Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe opened its 25th season in Sarasota this month with “Soul Crooners: Solid Gold Edition.” WBTT Founder and Artistic Director Nate Jacobs wrote and directs the company’s signature jukebox musical, which continues through Nov. 17.
“It features the best music of the '70s,” said Jacobs. “You go back in time and have all these phenomenal memories when you heard ‘That’s the Way of the World’ from Earth, Wind & Fire, when you hear ‘Still in Love with You’ from Al Green, when you hear ‘Get on the Good Foot’ by James Brown, and The Temptations' ‘Just My Imagination’... all of that beautiful music. So, it is a soulful, wonderful journey back in time that has everybody popping their fingers and clapping their hands, and many times on their feet dancing in the aisles.”
A celebration of the music that ushered in a new era of soul, the musical also includes such memorable hits as “Let’s Groove,” “Lady (You Bring Me Up),” “Easy,” “Superfly,” “Joy & Pain,” “Use Ta Be My Girl” and “Get Up Offa That Thing.”
The songs are linked together by a narrator who is a stand-in for Soul Train host Don Cornelius.
“He is a very soulful character that comes out and introduces the various songs and the various groups that these songs were made famous by and deals one-on-one with the audience and keeps people laughing and engaged and have that old, cool feel of the 1970s,” Jacobs added.
While WBTT’s season is billed as “25 Years of Black Heritage,” Soul Crooners can be described as a Night of Nostalgia.
“That’s what everybody walking out of the theater is doing,” Jacobs said. “‘Oh my God, the memories!’ ‘You took me back when I was in college.’ You this and you that. ‘I remember where I was when I first heard that song.’ And that was a big reason why I created this show…. This show ushers that in when they sit in that theater and experience it.”
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Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe was founded in 1999.
WBTT has been dubbed Sarasota’s “miracle theater" because of its unique ability to attract broad-based community support.
The organization’s mission is to produce professional, high-quality, thought-provoking theater that promotes and celebrates African American history and experience, engages a broad base of patrons and audiences, supports the development of a dynamic group of aspiring artists, and builds self-esteem in youth of color.
WBTT’s season consists of five mainstage shows. In addition to “Soul Crooners: Solid Gold Edition,” WBTT’s 25th season will include “A Motown Christmas” (created, adapted and directed by Nate Jacobs), August Wilson’s “Fences,” “Five Guys Named Moe,” and the world premiere musical “Syncopated Avenue” (also created, adapted and directed by WBTT founder and Artistic Director Nate Jacobs).
The “Soul Crooners” cast consists of Earley Dean, Chris Eisenberg, Michael Mendez, Raleigh Mosley II, Leon S. Pitts II and Sheldon Rhoden.
The “Soul Crooners” band includes Jamar Camp on keys, Marvin Hendon on bass, Dan Haedicke on guitar and Caleb Miller on drums, all under the direction of Matthew McKinnon (MD/main keys).
“Soul Crooners” occupies a special place in the annals of WBTT history. In 2009, Nate Jacobs was seriously considering dissolving the company because of his ongoing struggles and lack of widespread community support.
“I had gotten tired of the pushback, the lack of funding, the lack of facility, the lack,” Jacobs recounted. “It had become a tiring task for me. I was burnt out after almost 10 years. I said to myself I would dissolve the company. I had done diversity in Sarasota like I wanted to, and now I’m going to New York and finish my career …. And my whole heart spoke to me and said, ‘No you’re not, Nate! You’re gonna continue.’”
That’s when Jacobs’ friend, mentor and WBTT board member Howard Millman got involved. Millman was the former artistic director of the Asolo Theatre, where Jacobs had also worked. Millman had learned to his chagrin that Jacobs was thinking of closing down WBTT. Millman took Jacobs to an art gallery, where he challenged his friend to come up with a performance idea that could be performed in the gallery’s den.
“I wanted to tell him no,” said Jacobs, “but in my mind’s eye, I saw this little revue – men singing 1970s music came to my mind. He said, ‘You see anything you could do in here?’ I didn’t want to tell him, but I respected him. So I said yes. That was the start of 'Soul Crooners,' giving African American men a platform to sing.”
That show, performed on a rented stage at the Sarasota Arts Center in 2009, was a hit for Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe. It saved and sustained WBTT’s future.
In the summer of 2013, WBTT was invited to present “Soul Crooners” at the prestigious National Black Theatre Festival, where it became an audience favorite. The show’s success led to sold-out performances at NBTF in 2015 (at which Jacob was presented with the Larry Leon Hamlin Producer Award), 2022 and 2024.
The show has even traveled abroad.
“A donor saw ‘Soul Crooners,’ so we were flown out to Germany twice to perform the ‘Soul Crooners,' giving local African American singers the chance to perform internationally," Jacobs said.
The show’s success also inspired a sequel, “Soul Crooners 2” as well as a female version, “Sistas in the Name of Soul” that celebrates Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight and the female icons of that era.
“Those shows saved our behinds,” Jacobs added. “They were two costumes, three-piece bands, four or five singers, and we could survive. And so when the pandemic happened, we went outside in the parking lot under the stars with the ‘Soul Crooners.’ They saved our behinds again because the theater was closed.”
“Soul Crooners” is performed in the Donelly Theatre on the WBTT campus at 1012 N. Orange Ave. in Sarasota.
The theater suffered only cosmetic damage during hurricanes Helene and Milton. “We did lose a big half of our awning on the theater building, but the buildings were totally intact,” Jacobs reported.
The damage and local power outages did delay the show’s opening by a week.
“And the house is packing,” Jacobs noted. “People are ready to come in here and put the hurricane behind them and get into some good music.”
The hurricane did impact the showcase that WBTT had planned on November 14 at the Van Wesel to celebrate its 25th anniversary. The Van Wesel flooded and has canceled all events through the end of 2024, so WBTT will now hold its 25th anniversary gala at The Ora.
“So there will be a portable stage in that space, and we will still move forward with the show presentations we were going to do at the Van Wesel to celebrate our anniversary,” Jacobs said.