One More Time

Andre De Shields’ relationship with 'Ain’t Misbehavin' began in 1978 when he appeared in the original Broadway cast of the smash hit musical. He went to appear in tours of the show in the U.S. and overseas and the 1988 Broadway revival. He’s also directed productions featuring the Fifth Dimension and a production at Morehouse College in Atlanta.

De Shields is directing 'Ain’t Misbehavin' one more time – at  in New Brunswick for a run that began Oct. 6 – and this time he’s saying goodbye to the show he’s been living with for more than 30 years.

“It is indeed,” De Shields says when he’s asked if this is his farewell to the show. “Not a bitter farewell at all, as a matter of fact, it’s a joyful one.”

Not that he’s always been eyeing a goodbye to the revue of Fats Waller’s music. That 1988 Broadway run remains the only revival of a musical to feature a show’s entire original Broadway cast. De Shields envisioned that group, which featured himself, Nell Carter, Armelia McQueen, Ken Page and Charlayne Woodard, reuniting every decade or so, but that dream ended when Carter died in 2003.

“That was a turning point in my relationship with ‘Ain’t Misbehavin' in that I knew that I would never perform it again because it was no longer 100 percent of the original company,” he says. 

He wanted an opportunity to, as he says, “release” the show. That came when Marshall Jones III, Crossroads’ producing artistic director, e-mailed De Shields in February asking if he’d like to direct the show to open Crossroads’ 2011-2012 season.

“They were thinking of doing ‘Ain’t Misbehavin' and they thought it would be an ideal collaboration if I, being an original member, would come and rear, if you will, these young people and share the legacy,” De Shields says. “And that’ exactly what we’re doing.”

He’s doing it with a young cast, featuring Johmaalya Adelekan, Jacob Ming-Trent, Zurin Villanueava, Tyrone Davis Jr. and Rheaume Crenshaw, who will be singing songs written by Fats Waller and his collaborators, as well as songs Waller performed. The show was conceived by Murray Horwitz and Richard Maltby Jr. and pays homage to the African-American musicians behind the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and ‘30s. 

Among the dozens of songs performed in the show are “Honeysuckle Rose,” “The Joint is Jumpin’” “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter,” “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love” and the title song.  

“I joke with (the performers) often and say, This is nothing like Beyonce or Jay-Z, and they laugh and they smile,” De Shields says. “But they are curious, they’re eager to know and this was Marshall’s rationale, that here I am, a living library, if you will, of ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’’ so let’s circulate this information. “And although this cast was aware of who Fats Waller was, it’s filling out the period, the Harlem Renaissance, that causes any number of surprises in our daily rehearsal process.”

As close as De Shields is to 'Ain’t Misbehavin' part of directing this cast is allowing them to bring their abilities to their parts, as opposed to replicating prior stagings. 

“I encourage them to bring to the table what is unique, what is distinctive, what is idiosyncratic about each of them,” he said. “However, not disregarding what it is that made the ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’ pedigree, and that had to do with fidelity, loyalty to what was happening, not only in New York, but across America starting at the turn of the 20th century through to the decade of the ‘50s, when what we know as the Harlem Renaissance  was on the decline.”

Before ‘Ain’t MisBehavin’, De Shields played the Wizard in the groundbreaking 1975 musical “The Wiz,” which not only featured an all-black cast but was also written by an African-American creative team, including composers Charlie Smalls, Harold Wheeler and Luther Vandros. That show set the stage for musicals like “Dreamgirls,” “Bubbling Brown Sugar,” and influences current shows like “Memphis.”

“The Wiz” also opened the door for 'Ain’t Misehavin' though De Shields says the revue is somewhat different.

“It’s a curious hybrid – ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’ – because people look at that show and they refer to it as a black show,” he says. “It was not a black show, the cast was black but the artistic sensibilities that put it together (came from a group) of Jewish friends from Yale.”

De Shields, who is also the choreographer for the Crossroads production, calls 'Ain’t Misbehavin' a “perfect combination of danger and beauty,” meaning that each song has much more going on than what first meets the ear.

“They entertain yes, that’s the easy part, but the flip side of the entertainment is a civilization, a society of people, a nation of people who are finally getting to have their say in a country in which they had been traditionally marginalized to the edges of society,” he says. “That’s what the Harlem Renaissance was about, a convergence of the humanities and the arts in a race of people who had never had this opportunity. That’s why it exploded the way it did.”

'Ain’t Misbehavin' is at Crossroads Theatre, 7 Livingston Ave., New Brunswick, Oct. 6 through Oct. 23. Performances are 8 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays and 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturdays. (no 3 p.m. performance on Oct. 8). There are also performances at 8 p.m. Oct. 12 and 10 a.m. Oct. 19.

For information and tickets, call 732-545-8100 or go to CrossroadsTheatreCompany.org.