michael taylor: "Theatre Corner" is brought to you by California Center for the Arts, Escondido, University of Cincinnati, Helen Weinberger Center for Drama and Playwriting, Del Cerro Tax, Backlot Pictures, The Mental Bar, and viewers like you.

Thank you.

male announcer: Please welcome to the stage your host of "Theatre Corner," michael taylor.

♪♪♪ michael taylor: Welcome to "Theatre Corner."

I'm your host, michael taylor.

"Theatre Corner" is an interview series dedicated to promoting diversity and inclusion throughout the national theatre scene.

Tonight we're filming in front of a live audience made up of theatre students at the California Center for the Arts in Escondido, California.

So, silence your cell phones, folks, you're entering "Theatre Corner."

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ michael: Today we have Wren T. Brown, actor, producer, and director.

Let's take a look.

Wren T. Brown: Upon my life on the graves of my family and by the surety I have of his eternal bliss.

For he died for you and you are saved.

Who will come up and testify with me?

Wren: Well, we got a singer in our midst.

female: Indeed, we do.

Wren: Did you sing with one of them Big Jazz Record companies?

female: No, I don't sing that kind of music.

I only sing for the Lord.

Wren: Well, I'm glad you ran into us so we can make you a bit more comfortable.

female: Because this ain't even as low as we can go.

Wren: I watch that now.

Take it easy and if it's easy, take it again.

female: Okay.

I love it when you say that baby and when you give it to me.

Wren: Oh, wait a minute.

male: I have conferred with my government and we will no longer abide by the terms of our previous agreement.

Haveena's illegal actions have annulled all restrictions.

Furthermore, we demand a formal apology by this council for allowing this travesty in the first place.

male: Hey, where's your ribbon?

male: Oh, I don't wear them.

male: You don't wear the ribbon?

Aren't you against AIDS?

male: Yeah, I'm against AIDS.

male: Put the ribbon on.

male: Hey Cedric, Bob, this guy won't wear a ribbon.

male: Do you have something to say, human?

male: I don't think so.

Wren: Next time you come down, I'll give you a few freeloads.

Wren: This is a process, Paul.

You just have to be patient.

Wren: I was more than willing to break bread.

Wren: I know what I'm doing here.

Wren: After that selection, after that song, after that song, somebody oughta say thank you.

Say, praise the Lord.

Say, praise the Lord.

michael: Please welcome Wren T. Brown.

♪♪♪ michael: Wren T. Brown.

Wren: Michael Taylor, I am honored to be with you.

michael: I really appreciate you 'cause you're four decades of acting.

Wren: This is my 40th year, this year.

michael: Wow.

Wren: 2023 will be 40 years.

March 17, 1982, I got my SAG card.

And so, I did the first-ever "National Chicken McNuggets Commercial."

I was a senior in high school in Los Angeles at Alexander Hamilton High School.

And so, this is year 40, 41. michael: Wow.

And so, right off the top, I think it's-- let's make it clear.

So you're the founder of the Ebony Repertory Theatre in Los Angeles.

Tell us what unique distinction that theatre has.

Wren: Well, thank you for asking.

I am the founder in producing artistic director of the Ebony Repertory Theatre.

We are the first and only African American professional theatre in the history of Los Angeles, meaning we employ our actors under an Actors' Equity agreement.

And Actors' Equity has been around since 1913, and when we were incorporated in 2007, but we took possession of the Nate Holden Performing Arts Center in 2008.

And so, we are in our 15th anniversary as the first and only African American professional theatre in Los Angeles.

michael: Hmm.

And so, you've been doing this thing for 40 years, but you have a lineage of acting and performers.

Could you let us in on a little bit of that?

Wren: Absolutely.

My great-grandfather, Willis Handy Young, was born in 1872 in Thibodaux, Louisiana.

By the age of 10, he was the choirmaster at his church.

He went on to be able to take a job with 20 instruments.

Trumpet was his primary instrument, but he could take a job on 19 other instruments.

He taught his three children, my maternal grandfather among them.

My maternal grandfather was Lee Young Senior, he became the first black staff musician in the history of Hollywood Columbia Pictures 1946.

He was Nat King Cole's drummer and musical director for 25 years.

And so, that's my mother's father.

My mother's mother was Ruth Gibbons, born in Los Angeles, and she was a Cotton Club dancer and a torch singer.

My father's father was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and he became the fifth black actor in Screen Actors Guild in 1937.

Screen Actors Guild was formed in 1933, but it was not recognized by the producers until 1937 when he joined.

My father's mother was a Cotton Club dancer in New York City.

So all of those generations, my father was a child actor on the stage, made his stage debut at the Alhambra Theatre in Harlem with Cab Calloway.

He eventually made several films as a child, but he went on to be a bebop trumpeter with the most fertile imagination I've ever witnessed in my life.

And so, that's my journey.

I grew up in that way; and so it is in the blood, so to speak.

It's the family business.

michael: You've done over 100 commercials.

Wren: Yes.

michael: And you've done voiceover, film, television, theatre.

Talk about the importance of diversifying the mediums like that as an actor.

Wren: Well, diversifying is what we must do.

If we want to work, if we want to be employed, it would be wonderful to begin a career and say, "I just wanna do film."

But that's not reality.

So, all of the things that you do along the way that builds the chops, so to speak.

So working in commercials, working in such a way where you're part of an advertising reality that's sold to this country, working on the stage and really, really being able to listen well on the stage and respond and know that there is a live audience out there that's vitally important to cut your teeth in that way.

Working in film and television knowing that it's a lot of hurry up and wait.

So there are times when you have to be absolutely focused to work on those mediums, particularly on some films because you can be called and you could come out of makeup at 8:00 a.m. ready to shoot, and you may not shoot until 7:30 p.m.

So you have to be mindful of that.

You have to be mindful of how you manage your day, but working in all of those mediums allows for you to have a real career, and that's what I attempted to do from the very beginning.

I always wanted to be a working actor.

And so with that, every medium was something that I was willing to work in.

michael: So it's clear, you know, auditions for theatre and television.

How in the heck does one get into voiceover?

Wren: Voiceover.

That's very, very interesting.

I have a--I think somewhat of a rich story surrounding how I got my first real voiceover agent.

I went to the University of California at Berkeley to hear the great Dianne Reeves in concert.

And I was walking into the Coliseum on the campus there at Berkeley, and I said something to a friend who was attempting to make us both late.

And I said, "Well, listen, I'm gonna see you later.

I'm gonna go in here and be on time."

And a woman turned around and said, "Your voice is beautiful."

And I said, "Thank you."

She said, "I'm an agent at the William Morris Agency in voiceover.

Here's my card, please call me when you get back to Los Angeles."

And so, I mean, you know, that was how I specifically got into voiceover.

My first agent, the William Cunningham Agency, I met them when I was, again, a senior in high school.

We were doing Oklahoma, I was playing Jud Fry on the stage, and the agent from the William Cunningham Agency, Bob Preston, he came to see our production of the show.

I met the agency, I became represented by them.

So they had a voiceover division as well, but my first real proper agent came by virtue of me telling someone I didn't wanna be late.

michael: And so you kind of narrated a book-- the book of Matthew, which earned a 2007 audio award.

What was that experience like?

Wren: Oh, the Bible experience is what you're talking about.

And to narrate, I eventually went on to direct several actors, about 35 of the actors on that project, but I was the first book completed, the book of Matthew, where I functioned as the narrator of the work.

Extraordinary, the opportunity to work in that way, to read these words, these words that have touched millions across the world over time was a great, great experience for me.

But going in there in such a way where there's a statement made in the black church hide me behind the cross so that we might see Jesus.

I wanted to remove all of the dung of Wren out of that room and to make sure that the best of me came through so that it might touch people.

michael: Hmm.

And so you give a sort of an entertainment industry seminar?

Wren: Yes.

michael: Tell me about that.

Wren: Purpose, passion, possibility.

I think that if you are going to be a success in this industry, you have to have clarity of purpose.

You also have to undergird that purpose with a passion.

You know, you cannot be a dilettante, you cannot dabble in this work.

You have to have a passion, you have to be committed.

And the possibilities are limitless.

At the end of the day, I think it's vitally important, Michael, that you invest in yourself, that you live your unvarnished truth in such a way that when you marry that with a craft, when you marry that with a collaborative process, with directors and producers, that you become viable in such a way that the possibilities are then limitless.

michael: I'd imagine 40 years ago, perhaps the industry looked different.

So what would you tell young actors that are just embarking on this career?

What are the kind of the main points that you would-- you think it is important for them to know?

Wren: Not to dabble but to be deeply committed.

Find a way to really, really be passionate about it.

Be a student of all things creative.

You might see a shopkeeper who owns a cleaner's sweeping in front of their cleaners.

Try to find art in the way that he or she sweeps.

Wherever you are, there are people who wash dishes in a certain way, where you can find art in it.

You can see people in the preparation of meals where there's art in that.

So wherever you can seek out art because you wanna be touched and if you are touched, and if your cup runneth over, then you have an opportunity to give something.

You don't wanna be barren, you wanna be full with something so that you are able to give to audiences and to a public.

And so, passion really, really focuses--focusing and being intentional, being very intentional about what you do.

michael: And so, kind of linked to that question.

What would be the advice that you would give your 18-year-old self?

Wren: To be more intentional.

It's very interesting.

When I was 18, I was playing tennis six to eight hours a day, but at the end of the day, I was getting a lot of cardio but I wasn't specifically working out.

So what happens when the knees begin to hurt?

What happens when you tear your tensors fasciae latae?

What happens when you have a subcutaneous mass, you know, on your left foot?

What happens in that time when you can no longer play tennis?

You have to have a work ethic about working out and being intentional about that.

And so that's what I would've told my 18-year-old self to be more intentional about things like that, particularly.

michael: And so if you move another decade, would that advice be the same for your 28-year-old self?

Wren: It's the same advice to me four decades later to really, really be more intentional.

And in that way don't allow things that you just do inadvertently become the ethic, the standard.

Be intentional, be on purpose about what you're doing in such a way that the results can come born of the fact that you intentionally gave yourself to something, not something that happened by happenstance.

michael: So when you're taking a role, what's your process of getting the actor, Wren T. Brown, out of the way to achieve authenticity with the character, to let the character shine through?

Do you have a certain approach?

Wren: Yes.

My grandfather, who was my living hero, used to say to me when I was a child, he said, "You cannot tell lies offstage and go onstage and tell the truth."

So I've attempted to live my life honestly.

Honesty will carry the day.

So I want to find a way always, where can I be honest in this?

I have to be--I have to work toward being honest first and foremost.

I cannot judge this character, I have to read these words.

I have to read the script.

I have to see where this character fits in, but I want to bring honesty and truthfulness.

My grandmother, my mother's mother, used to say, "Baby the truth, don't move."

So that archeological dig for truth.

You know, we talk about research, but I think we often miss the fact that first there's the search re-implies that you're doing it again.

So the search is so important.

So I really, really give myself quiet time and real space to get on that search to-- for discovery.

And that's how I approach the work, and I try to keep whatever I know experientially or intellectually, or emotionally out of it initially.

I just try to really examine it without any kind of like doing a flat read of a table read.

Not putting a lot of character on it, not putting a lot of work, but really, really reading it in such a way that it touches me, and then I go on that search for truth and honesty.

michael: So as a director, what's your approach to, I mean, from what I understand, a director is--takes a script and try to make the script as close as possible to the performance.

So what's your approach to directing?

Wren: I think it's important to be specific.

I think particularization is vitally important.

If someone--I just directed a production of "Ain't Misbehavin'" for instance.

I set the show in 1930, 1929, of course, Wall Street crashes.

I set it in 1930, in Harlem; and so on the floor, you walk up two steps in a brownstone and there's the parlor level in a brownstone.

I set the show in that parlor very specifically.

I set it and made it a cocktail party.

So the artists were with their friends at a cocktail party because on the very next day, they were going to the New York Harbor to get on the SS Paris to go to Europe to be the pick of Harlem.

They were gonna play Glasgow, they were gonna play Edinburgh, Liverpool and London as the pick of Harlem.

So I tried to give the actors very immediately specificity and particularization so they can walk into that world more equipped, and they didn't have to search as such because I think the best directors are never vague.

You don't have all the answers, but I think that your preparation should bring you to a place where you do have real specifics to help guide the actor in this collaborative process.

michael: What do you have coming up there at the Ebony Repertory Theatre?

Wren: Oh, we have several things coming up at the Ebony Repertory Theatre.

Thank you for asking.

We just, if I may, had a wonderful, wonderful conversation with the great director, Sheldon Epps.

Sheldon Epps for 20 years was the artistic director of the Pasadena Playhouse.

So I conducted an interview with Sheldon just last week.

We also have Black History Month is upcoming, and so we do a celebration of black history, a journey in four parts.

And so we produce every Saturday, the first Saturday will be in celebration of history, the second Saturday will be in celebration of love.

The third Saturday is in celebration of men, and we close in celebration of women.

So we have a presentation kind of corollary to those themes every Saturday of February.

But, you know, so then also I'm bringing "Ain't Misbehavin'" to our theatre, so that'll be the spring production and we have a lot to unveil in this 15th anniversary, but that's just a bit of it.

michael: And you're directing "Ain't Misbehavin'?"

Wren: That's what they say.

michael: Let's take some questions.

Mary: Hello, I'm Mary.

I'm an acting student over at John Paul Catholic University.

I was actually just wondering, you kind of talked about playing with all these different mediums in theatre and in film and even voiceover.

Is there one that really speaks to you the most and that feels most honest for you?

Wren: Well, Mary, thank you very much for your question.

Yes.

The most organic for me is being on the stage.

I have come to deeply appreciate all of those other mediums, but being on stage it just-- it's thrilling.

It's absolutely thrilling.

It's a very different thrill than I was on a top-five show once on television, and it was amazing.

So I guest-starred in an episode of a "Different World" many years ago, and to go to the mall the next day and to realize how many people actually saw me the night before, these are people who were ranked strangers to me, who recognized me from just the evening before.

So that has its merit in a certain way, but as the practitioner, Mary, being on the stage is the thing that touches me in a very special way.

Mary: Thank you.

Wren: Thank you.

michael: And how important is that perhaps to get a foundation in theatre?

You know, even if you do nothing but television after that, what do you think the importance of getting that foundation?

Wren: I think the foundation is very, very important.

I think particularly if you are going to be a long-distance runner in the industry, having and developing a craft, however, you come to it from the stage first, I think is the thing that will carry you through.

I mean, if you are a sprinter or somebody runs 100 meters or 200 meters, you don't find the great sprinters who are also able to run the four and the eight.

You know, sometimes you have somebody who's really, really gifted at the 400, who can run the two and the one but it's seldom but in this industry because as long as you're reasonably healthy, you can act forever.

As long as you're reasonably healthy, you can act forever.

So I think that the theatre allows for the kind of foundation that will allow you to be that long-distance runner in your career.

michael: Hmm.

Do you have another question right there?

Timothy: Hi, I'm Timothy.

I was just wondering since you're an actor and a director, if you had any thoughts on acting and directing at the same time?

'Cause that's something I've always thought about, like being an actor, I'm an acting student myself and imagining having to step out of that, like being in a scene when I'm acting and also being directing the production having to step out and then look at it objectively.

Just what your thoughts are on that process or if you've done it before.

Wren: Timothy, thank you for your question.

I'm afraid to do that because as an actor, I feel that the director functions as our surrogate audience, and so it's very difficult.

I don't have the capacity to be my own third eye.

So I really believe that it's vitally important from my perspective to keep those things separate.

You do have people who are gifted and skilled in the way to do that kind of thing.

I have not achieved that yet, and I have trepidation about exploring that, but you know that it's done often.

There was a terminology, particularly out of the English theatre where it was called the actor manager, where you acted, you directed, you ran the theatre, and oftentimes you hit a appear and plays.

So, you know, going on stage in something I've directed, if I have to go on and a pinch because I know the role, but on purpose, I like to be as a producer.

I like to be a producer and define it by producing opportunity, giving someone else an opportunity, and allowing myself to just hold on to one role at a time.

But Timothy, I wish you the best in your endeavors.

Timothy: Thank you.

Appreciate it.

michael: Is there a director, whether it's theatre that you performed in or television or film that impacted you the most?

Wren: Yes.

the co-founder of the Ebony Repertory Theatre, Israel Hicks.

Israel Hicks made his transition from us in 2010, but as a poet said, Israel kept the noiseless tenor of his way.

He was a magnificent man and he was a magnificent director.

He was broadly exposed, he was greatly sensitive, he was collaborative.

He had been an actor, he had trained as an actor, but once he stopped acting and gave himself completely to the role of director, he cultivated a career that was just magnificent in the American theatre.

And I watched him work and I've worked with him and his touch was like no other that I've experienced.

So, Israel Theo Hicks Jr. Roosevelt: Hi, Wren, my name is Roosevelt.

I'm an acting student going to Academy of Art University in San Francisco.

My question is, how do you join the Ebony Repertory Theatre?

Wren: Well, Roosevelt allow me to give you an answer.

I want you to please reach out to me, send me your picture and resume.

When you're in Los Angeles next, I would love to meet you, I wanna meet you to talk with you, but additionally, I want you to bring something prepared so that we can really have an opportunity to assess what it is that you're doing.

You're an extremely present person, I feel that already, so when you come to Los Angeles next, reach out to me via email, and then we'll set a date for you to come together with me and we'll sit and talk.

If you're kind enough to bring a little libation, I'd appreciate it, but at the end of the day, that's how we'll do it to begin.

Okay?

Roosevelt: Okay.

Thank you, sir.

Wren: Wonderful.

You know, I want to be available to all of you.

If we have a beginning conversation, that's vitally important because I wanna encourage you.

You know, my grandfather also had one of the most searing statements that I've never forgotten in my life.

He used to say to me, amateurs get trophies and pros get paid.

I want you all to get on the road to being professionals so that you can look up at the age of 65 or 68 and you will have a pension based on the fact that you were a working artist.

That's what's vitally important, and so at the end of the day to have, you know, a preamble conversation prior to ever seeing any of you audition, I'm welcome--I welcome all of you to call and reach out so that we can do that.

michael: Very good.

Wren T. Brown, thank you so much for appearing on "Theatre Corner," and we're gonna keep in touch.

Wren: Absolutely, michael.

michael: All right, sir.

Wren: Thank you, so much.

michael: Thank you.

Wren T. Brown.

Thank you for tuning into another episode of "Theatre Corner," and we'll see you next time.

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