Vanessa Bell Calloway in “Letters From Zora.” Photo by Chris Roman.
Vanessa Bell Calloway has always wanted to do a one-woman show, but she didn’t want it to be gloomy or sappy. She also didn’t want it to be about her. She has her reasons.
She touched upon several of them as she sat in the family room of the stylish, art-filled home she’s lived in for more than 21 years with her husband of nearly 25 years, Dr. Tony Calloway and their two children, Ashley, 22, and Alexandra, 18.
“I had been looking for a one-woman piece for years,” says Calloway, who has enjoyed a successful, decades-long career acting in film, television and theater. “I didn’t want to write a show and be therapeutic — my life isn’t that interesting. It’s kind of all right. I go to one-woman plays and they are crying because they are abused and in pain. I understand it, but that’s not for me. I didn’t want a cathartic one-woman show that is just sad. I didn’t know what I wanted, but I didn’t want to be on a therapy couch. I have nothing to tell. My life is boring.”
Vanessa Bell Calloway
As luck would have it, a year ago Gabrielle Pina’s one-woman play, Letters From Zora — In Her Own Words, about Zora Neale Hurston, fell into Calloway’s lap when Pina asked her to do a one-day show at USC.
This week the show is revived, under the direction of Anita Dashiell-Sparks. Calloway reprises the role of Hurston — folklorist, anthropologist, and author — in a limited engagement at the Pasadena Playhouse beginning Thursday, for a five-show stint that ends Aug. 18.
A special dress rehearsal presentation is being held Wednesday, exclusively for battered women and breast cancer survivors.
Calloway, herself a breast cancer survivor, recently disclosed her breast cancer battle and the decision to remove one of her breasts.
Three years ago this coming Oct. 26, the veteran actress underwent a mastectomy after being diagnosed with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), considered one of the most common types of non-invasive breast cancers. That surgery was followed by reconstructive surgery.
“It’s a part of the fabric of who I am now,” says Calloway. “It stunned me for a while. You have a denial you go through. I take my health seriously, I always have. I get check-ups on a regular basis. I detected it early. I was smart and I’m grateful. I beat the odds.”
She announced the special performance as a sign of solidarity and because it was an opportunity for her to take her advocacy for cancer awareness and prevention to another level.
“I like [to have] people at the dress rehearsal,” says Calloway, who hours earlier had flown back into Los Angeles after attending the National Black Theatre Festival in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. “Also, it’s a great way to give back. This is my own personal way of giving back to women who are underserved. This is for people who can’t afford a ticket.”
The Show
Calloway’s passion for Letters From Zora is evident when she talks about the piece. She doesn’t so much talk about it as she seems to live it, breathe it and inhabit it. While explaining her participation in the project, she not only gets emotional about the show, she effortlessly glides in and out of Southern accents and often recites her favorite passages from the show with the same verve she’d have if she were standing before a sold-out house.
An admitted “control freak,” Calloway doesn’t waste her words. She makes every one of them count. She doesn’t ramble. She speaks clearly about the significance of Hurston’s contributions, calling the writer “fierce.”
Calloway considers this show a chance for her to bring a noted Harlem Renaissance personality to life. The play, she says, touches upon many aspects of Hurston’s life, both the good and the bad.
Zora Neale Hurston
“This is a multimedia show with original scoring,” says Calloway. “We touch upon her writing world. We talk about her traveling. We talk about her life in Eatonville, Florida and how she lived on a houseboat. We talk about her men. We talk about Langston Hughes. You experience her Harlem Renaissance world. We go from the time she was born to the time she dies. It’s magical.”
Hurston’s life was anything but boring. She was known for being outspoken, fiery, feisty, fearless and controversial. Her feud with poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist Langston Hughes over creative differences on a joint project (the play Mule Bone) is well known and documented.
Her mother died when Zora was 13. Her father reportedly didn’t like her and abandoned her, leaving her at a school after he had stopped paying tuition. She had many marriages. The show will also speak about how she was forced into teaching to earn a living; it was a job she disliked. Those are just some of the topics covered in this production, which includes archival images. Hurston died on Jan. 28, 1960 at the age of 69.
Her books include: Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), Tell My Horse (1938), Moses, Man of the Mountain (1939), her autobiography Dust Tracks On A Road (1942) and Seraph on the Suwanee (1948).
V to Z
Asked why she chose this show, Calloway replies, “it chose me. Sometimes in your career you don’t choose, it chooses you. Gabrielle Pina is a sorority sister (Alpha Kappa Alpha – AKA) and wrote a great script. She tracked me down. She said she had just written a piece. She got ahold of some of Zora’s letters. She said, ‘You gotta do this for me.’” The only prior performance occurred on March 3, 2012 at USC’s Bovard Auditorium, presented by Vision and Voices: The USC Arts and Humanities Initiative. “I thought it was a lot of work for one day. I read it. I loved it. I decided to do it because I thought it had legs. It has a future.”
Calloway, 56, says doing the show last year was “thrilling and inspiring”. She hopes to strike gold again this year at the Pasadena Playhouse.
“Last year I was disappointed when I came home after the one show,” says Calloway. “It was a high and a letdown all at once. It was so disappointing that there was no theater to go to the next day. It was supposed to be 650 people. But about 1,200 people were there and leapt to their feet at the end. It was standing room only. A lot of people didn’t get in. I can’t tell you how I felt. I wanted to feel it again. I ain’t gonna lie. It was such a rush.”
Calloway has enjoyed finding her way around Hurston. Developing the character and bringing her to life has been rewarding, yet exhausting.
“This play is so deep,” says Calloway, who is insistent on giving Hurston’s voice just the right cadence. “I rehearse and have to take time off, and step back. It’s very draining. I’m pretty whipped. It’s so emotional.”
Pina Finds Zora
The evolution of Letters From Zora — In Her Own Words began about three years ago when Pina, a novelist and faculty member at USC’s Master of Professional Writing Program, says she visited the California African American Museum in Exposition Park and was able to read some of Hurston’s letters.
Gabrielle Pina
“I’ve always been a fan of hers,” says Pina, who recently completed the screenplay for her first novel Bliss. “I kept going back and reading the letters over and over. There was one she wrote to Albert Price, whom she married. She hated him. She cursed him out without using one curse word. It was so beautifully written. I wanted it. I wanted to frame it. I went home to my husband (composer Ron McCurdy, who teaches at USC’s Thornton School of Music) and he said, ‘Honey that’s a play. No one can write a play like you. You write it, and I’ll compose the music.’”
Pina, 45, says she researched Hurston for about a year, devouring everything she could find.
“I wanted to find out things I didn’t know,” says Pina, who named her children — 17-year-old Julian, 15-year-old Maya, and seven-year-old Langston — after well-known African Americans (Julian Bond, Maya Angelou and Langston Hughes). “I wanted to find out what the public didn’t know. I worked really hard because I wanted to do her justice. She was really misunderstood. If she was alive today, I would want her to be proud of what I wrote and that I told her story with integrity.”
After writing the play, which Pina says took about two and a half weeks, she says she immediately thought of Calloway.
“It’s an honor that she wanted me to do it,” says Calloway. “She’s entrusted me with her Zora. It’s a beautiful piece.”
“One of the reasons I thought Vanessa could do the role is because she’s feisty, just like Zora was a feisty little thing,” explains Pina, who won the 2002 Pacificus Foundation Literary Prize for achievement in short fiction. “Vanessa is very talented. When I was working on it, I thought she could do it. As an actress she is so undervalued.”
Television personality Star Jones, Calloway’s friend of 25 years, is also a fan of her acting.
“Vanessa can convey a dozen emotions with a single look,” says Jones, who met Calloway at an AKA sorority convention. “When you watch her on screen, she morphs into the character she is playing and you get wrapped up or drawn into that character’s storyline. I’m her best friend, and I often forget I actually know this person when she is on the screen or stage. She’s just that good.”
Jones insists there is more to her friend than just acting.
“Vanessa is a giver,” says Jones. “She cares about the people in her life and treats us all like family. She is also a great sounding board for ideas and issues because she listens with her heart and advises with her head.”
That’s So Vanessa!
A Cleveland native who received her bachelor’s of fine arts degree from Ohio University, Calloway has been toiling away at her craft for decades. Her career has been diverse. She studied dance with Alvin Ailey, George Faison and Otis Sallid. She began her career as a dancer in Michael Bennett’s original Broadway production of Dreamgirls. One of her first acting gigs was on All My Children in 1982. She’s a steady actress with both a comedic and dramatic edge.
Vanessa Bell Calloway in “Hawthorne”
She recently shot a CBS pilot, Reckless, a legal soap set in sultry Charleston, South Carolina. She played the role of a judge.
Her television, film and stage credits include Hawthorne, Boston Public, A Different World, The Closer, Biker Boyz, The Inkwell, Love Don’t Cost a Thing, What’s Love Got to Do with It, Coming to America, Lakeview Terrace and Cheaper by the Dozen. She recently appeared in Don Welch’s play, The Divorce.
While she works constantly as an actress, Calloway is also a wife, mother, friend and talk show host. She’s known around Hollywood circles for throwing some of the swankiest soirees at her home. She loves to cook and loves to entertain, often hosting parties for some of her celebrity friends.
“When you attend a party at VBC’s, be prepared to be wowed,” says Jones. “You’ll think a four-star restaurant catered the food, an event planner to the stars designed the decor and a staff of 20 set the whole thing up. She makes entertaining look effortless…but she still has all the bells and whistles.”
Calloway hosts her own Blogtalk radio program, That’s So Very Vanessa! . The show, which she’s been doing now for a year, airs Sundays at 3 pm PST and 6 pm EST. Some of her guests have included Jones, James Pickens Jr., Blair Underwood, Jenifer Lewis, Pauletta Washington and Alfre Woodard. She is also about to launch a new web series this September called In The Company of Friends, which will allow the public to be voyeurs as Calloway and her friends break bread and chop it up, talking about everything under the sun.
“I’m a gourmet cook and I love to entertain,” says Calloway. “You’re a fly on the wall as I entertain. The audience can sit back and enjoy. We aired a similar show to this one on TV One six years ago. I came up with the idea because with entertainers, talk shows have us in and out so quick. You really don’t get to know us. You don’t get to find out who people really are. Who am I? What do I like? What makes you happy? I want to know about people.”
VBC on ZNH
First things first. Before she can concentrate on her upcoming web series, Calloway’s focus is to become Zora Neale Hurston.
“She wrote so beautifully,” says Calloway, dressed comfortably in black leggings, a blue jean shirt, gold earrings, bracelets and sandals. “There is a poem called Contentment. I’m so full when I do it on stage. It makes me cry. I pick the words apart. The wording is different because of how they spoke back then. I related to it so deeply. Part of it goes, ‘Whether I shall ever reach the distant hills of fame and glory, I do not know; but, I have kept my eyes toward their shining crests.’ As an actress you do certain things and hit marks. I don’t have to try with this one. I’m emotional because of the words. It’s just….I can’t control it.”
Calloway has big plans for Letters From Zora. She wants to do it in New York, the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, a theater in Atlanta, the Kirk Douglas in Culver City or the Geffen in Westwood.
When she thinks about the play, she says the word that comes to mind is “grateful.”
Vanessa Bell Calloway in “Letters From Zora”
“I know in my heart there is a reason I’m only doing six shows,” says Calloway. “My job is to go in there and kick ass. That’s all I’m focusing on. If I can do my job, walk away and take a bow and feel good, I’ve done me, the rest is God.”
Calloway has learned that when she’s thinking about the play’s possibilities, she has to exercise some patience.
“After we do this performance, I’m praising Jesus,” says Calloway. “I am claiming it and praying on it that the show is a success with stellar reviews. I want to tape it again. That will be the entrée to the next big step. I understand patience and faith. I have to earn my way to New York. I’ve been working on this since Memorial Day. It’s got to flow. You can’t think about it. You can’t think about what you’re saying. I have to become Zora. You have to put the work in. I’m a good actress, but I can’t fluff this. I can’t fake it.”
Letters From Zora — In Her Own Words, Pasadena Playhouse, 39 South El Molino Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91101. Aug. 15-18 only. Thu-Fri. 8 pm, Sat 4 and 8 pm, Sun 2 pm. Tickets: $30-$75. www.pasadenaplayhouse.org. 626-356-7529.
**All Letters From Zora production photos by Chris Roman.