‘It stops you in your tracks’: actors begin ‘Choir Boy’ rehearsals at Bristol Old Vic

American playwright, screenwriter and actor Tarell Alvin McCraney is best known for co-writing Moonlight, which won an Oscar for Best Picture in 2017.

His coming-of-age play Choir Boy premiered in London in 2012, and went on to play across the US, including a Broadway run.

In Nancy Medina’s directorial debut as Bristol Old Vic artistic director, the play is being revived, opening on October 12 for a month-long run on the main stage.

Choir Boy, Bristol Old Vic – photo: Michael Wharley; design Steph Pyne

Set at a leading, all-boys school, it follows the story of a group of African American choirboys, all of whom are navigating their own pressures and challenges: to conform; to excel; to find their own authentic identity.

Amongst them is chief soloist, Pharus, a Black, queer man (Terique Jarrett), whose seemingly commanding position within his community begins to unravel.

A couple of days before McCraney himself was due to visit rehearsals, Bristol24/7 joined three of the actors on their lunchbreak for an illuminating discussion about the play.

Terique Jarrett as Pharus

Jyuddah James (JJ) – AJ; Alistair Nwachukwu (AN) – Bobby; Michael Ahomka-Lindsay (MAL) – David.

When you first read the play, what was your personal response to it?

JJ: “It was very thought provoking; there are a lot of moments where it stops you in your tracks. I remember having to stop and think about what I’d just read, and then go back to it. It depends on who you are and your personal relationship to the conversation that’s happening. For me, it asks a lot of questions. It’s deep, articulate, and well-rounded in its delivery, in its characters, and in what it asks them to think about, but it’s not like it sends off a little spark here or there, it’s a whole cacophony of fireworks.”

AN: “I was deeply moved. It’s not often that the young Black male experience is nuanced, as it is here. These young boys go through so much. When I first read the play, I saw myself in all of these characters in different ways.”

MAL: “I remember thinking it was really exciting, and recognisable. I had never seen someone capture elements of personalities that we see every day, in a play. Seeing their experiences explored on the page I thought that all the characters were so distinct, complex individual people, which is also something you don’t see enough, with Black characters. I thought that was amazing. And the things they are talking about – I remember thinking that I wanted to be in the room where we discuss these things. It’s like the kind of conversations that you have with your closest friends late at night.”

Jyuddah Jaymes as AJ

Can you introduce your characters? Do their stories resonate with you as a nuanced exploration of the young Black experience?

JJ: “I play AJ, who is a roommate of Pharus, the main soloist in the school choir. He’s from the Deep South of America, in rural Georgia, a baseball playing athlete who we understand to be on a sports scholarship to this high tier African American high school. He’s navigating what it is to be a 17/18 year old at a school that’s so far away from home, and he’s trying his best to excel.

“I really enjoy his character, and I love that culture he comes from. In the rehearsal room it’s easier to stay within that mindset, but at the same time I have to separate and make decisions as the actor – I have to decide what he’s going to do. It’s like a conversation.”

MAL: “My character is David, who is a senior at the school. He’s under a lot of pressure, on all sides: from parents, from school, from society – and is preoccupied with the idea of how to succeed, and what it means to be successful. He’s faced with questions of what he should do, and who he should be, rather than necessarily what he wants. We meet him at a point when, for various reasons, he’s decided his path is to be a pastor. He’s trying to be someone that can bring value and care to his community.”

Michael Ahomka-Lindsay as David

AN: “Bobby is in a lot of pain. He’s recently lost his mother. He’s not very close to his father. His legacy within the school is that his father and grandfather went there before him; he’s actually Robert Marrow III. He wants to be the choir lead, but Pharus has that role. Bobby is isolated; no one really understands who he is or what he is about. He’s navigating a lot of pain and frustration and it comes out in anger, but underneath that anger it’s just hurt and vulnerability.

“As a writer, Tarell has a great way of expressing masculinity in his work. I think a lot of men are scared to express themselves; we tend to put on a façade or harden up. There’s not a lot of space for young men – and especially young Black men – to express their pain and vulnerability. Not by everyone, but we’re often seen as these hard thugs, especially in London. And we’re way more nuanced than that.”

Alistair Nwachukwu as Bobby

Where is the emotional heart of the story for you, and how do you think audiences will respond?

JJ: “For me, Pharus represents layers of all the characters. It’s not just his experience of exploring sexuality, it’s more than that. In the different overlapping circles of our existence, within our own African Caribbean society, Western society, and the world at large – in a world that tells us we’re meant to be ‘this’ way, can we be the way we want to be? What freedom is there to be able to just be yourself? What models of being are celebrated, and what aren’t? What is jeopardised within you as a result of trying to fit in?

“I think that’s something that you learn so early on. I look at younger members of my family, knowing that they have to understand themselves, as well as knowing what’s acceptable and what’s not acceptable, and Pharus really experiences that. If you are able to open yourself up to what he’s going through, you see the heart of what Choir Boy is.

Khalid Daley as JR and Michael Ahomka-Lindsay as David

“It goes beyond family, it’s societal as well. This school is meant to train these boys to excel and that in itself is a pressure. As a result of that pressure, there’s layers of yourself that get eroded. Somebody’s celebrating one part of you but not another, and you’re having to navigate that. So it seems like Pharus has got himself in a great position – he’s the leader of the choir, we assume he’s got good grades, and yet, for some reason who he is isn’t enough.

“Added to which he’s an African American, who will probably leave the school and have to face, if he hasn’t already, so many different complications and limitations and barriers just because of his heritage, and the history that won’t give room to what he’s pioneering – which is change. Tarell is really good at tapping into that.”

AN: “I completely understand what Jyuddah is saying and I agree, Pharus’s throughline is at the core of the story. But there’s a subplot with Bobby and his mother, which really connects me to my own mother. I never knew my dad; he left when I was two. So it’s been my mum that brought me up, for 29 years.

“In this play, Bobby is motherless. I think a lot of the time in Black culture and African American culture we see young children without their dads, but Tarell has written an amazing interpretation of this by actually taking away the mother from the story, and exploring what that does to a child. So that’s where the heart sits for me: it’s about family, parenthood, mothers, and identity.”

The cast in rehearsal with movement director Ingrid Mackinnon

MAL: “I think it’s really interesting because we’ve had so many conversations about the larger issues, working through this play. And yes, Pharus’s story is the central one here. But I actually think that in different ways, every character is experiencing a degree of what each other goes through.

“For me that’s always been the beauty of Choir Boy: the complexity of the individual. It’s all against the same backdrop – for example the effect of Black excellence, coming-of-age, the discovery of sexuality or the impact of parenthood on a child – but the results are all different. That’s something we talked a lot about – Black boys being complex, and being vulnerable, and having lives that are individualised, not monolithic. Often we aren’t afforded that complexity, or there’s only one illustration of what that complexity is. For me, that’s the mastery of the play, to show just how colourful life can be with the same components.

“We have talked a lot about the boys, but there’s also an interesting thread happening with the Headmaster. When you’re a boy, for anyone coming of age, things happen and you deal with it however you deal with it. But then before you know it you’re a man, and you’re just expected to be an adult – when actually your inner child is still screaming.”

Can you describe the unifying impact of the music within the show?

MAL: “Despite their individual experiences, the music is serving them all. And the music we’re talking about here is spirituals, which is sometimes referred to as gospel but is actually a different thing altogether. These are songs are transcendent. They were passed down ancestrally for these boys, and helped their forebears when they needed them. Now, it’s doing the same for these boys, and I think in itself that’s an illustration of the beauty of those songs: they perform functions for so many people, across generations, but they do something, for everyone.”

Choir Boy musical director and arranger Femi Temowo

Has it bonded you as actors, the intensity of this musical element to the rehearsal process?

JJ: “Absolutely. It’s so exposing. Yesterday we were on the stage for the first time, going through the play and trying to apply some of the music to it. When you’ve got this big arena, and what will soon be lots of people staring at you, and you’ve got to sing – it’s intense. But I feel that I should, and I will release that energy, because I’ve got my people to sing with me; we’re physically together, close knit, in that space. It’s deepened our understanding of the play, and added a layer of comfort to it. Having this type of music, with this type of topic, it’s just wonderful.”

MAL: “In terms of how music has brought us together, the way Femi, our musical director, has worked to create the music, has also felt so individual, and so creative in the moment. People might hear spirituals and think ‘that’s an arrangement I’ve never heard before’ and that’s because it isn’t – we were stood in the room together, and we made it up.

“Every week, the song changes, so as a result it’s brought us closer because we’ve had to be vulnerable. I trained in musical theatre and this feels so different. I have really enjoyed this way of working because it doesn’t feel like there’s some invisible third party telling you how to do it; rather it feels connected to self. It’s so liberating.”

Nancy Medina in rehearsal

What is the rehearsal process like under Nancy Medina’s direction?

AN: “She just brings so much joy into the room. She said something in the beginning about creating a brave space for us to really bring ourselves to the work, and she’s really done that. This is my first ever play, I’ve never done it before professionally so I didn’t know what to expect, or how to go about it. These boys have really guided me and welcomed me and made me feel comfortable, and she has also done that. We have check ins and check outs to see how we’re feeling on the day, which isn’t something that normally happens. She just makes you feel it’s ok to be yourself.”

MAL: “We’ve always felt held in the amount of detail she’s willing to go into with all of us individually. You never feel alone in the process of trying to make this thing. She’s always there. Sometimes the work that previously you might have been expected to do on your own, she’s there to do it with you.”

AN: “Nancy said something really powerful that has stayed with me. She said ‘I want people to leave this show wanting to hug, or comfort, or get in contact with one of their siblings, or a young person’. And I think that’s what this show’s going to do. It’s doing many, many things at once, to make you reflect on what it means to be a young Black male.”

Khalid Daley as JR

Finally, do you have a personal connection to Bristol? How does it feel to be coming here, for this show?

MAL: “I just love being in theatres – when you step in I feel like they give you energy, which you can feed off. Bristol Old Vic still does that too, but at the same time the back of the stalls is metres away. So while it feels intimate, the space has a majesty to it; it feels very grand when you’re in there.”

JJ: “I first came here for drama school, as a student of Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, moved to London for two years, then Kent, and finally moved back to Bristol. I love it here; I think it’s amazing. When I was at drama school, the amount of shows we’d come and see at Bristol Old Vic, looking at the stage and wanting one day to be on it, is a huge thing to reflect on. I first met Nancy in 2016 or 2017, and had not the foggiest idea that this amazing human being would be the reason I’d get to perform on the main stage. It’s like a dream, honestly.”

Choir Boy is at Bristol Old Vic from October 12-November 11. Tickets are available at www.bristololdvic.org.uk.

All photos: Camilla Greenwell

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