Allison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Allison Stewart. The play Home starts in crossroads, North Carolina. Not much happens there, but that's okay with Cephas Miles, a man who loves being a farmer. He says, "I love the land. I love touching the crops and gently holding each plant in my hand and feeling the love and care that granddaddy, uncle and me put into its cultivation. When you hold the plant, you can feel the heartbeat of God." The problem is that God does not seem to be available to Cephas when he needs him. Cephas jokes that he's on vacation in Florida, and maybe he's right, as Cephas sees the darker side of reality. The woman he loved went to college and met a guy. When he's drafted for the war, he won't go. He winds up in jail. Upon release, his land is gone, so he starts a new life in the big city, where he finds big problems. Home was written by Sam-Art Williams and debuted on Broadway in 1980. Now, 44 years later, its at the roundabout until July 21, but sadly, Williams died days before the show went into previews in May.

Tony, winning director, Kenny Leon, led the show, which was described by the Chicago Tribune as a moving, understated story of a man searching for his past. In the role of Cephas Miles, Tory Kittle's work has been described as powerful, and they both join me now. Kenny, this started the refocus project, started in 2021 to sort of expand the canon. What could be considered a classic, what should have been considered a classic, and a virtual reading of Home was done. What was it about Home that made it a good place to start this play by Sam-Art Williams?

Kenny Leon: I think Home was a great refocused project because it was right after the pandemic and our disconnection from each other and the importance of not betraying your core values and the ability to always return to safe spaces or safe places or places where you didn't have to explain yourself. It was a story of love, and I've been knowing the world of Sam-Art Williams all my life, and worked with him on his play Brass Birds Don't Sing. It just seemed like the perfect play to come after the pandemic and then just to find three amazing actors, because it just requires that. There's no heavy scenery, even though the set design is beautiful to me, but it just requires actors who can force the audience to use their imagination, and it's a very universal piece.

Allison Stewart: What was your first exposure to Home?

Kenny Leon: I got a call from the great Kenny Leon, who sits here next to me. He said, "I'm working on this thing in April. Won't you take a look?" The next day, I had an offer, because that's how Kenny rolls, but before I even read it, I was in the. I think any chance you get an opportunity to work with him, you have to do it. This is our third time working together, and I don't know if there's anyone who has a better pulse on the past, how it connects to the present with a vision for the future. I like to think he's a conjurer of great spirits.

We did that in the rehearsal room. It was really just Kenny calling me up and saying, "Hey, we're gonna do this in the spring," and I said, "Absolutely. I'm all in."

Allison Stewart: You read a play a lot, Kenny, whenever you're getting ready to do a play, you read it a lot, a lot, a lot. Sometimes for tension, sometimes so you can understand the rhythm of it. When you're reading a play, what is it you're looking for, and then what were you looking for when you were rereading Home?

Kenny Leon: When I read a play, like five or six times without trying to decide what it looks like, what the set design is, I just want to see what words come to mind after reading it. Those metaphors or those words would lead me to how to present it. Hearing Home, and like almost everything I do, it starts with the music. What's the music? What's the music of our town? What's the music of Purlie Victorious? How does it sing? Does it move fast? Does it move up and down? I can close my eyes, I go and watch Tory and the women. Now, I go about twice a week, and I can just close my eyes and sit in my seat and I can tell in the first five minutes if the music is right. If they're singing the right song. That's just how I've learned to do it, and if I can hear the music, then I know the truth.

Allison Stewart: Tory, so much of this reads like poetry, the beginning of the play. This line, "Children casting stones at my door, crashing and thrashing at the windowpane. Children in their folly. Lovely, beautiful children learning and living the fantasies of their parents, fostering the myths and the lies. Cephas lives. I live. The town of crossroads, North Carolina, place of my birth. I live." That sounds like poetry to me.

Tory Kittles: That's poetry, and in that, it's a broken man trying to remind himself of who he is. He's come under attack from these children who throw stones at his house, the rural south, a farm where he grew up on being raised by his grandfather and his uncle, who have long since gone and left him the land, and he's trying to maintain it and hold onto his birthright. But there's so much about this play, and it's Sam-Art Williams writing that Kenny described it as a life affirming poem.

I really think it is that it has so much. It's sort of like Shakespeare, where he pops out into a sonnet, the gaily colored leaves float and dance on a soft summer day, which is just so beautiful, the pictures that he paint. Then you also have just these great stories that he tells, that are filled with so much love and humor and joy. It's just a beautiful, beautiful piece of writing, and I think that's why it's important to do now. Great writing is timeless. There is no expiration date on it. That's why we still do Shakespeare. That's why we still do Chekhov and Ibsen and all these other things.

I think Sam-Art Williams, this particular play especially, is right there with him in the canon of great American plays and great American playwrights. To be doing that right now, in this moment, only three weeks after Sam-Art Williams passed away, it feels so special and so really right now. It's so current. We're receiving so much love, which is overwhelming at times from the audiences, because they're following along with every little beat and post.

Kenny talks about rhythm a lot, which we explored a lot in the rehearsal room. He's really being truthful when he says he puts his head down because sometimes you don't know what he's thinking, but he's absorbing the rhythm of it all. To the point where he got us absorbing the rhythm of it all, and so you know, whether you're on or not.

A big credit to Brittany Inge and Stori Ayers, who kick off the play every night and drops the audience into this world. Then we just take the audience on a journey, on a magnificent roller coaster of a ride.

Allison Stewart: We're talking about the play Home playing at the Todd Haimes, Roundabout Theater until July 21st. My guests are Kenny Leon, the director, and Tory Kittles, he plays Cephas Miles. Brittany Inge and Stori Ayers play about 40 different characters. Britney also plays the other recurring part of Patti Mae, Cephas' love interest. Let's start with Britney. How did you see Britney's role as Pattie Mae, Cephas sweetheart, working with her many other parts?

Kenny Leon: It's interesting, because Brittany Inge, she stars on a television show, Miss Pat. She also did the virtual production that we did. She was in that, but she did not play Patti Mae. She played the other woman.

Allison Stewart: Oh, interesting.

Kenny Leon: So when it came time to cast this, I said, "Try on over on this role." I also knew she had a great singing voice, having worked with her in the past. I see those two women as sort of angels that have come to earth to guide and to get Cephas back on track and remind him. They still represent angel-like figures who can morph into anything. It just so happens that woman one is the one that morphs into Patti Mae. It could have easily been woman two that morphed into that, but I see those two women as equal, playing all the important figures in his life, in his journey, in his journey from God to away from God, to back to God, to self discovery and self-healing.

Allison Stewart: You play Cephas the entirety of his life. You don't have a costume change. You're on stage almost the whole time. Can you share with us an example of the way you chose either to use your body or your voice to let us know, see if Cephas has changed?

Tory Kittles: We always say this, I sort of begin with this, "The play is the thing," and when it's at its best, you get out of the way of it and you let it come through you. Kenny is a great leader when it comes to pushing you into directions that may feel overexposing or super vulnerable. He's like, "No, you've got to go into that. You got to go into that." When you go into those spaces that are scary, all of these creative and imaginative insights open up to you and the play starts to speak to you. Really, if you can get out of the way, the play does its work through you.

I can't say that I had some plan. Each time I approach it as, "Okay, the play is the thing, so what does the play want to say, and can I get out of the way of my own ego and my own ideas about self, and allow what Sam-Art Williams did to come through?" That's really it.

The voices come based on what the text is asking for. When he's a child, that I can remember being a child. I know what that is and so I didn't plan on it. It just comes out that way. As he matures, he talks about the land, I love the land. The soften, beautiful black sod crushing beneath my feet," which that description in itself is so beautiful. All of these different stages of his life, they're a little bit different. When he gets to the city and he's being beaten down by the city, and you know what that is. We see that.

Kenny asked us to observe people in the streets, while we were in the rehearsal process, and we did that. It informed a lot of what we were doing in the rehearsal room. We took all of these people, everyday people, are our influences. The voices come out the way they want to come out.

Allison Stewart: Yes, it's interesting, though, when he's a little boy, it's like an open hand, and then he kind of curls into a fist once he's been in prison. Then sees, what is he going to with the fist now? What's he going to do? Why does Cephas Miles, let's go back to the beginning of it, Kenny. Why does Cephas Miles, you, too, both of you, why does he love farmland? Why does this man love his farm?

Kenny Leon: I think that Sam-Art Williams is bigger than the specifics of the play. I think just the farm is just a metaphor for things that represent Home. So this particular person, and also because Sam, just like myself, we're from the south, we're from the farm. We're from rural south. We know the beauty of looking at a tree or looking at a sky and looking at ground. We know no matter what man does, you cannot compete with that beauty. We know that, so it's easy to use that as a metaphor for everybody to return to what you love.

I think because he was so specific about what he, as a man and as an artist, loved, he was able to put that on paper, in poetry, sometimes in song, sometimes he was able to put it down on paper. Also, the fact that he experienced in his early days, he's worked with the Negro Ensemble Company. He experienced coming from North Carolina to New York City, and the challenges of that, if you're from the land, if you're from the trees, if you're from the grass and the dirt and the cows and the chickens, and everybody's speaking to everybody every day, "Hello, how you doing? Let me give you a ride." If you're from that and you come to New York, it could feel cold. Literally, it's cold. Literally, it's buildings and bricks and no trees. People might not want to speak to you, because you haven't discovered the beauty of New York.

Unlike me, in the later part of my life, now I see the beauty in New York. I couldn't be anywhere else most of the twelve months out of the year, because I love the human energy, I love the cultural diversity. I love the people diversity. There's a love for that. I can see people saying, that I want to return to that, but he used what he was in love with to make a universal statement about all of us returning to what's good in us, returning to the place where you don't have to explain yourself.

Allison Stewart: Tory, how about for you? Why do you think that he loves the farm?

Tory Kittles: I think all of what Kenny just said, and I also think because it's his foundation, it's that place that you stand on, that when you go to the city, you have something to compare. Speaking on, you know, Sam-Art Williams, who grew up in Burgard, North Carolina, who then took what he learned and all of those lessons from the people that raised him and came to the city and had some real successes with the Negro Ensemble Company. Then also, to write and produce for Martin, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Hanging With Mister Cooper. To have all of these great successes because he had that foundation.

Then later in his life he returned to that, because that was his peace. I think for me that's, it really is about where is your ultimate, where does your soul come from? Where are you? Where's your grounding? Where is your foundation? To get back to what Kenny said about your core values, where were they informed?

I also grew up in the south on a dirt road, so a lot of the stories that Cephas tells, I could relate. When I read the play, I was like, "Oh, I can relate. I know that person." Some of the voices that come through are, and Kenny and I talked about this in the rehearsal rooms, like, "Oh, we know these people. I know these people."

My grandmother, she ran the first Black business in the small town that I grew up on. I grew up after my grandfather passed away after World War II. She raised her three daughters, and she ran her business, and she was a very tough woman, but her business was also a grocery store. It was a liquor store and a lounge at night and so all of these characters came, and some of them were returning from Vietnam. All of their travels over the world, and they'd come back to their own small town. They'd been out in the world, and so their worldview had been informed by what they'd seen and, the struggles and things that they'd overcame, but they came back home. They were their most real when they were home.

I still remember those voices and those people vividly. I've been away from that town now 30 years, but still, those voices are inside of me. I still remember those people very fondly.

Allison Stewart: You're listening to my conversation with director Kenny Leon and actor Tory Kittles about their production of Home, which is running at the Todd Haimes Theatre, through July 21st. We'll have more after a quick break. This is All Of It.

You're listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Allison Stewart. Let's continue my conversation about the Broadway revival of the play Home, about a Black farmer who after being arrested for not going to war during Vietnam, loses his land and he moves north to the big city. It's running now at the Todd Haimes Theatre, through July 21, and my guests are director Kenny Leon and star Tory Kittles.

When Cephas gets a letter saying he should join the army, he should join the army, he says, "No, I'm not going to kill anybody. I don't want to kill anybody." He's right in it, but he becomes a draft dodger. He ends up in jail because of this. When this first came out, it wasn't too far from the end of the Vietnam War. How do you think audience's reaction to the play has changed with time?

Kenny Leon: I think all great work stands the test of time. It's how it speaks to the future generations. That's why we look at death of a salesman and moon for the Miss Bear garden and Hamlet, much ado. It's like humanity is forever evolving, and the great work speaks on those big issues, those big themes. Of course, when he wrote it, he was writing about the time he was living, but he was writing an instructional manual for us.

The lessons he learned in '79, which, you know, were very specific, they're very universal now, but love don't ever get old. I still can hear my grandmother who raised me in the country of Tallahassee, Florida. She would say things like, "Stay out of that night air." " Grandma, what the hell are you talking about, stay out of the night air?" But as you get older, it's like, "Oh, nothing good ever happens after midnight." The best part of the morning is right before the sun come up.

All those things over time, as you get older, "Oh, that's what she was talking about." Same thing with a great play. You write it about then, but it's like, "Oh--"

Allison Stewart: It might have been specific then.

Kenny Leon: Very specific then, but it's universal later. We're all human beings, and no matter white, Black, young, old, still the same lessons we are learning or not learning over and over again. War after war, but it's still life is life.

Allison Stewart: Cephas, he thinks that God is on vacation in Miami. He's not sure. He's around to hear what's going on with him. He's come to the big city. He's experienced a lot of the big city. He sort of shacks up with this woman who is good with him, as long as he's got a job. He doesn't get a job, she misquotes John 316 to him. But when you think about the role of religion in the play, what is the role of religion in the play?

Tory Kittles: I think it's more so about faith. Not necessarily religion, it's faith and something that's bigger than you. The thing about when things are bigger than you, if you're looking at it from a myopic perspective, like solely from your own perspective, you're failing to see the bigger picture. I think that's what Cephas' journey teaches him. You know, as he's going through all of these struggles and all of these battles, and warring with his faith. Ultimately, he comes to realize, and this is the precipice of the play, which is a beautiful culmination of the writing and how he's been dogging God throughout the play and going, "Well, God's not showing up. God's not showing up."

Guess what? Faith is standing on things, believing on things when sometimes it's inconvenient. It may not happen when you actually want it to happen, but it's always right on time. That's what Cephas learns, is that it doesn't come just because you want it to happen right now in this moment. I think we're a microwave generation, where we're used to pressing two on the microwave, we get the express. But sometimes steak's got to cook a little longer, you know what I mean? That's what he understands by the end of it.

Not to give away too much, you have to enjoy the journey, all of the lumps. The highs and the lows. To talk about one of the things that Kenny really pressed upon us in the rehearsal process is to be in the moment. That's not just for the rehearsal process. That's for every moment, because right now is all that we have. This particular moment is all that we have, and sometimes we keep a foot in yesterday, we got a foot in tomorrow, and we're failing to actually enjoy this particular moment, which may be the thing that you actually need to get you to the next thing, but you're not paying attention to it.

Allison Stewart: Kenny, something that Tory mentioned earlier is that Cephas is having a rough time in the city. Sometimes it's his own fault, sometimes it's not. I thought about it, I'm glad you said it. I thought about people I see on the street sometimes. Maybe they're vets, maybe whatever, they've had a hard time. Don't need a hard time to fall very far. What do you hope people think about? Ask themselves about when they see people on the street, when they see somebody who's having a hard time.

Kenny Leon: I just want people to not judge. If you don't judge, who's to say one guy on the street could be having a good time? You're making up a whole story in your own mind, which is not based on the truth of that person's story. That's somebody's dad, somebody's mom, somebody's sister, and their life might be better than yours. You just happen to have a job, but you're living a life you don't want to live. Home reminds us, home is different for everybody, and maybe those people would have shelter if our country wasn't in a crazy political place or didn't have a structure that doesn't work for everybody. It's not embracing up all religions, all that.

It reminds me mainly that we all got to go through this journey and we're all one check from not being in the comfort of our life. It also says, everybody's going to get knocked down in life, but the key is to get up if you can. Sometimes you need other people or other systems to help you get up. But trust me, if you live long enough, you're going to have your chance.

I was talking earlier this morning, and I remember twelve years ago, the doctor said, "Well, just like your brother, you have prostate cancer." I was like, "What?" Whatever version of cancer, you just hear the word cancer. You're like, oh. So for the first time you start seeing, like, oh, there's an end to this life. I knew that, but now, that's wow. Then you start thinking differently. It's like, well, that was-- none of us are going to get out here alive. That was the deal from the beginning, so while we're here, we're all the same. We're here. What are you going to do? How are you going to treat each other? How are you going to plant seeds that will live long after you?

Tory and I are lucky to be able to tell stories, and hopefully, the ideas of those stories in a positive way will live on long after our bodily lives that are on it. Come on. If we're lucky, we might get 80, or 100 years. Victoria's family, they live to be a little over 100.

Allison Stewart: For real?

Tory Kittles: My grandmother lived to 106.

Allison Stewart: Aunt Lucy?

Kenny Leon: Yes, there you go.

Allison Stewart: She was right there, man.

Tory Kittles: The other part of that is just like, what you know about your own culture and your own genetic structure, what can you do to help that go as long as Aunt Lucy? What you can do is, what food do you have to cut back? You've got to get up and exercise. You got to help it. You can't help it go to where it's going.

Allison Stewart: They've been doing talk shows. You've been doing talk backs after the shows. What's been surprising to you in the talkbacks?

Tory Kittles: I think one of the things that's really been surprising is the emotional impact it's having on the men. I think we're seeing, men really, it's touching them in such a way that they're opening up to more vulnerability. It's not something that's in our culture, where men get to be vulnerable, but they can see themselves in Cephas journey. I think that's one of the reasons why it's resonating with audiences in general. I think even you know, the women, too, you can see what's happening up there in that play, and you go, "I can relate to that. I can relate to that struggle. I can relate to feeling that way. I can relate to wanting to curse God." Like, "I need help. Where are you?"

I think that's something that's been a theme where people are really taking in the fact of, like, hey, it's not going to always be easy, what Kenny just said. You keep crawling, and sometimes, somebody will come along and give you a hand up. You've just got to keep moving, and the play says that. I think that's touching audiences a lot.

Kenny Leon: I also think that with the noise in the world, there's so much noise, whether it's political noise or entertainment noise, I think just the quiet truth of Home, is just so peaceful and quiet. It feels like a balm to most people.

Even my white brothers and sisters, I've known how they're like-- I don't know what they thought it was going to be, but after they see it, it's like, "Wow, there's so much joy and love and that I'm going to tell all my neighbors to come." I'm like, "Oh, so you weren't telling them to come. So you had an expectation about what is even a Black story?"

I like the idea that it's unapologetically Black, but it's unapologetically universal, and that all people white or Black, I've seen white men come to me with tears in their eyes, telling me, like, "Thank you." Something that Sam had his hand on the pulse of something good.

Allison Stewart: All right, two not Home questions. Equalizer. My sister's a big fan, and she's like, "They did you dirty.

Tory Kittles: Thank you, sister. Thank you, sister.

Allison Stewart: How do you balance the tv and the theater?

Tory Kittles: I work with an incredible person by the name of Queen Latifah, who, when Kenny offered me this play, I went to her and I said, "Hey, I have this opportunity," and she was the first person to say, "Oh, you're doing that. You are doing that." Kenny is the reason I know Queen Latifah. He hired me for [unintelligible 00:29:18], and that's where I went. That's where I met her, and then we worked together after that on a movie called Bessie. Then this is our third time working together on the Equalizer.

The whole team behind Equalizer has been very supportive, and they worked it out in the schedule. People have been wondering if I'm coming back to the show.

Kenny Leon: We promise you would be back to the show.

Tory Kittles: Yes, I'm looking forward to getting back to the show, but it's just a lot of people who really support the arts and support the theater that I work with. A lot of them, Lorraine Toussaint was there yesterday, who's amazing, is Aunt Vi on the Equalizer. All of the cast is coming, and they're very supportive. They just worked it out schedule wise for me to be able to do it.

Kenny Leon: Which means what? Means that all of your listeners have to get out to see Home by the end of July, so that he can go back to Equalizer, so let's get in there soon.

Allison Stewart: You're busy, too. You got Our Town. That's cast. That's been fully cast.

Kenny Leon: Yes, we start rehearsal for Our Town on August 12. Around the time we end Home, I'll start Our Town rehearsals and then go into Othello.

Allison Stewart: With Denzel.

Kenny Leon: And Jake Gyllenhaal in January. I'm looking forward to that.

Allison Stewart: Any word on Desdemona?

Kenny Leon: Oh, yes, we cast her.

Allison Stewart: Who is it?

Kenny Leon: We cast her.

Allison Stewart: Oh-oh, who is it? We cast her.

Kenny Leon: She is wonderful, but we can't announce it until September.

Allison Stewart: We've been talking about Home. My guests have been Tory kittles and Kenny Leon. It's at the Todd Haimes Roundaabout Theatre until July 21. Thanks for coming in.

Kenny Leon: Thank you for having us.

 

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