Performing Clay: The Multiple Iterations of a Black Literary Figure

Shirley Knight and Al Freeman Jr. as Lula and Clay in 1964; André Holland and Kate Mara as Clay and Lula in 2026

The documentation of Jim in various adaptations had me thinking about different performances of Clay from Amiri Baraka's The Dutchman (1964). Here's a roundup of appearances.

• 1964: Robert Hooks in stage performance Cherry Lane Theatre, New York

• 1967: Al Freeman Jr. in film production 

• 2000: Chris McKinney in stage production in Hartford Stage, Hartford, Connecticut 

• 2002: W. Ellington Felton in stage production at the Source Theatre Company in Washington, D.C.

• 2007: Dulé Hill in stage performance Cherry Lane Theatre, New York

• 2012: Deforrest Taylor in stage production at the ArtWorks Theater, Los Angeles, California 

• 2013: Cornelius Davidson in stage performance at the Yale Cabaret, New Haven, Connecticut 

• 2013:  in stage production at Definition Theatre, Chicago, Illinois 

• 2014: Sharif Atkins in 50th-anniversary stage production, National Black Theatre, Harlem, New York

• 2014: Marques Causey in stage production in The World’s Stage Theatre Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

• 2015: Michael Alcide in stage production at New Federal Theatre, New York

• 2015: Marvin Duverne in stage production at American Repertory Theater, Cambridge Massachusetts

• 2016: Michael Pogue in stage production at American Blues Theater, Chicago, Illinois

• 2017: Frank Oakley III in stage production at the KC MeltingPot production, Kansas City, Missouri

• 2020: Dulé Hill in streaming production of Play PerView

• 2020: Timothy Ware in Zoom production of Seeing Place Theater, Jacksonville, North Carolina

• 2022: Adebowale Adebiyi in stage production at the American Stage, St. Petersburg, Florida

• 2022: Denzel Taylor in stage production at Sunstone Studios MKE, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 

• 2025: Preston Coleman in stage production at the University of Iowa

• 2025: Keith Surney in Trap Door Theatre, Chicago, Illinois 

• 2025: Phillip Brown in stage production at Passage Theatre, Trenton, New Jersey 

• 2026: André Holland in film production

Related:

• Performing Jim: Black Actors and the Afterlives of a Literary Figure