Inside the
Summer Issue:
Harry Chapin’s
“Ripple” of Influence
Grows Every Day
Jen Chapin Leads Us
On A Lushly-Written
Journey Into Her Life
In “Ready”
WHY Takes Holistic
Approach to Fight
Hunger & Poverty
DMC’s New Disc
Strikes Many Chords
Hard Rock Café
Serves Up Benefit CD
to Fight Hunger
When Howie Met Harry:
Catching Up With
Drummer Howard Fields
Performing Artist
Inspires Audiences
Through Prose
Celestial Cross-Pollination
Yields a Harry Chapin-
Dante Anthology of
Student Essays
Amish Farmers’ Co-op
Finds Innovation in
Simpler Ways
Still Wild About Harry
Behind the CD “Cause”
Do Something!
Click below
to read previous
issues of Circle!
Performing Artist Inspires
Audiences Through Prose
by Freddy Zalta
Thomas Gossom Jr. has been blessed with good timing – and he’s making the most of it.
Fans might know him best as a guest star on TV in such hits as Boston Legal and The West Wing. He has also appeared in the feature films XXX 2, Fight Club and Jeepers Creepers II and played principal roles in Miss Evers' Boys for HBO and Miracle in the Woods for CBS. But acting is only a part of Gossom’s life and livelihood.
Born in time to be the first generation to enjoy the benefits of integration, Gossam knows that he was blessed with opportunities that his parents and theirs before were denied. He knew from a young age how important it was to rise above the taunts and the hatred and how important it was to succeed so the torch could be passed to the next generation.
He was also blessed with parents who were strong and sensitive enough to instill in him the faith that dreams can come true with hard work and dedication. His mother instilled a love of the written word.
“You know how most people will listen to music and bop along to the beat? Well, I always listened to the words,” Gossom said. “I wanted to hear what the person had to say. I wanted to hear the story.”
Recently Gossom drove with his father through the town where he grew up. They hit all the old familiar places. But one place in particular stood out for him.
As if right out of a Harry Chapin song, it was the local barber shop. The barber shop was always a place where Gossom could watch, listen and learn about men and life in general, he explained. “There, they’d sit around and talk for hours, sharing their dreams, their hopes, and old stories,” he said.
That barber shop has recently become the imaginary setting for his one man live dramatic performance show, Speak of me as I am, where Gossom brings to life in front of audiences the diverse prose of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., political leader and activist Robert Kennedy, poet Maya Angelou, singers and songwriters Harry Chapin and Marvin Gaye, the hip-hop artist snaPz, and others.
“I think the people whose words I dramatize are some of the most indomitable spirits of my lifetime,” Gossom said. “Basically, the show is a lecture presentation surrounded by dramatics. I speak the words of Dr. King, Sen. Robert Kennedy, Maya Angelou and others and then there are the voices that speak through music. The audience will hear Harry Chapin’s Taxi, Elton John’s Indian Sunset and Don Henley’s In a New York Minute.”
The show is a compilation of some dramatic pieces that he has performed for years, and he modifies it depending on the situation, Gossom said. Recently, the Center for Diversity at Gossom’s alma mater Auburn University hosted his performance, so he tailored it to include voices that have brought about change, made people think, and inspired action, he said.
The words he shares can be very powerful.
He remembered the time he sang Cats in the Cradle and heard the gasp from a man in the audience when he sang the words: “As I hung up the phone it occurred to me, he’d grown up just like me; my boy was just like me.”
“I could feel the recognition that time had passed and this father was missing the time he should have spent with his children, time that can never be recaptured,” he said.
Or the words of RFK right after he was fatally shot. “Rosie Greer was his friend and one of his body guards and he was first to Bobby Kennedy. Once the bullets struck, Bobby pulled him close and whispered, ‘Is everyone alright?’
“The special human beings are the ones who care for others, who live their lives with the goal of making this world a better place,” he added.
Mr. Gossom also mentioned the phone call he received from a stranger. The gentleman on the phone told the story of having seen one of Mr. Gossom’s performances. “You inspired me to make a difference in this world,” the man told him.
Gossam, who is an active member of the NAACP, the Auburn Magazine Advisory Board, and the Academy of Television, hopes his audiences will walk away inspired to make a difference in their own lives.
“I hope those that come experience 90 minutes of fun, sorrow, and thought. If it makes you think about some of the things you heard, then I’ve done what I came to do.”
Watch for the Next Issue of Circle! on September 7