Membership Spotlight – July 2025

I have a good many plays that I never submitted for publication because I felt that given the time and opportunity (both far too rare), I could try to make them better.  But recently, at the kind urging of Plays for New Audiences’ publisher Karli Twedten, I have finally undertaken the task of revisiting some of these plays and “completing” them for publication. That is a current and ongoing project.  Recently retired CTC Artistic Director Peter Brosius has also steered me to a new playwrighting project that is too early in development to share word of just yet. In my day job, I stay busy implementing a family series that hosts national and international performing artists for kids, a monthly showcase opportunity for performing artists from marginalized communities – i.e. BIPOC, LGBTQ+, Disability & Refugee/Immigrant, a documentary film series including residencies by the films’ directors, arts camps, a youth theatre program for teens facing various life challenges, while squeezing in a little teaching whenever I can. There’s also my arts-related community service work. And living in a house built in 1822, any spare time I can find is spent trying to keep the place from falling down.

The first TYA work of mine that garnished some serious national attention was THIS IS NOT A PIPE DREAM, a play wholly inspired by the paintings of surrealist artist Rene Magritte. And visual art has remained a prominent inspiration. In illustration, for 6 years at the Ware Center, I have curated an annual production in which local performers representing many different performance genres create on-stage interpretations of the paintings of a local abstract artist. (Then, of course, there’s that infamous piece of conceptual art – the banana fastened to a wall – that sold at Sotheby’s for $6 million and change. That has inspired me to consider putting down the pen and picking up the duct-tape.)  I am continuously inspired by the work of other TYA playwrights, most recently hearing the words of young Cecilia Bermudez’ STELLA SANCHEZ AND THE SUPERNOVA at this summer’s TYA/USA Conference, a work being developed through the TYA BIPOC Superhero Student Commission. Also inspirational to me are the exciting artistic creations of national and international theatre companies such as Manual Cinema, Cahoots, Terrapin, Alex & Olmsted, Threshold, Brush, that the Ware has been able to share with young audiences here in Lancaster.  And endlessly inspiring is this quote from playwright Suzan Lori-Parks, one that resonates profoundly with me: “People ask me when I decided to become a playwright, and I tell them I decide to do it every day. Most days it’s very hard because I’m frightened – not frightened of writing a bad play, although that happens often with me. I’m frightened of encountering the wilderness of my own spirit, which is always, no matter how many plays I write, a new and uncharted place. Every day when I sit down to write, I can’t remember how it’s done.” These words are deeply reassuring; they inspire me to continue trudging forward even when the writing road gets rough and obstacles – largely self-imposed – are strewn in my path, which after all these years still happens far too often.

As noted earlier, Peter Brosius has set me off on a new project just underway, and after the National Children’s Theatre of South Africa’s production of BALLOONACY won a Fringe Ovation Award at that country’s 2023 National Arts Festival, I was asked to send something new. So I’ve been thinking about what that might be, while knowing I may never get to it, nor to a handful of TYA play ideas that have been rolling around in my head for some time now. And If there’s a dream project, it would just be the opportunity to collaborate on a theatre project with a small cohort of brilliant, passionate, playful, and especially kindhearted colleagues, perhaps in which our individual roles were left deliberately undefined, overlapping, and twisted all out of shape, with the end of collectively creating a highly immersive multi-disciplinary and/or multi-sensory and/or multi-media piece packed with live music, visual and physical stage vocabularies, and all sorts of beguiling gadgets & gewgaws for a quirky coalescing of absurdity and profundity that kids might find as enlightening as entertaining.

Anyone reading this already knows.  Young people are the most important audience  – and the best. Important because, by virtue of the very youth, these audiences are still exploring who they are, their connection to others and to the world that they will one day inherit and shape. So TYA holds the capability of being truly transformative. Through our work, we can help children reflect on this journey of discovery, on their hopes and dreams, their fears and concerns, and so help build self-awareness, understanding, and empathy. That’s a great honor, but it’s also a near sacred responsibility. It obligates us to create work that respects their struggles as well as their wisdom, that celebrates their imagination, sense of wonder, spirit, and their resilience. It must be rigorous, truthful, caring, full of hope, and even intellectually and emotionally challenging. That will make the work meaningful and engaging. And kids will surely let us know if they’re engaged. That’s one of the reasons they’re the best of audiences. Theirs is a no-holds-barred, totally unfiltered, brutally honest responses to our work which tells us exactly how we’re doing – whether we are indeed reaching them or may need to do some serious reimagining. Moreover, while many adults will come to a play with firmly entrenched and unbending theatrical expectations that may close them off to more innovative work, young people are more likely to be open to – even enthusiastic about – all sorts of dramatic explorations of form and content, which is a gift to the playwright and other theatre practitioners as this allows us the opportunity to grow artistically. The question I’d ask is why on earth not TYA?

Collaboration is perhaps my very favorite thing about theatre, and how blessed I’ve been to have had the opportunity to partner with many giving and gifted artists over the years, some of whom I not only admire but have come to cherish as chums, such as David Saar and Eric Johnson, with whom I colluded on a number of projects – RECIPE FOR DISASTER and POWER PLAY being just two examples (Deborah Wicks La Puma, Jenny Millinger, Adam Larson, Ron Barnett, and Charlie DelMarcelle also on one or the other of these teams). But I’d have to give a special shout out to that other dear, dear pal and good, good soul, Peter Brosius, who I have had the honor and joy of working with for the last twenty or so years. I remember distinctly our first encounter. We were both presenting work at the 2000 One Theatre World/New Visions New Voices gathering. After Peter caught my show, he came up to me and said “Kornhauser, you’re a mad man.”  And that’s all he said. I didn’t know if that was good or bad, and I was afraid to ask. A few years later we both found ourselves back at the Kennedy Center with new pieces at New Visions, and this time Peter asked me if I would be interested in working with him on a project he was developing. “Who’s the mad man, now?,” I thought. But that project ended up being the Ivey Award-winning REELING and both the launching of what was to become the most pleasurable and propitious passage of my long playwriting journey, and also, as is said in ‘CASABLANCA,’ the “beginning of a beautiful friendship” (- or as might be said in MINNEAPOLIS , the “beginning of a beautiful friendship, YOU BETCHA!”)  Subsequently, Peter and I collaborated on four more pieces produced at CTC including  a fun project with the Sesame Street Workshop – BERT & ERNIE, GOODNIGHT!, and BALLOONACY and CORDUROY (both AATE Distinguished Play Award winners); a national series of convenings on the development of new work for early learners; and a few ventures that, while ultimately never seeing the light of day, were great fun to explore with Peter and his incredible CTC family, including Elissa Adams, Dean Holt, Reed Sigmund, Autumn Ness, Victor Zupanc and Jenny Friend, to name but a few.

Just one? After so many years, there are far too many to name, and I would quickly grow hoarse “shouting out” all those that guided me along my way. But here are some I must mention. My very earliest mentors were Mr. Engels and Mrs. McCalmont, middle and high school English teachers respectively, and Dr. Hugh Evans, a college theatre professor who not-so-gently nudged me into pursuing my fledgling interest in writing for the stage, even bequeathing me his personal library upon his retirement, perhaps as an enticement and source of inspiration (or maybe because I was the only fool he could find willing to lug all  those books out of his office). Then there were Michael Endy and Kathleen Collins, the first two artistic directors I worked under, both of whom welcomed my writing and introduced me to the TYA world. And it was through Kathleen that I met another great mentor, the inimitable Suzan Zeder, who was gracious enough to encourage my playwrighting early on. Then, of course, came the aforementioned David Saar and Peter Brosius whose guidance, support, and camaraderie mean the world to me. Now, none of these were formal mentorships per se, but I’d suggest that “mentoring” takes many forms. All of these relationships delivered deeply nurturing learning experiences. And to this day, I continue to learn from the theatre artists with whom I cross paths. (It’s one of the reasons I still attend TYA/USA conferences!) I would also have to say that some of my most meaningful “mentors” have been the young people I’ve worked with over the years (- even those I was presumably mentoring in what became, in fact, quite mutually edifying relationships) – from preschoolers in an Ojibwe immersion school, to refugee youngsters, to those living with cognitive, sensory, and/or physical disabilities, to the courageous teens in my youth theatre program, not to mention my own three kids as they were growing up.

Whether it’s because I’m either too hard-headed or too soft-headed, I persist in remaining a resolute Luddite, one without a website and one who shuns any and all forms of social media as much as is humanly possible. That said, I do have my Gmail (kornhauserbarry3@gmail.com) and a cell phone, and welcome conversations. I’m not very good at “following my work” myself, but I do have a digitalized annotated listing of my (mostly unknown) plays which includes synopses, cast requirements, bits of production history, review clips, anecdotal info, etc. that I am more than happy to share with anyone who has a bit of time on their hands, some small measure of curiosity, and a great deal of stamina (- there are a whole lot of plays in that listing)!

We are currently field testing EYEPlay ADAPT, a professional development program for preschool teachers and instructional aides supporting  children with diverse abilities. The joy we experience in our ADAPT classrooms and the growth and excitement we see in our students make me give thanks every day that I have the privilege of working in our field!

I actually have been reading a ton of imagination theorists of late for a project we’re doing on futures thinking through the Center for Science and the Imagination. If you are seeking the words for why imagination is a critically important tool for all of us in this moment, have a glance through Design Unbound by Pendleton-Jullian and Brown, particularly the chapter on pragmatic imagination. It has changed how I talk about the importance of our work and the lifelong role of imagination in our lives.

I’m starting work on my first TYV play, “Bumble and Fiona,” inspired by the imaginary friends that belong to a three-year old friend of mine! I have spent more than a decade working with 3-5 year olds in classrooms and this is the first time I’ve had the opportunity to make a piece of theatre with and for them. Preschoolers are wicked smart; they have an evolving sense of justice and fairness; they accept difference; and they tell it EXACTLY like it is….I only can hope to make a story that honors the way they walk through the world – with honesty, joy, big emotions, and an infinite love of play.

Why TYA? Because young people are the smartest, bravest, most open, and infinitely most honest creators of and respondents to theatre. Because young people deserve our respect, our time, our attention, and the best of who we are as storytellers and educators. Because anyone who revels in the infinite possibilities of the imagination will find in young people wise and deeply inspiring collaborators. And because being in TYA means I get to grow just a bit younger and just a bit sillier every year — and what a tremendous gift is that?!

Playwright Miriam Gonzales and I have walked through all variations of fire and water together – Childsplay has premiered two of Miriam’s amazing plays (The Smartest Girl in the World and Selena Maria Sings). We have also collaborated together on the ReImagine TYA project and served together on The Children’s Theatre Foundation of America board. She is simply the best – bring her in to your next project!

Huge shout out, ever and always, to the legendary David Saar, who gave me the space and spark to find my wings and soar.

jmillinger@childsplayaz.org.

I’m currently developing my new immersive solo dance-theater play and performance ritual, entitled “Ya Dig: Underground Pathways to Liberation” that I first shared on June 14th, 2025 at Wild Seed Production’s/Free Black Chesapeake’s event entitled Honoring Juneteenth: Free Black Chesapeake Project at The Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center in Cambridge, Maryland. This is the land where Harriet Tubman was born, escaped slavery, and returned multiple times to free many people.

Chelsea Dee Harrison created the Free Black Chesapeake Project where she shares a historical presentation and arts and crafts making as ways to invite people to learn about free Black communities around the Chesapeake and The United States. I shared “Ya Dig: Underground Pathways to Liberation” as participants did arts and crafts designing their freedom certificates that we learned about in Chelsea Dee Harrison’s historical presentation.

My play begins inside the visitor center, moves through the exhibit about Harriet Tubman, and then I lead people outside as we respond to the nature and land. In this new play I am exploring travel and migration as ways of knowing. As I travel, I imaginatively dig under the soil deeper into myself, the history of my ancestors, and my sources of joy and strength. Throughout the play, I facilitate games and ask questions centered in freedom for audiences to embody and articulate how they define freedom. I reflect on the legacy of Harriet Tubman through poetry and dance, while also embodying the elements of nature. I move as the waters, the birds, and look to the sky for hope just as my ancestors did.

The play is a ritual, a theater workshop, a remembering, an honoring of who came before, a poetry reading, a dance party that’s all wrapped in an imaginative world where we remember that freedom innately lives in the body.

Music is a constant source of nourishment for me, especially spiritually. Right now I am loving a song my Mommy sent to me, PlantsKnowEverything by Lavva. It reminds me to continue my Soul Shine Theater Garden ways of connecting to and learning with land/ocean/nature in my storytelling.

My dream project is a Soul Shine Theater Garden play that tours gardens and farms on multiple continents where I tell stories in multiple languages through multiple rhythms of drumming and African Diasporic dancing all rooted in my signature Soul Shine Theater Garden way of Embodying the Elements (earth, air, water, and fire). Another dream play is a play that speaks to those systemically placed in the shadows. I want to challenge myself to write a play about the girls that are stolen, taken, and go missing; particularly the Black girls, the Brown and melanated girls, the Native and Indigenous girls.

Because we all need the language of theater to speak to our inner children who still got stuff to say and tears to cry, who are still healing and recovering, who are often leading the show as we present as our adult selves. Because children and all of us communicate through play and story. Because let’s continue to encourage more dreamers, artists, storytellers.

I am shouting out my dear friend and long time collaborator Cat Frost. Cat and I met around 2017 while we were both working in Washington, D.C. as teaching artists, arts administrators, and playwrights building our new careers. In 2019 – 2023, we were Producing Playwrights in a nonprofit theater organization called The Welders where we co-lead the theater within a group of six playwrights/arts administrators, while also producing each other’s new plays.

Cat’s friendship and her skills as facilitator and a collaborator was nourishment for me amidst new and deeply challenging experiences co-leading a theater for the first time and creating and producing my first solo play, Rock Paper Scissors.

Over the course of four years, while we were co-producing 4 new plays, applying and strategizing for organization and project grants, and building processes of collaboration and working during a global pandemic; Cat and I were simultaneously deepening our friendship and expanding our liberation practices learned from Emotional Emancipation Circles facilitated by Erika Totten.

While navigating the exhaustion of internalized white supremacy values, the emotional pains of non-profit theater demands and structuring, the global pandemic, the death of my Papa and deep grief, and successfully producing my play; our heart centered connection supported me immensely and was often a spiritual respite. I was given space to slow down, laugh, rest, kiki, be human, process triggers, cry, talk about interests, and be held through deep listening. With Cat, I am encouraged to show up honestly and authentically. I continue to learn so much from Cat about how to have grace for myself, practice repair, and how work and friendship can be a beautiful source of strength in life and theater making. My values as a collaborator and leader has been nurtured by our continued friendship and collaboration. Personally and professionally, I’m immensely grateful for Cat Frost.

Caroline Clay, MK Abadoo, Anu Yadev, Farah Lawal Harris, and Paige Hernandez are all dynamic, skilled, brilliant powerhouse artists in their own right that I met during my years training at University of Maryland, College Park. They each continue to ebb and flow throughout my life as friends, mentors, and supporters. The values they embody in their creative practices, art making, teaching, and cultural organizing remind me to consistently center my humanity, speak up and take up space, to care for myself/my well being, and to be an artist who serves community and liberation. In personal and creative ways they each have poured into and encourage me to keep going with my unique artistry. Thank you!

Instagram @sisisoulshine @soulshinetheatergardn email: sisisoulshine@gmail.com my website: https://sisireid.wordpress.com/.