Baldwin and Buckley at Cambridge
(New York)
Conceived by Greig Sargeant with Elevator Repair Service
Director: John Collins
Guest Performance during FIND 2025
In 1965, at the height of the American Civil Rights Movement, James Baldwin, the much venerated intellectual and author, and William F. Buckley Jr., a prominent pioneer of the New Right, clashed in a spectacular debate at the University of Cambridge: was the American Dream only possible at the expense of the country’s Black population? The invitation was issued by the Cambridge Union, the oldest student debating club in the world. On one side was one of the most important voices of the Civil Rights Movement, on the other the »father of modern American conservatism«. With »Baldwin and Buckley at Cambridge«, »Elevator Repair Service«, which has been called one of New York’s »few truly essential theatre companies«, continues its successful engagement with documentary materials staged in innovative, verbatim productions. In this latest offering, the company delivers a timeless intellectual debate about racism and society. Baldwin’s powerful and convincing analysis of the structural discrimination and multifaceted repression of the Black population in America, and Buckley’s eerily familiar reaction to it, are brought to life in a word for word performance. The show ends with an imagined conversation between Baldwin and his close friend Lorraine Hansberry, an activist and the author of »A Raisin in The Sun«, the first play written by a Black woman to be produced on Broadway.
ELEVATOR REPAIR SERVICE (ERS) was founded in 1991 by director John Collins. Its best known works include »Gatz«, a prize-winning staging of the entire text of »The Great Gatsby«, »The Sound and The Fury« and »Arguendo«. ERS has won numerous prizes and distinctions, including multiple Lucille Lortel Awards, a Bessie Award and an Obie Award for sustained excellence. This is the company’s first appearance in Berlin since 1998.
COSTUME DESIGN: Jessica Jahn
LIGHT DESIGN: Alan C. Edwards
SOUND DESIGN Ben Jalosa Williams
SCENIC CONSULTANT: dots
ASSOCIATE LIGHTING DESIGN: Alexander Le Vaillant Freer
SOUND ENGINEER: Jason Sebastian
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR AND STAGE MANAGER: Maurina Lioce
PRODUCER: Hanna Novak
COMPANY MANAGER: Becky Hermenze
WITH: Greig Sargeant, Ben Jalosa Williams, April Matthis, Gavin Price, Christopher-Rashee Stevenson
Baldwin and Buckley at Cambridge was produced for On Demand Streaming by Montclair State University (NJ) for PEAK Performances.
Elevator Repair Service is supported, in part, with public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, and from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
Elevator Repair Service is also supported with funds from The Dorothy Strelsin Foundation, The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation for Contemporary Arts, The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, Howard Gilman Foundation, The J.M. Kaplan Fund, Jockey Hollow Foundation, Lucille Lortel Foundation, The O’Grady Foundation, Scherman Foundation, Select Equity Group Foundation, and The Shubert Foundation.
Elevator Repair Service is a member of the Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York.
