Good morning Welcome. Thank you all for being here We weren't kidding when we said a quick turnover. So come on in and grab a seat if you're just arriving My name is Jen Scott Mobley. I'm the VP for a conference planning this year And I'd just like to quickly say a shout out to howl round Thank you so much for the collaboration with us to have our live podcast shooting out on their platform and archive there and Speaking of Lorraine Hansberry and young people doing transformative work I'm honored to introduce the daughters of Lorraine Jordan Ely and Leticia Ridley Who will have a very special interview with our special guest Dominique Mariso? Thank you all Um, is this thing on it's on Hi, welcome to daughters of Lorraine our live So much to everyone for joining us today Thank you to the association for theater and higher education all the conference planning committee Thank you to howl round who obviously Leticia and I love Could you support our podcast and to everyone who may be on the live stream? Hello? This is our first live episode It is so fitting that we're doing it here at the association for theater and higher education We have been so supported by the theater community Since the inception of this podcast in 2019 cannot believe we've been doing this for three years And this is so so exciting So welcome to daughters of Lorraine. We're your host Jordan Ely and Leticia Ridley your friendly neighborhood black feminist So we're coming to you live in Detroit, Michigan We are so we're excited for every episode, but we're Especially excited for this episode and a conversation with Dominique Mariso Please please refer to your programs for a list of her amazing Accomplishments including the MacArthur genius grants Tony award nominations And Broadway debuts a bound so please refer to that Before we begin our conversation we would like to take a moment of silence for a Black theater elder who has recently transitioned Barry Alice if you are not familiar with her work You might be most familiar with her role in a different world And she's also received a me award for her work in television So please join us in taking a moment of silence to honor her life and her legacy. Thank you. Thank you so much for that So now we're going to transition into our conversation So Leticia would you like to kick us off with our first question? Yes, definitely one Let me just say it's an honor to be in the building with you huge fan Love of your work and just also just the wisdom that you be spitting in your multiple interviews I mean like oh got a quote that got a quote that So just thank you for joining joining us and we're so glad that you could be here with us today So we're gonna start with a softball question the softball question is What got you into theater and why did you choose theater as sort of the story tell them story-telling mechanism? That you just decided to work with it You know, I don't know that like I chose theater I feel like theater chose me. I Grew up, you know performing and dancing since I was a kid. He chose me a long time ago I think the first live performance. I remember seeing was Stephanie Mills in the weeds. So I aged myself But it was here in Detroit and my mother is one of those mothers she's a teacher educator She just let me took me to everything. She wanted me to just be stimulated by all the things So I went to see a lot of plays and I think it just Experiencing live performance. I did then I also had teachers We saw I saw plays in school, you know for school productions and I want to be up on that stage, you know So I got up on that stage, you know in school And I grew up dancing my aunt Carol Mariso Founded Detroit Dance Center. So I grew up dancing in her dance school all my life And I think that it just that's why I say it chose me I think I just the bug of performing came from within from the family influence and And then funny enough, I know this is not aged. Well, this thing I'm about to say, but I grew up watching the Cosby show and I always wanted to be one of Rudy's friends on the Cosby show. I felt like that was my calling that got missed, you know I'm not so sure anymore. So But But you know, that was I just seeing seeing reflections of me made me want to get in it. Um, I I love that you Talk about how much other people have shaped the way you Approach your work and one of one of those people is pro-cleg And you wrote this wonderful dedication to her in Paradise Blue Which I I want to read a little bit of where you say for pro-cleg Because of her inspiration to me as a writer because of her love of black women in her work because of her love of Detroit and because of her essay mad at miles which gave me the Ammunition and bravery to deal with community accountability in and out of my art So this entire conference the theme is around rehearsing the possible the practice of reparative Creativity which is a theoretical concept by Doreen condo Where she identifies it as a strategy by artists of color to to use theater and performance as a mode of repair And when we think of repair we think of okay, this is how we create spaces of care or this is how we Make sure that marginalized theater artists feel safe in a space But also that other piece is accountability would you you talk about? And so I'd love to hear about how you stage community accountability in your work And and how you also see The role of accountability in something like repair work, you know, it's funny I mean when you talk about community accountability I think Paradise Blue is often a play that can mystify people if they don't understand that part of it which is to say that I Procleg is actually someone who I Bow down to you know to her little to her feet. I Mean, she's a she's an elder that Is an elder in the truest sense of that word of like just ministering and also? Guiding and being so generous to the generations that come after her. I can't speak on that highly enough but and her work taught me to both love myself as a black woman and To have empathy for myself and for others And so when I read Maddie Miles, which was her essay and I had the same question She had for Miles Davis. I have for like my entire hip hop generation and I And I also had it for For miles and for the generation that came before us and the one that's coming after us And so when I wrote Paradise Blue, I was thinking about Miles and I was thinking about What we how how do we hold people accountable that we also love Is there a way to both love and say no more? and And I think people get really confused with if you critique or if you say Hell no that that somehow is the weight of love for people and so that we can't we don't know how to do We don't know how to hold both in our hands together, you know And Paradise Blue is a practice for me and holding both in my hands and and literally taking someone out of you on our play Can you take someone out with love? But take them out Or take the or take the action out like what does that look like, you know, so anyway, but she Her work and her interrogation of how do you Separate how can we separate the artist and their art, you know And why would we want to was really powerful for me and made me want to be the artist when you read my work You will know me you will know who I am Yeah, we definitely know who you are and I love that You just hold like that community accountability piece is across so many of your plays Recently Jordan and I had the chance to see into crowd multiple times and the way that you hold the members of the Temptations accountable, right as they're sort of becoming these superstars is also I would say a central part of your work and a central part of your work. That's actually really really important Um Something else that you said about sort of Pearl Clegg being one of your inspirations. Who else are you inspired by in conversation with? who Has helped led the way for your work You know because it's poets, too, it's you know, it's a miracle rocker I mean it is obviously it's August Wilson, but it is Nikki Giovanni mainly I'm so in Sanchez Maya Angelou, these are writers voices that I was reading like a great, you know That works showing me myself in a different way You know, they're local poets here in Detroit that are a big part of my influence of how I saw the world How I saw our city very particularly and how I see the world Jessica care more carri camani Turner Paradise Pharaoh these are Writers and a shanga bay that really shaped the the way that I Understood Literature in Detroit and may and made me raise the bar every time You know, I used to perform at a space called cafe mahogany here in Detroit in the late late 90s and early 2000s was like, you know, a little bit of Mecca For black poets in the city I come from like Dudley Randall and broadside press like I come from studying those writers, you know And then in the playwriting realm Cheryl West Nabiakai Lynn Nottage, these are aisha Rahman These are writers that I read growing up that and obviously like into zaki shine gay who basically Created a whole another kind of play you can write, you know Like oh poetry and theater And and for a poet my introduction into playwriting was choreo poem and so that was all into zaki shine gay How do you think your introduction? Being into theater being the choreo poem shaped you as a writer, right? That's a really different sort of entryway into theater that maybe many of us, you know in the audience or on the livestream Has encountered or entered the world of theater. How do you think that shaped you as a writer? Oh? Majorly, I'm a poet. I'm a poet, you know I should say also I have to say Alice Childress because I grew up not only reading her work But performing it and using her work to get into college Thank You Alice Childress But yeah, you know, I just The my I've never stopped being a poet to be a playwright I've never stopped, you know, and every now and again the form I break the form of like a traditional linear storytelling to go back to the poetry, you know the choreo form roots It just depends on what you know I sort of let the play tell me what it wants to be and then I go there, you know But then I you know and then in pipeline all of a sudden I'm like oh, I could I could fuse there's a difficult way You know, we're gonna take Gwendolyn Brooks. I'm gonna take a little bit of you know I'm gonna get some native Sun theme theme theme in there We're gonna do some different stuff, you know But it's all of the writers that I've read growing up that I think Shape my thinking and and and the possibilities of what I could be doing, you know That it didn't have to fit. Oh, it's this is a this is a lesson that they give in the play of pipeline but it was also my life lesson which as a writer which was It's broadside press printed Gwendolyn Brooks poem we real cool in this like very differently structured way, right? You know, it didn't look grammatical and in fact I come, you know I studied the black arts movement and so the the idea of like Nikki Giovanni and sung in Sanchez and into zaki shan Gay not writing like with the punctuation that was required of them, you know At the time what was told was standard and correct, you know Kind of just like almost throwing a middle finger up to that, you know Really gave me a sense of like how we can write rebellion and just form Just like the form itself is rebellion and that it is strategic and not and not wasted that it is Not without Understanding and knowledge of whatever these rules are but in complete and conscious defiance of them I think was a part of me learning how to find my voice as an artist Yeah, and and so in thinking about some of my form and structure something I study is black women in musical theater and Obviously you are part of this ever expanding canon of that as someone who writes books for musicals But also music and sound are already integral to the work that you produce, you know whether it's the jazz club and Paradise blue or Or the the the ways that J. Dilla's music is shaping the soundscape of skeleton crew It sound is is so important to the ways that you are Dramaturgically constructing your stories And so I'd love to hear you talk a little bit about What you want people to walk away with sonically from your work? Like what is the what do you see as the the role of of music within these worlds you build because I think Oftentimes we talk about musical theater. It's often like But it's just like, you know We're very bound to this idea that there is there's a book there is music. There's a there's a book There's a score. There's not a kind of merging or a connection of these worlds But black theater your work in a zaki shangye, you know, all the people you've mentioned have always used these worlds to Or these different forms to build your world. So I'd love to hear the role of music in your in your work and That's thank you I've been asked that question before but not quite like that and again a great way, which is that for me Music, you know, I grew up on music. I grew up dancing. I played the piano when I was younger But I'm also married to a musician a hip-hop artist who actually scored the Broadway production of Skeleton Crew His name is J. Key. Yeah, I was like drop the name Jimmy keys with J. Key the song Jimmy keys with J. Key this is performance name and He expanded my like Musical literacy like, you know your hip-hop artist your musical influences way beyond hip-hop. It's like it's jazz is soul music very much Hip-hop is a child of soul music. So, you know that I think that that is in me already You know how I hear the world and see the world around me, but I think It also music is there to Obviously build culture But and pay homage But it's also there to challenge my husband Jimmy also was the Sound designer co-found designer from my play confederates at At a signature this last season. Thank you. Thank you for inviting And And he did something So profound with this sound design that I just like my friend and I were just talking about it yesterday Do the genius a man to a genius and I'm the one with the genius title so I know how he feels Like that's gotta be hard for him man That's practice You know real genius sit up here and be like I gotta call you the genius but he but he Did this thing with the sound design we called it he calls it critical race theory through sound design You know and it was one of those sounds are you like hear a song and he'll flip the song on you You know like you'll hear a song that you think you know and he'll like show you it's racist roots You know in the in the in the music which was going so Effortlessly with the project. I mean it was like this is one of my favorite productions of my plays You know I've ever seen because it was like it's nerd. It was nerdism everywhere It was like nerdy out on everybody's like trip. It was like, oh my god This set design is like so nerdy, you know, like oh my god this like lighting design Like this is something like everybody was nerding out on their particular skill, you know And like this is like going we're going nuts up in there It's so collaborative and you know everything but anyway my point being with that was like music was there to like To add to the story of like we kept about hiding and covering, you know, the roots Covering the roots Of enslavement in this country. I'm like what the the white supremacist roots of that like Underneath so many things that we take for granted on a daily basis.  Oh really any of it Maybe R&B. I'm a fishing out of R&B Specifically 90s R&B. That's A theater, but your 90s R&B go to oh my god, like TLC I Was really into like Joe to see and boy Like some of the underwear like silk Anyway, just like whatever I could do I could throw some 90s R&B at you that you be like Involve okay, that's the last one so but But I'm just I'm I could I love music a lot and it just comes I can't even hear I've write to music You know, I write the music. I have to play music. I've had to do my homework Like I can't think cut the music off. I'm like, no, I can't think cut the music on You know And just helps me it calms me and it helps me like stay in the world that I'm writing about Yeah, and when you were writing for For ain't you proud and like writing with existing music right music that has shaped the pop their music landscape of this country but also like the You know shaping people's childhoods and their connections to it. What was the process of what was the process like in writing a Story about people that you know, we already know but like trying to find Maybe those accountability pieces that we were talking about earlier, but also like the the the nuances of Of how we understand these really major figures like the temptation Well, the goal for me with the ain't too proud was I mean there was already a temptation movie That everybody in black America knows every line to Ain't nobody coming to see you I was like everybody that knows this movie including my mother who's like got it on VHS And so I'm like everybody that sees this Musicals gonna be looking for ain't nobody coming to see you all this. I can't obviously cannot take that line I gotta find my own version of anybody coming to see you all this and I have one Not it's not that but it's close.   They already know But I have to tell a little bit of the story They already know because then they're gonna go she didn't know the story So you have to like walk this line, you know, so for me when I was reading Otis's biography That's and I also sort of had this I'm gonna be very honest, you know When they first brought the Temptations musical to me. I was like, oh, we already got multi on the musical We don't need this, you know, I don't know if I want to do this, you know And then I started reading Otis's biography and I was like, oh No, no, no, this is something we could do because it was at the time. I think it was like around 2015-2016 And it was during that time when the first I think wave, you know Trayvon Martin had already been killed and Mike Brown had already been killed Ferguson had happened I think Philando Castile had just started Alton Sterling had just happened, you know And so we were in that first wave of Black Lives Matter and of like people before they were like writing Black Lives Matter in the street This is when Black Lives Matter was like called terrorists, right? And so but when that was happening artists, we were going You know, we were in that first wave of civic unrest that like this country was starting the the break that the country was in was starting around then, you know and and I was I was feeling at that time like man as a Artist as somebody who's performing a theater and doing all these stuff like what what do we do? Like what how do we respond to these times? But also like what is our role as artists? So how do we stay visible when the world is coming undone like where was our place? And then I was reading about the temptations and they were dealing with the 1967 rebellion in Detroit and they were You know, they were dealing with civic unrest And they were artists and the time when the world was falling apart in the late 60s, you know Before dr. King had even been killed and but but after Malcolm X people always talk about King and never talk about Malcolm like like Malcolm's Dev didn't also change and impact the world, but it absolutely did and it impacted Detroiters lives very much, you know, we they mourn both of those men With equality, you know, and so but I think about that time from 65 to 68, you know and what What the temptations must have felt like rising and being the kind of you know, being out here and performing and singing in front of you know, white audiences and black audiences that were like segregated and like what was that doing to their minds And you know and then I started reading what it was doing to them.     Yeah Yeah, I love ain't too proud and I also am very familiar with that temptation Film I literally was young and I'm like, I'm the eddie this time and me and my little brother were like literally reenact Yeah, like Love that movie. So and I and I what I love about ain't too proud also Is that I feel like it's a shift away from what we often think of as the jukebox musical where it's just kind of like these songs exist within This musical but they actually don't necessarily have any sort of theoretical or not theoretical Storyline thread like it's just like they're kind of like plopped in there and then we move we move I felt like ain't too proud is something completely different a reinvention of what we would call the jukebox musical Um But transitioning obviously we in your city were in detroit Um, and you know, you talked extensively about your love of detroit and and how it influenced you and i'm gonna read from Your dedication from detroit 67 And you wrote detroit is my family my best friends my husband My first love my creative genesis my heart This for your imperfection your truth and your ongoing survival through the decades and quote You also noted that the impetus to write about detroit came from a desire to create homegrown narrators This city is a central component of the work you produce There's your detroit cycle your work as a book writer for ain't too proud and now your upcoming work Soul train It's also your home and the place you grew up What lessons can we learn from detroit history and culture as we move forward in theater? Oh, um Yeah, I don't know. I mean I can tell you what I learned I know I don't know. There's a lot to learn in detroit.  They used to meet on this corner, you know Aretha Franklin was over here. This is where Rosa Parks was Pearl Clegg Reverend Albert Clegg, you know, that's her father, you know And that he uh, you know started the shrine of the black Madonna right here, you know, there's a lot of like ancestors here Um as maybe everywhere, but like there's a you can feel the deep rooted history of of of detroit when you're here And you know, I highly recommend a tour by Jamon Jordan. He is the historian of detroit. That's named by the mayor And he gives a hell of a tour black scroll network for anyone who wants an amazing tour of detroit Jamon Jordan is is my number one recommend, but uh, you know, you'll you'll you'll see the history of the underground railroad here Detroit was called midnight on underground railroad Um, and uh, and so I just you know the the the history of resistance. John Brown had meetings Space here in Detroit, you know, and so just to like know the the history of rebellion and um, and strategy strategic fight resistance and building and nation building is here in the city. Um and I think that for me growing up that just meant You know, I also have a I think it's hard for people to hear this Uh, you hear things like black nationalism black nationalism Sounds like something else than what it did for me growing up black nationalism sounds like All kind of nationalism, which I think we um have seen the danger of nationalism, you know Just we've seen the danger of like nationalistic points of views, but I think black nationalism As it has been detroit as it has been cultivated here in Detroit Is not born out of oppression, you know It's not like I've heard people comparing white nationalism and black nationalism for instance, right? And I would just I would I would offer a difference You know of the roots Right the root of white nationalism and the root of black nationalism are very different roots, right? One is rooted in oppression And one is rooted in fighting oppression. So they're gonna have a different Just they're gonna from that route. They're gonna go very different directions, right?  We had this thing called bates battle And bates battle had kindergarten and squaring off And like family feud style who's gonna hit the buzzer first, you know and like you had to put teams together I was in the fourth grade.  Yee is um One of my favorites because of this, you know Because he knew he was in a school and in a city that was predominantly black and that black culture and black history was not like A gimmick that it was it had to be interval and us knowing who we are So I grew up for the point is I think growing up in a city Where there are reflections of the people who live in that city, you know So that they don't feel like the minority or they don't feel like less than was a huge part of I think the entire Pedagogy of being raised in Detroit and thus the police force did not I did not grow up with the fear of the police Like I'm sure that that I now feel for my son I did not feel that way. Sorry to some I I did not feel that way growing up the police were my friends I feel like what I imagine, you know Maybe in a predominantly white community what young white children will feel about the police not afraid of them But like if you're in trouble you go to them, right? I grew up in a in the city in the 80s and 90s feeling like I could go to the police That's that's different from me where I'm living, right? Right. I feel very nervous every time I even see the presence of police. I feel like I I'm not sure if you know, how you gonna see me friend of foe. How you gonna see my husband? How you gonna see my son friend of foe? I don't feel like I can go to you In fact people use the police's weapons against me for something and someone's like I parked in a parking spot You want I'm gonna call the police? Whoa, that's like waving a gun at me right now, you know, and so there's a there's a whole different feeling of that when you're when you're Raised differently than how I was raised here, which was that this police force comes from this community I know my mom knows the chief or someone so knows that there were there's cousins that feel something feels like home and not like Um, we're on opposite opposite sides of life It's a terrible way to feel in your side of your own community, you know And so anyway, I just say all that to say that to me those are the the lessons that one can learn from this city is just a lesson in how to How much reflecting one how much being aware of the psyche of not of feeling like other Can be dangerous And I'm sure there were White people felt like the other I think in Detroit growing up m&m has he didn't grow up in Detroit But he grew up adjacent to Detroit, you know, I'm sure he he felt like other until he didn't you know until he felt like He felt other to white But he didn't feel other to black folks, you know because he grew up as a part of that culture So it's it's it's it's it's almost like the reverse of the rest of the world I had a when I went to Ann Arbor and went to Michigan. I was like confused My life I was just I was like I felt like Detroit had done me dirty like oh, this is really confusing So we're not The majority, you know, I didn't understand Um us in relation to the rest of the world. It was truly Detroit versus everybody, right? Yeah, it's my they have t-shirts called You got t-shirt. Yeah, I do Yeah Yeah Yeah, I actually I I feel the exact same way I grew up in Atlanta and then when I went to college I was like, oh wait I'm the other that's not correct But you can understand like so it's also that feeling of being other, you know, it's like a I now know both sides. I know what it feels like to be the majority I just weird, you know I have this weird experience in life now Well, I know what it's like to be the majority and the minority, you know I know both of those feelings and I I'm like, I think most people before I think it feels better to be the majority But what it really feels better is to be equal, you know I'm in a pretty diverse community where I live in LA and I'm like if we could just Somehow I could keep it balanced, you know, I don't want to see nothing no reflections of myself But I also think everybody's got to get out of what they're comfortable with and go be somewhere else You know, um, because you'll never understand the whole world if you're only seeing one one part And Yes, let's get a clap on that. Yeah, I think that fostering like experiences You know that Black folks or specifically black women in your work Are obviously something that let's see and I have gravitated towards as being Um, a black theater podcast focused on black feminist perspectives And so, you know, your most recent work confederates In that play you present parallel experiences of black women who are living over a century apart from one another um And one of those characters is someone who is a tenured professor in a private university Um, and as we are at a conference about theater in higher education um I I'm interested in in that play's critique of of institutional racism across all of these different institutions that you present, whether it's the Literal institution of slavery or the the institution of the the private university So what yeah, what what kind of critiques were you Leveraging there and and what was the the um impetus in presenting these Parallel to one another. Yeah. Well, I should say where the source of the play came from it came from a commission by osf A part of their american revolutions series, right? But it was a partnership between osf and penumbra theater, minneapolis and lou bellamy approached me So it was really lou's vision that got me into that uh commissioning program And his vision was hey dominique, there's this tanahasi coast article That asked the question why don't more black writers and scholars talk about and write about the black participation in the civil war And I thought that sounds nerdy I feel like this is a good company for nerdy I was nerdy and heady and boring And if that's something that's gonna be right about slavery, I don't know if I want to do that, you know And as I thought about it more I'm a I am a nerd called everything nerdy. Um, but as I thought about it more, uh, I was like, well You know every time when you asked me if you asked me what's going on during the civil war I'm the first question I'm gonna ask is the world with the black women. What were they doing? That was my first question um, and then you know, and then I you know, I was like, well then Even when I'm gonna write about some black women hiding and turning them into a man to get an army, what am I gonna do? You know, like, what is this gonna be? We've seen that story a little bit. Sorry for anybody that's writing that right now. I'm sure I'm sure it'll be original. It just wasn't gonna be original in my brain. And so um And so I was like, what is that gonna look like and then I thought oh no And there was already that like slavery fatigue going on was like social media were talking about how they don't want to see no more stories about slaves And I was like, come on, no more One more. We hadn't even seen Harriet yet Like we got to wait until Harriet Tubman gets her due And maybe it's the Journal of Truths, you know and some others. So I'm like, okay So I had this flip. I was like, well if I'm gonna write about I can't do it in a vacuum, right? Like that's I think the thing for me is that I can't be subtle I don't want to be like, you know, you watch stories about slavery. You go, there are so many parallels today. I was like, what are they? Let's make them obvious, you know And so I just, you know, because we get we have this removal, you know, and I'm like, no removal I don't want us to be removed. I don't want this to be comfortable. You know, I want it to be more uncomfortable Let's just make it really direct.  Like, you know, that are built by plantation money So let's just let's look at it really. Let's look at the parallel Um, and let's look at who's in those schools and who's being targeted in those schools and how where where is the space And this also has come from my own I've done a lot of like visiting Scholarship to different universities and friends of mine who were educators who I came and spend like a week or two or sometimes several weeks at that university I couldn't believe the shit that was going on I could not believe it. I was like Such a such just talk to you that way. I can't believe like I can't believe you having a hard time getting tenure in the kohana. Anyway, um, you know, I just I can't believe you're You're not being respected at this university. I can't believe this student was allowed this talk to you that way or this like This is crazy. What's happening?  I think there's some great stuff that have come out of there I've had great relationships and you know go blue, you know And also, you know, a lot of hard horrible stuff happened to me in michigan that made me want to just quit all the things Um, and I did not see reflections in my stuff Fight and then I watched my professor's fight and get slammed and then I felt Disappointed in those black professors who I didn't feel could stand up to this white university For us So then I felt like I had to do it myself and I remember getting in a fight with one of my professors Um, there's some crazy.  If you're not gonna do it.  So You know, but there were not There weren't enough he weren't studying us, you know, I'm so frustrated and then I saw my professors Like feel like they had to be, you know, didn't want to look like the black professor that was gonna look out for the black students You know, they were scared of what their white colleagues were gonna think of them that they didn't have the gall to say Hey, there's an imbalance and somebody's gotta make some space over here Um, and so I also that's all in in confederates to two black professors have that debate In confederates about like who should they be there for all the students just all the students I can be all the students, but they're not can also make myself available to these students You know, they they have that debate a little bit. Um, because I just Yeah, I just want to make space and I want to Stamp out the institution of racism that's at these schools that we won't we keep hushing about, you know We keep hushing about You've got faculty You've got tenured faculty has been their abuse in like generations of students and then you got these other faculty members, okay You know, it doesn't make any sense. So I think it's just yeah, it's gotta get addressed and hopefully uh, Hopefully the play will help to like start some conversations Yeah, absolutely We are coming To a close of our questions before we opened it up to the audience for questions, but before We wrap up I want to ask you a really unfair and hard question What you know, you know Oh, it's unfair like don't you do it like what's child? Do you love that? I think like that is streamed in archives The state of american theater is And maybe even black theater and what you hope for the future For our industry I certainly don't have that answer by myself I I do think that I would like to see uh I would like to see us not practice Imperialism in the theater, right? And what I mean by that is I I grew up thinking there was Being taught because I never thought it actually actually never thought this But I grew up being taught that there was uh one god And that we all obey the god Uh the god is the greatest god of writing and we know who that god is Theater, right? But that god of shakespeare and then everyone that comes out of that tradition And then so there was just never any room for what if that isn't my god? What if that's not my god? Well, then you don't know theater and you shouldn't be practicing it That seems silly, but also It's what if that's not my god, you know, I think we I and I and this is this is across the board actually this isn't um I mean, this is everybody. I feel like we've all like we have this like way that we decide this is good theater And if you don't subscribe to this religion You're an infidel of theater, you know And so I just um, I would like to see us expand the The inclusion Of the canon Not just of the present, but also of the past I'd like to see us like open up to the other gods out there That have ruled this, you know thing called me because theater is not like, you know It's like when we started doing inventions, you know, I always say this about like hip-hop theater, you know This is if you know the audience that goes to see hamilton thinks that they discovered hip-hop theater Make sure dude I'm like, what? Where you been? Commit the forms dany hawk and clad valentine started the hip-hop theater festival in the early 2000s By the time I moved to new york city is 2003 2004 I was a part of the third annual hip-hop theater festival that burved the likes of the lima well maranda You know, it's like I I love that the culture can shift and change the people can get invited into it But I cannot take the erasure, you know We cannot start writing your history at the day. I discovered you. It's not christopher columbus. This place has been here. Yes So I'd like to see us abandon the christopher columbus school of Once I put the flag there that's when it started happening, you know And it's like no this is there there are so many traditions that we have like Like ignored and don't make space for it in the past So therefore we don't make space for their descendants today, right? I'm I am flabbergasted at how I don't see more lad next playwrights I'm like, are you kidding me?    I mean with all of this like The anti-asor hay and the anti-lad next and the putting, you know, lad next kid in cages You've got to be kidding me if you're not like out here Sensoring those voices right now. Like I don't even understand What's the fear and I know so many gifted lad next writer. So I'm confused I'm just very confused by that. So yeah, you know, that's just a whole other thing But I just the point is And those are all of the multiple gods out there that they're talking about like they have descendants, you know, they have roots They have ancestors of the word That we are not taught Is so also important and valuable and that aesthetic is valuable and we if we're gonna call american theater But like truly american theater is gotta take in every everybody's ancestors gotta be welcome to the table. Yeah, that's what I would say Yeah So our final question, I know let's use to say it was a final question. I'm sorry Our final question is hopefully a fun one, but what's next for you in terms of projects? I'm really deeply trying to slow down But I you know, so train the musical is next for me in the theater I can't do nothing else before I do that play Where a lot of people will be angry with me, but But I also do have another play Bad Creole, which is about my Haitian-american experience. Um, yeah, I'm Haitian So the Haitian folks out there if there are any We also have just for people to know there's a Haitian the Haitian network of detroit has a Haitian festival this weekend If you would like to check that out, uh, if you can just look that up online Haitian network of detroit But I you know, so that's next for me. I'm finally tapping into like I'm owning my Haitian self Um And then I'm also trying to you know do some things very locally here in Detroit. Actually. I don't live here, but I uh I build here. So I have a home. I'm working on rehabbing right now and turning into an arts residency center Um, and so that's my husband and I it's this art. It's both of ours It'll be for performing artists of all kinds. Um to be able to come to detroit and build with the people that are here Yeah, so that's and then my play mud row was having his premiere at my theater detroit public theater in september at our new theater space We have our own theater now. So things good thing. You said you're slowing down You said you're slowing down. Yeah, I heard slowing down, but then I heard all the Slowing down in a certain kind of a scent Um, well, thank you so much dominique for talking with us. I mean we are just The world that you are um Are talking to daughters of the rain and it's taking a lot of us for to act like oh professional and cordial and like So we want to open up the questions um for for folks who may have questions for for dominique and If you raise your hand, I think Amy is in the back with a mic Oh We can't see because the light's kind of bright All right. Uh, hi, I am uh, zack daily. I'm so happy to be here uh with uh, and in your presence Right the presence of daughters of Lorraine and also uh, dominique morriso Um, I have the pleasure and honor of presenting yesterday about your detroit project Um, and how you construct detroit's identity as a place in a region through your plays On that paper. I argued about How you view detroit's regional identity through a lens of ancestors and elders And I take that from from your dedications and from the fact that these Characters in your plays are being haunted by ancestors. Uh, whether that's haunted in a Uh positive way or in a negative way, right? Um, so I wondered if you could speak just a bit To that. Um, and then also I wanted you to know that uh, a student of mine Um, who was failed by a predominantly white institution But decided to come back to the two-year college I teach at. Um I gave her my copy of the detroit project and um, and uh Just like how you uh, were affected by Alice Childress.  Um, so thank you No, really, thank you. Thank you so much for sharing that I would never know without stories that you tell me like these So thank you so much and that that that it really gives so much meaning To anything that I create so I really do appreciate it for everybody that teaches my work. I just To be I mean that blows my mind really That I could go from like searching for my own voice in my school To be able to be a voice for other students like me growing up. So that I mean that's major for me So thank you so much. I mean that but from the bottom my heart as an educator to an educator And I would say for the uh Um the history and the ancestors and the you know, I think what I learned about so my father Um my father I lost my father in 2020 and like literally the month before the pandemic hit Questionably uh The moment the moment where everything shut down. Let's use that marker and um, and so I uh I sort of keep talking about him and speaking him up. He my father is so present and so many of my plays And what I remember is before my father had passed all of his other friends had died like so many years before him And um, my father was the one man who read all of my plays and you know and gave me on solicited feedback for all of my plays and um And also, uh, was just very influential. So when I was writing Detroit 67, I saw my parents memories, right? And um And I would talk to them about just like word choices and like, you know, I swagger jacked my dad as they would say There's a whole like Back and forth between sly and lank in that play where it's like, what's the word thunderbird? What's the price 30 twice my man, you know It's like that was my daddy gave me that one. I mean, I stole that one You know, um, but the reason I bring that up and then my father, um, there's a in the scenery of Detroit 67 There's a star four-pointed star and there's all this stuff that you know, writing on the basin walls My father wrote on our basin walls and there is the four-pointed star on the wall of my bacon right now I took some friends to see my childhood home and there it is, you know And I was like, I got to do something to preserve this like no matter what happens to this house This star must remain it's a landmark for me, you know But I just say all that say what I realized in writing Detroit 67 sort of is like a metaphor for all of the plays Which was my father lost all of his friends But the way he talked about Detroit 67 and sly and like it's like he's talking about his best friends, you know And I was like, oh plays Theater can resurrect the dead And it could bring your your elders and your ancestors and your former best friends right back to Here you are having if you're playing them You're having a dialogue with them if you're watching them on the stage like you're just jumping in your lap And I was able to give my father his friends back, you know With Detroit 67 and now i'm giving myself my father back through my whole Detroit cycle and through many of my plays So um and especially for me is very embedded into the soul of my play for that reason Yeah Hi, I'm ashley lucas. I teach at the university of michigan in the department of theater and drama And i'm sorry you had some bad experiences there, but uh, nobody's gonna get out of any No, uh, but we are very proud of you and everybody claims you so I bring you greetings and honor from the university of michigan theater and drama department My I in hearing you talk about the ancestors I was wondering also How you're using theater to connect with people who I mean clearly a lot of your plays are representing people who don't often see themselves On major stages and we used pipeline last year With the prison creative arts project, which is a program that I work with we do theater workshops in prisons With incarcerated people and we've been shut out since the pandemic But we got permission for the first time since we were working remotely to mail in books to people in prison So we chose pipeline as the thing to send in and glane state university did a production of pipeline that same semester And a whole bunch of formerly incarcerated people and the students in my class Went to see that and we're writing and corresponding with the people in prison reading your play And what the folks in prison were talking about in relation to pipeline had a lot to do with Finding that tension between themselves and their teachers when they were young people and looking for the parents and mentors who Both could have fought for them in the way that you described your own teachers at michigan not fighting for you in the way that you needed them to and How quickly They were dismissed and funneled into that pipeline towards prison in the way that your play so So beautifully described. So I'm just wondering if there are other Instances in your work or ways that you as a playwright are working For the people who can't always get to the theater who don't know that their stories are there But because of the the enormity of your success in recent years Your work actually is translating to some of those audiences who don't have the privilege of being present in the theater Yeah, thank you for that that's an excellent question because I um, you know When I when I first wrote pipeline and did it at Lincoln Center theater I mean this sort of is it has roots and why even have that statement that I now do with all of my play Which is the the audience invitation You know to be yourselves and the audience, you know, but that started with Lincoln Center and pipeline Because I was going to be doing pipeline.  So you see where we are in the timeline of civic unrest in our country And um, and so I promise they were they were nervous to do that in front of Lincoln Center. It's very like older You know predominantly white but also privileged economically privileged audience And so I was like, okay, well then I got to change the audience, you know And so what I did on the first second preview was I ran down to the audience and said, um If you want to see, you know, if you think this is important enough for a young person to see come talk to me at the top of You know stairs And then I took everybody's uh information who wanted to contribute. I thought oh, I could do an indiegogo campaign And just you know get some money raised for some teenagers to come see this right But what they didn't have turned into was I reached out to Lincoln Center We did a matching grant and so we got enough money to get like 500 teenagers for new york city to come see pipeline And when I say teenagers this was not during school. So it wasn't necessarily 500 students It's like teenagers, you know, you could be on a subway. I'd be like, hey, you want to come see a play? They'd be like, yeah Walk over Lincoln Center go get your free ticket to show your ID, you know, it was like that right? And so we got we service 500 students. I mean teenagers to come see pipeline for free um, but that was one way in which I wanted to change Lincoln Center's audience and make it uh Just more diverse look like a new york city subway and for a very long part of that run That is what that audience looked like because it started to be word of mouth and they started to go back to their The non-traditional communities of the Lincoln Center at least that's not their traditional audience It started to be more of that and now i'm really trying to get pipeline and to even more kind of local communities That's something i'm working at right now with center theater group in california Try to figure out how can take this play on tour? I'm kind of tired of doing these plays about I know that pipeline speaks to young people more probably they're mostly on any of my of my plays Maybe sunset baby that also speaks to young folks, you know, but like pipeline is where they see themselves We also have formerly incarcerated young men that came and saw the show And we're like I do remember one young man saying if if my mother could have seen this with me I think it could change our relationship for the better, you know Because of the rules and that happened at the end and you know all that kind of stuff But I think it's also I feel the disconnect specifically from young people to theater and to also I used to also take students with a TDF I used to take students from TDF to go see Broadway shows And I just remember some of these experiences, you know them being hushed I remember they came to see my play sunset baby Then I took them to a Broadway show and I remember asking them how they felt and they were like You know they're on Broadway, you know, maybe they're like this feels kind of stuff They don't they don't feel like they fully belong. Yeah, you know And I was like there I am still working. I'm still working to try to one make them feel like they belong But two not make them have to come here and get it That's the harder part, but you know theaters want it in their hearts. I don't know They can get it there yet. Yeah Hello, it's Anita. Hi I was at michigan issue though I just want you to talk a little bit more about the confederates I want um because it does talk about because we're educators here and because the play does talk about the educational institutions as plantations And I wondered if it's available for purchase And if you see a way in which that play could be mobilized in higher education settings to bring about change I should say right now it is in rehearsal to open at um osf So it is in production at osf right now Um, and I have not seen their productions that I do know Nataki Garrett and she and I talked and so They were supposed to premiere it before the pandemic. So um, I give that part to that but also Yeah, I mean I would love to see confederates gets us institutions of higher learning and do and shake up a lot of stuff You know, I think that um We had a lot of educator nights when we were doing it as a signature theater We had a lot of professors a lot of scholars, you know black women professors in particular Some had a lot of students Come to see the play and be advocates for to talk about and share their experiences So many similar experiences That I would like to see it get educators from a similar league like now across the country And conversation with each other and also an action with each other, you know, because I know how we feel about 100 conversations, but Conversations are very necessary. I just think we should be talking to each other. We just can't we just it just can't stop it Like talk about it think about it. We'll see you next year, you know It definitely needs to be talk about it think about it next plan is to And then we're starting to see the the um changing and the breaking of the guard happen at these schools and and I you know I've been trying to figure out how I can be as a theater artist helpful in that process with with educators I have seen a lot of my educated friends Be mistreated At their universities or the they'll bring me out and this is at all levels of my career But they'll bring me out and nobody, you know, the the dean won't show or their department head won't be there And you know, there was no They was they had to fight to get me there, you know, just things that just feel kind of like you're you're coming up There when a garbage can lid, you know But you're like, I'll be here because my friend's here, you know, but it's it's it's it's it's been um I leave you to laugh but I always I had this thing now treat me like you treat Tony Kushner That's what I I've been saying that since I was For that to even matter, but then I said that to Tony Kushner. He's like, I don't know if you want that Tony I can't imagine I can't it has to be better, you know, I mean so But that's sort of my thing But I well I would like to see the play and I'm trying to brainstorm ways and which to get it in dialogue On the ground, you know, with people that it whose truth it reflects That's actually what I'm trying to do with all of my plays right now.  I really want to get on the ground Yeah, will it be published? Oh, it will be published. It is being published by uh formerly Sam Prince now concord um, and so and I and I think maybe tcg and I are talking about that too So, yeah, I think it is happening with tcg. Yes So many things in my head. I'm so sorry, but I don't know that for sure. But yeah, um, yeah Um first and foremost, uh, thank you, uh, specifically because I'm really really excited for your next piece as a Haitian person myself. So Yes, yes. Thank you for that. Um, two I've been thinking a lot about the power of questions Priya Parker speaks about Asking questions to a space is the best way to relinquish power to that space because you are Then opening it up to the space about where the conversation is going to go So it doesn't centralize around one person holding all the information and gearing that conversation Um in your speaks about the canon and how exactly do we start Bringing bringing those ancestors those gods into those spaces Speaking to my colleagues specifically at predominantly white institutions I find that the fear isn't necessarily bringing the stories in and having the students read it But then the questions that are going to come from that and sometimes my colleagues not feeling like they are equipped and what it's what it tends to be what I tend to hear is just like Um, I don't think I should be the one leading this conversation And what I hear is just like I have I refuse to do the work to learn about this in order to be engaged in this conversation And so just my perspective And so thinking about The power of your work specifically being done at like in collegiate environments and such How um, what is an offering that you have as an educator for those who are Struggling to bring your work into spaces and not necessarily just to bring your work But just like engaging in conversation, especially To stoke the curiosity of young people who don't see themselves reflected in your plays But at the same time need to know those stories Hopefully that was clear. Yeah, I think so maybe I think I understand It's also like what is my offering? I'm just gonna kind of repeat it back. But like maybe what What I'm understanding about your question is what is my offering to Educators who may have that same feeling of imposter syndrome a little bit of like maybe I shouldn't be the one Teaching this or explaining this and that kind of thing, right? You know and and I That's a complicated one. It's kind of like the same thing that kids young people have felt in the studying You know, it's like where's the line, right? Like we writers so many of us writers have had to talk about how where we stand with higher education in our work In terms of like do we get this to all the who can play the world and who can learn on the work?  They always have I guess, but you know, um But you know, it's like how do you like where's the lines, you know And I I think of a few things that one I think that that that does mean that you also need to bring the did is the conversation to Broaden who's at your school.  Like I've had to learn. I've had to learn the one god That I don't that's not my religion You know what I mean, but I can speak the religion fluently, you know, I mean So I think we we we have to stop that and get to know and understand and there's enough I mean for my own work, there's enough of me talking about it But you just a whole lesson could be billed as letting me talk to myself, you know Just like literally grab sound bites of every and I'm not the only one of katori hall of linda We talked so much about our work. We've done good good gazillion interviews One of my most pet peeves is when somebody asks me something in an interview and I go Now, didn't you see that in somebody else's interview, you know, I mean, I don't mind the question No, no, I don't Didn't I say not here not here present company, not a group But like because there's there's ways in which to especially when they go to tell me what you do I'm like, tell me what I'm not telling you what I do. Now, didn't you know that we did this interview But there because we have to be willing to be curious enough We have to be curious enough about if the students bring somebody to you. You might say I don't know that you get I used to tell Institutions I even told linker center, you know, I go, hey, I really like this director and this director go I don't know that work. I said you get one time to tell me that Today you don't know they work fine The next time I bring this director don't tell me that you don't know work Because that's lazy It's your job to know the work that's out there. It's your job. You got one job, you know That's a hard job. But if you got that's the job, you know, I can't stand when a casting director says I don't know them. You're not going to say well dismissal. You say it with like, oh, I don't know them. Let me find out That has to be the the the curiosity has to be there Or you're not or you're gonna fail people You know So it's okay not to know, you know, it's like when you meet when students meet people and they go You don't know so and so and so and so I'm like, okay, go hold on You coming at them a lot, you know what I mean Like none of us is going to always already know any of everything That's none of us is going to know that but now we can get curious and let your students make you curious, you know And say well, where can I find out where I can find some of this person's work? Let me get to know that Okay, guys, I think I would like to bring something to me that you would like to learn because you're paying for the education You know, they got to be able to get something that they're paying for You know to be able to learn about themselves So I say who do you want to learn about we can all I'm gonna have to learn about that that writer then You know, I just would like to see that kind of inclusion happening Um, so that you can just say, oh, I don't know. I'm not the right one on thus I'm gonna I'm gonna just bow out of this Engaging with this whole thing I would say maybe not that So I think we have time for one more question Hi, um Thank you for this wonderful event. My name is Daryl Alejandro Holness. I'm with the latinx playwright circle Thank you for what you said earlier today Advocating for the need for more latinx plays to be part of the american literary landscape. We really appreciate it My question is um, I think that you're a terrific arts advocate I have several friends that Made their Broadway debut as playwrights. I have several friends and acquaintances and colleagues that are the first Black something in their department the first latinx something in the department their first Asian-american something in the department And I was just wondering if you had any advice about what it means to become an advocate and what it means to Have your work rise to a level where you're placed in a in a spotlight Where you now have to advocate or ask to advocate for a community for an industry Right and how you've sort of grown into The great advocate that you are now Are you meaning advocate for inside of theater itself or I think I want to make sure I understand the question like an advocate for others inside of the theater continuum Or an advocate for communities inside of the work. I'm just making sure I understand which one I'm thinking of the kind of stages that you're on right now Where folks are asking you questions about black women in theater folks are asking you questions about You know community and advocacy Yeah, recognize that I am not in this continuum by myself. I never have been I never will be And that I am always here on the shoulders of the people that not only came before me But that are like practicing right here with me and that are like studying Or studying someone adjacent to me, right? Um, that would none of us is in this ecosystem By ourselves and then I also want to say I also recognize that I think Some people might get just Artists may get disconnected from like educators, you know Because it seems like Education is its own field and the practice of the art is like it's another club and something thing but to me The scholarship around the art is the only way that the art is going to be like preserved, you know And so there can't be this disconnect, you know between education and like with the practice of it That's actually happening in the field, right? Um, okay, so I say all that to say that's that's my headspace For that so when I approach advocacy And I approach it in a very I have a Bunch of different Mike is where I want to be with my hand But when I when I approach, uh What advocacy just like to me it is it is It is I don't think that I alone have the answer or the voice or the I am the one Right, not no chosen one that can thus, you know, I'm not moses, you know However, I can um, but I can make impact With what I say how I say how I show up on the stage How I stand in my truth and how and what and who I see out there doing that I'm doing work with and who I Who I don't see and I have to be able to name all those things, right? I think to be able to like make space for other black women writers, for instance black women with the necks, you know like to be able to make space for them is to Once take up space, you know and and and And open that door and then leave it open, right to be able to ask questions to the institutions that I'm at um to check for but also to To mentor, you know to be able to reach out to to have people who reach out to me and me make myself available to them Right, so those are the ways and small ways of advocacy. I think in larger like social justice advocacy that's happening Um, you know, I'm I want to learn The things that I am pushing to change, right? So I feel like I can't like stand on the outside of an institution and say this needs to change I have no idea how the thing is run. I don't know what I'm asking for specifically I don't even really know exactly what I'm asking for for instance I know people have often said, you know about Broadway They have so many things that they want to have changed on Broadway. I'm like, do you know who runs Broadway?   You know, it's not that has nothing to do with Broadway, you know Maybe for a few not-for-profit, you know Theater companies who are on Broadway before the commercial engine that is Broadway if we don't like we I feel like there's just a Education we don't have to even be fighting. I want to be I want accurate fighting You know, I want you to know where that button is inside that building that you're trying to detonate Just sloppily You know knocking down some I mean sure I guess sloppily knocking down stuff works You might eventually find a button or just get rid of everything and the button itself too But you might you might have just been able to take hit the button And do a few of those things for yourself, you know, so for me. I like to um understand The the every side of the table that I'm coming for, you know, so I I ask questions to producers I say I want to understand their thinking in the producer world and the commercial producing world and I'm on the board of signature theater I'm you know, I was on the board founding member of the Detroit public theater, you know, like I want to know I want to know to donors. How are you giving money to board members? What's making you stay on this board? Like where's your mind at because I know if you're not if you're if your mind is about Doing things one way and somebody here can't hit you at that level Then the artist won't get out here and get on that stage and be your victim You know, and so I I think it's about um having a knowledge A really vast knowledge of how this whole field works trying my hand doing some things myself You know, because if it all burns the hell I couldn't build it I could build it myself and being a Haitian I would say this during the pandemic I thought um So many people, you know, we're like, what do you think of theater? What's gonna happen? What's the fate? I was like, well, I think theater is going to Really understand that it's made a big mistake and not going after these young people And not making more space for young Younger folks to be able to have affordability to get tickets to the theater And not censoring them in the marketing and like not making more space for them because the first people back on this pandemic Gonna be young people There's a month don't go places without man, you know about the residents like You know, like there there'll be the ones that are more resilient out here And they're gonna be the ones coming back and they and they're not gonna come back to us They're gonna go back to everything else, you know, so to me I think you have to cultivate The the you have to get back on the ground and cultivate from the grounds up And so I say this about being Haitian because when the earthquake happened To Haiti a few ever watched Raul Peck's documentary Fatal assistance, which is sort of one of the sources to my not my new play back Crayol That's looking at the relationship between Haiti and the us And times of and what What government assistants look like to Haiti, you know But there was a Haitian who spoke a Haitian man standing in the rubble of his home And this is like my whole metaphor for 2020 a man was standing in the rubble of his home And the filmmaker asked him You know Is he upset is he like really really angry, you know, what is how is he feeling right now? He's like Angry, how can I be angry? How can I be angry at God's will? How can I be angry? This happened? What is there to be angry about and then the guy? Well, I mean you're standing in the rubble of your home And this is a elder older Haitian man and he looked there at the camera and he said Oh, I'm not afraid to start over And that was my whole 2020. Okay Well, the elder told me so there it is. I'm not I'm not afraid to stand in the rubble If I can build this again and I can build it better You know and so for me in our field I think we have to we're so afraid of going to rubble That we will keep some very corrupt rubble, you know some very corrupt bricks And and we'll hold on to them corrupt bricks. It's like we don't want it to be rubble though I'm like, why can't it be rubble? Get some better bricks build the whole thing up People think that they're when they think of like destroy they think that that's where it stops No destroy rebuild rebuild everybody out here that's Maybe having everybody has different points of view of how to to address and how to be an advocate and how to Fight for social justice and they're all right the answers that if you're fighting for it No matter what your way is it's all right. It might not be someone else's strategy But if that's your goal, then you're gonna get it, right? But to me it don't be afraid Don't be afraid to stand in the rubble You know Our conversation has come to a close. Please join me again and thanking Dominique Marisa for being here in this conversation