New play tells life of Ali as a young boy

Much like a bird is made to sing

And swinging vines are for the ape

I was a boy who belonged in the ring

And I felt like I could be great.

But I also knew the only way

To earn the greatness stamp

Was to work and train the hardest

To become the champ.

A boy named Cassius Clay had these notions growing up in a segregated Louisville of the mid-1950s before going on to defeat world champion boxer Sonny Liston in 1964. Just before that fight, this young African American quipped that he could "float like a butterfly and sting like a bee."

But the rhyme about growing up to "become the champ" wasn't spoken by Clay, who later changed his name to Muhammad Ali. They are the words of playwright Idris Goodwin whose new play "And in This Corner … Cassius Clay" has its premiere run at StageOne Family Theatre this month.

Based on research and interviews, Goodwin's play traces the early life of Ali, who grew up in Louisville's West End and went on to be known worldwide as The Greatest because of his dominance of world heavyweight boxing in the 1960s and '70s and later his social activism.

Commissioning a play about Ali for young people was the brainchild of StageOne producing artistic director Peter Holloway and the play's director, Andrew Harris. It was nearly two years ago that the two started discussing the idea and decided to explore who could write the play.

At the time, Goodwin had just had his play "How We Got On" premiere in Actors Theatre of Louisville's 2012 Humana Festival of New American Plays. The play drew on Goodwin's background in spoken-word poetry and performance to tell the coming-of-age story of three African-American kids in the suburban Midwest of the 1980s when "YO! MTV Raps" was popular.

"We talked to the people at Actors and they had a lot of good things to say about him," Harris recalled. "Then Peter wrote him and it only took 20 to 30 minutes before he wrote back saying Ali is his idol."

At the time, Goodwin didn't believe his good fortune.

"I thought he was kidding me or pranking me or something," said Goodwin recently in a telephone interview from Colorado Springs, where he is an assistant professor at Colorado College's theater and dance department.

After realizing it was no hoax, Goodwin started writing down ideas about the many directions the story might take.

"I had five or six different story lines, and after a while I picked this one about a man who suffers an injustice — his bike gets stolen — and he learns how to fight," Goodwin said.

In the play, a 12-year-old Clay runs into police officer and boxing coach Joe Martin after the incident. Martin finds the angry youngster vowing to "whup" the thief and suggests Clay learn how to fight first.

Clay takes Martin up on his offer and finds a love for boxing, as well as talent for it. Both propel him through his teenage years and to the play's finale when he is getting ready for the landmark contest against Liston. Along the way, Clay puts together a string of boxing wins, trains with Fred Stoner (a boxing trainer who was the first African American named to the Kentucky Boxing Commission) and sees friends and others in the black community become involved in America's civil rights movement.

But the play is more than a documentation of the young Ali's life, Goodwin said.

"There are questions that come after learning how to fight: What kind of fights are you going to fight and what are you going to fight for? That's the story," the playwright said.

To write the story, Goodwin read books about Ali, including Thomas Hauser's book "Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times" and the 2004 "The Soul of a Butterfly: Reflections on Life's Journey" that Ali wrote with his daughter Hana Yasmeen Ali. He also visited Louisville sites, such as Ali's boyhood home and neighborhood and the old Presbyterian Community Center where he trained with Stoner.

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But the challenge, he said, wasn't getting the facts right as much as establishing the feeling of the milieu and the time, as well as the attitudes and perspectives.

Harris said he sees the play — which Goodwin told him is "about 80 to 85 percent factual and 15 percent artistic license" — does a good job of channeling that time. He added that he's worked with the younger members of the cast to help them realize the realities of the time as well.

For 26-year-old actor and Louisville native Justin Cornwell, who was cast as the young Clay after casting calls in Chicago last July, understanding his role has possibly come a bit easier than it would have to most actors. Sure, Cornwell dove into some of the same research materials Goodwin had to study his part. But Cornwell also had a distinct advantage: When Cornwell was a student at Eastern High School, he was a member of the Ali Center's board of students and volunteered there.

Since last summer, Cornwell said, he has learned more by talking to people from Ali's childhood and even going to dinner with Ali and his family in September.

"He is always so playful," Cornwell said. "He doesn't even have to say anything. You can see it in his eyes. They show confidence."

He also learned about new aspects of the former heavyweight boxing champion's character.

READ MORE | GCCS students learn respect with Ali curriculum

"After I started working on this play, I realized he shows people how to have confidence, how to stand up for themselves and be strong," Cornwell said. "He got his strength from making other people stronger."

Goodwin said he hopes his play confers that same sense of empowerment.

"At the core of the story is something that should resonate with all generations of people — the ideas of social responsibility, fighting for equality, finding a passion of opening doors to find who you could be," he said.

Reporter Elizabeth Kramer can be reached at (502) 582-4682. Follow her on Twitter at @arts_bureau.

IF YOU GO

What: "And in This Corner … Cassius Clay" by Idris Goodwin; directed by Andrew Harris. A StageOne Family Theatre world premiere.

When: Monday at 1 p.m.; Jan. 24 and Feb. 14 at 2 p.m.; Jan. 31 and Feb. 7 at 2 and 7 p.m.

Where: Kentucky Center, Bomhard Theatre, 315 W. Market St.

Cost: $20 adults, $15 children. In honor of Martin Luther King Day, at the Monday performance, visitors to the Muhammad Ali Center can present the Kentucky Center box office with their museum receipts to get a $5 discount on performance tickets. Theater attendees can use their ticket stubs to get a $2 admission discount at the Ali Center. (Admission prices for the Ali Center are $9 adults; $8 seniors; $5 military and students with ID; $4 for children ages 6 to 12; and free for children 5 and under.)

Information: (502) 584-7777; www.stageone.org