" Much of the best writing is rewriting, " says Northeastern University professor and artist-in-residence Ed Bullins, whose revised version of his play City Preacher will open in its East Coast premiere this Friday as a collaboration of ACT Roxbury Consortium and the Boston Center for the Arts. First staged in 1984 in San Francisco, the play centers on a character — Aaron Jackson Price Jr. — who’s loosely based on Adam Clayton Powell Jr., the flamboyant and controversial African-American minister who represented Harlem in the US Congress for nearly 25 years.

Like the original, the revised script is set in 1931 and explores the young Price’s reluctant decision to abandon the freedoms he found while living in Europe and follow in the footsteps of his father, a prominent Baptist minister who works for social justice in the Harlem community. So what’s new about City Preacher? " I’ve added a character by the name of Red McGee, who’s a boyhood friend of the title character. By the end, there’s hope that he and Price will continue to work together, as community leaders in Harlem. "

Is the McGee character a white guy? " Yes, he is, " says the 66-year-old Roxbury resident, who served a stint as the Black Panther Party’s Minister of Culture in the mid 1960s and made his first mark in the theater world as one of the " angry black playwrights " of the Black Arts Movement. As a leader of that movement’s Western wing, Bullins and his colleagues worked " to bring revolutionary art and understanding to the people and to loosen or break the chains of racism and segregation. We aimed to raise the consciousness of the people. "

Asked whether he cared about raising the consciousness of white people as well as black, Bullins replies bluntly. " No. I just wasn’t interested then. " Back in the ’60s, he adds, " I was angry about a lot of things, but especially about the racial situation at the time. How do I feel now? I feel comfortable with my accomplishments, but I want to accomplish more. That why I’m still doing theater. "

Bullins, who was recently given a Living Legend Award by the National Black Theatre Festival, has accumulated laurels enough to rest on if he were so inclined. " I’ve been accused of writing over 100 plays, but I don’t think I’ve written that many, " he says of the body of work that includes Obie winners In New England Winter, The Fabulous Miss Marie, and The Taking of Miss Janie. Although he won’t name a favorite, the playwright allows that he’s " pretty happy " about the success of The Taking of Miss Janie, which also won the 1975 New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award. " I’m hoping to stage that play in Boston sometime soon, maybe in a year or so. "

Right now, however, he’s working on a musical, Hot Feet, that’s based on the life and work of the dancer, choreographer, and director Leonard Harper, who created shows that were performed at top venues like the Apollo Theatre and the Cotton Club during the Harlem Renaissance. " Unfortunately, Harper died young, in his early 40s, and he’s not well known today. So I want to show him as he was and how he might have been. He was an enormous talent and a great innovator, but he became an invisible man after he died. In Hot Feet, which is in development, I look at some of the reasons why he’s been forgotten. "

Apart from getting Hot Feet up and running and reviving Miss Janie, Bullins admits to no particular goals or projects: " I just want to continue my work and hopefully not become an invisible man. Asked whether he’s still an angry man, he chuckles. " Well, I don’t have an ulcer, at least not yet. " Although his life and his plays have landed him in New York and San Francisco, Boston suits him, he says, and he has no plans to leave. " I’m quite surprised, but I’m pretty comfortable here. I tried it, and it took. " As for the city’s racism, Bullins doesn’t let it rankle him much anymore. " It hides sometimes and then jumps out at you. But for the most part, I go about my life. I’m not preoccupied with dealing with it. It’s a challenge, but challenge can be stimulating. When I’m confronted with an obstacle, I try to go over it, around it, or past it somehow. I’m not going to beat my brains out about it. "

So has Ed Bullins mellowed? With a laugh, the once angry playwright hedges. " I’m certainly old enough to be mellow. I just hope I haven’t gotten rancid. "

Ed Bullins’s City Preacher plays at the Boston Center for the Arts November 30 through December 16. Tickets are $15; call (617) 426-2787.

Issue Date: November 29 - December 6, 2001

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