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Theatre in His Bones: Wren T. Brown
It is common to see actors in plays, television, and movies, and to not understand their significance or relevance. I remember many decades ago when an actor named James Earl Jones was a guest speaker at my college and shared his wisdom with students. What he shared did not seem especially pertinent; for many, he was just another guest speaker. But something was there-something registered for me that here was an authentic and powerful performer, the real deal. Now, the same can be said about actor/director/producer Wren T. Brown; you have the sense of encountering the real deal.
Born into a family of performing artists, Wren T. Brown's forty-year career as an actor seems to reflect and combine the three separate ways a person can achieve greatness, as revealed in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night: "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them." With individuals such as Brown, it can be difficult to say exactly where the bestowed talent actualizes but let's start with Brown when he was a teenager.
Delivering poetry, while it allows the opportunity to tap into interpretive potentials, is not an easy task. Whenever anyone is performing, regardless of whatever it is, they want their light to shine. The safer way to accomplish this is to keep it simple. Therefore, few people would do what Wren T. Brown did: he took on Paul Laurence Dunbar's "An Ante-Bellum Sermon," a challenging poem that demands the tone and rhythm of a Black preaching style that accentuates a Southern dialect. It will keep the best performer in front of a mirror practicing for weeks. But seventeen year old Brown pulled it off, earned his Screen Actors Guild card, and landed a national commercial for the then new McDonald's Chicken McNuggets. Brown says, "I always wanted to be a working actor and so...every medium was something I was willing to work in."
Since then, Brown's vocal and interpretive talents have earned him a revered place with the vocal elite, including James Earl Jones and Keith David. His deep, firm, melodious, memorable, and authoritative voice has made it possible for him to be a part of many voice-overs, over one hundred commercials, and many spoken-word projects, ranging from animated productions to documentaries. Also, he narrated Laurence Fishburne and Larenz Tate's Bronzeville, a podcast that dramatized the under-ground lottery in Chicago during the 1940s--1950s era. But Brown's excellence as a vocal talent is only the tip of his career.
Another important marker in his career occurred in 1992. It is understood today that after...(continued)
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Nathaniel G. Nesmith earned an MFA in play-writing and a PhD in theatre from Columbia University. He writes about the arts and has published theatre-related articles in major pub-lications such as American Theatre, The Drama Review, African American Review, The Dramatist, The Black Scholar and The New York Times, among others.
Spring 2025
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Vol. 30, No. 1
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Wren T. Brown directing his cast in a rehearsal of Ain't Misbehavin' for the Ebony Repertory Theatre in Los Angeles.
Wren T. Brown's family biography, The Family Business, details four generations of his family's work in American entertainment.
