What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
Issue link: http://www.epageflip.net/i/1462098
MARCH 20-26, 2022 WHAT'S UP! 37 An Arkansas Connection 'Hamilton's' George Washington has Little Rock ties ERIC E. HARRISON Arkansas Democrat-Gazette P aul Oakley Stovall made an unscheduled trip to Little Rock earlier this year, while the tour of "Hamilton" was in Fort Worth. He needed to make funeral arrangements for his father, Charles Jerome Stovall Sr., who died Jan. 16. The elder Stovall, originally from Cotton Plant, served in the Army and was a graduate of Arkansas AM&N College, now the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. He moved to Chicago, where Paul was raised, and managed Social Security offices in Chicago, Philadelphia and Little Rock. He and his wife, Joyce Marie Stovall, moved to Little Rock about 25 years ago, Paul Stovall says. "These are some of the themes of 'Hamilton,'" says the younger Stovall, who plays George Washington in the current tour of the musical. "Time goes forward. You have to take life as it comes." In the wake of his father's death, life has been coming at Stovall in the way of stories … stories about Charles Stovall Sr. that his son had not previously heard. "I'm getting so many calls from so many people that have so many stories," he says. "And then I think about 'Hamilton' again: 'Who lives? Who dies? Who tells your story?'" His father's best friend from college, Stovall adds, "is calling me, telling me all these stories, funny stories, about my dad. Little kids I grew up with, played Little League baseball with — my father was the coach — grown men now, sobbing, saying, 'He was the best dad in the neighborhood, he taught us baseball, he taught us bowling,' and I'm thinking, 'My dad?' I never knew all the kids in the neighborhood wished my dad was their dad. "So there's that perspective of who tells the story. My perspective is completely different. I'm just finding that people are more than what you think they are, no matter how close you are to them, no matter how close you think you are." Stovall has been with the "Hamilton" national tour since late July 2018, a little over three years, "with a little covid break." He says his role is "about 50-50" split between dialogue, mostly rap, and singing. "Eliza is the only character that doesn't rap at all," he adds. "She sings through the show. "It's an opera; the spoken word, the rapped rhythm, singing, it's all like a scene, it's all communication — there's no fat on this meat," Stovall says. "You are pushing through the scene and telling the story, no matter what you're doing. And that goes for the dancers, too. They really push the story forward, just as important as any words you hear up there." Stovall says the touring production is no different from what you'd see on Broadway or in a major city. And that's because it serves the same audience no matter where it is. "Out of the 2,000 people in the theater, there's someone who really needs this show," he says. "They really need to hear what we're doing, they really need this message. It could be a parent who got dragged there who didn't think they would enjoy it; or it's a young kid, it's their dream … to finally see it on stage, to see people who look like them up on the stage. "It doesn't matter to me if I was doing it out in a field with three people and two microphones and just a piano — this story is so strong, it's important to get it out there. And it's one of those pieces that survives time. It's gone through several presidents; it has a different meaning to society as it goes on. That's the mark of a classic." He agrees that the story approaches what we consider to be "history" from a different perspective. "A lot of people in America didn't get it growing up," he says. "What we're taught is one thing, and 'Hamilton' flips it on its head. So I think it's good for all young people in that sense. "Of course people have opinions. Anything that is challenging the public perception of what we're doing is going to have a reaction, especially on social media. And to me, that means it's succeeding, because it's forcing the conversation that we need to be having." "Still I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain (what I consider the most enviable of all titles) the character of an honest man." — George Washington to Alexander Hamilton, Aug. 28, 1788 (Courtesy Photo/Joan Marcus) Stovall COVER STORY