Beacon Voices: Edwin Lee Gibson, "Actor-vist"

by Michael Daecher

The waiter approached our table, “We only have ‘Plantation’ rum, sir.”

Edwin laughed, “Now how are you gonna offer a brother a drink with a name like that? Come on!” He then left the waiter off the hook and placed his order.

Edwin Lee Gibson is an actor who believes strongly in speaking his mind. Maybe that’s what makes him so popular with the kids. I first encountered Edwin more than a year ago at the first community meeting to discuss the Beacon Master Plan. There he asked some tough questions about how people outside of the meeting would be involved. One of the few African Americans in attendance, he may have made some people feel uncomfortable about starting such an ambitious project without input from the entire community. Rightfully so.

Over the past six weeks you could have found Edwin reading and acting out stories for small children, such as “The Lorax” and Shel Silverstein’s “The Giving Tree.” Edwin and his theater partner Daphne Richards created the program, which they call The Petry Dish, as a prelude to a larger community theater project. With a strong commitment to community, keen intellect, and an easy laugh, Edwin may be one of the few people that could bring people onto the stage who have never set foot in a theater. I sat down with Edwin over drinks at a steak house in Fishkill to talk about how he made it to Beacon, and why he feels that theater is critical to our future as a city.

Where are you from originally?

I’m originally from Houston Texas. I was born and raised there. My mom was a singer, and my dad was a garbage man. We were just a lower middle class family living in Houston. My parents split up when I was 7, but my dad was always there when he had to be. I didn’t grow up in the hood and I don’t really have any hard luck stories. I have an older brother named Lee. He was one of the most highly scouted basketball players in the state of Texas at the time.

When was that?

This was in the early 80’s. I played baseball, basketball, and football. You couldn’t be Lee’s little brother and not play basketball. But my favorite was baseball.

What position did you play?

I played the outfield in college. And in high school I played second base, but I’m left handed. When I was a freshman in college I went to try out for the team and the coach said to get to second base. After a while he says, “Gibson, are you playing my second base left handed”? I said, “Yes sir coach!” And he said “get the f***k out of my infield!” So I became an outfielder. (laughs).

But I was already acting. I actually got into acting when I was 12-13 years old, because that’s where the girls were (laughs). When I was 15 I started taking it really seriously. The turning point was when I transferred high schools in 10th grade. I went to the high school I graduated from and I had drama as my 6th period class. I always knew I would be an actor but I was playing baseball at the time. Mr. Faulkner, the man who would become my drama teacher said, “its ok if you want to play baseball, go ahead and do your thing.”

Then he heard me reading something one day in class when I didn’t have practice. I was walking across the school parking lot at the end of the day and he ran up to me and said, “If you’re not in my class tomorrow I’m going to flunk your little ass.” And so, no more baseball until college because my mother said if I majored in theater, she would kill me. (laughs) And I knew she wasn’t playing. So I was a mathematics major in college. That’s what I studied.

Where did you go to college?

I went to a small historically African American college in Waco Texas called Paul Quinn. By then I already started to work and get paid as an actor. I think I’ve worked as an actor and done at least one professional show a year for the past 26 years.

How old are you?

I’m 41.

I wouldn’t have guessed that.

Yeah, yeah I don’t get cheated out of a second. You know, I tell my students all the time, don’t get cheated out of a second. Enjoy everything, see everything, you know, don’t get cheated. That’s why I guess I don’t look 41. I’m the biggest kid in room.

When I was a freshman in college there was no drama department. And I would put on these shows myself for the whole student body. We only had like 500 students on and off campus and I would put on these little shows and then an actress by the name of Esther Rolle, from “Good Times.” She was doing a tour of African-American colleges, and she came to Paul Quinn. She heard about this little skinny kid that was doing shows all the time. She and I met and she actually changed her itinerary and stayed at Paul Quinn for two more weeks, and we wrote and performed a show together.

That must have been a great experience.

I say I’ve never had acting class outside of high school because I didn’t need it. My high school drama teacher, Mr. Faulkner, was great—he gave us all we needed. But having said that, I’m still in class, you know, I‘ve learned theater by being in theater, so meeting Esther Rolle and working with her and listening to her, I learned a lot. Then you go back and apply things in your life and you learn from other people around you.

So that’s kind of how the whole thing happened. After college I got involved with a theater company in Houston called the Ensemble Theater that was the largest African-American theater in the southwest at that time. I got into that company when I was like 22. I auditioned, got in and had to wait for 2 years because there were so many great actors, some of the greatest actors I’ve known to come out of Houston. Cats that could just go get it -- men and women. I was in the company from 1987-1995 when I left and moved to New York City.

What made you decide to come up to New York and pursue acting?

New York is where I knew I was going to be. Houston couldn’t hold me any longer. It was just a matter of time. I wasn’t worried about the rejection, because I am a stutterer. I’ve been a stutterer all my life. People say “how are you going to be an actor when you can’t even talk?” But that’s what I want to do. On stage it doesn’t happen. My mind is constructed such that I won’t build up any neuroses, because I’m told “no” everyday outside of what I do. I’m looked at and laughed at even now. And adults are far worse than kids ever were to me. None of that s**t matters. It is what it is. You pull yourself up and you keep going. But a lot of actors develop this neurosis like, ‘I really want them to like me.’ And if you do that’s really great, I’d love it. But if you don’t, I won’t get angry with you because that’s your choice.

When did you start teaching?

I started teaching in April of 1999. Ironically, it was my good friend Daphne who hired me. She heard about me from a director that I worked with. But she wanted to see me work before she made a decision about hiring me as an instructor. That way she thought she’d get a better idea what kind of teacher I’d be. Luckily she was right, though I don’t think that watching someone act is always a telltale sign of how they can instruct.

Where did you end up when you moved to New York?

I ended up in the Bronx at first, and I was doing an old west gunfight show out in Six Flags in New Jersey. I had done the same thing in Houston at Astroworld. And the same company had the show up here so I came and did that for a couple of years. I just tried to find work where I could get it. Then my ex-wife decided to that she wanted to be with somebody else, and that dissolved in 1998. After that I lived on the train for about 2 months.

Why’s that?

I had nowhere else to go. I would go to work with the Spark Program with the Board of Education, an acting group. After work I would go hang out at the cigar shop. After the cigar shop closed at about 8:00 pm, there was a bar around the street that I would go to. I’d just done a film with this cat that was a bartender there and I would go there every night until they closed at like 4:00 in the morning. Then I would hop on the train catch an hour or two of sleep and then its time to go back to work at 8:00 am. I did that for 2 months. Yeah, then I got a room in East Flatbush in Brooklyn. I stayed there for 4 years until I moved here.

What made you leave New York and come up to Beacon?

Well, New York is an unforgiving place. And it really dictates how one lives his or her life. And I don’t think that anybody—especially artists—should have their life dictated to them. New York is a place that spouts this melting pot ideal. But I don’t think its so melting pot-ish, if you will. I always say that, if you can be in New York City, and you can be a racist, then you really are making a concerted effort to be a racist or a bigot (if you are not in power, then you can ‘t be a racist.)

In New York City, you have to try to be that way because every day your idea of what certain people are like is going to be challenged. If you think all brown skinned people are out to hurt you, you’re going to see that you’re wrong, like, 50 times a day, at least. If you are brown skinned and you think everyone who’s white is racist you are going to have that idea dispelled at least 50 times a day. You know the people you order your food from that actually bring it to you. You know the people at the door of a club or the people at the bodega down the street. There is so much interaction between races that there is no way you can hold onto these ideas, unless you’re very, very confused.

I’m from Texas, and I’d much rather know who doesn’t like me than have someone say, “Oh, you are a great guy” and go behind you and stab you in the back. I dig New York for the vibe but I don’t dig the fact that it will chew you up and spit you out. It will make the best intentioned person into a hard person. So it was a necessary evil for me. But it was time for me to get out of there and to really use New York City. Not let it use me. So I go back when I have to work and I have to teach. I go in and I do it that way. And you now, no one can possibly afford to live in New York City again if you moved away. I always say, “I’ll never live in New York City again, and if I had the money, why would I?”

So when you found Beacon what did you like about it?

My friend Daphne and I would get together in the summer and go hang out on Fire Island. But one Labor Day a few years ago she said ”lets go up to the Hudson Valley and do something different.” So we caught the train up to Cold Spring, and we had lunch at a little French restaurant. Then at about 4:30 we were sitting and looking at that big ass rock across the way and she says, “Let’s go see what the next town is like.” So we hopped on the train and came up to the next town. We got off the train and started walking and we had no idea where anything was. So we ended up going up by the police station and found Main Street. And the more I saw, the more I liked. We ended up walking all the way down Main Street and I saw a realtor’s sign. And I said let me take down this number. It was just a nice spot.

Of course, Beacon is a bit polarized in its own right but it’s more about class than it is about race. Which is what the whole thing is anyway—it’s not about race it’s about money. But after it’s about money, it’s about race. (laughs) So I took down the realtor’s number and came back home and went online. The next week I came up to look around and I went into a coffee shop and started talking to the young woman behind the counter. I left the coffee shop and I was like, “you know what, I want to move here. I am definitely going to move here.” And of course I couldn’t be up here and not have my best friend with me. So I said, “Daphne, you and your dogs come up to Beacon, and let’s get this big place.” And we moved into an apartment in that old school house, the Tioranda School. And that’s how I found Beacon. I dig it. I dig it so much.

What kind of theater are you interested in doing here in Beacon?

We’re trying to bring what we do at the drama program at the Harvard Conservatory for the Performing Arts in East Harlem in Manhattan up here and teach classes. My good friend Daphne is the Drama Program Director, and I am the Assistant Drama Program Director. The other thing we’re working on is the theater company, Thespus Brown Laboratory Theater. We’re trying to bring a professional theater company like you would find in New York City or any major place here to Beacon.

I want to start a theater company where the actors are primarily of color and do the same shows, like “Long Day’s Journey Into Night”, “'Night, Mother”, or “The Dark at the Top of the Stairs”. The acting company would be primarily brown skinned because I think it puts a new slant on a piece like "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf?" Shakespeare’s “Othello” is done such a disservice because it’s made to be about race when it’s supposed to be about power. And I have always wanted to see a production of it done where both Iago and Othello are brown skinned, because it takes the whole race card out of it.

Where would you perform in Beacon?

That’s something that will have to be worked out. We don’t know yet. But we know that we want to do this in Beacon, and we want to do it for Beacon. Beacon is home. So if we get the opportunity to meet with some people that help make that happen, that would be great.

I heard that you were interested in running for city council.

Well, I am not a politician, and I won’t ever call myself that. An activist, I would call myself that. As an actor, I am an activist, and as a writer I am an activist. I decided that I wanted to toss my hat for city council because one of the things I don’t like about Beacon is that the same generational thing is going on. I’ve seen generations of people, 15, 30, 60 year olds just kind of out there, just hanging out, nothing to do. I feel like Beacon wants to grow.

Do you think this is a race issue?

No, it’s about everybody. The cool thing about politics is it’s not exclusive to race. How could people talk about this town going forward if they don’t address the people that are here that are in need?

I felt like I was seeing artists taking from this community and not giving to it. And I wanted to give to it. It’s as simple as that. That’s why I decided that I owe it to the community to go in that direction because Beacon can’t move forward without that kind of effort. The good thing is that geographically you can’t really displace the people that have been here in Beacon. There is no place to move them. I dig that.

Beacon could be a great model for how different classes can really co-exist. But we’re going to have to do things for those people that are underserved. Just as artists feel like they are underserved. And we are. But you can’t come in and drive up the prices and try and kick people out and then say, “Oh, I’m the victim.”

And the artists are trying to kick people out?

I don’t think they think about it like that. I think they’re thinking they want a safe place to live. But everybody wants a safe place to live. Just because you make $6,000 a year doesn’t mean you don’t deserve a safe place to live. Just because you are on Section 8 doesn’t mean you don’t deserve a safe place to live.

If the city council isn’t in cards right now, what is?

I think I’m going to go a different direction. I attended a NAACP meeting last night and I think that would be the best way for me to go. If the current NAACP heads would have it, I’d like to be the new blood that really kind of galvanizes and pulls in the young people. I am lucky in that I don’t look my age. So I can move around in different circles.

How would you get young people involved that might not be involved in the process right now?

Talk to them, not at them. Let them really address head on what the problems are and were they are culpable and where other are culpable. And again I am speaking not exclusive to race, because there is culpability everywhere. I used to talk about this in Brooklyn. I had this Idea of gentrification. If you didn’t want your block gentrified, take care of it. Nobody is holding you down. Nobody is firing the shots here or dumping the trash there. But at the same time, I understand it when people are merely existing as opposed to living because they are so concerned about their lives and just being able to eat, while still being served this American dream that’s nothing but a mirage.

Do you think that theater and the project you’re working on are ways to get that going?

I think so because in the drama program, Daphne coined the phrase “we are training actors for the stage and audiences for the theater.” The first play I wrote I was hoping that you’d have people that never went to a theater before sitting next to people that were normal theater goers. Then there would be conversation afterwards. I think we did accomplish that in Brooklyn with “Anatomy of a Knucklehead”. That was the name of the first play I wrote, which ran for a total of 8 months in New York -- five months in Brooklyn and then a few more months in Manhattan.

But the company now is essentially myself. I’ll be taking some other work that I have written out on the road. There’s a cat named Will Power who’s a writer of the play I’m doing off Broadway in the New York Theater Workshop. Will has given me exclusive rights to a piece that he wrote called “The Gathering”. So Daphne and I are going to be retooling that and that’s going to be the first thing we do.

And you do your own writing as well, right?

Right. I just finished a play called “Placebo”. I got “Anatomy of Knucklehead”, which I am actually re-writing. I am a much better writer now. I look at that play now and it wasn’t very good.  And then there’s “Five ‘Til” which is about the last five minutes of a man's life before he is executed on death Row. And “Morning” was a 15-minute piece that was my response to 9/11.
But I don’t sit down and write something unless its commentary on something. And I come for everybody. Let’s deal with this, lets get it out there.

You’re starting pretty young with the kids in the storytelling group.

The storytelling series we just did was an arm of the Thespus Brown poetry theater, The Petry Dish. And eventually we’ll start acting classes for kids. We wanted to give something to the community totally free. So that way people will know who we are. We are not about just tossing kids up on stage saying, “Hey you guys are going to do a show.”

You have to train them first.

Right I mean it’s about training actors and audiences for the theater. The way I think you build any program is from the bottom up. In this case we start with the kids. And you know, it was fun to come in and do it on those Sundays, even when there were only 1 or 2 kids.

What’s next for you?

I just found out today that an offer I put in on a house has been accepted.

So you are going to be a homeowner?

Yeah, and I’ll be eating peanut butter for the next 10 years, which is cool. I know what that is. It’s a small place, but it’s going to root me.

Comments

[Lester and Donna LeMay]

Edwin, It was great meeting you on the train in desolate northern AZ. I'm reading up on you and like what I read. We'd love to get an e-mail from you and explore each others' minds, if you have time for a couple -- an old baldheaded whitie and his sweet Christian wife.