Interview with 2020/21 Emerging Leaders in TYA Fellow Rebecca Gerrard

My name is Rebecca Gerrard. I’m a theatre artist from Scotland who moved to the USA in 2016. I’ve been collaborating on projects for young audiences since 2012 in both Scotland and the USA as a deviser, writer, performer, facilitator, director and stage manager.

We began our fellowships during the pandemic so for me, the fellowship provided first and foremost a peer support-system of other artists who were also impacted by the closing down of our industry. We were all in similar points in our careers where we had considerable experience behind us but were looking for the next step. Our monthly meetings helped to process and share ideas in a really supportive environment and I’m so grateful to have been in such an outstanding cohort.

I initially applied to the fellowship to research hospital arts programming and was paired with an incredible mentor. I’ve felt for a long time that artists can be of use in non-arts environments because we think and approach problem-solving creatively and often in ways that others haven’t considered, we thrive in cross-discipline collaboration and we know how to maximize resources.

For those of us who are also teaching artists, we approach participants from a place of abundance, not deficit-which I think is key in any socially-engaged role.

Over the course of the fellowship I decided to begin my journey towards qualifying as a Child Life Specialist – a practitioner who works with hospitalized children and their families- because I wanted to gain deeper knowledge of the hospital environment, how it impacts children and their families and how I could apply my work as an artist to this non-arts role. Additionally, as someone who has worked with people in schools and prisons and currently learning about hospitals, I am starting to see connections between the impact of these institutions and the crucial role the arts play for people within them.

To become a certified child life specialist on a team that facilitates top quality programming and interventions for children and families in hospitals, and as the field of child life expands, in non-traditional, non-healthcare settings.

Don’t consider TYA as a stepping stone to ‘professional theater’, TYA is and should be regarded as a credible field of arts in it’s own right. Anyone who is new to this field will quickly learn that children are the most lively and discerning audience, so making work that they love is an extremely satisfying challenge, you might find adult audiences a bit boring after making work for children.

Never underestimate or patronise your audience. Theater is for people of all ages, even babies! Creating magical and imaginative experiences for children and their caregivers, sometimes for the first time in that child’s life, is an honor.

I hope to see a shift in what is considered to be the ‘best quality work’ in children’s theater. Historically and still presently, white European work, sometimes regardless of quality, is considered the top tier of children’s theater. Admittedly as a white European artist, I didn’t come to realise this until living in the USA, where the colonial nature of elevating white work felt more apparent, but as I continue to reflect and learn, I’ve reframed my time back home and clearly see that this issue reaches beyond the USA and throughout Europe. I’ve been really excited to see the shift that’s happened in the six years that I’ve lived here, a shift led by artists of color, to center work by and leadership of artists of color.

I’d also like to see the centering of more work led, created and performed by disabled artists. As with white work, there has also been an abundance in representation of non-disabled artists. As TYA artists, we are in the business of creating imaginative worlds and experiences that all kids should be able to see themselves in. White kids, non-disabled kids and kids that are gender conforming, get to see themselves reflected back in so many artistic disciplines, oftentimes work that is esteemed as the ‘highest’ or most ‘universal’ art, leaving everyone else to’ make the leap’ and use their imaginations to see themselves in people who don’t look or move like them. I agree with the many artists and activists who have said this already, it’s time for the kids who have historically always seen themselves reflected back, to make that leap too.

I strongly believe that being part of a cohort and gaining mentorship is valuable for anyone at any point of their career and should happen more often.

I’m terrible at social media, so for now best to reach me on rebeccasophiegerrard@gmail.com