When we think about Broadway shows, we think about the actors we see onstage, but most of us don’t realize there are people working tirelessly behind the scenes who make sure that all facets of the production occur according to the director’s vision. Kenneth Hanson (KH) has been a Broadway stage manager for nine productions and a national tour: “Jelly’s Last Jam,” “Sophisticated Ladies,” “Bubbling Brown Sugar,” “The Wiz,” “Truly Blessed,” “Leader of the Pack,” “Big Deal,” “Smokey Joe’s Café,” the Boys Choir of Harlem & Friends, and ] the National Tour of “Ain’t Misbehavin’.” Now retired, he started at a time when Black stage managers were somewhat rare.
AmNews: What is the role of the stage manager on a Broadway show?
KH: The stage manager maintains the show that the director has directed. They put together the technical elements, the scenery, the lights, the music—they coordinate it all by the director’s specifications and the stage manager maintains it, including the actors.
The stage manager prepares the understudies to go on.
Stage managers belong to the Actor’s Equity, the same union as the actors. Stage managers can go on if a cast member is not available. You could be a stage manager and an understudy. I understudied the Gatekeeper and Uncle Henry in “The Wiz,” and I went on for a week as the Gatekeeper on Broadway with Stephanie Mills in 1978. I became a stage manager in 1976, when I quit teaching public school in Harlem and went into show business.
AmNews: How many other Black stage managers have you known of?
KH: There were not a lot of Black stage managers around. I taught myself; I trained myself on the job. A couple of my mentors told me that they thought that my personality was correct to be a stage manager—it’s almost like you’re a teacher in the classroom, but the class is the show.
My mentors were choreographer Luster Wilson and Michael Peters. Wilson choreographed “Saturday Night Fever,” “Sister Act,” “The Luster Wilson Dancers.” He began on Broadway with “Golden Boy” with Sammy Davis Jr. He suggested I should be a stage manager. Peters choreographed “Dreamgirls,” “Beat It” for Michael Jackson, which he was featured in, and “Thriller.”
AmNews: You are Harlem-born and raised, and were one of the first students at Harlem School of the Arts. What has that meant for you as a stage manager working in this industry?
KH: I was first and foremost a musician. I studied under Dorothy Maynard, who founded the school. When I did all my shows, it was second nature to me because I was a trained musician. Theater I fell into—I went to school and I was an academic, I have a master’s degree in mathematics from Boston University on a full scholarship, but theater was in my heart. I loved the show business subculture. When I walked into my first theater, I said, “This is where I belong!” The first theater I worked at is now called the August Wilson Theatre; “Bubbling Brown Sugar,” “Jelly’s Last Jam,” and “Smokey Joe’s Café” were all there.
AmNews: What was it like to be production manager for the Boys Choir of Harlem for five years?
KH: I just loved it, because I was a musician and this was an opportunity to travel around the world with this remarkable group. It was incredible, the places we went and how people would respond to the boys…The boys were really ambassadors. We did a concert with Luciano Pavarotti. Jonathan Iverson, the first Black ringmaster for Ringling Bros., was one of our boys. It was fabulous! We went all around the south and Texas, and people were just so excited about these boys. It gave you a lot of Black pride.
AmNews: In addition to being a stage manager, you are a gifted baritone soloist singer who has done five South American tours with the Harlem Jubilee singers. You have directed several church youth choirs and directed enormous events, including “The Sun and the Moon Lives in the Sky” by Ellen Lewis for the 22nd Command Performance at the National Arts Club of Gramercy Park; James Weldon Johnson’s “God’s Trombones” for the Harlem Theater Company; and “30 Years in the Life of Cleopatra Jackson” at the National Black Theater Festival in Winston-Salem, N.C. What does it mean to you to do these roles?
KH: I’m a Gemini and I became a Renaissance person—I go with it when everything changes. Church stuff I’ve done since I was a kid and did it until I turned 65. I’m a lifelong member of the Convent Avenue Baptist Church, where I directed the youth choir for nine years. I’ve been the minister of music at Grace Baptist Church in Mount Vernon, Church of the Abiding Presence in the Bronx, and Rendall Memorial Presbyterian Church in Harlem, and organist at St. James Presbyterian Church in Harlem.
AmNews: What do you want your legacy to be?
KH: I never really thought about it. I always trivialize my life and career. My friend Lisa Dawn Cave, the top Black stage manager on Broadway, started as my assistant and they gave her a special Tony Award last year and she shouted me out. She works for Disney now. She, Beverly Jenkins, and some others have an organization now for Black stage managers called Broadway & Beyond: Access for Stage Managers of Color. Lisa has done 25 Broadway shows. I’m just so proud that I had something to do with her career. She was telling me all the Black people that she helped get jobs on Broadway.
…Jenkins, who did “Hadestown,” has also done 25 shows as well. Behind-the-scenes people don’t get interviewed. You’re not used to putting yourself out there like that.
I did things at a time where there weren’t a lot of Black people being stage managers—Charlie Blackwell was the most famous one in my day. They didn’t call us to do shows that were white. I got Black shows, except for Bob Fosse’s show—I was the one Black stage manager out of five stage managers for “Big Deal.”
At 6 feet, 6 inches tall, I was a towering figure and that worked well for me.
As shows open for Black stage managers, it’s mainly more Black women than Black men. They can accept it from a Black woman, but an authoritative Black man is different. They are okay with a man being openly gay now; back in my day, it was don’t ask, don’t tell.
A stage manager who is doing well now is Cody Renard Richard, who was stage manager for “Sweeney Todd” and a producer on “A Strange Loop.”
Times have really changed; all these Black stage managers are working now. After the pandemic, Black shows opened, like “Thoughts of a Colored Man,” “Passover,” “Clyde’s,” etc. A lot of them had Black stage managers. Now stage managers and press agents like Irene Gandy have become producers. None of that was happening in my day. Only three people would call me and ask me to be their stage manager: Maurice Hines, Michael Peters, and Billy Wilson.
Considering his legacy, this stage manager, musician, director, and singer said, “My legacy is I want people to think of me as a person of Black excellence!”
For more information about Kenneth Hanson, Google “Kenneth Hanson, stage manager.” He is also on Facebook and Instagram, where he posts photos.
Wonderful that you studied with Dorothy Maynard! The Jelliffe’s Founders of Cleveland’s Karamu House their Karamu Foundation helped her form the Harlem SchoolFor The Arts. Dorothy talked about Harmony – so needed in the World. Carry On!