“No matter what the law says, the dead do matter.”
Young Jack Thompson vs Jackie Fields in Chicago
This play is based on my own original historical research from primary sources, e.g. newspaper accounts, marriage, court and census records – of a now forgotten African-American welter weight boxing champion – Cecil Lewis Thompson, professionally known as Young Jack Thompson – who was born and died young in Los Angeles.
As he actually came to maturity in Oakland and San Francisco, he was initially lauded as “The Frisco Flash”, but soon the realities of being a black boxer in a world of white promoters, gangsters and gamblers took its toll. Young Jack’s story closely intersected with both a real life Jewish and an Irish boxer who also ended up champs in the same era. Despite it all, Young Jack won his crown twice, so he had a way of coming back after adversity.
The genre is heightened realism mixed with surrealism and utilizing especially the devices of the Erwin Piscator and Bertolt Brecht’s Epic Theatre.
The play had a well received reading first in Hollywood, CA in 2018 and then a revised version in a Zoom reading in 2020, and now further revised in 2024.
Images from the 2020 Zoom Reading
SETTING
Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco, Chicago, New York City, etc.)
TIME:
1920s – 1930s, 1946, 1957, 1983, the 1990s as well as the present day
CAST
5 men and 2 women who play multiple roles:
– a young black man – Young Jack Thompson as a young man, and other parts
– a middle-aged black man – Young Jack Thompson as a middle-aged man, and other parts
– a black woman who plays Jack’s wife and also older parts like his mother and Charlotta Bass
– a young woman of indeterminate race who plays the flapper who is both Jack and Jackie love, and plays other parts both young and old.
– the Irish Boxer (Jimmy), as well as other parts
– the Jewish Boxer (Jackie), who plays his younger and older selves, as well as other parts
– an older white male who plays Jimmy’s manager and other parts like Jackie when he’s older.
R.I.P. and my forever thanks to Gregory Battle. Artist. Warrior. Teacher. He repeatedly read the dual parts of Young Jack Thompson as an older man and Scipio throughout the initial development process of the play in Safehouse (writers and actors group in Los Angeles), the live reading in 2018 and the Zoom reading in 2020.
Historical images of the actual boxers
Young Jack Thompson's grave
Young Jack Thompson
Jackie Fields (fictionalized as Jackie Grant in the play)
Jimmy McClarnin and his manager Pop Foster (both fictionalized in the play )
