Reporters talk with Alton Yates and Rodney Hurst during the first sit-in demonstration at Woolworth’s store, Aug. 13, 1960. (Photo via the Rodney Lawrence Hurst Sr. Papers, University of North Florida, Thomas G. Carpenter Library Special Collections and Archives)
For two weeks in August 1960, young Black demonstrators held peaceful sit-ins at the lunch counters of stores in Jacksonville, Florida. They were refused service, ignored by staff, and taunted by white counter-protesters until, on Aug. 27, 1960, members of the Jacksonville NAACP Youth Council were violently attacked. Armed with baseball bats and axe handles, over 200 white rioters chased and beat Black Jacksonville residents during what came to be known as “ax Handle Saturday.”
As the 65th anniversary of this horrific event nears, Stage Aurora Theatrical Company founder and executive director Darryl Reuben Hall is fusing his oral history-based script with music and improv to create The Sit-In Experience (Aug. 24). Through Stage Aurora’s immersive reenactment, audiences will be invited to the lunch counter at a vintage Woolworth’s department store.
Hall said he wants his audience to engage in normal conversation over food before being “caught off guard” when things are disrupted by the counter-protest. The reenactment,Hall said,will be followed by post-show discussions featuring guest speakers and local community leaders.
Hall originally learned about Ax Handle Saturday when his theatre was hosting events around To Kill a Mockingbird. Hall recalled a speaker bringing up It Was Never about a Hotdog and a coke!a personal account of the 1960 demonstrations written by Rodney L. Hurst Sr., who was 16 years old and president of the NAACP Youth council at the time. “Being a Black man born and raised in Jacksonville and learning about this later in my life—never in school or my education—I was very interested in learning more about it,” Hall said.
Hall estimates he’s put at least 10 years into research since then, including collecting oral histories from those who were there back in 1960, to create his new show. Hall, who will direct the show as well, said he’s planning on a 40-person cast, featuring 20 white actors and 20 Black actors, who will use a combination of scripted dialogue and improv to reenact the sit-in.
“This day and age,with everything that’s happening now,I think the audiences will see all of this in a different light,” Hall said. “To actually just be in the atmosphere, to hear it, to feel the emotions, to see the repulsive behavior that was put forth—I really want it to be a personal, emotional experience.”
Jerald Raymond Pierce is the managing editor of American Theatre.