AGMA Stage Director Henry Miller, PhD, has been a key figure in the performing arts industry for over 30 years, directing more than 35 Off-Off-Broadway and regional theatre productions, including his own plays and notable works such as Porgy and Bess for the Indianapolis Opera and Opera Philadelphia. In addition to his stage work, his film Death of a Dunbar Girl has been shown at numerous film festivals, and he has taught as a Visiting Professor across the United States. In this Black History Month Spotlight, he discusses his collaboration with Duke Ellington on Saturday Laughter, a piece that highlights various aspects of Black culture, like Mine Boy, the first internationally acclaimed novel to shed light on Black South Africa.
“A theatre artist rarely gets a chance to work on anything with the potential to achieve historical significance. Such an opportunity came to me when I was asked to rewrite the book for the musical drama, Saturday Laughter. That request came from Herbert E. Martin (1926-2019), a noted lyricist who had already contributed to the American songbook a few works, “Why Did I Choose You” and “I’m All Smiles,” that none other than Stephen Sondheim had wished he had written. Martin wrote the book and lyrics for Saturday Laughter—a book with which he was not entirely satisfied.
Herb had adapted Saturday Laughter from Peter Abrahams’ Mine Boy, the first internationally acclaimed novel to shine a revealing light on Black South Africa. Amplifying the historic significance of this project, Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington (1899-1974), one of the icons of American music, was the composer of this project. Moreover, in addition to Abrahams, Ellington, and Martin, their late 1960s effort to get Saturday Laughter to the stage included what is, at least in black American circles, members of a pantheon of theatre artists and musicians: Brock Peters, Dick Ward, Thelma Carpenter, Joya Cheryl, Aba Bogan, etc.
The first incarnation of Saturday Laughter, produced by Christopher Manos (1931-2021), founder and head of The Atlanta Theatre of the Stars, had failed to get a main stage production for lack of what now seems the alarmingly paltry sum of $200,000. Yet, from its inception and beyond Manos’ late ‘90s concertized revival of the show, Chris and Herb never gave up their belief that Ellington’s talent remains worthy of a full-fledged book musical—as opposed to the musical reviews that his music had thus far attracted. Then, as often happens in the American theatre—especially in theatre exploring black subject matter—an awful and demoralizing shoe fell: Chris and Herb were notified that Abrahams and his agents were dropping out of the project. They had lost Mine Boy, the origin of Saturday Laughter.
After much angst, aesthetic soul-searching, and thank God, the inspiration of the Ellington legacy, it was decided that we needed a new book. That job fell to me. To replicate Saturday Laughter’s historical element, I chose the periods of the Harlem Renaissance and the Great Depression. After all, it was in the Harlem Renaissance that Ellington’s music first began to gain an audience in the then-famous Harlem’s New York Cotton Club. I entitled the new book Only Yesterday, a title taken from the song written for the star-crossed lovers in Saturday Laughter. With slight lyric changes, it became the pure “Ellintonia,” dueting star-crossed lovers at the close of Only Yesterday.
Perhaps, this musical drama, born from the bowels of two distinct yet related moments in African and African American history, will one day find its way to an American main stage.” – Henry Miller, PhD