In Observance of The 50th Annual Chicago Non-Equity Jeff Awards Ceremony That Was Presented March 25, 2024 At The Park West Theatre of Lincoln Park, Previous Jeff Outstanding Actor In A Principal Role In A Play Award Winner Darryl Maximilian Robinson Shares His Recollection of The Chicago Joseph Jefferson Citation Awards Nominations Day May 8, 1997!

Exactly 27 years ago, on May 8, 1997, veteran and award-winning Chicago, St. Louis and Los Angeles stage actor and play director Darryl Maximilian Robinson roused himself from slumber in his then very small, Logan Square neighborhood apartment on the near-north side of Chicago and began strolling up and down Logan Square Boulevard to check for early morning deliveries to newspaper vending machines. He was in search of a very specific entertainment news article which he expected to find in both the major dailys of that time in The Windy City: The Chicago Sun-Times and The Chicago Tribune.

 

For on this particular date the illustrious and well-respected, city-wide theatre awards organization The Joseph Jefferson Awards Committee was scheduled to publicly announce its nominees for outstanding productions and performers of the 1996-1997 Chicago theatre season and Darryl Maximilian Robinson's multiracial, non-Equity professional chamber theatre The Excaliber Shakespeare Company of Chicago was in the awards "mix" for its revival of the great South African playwright Athol Fugard's anti-apartheid dramatic masterpiece "Master Harold And The Boys."

Darryl Maximilian Robinson's "early bird gets the worm" thinking prevailed when he obtained multiple copies of both major papers announcing the ESC Jeff-Recommended production had garnered two significant nominations!

Without question one of the most moving and emotionally wrenching plays by the great South African playwright Athol Fugard is his personal memoir of racism known as "Master Harold And The Boys." The acclaimed playwright / director's original 1982 Yale Repertory and Broadway productions captured huge critical response and awards recognition ( including 1982 Tony Award Nominations for Best Play and Best Director for Fugard, and a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor In A Play on Broadway for Zakes Mokae for his moving performance as Sam Semela ).

There was a successful Showtime Television version of the play with Mokae recreating his award-winning role. And though the play is considered a great and potent dramatic work addressing the harmful effects of racism, by the early 1990s, not many regional or local American productions of the work were being staged.

In St. Louis, during the Spring of 1993, Darryl Maximilian Robinson, Producer-Director of Excaliber Productions, Ltd. ( ably assisted by skilled co-designer and production stage manager J. L. Watt ) directed and played the role of Sam Semela in the work opposite talented young actors Philip Alexis Watt as Hally and Carey S. Means as Willie in a small, well-received revival of the work at The Wabash Triangle Cafe in St. Louis.

Based upon the effect the work had on local audiences during that production ( the issue of racism was quite relevant then, as it is now! ), Mr. Robinson staged a more detailed 1997 revival of the work ( on this occasion ably assisted by dramaturg, co-designer and co-producer Jeff Helgeson ) at Chicago's Heartland Cafe Studio Theatre in the Windy City's northside Rogers Park neighborhood.

Under the banner of The Excaliber Shakespeare Company of Chicago, Darryl Maximilian Robinson appeared as Sam Semela opposite skilled performers Kevin Heckman ( later replaced by the gifted Kevin Adair ) as Hally and Gregory Christopher "Word Jazzman" Armstrong ( later replaced by talented newcomer Eliyahu Miller ) as Willie.

The production, designed, produced and directed by Mr. Robinson captured several favorable reviews and garnered for Mr. Robinson and The ESC multiple theatre honors including a 1997 Chicago Joseph Jefferson Citation Award Nomination for Outstanding Production of the Year ( to The ESC ); a 1997 Chicago Joseph Jefferson Citation Award Nomination for Outstanding Actor In A Principal Role In A Play ( to Mr. Robinson ); a 1997 Chicago Black Theatre Alliance Award Nomination for Best Leading Actor In A Play ( to Mr. Robinson ); and a 1997 Chicago Black Theatre Alliance Award Nomination for Best Sound Design ( to Mr. Robinson and Mr. Helgeson ).

The ESC's 1997 revival of Athol Fugard's "Master Harold And The Boys" also received Letters of Commendation and Recommendation from The Chicago South African Consulat General's Office and The City of Chicago Dept. of Human Relations praising the effectiveness of the production and encouraging audiences to see the great Fugard's work.

In addition to these notable accolades, at the end of the 1996-1997 theatre season, Mr. Robinson, Mr. Heckman and Mr. Armstrong were invited to perform a scene from The ESC's revival of "Master Harold And The Boys" at the 24th Annual Joseph Jefferson Citation Awards Ceremony at Chicago's Park West Theatre on June 9, 1997.

It was a wonderful evening that veteran theatre artist and Jeff Award Winner Darryl Maximilian Robinson will always cherish.

Though the ESC's revival would lose the Outstanding Production of the Year Award to The Pegasus Players' highly-praised, 6-hour, epic staging of "The Kentucky Cycle", Darryl Maximilian Robinson would win a 1997 Joseph Jefferson Citation Award as Outstanding Actor In A Principal Role In A Play for his performance as Sam Semela in "Master Harold And The Boys." To this day, the ESC's revival of Fugard's dramatic masterpiece remains the most honored production in the multiracial, non-Equity professional chamber theatre's history.

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Chicago-born and stage-trained actor and play director Darryl Maximilian Robinson was most recently seen by Windy City theatregoers in his critically-praised dual roles of The Chairman Mr. William Cartwright and The Mayor Thomas Sapsea in the 2018 Saint Sebastian Players Chicago revival of Rupert Holmes'The Mystery of Edwin Drood' at the more than a century old St. Bonaventure Church for which he received a 2019 BroadwayWorld Chicago Award nomination for Best Performer In A Musical or Revue ( Resident Non-Equity ).

Darryl Maximilian Robinson has become noted as the very first black actor in American Theatre History to portray on stage a trio of classic dramatic roles including: Sir Thomas More in Robert Bolt's "A Man For All Seasons" ( in a 1984 revival presented by The University Players of The University of Missouri-St. Louis and directed by AEA Member John Grassilli at The Benton Hall Theater ); King Henry II in a 1992 multiracial cast revival of James Goldman's "The Lion In Winter " ( directed by Mr. Robinson for his chamber theatre Excaliber Productions, Ltd in St. Louis and staged at The Wabash Triangle Cafe ); and Andrew Wyke ( opposite the talented actor Sean Nix as Milo Tindle ) in a 2000, 30th Anniversary, all-black cast revival of Anthony Shaffer's "Sleuth" presented under Mr. Robinson's direction by his chamber theatre The Excaliber Shakespeare Company of Chicago at The Harrison Street Galleries Studio Theatre of Oak Park, Illinois.

 

Now celebrating his own 50th anniversary as an American Stage Performer, Darryl Maximilian Robinson extends his heartfelt congratulations to all of the Jeff nominees, winners, committee members and production team staff involved in the March 25, 2024 Chicago 50th Annual Non-Equity Joseph Jefferson Awards Ceremony at The Park West Theatre in The Windy City.

Much Bread And Roses!