Imani Guy Duckette. Photo by BreeAnne Clowdus.
Janine Nabers thinks her creative process is slow.
“I really do meditate for a really long time before I write,” she says of her plays in a recent phone interview. “It takes about two years to figure it out, and then another year to write it, and another few years to go back to it. They are like raising children, they take a while.”
Okay. But if Ms. Nabers believes her pacing to be plodding, then we may all need to reaccess our work ethic.
Look at her body of work: Welcome to Jesus, Annie Bosh is Missing, A Swell in the Ground, West of the Willow Tree, Jubilee. Let’s not forget the numerous fellowships Nabers was awarded across the country.
Broadway Black is talking to Ms. Nabers today because of Serial Black Face, a play that already won the 2014 Yale Drama Series prize. That same play is premiering at the Actor’s Express in Atlanta. The show runs through April 24th.
The play drops in on 1979 Atlanta during the hysteria of the infamous “Atlanta child murders” where at least 28 people were killed over a two-year period.
Serial is both personal and universal to the playwright.
“With the Atlanta child murders I was drawn and captivated by that subject and why no one was talking about it and how a mother could let a stranger get near her child,” Nabers says.
“The murders are a backdrop and what’s happening in front of you is a small drama. I grew up in Houston. Katrina was very real to my family. So there is this small emotional story that pulls you in, set against this big backdrop.”
The work is wrought with flawed characters with deep emotional fault lines. Newcomer Imani Guy Duckette, who plays Latoya, jumped into the role.
“I like her,” Duckette says of Latoya, in a phone interview. “I understand everything that she’s doing and where she’s coming from.” This is
This is Duckette’s professional debut. Since being cast in Serial Black Face, Duckette is now juggling countless tasks, the way only young people can juggle them: school, homework, rehearsal, life.
“It’s hard,” Duckette says, “Sometimes my mom has to help me by making meals and stuff.”
Duckette’s mom is actress/singer/producer Jasmine Guy, best known of course as Whitley Gilbert in “A Different World.” Ms. Guy was right at the premiere and offered this to say of her daughter and the production:
“I am very proud,” Guy says. “This is a great play. I am proud of her (Imani) for having the guts to do it. And I hope people come out and support.”
While Duckette walks towards her future on the stage, Nabers says that her shift to writing came from an inspirational note as a teen.
“I was a track runner for a number of years,” Nabers says. “I was obsessed with Jackie Joyner-Kersee and wanted to be her.”
Nabers wrote her idol a long letter and was surprised when the Olympic Gold medalist wrote her back.
“She told me to consider being a writer if I didn’t become a runner. Once it became clear to me that I didn’t have the legs to compete I picked up a theater course. From then on I was kind of swept away by plays.”
Like many writers, Nabers made her way to New York for grad school. But unlike many other people, the young playwright seems to have a very healthy perspective on her experience.
“For me being in New York was necessary and going to school was necessary,” she says. “I had a sheltered experience growing up, and I have this “otherness” that I wanted to explore. So I really wanted the opportunity to be in a room and focus on writing.”
“My New York experience was having professors who have done it, some had prosperous careers and some people were still struggling to make ends meet and had to take jobs to maintain a living. It’s interesting because being around it allowed me to hear them, and see shows. It was incredible being in New York during that time.”
Nabers also took her career into her own hands while in the Big Apple.
“I had coffee with every playwright and actor I admired,” she says. “I said yes to everything. If you’re young and have nothing but time and someone wants a ten-minute play – say yes. If someone wants you to come in and take a meeting – say yes.”
Now Nabers has expanded her palette. She relocated to Los Angeles and is working on the television show “unREAL.” Her experience with the screenwriting has impacted her as a writer.
“I think it’s helped a lot. There is a part of my brain that is a playwright, a TV writer and a film writer,” she explains. “And the great thing about TV is you have an idea and you write it down, it’s in an actor’s hands and their shooting it.”
As Nabers makes her way to Atlanta for the premiere of the show, we asked her for some advice for young writers trying to navigate their careers.
“I would say to not be afraid to humiliate yourself, really putting yourself out into the world,” Nabers says, “and being useful to other people, part of growing is being useful to other people as a process.”
For tickets to Serial Black Face click here.
