Intiman brings back ‘Black Nativity,’ a beloved Seattle tradition

Under the watchful eyes of director Valerie Curtis-Newton and music director the Rev. Sam L. Townsend Jr., the cast and chorus of Intiman Theatre’s “Black Nativity” somehow fill a dimly lit rehearsal space on Capitol Hill with life and light. 

As music pulses from a speaker, Townsend raises his arms wide, moving with the chorus of voices as they flow together into a river of sound: “Can’t you hear the trumpets / shouting through the darkness / crying holy holy / the night that Christ was born.”

Then, cued by Townsend, a lone voice pierces this vocal tapestry like a beam of light, clear and honest, slow and lingering: “Joy to the world, the Lord has come.” In one small phrase, soloist Deneen Grant reminds anyone lucky enough to be listening that joy isn’t just a word or an idea, it’s a feeling, a rapture. Joy is a gift. At long last, “Black Nativity” reminds us. 

For 10 years, said Intiman Artistic Director Jennifer Zeyl, the theater company received phone calls every fall asking when “Black Nativity” tickets would be on sale.

For 10 years, their disappointing answer was: there is no “Black Nativity” this year. 

Langston Hughes’ gospel song-play was a beloved holiday tradition at the theater from 1998 until 2012, when the company narrowly avoided closure. This month, after more than a decade dormant, Intiman is reviving it; the time is right, now that the company has settled into its new Capitol Hill home at Seattle Central College.

“When your community bothers to let you know what they need every year, you listen,” Zeyl said.  

This “Black Nativity,” running Dec. 12-30 and presented in partnership with The Hansberry Project and helmed by Hansberry Artistic Director Curtis-Newton, promises to honor the soul-stirring vibrancy of Intiman’s original and the game-changing talents of its creators while also meeting the needs of a 2023 audience, still hungry for community, celebration and yes, joy, after much isolation and uncertainty. 

With a company of five actors, five dancers and 16 choir members, this “Nativity” is smaller than earlier incarnations but no less exuberant, still filled with call-and-response and audience opportunities to sing along. “The piece itself requires that the community is invited to participate,” said Curtis-Newton before a recent rehearsal. After our lonely COVID years, said Curtis-Newton, communion was a powerful draw to the project.

Hughes’ poetic adaptation of the Nativity story debuted in New York in 1961 and was largely a hit with critics. “The singers, taking over entirely, observe the injunction to make a joyful noise unto the Lord, and it is as if one has wandered into a jubilant revival meeting,” wrote New York Times critic Howard Taubman, of its Broadway premiere.

Intiman debuted its “Black Nativity” in 1998, spearheaded by a who’s who of Seattle creatives: Director Jacqueline Moscou led the project, choreography was by Kabby Mitchell III (Pacific Northwest Ballet’s first Black dancer, among many other distinctions) and music by the Rev. Patrinell “Pat” Wright and her inimitable Total Experience Gospel Choir. Act 1 told the Nativity story, and Act 2 took everyone to church, as the Rev. Samuel McKinney served as floor-shaking, spirit-raising pastor to the audience-as-congregation.

“We live in a different world than they lived, and we have different gifts than they have,” said Curtis-Newton. “I think the highest praise we can give them is to be excellent at what we do, and to push the vehicle to be as excellent as it can be.” 

While the Nativity story is a constant in the show, of course, and there is promise of a songbook with which audiences can sing along at some point, this year’s creative team is keeping a tight lid on exactly what’s new in this production. It wants to keep some surprises in store for audiences.

But those who knew and loved Intiman’s “Black Nativity” have nothing to fear; this new incarnation builds on its legacy with love, respect and a devotion to community that starts from within. 

Shaunyce Omar, who stars as the show’s narrator, first auditioned for “Black Nativity” in her living room more than 20 years ago. Omar grew up singing in the Total Experience Gospel Choir from the time she was 12 years old, and her mother sang in the first-ever Intiman “Black Nativity.” 

One year when Omar was visiting home in Seattle, newly graduated with a theater degree, Moscou made a house call to hear her read and sing, at Wright’s suggestion. Moscou then cast Omar in her first show at an Equity house (a professional theater employing union actors) — a major milestone in any acting career. 

“It was huge for me to do this show at this theater,” said Omar, who was most recently seen as Ursula in “The Little Mermaid” at the 5^th Avenue Theatre. “Other gigs started coming right away because I was in ‘Black Nativity.’”

When choreographer Vania C. Bynum first danced in “Black Nativity” in the early 2000s, fresh out of Cornish College of the Arts, it was not only an artistic opportunity but an important introduction to Seattle’s Black community for the Alabama transplant. “I actually left my engineering job to get my degree in dance because I felt led and called,” she said. “So coming into ‘Black Nativity,’ I feel like I was being ushered into something that was so impactful for my life, something that was bigger than me.”

As for Townsend, who serves as an elder at Seattle’s Greater Glory Ministries church, where his father is founder and senior pastor, he worried he’d be ostracized by his faith community when he first walked into a “Black Nativity” rehearsal room some two decades ago. At that time, he said, “my idea of gospel music and ministry only happened in the four walls of our churches. Anything outside of that was taboo.”

But Wright had asked him to come sing, and when Wright asked, he said yes. “Long story short,” he said. “It was one of the greatest experiences of my ministerial life, ever. It still is.”

All these artists credit “Black Nativity” with changing their professional lives and enriching their personal spirits. While they won’t simply be remounting the same production that debuted 25 years ago, they will be drawing on the legacies of the past to create the legacies of the future. The lessons they’ve learned, the opportunities they’ve been given — they’re passing them on to a new generation of Seattle artists in the hope it will continue into the future. 

And they’re ready to share the show’s joys with audiences new and returning, and a community for whom this show has long meant so much.

“I think all of us recognize that we have gifts and talents that we’ve been called to use in service of something bigger than ourselves,” Curtis-Newton said. “Whether we’re God people, Jesus people, Allah people, Muhammad people, Jewish people — we’re all just trying to figure out how to use our talents to honor the thing that’s bigger than us. And that’s what makes ‘Black Nativity’ an important milestone for everyone who gets to be involved.”

“Black Nativity”

Dec. 12-30; Broadway Performance Hall, 1625 Broadway, Seattle; $5-$115, 20 free-for-everyone tickets available one hour before each performance; run time to be determined; ADA accessible; 206-315-5838; intiman.org

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