{"id":19939,"date":"2023-04-28T18:43:23","date_gmt":"2023-04-28T18:43:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/160-news\/?p=19939"},"modified":"2026-01-19T00:36:24","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T00:36:24","slug":"james-a-williams-77-has-never-let-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/2023\/04\/james-a-williams-77-has-never-let-go\/","title":{"rendered":"James A. Williams \u201977 Has Never Let Go"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Collier Meyerson ’07 \/ Photo by Kevin Bernie<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

James A. Williams \u201977, then a sophomore, enrolled in Professor Glen Wilson\u2019s Voice and Diction class in the Theater and Dance Department. A so-called \u201ctough\u201d professor with a reverence for the classics, Wilson demanded his students learn how to breathe for the stage, and also, how to speak the King\u2019s English. It was 1975, at the height of America\u2019s Black Power movement, and while Williams was more interested in making art that reflected his experience as a young Black man, he felt motivated by his professor. \u201cIt was the desire to show you that I can do your stuff as well as you,\u201d he says. \u201cWhat I got from [Wilson] was discipline.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That theater class at Macalester laid the foundations for Williams\u2019 powerful diction, voice, and his ability to command a stage\u2014all techniques he would go on to employ nearly fifty years later as Lear for his most recent role in Marcus Gardley\u2019s adaptation of King Lear<\/em> with Oakland\u2019s Cal Shakes theater in 2022. The play is a modern translation of the original, set in San Francisco during the 1960s in the city\u2019s historically Black Fillmore District. Williams credits Professor Wilson specifically as his motivation for studying Shakespeare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this wasn\u2019t Williams\u2019 first time performing Shakespeare. Over the years, as a member of Minneapolis\u2019 esteemed Guthrie Theater, he has played roles in its productions of King Lear<\/em> and Romeo and Juliet<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Williams\u2019 accomplishments extend far beyond Shakespeare. He has held off-Broadway stints in Jitney<\/em> and The Piano Lesson<\/em>, two works by legendary playwright August Wilson. His commitment to community, a large part of his identity as an actor, has led him to leading workshops at Brown University, Colby College, and the International School of Kenya, among others. Minneapolis\u2019 Star Tribune<\/em> named him Artist of the Year twice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Williams, it all started at Macalester. \u201cI never knew that I was a creative until I got into Macalester and got a chance to be one,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s what Macalester\u2019s theater department did for me.\u201d Williams elaborated on how the tutelage of Professor Wilson helped him see his potential. \u201cYou started out with Robert Frost, moved on to Gerard Manley Hopkins, and then a bunch of old dead white poets,\u201d he continues. But at the end of the semester students were allowed to present works of their choosing. \u201cI chose Paul Laurence Dunbar,\u201d and for his final project he chose works from the Harlem Renaissance so that Williams could teach his professor something in exchange. \u201cI wanted to hit him with voices he never heard before.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wasn\u2019t only the professors at Macalester that helped Williams realize his dreams, but his cohort of theater students at the college. Jack Reuler \u201975, who founded Mixed Blood Theatre in Minneapolis, asked Williams to be a part of the company. \u201cFrom there,\u201d he says, \u201canother friend, Lou Bellamy, told me he was starting a theater in St. Paul and asked if I would like to be a part of it.\u201d That theater, where Williams became a founding member, is Penumbra, where Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson got his start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 1970s were something of a renaissance for theater in the Twin Cities, and Williams found himself as its beating heart. \u201cIt\u2019s one of the great joys of my life that one of the greatest writers to ever live wrote words for my mouth and that I got to say them first,\u201d Williams says of August Wilson. \u201cHe picked me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later, in 2004, the two would work together again. \u201cHe saw me do Two Trains Running<\/em> and told his casting agent to have me submit an audition tape.\u201d That audition tape landed Williams the role of Roosevelt Hicks in the world premiere of Radio Golf<\/em> at the Yale Repertory Theatre, and, later, a run on Broadway. \u201cI have been blessed to do the thing that people say can\u2019t happen. No one goes from a regional stage in Kansas City to Broadway,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s what I mean when I say that Macalester taught me a lot of things.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of what made Williams\u2019 time so special at Macalester was that the college was piloting a program called Expanded Educational Opportunities (EEO), which brought students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, the majority of them Black, to study at the college. This program coincided with the country\u2019s Black Power movement. \u201cDiscovering what it meant to be Black was such a new concept that everyone was trying to participate in it,\u201d he says. Williams was coming from St. Louis, Mo., where he had been a bright and precocious kid. Because he was bullied, he dropped out of high school and spent his days holed up in a local library. A teacher in his school saw his potential and enrolled Williams in a program called Upward Bound which helped the young man secure a seat at Macalester, though he was admittedly a little lost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know who I wanted to be and where I wanted to be,\u201d Williams says of himself when he started as a first-year. \u201cThe seeds for my life got planted at Mac, and that\u2019s why Mac is my heart,\u201d he continues. \u201cIt gave me a determination to not give up. When I grabbed onto theater and acting, I was like Jacob in the Bible. I grabbed onto the angel and said \u2018I will not let you go until you bless me.\u2019 And I still haven\u2019t let go. And I really don\u2019t know if I ever will. There are times when I tried and it grabbed me back,\u201d he says of trying to stray from theater. \u201cSo that\u2019s my Mac life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collier Meyerson \u201907 is a writer living in New York.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe seeds for my life got planted at Mac, and that\u2019s why Mac is my heart,\u201d says the renowned actor.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1077,"featured_media":20011,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","mediatype-articles"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"fields":{"article_type":[8],"flickr_photoset_id":"","youtube_id":"","square_thumbnail":false,"press_photos":false,"story_title":"","story_caption":"","rotations":false,"maps":false,"marker_title":"","marker_text":"","geographic_location":false,"feature_embed":"","custom_link_url":"","news_icon_name":"","image_options":false,"main_feature_story":"","custom_image":false,"custom_feature_title":"","custom_feature_caption":"","custom_markup":"","custom_markup_link":"","custom_markup_title":"","custom_markup_caption":"","byline":"","post_thumbnail_style":"default","press_downloads":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1077"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19939"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30247,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19939\/revisions\/30247"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}