{"id":2194,"date":"2010-05-07T18:03:37","date_gmt":"2010-05-08T01:03:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/anthologysd.com\/blog\/?p=2194"},"modified":"2010-05-07T18:08:29","modified_gmt":"2010-05-08T01:08:29","slug":"musical-icon-nina-simone-lives-on-in-%e2%80%98nina%e2%80%99","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anthologysd.com\/press\/2010\/05\/07\/musical-icon-nina-simone-lives-on-in-%e2%80%98nina%e2%80%99\/","title":{"rendered":"Musical icon Nina Simone lives on in \u2018Nina\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

World premiere production continues in San Diego through May 23<\/h3>\n
<\/div><\/object><\/div>\n

Calvin Manson \u2014 writer and director of the musical \u201cNina\u201d \u2014 saw Nina Simone perform while he was a student at UCSD in 1972.<\/p>\n

When it came time for the outspoken icon to sing \u201cTo Be Young, Gifted and Black,\u201d she asked all the black students in the large crowd to stand up. Four stood, and she sang the song directly to them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean that right there changed my life,\u201d Manson recalled. \u201cI walked for months, and graduated, with my head held high thinking \u2018Yes, I am young, gifted and black.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Afterward, at a reception following Simone\u2019s performance, she cursed Manson out for not offering her his seat fast enough and for calling her \u201cNina Simone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe said \u2018You don\u2019t know me. It\u2019s Ms. Simone to you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

She had her moods, he said, but the way she demanded respect from people didn\u2019t make him love her any less.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you listen to Donny Hathaway, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Aretha Franklin, and they\u2019re singing their protest songs, they learned and copied and got some of that from Nina Simone,\u201d explained Manson, the artistic director of San Diego\u2019s Ira Aldridge Repertory Players.<\/p>\n

\u201cNina\u201d features four women playing Simone at different periods of her life: ages 16 to 20, 20 to 30, 30 to 40 and 40 and up.<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

See the review of \u201cNina\u201d by SDNN theater critic Pat Launer<\/a> | <\/em>More Arts & Entertainment<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In its world premiere production, the musical will continue at San Diego\u2019s Sunset Temple through May 23. Simone\u2019s only child, Lisa, who\u2019s also a singer, is expected at next Saturday\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n

With all four cast-members onstage at once, the Ninas have conversations with each other that delve deeper into lesser-known ups and downs of Simone\u2019s career and personal life, including her relationships with her father, husbands, country and black America.<\/p>\n

The production is the culmination of a five-year process of writing and research. It began in 2005 at the request of Dr. Carrol Waymon, Simone\u2019s older brother and a San Diego resident since 1964.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve done other shows on icons like Sarah Vaughan or Billie Holiday and [writing about them] came very easy,\u201d Manson said.  \u201dBut Nina Simone \u2014 there was so much to her. And trying to capture all of that and put it into a play, that was difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n

A little genius<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"San<\/a><\/p>\n

(From left) Sarah Roy, Ayanna Hobson and Janice Edwards rehearsing “Nina” at the home of the musical’s writer and director, Calvin Manson. (Photo by Khari Johnson)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Though she would become known as a diva, \u201cthe voice of the movement\u201d and \u201cthe high priestess of soul,\u201d Nina Simone was born Eunice Waymon, one of eight children in the musical and religious home of John and Mary Kate Waymon in Tryon, North Carolina.<\/p>\n

Both her parents were ministers and all eight children learned to play a musical instrument, her brother said.<\/p>\n

When she was four, their father had surgery, and Simone served as his \u201clittle nurse.\u201d Her father, in turn, introduced her to secular songs of the day before becoming a more devout Christian.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey had a little private secret,\u201d Waymon said, adding that Nina\u2019s father told her  that \u201c\u2018when mom comes home from work, she\u2019s not to know.\u2019 So they did that for several years. He taught her on the piano and all that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nina\u2019s talent soon became apparent.  Once the woman whose house her mother cleaned heard about \u201cthis little genius there across town,\u201d she paid for Nina\u2019s classical piano training until she was a teenager and the family moved to Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

Simone didn\u2019t start singing until later in life. Back in North Carolina, \u201cshe did the playing and I did the singing,\u201d Waymon said, until he shipped off for World War II.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s how I got started,\u201d Waymon remembered. \u201cSo at about 14, I was a concert singer, and we traveled all over the place. Nina was the pianist and I was the concert singer. We had ourselves a ball.\u201d<\/p>\n

Simone went to New York\u2019s Juilliard School of Music for a summer. But she left behind aspirations of being a classical pianist after failing to make the cut at another prestigious music school, Philadelphia\u2019s Curtis Institute of Music,  which she felt was the result of racism.<\/p>\n

New name, new career<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 1954, Eunice adopted the name Nina Simone when she was hired by a club in Atlantic City. On the spot, she made up the name to conceal her new job from her parents, who would have disapproved.<\/p>\n

It was the first time she sang, according to Waymon.<\/p>\n

Her boss wanted her to sing and she said \u201cI can\u2019t <\/ins>sing.\u201d He told her, \u201cif you want the job, you have to sing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Five years later, she would release her first hit, her version of the song \u201cI Loves You Porgy\u201d from Gershwin\u2019s \u201cPorgy and Bess.\u201d It would take 20 years for her mother to forgive her for singing secular music and accept her talents, though her oldest children also became musicians.<\/p>\n

Other major hits throughout her career include \u201cFeeling Good,\u201d \u201cSinnerman,\u201d \u201cFour Women\u201d and \u201cI Put a Spell On You.\u201d<\/p>\n

Waymon came to San Diego in 1964, brought here by the city to run the Citizens Integration Committee, which would become the city human relations agency.<\/p>\n

Working with a staff of 19, Waymon helped desegregate jobs, education and housing and mediated between businesses, city government and the community at a fragile and tense time in San Diego and America\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

More than 100 boxes of his notes, documents and tapes of historic City Hall and community <\/ins>meetings will be sent to archives at San Diego State University, where Waymon taught for eight years and founded the school\u2019s Black Studies department.<\/p>\n

Once analyzed, his archives may reveal more about important chapters in San Diego\u2019s Civil Rights history.<\/p>\n

Reluctantly joining the movement <\/strong><\/p>\n

At the same time that Dr. Waymon was beginning to settle in San Diego, his sister became known for protest or movement songs like \u201cTo Be Young, Gifted and Black,\u201d a tribute to \u201cA Raisin in the Sun\u201d author and friend Lorraine Hansberry; \u201cMississippi Goddam,\u201d written after the murder of activist Medgar Evers and the bombing of a church in Birmingham; \u201cWhy? (The King of Love is Dead),\u201d after Martin Luther King\u2019s assassination in 1968, and other passionate songs at the height of the Civil Rights movement.<\/p>\n

\"San<\/a><\/p>\n

Carrol Waymon, one of Nina Simone’s seven siblings, at his home in San Diego. (Photo by Khari Johnson) <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Waymon said that initially, his sister had no interest in getting involved in the Civil Rights movement but that ultimately she \u201ccouldn\u2019t escape it.\u201d<\/p>\n

She was urged to get involved by socially conscious friends like writers Langston Hughes and James Baldwin. She was also brought up with a disgust for injustice, Waymon said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom day one in our family it was stressed [that you] do unto others as you\u2019d have them do unto you,\u201d he commented.<\/p>\n

Waymon also pointed out that Simone inherited her father\u2019s fire \u2014 a fact made evident when the young Simone refused to go onstage until her parents were moved from the back to the front row at a recital in a segregated building.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe said: \u2018They get a front seat, or we don\u2019t have a concert.\u2019 That\u2019s the first instance we knew that she picked up daddy\u2019s fire about being fair.\u201d<\/p>\n

The internationally-known Simone would later claim the Black Power movement used her up and that she was fed up with American racism. She moved to Europe in the late 1970s, came back to the U.S. in 1985 and left for good after 1991.<\/p>\n

She was awarded an honorary degree from the Curtis Institute of Music, <\/ins>her childhood dream, two days before her death in 2003 at her home in the south of France. She was 70 years old.<\/p>\n

Knowing Nina<\/strong><\/p>\n

Simone refused to be defined as a jazz musician. In an interview she once defined her music as \u201cblack classical\u201d and her performances often fused classical, jazz, folk and her own brand of soul.<\/p>\n

The two older Ninas in the production of \u201cNina,\u201d Janice Edwards and Ayanna Hobson, are jazz singers, and said that Simone has been a part of their lives for a long time. They often sing her songs in their own shows around town.<\/p>\n

Hobson, who plays the part of 40+ Nina, thinks of Simone\u2019s work as more organic than other so-called divas.<\/p>\n

The way Simone combined blues and Bach, for instance, showed the \u201cdifferent levels at which she operated. She had these roots that reached down into supporting humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Edwards, who portrays the 30-to-40 activist Nina, said her music \u201clooks like my whole childhood. I\u2019ve been knowing Nina Simone my whole life.\u201d<\/p>\n

In contrast, the younger Ninas, like 16-year-old Sarah Roy and Nicole Bradley, who plays her between the ages of 20 to 30, had to Google her after getting involved in the project. Bradley learned that biographers found that Simone was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in the 1960s, a fact that would remain unknown publicly until after her death.<\/p>\n

Joshlyn Turner, 25, said most of the people she knows who are her age are familiar with Simone because contemporary rappers like Kanye West and Common <\/ins>borrowed portions of her songs for their own music.<\/p>\n

She knew about Simone before but got to know her better while serving as the production\u2019s co-director.<\/p>\n

<\/del><\/p>\n

\u201cI think the fact that she went so much against the grain placed her aside from everyone else and gave her that light,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Stage manager Yolanda Adams also didn\u2019t know much about Simone. To her, both <\/ins>the musical and Simone\u2019s music are intimate experiences.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe just takes you on a journey,\u201d said Adams, \u201cand you go every step of the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Khari Johnson is an SDNN contributor.<\/em><\/p>\n

Event info<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

What:<\/strong> Ira Aldridge Repertory Players presents the world premiere production of \u201cNina: A Portrayal of the Life and Music of Nina Simone,\u201d written and directed by Calvin Manson<\/p>\n

When:<\/strong> Continues through May 23. Friday and Saturday dinner is at 6:30 p.m.; show at 8 p.m. Sunday matinee dinner is at 3 p.m.; show at 4 p.m.<\/p>\n

Where:<\/strong> Sunset Temple, 3911 Kansas Street, San Diego<\/p>\n

How much:<\/strong> $45 for dinner and show; $25 for show only. Dinner is available with reservation only<\/p>\n

Tickets\/information:<\/strong> (619) 283-4574; www.iarpplayers.org<\/a><\/p>\n

—
\nVia SDNN.com<\/a>
\n—<\/p>\n

See the play “Nina” and then join us at Anthology for a special evening with Nina Simone’s daughter, Simone, performing live!<\/p>\n

WHAT: Simone<\/strong>
\nWHEN: Thurday, May 13th, 2010, 7:30pm<\/strong>
\nTICKETS: $10 – $27 BUY TICKETS<\/a><\/strong>
\nMORE INFO: Artist Profile<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

World premiere production continues in San Diego through May 23 Calvin Manson \u2014 writer and director of the musical \u201cNina\u201d \u2014 saw Nina Simone perform while he was a student at UCSD in 1972. When it came time for the outspoken icon to sing \u201cTo Be Young, Gifted and Black,\u201d she asked all the black […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[729,730],"class_list":["post-2194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-the-news","tag-nina-simone","tag-simone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anthologysd.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anthologysd.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anthologysd.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anthologysd.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anthologysd.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2194"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/anthologysd.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2205,"href":"https:\/\/anthologysd.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2194\/revisions\/2205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anthologysd.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anthologysd.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anthologysd.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}