A Free Man of Color
Encyclopedia
A Free Man of Color is a play by John Guare
. It is set in New Orleans in 1801 before the Louisiana Purchase
(as well as in Haiti
and France
), and follows the story of Jacques Cornet, a "a new world Don Juan
" and the wealthiest colored man in New Orleans. His world changes as racism
enters the city.
A Free Man of Color premiered on Broadway
at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre
. Previews were originally scheduled to begin on October 21, 2010, but were delayed until October 23, 2010. The show officially opened on November 18, 2010, in a limited engagement until January 9, 2011.
The creative team includes direction by George C. Wolfe
, set design by David Rockwell
, costume design by Ann Hould-Ward
, lighting design by Jules Fisher
and Peggy Eisenhauer
, and instrumental music by Jeanine Tesori
.
The original cast featured Jeffrey Wright in the lead role, Mos Def
as Cupidon Murmur, Reg Rogers as Princepousse/Tallyrand, Joseph Marcell
as Dr. Toubib, Arnie Burton as James Monroe
, Robert Stanton
as Georges Feydeau
, Paul Dano
as Meriwether Lewis
, John McMartin
as Thomas Jefferson
, Veanne Cox
as Mme. Mandragola, and Sara Gettelfinger
as Doña Athene/Calliope.
was announced. A Free Man of Color was a finalist along with the play Detroit, with the winner being Clybourne Park
.
s Terry Teachout wrote in his review, "If neatness is what you expect from John Guare's "A Free Man of Color," you'll be doomed to disappointment. Mr. Guare's ambitious new play, which tells the fantastic tale of Jacques Cornet (Jeffrey Wright), a 19th-century millionaire playboy from New Orleans who happens to be black, has a cast of 33 and runs for 2½ crowded hours. Yes, it sprawls, but for all its hectic messiness, "A Free Man of Color" is one of the three or four most stirring new plays I've seen since I started writing this column seven years ago.".
Newsday
s reviewer wrote, "Somewhere very far away - as far, say, as the final 15 minutes - "A Free Man of Color" becomes an important play. Finally, after 2 ½ hours of brain-blurring historical asides, strenuously costumed artifice and luxuriously overpopulated incoherence, the point and resonance of this crazy-ambitious collaboration between playwright John Guare and directorGeorge C. Wolfe fall deeply into place."
Michael Sommers praised the sets and costumes as "lavish", and said of the cast, "Wright furiously tears around as the flamboyant Jacques. Subtly depicting the fop's long-suffering servant Murmur, Mos also blazes for a bit as the fiery Toussaint. John McMartin wryly portrays a pragmatic Jefferson. Reg Rogers is very funny whether as Jacques' vengeful half-brother or the oily French diplomat Talleyrand. Veanne Cox and Peter Bartlett comically contrast as aristocratic refugees upset by New Orleans' raffish society while Nicole Beharie is winsome as a spunky country girl who soon comes to love it. Paul Dano, Nick Mennelland Arnie Burton brightly materialize as various personages."
The NY Daily News reporter also praised the cast, but added that it "doesn't add up to a satisfying evening". Elysa Gardener of USA Today
gave a more positive review, calling the show "exhilarating. By abandoning subtlety throughout, Guare and Wolfe keep the tone consistent, and ensure that some scenes that might have seemed pedantic in another context make sense dramatically."
John Guare
John Guare is an American playwright. He is best known as the author of The House of Blue Leaves, Six Degrees of Separation, and Landscape of the Body...
. It is set in New Orleans in 1801 before the Louisiana Purchase
Louisiana Purchase
The Louisiana Purchase was the acquisition by the United States of America of of France's claim to the territory of Louisiana in 1803. The U.S...
(as well as in Haiti
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
and France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
), and follows the story of Jacques Cornet, a "a new world Don Juan
Don Juan
Don Juan is a legendary, fictional libertine whose story has been told many times by many authors. El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra by Tirso de Molina is a play set in the fourteenth century that was published in Spain around 1630...
" and the wealthiest colored man in New Orleans. His world changes as racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
enters the city.
Production history
The show was originally expected to be produced by the Public Theatre to open in early 2009, but the engagement was postponed due to "lack of necessary funding".A Free Man of Color premiered on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre
Vivian Beaumont Theatre
The Vivian Beaumont Theater is a theatre located in the Lincoln Center complex at 150 West 65th Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The structure was designed by Finnish American architect Eero Saarinen, and Jo Mielziner was responsible for the design of the stage and interior.The Vivian...
. Previews were originally scheduled to begin on October 21, 2010, but were delayed until October 23, 2010. The show officially opened on November 18, 2010, in a limited engagement until January 9, 2011.
The creative team includes direction by George C. Wolfe
George C. Wolfe
George Costello Wolfe is an American playwright and director of theater and film. He won a Tony Award in 1993 for directing Angels in America: Millennium Approaches and another Tony Award in 1996 for his direction of the musical, Bring in 'da Noise/Bring in 'da Funk.-Early life and...
, set design by David Rockwell
David Rockwell
David Rockwell is an American architect and designer, who is the founder and CEO of Rockwell Group, based in New York with satellite offices in Madrid and Dubai. Rockwell has long been fascinated with immersive environments.-Early life and education:...
, costume design by Ann Hould-Ward
Ann Hould-Ward
Ann Hould-Ward is an American costume designer, primarily for the theatre and dance. She has designed the costumes for 19 Broadway productions . She won the 1994 Tony Award for Beauty and the Beast....
, lighting design by Jules Fisher
Jules Fisher
Jules Fisher is a lighting designer and producer. He is credited with lighting designs for more than 200 productions over the course of his 45 year career in Broadway and off-Broadway shows, as well extensive work in film, ballet, opera, television, and rock and roll concert tours...
and Peggy Eisenhauer
Peggy Eisenhauer
Peggy Eisenhauer is an American lighting designer for both theatre and films. She has designed more than twenty Broadway shows and frequently collaborates with Jules Fisher.-Career:...
, and instrumental music by Jeanine Tesori
Jeanine Tesori
Jeanine Tesori is an American musical arranger and composer who won the 1999 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music in a Play for Nicholas Hytner's production of Twelfth Night at Lincoln Center and the 2004 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music for Caroline, or Change.Tesori made her Broadway...
.
The original cast featured Jeffrey Wright in the lead role, Mos Def
Mos Def
Dante Terrell Smith is an American actor and Emcee known by the stage names Mos Def and Yasiin Bey. He started his hip hop career in a group called Urban Thermo Dynamics, after which he appeared on albums by Da Bush Babees and De La Soul. With Talib Kweli, he formed the duo Black Star, which...
as Cupidon Murmur, Reg Rogers as Princepousse/Tallyrand, Joseph Marcell
Joseph Marcell
Joseph Marcell is a St. Lucian-born British actor, best known for his work as Geoffrey the English butler on the NBC sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.-Early life and career:...
as Dr. Toubib, Arnie Burton as James Monroe
James Monroe
James Monroe was the fifth President of the United States . Monroe was the last president who was a Founding Father of the United States, and the last president from the Virginia dynasty and the Republican Generation...
, Robert Stanton
Robert Stanton (actor)
Robert Lloyd Stanton is an American film, television and stage actor, director and playwright. He has appeared in many films, including A League of Their Own and Confessions of a Shopaholic...
as Georges Feydeau
Georges Feydeau
Georges Feydeau was a French playwright of the era known as the Belle Époque. He is remembered for his many lively farces.-Biography:Georges Feydeau was born in Paris, the son of novelist Ernest-Aimé Feydeau and Léocadie Bogaslawa Zalewska. At the age of twenty, Feydeau wrote his first comic...
, Paul Dano
Paul Dano
Paul Franklin Dano is an American actor and producer. He has appeared in films such as L.I.E. , The Girl Next Door , Little Miss Sunshine , There Will Be Blood , and Where the Wild Things Are .-Early life:Dano was born in New York City, the son of Gladys and Paul Dano...
as Meriwether Lewis
Meriwether Lewis
Meriwether Lewis was an American explorer, soldier, and public administrator, best known for his role as the leader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition also known as the Corps of Discovery, with William Clark...
, John McMartin
John McMartin
John McMartin is an American actor of stage, film and television.-Early life and career:McMartin was born in Warsaw, Indiana and raised in Minnesota. He attended college in Illinois and New York. He made his off-Broadway debut in Little Mary Sunshine in 1959, playing opposite Eileen Brennan...
as Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
, Veanne Cox
Veanne Cox
Veanne Cox is an American stage and screen actress and former ballet dancer.Cox was born in Norfolk, Virginia. She studied ballet at the Washington School of Ballet, acting at the Studio Theatre's Conservatory in Washington, D.C., and voice at Catholic University.Her Broadway debut was in the...
as Mme. Mandragola, and Sara Gettelfinger
Sara Gettelfinger
Sara Gettelfinger is American actress, singer, and dancer.-Early life and education:Gettelfinger was raised in Kentucky and Jeffersonville, Indiana. She graduated from the Youth Performing Arts School at duPont Manual High School in 1995...
as Doña Athene/Calliope.
Awards and nominations
On April 18, 2011, the winner of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for DramaPulitzer Prize for Drama
The Pulitzer Prize for Drama was first awarded in 1918.From 1918 to 2006, the Drama Prize was unlike the majority of the other Pulitzer Prizes: during these years, the eligibility period for the drama prize ran from March 2 to March 1, to reflect the Broadway 'season' rather than the calendar year...
was announced. A Free Man of Color was a finalist along with the play Detroit, with the winner being Clybourne Park
Clybourne Park
Clybourne Park is a 2010 play by Bruce Norris written in response to Lorraine Hansberry's play A Raisin in the Sun portraying fictional events set before and after the play and loosely based on real life events. The premiere took place in February 2010 at Playwrights Horizons in New York. The play...
.
Response
The Wall Street JournalThe Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
s Terry Teachout wrote in his review, "If neatness is what you expect from John Guare's "A Free Man of Color," you'll be doomed to disappointment. Mr. Guare's ambitious new play, which tells the fantastic tale of Jacques Cornet (Jeffrey Wright), a 19th-century millionaire playboy from New Orleans who happens to be black, has a cast of 33 and runs for 2½ crowded hours. Yes, it sprawls, but for all its hectic messiness, "A Free Man of Color" is one of the three or four most stirring new plays I've seen since I started writing this column seven years ago.".
Newsday
Newsday
Newsday is a daily American newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties and the New York City borough of Queens on Long Island, although it is sold throughout the New York metropolitan area...
s reviewer wrote, "Somewhere very far away - as far, say, as the final 15 minutes - "A Free Man of Color" becomes an important play. Finally, after 2 ½ hours of brain-blurring historical asides, strenuously costumed artifice and luxuriously overpopulated incoherence, the point and resonance of this crazy-ambitious collaboration between playwright John Guare and directorGeorge C. Wolfe fall deeply into place."
Michael Sommers praised the sets and costumes as "lavish", and said of the cast, "Wright furiously tears around as the flamboyant Jacques. Subtly depicting the fop's long-suffering servant Murmur, Mos also blazes for a bit as the fiery Toussaint. John McMartin wryly portrays a pragmatic Jefferson. Reg Rogers is very funny whether as Jacques' vengeful half-brother or the oily French diplomat Talleyrand. Veanne Cox and Peter Bartlett comically contrast as aristocratic refugees upset by New Orleans' raffish society while Nicole Beharie is winsome as a spunky country girl who soon comes to love it. Paul Dano, Nick Mennelland Arnie Burton brightly materialize as various personages."
The NY Daily News reporter also praised the cast, but added that it "doesn't add up to a satisfying evening". Elysa Gardener of USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
gave a more positive review, calling the show "exhilarating. By abandoning subtlety throughout, Guare and Wolfe keep the tone consistent, and ensure that some scenes that might have seemed pedantic in another context make sense dramatically."
External links
- A Free Man of Color at the Internet Broadway DatabaseInternet Broadway DatabaseThe Internet Broadway Database is an online database of Broadway theatre productions and their personnel. It is operated by the Research Department of The Broadway League, a trade association for the North American commercial theatre community....