BNS Productions marks first decade of stage opportunity

BNS PRODUCTIONS

BNS Productions founder Rory Sheriff recalls the theater company’s early struggles 10 years ago. “I never considered quitting. If it would cross my mind, I would just push that thing right out of the way. I never considered giving up.”

Rory Sheriff remembers BNS Productions’ shoestring past.

The Charlotte-based theater company opened in 2014 with homemade costumes, inconsistent rehearsal space and little buzz. One thing it did have was Sheriff’s vision of creating opportunities for Black creatives where few were previously available.

“It feels like yesterday,” he said. “I’m blown away that we’ve been around, we’ve been doing this as a company for 10 years. Still remember trying to make costumes ourselves in my backyard, spray painting costumes because we can’t find the right color, so it’s been one amazing ride. And I wouldn’t change it for the world. The experiences, the people that we’ve met, that performed with us, that worked with us, it’s been one amazing ride.”

BNS is now a mainstay in Charlotte’s theater community where it fills a niche for talent on and off stage. Sheriff, who grew up in Reading, Penn., saw opportunity in Charlotte to create a unique space for productions told from a Black perspective. Even during those uncertain early days, he was determined to stay the course.

“I never considered quitting,” Sheriff said. “If it would cross my mind, I would just push that thing right out of the way. I never considered giving up. Once this vision was given to me, I was locked into it and just had the tenacity of a pit bull to do what we’re doing now. Just never crossed my mind to give up.  

“There are so many opportunities for us, but the necessity for us in Charlotte right now is really, really, really high. As an African American repertory theater company, there is no other. We are the face …of African American theater here in Charlotte, so we are standing on shoulders at the same time paving ways.”

To mark its first decade, BNS is kicking off the year with August Wilson’s "The Piano Lesson," winner of both the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award, Feb. 1-4 at the Parr Center at Central Piedmont Community College’s main campus. Tickets are available online at bnsproductions.org. Sheriff considers Wilson, a Pittsburgh native, the inspiration behind his theatrical career.  

An added attraction in “The Piano Lesson” is the stage debut of stand-up comedian and radio personality Tone-X as Wining Boy, a washed-up recording star who drifts in and out of his brother Doaker's home when he’s short on cash. Wining Boy is one of the play's primary storytellers, recounting stories from his travels, glory days as a musician, and the family history.

“Tone-X and I have been friends for many years,” Sheriff said. “I also am a former radio personality as well, so we kind of worked with each other, but over the last couple of years of doing a plays Tone and I would bump into each other, and Tone would be like ‘You need to put me in one of your plays’ and I’m like ‘You’re not serious.’ I would think in the back of my mind I could probably find a small role for him, and I can just make it happen. But just knowing who Tone X is personally and knowing the character that I cast him for … it was a good fit.”

Ten years in, Sheriff is looking forward to the next decade. There’s the creative side – he’s a playwright as well – but thinking big for self-sufficiency is top of mind.

“On the business side, I really would love within the next three to five years to have our own theater house,” he said. “That is the goal. Something that I would love to have – for us to not need to rent rehearsal space, or not to find rehearsal space. … The goal is to have to build Charlotte’s first state of the art theater for African American playwrights’ stories – our African American theater. There are very few of them in the country, to be honest, but I would love for Charlotte to have its very own.”  

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