Arts & Culture

Chicago of the ‘70s comes to Cleveland in ‘Sugar: The Stage Play’

By Kabir Bhatia

Published August 30, 2022 at 2:02 PM EDT

Charles Reed and Renada Soul (center) are the leads in Gloria Shea's "Sugar," premiering September 17 at Cuyahoga Community College. [Kabir Bhatia / Ideastream Public Media]

Gloria Shea sells insurance by day, yet she’s been a fan of storytelling since her childhood in Cleveland. She’ll produce her very first script, “ Sugar: The Stage Play,” at Cuyahoga Community College’s John P. Murphy Foundation Theatre on September 17.

The play should not be confused with the 1970s Broadway production “Sugar.” That short-lived musical was based on the film “Some Like It Hot.” “Sugar: The Stage Play” owes a debt to classic Blaxploitation movies like “Across 110 ^th Street” and “Black Caesar.”

"It is a story of a young fella who gets caught up in the game,” she said. “He grows up with a young fellow named Levi, who is Jewish. They grow up in the same urban neighborhood. Then they grow up to be like blood brothers, and Levi brings him into the game. But Sugar comes in, and Sugar's a natural-born leader.”

From there, it’s a tale of their success and where Sugar sees his life heading.

“I've heard, I can't even tell you how many times, that this should be set to film,” she said. “Our director, by the way, who is also a local Clevelander, and he's very well-known for films [and] he actually had shot a lot of films here, his name is Joseph Billups. And the next thing that he would like to do is put the play to film.”

Angela Thomas (left) and Donna McCain in rehearsal. [Kabir Bhatia / Ideastream Public Media]

Shea was inspired to create characters while growing up in Cleveland in the 1970s, listening to radio shows like “CBS Radio Mystery Theater.”

“That was my first introduction to characters and I was enamored with it,” she said. “It was very thrilling for me, and it just took me to another world… I would just get caught up in it.”

The play includes original music, and many of the actors are Cleveland-based singers such as Charles Reed (Sugar) and Noire Whitehead (Lola). Yet with its North Coast roots, some may wonder why she set the play in Chicago.

“I just really don't have a great answer for that,” she said. “It just kind of flowed into the storyline. I love Chicago as well as loving my own hometown. But we're like a miniature Chicago here. There's a lot of similarities.”