Caleen Sinnette Jennings

Reading between the Lines

Performing arts professor Caleen Sinnette Jennings doesn’t have to look far for inspiration for her upcoming directorial work, A Theatrical Celebration of Lorraine Hansberry and August Wilson. The production includes readings from Hansberry’s and Wilson’s plays and insights on their lives and times. It also bears the influence of her recent research for a book on Philip Rose, the original Broadway producer of Hansberry’s most celebrated play, A Raisin in the Sun.

“One of the things my research has taught me is the ongoing disagreement about who the hero is in A Raisin in the Sun,” says Jennings. “Is it Walter Lee or Mama? Hansberry agonized over this. She was inspired by Willie Loman in [Henry Miller’s] Death of a Salesman and she wanted Walter to be her version of Willie—but then she was blindsided by the emergence of Mama as a character of enormous strength.” Jennings will explore this and other questions in upcoming readings (February 7–9) at the Katzen Art Center’s Studio Theatre. The performances will feature AU students, staff, and faculty.

Since 2005, Jennings has been working with Rose on a book tentatively titled Philip Rose is Not a Black Woman. “I wanted

to know how Rose, a Jewish guy in segregated Washington, was able to become accepted and beloved by the African-American arts community,” she says. Through interviews with legendary performers and artists who have known and worked with Rose— including Sydney Poitier, Ruby Dee, Maya Angelou—Jennings found the answers. “A lot of people I’ve interviewed have said, ‘Philip is my brother, my father,’” she says. “He comes to the African-American arts community without a sense of entitlement, without a sense of higher status, and without a sense of superiority. Instead, he has humility, kindness, a true sense of humor, and genuine love.”

Jennings and Rose became fast friends after they served together on an African-American theater panel in spring 2004. Sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution and Arena Stage, the panel was composed of specialists on black family life onstage, including Sandra Shannon and Shay Youngblood. Rose was the only white male on the panel. Jennings recalls, “The first thing Philip said to me was, ‘In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not a black woman,’ to which I replied, ‘If you hadn’t done what you did, we wouldn’t even have this panel.’”
Visiting Writers Series 2007-2008

AU’s Visiting Writers Series has come a long way since it began 26 years ago. “First and foremost, the audiences have grown,” says Richard McCann, creative writing professor in the Department of Literature and the series director since 1988. “Twenty years ago, there would be two, maybe three dozen people attending each reading. Now, a small crowd is one with 100 people.” Indeed, with writers like Pulitzer Prize–winner Edward P. Jones and bestselling international author Azar Nafisi, the series regularly attracts enough people from the AU and local communities to fill Abramson Recital Hall.

The attention serves more than one purpose. While McCann asserts that serving these communities is the series’ foremost goal, he adds that, “the series is one of [the creative writing program’s] biggest recruiting tools. Potential students see the caliber of writers we have coming here, and they are struck by the diversity of their work and experiences.”

The Visiting Writers Series is part of AU’s MFA program in creative writing. Faculty members are encouraged to include the work of these writers in their courses. Graduating MFA students have an opportunity to present their work in the student reading that closes the series each May. The annual Poetry and Prose Reading—a benefit for Food and Friends, a local nonprofit that provides meals to people with HIV/AIDS and other life-threatening diseases—showcases the work of literature department instructors.

Spring semester readings will begin on February 13 with Mary Gaitskill, whose recent novel, Veronica, was a National Book Award finalist. Up and coming writer Alison Smith follows on February 27 and poet Edward Hirsch on March 19. The 2007–08 series will close with the Graduating MFA Student Reading on May 4.