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Boston Globe
11 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Under Daigneault's leadership, SpeakEasy spoke to, and for, many
Last year, Daigneault, now 60, Daigneault has both witnessed and helped to bring about the growth of a robust midsize theater scene. But as he leaves, he's worried about the precarious financial situation midsize theater companies find themselves in due to the COVID-19 pandemic and other factors. (Watertown-based New Repertory Theatre closed two years ago.) Advertisement 'Post-COVID has been the hardest,' said Daigneault. 'Audiences got in the habit of staying home, so they're not going out anymore. Or they're older and still afraid of the health risks. It's been much more of a struggle to sustain ourselves since we've gotten back from COVID.' Advertisement 'The funding community in this city needs to step up and value the art,' he said. 'A $100,000 grant to a midsize theater company is transformative.' He added: 'The midsize theaters need to band together to find ways to bring new audiences to the theater. It's a challenge that we are all facing, so we should get together to figure out how to solve this.' He spoke by phone from the home in Connecticut that he and his husband, the Rt. Rev. Jeffrey W. Mello, bought when Mello was named Bishop Diocesan of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut several years ago. Daigneault's modus operandi at SpeakEasy was a blend of vision and pragmatism. Whether it was a drama, a comedy, a musical, or a combination thereof, he displayed a gift for finding directors, actors, and designers who matched the material. Daigneault with "An American Daughter" playwright Wendy Wasserstein, left, who visited SpeakEasy in October 1998 during the show's run, which Melinda Lopez, right, directed. Courtesy SpeakEasy staged contemporary works that varied in style and subject matter, but had in common a certain polish and vitality, and, sometimes, the ability to start conversations. A 2002 production of 'Bat Boy: The Musical,' about a half-bat, half-boy who falls in love with a girl in a small town in West Virginia, generated so much buzz in Boston that SpeakEasy brought it back for a second run in January 2003, and then for a third run in April 2003. From the start, Daigneault envisioned SpeakEasy and other midsize and small companies as an antidote to what he calls 'museum theater,' in which 'you're watching the show as if it's in a kind of display case, and you're not feeling a connection with what's going on onstage.' With that in mind, Daigneault kept an eye peeled for shows first produced on Broadway, such as Advertisement Karen MacDonald and Paul Daigneault at rehearsals for "Pru Payne" in October of 2024. Nile Scott Studios What animated him for more than three decades, Daigneault said, was the chance to 'mak[e] art to create community,' telling the stories of 'people who are othered or disenfranchised' while not being 'so didactic and preachy that they're not entertaining.' He points to SpeakEasy's January co-production with Front Porch, directed by Simmons, of free of charge, to 'solve racism.' 'It was super-entertaining, but it also punched you in the gut,' Daigneault said. 'I've never been a warrior,' he said. 'But I've been a warrior through the art that I produced. I've never had a formula. Just trying to listen to my gut.' He grew up in Marlborough and Sandwich, graduated from Boston College in 1987, and then spent several years in New York City, where he struggled to land directing jobs. 'I got frustrated, and said 'Forget it, I'm going to go back to Boston and start my own theater company,'' he said. That's what he proceeded to do, along with several friends, including actress Kerry Dowling. Brainstorming names during an apple-picking excursion, they came up with a name drawn from the Prohibition era. 'It was the idea that a speakeasy is where you needed to know the password,' said Daigneault. 'It was underground. That it was cool to be there, that whole idea. The name is saying something.' Advertisement The company's first production was a musical about the turbulent teenage years titled 'Is There Life After High School?' SpeakEasy established a niche for itself that was summed up in the tagline: 'Staging Boston Premieres.' But it was a challenge. In those early years, the actors were paid a small stipend, and Daigneault was not paid at all. 'I had no business experience,' Daigneault said. 'I didn't know how to raise money. I didn't know how to budget. I was learning all of these things as I was going along. We started off really grass-roots, really doing shows that I wanted to direct. Over time, it morphed into what we know today.' 'At first, it was really about us young artists getting a chance to do our work,' he added. 'As far as theater goes, Boston was known as an out-of-town [Broadway] tryout place, and mostly commercial touring productions. I just felt there was a hole here of contemporary shows that were a mirror of our society.' Paul Daignault leads an audience talkback with Richard Kramer and the cast of SpeakEasy Stage Company's production of Kramer's "Theater District" in October 2005. Craig Bailey/Perspective Photo A turning point for SpeakEasy, in Daigneault's view, was the 1995 production of Paul Rudnick's 'Jeffrey,' a comedy about a gay man who swears off sex in the middle of the AIDS epidemic, but finds that vow difficult to fulfill. 'Jeffrey' drew more media attention than SpeakEasy had previously enjoyed. Since then Daigneault has consistently made space on SpeakEasy's stages for stories of gay life, such as Advertisement 'The biggest change is that there's a community of theaters and artists,' Daigneault said. 'I can see my favorite actors at SpeakEasy and then I can see them at the Lyric and at Greater Boston Stage Company, all in one season. Sometimes there's real competition in terms of licensing the shows or getting the actors that you want. But we've been able to foster excellence because excellent artists have chosen to live and work here.' He's been one of them. Now he's starting a new journey. Literally. Daigneault has visited 35 of America's 63 national parks. '28 to go!' as he put it in an email. And he plans to continue teaching musical theater at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee. But he's also looking forward to the most protracted period of inaction and relaxation he's ever had. 'It's time,' Daigneault said. 'I could do rehearsals for the rest of my life. I love it, love it, love it. But it starts to wear on you, the funding [challenges], the day-to day.' 'I wanted to make sure that the people who are at SpeakEasy are finding joy in it — much like I did in 1992 — and can take the company to a whole new level.' Don Aucoin can be reached at
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘My son was cut out of BBC's Harry and Meghan wedding highlights because he is black'
A cellist who performed at the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's wedding was left out of the BBC's highlights package because he was black, his mother has claimed. Sheku Kanneh-Mason was chosen to perform at the 2018 ceremony, held at St George's Chapel, Windsor. His mother, Kadiatu, said she was dismayed to see that he was cut from the BBC highlights coverage, and was not featured in newspapers the next day. She suggested that the media did not know how to deal with a black cellist, as classical music was normally the preserve of white musicians. Speaking at the Hay Festival, in Wales, Mrs Kanneh-Mason said: 'When Sheku played at the royal wedding, that night he was not in any of the BBC highlights. So there was the choir, there was the preacher but he was left out as though he hadn't been there. 'The next morning, we looked through all the papers. He was not there. So they decided that he was going to be absent. And we thought, what's going on here? 'I think what it was: the gospel choir was doing what it was supposed to do. The preacher was doing what he was supposed to do. But a black cellist? A black cellist cancels itself out … he's not doing what he's supposed to be doing, he's not doing a black thing. That's really interesting, unpacking what the media thinks we're supposed to do.' Sheku, the first black winner of the BBC Young Musician competition, was chosen to perform at the wedding after the Duke saw him play at a charity event. He played three pieces of music at the ceremony. The wedding also featured gospel singers The Kingdom Choir, who performed Stand By Me, and American preacher Rt Rev Michael Curry, who was the first black presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church. His sermon, which centred on the redemptive power of love, was well-received and drew significant attention. The London-based choir, which features 30 singers and was formed in 1994, found fame after the wedding. They were regularly asked to perform and signed a record deal with Sony Music UK. Mrs Kanneh-Mason has written a book, To Be Young, Gifted and Black, about Sheku and his six musically gifted siblings, exploring 'issues of cultural, racial and national identity'. She said of Sheku entering the BBC Young Musician competition: 'I panicked because he had a massive afro at that point and I thought, 'If he goes on the stage with that… the judges are not going to believe he's a classical musician. Should we make him a bit more formal?' 'In the end, he went on as himself but we had to think about that: what the presentation was, what the image was. It's one of those things going on all the time.' Mrs Kanneh-Mason said that her daughter, Konya, a pianist, was racially abused by an audience member while a student at the Royal Academy of Music. She said a man came up to her daughter and said 'I think you played beautifully – I don't know, because I was looking at your body all the time. 'Then he said, 'You shouldn't be here, because you people are taking all the jobs from the white musicians who should be here'. And she looked around and thought, 'I am the only black musician, the only black person in this room, so whose job am I taking?'' Asked about her children suffering 'micro-aggressions', Mrs Kanneh-Mason said: 'They're called micro-aggressions but actually they're maxi-aggressions. They happen all the time. And having to navigate that on a daily basis is very difficult.' A BBC spokesman said: 'BBC News reported widely on Sheku Kanneh-Mason's role in the 2018 royal wedding including news that he was selected to play, multiple stories of how the day unfolded and on the impact of his performance.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
RTÉ News
21-05-2025
- Politics
- RTÉ News
Fears of explosive encounter as Trump meets South Africa's Ramaphosa
US President Donald Trump receives South African President Cyril Ramaphosa at the White House today, for what some observers think could be the most explosive encounter since that notorious meeting with Ukraine's leader Volodymyr Zelensky. Mr Ramaphosa comes to the US as the president in office of the G20 - a grouping of 19 large, globally significant countries alongside the EU and the African Union. But President Trump is threatening to boycott the G20 summit in South Africa in November - a symptom of sharply deteriorating relations between the US and South Africa. However, it is another group of countries - the BRICS - and South Africa's role in it that is one of the leading points of tension between the countries. The others are Gaza and Israel, and the Trump administration's claims of a white genocide in South Africa. It is this claim, which has been utterly rejected by the South African government, that saw the arrival of some 50 Afrikaners - white South Africans of Dutch heritage - into the United States last week. At a time when the US has shut down refugee programmes for countries like Afghanistan, Iraq and sub-Saharan Africa, and is in the process of ending the protected status of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans in the US, who now face deportation, the arrival of a small group of white South Africans as a new refugee group has raised eyebrows. The Episcopal Church - the Anglican Church in North America - has said it will end its 40-year-old resettlement programme with the US government in protest at the preferential treatment of white Afrikaners. The Anglican church in South Africa was once led by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a leading opponent of apartheid, while the American church said its commitment to racial justice was a moral imperative, according to reporting by National Public Radio. The policy the Episcopal Church is so outraged by started on 7 February, when President Trump signed an Executive Order directing that Afrikaners be treated as refugees fleeing from "government-sponsored race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation". This claim was based on a 2024 expropriation law, which the Trump administration says is to be used to take land from white farmers and give it to black farmers. The South African government says the act is a sort of compulsory purchase power, similar in scope to "eminent domain" in US law, which empowers federal and state governments to take ownership of pieces of land for projects deemed to be for the greater good, typically for infrastructure projects like roads, railways, dams and bridges. The administration went further, claiming that the law was part of an attempt to drive the white population from South Africa, and the executive order granted fast track refugee status to Afrikaners who apply for asylum in the US. It also cut off US government aid and investment to South Africa. The administration says there are systematic attacks on white farmers in South Africa, part of a violent campaign to drive them from the land. This is denied by the South African government and by Afrikaner farming bodies such as TLU SA, an Afrikaner agriculture union. It says the problem is South Africa's notoriously high crime rate, and that all races are its victims. According to police statistics cited by the Associated Press news agency, 12 murders happened on South African farms last year. One of those killed was a farmer. The rest were farm workers, people staying on the farm and one security guard. They do not record the racial profile of the victims. That is in the context of around 75 recorded killings every day in South Africa. The vast majority of the victims are black and poor. Although the apartheid regime ended in 1994, white South Africans continue to enjoy higher average living standards than most South Africans. White South Africans, who make up 7% of the population, own 72% of farm land, while black South Africans own just 15%. The South African government says there have been no forcible sales of land. Land transfers that have taken place have seen white farmers bought out at market prices. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio vigorously defended the Trump administration's decision to admit white South Africans to the US after cutting off access for refugees from the rest of the world in a hearing in the US Senate foreign relations committee yesterday. "I think that the United States has a right to allow people into this country and prioritise the allowance of who they want to allow to come in," Mr Rubio told Democratic Senator Tim Kaine. "Even based on the colour of somebody's skin?" asked Senator Kaine, to which Mr Rubio replied, "you are the one that is talking about the colour of their skin. Not me." "They thought that their farms were being burned down. I think that's a pretty good justification for wanting to come. They're afraid for their lives," Mr Rubio added. Some have pointed to the influence of Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who was born and raised in South Africa, in leading President Trump to his strongly held view on how Afrikaners are treated in post-apartheid South Africa. Yesterday, the South African side let it be known that they will make an offer to allow Mr Musk's Starlink satellite-based internet service to operate in South Africa. Mr Musk has said that Starlink is not allowed to operate in South Africa because he is white. The country's post-apartheid economic laws generally require businesses operating in the country to be 30% black owned in order to develop a black business owning community after decades of apartheid. The Trump administration has signalled that it may press Mr Ramaphosa to exclude US companies from the black ownership rules. But it is far from the only friction point. The same executive order that granted Afrikaners special refugee rights also decried the South African government's stance on Gaza and Israel. It particularly dislikes South Africa's case against Israel at the International Criminal Court, which accuses the Israeli government of war crimes in Gaza. The February executive order says: "South Africa has taken aggressive positions towards the United States and its allies, including accusing Israel, not Hamas, of genocide in the International Court of Justice, and reinvigorating its relations with Iran to develop commercial, military, and nuclear arrangements." It is not the only foreign policy row between them. Dating back to the Biden administration, the US has been critical of South Africa for not condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine. It has also abstained in UN votes criticising Russia for attacking its neighbour. South Africa has denied US claims that it has supplied weapons to Russia to use in its war on Ukraine. The country has also held joint military exercises with Russia and China, again earning its displeasure from the United States. Then there is the BRICS group - originally comprising the countries that give us the acronym: Brazil, Russia, India and China. They have been joined by some other big regional players - Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia and South Africa. As a group they have sought to loosen their dependence on the US dollar in trade, leading to accusations from the Trump administration that the so-called "de-dollarisation" is an effort to weaken the dollar's international role. To some, the grouping is an alternative to the G7, the big wealthy industrialised democracies - the US, Canada, Japan, UK, Italy, France, Germany and the "Eighth member", the EU. To others, the BRICS are a somewhat incoherent group of countries with little in common apart from a dislike of the US and its dominant role in world affairs. Now the US is led by a president that dislikes the BRICS, and is determined to snuff out anything that looks like a threat to the US dollar. South Africa, as one of the weaker members of the BRICS, is an easy one to beat up on right at the start of the second Trump administration, and send early messages to the rest of the group. President Ramaphosa has a difficult path to negotiate. He told reporters in Washington on his arrival yesterday that he is looking forward to discussions with President Trump and that he would like to keep the US on board for the G20 summit later in the year. Mr Rubio has already snubbed a G20 foreign ministers meeting in South Africa while President Trump is on track to boycott the summit itself. Can Mr Ramaphosa do anything to change his mind? The other issue the South African leader is hoping for some relief on is tariffs. In particular the tariffs on automobile exports to the US. The 25% car import tariff could hit South Africa hard. The US is the third biggest export market for South African-made vehicles from companies including Ford, Toyota, BMW, Volkswagen and Mercedes. Last year that trade was worth $1.8 billion (€1.5 billion) to South Africa. It does have more durable exports such as gold, diamonds, platinum and iridium, and may offer a rare earths export deal to the US as well. Mr Ramaphosa said trade and investment was what has brought him to the US today, playing into Mr Trump's well known desire to negotiate business deals. "We want to come out with a trade and investment deal," Mr Ramaphosa said. He also said he will explain South Africa's foreign policy positions, particularly on Israel and Ukraine, adding, "we are very rational when it comes to foreign policy discussions".
Time of India
19-05-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Episcopal Church Revolts Against Trump Over White South African Refugee Resettlement
/ May 20, 2025, 12:47AM IST An influential US church is refusing a government request to help resettle a group of white South Africans. The Episcopal Church accuses the US of giving preferential treatment to one group of refugees while ignoring the problems of others. Watch
The South African
18-05-2025
- Politics
- The South African
Alabama resident 'warns' Afrikaner refugees
A clip of a black Alabama resident 'warning' Afrikaner 'refugees' about moving to their state has gone viral. This comes after 49 white South Africans made the 'trek' to the US under President Donald Trump's resettlement programme. The group – which will largely settle in the Southern state – claims that they are being 'persecuted' on the basis of their race. In a clip that was posted on X, two black female Alabama residents express their shock that Afrikaner 'refugees' will now take up residence in their state. One of the women dramatically says, 'Alabama? Lord help them. They better not talk to these people, they better not run into black people, or you'll be missing. Pray for them.' In the comment section, other American citizens shared their views… @itsjustNiecy__: 'Should they come and try that disrespectful stuff here. My they be met with the energy of the ancestors here' @broussard52: 'They won't like Alabama can tell you that right now' @0hhAudie: 'Good, I will hire them on my farm!' Elsewhere, an opinion writer on Alabama news site wrote of their new Afrikaner neighbours: 'Y'all shouldn't be here. 'Y'all shouldn't have been able to skip the line. Y'all should not be here before the tens of thousands of people throughout the world who, just like you, were vetted and prepared to leave their homeland — who must leave out of true fear for their lives. But were denied, not expedited'. Meanwhile, NGO Inspiritus will assist the Afrikaner 'refugees' as they settle down in Alabama. The organisation has helped displaced people who had fled countries with 'violence, war and persecution', and now 'white genocide'. However, the resettlement programme was halted by US President Donald Trump earlier this year. 'I feel like it's disrespectful to the refugees that we are assisting and helping, who are running from violence and forced displacement, to be helping this population,' an employment specialist within the organisation told Outright shunning of the Afrikaner refugees is the US's Episcopal Church, who were initially tasked with resettling the minority community. Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe said: 'It has been painful to watch one group of refugees, selected in a highly unusual manner, receive preferential treatment over many others who have been waiting in refugee camps or dangerous conditions for years'. Let us know by leaving a comment below, or send a WhatsApp to 060 011 021 1 . Subscribe to The South African website's newsletters and follow us on WhatsApp , Facebook , X, and Bluesky for the latest news.
