The director and playwright of The Wind and the Breeze talk about this lyrical drama. Catch it May 16 – June 10 during its world premiere at Cygnet Theatre!

Rob Lutfy: Director

From the Selection Committee of the Whiting Award:

“Nathan Alan Davis is a genuine poet of the theatre, charting new territory for lyrical drama. Play after play showcases his uncanny gift for allegory and language, boiling down the large narratives of the African-American past to the scale of individuals wrestling to express themselves. He exhibits unwavering command of styles and textures, from vaulted diction to teen slang. His verve, emotional intelligence, and ambition are outstanding.”

I love this play for its people; they are family to me. I have lived with and fought for this play for six years now. Nathan Alan Davis has become one of my dear friends and his plays continue to captivate me. The things I have grown to love about Nathan’s writing are all here even if this is perhaps his most realistic and subtle play. Anyone close to Nathan knows that he sees signs in life due to his deep awareness of God in all things– even in how his children were born. I love that about Nathan and I love that about the people that inhabit his plays. Nathan has written a meditation on change, acceptance and dreams. Every word matters in Nathan’s plays, just as every word left unspoken.

What really matters in life are the people around us. So often we put all our energy and focus into chasing our dreams that we lose ourselves in the process. We place expectations on ourselves and others and at times sacrifice too much to get ahead. Sam is learning the patience it takes to let go and accept his station in life. And this lesson isn’t one you can work at. It comes when you least expect it and most of the time it’s been under your nose all along.

This is also what Nathan is asking of his audience: patience.
Patience to see the metaphors in the play
Patience to know that Nathan has given you just enough to connect the dots
Patience to see something as simple as saying I love you by offering an ice cream sandwich.

Nathan makes the seemingly mundane magical and poetic. Open your hearts to Sam the Bermuda triangle, Sam the State Street bridge troll, Sam the Living Rock City Legend, Sam the Prophet, Sam the hero, Sam the enigma.

For Owiso Odera, who loved this play with all his heart. And for every director, literary manger, actor, stage manager, dramaturg, designer, and audience this play has seen in its journey to this world premier.

Nathan Alan Davis: Playwright

This is the second play I ever wrote. The first draft, which I wrote somewhere around 2010, only had four of the characters (SAM, TEA, NIA and ANA). In 2012 I did a workshop at the Kennedy Center, which was the impetus for fleshing out the play more and adding the additional characters (RONDA and SHANTELL). That’s also where Rob Lutfy first saw the play and he and I connected shortly after. In 2013 this play won the Lorraine Hansberry Award. Then in 2015 I did a workshop at the New Harmony Project, which is where I think the play fully found itself. The initial impulse was to write a very conversational, slice of life play and thankfully I’ve been able to maintain a connection to that. The play is set in my hometown (Rockford, IL) and it is in many ways about the conflicted feelings we have about where we came from. What it means to leave. What it means to stay. Who you leave behind. How you change and whether or not the people you love most change along with you.

In 2016 this play won the Blue Ink Playwriting Award and received a staged reading at American Blues Theatre, Rob Lutfy became attached to the play during the workshops in LA at The Theatre @ Boston Court, at Cygnet, and for our final workshop with the world premier cast you see here at The Milwaukee Repertory Theater.

The reading we did as part of the Bill and Judy Garrett Finish Line Commission in 2016 went very well and the audience was very connected and very engaged. So that was encouraging. A lot of times with plays that come from Black writers and feature Black characters – or characters from other marginalized groups – there is an expectation (sometimes spoken, sometimes unspoken) that there will be a social issue or historical trauma at the center of the story. I’ve written those plays before and I will again – but this is not that play. To find a professional theatre that is willing and excited to embrace The Wind and the Breeze on its own terms was not at all a sure thing. Cygnet stepped up to the plate and I’m thrilled to bring it to life here.

I hope that people see themselves, their families and their friends in the play. In fact, I’m pretty confident they will. But if the play works as it’s intended to there won’t be one single takeaway or one simple meaning. If anything, I hope that people will emerge feeling more whole. More connected to their past and to their present.