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[0:07] Christine Toy Johnson: Welcome to season five of the Dramatist Guild Presents Talkback.

[0:11] Christine Toy Johnson: I'm your host, Christine Toy Johnson.

[0:14] Christine Toy Johnson: This season is all about how we can challenge the status quo and not only expand the canon of what plays are taught, read, programmed, and used to define the idea of what classics are, but also to ignite it with new actionable strategies.

[0:31] Christine Toy Johnson: To me, this is not about canceling the existing canon.

[0:35] Christine Toy Johnson: It's about being intentional about how we make space for additional, diverse, and inclusive stories, as well as reimagining often-produced ones so that the American landscape of storytelling is truly reflective of the gorgeous tapestry of people that inhabit it.

[0:53] Christine Toy Johnson: In our first episode of this season, we'll talk to playwrights and educators Stephen Kaplan and Julianne Wick-Davis about how they've guided their students to look beyond the existing canon for inspiration and how the guild is creating resources for educators to help expand their own curricula.

[1:12] Christine Toy Johnson: Thank you so much for joining me today.

[1:15] Christine Toy Johnson: I'm so excited to get to talk to you both.

[1:24] Julianne Wick-Davis: Sure, my name is Julianne Wick-Davis, and I'm a musical theater writer, composer lyricist, and also musical theater writer educator.

[1:39] Stephen Kaplan: Hi, my name is Stephen Kaplan.

[1:39] Stephen Kaplan: I am a playwright and also an educator.

[1:44] Stephen Kaplan: I've taught and written for most of my life.

[1:48] Stephen Kaplan: I also serve on the Dramatist Guild Council and am the co-chair of the education committee for the guild.

[1:54] Christine Toy Johnson: Great, thank you so much.

[1:55] Christine Toy Johnson: This season is all about igniting the canon.

[2:00] Christine Toy Johnson: And what that means to me is not canceling the existing canon, but expanding it.

[2:07] Christine Toy Johnson: That includes, of course, talking about how plays are taught.

[2:12] Christine Toy Johnson: And because you're both playwrights and educators, I wanted to ask you about your perspectives on this.

[2:19] Christine Toy Johnson: Stephen, I'll start with you since you are the chair of the committee.

[2:22] Christine Toy Johnson: In your experience, how has the work been to try to introduce educators at all different levels to new and additional voices?

[2:35] Stephen Kaplan: It's been very enthusiastic as far as the response from educators.

[2:39] Stephen Kaplan: I think living in both sides of this of being an educator as well as a writer, educators are hungry for resources, for opportunities.

[2:47] Stephen Kaplan: When I came on board as a co-chair about two years ago, and prior to my coming on, the focus had been a lot of universities and colleges, and I'm really excited that we've been looking at high schools and middle schools just because that's when you get them excited about theater.

[3:01] Stephen Kaplan: It's been a really exciting time just trying to reach as many educators as possible.

[3:05] Christine Toy Johnson: And how have you gone about that?

[3:08] Stephen Kaplan: Finding the people you want to talk to and reaching out and introducing them to people or ideas.

[3:14] Stephen Kaplan: It's been a little tricky just because a lot of people don't think about the guild as being a resource for teachers.

[3:20] Stephen Kaplan: We've been partnering with organizations that are already doing this work to really try to reach teachers, like the Association for Theater and Higher Education, Educational Theatre Association, American Alliance for Theater and Education, and basically just saying, hey, we're here, and finding out what are they already doing and what we can do to add to the conversation.

[3:41] Stephen Kaplan: I have to say, and part of the reason I'm excited to be doing the work I'm doing is that as an educator, this is newer work for me.

[3:49] Stephen Kaplan: I relied a lot on early on in my teaching career, like you said, the canon, what's already existed and the things that I was taught, which was a lot of dead white men.

[4:01] Stephen Kaplan: So when I started teaching, that was I taught what I was taught.

[4:01] Stephen Kaplan: Over the years, I have started getting more excited about introducing new voices, finding different plays to do that.

[4:10] Stephen Kaplan: But every day I'm inspired by other teachers too, and looking for ways to shake things up for myself for my classroom.

[4:17] Stephen Kaplan: And it's been, it's reinvigorated me as a teacher, and it's reminded me about why I teach, which is to get every single student's voice out there and make them recognize how important their voices are, and exposing them to more diverse writers only serves to do that.

[4:36] Christine Toy Johnson: Thank you, Stephen.

[4:37] Christine Toy Johnson: Julianne, I would love to know more about your experiences as an educator.

[4:42] Julianne Wick-Davis: Yeah, I spent 20 years teaching all levels in public education and the arts, and now teaching at the university level and teaching writers about the craft.

[4:55] Julianne Wick-Davis: I think the challenge I have found personally, and for those of my colleagues, is finding the time to do the research, and sometimes that desire to expose students to the work that is not currently acknowledged as part of the canon can be a challenge because they don't know where to look.

[5:15] Julianne Wick-Davis: And then where do you find the work that is not currently published and those places that are creating new theater and how to connect the educators to those resources and those writers.

[5:34] Julianne Wick-Davis: I think it's really important what you say about finding the ways to connect the educators to the resources.

[5:41] Christine Toy Johnson: But how can we inspire other educators to find the resources and help them do that?

[5:49] Julianne Wick-Davis: I think the inspiration comes from reminding teachers why they're doing what they're doing, the reasons for doing the work and doing the research.

[5:59] Julianne Wick-Davis: Because once you get them understanding why it's so important, you get them excited and energized about it.

[6:05] Julianne Wick-Davis: And it's for the future of theater.

[6:08] Julianne Wick-Davis: It's not just for the semester that you have those kids.

[6:13] Julianne Wick-Davis: It is about how we create a future generation of theatergoers and theater makers.

[6:19] Julianne Wick-Davis: And that's the whole philosophy about exposing students to work where they can see themselves, they can see their stories, and they can see stories that aren't theirs as well, because it only makes for a richer landscape.

[6:32] Julianne Wick-Davis: And it's an investment in the future, which I told hopefully why people are teachers and educators, there's an investment in the future.

[6:37] Julianne Wick-Davis: And so I think understanding and connecting teachers to the why of it makes the, because the research is hard sometimes.

[6:45] Julianne Wick-Davis: We're trying to do as much as we can to make it easy.

[6:47] Julianne Wick-Davis: But once you understand why we're doing these things, it becomes more, it's like a treasure hunt.

[6:56] Julianne Wick-Davis: So there's an excitement to it, hopefully.

[6:59] Stephen Kaplan: Yeah, I just to add to that, because what Stephen is saying is I totally agree with it's like getting people excited about using that art form to serve their learning outcomes.

[7:12] Stephen Kaplan: And so what really excites me is being able to inspire educators to do that.

[7:19] Stephen Kaplan: And also there are the kids that are already in their theater class, and yes, they're reading plays and they have that exposure, but there are kids that are that don't even know about theater yet and how exciting it can be.

[7:34] Stephen Kaplan: And I think bringing plays into those classrooms, history, English, even beyond that, language classes to help them just see what the power of theater can do.

[7:50] Christine Toy Johnson: Great, thank you.

[7:51] Christine Toy Johnson: I want to talk about how there's this vicious circle involved in which writers from historically excluded communities may not have had as many productions, so they don't get published, so they don't get read by the sectors of students that could benefit from knowing about them.

[8:06] Christine Toy Johnson: And also the reality of the budgetary concerns of trying to find the plays to read.

[8:13] Christine Toy Johnson: I've heard that some educators are looking for anthologies because that cuts down on the cost of multi of single scripts, and yet also I've been told that anthologies don't really sell well, so there's not a motivation to create and sell them as much by the quote unquote mainstream publishers.

[8:31] Christine Toy Johnson: How can we reconcile people's needs in that way?

[8:34] Christine Toy Johnson: I know that's a very big question, and if you can solve it here, that's a goal triple gold star for both of you.

[8:41] Christine Toy Johnson: But I would love to know your insight on that.

[8:44] Stephen Kaplan: Steven, I feel like this is a really, well, it's a complicated question.

[8:50] Stephen Kaplan: And I don't know, I don't necessarily have the answer to that, but I think there are ways to gather work of new writers.

[9:00] Stephen Kaplan: But then the question that comes to my mind is how do we get their work out there to people that normally they would not have that exposure, like you said.

[9:11] Stephen Kaplan: But then how do we protect those writers and compensate those writers?

[9:17] Stephen Kaplan: Do we make it a choice as to how they then share their work with others?

[9:24] Stephen Kaplan: I think that's like to me is the question that comes to mind.

[9:28] Stephen Kaplan: I think people would be very excited to be a part of, you know, some kind of directory or listing resource.

[9:35] Stephen Kaplan: But then how do we not abuse these writers and their work?

[9:40] Christine Toy Johnson: Does that make sense?

[9:41] Julianne Wick-Davis: Yes, very, that's a very good point.

[9:43] Christine Toy Johnson: Yeah.

[9:44] Stephen Kaplan: I have many thoughts.

[9:46] Stephen Kaplan: Hey, it's the anthology thing is, I think, is a great thing when there, and there are some anthologies out there that exist that are more diverse writers, but with any kind of publishing, you're out of date pretty quickly by the time something gets to the publisher.

[10:03] Stephen Kaplan: It also perpetuates very much something of that is that theater exists in New York City.

[10:10] Stephen Kaplan: The plays that tend to get published tend to belong to a certain stratosphere.

[10:15] Stephen Kaplan: And that's also I think very damaging.

[10:17] Stephen Kaplan: And I think that there are ways to connect with writers that maybe aren't published through things like new play exchange, through local writers in your own area.

[10:26] Stephen Kaplan: And I think that's something that teachers often forget about that there, there are writers everywhere.

[10:33] Stephen Kaplan: And to study their work to understand this is somebody who's from the community that these kids are from is another great opportunity.

[10:40] Stephen Kaplan: And what Julianne said about compensating the writers is really important.

[10:43] Stephen Kaplan: And I think that's something that we need to make sure that if a teacher is sharing PDFs of the plays, you know, that the writer is being compensated and that it's not something that's not happening just because they think, oh, it's not published, therefore I don't need to purchase something.

[10:58] Stephen Kaplan: But it can actually end up being more economical for the school as well as the writer, because the writer is not having to deal with the publisher.

[11:05] Stephen Kaplan: They're getting something directly from them.

[11:07] Stephen Kaplan: But it also is just a way to think outside of the box of what the normal publishers are expecting us to do.

[11:18] Julianne Wick-Davis: I really love what you said about going into your local communities.

[11:22] Julianne Wick-Davis: I think that is such a great idea.

[11:24] Julianne Wick-Davis: I know that whenever I've been invited to a class, whether it's a playwrighting class or an acting class or whatever kind of class to share my own work, it's exciting for me too to be able to share the work in that space and with students who are curious about it.

[11:41] Julianne Wick-Davis: And I loved that you brought that up and hope that we can amplify that idea as much as possible.

[11:49] Julianne Wick-Davis: It helps the students realize that this is something they can do and this is something real, whether they want to be writers themselves or just recognize the importance of writers that there is somebody behind that page.

[12:00] Christine Toy Johnson: I do think when people can put a face to the writer and they understand it's an actual person that's sharing their work, that's also really important.

[12:09] Christine Toy Johnson: Could you talk a little bit more about the initiatives the education committee is taking on to address some of these issues?

[12:16] Stephen Kaplan: Yeah, we're we've been putting together a frequently asked questions doc for teachers and educators about copyright.

[12:23] Stephen Kaplan: Not to scold, but to say, we're sure you're doing what you want to do the right thing, and this is how you do it, trying to make it as easy as possible for them.

[12:30] Stephen Kaplan: Just in one place to be able to, if a teacher says, Do I need to pay for a play if I'm studying it in class?

[12:30] Stephen Kaplan: Do I need to pay for it if I'm doing a scene from it in class?

[12:40] Stephen Kaplan: All of these things that come up.

[12:42] Stephen Kaplan: And for the most part, it's yes, but there are certain exceptions for that.

[12:46] Stephen Kaplan: One of the other things that we've done is really we're trying to build out an educator's resource page on the guild's website that is not behind a paywall, is accessible to anybody out there that has tons of resources for educators.

[13:03] Stephen Kaplan: We have our expanding the canon list and where we've started calling from other places who have created lists of more diverse works.

[13:11] Stephen Kaplan: We also have our what I'm teaching now column in The Dramatist, where educators of all different levels sharing very practical advice, things that worked for them.

[13:22] Stephen Kaplan: I'll share with the thing that I wrote about was how I have been teaching Mother Courage and her children forever.

[13:29] Stephen Kaplan: And then because of one of the lists that we have, a swap list.

[13:33] Stephen Kaplan: If you're teaching this play, why not try this play?

[13:36] Stephen Kaplan: And I still taught Mother Courage, but also taught Lynn Nottage's play Ruined.

[13:41] Stephen Kaplan: And it broke everything apart in such an amazing way.

[13:52] Stephen Kaplan: And it unlocked for them things in both plays.

[13:55] Stephen Kaplan: And then just a pitch out there.

[13:56] Stephen Kaplan: Any educator who wants to share something, we're always looking for new ideas and new columns.

[14:01] Stephen Kaplan: But these are some of the initiatives that the guild has been working on.

[14:05] Christine Toy Johnson: I find it so exciting, actually, what the Dramatists Guild is doing with this.

[14:10] Christine Toy Johnson: I think where that swap list is on that list of plays and musicals to help create a more inclusive canon.

[14:16] Christine Toy Johnson: And there's a lot of really wonderful lists there that I just was so excited to discover.

[14:22] Christine Toy Johnson: But specifically that swap list, what I loved was looking at what is in the canon and what you can do to replace, and having that kind of resource just saves them an incredible, incredible amount of time in being able to reach these objectives that we're all talking about instead of finding it such a challenge that they maybe don't embrace it in the way that they wish that they could.

[14:50] Christine Toy Johnson: I love that. It's so important, right, to point people in the right direction so they can find things that they need. And I'm really happy to hear about all that work. Stephen, I want to circle back a little bit to what you said earlier about talking to the younger kids and the younger students. And have you found that by introducing them to all of these new plays that it sparks that writing instinct?

[15:17] Stephen Kaplan: Oh my gosh, it's the spark is why we do it. I have been even more surprised than I thought I would be. I thought, oh, these are gonna work, these are gonna go over well. But the excitement that the students have in seeing things that feel even more real to them because they're newer, they are speaking to topics that they can connect to, they understand suddenly, oh my gosh, theater is not just something that I'm studying that's from the past. It is something very alive and now and breathing. And what's exciting also is I love pairing up plays with the Bousico's Octoroon and Brandon Jacobs Jenkins' Octoroon, and the students looking and going, oh my gosh, theater talks to each other. All art talks to each other. And they see themselves as now being part of a conversation and not just studying something that other people have done, but that it gives them a whole lot more stake in it as well.

[16:14] Christine Toy Johnson: We'll be right back.

[16:20] Christine Toy Johnson: Welcome back. Julianne Wick-Davis discusses how important it is to share new works with her students.

[16:33] Julianne Wick-Davis: And I think that so often with using the canon that people think the art form has to be one particular thing. So what is really exciting is when we can find work that we can share that has not been in the general community yet, and that challenges the art form, breaks open the art form in some way, is really helpful and exciting to them to understand that there's so many possibilities in what they can create themselves. That's it's enlightening when you find a theater that does that. So we're in this period of time where so many, so many places, states, governments are trying to take away the window on certain histories, right? They're trying to censor the education of certain things that have happened in history.

And it what really excites me about talking to playwrights is that you really understand how it's the storytellers and the playwrights that are going to be able to give the history back. And I wonder if you could talk about that. And if you are finding any pushback from any teachers around you or communities around you when you were trying to teach plays that might open up controversial themes or stories.

[18:24] Stephen Kaplan: And so are supportive of that. I have heard from colleagues in other states or in other schools. It is tricky, a thing that, you know, especially in districts where curriculum has to be approved or board approved to get a play, because plays sometimes all literature can sometimes push buttons, and it should push buttons. It is tricky. I wish I had a magic wand and a way to fix that. I know that so many of the people that are in education that are in theater, that they are the brave ones that are pushing back against those that are trying to silence the work that is really important right now for students to be aware of. I feel a little removed from those areas. I used to teach years ago and in an area that was very conservative, and there was always some questions about things, but I never came across anything that was shut down in what I did. But certainly there would be some questions about things, but it's gotten so much more challenging.

[19:39] Julianne Wick-Davis: Uh what kinds of challenges are you running up against that are different today than maybe 10 years ago?

[19:49] Stephen Kaplan: For me, the challenges I think today are I'm not personally experiencing. I'm seeing other communities experiencing that I don't think were there back 10 years ago, where I think people were a little bit more, I don't know, less focused on the idea of silencing and censoring. And it has really surprised me that in the last couple of years that this has become it seems like we're going backwards in that regard. I think there's a feeling of obviously we need to within our classrooms keep our students safe, but the only pushback that I've had from students has been only actually when I haven't when I personally haven't properly introduced them and done my groundwork ahead of time, for the most part when I say, hey, I know that this is going to be something that is meant to challenge you, and you're not gonna agree with, and that's okay, or you may be confused by they're much more willing to go on the ride when I preface it that way.

[20:56] Julianne Wick-Davis: And I'm not necessarily talking about trigger warnings or anything like that, um, which can be very helpful in a lot of situations, but I find that the pushback I ever get is only if I haven't done my homework that way, if I haven't done my job that way and prepping them and reminding them that art is meant to be provocative and to sometimes make you slightly uncomfortable. I also make sure I'm teaching high school students that I'm finding work that is on an appropriate level for them, but is pushing them slightly to think maybe about something a little bit different. That's a pushback that I've had with that, and to remind them that they don't have to like it, and that also the fact that I'm sharing it with them doesn't mean that I like it, but that I think that when I allow them to disagree with the material, it's actually I think I'm doing part of my job and reminding them that's what all art is.

[21:50] Stephen Kaplan: I think acknowledging what might be problematic of some of the work in light of the room that you're in, because I find every cohort has the ecosystem of content warnings and what they are willing to not necessarily not acknowledge, but maybe be able to get beyond what is problematic so that they can look at the craft. That is always when teaching the craft, that I think has been the most challenging is saying, yes, I understand that this particular piece of art has in the time that it was written, it now is problematic, but there is value in looking at this one moment because it does this thing that I think is important for you to understand in the craft, and saying that I don't expect you to agree with everything, and again, like Stephen, then to say you don't have to like it, but please try to be objective.

And sometimes, you know, students are able to do that, and sometimes they have such a strong emotional reaction to it that they're not able to think beyond that emotion and what it is that they find really troubling about it.

[23:22] Julianne Wick-Davis: I think the conversation about content warnings, because I have students that are creating work, and we talk about this at the beginning of the year about being respectful of other people's experiences and traumas, and that when you are presenting work to make sure that they do give those content warnings so that people can decide for themselves if they want to be present in the room or if they feel like they need to step out. And some students are writing things that are really incredibly interesting, very personal and sometimes very dark and have very difficult subject matter. But I'm not interested in censoring anyone or telling them that they can't write something, they have to do their homework to be able to defend questions about what they're writing, and as long as they're not hurting someone else with their writing and punching down that they are allowed to bring in anything that they want. It has made the content warning piece very important in the classroom.

[24:42] Stephen Kaplan: And I think I would just piggyback on what Julianne was talking about with this in creating an atmosphere in the room where the students feel comfortable talking and talking to each other. That's again what we want to try to do as educators is that is create a place where if there is pushback, that it is respectful and that we can all learn from it as well because it's something that is ongoing.

[25:07] Christine Toy Johnson: Thank you both so much. That's really it's really wonderful to hear your approach to creating a space where there is creativity and openness and open communication. I think it's so important too. Is there anything else that you would like to that I haven't brought up that you would like to talk about?

[25:27] Julianne Wick-Davis: I would just share that it just to keep encouraging teachers to do this work. It's I've been teaching for 25 years now, and it's reinvigorated me. It's gotten me more excited about what I'm teaching and how I'm teaching it, not just to shake up my curriculum for the sake of shaking it up, but to keep communicating with my students. And the rewards are huge to be able to do this. And while it does take work, there are resources out there and opportunities to make it work.

[25:58] Stephen Kaplan: And I would add to that that I would also encourage those organizations that are creating new work or nurturing new work and new writers to think about how they can help teachers implement that work in their classroom and connect them with the writers, connect them with the work. Again, it just comes down to those resources. And I think there are a lot of theaters out there that is their mission. Musical Theater Factory is one that I think about that really is doing what they say. In addition to making those opportunities for these writers that have not had the opportunities before, but then also let's make lists of these people. Let's find ways to connect for people to find these writers beyond just waiting for them to have some kind of opportunity that puts them on the forefront.

[27:03] Julianne Wick-Davis: I think that's a something that I think is a real call to these theaters and places like the National Alliance for Musical Theater, they have hundreds of submissions of new work every year. And is there a resource they can provide to educators? And then the places that are creating that have new musical theater writers and playwrights. Is there a way to have a resource to again connect the writers to the educators? And it doesn't have to be throwing out everything you've been doing. If you had one new text, you've done a huge world of difference already. You know, that it's you can take tiny steps and they're gonna they're gonna pay off in dividends.

[27:50] Christine Toy Johnson: Thank you both so much for joining me. There's you've given us so much food for thought, and I really appreciate your generosity and your insight.

[27:58] Stephen Kaplan: Thank you so much.

[27:59] Julianne Wick-Davis: Thank you.

[28:08] Christine Toy Johnson: Thank you to my guests, Stephen Kaplan and Julianne Wick-Davis. You can find the guild's material for educators by visiting www.dramatusguild.com and search for educator. Season five of TalkBack has just begun, and we have so much more to bring you. Be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform.

[28:28] Christine Toy Johnson: This episode was produced by Amy Von Masick and me, Christine Toy Johnson. Our music was composed by Andrea Daly. Recorded at John Marshall Media in New York City. Special thanks to women's audio mission in San Francisco, California. The Dramatus Guild Presents Talkback is a production of the Dramatists Guild of America and distributed by the Broadway Podcast Network. Let us know what you thought about the episode by using hashtag DG TalkBack. As always, to be continued.