musings/notes
or, confessions of a drama queen
“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.”: The Art of Audience Building
On: ‘Invitation to the Party: Building Bridges to the Arts, Culture and Community’ by Donna Walker-Kuhne
I finished reading ‘Invitation to the Party: Building Bridges to the Arts, Culture and Community’ by Donna Walker-Kuhne in April.
For five years I’ve been working to develop an audience for The Black Drama School with very little guidance. Most of what I’ve read this year has been in preparation for The Black Drama School’s expansion and introduction of digital programming in the Fall. ‘Invitation to the Party’ felt like a natural progression in my research on Black theatrical production and programming legacies, following my completion of Woodie King Jr.’s ‘Impact of Race: Theatre & Culture.’ As I study the strategies for community engagement and audience development utilized by Woodie King Jr. and Donna Walker-Kuhne, I attempt to implement these methods in my work with The Black Drama School.
Walker-Kuhne’s strategies for building audiences center cultural awareness, dedication, and genuine community connection.
“An effective audience development initiative begins with a vision— a dream— a plan. The more specific and detailed the blueprint you create, the more effective you are going to be. Take a minute and think about this: What is your vision? Is it personal or institutional? What do you need to make it happen? With whom do you share this vision?” (p 4)
“The most important component of audience development is the spirit of collaboration among every department of the arts institution— a willingness to invest the time, labor and resources needed to be successful.” (p 5)
“Audience development requires a strategic plan that is holistically integrated into the fabric of your arts institution. The strategic plan must be grounded in the history of the institution, as well as the history of the audiences you are seeking to attract.” (p7)
When I consider the history of the The Black Drama School, I consider the history of Black theatre in nontraditional spaces:
The footwork Zora Neale Hurston undertook through rural parts of Florida to share Langston Hughes’ writing in the 1930s.
The American Negro Theatre in the basement of the 135th Street Branch Library in New York in the 1940s.
The coffee house and bar stages of the Black Theatre Movement of the 1960s.
My vision considers the ways in which Black dramatists have worked to make room for theatre— and how community immersion, collaboration and care act as pathways to access.
“Audience development is the merging of marketing techniques with relationship-building skills, because in order to have a lasting impact on your prospective audience, the relationship must be both personal and institutional.” (p 11)
I heard/read/saw somewhere “to be loved is to be known.” Audience development requires a certain level of vulnerability— an openness/willingness to connect with others who very well may not want to connect with you.
Sometimes it do feel like begging, ngl.
It has been helpful for me to remember that a person’s reaction to me is rarely actually about me, and that everyone is busy.
Everyone is busy.
10 TOOLS FOR BUILDING AUDIENCES
💟
10 TOOLS FOR BUILDING AUDIENCES 💟
10 TOOLS FOR BUILDING AUDIENCES
(p 23)
investment
“Do not expect results tomorrow, next week or even next month. You are informing a new constituency about your product, you are striving to develop relationships, and you are developing ways for these future arts consumers to become comfortable with accessing what it is you have to offer. This takes time.” (p 24)
So much of what I learned in this text felt like life lessons. You need to have patience to see it through.
commitment
“This means going beyond the normal workday. It means extending your life to support their goals, recognizing that this is an opportunity to build trust.” (p 25)
research: who is the audience?
“Two kinds of research are necessary: the quantitative research tells you the numbers and percentage of ticket buyers and provides statistics on other buying habits; the qualitative research speaks to how and why a particular audience member responds to a cultural product…” (p 25)
“Ask your questions from a place of sincerity, genuine interest and compassion.” (p 25)
educating your artists and audiences: demystifying the art product
“Educating your audience means helping them understand the importance of connecting their lives to your product.” (p 27)
review and analysis
follow-up
partnership
building the bridge/extending the invitation
creating value
appreciation: “thank you” is the world’s most powerful phrase.
“If you build bridges, they will come.” (p 32)
The book is filled with anecdotes from Walker-Kuhne’s experiences in the field working in collaboration with many notable arts institutions across New York. It is really interesting to see how the organizations she has worked with have grown and how her work has impacted the way the institutions engage with audiences today.
I got my first car junior year of high school and I put bumper stickers on the back bumper (art school), and among those bumper stickers was a Frederick Douglass quote: “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.”
On page 57, the chapter page for Chapter 5 entitled, ‘Cultural Explosions: The Public Theater,’ the words greeted me again. I’ve been searching for them, but I hadn’t seen them in a long time.
It felt like a reminder that the work to which I’ve chosen to dedicate myself, will not be easy.
But also that it can be done, and that it is worth it to see it through.
on: ‘The Impact of Race: Theatre and Culture’ by Woodie King Jr.
notes from my first read, highlighting how Black theatrical legacies reflect a cultural dedication to access.
and, a reading list (scroll down).
“I am witness. I was there.” p 92
on Black business:
“Black businesses sustain themselves because they have a product that Black people need. Black artists create the spiritual and cultural nourishment Black people need.” p 14
“We must find “isms” again because our Blackness isn’t enough. Our Blackness is simply the surface of how we appear to ourselves and to others. We must have some sort of political direction. We must believe in something; we must have a sense of value beyond money.” p 22
“GHETTO ART & ENERGY”
“That’s how it’s always been in this country: the new citizen, angry because it’s not the way he dreamed it would be, but come hell or high water he’s going to make it that way. Those are the fellows that revive our art, our nation’s self respect… (In the near future, Rap and Hiphop will be instrumental in defining the culture.)” p 36
youth theatre, street theatre, the Cultural Arts Program of Mobilization for Youth as a lesson in access:
King discusses the Cultural Arts Program of Mobilization For Youth (MFY) that began the summer of 1965, formed with the intention of giving “young people in the area a real chance at professional experience and training via the arts as they relate to everyday life.“ p36
“While mothers hung out of tenement windows and young boys lounged on fire escapes, many who’d never even seen a play before got their first taste of theatre that related to their lives. In fact, Dope! was so real to some members of the audience that they got up on stage to dance during a party scene and later hissed at the hero when he started to take a fix. They, you see, knew something about the hero’s life thata the hero didn’t know. And they wanted that young man to make the right decisions. An old woman junkie begged the hero not to take the drugs, telling him to look at her, see what dope had done to her. I was reminded of something Malraux wrote in Man’s Fate: “We hear our own voice with our throat, we hear voices of others with our ears.” p 36
on students in the program:
“We expect them to learn to communicate ideas and feelings, to learn to approach simple problems creatively, to understand that to accomplish worthwhile things often requires patience and persistence more than inspiration. We expect them to learn that the human body and the human voice are the vehicle and instrument of the spirit and intellect; the suppressed intellectual energy can be expressed creatively rather than physically. And we expect them to appreciate that the cultivated primary human instrument is capable of enormous power and subtle expression.” p37
“We wanted plays that could speak to ghetto audiences, that, the language of the ghetto would deal with issues meaningful and important to its people. We wanted plays that accurately said what the actors were really thinking as youngsters living in the ghetto.” p 37
“BREAKING THE RULES— EDUCATION ETHICS AND ETHNICITY”
advice for educators:
“The better artists take the human condition, recreate and shape it in a beautiful and artistic art, a beautifully realized, culturally diverse character, a brilliantly executed piece of choreography, a dance, a culturally diverse play … the unique way in which this art is given back is called ‘vision.’ I believe the better educators are also artists and visionaries. They take what a student brings and uses it to help shape that student into a piece of art.” p 72
““Cultural diversity” means absolutely nothing if the student doesn’t have a sense of his own culture. Breaking rules is extremely difficult when your education and Eurocentric institutions exist on rules.” p 72
“JAMES BROWN IN LIBERIA”
favorite chapter. phenomenal storytelling.
“THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN THEATRE OF TOMORROW”
“Karamu is the grand parent of the Black Theatre. It existed all by itself when our minds carried the possibility of something as remote as A Negro in the American Theatre. In 1947 when Edith Isaac wrote her historical book The Negro in the American Theatre, one third of it was about Karamu. It’s an institution that has been presenting plays with Black artists in leading roles since it’s inception. Those who passed through have gone on to some of the highest positions of leadership in the American Theatre, Hollywood Television and the motion picture industry. Karamu also sent those-who-passed-through into leadership positions in business, education and social science. Karamau is the boy scouts.” p 95
“Black institutions (or Black controlled institutions) are somewhat different. Many are so seriously underfunded they look for anything Black that can be booked into the institution and often get productions that turn Black audiences off…” p 102
“Starting in the mid-Eighties, a culturally accepted form of self criticism within Black arts circles (especially circles that worked within white institutions) was overwhelmingly endorsed by white institutions. These artists and thier productions toured constantly.” p 103
the part about BTN, AUDELCO as a lesson in access:
BTN’s inaugural Winona Lee Fletcher Award 1995 Recipients: Abena Joan Brown, Vinnette Carroll, Vivian Robinsosn, Ntozake Shange, Barbara Ann Teer, and Margaret Wilkerson p 105
Vivian Robinson founded AUDELCO:
“In her acceptance speech, Robinson talked about how she formed AUDELCO. In the early Seventies as she attended theatres, she noted very few Blacks attended. She began to form theatre parties to correct this situation. These theatre parties developed into an organization and on April 1, 1973, the Audience Development Committee, Inc., better known as AUDELCO, was founded.
Supported by theatregoers who were part of AUDELCO Theatre Parties, Vivian Robinson felt the need, additionally, to do something to encourage and honor Black artists. When Douglas Turner Ward was nominated for a Tony Award as “Best Supporting Actor” for his leading role in the Broadway production of fJoseph Walker’s The River Niger, Vivian Robinson and the “AUDELCO ladies” went into action and began the Annual AUDELCO Black Theatre Recognition Awards.” p 110
“BARAKA AT THE MILLENNIUM”
“The language in his plays, the focus of his music criticism, and his volumes of essays remind us we’re Africans in a European culture.
What is it about Baraka’s language that calls us to attention? I believe it’s his understanding of the African continuum as well as how it plays on the collective memory.” p 131
cultural anthropology as a basis for creative exploration:
“Milner is a cultural anthropologist as much as a playwright. His plays are deeply rooted in the people and places of his hometown of Detroit. Black people inhabit his plays. White people don’t play any great role in the stage life of Milner’s characters or in his stories.” p 159
“NATIONAL BLACK THEATRE FESTIVAL — AFRICAN HERITAGE AND KINSHIP”
“In a discussion with Pearl Cleage in 1989 about the Festival, she said:
You begin to see the problem. ‘We’ are a wildly diverse group of performers, directors, writers, teachers, designers, producers, and patrons. We have accepted in no unifying creed o r set of values, embraced no collective aesthetic, defined no common enemy and agreed upon no mutually beneficial strategies for survival. We have few, if any, institutions that are not heavily dependent on resources granted to us from outside of the communities in whom our work should be deeply rooted and to whom our work should be of definable use and value… It is madness to consider the future of Black theatre outside of the context of the future of Black America. Any attempt to do so removes us from our cultural traditions and from our historical responsibilities.” p 165
more words on access/building an accessible theatre:
“A theatergoer can feel deeply, yet if what is happening on stage makes no sense he will turn off.” p 181
“Finally, Wilson spoke of “the theatre we choose to work in is European, that it’s based on the Greek theatre designed by Aristotle. We choose to adjust and change it … the American theatre is based on subscription, yet that subscription keeps Blacks out of the American theatre…. they (subscriptions) are the death of American theatre.” p 188
“In South Africa’s Black Townships there are no theatres. Performances take place in community halls, churches, cinemas, and school classrooms, venues which don’t provide facilities nor the conditions necessary for professional performances.” p 193
“A traditional African theatre audience is an active, vocal and participating component of a performance event. Such an audience is often labeled as “noisy” especially by critics who aren’t familiar with African and African American audiences. The African and the African American audience is an integral part of the performance and functions on three simultaneous capacities as spectators, performers, and critics.” p 196
“When asked back them: What does your audience come looking for? Artistic Director Douglas Turner Ward replied, “I find the Black audience doesn’t come with any pre—conception.. They probably were told that there was a play which had something to do with them and one that they could afford. Our highest ticket is $4.95. And we have some preview tickets for only one dollar. We’ve done everything to get the audience we want. One way is to give group rates and to do radio advertising. The Negro Ensemble Company consciously seeks participation of Black audiences.” p 199
an interview to keep digging:
https://www.americantheatre.org/2021/07/09/woodie-king-jr-and-a-lifetime-of-creation/
Zora! Festival Academic Conference Vlog
spend 3 days with me in Orlando/Eatonville/Maitland celebrating big Zor Zor, the illustrious Zora Neale Hurston
“As the grimy globe spins”: Zora Neale Hurston, Care, and Making a Place
Day 1
I originally had not planned on taking the tour of Eatonville because I imagined it to be much like the place my father grew up. To my surprise, it was even smaller. Roanoke Rapids has a Walmart. Eatonville has a Family Dollar.
Rise Mural (Zora Side), Eatonville, FL
Rise Mural (back)
key takeaways:
Black laborers “rising and returning to the mist”
J. Andre Smith (Black Jesus murals) & Josiah Eaton (put the money up to found Eatonville)
what’s with all the white boys having Black names?
A.M.E.:
African, because of the Africans who sat in the “nigga pews”
Methodist, the denomination
Episcopal, the order of the bishop
“LIMITATIONS GIVE BIRTH TO CREATIVITY”- Trent Tomengo
In the evening there was a presentation at Rollins College, ‘Vignettes from ‘Let My People Sing’’ a play the students created about Zora. No shade, it was… what it was lol. I know there are limitations to educational theatre, particularly at the undergraduate level and I’m always hesitant to truly critique these things because they’re essentially children, but really they aren’t to blame anyway. I blame the faculty. I blame the education system.
For some reason, especially in undergraduate productions people feel the need to make everything multicultural and “for all.” Though Zora’s academic life outside of Eatonville included white people, many of these were strictly essential relationships where Zora said and did whatever she needed to in an effort to get what she needed to survive. It was strange to watch young white girls cry about ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’— for them to say they never saw the transformative value or power of performance until they were 18 on a PWI campus doing a student driven production about Zora Neale Hurston. It was actually kind of comical and… disrespectful? My existence has always been political. I’ve never known the art I created or participated in to be anything but that. Even in show choir, my existence was representation— it didn’t matter that we were singing a Disney medley.
Day 2
Day 2 was presentation day for me. I am extremely proud of what I accomplished and I feel like this presentation was even better than the last. I’m still working on pacing and lifting my head up but I think people still appreciated what I was able to share. The day began at St. Lawrence AME where we got to hear Dr.Ruthe T. Sheffey (in her 100th year!) speak about Zora and the festival and it reminded me so much of my grandmother. She told us the same story three times— like the exact same thing— in the way that only elderly people can. Grateful to have that experience.
Our moderator, Trent Tomengo called me Dr. Jefferies all morning. I told him I was not a doctor, but he insisted and I accepted it. Language is powerful. It was spoken (it is written).
During the Q&A portion of my session, we were asked how care shows up in our classrooms and I didn’t get a chance to answer so I’ll do it now:
I introduce myself: name, pronouns, and how I’m feeling. I tell my students that in order to work together, we must consider and respect each other. It is important that everyone knows where we’re starting— if I’m having a bad day, my students need to know that my behavior isn’t personal or about them, I’m just having a bad day. And vice versa. When my students talk over each other, I tell them that what they have to say is important and I can’t hear those important things if they’re all talking at once. I emphasize that I want to hear them. I model care, and I let them know that taking care of each other/considering each other is the first step to creating collaboratively.
reading list from “Zora for Kids: The Place of Hurston in Children’s Literature” by Kenneth Kidd (University of Florida):
The Brownies Book (W.E.B. DuBois)
‘Drenched in Light’ (1926)
‘Dust Tracks on the Road’ by Zora Neale Hurston
‘Lies and Other Tall Tales’ adapted and illustrated by Christopher Myers
Dr. Ibram Kendi: ‘Magnolia Flower’ and ‘The Making of Butterflies’
key takeaways:
Waadi Festival “Beautiful Feast of the Valley” (2055 - 1650 BCE)
connecting and honoring ancestors (remembrance)
ran several days in Kemet/Ancient Egypt
ancestral resurrection: calling a name 3x
After those two sessions we hit the streets. We roamed Eatonville, did a scavenger hunt & trivia in the library, and then later we went out in DTO. I was hungover the next day so… you know it was a good time lol.
Care isn’t a concept but an embodied practice. It is in everything I do— in every interaction, every conversation. It is the worry before I speak/the worry after I speak/the consideration of my words.
Care is making a place for myself and for others.
As the world burns,
“as the grimy globe spins,”
I find solace in spaces like these— where we are valued, commemorated, defied and encouraged. I am so grateful to know Zora and truly honored to contribute to her legacy in this way.
Big Zor Zor the conduit you are! The force you are! I can only hope my archive will be as decadent.
check out my presentation with a membership to theblackdramaschool.org
on ‘‘Mule Bone: A Comedy of Negro Life’ by Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes and the complete story of the Mule Bone controversy’
edited with introductions by George Houston Bass and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
‘Another Bone of Contention: Reclaiming Our Gift of Laughter’ by George Houston Bass
“In her writing of Afro-American folklore, Zora Neale Hurston has cited the art of laughter as one of black folks gifts to American culture.” (p1)
Hughes & Hurston used “the vernacular tradition” as the foundation for their drama
“Hughes and Hurston, in other words, were drawing upon the black vernacular tradition to “ground” their drama… but also to “extend” the vernacular itself.” (p20)
“The play’s effect depends largely on the devices of verbal improvisation— sounding, rhyming, woofing— that are centra to Afro-American folklore.” (p176)
“… Hurston and Hughes were attempting to dramatize the “oral-aural worldview” of a black community that contrasts with the typographic-chirographic structure of white middle-class thought. The contest is a ritual, designed to defuse the violence implicit in the conflict, to channel the aggression into mental rather than physical terms.” (p182)
LETTERS
Zora Neale Hurston in a letter to Langston Hughes, January 20, 1931 (p223)
“P.S. How dare you use the word “nigger” to me. You know I don’t use such a nasty word. I’m a refined lady and such a word simply upsets my conglomeration. Whaat do you think I was doing Washington all that time if not getting cultured. I got my foot in society just as well as the rest. Treat me refined.”
Zora Neale Hurston in a letter to Charlotte van der Veer Quick Mason, January 20, 1931 (p226):
“ I wish it were possible for Locke to get him before you and then call me in and et him state his claims.
But my nigger mess aside, I hope that you are well as can be expected and that your dear C. is the same.”
Carl Van Vechten in a letter to Langston Hughes, August 17, 1942 (p279):
“In many ways a vivid and extraordinary story… I’ve also been reading many Negro letters for Yale, including the correspondence re Mule Bone which includes letters from YOU and Zora and Barrett H. Clark and Lawrence Langner and Theresa Helburn. It’s a pretty complete tae and your letter regarding Zora’s tantrum in your mother’s room in Cleveland is wonderful. She had a tantrum in my library at 150 West 55 Street too and threw herself on the floor and screamed and yelled! Bit the dust in fact. You woulda loved it, had it no concerned you…”
I love the way people talk about Zora— how excited they are to speak about her (good or bad).
READING LIST:
Du Bois, W.E.B. “Can the Negro Save the Drama?” Theatre Magazine XXXVIII (July 1923): 12, 68
Van Vechten, Carl “Nigger Heaven”
'Fairview' at UNCSA: Black shows for white audiences, NC Black Rep, and Black southern theatre
I have four pages of notes from the production of ‘Fairview’ at UNCSA.
‘Fairview,’ from a creative standpoint, is all about choices.
a choice was made to write a piece about a Black family, specifically for white audiences.
(though one could truly argue that all shows about Black families with a Broadway or commercial trajectory fall into this category)
a choice is made in producing this show, to hire a white (or predominantly white/white presenting/publicly facing) tech crew to run the show.
a choice is made to have/hire a white stage manager.
to perform for predominantly whwite audiences.
to perpetuate servitude in the Black theatrical community, by having Black actors get onstage and lecture/to do the heavy lifting— to inform white audiences of what they already know:
the stage, the theatre, it’s all for them.
the show does not escape this fate with a Black director. though I’m sure this piece is a fun challenge directorally, I wonder why we don’t take advantage of the other fun directoral challenges. like the ones that aren’t catering to white audiences.
“Damn. this is the kind of work Black rep should be doing regularly.”
I left ‘Fairview’ like “damn. this is the kind of work Black Rep should be doing regularly.”
but it isn’t.
in fact, Jackie Sibblies Drury herself does not think this is a piece to be performed in front of predominantly Black audiences. and perhaps that’s why NC Black Rep Artistic Director Jackie Alexander selected it for his directoral debut at UNCSA.
I was genuinely surprised UNCSA had enough Black students to stage the work. I remember a time when the high school senior drama ten student cohort would only take two Black students.
I understand Alexander’s selection. particularly for a lily white campus. I understand why the choice was made to do this piece, at this venue.
“SUSPECT DOESN’T BELIEVE AUDIENCE CAN KEEP UP OR COMPREHEND NUANCED DRAMATIC WORKS”
my sentiment about NC Black Rep doing this kind of work is more about quality of content than anything else. there is a lack of trust in the relationship between Black Rep and their audience. they do not believe that Black audiences can handle complex plots and content outside of their traditional religious, “urban” selections.
if you are aware that plays like ‘Fairview’ exist/if you are keeping up with contemporary theatre/your season of shows should reflect that.
as a Black theatrical institution, you should be ushering in a new era of drama, encouraging experimental works that push the boundaries of theatre is and can be.
“suspect doesn’t believe audience can keep up or comprehend nuanced dramatic works”
NC Black Rep? guilty.
NCAT? guilty.
NCCU? guilty.
and as a result, we all suffer.