The Ultimate Display of a Son's Love

L-R: Sean and Jordan Greene

In 2019, 49-year-old, Sean Greene received his Father’s Day gift a little early, a life-saving kidney donation. Making the success of the surgery even sweeter, the organ was donated by his 20-year- old son, Jordan. “I love my dad so very much and I couldn’t stand to see him suffer,” says Jordan.

Jordan’s dad, Sean, had been living with Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis (FSGS), a rare disease that attacks the kidney’s filtering units, causing serious scarring which can lead to permanent damage.

In 2003, he received a kidney donation from his sister, but that kidney failed and Sean was told he would have to go on dialysis and eventually need a kidney transplant to survive.

“I remember, as a kid, hearing my parents say that the kidney my dad got from my Aunt wouldn’t last forever and I knew I would be the one to help him next,” says Jordan.

Typically, siblings are the best living donor candidates but after getting tested, Jordan and Sean, turned out to be a perfect match, although the decision to accept Jordan’s generous offer wasn’t an easy one, says his dad. “I had always hoped this day might never come. As a father, how could I put my son through this,” says Sean.

But with the help of Michael J. Goldstein, M.D., FACS, interim chief of transplantation, director of kidney & pancreas transplantation, Division of Organ Transplantation, Hackensack University Medical Center, Sean acquiesced. “It’s common for parents to be reluctant to have their children donate an organ to them. We bring our children into the world and our job is to protect them, not take from them,” says Dr. Goldstein. But as he explains, the future benefits to both Jordan and his dad, outweigh the risks.

“The best option for any patient is a living donor because they don’t have to wait on the organ transplant list and the long term outcome is always better. As for the donor, Jordan gets to live with the fact that he saved his father’s life, what better feeling than being a hero,” says Dr. Goldstein.

Additionally, if for some unrelated reason, Jordan were to need a new kidney, years down the road, he would immediately go to the top of the organ transplant list, having already been a donor.

So Jordan underwent surgery in side-by-side operating rooms with his father on June 10th.

As a result, dad will be relieved of the many symptoms of his kidney disease including fatigue, weakness, decreased mental sharpness, sleep problems and nausea. “The act of living donation is an act of love that so few people have the opportunity to do so we not only encourage it, we feel lucky to be a part of it every day,” says Dr. Goldstein.

Three years later, both father and son are doing well and looking forward to this Thanksgiving together, thanks to the ultimate display of a son’s love.

Schedule a consult today by calling 551-996-2608 or visit: www.hackensackmeridianhealth.org/organtransplants

survival!By James Frazier Newark News & Story Collaborative Health ideas for wellness Black Theater Companies Pivot, Present | In-person Theatre is Back

Grammy Award winning Jazz Singer Dianne Reeves

Frustrated with the lack of diversity in American theater, Ricardo Mohamed Khan and L. Kenneth Richardson conceptualized the Crossroads Theatre Company. Since its founding in 1978, Crossroads has produced over 100 works, many of them premiere L-R: Connell Foley Partner Vaughn L. McKoy; Darlene Repollet; Kean University President Lamont O. Repollet Ed.D.; Dianne Reeves; Jazz & Roots Music Festival Producer and Headliner Mike productions by African and African American artists, including The Colored Museum and Spunk by George C. Wolfe, Jitney by August Wilson, Sheila’s Day by South African writer Duma, Ndlovu and many more. Crossroads Griot; and Festival Sponsor Dr. Colleen Hawthorne received the 1999 Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre in the United States in recognition of its 22Kean University 2nd year history of artistic accomplishment and excellence. “My father’s heritage is East Indian; my mother is African-American and so they were bringing together Annual Jazz & Roots two cultures,” said Kahn. “That’s ethically as well as geographically. Growing up, there was never a sense that we were solely identified by being Black kids in Music Festival Camden, New Jersey. Yes, we were Black in Camden, but our roots are global. What I’ve always wanted to L-R: Mike Griot and Sheila Anderson

Atell people through Crossroads is that it’s about our s summer heat mellowed on September 24, roots. As Black people in this country we should not Kean students, faculty, and friends enjoyed forget or even allow people to think this is all of who we free, live music on the lawn at Kean University’s are.” He continued, “There’s much more! The sense Enlow Hall. Folks listened to jazz, blues, and funk from of a connecting, having a theater like Crossroads that connects to many different communities in this counsome of the best performers and bands in the tri-state try and around the world is in order for us to redefine area. Internationally acclaimed Bassist/Producer Mike who we are on a larger level.” Griot brought his band, Blues People, and the crowd Across the Hudson River, one of the pioneering instisimultaneously moved, grooved, and was spellbound by tutions integrating artists of color and women into the mainstream American theater, Woodie King Jr.’s New the voice of the incomparable Dianne Reeves. Other Federal Theater (NFT), faces major changes. Foundperformers included Don Braden and Karl Latham’s Big ed in 1970, NFT began as an outgrowth of a theatre Fun(k) and Soul Reggae group Judah Tribe with Josh program called Mobilization for Youth. The theatre’s David. Food trucks provided refreshments, with some first season opened in the basement of St. Augustine’s deciding it was a glorious day and evening for a picnic.

Money Church on Henry Street. Many performers benefited from early successes on NFT’s stage—the late Chadbuiness, finance + work wick Boseman, Debbie Allen, Morgan Freeman, Phylicia Rashad, Denzel Washington, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Samuel L. Education Ricardo Kahn Crossroads Theatre Company Jackson, Issa Rae, and many more. Woodie King Jr. retired from leadership of the illustrious theater at the end of June. “During the first part of the pandemic, March 2020, the art + science of learning I had been thinking about retiring,” King revealed. “Then the pandemic increased in time. The offices closed down. Then people needed to have shots. I said, ‘Wait a minute, I don’t want to go back to work. I’m 83 years old. So, what should I do?’ I thought, I needed a young person to run it. And that person was Elizabeth Van Dyke, our artistic director. She’s experienced and understands how to communicate with this generation. And getting that younger person to run it and work with me over the last year and five months, solidified it for me.” As millions of people quarantined last year, theaters around the world temporarily closed their doors and we were forced to stay at home without live entertainment. For the first time, the theater found the need to compete with social media and streaming platforms. NFT embraced change, deciding to shift theater to the digital space with pre-recorded and live

Kelton Cooper of Blues People performs for the crowd

By Fern Gillespie

TROUBLE IN MIND

The Company of Roundabout Theatre Company’s Trouble in Mind. Photo by Joan Marcus, 2021

The sudden death of Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning Playwright and Screenwriter Charles Fuller (March 5, 1939–October 3, 2022) stunned the theater and film world. A pi-oneer in the 1960s and 1970s Black Arts movement, Fuller was renowned for his powerful, poignant A Soldier’s Play and film A Soldier’s Story. This World War II era drama about Black soldiers in a US military camp had riveting performances by Adolph Caesar and Denzel Washington. However, it wasn’t until 2020 that A Soldier’s Play marched onto Broadway—almost 40 years after its off-Broadway premiere at the Negro Ensemble Company.

Between 2020 and 2022, Black playwright legends like Fuller, Alice Childress, and Adrienne Kennedy have had their plays produced on Broadway’s “Great White Way” for the first time.

Although, Fuller’s plays like A Soldier’s Play, Brownsville Raid, and 1980 Obie winner Zooman and the Sign are remembered as part of the Negro Ensemble Company, his early work was produced by legendary Producer and Director Woodie King, considered the “King of Black Theatre.”

In 1969, King produced Fuller’s first New York off-Broadway play, The Perfect Party with the theme of interracial marriage. “I loved his work. When I moved to New Federal Theatre, I produced Fuller’s In My Many Names and Days in 1972 and then in 1973, I produced his play The Candidate, directed by Harold Dewindt, who was also an actor and model,” Woodie King told me.

Fuller’s In My Many Names and Days, was directed by Irving Vincent and Larry Neal, a founder of the Black Arts movement. The play was about Black families. “Mary Alice was the mother in it. Laurence Fishburne, who was in it, was nine years old when I produced that play,” recalled King. “So, you know it was a long time ago!”

The 1960s and 1970s were a new political and cultural era in Black theater and audiences filled Fuller’s shows at New Federal Theatre. “They were hits. Great reviews and awards. That’s the only thing you can go by. The audience was totally different back then. They didn’t have many choices,” said King. “There was not a lot of theater in the sixties for Black people. Both young and old Black audiences attended it. And white people attended because they had not seen Black stuff by Black writers with Black actors and directors.”

In June 1981, Denzel Washington won theatrical acclaim at New Federal Theatre as Malcolm X in Laurence Holder’s When the Chickens Came Home to Roost, produced by Woodie King. Within months, in December 1981, he was on the stage at the Negro Ensemble Company in A Soldier’s Play, which earned Fuller the 1982 Pulitzer Prize in Drama.

“The Negro Ensemble Company had a wonderful production of A Soldier’s Play. Douglas Turner Ward did

the hell out of it! He directed it so well,” recalled King. “The Negro Ensemble Company always had a great cast. Because they had that ensemble—Denzel Washington, Eugene Lee, Samuel Jackson, Adolph Caesar—it was magnificent!”

Caesar was nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for the 1984 film adaptation, A Soldier’s Story, which co-starred David Alan Grier, Robert Townsend, Howard Rollins, and Art Evans. The film had Larry Riley and Denzel Washington reprising their Negro Ensemble Company roles. Fuller himself wrote the screen adaptation. Nominated for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Writers Guild Award of America, the screenplay won an Edgar Award.

When A Soldier’s Play finally hit Broadway in 2020, it starred Blair Underwood and David Allen Grier, who earned a Tony for Best Featured Actor in a Play, and won the Tony for Best Revival. A Soldier’s Play is now on a national tour produced by Roundabout Theatre starring Norm Lewis and directed by Kenny Leon, who directed the Broadway revival.

There is an Alice Childress revival going on. She’s often acknowledged as the only 20th-century African American woman to have written, produced, and published plays for four decades. Her literary work spanned over 40 years and earned her a Pulitzer Prize nomination for her novel A Short Walk. Her novel A Hero Ain’t Nothin’ but a Sandwich became a 1978 movie starring Cicely Tyson and Paul Winfield. Although the prolific writer died in 1994, her first play to hit the Broadway stage was Trouble in Mind in 2021 and earned four Tony Award nominations. Ironically, the play, about a Black actress having trouble in a Broadway play, was produced off-Broadway in the 1950s. At the time, Broadway producers wanted Childress to soften the racism if it was to be on Broadway. “I feel that she was denied her due by her producers. Since that time, there has been momentum and a karmic debt due her to get her play on Broadway,” Chuck Cooper, a Trouble in Mind co-star and Tony nominee, told Broadwayworld.com.

During 2022, local theaters presented Childress’ productions to critical acclaim. Wedding Band at Brooklyn’s Theatre for a New Audience won raves. The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey produced her superb one-act plays Florence and Mojo. Obie Award winner Brandon J. Dirden directed his wife, actress Crystal Dickinson, in Two River Theatre’s production of Wine in the Wilderness. Audiences trekked from Brooklyn to Red Bank, New Jersey to see it.

At age 91, Playwright and Scholar Adrienne Kennedy makes her Broadway debut at the newly-christened James Earl Jones Theatre with her drama Ohio State Murders in previews now and opening on December 8. The New York Times called her “One of the finest living American playwrights.” An Obie Lifetime Achievement Award winner and a member of the Theater Hall of Fame, Kennedy received the Gold Medal for Drama from the Academy of Arts and Letters earlier this year. Only four other dramatists have won the Gold Medal: Edward Albee, Tennessee Williams, Eugene O’Neill, and Arthur Miller. Kennedy has contributed to American theater for over 60 years and is best known for her plays such as Funnyhouse of a Negro (Obie Award), June and Jean in Concert (Obie Award), and Sleep Deprivation Chamber co-authored with her son, Adam Kennedy (Obie Award).

Ohio State Murders, directed by Tony winner Kenny Leon, stars six-time Tony winner Audra McDonald as a writer who returns to her alma mater and is confronted with a dark mystery. “I am so thrilled,” announced Kennedy. “It’s only taken me 65 years to make it to Broadway!”

Brian Branch-Price

Charles Fuller

Alice Childress

Adrienne Kennedy