“Test to Testimony: An Adaptation of ‘God’s Trombones’” @ Jubilee Theatre
Photos by Eclectic Vis
—Jan Farrington
Opening the company’s 45th season, Jubilee Theatre presents artistic director D. Wambui Richardson’s hard-hitting update/adaptation of the James Weldon Johnson classic God’s Trombones—originally written as a poetic cycle of sermons in the style of the African American preachers of a century ago.
The sermons remain (plus singing, and many of the Bible-story elements), but Richardson (with music director/composer Steven Taylor) bring the setting, language, and musical storytelling style into our own times—even beyond, perhaps, into a grim near-future world where troubled people aren’t helped but imprisoned, and pills used to keep them quiet.
This is the “Asylum for the Unwanted”—and “The Doctor” (Crystal Williams) is in control—a control that’s shaken with the entry of “The Prophet” (Durmerrick Ross), who has some things to say.
Williams and Ross make a fine pair of opposing forces—the Doctor keeping a tight rein on the unhappy people in her charge, the Prophet determined to break through to them with the Gospel. I’ve long admired Williams’ powerful presence onstage, but Ross was a revelation (he makes his debut at Jubilee with this production): a charismatic and passionate persuader of souls, a vibrant preacher of spirit-changing stories, he blows into the dead air-space of the asylum’s holding pen, compelled to try his best to bring these people alive and working for their physical and spiritual salvation.
Many story elements of James Weldon Johnson’s original are still there—stories of the creation, the flood, the temptations of Babylon, the prodigal son, the crucifixion and judgment day—but brought to us in terms that connect with our modern world and where it might be going. As just one example, the prodigal son (Kyle B. Spears) is called “The Runaway.” In his fine tenor voice, he sings of his father’s house, where he was welcomed and loved.
The ensemble cast are strong singers and actors whose stories and troubles are slowly revealed. We come to know and care about them: the Father, the User, the Patients, even the Guard in that locked room. (The cast includes Williams, Ross, Spears and Jones—plus Micaela Workman, Tamya Simmons, Theresa Stuckey, and Dameron Crowe.) And by the time the back stories have been told, the prisoner’s determination aroused, and the light of hope shining, you’re likely to feel well and truly churched for this Easter season.
AD Richardson mentioned on opening night that Jubilee is renewing its efforts to produce new works every season that can move out into the world—an opportunity to gather people together to, as he writes, “ wrestle with the questions that shape our humanity: faith, suffering, redemption, justice, and hope.” This Gospel-driven story, pulled from Black spiritual tradition into the modern world and connected to our current hopes and fears, is a compelling new part of the mission.
And if all this sounds a bit dark, believe me, the play’s compelling mix of elements has just the right sense of triumph and better days coming. “Don’t let this broken world” take over, someone in the play says, and “God is not finished with you!” Believer or not, if there’s life, there’s more to come—and ways to discover how far we can go….
WHEN: March 27-April 26, 2026
WHERE: 506 Main Street, Fort Worth
WEB: jubileetheatre.org
