Project Title: The HairStory Project
Recipient Organization: Theatre Rhinoceros
Lead Artist: Johari Jabir
Genre and Date Awarded: Performing Arts, June 2002
Presented: September 5-October 5, 2002

Composer and musician Johari Jabir, and artistic directors Doug Holsclaw and John Fisher of Theatre Rhinoceros collaborated to create HairStory, a new musical theatre piece exploring hair and the role it plays in identity construction. Referencing the influential rock musical Hair, the collaborators note that more than 40 years later, hair continues to make a power political statement, particularly within the Queer and African American communities. They write, “we hope to address larger questions about difference and separation through stories of something we all share and to create a larger picture by looking at something very small.”

The key collaborators had prior experience working together. In 2001, Jabir and Holsclaw worked with poet Marvin K. White to create White’s For Colored Boys, a musical theater piece addressing the social pressures experienced by Black gay men. This piece was a critical and popular success, and among other benefits, it introduced Jabir as a composer and musician to Bay Area theatre audiences. Rather than working from a suite of poems, for HairStory Jabir and Holsclaw co-wrote a text based on extensive oral histories; and Jabir created an original score. In the production stage, Jabir served as the stage and musical director, and Holsclaw served as dramaturg.

Lead artist Jabir writes, “My vision for HairStory sprang out of my interest in the barbershop or beauty parlor being such a gathering place historically for the African American community. A place where news is spread, pain and joy are shared, and, most importantly—decisions are made with the input of a community of friends.” HairStory was set in Moxie’s, “the only full-service salon and cocktail lounge in the nine-county Bay Area,” where co-workers, family members and friends gathered to mourn the salon’s beloved founder Moxie Wellington. The characters’ tribute to Moxie was constructed around 17 original songs presenting a range of emotions and musical styles. Some highlights included the disco soul piece “Don’t Box Me,” the bluesy torch song, “Fine Tooth Comb,” and the playful “Ontological Afro.” Hairstory’s fine cast included Kathleen Antonia, Jerry Van Carlos Gore, JoAnne F. Henry, Henry Lee Lou, and Trente "Pasha” Morant. Live accompaniment was provided by Victoria Theodore on keyboard and George Bernard on drums.

Johari Jabir is an artist, teacher, and scholar who has worked in various forms of music and theater. While a Master of Divinity student at the Pacific School of Religion at the University of California, Berkeley, he teaches in the Young Musicians program. His scholarship examines the confluence of African-American religion, culture, and gender/sexuality.

Theatre Rhinoceros was founded in 1977 by Alan Estes to provide a place where gay artists could see their creative efforts realized. In 1984, a new era at Rhinoceros was catalyzed by two events: Estes’s death from AIDS and the Studio premiere of Artists Involved with Death and Survival: The AIDS Show, the first major work by any theater company in the United States to deal with the new epidemic. Developed by Doug Holsclaw, The AIDS Show brought Theatre Rhinoceros national attention: The show ran for two years, toured the country, and was the subject of a Public Broadcasting Service documentary by Rob Epstein and Peter Adair. Since then, Theatre Rhinoceros has continued its commitment to developing works that speak to the urgent concerns of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community. It gives emerging LGBT artists opportunities to create and produce theatrical work that is too often ignored by mainstream theater companies. Over the years it has fostered the early work of such outstanding American playwrights as Harvey Fierstein (whose work became Torch Song Trilogy), Pulitzer Prize winner Paula Vogel, Lanford Wilson, Marga Gomez, Holly Hughes, Wayne Corbitt, and others.

Johari Osaze Jabir holds degrees in voice, and among his many engagements as a soloist, has appeared at Carnegie Hall and has been a guest composer and soloist with the St. Louis Symphony for their annual Gospel Christmas. Jabir served as assistant musical director of the national Broadway tour of The Wiz with Andre de Shields and Stephanie Mills, and musical conductor for productions at a range of United States theaters. In addition to his adaptation and direction of Marvin White’s For Colored Boys at Theatre Rhinoceros, Jabir has directed productions of The Wiz, New Blood Symphony, and Testify (which he co-wrote with Liana and Jabari Asim).

Professional Affiliations

• Minister of Music, Church by the Side of the Road, Berkeley, California (1997-2000)
• Director of Choral Activities and Teacher of Voice, Opera, and Musical Theater, Young Musicians Program, University of California, Berkeley (1998-present)
• Interim Artistic Director, Tindley Boys Academy, Third Baptist Church (Dr. Amos Brown, Pastor), San Francisco, California (1998-99)
• Teacher Trainer, Music in the Schools, division of the Oakland Youth Chorus (1998-99)
• Lecturer, “The Influence of Black Sacred Music on American Popular Culture,” St. Louis Urban League Lecture Art Series, St. Louis, Missouri (1994-97)
• Minister of Music, West Side Baptist Church, St. Louis, Missouri (1994-97)
• Associate Conductor and Accompanist, St. Louis Symphony-in-Unison Chorus, St. Louis, Missouri (1994-97)
• Artistic Consultant, Carr Late Performing Arts Middle School, St. Louis, Missouri (1994-95)
• Minister of Music, New Sunny Mount Baptist Church, St. Louis, Missouri (1989-1992)
• Artistic Director/Conductor, African American Repertory Choir, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri (1990-92)

Performance Experience

• Guest Soloist, Postcards from Paris, Herbst Theatre, San Francisco, California (2000)
• Guest Soloist, Negro Spirituals 2000, Zellerbach Hall, University of California, Berkeley, California (2000)
• Guest Soloist, Handel’s Messiah, Herbst Hall, University of California, Berkeley, California (1999)
• Guest Soloist, The Gospel Mass, Carnegie Hall, New York, New York (1999)
• Guest Soloist, Healing, Footprints Dance Company, New York, New York (1994)

Composing and Conducting

• Composer, Original score for Langston Hughes’s Tambourines to Glory!
• Guest Composer, St Louis Symphony, Gospel Christmas (1996)
• Guest Conductor, Parkway Schools District Honors Choirs (1990)
• Guest Composer, Footprints Dance Company’s Anniversary (1999)

Musical Directing

• Musical Director, Echoes of Harlem, Pamoja Theater Company (1992)
• Musical Director, The Gospel at Colonus, Kansas City Repertory Theater (1999)
• Musical Director, Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill, Oakland Ensemble Theatre (1999)
• Musical Director, Tambourines to Glory! St. Louis Black Repertory, (1996)
• Assistant Musical Director, The Wiz, National Broadway Tour, (1993-94)
• Wrote, Produced and Directed a piece based on the life of Thomas Dorsey, the father of gospel music Director, For Colored Boys, adapted from poems by Marvin K. White, Theatre Rhinoceros (2001)
  

Doug Holsclaw

HairStory’s co-author and dramaturg Doug Holsclaw also is the author of Knuckles and Crunch, The Last Hairdresser, Don’t Make Me Say Things that Will Hurt You, The Baddest of Boys, and The AIDS Show. Holsclaw served as Artistic Director or Artistic Co-Director of Theatre Rhinoceros from 1984 to 2002. Please correct dates.