On June 26, when President Barack Obama launched into a seemingly impromptu and imperfect rendition of “Amazing Grace” during his eulogy of the Reverend Clementa C. Pinckney, it made headlines as one of the most memorable and moving moments of his presidency. It was not surprising to hear the hymn on such an occasion. One of the most popular songs in American history, “Amazing Grace” was sung during Civil rights marches, at the funerals of Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela, and in rallies against the Vietnam War. What is less known about this song, so central to the African-American experience, is that it was written in the late 1700s by John Newton, a white British slave trader. His journey from a hard-drinking reprobate to Anglican minister and abolitionist is now the subject of a Broadway musical, “Amazing Grace.” The historical epic, directed by Gabriel Barre (“The Wild Party”), is currently in previews at the Broadway’s Nederlander Theatre, prior to an official opening on July 16. Included in the cast of 32 are Josh Young (“Jesus Christ Superstar”) as Newton, Erin Mackey (“Chaplin”) as the woman who never stops believing in him, and Chuck Cooper (Tony winner for “The Life”) in the pivotal role of Thomas, Newton’s slave and the narrator of the story. It is Thomas’s dignity and generosity that act as transformative agents for his master. The behavior is in stunning contrast to Princess Peyai (Harriet D. Foy), an African royal who sells her own people into slavery.The genesis of the musical began in 1997 when Christopher Smith, a history buff who worked as both a policeman and social worker, began thumbing through a biography of Newton in a Pennsylvania library. He was surprised to learn that he had penned the song after a dramatic conversion triggered by a series of self-destructive misadventures at sea. “I felt from the first time I read the book that John Newton’s story was one of the essential yearnings of the human beings,” says Smith, who would eventually co-write the libretto with Arthur Giron as well as compose the original songs. “‘Can I be loved in spite of my faults?’ ‘Can I be forgiven for the things that I do that hurt people?’ I think the show is a tremendous expression of that hope and desire.” “Amazing Grace” does not shy away from the brutality of slavery, which has been depicted in such films as “12 Years a Slave,” and that includes Newton’s heedless delivery of his faithful Thomas into Princess Peyai’s hands. “It definitely is in the zeitgeist to look at this part of our history more closely,” says the 45-year-old Smith, who adds that it was “Roots,” the television miniseries from 1977, which had the most impact on him prior to encountering Newton’s story. What resonates with this particular event is the spiritual transformation of “a very strong and staunch atheist” to a man of the cloth who would take on as his personal crusade the abolition of slavery in England and its colonies — a mission that would be realized in 1833 through an Act of Parliament. The crux of “Amazing Grace” is when Newton travels to Barbados, then a hellhole for slaves, to ask for Thomas’s forgiveness for having sentenced him to such cruelty. When asked why a man like Thomas — who is a composite rather than a true historical character from the period — would be so generous-hearted as to grant dispensation, Smith says that he is as perplexed as he is astonished by such moments of grace. Indeed, the most recent example was the forgiveness shown toward Dylann Roof by some of the grieving survivors of the nine victims, including the family of Pinckey, whom the 21-year-old racist murdered while they were in a bible study at Charleston’s historic AME Church.“I can never imagine having forgiveness in my heart like that,” says Smith. “It’s a tremendous example to everyone and it goes across centuries and across different people’s lives. That forgiveness is real, it comes from the heart and it affects the forgiver as much as it affects the person who has been forgiven. It’s truly amazing.”Smith says that when the show went into rehearsals — it was first developed at the Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut in 2012 — the cast and creative team were asked to relate to each other moments of grace that had affected their lives. The writer says that he chose to relate the events surrounding a diagnosis of his wife’s bilateral breast cancer, which coincided with the seventh month of her pregnancy. “She had to deliver early and two weeks later she was in chemo and two weeks after that in radiation,” he recalls. “She was image of grace to me, not only during this difficult time but throughout our whole life together.”He adds that his wife kept his spirits up throughout the long gestation period of “Amazing Grace,” which included a number of disappointments. In fact, around the time of her radiation, another theater with whom he had been working on the show decided to drop it from their schedule. “Not only were we in the middle of breast cancer and a new baby but we were faced with the loss of something that meant so much to us,” he says. “And then we got a call from Goodspeed saying that they’d had a cancellation and could be there in three months.“The spooky thing about it all,” he continues, “is that there were pictures on the wall of the radiation clinic, which was in Warwick, Pennyslvania, and one of them was of the Goodspeed Opera House. That was hundreds of miles away.”Mother and daughter, Alexandra, are doing just fine, he adds.
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