Nobleman Theater Troupe Presents The Meeting at Madison College: The Meeting of Great Minds
Talen Marshall (Malcolm X) (l-r); Colin Gawronski (lights and sound); Dos Feurtado (Rashad – bodyguard); Denzel Taylor (director); Chancie Cole and William Toney (Dr. King)
Talen Marshall (Malcolm X) (l) and William Toney (Dr. King)
by Jonathan Gramling
Although it took him a long time to realize it, Denzel Taylor — the director of The Meeting being presented at Madison College on February 10th — was born to be engaged in theater. Growing up in Milwaukee, Taylor’s creative development came with writing poetry and performing spoken word and rap. His art earned him a scholarship to UW-Madison through the First Wave Hip Hop and Urban Arts Scholarship Program.
And it wasn’t until he was an upperclassman and through a printing error that Taylor was introduced to the world of theater.
“I got into a class that just happened to be open,” Taylor said. “It was an acting Shakespeare class. It was actually supposed to be open for upperclassmen who were theater majors. But since I was an upperclassman and upperclassmen get the privilege of picking their classes first, this class happened to be open to everyone. Apparently that was a mistake. when I got in it, the teacher was so confused for a moment. ‘Oh, who are you? How did you get in this class?’ I said, ‘It was open.’ The professor said, ‘Oh, how did that happen?’ Some administrative mistake at some point made the class open to everyone. She said, ‘Well, let’s see how well you do and then we can decide if you can stay in the class or not.’ I said it was fine with me. She gave me two monologues. To this day, they are some of my favorite monologues to rehearse, to teach and practice. One is from Hamlet. The other is from Henry. And when I took those monologues, I just approached them with the things that I had in rap and spoken word. Apparently that gave them enough of an interesting, unique quality that she loved it and I continued in the class.”
Theater was going to be Taylor’s chosen profession. He did some shows with Children’s Theater of Madison, Black Arts and the Skylight Music Theater. He has also been an educator for the Milwaukee Repertory Theater’s community outreach program. And her returned to Madison in fall 2022 to do a teaching stint with First Wave.
“The First Wave Program asked me to come back and teach class for their incoming freshman in the program,” Taylor said. “The opportunity came my way and I said yes and got to work creating a syllabus. I really enjoyed the syllabus I made. I think it was strong and a point of pride in my breadth of work. I returned to Madison just for one year to teach this class and it was Performance and Collaborative Art. All of the students in the class were of different artistic disciplines. We go the theater actors, some animators and visual artists, and some dancers. This class was using the principles of theater performance to enhance their performance, bringing it up from a high school level to a collegiate level and be able to teach them different concepts and methodologies in how to collaborate their art with each other.”
Teaching seemed to be a natural progression towards directing.
“I’m always big on the vision and being able to break down what is happening,” Taylor said. “In anything that I do or any analysis of what other people do, I am so infatuated with the pursuit of mastery in a craft, a career or a field. I think part of that mastery, what is involved, is being able to understand what is happening, being able to break down the choices and then being able to recreate and expand or recreate new experiences. For me, with that concept in mind, I naturally wanted to get my own vision. I naturally wanted to explain and present and help coordinate my own ideas. And so directing was just a natural progression of that. There are so many times that I have been in a show and we are in tech rehearsal. And I am watching my director work. And I am just picking apart different things that are happening here and there or I am watching and listening to my co-workers as they play a scene. And I’m just imagining how I would dive into a scene. Or there are times when I am in class and I am teaching different concepts. Or I am in workshops or I’m sitting and listening to professors and I’m imagining how they can get this idea across and help the concept.”
Taylor got his chance to direct with TBEY Art Center of Milwaukee. And then last summer, Taylor was called upon to direct The Meeting, a fictionalized account of a meeting between Malcolm X and D. Martin Luther King Jr. for the Milwaukee Black Arts Festival. And through his newly formed Nobleman Theater Troupe, Taylor is bringing The Meeting to Madison College for two performances.
“The Meeting is a rhetorically riveting play about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X,” Taylor said. “Historically, there isn’t any record that I found of Dr. King and Malcolm X having a conversation, an extensive actual conversation. There is the famous photo of them meeting and shaking hands. They passed each other, but they didn’t actually sit down and speak the way they spoke with several of their colleagues in the civil rights movement. So this play by Jeff Stetson imagines what that conversation would be like, imagines what that meeting between Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, and Malcolm X would be like. It takes their values and their philosophies and their mission and it pits them against each other as the two characters seek to find common ground. There’s a bit of battle that goes
on when they are trying to get under each other’s skin and bring the other person to their point of view and present their thoughts. And then there is that moment of respect comes in. Finding that common ground, we as an audience start to recognize a little more about who they are and what they stood for. It’s a rhetorically riveting play that I think audiences will enjoy.”
The focus of the play is on the two great historical figures and their profound visions for the Black community and beyond. And so the set is designed to rivet the audience’s attention on the actors playing Malcolm X and Dr. King.
“The idea is a minimal set,” Taylor said. “The set isn’t extravagant. It’s not something that you would immediately come in and have your socks knocked off over when you see it. But there is room to expand on the visual. The play happens in a hotel room. It’s in The Audubon, which is the same hotel where Malcolm X gave his final speech. It is set in that hotel on the seventh floor in the living room area of the hotel, in the common area. For this production, Nobleman is seeking to expand that a little bit. Part of the vision that I bring to this show is being able to juxtapose the realism with the abstract. I don’t want to give too much away. But while we will have the realism of the hotel room, I also want to expand that to a sort of outer realm outside of the hotel room. Now this hotel room is set in Harlem. And so there is a balcony that they walk out on. That is part of the script. They walk out on the balcony and look out onto Harlem. And I think there is room to expand how that can be presented on stage and theater. In a way, it’s kind of minimal, but we are trying to push the boundaries of it.”
While Dr. King and Malcolm X shared many of the same values and passion, they came from almost diametrically polar approaches to gain the freedom of Black people, one the more militant, the other focused on non-violence. And both were gifted orators who stood apart from the other notab le civil rights leaders of that era.
“Both of them were great orators,” Taylor said. “I think there is a reference that says that Dr. King gave over 2,000 speeches. He is definitely known as a great orator. Malcolm X was one too. We definitely need to not forget about Malcolm X. I think too often in our education and our learning of U.S. history, there is a tendency in our country to forget about Malcolm X. And there are several ideas as to why that is, several theories. But Malcolm X was definitely a speaker. He was a profound speaker. He was invited to universities like Harvard to speak. He spoke so profoundly that even in the Nation of Islam, he was recognized a lot of time as the face of the Nation of Islam more that, at the time, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. That was definitely a big part of who he was. Both Malcolm X and Dr. King were strong, profound speakers whose words continue to resonate even today.”
The two leaders also shared the value that it wasn’t about them. They were not into the cult of personality. They were in it for all the right reasons.
“Between the two of them, they didn’t want to be idolized,” Taylor said. “I think they understood that the idolatry would do a disservice to who they are and to Black people and the American people and the world. I think they both recognized two strong, necessary positions of the plight of Black people and the plight of the United States. Their missions were great. And I think Dr. King and Malcolm X recognized that. They recognized, ‘It’s not that I am great, but the mission is great. That is what drives me.’ And I think we will see that in this play. I think audiences will be able to recognize as the two characters think about and consider their personal histories, how their personal histories fuel their decisions and motivate their actions in the present.”
While Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were fixtures of the 1960s, their ideas and words are just as relevant today as they were 60 years ago. The Meeting will bring them to life and allow their words to once again echo along ther arc of justice.