New play explores the life and work of Maya Angelou

Friday is the world premiere of Phenomenal Woman: Maya Angelou. The new play performed by the North Carolina Black Repertory Company chronicles the poet, author, entertainer, and activist’s entire life from rural Arkansas, to world traveler, to Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Maya Angelou’s story is one of triumph and tragedy. Separated from her dysfunctional parents as a small child she was raised by a grandmother in small town Arkansas where they were subjected to some of the worst the then-segregated South had to offer. Playwright Angelica Chéri says the woman who would one day be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom felt anything but free.

“She describes very, very detailed just the rage that she was feeling as she saw her grandmother diminished by white children and just absorbing that as a small child," says Chéri. "And then into the threat of the Klan when her uncle was suspected of whistling at a white woman, and just countless other examples of racism mixed with the abandonment of, ‘Where are my parents?’ and this is all within the first 13 years of her life.”

Director Jackie Alexander says Angelou’s response to the formative challenges she faced speaks to the play’s title — phenomenal woman.

“Despite all of those experiences, which I think she carried with her her whole life, there's no way you can’t. I think it was always a struggle dealing with this trauma," says Alexander. "But what she was able to put out to the world, rise above this trauma, and be this light to everyone else. Because despite the fact that she was always dealing with it, she chose to be light to everyone around her.”

Chéri says the preparation for this theater project — covering more than 80 years of Angelou’s life and work — was all-encompassing. Before embarking on her many biographies, Chéri began by listening to countless speeches, podcasts, and interviews recorded throughout her decades-long career.

“It was clear that she spoke passionately about the same pinnacle events. She talked a lot about Stamps, [Arkansas], and her grandmother, her work as an activist with Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, the gift of words and how she came into words after being raped after going mute. So, I started with what was important to Maya,” says Chéri. 

She adds from there she transitioned to absorbing her autobiographies, peeling out what she calls touchstone moments that made Angelou who she was, using them as anchors in the play, and building from there.

In Phenomenal Woman, three actors portray the various stages of Maya Angelou’s life — young, middle-age, and late — with the older Angelou actor on stage the entire play. Alexander says as she shares her story, the audience witnesses her memories as they come to life.

“And that's the challenge for the two younger Mayas. The words the narrator might be saying, she's physically bringing to light. Someone else is saying what's going on with her," says Alexander. "So there's a connection between these three throughout the show, and toward the end of the show, all three of them are on, because, younger and middle, those experiences defined the woman who's telling us the story this night.”

Phenomenal Woman: Maya Angelou performances will be held in Hanesbrands Theatre through March 12.