Holler if You Hear Me star: ‘Show should have toured before Broadway’

Broadway’s Tupac Shakur musical Holler If Ya Hear Me failed because producers refused to build up anticipation for the show with a national tour, according to star Saul Williams. The production, based on Shakur’s music, closed on Sunday (20Jul14) after just six weeks, and Williams, who played the lead character John, insists producer Eric Gold always knew the show would fail on the New York stage.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, he explains, “They (producers) wanted that Broadway stamp. This is the cost of that stamp… When you do something fresh and new, you’re going to face obstacles and I promise you this story isn’t over.”
Williams claims critics failed to get how important the musical was: “There’s actually a generic response when I don’t think critics realise they’re playing into the hands of something that runs deeper than how this made you feel. I am speaking to that American race psyche; that thing that Harry Belafonte said to me after he saw the play, which is, ‘You took an Afrocentric-themed play and placed it on a Eurocentric stage. The problems you’ll face are larger than you think’.”