By Melina Paris, Contributing Writer
The long running jazz musical, North On South Central Ave. will feature some of San Pedro’s best when it arrives, March 26, at the Warner Grand Theatre.
North on South Central Ave. is told through the flashbacks of an elderly man recalling the golden age of Los Angeles jazz on Central Avenue, while sitting at a bus stop with a teenage boy.
The scenes move back and forth between the present day and Central Avenue’s heyday to capture the glamour and the sheer elegance of the legendary Dunbar Hotel and Club Alabam.
The Dunbar Hotel and Club Alabam anchored a growing African American community. During the 1940s, Los Angeles filled with a thriving black-owned business community after African Americans from the South began migrating en masse toward large urban hubs in the north and west. This migration accelerated when manufacturing and steel mills required a larger labor force due to World War II.
The Dunbar Hotel was built in 1928. It was known as the Hotel Somerville before it changed hands. Upon its opening, the hotel hosted the NAACP’s first national convention west of the Mississippi. In the early 1930s, Club Alabam opened at the Dunbar. It became the center of the Central Avenue jazz scene for the following 20 years.
The Dunbar hosted Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Lionel Hampton, Count Basie, Lena Horne and many other jazz legends. Other noteworthy people who stayed at the Dunbar include W. E. B. Du Bois, Joe Louis, Ray Charles and Thurgood Marshall. Former heavyweight champion Jack Johnson also ran a nightclub at the Dunbar in the 1930s.
With the city’s growth in population and stature in the entertainment industry, the Dunbar was an important oasis during the time of Jim Crow.
Due to the end of de jure segregation and the natural flows of demographic changes, Central Avenue no longers looks like it did then. After being renovated in the 1990s, the Dunbar is now an assisted living facility for seniors. The African American-owned businesses that once anchored the community are now mostly Latino owned businesses featuring huge colorful signs that cover the old art deco architecture.
North On South Central Ave. waxes nostalgic with the euphoria of some of the best music ever made in the United States and exudes the pain of watching it all disappear as South Central declined.
Storytelling serves as a means to preserve history, much like the old West African griots — traveling poets, musicians and storytellers who retold stories through songs of prominent families and important community events. The griot serves as the community’s collective memory, transmitting this information to younger generations.
North On South Central Ave. was written and produced by the Theatre Perception Consortium, which is comprised of writers Larry James Robinson, Carla DuPree Clark and Tu’Nook.
Robinson came up with the idea for the musical in the 1980s as a way to pay homage to his father’s life.
“Larry brought this idea to the table and it’s based on his father coming here from Mississippi,” Tu’ Nook said, who noted the title started out as South Central Avenue.
Executive producer Michael Gean Curtis, who was born and raised in South Central Los Angeles, discussed the personal connections to this history.
“Having parents who have partied in Club Alabam and the other clubs on South Central Avenue, I find it interesting that it’s being revisited in the current time,” Curtis said. “It brings it to life. To see it is special. A lot of people do not realize what actually happened here at that time.”
Curtis described the settlement location of early black Los Angeles.
“A lot of people were raised south of all this movement on Central Avenue,” Curtis said. “Back in the ‘40s and ‘50s, the clubs were literally located North on South Central Avenue. The black Hollywood movement was actually in downtown Los Angeles, as far as 1st and 2nd Streets. Then it stretched down to 42nd Street and beyond.”
The title is a reference to driving from that area, going north on South Central Avenue. All of the excitement takes place at Club Alabam and the Dunbar Hotel, which are north on South Central Avenue.
Dupree has said that community elders are enthusiastic about this production. The youth also are excited.
During the show’s 20-year run, it has won four NAACP Image awards for theater including Best Sound, Best Costumes, Best Ensemble and Best Director.
The cast is filled with veteran performers who can sing the lights out anywhere.
One of those performing is San Pedro’s Windy Barnes-Farrell, a local vocalist of unmatched talent who regularly tours the world performing. What folks may not know is that she is also an accomplished actor, songwriter, producer and choral director. Barnes-Farrell has toured extensively with Stevie Wonder, Julio Iglesias and Michael Bolton. She has also starred in various productions including Jezebel, The Wiz, Gospelrella and Voices.
Veteran actor and playwright Melvin Johnson takes on the musical’s central character Old Willie, who recounts his life in conversation with a young man named Trayvon (played by Larney Johnson IV), a named character intended to achieve particular resonance in today’s context and remind the audience of the murder of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin.
“Prostitution and drugs — this is what is pronounced around the world when you talk about South Central LA,” Dupree said.
Instead, the creators behind North On South Central Ave. wanted the younger character and, in turn, younger audiences to know about the productivity happening in the businesses and all the entertainment on South Central Avenue.
Old Willie engages Trayvon at the bus stop, enlightening the younger man, who in this rendition of the musical, has been rendered physically impaired by a drive-by shooting. It proves to be an invaluable history lesson for Trayvon as his elder recreates the vitality of Los Angeles’ Central Avenue during the 1940s.
Trayvon is not a gangster but his character is aware of the negativity around living on Central Avenue today.
Johnson, the actor who plays Trayvon, is the author of numerous plays including Nobody Told Us and The Hero Within, which opens next month at the Wallis Annenberg PAC in Beverly Hills.
Phillip Bell plays the younger Willie, who is known as “Bilbo” in the musical’s flashbacks. Bell has been with the musical for several years and has performed in his own one-man show.
Aliyah Robinson, the actress playing the wife of young Willie, Birdlegs, is Larry James Robinson’s daughter. The younger Robinson reflected on playing her grandmother.
“It’s awesome to be able to play my grandmother and tell the story of my grandmother and grandfather of as they came to California and their journey here, and their life after they came here,” she said.
Robinson noted that her love for the 1940s period was due to the stories her grandparents told.
Legendary figures of the era such as Sarah Vaughn, Billie Holiday, Dorothy Dandridge and Cab Calloway all make appearances in the musical and are channeled through powerhouse performers such as Kerrimah Taitt, Pat Sligh, Larney “Dapper” Johnson III and Wanda Ray Willis-Raynor.
Wanda Ray Willis-Raynor is an 18-year veteran performer with North on South Central Ave. and a 2016 nominee for the NAACP Theatre’s Best Solo award. Willis-Raynor also wrote, produced and performed the one-woman musical Walking in Dorothy Dandridge’s Shoes … Her Final New Beginning with musical director Cal Bezemer.
North on South Central Ave. also recalls the dance moves and the dancers that graced the stage at Club Alabam during its heyday, whether it was the Creole Dancing Revue or Club Alabam’s Rocketts. San Pedro’s Jessica Haley Clark Dance Co. along with tap dancers Pysa Noel and Adrienne Diana Curtis will add another layer of cultural history to a talent-packed show.
Time: 5 p.m. March 26
Cost: $26 to $41
Details: http://tinyurl.com/North-on-SouthCentral
Venue: Warner Grand Theatre, 478 W. 6th St., San Pedro