Citizen Artists

A Guide to Helping Young People Make Plays That Change the World

James Wallert

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000465525
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Theatre Playwriting

Citizen Artists takes the reader on a journey through the process of producing, funding, researching, creating, rehearsing, directing, performing, and touring student-driven plays about social justice.

The process at the heart of this book was developed from 2015–2021 at New York City's award-winning Epic Theatre Ensemble with and for their youth ensemble: Epic NEXT. Author and Epic Co-Founder James Wallert shares his company's unique, internationally recognized methodology for training young arts leaders in playwriting, inquiry-based research, verbatim theatre, devising, applied theatre, and performance. Readers will find four original plays, seven complete timed-to-the-minute lesson plans, 36 theatre arts exercises, and pages of practical advice from more than two dozen professional teaching artists to use for their own theatre making, arts instruction, or youth organizing.

Citizen Artists is a one-of-a-kind resource for students interested in learning about theatre and social justice; educators interested in fostering learning environments that are more rigorous, democratic, and culturally-responsive; and artists interested in creating work for new audiences that is more inclusive, courageous, and anti-racist.

Part IThe Citizen Artist methodology

1How do we transform art into activism?

DOI: 10.4324/9781003079835-2

No one would ever think to call this space a theatre: a low drop ceiling with harsh fluorescent lighting, burnt orange and brown vinyl floor tiles, folks crowded around long folding tables placed in-between a surprisingly large number of massive load-bearing concrete pillars scattered every few feet throughout the windowless room – classic 1970s New York City school cafetorium design. It was 8:15 am – an hour at which no actor should ever be awake, nor any play ever performed. Yet, on this crisp spring morning, in this dull dank room, we were there to put on a show.

I had brought 5 high school students to an event sponsored by the New York State Education Department for more than 200 educational leaders representing 27 school districts from all across the state. These superintendents and principals were there to begin the process of creating integration plans for their districts. At this moment in time, New York State has the most racially and socio-economically segregated schools in the nation,¹ and New York City Public Schools still remain more segregated than they were before the landmark 1954 Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education² in which the justices ruled that “Separate but Equal” schools were unconstitutional. The students were invited to perform their original 30-minute play, Laundry City, an exploration of the effects of educational segregation. There is no discernible front to this cafetorium, but from the base of one of the pillars, a facilitator from New York State squawks a few barely audible words of introduction via a microphone plugged into a portable speaker, “Please welcome Epic Theatre Ensemble.” Jeremiah, a high school senior wearing a T-Shirt with the words, “I am Epic” written across the front, steps into the center of the room, without a mic, and speaks directly to the audience:

JEREMIAH: School segregation, That systematic placement, Race and class, don't make me laugh. That shit goes deeper than thin cloudy glass. Right past society's foundation, Back to America in the making. The original sin: Race. The original sin: Race. The original sin: Race.

Olivia, Davion, Nakkia, and Nashali appear at the four corners of the space to pick up the verse.

OLIVIA: Just a social figment, it controls this place. Causing fear of my pigment, scared to look in my face. Looking down at me like I'm a disgrace.

DAVION: Knowing that nobody wants to admit it But this country's ruled by fear. Move your hands, stop covering your ears. Open your eyes.

NAKKIA: See that shit is so embedded that if you don't rise, Six feet under is where you're headed-buried alive.

NASHALI: By the lies, false hopes, false causes, false endorsements: crazy ride. This is a rollercoaster and yeah you on it. So tell your mama not to take off her bonnet.

JEREMIAH: Just sit, relax, and enjoy the show cause we own it. Laundry City.

With no transition, the actors shift from verse to prose, physically and vocally transforming to play a series of characters in a Brooklyn community affected by rezoning. Nakkia and Davion play the duo of a nervous Public School Principal and his subtext translator, “KEEPING IT 100.”

MR. MADISON: Soon we will be admitting new students to our school.

KEEPING IT 100: The white students are a-comin'.

MR. MADISON: Nothing will change.

KEEPING IT 100: Everything's changing.

MR. MADISON: This is happening because of the rezoning going on in Brooklyn.

KEEPING IT 100: This is happening because white people are colonizing Brooklyn.

MR. MADISON: This is a great opportunity to make our school great again!

KEEPING IT 100: This is a great opportunity to snatch that white money!

The performers weave through the audience performing scene after scene, transforming from character to character. Nashali plays a mother trying to understand the situation at her daughter's school. She speaks to us in Spanish.

MRS. MALAVÉ (English translation):What does this mean? White people moving in? Here? Of all the places? We're quiet. We don't even get news coverage whenever a little boy is shot out here. What will they bring? Higher rent. More and more white people. I'm gonna get kicked out. I can't. This is the only place I know. I grew up here- been here my whole life. Mami and Papi are gone, God rest their souls, so I can't even ask them for advice. What am I gonna do? How will this affect Jeylin? Her school? Maybe the government will finally help them. Is that who takes care of the schools?

In the crowd, you can see some shoulders start to rise up a bit and some others start to relax. A scene title gets called out: “A Separate but Equal Bedroom.” Jeremiah and Nashali step forward. We see one brother dividing the room with a long strip of tape over the other brother's objections.

POORELL: Yo, my mans!

RICH: OK, you see this line? That's my side. This is your side. Got it?

POORELL: What the hell are you doing?

RICH: Rezoning.

POORELL: What?

RICH: This side is safe. That side is dangerous.

POORELL: Are you serious? You selfish prick! (POORELL pushes RICH)

RICH: See! That's what I'm talking about! Your side is too dangerous! I don't feel safe.

Figure 1.1Melysa Hierro and Jeremiah Green, Jr. rehearsing the “Separate but Equal Bedroom” scene from Laundry City.

Source: David Naranjo/photo courtesy of Epic Theatre Ensemble.

The show culminates in a town hall. The students had done meticulous research to craft a finale that made room for dozens of nuanced perspectives on this complex issue. Throughout the scene, several of the performers' lines are punctuated with “Mmmmm!”s, “Thank you!”s, and even an “Amen!” from members of the audience.

MR. WELLS: What is your definition of integration?

PHILLIP: I'm not really sure what we mean by integration. What I've seen when we talk about integration, it is about Black and Latino kids going to white schools to become better. That isn't integration, that's- in my view-assimilation.

AMY: I consider integration when you do the hard work of valuing what each person brings to that setting. Integration is where we learn to understand each other and appreciate each other and nobody's story or history is more important than another's.

JOE: I think where we get confused is conflating the quest for adequate educational opportunities with a quest for integration. The theory of action was if you import basically white middle class students, they would then advocate for all of the students in the school. They had more social and political capital and they would essentially serve as the saviors for the Black and Latino students in the school. I think that's racist. I think it's classist. I don't believe in the savior complex- that you need to have folks swoop in and save the poor Black and Latino children. I believe that Black and Latino folks have agency and power that have been untapped.

SARAH: For me, it's not that certain communities are less powerful; it's that certain communities haven't been given the floor. How do we give people the floor? Segregation was intentional. Integration has to be intentional. Segregation was forced. Integration has to be forced.

PHILLIP: Who says the goal is integration? I think for me the goal is about having high quality schools.

TANYA: If integration made money somehow, then America would do it.

SARAH: I think the worst part about segregation is that people end up feeling like there's something wrong with them. The worst part of segregation is young people feeling like they're stupid, they're bad, they're troublemakers, they're not worth it. That's the worst part.

The 5 actors portray 18 different characters throughout the course of this last scene, but the final question of the play is delivered by the students as themselves.

DAVION: Is separate but equal fair?

ENTIRE ENSEMBLE: Is separate but equal fair?

As their last line echoes through the cafetorium, the five citizen artists join hands and bow. The crowd rises for a standing ovation. The space feels different. It is 8:45 am and 200 people know that the room in which they are standing is now very much a theatre.

The students take in the love for another moment but then gesture for the audience to retake their seats.

OLIVIA: At Epic, we like to have a conversation after every performance and we always ask our audience the same first question: Imagine that two weeks from now, one morning you wake up and find yourself thinking about Laundry City. What is it that will be going through your mind: a line, a character, an idea, a question? What do you think will resonate with you over time?

The post-show discussion is especially lively and long. It runs an hour – twice as long as the play that sparked it. The facilitator from New York State jumps back on the mic to thank the students and direct the district teams to return to their work sessions. I gather the cast to take them back to their school (it's a weekday). A superintendent from Upstate New York comes over and asks the students if they can come by his table to take a look at his district's integration plan and share their thoughts. They do. We start to head out again when a superintendent from New York City's Upper West Side asks for some feedback from the students about her district's plan. The students go over to her table. After several more invitations are proffered, we are eventually invited to stay through lunch so that the cast could review and respond to each of the 27 district integration plans. I make a quick call to their Principal who agrees to excuse them from the rest of their morning classes.

About an hour into this process of consultation, Jeremiah asked if he could speak to me in the hallway. This is the dialogue from that scene in the hall, as I remember it:

JEREMIAH: Jim!

JIM: What's up?

JEREMIAH: I'm feeling emotional about all this.

JIM: Oh yeah?

JEREMIAH: Yeah, I feel like an activist.

JIM: You are an activist.

JEREMIAH: No, I mean, I feel like I'm in a room full of people who can actually change things and they're listening to me.

JIM: Yeah.

JEREMIAH: That's intense!

JIM: Yeah!

JEREMIAH: O.K. I'm going back in.

I was feeling pretty emotional myself after that exchange but once the initial warm and fuzzy glow faded, I began to reflect on the half empty portion of the glass (as I am sometimes wont to do) that Jeremiah had placed in front of me.

Dude, you're only NOW feeling like an activist?

How did I fail him like that? I had worked with Jeremiah for four years. My company, Epic Theatre Ensemble, had been in residence at his high school since 2003. I had regularly come into Jeremiah's English, History, and Science classrooms in partnership with his teachers to guide students in the exploration of the relationship between individuals and their society. Working with Epic each year for four years in what we call our Citizen Artist Sequence, these students write and perform theatre productions that are supposed to inspire empathy and awaken civic engagement. During that same time, I was leading after-school programming where students analyze a Shakespeare play, debate its social and political questions, and weave their own writing into the fabric of the script. Jeremiah had been a star participant in all of this work. He created and performed plays about social justice in his school and in his community. He explored deep political questions through his art. He learned to share his thoughts, feelings, and ideas with his peers. Why was he only now feeling like an activist? What was it about that particular moment that made Jeremiah feel like an activist? I mean, isn't all art political? Isn't the creation and performance of a play in and of itself a revolutionary act? Shouldn't all young theatre-makers think of themselves as activists?

Apparently not.

From my perspective as a theatre practitioner and arts educator working in New York City for the past 23 years, I feel confident saying that as a field, theatre has not been very effective at promoting its own value as a tool for social justice. In the mad scurry to sell season subscriptions and single tickets to a bunch of plays, we've done a miserable job of making the case for any real, tangible, essential value of theatre. As much as I'd like to think that simply practicing my art is, in itself, a form of activism, I have to acknowledge the fact that the general public certainly doesn't...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Figures
• Introduction
• Part I The Citizen Artist methodology
• Part II The Citizen Artist curriculum
• Part III The Citizen Artist plays
• Conclusion
• Index