{"id":6383,"date":"2026-08-05T11:35:58","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T11:35:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=6383"},"modified":"2026-08-05T11:35:58","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T11:35:58","slug":"iconic-shakespearean-actor-to-make-history-with-august-wilsons-fences-in-santa-cruz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=6383","title":{"rendered":"Iconic Shakespearean actor to make history with August Wilson’s ‘Fences’ in Santa Cruz"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Derrick Lee Weeden is known for playing legendary characters.<\/p>\n

In his first stint at Santa Cruz Shakespeare in 2023, for example, he played King Lear. And over almost 40 years off and on with Oregon Shakespeare Festival, he\u2019s played many more of the Bard\u2019s biggest parts \u2014 most famously delivering what some critics consider the definitive modern portrayal of Othello in OSF\u2019s 1999 production.<\/p>\n

Read more CHP: DUI suspect hits and kills Campbell driver on Highway 17<\/a><\/p>\n

But that\u2019s a role that was written 400 years ago, and its long and storied history is not lost on Weeden, who has been studying it since he first became an actor four decades ago.<\/p>\n

This summer, he\u2019s back at Santa Cruz Shakespeare playing a role that is also likely to last for 400 years \u2014 Troy Maxson in August Wilson\u2019s \u201cFences,\u201d which runs through Aug. 28 at the Audrey Stanley Grove in Santa Cruz. It\u2019s in repertory this summer with \u201cMuch Ado About Nothing\u201d (through Aug. 30) and \u201cMacbeth\u201d (through Aug. 30, and featuring Weeden in two roles).<\/p>\n

Written in 1983, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning \u201cFences\u201d is the sixth play in Wilson\u2019s 10-part Century Cycle (aka the Pittsburgh Cycle), each of which examines the Black experience in 20th-century America in a different decade. It\u2019s set in 1957, and Maxon, a former player in baseball\u2019s Negro leagues, is now in his 50s and struggling to support his family after being rejected by Major League Baseball. His bitterness over his broken dreams not only hangs over his own life, but threatens to shatter his family.<\/p>\n

With the role of Maxson having existed for only four decades rather than four centuries, it seems like prime time for an iconic actor like Weeden to get in on the ground floor of defining it for the ages. But that\u2019s not how he sees it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember I was in grad school in the late \u201980s when \u201cFences\u201d and \u201cJoe Turner\u2019s Come and Gone\u201d were making it to New York, and the original \u201cFences\u201d had James Earl Jones and Courtney Vance and Mary Alice,\u201d Weeden tells me in an interview. \u201cAugust was introducing a whole slew of African American actors that America didn\u2019t know. I mean James Earl and Mary Alice they did, but through this work, we\u2019ve gotten all these other great actors that that were introduced by him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, in the relatively short life of the play, it has already seen Troy Maxson played on stage and screen by acting greats such as Laurence Fishburne, Samuel L. Jackson and Denzel Washington.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

\u201cSo when I think about that, I don\u2019t think of myself as one of the foundations (of the role),\u201d says Weeden. \u201cIf anything, I think I\u2019m in the, for lack of a better word, stable of actors who have been presenting this work spreading through America.\u201d<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t mean he doesn\u2019t feel the pressure of history knocking on the door \u2014 but after half a dozen Wilson productions, he\u2019s well aware that this is just how it goes with a body of work that means so much to so many.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever a group gets together to do August Wilson plays, there\u2019s this other factor that comes in that has to do with the culture, with the Black American descendants of slavery. There\u2019s a responsibility, a really heavy cultural expectation and belief in his work, because along with (Arthur) Miller, possibly Tennessee Williams, he\u2019s probably the<\/em> playwright of the 20th century,\u201d says Weeden.<\/p>\n

Read more No foul play in Pittsburg man\u2019s death, despite woman\u2019s hours-long delay calling 911<\/a><\/p>\n

But there\u2019s a flip side of that cultural weight that Weeden says is actually uplifting. \u201cThere\u2019s this extraordinary thing that\u2019s down under you, that\u2019s carrying you,\u201d he says, \u201cbecause it ceases to be about you, and it ceases to be about your career or your ambition. It\u2019s really about, \u2018Hey, this is our people, and this is the story of our people.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Wilson has a unique way of telling that story, and his instantly recognizable style can be a challenge even for an actor of Weeden\u2019s caliber.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith Wilson, it\u2019s the blues, right? It\u2019s the blues,\u201d he says. \u201cAll of his dialogue is like a song. You can just write hits to it. You have to really get that music, and it\u2019s technically demanding because of the flow, the rhythm, the blues. You have to be doing all this stuff, and yet it sounds as if you\u2019re just talking. But nobody talks like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The latter observation is particularly interesting because there\u2019s another writer\u2014the one the festival is named after \u2013 about whose dialogue people often say the same thing.<\/p>\n

Indeed, both Wilson and Shakespeare made their own music out of the English language. For Weeden, though, there\u2019s an added importance to the fact that Wilson was writing 40 years ago instead of 400.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a wonderful thing that happens every time I\u2019ve ever done an August Wilson play \u2014 there\u2019s a family thing that starts coming in, because of course it\u2019s your father, it\u2019s your grandfather, it\u2019s your great-great-grandparents. It\u2019s all their history, especially for the majority of us who have roots deep in the South. All these stories we can directly draw upon because it\u2019s our family. I mean, we know these people. We know the cadences. We know the blues. We know the music.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is the first time Santa Cruz Shakespeare has produced a Wilson play, stretching back 45 years into the company\u2019s former incarnation as Shakespeare Santa Cruz. Weeden predicts it won\u2019t be the last.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere\u2019s the thing that\u2019s exciting about Santa Cruz doing this,\u201d he says. \u201cEvery theater I\u2019ve ever done at, they inevitably need to just get the first one out of the way, because what happens? They want to do all of them. Audiences love this writer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Santa Cruz Shakespeare\u2019s production of \u201cFences\u201d will be performed through Aug. 28 at the Grove in Upper DeLaveaga Park, 501 Upper Park Road, Santa Cruz. Tickets are at santacruzshakespeare.org.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read more Horoscopes August 5, 2026: Jesse Williams, use your imagination and charm<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Derrick Lee Weeden stars in Santa Cruz Shakespeare’s first production of a Wilson play.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6382,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-things-to-do"],"yoast_head":"\nIconic Shakespearean actor to make history with August Wilson’s ‘Fences’ in Santa Cruz - Next City Digest<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=6383\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Iconic Shakespearean actor to make history with August Wilson’s ‘Fences’ in Santa Cruz - Next City Digest\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Derrick Lee Weeden stars in Santa Cruz Shakespeare's first production of a Wilson play.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=6383\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Next City Digest\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-08-05T11:35:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=6383#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=6383\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/13065d40d633843429ac57d4e5c06f9b\"},\"headline\":\"Iconic Shakespearean actor to make history with August Wilson’s ‘Fences’ in Santa Cruz\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-08-05T11:35:58+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=6383\"},\"wordCount\":1049,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=6383#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/08\\\/e86de592a5bc0b378c67168a61e9859f.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"Things To Do\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=6383#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=6383\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=6383\",\"name\":\"Iconic Shakespearean actor to make history with August Wilson’s ‘Fences’ in Santa Cruz - 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