Loss of life is coming to Rollins School. And the shape he’s taking would possibly shock you.
Orlando native Clay Rivers will function a visitor artist in “Everyone,” the subsequent play on the Winter Park faculty’s Annie Russell Theatre. Rivers, at age 64 a great deal older than his pupil castmates, portrays the Grim Reaper within the thought-provoking play.
He expects the viewers to be startled when he takes the stage — not as a result of Loss of life has entered the scene however as a result of Rivers is Black and stands 40 inches tall, a far cry from the everyday lanky and gaunt physique of bleached bones used to personify loss of life.
“Folks have been shocked to see me stroll in a room my entire life,” he says.
He has spent a lot of that life pushing for folks to deal with others with empathy and equity via his nonprofit Our Human Household, which presents coaching on methods to dismantly bigotry and bullying whereas embracing “humanity’s perceived variations as points to be valued not feared.”
“I actually really feel prefer it’s my life’s calling, says Rivers, who will give a public speak on the Annie Russell Theatre at 5 p.m. Feb. 27 as a part of Rollins’ celebration of Black Historical past Month.
He doesn’t see his or anybody else’s variations as limitations.
“All of us have this mild inside us and what we do with that’s what counts,” he says. “Nothing in your life is wasted so long as you embrace all of it.”
That’s what Jones Excessive and Rollins School graduate has spent a lifetime doing as he pursued his artistic passions. For 12 years, he was a part of the “Radio Metropolis Christmas Spectacular,” half of that point touring and half primarily based in New York Metropolis.
“It’s like Christmas camp,” he stated of the expertise, through which he performed characters resembling a dancing teddy bear and one in all Santa’s elves. And it was a dream come true.
“I simply love all the pieces Christmas, the music, the presents … Mariah,” he says with amusing.
He additionally remembers being assigned a roommate one yr, a a lot youthful white man from rural Texas for whom New York Metropolis was eye-opening — and academic.
“He obtained to know me as an individual, not a stereotype he had in his head,” Rivers says. “We turned buddies.”
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Nearer to dwelling, Rivers additionally has finished a whole lot of work for Walt Disney World, each as an entertainer — he’s good buddies with an simply agitated duck — and as a designer. As a resort artwork director, he created menus and different facilities, together with a preferred soap-packaging design through which the sundries could possibly be pieced collectively to type a large Mickey Mouse form.
Within the Nineteen Nineties, he did a stint in Los Angeles.
“I obtained an agent, and I obtained some roles,” he says. However discovering restricted alternatives due to his stature, he turned to artwork course on movies. By 2004, he determined to return to Central Florida, the place he now lives within the Washington Shores neighborhood.
“There’s not a whole lot of roles for individuals who appear like me,” he stated of his Los Angeles expertise.
His Our Human Household group began as a response to the world round him.
“I used to be having the identical dialog with a whole lot of my white, male buddies,” he stated. “And I used to be bored with having that dialog.”
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So he wrote an article for medium.com, with the provacative title “How I Discuss to White Folks About Racism.” It was later abridged and printed in The New York Instances.
Issues took off from there, together with his personal experiences serving to gasoline his passon on the subject.
“I’m a 40-inch-tall Black man out on the planet, attempting to dwell his life,” he says. “If you happen to’re totally different, nobody will ever allow you to overlook it. However I wished to alter folks’s perceptions about little folks and Black folks. I simply need everybody to be handled equally with equal entry to alternative.”
The God portrayed within the play “Everyone” would approve.
“Everyone” director Marianne DiQuattro had heard Rivers learn at church, favored his voice and inspired him to audition for the function of Loss of life. The play is by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, finest recognized for writing Broadway’s Tony-winning “Applicable.”
A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, “Everyone” is an replace of a traditional medieval morality play through which Loss of life comes searching for a contented character named Everyone. This results in a comic book however honest meditation on life, as Everyone finds companions resembling Friendship, Love and Stuff to make the journey all of us take extra bearable. A twist: Similar to in life, nobody is aware of what the longer term holds. Most roles are solid among the many performing troupe by lottery simply earlier than the play begins every efficiency.
“It’s very modern,” says Rivers, whose look within the present was made attainable via the Thomas P. Johnson Distinguished Visiting Students & Artists Program. “It has the texture of one thing like a ‘Mates’ episode.”
And “Everyone” appealed to him in one other approach.
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“The entire roles that I’ve been supplied have been primarily based on my peak,” Rivers says. “However this, there was no peak requirement for it, there was no race requirement.”
One of many characters within the play is Loss of life’s supervisor, the Almighty. And everybody is aware of how issues go when the boss isn’t blissful.
“God is type of pissed off together with his creation,” Rivers says with amusing.
He hopes the viewers feels empathy for Loss of life, as he performs him.
“Loss of life is a pleasant man, however he has a tough job and a demanding boss,” he says. “And he’s having a extremely crappy day.
And he hopes theatergoers are left with meals for considered their very own attitudes.
“I hope on this play that folks can see themselves and broaden their view of who persons are and the roles they’ll play” — each onstage and in actual life, he says. “Perhaps they’ll broaden their perspective and loosen a few of their stereotypes. It’s actually going to problem them: Who will get to be the nice man, and who will get to be the unhealthy man.”
Comply with me at fb.com/matthew.j.palm or e mail me at mpalm@orlandosentinel.com. Discover extra leisure information and critiques at orlandosentinel.com/leisure.
‘Everyone’
- The place: Annie Russell Theatre at Rollins School, 1000 Holt Ave. in Winter Park
- When: Feb. 20-23
- Price: $20
- Data: rollins.edu/annie