To say that a lot changed in 2020 is an understatement. But in a year marked by a global pandemic, Black Lives Matter protests and a presidential election in which the act of voting itself seemed at risk, Pittsburgh theater-maker Monteze Freeland noticed a venerable name unexpectedly popping up on social media: that of Fannie Lou Hamer.
Among younger folks, the famed Black civil rights-era champion of voting rights “was becoming an icon in a new way,” Freeland said.
When Pittsburgh voters in the 2021 Democratic primary selected St. Rep. Ed Gainey for mayor – all but assuring he’d be the first Black person to hold the office – Freeland was more convinced than ever the time was right. “It just felt like a perfect opportunity to uplift Fannie Lou Hamer.”
His vehicle is “Fannie: The Music and Life of Fannie Lou Hamer,” a 2021 stage musical by playwright Cheryl L. West. The one-woman production with live music stars Robin McGee as Hamer, delivering songs and monologues about her life.
Freeland, a co-artistic director at City Theatre, worked with the August Wilson African American Cultural Center and Pittsburgh’s DEMASKUS Theater Collective to bring the show to town. This staging was produced in partnership with Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre Company, in Atlanta, and Actors Theatre of Louisville, in Kentucky.
“Fannie” gets its Pittsburgh premiere at the August Wilson Center with five performances Fri., Jan. 13, through Mon., Jan. 16. The Jan. 16 show is “pay-what-you-can.”
Hamer rose to prominence from the humblest of circumstances. The youngest of 20 children in a Mississippi sharecropping family didn’t turn to activism until she was in her mid-40s. But she rapidly became one of the movement’s most effective speakers and organizers, despite police beatings and other retaliation. She might be best known for her defiant televised speech at the 1964 Democratic National Convention, blasting voter suppression and state-sanctioned violence in Mississippi.
“This woman had a sixth-grade education, was a sharecropper forever, [and] limited reading access until she made the change,” said the show’s director, Joy Vandervort-Cobb. “So change is always possible.”
Hamer's legacy had long been overlooked in favor of the male leaders whose stories have traditionally dominated accounts of the civil-rights movement, like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. But a revival indeed seems to be in effect, including new books about Hamer's life.
“What this woman went through and what she did, just one human being, is just remarkable,” Vandervcort-Cobb added. “It reminds you you have no right to be tired.”
She describes “Fannie” as a fast-paced, 72-minute show, replete with civil-rights songs and spirituals like “This Little Light of Mine.”
Freeland said the production is, among other things, an opportunity to tell audiences who don’t recall Hamer about her legacy. As he notes, the issue she’s most associated with – fighting voter suppression – is still very much in the news.
“The song is still continuing. We’re still singing this same song today about voting rights,” he said. “This play is just a reminder that we cannot get lazy. We cannot sit back.”
