DENNIS COURTNEY "Ethel Waters" Press

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His Eye is on the Sparrow, Musical Bio of Ethel Waters, Premieres in Florida Oct. 7
By Kenneth Jones
07 Oct 2005

Ethel Waters: His Eye is on the Sparrow, a new "musical biography" about the late actress and singer Ethel Waters, gets its world premiere at Florida Studio Theatre in Sarasota Oct. 7.

Larry Parr penned the work, borrowing the title from Waters' autobiography and from the spiritual song of the same name.

Michael Sebastian is musical director, Dennis Courtney directs. The solo show features one of two actresses at each performance — Jannie Jones or Chaundra Cameron.

"Born in 1896 to a teenage rape victim, Ethel Waters began her life in abject poverty, growing up in the slums of Philadelphia and the surrounding area," according to production notes. "She never lived in one place for more than a few weeks at a time."

Waters was blessed, however, with a singing voice, and would work her way through the black vaudeville circuit to Broadway and into Hollywood. She was known as a singer of jazz, blues and show music, but also for her strong Christian faith — she sang spirituals and gospel on tour with Billy Graham.

Less earthy and bluesy than songbirds Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey, Waters was considered a sort of refined bridge between those singers and Ethel Waters and Lena Horne.

Songs associated with Waters include "Taking a Chance on Love," "Stormy Weather," "Harlem on My Mind," "Dinah," "Heat Wave," "Sweet Georgia Brown," and "St. Louis Blues."

Her Broadway credits included As Thousands Cheer, At Home Abroad, Cabin in the Sky and the Carson McCullers play, The Member of the Wedding. She was in the film versions of both Cabin in the Sky and The Member of the Wedding.

She was Academy Award nominated for her work in the 1949 film "Pinky."

In 1953, she appeared in a Broadway solo specialty show, At Home With Ethel Waters.

Larry Parr, author of Ethel Waters: His Eye is on the Sparrow, is a Sarasota resident. Parr's plays have been produced in regional theatres, earning him a number of awards and honors. Hi-Hat-Hattie, his musical biography of Hattie McDaniel, won Kansas City's Drama Desk Award for Best Musical and the American Cinema Foundation awarded him their first prize for the screenplay version.

Parr has twice won the Southern Appalachian Repertory Theater's Annual Play Competition with My Castle's Rockin (a musical biography of Alberta Hunter) and Sundew (which was produced by FST in Summer 2005). In 1995, he became the first white playwright produced in the history of the National Black Theatre Festival with the production of My Castle's Rockin'.

Jannie Jones returns to FST after appearing in last year's Mainstage opener It Ain't Nothin' But the Blues, will appear as Waters in the new work. Jones originated the role of Alberta Hunter in Parr's My Castle's Rockin'.

Chaundra Cameron, who has appeared in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom at The Source Theater, Crowns at St. Louis Rep and the Cincinnati Playhouse, and Sophisticated Ladies at Pioneer Theatre, plays Ethel at some performances.

"[When audiences] come and see the show, they will see Jannie or Chaundra, putting their unique take on the role," director Courtney said in production notes. "An understudy is required to emulate the main actor's performance. But when you see Ethel Waters you will see Jannie's take or Chaundra's take. So, returning audiences will have the opportunity to see a different show the second time."

While Jones and Cameron resemble each other enough to be mistaken for sisters, according to FST, "they are definitely two individual women, each with a different voice, style, and presence onstage."

"This show has two scores," musical director Michael Sebastian said in notes. "Each score had to be right for the individual actress."

Every show has the same songs — but in two different keys.

Ethel Waters: His Eye is on the Sparrow was featured as a staged reading in FST's Florida Playwrights Festival in 2002. The reading was directed by Dennis Courtney, returns to direct the premiere.

Performances continue to Dec. 3. Ethel Waters: His Eye is on the Sparrow is presented at FST's Keating Theatre. For more information, call (941) 366-9000 or visit www.fst2000.org.

Known as Sarasota's Contemporary Theatre, Florida Studio Theatre was founded in 1973 by Jon Spelman. Starting out as a small touring company, FST traveled to places such as migrant camps and prisons. The company eventually settled down into a permanent home, acquiring the former Woman's Club building — now renamed the Keating Theatre. In the years that followed, Florida Studio Theatre grew to present in its three theatre venues: the Keating Theatre, the Goldstein Cabaret and its newest space, the Gompertz Theatre.

Divining Ethel Waters

One-woman show at FST celebrates a trailblazing career

By CHARLIE HUISKING
charlie.huisking@heraldtribune.com

Finding one performer with the talent and charisma to play pioneering black singer and actress Ethel Waters is a difficult enough challenge. So Florida Studio Theatre officials feel fortunate they found two.

Jannie Jones and Chaundra Cameron will share the title role in "Ethel Waters: His Eye Is on the Sparrow." The one-woman show, written by Sarasota playwright Larry Parr, will have its world premiere this week at FST.

"This is an incredibly demanding role, physically and emotionally," said director Dennis Courtney. "It's not just the vocal demands. We follow Ethel through this amazing emotional journey.

"We felt it would be better to have two actresses alternate the role. That way, each of them can come in fully loaded. They get time to breathe and recover."

Born in 1896, Waters overcame poverty and racism to become a nightclub headliner, a recording artist, a Broadway star and an Oscar-nominated actress.

Cameron and Jones are good friends who are thrilled to have the opportunity to portray the trailblazing performer. They describe themselves as collaborators, even though they won't be onstage in the same performance.

"Dennis has had us view each other's rehearsal process," Cameron said. "That's made for a wonderful, cohesive experience. I'm able to pick up on some things Jannie is trying, and she can see what I'm doing."

Cameron's regional theater credits include "Sophisticated Ladies," "Menopause: The Musical" and "The Devil's Music," in which she starred as Bessie Smith.

Jones is familiar to local audiences for her performances in several FST productions, including "Blues in the Night" and "All Night Strut." She also played Alberta Hunter in another of Parr's one-woman shows, "My Castle's Rockin'." She's just completed two years with the Broadway production of "The Full Monty."

Jones said she's pleased that she and Cameron can put their individual stamps on the role.

"We don't have to be carbon copies of one another," she said. "I'm allowed to do Ethel Waters through Jannie Jones' body, through my own experiences. I can explore how I would react to what she went through.

"And being able to watch how my friend Chaundra is exploring the role is wonderful. I'll see the way she makes a certain transition, for example, and I'll think, 'That works for me too, girl.'"

Waters, the daughter of a teenage rape victim, grew up in the slums of Philadelphia. She began performing on the black vaudeville circuit in 1917, but first attracted wide attention in the Cotton Club in Harlem. There, she performed "Stormy Weather," a song Harold Arlen had written for her.

Waters became a Broadway star in Irving Berlin's "As Thousands Cheer," and later performed in "Cabin in the Sky" and "The Member of the Wedding," both on Broadway and in subsequent film versions.

In 1949, Waters earned an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress in "Pinky," playing a black woman who passes as white.

Parr said he's been intrigued by Waters ever since he read her autobiography, "His Eye Is on the Sparrow," when he was a teenager. The only black child in his high school loaned him the book.

"The journey (Waters) took through her life fascinated me," he said. "How could someone start out in such low circumstances and reach the heights of her profession? How could she overcome racism to find true happiness and wholeness in her life?"

This is Parr's third one-woman show about black female entertainers, following "My Castle's Rockin'" and "Hi Hat Hattie," a play about actress Hattie McDaniel.

"I'm really a devastatingly gorgeous and alluring black woman trapped in a playwright's body," Parr joked.

The play contains 16 musical numbers associated with Waters, including the hymn "His Eye Is on the Sparrow," "Stormy Weather," "Sweet Georgia Brown," "Dinah," "Heat Wave" and "The Joint Is Jumpin'."

Between songs, Waters reminisces about her life and career. But director Courtney said Parr avoids the pitfalls of the one-person show genre.

"He's created a play about emotional memory," Courtney said. "It's not just a laundry list of, 'Then I did this and sang that.'"

Cameron and Jones feel honored to be able to introduce Waters to audience members who may not know her story.

"I admire her courage and determination," Jones said. "She wouldn't settle for the usual black roles, where you just said 'No ma'am' and 'Yes'm.' She paved the way for people like me to be on Broadway. I'm resting on her shoulders, and I'm grateful for that."