Someday we'll be together

Motown Records provided the inspiration.

Smokey Robinson, Martha and the Vandellas, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, the Supremes, the Temptations — their songs told of black struggle.

Those songs will speak again — this time bringing to life the story of Omaha's civil rights movement.

Motown songs form the score for “What's Goin' On,” an original musical by Butch Reel, a white writer from Los Angeles, and Stan Spurgeon, a black bandleader from Omaha. It opens Friday. Reel and Spurgeon hope it also opens community discussions on race.

Their story began after a chance meeting at Spirit of Faith Church in the Millard North High School cafeteria last August. Reel's father and Spurgeon both attend the church. When Reel's dad told Spurgeon his son was a screenwriter, Spurgeon offered a script idea: Write something to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Motown Records. Berry Gordy's Detroit record label became the home of celebrated black soul artists whose lyrics resonated with the push for civil rights.

Reel, a Missouri Valley, Iowa, native who managed a Los Angeles movie stunt company for years, had time on his hands because of the recession's impact on the movie industry. A believer in regional theater steeped in its own roots — Omaha stories for Omaha audiences — Reel dug into research of the local civil rights movement, and of music history. Using back issues of The World-Herald, the Love's Jazz & Arts Center archives and Web sites, along with many calls to friends, he formed the idea for the show. One event was key.

“I met a lady who told me that going to Omaha was like taking a step back 10 years compared to Los Angeles, because of how it made her feel as a black woman,” Reel said. “Race was so much more an issue here than it was there. And I had the same feeling.”

At a restaurant in Omaha, the woman said, she got “the look” from white patrons. When she asked her friend what that was about, her friend replied, “You know.”

Reel's black friends in Omaha say whites are not as receptive to blacks as they might be. Reel said he thinks that both sides genuinely misunderstand each other and that whites are not as racist as they are perceived. But in Los Angeles, he said, race isn't as much of an issue any more.

When he finished writing, he again sought out Spurgeon.

Reel's script resonated with Spurgeon, vocalist and bandleader for 23 years with the Confidentials in Omaha.

“Through the years I've lived here, I've found a certain resentment in the black community about Omaha,” said Spurgeon, who grew up in Union, S.C. “But checking out the history, wow, there's some feelings have been hurt here, man. And in some ways, there's never been a full acknowledgment of things that happened.”

The musical's story centers on an elderly black man (played by D. Kevin Williams) whose record store is closing. The decline of record sales is symbolic of his life.

“In walks this smart-mouth, hip-hop (white) boy who thinks he knows everything about everything,” Spurgeon said. “They learn from each other.”

The white boy, played by Reel's son, John, is symbolic of what many whites think about race relations, Butch Reel said: that it's a solved problem. Many miss the lingering resentment and anger in the black community, he said.

Spurgeon said he helped with rewrites, particularly on the speech patterns of an elderly black man.

“But I liked what he had,” Spurgeon said. “It surprised me how well he captured it.”

In creating the main character, Reel tapped memories of a close friendship with an elderly black farmer in Missouri Valley, where he grew up.

The show will feature a 17-piece orchestra, original Motown musical arrangements, video segments by Omaha filmmaker Vincent Alston, six featured singers and two dancers, plus the two main characters. It's being staged at the Scottish Rite Auditorium — one of the few stages available on their tight time frame that was large enough for the show.

Finding the Motown tunes to tell the story was the easiest part, Spurgeon said, because the music was an integral part of the civil rights struggle.

Securing the rights to the songs, though, was “excruciatingly difficult” and expensive, Reel said. The professional show has a $48,000 budget for the music and an overall budget of $158,000.

Reel said the show has three main themes: that white Omaha is more naive than antagonistic about lingering anger among blacks; that at some point the black community has to let go and forgive; and that the problem of race relations can be solved “by deciding we're going to do something brotherly about it.”

In seeking a mixed racial audience for the show, he has turned to local news media and friends such as Pat McPherson, former Douglas County election commissioner, and Lee Terry Sr., father of U.S. Rep. Lee Terry, to talk up the show. Copies of the script went to Mayor Jim Suttle, City Councilmen Ben Gray and Franklin Thompson, and State Sen. Brenda Council. He said he hopes the play might lead to community discussions on race.

Alston, who grew up in Neptune, N.J., said that while overt racism is no longer socially acceptable, many African-Americans believe it lingers in privately held attitudes.

The show's optimistic ending could help break down barriers, Reel said. Alston agreed.

“The older guy and the younger kid, they reflect that generational leap,” he said. “It's an amalgamation of our culture. Kids today have a black president. They're not as burdened with the vestiges of yesterday.”

Contact the writer:

444-1269, bob.fischbach@owh.com