Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn
Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn
Join Us in Real Life in Raleigh
Besties Leslie and Angella share exciting news about their upcoming live event in Raleigh, North Carolina, where they'll host a community conversation after a performance of "The Old Settler," a play originally performed by Felicia Rashad and Debbie Allen.
• Angella is the wig designer for the production directed by actor and author Moses T Alexander Greene.
• The play explores themes of love, survival and family dynamics in 1943 Harlem
• Leslie and Angella have different opinions about a key part of the play involving a May-December romance
The play runs March 14-16, with Leslie and Angella appearing live for the Actor Talkback on March 15 after the 2:00 PM performance
Come see the play and join our conversation at the Kennedy Theater in the Martin Marietta Performing Arts Center in Raleigh!
• Angella shares about her spontaneous trip to Maui and her philosophy of "yielding to the river" of life
• The women are planning their 45th Brooklyn Tech High School reunion, overcoming venue challenges
The Old Settler (2001)-Directed by Debbie Allen, starring Phylicia Rashad, Bumper Robinson & Debbie
https://youtu.be/2l6K2O-Ly9U?si=zLufX0Z_FAT47Wsw
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hey aunt hello, leslie how are you? Are you sounding a little british, are you? No, it's not british no, it's not british. What do you mean? What is that calio?
Speaker 2:it's just a slow hello, that's all okay, nothing more than that. Hello, hello, hello.
Speaker 1:Damn, you start out cutting out.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, what can I tell you?
Speaker 1:How you?
Speaker 2:doing. I'm good. I'm good. Today was a little challenging, but it's come around. It's come around. My internet, my cable service, is it. Cable Internet service was choppy all day for the last few days, but hopefully they have resolved it so I was able to get some work done, you mean you paid the bill. I did pay the bill. It wasn't me.
Speaker 1:This time I paid the bill, you know back in the day we used to say you know my phone's not working. Is it the phone you? Might as well, not say it, living paycheck to paycheck, I get it, I've been there.
Speaker 2:You might as well not say it, because that's going to be the assumption, so most people won't believe you anyway.
Speaker 1:So you might as well not even tell them, it's just trouble whatever. Especially when you just borrowed money last week. Yeah, the phone's off, oh my goodness. All right, I'll get serious.
Speaker 2:Get it together, Introduce us Les.
Speaker 1:Welcome to another episode of Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn. I'm Leslie. My pal over there is Angela, and we've been friends almost 50 years now, goodness gracious, so I'll give the mic back to you. I'm done with you.
Speaker 2:No, I'll give it back to you. Tell them who we are. Hey guys, so we're, we are Leslie and Angela and we are two intellectually curious older black women. We, we just like to go deep. We've beeny type of thing in Raleigh, north Carolina. We're going to be having kind of a community conversation about a play called the Old Settler. It's being held at the Kennedy Auditorium at the Martin Marietta Performing Arts Center in Raleigh. It's the big performing arts center in Raleigh, in the Kennedy Theater, kennedy Theater, and Leslie and I have been asked to do a post-performance community conversation about the. No, it's so great. So I'm doing wig design for the production and the director he is a director, he is a playwright, he is an actor, his name is Moses T Alexander Green and he is directing this play and he asked me if I would do wig design. Would you and your bestie do kind of a podcast, a conversation? Because let me tell you what the play is about and you'll understand why we are a perfect fit for it.
Speaker 1:And all I heard was road trip. I'm in, All right. What are we talking about?
Speaker 2:I'm in, okay, so wait, so talk to the people. Let me pull it up again so I can. I can read the description of the the play it's going to be a doozy. Okay, I found it too late.
Speaker 1:I found it, so it's called she didn't let me get a word in edgewise.
Speaker 2:It's called the old settler. It is set in 1943 Harlem, in a 1943 Harlem tenement. John Henry Woodward's the Old Settler is a compelling story of love, yearning and unexpected turns. By the way, it was performed by Felicia Rashad and Debbie Allen a few years ago, so you'll find it. We'll put a link to it, but you'll find their recordings of it on YouTube. So Elizabeth Borny, a middle-aged spinster, and her skeptical sister Quillie McGrath, find their lives disrupted when a handsome, young, great migrator right. So he comes up North from the South. His name is husband Witherspoon and he shows up on their doorstep. Husband, their new border has been on a quest to reunite with his long, long lost love, lou Bessie. However, his arrival sparks an unexpected May-December. Do you know what that means? What is May-December? Do you know what that means?
Speaker 1:I know what that means Say what it means. That means if I were to embark on a relationship with a much younger person, right, right, so that would be the, I guess I'd be the December, you'd be trouble, you'd be the December.
Speaker 2:So they embark on this relationship and let me get and leading to a mix of humor, tension and emotional depth. The play, which explores themes of love, survival and family dynamics, is infused with a sense of authenticity and warmth. The production is directed by Moses T Alexander Green, whose accolades include Broadway World Raleigh's 2024 Award for Best Performer in a Musical, north Carolina Theater's the Color Purple I was doing wigs on that too and it's 2020 Award for Original Script of the Decade for the Lively Mohab Theater Company of the decade for the Lively Mohab Theater Company. He also wrote and directed Pulled, a gospel musical drama. So it's going to be amazing and we're Leslie so Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait wait wait, wait, wait, wait.
Speaker 1:Because you know what I'm going to tell you. Does this mean I have to be on my best behavior? You don't, I don't, I can. You don't have to be on my best behavior. You don't, I don't, I can bring the shenanigans on the road.
Speaker 2:Road trip. Please, you can bring it on the road. So we've both seen the Debbie Allen Felicia Rashad version of this. I'm like Leslie, this is the play I'm going to be working on. Yeah, you made me look at it, and I didn't want to look at it, but yeah, you were here actually.
Speaker 1:Listen, we disagree. If you were not here, I would have just said yeah, I saw it and didn't look at it, but you were a witness.
Speaker 2:So we vehemently disagree on this, one of the key parts of the play. We're not going to talk about it now, and we decided not to talk about it any further.
Speaker 1:Knowing that we were going to appear in conversation Exactly.
Speaker 2:But know that she believes that and I believe that I might need you to remind me of my position. Just know that it's different from mine, but I remember it was strong, yeah, yeah, yeah, mine, and it was valid and it's sort of around. It's around this of may, december, romance and how we feel about it and who was right, who was wrong, all those types of things. But I remember now, yep, yep, so we encourage you to come out.
Speaker 2:That would be those of you in the rdu, the raleigh, dur, chapel Hill area or beyond. It is going to be an amazing play. I know I've known Moses for quite a few years now. He is a phenomenal actor and director. He brings us all of the great live performances at the North Carolina Museum of Art live performances at the North Carolina Museum of Art. So if you've ever enjoyed any of those musicians who come at the amphitheater and sold out, he is responsible for that. He's one of those people who you know when you're creative you're just creative all over the place, and he's one of those.
Speaker 2:he's one of those people yeah, and so um, it's going to be exciting to be a part of that so I'm going to be in the his house.
Speaker 1:Yes, all right, that'll be.
Speaker 2:I'm looking forward to that so we're going to definitely do some pre and post recordings, um as well, and the um the conversation is probably going to be recorded also. So whenever possible, we will bring that to y'all so you can see how we do, what we do live. This is going to be our first time in front of a live audience.
Speaker 1:Yeah, actually we had an invitation to do that before, but it was postponed, so this will be our first. This will be our first.
Speaker 2:So we wanted to tell you about that and just kind of update you on what's been going on. So you know I took a little trip.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I noticed that when your sleeve went down a little bit you had a little bit of a tan line.
Speaker 2:you didn't, you didn't say anything where you been hold on. You didn't say anything about being me being less. You're always ready to point out how, how yellow I am.
Speaker 1:You're not going to say anything about the lack of I mean no, because I didn't want to blow you up and I didn't want to give it to you. I just didn't.
Speaker 2:What kind of best friend are you? I know I'm so fickle. This is what happens. Yes, I spent a few days in Maui and it was amazing, just beyond. I can't believe I was there last week but I had a great time. I hung out with someone that I'm getting to know and it was wonderful getting to know and this place that is a piece of paradise.
Speaker 1:It really is, and I'm so glad you were able to go and it was somewhat of a spontaneous trip for you it was, and I encouraged you to go. I'm like you know you have to experience this. You know I've been to Maui a couple of years ago, so, but I wanted to. I'm so happy that you threw your cares to the wind in a way, because you know you're very busy, you have a lot to do and you know, but you were able to put that aside and really enjoy yourself, so I'm so glad that you did that. I'm moving around a little bit. I got a new piercing, so it's a little hard to sit still.
Speaker 2:Oh, right right.
Speaker 1:Do you want to show it? It's hard to sit still. Do I want to show it?
Speaker 2:Oh, that one.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, I can't take you I can't take you.
Speaker 1:I'm kidding. Is there something you didn't tell me? I said I got a little piercing. It's hard to sit still. No, I got it right here. So it's hard to keep this in my ear. That's why Okay, that's going to take 50 years to heal.
Speaker 2:But anyway, I'd had a nose ring and any cartilage is going to take longer than you know, like your earlobe and I. I had the ring out I'm telling you no lie for like a day and it started to close up. This is after having it, having had it for maybe two months. It started to, it started to close. I was just done because it was the second time I was done with it. I was done with it. I may do it again, but anyway. So what you been up to?
Speaker 1:No, you didn't finish telling me about Maui.
Speaker 2:Oh, maui was listen. I ain't going to tell you all my business.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:Maui was all the things.
Speaker 1:It was. You know, sometimes you just have to say yes.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's true, it's true. Put aside, I don't know if I've mentioned here, but I feel like I'm on this flow, on this river flowing. And when I say flowing, I don't mean in a passive way, I mean the river. I am yielding to the river. The river, for me, is God's leading and I'm yielding to it. I'm not trying to row, I'm not trying to make it go one way or the other, I'm not even trying to set anchor. I'm just being on the flow and I know it's going to speed up, slow down. There may be white water, there may be like tributaries, and maybe I get to decide which way to go that free will thing. But that's a nice analogy. I get it, I get it.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 2:And some people you see on the bank and you say, hey, some people, you invite them into the river with you, all the things. If they can't hang, you say bye, and if they can, you say, hey, this is kind of nice.
Speaker 1:I can hang on the river you ain't on my river. Listen, you ain't on my river. Here I am in my boat. You know you're gonna say I thought I said goodbye to you, I'm just on the river.
Speaker 2:You know the people in the boat that splash you and make you like turn over. That would be Leslie on my river, the disruptor. She wouldn't mean to. She wouldn't mean to. She'd say, oops, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:Hey, it's look who it is.
Speaker 2:She'd be in a little speedboat. Yeah, I'd be there, no doubt, no doubt.
Speaker 1:So that's nice to hear, I like the stage of your life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, me too. It feels really good and it was disruptive for my schedule to take the strip unexpectedly. However, disruption is not always a bad thing. It's just a thing. It's not always a bad thing.
Speaker 1:The other thing I liked about you going was that it almost like kind of stopped you this frenetic pace you've been on for the last couple of months, cause you've just had to do, to do, to do, to do right, and it kind of just curtailed it right there and you like packed up and you went and you know, you came back, you didn't leave any responsibilities behind, but you were able to change things, switch, uh, alter, change your priorities a little bit and and still take care of yourself.
Speaker 1:So that means you didn't worry while you were there, like oh, I'm not doing this, or you know, so it was good yeah, it was you know, I just kept calling for all the reasons. I'm like, I don't mean to disturb you, but you're having a good time. Yeah, he's sleeping. Oh, you know, with the five hour diff time difference it was a little confusing. Like are we ahead, are we behind?
Speaker 2:it's like yeah, yeah it was, it was all good, it was wonderful to eat fruit and not have it itch, you know, like tingle your your mouth or whatever, especially pineapple. Um, and yeah it was, it was great and um I hope to visit again.
Speaker 2:It's, it's, um, I was surprised at how uncrowded it was, because you hear about hawaii and my sense of it is that it was busy. Maybe it was maui that just had a different flow to it, but, um, oh, we did pass by Lahaina, the area where all of that the fire happened, which was really sad to see it in that state. But it's kind of all cleaned up and there's some temporary homes that are built and they seem to be, um, coming back from it, but, um, the area is still pretty, pretty flat and there's this church in the middle of all of it that didn't get touched, and so this old church is is still there, and, um, this really old tree that's still there, and things like that so anyway, we, we drove by that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it was lovely. I'm glad Well good for you. Yes, I didn't enjoy the 10. You know I'm going to take that back. It was a two-leg flight and the longer leg was 10 hours, and so I got to see.
Speaker 1:A thousand movies.
Speaker 2:I got to see. What is it, Aaron Pierre? That's Mufasa. Oh, uh-huh, Aaron Pierre.
Speaker 1:So I did see Mufasa and a few movies Lion King thing, or whatever.
Speaker 2:You don't care about that. Why you say it like whatever, you don't care about that.
Speaker 1:Mufasa and Pierre. No, that doesn't move me. You say it like whatever. You don't care about that. Mufasa and Pierre. No, no, that doesn't move me, is it a?
Speaker 2:cartoon oh no, I'm not having this conversation.
Speaker 1:All right, no, no, either you know or you don't know. That's not my thing. That's not my thing, that's not my jam.
Speaker 2:My children were so into Lion King that was the CD that was in the car playing for road trips. I saw Mulan. Listen, I watched Mulan in Spanish, so you sat here, watched cartoons the whole time.
Speaker 1:What, how old are you? Excuse me, I'm not a cartoon girl.
Speaker 2:Hold on, hold on. See, we're not that similar. Hold on, there's a difference between cartoony Tom and Jerry. Now that I'd watch and Bugs Bunny. There's a difference?
Speaker 1:I don't even see no animated feature.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, that's the difference Animated features are different from. So you don't watch any Japanese stuff, you don't watch any of that Anime. Yeah, wow, okay, we are very different, but I'm influenced by my children and I influence them because I'm a comic book person, or I used to be really, really into comics, and I think that's what kicked off my children's interest in anime and what's the other thing, anyway. So I did watch Mulan in Spanish because I wanted to. I've seen it so many times. It's one of my children's favorites. I've seen it so many times. It was so good watching it in Spanish and I turned off the and so it was great, so you made it educational.
Speaker 1:I don't know if I've watched Mulan once, maybe once I've seen it, but I couldn't tell you what it was about. Oh let's get down to business to defeat the. Huns, wait, wait, wait, wait, okay, I do. She's a swashbuckling Asian. Yeah, they send me daughters when I ask for sons. Oh, wait, okay, I do, she's a swashbuckling Asian.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they send me daughters when I ask for sons. Oh, okay.
Speaker 1:I'll make a man out of you. I've seen it once.
Speaker 2:Mr, I'll make a man. Okay, I don't know it. Anyway, I saw it in Spanish because I am making a concerted effort to learn Spanish, to begin relearning Spanish before Panama, and so that was my, my deliberate challenge to do that. Yeah, okay, what else?
Speaker 1:I like it. So I just came back from my physical therapy. I'm getting physical therapy on my knee and I'm not going to say too much more. However, what I will do is blow you up, because I started telling you about therapy and you're like wait a minute, let's record it.
Speaker 2:No, it wasn't quite like that, it wasn't quite.
Speaker 1:You said wait a minute, let's record it.
Speaker 2:I said and no it was a little worse than that actually.
Speaker 1:It was a little maladies made public.
Speaker 2:It was a little maladies made public. It was a little worse than that, because what you said is that you've been doing the wrong thing for your knee.
Speaker 1:No, this is what you said. Now you're making it public. I just you know what I'm going to get you on a HIPAA violation. Now you're going to go into detail about what I said.
Speaker 2:I just wanted to make it clear. It wasn't solely, oh, let's just. You said something that made me say that that you wanted to put my business in the street. Lord, I was just, it was just so typical of you, my physical inability. It was so, it was so typical you.
Speaker 2:But I'm glad you're getting physical therapy and that it's working. Yes, it is working, that it's working for you. Good, excellent, excellent. I did want to say one other thing that I've been doing, but it just ran out of my head. It literally just ran out of my head. It literally just ran out of my head. What was I going to tell the people that I was working?
Speaker 1:on.
Speaker 2:I talked about the play, which is exciting. It really is To do the design for that. There was something else that it'll come back Whenever I chase things that want to run away from me, that have left my brain. Whenever I chase, I could see it. It speeds up, it speeds up. So I'll just wait here.
Speaker 1:You're not as fast as you used to be. So I want to make a quick comment, I hope, for those of you who listened to our prior last week's podcast episode talking about our being a lot. We got a lot of good feedback from that and I think people like our a lotness In general In general. Well, the people that didn't like it didn't comment.
Speaker 2:That's true. Oh, here's what I wanted to talk about. So you guys know that Leslie and I and a part of a group of class reps for our high school Brooklyn Tech class of 80, for our high school Brooklyn Tech class of 80, the best, the best graduating class ever, and so there are five of us Kay, shelly, cookie, sherelle, leslie and I who plan our reunions Every year, every five years, every five years, right, but when I say every five years we go big every five years, every five years, right.
Speaker 2:But when I say every five years, we go big every five years.
Speaker 1:Oh, we go big. It's not just regular degular.
Speaker 2:So we have been planning that and it's on April 26th, so it's starting to heat up, and this is what I wanted, one of the things I want to say about that. This is what I wanted, one of the things I wanted to say about that. So we have been having trouble securing a venue for the time and all of that right and we that didn't stop us from selling tickets though. It didn't stop us. Well, the thing is, we knew that it would get resolved, of course, we really did.
Speaker 2:And guess what happened? We had found a place, a second place that we found that it was really just a shell of a place that could accommodate the number of people and all of that in Brooklyn, and we were, you know, going to hire all the vendors to bring food and things like that. We were prepared to do that, but they double booked us and didn't tell us so. For months they've been trying to reconcile it without our knowledge and finally gave up and said we can't do it. Sorry, you guys are out.
Speaker 1:Guess what.
Speaker 2:God said it's all right, I got you, I got you, I got you, we have a better place. We do that, does everything.
Speaker 1:Everything, the food, everything, the plates we were going to have to buy silverware.
Speaker 2:We were going to have to plant everything in. We were going to have to hire an event plant All the things we found, going to have to hire an event plan, all the things we found, a place that does everything. They're so accommodating, and so now it's like butter. It's like butter yeah. Ooh the tickets are going up, they're being sold. Oh, it's so good.
Speaker 1:We're really excited. We even got quite a few sponsors. Yes, our class is amazing. We even got quite a few sponsors.
Speaker 2:Yes, to cover some of the costs.
Speaker 1:I'm telling you this is our 45th high school reunion from Brooklyn Technical High School. Yes, and it's just. Yeah. It's a labor of love that we put this work in up to six months before the event. Labor of love that we put this work in up to six months before the event, but it's just such a we all embrace each other, we're happy to see each other and so many of us have been in contact with each other over the years. That is just a wonderful celebration. So we look forward to that and it's coming in about six weeks. So in six weeks, time for me to lose weight, time for me to get my knee together so I can boogie a year and get your knee together.
Speaker 2:That sounds hilarious. That sounds hilarious. Um, listen, this is I. I come, I come as I come, I, I. I don't know what color. I'm definitely going to do a different color in my hair by then, but I'm not sure what color I'll be doing. But I'm really excited about that. We all are. It's going to be a blast. We have a great, just a diverse group of people who love each other and love hanging around with each other.
Speaker 1:And we've all kind of grown up together. I mean, I grew up with you since I was 15, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so that's what I want to talk about.
Speaker 2:See, look, I didn't put pressure on myself to remember, and then it just came right back.
Speaker 1:It ran out of steam. It's like a puppy, it's like a kid. So you finally caught up.
Speaker 2:It was running from you, Leslie. I didn't chase it. It came back like a boomerang. It's not like a boomerang.
Speaker 1:Leslie, you threw it and then it came back.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Give me another analogy.
Speaker 2:You know, like a parent and a kid wants to run, and then you just sit down and eventually, when they feel like so you're too far away, they go running for you. That's, that's good, that's true that's, you can't say like a dog because I've had dogs that just kept running.
Speaker 1:They never look back twice. They never look back.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness, you know what's funny too. There's some people that we have different levels of excitement to see them.
Speaker 1:Can I say that no. Yeah, we can say that that's not nice.
Speaker 2:I can say that I'm going to say it. Okay, it's too late, I'm going to say it. Who?
Speaker 1:don't you want to see? It's not that I don't want to see anyone, just tell me. Tell me in my good ear.
Speaker 2:It's not about not wanting to see anyone. It's about there's certain people it's like oh my God, I can't wait to see them. Other people it's like hmm, so Leslie and I have different people we do Different people that we feel this way about. Yeah, that's one thing.
Speaker 1:But the other thing is that I'm looking forward to seeing people I haven't seen, because I've seen like dozens of people I'm in contact with, you know, constantly. So I'm looking forward to some of the people that I haven't seen in many years you know, right, right, yeah, me too. It's going to be great, it's going to be great, anyway, okay, anything else this is going to be a short one, I think, yeah, we've kind of it's not been short, we've been talking.
Speaker 2:We always say that We'll just do something real quick, and then it turns into this Okay, anything. Okay, anything else you wanted to share?
Speaker 1:No, I think that's it, and I appreciate you all for listening. This was just a little bit of a banter, but we did want to reach out to you, so thank you for listening. This has been another episode of Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn. Brooklyn Bye. Hope to see everybody in North Carolina.
Speaker 2:That would be awesome, oh my gosh, that would be amazing. We, my gosh, that would be amazing. We'll give you more information. Look in the description for more, for all the links. Please come out, it's wait a minute. I didn't say the dates. Oh my gosh. It opens on March 14th and it runs until March 23rd. Leslie and I will be live on March 15th, okay, so come on. We're probably going to be live for the two o'clock because that's a Saturday, so the matinee is at two and the evening show it's at 730. We'll do the matinee and or the evening show, but it will be on the 15th. But we open. The show opens on March 14th. Please come out, support this amazing show, this amazing director, and, yeah, you'll be glad you did.
Speaker 1:All right, bye.
Speaker 2:Allow me to reintroduce myself. My name is Angela Fraser and I'm one of the class reps of the best tech graduating class ever. I don't mean to brag, I don't mean to boast, but we are like hot butter on a breakfast toast. We made smart, cool and diversity rule, true, blue and tight like glue. We could teach the world a thing or two, and when people ask us why there ain't no stopping us now, after 40 years, we say it's more than a feeling. You see, we are the champions, my friends, and we'll keep on fighting, loving and supporting each other till the end. Thank you.
