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[0:00] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Hello, and welcome to the Drama Book Show. My name is Mark-Eugene Garcia. Today on the Drama Book Show, we're diving into a conversation about theatre beyond entertainment, about theatre as activism, as education, as protests, and as a way of understanding ourselves and the world around us. We talk about who gets represented on stage, how identity and history shape storytelling, and what responsibilities artists and educators have in this particular moment. Joining us are two incredible guests. Khalid Y. Long is an Associate Dean for Research and Creative Endeavors in the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts at Howard University, where he has also served as an Interim Chair and Associate Professor of Theatre Arts.

He is the co-editor of Contemporary Black Theatre and Performance, and the author of August Wilson in Context, while also working nationally as a freelance dramaturg. Joining us as well is Aviva Neff, Associate Professor of Theatre at Denison University, a Director, Intimacy Coordinator, and a devised theatre artist whose work focuses on equitable rehearsal practices and applied performance. She is also an ensemble member with Theda Vizzo, and a scholar of August Wilson's legacy and performance practices. Together, we get into some big questions. What makes theatre necessary? How does dramaturgy shape conversations around race and identity? What are students asking for right now? And how can theatre help us understand activism, solidarity, and history in ways that go far beyond the stage?

The conversation takes some unexpected turns, from mixed-race productions of The Glass Menagerie to performance studies and social media, Black theatre history, and the ways storytelling continues to shape culture. So settle in and enjoy this episode of the Drama Book Show.

[2:39] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Welcome to the Drama Book Show at the Drama Book Shop. The Drama Book Show is an interview, Q&A, book signing, and live podcast recording all in one. We have events every week, and all of that information can be found at Drama Book Show podcast on Instagram and the Drama Book Shop at Eventbrite. We'd be happy to have you here. We're so happy to have you all here. So Khalid Y. Long is Associate Dean for Research and Creative Endeavors in the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts at Howard University, where he has also served as Interim Chair and Associate Professor of Theatre Arts. He is the co-editor of Contemporary Black Theatre and Performance and author of August Wilson in Context, and works nationally as a freelance dramaturg.

Aviva Neff is an Associate Professor of Theatre at Denison University, a Director, Intimacy Coordinator, and Devised Theatre Artist. Her work centers on equitable rehearsal practices and applied performance. She is an ensemble member with Teatro Televiso, and a scholar of August Wilson's legacy and performance practices. Welcome, y'all.

[4:31] Khalid Y. Long: Thank you. I'm so glad to be here.

[4:34] Mark-Eugene Garcia: So first question is, how did this book come about?

[4:38] Khalid Y. Long: So it actually, so I'm the co-editor with Doron Williams and Martine Kygreen-Rogers. Doron is a professor at Loyola in Chicago, and Martine is actually the Dean of the Theatre School at DePaul. I think I'm saying that correctly. DePaul in Chicago. She runs that place. So it actually, so a few years ago at a conference that we attend, in fact, Aviva and I are both members of that organization, ATHA, which is short for the Association for Theatre and Higher Education. It was a panel that Doron led with some folks, and then he was approached by Methuen Bloomsbury, and they were interested in that panel growing into a publication, which is something that happens regularly. And he approached me and said, hey, do you want to co-edit this with me?

And I said, yeah, let's do it. I need a book. You need a book. We're trying to get tenure. And I said, let's do it. And then I said, well, let's get another person. And so we called Martine, who's a brilliant scholar and a dramaturg and so forth. And we put out the call, and it started there. And I'll wrap it up by saying, believe it or not, Black theatre is an area of study. It's an area of practice. It's something that people, you go see a Black play. August Wilson, Joe Turner's Come and Gone is on Broadway right now. Black theatre, Black play. Schools do it. There are courses on Black theatre. But believe it or not, there are not a lot of books, studies, critical studies on Black theatre.

Yes, there are some. There's a group of them that may fill up a bookshelf. And there is, and of course, in the context of academia, performance studies is something that's quite, that has grown. And there are books that offer cultural studies purview or a focus on Black performance through a performance studies lens. But we know what I'm talking about is theatre. And I'm talking about plays, playwrights, the process of making, ritual, and then performance in the context of social justice. And so we wanted this book to be a meditation, to be a blueprint, to be reflexive, an opportunity for scholars as well as artists to offer chapters that can be a critical study of a play, i.e. Terrell Alvin McCraney has a chapter, and there's a chapter on him in there.

There's a chapter on Lynn Nottage. And then we switched to part two, which talks about the making. So we have several artists talking about the dramaturgical process of making queer works or works that center trans folks. And then part three is performances protest. So all that to say, it was a, it was, there was a mix, a call for a mix of people who are doing contemporary works around theatre, recognizing the necessity of Black theatre. Yeah.

[7:48] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Wonderful. Okay. So when you use the term, or the phrase, Black theatre as activism, what does that actually look like in practice?

[7:56] Aviva Neff: Aviv, you want to take that one?

[7:59] Khalid Y. Long: Yeah, I can. It's a big question. I think, again, it gets to Khalid's point. I think I consider many things to be theatre that may not be traditionally under the umbrella of theatre. I am really a performance studies scholar, and I'm interested in performance studies through a Black American lens. I'm interested in issues of race and identity and constructing that identity through a performance studies lens. So I think I initially wrote my chapter during the height of the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement, I believe. And we're seeing widespread responses to the murder of George Floyd, obviously unrest around the COVID-19 pandemic. And I started thinking about the role of social media specifically in the context of a protest movement, if it's possible to have productive protests on social media.

And we can talk about that at some point later. But I think for me, Black theatre is everywhere. It's in the way that we gesture towards vocally and physically racial identity. And I think that we are afforded many opportunities on stage, especially Black Americans are afforded opportunities on stage, in social media contexts, in non-traditional performance contexts, to assert identities. We just don't talk about them constructively in the academy. I think, gosh, I don't know, ask a follow up. Give me the follow up.

[9:26] Mark-Eugene Garcia: What is the role of dramaturgy in inviting Black perspectives to the stage?

[9:31] Aviva Neff: Oh, okay. So dramaturgy, I'm a dramaturge, right? I do work as a dramaturge. And I work nationally. Ironically, I'm called often because of my work as a scholar of Black theatre and performance. And so for I'll give an example. There's a comedy, Arsenic and Old Lace, and it was done at Court Theatre in Chicago, and it was a predominantly Black cast. And so we were talking about not that Black actors can't participate in this play, but the idea of comedy from the context or historical context of Blackness, right? Or Black folks participating historically in comedy from a variety of spaces, from conventional and traditional standup comedy to plays where comedy is the central framing and so forth.

But I'll give an example. So again, I'm a dramaturge and I work on lots of plays. But oftentimes when I am offered an opportunity, I ask, what do you need me to do for this particular production? Or when I'm doing new play dramaturgy and I'm working with a playwright, I'll ask, what is it that you want me to do to support this work? And oftentimes they'll say, you're someone who specializes in this area. I'd like you to take a look and help us figure this out, whether that's a production or a new play. I'll give an example. When I did Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie at Rep Stage in Howard County, Maryland, which actually they closed that theater and it was a historic theater, done beautiful work.

Artistic director was Joseph Rich. He had a cast and they were multiracial and he did it on purpose. And Glass Menagerie, classic play, folks gonna have questions. And I remember the first day of rehearsal, he says, you got a Black Laura, is that the daughter? Black Laura. The mom is white. Amanda, you got a son, Dylan Arundo. I'm messing up his last name, but Dylan, who is actually, if I'm correct, Mexican American and white. And I actually apologize. Dylan, if you listen to this, I apologize for messing up your identity. And then we played up heavily the queer identity of Tom. So I remember the first rehearsal, I flew in from Chicago. I was living in Chicago then and people in the cast, they're like, how are we going to do this?

And I said, all right, I gotta, all right. Okay. I gotta figure out how this is going to work. And I said, all right, 40s St. Louis. I got it. And I came and I talked to the director, Joseph Rich about it. And I said, she was married to a Black man who was passing, which is why they had to leave and move. And then he disappears because in the play, he's not around. So he moves and he leaves the family because it is discovered that he is passing in order for them to not get killed or harmed. He left so that they could be okay. And they were, and it worked, which then forced me. So my work as a dramaturge, we got deep into the history of miscegenation. We got deep into the history of biraciality and that time period where we often think loving versus loving is not the first case.

We got deep into the history of passing. We got in, it worked. And so as my role as a dramaturge was to help cultivate and curate those critical discussions. And one of the things that I did, and this is the last thing I'll say on that is I had one-on-ones with each of the performers about their own racial identity. For example, Amanda, the mother, the woman who played the mother, beautiful actress, she, white woman, she was really nervous about approaching her children in the play from a racialized lens. And I said, you are a white mother with children of color. You better get on board and you better dig somewhere to understand that historical and dangerous possibility. And a couple of days later, she started to understand.

I gave her some literature. We just kept continuing to have conversations and things. I don't even know if I'm answering the question, but I just went somewhere with it. I wanted to say, I needed you so bad when I was 18, because I was literally Laura Wingfield in a mixed race production of The Glass Menagerie. And we had a white actress playing Amanda, a Black actor playing Tom, and the gentleman caller. I don't remember his name, but the gentleman caller, the gentleman caller. And we used a photograph of the actor who played Tom as the father. So it was clearly delineated that Mr. Wingfield was Black. Mrs. Wingfield is white or at least white presenting. Tom is Black presenting. Laura, myself, I'm a Black biracial woman and I'm white presenting. And the cast, we all got along great. It was a good show. But I do remember one of my first introductions.

[14:11] David Rigano: Welcome back to The Drama Book Show! Today, we have a fantastic episode lined up for you. We’re diving into the world of contemporary Black theatre and performance with our esteemed guests, Khalid Y. Long and Aviva Neff.

[14:41] Khalid Y. Long: Thank you for having us!

[14:42] Aviva Neff: Yes, thank you! It’s great to be here.

[14:43] David Rigano: Khalid, you’re the Associate Dean of Research and Creative Endeavors at Howard University, and Aviva, you’re an Assistant Professor of Theatre at Denison University. Can you both share a bit about your backgrounds and what led you to focus on Black theatre and performance?

[15:11] Khalid Y. Long: Absolutely. My journey began with a deep appreciation for the works of Black playwrights, particularly August Wilson. I’ve always been fascinated by how theatre can serve as a platform for social change and identity exploration. My work as a dramaturg has allowed me to engage with various narratives that reflect the Black experience, and I’m excited to contribute to this ongoing conversation.

[15:41] Aviva Neff: For me, it started with a passion for directing and intimacy coordination. I realized that the stories we tell in theatre can profoundly impact our understanding of identity and community. My research focuses on equitable rehearsal practices and how devised theatre can amplify marginalized voices, particularly in the context of Black performance.

[16:11] David Rigano: That’s incredible! Your book, "Contemporary Black Theatre and Performance: Acts of Rebellion, Activism, and Solidarity," delves into how Black artists use performance to address identity, history, and social change. Can you tell us more about the themes explored in the book?

[16:41] Khalid Y. Long: Certainly! The book features essays and conversations with leading scholars and theatre-makers, examining topics like Black queer identity in playwriting and antiracist pedagogy. We wanted to highlight how contemporary Black artists are not just creating art but are also engaging in activism through their work.

[17:11] Aviva Neff: Yes, and we also explore contemporary works by artists such as Lynn Nottage and Tarell Alvin McCraney. Their contributions to theatre challenge traditional narratives and offer new perspectives on the Black experience, which is crucial in today’s socio-political climate.

[17:41] David Rigano: It sounds like a vital resource for anyone interested in understanding the complexities of Black theatre. What do you hope readers take away from your book?

[18:01] Khalid Y. Long: We hope readers will recognize the power of performance as a tool for activism and solidarity. It’s essential to understand that these stories are not just for entertainment; they are reflections of our society and can inspire change.

[18:21] Aviva Neff: Exactly! We want to encourage dialogue around these themes and inspire future generations of artists to continue pushing boundaries and exploring their identities through performance.

[18:41] David Rigano: That’s a beautiful mission. As we wrap up, what advice would you give to aspiring playwrights and theatre-makers who want to engage with these themes in their work?

[19:01] Khalid Y. Long: My advice would be to stay true to your voice and experiences. Don’t shy away from difficult conversations; they are often the most impactful. Collaborate with others and be open to learning from different perspectives.

[19:21] Aviva Neff: I would add that it’s important to create spaces where everyone feels safe to express themselves. Intimacy coordination and equitable practices in rehearsal can help foster that environment, allowing for authentic storytelling.

[19:41] David Rigano: Thank you both for sharing your insights today. It’s been a pleasure having you on The Drama Book Show!

[28:22] Khalid Y. Long: What I know is this, students sometimes don't know, they don't actually demand because they're waiting for you to give it to them. And then they will be like, oh, that's the thing right there. I'll give you an example. Oh, this is a good example. I'm teaching in my class this semester, I teach the Theatre History Sequence. I teach Theatre History One, which I have created to be for chronological purview of African American theatre. And then Theatre History Two, I've shaped that into a Black cultural production class. It allows us to be thematic each spring. For example, last semester I taught Black Theatre Institutions, instituting Black Theatre. Because students will say, we need more Black Theatres in this country.

There's no Black Theatres for our work. And I was like, yeah, I can name 97 right now. What I recognized was we're not training them to check for Black Theatres. We're training them to go to Signature, to go to Woolly, to go to Studio, to go to Arena, to go to Broadway, which is fine. And if they go, I'm getting tickets the first night, opening night, I'm going to be there. But what I'm saying is that we are not teaching them in the curriculum that these Black Theatre Institutions, and I'm talking about like Caramoo House in Ohio, over 100 years old, which started as a settlement house, a form of activism by the Pindells. I think I'm saying the last name correctly. Anyway, moving on. And there's a wonderful book that I use in that class called A Black Theatre Life, Black Theatre, Black City, something like that by Macell Mahala.

Check it out. Fast forward, this semester I'm teaching a class called Theatre History Two, and the topic is Black Feminisms, Queer Performance and Social Justice. And we are now, we just last week, we started talking about prison, and using theatre and performance in prisons. And so we read an article by Caitlin Hellwood from her book about Black Feminist Comedy, but this particular chapter was I Could Have Been Your Cellmate, about Monique's prison special, Monique the Comedian. And it's a critical analysis of that piece. And then we read an article by Sarah Warner about Rhodessa Jones' The Medea Project. And now this week, last night, I'm bringing all this to say, we did a public conversation with Dr. Lisa Biggs, who's a professor at Brown in their Rights and Reasons program.

And her book is The Healing State, and she talks about each chapter takes up programs that deal with women, incarcerated women in particular, incarcerated Black women, and how they use theatre as a form of agency, autonomy, and really citizenship building to recreate themselves as full citizens, even though they are incarcerated. And the students came, and they were like, Dr. Long, we get it now. Because what I'm trying to get them to understand is that commercial theatre, thinking about the 97 theatres they don't know, and yet the commercial theatres they do know, it's one way to do performance. But if you are deeply invested in performance, if you are deeply invested in creative work, it doesn't have to be on the commercial stage.

You can go to Zimbabwe, or go somewhere down in South America, and create performances to teach young people about hygiene. Because that actually does happen. I'm thinking about Diesel Yeaney-Madison's work. It happens. So performance can do so much more. But I think as instructors, we have to introduce them to the possibilities and the potential of theatre work. And also, the last thing I'll say, there are moments where I tell students all the time, baby, you ain't going to make it on stage. I'm sorry to break it to you, but you like theatre. You can be a playwright. You can be a dramaturg. You can be an administrator. You can open up a bookshop, which has always been one of my goals in life to do.

And I'm going to get there. There's so much you can do to participate in theatre performance as a collective, without always having to think you need to be on the stage. And so our job, I think, is to introduce them to those other possibilities and potentials.

[32:31] Aviva Neff: Yeah, I agree. I love that. Shout out, Dr. Lisa. We love you. As far as season selection, something weird is happening where I'm having students ask for classical work, which is not what I probably ever would have done as an undergrad. I was like, oh, no more Shakespeare. Give me something contemporary and raw. And we felt a real upswing or uptick in requests for us to do. I just closed Macbeth. And that was because students wrote a polite but firm email to our faculty requesting, hey, you need to do Macbeth. OK, great. What I'm really seeing is even in my theatre history classes, which are predominantly theatre majors, which is not always the case in a liberal arts institution like the one I teach at, I feel that sometimes they're more invested in the history than the theatre.

Which, hey, you know what? History is theatre. You know what? I have a degree in US history. It's the perfect gateway to getting into theatre. I do consider myself a historian. But I've noticed that I'm having really rich discussions about what's happening dramaturgically around the particular show. I just closed a unit on Afrofuturism. And we read Lorraine Hansberry's underrated, underperformed, underproduced What Use Are Flowers?, which is a sci-fi speculative fiction play about the place of art after the end of the world. And I got this big question from a student that I really loved. And the student asked me, they said, Afrofuturism, is it a structural, and I'm paraphrasing, is it a set of structural frameworks for which one lives their life?

Or is it an identity-based structure in which Black people, primarily Black Americans who are situated in America, must be represented in leadership in X, Y, and Z? And I thought it was a really good question because I think the answer is yes, Black Americans must be represented urgently. That's the point of Afrofuturism, imagining Black futurity. And I realized I was getting these really big sociological questions that were absolutely not directly connected to the theatre we were reading. I felt that the students were finally using theatre as a way to understand history, and history as a way to understand theatre. And I really appreciated that. Because I think now is a really good moment for people to be paying attention to history. It's a green flag in my classroom, for sure.

[35:07] Xavier Moses: Can I offer something? Well, just to trouble this a little bit, because teaching isn't always like the most beautiful thing in the world. Sometimes I go, my God. And partly because when I'm teaching students, let's say, in a Black theatre class or dramatic criticism class, as you said, they will ask for classics. Why do we always got to study Black plays? Which I find to just be so disheartening, right? Especially if you are someone who identifies as a Black person. We want to learn classics. And I go, yes. I'm trying to be nice and nurturing. No, like, in my response now, I'm trying to be... As my grandmother would say, democratic. Yes. My grandmother, she was 91 years old, she would say democratic.

But let me just not be democratic in this moment. Baby, you don't want to learn about yourself. That'll make no sense. I'm not saying that works like Shakespeare, and Moliere, and O'Neill, and all of them, but the world global playwrights aren't brilliant and wonderful, and you should not learn their works and adapt them and do all that. Yes, she has to do it all. But to say verbally and to have, that is a political stance that you are taking when you say, I don't want to study Black theatre. I find it to be limiting. But what's interesting is that stance, that perspective, really is a socialization that they are taking on as young adults in college when they are becoming, to some degree, shaped for the rest of their... You graduate college and you are shaped.

Not saying things won't further shape you and learn more, but you're really shaping yourself intellectually anyway at that time. And to say something like that is so sad and disheartening. And I know where it comes from. It comes from the fact that people think that success means whiteness. We still think that success is whiteness. You have to do the white play, take on the white role, get into the white theatre. When I say white, I'm not talking about people. I'm talking about social structures, that the measurement of success is whiteness. I found it to be so sad. Because it also means you are going to limit yourself to a beautiful world of blackness and other forms and other cultural moments that can open you up to greater possibilities. Maybe whiteness is limiting. I think that's what I'm trying to get to.

[37:29] Khalid Y. Long: And from a pragmatic approach, a boring pragmatic approach, like if you don't take those classes, they disappear. So you're pulling the ladder up for people for generations after you. We're seeing a coordinated federal attack on Black studies, on Black history, on gender studies, gender history, sociology, basically anything that pulls identity studies and asks us to consider critically what holding these identities means in a contemporary and an historic landscape. When you don't enroll in those classes, when you don't audition for that play, those plays stop happening. Those classes stop happening. Those books stop getting published. And then what happens 20 years from now? Does our history cease to exist because nobody cared to read it?

So I think you have a responsibility to yourself, as well as seven generations forward to learn the history and eventually transmit the history. And I think that goes beyond study. It's socializing with each other. I talk to my mom on the phone often. But I was speaking to her before, and she's a retired African American literature professor. And I was talking to her about her experience living in Detroit right after the Detroit uprising of the late 60s. And my grandfather, who was the first Black Episcopal bishop in the state of Michigan, and I was asking her what her perspective was on the transition from the civil rights movement into the Black power movement and what that felt like for her.

And she told me this incredible story about how she used to get her hair permed. And one day she went to the hairdresser and the hairdresser said, I'm sorry, baby, your hair is toast. It's damaged. It's fried. You're in trouble. And my mom took the note, went home, and she cut all of her hair off. And she had long hair past her shoulders. She cut it all off and teased it up into an afro. And she came downstairs for breakfast. And she said that she just saw my grandfather's face drop. And she said that she felt him getting very upset with her. Because again, he's a bishop. It's kind of a high social position to be in. So there were rules about how she had to perform her Black identity. And she said that my grandmother actually stepped in and defended her.

And my grandmother was an old school, North Carolina church, church lady, very presentation focused. And she said it was, they had a great relationship, but it was one of the rare times where my grandmother said, nope, let her be young, let her be political, let her be herself. And I realized that my mom and I talk a lot, and it's wonderful, but I have these discussions about her because this is what I'm teaching students. And this is my work. And it just opens up this whole new way for me to get to know my mother, where when I tell her, oh, we're about to read this play, we're about to talk about this thing, she goes, oh, have I ever told you about that time I met James Baldwin at a brunch?

Which happened. That time I saw the Jackson Five play at a county fair before anyone knew who they were. And I get to have these discussions because I am taking this history seriously, because it is my history, it is her history, and it is my grandmother's history, and my grandfather's history, and so on and so forth. And it matters to me that somebody is asking and listening and documenting and then teaching. So I need somebody on the other end of the phone. So pick it up.

[40:41] Aviva Neff: Yes.

[40:42] Xavier Moses: I love parent lore.

[40:45] Khalid Y. Long: Yeah. Oh, man.

[40:46] Aviva Neff: I recently found out at my brother's wedding that my father might be B. King and never told me that until that day. And I said, oh, no, wait, we need to talk more about this.

[40:54] Xavier Moses: Reverse that back. Reverse, reverse.

[40:56] Aviva Neff: Pause the wedding.

[40:57] Khalid Y. Long: Next question is, how has your definition of Black performance evolved over time?

[41:04] Xavier Moses: What is a Black performance? I asked my students, what's the difference between a Black performance and a performance of Blackness? And we talked about performing Blackness, minstrelsy can perform Blackness, right? But Beyonce can perform her Blackness, and these two things are different, right? But minstrelsy is not a Black performance. I think Eric Lott says it's a counterfeit culture, right? I think, to me, a Black performance is not necessarily intended to be understood by everyone. I think it's a necessary performance and not always a quote-unquote good performance, to call back to a previous question. Because good is subjective, but I don't think necessary is subjective.

[41:56] Khalid Y. Long: Yeah, yeah. I'll be honest with you, I don't have an answer, per se, because it's not something that I think about. Or rather, I don't know if it's necessary to attempt to define or to offer a concrete definition or thought around that. But here's what I'll say. The teacher in me says, in 2005, their theater journals, an academic journal, did a special issue on Black performance. And I think the questions were, what is Black theater? What is playing Black similar, right, in this conversation? And there was a host of, excuse me, I have, I don't know, I think I'm nervous or something.

[42:33] Khalid Y. Long: I'm going to start coughing all of a sudden. I had a, there was a host of Black Theatre scholars and practitioners that offered responses. I'm talking about Anna Deavere Smith, Robbie McCauley, Glenda Dickerson, Paul Jackson, Paul Carter Harrison, Sandra Shannon, Harry Elam, Omi Oshun, Joni L. Jones. Just so many people offered responses and some of them, it was ironic because a lot of people who offer responses are down now ancestors, right? And many of them had answers that just went all over. For example, I forgot this professor's name, very prominent professor in the Midwest, Black woman. She's no longer with us. She's sitting amongst the ancestors. She talked about performing classics in chocolate.

So the idea that classic theatre can be Black theatre and performance of Blackness, right? When it's done by a Black cast. My mentor at that time, Dr. Paul Bryan Jackson, who's no longer with us as well, that he talked about Obotchela in postmodern revolutionary diaspora, right? Glenda Dickerson talked about Hurricane Katrina as a form of playing Blackness and the ways in which the media dramatized Blackness as animalistic and white people as victims of Hurricane Katrina, right? So the idea that play comes in. And so it was in E. Patrick Johnson talked about queer Black people, right? So it was just a, so I would say, check that out because the, it has been substantial. These, the answers to that question, I think offers you a way to enter the conversation by starting there out.

And I'll say it, that, that special edition of Theatre Journal was, it really framed my career to be quite honest with you. It was the opening to my master's thesis that I wrote on Pearl Clegg, right? To think about what is a Black play and people like Pearl Clegg, phenomenal playwright, Howard alum, Spelman alum, right? Who writes about Black people in particular, Black women who very much like you come from a civil rights, social activists, family, her father, Albert Clegg and so forth. Ironically, her granddaughter is my student at Howard. Yeah. So it's a beautiful, I think I would usher folks to go look at that. Since you are both deep admirers of August Wilson, myself included, what is your ground on which you stand? Who are the scholars, the artists, the ancestors who informed your work? You've mentioned some of them before of the.

[45:05] Aviva Neff: Yeah. Oh, I'm deeply invested in my literal ancestors, my grandmother and her three sisters. We just lost my grandmother's eldest sister, Doris Carroll, Doris Harris Carroll. She was almost 101 when she passed away and she was texting me. She's very clear minded. And I had the fortune of developing a practices research dissertation for my PhD. And I was able to travel to North Carolina where my family was enslaved. And we are one of those unique cases in which my family was able to reclaim the land upon which they were enslaved. So we actually own that land. And so I was able to literally travel down to the ground on which my ancestors stood. And that was a really defining moment for me because I'm raised in the North.

I'm Southeast Michigan. And I feel weirdly uncomfortable in the South sometimes. It's different. It's real different. It's real different. And getting that opportunity to travel and visit was really important. And I'll just say I was able to return to North Carolina this autumn to do a residency at UNC Chapel Hill, which is where my living family, many of them attended for their medical school. My ancestors went to St. Augustine's College in North Carolina, which is an HBCU. And funnily enough, my family's enslaver, who was a white man, a Scotsman named Thomas Whitmell Harris, he was one of the founders of UNC Chapel Hill. So I had this really interesting moment where I was down there and I was performing my solo performance, which is called Blood, Earth, Water.

And it's a ritual. It's a 45 minute ritual piece in which I call upon my great grandmother, Helena Harris, which is my middle name, Helena. I called upon my grandmother and her three sisters. And when I wrote the play, my grandmother had just passed away. She actually passed away while I was doing the research. I was at the Equal Justice Initiatives Memorial in Montgomery when I got the news. And so this was my first time restaging it since COVID. And it was coincidentally being restaged in North Carolina, despite being a play about North Carolina. And while I performed it, my second cousin, Charles, and his wife, Diane, attended. My mother attended. We had some other family and friends there.

And I just had this moment where I realized that all of us, the great grandchildren of our enslaver, because yes, he fathered children with one of my ancestors. We were all occupying the space that was not for us. We were never, speak because you're never meant to survive. We were never meant to be in that space. And not only was I in that space, but I was performing for an audience of UNCCH alumni. It's a beautiful full circle moment. And I also got the opportunity to flex because you know what, you know what my first name is? It's Doctor. You know what my mom's, you know what my mom's first name is? It's Doctor. You know what my second cousin's first name is? It's Doctor. You know what his wife's first name is?

Doctor. So I had this moment where I was able to sit in the hard struggle and triumph of my family in a space that a man who literally enslaved us and most likely raped an ancestor of mine to get us here. And a hundred years later, boy, that's my name on the playbill, not yours. That's my name. So I feel I just, I come from a matriarchy of women who bruised knuckles. We are fighters and I was able to sit in that fight and really enjoy it this fall. So I do, I really do have all glory to my, the women who came before me. And of course my mom who was alive and well and wonderful and beautiful and brilliant, but yeah, I'm, that's my ground.

[49:00] Khalid Y. Long: Yeah, same. Really, I wouldn't say anything different. I would say family, my, the ancestors, literally folks who have gone on, my grandfather, my, I was raised by my grandparents to the point I call my grandmother mom. So when I say mom, people are like, oh, you take care of your mom? She has dementia now. So I go to Philly every weekend. It's my time to take care of her. And, but I didn't know she wasn't my birth mother until I was like seven. And not that there was like trickery, but something to hit. And I was like, why am I calling her this? Him that heard this, but then the woman I go see every other month says, son, what something does. And then you start learning and understanding and asking questions.

My grandparents and professors, instructors, even friends, right. And all that to say people who are grounded, people who have a love. This is what I always say. I like, I love, we talk about Black theater. I love Black people so much so that even when they disappoint me, I find a way back to them. That is my justice work. But because I come from communities, the Black community who love Black people, like I grew up in, I'm from Philly. I grew up in West Philly. And if you know Philly, I grew up 56 in Lansdowne, a really prominent area at one time. And then quite 80s, baby, just whoo. The 80s just ravaged some of these communities. And so I'm an 80s baby grew up deeply in the 90s is when I started to really understand who I was.

But I, and I grew up. And then I remember like, by the time I came along, there was like drive-bys and shootings, people were getting killed. We went to a funeral every other week for somebody in the neighborhood, gangs, all kinds of stuff, drugs. I remember when I grew up, the little vials on the floor. I remember those things on the ground, all that kind of stuff. But there was a sense of protection of me in the neighborhood because everybody kept saying, you're going to do something with yourself. And I remember when I graduated college and got my master's in Ohio, I went home one time and a neighbor across the street said, I always knew you were going to do well. We had to protect you. That state that I think about that often.

So every time I go home, like I'm going to do tomorrow, I always go across and I waved to him and shake his hand. Cause he always, and so now I understand why some of the neighborhood folks wouldn't let me go to certain places and spaces. You may get home for your Ms. White come up. That was my grandmother's name. Ms. White get out here and all that. There was a sense of protection because many of them said we knew that you were going to make it out. Yeah. So I owe them. That is the ground.

[51:23] Khalid Y. Long: So I'm going to open it up to the room. Are there any questions that you wish that I had asked that you would like to ask a wonderful panel up here? If not, that is okay as well. Do you have a question?

[51:40] Tara: I'll do a question. Hello. My name is Tara. And I am, I would say a Howard parent. So I got this, I noticed my daughter and my son were in the school and I'm here with my sister. He's a Howard grad.

[51:57] Tara: An aspiring Howard grad. Yep. You said something about disappointment in terms of your students wanting to do more white things. And I can say this from the inside. How can you give your students to know more about themselves and about what's happening around them? Some of it is politics. Some of it is race. Some of it is just gender. And I see that lacking. I'm a late 67s baby. That's who I am. That's who I'm always going to be. And I was talking to my granddaughter who is in the business school. She's brilliant. And she's my granddaughter. I talk to her all the time. And I was saying like Don Lemon. Not that's anything. But she didn't really know who he was. Even when I showed her a picture.

And she's an A student. She gets involved in stuff. And then I said Joy Reed. And she didn't. And not that those. But I'm just saying obviously algorithms are skewed. It's how it translates. And I have a grandson that just graduated from engineering. And they get some of this stuff from me. But I don't think there's enough of this real stuff that the students are getting that are going to harm them. I don't know if there needs to be a class in it. I don't know what you can do. But I was here to tell you it's not happening. It's a problem. Because race in this country is an issue. Everything is. So I'm going to recommend some books and some films. As you think you're talking about. I never did a film called IDW.

It talks about probability. So I'm just saying as the students are there. Particularly in black institutions. White institutions. Any institutions. Like the education. We're going to do that. Because it's not happening.

[54:03] Khalid Y. Long: So I have a quick response to that. Thank you for that. Students are not curious today. That's the problem. If we were to just boil it down. They're not curious. And when I say curious. They're not asking questions. They don't want to know more. They're not I got to find out. I got to find out. I want to know more. I want to know more. I remember when I went to Cheney University. And when I first started recognizing. There was a black drama concentration. And I started learning more. I would go to the library and get every single book. That's how my fascination with book collecting started. And so that leads me to my next part. Which is we're not reading enough. This is me. And I might be starting to get settled in the context of age and maturity.

I don't care how much social media. I don't care how much. I don't care about any of that. I don't care how much is out there. There's nothing like reading. I'm talking about reading classics. Reading. When I say classics. Literature that is of a certain time and period. There's nothing like reading. Toni Morrison talks about. Who's one of my favorite people in the world. Talks about this often. You got to read. You have to read. Reading is where it initiates. And so I grew up in the library. 52nd and Chestnut in Philadelphia. West Philadelphia branch. The Lucian E. Blackwell branch. Grew up there. They saved my life. My father took us there every single night to do homework. Because first of all, my father was like, I'm going to break that cycle.

I have a twin. We were the youngest of the grandchildren. And some of the older grandchildren just did different things. And he goes, we're going to break that cycle. I got to. And so we went to the library every single night. And then we drove and did math problems and things like that in the car. But that library card became a credit card for me. I was like, swipe. I get to just swipe in and take all this stuff. You're lying. And so I'm married. And my husband says every other day, don't bring another book in this house. That's why they're buying me today. Because he was like, don't bring them here. But we're not reading.

[56:24] Aviva Neff: Also, information overdrive, I think is what you're getting to, is also information overdrive. Social media, I think, has participated in that. I think that is also an issue. Even myself, I go down a rap, I'll be like, college has been three hours. Get off of Instagram.

[56:44] Aviva Neff: Mind you, we're in Ohio, and we read Torrey Hall's The Mountaintop, and we talked about the production that cast a white actor to play Martin Luther King Jr., a whole other discussion, and I said, this is interesting because it took place at Kent State University, and I said, Kent State is a very historically important campus. Can anyone tell me why?

[57:14] Aviva Neff: This is what it sounded like in the classroom. Silence. And I'm not angry. I'm not angry with my students. I'm not angry with you if you don't know. But I realized, I said, wow, we actually had our computers in the room that day because we were doing archival reads on a newspaper archive, and I said, you guys have your computers in front of you. Google it. Somebody find out. If I ask you a question you don't know, you should figure it out and say, oh, I found this.

[57:33] Aviva Neff: So I found that it's really hard to get people to take that cognitive next step. It's okay when you don't know the information, what are you going to do other than wait for me to tell you what the answer is? And I also think to that point, we are socially in a moment where the capital D discourse is very flattened. You have to absolutely agree with something or absolutely disagree with something. You have to absolutely love this thing or absolutely hate this thing.

[58:00] Aviva Neff: We are really not giving ourselves the opportunity to, first of all, change our minds about things, and then second of all, yes, have a nuanced opinion about that. I can like a TV show and dislike certain things that happened and dislike certain character choices or dislike an episode but holistically appreciate the show and not make it my whole identity where I have to defend it to the bitter end and make somebody else feel bad because they have a different opinion.

[58:27] Aviva Neff: And I'm not talking different political opinions, a whole other thing, but I think that we are socially conditioning young people to believe that they have to be 100% in one camp or the other and there is no middle ground. There is no room for, I hear this and I think this. So I think allowing my students the opportunity to, actually not allowing them, forcing them at times to give me that kind of half-baked idea. Work out the question as you're asking it. It's okay if you are a little clumsy in your wording. I'm not going to tell someone what you said. I'm not going to record this and put it on Instagram.

[59:08] Aviva Neff: I'm just, I'm trying to make my students feel like they're not in this panopticon surveillance culture in my classroom. I know, I just taught them that. Just taught that. Love some Foucault. I'm trying to help them understand that we're not in that. We don't have to live in that culture just because social media thinks that is our culture. It really isn't.

[59:26] Aviva Neff: I don't expect you to answer this now, but I just wanted you to think about it. As an 8th grader, when I was trying to show them some stuff about the war and what was happening, and this is New York City, so our schools are separate and they're not equal, and there's 99 in Central Hall, 99.99% of where I'm kidding. And we've got hooties, we've got everybody up in Central.

[1:00:07] Aviva Neff: And so it was a girl from Africa, probably a Francophone, and I was teaching it, and I asked her a question, and she said, do you want us to be sad? That's what she said, so think about that.

[1:00:38] Audience Member: I just wanted to say that thank you all for your presentation and just sharing your lives with us. I'm in theater, and I was with the DC Black Repertory Theater Company, I'm the Alumni Association president, and from Detroit, and I'm on the board of directors for New Federal Theater in New York, and the Associate Artistic Director of Blackberry Theater Productions. So a lot of young people in theater and in your higher education institutions, they come here and they are expecting to be in white theater.

[1:01:04] Audience Member: They want to be seen as an actor or an actress, not black or white or Asian or whatever. And they are devastated when they come to the realization that if they don't carry who they are with them and bring that with it, that they are lacking the kind of depth and character that is necessary to play any kind of role anywhere.

[1:01:27] Audience Member: But they are not looking to come to New Federal Theater, which is the oldest theater, and they are not thinking to look up or come to Negro Ensemble, blah, blah, blah. What am I trying to say? Negro Ensemble Company. They're not trying, and they're not interested. And when they come, they want you to, they have their managers, I want transportation, where my, and some of your managers, where we were taught to love ourselves and to love the theater, bring ourselves to the theater, so that other people, we are representing our history and our culture and who we are. So you're going to love you more by seeing what I'm doing on this stage. And that is not happening, as you said. So it's like a breath of fresh air to hear how you all were teaching and thinking, because we think that we learned it all, that we were taught it all, the Civil Rights Movement.

[1:03:07] Audience Member: But there's a generation that missed something. And so now we have to teach it again. And we have to teach everything that happened again. And we have to show pictures of people being itched. But you don't, and that is what black theater and performance is to me.

[1:03:31] Audience Member: That we understand who we are, where we come from, and we share our highs and our lows, and we agree with everybody else. Yes on your books. Yes on your solo performances. Yes on your dramaturgy. Fabulous.

[1:04:02] Audience Member: I'm going to tell you about that actually. In my work on Glenda Dickerson. A few weeks ago, about two weeks ago, I went to Tacoma Park, Busboys and Poets in Tacoma Park. And the Young Playwrights, God I forgot the organization, Young Playwrights of D.C. of theater, something in D.C., they had three Howard students, graduating seniors, perform their solo pieces, 10 minute pieces. Some of the best work I've ever seen in my life.

[1:04:26] Audience Member: And so I'm saying it to say, and it was done by students who I love and are near and dear to me, but weren't always the greatest in the beginning of their time in Howard. Four years later, okay, they're going to be alright. And then in another four years, they're going to be better. And they'll get better.

[1:04:40] Audience Member: So often, I do believe this. I grew up in a home that was quite strict, a little hard. I'm at a place now where I'm recognizing, let that eight year old be an eight year old. Let the eight year old be an eight year old. Let them play. We'll get there. Little pieces and bits of information and growing and learning.

[1:04:58] Audience Member: I don't know if I'm going to force an eight year old to come in this bookshop and be like, get five books and you better read them by next week. But I will bring them in here and just let them take in what this is and ask questions and become exposure and be inquisitive. And then say, you can take one thing out of here. And if it's just a simple coffee and a pen, because they like the pen, we're going to get it. And then we'll come back and do more and more. So I do think it's just like how we teach, tearing it. We've got to tear it. We're just in a different world, but I do think we'll be alright.

[1:05:31] Aviva Neff: If I can offer, I know we're close to time, but I have an optimistic teaching story as well. I have this really wonderful student and if he listens, he's going to know who he is. And he's not a theater major, but he's a theater major. And I asked him if he wanted to pursue theater outside of his undergraduate degree. And he said, yes, he wants to go into the design tech field.

[1:05:51] Aviva Neff: And I asked him straight up, I said, you are so good at what you do in our world of theater. Why aren't you a major or a minor? And he is now a theater minor, I will say. And while we were talking, he looked me in the eyes, this young black man, he looked me in the eyes and he said, Aviva, I didn't know theater could be like this. And I said, got it. I understand. You were never welcomed into the room.

[1:06:16] Aviva Neff: Your history, your perspective, the ground on which you stand was never invited into the room. And I realized that yes, it might be pulling teeth sometimes to get the students to read. Sometimes it is. It's not always. But there is always going to be a student in your classroom who has this, I didn't know it could be like this. And it means I didn't know it could be this good.

[1:06:41] Audience Member: Yeah, yeah.

[1:06:42] Aviva Neff: And that's what you do it for.

[1:06:43] Audience Member: Yeah, yeah.

[1:06:44] Aviva Neff: That's the beautiful moment.

[1:06:45] Audience Member: Yeah.

[1:06:46] Aviva Neff: He's a good kid.

[1:06:47] Audience Member: Yeah.

[1:07:19] Aviva Neff: She'll call me and we'll have a beautiful, I got one question. And then actually, it was two hours later. And we both be like, oh, we got to go. Because it's like, I'm growing and I'm listening, the wisdom from a peer that I respect and admire, or a younger student. But moments like this conversation like this, that is what gives me hope. Honestly, I mean that in the most deep, serious and critical way. Whenever I walk, I go, all right, we're gonna be all right.

[1:07:45] Khalid Y. Long: Yeah, yeah. I think honestly, I was gonna say people like you, who, because you're one of those people for me where I'll call you with an idea. And I called you when I first spoke with Mark, and you're one of those people who your answer is always yes. I don't know how we're going to do it, but we'll figure it out. And right now, all you need to know is the answer is yes.

[1:08:05] Aviva Neff: Yep.

[1:08:07] Khalid Y. Long: And we'll make the rest work when we get to it. But for right now, yes. So I do think like I've, despite all the hardships we're facing, I am really lucky to be around a lot of people. And sometimes those people are my students. Actually, a lot of people are my students. Where I'll say, oh my god, I need to figure out this thing on stage. And they'll go, oh, I have an idea. And I feel enough trust and faith in them that I can let them go do that idea. And guess what? It's usually a great idea.

[1:08:28] Khalid Y. Long: But I'm really lucky to have a community of scholars and friends and artists who, when I call them and say, hey, I have this publication idea, and I want to sit with you about it. And I found it in the August Wilson archive. Yes, I'm hinting at something. And I explain it to you and you just go, yep, 100%, we're gonna do it. It might not happen right this second, but it's gonna happen.

[1:08:48] Aviva Neff: Yeah, yeah.

[1:08:49] Khalid Y. Long: Thank you all so much. Thank you all for coming out. And thank you all for being here with us. Wonderful.

[1:08:55] Audience: Thank you.

[1:08:56] Khalid Y. Long: And we are back. It was an incredible conversation. And it was moderated by new moderator, Xavier, who really stepped up and wanted to be part of the conversation. And it was an exciting night for all of us. So I was happy to have them join our moderator family and happy to have this conversation.

[1:09:18] Khalid Y. Long: I met Aviva in the bookstore, and we were just talking about theater, just casual conversations with a customer. And her mom actually said, oh, she is part of a book. And so cheers to moms being our cheerleaders. But her mom said, yeah, she's part of this book. And then as she described the book, I was like, why don't we sell this book and talk to our book buyer and got the book in here.

[1:09:43] Khalid Y. Long: And Aviva and I started the conversation about having an event here. And as you heard, it was incredible. So always talk to us. You never know, maybe you're the next event that we're going to have at the bookshop.

[1:09:56] Khalid Y. Long: Speaking of next events, our next episode is two books, actually, all on the subject of Zelda Fitzchandler. Our authors that are joining us are Mary B. Robinson and Todd London. And we go into a deep dive of Zelda's history and how she influenced the theater. And it's a really incredible journey that I'm very excited to show you.

[1:10:20] Khalid Y. Long: So remember to follow us on Instagram at Dramabookshowpodcast. Follow our eventbrite at Dramabookshop. And remember, all the books we talk about can be found here at the Dramabookshop. And so can we. And we will see you at the bookshop.