Do you have any idea how difficult it is to cast a play at Brigham Young University with a predominantly black cast? Of 30,000 students, there are 300 blacks, African and African American. Five years ago when we were mounting the play I Am Jane, I nabbed Charlie Beacham, a friend of mine, African American, who had been an important influence on my son when we we were doing a semester abroad in England. He said he couldn’t act, and I promised him we’d wring acting out of him. We had him audition, but that was only to choose which role he’d play. We assigned him the role of Elijah Abel, the first black man ordained to the priesthood—ordained, in fact, by Joseph Smith. After the audition, Charlie went into the hall and saw a friend whom he hadn’t seen for two years: Stacey Harkey, also African American. (Does anyone not know that?) He told Stacey that we needed him for a play. Stacey claimed that he wasn’t an actor, but he did audition.
He was great. Both of them were great. And the show was FUN. It ranks among my top two shows/casts of all performances we have done of the play. It is no secret that Stacey is a riot. He is naturally funny, good-tempered, really likeable.
I’ve been impressed that his fame as an actor in Studio C hasn’t turned him into a snob. When I see Stacey, I get happier by at least five degrees. That’s the kind of energy he brings into a room. Besides that, though, I love the way he portrayed Isaac Lewis Manning. 
The story of Jane and Isaac is bittersweet, and one everyone should know. I am thrilled that Jane has become better known over the past fifteen years, and that her name was included in the LDS Church’s important statement on race and the priesthood. I am grateful that Stacey knows her story. He has an impact on many people, and if anyone asks him about Jane, he can tell her story as though he were her brother.
Getting the black pioneer stories well known has been a priority for me since 1998, when I paired up with Darius Gray. We got to perform I am Jane with Stacey as Jane’s brother for the Mormon History Association in 2011. Two of the young men who had been in my husband’s and my French-speaking MTC group, both of them bound for the Congo, had returned from their missions and helped me with the music cues. This was the overlap. I did not know as we staged this penultimate production of Jane that I was already heading to Africa, already preparing to tell other stories.
Stacey told me a few months after our last performance in 2011 that he had been accepted in Divine Comedy. At about the same time, I was starting a huge project: a film based on the stories I had received from all of the missionaries I had written to in the Congo.
The basic premise was of a naïve white kid from a tiny town in Idaho called to the Congo and companioned with a Congolese former revolutionary. The two would have to transcend their own prejudices before they could be effective. I hired a former student of mine, Stephen Nelson, as the producer for the film’s teaser footage, and he brought on one of the best directors he knew: Mallory Everton. She was beautiful and fun, and she was completely professional. She understood what we needed to do and was willing to put in whatever time was needed. There were three locations for the film’s teaser: my living room for the mission call; the Spanish Fork airport to replicate some unknown airport in the far reaches of the Congo, and a wilderness area for the bonfire scene where we would enact the scene as the former revolutionary himself, Aime Mbuyi, had described it to me. The work itself was a bit tedious. Mallory was determined to get the bet shots, so we filmed at various angles and then again at other angles.
I am always impressed when beautiful women are also smart and professional. Mallory was a joy. And she had to use her imagination, because we still faced a problem as we filmed a scene with very little money which needed lots of black people. We had three. That doesn’t comprise much of a group. So Mallory and her team put hoodies on a couple of the white crew members, put their backs to the camera, and we faked it. Quite well, I should say.
I had spoken to a professional film team about doing the teaser. The price they gave me was $14,500. I had only $5,000. Part of that had to be used to pay the actors, particularly those who were unionized. So the check I gave to Stephen for all of the crew was just $2,500. And after the shoot, he said he had money for me from what they hadn’t needed to spend. Now that was a surprise. I had gotten these wonderful people and great footage, and they wanted to give me some money back. I told Stephen to distribute whatever was left back to the crew. I love the teaser. It helped us in our first efforts to get money. By last August, we had enough money to get to the Congo to film b-roll and do some location scouting. We anticipate having our funds in place by this next August so that we can do principal photography.
Will Stacey Harkey and Mallory Everton be in the film? Schedules will need to align, but I hope so! Regardless, each is a part of the heritage of Heart of Africa. The teaser which Mallory directed is at this link. The Kickstarter campaign, which goes until March 17th, is here.
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