ATLANTA (ABP) – Douglas Tappin’s dream has taken him from London to Atlanta and from the practice of law to writing an acclaimed new musical about another dreamer — Martin Luther King Jr. -– all via a degree from a Baptist seminary.
Douglas Tappin (Mercer photo)
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It might seem like a strange trajectory for the British-born son of Jamaican immigrants, but he views the progression in terms of a ministerial calling.
“I Dream” is a rock-opera dramatization of the civil-rights leader’s life. The show recently completed a run of successful performances at one of Atlanta’s premier venues, the Alliance Theatre. Tappin is exploring the possibility of taking the production on tour — and there has been talk of a move to Broadway or even overseas.
The tale of “I Dream” dates back to 2003 in London where Tappin experienced "a sense of calling.” After years as a practicing attorney who also had an active faith and a love and a knack for music and the theater — he had already written a musical about Moses’ liberation of the ancient Israelites — Tappin re-evaluated what he was called to do with his career.
He felt called to tell the Bible’s great stories through music and drama.
“Even though I knew I wanted to write, I wasn’t certain that going to college to pursue a theater degree was the right step; it seemed to have something to do with ministry,” he said. “And so I began to search around for places to study.”
He heard of Mercer University’s McAfee School of Theology in Atlanta because a friend was already studying there. After a 2003 visit to the campus, Tappin decided to move to the United States.
Tappin’s time at Mercer proved valuable, both educationally and artistically. He wrote an Easter musical performed in McAfee’s chapel services in 2005 and again in 2006. He wrote another musical piece — this one focused on the life of King David — that he called “King.”
As Tappin began discussing “King” with his friends in the seminary and local-theater communities, they all gave him the same answer: “They said, you can’t call a piece ‘King’ in Atlanta if it’s not about Martin Luther King!”
Tappin began to ponder the idea of departing a bit from his plan to create musicals about biblical characters and instead to pen one about the minister who led a peaceful revolution. He said meeting people — black and white, within the Mercer family and in the broader Atlanta community — who shared their memories about King and that era of history confirmed his decision.
Martin Luther King, Jr., giving his famous "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington Aug. 28, 1963. (National Archives photo)
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“It wasn’t until I came here that I sort of realized that much of [the Civil Rights Movement] had happened in the South and particularly Atlanta, and how dear to Atlanta the memory of Martin Luther King was,” Tappin said. “And I saw that in the city and at places like Ebenezer Baptist [Church, King’s former pastorate in Atlanta], but also at Mercer.”
An invitation from McAfee Dean Alan Culpepper for Tappin to produce two of the pieces from “I Dream” at a school convocation in 2006 led to a collaboration with Atlanta’s Peachtree Baptist Church to perform several more pieces from the musical in early 2007.
He worked on fleshing the pieces out into a full-blown production. In 2009 there was a staged reading that culminated in a performance at Ebenezer.
Finally, that led to this summer’s full staging of the show. It included a cast of more than 30 performers, 70 compositions and a 15-piece orchestra.
Reviews were largely positive, but many did take note of the show’s massive scale in both performance and its coverage of King’s entire life and an entire era of American history (Atlanta’s Creative Loafing alternative weekly called it “hugely ambitious”).
“I think the reviews were fine,” Tappin said, adding that he could understand why critics would find it perhaps overly ambitious. Nonetheless, he noted, ticket sales were good, including sold-out performances at the Alliance Theatre. He's now soliciting feedback to refine the production.
Several persons who knew King well gave the production rave reviews.
“There were moments that were very emotional for me,” said Bernice King, one of King’s children, who attended the opening performance, in a video posted on the show’s Facebook page. “I think it was a good musical reflection of my father. It’s very hard, you know, to put this movement on a stage.”
Andrew Young, former Atlanta mayor and a contemporary of King’s, was overcome with emotion, saying it was “Extremely well-done, but it fills me up too much.”
“It brought back what was seemingly left out if you’re dealing from a history book,” C.T. Vivian, one of King’s closest advisors, said. “It really brought it back to the soul and the spirit.”
Tappin, who has continued to live in Atlanta since graduating from McAfee in 2008, said he is in discussions about taking the show on tour to other Southern cities that were important to the Civil Rights Movement. There has also been talk of a bigger stage in New York or London, and a tour of South Africa.
His time at McAfee was instrumental in helping him clarify his call, Tappin said. “By the end of the four years . . . I was very certain that I was called to be a writer and do my best to write stories like this . . . about the intersection of faith — or just what faith lived meant to different people.”
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Robert Marus is managing editor and Washington bureau chief for Associated Baptist Press.