Walter Mosley's Blog, page 12

Mosley’s ‘Lift’ expands beyond walls

Ironically, the setting of Walter Mosley’s tragedy, “Lift,” is within the confines of an elevator. The two main characters, young Black professionals, discuss broader issues of race, class and relationships. Under the skilled direction of Marshall Jones III, Maameya Boafo and Biko Eisen-Martin breathe an attractive chemistry and depth into their roles as strangers trapped indefinitely in an elevator in their corporate office building.

The dialogue is refreshingly original between the characters. Eisen-Martin as Theodore Southmore outshines his handsome features with a layered and compelling portrayal of a buppie with a dark secret. Baofo capably plays Tina Pardon, an ambitious beauty, who treats Southmore with a begrudging interest. In a not-so-subtle flirtation, Southmore asks her questions about her life and her boyfriend, which she does not want to entertain. Southmore presses Pardon about her “Black” identity and questions her dates with a “white” man. Pardon rejects his Black cultural bond sentimentality and expresses her anger at Black men “for not saving” her.

After a crash, when the elevator suddenly stops between floors and teeters tenuously, Pardon desperately asks the questions to which Southmore surprisingly holds the answers. Cries for help go unheard and tensions begin to rise.

This drama holds a few surprises as they try to figure a way out. Some of them are revelations about Southmore’s sudden “condition,” which physically disables him. The other discoveries come from Pardon and the illegal sidestep she took to pay her way through college.

Along the way, snatches of humor and witty observations are well placed. In addition, these two actors handily pull off several athletic climbs in and out of the elevator in search of help. Near the end of the play, they hear voices from others trapped in an elevator and their rescuers trying to free them. It takes some suspension of disbelief to accept the turnaround that unites them in a romantic and sexual closeness. However, the tragic conclusion is more shocking and easier to believe.

In supporting and fleeting roles, Shavonna Banks is perfect as Pardon’s homegirl office friend, Noni Tariq, and Martin Kushner aptly, albeit comically, renders the racist CEO, John Thomas Resterly.

Exquisite lighting effects by Rocco Disanti heighten the dangerous tensions in this tragedy. Andrei Onegin ingeniously created a light but scary-looking set for the dangling elevator and standing ground above it for strangers looking to escape.

“Lift,” written by award-winning mystery author Walter Mosley and produced by Crossroads Theatre Company continues at 59 E. 59th St. through Nov. 30. For more information, visitwww.59e59.org.

(via AmsterdamNews.com)

In My Library

Walter Mosley is tired of hearing how his City College of New York writing teacher, Irish novelist Edna O’Brien, told him to mine his background: “You’re black, Jewish, with a poor upbringing,” she told him. “There are riches therein.” But O’Brien gave him much more than that: “No one needs to tell me I’m black and Jewish,” he says. “Edna said I should write a novel, and I went out and wrote one.” He’s since written about three dozen of them, including a bestselling mystery series featuring a hardboiled detective named Easy Rawlins (“Devil in a Blue Dress”). Now Mosley’s making his NYC theatrical debut with his play, “Lift,” at off-Broadway’s 59E59 theaters, about two co-workers’ close encounter in an elevator. Here’s what’s in his library.

Walter Mosley-Inspired CCNY Program Still Going Strong

On his return to The City College of New York Friday, November 21, to receive the Langston Hughes Medal, authorWalter Mosley, ’91MA, will reunite with one of his enduring contributions to his alma mater: CCNY’s Publishing Certificate Program (PCP).

Mr. Mosley inspired the creation of the program in 1997 to help address the lack of diversity in the book publishing industry. Headed by award-winning author David Unger, it offers courses and seminars to both undergraduates and non-matriculated students to prepare them for careers in publishing.

Nearly 300 students have graduated from the program, close to 40 percent of whom have worked in the publishing industry.

Mr. Mosley is the best-selling author of more than 40 acclaimed books, which have been translated into 21 languages. He will receive the 2014 Langston Hughes Medal at City College’s Langston Hughes Festival at 6:30 p.m. in the Marian Anderson Theatre in Aaron Davis Hall on the CCNY campus.

The Medal is awarded to highly distinguished writers from throughout the African American diaspora for their impressive works of poetry, fiction, drama, autobiography and critical essays that help to celebrate the memory and tradition of Langston Hughes.

Read the complete article on the CCNY site.

Rose Gold

Rose Gold is two colors, one woman, and a big headache.

In this new mystery set in the Patty Hearst era of radical black nationalism and political abductions, a black ex-boxer self-named Uhuru Nolica, the leader of a revolutionary cell called Scorched Earth, has kidnapped Rosemary Goldsmith, the daughter of a weapons manufacturer, from her dorm at UC Santa Barbara. If they don’t receive the money, weapons, and apology they demand, “Rose Gold” will die—horribly and publicly. So the FBI, the State Department, and the LAPD turn to Easy Rawlins, the one man who can cross the necessary borders to resolve this dangerous standoff. With twelve previous adventures since 1990, Easy Rawlins is one of the small handful of private eyes in contemporary crime fiction who can be called immortal. Rose Gold continues his ongoing and unique achievement in combining the mystery/PI genre form with a rich social history of postwar Los Angeles—and not just the black parts of that sprawling city.

Coming from Knopf Doubleday on September 23, 2014

There is no “white” race

CBS News asked noted figures in the arts, business and politics about their experience in today’s civil rights movement, or about figures who inspired them in their activism.

Walter Mosley, author (the Easy Rawlins mysteries); winner, PEN America’s Lifetime Achievement Award

Walter Mosley / Marcia Wilson

What needs to happen in the next 50 years for equality to be fully realized in the U.S.?

Equality (which defines freedom in any society) is a complex issue that cannot be achieved by any one action. People who suffer inequality are in many categories, because of their sexual preference, age, nationality, religion, race, gender, politics, wealth (or lack thereof), infirmity, and/or simply for being different.

 

 

This being said, I will try to propose a suggestion for one solution that will definitely impact racial inequality and might possibly have ameliorating influence on the other prejudices.

The white race is a fiction created by aggressive colonization and slavery. In the colonies destined to become the United States, the European colonists found themselves pitted against the indigenous (red) people while enslaving Africans (blacks). In between these two colors, the white race was born, creating an antithetical identity that distinguished the supposed rightful owners from the slaves and (so-called) primitives. White was not a racial identifier in ancient Europe. In Britain alone, there was a plethora of races: Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Norse, Scots, Druids, and subgroups such as the Picts. There were as many races as there were languages in old Europe, but when colonization began, they founded an illusory identity where Christian men of European descent were called white regardless of their coloring, features or culture. Florid-faced, pale-skinned, olive-hued, and pink people of every size and build were called white people, and they still cling to that identity today.

If the members of the so-called white race dropped that fallacious appellation, racism in America (the United States) would be over. There is no race, just a whole bunch of people who look more or less alike.

So the next time someone asks you if you believe that we live in a post-racial world, say to them, “That depends, do you believe that you are white?”

Read the article on CBSNews.com.

LIFT Replaces GHOST STORIES in 59E59 Theaters’ 5A Season

59E59 Theaters announces that the Crossroads Theater Company production of acclaimed novelist Walter Mosley’s LIFT will replace GHOST STORIES as part of 59E59′s inaugural 5A Season for an October premiere.

“GHOST STORIES needed a very specific stage configuration to pull off the special effects, and unfortunately they just could not make it work in Theater A,” explained 59E59 Theaters’ Founder and Artistic Director Elysabeth Kleinhans. “However, this gives us the opportunity to present a spectacular new play by a leading American novelist. It’s a very exciting production, and we are honored to bring it to New York.”

In LIFT, two ambitious co-workers meet for the first time when a catastrophic event traps them in a skyscraper elevator. In the darkness, Theodore “Big Time” Southmore and Tina Pardon form an intimate bond, sharing their deepest fears and darkest secrets, touching on issues of race, culture, and class.

The cast features Biko Eisen-Martin as Theodore “Big Time” Southmore, MaameYaa Boafo as Tina Pardon, Shavonna Banks as Noni Tariq, and Martin Kushner as John Thomas Resterly.

LIFT just completed its world premiere at New Brunswick, New Jersey’s Crossroads Theater Company in April, and is directed by Marshall Jones III, the Producing Artistic Director of Crossroads.

LIFT is Mr. Mosley’s first full-length play, and the first play of his to arrive in NYC. The author of more than 43 critically acclaimed books, including the major bestselling mystery series featuring Easy Rawlins, Mr. Mosley has won numerous awards, including an O. Henry Award, a Grammy and PEN America’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

LIFT joins the previously announced THE PIANIST OF WILLESDEN LANE (July), BAUER (September), and LONESOME TRAVELER (March). There is one more production to be announced.

The single ticket price for each show in the 5A Season is $70 ($49 for 59E59 Members). Single tickets to the 5A Season go on sale on May 27, with a special pre-sale for current 59E59 Members beginning May 19. The 5A Season Bundle (all five shows for $245 with guaranteed same seating for all shows plus a complimentary 59E59 Membership) is on sale now. Tickets are available by calling Ticket Central at 212-279-4200 or online at www.59e59.org.

(via BroadwayWorld.com)

Debbie Doesn’t Do It Anymore

In this scorching, mournful, often explicit, and never less than moving literary novel by the famed creator of the Easy Rawlins series, Debbie Dare, a black porn queen, has to come to terms with her sordid life in the adult entertainment industry after her tomcatting husband dies in a hot tub. Electrocuted. With another woman in there with him. Debbie decides she just isn’t going to “do it anymore.” But executing her exit strategy from the porn world is a wrenching and far from simple process.

Millions of men (and no doubt many women) have watched famed black porn queen Debbie Dare—she of the blond wig and blue contacts-”do it” on television and computer screens every which way with every combination of partners the mind of man can imagine. But one day an unexpected and thunderous on-set orgasm catches Debbie unawares, and when she returns to the mansion she shares with her husband, insatiable former porn star and “film producer” Theon Pinkney, she discovers that he’s died in a case of hot tub electrocution, “auditioning” an aspiring “starlet.” Burdened with massive debts that her husband incurred, and which various L.A. heavies want to collect on, Debbie must reckon with a life spent in the peculiar subculture of the pornography industry and her estrangement from her family and the child she had to give up. She’s done with porn, but her options for what might come next include the possibility of suicide. Debbie . . . is a portrait of a ransacked but resilient soul in search of salvation and a cure for grief.

OxCrimes: 27 Killer Stories

Following the success of OxTales and OxTravels, this collection of crime writing is the latest Oxfam fundraiser, introduced by Britain’s greatest crime writer, Ian Rankin, and featuring a compelling cast of suspects.

For 2014, Oxfam and Profile have turned to crime in order to raise a further £200,000 for Oxfam’s work.

OxCrimes is introduced by Ian Rankin and has been curated by Peter Florence, director of Hay Festival, where it will be launched in May. The stellar cast of contributors will include Walter Mosley, Mark Billingham, Alexander McCall Smith, Anthony Horowitz, Val McDermid, Peter James, Adrian McKinty, Denise Mina, Louise Welsh and a host of other compelling suspects.

Pre-Order OxCrimes:

Don’t Press the Up Button

by Michael Sommers, The New York Times

With best-selling mysteries like “Devil in a Blue Dress” among his more than three dozen books, Walter Mosley is a master of crime fiction who knows how to put his characters into tight, scary situations. In “Lift,” his new drama of suspense that begins performances on April 10 atCrossroads Theater Company in New Brunswick, the writer traps two strangers within an urban nightmare: Inside a damaged elevator that is stuck high up in a burning skyscraper.

Disturbing undertones of Sept. 11 aside, Mr. Mosley said his dramatic fiction was mostly about revealing the inner lives of the characters who are grappling with such terrors. “They are those average-looking people you see beside you every day who have interesting back stories that you wouldn’t ever suspect,” he said in a telephone interview from his home in Brooklyn.

In the case of the two corporate workers here, their personal revelations partly involve sex, addiction and racism. (They are black.) The title “Lift,” Mr. Mosley added, holds a double meaning — “lift as in another word for elevator and in people helping each other.” The man and the woman climb atop each other in their attempts to escape together in what one of them calls “a high-end casket.”

A relative newcomer to the theater at age 62, with two previous plays produced regionally, including “White Lilies,” a one-act that Crossroads presented last year, Mr. Mosley said he wrote “Lift” in 15 drafts that evolved over three months.

“I find that playwriting is the most challenging writing I can do,” he said.

“With a novel, you can rely on the reader’s mind to make up any details that you might lack. They can read it and then put it down for a while. But with a play, you have to keep people’s attention through dialogue, and that is very, very hard.”

A major challenge for Crossroads is fulfilling the requirements of this four-actor drama, which necessitates the physical simulation of an unstable elevator cab that is tilted precariously inside a smoky shaft, complete with explosions and falling debris.

“The elevator itself is a major character in the play,” said Marshall Jones III, the producing artistic director of Crossroads, who is staging the premiere.

Andrei Onegin, the set designer, suspends the semi-open cab about four feet above the stage, against a background of projected images that suggest both the cab’s initial ascent and the looming blue-and-gray-shaded elevator shaft around it.

Mr. Jones said Crossroads was already developing another piece with Mr. Mosley, whom he described as “a great storyteller.”

“He understands how to create compelling people and put them in extreme situations that lift the veil on their characters,” Mr. Jones added.

“Lift,” by Walter Mosley, April 10 to 25 at Crossroads Theater Company, 7 Livingston Avenue, New Brunswick. Tickets: $10 to $65. Information: crossroadstheatrecompany.org or (732) 545-8100.

Read the original article “Don’t Press the Up Button” on NYTimes.com:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/06/nyregion/dont-press-the-up-button.html

Walter Mosley’s LIFT to Run 4/10-24 at Crossroads Theatre

Photo by Marcia E. Wilson/WideVision Photography

Two strangers trapped in an elevator have a fateful encounter in Lift, a suspenseful new drama by award-winning writerWalter Mosley, premiering at Crossroads Theatre Company, 7 Livingston Ave., April 10-24.

Performances are 8 p.m., Thursdays through Saturdays; 3 p.m., Saturdays and Sundays; with additional performances at 10 a.m., Wednesday, April 16, and 7 p.m., Tuesday, April 22. Tickets are $10 to $65. Opening night is Saturday, April 12.

In Lift, two ambitious co-workers meet for the first time when a catastrophic event traps them in a skyscraper elevator. In the darkness, Theodore “Big Time” Southmore and Tina Pardon form an intimate bond, sharing their deepest fears and darkest secrets, touching on issues of race, culture and class.

Lift is directed by Marshall Jones III, Crossroads’ producing artistic director. Actors are MaameYaa Boafo as Tina and Biko Eisen-Martin as Theodore, with Shavonna Banks and Martin Kushner in supporting roles. Boafo and Banks are graduates of the master’s and bachelor’s programs, respectively, at Rutgers’ Mason Gross School of the Arts. Biko Eisen-Martin earned an MFA in acting from the National Theatre Conservatory in Denver, Colo. Kushner teaches theater at Middlesex County College.

Mosley, the author of more than three dozen books, is perhaps best known for his best-selling crime fiction, including the popular Easy Rawlins series. Devil in a Blue Dress was made into the 1995 film starring Denzel Washington as Rawlins. Mosley’s work has been translated into 23 languages and includes literary fiction, science fiction, political monographs, and a young adult novel. His short fiction has been widely published and his nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times Magazine and The Nation. His many awards include an O. Henry Award, Grammy, and PEN America’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Mosley’s plays include the one-act White Lilies, which was produced at Crossroads in 2013. Lift will mark his first full-length play to premiere on the East Coast.

“Walter Mosley is a master storyteller – no matter what the medium,” Jones said. “When I first read Lift, I couldn’t put it down; it is a page-turner, just like his novels. Crossroads is honored to work with such a gifted individual and bring his creative work to our stage.”

The creative team for Lift includes:

Andrei Onegin, Scenic Design (veteran designer of the Moscow Art Theater)

Rocco DiSanti - Lighting Design & Projections (projections for Crossroads’ Kansas City Swing and Train to 2010)

Anne E. Grosz – Costume Designer (Crossroads’ The Last Five Years)

Toussaint Hunt – Sound Designer (Kansas City Swing)

Read the original article, here.