Keith Hamilton Cobb & the "American Moor"
Keith Hamilton Cobb starts off his play, American Moor, by describing the scene in an audition room to his audience: “First up, a little white man is asking me if I have any questions about playing a large black man.” He replies to the white director, “No...I ain't got no questions. But you should.”
Hamilton Cobb is a writer and actor who you have probably seen on stage or on screen. Most people will recognize him from years on All My Children or CSI: Miami. Hamilton Cobb trained at NYC’s Tish School of the Arts and he has performed some of William Shakespeare's most famous roles such as Laertes, Tybalt, Oberon and Othello. He wrote American Moor (referring to Shakespeare’s Othello) in response to years of audition rooms and theatre makers limiting black actors’ abilities to tell their own stories.
American Moor is a play about an African-American actor auditioning for the role of Shakespeare’s black hero, Othello, opposite a much younger white director who believes he truly knows how the character should be performed. The actor goes on to question the white director and have an honest debate with him, sometimes aloud and other times only for the audience’s ears. The play leaves us in a standoff, and Cobb says, “the readers of the play will need to decide for themselves.”
Reactions to American Moor have been strong, and Hamilton Cobb says many different types of people all relate to his story. What Hamiliton Cobb says he wants is for audiences to listen. Audiences can’t see American Moor in the theatre these days, but they have been tuning in to watch it streamed online and participating in discussions held by multiple theatres, including Oregon Shakespeare. Hamilton Cobb says the best reaction he has heard is when an audience member stood up at the end of the play and said, “That’s my story.”
Places to learn more about Keith Hamilton Cobb:
http://www.keithhamiltoncobb.com/
This post is also available on our Instagram and Facebook pages.