Bright Lights, Big City: Penn State’s Broadnax directs on Broadway

Steve H. Broadnax III always dreamed of making it to Broadway.

Broadnax, an associate professor of theatre and professor in charge of MFA Acting at Penn State, grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas. He fell in love with the theatre at a young age. He earned his bachelor of fine arts from Webster University, St. Louis, and his master of fine arts from Penn State.

He’s been at Penn State for nearly two decades. His resume is littered with awards and professional and academic honors. He’s acted in, written, and directed more plays than he can count. But one thing was always missing—Broadway.

“That’s the dream,” Broadnax says.

Well, the dream came true.

Broadnax recently crossed that one off the list, directing Thoughts of a Colored Man on Broadway.

“I would have thought that I would have gotten to Pluto faster than Broadway,” Broadnax says with a laugh. “My path has not been traditional. I’ve been here for 17, going on 18 years. That’s not the path that you get to Broadway on. But it was my path. Being at Penn State, I got to practice my craft. I’ve always been acting, writing, directing. Penn State has been the incubator all those years.”

Thoughts of a Colored Man explores the lives, pressures, and passions of seven contemporary Black men who live in one Brooklyn neighborhood. The characters—who are never given names—are identified by traits they embody: lust, love, anger, passion, wisdom, depression, and happiness.

As each character tells his story through dialogue, slam poetry, song, and monologue, the men reveal a complexity of experience that embodies traits of all the characters—showing that each man’s experience is as unique as it is shared.

Broadnax is extremely proud of Thoughts of a Colored Man, which was written by Keenan Scott II.

“It really gives insight to the experience or humanity of Black men—and beyond what we see in the media and in the news,” Broadnax explains. “It is a celebration of the Black male’s experience in America. It gives another dimension to our humanity.”

Broadnax has high praise for Scott, who was a poet long before he was a playwright.

“He has spoken word, movement, traditional scene work, and it really involves the audience,” Broadnax says.

According to Broadnax, Thoughts of a Colored Man is unlike anything he’s ever done before. He and Scott coined the term “slam narrative” to describe the play.

“It’s like slam poetry but in narrative form and traditional acting technique, a style that you normally see in traditional plays,” Broadnax says.

As for directing it on Broadway? Well, that was a dream come true.

“It’s No. 1. [This play] has been one of the loves of my life and definitely a passion project,” Broadnax says.

Before arriving on Broadway, the play had successful runs in Syracuse, New York, and in Baltimore. It has been a long and winding road for Thoughts of a Colored Man.

“I’ve been with Keenan for three years now. I was the first person to stage it. He has been working on this play for 15 years. It was the very first play he had written. I was the first person hired on to direct. That professional direction had not been done. I loved it and it meant something personal to me,” Broadnax says.

In the early days of the play, Broadnax realized he and Scott had something special.

“We had such an amazing cast of men. Even in the rehearsal space, I would tell those men, even if this didn’t go anywhere—if it didn’t have a life—it was worth the opportunity to get in a room with seven other brothers and gain fellowship. Tears were shed. Stories were shared. It was a room where we could be our authentic selves and our humanity be celebrated, acknowledged, and our voices heard. That was most important, even if no one in the world ever saw it,” Broadnax says.

Oh, but people did see it. The play received rave reviews in Syracuse and Baltimore before moving to Broadway. Rehearsals began on Broadway in August 2021.

“It was like a three-week rehearsal period,” Broadnax says.

In the age of COVID-19, Broadway has been shut down, re-opened, and some shows shut down again. However, when rehearsals began in August, things were fairly stable, Broadnax says.

“At that time, Omicron had not been out; cases were going down,” he says.

However, there were plenty of precautions being taken in the Broadway community. Broadnax explains that everyone associated with shows was tested an average of three times per week. Temperature checks were taken at the door. Participants were asked if they were experiencing symptoms. In theatres, special air filtration systems were employed.

 “They asked us to keep our masks on if we weren’t working. If you weren’t in a scene or if I wasn’t directly talking to an actor or trying to communicate something, we’d keep our masks on at all times,” Broadnax says.

On Broadway, the play became extremely popular.

“It affected so many people. The show got standing ovations every night,” Broadnax says.

It was especially popular with people of color. According to Broadnax, most Broadway audiences are made up of “eight percent of people of color.”

Thoughts of a Colored Man changed all that.

“Our show, every night, was averaging 47 to 50 percent people of color and men of color. I had a producer come and sit in the audience and say, ‘I’ve never seen this before in my life.’ For as many years as they’d been in the industry, had never seen as many people of color and specifically black men come to the theatre. That was amazing,” Broadnax says.

It’s often said that all good things must come to an end. Such was the case with Thoughts of a Colored Man.

The Omicron variant swept through the Broadway community in December, stopping several plays in their tracks—including Thoughts of a Colored Man, which ended its Broadway run December 22. It had opened at Broadway’s Golden Theatre on Oct. 13, 2021, and had been scheduled to run through March 13, 2022.

Even though the show has closed, Broadnax says that he will always hold it close to his heart.

“So many people said we were seen and we were heard throughout the stories that we shared in the piece,” Broadnax says. “It was magical, it was purposeful, and it has truly been a labor of love.”