Diesel Heart
Streaming Friday, September 4- Thursday, September 10, 2020
Written by Brian Grandison
In collaboration with Melvin Carter Jr.
Directed by H. Adam Harris
Video editing by C Andrew Mayer
Content Warning: Suggested 'street fights,' adult language and racism.
Melvin Carter Jr. is a true son of St. Paul, as was his father and hero, Melvin Carter Sr. Melvin grew up in the Rondo neighborhood in the 1950s and '60s. He experienced firsthand the decimation of the radiant, vibrant Rondo community for the construction of Interstate 94.
As a student, Melvin struggled in the classroom and also on the streets. As a young man, he enlisted in the US Navy and was stationed in Morocco where he used his skill inside the boxing ring to win matches and earn self-respect. After his return home, he joined the St. Paul Police Department as an affirmative action hire where he continued to fight crime and battle racism on the streets and within the Department.
Still, his stories and perspective on life is joy-filled and passionate. From his father's example, he became a steady and constant presence in the community, in the city that spawned and nurtured him. From his mother he inherited a spirit that doesn’t back down or walk away from the fight to seek justice.
In these days of local, national and international strife, as we find ourselves again saturated with racism's social toxin, spending time learning and laughing from this son of St. Paul is a tonic at the end of a long evening.
- Buy ticket/s to stream, click here. Please consider buying a ticket for everyone viewing. We hope to cover our costs, pay our artists during this crisis and stay connected to YOU, our loyal audience.
To learn more about Diesel Heart
- Melvin Carter Jr. autobiography 'Diesel Heart' adapted to History Theatre stage (Pioneer Press, 8/30/20)
- Melvin Carter chronicles how street fights, racism prepared him to be a St. Paul cop (Pioneer Press, 2/16/19)
- Retired St. Paul cop Melvin Carter Jr. helps young black men rewrite their script (Star Tribune, 6/10/19)
- You know St. Paul's mayor -- now meet his dad in a new autobiography (mpr.org 2/27/19)
- Double murder led Melvin Carter, Jr. to career of police "peace" work (Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, 2/26/15)
Melvin Carter Jr.'s "Diesel Heart" (West St. Paul Reader, 12/16/19)
- Watch Spilling the HT: Diesel Heart
From the Playwright
Like everyone else involved in this project, I am a fan of, Melvin Carter Jr. His book, Diesel Heart, made me laugh one moment and I needed to grab and caress my heart, the next.
One of the things I enjoyed most about writing this play was having the chance to talk with and spend time with Melvin. His life stories as well as the stories behind the stories have informed our iteration of his book, Diesel Heart. One of the biggest problems I had was trying to determine which stories would make the
cut and be a part of the play and which stories had to be ignored.
I think of my friend, Melvin Carter Jr., as a fighter and a warrior. He is someone that runs towards the “roar.” He is someone that doesn’t back down from what are righteous battles. His voice, experiences, and calming presence have made this a joy-filled journey. He loves Rondo and St. Paul. He loves his family, and has longtime friends he honors and considers to be family. Melvin is all heart and love. That’s the story we have tried to tell and share.
- Brian Grandison
From the Director
In these wild days it has been an honor to work on Diesel Heart. This play by Brian Grandison is written with heart-felt admiration of its central character, Melvin Carter Jr. If you have not read the book on which it is based, I encourage you to pick it up. It is a story of perseverance, of radical growth, and of potential realized. Melvin is two years younger than my own father and it has been wonderful to compare their stories. It is life-affirming to place their narrative onstage, especially in this moment of cultural reckoning. Our elders’ testimony, their successes, their failures, often can give us the edge we need to see through the present moment. I hope this play brings joy inside your home and adds some fuel to your heart.
- H. Adam Harris
From the Author
WOW! BANG POW! I am astonished, grateful and in awe. Brian wrote a masterpiece. H. Adams lifts it off the pages, as the actors bring it to life.
I’m realizing that this piece is written on more multi-layered surfaces and levels than I thought, from family issues, Great Migration, Mass Incarceration, Mis-
education, Red Lining, Policing Black communities, and Black Trauma.
A young inner-city, ill-tempered Knucklehead plagued with severe academic anger issues with propensities towards violence and criminality, seeks a morsel of human dignity in all the wrong places, in all the wrong ways. He comes home late. His parents on the phone calling all over town looking for him. His momma called the police to see if he was in jail. She calls every emergency room in the city and even the county morgue looking for him.
Terrified that he has a “death wish,” she insists that his father “to fix that boy.” Dad’s diagnoses is that,‘No Sweetie, the boy just ain’t got good sense!”
Throughout the years he survives violence, brutality and arrests by powers greater than his own. But when the double homicide hits his family. Survivor guilt almost finished him off, he plunges into a bottomless abyss of grief. With his life in shambles, on the brink about to sink, he walks the night without a goal, even
revenge stalking.
Purposelessly, he roams the surface of the earth until suddenly a woman from out of nowhere invading his chaos. Suddenly he pulls a most astonishing, even miraculous turnaround. The term “at risk” never more applicable the boy with so many probable undiagnosed multi layered issues. Only after intensive, invasive, intrusive power tutoring from a loving mother, they discover and unlocked his learning wavelength. Over time he transforms disabilities into abilities, anger as constructive energy to study, to train up his mind and buff up his body. Ultimately he transforms his faults into virtues.
High respects to Brian, H. Adams, and the cast for the daunting task of recreating and reenacting this cliff hanging, action packed, spine tingler, filled with suspense, danger, combined with drama & laughter to life. (Uh oh I forget “gut wrenching”?) The rehearsals caused me flashbacks from tears to gagging laughter! Ron, Laurie and entire History Theatre staff and family, together you’ve assembled a dream team that honors the story, and l can’t thank you enough.
- Melvin Carter Jr.
Cast
Melvin Carter Jr. - Mikell Sapp*
Melvin Carter Sr. and Pitbull - A. J. Friday*
Clara May, Mary, Sister Mary 1, Sister Mary 2, Sunny, Victor, Office Administrator - Dana Thompson
The Guillotine, Bus Driver - Eric Knutson
Billie Dove - Jamila Anderson*
Huff, June Bug, Mack, Skeeter and Arlan - JuCoby Johnson*
Ella May, Terrie, Jasmine, Girlfriend - Rajane Katurah*
Announcer, Billy Jr. Foster, Fatso, Henry - Ron Collier
Understudy - Pearce Bunting*
NION headshots.jpgArtistic Team
Playwright - Brian Grandison
Director - H. Adam Harris
Dramaturg - Morgan Holmes
Video Editor - C Andrew Mayer
Stage Manager - Wayne Hendricks*
Zoom Coordination - Laurie Flanigan Hegge*
* denotes a Member of Actors' Equity Association
Special Thanks
Time & Place
- Bouknadel Naval Base, Morocco, January 1969
- Chilton, Texas, 1954
- St. Paul, Minnesota 1954-1969