E-mail a friendDaniel Beaty
airdate May 16, 2008
An award-winning playwright, actor, singer and composer, Daniel Beaty has performed around the world, including at the White House, the Apollo and The Kennedy Center. His one-man play, Emergency, has been reviewed as a "brilliant, spellbinding performance." Beatty began writing and giving inspirational speeches in third grade and, by sixth grade, was speaking all over the U.S. He overcame a troubled childhood in Dayton, OH to graduate from Yale and earn his master's from the American Conservatory Theatre.
Actor-playwright explains how he keeps his focus for a 43-character one-man show. (2:35)
Full Interview. (10:38)
Daniel Beaty
Tavis: Daniel Beaty is a talented actor, playwright, singer and poet whose critically acclaimed one-man show, "Emergency," has been enjoying a very successful run here in Los Angeles following its sold-out debut in New York City. No surprise, the show has been extended to June 1 here at the Geffen Playhouse. That would be out in Westwood. In just a few minutes, he'll give us a sample of this extraordinary performance where he plays, what? Forty-eight?
Daniel Beaty: Forty-three.
Tavis: Forty - oh (laughter). Oh, only forty-three. A one-man show where he plays forty-three different characters. I've seen this and I was sitting there praying for you the whole time that you didn't screw up the characters and the voices. How do you keep forty-three people in check?
Beaty: It is a total faith walk. When I create a character, I create it from the inside out. So I find out what the character's heart is, what they're really passionate about, what they really care about, and then it creates a voice and it creates a body. I have what I call a truth meter, so once the character is living inside of me authentically, it's there and I just sort of trust and surrender and I play.
Tavis: Tell me range of these forty-three characters in this one-man play after you tell me what the overall play is about.
Beaty: Great. So "Emergency" is the story of a slave ship that rises in front of the Statute of Liberty in present-day New York City and it sends the city into a whirlwind. It happens on the same day the competition for America's next top poet is happening, sort of a spoof on the reality theme concept. The father of one of the poets is a scholar who's lost his mind because of a very painful experience that's happened in the family, and he climbs on top of the slave ship.
Tavis: So he jumps out into the Hudson, swims to the ship and climbs on the ship?
Beaty: And he ends up being possessed by an ancestor who sent the ship on this day to tell a message to America about our collective need to come together and help heal our world and to tell the past to our children so that we all know the true story of who we are.
Tavis: And the range of these forty-three characters then?
Beaty: It's everything from this ghost of a four hundred year old African Chief to a little girl from the Projects, and I play everything in between, male, female, old, young, gay, straight. It's a real picture of the whole African American community.
Tavis: How do you go about writing a one-man show that has so many characters? Can I just be honest? If I were writing a one-man show for Tavis, I'd have like maybe two characters (laughter). Why make yourself work that hard is my question, Daniel? You're supposed to work smart, not hard.
Beaty: Right. Well, one of the things that people say is that, you know, they don't want to see one-person shows a lot of times. It's like somebody's up there talking about the painful things that happened in their lives, and I've had those experiences like everybody's had. But I really feel like one of the reasons why we don't look at important issues in our society is because they're unbearable.
People are just trying to get by in life, so I wanted to tell a story that was really entertaining. So by playing all these wacky characters and seeing them come through one person, I'm really able to make people laugh, make them cry and, at the same point, get these really deeper concepts in there.
Tavis: Now the Geffen Playhouse here in Los Angeles, out in Westwood, very well known, a lot of great stuff on that stage for many, many years. When I came to see it, which is why I wanted you on the show because I was just so impressed by what I saw - in all the years I've been doing this show on PBS, I have never seen a one-man show that I really just was anxious to expose to the audience. As a matter of fact, I just saw "Thurgood Marshall."
Beaty: Oh, wow. Laurence Fishburne.
Tavis: Fishburne, yeah. Fishburne was in this chair a few weeks ago before he started.
Beaty: All right, this is good (laughter). This is a good place to follow.
Tavis: Fishburne's "Thurgood Marshall" is very well received on Broadway. I really wanted to expose what you're doing. I say all that to say that I was shocked and, then again, not when I came to see you because there were so many white folk in the audience that night at the Geffen Playhouse. I know there are a lot of supporters of the theater, but I know the subject matter.
Beaty: Absolutely.
Tavis: So I was shocked and, then again, not. You tell me how the play has been received and who's coming to see this thing about a slave ship in the Hudson (laughter).
Beaty: Well, you know, the audience has been predominantly white and I would really love all of America, the diversity of our country, to come out to see it because it really is for all of us. You know, as Black people, we constantly have to view the world through the lens of a culture that is not necessarily our specific experience and we just learn to do it. I mean, W.E.B. Du Bois talks about it in terms of double consciousness and our stories are as universal as anyone's.
So I'm telling a very specifically African American story, but everyone of any race can find themselves in this story. That's what we're finding and these audiences are on their feet and people are standing after crying and people come up on walkers, you know, a young girl will come up.
There was actually a family that came up on the celebration of a Jewish holiday and they came to the show instead and they felt there was such a resonance. So there's all different types of people coming.
Tavis: Tell me right quick the role that now Academy Award nominee, Ruby Dee, played in helping get this thing out there.
Beaty: I always say Ruby Dee is my angel and I soar on her wings. She saw me when I was off-off-off Broadway (laughter) in New York doing my show. She was up on her feet at the end with tears in her eyes and she said, "Everybody needs to see this. This should be in stadiums." She and her husband, Ossie Davis, before he passed, have just been incredible and have taken me all over the place and introduced me.
Tavis: That's how I came to discover you. I got a call from Miss Ruby one day. When Miss Ruby calls, what you gonna do anyway?
Beaty: Right.
Tavis: She called me and said, "Tavis, there's a young man named Daniel Beaty who you must see." She made me promise I'd come see you and, hence, I did. Let me close before I give you the time to give us a little sampling of what these forty-three characters are that you play. Let me just tell you. I don't want to give it away. I'm just gonna leave it at this. The character, which I'm sure they'll see in just a second, a little bit of Clarissa.
Beaty: Yes.
Tavis: The journey and the story that unfolds about Clarissa in this play? You talk about tears? Had me in absolute tears. I had no idea that that's where that story was going.
Beaty: Well, I have tremendous respect for you. So to hear you say that and to have me on here means a great deal for me. You're one of my heroes, so it means a lot to me.
Tavis: Well, you're kind to say that. So now, did I tease you? You got to go see what happens to Clarissa, if nothing else. But it's a wonderful play with all these forty-three characters. Now Daniel is gonna bless us with the opening monologue, the opening scene from this play playing now at the Geffen Playhouse here in Los Angeles. Get there if you can. It's called "Emergency." We're back in just a moment. Stay with us.
From his widely acclaimed one-man play, "Emergency," here is Daniel Beaty performing the show's opening monologue. Enjoy, good night from Los Angeles, and keep the faith. Daniel?
[Live Performance]
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