Young and new

People often inquire as to why SteppingStone Theatre does so many original works.

Unlike theater for a strictly adult audience, there does not exist a canon of readily available scripts for young audiences. Sure there are more plays now than when I started as Artistic Director in 1997, however, there are far fewer plays to choose from than one might think. And, many of those that are available are simply not that good.

SteppingStone Theatre’s mission is to use theater to build self-esteem, confidence, and a sense of community. With some exceptions, all of our performers are between the ages of 9 and 19 years old. Naturally, we could pick up a copy of Guys and Dolls and perform it like so many high schools do. However, I am as adverse to the idea of a 14 year old playing a 40 year old as I am to the idea of a 40 year old playing a 14 year old. If you haven’t lived it yet or are currently not in it now, you cannot bring authenticity to the roles in a theater for youth. Clearly, that means finding plays that cater to the ages of our actors.

Good luck with that. They simply do not exist.

So, we commission new plays. Whenever I commission a playwright, I’m entering a marriage of sorts — a bond of artistry that takes a seed of an idea, plants it in the playwright’s mind, and grows it through a process that takes at least two years. At the same time, these new plays are required to live up to certain criteria. The play must empower youth. It must reflect the social fabric of our community. And it must resonate with youth and families. While that may sound simple, try asking a young person what matters to him or her and you will get as many different answers as you have people in the world. However, one thing that does ring true is that kids, no matter what age, hate being talked down to. Kids are smart. We all know that.

“How smart?” is another question. They are really smart. Smarter than you or I ever were at the same age. And we, as adult artists, must keep up and stay ahead of them, or we will be lost.

Lighting a match

Oftentimes I come up with ideas that I pitch to playwrights, and like throwing spaghetti at the wall, some ideas stick, while others fall to the ground with a splat. Matching the right idea with the right playwright can be as difficult a task as any other in my job. Other times, a playwright will pitch an idea to me, and we’ll develop the play together.

Sometimes my idea may be as broad as wanting to do a show about the Mississippi River (Mighty Mississippi: The Great River Race) — whatever that means — or as specific as a play about Ruby Bridges, the six year old African American girl who integrated the New Orleans Elementary School in 1960 (Ruby! The Story of Ruby Bridges). Yet every time I enter into collaboration with a playwright, it is about trusting each other on a journey. I may have a brilliant idea, but I rely on the playwright to bring it to life in text. Then the playwright may have a brilliant play but needs the theater (directors, designers, actors, and audience) to bring it to life as a live performance. Sometimes, my idea may take one path, while the playwright takes another. We both have to allow the play to take a different shape and form as we develop the piece and bring the voice of the youth into the mix. As rehearsals begin, more changes take place before finally it is seen by an audience. And ultimately the audience informs you even more. The old adage that plays are not written but rather re-written is very appropriate to this process.

The process of creating a new work is arduous and takes far longer than a few months to fully realize as the performance. An idea that I have today won’t be fully realized for at least two full seasons. This requires an extraordinary amount of time and a need to stay ahead of what’s going on in the world today. Being timely actually means being universal in ideas, themes, or morals.

How do I find playwrights who can do all of that? Well, we have, in our backyard, one of the greatest resources for finding playwrights in The Playwright’s Center. And we have an extraordinary artistic community in the Twin Cities who communicate and recommend easily. And when we do find a promising collaboration, we work to create a partnership of extreme trust, honesty, and loyalty to the youth we serve. Then I trust that, together, we can and will live up to these expectations.

Of course in the theater we are, after all, creating art. We want the play to be theatrical. To have magic. To transform us. And to walk away singing a tune or talking about the issues contained in the play. So when I talk to a playwright, that is the challenge I present to a playwright whom I commission to write a new work for SteppingStone Theatre.

After creating a half-dozen of these plays every year, a season is born.❦