Drawing Lessons Explores the Power of Finding yourself Through Art at Children’s Theatre Company

Drawing Lessons which runs for a couple more weeks at Children’s Theatre Company in Minneapolis caught me a bit off guard. I was hoping to enjoy it, but I wasn’t expecting to be moved by it the way I was. My favorite audiobook of all time is On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King. Stay with me here, it’s going to make sense. My favorite part of the book is when he sells the paperback rights to first novel Carrie, I cry everytime and I’ve listened to it four times at least. It’s not because now he will be rich and famous, it’s because of the difference it will make in his life to succeed at his art. The fact that now he will be able to more than scrape along an existence for he and his family. That he wont have to hope a short story sells and brings in that extra little bit of cash before one of the kids get sick and needs a bottle of the pink stuff. Drawing Lessons has a moment that felt similar emotionally, and it had the same effect on me as listening to Stephen King recount that moment that freed him from a world of simply existing into one in which he could let go of those concerns and devote his life to creating, the thing he was born to do.

Drawing lessons tells us the story of Kate, a twelve year old Korean American girl who has moved from St. Paul to Minneapolis, is starting a new school and is terribly shy, to the point of not even being able to speak in class. The one thing she has is her drawing. After school she walks to her father’s music studio where he gives music lessons, and through those she slowly makes friends with two classmates over the course of the play. But the person she meets that has the greatest impact on her is Paul who owns a local art supply store and draws a Sunday cartoon for the Star Tribune. Paul’s partner Matt encourages Paul to give Kate drawing lessons, which he is reluctant to do, though she wears him down over time. These lessons not only teach Kate how to grow as an artist but actually teaches the audience something about the artform of cartooning. It’s handled extremely well with video projections on the flats of the stage sometimes even showing us what the actors are drawing live. Kate’s school work is suffering particularly in Social Studies where the teacher threatens to fail her unless she can stop drawing, talk in class, and the worst, give a 5 to 7 minute speech about a cultural topic. Her father forbids her to go to Paul’s store and to stop drawing and focus on school and making friends. Kate’s Gomo (Great Auntie), comes to visit for her Dad’s birthday, and decides to stay as Kate and her father are no longer speaking. During her time there she at first seems like she will be strict and pull Kate further away from her passion but to Kate and our surprise, she encourages her and even teaches her about Manhwa, the South Korean comic form similar to Japan’s Manga’s. When she learns of a drawing contest for which first price is to have your comic book published on the internet and $250 she decides to go for it.

I loved the way this story took the time to also teach us about the techniques and concepts of cartoon drawing. I loved the Scenic Design by Junghyun Georgia Lee and the Projection design Elizabeth Barrett. I loved all of the illustrations by Blue Delliquanti that bring Drawing Lessons to life. I loved the cast with particular kudos to the performances of Olivia Lampert as Kate, Jim Lichtscheidl as Paul, De’Anthony Jackson as Kate’s friend Omar, and Katie Bradley as Kate’s Gomo. I loved that the show opened with the song Wonderwall, which as a Minnesota United fan is very dear to my heart. Most of all I loved the script by Michi Barall which feels authentic, grounded, and uplifting without being corny. I love the fact that Paul and Matt are casually presented as a couple and that the teacher is allowed to be a bitch. I loved the direction by Jack Tamburri, which gives us such creative staging that at times mirrors the lessons that Paul is giving Kate. We see scenes from four different perspectives, we see transitions where we have the actors in poses like different panels in a comic strip that seems to say meanwhile in various location…it all works perfectly

Drawing Lessons runs through 11/10/24 at Children’s Theatre Company in Minneapolis. For more information and to purchase tickets go to https://childrenstheatre.org/whats-on/drawing-lessons/