Inside Britton Smith’s “Water Church,” Where Homophobia Is Washed Away

Maddy Talias

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As I enter the Chelsea Hotel, I am instantly reminded of the venue’s hosting of iconic musicians and artists, many of whom once called it home, from Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe to Bob Dylan and Madonna.

Another New York legend-in-the-making, Britton Smith, is seated in the hotel’s ultra-chic cafe, tucked away in a low-lit winding hall behind the reception desk. At 34, Smith is Black, queer, and a force to be reckoned with, both on and off the Broadway stage. As a performer, he leads rousing live shows with his funk-soul band, Britton and the Sting, which often feel more like all-consuming spiritual experiences – Black church revivals, even – than your average standing-room-only concert. Among his Broadway credits: starring as Jake Dillinger in the original 2019 production of the Tony Award-nominated musical, Be More Chill.

Off-stage, Smith leads Broadway Advocacy Coalition as an acting co-founder and artistic director. Since 2016, he has worked as a facilitator of tough conversations between actors, crew, and the powers that be on Broadway, essential exchanges many industries were only beginning to have in the wake of 2020’s racial reckoning via Black Lives Matter. As such, Smith’s work aims to upend and challenge racist, status-quo workplace practices on Broadway. His mission has always been true diversity in the arts, not just in on-stage casting, but in roles of power, including directing and producing. It’s not easy to take on an industry like the great white way – the largest in the world for theater – and yet, Smith and his team do it day in and day out. For their work, BAC earned a Special Tony Award in 2021.

I’m also proud that I was able to exist in a white institution, because honey, that was not easy. These institutions are not made to hold prayers — not even if they wanted to.

Smith’s life as an artist, like many, did not start out with awards and recognition. The Dallas native moved to New York at 18 to pursue a BFA in Musical Theatre at Pace University, taking with him a history of shame and self-doubt. Growing up queer and active in the church, he internalized the homophobia often imposed on him by his surroundings. But for the last fifteen years, Smith has dedicated himself to subverting and overcoming that shame, by creating and uplifting healing spaces for all – no matter their spiritual past or present.

“It’s nice to come into a room and have it affirmed that your wholeness is all you need to access the divine,” Smith tells me. “Ain’t nothing broke with you. Ain’t nothing wrong with you.”

And now with MAMA, an immersive theatrical concert experience, Smith has created a culmination of all his work to-date, honoring his roots, a communal spirituality, and water as the mother of all beings. The first five shows, held earlier this summer on the Manhattan outdoor performance space Little Island, all sold out. Smith’s vision continues to reach broader and more diverse audiences, where concertgoers can experience transformation from the inside out. At these performances, strangers cried, held one another, and connected in ways they ordinarily wouldn’t.

Ahead of his next MAMA show on September 22 at Nublu, Britton Smith and I talk about growing up in the church, finding redemption through the water cycle, and coming full circle with his own mother.

You’re a theater practitioner, advocate, musician, soul leader, church organizer, the list goes on. What connects the threads of your many forms of offering?

Because I know where the divine lives, I try to make everything I create be like a magnet back to that. The Sting is where I’m most authentic; it’s where I learned how my body feels free. I’m a little this, a little of that, and I’ve tried to learn to love all.

In what ways would you say your childhood set the stage for your multidisciplinary creative practice?

I had a lonely childhood. I was isolated, very bright, but teased constantly. My mom and dad divorced when I was two. My dad’s father was a pastor, but we weren't really close. My mom had us in church. It was also daycare, so we were there all the time. I found music in church. I found joy in church. I also found shame in church. Church was where I first felt that there was something dark in me, where I felt there was something wrong with me — and there was no one to talk about it with. So I wrote songs. When I look back on my life, music is a character that has always been a voice of comfort. It said, ‘Come here. Your mom said what to you? Come here, I got you.’ Music was the homie.

Your art acts as a vehicle to transmute that feeling of inner-darkness you felt growing up into shame-free experiences for yourself and others. How do you approach that transformation?

In our shows, I always share before I sing. I’ll say something like, ‘I wrote this song as medicine for me, because I felt so much pain in this part of my body that I think stems from shame.’ For a long time, I felt isolated in my pain. The sharing of it turned into a space where people could be like, ‘Bitch, me the fuck, too.’ We can all be in this crockpot of like, ‘Yeah, I felt horrible in that elevator being the only Black person, too. And I don’t want to lie when I walk into white spaces anymore. You’re right, that does make my chest go small.’ And so if you’re Black and you’ve ever fucking felt that, we’re going to spend the next six minutes rolling our shoulders back together. We’re going to use this time as a spiritual gym, because when we walk out of this theater, we’re all leaving a little taller, knowing that we live in a society where they want to be like us. That’s the church of it all.

Your work is as much about feeding the spirit as it is putting on a show.

I think what’s beautiful about traditional church is that, in its purest form, it's people gathering to collectively connect to something. Concerts are set up to offer a similar experience. There’s this sense of expectation that creates an energetic invitation to the universe to show up to that experience; we’re all gonna go into this room to witness Emily King or Beyoncé, and the energy that comes from our bodies does invite something into the room. I see it in our shows all the time. We’ll say, ‘We’re about to go up, and if you want to go up, here we go.’ And then it happens, and it’s shocking, and we all go like, ‘Holy shit! We all just went up!’ It’s nice to come into a room and practice that, and have it affirmed that your wholeness is all you need to access the divine. Ain’t nothing broke with you. Ain’t nothing wrong with you. The world is sick, but you are that bitch.

I want to transition to the Broadway Advocacy Coalition, which you played a part in establishing. Can you tell me about what inspired this project and some of the work you’ve done with it?

We founded BAC in 2016. At the time, we were artists in a show on Broadway called Shuffle Along. It was an all-Black cast, with Audra McDonald starring, George C. Wolfe directing, Savion Glover choreographing. The Blackest, biggest stars were in this thing. I was like 22 at the time, and I remember thinking, ‘I matter!’ But then I’d look on the news and I’d watch my brothers and sisters — people who look like my cousins — being murdered. And then I’d be getting paid to be on the stage in an all-Black show with an all-white audience. It made me think: Who am I, and where am I in this fight? Does this fight need me?

We realized we needed to build our capacity to understand how to participate politically and how to use our gifts outside the stage. So we partnered with the Columbia Law School and started Broadway for Black Lives Matter, which brought leaders in the arts not just to sing and raise money, but to have conversations with lawyers and advocates. It illuminated that if you want to make change, go to people who are already doing that work, then that collision can create art that has the potential of having impact outside of a lovely [rendition of] “Lean On Me” during a rally.

When we die, all the water in our bodies returns to the water cycle. No matter what we do, no matter how we die, we return to the source.

In the wake of the uprisings of 2020, Broadway was one of many institutions that promised to do better in terms of treating people of color in their workplaces. Nearly five years later, what’s your perspective on the work that’s been done?

I think that the Broadway industry’s heart is in the right place, but even its heart can’t push the body that was created before 2020 in a timely manner. Broadway may seem like it’s about fun and making theater, but it’s really a major fucking industry. We’re in the Olympics of theater in New York. There’s no other place in the world that has this type of prominence when it comes to theater, so there’s a level of responsibility that's easily shucked. That said, a lot of change has happened: We’re seeing more producers of color, and I think this will continue to grow. But that’s a body game. It’s about numbers and not necessarily awakening. If we just employ more creators of color but with the same muzzles, then what’s really happening?

Getting to MAMA, I was transfixed by the show’s exploration of water as a symbol of creation, femininity, and rebirth. What drew you to this subject?

I recognized that water is a living thing. Then my theater brain needed to personify it, to be like, ‘Hey, girl, talk to me. I’m here to learn about you.’ So, I would get in the water, and be there thinking, ‘You’re so flowy, you’re so wet, you’re so abundant. God, you’re so beautiful.’ And the more I did that, the more I realized, ‘Oh my God, water is Mama.’ She’s our mother. She’s literally the ultimate giver. All of life depends on her. Every single thing needs her. Nothing can be born or sustained without her. She’s our mother. And mothers want to teach us shit.

What did she teach you?

I think I built a water church — a place for us to remember all of these sacred facts. For instance, when we die, all the water in our bodies returns to the water cycle. No matter what we do, no matter how we die, we return to the source. I grew up thinking I was going to hell. What if someone had told me, “Yeah, baby, the church says that, but what’s bigger than the church is nature. And nature says no matter how you love, no matter what you do, you will return back to this holy sacred thing. One day, you’ll become rain.”

MAMA sold out every night of its run. How did it feel to see so many people come see this work and respond to it?

How did it feel? How did it feel? It was the most challenging thing I’ve ever done. It’s the hardest performance I’ve ever had. I was proud that I could spend six months writing music, collaborating with my band mates, finding a story, sharing it. It also affirmed that though I am a Black queer artist, my ability to gather isn’t limited to that identity. I saw old white women raising their hands at the show. I saw little babies raising their hands. I’m proud that people not only came, but participated. I’m also proud that I was able to exist in a white institution, because honey, that was not easy. These institutions are not made to hold prayers — not even if they wanted to.

And I understand your mother came to see the show. What did mama have to say about MAMA?

My mom kicked me out of the house once when I was 11. She used to be very ‘my way or the highway.’ And the music has changed her. But really, it’s the community that the music creates that has really impressed her. I watched my mom meet Qween Jean recently. The proximity to a saint like Qween just cracked her [open]. It was all she needed to reconsider some of the things she thought about trans women, truly. Now she’s like, ‘That’s my daughter. I got so much clothes at the house I don’t wear no more, let me send some to her.’

From the Black Panther Party to Black Trans Liberation, organizers Ericka Huggins and Qween Jean discuss solidarity and the struggle for trans liberation.

You mentioned taking a lot of pride with this piece. I’m curious how that pride has shown up in the form of gratitude?

I’m grateful that my eyes are big, and my mouth is wide, and my arms are long, and that my booty is high, because it makes people somehow feel safe around me to go, ‘You know what? That man gave me an invitation that I’m going to take.’ I love that access to humanity, and I feel it back. Music is a cyclical thing. It’s recyclable. When I feel it going out, I also feel it coming in. I feel humbled that God saw me as a kid and said, ‘I hear you. You are going to be a vessel. You are not a dark gay person destined to ruin society with your ideas of love. You are able to share love.’

This interview has been edited and condensed.

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Originally Appeared on them.