You see his eyes, you hear his voice, and you sense the pain of memories of events he himself never experienced. That’s why Virgil Covington Jr. of Georgetown is so effective when he shares African-American novelist and playwright William Wells Brown’s story of enduring and eventually escaping slavery.
“I talk about him being born to his master, him being born to chattel slavery, trying to get kids to understand what it’s like being treated like livestock—not treated as humans,” Covington says.
Covington, 65, is one of several Kentucky Humanities Council Chautauqua performers who portray historical figures for presentations at schools, libraries and civic groups across the Commonwealth. Since 2016, he’s been performing as Brown, who was born a slave in 1814 to a Mount Sterling landholder.
Covington doesn’t use a script. Instead, he builds his characterization on Brown’s autobiography.
With a voice that quivers, he describes the “Negro whip” used by white overseers to discipline errant slaves on the farms in Kentucky and Missouri.
During an interview in the Scott County Public Library’s Kentucky Room, Covington shows how he transitions into Brown during presentations. His steady conversation becomes halting and takes on a tremor, as if he is reliving memories of life as a house slave who witnessed and suffered slavery’s atrocities.
“I can remember my mother being late [one morning],” Covington says, in character. “All of a sudden, I hear, ‘Oh, pray; oh, pray!’ This is what slaves cry out when they’re imploring for mercy.
“I recognized the voice. I got up out of my bed and went over to the door. I opened the door, but I dared not go outside …
“I heard every crack of that whip against my poor mother’s back. I heard every groan, every cry of her.” He sobs. “I went back to my bed. All I could do was cry.”
To the listener, this could be Covington’s own experience. The memory seems real—or as real as he can make it for his listeners. And he makes sure his audience understands the cruelty slaves endured.
The Negro whip, for instance: “It had a lash 6 to 7 feet long, cowhide with wire on the end of it … There would usually be 10 licks,” an out-of-character Covington explains.
“I get to a point in my presentation when I say, ‘If I were to take off my coat and my vest and show you my back, you’d still see the scars.’ ”
As Brown, Covington continues, “It wasn’t even daylight. What’s a slave going to do in the dark, 4:30 in the morning? But that’s how they treated us. They had to intimidate us with the Negro whip by the overseer so we would do what they expected us to do.”
William Wells Brown was not the name originally given to the slave Covington portrays. His owner called him Sandy.
After fleeing to a northern state around 1834, one of the first things he gave up was that moniker. He took the family name of a Quaker who had aided his escape to Canada. There, he met a free black woman who helped him learn to read. Eventually, he obtained passage to England, where he wrote Clotel; or, The President’s Daughter, published in 1853 and believed to be the first novel written by an African American.
Later, Brown returned to the United States and joined Frederick Douglass on the abolitionist lecture circuit.
Covington was introduced to the idea of portraying a historic figure by Jim Rogers, an acquaintance from Versailles’ Woodford Theatre, a community theater group Covington joined in 2013. Rogers is a drama consultant the Kentucky Humanities Council uses when evaluating potential Kentucky Chautauqua presenters.
“A friend suggested William Wells Brown, so I looked at his biography, and I said, ‘OK, I can do this,’ ” Covington says.
The process of becoming a Chautauqua presenter takes several months, according to Kathleen Pool, who directs the Humanities Council’s program. Covington proposed presenting William Wells Brown, then spent weeks having his presentation reviewed by Rogers, Morehead State University history professor Ben Fitzpatrick and costume consultant Darlene Drayer.
Since officially becoming a Kentucky Chautauqua presenter in 2016, Covington has performed at schools in Paducah, Hopkinsville, Winchester, West Liberty and Sandy Hook, as well as the Lexington Veterans Affairs Medical Center and Perryville Battlefield State Historic Park. He performed at the Kentucky Book Fair in 2017 and is scheduled to appear on Feb. 27 during Black History Month at the Scott County Public Library in Georgetown.
His approach to his portrayal was shaped in part by his career as a teacher and administrator in several central Kentucky schools. This year, he is teaching psychology part time at Scott County High School.
In Their Father's Footsteps
Covington’s children—Rebecca Covington Webber and Virgil Covington III—appear to have been bitten by the performance bug. Both showed an aptitude for violin before they entered school, and both attended Lexington’s School for the Creative and Performing Arts (SCAPA).
In a case of the apple not falling far from the tree, Rebecca seems to be making a career of bringing historic personages to life.
In January, she and her husband, Donald Webber Jr.—both Broadway actors—helped multi-talented composer, lyricist and performer Lin-Manuel Miranda stage his Tony Award-winning hip-hop musical Hamilton: An American Musical for a three-week run in Puerto Rico. Now the couple is part of the cast and crew that have a yearlong engagement appearing in Hamilton in San Francisco.
Rebecca is not part of the regular onstage cast, although she is an understudy for the roles of Eliza, Peggy or Angelica, the sisters of New York’s Schuyler family who vied for Alexander Hamilton’s romantic attention. (Eliza won.) Rebecca auditioned last summer when Miranda, who is of Puerto Rican descent, began planning to take the show for a run on the island, which is still recovering from Hurricane Maria in 2017.
Donald is cast as Aaron Burr, the political rival who in real life killed Hamilton in a duel in 1804. Miranda returns to the lead as Hamilton, the role he created on Broadway. Neither Donald nor Rebecca appeared in the original production.
“It’s been a long journey for me with this show,” Rebecca says. “Donald’s been in the show for a while, and this is the first time we get to do the show together. It’s really, really exciting.”
But it’s not her first experience in shows portraying real-life figures or composite characters based on actual individuals. She made her Broadway debut in 2013 as an ensemble performer in Motown: The Musical, the story of the music groups in Detroit record producer Berry Gordy’s stable of stars. That same year, she was part of the ensemble in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical.
SCAPA Principal Beth Randolph recalls having Rebecca in her fifth-grade class. “Rebecca jumped out there and did whatever. She wasn’t afraid to tackle big things, and she was up for doing anything that was adventuresome or fun,” Randolph says.
Randolph says Rebecca continues to impact the school’s students, visiting SCAPA when she’s back home in Kentucky.
“She usually performs for the students, singing, and she talks to them about what it takes to make it [as a professional performer] and what life is like in New York,” Randolph says.
Rebecca’s sister-in-law, Paulynn Covington, teaches at SCAPA. Paulynn, along with husband Virgil III and their children, had tickets for one of the Hamilton performances in Puerto Rico. Virgil Jr. plans to travel to San Francisco during the show’s run there.
Virgil Jr. and his daughter share something beyond an apparent affinity for portraying historic figures: their faith. Both cite God’s hand in guiding their careers.
“I don’t seek anything. I believe if you say you trust in the Lord, that trust has to look like something,” Virgil Jr. says. “All of my experiences, basically since 2004, have happened by His hand, I believe.”
“I tell everybody it’s a possibility,” Rebecca says. “Nothing’s impossible with God.”
Find out more
To schedule a Kentucky Chautauqua presenter or to propose a historic figure presentation, contact the Kentucky Humanities Council via its website at kyhumanities.org.