We met at the Huntington Hotel, a storied 1914 landmark in Pasadena that’s now part of The Langham’s luxury portfolio. As I stepped into the lobby, the air felt thick with history, but the atmosphere lightened when I spotted the playwright. Vincent Terrell Durham looked relieved to see me, offering a wide, genuine smile as he greeted me.
Even his attire felt intentional. His sweatshirt featured his initials in bold white print, a subtle nod to the identity he has worked hard to claim.
“This place is fancy,” he remarked with a chuckle as we began our trek through the hotel’s opulent corridors. Beneath our feet, polished marble floors mirrored the ornate wall sconces and crystal chandeliers. As we walked, I shared fragments of the grounds’ history, of the luminaries and legends who had walked these same halls over the past century.
We settled into the Clara Vista bungalow, a secluded space that felt both timeless and cinematic. Scanning the dark wood and vintage architecture, I couldn’t help but joke that the suite looked like a “vampire’s vacation home.” We shared a long, easy laugh that broke whatever formality remained, and then, amidst the shadows and the shine, we began.
Vincent Terrell Durham: The Man Behind the Shadow
Born in Binghamton, New York, Durham is a man of many voices, but for a long time, he struggled to find his own.
“I was a stand-up comic for about 10 years, which led to me realizing I preferred writing what goes on stage. About 12 years ago, I wrote my first play about my family, imagining my mother’s life as a teenager. The audience responded, and I realized, ‘Oh, I actually have a play.’”
“Playground LA was a big start—writing 10-minute plays on a deadline. It gave me the chance to see my work in front of an audience with real actors,” he says. His 2020 short Masking Our Blackness about racism and white privilege was a winner in the 2020 Samuel French Off Broadway Short Play Festival.
“That led to full-length plays like The Fertile River and Polar Bears, Black Boys & Prairie Fringed Orchids. The latter got a lot of attention during the pandemic because it deals with BLM and police violence.”
His latest work, Running After Shadows, is set to make its world premiere at City Lights Theater Company in San Jose this week. The production runs through February 8 at the downtown San Jose stage.
The solo play features a single actor inhabiting nearly 20 different characters. But beneath the technical “beast” of the performance lies a deeply personal excavation of the playwright’s own life.
The production features UC Santa Cruz-trained Bay Area actor, podcaster and stand-up comedian James Arthur M., who plays budding gourmet Morgan Collins. The character has graduated from buying cookware at a 99-cent store to livestreaming a garlic press unboxing on Instagram.
Collins is enthusiastic about having upgraded from a steady diet of skinless boneless chicken breasts to Pasta Bolognese and is now sourcing aromatics like fresh basil. “The only garlic in my kitchen used to be garlic powder,” he tells the audience. “I can’t wait for a recipe that calls for me to press 44 cloves of garlic.”
As the boxes of ingredients arrive, an inadvertent and macabre discovery brings him face-to-face with childhood memories and the pain left by his father’s absence during his formative years. Instagram commenters serve as both Greek chorus and therapist as Collins dives deep into his emotional wounds.
From Commission to Connection
The play was conceived during the Covid shutdown to create digital content for a locked-down world. Durham originally wrote the piece for the small screen. After the world reopened, the script evolved.
“During the pandemic, everything was shut down. My performances were shut down, and the artistic director at City Lights, Lisa, wanted to keep theater going,” he said. “She commissioned several BIPOC playwrights to write something for video.
“I wrote the play and we initially streamed it for a week or so. Then the pandemic faded, a couple of years went by, and Lisa circled back and said, ‘You know what? We should put this on stage since we’re back live.’
“I don’t know if I grew as a writer or if I let down some walls,” he said. “I think I might have become more honest with myself because the play is about my relationship with my father.”
“When I first sat down to write it, I didn’t want to let down every wall I had. By the time we were ready for the stage, I was more honest.”
The Art of Forgiveness
Running After Shadows examines the emotional bruises of childhood, processing them and moving on. “It’s about respecting and understanding that people have trauma you have no idea about. That trauma might touch you, but it has nothing to do with you.”
“The core is coming to terms with the shit that’s happened in your life and learning to forgive the people who gave it to you. I think the message I’m really trying to get across is forgiveness,” he says.
Durham is candid about the difficulty of his own message, jokingly calling himself a “hypocrite” for writing a play about a phone call of forgiveness he has yet to make himself.
“It’s probably more fear than pride stopping me,” he admits. “But I want the audience to walk out and perhaps make the call they’ve been putting off.”
Durham’s favorite scene in the play is drawn in part from a real event. “It’s not 100% true, but it’s based on an incident. I’ve had a weird, unhealthy relationship with my stepfather, and, of course, my father, which the play is really about.
“But there was this one time, as a kid, that I was with my stepfather, and we ran into my father. I probably hadn’t seen my father in years. And these two men started talking to each other about me. And my stepfather said, ‘You need to come around more often.’
“So my stepfather’s telling this man to take care of me or to come see me. And it was interesting, because my stepfather was not very kind to me. And so, watching him do this act of kindness on my behalf, was… was strange. But it, but when I massaged that incident and put it into the play, it gave me a different perspective of my stepfather.
“You know, there was kindness in my stepfather that I didn’t always see, but that memory made me realize that he probably was a multi-layered person. And as a child, you don’t always see that.”
San Jose Premiere
The choice of San Jose as the premiere’s home was a natural one for Durham. Despite receiving interest from theaters nationwide, his bond with City Lights—a relationship nurtured entirely online until last year—proved fortuitous.
“The venue could have been anywhere, but the people involved couldn’t have been just anyone,” Durham says. “Lisa cared about me as a playwright. They made me feel valued.”
As the curtain rises on Jan. 22, Durham will be where he always is: in the very back row. He won’t be watching the stage; he’ll be watching the audience, waiting for that specific moment where the weight of trauma is punctured by a healing burst of laughter.
When asked what he would tell his younger self, as a man who spent years hiding his inclinations in favor of a more “acceptable” masculinity, Durham has a simple, three-word directive: “Be free. In the open.”
“Growing up as a gay kid, anything artistic was moved out of the way. … My family knew, and knowing that, they tried to redirect my energy. “I grew up in the ’70s. My inclination was to reenact scenes from Wonder Woman, but the direction was that I should be the $6 Million Man. Once I was able to leave home, I explored.”
Durham is looking forward to this week’s opening. “This is my very first world premiere that I’m actually being paid as a playwright,” he says.
“It would be nice if, at the end of the play, people walked out and made that phone call they were supposed to make—to make amends or forgive,” he says. “I say that, and I’m a hypocrite, because I’ve been with this play for three years and it hasn’t prompted me to make the phone call I need to make. It’s probably more fear than pride stopping me.”
