Holler If Ya Hear Me: Liberation through Pain

Tupac on Broadway?

To say that the new musical “Holler if Ya Hear Me” is arriving with an equal amount of high expectations and wary skeptics waiting in the wings would be putting it mildly. “Holler” officially opens Thursday on Broadway at the Palace Theater and stars Saul Williams, the celebrated slam poet and actor-singer-musician who turned the poetry/spoken-word world on its ear in the indie film “Slam.” The show also features Tony Award winner Tonya Pinkins and Tony nominee John Earl Jelks.

Kenny Leon, who won a Tony earlier this month for his direction of the Broadway revival of “A Raisin in the Sun” that ended its run on June 15, is director of “Holler.” Others in the creative team— all Tony winners—are music supervisor Daryl Waters whose credits include “After Midnight,” “Bring in ‘da Noise, Bring in ‘da Funk” and “Memphis” for which he won a Tony for Best Orchestrations;  and choreographer Wayne Cilento whose Broadway choreography credits include “Wicked” and “The Who’s Tommy” for which he won a Tony for choreography.

But “Holler” is not a Tupac biography. There are no mentions of Bloods and Crips, East Coast/West Coast rivalries, Suge Knight, Biggie Smalls, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg or any of the other key figures or events in Shakur’s real life story.

Instead, “Holler” is an original musical based on the music and poetry of the late rapper and actor. Tupac Shakur was only 25 when he was shot and killed in 1996 at the height of a long-running feud between East Coast and West Coast gang-affiliated factions in the rap music world. His shooting remains unsolved. But by the time he died, Shakur had become something of a legend—popularizing gangsta rap while at the same time captivating many in the arts world with his poetry and acting performances.

Like others associated with the show, writer Todd Kreidler  is careful to point out that “Holler” is not about Shakur. Indeed the show scrupulously avoids any mention of the East Coast/West Coast rap wars and sets its story in an unnamed city in the Midwest.

“It’s not autobiographical. It’s not about Tupac’s life at all. It’s totally a fictional story that emerges out of the lyrics of his songs and out of his poetry,” Kreidler said.

Kreidler, who is well known in theater circles as the longtime dramaturg for playwright August Wilson, said he felt it was important not to do a biography treatment of Tupac’s story.

“I felt if I wrote a biographical story about Tupac,  it would get in the way of the lyrics, of the poetry,” Kreidler. “I felt that if I tried to deal with the whole East Coast/West Coast thing then that would absorb the energy of what he was writing about.”

Instead Kreidler used Tupac’s music and poetry to create a story about a young man, fresh out of prison, who struggles to resist returning to the negative influences and violence that seems to be an integral part of his old neighborhood.

“This is the story of a lot of young men—trying to make a new start, but dealing with forces that keep pulling them back into their old life. It’s about love and friendship really. These are universal things within the world of Tupac’s lyrics,” Kreidler said. “You don’t have to know anything about hip hop or Tupac to understand the story. But if you’re attuned to issues like gun violence or gang violence there will be things that will be magnified for you. Those things are part of this story.”

Despite the universality of the story, the raw language of “Holler” promises to raise eyebrows in a Broadway world that has rarely featured hip hop on its stages. Indeed, Broadway has only seen three other productions featuring hip hop—Bring in ‘da Noise, Bring in ‘da Funk” in 1996, a Broadway rendition of Russell Simmons’ “Def Poetry Jam” in 2002, and the 2008 “In The Heights.”

Kreidler said from the outset he was committed to staying true to the blunt realities represented in Tupac’s work. “It was of upmost importance that I wasn’t going to dilute this or make it more palatable for Broadway consumption,” Kreidler said. “I will not make it easy or soften anything in the material. So the material is intact.”

That means the liberal uses of the n-word and other street terms that were a regular part of Tupac’s work are presented unfiltered throughout “Holler.”

Kreidler said the brutal frankness of Tupac’s music and poetry demanded a similar level of reality in “Holler.” Kreidler said he built the show’s story around the stories he heard in each of Shakur’s raps and poems.

“I just began to live in the music and in the words. I never wanted to lay a story on top of his work. I never wanted to make Tupac fit my story. So I listened,” Kreidler said. “I found that much of the contradictory nature of Tupac’s work made it ripe for dramatic material.”

Kreidler said having slam poet-actor-musician Saul Williams in the lead role has given “Holler” an essential edge. “Saul can paint the material. He brings something to the material, keeps it alive in a new way,” Kreidler said. “He brings a certain something that’s different than someone might who just comes from the traditional theater world. It’s just magical what he brings.”

Kreidler might not seem like an obvious candidate to pen “Holler”:  he’s a white guy from Pittsburgh.  But Kreidler said he became a fan after being schooled on the beauty of Tupac’s music by Kreidler’s mentor, the playwright August Wilson. At the time, the two were working on Wilson’s “King Hedley II.” But when Wilson discovered that Kreidler had never heard Tupac’s music, he insisted—in typically insistent Wilson fashion—that the writer learn. Immediately.

“When he found out I didn’t know Tupac’s ‘Dear Mama’ he went right out to the Virgin Megastore, bought the CD and ordered me to go listen to it instead of coming to rehearsal,” Kreidler recounted. “August said, ‘That CD in your hand, there’s a whole universe in that. There’s nothing in your life that’s not touched by that’.”

Now as then, Kreidler said he’s captivated by Tupac’s gifts for storytelling.  “We’re using storytelling and narrative and stage spectacle to bring the lyrics to life in a way that even hardcore fans, I hope, will say ‘My God, I know every lyric but I haven’t understood it in this way before’,” Kreidler said. “I know there are a lot of expectations out there. Some people are looking at us cockeyed. Some people are saying ‘you’re going to desecrate the work’

“We’ve taken apart something that people know and love but  I think we’ve found a way to creatively use the material without denigrating it.”

—Karyn D. Collins