Frankfort

Let's talk about, (audio disturbance) give your father and his year of birth and what you know about him?$$Oh my god, I don't--oh my god, I don't know what (simultaneous)--$$(Simultaneous) That's okay, don't worry, you don't have to worry.$$Yeah, I can figure out my father--$$But, but your middle name is--$$Costello, which is his name, and, and his father's name was George, so I'm named after my, my grandfather, George Wolfe. George, what's very interesting, so my father's name is Costello Wolfe, he had a twin sister named Estella [Estella Wolfe] who, who was incredibly very fussy, very, very, very, very, very consuming personality and he and my--he, she, and my father fought all the time--they're twins. They just fought all the time. His, his sister--he has another sister, Florence [Florence Wolfe], who just turned ninety-eight and lives in St. Louis [Missouri] and rides the bus and he has another sister [Norma Wolfe] who's ninety-five who mows her own lawn in Providence, Kentucky and so they're like--it's so, it's really, really fascinating and their, their father, on, on, on and their father was a man named, was George Wolfe and George Wolfe's parents were named Sam Wolfe and Mary Wolfe. Mary Wolfe died when she was 106. She was--there's an article written about her 'cause she, it ended up--I believe she was living in Muncie, Indiana at the time, which is where they ended up, which is a fascinating story and she remembers as a slave serving Jefferson Davis and she also when you--she, there are stories of that her--and she was born into slavery as was Sam Wolfe and then George Wolfe had a brother named Sullivan Wolfe. Sullivan Wolfe in 1930, I believe he was thirty-eight years old was evidently incredibly smart, very charismatic and a leader. They lived in Providence, Kentucky, which was a coal mining area and so he tried to organize a union, a black and white mine--an integrated union. Some men knocked on his door on a Saturday at four A.M., told him to come with them and they were black and white men, interestingly enough, as the story goes, and he said, "I need to go put on my shoes," and they said, "You're not going anywhere," and when he turned to put on his shoes they gunned him down. Now the thing that's really--and this was in Providence, Kentucky. The thing that's really fascinating about this--well, one of the things--everything about it is fascinating, what's really fascinating is the paper the next day or whatever day, the next day the paper came out, it said, the headline was "Negro Leader Slain." The fact that they used Negro and the fact that they used leader is astonishing, is astonishing. His wife [Lillie Gray Wolfe] was watching from the window, she had a coal oil lamp--these are certain, very details that Florence in particular has told me and my father told some of this, this is a huge story and, and it was reported--so that happened like on a Saturday, the newspaper came out and I have a copy of it somewhere, the newspaper came out, there was never a trial, nothing ever came from it and that was that and his wife took her three children and left town. This is just an astonish- there's so many aspects of that story, I mean he could sing, he was so smart, he was just like this, this heroic figure and he was, and he was gunned down at the age of thirty-eight.$You do talk about even dissecting, you know, I think you talked about at the age of five was it? A show, was that, or did I read that right?$$Oh yes, yes, yeah.$$Yeah.$$I remember, yes, I remember very specific- yeah. So at Rosenwald school [Rosenwald Laboratory School, Frankfort, Kentucky], Rosenwald was a very--Rosenwald school, it was a very--the principal of the school was this woman named Minnie J. Hitch, who was very, very severe, but very smart and I realized in many respects was, was probably the first director, (laughter) first theater director I ever knew without knowing it and, and we would put on a Christmas play and at the end of the year we'd put on a school closing play, probably it was like maybe ninety people, mainly kids, maybe who were in eight grades at Rosenwald and we'd put on these enormous plays and she would always direct them and I--there was a part of my brain that was sort of exhilarated by that time. I mean I, as early as I can remember I was obsessed with theater, which is an odd thing because, I mean obsessed with it, very, very, I mean (audio disturbance) from the very, from the very beginning before I could remember it. I remember at one point I got--I was given for Christmas a, a showboat, a showboat that had little scenery pieces that you could put in there and I would just, and I was in heaven with this because there was a backdrop and there were legs and then there were middle ground and foreground, there was a whole stage there and it, it, which, which was, it, it was very, very interesting, so it's you know, I was obsessed, I was obsessed, I was obsessed with, with, with theater from the very beginning but at Rosenwald, she would put on these plays and, and, and, and I remember just--you, I, I remember studying them. I remember when I went, came to New York [New York] and I saw 'West Side Story' [Arthur Laurents] at the State Theater [New York State Theater; David H. Koch Theater], I remember s- I was studying it, I realized--(background noise) and a lot of times I would sit there and watch TV and I would sit on the ground and I was studying the rhythms.