African-Americans Elijah Pierce and Chiquita Mullins Lee hail from the South. Mr. Pierce grew up in rural northern Mississippi; Chiquita grew up in urban Atlanta. A generation or two, a social revolution and an economic transformation separated their respective Southern experiences.

Mr. Pierce was born in 1892, just as Mississippi was leading the region in establishing Jim Crow laws, the statutes that segregated white from black in public facilities throughout the American South. These laws remained in place until the Civil Rights Movement forced the states to rescind them in the 1950s and 1960s. Mr. Pierce learned to carve from his uncle and how to barber from a man in Baldwyn, Mississippi. He took much pride in his art and his craft.

Chiquita was born a couple of generations after Mr. Pierce, in an urban setting that marked the South’s transformation from a region strangled by an agricultural straight-jacket and stifling racial relationships to a more modern economy (based much on air conditioning) that promoted more fluid race relations.

Like Mr. Pierce, Chiquita heard the calling to be an artist. She has been a producer and director in Georgia, Tennessee, and Ohio. By the 1990s she was winning writing fellowships (including one from the Greater Columbus Arts Council in 1995) and excellence in art awards (including one from the Ohio Arts Council in 1997 for fiction and another in 2006 for creative non-fiction). She writes fiction, plays, and teleplays for children, teens, and adults.

Mr. Pierce came to his artistic awards much later in life. Indeed, as the play will reveal, it took him awhile to realize his calling. After the First World War, he joined the Great Migration of black Southerners to the Midwest. Something like one to three million African-Americans left the South during the next 2 decades (around 6 million overall between 1900 and 1950). These migrants were looking for better economic opportunities and less racial conflict; some, like Mr. Pierce, found both, some found neither.

About the time Chiquita was growing up in Atlanta, Mr. Pierce became an institution in the Long Street-Mount Vernon area of East Columbus. He was respected as a barber, preacher, and artist.

Mr. Pierce was “discovered” in the mid-to-late 1960s by a white man (Boris Gruenwald, a Yugoslavian graduate student sculptor at The Ohio State University), who promoted Mr. Pierce’s art internationally. Art critics analyzed the barber’s carvings, and there was some controversy over whether his art (and that of other African American folk artists) was “primitive” or not. Discerning critics realized, however, that Mr. Pierce’s art connected his personal experiences and observations with the African American cultures of narrative (oral tradition), religion, magic, and locale. Mr. Pierce’s animal carvings, particularly, represented figures in African American folklore. Alligator (1974), for example, reflected how the creature got his rough skin (Br’er Rabbit was involved).

In 1982, the day after the time depicted in the play, Mr. Pierce was awarded the National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship (as one of 15 master traditional artists). Mr. Pierce died in 1984. For more information on Mr. Pierce: Biography 1, Biography 2, Cover story on Pierce in Columbus' Short North Gazette, "Curator's View" from the Columbus Museum of Art and Further Reading.

Back in 2004 or perhaps a little earlier, Artistic Director Geoff Nelson suggested to Chiquita Mullins Lee that she write a play on the life of Elijah Pierce. An internationally known African American wood carver and barber, Pierce spent the last 61 years of his 92 years in Columbus, Ohio. Geoff thought the artist would be an interesting subject: Unlike more recognizable names that have attracted one-man shows—Mark Twain, Branch Rickey, and John Wilkes Booth—Pierce was a local man who had won international acclaim; Geoff thought that story might be interesting to explore for audiences in Central Ohio and beyond.

So, Chiquita went to work. She researched, collecting newspaper and magazine articles on Mr. Pierce, some of which included interviews with him. She interviewed people who knew Mr. Pierce.

Chiquita encountered obstacles in her research. For one thing, many of the sources contradicted other sources. “Oh, yes, Mr. Pierce cut white folks’ hair” and “Oh, no, Mr. Pierce didn’t cut white folks’ hair.” Memory is a tricky thing; age makes memory more unreliable. Some people did not return phone calls and e-mails; some wanted to be pursued; some wanted to tell Chiquita “how it was”; some just did not want to talk.
 

Mr. Pierce himself was a source of confusion, as his stories often conflated years (decades) or simply contradicted something he had said earlier. In one article he misstated how long he had been married to Cornelia. He claimed he was “from the Delta,” but his hometown (Baldwyn) is east of that region. That he often carved stories that occurred earlier in his life added to the confusing chronology. Tracing his steps between northern Mississippi and the North was not easy; Chiquita knew some of the places he had been, but not the sequence in which he visited or lived in those places.

As research proceeded, Chiquita wrote a treatment. A draft of that can be found here. Early treatment. Initially, she thought of having multiple actors on stage. Sometime during the process, though, it became a one-man performance.

In October 2006 Truman Winbush read an excerpt of Chiquita’s play-in-progress in Studio One of the Riffe Center; in March 2007, Chiquita read some excerpts at the Cultural Arts Center; and, in June 2008, Alan Bomar Jones read most of what was then Act I in Studio One. All of these were produced by Catco.

The Greater Columbus Arts Council and the Ohio Humanities Council, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, along with Catco, supported two extended workshops, one in October 2009 and one in February-March, 2010. The workshops included public readings of portions of the script-in-progress at the Riffe Center, Ohio Dominican College, the Columbus Museum of Art, the Transit Arts Space, and Martin Luther King Center.

These workshops helped Chiquita focus on the big themes, as well as nail down specifics (new stories came to light every time there was a reading.) She has worked closely with the director (Geoff Nelson), the actor (Alan Bomar Jones), and the dramaturge (Bill Childs) during these workshops and the 5-week rehearsal process. Geoff has been involved in countless new works here at Catco “New Works History” and his experience has contributed drive and focus during the play-writing process. Geoff’s approach is grounded in the question, “How can we dramatize the material? …”

Having Alan for the workshops has been a big help. He brings the actor’s point-of-view to the process, and that has resulted in some rewriting to make the material more logical.
With about two weeks to go, revisions were still being made. And new discoveries were coming to light (it may have been someone other than Boris Gruenwald who took Mr. Pierce’s art to the Yugoslavian art show). The process continues ….

The major problem in developing a one-person play is how to keep it interesting without other actors on stage to establish dramatic tension and discovery. A one-person production will include story-telling, and the good ones will connect the stories to an "arc" or process that reveals a central understanding about the character.
One of the very first public readings raised another problem: Actor Alan Bomar Jones did not look at all like Elijah Pierce. Some in the audience expected “Mr. Pierce” to be on stage, apparently. And during a recent public reading, an engaged audience member instructed Chiquita and the creative team “to get it right.”

These reactions, while natural, miss the point of what Chiquita is creating. Interview with Playwright

First, let’s deal with the difference in size and stature. Actors in one-person shows often do not look like the person they are depicting on stage. Hal Holbrook is 6-foot, one-inch tall; since the late 1950s he has played Mark Twain, who was a diminutive 5-feet, 8-inches. Catco’s founder, Geoff Nelson, is 6-foot, 3-inches tall, yet he received rave reviews for his portrayal of baseball entrepreneur, Branch Rickey, who was only 5-feet, 9-inches tall.

No, we are not replicating or channeling Mr. Elijah Pierce in the Studio Two Theatre. We are not bringing Mr. Pierce back to life, for that is not possible.

What Chiquita and Alan and the entire creative team are trying to do is find the essence of this man, Elijah Pierce. What lay behind this man’s life-story? How did he become remembered as a holy man, a gentle man, a community icon, and an internationally known African American folk artist and mentor to young artists? Was he born that way? What obstacles did he overcome to arrive at the peaceful, holy life he led in the Lincoln Street-Mt. Vernon area of East Columbus?

When you go to the performance, arrive early. Spend some time looking at Edie Dinger Wadkins’ scenic design. It evokes the space in which this man spent much of the last 33 years of his life—what conversations must have taken place there! Notice how Keya Myers-Alkire’s sound design—including the pre-show selections and the minute or so before curtain—underscore the place Edie has created and the holiness of Elijah Pierce. Cindy Stilling’s lighting design emphasizes the sense of place and her cues not only indicate the passage of real time from afternoon to evening, but also accent important moments in Mr. Pierce’s life. Notice as well the props (but leave them untouched), particularly the replications of Mr. Pierce’s artwork, which Edie and Stacey E. Siak (props master) carved themselves (ask them how they did it). And finally, note Kelly McBane’s costume design and how it presents the particular style of Elijah Pierce. Combined with the writing and the acting, then, these design elements contribute significantly to the overall production.

Without giving away too much, here is what you will encounter in the performance:
A naturally curious man, Mr. Pierce listened to numerous voices throughout his life. It took him quite some time to filter out those voices he should not have listened to and those he should so that he could eventually focus on the one voice that mattered. Mr. Pierce discovered early in life his ability to carve and to barber, but his curiosity and pride delayed his discovery of the path he should take. A 90-year old holy man at the time of the play, he had found his path and was helping others find their paths. All in all, a life fully lived, a life at the end that was full of love and respect for his Lord.

1. How is Mr. Pierce’s pride both a help and a hindrance to finding his path in life?
2. How did the women in his life influence his growth as a person and an artist?
3. How did Mr. Pierce deal with his fame, coming so late in his life as it did?
4. How do you explain the relative lack of race distinction in his artistic work?