Just in time for Juneteenth, Broadway-bound musical “Henry Box Brown: A Musical Journey” is coming to Pensacola this weekend, hoping to spark conversations about racism, understanding and tolerance in the community. The musical will be shown at Pensacola State College’s Jean & Paul Amos Performance Studio.
The musical portrays the experiences of Henry Brown–a Virginia man born into slavery who shipped himself to freedom in a box with the help of African American and white abolitionists and thus earned his nickname.
As explained on the show’s website, the play originated when the Children’s Theatre Company of NYC’s young performers wanted to know why there were no musicals about the African American experience. They asked the company’s artistic directors, Mehr Mansuri, Eric Dozier and Frank Sanchez, “Is there a ‘Les Miz’ that is centered on American History/Black history?”
After reading verbatim transcripts from former slaves in the Library of Congress, the Mansuri-Dozier-Sanchez team found their story–Henry “Box” Brown. Dozier began arranging gospel spirituals for the show, while Mansuri and Sanchez began crafting character-driven and original songs.
In a recent interview on WCOA, Inweekly asked co-composer Eric Dozier what audiences can expect when they see “Henry Box Brown: A Musical Journey.”
He said, “What I hope that you will experience, as we have grown to perfect our craft, is to really be able to step into his life and just for a minute walk in his shoes, feel his pain, experience his joy, and get kind of an overview of his life through song, dance, movement and praise.”
The co-composer shared that the challenge was to deal with a very difficult subject–slavery–without making “Slavery the Musical.”
“We felt like we really had to create and paint a context with music,” Dozier shared. “I’ve traveled quite a bit doing particular workshops around helping us understand the American landscape through the eyes of artists, particularly black musical artists, composers of spirituals, and soul and blues artists, and how they talked about the country that they were living in. And so we hope to do the same thing here with this musical and portray all of the characters with some depth.”
He described the musical as “a story of his love affair with his first love Nancy and how she was taken away from him, how his children were taken away” —the catalysts for his escape to freedom–told in the broader context of American history.
Dozier said, “There are so many stories in our history that don’t get attention, and so we try to show all of the elements that were around him, including his context that motivated him to make the move that he did and all the people that were around him encouraging him, helping him, working behind the scenes, but also who was really there with him during this whole process.”
A graduate of Duke University with a Master’s in Theological Studies, Dozier is the former musical director of Harlem Gospel Choir and is currently the resident composer and music director of the Children’s Theatre Company of NYC.
“When I went to college, my focus was really on youth, race, and education because I knew that there were so many things that were going on that were dividing us,” he told Inweekly. “As a gospel choir director, I began to realize that I could actually bring those two worlds together, use music as a force for social change but also as a means to create a context for transformation around some of these difficult issues. Billy Preston, a very famous organ piano player, said everybody likes some kind of music, right?”
The co-composer continued, “To take these conversations about race, about slavery, about our history and put them in the context of music, I think really helps to kind of prime the pump for us to go deeper and deeper into these issues.”
Dozier shared that his choir workshops center around music and those deeper issues. He said, “I find that when people have a reason to be together and work towards a goal, they develop bonds through service and singing. With this musical, what is happening is that you see a kind of an ecosystem beginning to emerge where people are in a consistent conversation. If you can make that conversation creative, we can make the world that we want to see.”
“Henry Box Brown: A Musical Journey,” is sponsored partially by WSRE PBS and thanks to a grant awarded to Equity Project Alliance through The Hive, a social responsibility program of Innisfree Hotels.
HENRY BOX BROWN: A MUSICAL JOURNEY
WHEN: 6:30 p.m. Friday, June 17, and Saturday, June 18
WHERE: PSC’s Jean & Paul Amos Performance Studio, 1000 College Blvd.
COST: $40 plus service fees
DETAILS: henryboxbrownthemusical.com