Achi news desk-
Norma Lewis had one superstition as she prepared to play Selma Burke, 20ed century artist whose statue of Franklin Delano Roosevelt inspired the image on the American dime.
“My only superstition is memorizing those lines,” Lewis, who grew up in Calgary and Edson, Alta., said in an interview Thursday with CTV’s Ian White.
“As soon as we can. I knew it would be a very physically demanding show,” he said. “Animating it with my body, and the staging – because of the nature of having actors as statues on the stage – I knew it would be challenging, so the first thing I did was get those lines in my head to make sure that was in the background and so I didn’t have to worry about that during rehearsal time.”
While a variety of actors play living sculptures in the play, Lewis plays the sculptor, an African-American woman whose life spanned most of her 20s.ed century, a time when it was hard enough to be African-American and a woman – let alone an artist.
But Lewis found it easy enough to relate to the challenges that Selma Burke endured with an open heart and willingness to have hope.
“I mean, this is the Cowtown,” Lewis said. doing what she loved.
“It didn’t matter that she was Black,” he added, “it didn’t matter about the color of her skin, and I was like, yeah — that really resonates with me and my journey as an artist as well.
“I chased him even though there were few Black artists in the Calgary scene and I didn’t care what it looked like around me. I wanted to be here.”
Christopher Hunt, Norma Lewis in the world premiere of Selma Burke. Photo: Trudie Lee.
As far as it lives in the soul of an artist, Lewis notes that there is something uniquely physical and external about someone who creates a sculpture.
“It’s full body art,” he said. “So it’s not that difficult, really, to bring that sculptor outside. It is the expression of fingers.
“It starts to show even in the face as you do it,” he adds. “Some of the things I did to Selma on stage is pulling her lip and stuff, because it’s like you’re really concentrating. And then my legs… I can even feel the muscles in my legs growing as I have been doing this show.
“It’s really an external thing for me as an actor.”
ORIGIN STORY
And how did a pair of Calgary playwrights fall in love with the story of an American sculptor who was born in 1900 and lived to be 95?
“Caroline had an idea to write a play about an artist and she really took it on with Selma Burke,” says Maria Crooks. “We started doing the research on her life and that‘s when we learned she was an interesting character.”
But what makes a life story a stage story?
“The drama of her life, her talent, her humble beginnings, being part of the Harlem Renaissance, which was a very important flourishing of Black culture in the United States during the 20s and 30s,” said Crooks.
“Witnessing and often documenting through her work, the extraordinary events of the 20ed century,” he added, “from lynchings, the Holocaust, the upheaval of the 60s especially the movement to gain civil rights for Black people — the arc of her life from the dawn of the century in 1900 to 1995.
“These and many other aspects about her made her life story compelling to dramatize,” he added.
For San Diego-based director Delicia Turner Sonnenberg, the connection to Burke’s life and times came from her own childhood.
“I grew up in Atlanta, and in 1981, the Atlanta child murders were happening,” Turner Sonnenberg said. “My aunt would take us to the library because we all had to stay in groups. I think I’m 11.
“He would look at poetry books,” she added. “So that’s when I found out about the Harlem Renaissance and the Harlem Renaissance writers. I don’t know visual artists as well as I know someone like Claude McKay, who Selma was married to, because I love poetry.
“But because of this play I know more about Selma Burke,” he added. “I had heard her name, but I didn’t really know much of her life story, so it’s been thrilling for me to get to know her like this.”
For Calgary playwright Caroline Russell King, there was an earlier play, High and Splendid Braveswhich explored the lives of the Famous Five, Nellie McLung and her colleagues from Calgary who fought for women’s rights in the early 20th century.ed century.
There was a great review of that play at Motel at Arts Commons in 2023 and it helped Russell King tap into a rich vein of storytelling that hasn’t been explored very closely by dude-dominated popular culture.
“I love writing about the stories of powerful unsung women,” says Russell-King.
“I learned that people make assumptions about a play before they see it,” he added. “With High and Splendid Braves people thought it was a play about women’s suffrage when in fact it was about drug addiction,” she adds.
Calgary playwright Caroline Russell-King’s play High and Splendid Braveries tells the story of the Famous Five. Princess Poppy is played by Ginette Simonot Emily Murphy is played by Tara Marlena Laberge. Photo: Benjamin Laird
“People think there is life Selma Burke is reduced to the ‘she was not recognized for her work on the American dime’ … that’s not a particularly interesting story.
“Our play doesn’t end with a period, it ends with a question mark,” he adds. “It asks the question ‘Who gets to make art and who gets destroyed?’
Selma Burke is a co-production between Theater Calgary and Alberta Theater Projects. It opens Friday night at the Martha Cohen Theater and runs through April 27.
All tickets to see Selma Burke available for $39. Thursday night’s final preview performance has tickets for $25 and pizza. It starts at 7:30pm
