Local Treasures: Ruby O’Gray

Have I got a story to tell you …

by

Ruby O’Gray would be perfect doing the role of Ruby O’Gray in a one-woman show. It’s not just that she knows the material. It’s the role of a lifetime.

This is the era of her 70s, which is to say she’s 74 and has written 78 plays. That theatrical output — and more — comes with recognition, including the 2023 Ostrander Awards, where she received the prestigious Eugart Yerian Lifetime Achievement Award for representing “the spirit of change and evolution.”

In 2017, Women of Achievement honored O’Gray and Karen Moore for their visionary efforts in creating The Women’s Theatre Festival of Memphis. The festival’s inaugural event was in 2012 and has celebrated the work done by women in the theatrical world. And the festival established the Gyneka Awards presented to women in theater who have been making a difference.

O’Gray’s story, of course, is not about her awards but about the road taken that resulted in the attention and honors she’s received. And nobody is better than this superb storyteller to share her own story. Imagine you’re in a theater looking at a stage that’s described in the program as “her place.” It could, in fact, be anywhere since she dominates any location she happens to occupy. Imagine that she’s just invited you in, has you sit down, and is looking at you with her friendly face and lively eyes that are promising to share some memorable tales.

[It begins with a voiceover:]

My mother passed away at 42. I was 17 years old. I was a dropout in school because of it.

[Ruby rolls onstage in her wheelchair, taking her time.]

In those years, I was the only girl between five boys — two older brothers and three after. And so I was kind of tomboy-ish, tough. I had to be, or else they would’ve beat me up. I couldn’t talk to my brothers. But my mom indoctrinated me with movies. I had to find fantasy because there was nobody to play dolls with me or anything like that. I had a really big imagination and didn't know it. I thought everybody acted the same that way. So she got me watching movies with her. And when I watched them, I saw people from the 1930s. I’m 74 now and that’s what was on television at that time. Nobody would bother me because Mama was watching it with me on our black-and-white TV. We saw the movies of Kitty Kelly and Bette Davis and they were my heroes.

I never really saw a lot of people like me except in one way: They were working for some other people, but they were never the head of anything. I never saw anything that said that they were the big leaders, but they were always loved for their cooking or for all of those things. I thought all that was great and I didn’t think anything bad about it. My whole thing was about watching movies and watch people be different people. And mom didn’t lead me that way — I came up just being different.

When I was a little bitty girl, I played the piano with my grandmother. Singing and writing came at age 10, and when I started writing, I’d just go in the closet, right? Because if I didn’t hide my dolls, my brothers would cut their hair off. So I’d go in there with my dolls and talk to them and made up stories of how my dolls and I traveled. So I was a writer from the time I was a little girl. And I wrote songs. I wrote, just wrote, because there was not a lot I could talk about to other people.

Mama also let me know about all of the greatest singers who were of color. It was true that I liked Dinah Shore and that was because she had Mahalia Jackson on. Anybody who would have somebody that was of my nationality I wanted to see.

For four-and-a-half years, Mama had cancer but didn’t tell me about it. When I did find out, I knew that I could go to other places with my imagination. I could do anything — but I couldn’t sit there and cry in front of her. I dropped out of school in the 11th grade to take care of her because I was the only girl and had to do that. I got my lessons at home. I was 17 when she died.

That was hard. But there was someone else who helped me shape my life.

My grandmother worked for a lot of — I’m going to say it just like she did — a whole lot of rich white folks who are very big names in Memphis today. I’d gone to work with my grandmother when I was young, too. I had these two women that influenced my life to be, well, open. I didn’t know that’s what I was, but I had a big mouth and I still do. And if I say I’ll do it, then I’m going to do it.

I learned a whole lot about other people. I never would’ve known about another race of people without my grandmother. I heard on television about things that we couldn’t do because of the color of our skin, and I didn’t understand any of that, but my grandmother helped me get it. But the important part of what I learned from her was about goodness in people rather than the color of their skin.

As I grew older, I learned how my grandmother was tough as nails. The people she worked for loved her and when I was with her at her work, I was treated well. Except for one lady who said the n-word to me. Grandmother told her she would not work for her again.

I went to New York right after my mother died. I knew all about being a maid because of my grandmother. And I’d learned a lot about people between what my mother and grandmother taught me. In New York. I lived with a wealthy family who had a son who was blind. They got me to be the maid there, although they didn’t call me that — I was the housekeeper and babysitter. I learned so much from them about their lives as well as Jewish culture and things like that.

Thanks to them, I discovered Broadway and I had a big realization: I had been doing theater since I was a little bitty girl. I didn’t know I was doing theater, I just performed. I sang. I tap danced because Shirley Temple taught me on TV.

But I was also aware that while I was in New York, I’d never seen people of color in any positions other than something that had to do with civil rights and trying to get the right to do things or to be somewhere. As I grew older, I noticed the differences more, and then I noticed the things that were alike, but more different than anything. I kept all this in mind even as I was thinking about and learning about entertainment.

At some point, I felt I had to go back to Memphis. I lived in Midtown near the Beale Street Repertory Company where I met Levi Frazier, and also nearby was Circuit Playhouse. Behind it was this kind of ragged-looking place where people rehearsed. So, I got to know everybody. I got to know Jackie Nichols, who founded Circuit and Playhouse on the Square. I lived there from 1970 to 1981 and I saw theater all the time. And I really wanted to be on that stage. I was already on stage at church teaching Sunday school and the Wednesday night Bible class and stuff like that. But I wanted to write things.

[Pause. Takes a sip of water.]

So that’s my beginnings. And today, I have 78 plays I’ve written.

[Takes another sip.]

I got to know more people, and I auditioned and I pretty much got the roles I wanted. I went to Southwest Tennessee Community College because I wanted to get my education. I had six children, three girls and triplet boys. So in the mid-1970s, they were old enough for me to be able to go to school and really hit the stage. I auditioned, and I acted, but mostly I liked writing plays.

I was simply writing stories about people, and I was not just writing about being a person of color. I wanted to show how people were more alike than different. I couldn’t go around fussing at anybody about whatever they did or didn’t do. Because of my background, I’ve been very comfortable with people all my life. I don’t care where they came from and I owe that to my grandmother. I write a lot of Memphis stories based on little bits that I knew about family.

The best compliment I ever heard was from a Caucasian man who saw one of my plays and said, “I thought it was going to be a Black play because everybody in it was Black. But it could have been about anybody.” I thanked him, because that’s what I wanted to hear. I wanted to hear somebody say, This is about people. There are a lot of things that are alike about people and then the things that are different, we learn from. And if you can see it on stage and see it live, and within this city, maybe we’ll start to get that idea that culture is more than the color of your skin.

We may fall in love with other people that other people don’t think you should. We may not like some of the same things, or we love some of the same things. But the more you get to know people, the more you find that out.

I was bowled over by my grandmother telling me that I was always good enough for anything. And that’s kind of what’s led me to create the Women’s Theater Festival of Memphis, and things like that. Now, I’ve had medical issues, and the pandemic stopped some of that, but I’m on my way back to do whatever it is at 74 and that’s what I’m going to do.

Right now, I’m working on my “mistress piece.” I know people say masterpiece, but this is my mistress piece and it’s called Dress Tale, and it’s a May-December play. Watch for it!

[Pause. Takes a sip of water. Retrieves an award and gazes at it.]

Now let me tell you about the Women’s Theater Festival of Memphis. For 15 years I wanted to do it, but I didn’t have like-minded people who thought that we could. I understood that the people who were saying “they’re not going to let us do it” meant it would take so much money to happen. Well, I want to openly thank one man for allowing something to happen when I presented the idea. And that’s Jackie Nichols. I went to Jackie and I said, I have no money, but I can get it. I’ve done things in a lot of places. I’ve performed in a lot of places and I know a few people that I met.

I’d been going to theater festivals for years. I’d met Sidney Poitier, Robert Guillaume, and other notables in the theater world. I kept in touch. And I knew Karen Moore, a Memphian and an accomplished actress who had been making movies in Italy. I sat down with Karen and she asked me how I was going to do a women’s theater festival. I told her, like I told Jackie, that I had no money at the moment, but I had enough plays to make money.

I was working for Job Corps, as a diversity coordinator working in recreation and education. I talked to Jackie about the students coming and ushering and other students coming for $5 on a particular night to see shows. I told him, “I need Circuit Playhouse, and I guarantee you let me do my play there for three nights and I’ll be able to make the money at $25 a ticket so that you can take the money and it’ll pay for everything and I’ll be able to get some other money.” We put in for grants and we did it. Didn’t have much left, but everything was paid for.

We had the festival. And we had the Gyneka Awards. From there on, I have never thought that I couldn’t do anything. That’s just the way I think. And I have to carry that attitude, because there have been challenges. Both my husband and I have been dealing with health issues. And of course the pandemic brought things to a halt. But I’m not going to stop and cry about it. I’m going to do whatever I have to do.

[Pause. Gets up from her wheelchair and gingerly walks with her cane to a podium.]

I got my humor from my grandmother. I don’t mince words. I say whatever I feel but I am quick to apologize to anybody because that’s the way you’re supposed to do when you said something that you shouldn’t or you need to tell people that you love them every day. You don’t know if you’ll see them tomorrow. I’m that kind of person. Got a temper. But I’ve learned to guide it. I’ve learned. I used to talk hard to actors for a while, but I learned better and I’m a much better person than I used to be.

We’ve had challenges. I didn’t do any of this without challenges, but if it weren’t for my husband, I wouldn’t have been able to do any of these things. I have to say that if I don’t say anything else.

But remember what I said before: If I say I’ll do it, then I’m going to do it.