On Friday, February 7th, 2025, the Weekly View team of Ethel Winslow and Paula Nicewanger was able to include one of their columnists, CJ Woods III in a visit to the Indiana Repertory Theatre to see the production of Nina Simone: Four Women. Having seen Nina Simone in Los Angeles in 1971, your reviewer was eager to add the IRT production to his viewing experience.
The play is set in Nina Simone’s studio in Mt. Vernon, NY as well as the 16th Street Baptist Church. A slight haze drifts through the scene as Nina works at her piano; two broad steps below her, there is a collapsed pew, barely lit by the light coming through stained-glass windows. As Nina works at her piano on a song, the first of the four women who comprise the show will visit with her. “Aunt” Sara gives Nina encouragement and criticism as Simone works on a song. As the two women interact, a loud “boom” interrupts them, and on the stained-glass windows there appears the images of four young girls. The audience then understands the haze: The aftermath of a bomb. Nina continues to work on her song while Aunt Sarah harangues and encourages her, and she is visited in turn, by two other women. The second woman is Sephronia, the third is Sweet Thing. Sarah, Sephronia and Sweet Thing encourage and bedevil Nina as she works on the song that was precipitated by the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham Alabama on September 15th, 1963. Simone was already singing and writing “protest” songs in support of African Americans’ rights to full citizenship, but when four young girls were killed in the bombing of the church, she increased her focus on civil rights.
The production interweaves the history of the four young girls who died when the Alabama church was bombed with the four fictional women of Simone’s song. As Nina continues to work on her song, her dialogue with the three women who have shown up in her studio helps her focus. And for those who know the Simone song, “Four Women,” we wondered when the fourth would appear on the stage. There is a compelling moment when the woman born as Eunice Kathleen Waymon, removes her straight-hair wig and becomes the Nina Simone that we know, and — the fourth woman in the song and the play. When she belts out, “My name is Peaches!” the audience is rewarded with the Nina we had anticipated. As the performers delivered their songs, there were many in the audience who were responding as if from the pews of the church, sending quiet “Amens” through the smoke of the bombing’s aftermath and onto the stage.
Playwright Christina Ham’s tapestry of the terror and triumph of Simone’s four women and the four girls who died in Alabama is directed by Austene Van. The four women in the title are played by Jamecia Bennet, (Sarah,) Aeriel Williams (Sephronia), and Precious Omigie (Sweet Thing.) Nina Simone/Peaches is played by Akili Ni Mali.
In April 1971, I saw Nina Simone perform in Los Angeles California, and her song repertoire included “Young Gifted and Black,” which was on her 1970 album “Black Gold.” I think that she might be pleased to hear her four women speaking to us from the stage of the IRT.
Nina Simone: Four Women will be presented at the Indiana Repertory Theatre until March 2nd. You will be enriched by your attendance at the performance.
cjon3acd@att.net
