For the purposes of this essay, theatre is the seeing place, where society wrestles with its humanity, culture, and questions of justice, love, regret, and redemption. Sure, theatres are also specific locations, physical buildings with nice big lobbies and nice chairs, or the backs of flatbed trucks. But when I speak of theatre, I mean the ritual, the practice, wherever people gather to witness real-time storytelling. This can range from traditional narratives to clowning, magic, testimony, or even an attempted coup of the nation’s capital.
I approach the work of scripting “seeing places” from multiple angles: as a writer who sells stories to publishers and theatres; as a producer who brings teams together to make visions reality; as an educator beating the drum for live storytelling in the age of streaming; and, most importantly, as a patron who often has been sustained by the right play at the right moment.
Theatre takes time—as do theatremakers.
I began over 20 years ago with Curious Theatre Branch (CTB) and their Rhinoceros Theater Festival in Chicago. As someone making rap tapes in his bedroom in suburban Detroit when the internet was still dial-up and traditional music distribution was limited, the spirit of independence of the CTB ensemble—a crew of multi-hyphenates who wrote and directed and performed and taught—resonated with me. CTB made space for me and I began delivering plays annually at the Rhino Fest. Soon my eyes were opened to the world of commissioned work and the broader possibilities offered a “professional” playwright.
This journey led me to the specialized machinery of new-play development through festivals like Humana and conferences like the O’Neill. Over the years, I have moved into arts leadership: artistic director of StageOne Family Theatre, executive director of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, now artistic director of Seattle Children’s Theatre (SCT). The latter’s mission includes new work, making it a perfect match for my passion. Throughout this 20-plus-year journey, the work of developing new stories, whether they be “original,” adaptations, or somehow both, has shaped my pedagogy, my leadership, even my parenting.
Since 2020 we have been questioning our methods, our models, our values, although not much actual radical change has taken place. Which makes sense, radical change is inconvenient, unpredictable and expensive. And yet it would be foolish to continue to ignore the warning signs of the last four years. So as we imagine change, I also grab firmly to the fundamental and necessary powers of our chosen field.
I recently attended Pottery Northwest’s networking event for local Black professionals, and I made immediate connections between the timeless practice of molding clay and the way theatre molds stories and societies. No matter the modes and agreements by which I have been able to sustain a life as a storyteller, the artisanal craft of molding living words onstage has and will endure.
We urgently need more seeing places that are not consumed in solitude but experienced in community. More seeing places, more often, and in more places, created and cultivated by more people who hold perspectives unique to their experience.
But how?
We need innovative approaches that prioritize collaboration, empower artists, and value process and the inclusion of community inside it.
Quicker and Less Precious
Yes, it takes time—but time is relative.
If the title, the production, the experience is the thing, but it takes us three to five years to turn things around, how do we move faster and more efficiently without losing the quality and essence of our work? We certainly don’t want to end up like Lucy and Ethel in the classic chocolate factory episode of I Love Lucy. For those who didn’t grow up in the era of the rerun, Lucy and Ethel get a job working on the assembly line and discover they cannot keep up, madly stuffing chocolates in their hats and mouths. The piled-up chocolates in this metaphor represent the misalignment of capacity and ambition. On the other hand, the pile of ruined and mishandled chocolates could represent missed opportunities.
What systems support quicker turnarounds and more dynamic processes? Sketch comedy and stand-up are uniquely positioned in an enviable way. How can the play keep up with the immediacy and swiftness of how stories travel today?
The standard three to five years it often takes to commission, workshop, and produce a new play is inefficient and increasingly cost prohibitive.
At SCT, we have been exploring and implementing practices to allow for a swifter, intentional and activated approaches to production. For instance, Alvaro Saar Rios’s play Luchadora initially faced resistance due to its large cast and run time. Instead of commissioning a new play, SCT recommissioned him to return to his text and customize it for a mainstage production. In collaborating with us over a handful of months, Alvaro made new discoveries in his story, and SCT was able to fully produce the West Coast premiere of a new 80-minute version with half its previous cast size.
Another way to sustain and support new work in 2024: invest in local arts community, supporting a balanced work-life integration. Building on 2022’s The Boy Who Kissed The Sky, inspired by the childhood of Jimi Hendrix, SCT is committing to a new slate of Seattle-based stories by Seattle connected writers. Keiko Green is currently under commission to develop a script based on Bruce Lee’s time as a budding philosophy major at the University of Washington.
And for writers we commission in other cities—like Shavonne Coleman, of Ann Arbor, Mich., who is adapting Jamilah Thomkins-Bigelow’s Your Name Is a Song—we seek partners in those cities. In this case, Mosaic Youth Theatre in nearby Detroit, which allows for greater work-life balance and consistent engagement with the script.
New or Fresh?
As we mourn the loss of pivotal new-work institutions like Space at Ryder Farm and The Lark, we must also build new havens for research and development. This is my aspiration for my tenure here in the Pacific Northwest, centered entirely on cross-institutional alignment and collaboration.
SCT, where I am artistic director, took a novel approach to developing our holiday show for 2024. As an institution with multi-generational audiences, the holiday slot is incredibly important. Instead of relying on the old standbys, we are taking a bold swing, investing in a new adaptation of something old that still feels entirely new: playwright Matt Opatrny’s new take on Hans Christen Andersen’s Snow Queen.
To help offset the feelings of uncertainty that can douse the creative spark before it has a chance to catch fire, we found a mission-aligned partner in Western Washington University in nearby Bellingham, a feeder school of theatre talent with a theatre department that values collaboration, process, and providing students access to professional artists. In the summer of 2023, we gathered a team of professionals, alumni, students, and faculty around Matt’s script to refine and customize it to SCT’s current production realities.
Then last winter we brought the text back to Seattle and shared a staged reading at the National Nordic Museum for 150 people, ranging from 6 to over 60. The Snow Queen is an old story. But due to our collaborative and community-involved approach, our December 2024 production will be fresh.
As the slots for production narrow, and we find the canon of contemporary plays growing, it is less about “new” and more about “fresh.” There is nothing new about fruit. But fresh fruit and stale fruit are entirely different experiences, right?
Fresh perspectives, energy, and approaches are what will keep theatre vibrant and relevant. It is not the buildings or the stories that live on the stages; it is our practices which should reflect theatre’s agility and vitality. So my challenge to us all moving forward: Keep it fresh, y’all.
Idris Goodwin (he/him) is an award-winning playwright and artistic director of Seattle Children’s Theatre.