Can you define what a teaching artist is? What inspired you to choose this specific path?

I think of a teaching artist as someone who may or may not be a full-time drama, dance, visual arts, or music teacher who can take a project which may take six months and whittle it down to three or six classes. Teaching artists work mainly in schools that need a drama, music, visual arts or dance teacher but don’t have the funds, so we come in for one-to-four classes to a half-year of classes and teach our specified art form. Teaching artists also, when they’re not teaching, are working on their art and experiencing their own art, and they live in the world as an artist.

When I came out of college, I waited tables; but after a few years I wanted to serve people but not serve them steaks and hamburgers. I had heard about this new kind of side-job called being a teaching artist, so I got a job with the National Shakespeare Company here in New York City. We went into different schools and performed one-hour templets of Romeo and Juliet, and then we would walk into the classrooms with the students who had just seen that performance and teach Shakespeare iambic pentameter and make it accessible in an hour. That’s when I really fell in love with this idea of coming into schools and working with students and just really giving them our whole hearts and souls and opening minds for a little bit. That’s kind of how it started; and 20 years later, I am still doing the same thing.

How have your experiences as a teaching artist informed your writing and performing style?

I have had to learn, in 20 years, how to open up my perspective to any possibilities. So when I walk into classrooms, I have to not only work with the teacher but also understand very quickly where the strengths are in the classroom, who is a leader, and who might be interested in distracting the other students. So now when I am onstage and performing student matinees or regular evening performances, I have honed my skills of learning where the energy is in the room and I wind up really feeling the energy of the entire audience. With 100, 200, 300 people watching me with their own life experiences, I try as much as I can to envelope them in my world so they don’t feel neglected, even if they are all the way in the back. I want everyone to feel like they are a part of the story.

What most appealed to you about participating in Project: Transform?

When I was asked to be part of Project: Transform, I immediately said yes. It’s exactly what I wish I could do before every single run of any one of my solo pieces because I get a chance to experience a community through the eyes of a teenager rather than coming in and experiencing it through my eyes as an artist and just staring at the audience. I really feel like it’s a much more grounded experience when I can bring students into the world that I work in.

Can you share your experience working with the students in Project: Transform?  

This group was one of the most compassionate I’ve ever worked with. There were so many stories of quiet heroism, and there were also students who were clearly dealing with their own self-doubt and feelings of lack of self-worth. The group was overwhelmingly invested in telling the story of what it means to not feel like you are worthy and to go through the world with feelings of self-doubt and picking yourself apart, and how it’s possible to bring yourself into a feeling of wholeness when you feel so fractured. I think this was also one of the most diverse groups I’ve worked with. They were always on a path of learning how they could work together and embrace their diversity. 

How did you guide Project: Transform students through the creative process in developing their theatrical piece?    

I started by asked them what it means to transform and what would it mean for an audience to transform after witnessing their artwork. We also talked about what gets them angry in the world, what makes them happy in the world, what’s going on in the world that’s really exciting, and what’s going on in the world that they want to change for the better. I took them through many writing prompts to get them to express what was deep in their hearts and things that they felt adults needed to hear. I reminded them that there would be mainly parents, grandparents and adults in the audience and that this was their time to have them as a captive audience: “What do you really want to tell them?  How can we transform this audience of adults? Now is the time – you can find your way to tell them what you want to through the art form of theatre.”

What advice would you give a young person who may be struggling to express themselves? 

I would say everyone has that struggle and to not feel like you’re alone. Although you might not recognize it in others – because they put up brave faces and masks of strength inside – there are many people struggling to express themselves at 90 years old, 40 years old, and 20 years old. Know that the struggle is definitely real; and try, little by little, even once a day, to do one thing that scares you. Maybe say hi to someone you’ve never said hi to, or wear a new headband that might be different from what you’re used to and causes folks to open up to you, or just start a conversation when you walk into a room where there are strangers. Or, as one of my students wrote in his piece, “Just start saying yes.”