Live Review
Black Boy
The one man play featuring Charles Holt at The Black
Academy

“Black Boy” is adapted from the Richard Wright
autobiography .Win Hanmond adapted it for the
“American Place Theater” for their “Literature to
Life” series. Charles Holt plays Richard Wright, a
hungry child of five years metamorphosis that hunger
to the hunger of knowledge in adulthood in this fifty
five minute profound statement of the need for us to
see everyone as human beings, not colors. And, He
means everyone needs to be color blind, not just
white, but blacks, red, yellow, purple, whom ever. Or,
to paraphrase Wright “we are all going to go down the
same drain together.” 
Charles Holt is a magnetic performer in this part,
convincingly portraying all the people in Wrights
life. Mr. Holt of course is no newcomer to the stage.
He played a hyena for four years in “The Lion King”,
also was Simon and understudied the great Carl
Anderson, Judas, in “Jesus Christ Superstar”. For you
“Rocky Horror Picture Show” heads he played the first
black Rocky in the British Tour. And, last but
certainly not least he is Detective Gillman in “Law
and Order, Criminal Intent”.
When the play opens Wright the crowd grows silent and
does not utter a sound throughout the entire thought
proving performance, and continues to stay silent for
a few moments after it ends. It is a silence of deep
thought, and epiphany. I cannot stress enough, how
highly I recommend this play. It is dramatic, funny,
but most of all a truism of life. Bravo Mr. Wright for
the novel, Mr. Holt for bringing it to life.
Look for Mr. Charles Holt in the future to bring life
to W.D. Debouche. 
Finally in this day of “Springer”, “Survivor” and
“Class Reunion” I feel that it is time for the hunger
for knowledge and to look forward, what is past is
past, to become the foremost goal for us all. 
“Life’s not often fair, but, always goes on!”
Quote from 
“The Helmsman” by Bill Baldwin

By Tom “Axle” Allen
dallasmusic.com
staff writer