Tampa’s 1960 play about sit-in makes more sense than ever

Tampa – On a makeshift stage in the theatre lobby, the director… hm, thrusts out in the scene until pause. In the script, two white men harassed a young black man.

Chris Jackson wanted the actor to take a breath. It embodies the cruel separatist physicality of the 1960s. It’s not too long ago when you think about Mosey, leaning against the dynamics of the whimsical forces that permeated the streets of Tampa.

“These people spoke slowly,” Jackson told them. “They calculated racists in particular, because that’s the power they had. They could take the time. You know what I’m saying, right? That’s what we’re trying to build.”

They started again. This time they became slower, more intense, more imperious.

I was invited to rehearsals for “The Right Time of Winning.” playwright Mark E. Rave’s playwright at Tampa’s groundbreaking lunch counter sit-in in 1960. The efforts to carve the textures of the civil rights movement are foresightful in this era of this crumbling diversity protection and multifamily gems coming from the homes of white homes. And for the next two weekends at David A. Strass Junior Center for the Performing Arts, the play is poised to impact a bigger and younger audience than ever before.

When “The Correct Winning” debuted at Stageworks Theater in 2023. Former US Congressman Jim Davis was in the audience. Davis, a Democratic candidate for the governor of Florida in 2006, is the grandson of Cody Fowler, a lawyer portrayed in the play in defense of black clients and integration.

Davis approached the show at the show. That should be at a bigger stage, Davis said. That costs money, Live said.

Flash forward. A $500,000 fundraiser led by Davis, other Tampa Bay politicians, sit-in participants and their descendants, has driven the reissue of the play at Stras Center’s Jeb Theatre. This money will also help fund Wedu’s documentary about sit-ins.

Former state Sen. Artenia Joyner was a junior at Middleton High when she was involved. George Edgecomb, president of the student body, slammed her and other local students, N. We visited the FW Woolworth counter at the corner of Franklin and E. Polk Streets. Black people were allowed to shop and work there but did not eat. They would simply try to order a meal.

“We looked into everything we were trying to do,” Joyner said. “To keep your eyes in mind, don’t make eye contact. Just ask them to come in and sit and be served. And that’s what we did. And soon they closed the lunch counter.”

The students spoke and read the book. “But when we asked if we could order food, we never got an answer,” Joyner said.

The protest, led by 20-year-old Clarence Fort and supported by Rev. A. Leon Raleigh and Tampa Mayor Julian Lane, was spectacular in that it had an almost immediate impact. Most peaceful protests continued for several days after the sit-in, with Lane persuading them to protect the protesters rather than arresting police. Tampa’s black and white leaders came together to develop solutions and within a few months black people were able to dine in Woolworths and other places. Lane called the method “tampa technique.”

However, there is this. Many people don’t even know that this happened.

“In fact, I had breakfast with some people this morning,” Joyner said. “They had no idea. … They didn’t even know about the ’67 riots. They didn’t know anything. I said, you all said you need to pick up some books and start reading them.”

Picking up the book is the germination of this play and is part of the live spiritual calling of writing works centered around social justice. His wife encouraged him to work on a play about Tampa. But what can he say about his hometown?

“A lot of the fiction written about Tampa tricks the place,” he said. “A lot of Florida’s literature makes Florida seem like a weird, stupid, irrelevant, superficial place about the gang, in which Miami gangs send cocaine through alligators to St. Petersburg gangs, and I didn’t want to do that.”

He began to search for scathing moments in Tampa’s history. He read Andrew Hughes’ book, From Saloons to Steakhouses, and found a chapter on sit-ins.

“Amazing,” he thought. “I grew up here. I spent decades here. I didn’t know this had happened.”

Sit-Inn’s 65th anniversary and the repositioning of the play have caught a wave of commemoration and coverage. Local schools are sending thousands of students to matinees for “right time of victory” that includes discussion. Having young people in their seats is an important part of the effort to encourage the play to go out of reach. It may just light a spark of action.

Did I wonder if I was staging this show in a political atmosphere that would backslide? That’s how live theater always feels to me anyway. Hopefully, story, dialogue, and performance cocktails have a singular ability to prevent the sympathy that is hampered by articles and textbooks.

Standing up or sitting to light the possibilities of progress – radical?

Davis bit the question. No, he said. The concept that everyone is allowed to exist equally and can be organized when it doesn’t happen simply must be normal.

“It’s a play about people,” Davis said. “It’s not about policy. It’s about people sitting in the room and facing shared humanity and, ultimately, the common values ​​of black, white and brown, where we are all God’s children. And it’s the real foundation, and it’s true. And it works, and it works now. I’m not radicalizing it. It’s just a fact.”

If you’re going

See “When the Right Wins” March 6-9 and March 15-16. $50, group rates of 10 or more. Get your tickets at stageworkstheatre.org or strazcenter.org.

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