Other directors could only see uber-mom and attorney Clair Huxtable in Phylicia Rashad after “The Cosby Show’s” eight-year reign ended in 1992. Kenny Leon saw much more.
Leon cast Rashad in the lead of “Blues for an Alabama Sky” at the Alliance Theatre in 1995 and hasn’t stopped putting her to work since. When Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre Company begins preview performances of “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” tonight in Atlanta, it will mark the ninth time the acclaimed performer, 64, has worked for the director.
Their association quietly has become one of the greatest and most extended actress-director collaborations in contemporary American theater.
“It’s like watching a dance between the two of them,” noted Tom Key, Rashad’s “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” cast mate. “They have great fun as friends and great respect for one another as artists.”
Rashad’s role this time is Mary Prentice, mother of Dr. John Prentice (Tory Kittles), the idealistic black physician who is brought home by his new fiance, testing the liberalism of her upper-class white San Francisco family. Beah Richards and Sidney Poitier played the mother and son in the memorable Stanley Kramer-directed 1967 movie.
True Colors associate artistic director Todd Kreidler’s adaption of William Rose’s Oscar-winning screenplay was tentatively slated for a Broadway run several seasons ago, but the deal fell through. Leon said numerous producers will be giving the True Colors updating a look-see.
“It’s a different time, and we have an opportunity to look at the story with a different lens,” Rashad said.
All sorts of opportunities flowed for Rashad, recently cast in the NBC fall doctor drama “Do No Harm,” after Leon helped her avoid becoming typecast by her iconic television role.
“He’s been very important,” Rashad said about Leon’s role in her post-Clair Huxtable career. “Instrumental, I would even say.”
Rashad didn’t work for a year after “The Cosby Show,” then was cast in “Jelly’s Last Jam” on Broadway, after which she went another full year without a gig. Then along came Leon, luring her to Atlanta, where he was then artistic director of the Alliance Theatre, to play the first in a string of powerhouse lead roles for him, Angel in Pearl Cleage’s “Blues.”
After they took the show to Boston, Washington and Hartford, Conn., Leon asked Rashad if she had a dream play that she’d never done.
“Medea,” Rashad responded.
“He said, ‘OK, we’ll do that next year at the Alliance Theatre,’ and we did and it was a fantastic experience,” Rashad said. “There I was doing what I wanted to do, with Kenny Leon. I was playing the Greeks.”
Rashad’s was a household name by the time Leon first cast her. But being wealthy and beloved for a renowned role doesn’t guarantee new projects showing different dimensions — the kind of work he brought her.
“From the beginning I saw the class, grace and depth of talent,” the Atlanta-based director says of his star. “You couldn’t put her in a box. Sure, she was Clair Huxtable but she also has a Medea in there. She’s an amazing musical talent as well. She can be authentically funny. She can be point-on dramatic.”
Early in their working relationship, Rashad had the chance to reciprocate. She suggested Leon when George C. Wolfe told her he was seeking a director for “Everybody’s Ruby,” a drama based on stories by Harlem Renaissance writer Zora Neale Hurston.
Wolfe tapped Leon to helm the 1999 Public Theater staging, a great opportunity for the Atlantan to show his stuff in New York. Then he turned around and surprised Rashad by choosing her to play Hurston.
“This is how it’s been,” she said, “and it’s been great.”
Of course, the most celebrated chapter in this ongoing collaboration came when Leon directed Rashad to a 2004 Tony Award in their revival of Lorraine Hansbury’s “A Raisin in the Sun.” She became the first African-American to win the Tony for best performance by a leading actress in a play.
Now, doing award-worthy work under Leon’s direction is, to borrow another classic TV title, all in the family. Earlier this year, Condola Rashad, Phylicia’s 25-year-old daughter with ex-husband Ahmad Rashad, received a Tony nomination for “Stick Fly.”
By her proud mother’s counting, Leon began preparing Condola for her moment in the spotlight 17 years ago when Phylicia and the director were working on “Blues for an Alabama Sky.”
“Condola was 8 years old, and she used to like to crawl out onstage in the blackout,” Phylicia recalled, “and Kenny would say, ‘What is that out there? Who is it out there?’ She sheepishly shoved her hand up, ‘It’s me.'”
Instead of Leon asking Condola to stay off the stage, he told a production staffer to give the girl a black T-shirt just like crew members wore during scene changes.
“That was an open invitation,” Phylicia said. “‘You’re welcome here,’ is what he was saying.”
The three worked together for the first time earlier this year in Atlanta on the Leon-directed TV movie remake of “Steel Magnolias,” which will air this fall on Lifetime. “An extraordinary experience all the way around,” Phylicia termed it.
Acting for Leon on their ninth project is not significantly different than on their first, she said, except that she believes he’s “grown into himself” a little more.
“He’s honest and he’s patient, and he’s always looking for a hidden meaning, in things — something that everyone can respond to,” said Rashad. “[He’s got] artistic vision and everyman sensibilities. That’s who Kenny is.”
THEATER PREVIEW
“Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner”
Previews begin July 10, regular run July 13-29. True Colors Theatre Company, Rialto Center for the Arts, 80 Forsyth St., Atlanta. $20-$100. 1-877-725-8849, www.ticketalternative.com.
