Calgary actor Norma Lewis gives shape to sculptor Selma Burke in world premiere presentation

Norma Lewis had one superstition as she prepared to play Selma Burke, a 20^th century artist whose sculpture of Franklin Delano Roosevelt inspired the image on the American dime.

“My only superstition is get those lines memorized,” said Lewis, who grew up in Calgary and Edson, Alta, in a Thursday interview with CTV’s Ian White.

“As soon as I could. I knew it was going to be a very demanding show physically," she said. "Animating it with my body, and the staging – because of the nature of having actors as sculptures onstage – I knew it was going to be challenging, so the first thing I did was just get those lines in my head to make sure that that was in the background and so I didn’t have to worry about that during rehearsal time.”

While a variety of actors play living sculptures in the drama, Lewis plays the sculptor, an African-American woman whose life spanned most of the 20^th century, a time when it was hard enough to be African-American and a woman – let alone an artist.

But Lewis found it was easy enough to relate to the challenges Selma Burke endured with an open heart and a willingness to have hope.

“I mean, this is Cowtown," Lewis said. "There’s not a large Black population in here – well, at least back when I was born and so it was interesting to see how, despite the surrounding atmosphere, she was still able to do what she loved.

"It didn’t matter that she was Black," she added, "it didn’t matter the colour of her skin, and I was like, yeah -- that really resonates with me and my journey as an artist as well.

“I pursued it despite few Black artists being in the Calgary scene and I just didn’t care what it looked like around me. I wanted to be here.”

Christopher Hunt, Norma Lewis in world premiere presentation of Selma Burke. Photo: Trudie Lee.

As far as inhabiting the soul of an artist, Lewis points out that there is something uniquely physical and externalized about someone who creates sculpture.

“It's a full body art,” she says. “So it's not that difficult, actually, to bring that sculptor to the outside. It’s the articulation of fingers.

"It starts to appear even in the face as you're doing it," she adds. "Some of the things that I did for Selma on stage is pulling in her lip and stuff, because it's like you're really concentrating. And then my legs…I can even feel the muscles in my legs growing as I've been doing this show.

"It really is an external thing for me as an actor.”

ORIGIN STORY

And how did a pair of Calgary playwrights fall in love with the story of an American sculptor who was born in 1900 and lived to 95?

“Caroline had an idea to write a play about an artist and was really taken with Selma Burke,” said Maria Crooks. “We started doing the research on her life and that’s when we learned what an interesting character she was."

But what makes a life story a stage story?

“The drama of her life, her talent, her humble beginnings, being involved with the Harlem Renaissance, which was a very important flourishing of Black culture in the U.S. during the 20s and 30s," Crooks said.

“Witnessing and often documenting through her work, the remarkable events of the 20^th century," she added, "from lynchings, the Holocaust, the turbulence of the 60s in particular the movement to gain civil rights for Black people -- the arc of her life from the dawn of the century in 1900 to 1995.

“These and many other aspects about her, made her life story compelling to dramatize,” she added.

For San Diego-based director Delicia Turner Sonnenberg, the connection to Burke’s life and times sprang from her own childhood.

“I grew up in Atlanta, and in 1981, the Atlanta child murders were happening,” Turner Sonnenberg said. “My aunt would take us to the library because we all had to stay in groups. I think I was 11.

“She would check out books of poetry,” she added. “So that's when I found out about the Harlem Renaissance and the Harlem Renaissance writers. I don't know visual artists as well as I know someone like Claude McKay, whom Selma was married to, because I love poetry.

“But it's because of this play that I know more about Selma Burke,” she added. “I had heard her name, but I didn't really know much of her life story, so it's been thrilling for me to get to know her in this way.”

For Calgary playwright Caroline Russell King, there was an earlier drama, High and Splendid Braveries, which explored the lives of the Famous Five, Nellie McLung and her Calgary colleagues who fought for women’s rights in the early 20^th century.

That drama had a rave review run at Motel in Arts Commons in 2023 and helped Russell King tap into a rich vein of storytelling that hasn’t been explored in great depth by a popular culture dominated by dudes.

“I love writing about the stories of powerful unsung women,” Russell-King said.

“I learned that people make assumptions about a play before they see it,” she added. “With High and Splendid Braveries people thought it was a play about women’s suffrage when in fact it was about drug addiction,” she adds.

Calgary playwright Caroline Russell-King's drama High and Splendid Braveries tells the story of the Famous Five. Princess Poppy is played by Ginette Simonot Emily Murphy is played by Tara Marlena Laberge. Photo: Benjamin Laird

“People think that the life of Selma Burke is reduced to the 'she didn’t get recognition for her work on the American dime'… that’s not a particularly interesting story.

"Our play doesn’t end with a period, it ends with a question mark," she adds. "It asks the question 'Who gets to make art and who gets to destroy it?'

Selma Burke is a co-production between Theatre Calgary and Alberta Theatre Projects. It opens Friday night at the Martha Cohen Theatre and runs through April 27.

All tickets to see Selma Burke are available for $39. Thursday night's final preview performance has tickets for $25 and pizza. It starts at 7:30 p.m.