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‘Divas of Eastwood’ looks at San Antonio’s place on the Chitlin’ Circuit

By , Staff WriterUpdated

Rehearsals for the Renaissance Guild’s new revue “Divas of Eastwood” take Antoinette Lakey back to her childhood.

That’s because the show, which opens Friday in the Little Carver Civic Center, deals partly with the Eastwood Country Club. Her grandmother liked to go there to hear the music, and she often brought her 4-year-old granddaughter along.

Cassandra Small gets everyone in rehearsal for "Divas of Eastwood" involved as she sings "Let the Good Times Roll" Tuesday Jan. 12, 2016 as the cast goes over songs for the show, which is set to open January 29 at the Little Carver Theatre. The show, which celebrates the Chitlin' Circuit, is being presented by the Renaissance Guild. Small said she believes the show is both educational and entertaining, as they go through the music that traveled the circuit. "Each piece of music is like its own character," said Small.
Cassandra Small gets everyone in rehearsal for "Divas of Eastwood" involved as she sings "Let the Good Times Roll" Tuesday Jan. 12, 2016 as the cast goes over songs for the show, which is set to open January 29 at the Little Carver Theatre. The show, which celebrates the Chitlin' Circuit, is being presented by the Renaissance Guild. Small said she believes the show is both educational and entertaining, as they go through the music that traveled the circuit. "Each piece of music is like its own character," said Small.Cynthia Esparza, For the Express-News / For the San Antonio Express-News

“As kids, we went in, and we sat in a corner until we’d fall asleep,” said Lakey, the show’s dramaturge. “I was one of the kids that tried to stay awake.”

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Listening to the “Divas” cast work on the music, she said, “It’s almost like I can see Etta James singing — ‘wow, that’s what that would have looked like.’”

More Information

‘Divas of Eastwood’

When: Opens Friday. 8 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays through Feb. 6, with one matinee at 4 p.m. Sunday.

Where: Little Carver Civic Center, 226 N. Hackberry

Tickets: $24 at the Carver box office and ticketmaster.com.

“Divas of Eastwood” focuses on female vocalists and deals with San Antonio’s place on the Chitlin’ Circuit, a segregation-era network of nightclubs at which African American performers played for African American audiences. The clubs featured in the show are the Eastwood, the Keyhole Club and the Carver Community Cultural Center.

“It’s a really interesting period, and it’s a period that we don’t really celebrate,” said Bill Lewis, who wrote and is directing the show. “And it’s probably one of the most important periods in African American music.”

The script comes partly from oral histories that Lakey conducted with musicians and others with a connection with the San Antonio clubs. Among others, she spoke to Kenneth Dominique, whose father owned the Keyhole Club; saxophonist and band leader Spot Barnett; and and guitarist Curley Mays.

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“It’s amazing talking to them and seeing their faces light up,” she said. “Because no one asks them those questions any more. No one talks to them about their memories.”

The fact that “Divas” draws on history was part of the appeal for Cassandra Small, one of the show’s high-powered vocalists.

“I think it’s important for younger people to be able to get a handle on some of our history because the schools are cutting it out, parents are busy, it’s no longer taught at home, and so kids just think things are the way they are now because they invented stuff,” Small said. “And they don’t realize that what they have now is a result of someone else’s work and effort and sacrifice from a time they don’t know anything about.”

Small said she has learned some things herself since she started working on the show. She and Danielle King sing “Hound Dog,” the hit associated with Elvis Presley. She didn’t know that it was first recorded by Big Mama Thornton.

“The music is pleasing and and appealing to listen to, but when you begin to hear the story behind the music, why it was created, who sang it, how it was produced, where it was performed, those kinds of things, each piece of music, then, is like its own character,” Small said.

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At a recent rehearsal, most of the women ran through a series of songs — including “You Can’t Hurry Love,” “Love Child” and “His Eye is on the Sparrow” — filling music director Darrin Newhardt’s studio with sound. When the actresses weren’t singing themselves, they were listening.

“We’re really not divas,” said Alisa Claridy. “Where I come from, people don’t like to share the limelight. But we all really love hearing each other. And I’m loving that.”

The Little Carver is being set up as a nightclub for the show. “Divas” is structured as a live radio broadcast, with Jessica Mitchell serving as the DJ. Mitchell isn’t much of a singer, she said, but she wanted to take part in the show and was glad that Lewis came up with a way for her to do that.

In addition to providing narration, Mitchell also is writing and will perform poems and rap lyrics to complement the other music. As impressed as she is with her castmates — “Once they get to singing, I’m transformed,” she said. — they are blown away by her contributions to the show.

“The effect that Jessica says we have on her with our vocals, she is just as powerful with her words,” King said. “There was one time (at a rehearsal), I quit singing because I was listening to her words. I forgot to sing!”

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“Divas” is the first original work that the Renaissance Guild has produced. And it’s not done yet. The two-weekend run is designed to give Lewis and the rest of the team a chance to see where things stand and what still needs to be done.

The show is a big step in the development of the company, which is in the midst of its 14th season.

“It’s great to see the progress, that we’ve gotten to this point,” said King, a founding member. “It’s great to work with a group of people who have so much talent and are willing to give it to this production so that we can take the Renaissance Guild even further.”

dlmartin@express-news.net

Twitter: @DeborahMartinEN

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|Updated

Deborah Martin is an arts writer who came to work for the San Antonio Express-News in 1999. She writes primarily about theater – she sees around 100 shows annually -- and helps oversee the paper’s coverage of the fine performing arts. Her first newspaper job was with the El Paso Herald-Post, where she worked as a general assignment reporter before becoming arts and entertainment editor. After the Herald-Post closed, she spent just over a year covering the arts for the Corpus Christi Caller-Times before coming to the Express-News. She has a degree in journalism from UT El Paso, and was a fellow in the NEA Arts Journalism Institute in Theater and Musical Theater at the University of Southern California in 2007. Email Deborah at dlmartin@express-news.net.