A historic African American cultural landmark in Pittsburgh, a stone designer and songwriter from Boston and a third-grade class in Needham are the unlikely connections that resulted in the reading of a new play at Powers Hall Feb. 2.
Presented by the Needham Community Theatre and the Needham Diversity Initiative, the play, “If The Walls Could Talk,” tells the story of Mystery Manor, a once-grand property in the Homewood section of Pittsburgh. Built in 1894 and later purchased by a local Black entrepreneur, it became a home and gathering place for African American musicians, artists and athletes, including Count Basie, Lena Horne and Joe Louis. It was also where the National Negro Opera company was founded by Mary Cardwell Dawson in 1941.
Dawson had attended the New England Conservatory, but when she graduated in 1925 she had no opportunities to sing with white opera companies. She returned to her hometown of Pittsburgh and found a welcoming place to open a music school at Mystery Manor. She launched the opera company there, and it continued into the 1960s.
Over time the property fell into disrepair and in 2020 was listed as one of America’s 11 most endangered historic places by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Enter Dawn Carroll, a Boston area stone designer and songwriter who learned about Mystery Manor and efforts to save it through her work in music, mentoring and design. She and musician Patti Austin run the Over My Shoulder Foundation, which has been involved with supporting historic theaters. Carroll joined the effort to salvage the grand Victorian building.
“Initially all I was going to do was try to help raise $80,000 to prevent the roof from caving in and help the current owner salvage the home and the history,” said Carroll.
She prepared a fundraising presentation set to music, working with musician Michael Barry. The music eventually became an album, “Songs for Mary,” with each song telling the story of the building, Dawson and the opera company, and the artists who stayed there. The soundtrack ultimately became the draft of a play. At an event to celebrate the album, Carroll shared the recording with a Needham friend, Ariel Shoemaker, and her daughter Josie, a third grader at Sunita Williams Elementary School. Inspired by the songs and stories of the people at Mystery Manor, Shoemaker invited Carroll to speak to her class.
“The students had listened to the music and studied the project,” said Carroll. “Their enthusiasm just blew me away.” She had the idea to workshop the play in Needham, where she would consider the students honorary executive producers.
That led to an introduction to Michael Bailit, a board member of the Needham Community Theatre. He thought a play about Black history was a good fit for their mission as an anti-racist organization. “I felt that both to support a new playwright, to advance our anti-racism position and to serve the mission of the Needham Community Theatre, which is to advance theater arts in Needham, that this was the right thing for us to do,” Bailit said.
Bailit produced the play and assembled the cast, some of whom had previously performed with NCT. He reached out to the Needham Diversity Initiative to partner with them on the presentation.
“The story was about resilience, about the house, and all the people in it,” said Carroll, who was excited about the positive audience reaction to her first draft of her first play. She hopes to find future venues to present it. “I’ll be spending my entire spring, summer and fall on the next draft.”
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