Now in their 21st season, the New McCree Theatre understands well what its audiences love – high energy musical productions. But executive director Charles Winfrey likes to mix up the types of shows they offer, both for the audience and to provide new opportunities for actors who regularly perform there.
“Our audience is accustomed to an exciting type of theatre, so traditionally we do a lot of musicals because our audience loves them,” Winfrey said. “But that doesn’t give our actors any diversification of experience. So we’ll throw in a drama every now and then just so that they can experience working in these message type dramas.”
The current production on stage at McCree definitely fits into that category. Joe Turner’s Come and Gone was written by legendary American playwright August Wilson. It is the second in Wilson’s decade-by-decade series chronicling the Black experience in America.
The play, written in 1988, is set in the second decade of the 20th century and addresses themes around identity, spirituality, conflict, racism, and discrimination. It follows Herald Loomis and his daughter as they arrive at a Pittsburgh boarding house. The play focuses on Loomis’s search for his wife and his own purpose and identity during the Great Migration into the Northern United States.
The show opened at McCree Theatre on September 19. Three performances remain, October 10 at 7 p.m. and October 11 at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Tickets are $15 each and available online or at the McCree Theatre box office, located at 4601 Clio Road.
“Wilson wrote a play for each decade of the 20th century to give his reading audience a snapshot of Black life in each of those decades, and some of the issues that they had to deal with,” Winfrey said. “This particular play really deals with how unsettling the penal system has been to Black individuals and Black families, that’s the heart of it.”
The play is directed by Patricia Enright and has a large cast that includes several McCree Theatre veterans: Christian Berry, Curtis Brown, Josiah Grays, Dachelle Latriece McDonald, Yonna Mittz, Graham Parker, Sherita Swanigan, Jenna Sweet, Clifford Sykes, Sheryl Venerable, and Lawrence “Chris” Young.
In addition to just the stories being told on stage, Winfrey loves the magic that bringing together a cast with many different talents provides for audiences.
“The experiences of working with different individuals and having a firsthand glimpse of all their talents and the idiosyncrasies that come with those talents, it’s just something to behold,” he said. “I love working with gifted and creative people.”
Joe Turner’s Come and Gone is the first play in the season for McCree Theatre. Two plays written by Winfrey, The Motown Story and The Elaine Arkansas Massacre, will be on stage in 2026. Auditions for The Motown Story are in December and for The Elaine Arkansas Massacre are in March.
“It (writing) also gives me a chance to flex some of my creativity,” Winfrey said. “Theatre is highly addictive.”
The New McCree Theatre, like many arts organizations in the current political landscape, is also dealing with how to replace lost funding. The Trump Administration cut funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, which left an approximately $40,000 hole in the theatre’s budget. One way they’re trying to offset that loss is through a performance of Those Gorgeous, Glamorous Girl Groups at 7 p.m. on November 15 at The Whiting.
The show is a musical that pays homage to generations of women-led vocal groups and features beautiful costumes and exciting and powerful choreography and vocals that highlights the legacies of groups like the Supremes, Martha and the Vandellas, The Shirelles, and more. The theatre performed the show as part of its season last year.
“It’s a good sampling of all of the different forms and styles from the 50s all the way up through the 90s,” Winfrey said, noting that the show at the Whiting will be a chance for potentially new audiences who haven’t seen a McCree Theatre show at their Clio Road location to learn about the work they do. “We want to invite all of Genesee County to come out and see it.”
The theatre is also kicking off its annual Black History Film Series in November. The Lost Tapes of Malcolm X is on November 15, The Life & Death of Tupac is on January 17, The History of Funk Music and Black Liberation is on March 14, and The Story of Barack Obama: Becoming President and Finding Hope is on June 13. All films are free to attend and start at 2 p.m.
McCree Theatre’s fall youth programs start this month as well. Fall sessions include a drumline and instruments class, youth choir, and a Saturday theatre camp. Information about the camps is available on the website. All of the workshops are free.
Each summer, they do a six-week summer camp for kids ages 5 to 17, with kids performing in a show at the end of it. Winfrey is always impressed with how quickly kids learn and catch the spirit of what theatre is all about.
“We always find a play that we can incorporate all 50 kids in the camp, and they’ll come off the target at the end with their chest out and head high like ‘I’m bad’ you know?,” Winfrey laughed. “It’s just great watching that experience and watching them evolve and take it seriously. They get in theatre mode, and excited on opening night and it’s just unbelievable the discipline they have. They don’t act like kids, they act like grown actors up on that stage.”
Those types of experiences are what has kept Winfrey involved in theatre for so long – it provides a unique set of skills that people of all ages can apply to many aspects of their lives.
“The thing about theatre and a lot of the other arts is that they provide the intangibles,” Winfrey said. “They instill life skills – to memorize a line, or to have the self-confidence to get on stage without wavering, or just to have self-discipline. They internalize all those values as part of the theatre experience.”
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