When Opera Memphis staged a production of “Porgy and Bess” at the city’s Orpheum Theater in the fall of 2006, at least two love stories played in the room. One focused on Gershwin’s titular operatic characters; the other, two high school students in the audience.
Talibah Safiya and Bertram Williams Jr. were different kinds of teenagers. Growing up, Ms. Safiya, 30, a self-proclaimed “theatre nerd,” walked around her childhood home singing songs from “A Chorus Line,” “Hairspray,” “Chicago” and “Dreamgirls.”
Mr. Williams, 32, was two grade years ahead of Ms. Safiya at Overton High School, a creative and performing arts school in Memphis that he transferred to after struggling in a conventional school.
“I had regular truancy issues,” said Mr Williams, adding that he had not yet developed an interest in creative pursuits when he arrived at Overton. “I was more into keeping up with the latest Jordans, spending time at parties and trying to befriend as many young ladies as I could,” he said.
Mrs. Safiya said she first noticed Mr. Williams in the hallways. The two were later introduced by a mutual friend, and Ms. Safiya said she then started telling other students that she was in love with Mr. Williams.
“It was definitely a strategy,” Ms Safiya said.
That evening at the Orpheum, on a school trip to the theater, Mr. Williams asked Mrs. Safiya to sit next to him.
Some couples, who recall an early experience of seeing a movie or play together, might be expected to say something about not being able to focus on the stage or the screen, so engrossed taken by their budding romance. Not Mrs. Safiya and Mr. Williams.
What made the ‘Porgy and Bess’ experience special for them was not only sitting side by side in cramped theater seats, but also being moved – and feeling moved – by the performance they were watching.
“There’s a song in ‘Porgy and Bess’ where she sings, ‘I love you, Porgy, don’t let him take me,'” said Ms. Safiya. She said the song, got her to think “how important it was to feel protected as a woman,” and wondered if Mr. Williams was “a protector.”
“That play,” she said, “indicated for both of us how we wanted to spend the rest of our lives.”
Mr Williams said “some sort of triangulation took place” as they watched the performance.
From there, the two developed a relationship that fluctuated, perhaps in quintessential teenage fashion, between friendship and romance. Mr. Williams had a girlfriend at another school; he and Mrs. Safiya never formally dated during this period. But they both agreed they were more than friends. (The two shared a first kiss backstage at their high school theater, during a rehearsal for an adaptation of “Lilies of the Field” starring Mr. Williams.)
“We spent a lot of time on the phone and hanging out in theater class, skipping lunch to hang out,” said Ms. Safiya.
About their relationship at the time, Mr. Williams added: ‘We were very interested in each other’s thoughts. We think younger relationships are a bit superficial, but I remember being immediately so impressed with how original she was in thinking, fashion and existence.”
In early 2007, while still in high school, they performed together in a production at the Hattiloo Theater, which had recently opened and has since become a major repertory house in Memphis. Ms Safiya said she remembers getting into trouble during this time: she got on the wrong side of the stage, after crossing backstage to spend time with Mr. Williams.
After Mr. Williams graduated from high school, he enrolled at the University of Memphis, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in economics. He and Mrs. Safiya kept in touch, although their relationship remained platonic. They performed together on a local summer theater program, Echoes of Truth, where their performances included a play dating their characters.
Mrs. Safiya and Mr. Williams maintain that this was a coincidence. Nevertheless, it gave the two a taste of how official a couple could feel.
“We just walked hand in hand across the stage,” said Mr. Williams. “I remember thinking, ‘Oh, I could get used to this.'”
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Then Mrs. Safiya left the city.
After graduating from high school in 2009, she moved to Washington to attend Howard University, where she studied theater education. But they kept in touch as friends.
“We would even talk about our other romantic relationships and be able to give really honest advice and reflections to each other,” Ms Safiya said. “One of the things that has kept our relationship going is that we are friends first.”
They kept in touch when Ms. Safiya left Howard in 2012 and moved to Brooklyn to pursue a music career in New York, a choice Mr Williams, in his own words, admired.
“I was so inspired by her willingness to go to New York without a plan in search of… the thing,” he said. “She was chasing her dreams.”
After graduating from the University of Memphis, Mr. Williams for the Housing & Community Development Department of the City of Memphis, and then for an education program at the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library. He also ran a local jazz club, the Dizzy Bird Lounge, and continued to perform in plays at the Hattiloo Theater.
In 2013, when Ms. Safiya began releasing R&B music on Bandcamp and YouTube, Mr. Williams once again became more than just her friend: he was also a fan who would seek out her work. From time to time, he even invited Mrs. Safiya to perform in the Dizzy Bird when she returned to Memphis to visit her family.
“I have to be honest,” he said. “I stood up”,
Mrs. Safiya was surprised to find that Mr. Williams had followed her music so closely from a distance.
“I didn’t know if anyone was listening — I was pretty sure no one was,” she said. “But he would know the words.”
In November 2015, Ms. Safiya returned to Memphis for several months to help her brother and sister-in-law, who were expecting their first child. The trip gave her and Mr. Williams the chance to spend more personal time together than they had in years, including at a baby shower for her sister-in-law that he hosted.
At the time, she was single and he was over a breakup.
It was on this trip to Memphis, Ms. Safiya said, when she realized she was ready to try something formal with Mr. Williams. But he needed more time. But when she returned to New York, her ghost remained in Memphis, with Mr. Williams.
“I was ready to plant myself,” said Ms. Safiya.
By the time she decided to leave New York and go to Memphis, in 2017, Mr. Williams too.
He picked her up from the airport when she returned and in the car they talked about their mutual willingness to build a lasting romance. They made plans to go out on a date – their first real since they met.
The couple ate outside at Ecco at Overton Park, a Memphis bistro. About the evening, Mr. Williams: “There was a kind of chemistry brewing with us in that space that we hadn’t really given ourselves permission to consider or explore in years.”
Ms Safiya added: “It felt like we were clearly entering a new chapter in our relationship.”
A few weeks later, they moved into an apartment together and about a year after that to their current home in Memphis.
Williams proposed in April 2021, while the couple was filming a music video for a song by Ms. Safiya, an independent singer-songwriter in Memphis. mr. Williams works as an actor in Memphis; his recent credits include a recurring role on the Starz drama ‘P-Valley’.
The two were married on September 5 in Mound City, a former ranch converted into an event hall and rental home in Marion, Ark. The couple chose to get married at this location because of its history.
“We chose it because it was on land known to be a burial ground for Native Americans, and then some sharecropping and, presumably, slavery,” the bride said. “We knew this country deserved to see how some black people experience joy.”
David Arnett, a Mennonite pastor and uncle of the bride, led an outdoor ceremony for about 50 guests, most of them relatives. It started with a libation that invited the couple’s ancestors into the space and included several a cappella performances by friends of the bride and groom, who, after taking their vows, jumped on the broom. Masks were available for all guests.
In the interest of sustainability, both Mrs. Safiya and Mr. Williams bought outfits second-hand. He was wearing a vintage brown suit from the Lucky Exchange store in Atlanta; her yellow floral dress came from Stormy Normy Vintage, a shop on Etsy. Both outfits include cowboy boots, which the pair bought at the Clothing Warehouse, an Atlanta boutique.
Recently, Mr Williams said he has noticed a shift in Ms Safiya. As a performer, he said, she’s always had a fierce onstage presence — “a warrior queen or a drunken saloon owner swearing at the patrons” — while her offstage persona is characterized by “tenderness, awareness, and softness.” But in the past six months, he said, that line has blurred.
“I look at those two ways to really become kind of a fusion,” said Mr. Williams.
On this day
When September 5, 2021
True Mound City in Marion, Ark.
The food The couple’s menu included fried catfish, cornbread dressing, watermelon salad, cabbage, and macaroni and cheese.
the souvenirs As a party thank you, the guests received bottles of Tabasco sauce.
The truck The day before the wedding, Mr. Williams bought an old red Ford pickup to match the farm theme of the wedding. He tied Coca-Cola bottles on his back, a trick he’d seen in movies. But off-screen, the bottles turned out to be less romantic. “They made no sound,” he said.