One-man stage show “The May Day Parade” plays at Sumner High School May 1 in celebration of Annie Malone’s 125th anniversary

Song and dance man, Wayne Harris stars
in the one-man production,
"The May Day Parade" May 1
at Sumner High School

by Walter Pritchard, Soaring High Media Group

The song and dance storyteller, Wayne Harris, is bringinghis eye opening, one-man play “The May Day Parade” stage show to Sumner HighSchool Auditorium on Wednesday, May 1 as part of 125th anniversary celebrationof Annie Malone Children & Family Service Center.

 

Doors open at 5:30 p.m. with show time at 6:30 p.m. atSumner, 4268 West Cottage Avenue, in the historic Ville neighborhood in NorthSt. Louis. Tickets are $20 each and available at the door and by calling AnnieMalone at 314.531.0120. Proceeds benefit families in crisis and homeless teens.

 

In the play, Harris, a St. Louis native who now resides in theSan Francisco Bay area, is so adept at painting pictures with words that theaudience never doubts that a parade is coming down the street, pulling off akind of magical, mystical one-man parade. It's quite an accomplishment for the remarkableperformer and story.

 

Staging for the 80-minute long production includes only achair and black box. “I am the prop,” he said.

 

The play had an 11 week run in San Francisco and was a hitat the Vancouver International Fringe Festival in Canada, British Columbia’slargest annual theatre festival.

A review in the San Francisco Bay Guardian newspaper ofHarris’ The May Day Parade goes as follows: "Harrisdominates the stage in a way most soloist cannot... A musical force on thestage....it is hard to stay seated in your chair. Harris takes his audience ona joyful ride with a play full of memorable characters and delightful stories."

 

Written by Harris and set in the 1960s when the beloved eventwas a mainstay in The Ville, “The May Day Parade” is a first person account thatchronicles Harris’ many years of marching in the spectacle beginning when hewas 8 years old. 

 

Harris, 58, portrays more than a dozen characters, rangingfrom a slightly inebriated Baptist deacon, his grandmother known as “MamaBelle” with her biting criticism of biblical proportions, to the 100member-strong Sumner High School Marching Band. He tells the story of himself –a young boy overcoming polio, the thrill of new shoes and a foul-mouth banner carryingpartner, while learning the value of family, faith and community.

 

As a member of the Pleasant Green Missionary BaptistChurch's Drum & Bugle Corps struggling with polio, being able to march in theparade presented a tough physical and intensely personal challenge for Harris.His first role was as a banner carrier at age 8.

 

“I remember (Pleasant Green) Deacon Nelson telling my motherthat a banner carrier was needed and asking her could I do it,” Harrisrecalled. “She said yes.”

 

And his story about The May Day Parade began. “Rev. Pruitt would tell the congregation at Pleasant Greento come out and ‘watch our young people strut their stuff right down to AnnieMalone,’ ” Harris said.