They Knew What They Wanted

"'Curiouser and curiouser' cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment, she quite forgot how to speak good English)." Lewis Carroll's famous words from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland have taken on new meaning as the world struggles to come to grips with a pandemic while a befuddled, babbling, belligerent baboon flings his feces across the Oval Office. With Donald Trump's misguided attempt to goose the stock market and reassure corporate America with the wit and wisdom of Jared Kushner and Stephen Miller, it's beginning to look as if the world has been turned upside down and inside out.

Calls for social distancing have caused theaters, opera companies, sports arenas, churches, colleges and many other organizations to cancel upcoming events. The tourism industry (hotels, airlines, cruise ships, restaurants, and convention centers) is experiencing a major financial crisis. Hand sanitizer has become as precious as diamonds and, for those at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder, life's cruelties seem sharper and ever more humiliating.


As fear of the coronavirus's spread through community contact gets ratcheted up, it's been interesting to note some of the reactions by people in the arts world. From Justin Davidson's piece in New York Magazine ("Close The Theaters. Close The Opera. Close The Concert Halls. Now. It’s A Brutal Economic Decision, But The Virus Doesn’t Care About Anyone’s Income") to a more thoughtful essay by Peter Marks in The Washington Post ("Theater Is A Haven But, With The Coronavirus, It’s Become An Incubator For Our Fears"), the risks and benefits of spending time pursuing a shared passion have come under close examination.

While many are beginning to feel overwhelmed with statistics and increasingly dire news reports that can exacerbate their fears, my friend Adria Firestone (a mezzo-soprano who was a fierce and fiery Carmen) offers some sound advice to help tame the inner torment with which some people are struggling.


Culture vultures can find solace in how new technology is allowing them to feed their souls without leaving their homes ("Metropolitan Opera, After Shutting Its Doors, Will Offer Free Streams From Live in HD Catalog," "Stuck at Home? These 12 Famous Museums Offer Virtual Tours You Can Take on Your Couch,"
"Vienna State Opera To Offer Daily Live Streams From Its Opera Archives"). Meanwhile, introverts can sit back and savor the irony of governments telling people to self quarantine and, if necessary, read a book.

For those who have always found themselves marching to a different drummer, there comes a time when ambition supersedes tradition. Whether in sports, politics, or the arts, creativity often requires thinking outside the box or clearing a new path to success. I heartily recommend watching Hillary Clinton's speech at a recent Women of Broadway event.


In many ways, the current health crisis has brought new meaning to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s phrase: "the fierce urgency of now." For those who never had a chance to watch Barbra Streisand's 1966 television special entitled Color Me Barbra, go to the 12:30 mark in the following video for a wonderful Peter Matz song entitled "Gotta Move."


Children are often asked what they would like to become when they grow up. Though parents and relatives hope that the answer might be a doctor, a concert pianist, a tennis pro, or a great singer, young minds are full of surprises. The child inspired by seeing someone do something exceptional may not attach a sense of gender to their concept of who is entitled to reach for the stars. Due to the historical moments in which their stories take place, some girls easily fit the stereotype of a tomboy.

A sense of desperation at being held back from one's destiny lies at the core of two powerful dramas briefly seen by Bay area audiences before local theatres were shut down and productions cancelled. Each focused like a laser on the challenges faced by American women determined to break through a particular glass ceiling. Though their achievements have largely been forgotten by history, their stories have recently been brought back to life on the stage. As a critic, I was grateful for a chance to see these shows. If and when they are produced at a theatre near you, I heartily recommend catching a performance.

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They Promised Her the Moon received workshop productions in TheatreWorks Silicon Valley’s New Works Festival and the Old Globe Theatre’s Powers New Voices Festival prior to its Off-Broadway premiere at the Miranda Theatre Company. In 2019, this riveting drama by Laurel Ollstein received its West Coast premiere from the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego and, earlier this month, was given its Northern California premiere by TheatreWorks Silicon Valley in Palo Alto.

Sarah Mitchell (Jerrie Cobb) and Dan Hiatt (Harvey Cobb) in a
scene from They Promised Her The Moon (Photo by: Kevin Berne)

Ollstein's drama tells the story of Jerrie Cobb (Sarah Mitchell), who developed a lifelong fascination with flight at the age of 12 when her father gave Jerrie her first ride in his open cockpit 1936 Waco biplane. Four years later she was flying around the Midwest in a Piper J-3 Cub while distributing advertising leaflets for touring circuses. Born on March 5, 1931, Cobb earned her private pilot's license and commercial pilot's license soon after World War II ended. According to Wikipedia:

• By age 19, the young aviator was teaching men how to fly.
• At 21, she was delivering military fighter planes and four-engine bombers to foreign Air Forces worldwide.
• With her career stymied by sex discrimination and the return of so many qualified male pilots after World War II, Jerrie found herself flying for less appealing jobs (patrolling pipelines and crop dusting).
• While in her twenties, Cobb stunned the aviation industry by setting new world records for speed, distance, and absolute altitude.
• Jerrie was the first woman to fly in the Paris Air Show (the world's largest air exposition), where her fellow airmen named her Pilot of the Year and awarded her the Amelia Earhart Gold Medal of Achievement.
• By 1960, Cobb she had amassed 7,000 hours of flying time and held three world aviation records (the 1959 world record for nonstop long-distance flight, the 1959 world light-plane speed record, and the 1960 world altitude record for lightweight aircraft of 37,010 feet).
• In 1960, LIFE Magazine cited Jerrie as “one of the 100 most influential women under 40" while stating that “it now appears inevitable that manned space flight will at some future date become coeducational.”
• In May 1961, NASA Administrator James Webb appointed Cobb as a consultant to the NASA space program.

Sarah Mitchell stars as pioneering female aviator Jerrie Cobb
in They Promised Her The Moon (Photo by: Kevin Berne)

Though inspired and encouraged by her father, Harvey Cobb (Dan Hiatt); her role model, Jackie Cochran (Stacy Ross); her employer, Jack Ford (Craig Marker); and Dr. William Randolph Lovelace II (Anthony Fusco), Jerrie's remarkable stamina, psychological determination, stunning list of achievements, and ability to test better than many male pilots caused her to collide with a heavily misogynistic federal bureaucracy that preferred to see women portrayed as homemakers rather than potential astronauts. As director Giovanna Sardelli explains:

“When I first encountered this play a few years ago, no one I asked had ever heard of Jerrie Cobb or Jackie Cochran (even though they were both world class, record-holding pilots who were matching and besting men on a regular basis). Why didn’t I know of them before? The first woman to break the sound barrier, Jackie was clever enough to know how to look well-behaved – or maybe it was well groomed -- and was as feisty as they come. In our play, she offers what was then thought sage advice to Jerrie when things weren’t going her way. She tells her ‘That door was shut, darlin’. I will find a window open down the line. You can be sure of that. But the door was shut and there’s no point scratching on it. It just irritates everyone.’ What must a woman do to find her rightful place in history and get a chance at herstory? Think of how much further along we’d be if a woman had been included in Project Mercury in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Just think of the conversations we could be having!”

Sarah Mitchell (Jerrie Cobb) and Stacy Ross (Jackie Cochran) in a
scene from They Promised Her The Moon (Photo by: Kevin Berne)

“Jerrie Cobb passed away on March 18, 2019, just before They Promised Her the Moon opened at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre. It seemed a tragedy that most people would not understand what the world lost on that day. I was grateful that playwright Laurel Ollstein had introduced me to this remarkable woman who was promised so much and given so little. Laurel has given Jerrie her rightful place in the legacy of space.”

Craig Marker (Jack Ford) and Sarah Mitchell (Jerrie Cobb) in a
scene from They Promised Her The Moon (Photo by: Kevin Berne)

With sets designed by Christopher Fitzer and costumes by Cathleen Edwards (along with lighting by Steven B. Mannshardt and sound design by Jane Shaw), this TheatreWorks Silicon Valley production benefited from a tightly-knit ensemble of versatile actors familiar to Bay area audiences (Craig Marker, Dan Hiatt, Anthony Fusco, and Stacy Ross). Luisa Sermol doubled as Jerrie's mother and a female reporter.

Sardelli is blessed to have one of the Bay area's most underrated artists in the lead role. While I have long admired Sarah Mitchell's work with Shotgun Players and the Aurora Theatre Company, Jerrie Cobb is a role that fits her like a glove, giving Mitchell a chance to bring her passion and wry intensity to the dramatic momentum that carries the show forward. If she gets another chance to star in a production of They Promised Her The Moon, you'll definitely want to catch her performance.

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Sarah Mitchell stars as pioneering female aviator Jerrie Cobb
in They Promised Her The Moon (Photo by: Kevin Berne)

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In 1992, when A League of Their Own was released, audiences were so thrilled by a film inspired by the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League that it was easy for many to ignore the "whiteness" of the story. Granted, it took place before April 15, 1947, when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in major league baseball after signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers (Robinson's professional career had begun in 1945 when he received an offer from the Kansas City Monarchs to play in baseball's Negro Leagues).

Originally commissioned and produced by the Roundabout Theatre Company in New York and Samantha Barrie, the world premiere of Lydia R. Diamond's action-packed baseball drama took place on June 20, 2019 at the Laura Pels Theatre. Directed by Pam MacKinnon (who also directed 2020's co-production between the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. and San Francisco's American Conservatory Theater), Martha Ackmann's biography of Toni Stone (Curveball: The Remarkable Story of Toni Stone, the First Woman to Play Professional Baseball in the Negro League) had been optioned by Barrie and MacKinnon, who recognized the story's dramatic potential. As MacKinnon explains:

“Toni (Dawn Ursula) tells her story her way (not always linearly) and the audience is kindly asked to keep up. The power dynamics of Black and white are very important to the story. This is an all Black American cast (which we don’t often see). A really important thing that’s very much written into Lydia’s play is that there are white characters who are played by Black actors. We kept on trying to find a simple but focused gesture to indicate that. The first time it happens, an actor takes off his baseball cap and then runs it across his face. In that moment, he turns from being a fellow teammate and becomes a white man. We take the time to do that (as opposed to it being a sleight of hand). We’re saying something when a Black American man plays a white man: What does it mean to turn white?”

Marquis D. Gibson (Jimmy) and Dawn Ursula  (Toni)
in a scene from Toni Stone (Photo by: Kevin Berne)

“More than a biopic, this is a play in at least 36 scenes. Perhaps a musical without music. It’s the story of a singular Black American woman who knew she was a baseball player -- a story of love and what comes between ambition and attainment, of emotional surprises, twists, compromises, learning, and transformation. We wanted her mind full of the game. In the Negro Leagues, there were a few teams that had the designation ‘clown’ (Toni played for the Indianapolis Clowns) and clowning was part of what they had to do. This was ticket-selling buffoonery.They had to perform. So we’re also looking back at American performance traditions (minstrel shows, the really ugly stuff) and constantly walking a line.”

The cast of Toni Stone (Photo by: Kevin Berne)

Together with choreographer Camille A. Brown, MacKinnon has crafted a rapidly-paced show whose energy level comes close to matching that of The Scottsboro Boys. Working on an impressive unit set designed by Riccardo Hernández, with costumes by Dede M. Ayite, lighting by Allen Lee Hughes, and sound design and original music by Broken Chord, the production details Toni's compelling history as the first black woman to play professional baseball in the Negro League. In explaining some of the challenges she faced in adapting Toni's story for the stage, playwright Lydia R. Diamond notes that:

“Toni had rigor and a singular focus. Baseball is what she wanted to play, and she made it happen. Despite Jim Crow, institutional racism, and sexism, Toni fought to play ball with a tenacious, singular focus that didn’t leave room for being told what she couldn’t do. I fell in love with the image of this one Black woman surrounded by Black men. These men hold her up and support her in the telling of the story. When the team found themselves in towns without hotels for African Americans, women who worked in brothels would often put her up. Toni’s best friend, Millie, is an invention inspired by real relationships Toni had with sex workers (a character like Millie is not outside the realm of possibility).”

Kenn E. Head (Millie) and Dawn Ursula (Toni) in
a scene from Toni Stone (Photo by: Kevin Berne)

“There are two characters in my play who definitely existed and who I used aspects of: King Tut and Spec Bebop. King Tut was one of the most famous comedians in the Negro Leagues and Spec (who was a little person) was his sidekick. I also love that the ensemble members play a multitude of characters including women, children, and white people. Ultimately, this is a story about perseverance, bravery and reaching for what you want.”

Dawn Ursula stars in Toni Stone (Photo by: Kevin Berne)

While Dawn Ursula delivers a bravura performance in the title role, she is ably supported by an athletic ensemble of eight talented actors. Daniel J. Bryant draws easy laughs as the short but well-hung Spec, with Kenn E. Head nearly stealing the show as the empathetic Millie (who doesn't hesitate to tell the stubborn and insensitive Toni when she's wrong). Ray Shell portrays Toni's stoic businessman husband, Alberga (who shows his steel after another player threatens his wife), with JaBen Early as Richard "King Tut" King. Other members of the cast include Marquis D. Gibson as Jimmy, Rodney Earl Jackson, Jr. as Elzie, Sean-Maurice Lynch as Stretch, and Jarrod Smith as Woody.

Dawn Ursula (Toni) and Kenn E. Head (Millie) in
a scene from Toni Stone (Photo by: Kevin Berne)

Like many nonprofit theatres, ACT was suddenly and severely impacted by the coronavirus crisis (after enjoying a thrilling opening night performance I awoke the next morning to discover that the production had been cancelled). The company's most recent communication offers an exciting opportunity for those who could not attend a live performance of Toni Stone:

"While the impact of COVID-19 is crippling to a nonprofit theater, theater has always provided an outlet for escape during times of uncertainty. Through a partnership with Actors Equity Association, Stage Directors & Choreographers Society, United Scenic Artists, Local USA 829, IATSE, and BroadwayHD, ACT has been able to set up a virtual streaming presentation of Toni Stone which will be available through March 29 at midnight. It is our hope that we can provide a few hours of enjoyment and inspiration while we, as a community, collectively weather this storm. As a result, we are asking ticket buyers to consider choosing a price point for themselves that feels generous, as well as financially accessible (keeping in mind the number of people in their household who will be watching the production)."

Click here for tickets.