ESU’s Theatre Department Presents Jackie and Me, October 15- 18

Staging a play requires many hours of preparation by the director, actors and production staff. For a play based in history, such as East Stroudsburg University Theatre Department’s October 15-18 production of Jackie & Me, the work also involves research into real people and events.

Set in 1947, Jackie & Me tells the story of what Jackie Robinson endured as he broke major league baseball’s unwritten color barrier. The insightful adaptation by Stephen Dietz of Dan Gutman’s award-winning novel of the same name is told through the eyes of Joey Stoshack, a contemporary 10-year-old whose magical ability to time travel allows him to join Jackie’s world and experience what it was like to be an African American in postwar Brooklyn.

The production’s assistant director, Alex Misurella, a senior musical theatre major from East Stroudsburg, Pa.,, was responsible for researching many topics, including the dialects for different characters, baseball techniques, and the interactions between Jackie and his teammates.

“We’re striving to be as historically accurate as possible with the props, costumes, and overall general atmosphere of the script,” Misurella said, “to successfully bring spirit and life to the production.”

As one of her sources, Sara O’Donnell, a junior musical theatre major from Royersford, Pa., talked with her father, who grew up outside Philadelphia in the late 1940s and early 1950s, to “get a better awareness of what was going on at that time in the North.”

O’Donnell also scanned many newspapers for local headlines that reflected the issues and mood of the period.  “There were similarities and differences,” she said, “but the need for open and respectful dialogue about issues remains. People can change and learn to be better.”

Jamil Joseph, a senior theatre major from Bushkill, Pa., who is playing Jackie, explained, “I have a lot on my plate to try to do justice to the character.”  Besides reading extensively about his character, he also watched movies of the baseball star “just to understand who he was.”

“Robinson was an amazing athlete who played several sports,” Joseph said. “He believed in going for it and giving his best in whatever he did. Family was the most important thing to Robinson and he saw sports as a way to support his family, not as an end in itself.”

Joseph, who was born and grew up in Brooklyn, found it easy to identify with the setting. Like Robinson who lived in segregated Georgia while growing up, Joseph also had experienced racism–“a look on a train, a comment when I was with a group of friends, those kinds of things.”

Director Stephanie Daventry French, professor of theatre, observed that the play deals directly with the insults which were hurled at Robinson, including one use of a derogatory racial slur, which “accurately reflects the world of the play, but also emphasizes the hate in the term and why we shouldn’t use it today.”

Her own research led French to appreciate two other pivotal figures in the play, Rachel Robinson, Jackie’s wife, and Branch Rickey, the Brooklyn Dodgers’ general manager who hired Robinson.

“There is a moment in the play when the spectators are screaming insults at Jackie and Rachel stands up, as if she was trying to come between her husband and the hate.” French explained.  “It was an incredible act of support and courage.”

Taylor Torres, a junior theatre major from East Stroudsburg, plays Rachel in the ESU production. “Rachel Robinson is still alive and still trying to make a better world,” Torres said.

“She was not just Jackie’s wife, but a strong and influential person who actively campaigned for human and civil rights,” Torres added. “I researched her speeches to understand her personality so that I can accurately portray her in my performance.”

French’s research on Branch Rickey found that he played football in college with “an incredible Black athlete,” and also coached African American athletes on the college level.

“Rickey showed incredible vision and courage,” she said, adding that a line in the play best explains how Rickey felt—“Baseball won’t be America’s game until all Americans can play it.”

Curtain times for the ESU production of Jackie & Me are 7:30 p.m. October 15 – 16; 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. October 17; and 2 p.m. October 18.

All performances are in the Smith-McFarland Theatre of the university’s Fine and Performing Arts Center, Normal and Marguerite streets, East Stroudsburg.

Tickets are $12 for general admission, $10 for senior citizens, faculty and staff with ID, $7 for students with ID, and $5 for youth.  This play is recommended for ages 8 and above.

Tickets may be purchased in advance online with a credit card at esu.edu/theatretickets. Remaining seats will be available at the box office beginning one hour before the performance. Only cash and checks are accepted at the box office.

For box office reservations or more information about the production, please email esuarts@esu.edu or call 570-422-3483, x.4.

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