're feeling in your lives and in our society right now?

X’ene Sky (Composer/Young Nina):

Yeah. I would say it's probably aspirational. I don't know if I can say I'm, like, where she was at and risking maybe what she's risked, you know. Yeah. I think Nina, like, really set the standard for us. And I think after she did that, a lot of things were created in, like, the music industry to really deter and punish you from that. So I think a lot of the work for me is moving through that and kind of, I don't know if it's making peace with it, but I think it's always, like renegotiating. What does success look like for me? What does peace look like for me? What does being free in my own body, my own experience really look like? Because I think that's really what she was actually, like, trying to say. Right. And so when I push myself to exist outside of these models, especially in classical music of, like, what is successful? What is, you know, what's it look like to make it? Right? I think that's when I start to tap into maybe, like, what she was, you know, trying to reach.

YATTA (co-composer/lighting design):

I think it changes. I definitely started out that way. A lot of screaming. I mean, it's funny because there's so many ways to express freedom, and it really depends on your background, and the environment that you're performing in. So, yes. And then in order to create peace within myself, I've had to step away from that way of sharing. And I see this project as a way to reconnect with that. And I see that in all of us that it really is a beautiful container to negotiate how to stay connected to what's going on in the world while staying true to yourself. And that's so connected to how you take care of yourself. So that's the thing I'm thinking about.

Garnet Williams, who plays Adult Nina Simone in ‘Nina Simone: Four Women, arrived at rehearsal in the middle of the interview. After introductions and a brief description of the reason for the interview, we continued.

Javannah:

So Garnett, what inspired your involvement in this production?

Garnet Williams (Adult Nina):

Well I think it was that Nina Simone embodies many things that have bullied me through my life. She falls into a category for me with people like Barbra Streisand, Judy Garland, and Whoopi Goldberg. People who were very dedicated to their work and the world around them didn't really wanna make space for who they were as people. And that is something I am, for better or for worse, incredibly familiar with. And so when I got the email about auditioning for the piece, I said, OH, I know this play. Because I knew somebody who worked on a version of it. And I said, oh, I wonder which of the women I'd play, thinking I'd be like a sweet babe. Like, that'll be very fun, you know, stepping into that legacy. And then I got called to be Nina!

The more that I sat in my discomfort around the prospect of having to broach, sort of sitting in Nina's spot on the piano bench. The more I was like, oh, that's kind of the point, isn't it? A discomfort, a discomfort in what you know the world is capable of, but the necessity to do your job.

Javannah:

So what unique perspective do you bring to the story of Nina Simone?

Garnet Williams (Adult Nina):

Nina Simone is an artist who put in her ten thousand hours with abandon and often at the sacrifice of herself in her life and had the way that she looked and the way that she sounded and the way that she presented consistently criticized. And as you sit here looking at me and knowing what you know about me, you know that's real familia. That's real familia! I mean, because I've been working professionally for more than a decade. I couldn't legally buy cigarettes the first time I was told that the script said a character was supposed to be fine, and I didn't fit that.

Javannah:

How did that make you feel personally?

Garnet Williams (Adult Nina):

That was really hard, because I was in a situation where it was supposed to, you know, according to my logic and my timing, that it was supposed to be my turn. Right. I had waited and I had sung back up and I had been a side character and I thought it was my time. And unfortunately, it reinforced what the test of the world had been telling me for most of my life. The flip side of that was that I sort of buckled down because the other name that I have for myself is Patti LaBelle. . And to the reference to Barbra Streisand and Judy Garland sort of specifically, people said a lot of things about the way that they looked when they were younger. But both of those people stood up and said you cannot ignore me if I'm good. Right. And that I may not be the prettiest one in the room, but, I will be one of the best if not THE best in the room.

Javannah:

Charlotte, can you share how you collaborated with the team to ensure every element supports the narrative, regarding Nina Simone and the telling of her story?

Charlotte Brathwaite (Director):

I mean, it's interesting when you say yes to a project and then the right people also say yes to the project. So there's that thing where I think the right people are in the room for this project, and I'm trying to do my best to articulate what I see, but so that they see it too and so that they can just do their work. Like, I'm trying not to particularly micromanage and to actually leave a lot of room for play for people to respond to what they hear. I'm not a musician, but I make a lot of work that involves music at the center of it. And so, there are eight musicians on this project so I'm trying to let them bring their musicality.

Javannah:

What are some of the challenges or breakthroughs that you've had during this creative process?

Charlotte Brathwaite (Director):

I mean, I think one of the things that was very clear and just keeps getting more clear is, you know, the things that Nina Simone was fighting against with her music and I think that it's just more clear every day, you know. The election happened and then we started rehearsing. The inauguration is gonna happen and then we're gonna open. There's a space where regardless of what's going on in the world, what's going on in the country, who's leading, who's not leading, who's president, who's not president, black people, we just keep persevering.

We keep moving forward. Music has been a way to hold codes for that march forward, you know, for that ability to keep ourselves alive. And so Nina put that seed in the ground and it's that that is a real discovery that it's still, like, resuscitating that fight, which is why it's so exciting that we do have a kind of reimagined world of sound here, you know. That is what I think of this world for people when they come to see this work, they're gonna feel it is of now.

It's speaking too now. It's gonna fall around that Black History Month. But, you know, as Black History Month is past, present, and absolutely future, like, I think we're just living in that continuum of that. Challenges, time. Yeah. I would just love to have, like, half a year with these people. To just, like, luxuriate in this music and these characters, and we don't have that. I was thinking about that, you know, we were working on this piece during a time where a lot of people are gathering around family and loved ones. And it has felt like a kind of balm to gather in this room. It's not every piece you wanna be working on at this time of year. So this has actually felt like a really, a room that has been very generative and feels like there's old collaborators here, there's new collaborators, but there's, like, a new kind of net that holds us together that feels really special to start the new year with this tone.

Javannah:

What do you hope to bring to the Rochester audience, and what would you want them to take away from this performance?

YATTA (co-composer/lighting design):

Well, I heard or I read that Rochester used to have something like a hundred and twenty five different jazz clubs back in the day, and that this was a place that was the center of music and gathering of musicians from all over the world. Like, that's kind of amazing. And I guess I just feel that this piece, and this music sparks a new kind of energy here to kind of bring old music back in another kind of way, specifically Black music. I hope this piece becomes a gathering for people to come and see it, to gather around it, to talk about it. There's lots to talk about. Maybe there's things about Nina Simone that people didn't realize. I hope people think about where we're at right now. We're in a time where we've got wars and genocide and all these things happening all around us, abroad, in our communities. Right? It's present. So how does our creativity, whether you consider yourself an artist or not, how does your creativity mean that you can adapt and change and make peace or shout out? I think there's a lot of conversations that can be had. So I do hope people gather around this and bring their families and, you know, make it a multi generational experience.

X’ene Sky (Composer/Young Nina):

I guess I’d like for this to be a container for people to really feel through how what Nina was experiencing has also traveled to us. And so how, like, time has collapsed for us today. So I don't know, like, the Rochester community and what, you know, people are experiencing, but I do think there's an interesting way in which, like, the show ties the nineteen sixties to, you know, Rochester today, to Palestine, to Sudan, and all of those things. And so I think it really helps us to think through our own personal positions, and igniting or helping us to reposition ourselves.

Garnet Williams (Adult Nina):

The only thing I can ever bring is myself. I'm gonna say as the old folks used to say, “step out on faith that that's enough.” I have to believe that I'm enough at all times. But what I hope that people walk away from this with is a kinder view of self. So often Black women, and specifically

Black women of doubleheader, marginalized experience, disabled Black women, and Black fem people at large also, are often swept to one side or the other of the extremists. They are deified as these great politicizers, these brilliant artists, or just swept under the rug as people to be

abandoned and written off as one emotion or the other. In earnest, we do this to a lot of our great artists. We sweep them to one side or the other based on what they've given us and what we know the legacy to be, but “she” was a person. So in my work, that's what's important to me. I want to show the seeds of this or that or what was she eating for breakfast that morning? That's all lovely. But at the same time, she was a person who didn't know what the next hour held for her, let alone the next forty years of legacy. I think that in a world that is so pressed under the thumb of capitalism and production, we forget that we have to breathe right now. I can really hope that the wonderful people around me who are letting me breathe and will be letting them breathe on that stage will allow the people who walk out of that theater to breathe as well.

Javannah:

If you were performing for Nina Simone today, what do you feel Nina would say about the work that you're putting in front of her?

X’ene Sky (Composer/Young Nina):

Do it again!

YATTA (co-composer/lighting design):

Yes. Do it again! Tighten it up!

X’ene Sky (Composer/Young Nina):

Get it together! I think she was a consummate perfectionist, like all pianists are. And you're never gonna get the full yes. The acknowledgement would be like I see you. Keep going. Keep working. I'm not gonna tell you that you're there yet because we're never there. I think for me that's more than enough.

Garnet Williams (Adult Nina):

I'm quite sure that she would say something to the effect of, “Why are you in here? Go get a gun. Go to work. There's stuff to do out there.” Then it would be like, “My music is great. That's what I gave.” I truly believe she talked a lot towards the end of her life. She talks about her love for Malcolm X and how she never recovered. She was like, “I thought we were gonna conquer the world and I think we should have.” So I'm quite adamant she would look at me, and somebody like me and be like, “Great. Go.”

Javannah:

My closing question, what moments in the show are you most excited for audiences to see?

X’ene Sky (Composer/Young Nina):

I think Garnet singing is, like, incredible. So I'm very excited to see how people receive Garnet because I do think it's really visceral for me. I also love the “Sweet Thang” character. So just like the comedic timing. And I think how all the Nina's kind of intersect with each other and kind of play off each other is really fun to watch.

Javannah:

Thank you all so much for giving me this time to sit down and speak with you. I'm looking forward to seeing this performance because Nina has such a special place in my heart. So thank you.