Membership Spotlight – February 2025

TYA BIPOC SUPERHERO PROJECT – project meant to open more opportunities for writers of color in the field of Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA) where participating theatres have agreed to commission, develop, and produce new work by writers of colors. There will be a total of 27 theatres producing 22 new works by 23 playwrights of color. The project will also commission a college student, encouraging youth to write for the field. Dramatic Publishing will also publish all the plays, as well as 9 chapters of scholarship.

Cats: The Jellicle Ball which was produced at the Perelman Performing Arts Center. It is one of the most amazing shows I have ever seen.

My first musical called AMERICA’S NEXT TOP KID CHEF SHOWDOWN with composer Jenn Hartman Luck.

I believe that when we create and educate around youth narratives, we are serving our most important audiences.

My favorite collaborator is a tie: Sandy Asher who I wrote the (TVY) play, MARIPOSA/BUTTERFLY and Christina Marin who I have worked with both on plays and books.

Jose Cruz Gonzalez.

www.brownplaywright.com or University of Michigan website.

I’m very excited for Ninth Planet to be returning to performances of Philly Baby Jam this spring and to dedicate more time to designing a version of the show specifically for preschool audiences. Last summer, we were super fortunate to perform this pop up performance at Independence Library (totally by accident) for a preschool audience from Philadelphia Chinese Academy. We discovered that a lot of the material is already really well suited for interaction with this age!

Ninth Planet took a hiatus from our early childhood performances over the fall-winter to produce a world premiere production of a play called Fallawayinto, written by Arielle Julia Brown, at FringeArts in Philadelphia. In this poetic and dreamy work, Arielle traces the divine life of her aunt, Donna Nicole Booker (1963 – 2006-and on and on), a Black trans woman, activist, artist, mother to many; and builds a sanctuary on stage in her image. I am so proud of our artistic team, and especially my Co-Artistic Director Nia Benjamin for their beautiful direction of this powerful work. This is what I know theatre to be — a vision for our future composed of our collective memories and histories. Black Trans lives more than matter; they are sacred and deserve our fully-bodied protection.

Let me put on my Bartol Foundation Executive Director hat for a moment. I’m in my first year in this role serving Philadelphia’s teaching artists and arts educators with grants, advocacy, and capacity-building. The continued education programming I’m designing through the Foundation feels like a culmination of a lot of my relationships and passions — workshops in creative entrepreneurship, tools to practice abolitionist education, integration of trauma-informed creative expression, how to tour your teaching practice, and more. In May, I’ll be at the TYA/USA conference with Mae Early, our Training Programs Consultant, offering tools for trauma-informed practice in the rehearsal room, something all artists who work with youth should have.

How long do we have for this answer? 😉 In short, because young people have an undeniable right to make and experience art and culture. Young people are valuable members of our communities, who are also naturally the most vulnerable. Theatre is relational, and young audiences are in relationship to their world just as mature audiences are. It is our responsibility to make sure we include them (and their families) in all forms of cultural experience from birth.

It’s gotta be Nia Benjamin, Co-Artistic Director of Ninth Planet. My co-conspirator, teacher, inspiration, confidant — and my sibling in big opinions and big ambition.

I absolutely would not be doing the work I’m doing now without mentorship from Whit MacLaughlin, Artistic Director of New Paradise Laboratories, and director of plays for young audiences at Arden Theatre Company. Whit put his confidence in me as a young artist, introduced me to International Performing Arts for Youth, and taught me so much about directing, producing, and touring. I’ll be forever grateful to have taken his class in undergrad at University of Arts in Philadelphia.

Find Ninth Planet at IG: ninth__planet and www.ninthplanet.org. Find me at Bartol at sam@bartol.org.

We’re opening The Hula-Hoopin’ Queen at SCT and I’ve been able to support administratively and as cultural consultant – I love wearing two hats.

I’m inspired right now by my Quincy Jones record, Back on the Block. I loved it as a kid and listening to it 30 years later is reminding me of how deep and intentional the groundwork must be to support a legacy like that!

A dream project is one where young people and community leaders watch the same play with a socially relevant narrative, and then have to discuss how to resolve the conflict for the characters – or real people.

Theatre, and particularly TYA, is where you learn the world is so big and yet so near all at once. With TYA you can see worlds that stretch your imagination and ignite your heart and it speaks to the child in all of us.

LeeAnet Noble at Shakespeare Theatre Company – I do DEI training there yearly and LOVE the way she interweaves her administrative mind and artistic practice.

Dr. Antonio Cuyler and Dr. Anita Gonzales.

Email – cessalees@sct.org.