Daysha Williams ’17 arrived in Worcester a couple of weeks ago with a Nor’easter in the forecast and a table at Da Lat awaiting her. It was like coming home.
Williams was back in the city with the touring company of STOMP, an inventive and explosive stage show in which the performers bang everyday items — from trashcan covers to broomsticks to grocery carts — to create a percussive theatrical experience of music and movement.
“I drum on everything but a drum,” laughs Williams on a call from a tour stop in Fort Myers, Florida. “By the end of the show, you’re dripping with sweat. You leave everything on the stage.”
The Brooklyn native enjoyed the stop in the Hanover Theater and Conservatory for the Performing Arts, where STOMP performed to packed houses. The show’s enduring popularity means Williams and the STOMP cast have played to full rooms across the United States, as well as on an international tour that included Canada and Dubai. Since debuting 35 years ago at the Edinburgh Festival, the show has been a musical theater staple with cross-generational appeal.
“It’s electric to look at the faces in the audience when they seem to be asking, ‘How did they do that?’ When kids come to the show, they go crazy. I love it.”
Williams’ road to STOMP included a meaningful stop at Clark. Arriving as a first-year student, she intended to pursue a career in public relations or the law. Then she took a First-Year Intensive course, “How to Act Right On and Off the Stage,” with Ray Munro, professor of theater arts.
She was hooked.
“I decided I was going to take a class with him every semester for the rest of my college career,” she recalls. After declaring a theater arts major, Williams dove in, acting in Clark stage productions and working on stage shows with the student dance club Hip Hop Collabo.
Outside of the classroom, she and Theater Professor Danny Balel collaborated on “Teaching Creativity in Main South,” a program that taught dance, acting, and improvisation to high school students at Claremont Academy, just up the road from Clark. When funding was cut, Williams brought the program to Clark’s Little Center, where she oversaw it under the direction of Professor Gino DiIorio.
In her senior year, Williams responded to a New York casting call for director Spike Lee’s 10-episode Netflix series based on his groundbreaking 1986 film, “She’s Gotta Have It.” She not only earned a part, but during production, she nailed her lone scene, earning the nickname “One Take Wonder” from the director.
“We’re both from Brooklyn, and for some reason I just knew we’d work together at some point,” Williams says of Lee. “I remember thinking, ‘You’ve been waiting to work with one of the greats. Today is the day.’”
After graduation, Williams stayed in Worcester for a year and a half to teach the Claremont students. She enjoyed living just off the Clark campus, frequenting the mom-and-pop shops and sampling the Vietnamese restaurants (visiting Da Lat on Park Avenue was high on her itinerary when she came back with STOMP).
Life was comfortable — maybe too comfortable. She received sound advice from Munro, who encouraged her to step beyond the familiarity of Worcester and bring her talents into the wider world.
“It was like, ‘Okay, Daysha, time to go,’” she recounts with a laugh. “I loved where I was, and I was having a blast. But Ray convinced me I needed to do this while I was young and had the energy. And I’m really happy he did.”
Williams returned to New York and began auditioning, which she learned is something of an art in itself. “I looked at an audition as a rehearsal. My attitude was, ‘Okay, let’s just play and have some fun.’ It took all the pressure off.”
She was working in residence on “Step Show: The Musical,” a theater piece grounded in traditions of Black culture and requiring intensive singing and dancing, when the STOMP opportunity arose. Williams wasn’t familiar with the company, but auditioned successfully, earning a spot in a five-week training regimen to learn the drumming and dancing techniques that bring the show to raucous life. Over the last year, she’s toured in cities large and small, coast to coast.
“Traveling takes a lot of getting used to, and it’s tough being away from my husband,” she acknowledges. “But I’m working with people I enjoy, and if you’re going to go on tour, do it now. This won’t last forever.”
