Information About & YouTube Video Of The 1979 Black Theater Production "When Hell Freezes Over, I'll Skate"

Edited by Azizi Powell

This is Part I of a three part pancocojams series on the 1979 award winning theater production "When Hell Freezes Over, I'll Skate".

Part I presents information about this theater production and includes the full YouTube video of this play.

Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2019/03/showcasing-three-love-poems-love-song.html for Part II of this series. Part II showcases three love poems from "When Hell Freezes Over, I'll Skate"; "Benign Neglect", "I Thought You knew", and "It's time". Part II also showcases the song "You Get Into Me With Your Touch" which is performed immediately after that third poem.

Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2019/03/video-of-lyrics-for-song-when-hell.html for Part III of this post. Part III showcases the song "When Hell Freezes over I'll Skate" from the play with that name. The lyrics for that song are included in this post along with my thoughts about what that title/idiom means.

Thanks to Vinnette Carroll, who conceived and directed "When Hell Freezes Over, I'll Skate" and thanks to all those who starred in that production or were associated with that production. Thanks also to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to the publisher of this video on YouTube.

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SHOWCASE VIDEO: When Hell Freezes Over, I'll Skate (1979 Stage Play Drama)



TheeSymphony85'AliveAgain Channel, Published on May 17, 2018

This lively, spirit-lifting musical celebrates the sheer-joy----and----survival---of black music, song and poetry since the days of America's Civil War. With utter grace and ease, the gifted eight-member singing ensemble glides from gospel to disco and from slave quarter sermons to contemporary black poetry. Stars Tony winners Cleavant Derricks and Lynne Thigpen.

Starring: Cleavant Derricks, Lynne Thigpen, Clinton Derricks-Carroll,, Jeffrey Anderson-Gunter, Marilyn Winbush, Brenda Braxton, Lynne Clifton-Allen, Reginald VelJohnson. Directed by Vinnette Carrol & Emile Ardolino.
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This is the complete play (length-58:12 minutes)

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INFORMATION ABOUT THE PLAY "WHEN HELL FREEZES OVER, I'LL SKATE"
From https://www.nytimes.com/1979/02/14/archives/revue-when-hell-freezes-over-urban-arts-corps.html
Revue: ‘When Hell Freezes Over’
By RICHARD F. SHEPARDFEB. 14, 1979
"RECIPE for an evening of theater that works well, even without a script: Take the works of two dozen poets and have them performed by seven attractive and talented young performers who recite, sing and dance, accompanied by a half‐dozen good musicians. Stir well and you have a delectable feast that goes under the title, “When Hell Freezes Over, I'll Skate.”

This latest offering of the Urban Arts Corps, which was established to involve young black and Puerto Rican artists with professional theater, Is a revue, but one in which the sequences fit together almost seamlessly. Vinnette Carroll, who conceived and directed the show (she is artistic director of the Urban Arts Corps), describes it as “our poetry program, from slavery to the present.” And the program does indeed cover much ground and many well‐put words in the less than two hours it is on stage.

The scorekeeper might cavil at the lack of identification of the poetry, whether one is listening at one point to the words of Paul Laurence Dunbar, of Nikki Giovanni, of Langston Hughes...

[...]

It opens with a rouser, a thumping of feet as four men and three women, all attractive people, get things under way singing “When the colored band comes marching down the street.” Then there are the simple songs of country courting, songs of humor and love. Somehow, because it happens effortlessly, the mood shifts to gospel, rousing and impassioned, drawing in the rhythmic clapping of the audience. There is a sermon, but, of course, it is poetry.

The mood changes. It's the blues, tired and sexy and indrawn. And jazz. It is all here, the many moods and modes of black expression, perhaps not all of them, but a sample case of the bit ter and the sweet, the pragmatic and the poetic.

“When Hell Freezes Over” is carried off beautifully by its cast. Marilynn Winbush is a most handsome young woman with a voice that moves easily from throaty torch to concert‐hall polished pitch. Lynne Clifton‐Allen, who looks, as one observer noted, a lot like Joan Crawford, conveys comedy as well as the pathos of a worn woman. Brenda Braxton is a lithe and intense dancer, an eye‐catching whirl of red dress punctuating the prose and poetry.

Alde Lewis Jr. also dances, and he taps and swings to tunes of any era. Clinton Derricks‐Carroll and Cleavant Derricks can carry off anything, from gospel and church sermon to tender ballad and hortatory hymn. Jeffrey Anderson‐Gunter displays an almost elfin charm and humor expressed in both smile and soft West Indian accent.

Miss Carroll's direction is surefooted and logical. She has made an entity out of a number of disparate and diverse parts. It is, as she says, an evening of poetry, but it is more than that. It is an evening of entertainment and theater."

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Excerpt #2:
From https://www.csmonitor.com/1984/0517/051713.html
'When Hell Freezes Over': rousing songs about black life in America
By Louise Sweeney, May 17, 1984
"It's a musical evening that picks you up and shakes you like one of the flashing tambourines in ''Movin' Up to Higher Ground.'' Vinnette Carroll's ''When Hell Freezes Over, I'll Skate'' is the latest shout of joy and anguish from the woman who has dedicated her life to portraying the black experience through music. Ms. Carroll has also brought us ''Your Arm's Too Short to Box With God'' and ''Don't Bother Me, I Can't Cope.''

This time around, at the Kennedy Center [in Washington, D.C.], Ms. Carroll has done a rousing tone poem on black life based on the work of poets Paul Laurence Dunbar, lindamichellebaron, Langston Hughes, and Nikki Giovanni. Ms. Carroll, listed as director and ''conceiver,'' has divided the production into two acts: the first, dealing with black life of the mid-19th-century rural South; the second, that of the mid- to late 20th-century urban North. Original music and lyrics are by H. B. Barnum, Cleavant Derricks, and Clinton Derricks-Carroll.

The production begins as the spotlight hits the statuesque Nora Cole, standing on a pedestal swathed in a translucent gold cloak. Her face is a mask, as austerely beautiful as Nefertiti's. Then ''The Colored Band'' of the old South begins the traditional black singing and dancing. But there is an undercurrent sung: ''We wear the mask that grins and lies, this debt we pay to human guile . . . .'' The seven couples who share equal billing in this musical revue of black life wear Dona Granata's dramatic costumes: pastel, ruffled, and flounced gowns or ice cream suits for the 19th-century scenes; jazzy outfits in bold jewel colors for the contemporary Act II.

There are moments when the production explodes with emotion: when Trina Thomas with her rich, raise-the-roof contralto belts out the spiritual ''Lost in the Wilderness,'' and when Tommy Hollis shakes the Kennedy Center congregation with ''An Ante-Bellum'' sermon against slavery (Moses vs. Pharaoh), reminiscent of Cleavon Little's showstopper in ''Purlie.'' He masks the message by singing: ''Don't you run and tell your master I's a preachin' discontent, 'cause I isn't . . . I'm talking about freedom in a Biblistic way . . . '' The cast also pulls out all the stops for a strutting, prancing, crowd-rouser, ''Little Liza Jane,'' one of the most lively numbers by choreographer Michele Simmons.

''When Hell Freezes Over'' is a spirited but uneven production. The first act is more successful than the second, which deals with the blues of urban life and love up North. ''How can you fix your mouth to say there's a shortage of good men when I'm here?'' wails the endearing L. Michael Gray before blasting off with ''Fat Man Blues'' to Trina Thomas. His double-dip soliloquy and her banana split of an answer, ''Why I Went Off My Diet,'' are some of the delights of a second act which sometimes falters in pace and content.

A small orchestra is effectively placed in a raised semicircle near the ceiling of the stage, rather than in the pit, so the music (supervised by H.B. Barnum) moves out over Lawrence Miller's minimal sets.

This Vinnette Carroll production seems lost in the vast Eisenhower Theater. It seems more suited to a smaller, more intimate space like the Kennedy Center's Terrace Theater, and is apparently not drawing big enough crowds to fill the Eisenhower. For this show's high ticket prices, an audience today expects a larger, more lavish production, often with a star for drawing power. It's unfortunate that ''When Hell Freezes Over'' may not be finding its audience, because it's a treat of an evening. As Ms. Carroll says in a Stagebill interview , ''It's a show about always looking on the bright side. It's a celebration; it's not a lecture on black history.''...

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This concludes Part I of this three part pancocojams series.

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