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[0:04] Robert Bannon: Are you ready? It's the round table with me, Robert Bannon. Welcome to the round table, everybody. My name is Robert Bannon. You're listening to this on Broadway World over here on the Broadway Podcast Network, iHeartSpotify. And I'm excited because I love working with creators and I love talking to them about the journey and how they create and what they do. Isn't it? I mean, how do they make a show? How does Dust of Egypt, the story of Soujourner Truth, coming to the Sheen Center in the month of March come to be? Well, we've got two very important special people. Karin wrote it, Rhonda's directing it, and the rest is going to be history. And you could get a ticket for less than 60 bucks in New York. That just does not happen. So what better way to celebrate Black History Month or the legend and the incredible work that is this story than with the creators and the directors of it now. Rhonda and Karin, welcome to the show.

[0:57] Karin Abarbanel: Thank you.

[0:58] Rhonda PASSION Hansome: Great to be here.

[0:59] Robert Bannon: So Karin, I guess it starts with you because you wrote this. So when did you want to be a writer? And why? Why did you say like I could write this story?

[1:08] Karin Abarbanel: Oh my gosh, that's a great question. When did I want to be a writer? I think in third grade, I figured out that I wanted to be a writer, you know. I just had actually a wonderful teacher and I loved to write poetry and I wrote some poetry for her, and you know, she loved it, and my family was always very supportive about my scribbling and writing, and so I just always, always wanted to be a writer. Fast forward, but I was not a playwright until later. I pursued, you know, writing as a career. I've written some nonfiction books, I've written lots of different material, but I had never written a play, as PASSION will be sure to tell you, or Rhonda. So I actually, for me, this journey with Sojourner all began in a bookstore.

I was on vacation in upstate New York, and I was not far from where Sojourner grew up as a slave. Now, this was one of the things that was so interesting to me. I did not even realize actually that there were northern slaves. But in the Hudson River Valley, there were small Dutch slave holdings, and they would have five slaves, ten slaves, whatever. So she was very unusual in some ways because she was a northern slave. She grew up in the north. And I'm wandering through this bookstore, enjoying myself, of course, as writers do in a bookstore, and I happened to see this pile of books. This was a big old place, like an old barn, and I happened to see a book that said Soujourner Truth on it. And it was a young adult biography, I later found out.

Of course, I bought the book. And I was just fascinated. I thought, Soujourner Truth, that is an amazing name. Now I had never heard of her. I didn't really have women's studies at the time, you know. So I had never really heard that name, but I'm leafing through this book. I'm just fascinated. And the first thing I found out is she gave herself that name. She completely reinvented herself. She was a slave up north. She was freed in New York State in about 1827. And much later, she went on a kind of a lecture circuit and gave herself the name Soujourner Truth. So I thought first thought was, wow, anyone who could give themselves a name like that has got to be an amazing person. And then my second thought was I don't know why.

Wouldn't it be incredible to put her up on the stage? Now, at this state point, I had never written a play so I kept thinking I want to do this so I took a playwrighting course in the city and you know we had I was developing the play over time took a long time and we had some readings but um you know I took it to a certain point and then I didn't I wasn't quite happy with the ending I didn't quite know what to do with it I didn't have a lot of theater contacts to workshop it so I put it aside and it was kind of on my computer luckily was still there and I started working on another big project that I've been very involved in. Anyway fast forward to like 2022 and I'm talking to a friend of mine, Reg Gaines, he's a performance artist poet he did the lyrics for bringing the noise bringing the funk and we were working on a little project together and somehow for some reason I don't even know why to this day I mentioned to him I had a play on Soujourner Truth that I'd written this month he said you have a play you know you should submit it to a festival you should do something with that so I we talked about it he gave me some idea I went up in my office spent about two weeks just revising it I came up with an end that is in the current version that I feel is very dramatic and wraps the play up well and I submitted it and we took a couple of festivals and the New York Theater festival took it which was wonderful because they gave us a three day run a lot of these festivals only one day you do all that work with the guys for one day but this was three days.

And you know, we um Rhonda came on board. Um, we had a wonderful, I had a wonderful little production company, Domani Productions. Hannah Beck and Sean Hopeland are friends of mine, and they came to my rescue and did all the you know the help with auditioning, finding the actors and actresses, and PASSION came through Domani Productions, and so we were off and running. We did what everybody does. We did an Indiegogo. We raised about $9,500 for that first set of three shows, and PASSION, you can take it from there, you know.

[5:58] Robert Bannon: Passion, I have to say before we before you tell me about the show, Rhonda PASSION Hansome, everybody. You're my you must be my Jersey neighbor because I'm a Jersey boy. And um, if you've done if you know anything about some Jersey art, PASSION has worked with Melba on Melba's show that Melba Moore was just here a couple weeks ago, and she a couple times, me and we that's my home girl. And then PASSION also worked for NJPAC. I did taught musical theater at NJPAC for years, and PASSION has worked there for years as well. And so you've been in these streets being an artist in Jersey, New York and around the East Coast and the country for a hot minute. So projects come to you. Why did this project speak to you?

[6:42] Rhonda PASSION Hansome: I always say this project spoke to me immediately because of Karin's writing. As a director, I delight in original pieces that stimulate my imagination and her writing. And I tell her this almost every single day. As soon as I read the piece, I could see it. I could see it. And for me in the theater, the largest part of it is the visuals for me. And I could see those things immediately. And I loved the way that I came into contact with it because I also do stand-up comedy, and a comedian friend of mine had invited me to a reading of a piece of his that he was going to submit to Just for Laughs. And I just casually mentioned to one of the Domani Productions people, Hannah, that I had just been directing at the Berkeley College School of Music.

And she says, Oh, you're a director, you might like to read this piece. I read it, I fell in love with it, and they were going to take it to the festival where the New York Theater Festival, where we had three sold-out shows. Right. And we were nominated for best director, best production, and one best actress. And because of Karin's just vibrant personality and persistence, her tenacity, we have been the little play that could. After that wonderful reception in the festival, we went on to do a month-long series of readings at the Sheen Center, who fell in love with us. I mean, how lucky could we be? The first thing the Sheen Center is just a fabulous venue down at 18 Bleaker Street, and they have a fantastic proscenium stage, but we are in their fabulous black box.

We did a what was it like four portions? Yeah, a workshop in their black box, and again we were sold out. And the reception was just so beautiful. And now we are back there at the Sheen Center for four weeks of full months. How exciting. And you know, I've been directing for a very long time, but there's only been one other production where I have just seen it move and blossom over year after year after year. And I tell you, I you said I've been in here for a hot minute, and I have been, and at this point in my trajectory to have something that is so well received and so beautiful, it is such it's it feels rewarding.

[9:41] Robert Bannon: 16 shows. Before we carry on, I want you to know you can get your tickets. You can go to dustofeg.com, you can go to sheencenter.org and you can get your tickets. It is going to be from March 5th to the 29th. 16 shows. The tickets are available, they make it affordable. It's a gorgeous theater. You go downtown from 60 to 25. You can get a ticket for 20. You can't even get a pizza in New York for 25. And you can come see this show. So, Karin, this baby has been yours before you even knew Rhonda.

[10:08] Karin Abarbanel: Yeah.

[10:08] Robert Bannon: So this baby's yours. You write on it. You're in Google Docs or Word or however you write, and you're writing and typing and editing away. And then you meet a director and you meet a theater company, and then you work with them, but you give your baby up and trust it to somebody else. So, what is the collaborative process for you? What's it like to kind of hand this over?

[10:27] Karin Abarbanel: That is such a wonderful question. And I must I'll just start by saying working with PASSION and our wonderful cast, our creative team are fabulous. We have a fabulous young producer, Imani Simpson. She's amazing. She's helped us, you know, bring all of this forward. It's really been a highlight of my career. I, you know, as a writer, you know, you sit in your office, you write, you know, you're writing alone. I'm not collaborating, you know, on the writing with anyone, it's just on my own. And then, you know, you go out into the world, and it was kind of amazing because I was so excited when we got into the New York Theater Festival. I thought this is amazing. My play, and then my next thought was, oh my goodness, I'm a playwright.

Now I'm a producer, a co-producer, you know. I have to get this play up and running, and how do I do that? And of course, Domani Productions and Rhonda, you know, everybody came to my rescue, and we just did a fabulous job of you know getting the play up for the theater festival, and really it's just been a dream come true. I just, you know, I love PASSION. She talked about my you know, imagery and how she could visualize, but she as a director has such a wonderful director's eye, you know, she's brought so much staging imagery to the play, things I would never know, you know, mirroring and moments of pacing that slow things down so you get the emotional import of the words, you know, and it's something that it's not a gift I have, and she has that gift, and I love to see her, I love to see the show when it's up and on the stage, but I also have it really enjoyed, like at the theater festival.

I just loved you know the process and watching the actors and PASSION work through, you know, some of the different scenes and how they handled it differently and it changed because of that. It's been wonderful. I must say this is sort of a miraculous outcome for me because I do not think you know, in my wildest dreams, I could not have entrusted this play to a more wonderful group of creatives, you know.

[12:51] Rhonda PASSION Hansome: Passion are beautiful cast, they're just amazing. And I do want to say that five out of the seven, there were seven people, seven characters in the theater festival, our first version. Five out of those seven have come back for this new production, this four-week production at the Sheen Center. And that is amazing. You know, our wonderful Sojourner, she won Best Actress at the Theater Festival out of hundreds of female actresses in that particular session, the Winterfest. She won Best Actress. Her performance is just amazing, and also the young Belle, Jade Kane. I mean, everyone, Gina, who plays Mrs. Gedney, everyone in the cast is wonderful, and it's everyone has sort of stayed with it as we've taken it step by step a little higher.

And it's just so amazing. It's always been a dream of mine to give this wonderful cast and PASSION a four-week run where they could really get out on stage, develop their play and their part, hopefully get reviews that are going to be wonderful, and you know, awards we can submit them for. So it's really been a wonderful, wonderful journey. Sojourner and I have been on a long journey, and this part of the journey is just amazing. So I love that. It's beautiful.

[14:19] Robert Bannon: So PASSION, for you, I was gonna ask you about the actress who plays Soujourner Truth because as a history teacher in a public school, we are taking away and eroding even more history taught in classrooms. And even in the best of, I'm not trying to be political, but even in the best of our education system, the amount of time we probably study Soujourner Truth in any public classroom is probably limited to a page, a paragraph, a footnote, a person who picks a project. I didn't know she had a son; I didn't know she had a five-year-old. So how important is it for us to learn about the ancestry of her and who is playing her? What's it like to take on the role or the actress who has the part?

[15:09] Rhonda PASSION Hansome: Well, a second part first, Desi is just incredible. In fact, when I went to hear Mark Ricardoni's reading at Domani Productions, Desi was in the room. I thought, "Who's this other Black woman in the room?" We didn't even talk then, and she ended up auditioning, and she blew us away. She is fantastic, and it's a very heavy role, and she does it beautifully, and people will absolutely enjoy her. But the reason why Soujourner Truth's story is so important right now is because history is literally being taken out of books, museums, institutions, and it is so important for us to raise up our icons, our women, and especially this is running during Women's History Month. It is so important to recognize our icons.

And in this icon, what I like about Karin's play is that we look at the social justice warrior as a human being, as a working mother in search of her child. And so it becomes relatable on so many different levels. You know, it's not just about one thing; it's not just about race relations here, but she's also such a spiritual person. And because she is such a spiritual person, it fits in so beautifully with the mission of the Sheen Center. So you can understand why they would love having this kind of production there. I would say to all of your audience that it is family entertainment for mature teenagers up to grandma and grandpa. Everyone can enjoy this. There's something for everyone to be engaged with, feeling Karin's mission, which is to uplift and inform, which I feel we are all working towards manifesting in this March run at the Sheen Center.

[17:39] Robert Bannon: That's so exciting. If you watch The Blacklist, you may have seen Desi Waters; she did a whole arc and did a whole bunch of five episodes or more on the show. She gets to be in this show with you all. So it's a good cast, real pros, all these pros out here working on these in these streets. So Karin, she talked about your mission. What do you hope people... It's a history lesson, but it's more than that because people hear that and they think, "Oh, I'm gonna be bored; I'm going back to school." You really dissect what she is as a mother, as an activist, as a trailblazer, as a human being. So what is the goal? What do you hope people leave and feel after they spend 90 minutes with you?

[18:18] Karin Abarbanel: Well, I will say you summed it up beautifully, Robert. I mean, this is what you'd call a memory play. It shifts back and forth between Sojourner, the kind of celebrity, well-known, sort of the iconic Sojourner that we sort of know, and her younger slave self, Belle Dumont. That was her slave name. So we see it, it moves back and forth between those two characters, and things happen; scenes are enacted within that framework. And I will say that, you know, the play for me grew out... I didn't really say this earlier, but the play grew out to me is really about, at its heart, a mother's heart. I am the mother of a son myself, and when I read this story, this little-known true story about her son and how her five-year-old son was sold and then taken down south, which was illegal in New York State, one of the few states where it was illegal, I just, you know, it just touched my heart deeply.

And I just really decided that was the story I wanted to tell, the mother's story, the search of a mother and her determination and resilience and courage in fighting this heroic battle with nothing. She had nothing, no money, no friends, no, you know, nothing. And right? And but you know, she had a voice. She didn't have that; she had a voice, and she used it. And, you know, to me, that is just so inspiring. So, what I really want people to come out of the play, first of all, I want them to see this person, as PASSION said so beautifully, as a human being, as someone, this young mother who struggled mightily and overcame tremendous odds to rescue her son. And I also think every time we see stories, especially true stories, that sort of show someone doing something remarkable against enormous odds, I just think it uplifts us, it encourages us, it gives us all heart.

And it makes us feel that we can kind of tap into our inner strength, just as Sojourner did. And I think, you know, today with everything that's happening, I always think of this as a timely and a timeless story. It's a story of a mother's search for her son to rescue her son. But it's also, you know, very timely because of all the upheaval we're experiencing now, and all the division, and you know, she really had a sort of a message of, you know, that we're here to rescue each other. You know, we're here to look beyond all of these narrow ways that we look at each other, and we're here to recognize each other's humanity and to rescue each other. And I just hope that people will leave the theater feeling uplifted, they'll feel, you know, hopeful about the world, they'll admire this wonderful person, they'll know more about her.

A lot of people have said to me, which is so satisfying, I'm sure you'd enjoy, Robert, as a teacher, that you know, after seeing the play, they've gone back and they've done some more searching to find out about Sojourner, and she's such a remarkable person. So for me, that's a wonderful outcome. But I think those are the things, you know, and of course I want people to be entertained, and I believe this play does that.

[22:10] Rhonda PASSION Hansome: So I love it. I love that. So PASSION, for you, all the hours you put sitting in that black box and getting the lights right and the costumes right and the actions and the circumstances and notes and the adjustments you give to these incredible actors, it all leads to this opening night and it leads to this run. What is your intention for this run? What are you hoping it adds to this world?

[22:34] Rhonda PASSION Hansome: I am just so thrilled to have now this experience of bringing this to the people over an expanded period of time. I have the opportunity to expand my vision. And when I have access to beautiful, the cast is absolutely gorgeous. When I have access to beautiful, talented people who allow me to play with them in the theatrical sense, as the whole body is their instrument, my imagination and my vision expands. And I hope to see in this iteration a little more expansion of my vision. Robert, you have to understand this isn't the end for Dust of Egypt. We're actually just in the beginning. We want to take it so many different places. And as a director, I get the fun of seeing this little play that could expand and blossom every time we look at it.

This is just the first run. It's gonna have a life after this; it's gonna be in other places, other theaters, other iterations. Other places will be able to do it around the country or around the world and get this story out. And that's what makes it so moving and exciting. So get in on the ground level, ground floor, tell your friends about it, make sure you know about it. It's Black History Month, it's Women's History Month, it's a crazy time in the world. It's a story like this that needs to inspire you that you can overcome great obstacles and do incredible things in your own life. So if you're looking for something to do and you want to be able to see something incredible and brand new, March 5th to the 29th for 16 performances, right at the Sheen Center and 18 Bleaker Street.

Go to dustofegypt.com to get your tickets. I love a 90-minute show without an intermission because I can go home and go to bed because I'm old. And you're gonna see some incredible acting, directing, and writing up there on that stage or screen. Maybe that's next; who knows?

[24:39] Robert Bannon: Congrats, break legs, you all. Have an incredible run. This is an incredible story, an incredible story of the both of you telling this incredible story of her. And that is incredible. And we're so excited you spent some time with us. So everyone get your tickets. Thanks for being here.