Regina Taylor

2009-03-13
By Sergio A. Mims

Regina Taylor first gained wide recognition for her award-winning role in the acclaimed NBC civil rights-era drama “I’ll Fly Away.” She has appeared in dozens of film and television roles and currently has a major role in CBS’ action drama “The Unit,” now in its fourth season.

But, the Dallas native has also garnered rare reviews as a prolific playwright for such work as Oo-Bla-Dee, about 1940’s black female musicians, her adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull, Drowning Crow and her play Crowns which has been performed all around the country and will be revived at the Pasadena Playhouse this spring.

Currently Ms. Taylor is overseeing the premiere of her new play Magnolia, which will premiere in March at the Goodman Theater in Chicago (where she is also a Distinguished Artistic Associate at the Goodman) about the end of segregation in1960’s Atlanta.

EbonyJet.com had an opportunity to talk with Ms. Taylor about her new play, what inspired her to write it and her thoughts about the acting profession:

EBONY: This is an unfair question with an obvious answer, but which do you love more acting or writing?

TAYLOR: I act and I write -- they go hand in hand. It’s all part of a creative life whether it’s writing, acting, directing, gardening, preparing a good meal for friends. It’s all part of how I live my life.

Jumping to your new play Magnolia, which deals with the beginning of the end of segregation in Atlanta during the early 60’s, was your experience being one of the first people to integrate your high school in Muskogee  Oklahoma, when you were 12,  an inspiration for the play?

It was inspired by the experiences I had growing up in America and the huge changes that were rearranging the landscape of America. In 1963 you had men in space orbiting the earth, you had a new president who was the first Roman Catholic president which people thought was something that could never happen…

Little did they know…

(laughs) And at the time in Atlanta you had the beginnings of these foundational walls starting to come down. You also had at this time issues of gender, being a woman. America at this time was shifting the landscape and the earth had was shifted under its feet and there were sit-ins and people were making these choices of which side of the line do you want to stand. And there were these perspectives on change which for some were viewed as positive and for others were viewed as negative.

When did you start working on the play and has it changed for you since the election of President Obama?

I started working on it a little over two years ago and I wanted to explore Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream, to look at it from a historical standpoint and what it led to today. And in the course of writing the play, I saw how that inspiration continues even today and to see this dream unending, shining, becoming concrete.

Where are we today? 

This dream of Dr. King, this American dream? How is it changing right now in front of us? How do we respond to that dream now? It’s  very much about what’s happening here and now. To be writing this piece at this moment as changes are happening in this country and to be writing a piece that speaks to those changes is mindboggling to me as being a writer as being a person creating and being alive in this world and writing about things that matter to people at this moment. To be a writer right now and speak about these things is exciting.

Then you definitely believe that theater can be and should be more than just entertainment It also about thoughts and ideas?

Yes, I feel that things that are on our minds are part of the life’s blood and what matters and theater can be a conduit for that.

So what is it about theater that has that immediacy that films or TV doesn’t have?

It goes back to our roots. People gathering around the fire and telling stores singing songs sharing their lives. It speaks to community.

And why is the play set in Atlanta? Why not New York or Dallas where you’re from or Chicago where the premiere of the play will take place?

Absolutely! It could be, it could be anyplace since this change was happening across the country. But I did choose Atlanta because it is the birthplace of Dr. King’s dream and where we are now because of that dream, but it easily could have Chicago or L.A.

What about Magnolia is different from your previous stage works?

Each work is different. And as the pieces grow, I hope I grow with them. I’m just trying to get to the truths, the human truths, our hopes, our dreams and how we look at ourselves and how we like  to be seen. Simple truths.

Getting to your current show The Unit, can working on a TV series like this, or your earlier show I’ll Fly Away, be a grind?

It can be, but on the Unit when you have David Mamet (the famous writer and co-creator and executive producer of The Unit) and Shawn  Ryan (also the creator of The Shield) as the head writer so the work is always consistently  interesting.

But the show, on which you play Dennis Haysbert’s wife,  is maybe the only dramatic TV program currently on that has a black couple first and center. We’re in the 21st century now so why don’t the networks get it?

I look at Oscar Michaeux, I look at Spike Lee, I look at Tyler Perry and I see that we can definitely have the ability and opportunity to be creative and own our own work.

And what do you look for when you’re acting in a film or TV Role? Is there any part you wouldn’t play?

I try to find roles that are complex and interesting. Which are rare  (laughs). But I think I’ve been very lucky in the roles that come to me. But in all of us we have our good sides and our dark sides and I think as actors it is our job to explore the human range. Hopefully it’s within a context that can hold those extremes.

That’s what I’m looking for as an actress. I think that I have been very blessed in the roles that have come to me. To be able to have some range and play characters that shine a light on our community as a black woman.

Our beginnings are not with the start of this country. It goes past and beyond, Africa,  beyond and we been everywhere and we have a history of all of that. To be a part of that dream as an actress is my mission. It’s wonderfully changeling, it’s creative.

Going back to theater, would you say that your greatest thrill is seeing one of your works on stage and seeing how the audiences reacts to it? 

I love theater. I love the process of the theater and I love being a writer and that is because you take your dreams and put them down on paper and actors bring the piece to life in ways you couldn’t have imagined. And as a writer what you hope you bring to it is a great story, great characters, a good heart. With actors and the audience as your collaborators they flesh it out and create this creature that walks around and then hopefully, on opening grow wings and flies. A creature that breathes and can even create fear. The process is enormously satisfying.

You don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to, but are you nervous on opening nights?

(Laughs) I’ll be aflutter. I won’t lie. (Laughs) But I do love it. I’m very passionate about it.

Film critic, lecturer and festival consultant Sergio Mims covers all things film from the city that works, Chicago. He is a regular contributor to EbonyJet.com.