Should the vision of the founder of an art collector be honored for all time, even years after his or her death? And what about the expanding world vision that brings into question race and the representation of artists whose work previously wasn’t highlighted?
Permanent Collection by Thomas Gibbons, about to start at Main Street theater, asks those very questions in a two-act play set in present day and loosely based on what happened at the real-life Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia.
In this story, Steven J. Scott plays Sterling North, an African-American businessman who has just come into his director’s position at the Morris Foundation — known for its collection of impressionist, post-impressionist and modern art.
North wants to pull eight pieces of African art out of storage and display them along with the other art works that visitors to the museum come to see.
“I don’t think he realizes that it’s going to be difficult at first,” Scott said. “I think he has discovered something that he is very knowledgeable about because of his own research of African art and the art of many cultures and when he discovers this he feels like the people that have been there are not aware of how significant it is and that he is going to bring this out of the basement so to speak — that he is going to make people aware of how important these pieces are.
“And not only that but he’s going to be able to open this museum up to a wider variety of guests, particularly black people. They’re going to be able to come in and see some of their history. So I don’t think he feels like there’s going to be any blowback,” Scott said.
But, there is resistance, led by the museum’s education director Paul Barrow (Dwight Clark) who is dedicated to preserving the original vision of founder Morris. immediately objects and the battle is joined — helped along by the attention of a local journalist Gillian Crane (Shannon Emerick.)
Main Street Associate Artistic Director Andrew Ruthven directs the cast which also includes Shannon Emerick, David Harlan and Michele Harrell.
Scott said the script is well written and he felt drawn to the subject matter. “As I read this script more than once it started to dawn on me that I had a real connection to the character I was interested in playing.”
Scott is from Port Arthur where his grandfather was the well-known minister and civic activist Raymond Scott.
“I was a part of the NAACP at a very young age so I remember my grandfather fighting for the rights of people in the city who were discriminated against. This character really reminds me of him,” Scott said. As a young boy, he accompanied his grandfather to voting booths his grandfather set up, adding that he wishes now he could have known more about his grandfather as a young man.
“Sterling he is a businessman; he is finding his voice as somewhat of an activist in his own right. And I said to myself ‘I bet my grandfather had moments like that when he was just starting out.'”
Also early on, Scott got involved in theater. By the time he was ready to go to college, he got a full scholarship to study it at Prairie View A&M and realized he could make a career out of it. Besides frequent acting gigs in Houston and on tour, he is the Director of Education at Ensemble Theatre.
Scott said he believes “it’s important to know that this play was written in the early 2000s by a white man Thomas Gibbons. At the very top of the show is a very poignant monologue about Sterling on his way to the foundation and there’s a traffic stop that happens. This play is set in present day.
“It’s really interesting that I have a different feeling this week than I did last week about the traffic stop with Tyre [Nichols] the young man who was just murdered. I went to rehearsal last week with a heavier spirit just knowing that my first monologue is still so relevant today. It’s still so dangerous sometime to be driving somewhere or to be just who you are. There’s the possibility of some kind of violence. The play was written a long time ago but some of the same things are still relevant.”
Asked why people should come see this play, Scott said:
“I think people will discover the humanness in these characters who are black and while who see things in their own way and they have a conflict that each of them take too far and it does not accomplish the goal that they set out to accomplish.
“I think this happens in everyday life especially when you encounter people that you’re not familiar with. It’s such a human thing to want something so badly and fight for it. I think both Paul and Sterling, the two central characters, they want something so innocent and they fight each other to get it when they could have decided to work together, to look at each other in a different way. And they could have worked things out. But sometimes we move so fast in today’s world that we overlook the human being in front of us.”
Performances are scheduled for February 11 through March 5 at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays at MST-Rice Village, 2540 Times Boulevard. For more information, call 713-524-6706 or visit mainstrettheater.com. $35-$59.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2023.
