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[0:40] Lauren Van Hemert: I'm Lauren Van Hemert, your host, and on this episode, we're talking about gun sense, art, and activism. Jason O'Dell Williams' play Church and State has become a vehicle to spark community conversations about gun violence. In 2019, Yvonne Velsanti Anderson directed the North Raleigh Arts and Creative Theater production of Church and State. And now, three years later, she is reuniting with several of her original cast members, including Brian Yandel, to produce a stage reading of the play to benefit Sandy Hook Promise and Mom's Demand Action. Here are Williams, Anderson, Yandel, Activists Mata V Krevet, and her daughter Leah, all talking about the role theater and art have in changing hearts and minds.

Jason, I want to start with you because you were inspired to write this play by the Virginia Tech shooting. We just marked in April 15 years from the time of that shooting. And according to March for Our Lives, there's been something like 150 mass shootings since then. And that's before Buffalo, before Uvaldi. What role do you think theater has and artists have in affecting social and political change and helping us contextualize these horrible events?

[2:25] Jason Odell Williams: Yeah, I think art in general is the best way that we can sort of kind of talk to each other and process things, whether it's, you know, books, movies, television, music, dance, whatever, and theater, especially live theater, to me is the pinnacle of that kind of communication because it's live, it's several hundred people in a room together at once, listening all at once. I always say what's great about theater is that the audience has to kind of shut up for 90 minutes and listen to your argument before they can rebut, which is what you see on, you know, CNN and Fox and MSNBC. It's just people kind of talking over each other and at each other. But in theater, you have to sit in the audience and listen for 90 minutes, two hours, and then you can talk to your friends and neighbors who you went with and talk about what occurred.

And so I think to me, I didn't set out to become a political writer. The first play I wrote was a fun romantic comedy. And then this was sort of the next big play, Church and State. And yet Virginia Tech was kind of the sort of first initial kind of kernel in my brain, but then it was Sandy Hook that really angered me so much that I, you know, three weeks later I had a draft. And so I didn't set out to do that, but to me it's as an artist, it's what is happening in the world around you, and what is it you want to say that's worth saying? And that was to me was what I was thinking about, and it's a way to process that stuff, and as I process it, hopefully, or maybe for some people in the audience, they're also processing it as well.

They're going through their grief and their anger and their sorrow and even their laughter, which I think is what you need to do with a play, is have all of those emotions at once. And you know, I've tried to write television and movies and stuff, and I keep coming back to theater because I just love the immediacy of it. There's that communal thing that happens, and I think didn't somebody say like their the pulse of an audience actually gets in rhythm at some point? Your brain waves sync up, like there's something really to that. I mean, the Greeks got it right thousands of years ago, so that's why I think theater is the best way to try and affect change, change hearts and minds. And that's my way of doing it. It's the only thing I know how to do.

[4:48] Yvonne Velsanti Anderson: Ivan, I want to turn to you. Do you feel that theater, especially local theater, community theater has a role in changing hearts and minds in some sort of social change?

[5:02] 100%. After we did the preview of our production back in 2019, and we had a wonderful preview audience, and they were so engaged. And when they finished, when we finished the show, they wanted to stay and they wanted to talk about the issues. And also when we had the talk backs, we had two talk backs, and Jason was kind enough to participate in one of them. The audience stayed, they were engaged, they asked questions, and that's what I think art can do. It can make you think and consider the other point of view and maybe change your mind or move the needle of your opinion just a little bit. And so yeah, I definitely think art can create a conversation in this triangle theater community.

Jason, a year after Parkland, there was this amazing nationwide one-night staged reading on several college campuses about this play, and that was followed by talkbacks, and then earlier this month, your wife produced and directed a staged reading of Church and State in response to the Buffalo and Uvaldi shootings again with the talkback. In all the readings and productions of this play where you've been participating in talkbacks, has the conversation around gun sense changed at all, or is it more of preaching to the choir, so to speak?

[6:45] Jason Odell Williams: Well, I don't know about preaching to the choir. I'll just say that it's changed. So the very first productions of this were in 2016 in LA and then Rochester. I was there for them, but there was a talk back in 2016, but it was more about the play, you know, because it was brand new. And then in 2017, we did it off-Broadway, and we had several talkbacks. Chris Murphy, Senator Chris Murphy was there. Mark Barden was there who from Sandy Hook Promise, he lost his son at Sandy Hook in Newtown. We had Julianne Moore come, we had the head at the time of Every Town for Gun Safety come. We had lots of different people come, and I'd say the conversation was good and smart, and it did feel like we were a little bit like, oh wow, we are up against a big behemoth in the NRA.

Then in 2018, my wife directed it at the Berkshire Theater Festival up in Massachusetts, and they had a talk back every night. And like Yvonne was saying, everyone stayed every night, and they had various guests, they had everything from sort of MSNBC kind of pundits to local political people to people from churches and synagogues to a recent graduate from Marjorie Stoneman Douglas in Parkland. And those conversations were way more fiery and engaged, and people were a little bit more like we're gonna do something about this now. And then obviously there were productions that happened I wasn't a part of, and the pandemic happened and people went away, and then really this was the next one that I was a part of.

We did the reading at our synagogue, and we had someone from the Brady campaign, we had a local politician and somebody from an organization called Safer Country in Virginia. And the conversation felt extremely just more positive because there was this progress that was happening in Washington that people were responding to, and lots of those people on a Tuesday night said, Yes, I'm gonna go to this march in Brooklyn on Saturday. More and more people were attending that march. I went to the one in DC the year after Parkland, and my parents then went to the one in DC this time, and my dad, who had seen both said it was even more well attended. So yeah, I do think the conversation is changing.

I think the momentum is in our favor. Obviously, Congress is doing something right now. It's a little bit of a watered-down bill, but it's got bipartisan support. So I think things are moving, and I think people are realizing that we can make change. You just have to be loud and yell and not shut up about it because Congress won't do anything unless they think they have to. So yeah, I just in the short time and in the five years since really this play has been kind of a thing, I have seen different reactions to the play and more movement on the political side and sort of in the audience, just a little bit more of a more of a positive outlook and a more of an active outlook is what I would say. It felt a little bit like we were sitting on our hands in 2017, like, oh well, what are we gonna do? And now it feels a little bit more engaged and proactive.

[9:59] Leah Krevet: Leah, you were approached by your mom after Parkland and you wanted to get involved in ending gun violence. You started Students Demand Action and Moms Demand Action. Since you've been involved in this movement, has the conversation around gun sense and gun legislation changed here in Raleigh? Have you seen some movement here?

[10:26] Yeah, for sure. Just this last weekend, I helped organize March for Our Lives, and there were over hundreds of people there. And I'm just seeing more and more people saying, 'What can I do? I need to do something.' And it's so empowering to see it seems like more people are now really seeing this issue and yeah, I'm really happy to see what Congress is doing with this bipartisan deal and really excited to see where it goes. For me as a mom, it's so impactful to see students like you stepping up and becoming so active in this cause. Is the face of activism getting younger, and is that why things are getting done? I think that after Parkland when those fabulous kids came out and started March for Our Lives and pretty much said we're not going to take it anymore.

[11:24] Leah Krevet: I think, uh, kids like her and her friends are all, you know, they're taking a more active part. I mean, Leah used to leave the table when we talked about politics, you know, and now she sits at the table and she argues, and she stomps around, and she makes her voice heard, which is really, really important.

[11:44] Jason Odell Williams: Honestly, I'm probably in the past couple months, I've had people come to me saying, "How do I get involved?" and I'm like, "Join Students Demand Action. There's March for Our Lives, which is also youth-led." And so there's been a lot of new groups showing up, which is like awesome. I think, you know, they are getting younger; however, they're also getting more diverse. You know, when I go to protests or marches, I see such—I see the true America of, you know, racial equality, and everybody's together equally in their diversity. They might not agree on everything, but they all agree on that one thing. Whereas the protests that you see on television are largely one-sided. You know, it's the January 6th or what have you—it's those kind of protests that it's all white, basically.

That's all you see on the news. You don't see as often the diverse, joyful protests that, you know, should happen. But yeah, it is getting more young, but it's also getting more diverse, which is what America is.

[11:44] Yvonne Velsanti Anderson: I'm so glad you said that because I feel that way too. I, um, when we started talking about theater and racism and the arts during COVID after the murder of George Floyd, I felt the same way that the protests were so effective and inspiring because it was diverse groups protesting. And the kids who have been on Torn, which is a series we do, Theater on Racism, have been very diverse and very vocal, and it gives me hope that we're heading in the right direction. Jason, after the murder of George Floyd, you wrote a monologue for the fictional senator in this play, Charlie Whitmore. You called this, "What would Charlie Whitmore say today?" What do you think Charlie Whitmore, as the senator, the politician in this play, would say following these mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde?

[14:11] Jason Odell Williams: Well, I think, um, unfortunately, he would say the exact same thing that he says in the play. It was interesting doing the play, the reading recently. We were gonna have our actor from Off-Broadway, who lives in LA, come and do it. He came and tested positive for COVID, so I had to run over there and rehearse it very quickly, and I did it myself. I hadn't read this play out loud myself in, you know, I mean, years. And it was somehow more relevant just coming off the heels of Buffalo and Uvalde than ever to me. And then there's a list of names, as you guys might be familiar with, at the end of the play. Charlie sort of lists, and when we wrote the play, there was a list of seven cities, and now the list is over 20 cities, and it's not even five years.

And so that's what he would do. He would just list the names. My wife directed the reading, and she added one little sort of directorial flourish, which is, um, as he, uh, after every name that he read, she had a person in the audience, mostly young people, but some adults too, with orange shirts on stand up, sort of scattered throughout the audience. And it was just really a powerful moment. It was hard for me to even say the words as I looked out and saw that. And, um, I think that's what he would do. He would just keep saying that list over and over again and keep reminding people that you have to do something. It just takes a little courage, a little caring, and a whole lot of follow-through.

And the whole lot of follow-through to me was the whole point of that speech, essentially, and of that play is that we can all talk to each other, and we can all say all the right things and, you know, pat each other on the back and post on Facebook and Twitter, but it's about actionable items. And that's what my wife and I did. On our website right now, churchandstatetheplay.com, like literally the front page is now actionable items—like things that these people at our talkback said you can do. Here are the candidates that are running for Senate in states that you can support that could flip the Senate, and they're gonna do something about, you know, gun legislation. Here are the places you can go to donate, um, your time or your money that are doing good things. It's like you need somebody to tell you what are those things to do. So I think Charlie would keep beating this drum, but then also tell people what they can do to take action.

[16:24] Brian: You played Charlie Whitmore in the production at Interact. You're revisiting this character now for this staged reading. What do you think he would say?

[16:36] Brian: The only thing I would add to what Jason just said is that I think he'd be pissed off. You know, um, I think he would be angry at his colleagues, and I think that's where he would try to really make a difference among his colleagues in the Senate.

[16:51] Jason Odell Williams: That's true. The Republican Party has changed in the last five years, and sort of this centrist dream ideal person that I wrote up, you know, in 2016, 2017, like that guy barely exists now, and he would be, like you said, so angry at his fellow Republicans. That would be where a lot of his rhetoric would be directed towards them for sure.

[17:15] Yvonne Velsanti Anderson: Jason, you said in an interview for a Maryland publication that Church and State, out of all the work, gave you the most joy. Um, and I'm gonna say joy in air quotes because it's not a joyful topic or theme, but why has this play and these subsequent productions and readings been so rewarding for you?

[17:42] Jason Odell Williams: Well, I think you just said it there with the subsequent productions. Um, it's the play that has been produced the most of mine—over 60 productions already, another four or five, probably this year. And I, uh, really hate social media, but the one thing I love about it is like I will see people on Facebook posting about it, and I connect with, you know, people like Yvonne and Brian and productions all over the country, uh, you know, strangers, and I kind of feel a little bit, um, like I'm involved in that production when I see it sort of happening. And that gives me joy that this thing that I wrote, because I was angry and upset and lost, like just like Charlie says, um, now is giving this small company of actors, uh, and an audience member the same maybe comfort.

That’s the dream. I mean, you just want to reach as many people as you can. So I think that's why it gives me joy is, you know, it can be a production at a big professional theater in Texas, which they did this spring, or it can be a tiny little, you know, theater in Alaska, which did the show, and it was, you know, basically in somebody's living room, and it still gives you joy that people come together and are doing this play and are moved by these words and these characters. I mean, I still keep in touch with people that have done these productions that I have never met, uh, because the play speaks to them. Uh, so that I think that's why it gives me the most joy is, um, life is about connections and sort of, you know, these strange little relationships you make, and theater is a little family that you build.

[19:21] Yvonne Velsanti Anderson: Modely, according to U.S. News and World Report, North Carolina is number 14, um, out of the states when it comes to the number of school shootings with at least one victim killed or wounded since 1970. Are we doing enough in this state to keep our kids and our communities safe?

[19:46] Jason Odell Williams: No. No, I can honestly say we are not doing enough. I think in the last four years, we've had some of our NCGA reps trying to bring the red flag law to the floor, and it gets stuck in committee, and they've filed discharge petitions and they failed. I honestly think we are not doing enough. We need to pass good gun sense legislation. We need to have safe storage laws. We need to spread safe storage information. It's just one of the things that will help. So, you know, we're talking legislation, safe storage, um, good licensure for, you know, for firearms. Um, there's so much more that we can do. And unfortunately, there's one side over the other that doesn't care. They’re always spouting their, you know, my Second Amendment rights, my Second Amendment rights, and they're not thinking about the children that are dying.

[21:11] Yvonne Velsanti Anderson: Jason, you were a teacher. There's a lot of conversation around arming teachers, putting guns in the classroom. Is that a solution?

[21:22] Yvonne Velsanti Anderson: No, that's not a solution. I think, uh, what Modavy just spoke about, um, trying to educate people, um, which is what teachers do. Um, I think Sandy Hook Promise also has different modules that can be done in elementary, middle, and high school to teach kids about what to look for regarding, uh, what might be a danger sign or, you know, see something, say something, hear something, say something. And so, uh, arming a teacher, having been in the classroom for 34 years, there are probably days when no, it's this teacher, and many teachers don't need to have a gun. Teachers need to be doing what they're trained to do, which is teach. And I think this can all become part of social and emotional learning in the schools. And so I applaud Modavy for trying to work with our local schools here to get that happening.

[22:17] Jason Odell Williams: Well, we, um, we actually stopped an arming teachers amendment on this, um, school safety bill that I think it was Representative Pittman three years ago. He was trying to get this arming teachers amendment into this bill. Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action showed up two days in a row and sat in the gallery and pretty much said, "Hey, we're watching you."

[22:37] Jason Odell Williams: We also made phone calls and urged people not to vote for that amendment, and it did not pass. Um, and let me tell you, my parents were both professors. Teachers need to be armed with books and resources, schools need to be armed with good counselors and psychologists, which is something that right now we don't have. Um, the last thing they need to do is to be armed with guns. We m uh Leah had a teacher in third grade, um, Colleen Ryan, who was um in the military. She was trained as a sharpshooter. She said she would quit before she ever brought a gun into the classroom. Although, you know, when you are sitting in the corner of your classroom with the lights off during an active shooter drill, and you're thinking about what can you do to protect those kids in your room when all you have is a big desk and a bunch of uh dictionaries and textbooks on the shelf.

You know, there something else needs to be done to protect children in the classroom. The big thing is the laws. Um, you know, we need we need good gun sense legislation and red flag laws. The uh HR8, which is the bipartisan background checks bill, has been sitting in Congress being held hostage, I don't know, for like the last four or five years. It got passed twice in the house, and no one's brought it to the floor yet, basically because they know it's not gonna get passed. And of course, Mitch McConnell had it sitting on his desk for years and he didn't care about it. So it's good gun sense legislation and education that's gonna help. Um, and that's the only thing. It's not arming everybody.

This is not the wild, wild west, this is the 21st century. Jason Matthew McConaughey gave this uh very impassioned speech at the White House. Does that kind of celebrity help or hurt the cause in any way?

[24:44] Jason Odell Williams: Well, it's funny you say that because uh one of the ideas that my wife and I had is I think you need to sort of move away from Hollywood celebrities because even if it's McConaughey who's a Texan and a Republican, and I think he admitted to voting for Trump at least once, the you know, people can write them off as you know, elite, whatever, coastal elites, whatever they say. Um I I would love for athletes, you know, MBA, NFL, especially athletes, to talk about you know, real men don't need guns. I know that's probably maybe a little um chauvinistic to say, but uh honestly that's the kind of talk that they people need to hear. We need to change the culture because you know, smoking used to be a thing and it was really cool and all the cool guys did it, and then it changed in the eighties and nineties, and finally you don't see smoking in TV or movies anymore, and it's not cool and it's looked down upon and there's uh their sales tanked and and you know, people still smoke, but it's it people aren't dying at the rates that they used to, you know, the fact they took it away in bars, you can't smoke in bars and in most bars here in New York, especially.

Um so if the culture changes, and I think athletes do have power to do that. Um, I would love to see, you know, LeBron James and you know, people of that sort of mega watt star power talk about how guns are stupid. Uh rap stars, rappers, you know, like if they start kind of saying, listen, I know we rap about this stuff in videos, but you know, it's just the game, it's not for real. Uh it they can change because you know, school shootings are one thing, but the i i there was a thing in the New York Times about, you know, a uh a reporter spent the weekend in Chicago and there was 50 shootings oh in in three days. Um, you know, that stuff's not just reported because it's not sensational and it doesn't make people turn on the news.

So I I think celebrities can do something about this. Uh to me, uh the more people that speak out about it the better. I mean, that was great. I love that McConaughey did that. That's awesome. Um, I would like to see more people do it. There was a couple, there's a coach Steve Kerr who got angry about it. There's a baseball manager, I forget, I think the St. Louis Cardinals manager who said he wasn't gonna stand out for the national anthem until he felt like his state had done something about this. You know, power to the people. Like we couldn't we can just bring the country to a standstill if we wanted to. Kids can stop going to school, teachers can stop going to school, you know, if until they do something about this, like there's a way to do it.

And so I think if celebrities speak up and out, um, I I I think it's great. I would just like to see more of them do it. And I know they don't they tend to not want to take a position like that, a hardline position, because they don't want to, you know, upset half of their potential fans. But I I I think they need to, you know, put their money where their mouth is and and when it's a public health issue, this is not a partisan issue. This is just really simply, you know, about saving lives and protecting kids and people not wanting to be scared anymore. I mean, it's pretty simple stuff. So yeah, I'd love to see more. I'd love to see more of them speak out for sure.

[27:47] Jason Odell Williams: The conversations around gun sense gets a little muddied with conversations around mental health, which is a very serious issue in our country. I'm not gonna say it's not, but but do these conversations need to happen together and are politicians using mental health as um an out? If it's a mental health issue, then why are we giving these people guns? Um there are you know, other countries have mental health issues too. Everybody everybody in the world, you know, there's there's always someone that has a mental health issue. I mean, I I I you know I have depression and anxiety, and I um you know, and I I I know I wouldn't want a gun in my house because you know, um, of my issues, but it it's not just a mental health issue.

Um that's part of the problem. Um, I just think this country has a love affair with guns, and I think the NRA is pushing that, they're romanticizing having a gun, you know, uh Tombstone, Arizona, you know, back in the 1800s, and everybody's wide urban Doc Holiday and protecting their own with a gun. That that shouldn't be the culture, and that's that's what our gun gun culture is right now. But um uh yes, we definitely need to get people help if they have a mental health issue. One of the things, you know, the thing that the red flag law does is it it lets you say something when you see something, it identifies someone as having an issue, and it could be temporary or it could be you know a long-term thing.

Um you can you can tell law enforcement or a judge they'll take away that person's weapons temporarily until they're assessed and helped. Um, and uh you know, that's that's one thing that's gonna help that mental health issue. So it's not just mental health, and and again, if it's mental health, why are we giving people guns? You know, the the shooter in in Uvaldi obviously had signs and issues, and if we had a red flag law, somebody, maybe somebody would have said something and stopped him from getting a gun.

[30:08] Brian: Brian, when you did the play prior and digging into this character, digging into this story, was there anything that surprised you about working on the production then and revisiting it now?

[30:27] Brian: There were two things that happened during um our initial run of this play that I will never forget as long as I live. And that was one night during rehearsal for the first time ever, we heard the gun go off, a real gun. Now obviously a prop, but I was sitting in the audience and while they were testing that, and to this day I've got chills just hearing that gunshot because that only means one thing, you know, that's a loss of life. That's all that means, and that's that's huge. And so that that has stuck with me forever. The second thing, I'm from Charleston, South Carolina. So when that kid went into that AME church, um, and that is actually Charleston is mentioned in the in church and state, the original script. Every time I got up to do that monologue and said the word Charleston, I'm saying it now, uh, I get choked up because it's personal and it's it's your home. Um, so you know, it's the same feeling people from Uvalde get now, um, unfortunately.

[31:38] Yvonne Velsanti Anderson: What do you hope people will get from attending this reading and from supporting these organizations that interact as supporting Sandy Hook Promise and Mom's Demand Action? It's funny that Jason said they had action steps for people to take. Um, I just had a meeting with Tim Lockler the other day about us doing the exact same thing. Um, and I hope they leave with action steps. Modavi and Leah are gonna be there with information for people to pick up. I I hope it just starts the conversation again. Um, we had such a great response from audience members to this play the first time we um produced it that I just I just hope that's what happens, that people will not just think about this as the issue of the day, but more people will become like Modavi and Leah and will use their voice and um their activism to try to make change happen.

And um I hope people like Brian and I continue to do art for not just our own sake, but to do art um for the sake of raising social issues. I just think it's important for us to use whatever vehicle we can to get people to talk and church and state is a great vehicle um for that.

[33:07] Lauren Van Hemert: The North Raleigh Arts and Creative Theatre staged reading of church and state happens on June twenty-seventh. I will put links in the episode notes. If you like what you've heard today, please consider subscribing to this podcast. Follow us on social media, on Facebook or Instagram at Beltline to Broadway or Twitter at Beltline to B Way, or visit us online at www.beltline to broadway.org. Until next time, I'll see you at the theater.