Toliver and Wakeman stars Brianna Joy Ford (left) and Jelani Pitcher (right) — directed by Vernice Miller with sets and lighting design by Scott Holdrege, costume design by Lindsey Quay Voorhees (Photo by Russ Rowland)
Colgate University’s Department of Theater will stage Toliver and Wakeman, an original play by Assistant Professor of Theater Kyle Bass, at Brehmer Theater during Family Weekend, Oct. 18–21. First premiered in 2022 at Franklin Stage Company (Franklin, N.Y.), the play portrays the Civil War experiences of two Union soldiers, each fleeing past lives: Toliver is a fugitive slave and Wakeman a woman disguised as a male.
Following the success of Bass’ Possessing Harriet (2019) — a production, set in Peterboro, N.Y, portraying the escape of an enslaved woman — the Franklin Stage Company commissioned Toliver and Wakeman with funding from a New York State Council on the Arts Support for Artists Grant.
“My family is very connected to upstate New York, and the area is rich in histories, including those of abolition and, relatedly, slavery,” says Bass, whose course offerings this semester feature CORE C186: Black Upstate New York.
Toliver, a character inspired by Bass’s great-great grandfather, flees to New York and changes his name to avoid capture. When he is later mustered into the Union Army’s 26th Regiment of Colored Troops, his wit and thoughtfulness distinguish his character.
Wakeman, on the other hand (based on Sarah Rosetta Wakeman), is a young white woman born in rural upstate New York. She disguises herself as a man to flee family discord, enlisting into the Union Army as Lyons Wakeman.
Though these two real people never met, Bass’ play brings them together in conversation.
“To position a once-enslaved — now Union soldier — black man with a white woman who is disguising herself as a man to join the army gives us a picture of America, the image that it’s a country of many stories,” says Bass.
After the performance on Friday, Oct. 18, there will be a talkback about the play with Bass and Dianne Ciccone ’74, Bass’s second cousin and namesake of the Ciccone Residential Commons. “In the 90s, she privately published a book about the history of our family that was the bedrock of my research,” says Bass, who lectured alongside Ciccone at Yale University’s Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery in 2022 to discuss historic and dramatic interpretations of their family knowledge.
Registration through Eventbrite is strongly encouraged to ensure seating at each performance.