Aldo Billingslea in <em>Fences</em> - College of Arts and Sciences

During Christmas break of 1987, Dr. Barbara Means Fraser and her husband Bob went to New York to see some plays. She returned excited about a new playwright named August Wilson. She had purchased a copy of the play and she told me that there was great material in there for me, because she knew that I was going to auditioning for graduate schools as an actor. The play was Fences and the role she saw was Cory, Leon high school senior vying for a high school football scholarship to college. I had just finished my college football career and she felt this was perfect. I picked up the play and saw that the better role, with more lines and a much more character was Troy, the 53-year-old father. So..., at 22 years old, that's obviously the role that I prepared for auditions. Flash forward some 30 years and the California Shakespeare Festival announces that they are going to be doing Fences, but doing it at a time where it will be difficult for me to participate due to my teaching and my role as the university's chief diversity officer. I knew that taking the administrative position could prohibit me from doing some some plays on my "dream list", but also knew that the work for diversity and inclusion was important. When I stepped into the administrative role three years ago, it meant removing myself from consideration for a production of August Wilson's Fences at the Marin Theater Company where the amazing Margo Hall was going to be playing the role of Rose, Troy's wife. Removing myself from consideration was very painful. Then three years later the opportunity came again, with Margo Hall once again playing the role of Rose, so I realized it was time to make an important decision.

Review excerpt:

August Wilson's "Fences," the 1987 play that won him the first of his two Pulitzer Prizes, is the story of a forceful male personality -- Troy Maxson, a sanitation worker and former baseball player in the Negro Leagues still bitter about not being allowed to play professionally because of his ethnicity.

But in California Shakespeare Theater's production -- the company's first production of a Wilson play -- the focus shifts to Troy's wife, Rose, the only woman in the play.

That's largely due to a marvelous portrayal by Margo Hall, who beautifully captures Rose's playful romantic relationship with her husband, the way she humors and good-naturedly corrects the tall tales he's always telling and her formidable, unwavering strength when she or those she loves are wronged. Hall played this same role just two years ago in Marin Theatre Company's production, but in this version, Rose really comes into her own.

That's not to say Troy in any way fades into the background. Aldo Billingslea, who'll also play Othello at Cal Shakes later this season, has tremendous charisma as Troy as he rattles off outlandish stories about encounters with the Grim Reaper and the devil. He's wonderfully tender and bawdy with Rose and disturbingly harsh and forbidding with his teenage son, Cory (a bright and hopeful J. Alphonse Nicholson). Cory has a promising future as a college football player, but Troy does everything he can to discourage or outright forbid it because of the way he himself was burned by the white men running the sports world. You can feel in every scene how Troy's intense sense of pride is his greatest strength and his greatest weakness at the same time.

- S am Hurwitt, Mercury News 7/11/16

In July 2016, my husband and I proudly attended a production of August Wilson’s Fences at California Shakes to see Aldo Billingslea perform the role of Troy. This was the second time we saw the show. In 1987, Bob and I traveled to New York City for a week of theatre and had front row seats to see James Earl Jones—my favorite actor, in the role of Troy. At this point in time, James Earl Jones was the draw; I wasn’t that familiar yet with August Wilson. But, that night I fell in love—the language, the story, the invitation into a culture that was not mine.

We also saw a young Courtney B. Vance play the role of Cory. I purchased the play and returned to Sherman, Texas where I was teaching at Austin College, and immediately shared the script with my young student, Aldo Billingslea. This was Aldo’s introduction to August Wilson, and Cory was perfect for him. Even then, he was drawn more to Troy. Twenty-one year olds often think they can tackle King Lear. Aldo would go on to perform in many of August Wilson’s ten decade opus. I have been fortunate to see him perform in: Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Piano Lesson, Seven Guitars, Gem of the Ocean, andRadio Golf, but Fences was uniquely special, since that’s where it all began.

There is nothing so joyous as having a front row seat to the growth and development of one of your students. Time together has given us so much rich reward. It has been 33 years since that young man entered my classroom at 8:00 am on a Tuesday morning—his first day of college, and the first day of my professional academic career. Now we are colleagues; each learning from the other.

- Barbara Means Fraser, Professor

Aldo Billingslea in Fences