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It takes a talented actor with a strong stage presence to change the mood of an entire audience. That particularly is Kash Goins’ challenge as he plays the role of Bobo in Arden Theatre Co.’s production of “A Raisin in the Sun.”
Goins’ short role in the drama, which runs at the Old City venue through April 21, is crucial to its plot.
An African-American family in Chicago’s South Side receives a life insurance check, but there are conflicting aspirations of what to do with the wad of cash. The wife of the deceased wants to buy a home for the first time, the daughter wants to use it for medical school and the son wants to invest in a liquor business.
In the midst of a celebration of change for the low-income family, Bobo breaks the news: The money has been stolen. Sadness spreads throughout the theater as the family’s hearts are broken.
“The challenge is there’s this festive mood in the house … and I almost have to come off with a dark cloud where the audience and the characters — everybody is discovering at once, something’s wrong,” Goins said. “[It’s] like flipping a switch without me ever saying a word, and then I have to deliver this news and then help support it all the way through this devastation. It is very challenging but I like it, I like challenging roles.”
Goins, a native of 23rd and Moore streets, said the only thing he does in North Wilmington, Del., where he currently resides, is sleep at night.
“I’m from South Philly,” Goins, 39, said. “That’s who I am. That’s what I represent. I’m so proud of that.”
Goins’ father, known as “Mr. Leroy” back in the day, ran the Point Breeze Civic Association.
“The way I grew up, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday night pretty much all year round my father ran the neighborhood basketball league,” he said. “So he was everybody’s father. You know in that neighborhood not a lot of people had fathers and a lot of people looked up to Mr. Leroy so that was the structure that I grew up in.”
Drugs and violence surrounded him, but his father’s role in keeping everyone in the community involved helped him to stay grounded.
“I love that because I think it’s made me a whole person,” he said.
Goins remembers enacting scenes from movies and putting on impromptu plays with friends on the steps of his childhood home. He also used to read with “a dramatic flair” in his English class at South Philadelphia High School, 2101 S. Broad St., prompting his teacher to encourage him to get into drama. He even used to sign up to see all of the plays in Philly in an effort to achieve “cultural points” for Southern’s Southwark Motivation Annex.
However, he never knew the arts were for him until his junior year at Lincoln University where he graduated in 1994 with a Bachelor’s degree in business administration. Coincidentally, Goins’ first-ever audition was for his college’s “A Raisin in the Sun” staging.
“This play is so funny. It’s relevant to how it ties up a whole bunch of loose ends,” Goins said, adding that he was invited to audition at Arden because of his relationship with director Walter Dallas, whom he used to work with at North Philly’s Freedom Theatre.
The Keystone Mercy account executive by day and actor, writer and producer by night founded GoKash Productions in 2008 and two years later created the annual Philly Urban Theatre Festival, in which he produces the work of several playwrights. This year, his event, which mimics New York’s Downtown Urban Theater Festival where Goins has won numerous awards, will be held in September at Center City’s Plays & Players Theatre.
Juggling his business and arts careers as well as his family — a wife of 15 years and three children — has been a challenge, but he is finally realizing he can’t do everything at once.
“The balance is interesting because there are times where I just say, ‘Hey, I just want to act for a while,’ so I will act in like five or six different plays,” Goins said. “Then it’s like ‘I’m ready to produce something,’ so then I’ll produce a show or two for a month or so. And then there are times where I don’t do anything but just spend all my time between work and family. It’s kind of an intuitive thing.”
Goins feels fortunate that he rarely auditions for a part and doesn’t get cast. Crediting his good judgement in only picking parts he thinks he will succeed in and doing work that people like, Goins only recalls about three times where he went for something and didn’t get it throughout his 20-year career. He tends to be cast for deeply conflicted, dramatic roles.
“I think part of that is whatever my skills set is, it fits me to be able to bring out the reality, the vulnerability and what’s supposed to be strong men in weak moments,” he said.
Goins said it’s difficult to be an African-American actor in Philly as there isn’t a lot of work for him, and when there is, a lot of local companies often cast people from New York.
“Arden is good because once you do get in and establish your talent and your reputation, they keep going back … like I’ve already been booked for a show for next season, and that’s just off of my work here. I didn’t even have to audition for it,” he said.
“A Raisin in the Sun” was first performed at Center City’s Walnut Street Theatre before it went to Broadway in 1959. Last year, Arden showed Clybourne Park, a play written in response to “A Raisin in the Sun.” Good reception peaked the company’s interest in showing writer Lorraine Hansberry’s piece again in Philly.
“I would like to work with Arden more, every time I get the call,” Goins said.
Contact the South Philly Review at editor@southphillyreview.com.
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