Steal Away is the true story of Ella Sheppard and the Fisk Jubilee Singers, a choir of young former slaves. It is based closely on Andrew Ward’s heroic chronicle: Dark Midnight When I Rise. As they seek the right to an education, for the right of everyone to seek an education, they become targets of rabid KKK terrorism against all such schools. Although they and their school are physically attacked with bullets and bombs, the choir respond with powerful, deeply-moving songs of faith and freedom. Steal Away follows the choir’s impressively shocking rise from the inhuman depths of slavery to the ballrooms and throne rooms of Europe as they conquer the world. But they must also conquer their own personal demons. It has been said that Dark Midnight When I Rise is one of the most breathtaking and timeless true stories ever told.
Although not yet in production, Steal Away is still auditioning actors and crew, processing auditions, and raising funds and awareness of this awesome production. I will do my best to help. I am one of the thousands applying for a role in this production.
Here’s a video by Steven Blake, Steal Away’s producer: About the movie.
The character that I have applied for is Milo Cravath. Cravath’s parents were abolitionists and part of the Underground Railroad. The Underground Railroad was a network of people, African American as well as white, offering shelter and aid to enslaved people from the South. It developed as a convergence of several different clandestine efforts. The exact dates of its existence are not known, but it operated from the late 18th century to the Civil War, at which point its efforts continued to undermine the Confederacy in a less-secretive fashion.
Erastus Milo Cravath was a hawkish, militant civil rights crusader, the fearsome Director of the American Missionary Association. Cravath’s lifelong war against Southern supremacists and their armies of terror has shaped him into a merciless war hawk that some liken to Genghis Khan. But though a legendary enemy of racial oppression, Cravath’s hard-charging, take-no-prisoners crusade cruelly enslaves the African-American choir touring for his cause, making Cravath resemble the very enemy he’s fighting. Notoriously unsentimental, Cravath’s intensive eyes and moving backstory might tell a far deeper story.
Here are my auditions, somewhat hurried, one of which is unprofessionally self-recorded, but both are heartfelt:
I’d love to hear your reactions. I hope for a callback at some point, which will allow me to polish these rough performances and add different takes on this complicated character.
Reverend Erastus Milo Cravath was a pastor and American Missionary Association (AMA) official who after the American Civil War, helped found Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, and numerous other historically black colleges in Georgia and Tennessee for the education of freedmen. He also served as president of Fisk University for more than 20 years. (from Wikipedia).
Queen Victoria was so moved by the Jubilee Singers that she commissioned this portrait of them in 1874:
Well, actually I’m back in my hotel room now after a ten-hour day, and still can’t go home, but, I did get to work on set. Long-ish day, but not the longest. Had a short drive out of town to set, but I still don’t know Santa Fe very well, so it took a while for me to figure out how to get outta town to the right highway. I had basic directions, and a good idea of where I was going, but after 15 minutes of being lost in Santa Fe, I opened Google Maps to direct me there. However, for some reason the Uber app was running in the background, so every time I touched “Directions” the Google map showed how long it would take an Uber driver to pick me up.
I tried all kinds of things: different searches, turning the phone off and on, and then removing the Uber app. When I did that, I thought: problem solved! But, noooo. An Uber message would still interupt my Google map search, saying I needed to install the Uber app. It was somehow running in my phone’s memory. FInally, as I was running late, I just drove to St. Michaels Drive, and over to St. Francis, and directly to U.S. Interstate 25, which would have put me early to set if I’d just done that instead if trying to use Old Pecos Trail.
Which might have given me time to get into my complicated costume early enough to eat breakfast. By the time my costume was on, with a few substitutions, like a different jacket, a different vest, and after wardrobe sewed a new button onto my pants while I had them on — because I needed one more to hook my suspenders on, and, after the facial hair guy okayed my beard and mustache, and a regular hair stylist okayed my head hair, I was finally ready to go to set, and I caught the last widely spaced people trailer to the actual set. No time to eat, and all I’d had was coffee. “Yippie ki yay, motherfucker.” — Die Hard movie quote. It’s a period piece as you might have guessed.
So, I can’t say what movie set I was on, or what it’s about, or post any photos of set or actors. So, well, sorry, but them’s the rules.
Of course, one of the best things about being a background actor on movie or TV sets is the food, but because of Covid-19, and wearing protective equipment at all times, except when you’re on set in front of the camera, the food would be a box lunch instead of buffet style. Which is fine. I put my request in for fish.
But, lunchtime came and went, and went, and went. I think it was about 3:30pm when we got out lunches, but we couldn’t eat them on set. So, the background “holding” area was a short walk away. We would have to eat quickly, like in 15 minutes. Strange, but doable. I had been ready to eat the set food, which was real cooked food, fruit, salad and drinks — but purely for decoration. But of course you can’t.
I found a spot to sit and opened my bag o’ food. Two containers, one with some delicious fish, and the other with vegetables and some things I never got to see. Firstly, I was so hungry by then, I swallowed too much at once, and was choking. I hadn’t been given a drink, an unheard of circumstance, so I had nothing to wash it down with. However, I spotted a nearly full drink with a straw in it near me, asked if it belonged to anyone, which it didn’t, so I popped the lid off and took a big swig of that. It cleared my throat. But, no sooner did I sit down to attack what was left of my piece of fish, when we were called back to set immediately. I didn’t like that, but sometimes the production gets behind schedule, and they have no time to waste. I stashed my food in a small unlit wooden structure — that now had an open door — in a corner, because you cannot eat or take food to eat on set.
I wish I’d smuggled some with me. We worked a couple more hours, but since the production had the inside scene lit up like day from outside with a ton of lights, I had no idea it was pitch dark. I never found my food, and still had to go back to the place I’d been in the morning, and get out of all those clothes, and hang them neatly for tomorrow. One older gentleman, angry that we’d waited so long for food, and hadn’t been given water, and the lack of heaters to warm up by, or a space out of the wind to eat in, just walked off set. (Our day started out at 23ºF (-5ºC) to a high of 45º (7ºC), with windspeeds of 21mph to 26 mph beteeen 8:am and 2:00pm, and 7mph to 14mph the rest the day.) The production worked around him, substituting another background actor, and not getting a closeup on his face. There is a background actors association here that has drawn up a bill of rights for background actors, which the company backrolling this drama had been happy to agree to. It’s not a union. Only in some places, like LA, do background actors have access to union benefits. Not here. The asssociation is a very informal group. People worry that the movie industry will go elsewhere if the backgrond actors are paid union scale and benefits. Maybe, but maybe not. Some productions have already moved elsewhere though, since our state is only slowly opening up and there has been a spike in Covid-19 cases, and deaths. Other states have not been as restrictive.
The movie industry is under pressure to return to business safely. While employed by this production company at least, we have to take a Rapid covid test every day while on set. Today we all had to take both the Rapid 15-minute test, and the slower, but more accurate, PCR test. Usually you only take one PCR test a week. If you are sick, you can’t get on set, and if your symptoms show up after testing, you have to leave. The production is suspended until there’s been time to isolate anyone in contact with the sick person. Sometimes there are false positives, so that gets worked out quickly. Having several people get sick just shuts the whole thing down.
Anyway, other than the food and water issue today, the company is being good to us. All Covid-19 tests are paid for by them. and we get paid to get tested. Also, as in my case and quite a few others, since we don’t live in Santa Fe, they pay us for all of the sequestering at hotels. Good for the hotels too, because they are hurting. But I also get per diem for food. Good for us, good for Santa Fe restaurants. All in all, it’s a good deal. We also get all of our protective equipment, sanitizer and covid training free.
I’ve eaten since I left set, had some orange juice, and am about to drink a bottle of water as well, so I’m feeling better.
My Wi-Fi internet connection went crazy last night so I couldn’t upload this post last night, and I had to turn in early. 5:45 am call time today, so I must get back on set at the crack of dawn this morning. We were told last night the heaters would be fixed, and there will be food, with time to eat it. And water readily available I hope.
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