Clearly, all of us at The Inkwell are inspired by new plays. We love what they reveal to us, the conversation they create, and the connections we build through them.
And we love when these conversations linger.
That's why we're so excited to continue to share with you the conversation that the new play Tether by Julie Oni Taiwo has sparked around family. When we read a draft of the play in 2009, we loved the way in which Julie captured the secret language of sisters and the surprising ways in which she tackled race, religion, and identity with an unusual pair of twins.
Jenn Book Haselwerdt, the lovely, lively, and thoughtful dramaturg that helped bring Tether to the stage at Montgomery College's Studio Theatre in Silver Spring, has more to say about what the play has to say. And we hope some of you can make it to the world premier production, which is running through March 13th. (Here's a review from DC Theatre Scene.)
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There have been a lot of words exchanged recently about why the arts are important, especially as the budget is being argued in the House and Senate. The words have spawned round-table debates, newspaper articles, countless blog posts, and even Twitter trends. As arts advocacy becomes more and more important, we are constantly asked to complete the sentence "I believe in the power of the arts to..."
Usually, because I work in theatre education, my sentence ends with some form of "...to teach, no matter the subject." But right now, because of my work with Tether, I would absolutely say that:
I believe in the power of the arts to facilitate conversation and strengthen community.
Tether has brought up a lot of interesting conversation through the development process and weeks of rehearsal; it deals with issues of race and identity as teenage twins make their way to womanhood. The twins are biracial, with one presenting as white, and the other presenting as black. (This actually does happen, although there's a one-in-a-million chance in the genetic lottery.) As the twins grow -- and grow apart -- they are forced to ask themselves questions about how the world perceives them, from issues of relationships with boys to recognition of race.
In the emails I shared with Julie and Jessica (the playwright and director, respectively), questions flew about the twins' apparent ethnicities -- how are we representing them to the audience? How do they see their race and how the world looks at them? These questions continued during our week of table work, and through the rehearsal process. We tracked the ways the girls talk about being multiracial, and looking as different as strangers to people who don't know them. We discussed the ways people outside of the family talk to and about them. We talked about important plot points which seemed to center around race.
As part of the opening weekend of Tether, I had the opportunity to facilitate a panel discussion after the Sunday matinee. The panel was titled Multi-Cultural, Multi-Racial: Growing up in the New Modern Family. Panelists included Julie and her identical twin sister Jessica, married couple Diane Martin and Wardell Townsend, and Executive Director of Community Bridges (a nonprofit organization that provides multicultural empowerment and leadership programs for young diverse girls in the Silver Spring community) Ana Lopez. The conversation was eye-opening, as we talked about topics from how to talk to our children about race, to educating multi-racial children about their backgrounds, to empowering young women, to whether or not we judge our youth based on their outward appearance--including race. The discussion lasted for 45 minutes, and could have gone on much, much, much longer.
Ultimately, after discussing a "plot twist" in Tether -- one that Julie, Jessica, and I discussed in depth before rehearsals began, and one that could certainly be taken a number of ways -- the panel agreed that one of the important things about this play was that the plot twist spawns conversation. It allows debate to be had. This is one of the most important things a play can do, and one of our most important responsibilities as playmakers. We can facilitate conversation, which can be difficult to do in the absence of a piece of art. This, I believe, is the power of the arts.
(That's Jade Wheeler above as the twin Lam in the world premiere production of Tether. Photograph by C. Stanley Photography.)
And we love when these conversations linger.
That's why we're so excited to continue to share with you the conversation that the new play Tether by Julie Oni Taiwo has sparked around family. When we read a draft of the play in 2009, we loved the way in which Julie captured the secret language of sisters and the surprising ways in which she tackled race, religion, and identity with an unusual pair of twins.
Jenn Book Haselwerdt, the lovely, lively, and thoughtful dramaturg that helped bring Tether to the stage at Montgomery College's Studio Theatre in Silver Spring, has more to say about what the play has to say. And we hope some of you can make it to the world premier production, which is running through March 13th. (Here's a review from DC Theatre Scene.)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There have been a lot of words exchanged recently about why the arts are important, especially as the budget is being argued in the House and Senate. The words have spawned round-table debates, newspaper articles, countless blog posts, and even Twitter trends. As arts advocacy becomes more and more important, we are constantly asked to complete the sentence "I believe in the power of the arts to..."
Usually, because I work in theatre education, my sentence ends with some form of "...to teach, no matter the subject." But right now, because of my work with Tether, I would absolutely say that:
I believe in the power of the arts to facilitate conversation and strengthen community.
Tether has brought up a lot of interesting conversation through the development process and weeks of rehearsal; it deals with issues of race and identity as teenage twins make their way to womanhood. The twins are biracial, with one presenting as white, and the other presenting as black. (This actually does happen, although there's a one-in-a-million chance in the genetic lottery.) As the twins grow -- and grow apart -- they are forced to ask themselves questions about how the world perceives them, from issues of relationships with boys to recognition of race.
In the emails I shared with Julie and Jessica (the playwright and director, respectively), questions flew about the twins' apparent ethnicities -- how are we representing them to the audience? How do they see their race and how the world looks at them? These questions continued during our week of table work, and through the rehearsal process. We tracked the ways the girls talk about being multiracial, and looking as different as strangers to people who don't know them. We discussed the ways people outside of the family talk to and about them. We talked about important plot points which seemed to center around race.
As part of the opening weekend of Tether, I had the opportunity to facilitate a panel discussion after the Sunday matinee. The panel was titled Multi-Cultural, Multi-Racial: Growing up in the New Modern Family. Panelists included Julie and her identical twin sister Jessica, married couple Diane Martin and Wardell Townsend, and Executive Director of Community Bridges (a nonprofit organization that provides multicultural empowerment and leadership programs for young diverse girls in the Silver Spring community) Ana Lopez. The conversation was eye-opening, as we talked about topics from how to talk to our children about race, to educating multi-racial children about their backgrounds, to empowering young women, to whether or not we judge our youth based on their outward appearance--including race. The discussion lasted for 45 minutes, and could have gone on much, much, much longer.
Ultimately, after discussing a "plot twist" in Tether -- one that Julie, Jessica, and I discussed in depth before rehearsals began, and one that could certainly be taken a number of ways -- the panel agreed that one of the important things about this play was that the plot twist spawns conversation. It allows debate to be had. This is one of the most important things a play can do, and one of our most important responsibilities as playmakers. We can facilitate conversation, which can be difficult to do in the absence of a piece of art. This, I believe, is the power of the arts.
(That's Jade Wheeler above as the twin Lam in the world premiere production of Tether. Photograph by C. Stanley Photography.)
