Tomorrow morning marks the first day of the 2009-2010 theater season at McCarter, and we’ll be kicking off with the first rehearsal of Having Our Say, a play based on the memoirs of Bessie and Sadie Delany, a pair of African-American sisters who each lived for over 100 years.  At that rehearsal, set designer Dan Ostling’s model of the set will be presented to the cast, show staff, and McCarter’s staff.  Dan Ostling (who also designed McCarter’s productions of The Odyssey, The Secret in the Wings, Lookingglass Alice and Argonautika) has imagined (with Emily) a fresh take on this play which first premiered at McCarter Theatre 15 years ago.  I have attached some photos of his model to this post.

A lot has changed since McCarter’s first production of Having Our Say.  We have a new theater (the Berlind), which affords us the opportunity to look at this play from a much more intimate vantage point.  The play was originally presented in the Matthews, a very large venue for a personal play like Having Our Say.  Additionally, the Delany sisters were still alive when the play was first performed (they passed away at the ripe old ages of 104 and 109!).  Now, we’re remembering them, honoring their memories as they remember their lives, and there is a new perspective on the play.  They’re speaking to us from a different place, and the set reflects that shift (both literally and metaphorically).

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the world has changed a lot since 1995.  In the play, Bessie says: “If I was president, the first thing I would do would be to say that people over one hundred years of age no longer have to pay taxes!…  But I guess it will be a thousand years—probably never—before a colored person is elected president of the United States.”  Sadie responds: “There will be a Negro President someday…” and Bessie retorts: “no, no.  I think white people would rather die than have a Negro president.  I predict there will be a white woman president before there is a Negro president.  And if a Negro is elected president?  That person will be a Negro woman.”   Those words sound different on a stage in 2009 than they did in 1995, in important and powerful ways.

I can’t wait to see how audiences respond to the play today.  There will be some audience members who saw it in its original production at McCarter, others who saw it on Broadway, or the national tour, or any number of the productions that appeared at regional theaters, schools and community theaters around the country.  And there will be some who have never seen it before.  But the audience members who I am most looking forward to hearing from are the ones who weren’t even born yet.  These elementary, middle school and high school students will have grown up in a world that is in many ways very different than the one in which Bessie and Sadie Delany lived.  How will they respond?  What will they connect to?  I can’t wait to find out!!

Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre.

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