Smokey Stevens

I Just Want to Tell Somebody, by Smokey Stevens

WOMAN AROUND TOWN

Read a review of Smokey’s one-man show by Alix Cohen in Woman Around Town:

“Ronald “Smokey” Stevens’ one man tell-all is worth the trip downtown. The Washington, D.C. born artist, who began performing at his mother’s card parties at age ten, is a multi-talented thespian with a helluva history. Stevens sings, moves like a Motown star, regales us with history and anecdotes and runs film clips from past work. The actor is a dandy; intermittent descriptions of costume/physicality are immensely evocative.”

Read the full Woman Around Town review

BROADWAY WORLD

Theater for the New City Extends World Premiere of I JUST WANT TO TELL SOMEBODY

By Chloe Rabinowitz

The play dramatizes Stevens' lifelong battle with drugs in which he, at long last, prevailed.

To share an outstanding solo show with the widest possible audience, Theater for the New City, 155 First Ave., has extended the world premiere of "I Just Want To Tell Somebody," written and performed by Ronald "Smokey" Stevens, through January 30. (Its original run was January 6 to 23.)

Read the full Broadway World review

Replaying The Days Of Black Vaudeville by Lawrence Van Gelder

Song, dance, comedy, eloquent prose and fine music are mingled with nostalgia, bitterness and sadness in ''Rollin' on the T.O.B.A.,'' the potent and instructive entertainment that opened last night at the 47th Street Theater.

This tribute to the last days of black vaudeville transports its audience back to 1931 for a ride along the circuit that carried black performers to black audiences in shabby, underequipped theaters in places like Atlanta, St. Louis, Baltimore, Chicago and Washington.... Read more.

Review of Rollin' on the T.O.B.A. by Lloyd Rose

The dancer-actor-director-writer Ronald "Smokey" Stevens has an old-fashioned dancing style -- smooth as velvet, as silk, as well-aged Scotch. When he moves into a routine in "Rollin'," which opened last night at Source Theatre, there's something eerie as well as beautiful about him -- he's an emissary from the African American past, a theater ghost, as well as an accomplished artist paying tribute to the now-vanished tradition of black vaudeville.

Compiled by Stevens and Jaye Stewart, both Washington natives and alumni of the D.C. Black Repertory Company, "Rollin' " is full of well-known songs, such as "Nobody" and "Saturday Night Fish Fry." The linking material is drawn from various sources, including Gwendolyn Brooks, Langston Hughes, the vaudeville team of Miller & Lyles, and Stevens and Stewart themselves. Stevens plays one half of a vaudeville team touring on the old Theatre Owners Booking Association circuit. His more flat-footed, but verbally agile, partner is played by Art Dailey. Teams like this used to be called "brother acts" in vaudeville, and Stevens and Dailey make you see why. They're in perfect, familiar, affectionate sync, whether complementing or one-upping each other.

Anyone who has ever seen a Marx Brothers movie has seen the art of vaudeville give-and-take. The same pun-obsession and unabashed corniness bounce off the Source stage. When one man complains about having "acute influenza," the other responds, "There ain't nothing cute about influenza." Stevens tries to explain to Dailey about his ancestors, only to be told by Dailey that "all my aunt's sisters were brothers." In Dailey and Stevens's hands, these exchanges become so much more than their verbal silliness -- they're a tennis match, a soft-shoe duet, jonin' as a magic act.

There's a sharp bit of social history in the fact that the Marx Brothers became famous movie stars while no black vaudevillians did. Stevens and Stewart don't have to belabor this point, it's just glaringly there. It's there in throwaway details in the script too -- as when Dailey is ravenously hungry, but won't be able to get off the train for a sandwich until they cross the border out of Georgia.

In recent years, producers, artists and critics have often been squeamish about shows in which black singers and dancers performed for mostly white audiences, no matter how superb the material. Part of the critique has been a result of the flashy, ingratiating hard sell of the modern musical -- the audience can't just be entertained, it must be wowed.

Cameron Mackintosh's production of "Five Guys Named Moe," which played here at Ford's, had some of this relentless desire to please. At one point, an actor did a comic routine in a chicken suit. He did it well, he was very funny -- but I couldn't help thinking of a routine I once saw by the dancer-singer Vernel Bagneris, who in his shows ("Bubbling Brown Sugar") is as much theater historian as he is performer. (Moviegoers may have seen him dance the title song in Steve Martin's "Pennies From Heaven.") In a tribute to black vaudeville a few years ago, Bagneris donned a chicken suit and did an old Bert Williams routine that reeked of self-disgust.

Stevens has worked with Bagneris, as well as the brilliant dancer Charles "Honi" Coles, and "Rollin' " has little in common with shows like "Five Guys Named Moe" or "Black and Blue." It's quieter, deeper, less concerned with dazzling the audience, more concerned with lovingly re-creating a specific moment in African American art. And the result, of course, is that it does dazzle the audience. If such a thing is possible, "Rollin' " is an unpretentious smash.

Rollin', by Ronald "Smokey" Stevens and Jaye Stewart. Directed and choreographed by Stevens. Lighting, William A. Price III; set, Monica Raya. At Source Theatre through Dec. 18, 1993.

Ronald “Smokey” Stevens tap danced onto Broadway in 1976 at the age of 25, when he got a role in Bubbling Brown Sugar — a musical revue featuring the music of African American performers of the early 20th century, from Duke Ellington to Fats Waller.

Not only did the Washington native get his first big break that year, he met the man who would inspire him for decades to come. Stevens said that renowned tap dancer Charles “Honi” Coles, then in his 60s, became a mentor to him during his Broadway debut and then as they toured the country with the show... Read more.