I recently attended the final performance of Levy Lee Simon’s Odyssey Race & Racism at the Hollywood Fringe Festival 2023. Levy Lee held the audience in his grip with his journey from a small child to where he is today. This one-person play unraveled a web of experiences leading to a landmine of unexpected life choices as a Black man in America, and especially in Harlem! From working for a company founded on systemic racism to Levy Lee raising consciousness of his non-Black friends and co-workers. Simon’s story is filled with life lessons for all who were in that theatre. Without giving any spoilers, since he confirmed he would like to do this show in New York City, as well as other areas throughout America in this interview, I would never reveal the plot. After all, you need to see, hear, feel Odyssey, Race & Racism to believe that one person could withstand such adversity and still come out a winner . . . and live to tell about it in a brilliant stage performance. What made this monologue so apropos was Levy Lee’s clever shift from dialogue to poetry, which satisfyingly catapulted the audience’s emotions to a pinnacle high. The audience learned something that day about race and racism through the eyes of Levy Lee Simon. And his life became our call to action to see the world through another lens.
In this interview, I ask Levy about his career as a playwright and his one-man play, just to get started. there’s a lot to unpack when it comes to Levy Lee Simon!
Interview by Kaylene Peoples | Responses by Levy Lee Simon
Kaylene: What was the inspiration for the one-person play Odyssey, Race & Racism?
Levy Lee: Well as you know, I’d been working on my memoir when Stage Director Juliette Jeffers called me during the summer of 2020 to tell me that the Whitefire Theatre in the San Fernando Valley was having a festival of solo plays on the subject of racism after the George Floyd incident. She was one of the producers and asked if I wanted to participate with a one-man show of my own. I’d never written a one-person show, but I’d thought about it over the years. However, I never wanted to do one of those self-involved, ego-driven one-person shows that I’d seen a thousand times and never liked. I needed to find an angle. So, when I thought about writing something on the subject of racism, it made sense to me. I had some stories to tell about that from my own life. At first, I was going to adapt something from my [forthcoming] memoir, but that was way too daunting, as my memoir is dense with information and stories. Trying to pare it down to a 90-minute show was not going to happen. But I pulled a story or two from it. Then I added some of my poetic writings on the subject, and I had the play!
Kaylene: Tell me a little about your background as a playwright and actor.
Levy Lee: I started out as an actor in the 1980s in New York City (Telling my age) where I cut my bones studying with some great mentors and teachers and eventually doing plays, Off-Off Broadway, Off Broadway, Regional Theatres across the country, Broadway, England, and the Caribbean. I worked with the African American Studio/127th Street Repertory Ensemble, The Negro Ensemble Company, and the Circle Repertory Theatre Company. (Three of the top theatre companies in NYC.)
Kaylene: That’s impressive. Did you always want to be a playwright?
Levy Lee: I never really intended to be a playwright. I wrote in the closet, so to speak, then one day I read the film script On the Water Front with Marlon Brando. Brando was one of my favorite actors, and I saw myself being like him one day. So I read the script and ran to my mentor’s home – Nathan George (One Flew Over the Cuckoo Cuckoo’s Nest, Short Eyes, Serpico) – and told him I wanted to act in A Streetcar Named Desire. He looked at me with those deep intense eyes of his and said, “Why?” I babbled about how it was a great role and yada, yada, then he said, “Marlon Brando already did it.” He said a lot more, taking me down a peg or two, but then he said, “Lee if you want play a great role in a great play, write it yourself.” It was like I was hit on the head with a sledge hammer. I never thought about writing a play seriously until that moment.
I left his place, went home, and wrote my first play. It was an adaptation of On the Water Front, which I called In the Middle of the Bubbling Tar, and set in Harlem. I got a reading of it at Frank Silvera’s Writers Workshop in Harlem where they knew me as an actor. People loved it and told me I had talent as a writer. My third play, God the Crackhouse and the Devil, was done at Circle Rep LAB in NYC 1994, and LaMama in 1996. Crackhouse is still considered a cult hit in New York City to this day. It received rave reviews and indirectly led to me to getting a fellowship at the University of Iowa and their playwriting workshop where I got my MFA in 1999. Since then I have written 33 plays and have had close to 60 productions. Those productions have led to numerous awards and nominations, plus affiliations with many established companies, The Actor’s Studio PDU and the Tent Playwright’s Collective to name two.
Levy Lee Simon is an accomplished writer, actor, director, and producer who has garnered numerous awards throughout his career. His plays, including the acclaimed For the Love of Freedom and The Bow Wow Club, have received recognition such as NAACP nominations and the Kennedy Center Lorraine Hansberry Award. Some of these awarded plays and performances include: (1999) Kennedy Center/ACTF Lorraine Hansberry Award – The Bow-Wow Club; (2001) NAACP Best Playwright nomination – For the Love of Freedom, Part I: Toussaint – the Soul – Rise and Revolution; (2003) Ovation Award nomination – For the Love of Freedom, Part II: Dessalines – The Heart – Blood and Liberation; (2006) NAACP Theatre Award nomination, “Best Playwright” – For the Love of Freedom, Part III: Christophe – the Spirit – Passion and Glory; (2007) Audelco Award, Best Playwright for The Guest at Central Park West, Best Dramatic Production of the Year and Best Playwright. Simon’s work has been staged at prestigious venues like The Robey Theatre Company and the Greenway Arts Alliance. Additionally, he has made notable contributions as a screenwriter and actor, with his scripts being optioned by major studios and his performances spanning over 60 plays. Levy Lee remains dedicated to creating impactful and inspiring work in the arts . . . and he has a memoir coming out this fall!
Kaylene: You have performed with big names throughout your career, talk a little about that.
Levy Lee: Interesting question, because I don’t relish being a name dropper, but since you asked. (Laughs) I guess my first celeb connection – though he wasn’t a celeb at the time – was Tupac Shakur. Tupac played my son in A Raisin in the Sun at the Apollo Theatre back in 1984. We remained friends over the years and I spoke to him one week before he was shot in Las Vegas. When I was at Circle Rep years ago, I was mentored by Lanford Wilson who is considered one of the greatest playwrights of the 20th Century. Also, while there, I got a chance to meet several name actors with the company, Ed Harris, Cathy Baker, Mary Alice, Bill Hurt, and Ethan Hawke. [Additionally] Bobby Canvale, Justina Machado, Gary Perez, Russell G. Jones, Benja Kay, and Olivia Negron were in my Crackhouse production. Forest Whitaker optioned my first screenplay with FOX Searchlight, The Bow Wow Club. Ella Joyce is a friend from our days in New York City. Glynn Turman and Lawrence Hilton Jacobs, who were inspirations to me when I was young, are now in my circle of friends in Black Hollywood. Omari Hardwick was in my Haitian Trilogy For the Love of Freedom; and of course Danny Glover and Ben Guillory at the Robey Theatre Company. Javon Johnson and John Marshall Jones are close friends and creative partners.
Kaylene: What was your process when writing Odyssey, Race & Racism?
Levy Lee: I took some stories that my mother told me about her growing up in the Deep South that included stories about my grandparents. Then I recalled some incidences of racism that occurred in my life, and I added some spoken word and poetic monologues that I’d written over the years, and one that I lifted from another play. It all came together to create Odyssey Race & Racism.
Kaylene: What’s involved in writing a one-person play? As an actor, how did you prepare for it?
Levy Lee: It’s not much different from any other play, except when learning lines for my own play, it’s very difficult because the acting brain and writing brain are constantly fighting with each other.
Kaylene: What was the biggest message you wanted to relay in the play?
Levy Lee: Well, that is the 24-million dollar question! Racism is still very present in our society, and it seems like it will never completely be irradicated, but we, I cannot sit idly by and watch it without speaking on it. The police killings, the systemic racist system, and daily micro-aggressions that people of color deal with every day. As an artist, I have to speak about these things. I don’t want to be known as someone who writes and acts in fluff. I was asked years ago if I wanted to write and act in sitcoms. I was even offered jobs in that arena, and I said a resounding, “no!” I have to do work that matters, that feeds my soul. In that way, I’m an activist of sorts, but surely, I’m an artist. My heroes are James Baldwin, Paul Robeson, Lorraine Hansberry, August Wilson, and more . . . artists whose aim is to make a difference in society.
Kaylene: Are you planning to take Odyssey, Race & Racism to a bigger platform?
Levy Lee: Yes, I would love to perform it all over the country and especially New York.
Kaylene: How was your overall experience during this run of Odyssey, and what did you think of the Hollywood Fringe Festival?
Levy Lee: It was my first time participating in the Fringe, and I’m still processing and decompressing from the experience . . . which is not completely over. I think I accomplished my goal, which was to perform the play in-person, and to see what the response would be. It’s been overwhelmingly positive. So, I’m ready to move forward with it.
Kaylene: I know you have some things in the works. Why don’t you share with our readers what you’re up to, what you’re working on, and what’s next?
Levy Lee: Well, I’m looking forward to my memoir coming out this fall, Odyssey Towards the Light, by KL Publishing Group. I have a play called Fractured, which will be part of the playwright’s intensive at NYC’s Labryrinth Theatre this summer. I’m looking forward to that; and I’m in preproduction with Guest at Central Park West – my feature film with Mojo Films, Jamal Joseph directing, starring John Marshall Jones.
Read the full review of Odyssey, Race & Racism at the Hollywood Fringe Festival.
Levy Lee Simon was featured in the top-selling Agenda, Collector’s Issue 3: “Changemakers,” where he goes into detail about his career in his interview with our journalist Sheryl Aronson. Purchase the print magazine. | Get the Digital Copy.
