SHOW DESCRIPTION

Dr. Mark Henderson came to Jackson State University to teach for one year and stayed for thirty-one. He now leads JSU’s Department of Speech Communication and Theater and founded the touring troupe MADDRAMA. In this episode of Soul Sessions, he talks about playing “old Bobby Rush” in the world premiere of Slippin’ Through the Cracks at New Stage Theatre, a musical he has helped develop since its earliest stage readings. He also shares why Mississippi’s stories need to be told, why theater should be a bridge and not a wall, and why he believes all of Jackson will claim this show as its own.

TRANSCRIPT

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INTRO

Paul

He planned to teach at Jackson State for one year, and thirty-one years later, he’s not only still there, he’s helping tell Bobby Rush’s life story on stage. Hey, it’s Paul Wolf with the front row seat to conversations on culture from Jackson, Mississippi. We call our podcast Soul Sessions. It’s the people, places, and events that make the City With Soul shine. On today’s show, we’re talking with Dr. Mark Henderson, who leads JSU’s Department of Speech Communication and Theater and plays old Bobby Rush in the world premiere of Slippin’ Through the Cracks at New Stage Theatre. He’s been with the musical since its earliest stage readings, guided by the same advice he gives his students: trust your journey.

Why Do JSU Students Call Dr. Mark Henderson the “Star Maker”?

Paul

Welcome, Mark Henderson, to Soul Sessions. Thanks so much for being here today.

Mark

Thank you for the invitation.

Paul

Well, we have you here because you are a man about town when it comes to dramatic arts, especially at Jackson State University, but with an upcoming production at New Stage Theatre. And we’re going to talk about that in a few moments. But you know, you sent me over some information before we got everything started. And I read in there that your students call you the Star Maker. I like that.

Mark

Yeah.

Paul

Your educational philosophy is that students are privileges and not problems. So my question is, where did that belief come from, and how does that show up in your classroom?

Mark

Well, the beliefs stem from my own experience. I was born in Canton, Mississippi, and I had a very limited background of knowledge of anything. I was just really raw when I came to college. Hadn’t been exposed to it a lot. And when I got to college, I ran across teachers and mentors who were more than just teachers. They were mentors and guides and all kinds of things in my life. And so I had decided if I were to ever be blessed to be in front of the classroom, I had to have that kind of approach, that kind of mentality, because it’s easy to dismiss people when we see them as problems. But then I think about them as privileges, because it’s such a privilege to be able to interact with those empty vessels who, like I was, know nothing and didn’t do anything, but to know that you can impart something, even if it’s a small something, to make a difference in their life.

Paul

You used the word vessels, and I was just thinking while you were talking that you’re pouring into these students.

Mark

Definitely, definitely pouring into them. Sometimes they don’t want to receive it, but we pour.

Paul

Until you can’t pour no more, right?

Mark

Yeah.

How a One-Year Teaching Job at Jackson State University Became 31 Years

Paul

So you earned your BA at Jackson State, and you came back to teach in 1995. You now lead the Department of Speech Communication and Theater and also founded MADDRAMA, which stands for Making A Difference Doing Respectable and Meaningful Art. What has it meant to build your career in the same place that shaped you?

Mark

Well, it’s a testament to the statement that I use to students. You have to trust your journey, because when you think that you know where you want to go and what you want to do, you’re wasting your time. You have to be open to the divinity in you, all of that, because I never set out to be a teacher. I never set out to work in a university. I was finishing my PhD at the University of Southern Mississippi. I was gonna go and work as a communication director at MCI or some company like that. I was moving to Atlanta, and the year I was getting ready to complete my doctorate, my department called me, because I kept a relationship with them throughout after undergrad. And they said, we have a teacher here who’s leaving for a year for a leave of absence. We want to know if you could just come for a year. I said no, because I’m getting ready to go to Atlanta, do everything I do.

Paul

Ha ha.

Mark

And so about a month before school started, they reached back out and said we still hadn’t found anyone. And I looked at my bank account, looked at my move to Atlanta, wasn’t working out. I said, okay, I’ll come for one year, and that year has turned into thirty-one years.

Paul

Wow, so my, how things change.

Mark

Yeah, yeah. I had no idea. And I tell students I don’t know how to tell you to go find a job, how to look for a job, because I never looked for a job. I left grad school, came to this job.

Paul

Yeah, and so many students are out there looking for positions, and I gave advice to a group of students just yesterday, and I said, pay attention and be open. It may not be exactly what you thought it was gonna be, but you gotta start somewhere.

Mark

Have to, right. Definitely.

Slippin’ Through the Cracks: The Bobby Rush Musical Premieres at New Stage Theatre in Jackson

Paul

You are in a new production at New Stage Theatre here in Jackson, Mississippi. It’s the Bobby Rush story. We just keep calling it the Bobby Rush musical. It’s Slippin’ Through the Cracks. And it was started and workshopped right here in Jackson before it went to Broadway. How did you come to be a part of it, and what has it been like to watch this production grow?

Mark

It has been a great experience because, as you said, I have been working with it since the workshop days of it, about five or six years ago. We have a very good relationship with the Jackson State University Theater Department and New Stage. So it’s kinda like we’re family. And so when the opportunity came up, Francine, who’s the artistic director down there, called and said, you know, we wanted to do the stage reading. And obviously they saw something in me that they liked. So they kept me around for the next five years doing stage readings of this. And it didn’t go to Broadway. It’s actually, this is the world premiere that we’re doing here in Jackson. We took it to New York to do another stage reading. We’ve been workshopping it for years, and now we’re finally at the point where it’s ready to be premiered to the world on stage as not just a stage reading, but a full-fledged production.

Paul

Wow, so it never actually made it to Broadway. Was that the intention? Was that the hope originally?

Mark

And it still is the hope. It is still the hope to get it to Broadway. But of course, you know, through the process, we feel like it’s best to premiere this production here in Jackson, Mississippi, because this is where Bobby Rush is. And the story needs to be told, and it is told primarily by Mississippians. And then Bobby Rush is here. So we feel like this is the good foundation to spring it to Broadway. We know that once we leave Jackson and New Stage, we’re Broadway bound.

Paul

So you’ve been involved in this since almost day one. What has that been like?

Mark

Yes. It has been a great journey because personally I learned a lot about, you know, Bobby Rush. I knew Bobby Rush and had seen him around, but I’ve learned two things in this process. Of course about Bobby Rush, but I learned the process it takes from the page to the stage. Especially when you’re doing something about a living legend, you have to be very careful. And New Stage and Stephen Helper, who is the writer of this, he along with Bobby Rush, have been very careful to make sure that this story is told with accuracy and with the respect that is due to Bobby Rush. So it has been great to be in this from the inception to now.

Who Plays Old Bobby Rush in Slippin’ Through the Cracks?

Paul

You are credited in the production as old Bobby Rush, right?

Mark

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Paul

Okay. So what does that version of him carry in the story, and what did you most want to get right in portraying that age, that time frame in his life?

Mark

Well, yeah, we have three Bobby Rushes in the play: the young Bobby Rush, the middle-aged one where he’s out there doing all the performing, and me. I serve as more his presence now, more like a narrator in the story, and help guide the story along. What’s most important for me to make sure is captured is the journey of Bobby Rush, you know, the sacrifices that he had to make, the intensity of having come through eras and time periods where there was racism and things like that that he overcame, and still is standing as this three-time Grammy Award-winning artist today. I really want to make sure that I don’t even try to play Bobby Rush. I don’t even try to be Bobby Rush. I just want to be that storyteller who happens to be the character of old Bobby Rush, but he is so dynamic, I don’t think any of us could accurately capture him.

Paul

Listen, as many times as I’ve seen him on stage, nobody can be Bobby Rush.

Mark

Right, you can’t be Bobby Rush. You just got to trust that your artistic abilities will allow you to do justice to who he is.

Why the Bobby Rush Story Belongs to Jackson, Mississippi

Paul

That’s right. So the creative team calls this the first musical to come straight out of the Mississippi Delta. And they argued that the blues culture has really just been overlooked on Broadway. Why do you think it matters that the story is being told on stage now, and that it started right here in Jackson, in Mississippi, in the birthplace of America’s music?

Mark

Yeah, it is important, one, because we still have Bobby Rush with us, and he’s still with us, and he is such a wealth of information and history. This assures that we get it right. It’s not a secondary account of what it was like in those times here. We’re getting this straight from him, and it’s important that this legacy continues. There’s a line in the play, not to give too much away, but I love this line. It says that if you don’t like the blues, then you don’t like your mama. Because the blues is the mother of American music. The blues is the mother of American music. So I really like that. And one thing to note that I want the audience to know, and some people ask, is this a Bobby Rush concert? It’s not a concert. It’s a musical trip, musical play. It’s a musical. So don’t want them to think they’re coming and sitting here for 10, 15 songs by Bobby Rush. You are witnessing his life from a little seven-year-old boy all the way to him in his nineties.

What Bobby Rush’s Journey Teaches Mississippi Audiences

Paul

Yeah, let’s talk about that for a second, because Bobby grew up as part of a sharecropping family in the Delta, and then he went on to carry the blues around the world. As a Mississippian, stepping into his story every night, what part of that journey of his stays with you the most?

Mark

The boldness of him and the “don’t let nobody tell you that you can’t” aspect of him. Bobby Rush had the mentality that when you told him he can’t, that’s exactly what motivated him to do. So every time I think about that character, I think about the resilience of Bobby Rush. And if I want to be able to capture anything, if I want people to leave with anything, don’t lead with the fact that he’s a great harmonica player or that he’s a great blues singer, that he’s got all these crazy moves. Lead with the fact that here’s a man who succeeded not because of, but in spite of. And I think that’s generational. Every generation has some obstacles that they have to overcome in order to be successful. Bobby Rush happened to be at a time in America when that obstacle was racism and classism and all that kind of stuff. And it might be a different obstacle today, but the journey to overcome is still the same. You still have to have that same resilience. And that’s what I want them to leave with, the fact that if a little old country boy like Bobby Rush can succeed, then you can too.

Paul

I think it’s a great message too for your students, maybe not the same circumstance or situation, but as a teacher, as a professor, what do you hope your students and Jackson audiences can take from a play like this?

Mark

Well, there’s so many aspects of that. In the Jackson audience, I want them first of all to look at the fact that here’s an HBCU professor with a main stage theater company that merges together to show that New Stage is a very diverse organization that embraces culture. It embraces the diversity of culture. So that means that we need to support HBCU theater and support New Stage Theatre. I want them to see that collaboration. Secondly, I want them to be able to see that we have such a rich history in Mississippi, and our stories must be told. They need to be told because people always talk about Mississippi’s on the bottom. Well, even if that’s the case, that which is on the bottom is holding you up. So, you know, we’re the foundation, so we’re still holding you up.

Paul

Mm.

Mark

And the third thing I want my students to understand is, and I sometimes wish they could sit in rehearsal and see their professor struggling with lines, forgetting lines, don’t know what’s next, to show that I’m human. And I have more sensitivity to them now in rehearsal when I’m fussing at them about getting lines. I tell them now, I understand. I understand that you don’t have it.

Paul

You’ve been there, huh?

Mark

Mm, definitely.

Theater as a Bridge: Dr. Mark Henderson on Telling Mississippi Stories

Paul

You’ve written and directed pieces about Fannie Lou Hamer and Emmett Till, and now you’re helping tell Bobby’s story. So what draws you to bringing those Mississippi stories to the stage?

Mark

Well, I believe, my own personal philosophy is that theater should be designed to pull the window back and face some realities, and I wanna see it as a bridge and not a wall. So I love culture. I’ve always been amazed about cultural differences that tend to keep us apart when we are so much alike. And I think theater should be used to evoke change in our life, which is why, as an African American, I’m very conscious about the type of theater I do, because it can be deceptive. We can get so wrapped up into the laughter, into the comedy, that we miss the message. And I got this mentality back in the early nineties when I went to one of those gospel traveling stage plays. And I sat there and I watched it, and I was kind of disappointed, because what it said is that if you’re on drugs, go to church, sing a gospel song, you’re delivered. And I said, theater should be more powerful than that. We have an opportunity to be a lens to corrective actions, to change, to cultural cohesiveness. So I said, I need to do theater that’s gonna wake us up about each other, see each other as human beings rather than racial beings, and bridge the gap between cultures. That’s why I like doing cultural kinds of pieces.

How Music Drives the Story in the Bobby Rush Musical

Paul

You know, much of your New Stage work has been in plays, from Stickfly to Fences, and this Bobby Rush musical, Slippin’ Through the Cracks, brings a full company of actors and musicians to the stage. What changes for you as an actor when music is what drives the story?

Mark

Well, what changes is you want to make sure that the music is complementary to the message. What I think has been cleverly done with our musical directors, our directors in this play, who are just great people, each night in rehearsal, I’m amazed at how they collaboratively work together to make sure that the choreography doesn’t outshine the message, or the music complements the message. And that’s very important in this kind of play, because while Bobby Rush’s music is the impetus of why we’re doing this, his journey, his life, is just as important. They complement each other. Just like his struggle made it possible for his musical success. That’s all important. So I think that you have to have that three-pronged balance in the play. And that’s what’s important with this. And the music is fun.

Paul

It’s definitely fun, and it gets you out of your seat too.

Mark

Yeah, and you know, Bobby Rush has some kind of lyrics in some of his music that’s gonna make us be like, okay, Bobby.

Paul

Ha ha ha.

Will Bobby Rush Appear at New Stage Theatre?

Paul

Will we see Bobby in any of these performances, the real Bobby Rush?

Mark

I am almost certain that he will. We’ve concluded that he’s probably not gonna make every performance, but we’re gonna sit there eagerly awaiting him to be at as many as he can. And I’m sure, definitely, he’s gonna be there. I can’t say which nights or what days, but you know, we hope for every day, but we’re gonna see him sometime during the run.

Why See Slippin’ Through the Cracks at New Stage Theatre in Jackson?

Paul

Mark, your theater philosophy is “Any civilization that does not embrace the arts really isn’t civilized.” So for listeners who haven’t been to a show in a while, why do you think Slippin’ Through the Cracks should be the one to bring them to New Stage?

Mark

Because it’s a real story. It’s not a story that came up in the mind of some playwright who wanna imagine what it would be like if this had happened. This is a story of a real-life person who we know in our community. And I can guarantee you, everybody in Mississippi and everybody who’s gonna sit in the audience, if they have not had a direct interaction with Bobby Rush, you’ve been riding one day and you heard one of his songs, or you happened to go to an event at the zoo, or you go to an event here and he pops up. So I think this play should be attended because I think it’s owned by the whole community. Everybody’s gonna feel like, I remember when I did that song. I remember when I heard that song. I saw Bobby Rush at the grocery store. He talked to me after church. Everybody’s gonna feel like they’re part of the Bobby Rush experience one way or another. And I think they’re gonna walk out of the play feeling like we did that. That was our play. Black, white, whatever. I think everybody’s gonna connect.

Outro

Paul

That is actor, director, and professor Dr. Mark Henderson, whose journey is about why the foundation deserves the spotlight. People like to say Mississippi ranks last, but Mark points out that whatever sits at the bottom is holding everyone else up, and Slippin’ Through the Cracks brings a Mississippi legend’s life to Mississippi soil, performed mostly by Mississippians. The whole community owns this one, because nearly everyone here has a Bobby Rush memory, whether it’s a song on the radio, a surprise appearance at the zoo, or a conversation after church. The world premiere runs October 20 through November 1 at New Stage Theatre, following Bobby from a seven-year-old boy to a man in his nineties. Mark is almost certain the real Bobby Rush will drop in sometime during the run. We’ll have links in our show notes to Slippin’ Through the Cracks at visitjackson.com/soulsessions.

Soul Sessions comes to you from Visit Jackson, the destination organization for Jackson, Mississippi — the City With Soul. Our executive producers are Jonathan Pettus and Dr. Rickey Thigpen, and I’m Paul Wolf, managing editor and your host for these conversations. Your next Jackson adventure starts at visitjackson.com. Know someone we should be talking to? Drop us a line at pwolf@visitjackson.com.

Thanks for listening. I’ll talk to you again soon.

Listen to previous episodes of Soul Sessions