Ted Williams III, playwright of “1619: The Journey of a People,” aims to educate, entertain and inspire.
After Beverly Arts Center executive director Carla Carter saw a 2023 Juneteenth production of “1619” at The University of Chicago’s Logan Center for the Arts, he was invited to bring the musical Aug. 11-18 to the Baffes Theatre.
“Many people think that when we talk about 1619, a show like mine is going to be about slavery. The show is not about slavery. The show is a story about American history,” said Williams, who performs in and helps direct “1619.”
“The genesis of the story is Aug. 20, 1619, when enslaved Africans arrived on the shores of Point Comfort, Virginia, on the Dutch ship called White Lion. It starts there but we really go through the transatlantic slave trade, the emancipation, the Reconstruction era.
“We move through the Harlem Renaissance, the civil rights movement, the Great Migration, the Black Lives Matter protest movement, the modern political struggles that are faced by people of African descent and end in a place of hope, really thinking about how we can be stronger than we are.”
Williams, a board member of the state of Illinois’ African Descent-Citizens Reparations Commission, chairs the Social Sciences Department at Kennedy-King College — where “1619” premiered Aug. 24, 2019 — and is a professor at the City Colleges of Chicago school.
“In 2019 the country was commemorating the 400-year anniversary of the first enslaved Africans coming to the United States, or what would become the United States. I wanted to do a commemoration as well,” said Williams, who lived in Calumet City as a child and attends church in Hazel Crest.
“I had been an actor, playwright, choreographer, dance instructor for 25 years at that point. I figured I would so something artistic. I started to figure out how to present this information, this story I wanted to tell … through the powerful medium of theater.”
A multidisciplinary experience, “1619” has been staged as far as New York, Tennessee and Virginia and includes the humorous blues journey “I Thought We Were Free.”
“Music is transformative. It is healing. It is life-giving. It tells the stories in a way that connects with the heart. That’s extremely important,” said Williams, who taught at Dance Gallery Chicago in the Beverly community and is an Illinois Humanities Road Scholar.
“We’ve got a piece on mass incarceration and the lynching era. It’s tough to see some of the images but what music does is music allows for us to connect in a way that it’s emotional but it’s healing. That’s the beauty of the African American journey. Out of a lot of this pain has come some phenomenal art.”
Cynthia “Cyndi” Walls of Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood directs actors, dancers, musicians and singers including Beverly, Blue Island, Calumet City, Chicago, Evanston, Evergreen Park, Hyde Park and Oak Lawn residents.
“We are elated to be at the Beverly Arts Center,” said Williams of Chicago’s Ashburn community.
“We’re going to bring something that is going to be extremely exciting and powerful.”
Jessi Virtusio is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
‘1619: The Journey of a People’
When: 3 p.m. Aug. 11 and Aug. 18; 2 p.m. Aug. 17
Where: Beverly Arts Center’s Baffes Theatre, 2407 W. 111th St., Chicago
Tickets: $20
Information: 773-445-3838; thebeverlyartscenter.com