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When an Actor Writes
by Holly Bass

On sight you might mistake him for an athlete—albeit one with a mischievous and lively intelligence dancing in his eyes—rather than a playwright. But despite the reputation he’s gained for his forceful and sensitive plays, Javon Johnson considers himself an actor first and foremost. “All my undergrad and graduate training is as an actor,” he says. “I write from voices that begin to speak in my head. I just trust that dialogue—that it will evolve into something at the end.” Though only 29 years old, the ambitious thespian has seen professional stagings of eight of his plays, is a founding member of the Congo Square Theater in Chicago and has appeared on stage, on television and in film.

Johnson’s theatre career began in earnest when a high school friend needed a last-minute partner for an acting competition. “After the first three or four weeks of competition, we were losing It dawned on me that I was the reason we were losing. I was terrible.” He had an epiphany after seeing Danny Glover in the film The Color Purple. “Watching him I realized, ‘Wow, that’s what I’m supposed to be doing,’ so I got serious about it. We came in first-runner-up, and the next year we were the winners for the state competition.”

While attending graduate school at the University of Pittsburgh, Johnson met August Wilson, who soon became his mentor. “I encountered Wilson’s work first as an actor. I realized that there was something special in his work, and in turn I realized that there was something special that I had to do in the theatre as an artist, particularly as a black artist.” Like Wilson, Johnson finds tremendous inspiration in music, often listening to blues, classic soul and the occasional hip-hop track as he writes into the wee hours of the morning. His plays come out of the black experience and focus on the intimacies and intricacies of personal relationships.

This season, Johnson will have three plays produced, including his latest work, Runaway Home, at the Studio Theatre in Washington, D.C., and Atlanta’s Horizon Theatre. Set in Johnson’s hometown of Anderson, S.C., the play tells the story of BettyAnn, a single mother of five balancing the responsibilities of child-raising versus her desire to live her own life.

All these plays, plus the birth of twin boys last year, leave precious little time for his acting career (though he and his young sons appeared this past summer in a Hanes commercial). “I always felt it was selfish for actors to be in their own work,” he says, “but it became very difficult for me to get work as an actor because people knew me as a writer. So I’ve had to do some of my own work in order to get on stage!” Next January, Johnson will appear in the Pittsburgh production of Cryin’ Shame at Kontu Repertory Theatre, reprising the role of Sherman (played by Malcolm Jamal-Warner in the play’s L.A. premiere).

Freelance writer Holly Bass is a regular contributor to Washington City Paper.