Music Credits: “Memory Song” performed by Larry Owens, “Periodically,” performed by John-Andrew Morrison; “Intermission Song,” performed by Larry Owens and cast...all songs written by Michael R. Jackson, from the play A Strange Loop. Used courtesy of Michael R. Jackson. 

“NY” composed and performed by Kosta T from the cd Soul Sand, used courtesy of the Free Music Archive.

Michael R. Jackson: It just felt very exciting to see this story and like emotional, both for me having gone through the whole arc of things in order to write it, but also just actually seeing the story of like a black, fat, gay man go from like hating himself to loving himself or like accepting himself, at least I wrote this show also because I never had seen it.

Jo Reed: That was Michael R. Jackson talking about his play “A Strange Loop” and this is Art Works, the weekly podcast produced by the National Endowment for the Arts. I’m Josephine Reed. June is both pride month and black music appreciation month—and so it seemed like the perfect time to revisit last year’s interview with playwright, composer, and lyricist Michael R. Jackson whose musical “A Strange Loop” won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for drama. Michael is the first African American to win a Pulitzer for a musical and the first playwright to win for a musical that hasn’t appeared on Broadway. The Pulitzer is one of the many prizes won by Michael R. Jackson since “A Strange Loop” first hit the stage. Begun as a monologue in 2001, “A Strange Loop” had its world premiere in 2019 at Playwrights Horizons, a production funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts and, it has played to sold-out audiences. The reviewers praised it for its bouncy Broadway beat, its witty lyrics, and its provocative subject. “A Strange Loop” is a rarity. It’s a play as challenging as it is entertaining and at its center is a black, fat, queer artist trying to create a musical while coping with the often punishing thoughts circling inside his own head.  The Pulitzer jury proclaimed in rather lofty language, “A metaphysical musical that tracks the creative process of an artist, transforming issues of identity, race, and sexuality.” However you want to dice it linguistically, “A Strange Loop” is boisterous, joyous, disturbing, heartbreaking, and innovative.  And the music is fabulous—so sit back and enjoy my conversation with Michael R. Jackson.

Jo Reed: You know, Michael, honestly, if you were going to write a memoir starting now, I would suggest a title being “Awards in the Time of COVID.” You got another one since I asked you if you would be available for an interview. You got the Lambda Literary Award for Drama. Congratulations.

Michael R. Jackson: Thank you very much.

Jo Reed: So, the New York Drama Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer for Drama, talk about “A Strange Loop.” How are you processing all of this?

Michael R. Jackson: I mean, it’s certainly like bizarre, but it’s also been like a huge pick-me-up during this sort of tumultuous, crazy time in the world. So, I’m grateful for it.

Jo Reed: Can you give me a quick rundown of the show “A Strange Loop?”

Michael R. Jackson: Sure. “A Strange Loop” is about a black queer musical theater writer who works as an usher at a Broadway show who is writing a musical about a black queer musical theater writer who works as an usher at a Broadway show who’s writing a musical about a black queer musical theater writer who works as an usher at a Broadway show and sort of cycling through his own self-hatred.

Jo Reed: And where did you come up with this concept of this Russian doll plot?

Michael R. Jackson: Yeah. It came sort of accidentally/organically because I had written this sort of thinly veiled personal monologue when I was in my last semester, I think, of college at NYU studying playwrighting. At that time, it was a monologue called “Why I Can’t Get Work” because I was like worried about graduating with a playwrighting degree and not knowing what I was going to do. So, just started writing this thinly veiled personal monologue about a black gay man who is just wandering around New York wondering why life is so terrible and from there, I went to NYU for grad school to study musical theater writing specifically and I went in as a lyricist, but then toward the end of the first year, I learned how to write lyrics and a teacher gave us an assignment saying that if you’re a lyricist who’s never written music or a composer who’s never written lyrics, go for it. So, I ended up taking my musical abilities, which I’ve had since I was a child and I wrote a song called “Memory Song,” which at the time was just a standalone song, but it ended up being sort of the penultimate song in “A Strange Loop.” <musical selection plays> I was encouraged to continue writing my own music and just over time, I just began writing more music and the songs I was writing seemed to speak fanatically to the monologue and so, I started trying to put them into there and then just long story short, it just evolved very organically over time into a musical called “A Strange Loop.”

Jo Reed: I’d like to hear your origin story. So, you were musical when you were a kid. Did you study an instrument? Did you sing? How did it manifest itself?

Michael R. Jackson: So, yeah. I started taking piano lessons when I was about eight years old and I did that all the way through my senior year of high school. I sang in choir at church. I played piano at church for a couple choirs. I sang in an all-city sort of classical chorus when I was from middle school through high school. So, I was always very musically inclined and I learned how to play the piano by ear first and then I took a couple of years of classical piano, but like my real chops came from playing at church and just sort of improvising, which is where a lot of my later composition skills sort of developed out of that.

Jo Reed: Interesting. Were you interested in musicals when you were a kid?

Michael R. Jackson: My parents were like those kind of parents that were like “We have to keep him involved in something positive so he doesn’t get involved in a gang or drugs,” and so...

Jo Reed: Oh, so, they must have known my mother.

Michael R. Jackson: Right. So, I was always in like a dance class or like choir or something or Little League or whatever. So, what I gravitated toward when I was much younger was theater. So, I did child acting for a brief period, like where I was doing like little children’s musicals and I had like an agent for a while. I was in like a commercial like locally, things like that, and then I sort of decided when I was 13 that I was like too ugly to be a movie star. So, I left the business.

Jo Reed: Oh, God. I’m sorry.

Michael R. Jackson: Angsty teenager, what can you do?

Jo Reed: Yeah. God. I think honestly, 13 is the worst age ever.

Michael R. Jackson: It is. It’s horrible. I would not trade it for anything in the world.

Jo Reed: No, I wouldn’t either. Uh-uh. I wouldn’t go back there for anything.

Michael R. Jackson: Right.

Jo Reed: Anyway, so, you transitioned out of performing and began writing?

Michael R. Jackson: Yeah. Although, to be honest with you, I kind of was writing at the same time too. It’s just that like I sort of started keeping a journal. Like, I was always keeping a journal because I always felt like I couldn’t express myself very well and writing was like the only place where I felt like I could fully just say whatever I wanted and no one would judge me or make fun of me. So, I was always journaling and that sort of naturally transitioned into like poetry and into short stories because I was also one of those kid writers who like I intimidated whatever it was I was reading at the time.

Jo Reed: Oh, yeah.

Michael R. Jackson: So, I started off as like a ten-year old reading like Jackie Collins novels that my cousin gave me and so, a lot of the early short stories I wrote were me trying to write like Jackie Collins novels, which is really hilarious to think of like a ten-year old doing that and so, then I just graduated from Jackie Collins to Stephen King and then like Dean Koontz and so, then my short stories started turning into me imitating like horror and science fiction and then I like went to high school and I took creative writing and over time, I just developed and changed.

Jo Reed: So, did you have an a-ha moment when it came to musical theater, like “Okay, this is it.”

Michael R. Jackson: Oh, I think I also forgot to mention that like as a kid, my mother used to take me to see a lot of musicals. That was like our thing that we would do together. So, I remember going to see-- she let me skip school one Friday and then she and my grandmother and I went to Toronto to see the national tour of “Show Boat” that was running in 1994, the Hal Prince one and we saw that and we saw “Phantom of the Opera” in the same weekend and I remember seeing “Show Boat” and like just being utterly transported by it because there was like a black character in it who was like suffering and it seemed like I felt empathy for her and the show was just like about history and stuff and I didn’t have like a deep reading of the show that I would have later, but at the time, the music and the scope and the size of it just like totally impressed me and then we went and saw “Phantom of the Opera” and I was like “I don’t understand this show at all.” Like, I liked the music of it and so, I made my mom buy me the cast album to it and I enjoyed listening to it, but like the story of “Show Boat” I just found to be utterly captivating and so, it really set me on a path of loving what musicals could do and then like not that far after that, my family went to go see the musical adaptation of “A Raisin in the Sun” called “Raisin.”

Jo Reed: Oh, yeah.

Michael R. Jackson: Yes, which to this day, is in my top five of musicals. It’s such a beautiful show and I hate that not as many people know it, but like the songwriting craft is like top drawer and like the singing is just interesting. I bring that up just to say that like the early musicals that I was exposed to were musicals that were dealing with some sort of social issue or things that weren’t just like escapist. So, I grew very much up thinking that musicals could have-- they could really be about something.

Jo Reed: They could have teeth.

Michael R. Jackson: They could have teeth.

Jo Reed: You’re a triple threat.

Michael R. Jackson: I hope I’m not threatening anyone. Womp-womp.

Jo Reed: You write lyrics, book, and music.

Michael R. Jackson: That’s right.

Jo Reed: Well, if you don’t mind, I’d like to talk about a couple of the songs that you wrote, specifically, the opening song, “Intermission Song,” which is a fabulous opening.

Michael R. Jackson: Thank you.

Jo Reed: And I’d just like you to tell me the backstory of that and how you came to it and how it came together.

Michael R. Jackson: So, the show is about a musical theater writer who works as an usher at a Broadway show. His name is Usher and I also just have to say just always as a caveat about people’s understanding of the show, I drew from personal experience to write this show, but I do not think of it as autobiographical. I call it self-referential and I make that distinction just because it’s easy to see the show and just think there’s this one to one ratio of events that happened in my life and what happens to Usher. There’s certainly a relationship, but like the show is about writing about the self, but that’s different from just like my life. That said, I was an usher at a Broadway show. I ushered for “The Lion King” for four years and for “Mary Poppins” and “Intermission Song” came about because I was ushering at the mezzanine at the New Amsterdam Theater and we had just opened the doors of the theater so people could come in and start taking their seats and this old white lady was at the bottom of the mezzanine and she needed something and she yells up to one of the ushers with like her hand up like she’s hailing a cab. She goes “Usher, Usher...” and like I just clocked that because I was like she’s like calling for one of us like she’s getting a cab and I just kept that in my mind and that became the main motif of this song that I didn’t know what it was going to be. I just had “Usher, Usher...” and from there, I think I just started writing a song that was called “Intermission Song” about Usher was in the back of the theater and all the sort of heightened patrons were coming up to him and asking all these questions, judging him and being disrespectful or whatever. That version of the song existed for years, years and years and years and years, and then what ended up happening was that once we found it was going to production at Playwrights Horizons in association with Page 73, I just kept thinking “What is this show about?” This show is about what he’s thinking and his thoughts. I had an epiphany that that had to be the actual frame of the show, not this thing about the usher working in the inner workings of the theater or anything like that. Like, that was just an environment where he worked. But really, the show was in his mind, not in the theater. So, I then did a full-scale rewrite where the only thing that was left was “How many minutes until the end of intermission...” <musical selection plays> It was like him trying to figure out “How do I write this show?” and that sort of shifted the song, which musically did not change except for I wrote a dance break at the request of Raja, the choreographer. But the music all stayed the same, but I did a full-scale lyric rewrite.

Jo Reed: It is a fabulous introduction to the play. It just sets the table beautifully and it draws you in. You’re there.

Michael R. Jackson: The line used to be-- it used to be like a little girl character going “I still can’t find my American Girl Place doll,” and that changed in to “Big, black, and queer ass American Broadway show,” and that like that was what we were making. We were making a big, black, and queer ass American Broadway show.”

Jo Reed: And you said when somebody-- I think it was the director or somebody who had done an earlier reading of the play, Michael, when they suggested casting it exclusively with queer black people, you said something-- something just completely snapped for you. You saw it differently. You could see it clearer.

Michael R. Jackson: Yeah. So, what had happened was I had written a monologue for this black, gay, male protagonist sort of character. That then shifted-- I forgot to mention that once I started putting the music into it, that shifted into a one-man show that I performed one night only in 2006 at Ars Nova in New York and then that shifted into something called “A Strange Loop.” The other principal characters didn’t have like a formal identity at that time as a group and so, they just were just all these different characters and the actors would play multiple characters, like double and triple and quadruple cast and at that time, it was like there were white people in it. There were cis women, just anybody who was just a good actor was in it and I did two readings of that with two different directors and then both those directors got busy and couldn’t work on it anymore. So, I called Stephen up and said “Hey, I want to finally do a reading of this musical with the music,” because up until that point, I had only done the book. So, Stephen, who had directed two concerts of mine-- so, he was very familiar with my music and he thought “Oh, what if we cast this with all black queer people?” and like that just opened up things that were just already naturally in it. So, I just started writing more toward that conceptually, which forced me to have to think about what the identity of the other principal characters were. By the time I got to our reading that we did in 2015, the characters were identified as Usher’s thoughts. There was like Usher’s six black queer thoughts, like those bodies-- that’s what they were. So, I casted very specifically for that.

Jo Reed: The music is vibrant and the lyrics are often quite funny, but it’s also a very serious work that’s deeply personal about a queer black man operating in a straight white world.

Michael R. Jackson: But I think also, it’s not only a straight white world. It’s also a world of his black parents, his conservative black parents. It’s also a world of white supremacist gay world. It’s also a world of the theater as gatekeeper for the culture. This body is traveling through so many different universes. This is also a Tyler Perry black ancestor world. He’s traveling through all of those sort of trying to find himself.

Jo Reed: Yeah. It’s not essentializing.

Michael R. Jackson: Right.

Jo Reed: At all, actually. It’s very, very specific and speaking of specificity, another song in the play is “Periodically,” <musical selection playing>, which completely floored me when that songs makes its turn, which I really did not see coming.

Michael R. Jackson: Yeah. So, “Periodically” is actually one of the earliest songs in the musical. After “Memory Song,” it’s probably like the second song I wrote for the show. I did the one-man show version at Ars Nova, but then after that, Ars Nova invited me back just to do a concert of my music and so, for that concert, I had been like messing around with the idea of this mother character, who just was always calling and leaving voicemails and so, throughout the concert, I would have John-Andrew Morrison, who eventually ended up playing the character of The Mother and winning a Lucille Lortel Award for it, throughout the concert of just random songs I was doing, I would intersperse it with him doing these voicemail and then finally, those voicemails culminated in this like grand poobah of a voicemail song, where Usher’s mother is calling him on his birthday to wish him a happy birthday and then that devolving in this complicated homophobic but also like deeply loving phone call, <musical selection playing>. Part of what I wanted to show in that is that like that’s what it can feel like is that it can be both-- your parents can be like homophobic, but they also can love you so much at the same time and those two things are not just like disentangled from each other and those two things crashing together can make you feel all kinds of things if you’re on the other side of it and I wanted to see if I could create that experience for the audience of that like dissonance of those two things.

Jo Reed: I thought you succeeded incredibly because her love was so clear and that’s why that turn was so shocking but at the same time, that love was still there.

Michael R. Jackson: Right.

Jo Reed: Can you remember the first time you saw the whole play mounted at Playwrights Horizons?

Michael R. Jackson: Yeah. I mean and like, we had been working really hard. I did rewrites all throughout previews. I still was tinkering. We got to do that first preview and we could just tell that it was going to-- that it was like resonating with people and so, it just felt very exciting to see this story and like emotional to like watch both for me having gone through the whole arc of things in order to write it, but also just actually seeing the story of a black, fat, gay man go from like hating himself to loving himself or like accepting himself, at least. That arc for me was like extremely moving with this ensemble of other black queer bodies on stage. I find that very moving to watch. I wrote this show also because I never had seen it. I had seen shows that had black characters in them and then I’d see shows that had gay characters in them who were white, for the most part, and like never shall the twain meet. Then like the movie “Moonlight” comes out and that’s like black and gay characters as well, but it’s like black and gay characters who are, to my understanding, are portrayed by like straight men who have these like incredible bodies by cultural standards, like that’s what gayness is and I wanted to show something that was “No, what if you have to both empathize with a really smart and flawed and vulnerable fat, black gay man who’s going through something? What if that’s your protagonist?” I had never seen that and I wanted to see that.

Jo Reed: Did you think about audiences at all when you were writing this?

Michael R. Jackson: Well, I did in the sense that I just assumed that it would never be produced because I was ushering at “The Lion King” and I saw Broadway up close. I saw the audiences. I was flyering for “Rock of Ages.” I saw the audiences when I was trying to get people to buy tickets to “Rock of Ages” and I was just like “Oh, well, I don’t do this. So, no one will ever see ‘A Strange Loop,’ but I’ll just keep working on it,” and once in a while, I’d get a little opportunity to go to a residency or something and work on it. So, that’s why when Playwrights said that they were going to do it, it was like “Oh my God, really? You all are really going to do this?” and so, it was like “Yeah, we’re really going to do it.” Then it was like “Oh, if they’re really going to do it, this is my only shot. So, I better make it really good,” and so, that-- for me, it was about me and Stephen and Raja and the cast and creative team and the crew and Playwrights Horizon and Page 73 and my commercial producer, Barbara Whitman, who was all about us doubling down on what the show was, on like what made it unique and special and just assuming that because it was so specific, that maybe it might have a universal resonance, which I found to my great pleasure that it seemed to. It did. Like, so many people would come up to me after the shows during their run and say either “Hey, I’m a fat, black gay man and this is the first time I’ve really felt seen anywhere or on stage,” and then I’d have like old white ladies from the Upper West Side be like “I’m not a fat, black gay man, but this was so moving to me and I empathize and I get it.” Different people from different walks of life and that for me made me feel really good because I think that that’s what theater should do anyway. Theater should invite everyone to empathize and to like have a shared experience and to meet the protagonists of these stories where they are and decide for themselves how they feel.

Jo Reed: Don’t you find it extraordinary, the great paradox of art is the more specific you are with your story, the more universal it actually is?

Michael R. Jackson: Yeah. I think that that’s like also the beauty of it. At the end of the day, we’re all humans. I think about like a moment where we’re in now where there’s like more division than ever. What I love about theater is that yes, you can like actually empathize with other people who are not you. That is what empathy is. It doesn’t have to be like “That’s my experience and that’s the only thing I understand.” It’s what it means to be alive. We are all alive people. We all like want to be together. We’re social. If you prick me, do I not bleed? All those things and so, I think that’s why I love theater. It can do that.

Jo Reed: Yeah. No, I agree. Art demands empathy.

Michael R. Jackson: Right.

Jo Reed: I also think it has the ability to take you out of your own life and into another life, but then when you come back to your own life, you’re enriched by that.

Michael R. Jackson: Yeah and also, that’s happening for the person next to you as well while you’re sitting there with them and you both are experiencing this exchange of energy at the same time that’s going to the actors on stage and that’s feeding them and then they can then give it back to you and then you can like give it to each other.

Jo Reed: Another strange loop.

Michael R. Jackson: Exactly and that’s a real thing. I said that during rehearsals, that like I want the show, the experience to be a strange loop of exchange of perceptions because “A Strange Loop” is literally about perceptions of self and both white audience members might go into the show with their arms folded being like “Who’s that black gay on the stage? What has he got to say?” and then they find out “Oh, he actually has something to say,” that resonates with them as human beings and then they have to divest themselves of this idea of a hierarchy or superiority. Theater is a shared experience.

Jo Reed: I was going to ask you what you missed the most about live theater, but I think you might have just answered that.

Michael R. Jackson: I mean, that’s what I miss. It’s like a charging station. It’s like a well. You go to the well and you can drink from the water and sort of quench your thirst and keep going forward. It can empower people to be stronger in like hard times. I wish we could go to the theater so much right now and actually tell stories that are taking risks and are entertaining, for sure, because that was another important thing. My mission statement is to make works that are as challenging as they are entertaining.

Jo Reed: Well, I know this is uncertain time for the performing arts, but tell us what’s next for the play?

Michael R. Jackson: So, we’re scheduled to have our DC premiere.

Jo Reed: At Woolly Mammoth and shout out to Woolly Mammoth, a theater I love.

Michael R. Jackson: Yes, Woolly Mammoth and Maria Goyanes, the Artistic Director, who was my first director of “A Strange Loop.”

Jo Reed: Oh, my gosh.

Michael R. Jackson: Yeah. When she was at the Public, she was who I was working with initially until she got like really...

Jo Reed: Oh, that’s wonderful.

Michael R. Jackson: So, it feels actually really great to come-- strange loop-- so many strange loops in the show and in my life, to be able to come back-- come to the Woolly Mammoth in DC with her as one of the producers or as the producer.

Jo Reed: Well, Michael, I look forward to seeing you and “A Strange Loop” down here in Washington DC when you come.

Michael R. Jackson: Me too. I can’t wait to meet you and see you in person, see everyone in person.

Jo Reed: That’s playwright, lyricist, composer, and Pulitzer Prize winner Michael R. Jackson. And  “A Strange Loop” is slated for Woolly Mammoth’s 2021 season. To keep up with Michael or to find out when “A Strange Loop” will go into production in Washington DC, go to his website, thelivingmichaeljackson.com or woollymammoth.net. You’ve been listening to Art Works, produced at the National Endowment for the Arts. I’m Josephine Reed. Stay safe and thanks for listening.

Jo Reed: Can you remember the first time you saw the whole play of A Strange Loop mounted at Playwrights Horizons?

Michael R. Jackson: Yeah. I mean, it was our first preview was-- I still was tinkering. We got to do that first preview and we could just tell that it was resonating with people and so, it just felt very exciting to see this story and like emotional to like watch both for me having gone through the whole arc of things in order to write it, but also just actually seeing the story of a black, fat, gay man go from like hating himself to loving himself or like accepting himself, at least. That arc for me was like extremely moving with this ensemble of other black queer bodies on stage. I find that very moving to watch. I wrote this show also because I never had seen it.

Music Credit: “NY” composed and performed by Kosta T from the cd Soul Sand, used courtesy of the Free Music Archive.

Jenny Koons:  I feel like the thing that's so magical about theater is that it continually reminds us at its best that we are just people in a room all agreeing to imagine the same thing for a set amount of time. That's when it's the most delightful!

Jo Reed:  That is director Jenny Koons and this is Art Works the weekly podcast from the National Endowment for the Arts, I’m Josephine Reed.   Jenny Koons is a director is on the cutting edge of immersive theater.  She specializes in bringing diverse artists together to create original cross-disciplinary work through a collaborative process.  Central to her ideas is work that’s both site-specific and in a reciprocal relationship with its audience.  Her range is pretty astonishing—from musical theater that literally takes place in a club with the audience standing as the actions unfolds around them to the beat of synth K-Pop to Shakespeare’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream” re-visioned as a New York City block party to a recent vision residency at Ars Nova where Jenny curated and participated in four on-line pieces of work that invited the audience to join in.  It’s of a piece that Jenny Koons has been a facilitator and educator in creating anti-racist spaces for over a decade. One of her primary interests as a director or as an educator is making and reaffirming community. Here’s how she describes the theater she wants to create….

Jenny Koons:  I'm working primarily in theater, live performance gathering people. I think the thing I'm most attracted to now in making art experiences that bring people together for something that could not be experienced any other way. Whether that is in play form, or concert form, or party form. But kind of creating containers for moments. That are unexpected and also beyond things that we would experience in our normal day

Jo Reed:  I thought we could perhaps begin by talking about your work with The Odyssey, which was this year long project, and I think that might be a good way to get into talking about the way you do theater.

Jenny Koons:  Yeah! The Odyssey Project. It's so funny you bring that up, because I was just thinking this weekend that next year will be the ten-year anniversary, and I'd always had this dream that it would come back in 2022, like Odysseus in this ten-year marker. The Odyssey Project was a year-long, site-specific piece that took place in different Boroughs across New York City, and over 30 artists came in and out of that process. So, we were two weeks on, two weeks off for an entire year through literal snow and sleet and everything in between. And it was kind of an examination of the epic in the ordinary. And we performed on the Staten Island Ferry during the morning commute, and in Flushing Meadows Corona Park in a bilingual performance for kids there waiting for their dad to play soccer. But kind of this both celebration of story and also the very vast number of communities that live in this one place.

Jo Reed:  You know, work that is site specific is really a central tenant to what you do, and I wonder why this is so important to your work?

Jenny Koons:  Yeah, I feel like we are in constant conversation with the spaces that we're in. And when you say that I just think-- you know, I just finished a residency at Ars Nova, and so much of what we talked about in the projects were actually would be rooted in the fact that we've all been in our homes for over a year. And our homes have taken on a different relationship than they did before this moment we're in. So, I feel like we're in conversation with and supported and challenged and frustrated by the spaces that we occupy, both individually and communally. And so, there's something about the site specific and the idea of public gathering spaces that continues to feel really compelling, even if that gathering space is in your own home.

Jo Reed:  Well, I know you directed "Midsummer Night's Dream" for the mobile unit of the public theater, which I think is a completely cool program, and that means that you go out to various communities. And present your work, and I wonder how you married your idea of site specificity with something that you knew you were going to present at various spots around the City.

Jenny Koons:  Right, it's such a great question, because it was really the first question in starting to talk with Stephanie Ybarra when she was running the mobile unit at the public. One of the pieces was it strikes me that that play feels so New York. It's about these different storylines that kind of all collide unexpectedly and different cultures of that story that all continue to collide in the woods. So, that piece was structured as a New York City block party. And we had a preshow that started about 20 minutes before the show began, where the cast members would put a boom box in the middle and we had laminated set of requests. You could request the song, and we decorated the space with the audience members. So, the whole beginning of that was setting the scene for this to be a space that we're creating and were co-creating in this moment. And Kimea, our set designer made this street sign that really became integral that had chalkboard signs. So, wherever we were, we would write the streets that we were located on in the City, really marking it as like, "We're here. We're in this exact place, and let's make this thing. Let's make this dream together!"

Jo Reed:  In your approach to directing, you really seemed to come at the work collectively. It's a participatory process for the artists and the creators, but for the audience as well.

Jenny Koons:  Right! I feel like the thing that's so magical about theater is that it continually reminds us at its best that we are just people in a room all agreeing to imagine the same thing for a set amount of time. That's when it's the most delightful! When you never escape that you're in a library or a gym or on the ferry, but you are all making an agreement to go on a ride together. And I feel like, you know, I've said for a while that I feel that directing is community organizing in this. Because it's guiding a group of strangers towards something that doesn't exist. Something that's invisible. And that, to me, feels like such an important exercise in this moment where we're all kind of careening towards something we don't really know what it is. So, to be in the practice of participating and collectively imagining feels powerful in this moment, in small ways and in large ways. Politics to performance in a park.

Jo Reed:  Well, that actually preempted my next question, because I was going to say you're an organizer. You're an educator. You were an educator for years. You're a director. And how these different roles inform one another and how you can use what you learn in one arena in another, because obviously, I would think they're in constant dialogue.

Jenny Koons:  Yeah, they feel so-- I love that you say that because they feel more than ever so connected, and all part of the same thing, which is, "What are all the ways we can experience and create a process for people to move towards something? Whether it's a certain lesson plan or an understanding or getting a group of teachers to arrive at an idea about teaching. Or getting an audience to experience the exact same thing." And I guess that kind of newness and the risk of, "Will this thing work? Will what I've planned work? Will the nature of this particular group be excited about the experiment?" All of those pieces feel really connected and provocative and kind of like hot! You know? They don't fill safe. They feel unpredictable.

Jo Reed:  A little risky. And as you were speaking, I was thinking, and they require trust in order to be successful.

Jenny Koons:  Right! They require trust and I feel like that is the piece that is so slippery in a way. Like what are the parameters that we put around an experience that provides enough trust and safety that people will be able to show up as themselves in the truest sense of that word. And also, how do we not over-guide them, or over-direct them or over-coddle them, so that there's still enough room for it to be fully alive in whatever that moment will be?

Jo Reed:  That's hard. I mean, that's an ongoing process, no? I mean, I don't think there's one answer.

Jenny Koons:  It's so hard and invisible and also, as you said, ever-changing. So, through one event, I can have moments that I deeply trust where this is going, and moments where I feel so distrustful that it bumps me off the ride that I'm trying to go on. And I feel like that's also has so much to do with where humans are in this moment. And I think it's a big question for the art of the next six to eight months, or eight months to eight years of having experienced everything we've experienced. What does it mean to hold space and to hold people through things that are challenging or unknown or risky?

Jo Reed:  Well, you've worked for years in organizing for change in theater doing antiracism work, working for equity. And your Asian-American. And I'm curious about your sense of Asian-American representation in theater, both on the stage, behind the curtain, as well as in popular culture.

Jenny Koons:  Yeah, I think, you know, there's no doubt that we are vastly underrepresented in all of the ways that you just named. Making stories, behind the scenes of stories. I think there have been moments in time where there's a zeitgeist moment like "Crazy Rich Asians" and people suddenly wake up to the fact that there's a market and a hunger for things in a community that's not often highlighted. And that said, I feel like even in the last three to five years, we've seen a pretty massive change, while we remain underrepresented, we've seen a massive change in both the need and the necessity, and also just the number of Asian-American and Pacific Islander theater-makers who are running theaters, or very actively working for change at service organizations like TCG. So, it feels like there is an urgency and an excitement toward expansion and it's about time. And I hope that this last year remains an inspiration point for, and a reflection point, for this path that we're now carving out together.

Jo Reed:  Well, it's, again, when we think of equity-- when I think of equity, I think of many things, but one thing I think about is who participates? Who has that opportunity to participate? And I think the pandemic has certainly been devastating for the performing arts, but I think it also in this odd way exposed some of the exclusionary aspects of theater.

Jenny Koons:  Mm hm. Very, very, very much so. I mean, I think it's really interesting because this moment, as you said, has been deeply devastating for this community, for our community, and I was speaking to a producer today who was just saying she really is mourning the number of artists who have said, "I just can't go back! I can't come back," for financial reasons, for family reasons, for many reasons. And I think the exposure of that, the deep inequities and also the untenable way we've made work for years on the backs of people, not making enough money, working way too hard. This is a moment of, I hope, pivotal change and I think this question of rubber meets the road is the moment we're in now.

Jo Reed:  Well, you, as you mentioned, you had a vision residency at Ars Nova. And you curated four online pieces. And I'd like you, if you don't mind, just to describe the pieces and what you were wanting to put your arms around in doing these.

Jenny Koons:  Yeah, so the first question that was on my mind was, "If we're in May, and the weather is nice, and it's warm enough to be outside, and more people have been vaccinated, what is so unique and interesting that would get me to go back on the screen right now? Especially at the end of the days when we're on our screens for just hours at a time?" So, the real big kind of umbrella idea was around participation in virtual spaces. What does it mean to participate? Who gets to participate or has access to participate in an online platform? And how do we start making things that can only happen online, where the online is not a substitute for but actually embraces the idea itself? So, the first piece was an air guitar celebration exhibition that was curated by two-time World Champion, Matt Aristotle Burns. It featured air guitarists from across the country including every National Champion for the past, I think seven years. And we commissioned 60-second air guitar performances by artists made for their homes. And it was a celebration, then we had a lesson with Aristotle and then it ended in a community jam with all of us air-guitaring in our homes together! So, it really was a celebration of community, that even in this moment where people are separated, that we are still and will remain finding ways to come back together. And a number of air guitarists on that show said. You know, "I've just been longing to see y'all, and I haven't seen you in a year!"

Jo Reed:  And the other thing I liked, one of the things Aristotle said with air guitar, "It's free! Anybody can do it!"

Jenny Koons:  Right, right! And something that they talked about so much in their interviews with him was about community. You know, I learned-- I found people that were like me in this community, and it was fun and it accepted me as I was. Which just felt important to hear again as we start to move from this place together.

Jo Reed:  I agree. Tell us about a couple of the others.

Jenny Koons:  Yeah, so the second one was a piece called "Place Trace," which was a collaboration with myself and Filmmaker Christopher Ash, and Lighting Designer, Stacy Derosier, and it was an examination of our homes. And kind of the journeys that we've been on through childhood home into the homes that we're in now. And it ended with a collaborative film that the audience members made together. So, they were guided on a tour in their headphones with Zoom on their phone and had to go to different places in their homes and we filmed that, and then replayed that as a scored kind of short movie that the audience members had made together. And this residency was in partnership and collaboration with ViDCo, which is Virtual Design Collective, started by Jared Mezzocchi about a year ago, as a collective really interrogating what it means to be making things live and online.

Jenny Koons:  Yeah. And I wanted to just pause there for a second, because the audience participation was so central to that piece and I thought that you were such a gentle guide. You and the other artists had shared your childhood homes, for example, in photos and maps. And then when you invited the audience, it was both very comfortable, but you were also very specific about what you were asking the audience to do, which I really appreciated.

Jenny Koons:  Right, right. It's funny, because the specificity and watching multiple people go through their homes, it did something so weird, which is both like very intimate, that you're seeing through the homes of strangers that didn't know they were going to be showing strangers their homes. And also, there is something so unifying about that. That regardless of where you are and where you've been the last year, we've all been kind of in a similar world where our kitchen is our office, and our bedroom is our partner's office, and it's like all has kind of mushed into one. And so, the specificity of that was so joyful to watch, actually.

Jo Reed:  Yeah, and it led me to want to ask you, what do you think you owe the audience when you involve them in such a participatory way? When you want them to participate? That's a two-way relationship. What do you feel like you have to give forth in order to elicit?

Jenny Koons:  Such a great question! <laughter> Such a great question, and one that I feel like a lot of people don't ask or consider. And I think that example, you know, I guess I think if I'm asking or inviting you to participate in a certain way, I want to make sure that the payoff or the outcome is either framing something of your own in a new way or inviting you to see something of your world in a new way. Or for that example, kind of the delight of seeing your living room alongside the living rooms of ten strangers. And kind of the beauty of that. And it's funny, because that show, a number of people who participated are not super big participators, and they emailed me and Ars Nova after and just said, "I found that so moving! Like it made me quite emotional to acknowledge and mark, in a way, the reality of being in my home for so long. And that we were all kind of in it together.

Jo Reed:  Yeah, and I thought there was also something when the three of you were showing your childhood homes and little maps that you had made of them, or maps that you might-- that you, in your case, had of your house-- there was something that was very vulnerable about that, I thought. That, you know, sort of encouraged-- or put us at ease. I don't know. It felt very comfortable. And very moving and very authentic!

Jenny Koons:  Right, well, that's such a great question. It's like in the same way if I'm asking the audience members to give of themselves, what am I-- what is the world I'm inviting them into where I am going to do the same? Where the ask is not just going one way. And I think it's going to be interesting to see how this plays out as we start to move back into in-person gathering, but also more sophisticated online gatherings as well. Which is like, "What is the nature of that exchange?" Because for a while most theater-going experiences are quite passive for audience members. We don't ask a lot of them. We don't invite that much of them. And I wonder if that will change as we move into this next phase of gathering.

Jo Reed:  Yeah, it's interesting. It's an interesting question to think about and in a lot of ways, Jenny, it's right up your alley because you've said you're always questioning that relationship between the performers and the audience, the performance and the audience. So, this is something you've been, you know, you've spent years thinking about that space.

Jenny Koons:  Right, the space and also when that space becomes really blurred, and kind of what fun it is to be reminded that it's live and to be reminded that we affect one another. So, something that I found really interesting in even my own work of the past few years is we say theater is live and we're all in the room reading together, but often-- and I've made things that are tacked within like a tenth of a second, right? So, like even if they wanted to change, it is cued in a way that doesn't give them that much room to shift from night to night. It's live, but it's like pretty locked. And so, I've been trying to remind myself of building in moments and possibilities for a shift based on where everyone is that evening, or that afternoon.

Jo Reed:  I think this is a conversation happening in many places. Heartbeat Opera, for example, posted a music video called Lady M which made virtually—each artist in his or her own home filming themselves with their phones. And the finished film included some of rehearsals so we saw the process and the interruptions to the process—like the dog barking. So, it’s presenting authentic moments in a virtual space.

Jenny Koons:  Oh! I love it!  I love that so much, and I can't wait to look them up after we speak, because I feel like it's clear to me, I think, that this online world, it's not going to go away. It-- I hope that it becomes some kind of hybrid, or mashup or combination of live and online. And I feel like what you're saying is just how we can continue to make those reminders present even when we're virtual, as a part of our practice, which feels so invigorating to me and full of possibilities just to say as well.

Jo Reed:  Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well, what first attracted you to theater and live performance? How did you get into the business?

Jenny Koons:  Whoo! I started in, I think, like church choir and maybe church plays? And just loved performing and did plays in my basement when I was little in Montana at my grandparent's house, and just always loved performing, and for and with other people. And then when I went to college very quickly thought and discovered I'm not a performer. And maybe direction would be more up my alley, which was funny because my parents had said for years-- I played violin in a couple orchestras-- and they were like, "We really think you should be the conductor." Like, "Have you ever thought-- we really think you might like that!" <laughter> And they were absolutely right. <laughter>

Jo Reed:  When have-- when were you able to be in theater full-time?

Jenny Koons:  Oh, it took years. It took years.

Jo Reed:  Yeah, I would think.

Jenny Koons:  I mean, I went to NYU and in my senior year there switched to an all-academic path and graduated and did New York Teaching Fellows and really was in education nationally and internationally for years, until very recently. And was consulting and working with new teachers and new school leaders through The Odyssey Project, and only left consulting in the past maybe five years, four or five years.

Jo Reed:  Yeah, it's not an easy business, that's for damn sure. Pre-pandemic, it wasn't easy, never mind during one!

Jenny Koons:  I know. <laughs> I know, I mean it's funny because when I was in the midst of that education and consulting path, I remember vividly being at a dinner party with a bunch of people I didn't know, and I got talking to a man I had never met before and he was asking what I did, and I said, "Oh, theater. And I'm in education." And. He said very clearly, "It sounds like you do exactly the same thing, just the content is different." And no one had-- no one had pointed it out to me like that before! And it was so very true. It was exactly the same, it was just a different text.

Jo Reed:  How do you choose what work you're going to do?

Jenny Koons:  I feel like in some ways I'm not at a place…I have some choice. And that's not to say I don't have any choice. But I think right now I'm choosing things that feel authentic to my values of why I want to do this. And authentic to the values of why I'm inviting a form of participation. Is this really inviting a form of gathering or participation that feels authentic, rooted in joy, invites people in who may not have felt invited into the theater, or welcomes people back. And I'm really trying to think about what people are longing for in these next eight months to eight years. What are the containers that people will want and yearn to participate within?

Jo Reed:  When you think of theater and moving forward, as you said, the next eight months, eight years, between the pandemic, but also the real grappling with equity, talk about the challenges you see for theater.

Jenny Koons:  I think one challenge is that we have been in a state of some pretty harmful habits for a long time. And in some ways those harmful habits are built into every aspect of the work as we made it before. So, when we were in process of racial reckoning last summer and George Floyd's murder and workshops, it kept kind of ringing in my mind that this is great! But/and we won't know until we put this into practice, because what we do is create invisible things. We make invisible things into something visible. And that's where all of our values get shown in the making of something. And so, I think one of the biggest challenges is awareness and rigor and support around how we really reimagine these processes that we have become very accustomed to. And what does-- and then once we start making changes, what other repercussions of those changes, both economic and in terms of our community, and this ongoing question of who is invited to participate.

Jo Reed:  Well, your directing "Hurricane Diane" during this summer.

Jenny Koons:  Yes!

Jo Reed:  Can we get a brief synopsis of that, and I also want to know is this going to be your first in-person rehearsal and performance?

Jenny Koons:  It is!

Jo Reed:  Ah! That's so exciting!

Jenny Koons:  I was just speaking with an intimacy choreographer just before we got on the phone, actually. So, yes! It is my first back in-person process, and I'm thrilled! I loved Madeleine's play and find it both hilarious and deeply questioning what it means to change.

Jo Reed:  Just give us a synopsis, a quick synopsis.

Jenny Koons:  Yes. Yeah, so "Hurricane Diane" is the story of four New Jersey housewives-- that's not true-- they do have jobs, but four New Jersey women who live in a cul-de-sac, who are visited by a reincarnation of the god Dionysus, inviting them to change their ways in order to save the planet and whether they will. And I feel like it is, in so many ways, the perfect play to come back with, because it is a rich comedy, with the heart-- at its heart, a very deep question, which feels more timely than it did when I saw it at the workshop four years ago.

Jo Reed:  I think it's a wonderful way to come back actually. And where is it playing?

Jenny Koons:  It's at The Huntington. We open on September 1^st, right at the top of the season! And it's been just wonderful to talk through with them kind of-- to the earlier point about process and change, what are things if we want to do in our collaboration together that really reflect a change in values and a rootedness in values and what will that look like in our process? Which has been great and generous and challenging and all of the best things.

Jo Reed:  Okay. Well, we're looking forward to it. Live theater coming back is so exciting! I can only imagine how excited you must be.

Jenny Koons:  Yeah, thank you for saying that. And it's funny, we did a little interview, the directors next season, with The Huntington to kind of talk about the-- what we're most excited about returning to, and I just said, "I feel like that first preview when the first laugh goes through that audience, I will have chills, I hope all of us have chills, what that feels like, a reminder of what that feels like.

Jo Reed:  <sighs> I just got chills thinking about it, so yes. <laughter> Jenny, thank you so much. I really appreciate you giving me your time.

Jenny Koons:  Thank you so much for having me! It's been a thrill to talk about all of the things!

Jo Reed:  Thank you.

That’s director Jenny Koons, “Hurricane Diane” runs in Boston’s Huntingdon Theater from August 27 to Sept 26. And you can keep up with Jenny and her work at jennykoons.com

You’ve been listening to Art Works produced at the National Endowment for the Arts. I’m Josephine Reed stay safe and thanks for listening.