Playwright, Christina Ham
Interviewed by Morgana Wilborn, Director of Arts Engagement at KC Rep
A Play With Music
Oftentimes, I am asked the distinction between a play with music versus a musical. While there is no set number of songs required for a musical, they typically feature about 15 to 20 or more songs. Also, musicals can include what are known as reprises. Musicals use songs to advance plot and demonstrate character emotions. These songs are integral to help tell the story. A play with music has a diegetic sound (heard by the audience and characters), whereas a musical has music only heard by the audience, or non-diegetic music. A play with music has fewer songs (this one has about nine) and performs only a portion of some songs. These numbers are also spread out quite a bit throughout the play. The songs echo the plot and broaden and amplify the dialog. The songs could be totally removed, leaving just the play behind, and it would still work. That would not be the case with a musical. While these definitions might be a bit reductive, these are important distinctions. Hopefully it provides some context and curiosity to explore both forms. Enjoy!
Q: Nina Simone: Four Women has been produced nationally several times. What inspired you to revise the script now?
A: I was inspired to revise the script for a couple of reasons: some of the songs that were in the script were not the appropriate fit for a play with music. The areas where the old songs were popping up didn't blend as well with the text of the script. By finally being able to spend time with the script, I was finally able to pin that down better. The other reason was to finally be able to get some of the character work honed from things I noted in other productions in addition to making the play as multigenerational as possible. I was also allowed to realize the world fully that Nina was in as she created "Mississippi Goddam" and really capture her creative state at the time.
Q: The play imagines how Nina responded as an artist/ activist to the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963, and the murder of the four little girls. I can’t help but think about your play, Four Little Girls: Birmingham 1963. Are there parallels, connections, or conversations between the two plays?
A: The parallels and connections between Nina Simone: Four Women and Four Little Girls happens with the number four. Nina was clear that, at one point, she did imagine what would've happened if the little girls had been allowed to grow up, and imagined the "Four Women" song being applicable to that they all have deferred dreams, and they have experienced unwanted violence in their lives.
Q: Nina Simone: Four Women is not a biographical show about Nina Simone, as it examines aspects of the woman herself as she creates this “anthem” in history. What do you hope audiences explore about Nina Simone, the woman?
A: I hope that audiences do a deeper dive into Nina Simone the woman by reading her autobiography, I Put a Spell on You, watching her documentary, What Happened, Miss Simone? by Liz Garbus, do a deep dive on YouTube, and listening to her music.
Q: The play examines a pivotal moment in history, as it relates to the many Black lives lost to racial terror violence. How do you hope this play raises awareness to community members about protecting Black women and Black communities, now and forever?
A: I hope this play raises awareness about protecting Black women and Black communities, now and forever by acknowledging that we have suffered violence since we landed on these shores and to ensure our protection, it needs to happen on a comprehensive level: it needs to happen in protecting our black history and how it's taught, ensuring that it is taught, electing black women in local, state, and national levels of government, dismantling sexism, anti-Blackness, and protecting our bodily autonomy. This is for starters. We have a lot of work to do.
Q: Audiences will also meet representations of the women Nina Simone sang about in her song "Four Women," all different. What do you hope audiences continue to think about tropes, stereotypes, archetypes, stories, and representation of Black women in life, and in the media?
A: I hope audiences think about tropes, stereotypes, archetypes, stories, and representation of Black women in life, and in the media as oftentimes being one-dimensional and not a true representation of the depth and complexities of who we really are and how we live and breathe. We also are not a monolith, and each of these women (along with Nina) are unique unto themselves. The problem with these stereotypes, etc. is that they have made us less than human and unreal. So unreal, people think nothing of discriminating against us, leading to poor mental health, and at worst, killing us.
Q: Which of the four women do you most identify with?
A: Wow, great question! Sephronia. In the colorism of Nina's "Four Women" song and the play, I am the skin color of Sweet Thing, but I feel most like Sephronia.
Q: The play shares many of Nina Simone’s well-known songs. How did you choose songs that you wanted featured in the script?
A: The songs that I chose for the script are in direct response to the songs that Nina either covered or were the best fit for where the text was in the script. That ultimately revealed what songs needed to be placed where depending on what the conversation or situation was in the script. The lyrics in the songs that Nina covered revealed another part of the storytelling that tied into the text from the script.
Q: You have also written a song for the play. What is your relationship to music and creating musical works for the stage?
A: I had started writing songs for plays when I was first commissioned to write children's musicals for Stepping-Stone Theatre in St. Paul, MN. After getting comfortable doing it for children's musicals, I wrote one song that I thought would be appropriate for this play. It's a way to bring the four women into communion with one another as they come out on the other side of a baptism by fire with one another.
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