Langston Hughes’ Poem The Black Clown Begins New York Premiere

Adapted from the Langston Hughes poem, The Black Clown by Davóne Tines & Michael Schachter begins performances today at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival.

Performed by bass-baritone Tines in the title role plus an ensemble of twelve, The Black Clown evolved from a song cycle that Tines and composer Michael Schachter created based on the poem and Hughes’s corresponding stage direction-like corresponding description of “The Mood.” 

Directed by Zack Winokur, with choreography by Chanel DaSilva and musical direction by Jaret Landon, The Black Clown is a music theater experience that draws on vaudeville, gospel, opera, jazz, New Orleans brass band, and spirituals to bring to the stage Langston Hughes’s poem about a Black man’s resilience against a legacy of oppression. 

“When I first read The Black Clown it was like receiving a revelation that gave name to the experience of my existence as a Black man in America that I had never been able to articulate. I identified with this clown whose forced role represents a wholesale relegation of Black existence to something less than human, a farce of a being, a fool only playing at being real. Hughes names this existence then situates it within the larger context of history to show that the oppression of the present is inextricably linked to the failures of the past. Hughes’s clown is able to transcend his oppression by calling on the strength and spirit of his entire ancestry.  He connects to a greater mandate from all of time and the universe that humanity is inexorably his to claim. This was a story I knew I needed to live and relive and share.” says Tines

Wednesday, July 24, 2019 at 7:30 pm

Thursday, July 25, 2019 at 7:30 pm

Friday, July 26, 2019 at 7:30 pm

Saturday, July 27, 2019 at 7:30 pm

Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College

A production of American Repertory Theater at Harvard University

With the kind cooperation of the Estate of Langston Hughes