{"id":113007,"date":"2021-08-09T13:04:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-09T18:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=113007"},"modified":"2021-08-09T11:05:47","modified_gmt":"2021-08-09T16:05:47","slug":"former-saturday-night-live-writer-brings-the-heartbreak-henry-to-theatre-oxford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/former-saturday-night-live-writer-brings-the-heartbreak-henry-to-theatre-oxford\/","title":{"rendered":"Former “Saturday Night Live” Writer Brings “The Heartbreak Henry” to Theatre Oxford"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

UM alumnus David Sheffield’s comic recollection comes to the Ford Center<\/em><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

David Sheffield<\/strong>, a University of Mississippi<\/strong> alumnus who went on to write for “Saturday Night Live” and several Eddie Murphy<\/strong> movies, has taken to the stage with “The Heartbreak Henry<\/em>,” a comedy based on his experiences as manager of an Oxford <\/strong>flophouse hotel in 1967.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Theatre Oxford<\/strong> production runs August 12-15, 2021 with a preview August 11 in the Mary Ann Mobley\/Gary E. Collins Studio Theatre <\/strong>at the Gertrude C. Ford Center for the Performing Arts<\/strong>. Tickets can be purchased through the Ford Center Box Office at 662-915-7411.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The production is co-sponsored by the UM School of Journalism and New Media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

“The School of Journalism and New Media agreed to co-sponsor the production to provide opportunities for students to hone their professional skills,” journalism professor Kathleen Wickham<\/strong> said. “Assistant professor Michael Fagans joined the project to produce a documentary, with students Margaret Bushway, Alexander Norris, Tucker Robbins and Billy Schuerman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It was also an opportunity for me to refresh my professional skills in a new venue, having worked in public relations at one point in my professional career.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wickham said she was drawn to “The Heartbreak Henry” after seeing it in Biloxi <\/strong>in 2018 at the Center Theatre<\/strong> because of its treatment of the people who resided in the hotel in all their quirky, contentious and confused character.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“David Sheffield was an innocent freshman, just 19 years old, who was so cash-strapped he hitchhiked to campus from southern Mississippi,” she said. “He landed a job at the Henry Hotel as a theater major and had compassion for his tenants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It was that humanity that attracted me to this project and why I worked to bring it to Oxford.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Henry Hotel was built in 1920. It had 30 guest rooms, but none had in-room telephones, just a pay phone in the lobby. In 1967, rooms cost $4.50 a night, $5.50 with a bath in the room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Henry became a residential hotel in the 1970s, with rooms renting for $45 a month. Later, the building was turned into the Abbey Apartments. In the late 1990s, it was the offices of The Oxford American<\/em> magazine. Since 2015, the concrete building, with its gable-and-hip roof, box cornice, molded frieze and closed gable ends, has been home to Rafter’s<\/strong> bar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The play features some of the cranky characters who frequented the run-down hotel during Sheffield’s tenure as manager. To Sheffield’s horror, he had to evict two waitresses with illegal social side gigs on a snowy Christmas Eve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This story happened about 50 years ago,” said Sheffield, who lives near Laurel. “I met a bunch of characters I couldn’t get out of my mind. At the Henry, the unexpected was the norm.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The show is also supported through grants from the Mississippi Arts Commission<\/strong>, the Ford Center and the Clancy Collins<\/strong> fund, as well as community donors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I went to Ole Miss for an education, but the real education took place at the Henry Hotel,” Sheffield said. “I saw things at the Henry I never saw at home.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sheffield was co-screenwriter of the “Coming To\/2 America”<\/em>\u00a0movies, “The Nutty Professor<\/em>,” “Boomerang”<\/em>\u00a0and other Eddie Murphy movies, but he never forgot his stint at the Henry Hotel. With “The Heartbreak Henry,”\u00a0<\/em>Sheffield is returning full circle to Oxford, where his career as a comedy writer began.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By LaReeca Rucker<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UM alumnus David Sheffield’s comic recollection comes to the Ford Center David Sheffield, a University of Mississippi alumnus<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":238,"featured_media":113013,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15944],"tags":[19050,19057,5,7067,4,8924,1673,655],"class_list":["post-113007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-theatre","tag-david-sheffield","tag-ht-live-and-several","tag-mississippi","tag-ole-miss","tag-oxford","tag-saturday-night-live","tag-theatre-oxford","tag-university-of-mississippi"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/David-Sheffield.jpg?fit=1200%2C630&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}