Amazing Grace is Yellow - A Play

Beauford is in the air!

An increasing number of projects and programs on both sides of the Atlantic are serving to honor him and extend his legacy. These include the Gathering Light project in Knoxville, Tennessee and the Classes Duo program that connects elementary school students in Paris, France and Knoxville through Beauford’s life and art.

The latest project to emerge in France is Amazing Grace is Yellow – the life of Beauford Delaney, painter. This play, written by Silver Wainhouse, will bring Beauford’s life to the stage in three acts that follow him from Knoxville to Paris.

Background - Detail from Untitled
(circa 1960) Oil on canvas
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
An excerpt from the play’s introduction reads as follows:

Amazing Grace is Yellow was inspired when, during a conversation with Dr. Monique Wells about the life of Beauford Delaney, I said that his life should be presented in a play. She replied, “Why don’t you write it?” This play is the result of my having undertaken her challenge. Beauford Delaney is a beautiful haunt prodding all who take time to explore his richness, complexities, and beauty to make known his contribution to art.

Not surprisingly, the main characters in the play include James Baldwin

Collage of Portraits of James Baldwin by Beauford Delaney
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
Individual images reproduced
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
and Beauford’s mother, Delia.

Delia Delaney
(1933) Pastel on paper
Knoxville Museum of Art
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
Eleven additional characters, fictional and real, named and unnamed, round out the cast.

In preparation for a full stage production, a reading of Amazing Grace is Yellow has been scheduled at Columbia Global Centers | Paris, Reid Hall, on October 16, 2019. Casting for the play is currently underway.