CSC Classic Conversations: Brian Stokes Mitchell
John Doyle, artistic director of Classic Stage Company and Tony Award Winner Brian Stokes Mitchell talk about Mitchell’s path through music and theater to incorporate impassioned activism.
Unlike most actors, Brian Stokes Mitchell has been working, busy with a reoccurring role on the supernatural CBS series, Evil. Doyle says he understands protocols, but wonders how the production manages intimate scenes. Mitchell laughs. He plays a priest. Everyone on set is tested multiple times a day and wears masks between scenes. The crew wear face shields when cameras roll. Filming was stopped only twice, both false alarms. Shooting does take longer and it’s more expensive.
“How on earth will Broadway manage?!” Doyle segues. “That’s the billion dollar question,” his guest responds. “People don’t realize there’s a universe of people behind the scenes in close contact with actors.” The mood at a Duffy Square commemoration of the shutdown was, however, optimistic, he assures the host.
Brian Stokes Mitchell spent his boyhood in Guam and the Philippines as his father, an electronics engineer, worked for the Navy. Then the family moved to San Diego. At six, he began playing piano and the electric fan organ. “I was transfixed. Every day, I’d sit plunking out notes, then tunes, then harmonies; now I’d say harmonic structure. There are literal vibrations that go through our bodies and affect us in interesting ways.” Still, as a youngster, he thought of becoming an oceanographer or zoologist. The fields were influenced by his autodidact father who instilled respect for science and an abiding curiosity.
The actor is in a home studio where he’s done considerable recording. “Virtual instruments have gotten quite incredible. I’d guess 70 to 80 percent of the music we hear on television and in films is virtual now. I gave `By Myself'(Arthur Schwartz/Howard Dietz) a full orchestral treatment.” He reaches to a shelf behind indicating shakers, finger pianos, flutes, and a ukulele. Part of the artist’s latest CD, playing with music, was recorded here. “I’m obsessed with the idea of `playing.’ I love that word. That’s why I love rehearsing,” he says.
At 14, Mitchell started studying at San Diego Junior Theater and working at The Globe Theater. He acted, learned to stage manage, to work the lights… A professional in his teens, he never went to college, but later took courses at UCLA in film scoring, orchestration, and conducting. In Los Angeles for an acting job, Mitchell was hired for the television series Trapper John M.D., a spinoff from M.A.S.H. He played Justin “Jackpot” Jackson, a young doctor who gambled. The series lasted seven years. Mitchell then appeared in Dan Sullivan’s Mail at The Pasadena Theater. The play moved to Broadway and he found himself in New York.
“How did the all Black version of Oh Kay! (George and Ira Gershwin) come about?” Doyle asks. “Was that a unique situation at the time?” “Yes,” Mitchell responds, “but not the first. It was produced by David Merrick who also did the all Black Hello, Dolly! with Pearl Bailey.”
Mitchell got the call to audition when he was in L.A. and recalls almost everyone warning him about David Merrick, then known as “The Abominable Showman.” The New York audition locale was seedy. He waited in the hall a long time. “Then a door opens and this old man shambles out murmuring – remember Tim Conway’s character on Carol Burnett? He looked at me, pointed and made gruff sounds. This was just after his stroke. And I’m looking at him thinking, this is the David Merrick everyone was talking about?!”
“He was at every rehearsal and still had a great eye. One of the standard colors in theater is Merrick Red for curtains…My one regret was that he didn’t have his power of speech. I’d’ve loved to hear his stories,” Mitchell muses. Merrick produced almost 90 plays and musicals.
On one occasion Tamara Tunie and the actor were rehearsing a scene. They kept hearing disgruntled sounds coming from the orchestra. Afterwards, Mitchell inquired whether Merrick objected to something they were doing. In fact, the producer had noticed a wrinkle on one of the teasers (a horizontal masking border that is lowered to reduce the height of the opening). He lined up all the department heads and reamed them out one by one. “That kind of world is gone,” Doyle sighs.
“Let me ask you, can you see a different Broadway than the one you came into post George Floyd?” the host asks. “Yes …I don’t think I’m alone in feeling this is nature’s way to give us a big reset button. We’re destroying the planet in the most egregious ways…” Mitchell talks about hearing the birds when there was less traffic, of places in the world where air cleared up for lack of industry. “My philosophy is leave a place better than you found it.”
He continues, “It was because we were locked in our houses we were able to see the Floyd incident moments after it happened. Normally, people would be shocked then move on. We couldn’t do that this time. People were forced to see the systematic racism generations of Black families have been talking about. It caused a shift in consciousness. Black Theater United was formed because of it. (Mitchell is one of the founders.) A lot of theaters are now doing EDI (Equity Diversity Inclusion) work and it’s long overdue.”
“As members of the Black theatre community, we stand together to help protect Black people, Black talent and Black lives of all shapes and orientations in theatre and communities across the country. Our voices are united to empower our community through activism in the pursuit of justice and equality for the betterment of all humanity. We will not be silent. We will be seen. We will be heard. We are here. Join us.” – Black Theater United Mitchell is also in his 16th year as Chairman of the Board of The Actors Fund.
“As a human race, if we go back to what we were, we should be more than ashamed of ourselves,” Doyle comments. “Moving forward is encouraging. I would hate to think we’d get to a point where as a white man I couldn’t help you tell your story as a Black man.” “Or vice versa,” Mitchell interjects.
“It’s kind of like a new Civil Rights Movement,” the actor continues. “People are beginning to understand white privilege in different ways. We in theater are storytellers. We can help.” EDI training teaches how to have these discussions without shutting anyone down. “Everybody needs to do their own work as well. It can be exhausting for Black people to educate.” “Take the events of January 6 at the capital. You can’t tell other countries how to behave when that’s happening here,” Doyle observes.
The Artistic Director says CSC has been talking about this in the company. He believes it has to start with the Board, the “parent,” then work its way out. “I asked someone this morning whether the virtual world might be helping these conversations. I teach at Princeton and I’ve noticed that students who were quiet in the classroom dominate on screen and those that spoke up in person withdraw.” Doyle thinks safety in one’s environs affects. “I want to be in the room for rehearsal, of course…”
“I came into theater thinking it could help change the world and I still do… I look at it as a form of church, Doyle remarks. “I say that all the time, it’s a holy place,” Mitchell agrees. Both artists have made clear their deep feelings for theater, yet also have full lives and a sense of responsibility outside it. Both are somewhat idealistic. We need people like that.
Brian Stokes Mitchell quotes from the hymn, “ Once to Every Man and Nation” singing a few bars. An apt ending to this evening’s exchange.
Once to every man and nation,
comes the moment to decide,
in the strife of truth with falsehood,
for the good or evil side;
some great cause, some great decision,
offering each the bloom or blight,
and the choice goes by forever,
‘twixt that darkness and that light.
Photos courtesy of CSC
