ShawU, Agape love story warm, cozy at Burning Coal Theatre

RALEIGH — Several love stories were brewing inside Burning Coal Theatre Friday evening when the curtain rose on opening night of “Blues for an Alabama Sky.”

On stage, the play about an aspiring 1930s blues singer married two budding romances that didn’t work out with issues regarding both reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights, certainly timely topics here in 2024.

Also unfolding that evening was the enduring love story between Shaw University and its supporters. Opening night at the theater was a fundraiser with proceeds fueling Shaw University scholarships.

“I’m a creative. Anytime I can support something creative, that fulfills me,” said Jaha Avery, a writer whose parents and grandparents met at Shaw University. She will tell you that without Shaw University there literally would be no her.

While at the  University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Avery pledged Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc., a family legacy that started in 1945 at Shaw University.

“Shaw means a whole lot to our family,“ she said.

Kenneth Hinton is artistic director of Agape Theatre Project, which produced “Blues for an Alabama Sky.” From 1997-2018, he was a theater professor at Shaw University, where he ran a troupe called the Shaw Players.

It’s about family at Agape, where Hinton’s sister, Shirley, is secretary and treasurer. She was working the door Friday night.

“You have to be a well-rounded person,” Shirley Hinton said.

She was a chemistry major at Shaw University back when the two high-rise dorms that are landmarks today didn’t exist, back when there was no student center named after alum and renown lawyer Willie E. Gary. That part of the university hadn’t been developed.

Shirley Hinton ’66 had a long and rewarding career with IBM, most of it in New York with time spent working internationally. Shaw University provided the foundation. Yet understanding the importance of being able to show up at a dinner party and talk about more than hard science, Shirley Hinton added arts to her plate.

“I needed some artsy stuff in my repertoire, and I needed the arts to make me fun,” she said.

Toward the end of the play, differing worldviews leaves one character dead, expiring right next to Shaw University alum Joyce Robinson ’75. She said there was no theater for Black people to attend when she was in college. However, there was a place where she and her friends would watch movies.

“We called it the rat box,” Robinson said.

Robinson is president of the Raleigh-Wake Alumni Chapter of the National Alumni Association of Shaw University. She said “Blues for an Alabama Sky” is the fourth play she’s attended, and she credits the history classes at Shaw University for giving her an appreciation of period pieces like the Pearl Cleage play that had patrons both laughing at leaning in at Burning Coal Theatre.

“When I was at Shaw, I was able to attend activities that helped me understand history and appreciate the history of our Black people,” Robinson said. “I could not have asked for a better education.”

Cleage, based in Atlanta, has a mother-in-law, father-in-law and brother-in-law who graduated from Shaw University.