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[0:07] Christine Toy Johnson: Welcome to season five of the Dramatists 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.

[0:54] Christine Toy Johnson: In this episode, I talk with Joseph Haj, artistic director of the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, about how he's been working with the Guthrie to reimagine the classics for today's audiences and use their resources to build new ones for the future.

[1:10] Christine Toy Johnson: One of my favorite things about doing this podcast is that I get to talk to some of the artists I admire most in the world.

[1:17] Christine Toy Johnson: And this is definitely one of those times.

[1:20] Christine Toy Johnson: Joe, can you please introduce yourself to our listeners?

[1:23] Joseph Haj: Hi, I'm Joe Haj.

[1:25] Joseph Haj: I am the artistic director of the Guthrie Theater.

[1:28] Christine Toy Johnson: Thank you so much for being here.

[1:30] Christine Toy Johnson: I think you know this, but our conversations about the work you've been doing over the years has really given me hope about what can be possible in large institutions like the Guthrie.

[1:42] Christine Toy Johnson: And this season we're talking about igniting the canon.

[1:46] Christine Toy Johnson: To me, that doesn't mean blowing it up so that we cancel existing classics, but that we expand the current canon to include future classics, and also that we illuminate existing ones in new ways.

[1:59] Christine Toy Johnson: And I'd love to start off by hearing your perspective on all of this.

[2:04] Joseph Haj: Yeah, I would love to talk about all of it, and I'm honored to be here with you, my friend.

[2:08] Joseph Haj: Thank you, Christine, for inviting me.

[2:11] Joseph Haj: Where to begin?

[2:12] Joseph Haj: Maybe to maybe I need a slightly smaller board question to be asked.

[2:17] Christine Toy Johnson: Yeah, so I know that the Guthrie is committed to telling classic stories, and I know from working with you that you have a very specific intentional way of reimagining classics and through your process of the teams that you put together.

[2:39] Christine Toy Johnson: And I would love to hear more about how you do that and what your philosophy is on that.

[2:45] Joseph Haj: Yeah, I think it begins with a philosophy that embraces the idea that classics actually matter.

[2:52] Joseph Haj: There is in our field, there's a perception that oh good heavens, all we do is make these old musty classic plays, and that's all the field does or has interest in.

[3:05] Joseph Haj: But it's actually not true.

[3:06] Joseph Haj: And the data itself suggests it's not true.

[3:09] Joseph Haj: TCG surveyed the field in 2018, so before COVID, normal times as they were, yeah.

[3:16] Joseph Haj: And they surveyed the whole of the field.

[3:19] Joseph Haj: And they looked across the entire not for profit sector from coast to coast.

[3:25] Joseph Haj: And for the sake of counting, I don't think they had any philosophical point of view.

[3:29] Joseph Haj: For the sake of counting, TCG said, 50 years old or older, we will consider a classic play.

[3:35] Joseph Haj: And let's just have a look at what people are producing.

[3:38] Joseph Haj: 12% of everything produced in this country in 2018 were plays 50 years old or older.

[3:44] Joseph Haj: And of that 12%, 40% were plays by Shakespeare.

[3:49] Joseph Haj: We just don't make a lot of classic plays in this country.

[3:52] Joseph Haj: And we're not just talking about like the super long-dead Aristophanes, Aeschylus, Sophocles, we're talking about, we're talking about 50 years ago.

[4:01] Joseph Haj: You're talking about Hair.

[4:02] Joseph Haj: You're talking about most of the major works of many of the playwrights of the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s.

[4:09] Joseph Haj: They're just not, they're nobody's producing them, or very few people are producing them.

[4:14] Joseph Haj: When we think of other classical titles from the Western canon or playwrights, 30 years ago, you would see a restoration play on stage, you would see a Shaw play on stage, you would see a Molière play on stage, in addition to regularly seeing Beckett and Pinter.

[4:30] Joseph Haj: And we don't, we don't, we don't see those playwrights anymore.

[4:34] Joseph Haj: So the Guthrie in its DNA, it was founded in 1963 by Sir Tyrone Guthrie, who fled New York.

[4:42] Joseph Haj: He didn't want to do it anymore.

[4:43] Joseph Haj: He didn't want lowest common denominator programming, and he wanted to produce classical plays with a repertory company embedded in a community.

[4:52] Joseph Haj: So the Guthrie for 60 years, we have our 60th anniversary in two weeks.

[4:57] Joseph Haj: For 60 years, the Guthrie has been in that classic space, and we think it's in our DNA.

[5:04] Joseph Haj: And so roughly half of our programming in any given season are plays that you know are from classical repertoire.

[5:13] Christine Toy Johnson: I think what's interesting is the perception of what makes a classical play.

[5:21] Christine Toy Johnson: And I wonder when you're choosing which classical plays to do, what is what sticks out as the most important thing that draws you to it?

[5:33] Christine Toy Johnson: Is it the theme?

[5:33] Christine Toy Johnson: Is it the time period?

[5:35] Christine Toy Johnson: What are those things that compel you to want to see the play on stage?

[5:41] Joseph Haj: Yeah, I think it's a beautiful question.

[5:43] Joseph Haj: I don't think there's only one answer.

[5:45] Joseph Haj: When you look at, let's just take, for example, Julius Caesar, Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.

[5:51] Joseph Haj: As an artist, you can be interested in for multiple reasons in that play.

[5:56] Joseph Haj: You could be interested in the Rome that Shakespeare is writing about.

[6:01] Joseph Haj: You could be interested in what Shakespeare, why Shakespeare was writing this in Shakespeare's own time.

[6:07] Joseph Haj: Or you could be interested in what the contemporary vibrations of that play are in contemporary life.

[6:16] Joseph Haj: And needless to say, anybody who goes at these plays is looking at it through those three lenses.

[6:20] Joseph Haj: You're not necessarily choosing between the three, but which are you privileging, which are you dampening?

[6:25] Joseph Haj: How forward?

[6:26] Joseph Haj: So you might see a Julius Caesar in togas, you might also see a Julius Caesar with Caesar in a Trump wig, right?

[6:33] Joseph Haj: These are legitimate ways to approach these classic texts.

[6:38] Joseph Haj: So working backwards from what I don't do when I consider programming classic plays, is like I nobody, I'm so conscious as an artist and as a person who watches plays as an audience, nobody needs to see these plays as if under glass.

[6:53] Joseph Haj: They're not museum pieces.

[6:55] Joseph Haj: We make them still because we think they still have something to say.

[7:00] Joseph Haj: We just opened on Friday a Hamlet at the Guthrie here with Michael Brouwer's Hamlet.

[7:05] Joseph Haj: And the play is speaking splendidly to our lives, those existential questions that are, and forever questions that are installed in a play like Hamlet, themes of grief, loyalty, ambition, revenge, et cetera, et cetera.

[7:20] Joseph Haj: Those plays made well still really matter to people.

[7:23] Joseph Haj: And what matters to me when I make those plays, or when the Guthrie produces those plays, whether or not I'm the director, the Guthrie has a mandate that, you know, what I get very interested in when we do these plays of the dead white guys is we all own those plays.

[7:41] Joseph Haj: And we all own them.

[7:42] Joseph Haj: They belong to me as a child of Palestinian immigrants, as much as they belong to somebody of European descent.

[7:50] Joseph Haj: They're part of our cultural consciousness.

[7:52] Joseph Haj: So I'd say it this way if the average 10th grade classroom in this country could collectively tell you the story of Romeo and Juliet, then they all own that story.

[8:03] Joseph Haj: So for me, demographically speaking, a production of Romeo and Juliet should look like your average 10th grade classroom from a racial and cultural perspective.

[8:12] Joseph Haj: We all own those stories.

[8:14] Joseph Haj: I'm not suggesting everybody likes them.

[8:16] Joseph Haj: I'm not suggesting everybody should care about them.

[8:18] Joseph Haj: But for those of us who do, then I get real interested in who's the director, who are the designers, who's the choreographer, who's the fight director, who are the actors across the board, and bringing and bringing a plurality of voices to the examination of these classic texts is an exercise that's thrilling to me.

[8:39] Joseph Haj: And I find that the outcomes can be really quite thrilling as well.

[8:43] Christine Toy Johnson: I know that you have articulated to me the way you have created this mandate at the Guthrie to not have, I think the way you told me was not have homogenous team ever.

[8:56] Christine Toy Johnson: And I wonder if you could talk about that a little bit.

[8:58] Joseph Haj: Is this something that you brought to the Guthrie when you started working there?

[9:02] Joseph Haj: And how is that concept met?

[9:05] Joseph Haj: Yeah, I just sometimes it's how to say this.

[9:08] Joseph Haj: Yeah, it can't just be a good idea.

[9:09] Joseph Haj: And it can't just be something that folks should want to do, and it can't be something that that you hope folks you're inviting to direct a play, say at the Guthrie, you hope that they're gonna care about having a diverse team.

[9:22] Joseph Haj: So the easiest way to do that if you happen to run the theater is to say we have a policy.

[9:27] Joseph Haj: And you can say no if it makes no sense to you.

[9:30] Joseph Haj: But sometimes you'll talk to a fantastic director, seasoned director, and many times they're coming with folks they've been working with for years and years.

[9:38] Joseph Haj: And they're like, I just want to bring my team.

[9:40] Joseph Haj: I'm like, I know your team, and I admire every one of them to a person, but that can't be your team at the Guthrie.

[9:46] Joseph Haj: It can't be.

[9:46] Joseph Haj: And if that means that director says no, that's fine.

[9:50] Joseph Haj: If that means the director says, Oh, okay, can I have two of my folks?

[9:54] Joseph Haj: And I say, of course, and let's talk about who else you want on the team.

[9:57] Joseph Haj: And I'm thrilled and delighted that many of the people who end up being invited into those teams by virtue of the policy that we have at the Guthrie, end up being some of the closest collaborators for that director on a forward going basis because we know the people that we know, and for too long, too many of us have known too small a group of people as it relates to how we make these plays.

[10:17] Joseph Haj: And I will say, in 2015, I had that policy at Playmakers, the last theater I ran.

[10:22] Joseph Haj: I came to the Guthrie in 2015.

[10:24] Joseph Haj: I installed this as policy, and there was a bit of churn and difficulty in making sure that we stayed true to that in every way.

[10:32] Joseph Haj: I would say it's very different now, Christine.

[10:34] Joseph Haj: I really think it is.

[10:35] Joseph Haj: I think the needle has been moved meaningfully.

[10:38] Joseph Haj: I think there are many, many who also today would say, no, there's no such thing as an all-white, all-male creative team for anything that we make.

[10:48] Joseph Haj: I think that is true, and certainly the conversations that we've been expanding over the past three years, that it's important to reflect the world that we are in on the stages and behind the scenes.

[11:01] Christine Toy Johnson: Yeah.

[11:01] Christine Toy Johnson: I also wanted to talk to you about how the programming that you do at the Guthrie is also includes newer plays.

[11:09] Christine Toy Johnson: And how that seems to be such a beautiful juxtaposition of these classic plays and how they coexist and how your community responds to that and how your vision sees them side by side.

[11:27] Joseph Haj: Roughly half of the Guthrie's work we make in any given season, plus or minus, are plays that could be, to use TCG's measurement, classic plays 50 years older. But the other half is incredibly exciting to us. And we spend a lot of time going, look, we're a classics theater. We also have an obligation to invest in plays that may be the classics of the future. Attracting and speaking to wonderful playwrights, giving room and voice. We commissioned Lynn Nottage to write the play Floyd's. It moved to New York under the new title Clydes, and it's the most produced play in America this year. We just gave the world premiere to Suzan-Lori Parks, Sally and Tom, to great success. Our audiences also have a real appetite for new plays, especially plays of real themes, ideas, scale.

The Guthrie is very fortunate in that we have an audience. We have an audience that comes for everything, which is to say they know how to look at plays. They just know how to look at plays, whether that's a Hamlet or a West Side Story or a South Pacific or a Sally and Tom or Floyd's.

[12:39] Christine Toy Johnson: Joe, I love what you're saying about the Guthrie's audience being ready to receive all kinds of plays and all kinds of experiences when they come through the door. I wonder if you could speak to how you nurture that curiosity in the audience.

[12:58] Joseph Haj: That's such a beautiful question. I think in the end it's a curatorial one. The Guthrie in the Before Times sold just under 400,000 tickets annually. And not all those audience members want the same thing, and they don't all come for all of the things, right? So there's the people who come for Christmas Carol in the musical. There are folks who come for the Shakespeare and the other classic plays. There are folks who come for the new plays. So I just want to be clear that it's not like all of our audience takes on all of the offerings. But the interesting curatorial question, I often use the New York Museum analogy. If you go to the Whitney in New York, you know you're looking at American art.

If you go to MoCA, obviously, you know you're looking at contemporary art. The Guthrie has to be in this community like the Metropolitan Museum of Art. If you want the Impressionists, there they are. If you want modern art, there it is. If you want Egyptian relics, there they are. And the Guthrie's programming has to do, it is determinedly eclectic, but it connects to what you're talking about in that we try to find a couple of plays every season that can satisfy in a really uncomplicated way, meet audiences right where they are. It entertains, it's delightful. They go out with their partner, they have a meal, they enjoy the show, they've forgotten it by morning. That's a good use of the theater as well.

And then in the theater also, there are in any given season, there are plays with great demand, great demand of the artists involved in the making of it, and great demands of the audience thematically or aesthetically, formally, etc. And a good season to me doesn't feel like only one thing. It feels to me like a sine wave of a kind, and there are things that, just as I described, things that satisfy easily, some things that have more demand or maybe provocative. And in our audience over the many decades, the audience has developed a sophistication and a taste. Part of that is cultivated by meeting them precisely where they are. Some of that is meeting where they are and just pushing them out forward a little bit, and some of them is offering things altogether different, altogether.

And all of this develops a kind of palette, and it helps in this community that we have 80 not-for-profit theaters in the Twin Cities alone, each of whom is offering something very meaningful to this community in a different way.

[15:18] Joseph Haj: So you have this whole sort of theater ecology here. Artists move with flexibility between these organizations, and audiences move from organizations across the Twin Cities. So what you have here in the end is a community that again really just knows how to look at plays. It's a community that knows how to look at plays. Look, I grew up in Miami. The person who does a major professional production of a Chekhov play in Miami is going to be a very brave person because nobody in that town knows how to look at that play. Nobody does. Because there hasn't been a steadiness of connection, of community, of participating in all kinds of storytelling. Sometimes we think, oh, we'll do this brave play because it'll be new audiences, and people have never come because it's so cool.

And sometimes we get those audiences, and those audiences don't know how to look at the play. And the people who have the biggest experiences at the theater are people who've been coming here for 30 years because they know how to look at it. And sometimes with the hardest work that some of our greatest artists make, you want a community, you want an audience that knows and has the tools to unpack some of that work. And I think the Twin Cities has that very kind of community.

[16:27] Christine Toy Johnson: How do you help them learn how to look at the play?

[16:33] Joseph Haj: We learn how to look at plays by looking at plays. We learn how to eat. Maybe when we're five, we think the only food on earth is macaroni and cheese. And we need new foods introduced to realize that we can love other things because they also taste good and perhaps they're more nutritious. It's the way I'm not a big foodie, but I know food people think this way. Right. You develop a palate. So the organization, to me, maybe the art form itself. If we refuse to meet people where they are, and all we're putting for them are things they've never touched, don't know how to intersect with, then audiences leave feeling stupid. They feel clumsy, they feel, well, whatever that thing is, it's obviously not for me.

But if we're offering some things that allow people comfortably to sit inside of something and fairly effortlessly to do, then we feel we have the opportunity to put plays before them that have a different kind of demand. And this is how palette gets broadened. This is how taste and judgment gets broadened. I don't know. When I was five, I probably thought Elvis on Black Velvet and cards and dogs playing cards was good art. But I have to learn sometime over time that there are other things and other ways of looking at looking at the world and intersecting with art. And so we have a role to play. We have a role to play in satisfying desire. And we have a role to play in deepening and broadening what may be desirable.

And just one of the greatest satisfactions as an artistic director when I hear someone say, I came because my partner dragged me, or I came because my friends wanted to go. And I really thought so-and-so wasn't for me at all. But I had a really big experience at that play. Like that, that feels like satisfaction to me. And it feels like we're doing our job well when folks who haven't been introduced to a kind of work by virtue of that introduction to that work end up having a meaningful experience.

[18:33] Christine Toy Johnson: I love that so much. And in the interest of time, I just have one more question. You and I have talked about how there is value and importance to creating the symphonies, whereas we've been creating a lot of the duets and quartets. The Guthrie has two main stage rooms. There are 1100 seats and there's 700 seats. You have been on the acreage, which is the Guthrie Thrust stage. That stage isn't built for three-person plays. It doesn't want three-person plays. It wants plays of ambition, of scale, of reach, of risk. That's what that room calls for. Our other room is a 700-seat proscenium, also with a 60-foot portal. So again, the same thing. And I want to be really clear. I love duets and trios and quartets as much as anyone else.

And when those plays are beautiful, those plays are beautiful. But we also know that there are too many writers who are writing duets and trios and quartets because they want to be produced. And the number of places that could produce from a resource standpoint, that six-person, eight-person, twelve-person, seventeen-person play is few and far between. And I would argue that much of the field's abdicating the space of classic plays has much to do with the fact that they're big, they're expensive, they require specific skills, particular skills from the artists that are involved. But from the contemporary play standpoint, that reference and that metaphor is duly credited to Todd London, who in his book Outrageous Fortune about the plight of the American playwright, posed a question that's been running around my brain for years and years now, which is precisely this.

When we look at this generation of playwrights, we're going to see these beautifully wrought chamber pieces. And future generations will look back at this era and say, where were our symphonies? And the Guthrie is trying to square to that space. And it doesn't have to be a symphony in terms of it's 130 people on stage. It's not necessarily that. But the reach, the scope, the scale of what is being dreamt for, reached for, considered, I would put Suzan-Lori Parks' Sally and Tom squarely in that category. This coming fall, we'll have the premiere of Larissa FastHorse's Tide to Foes for the People, which we've commissioned and will premiere. Investing in voices and in plays that may turn out to be, we never know, of course, but may turn out to be the classics of the future. And the Guthrie is resourced in such a way that making plays of reach, of scale, of ambition is very much on our minds.

[21:10] Christine Toy Johnson: Thank you so much. Joe, I just can't thank you enough for being here and how much you teach me every time I talk to you.

[21:17] Joseph Haj: Oh, bless you, friend. I love being with you, and I value our relationship a ton, and I'm grateful for you inviting me to this.

[21:23] Christine Toy Johnson: Thank you.

[21:24] Joseph Haj: Thank you.

[21:34] Christine Toy Johnson: For more information about the Guthrie's upcoming season, visit www.guthrietheater.org.

[21:43] 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 Dramatist 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.