‘Driving Miss Daisy’ coming to Theatre Albany

ALBANY — Daisy Werthan is a role that Theatre Albany veteran performer Joy Johnson has long wanted to play. In what may be her last appearance on the Albany stage, she’s finally getting that chance.

Daisy is the wealthy 72-year-old Jewish widow from Atlanta that is the namesake for the 1987 Off-Broadway play and 1989 movie “Driving Miss Daisy.” Johnson is taking on a role that has been performed by the likes of Jessica Tandy, who won an Oscar for it, Angela Lansbury and the original Daisy, Dana Ivey.

“Those are big shoes to fill,” Johnson said before a rehearsal last week. “It’s a little scary.”

The comedy-drama was last performed by Theatre Albany eight years ago, with Jo Jones playing Daisy and Ken Stutely, who’s reprising the role of chauffeur Hoke Colburn.

“I am so excited,” Johnson said. “This is the one role I always wanted to play before I left Albany. I’m moving from Albany this fall. I’m thrilled that he (Theatre Albany Artistic Director Mark Costello) is letting me do it.”

There’s another reason Johnson’s enjoying the part.

“She’s in her 70s and I’m in mine,” she said of the character. “For once, I get to play my age here.”

The chance almost didn’t come about. Originally, the theater planned to present “Secrets of a Soccer Mom,” but Costello decided to make the change after unsuccessful casting calls earlier this month. He wanted Stutely for the role of Hoke and moved the production up a week — the show opens Friday — to accommodate Stutely’s schedule. The actor had a commitment that conflicted with what would have been the production’s second weekend.

Stutely said he was happy that Costello wanted him back behind the wheel, so to speak.

“I enjoy it,” he said of the role of Hoke. “It’s a really great movie, and I enjoy acting. I’m not running off to Hollywood or anything, but I enjoy it.”

Stutely said he hopes the play will connect with Albany audiences again.

“I thought that it was one of the productions that the community really came out to see,” he said. “I was glad to hear that he (Costello) wanted to do it again.”

But Stutely isn’t worried about following actors like Morgan Freeman, who played Hoke on stage and in the movie, and James Earl Jones, who played the part in a revival of the stage version, saying he was just focusing on doing “the best I can” in the role.

Costello said the story is character driven.

“The core of the story is the relationship between two people as it grows over 25 years,” the creative director said.

“Driving Miss Daisy” starts three years after the end of World War II. Daisy has wrecked her car, prompting her 40-year-old son, Boolie (played by Stephen Syfrett), to take away her keys and, in her eyes, a large measure of her independence.

That also leads Boolie to hire, over his mother’s objections, Hoke to drive her. At first, the Jewish woman and African-American man a dozen years her junior are wary of one another.

Despite their differences, they begin to develop the foundation of a strong friendship and mutual respect that lasts two-and-a-half decades. Hoke treats the often difficult “Miss Daisy” in a way that helps her maintain her dignity. A former schoolteacher, Daisy teaches Hoke how to read and invites him to accompany her to a dinner for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

The set is minimal, but Costello said that adds to the play. “It’s the simplicity of the show,” he said. “You can focus on the characters as they grow.”

Syfrett said the fact that he, Johnson and Stutely have worked together in previous Theatre Albany productions has been a “big plus” for the play.

“We’re two weeks into the rehearsals, this is starting the third week,” he said. “We’re further along than I’ve ever been two weeks into a play before.”

His Boolie’s relationship to Johnson’s Daisy is not a stretch for the castmates either, Syfrett said. “Joy’s been my mom in several productions before,” he said.

What is unusual for Syfrett is the size of the cast. Normally, he said, he prefers comedies and dramas that have large casts.

“This is kind of unusual for me,” he said. “I don’t usually do small-cast plays.”

In a bit of serendipity, Syfrett noted that he had caught the “Driving Miss Daisy” movie on television just before Costello contacted him about the possibility of playing Boolie.

“It’s a great story,” he said. “I love the movie. … I’m doing my best not to channel Dan Aykroyd.”

Aykroyd played Boolie in the 1989 movie that was nominated for nine Academy Awards. It won four Oscars for Best Picture, Best Actress (Tandy), Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Makeup.

The film screenplay was adapted by Alfred Uhry of Atlanta from his 1987 play, the first of his Atlanta Trilogy, which was based on his experiences growing up in a Jewish home in Georgia’s capital city. The Off-Broadway production of “Driving Miss Daisy” that starred Ivey, Freeman and Ray Gill earned Uhry the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

The opening curtain goes up at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Theatre Albany, 514 Pine Ave. Performances are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Saturday and April 14-16. Sunday matinees are set for 2 p.m. April 10 and 17. Tickets are $20 for adults; $15, seniors, and $10, students and active military. The Theatre Albany box office, open noon-4 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays, noon-2 p.m. Saturdays and an hour before curtain, can be reached at (229) 439-7141.