Southwest Citizen: James Williams

Southwest Minneapolis Patch: Where are you from originally, and how did you make Minneapolis home?

James Williams: I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. I moved here in 1973 to go to Macalester College. I actually went to school with a number of well-known theater folks here in town. We all met at Macalester. So I’ve pretty much been here since then. I live in Uptown.

Southwest Minneapolis Patch: How did you get your nickname, “JayyDubb?”

Williams: Well, I spent most of my life not letting people call me Jim or Jimmy. When I got to college, people started calling me ‘JW.’ So I thought, if I have to live with something, I can live with that. It was after I got into theater that it got shortened to ‘JayyDubb.’ There are people I’ve known for 15 or 20 years who don’t actually know what my real name is. (laughs)

Southwest Minneapolis Patch: Have you always been an actor?

Williams: I really kind of stumbled into it. I did some theater in high school just to have something to do after school. It really wasn’t something I thought I would keep doing. I’m not one of those people who saw my first play and thought, I love this! The first play I saw was the first one I was in. People looked at me different after I did that show, and that stuck with me. At Macalester, someone knocked on my door and asked me to be a part of their senior directing project called ‘No Place to Be Somebody.’ It was directed by Steve Yoakam, a well-known actor here in town. The cast of that project was kind of a ‘who’s who’ of Minneapolis theater. There was Faye Price, Jack Reuler, Russell Curry, Kim Hines and some other folks. Well, the next summer Jack Reuler founded Mixed Blood Theater as a youth employment site. Not long after he asked me to come work there. So I thought I’d do it until they stopped paying me. (laughs) After Mixed Blood I met Lou Bellamy, and went over to Penumbra where I was in the first 12 seasons there. I’ve also worked at the Guthrie where I was a company member, Park Square, Chanhassen, lots of places. But it was about six or seven years into my time at Penumbra I finally said to myself, ‘You know, this is your career, this is what you want to do,’ and I started chasing it hard.

Southwest Minneapolis Patch: You had a special relationship with renowned playwright August Wilson. How did you get to Broadway in his play, “Radio Golf?”

Williams: I went back to Penumbra when they did a partnership production of ‘Fences’ with the Guthrie. August saw the production and really liked my work. I did a few more productions of Wilson’s work after that at Penumbra. He saw those as well and asked me to be in the Off-Broadway production of ‘Jitney.’ A production of ‘Two Trains Running’ at Kansas City Repertory followed that, which Wilson saw as well. You know, he was a funny man. He rarely said anything. But he came backstage in Kansas City and said, ‘Man, you were Memphis,” the character I was playing. Well, I was walking on cloud nine. After that show I came back to Minneapolis and got a call from a New York casting agent saying that Mr. Wilson wanted me to submit an audition tape for ‘Radio Golf,’ the tenth play in his Century Cycle for Yale Repertory. I got cast. So I went from just getting the bills paid to talking to Time, Newsweek, Reuters and AP just like that. Your life really can change overnight. It was actually kind of terrifying how quickly it happened. Very overwhelming. But one day on the elevator at Yale Mr. Wilson said to me, ‘You can’t be nobody but who you are.’ After that I said, ‘Okay, I got it.’ So for the next two years we took the show from Yale to several other theaters and eventually to Broadway.

Southwest Minneapolis Patch: Right now you’re focusing on your work at Pillsbury House Theater in Minneapolis. What led you there?

Williams: Well, a while back I did some work with kids at the Loft Teen Center in Saint Paul and found out that I loved it. Working with youth really became my one of my passions. I originally found out about Pillsbury House Theater from Ralph Remington, who founded it. I did a show there called ‘This City of Dreams.’ After that I worked on ‘Chicago Avenue Project,’ which is a program that pairs young neighborhood kids with professional playwrights and actors to produce short plays. It was the best experience I’ve ever had on stage. I eventually worked as the director of Chicago Avenue Project for a while. Then the the co-artistic directors asked me to apply for a grant from the Theater Communications Group to work on more youth programming, and that’s where I sit now. I’m focusing on creating a professional theater training track for young people who would normally not have access to theater. I love it. I get to work in theater, and I get to work with youth. It’s just a win-win situation. It seems like no matter what happens, I always end up back at Pillsbury House.

Southwest Minneapolis Patch: You also direct, and just opened a show at Pillsbury House Theater called “Broke-ology.”  What should we know about it?

Williams: I’ve always flirted with flirted with directing, and I do it about once every ten years or so. It’s a lot of responsibility. As an actor, you focus on just one particular portion of the play, but as a director you’re responsible for everything. (laughs) It’s a little daunting, so I only do it in stretches. But this play, it’s love story. It’s about the love between a father and his sons, the love between two brothers, and the love between a couple. That’s something that’s rarely seen. At first I thought this kind of story was rarely seen on stage about an African-American family, but then I realized that the story is rarely seen about any family. It’s just about love. You know working with youth, you know that it’s a teen’s job is to push their parents to the limit, but there’s always love. And we forget that. The things we do are all about love. So that’s what attracted me to this play. It’s also about preparing to lose a parent, which is a huge thing. For me, my generation is now at the oldest level in the family. It creates a big shift in how you view things. You go from being the child to being the elder. ‘Broke-ology’ gives us a chance to look at that. Plus I was blessed to be able to get a fantastic cast for it. It’s been just great.

“Broke-ology” runs through April 10th, 2011 at Pillsbury House Theater, 3501 Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis. For tickets, info and video clips of the show,  visit www.pillsburyhousetheatre.org.