IFE OLUJOBI: NO PLAY
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theaterworknow.com/the-book
During the pandemic lockdown, Soho Rep. created Project Number One, a series of eight presentations about artistic expression for which theater makers were paid a salary and provided with health insurance. The program ran from May through July and included David Ryan Smith’s autobiographical The Story of a Circle, an online journey to his childhood home in the Blue Ridge Mountains; Carmelita Tropicana’s That’s Not What Happened, a podcast tracing her queer Cuban roots; David Mendizábal’s Eat Me!, constructed around the Ecuadorian ritual of consuming guaguas de pan; Stacey Derosier’s Peep Show and Becca Blackwell’s The Body Never Lies, both of which took place at Soho Rep.’s Walker St. space; Jillian Walker’s The Orange Essays, consisting of readings and a live discussion; and an excerpt from Shayok Misha Chowdhury’s upcoming Public Obscenities.
Project Number One concluded with Ife Olujobi’s No Play, a book that explores the impact the coronavirus crisis has had throughout the artistic community. Olujobi is a Nigerian American playwright whose play Jordans was a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize; during the lockdown, she contributed two pieces to “The 24 Hour Plays: Viral Monologues!,” If you can see it with Javier Muñoz and Run Me Over with Ato Blankson-Wood. For the book, she surveyed and/or interviewed more than one hundred writers, directors, artists, teachers, critics, composers, administrators, technicians, producers, and others whose work is connected to theater, including the seven other Project Number One creators and me.
I first filled out the online survey, which asked such questions as “How did you make money before the pandemic? If that has changed, how do you make money now?,” “Has your creative working process changed at all during quarantine? Has your relationship to your creative work changed in light of COVID and the events of the last year?,” and “How does ‘doing the work’ of advancing racial and social justice intersect with the other forms of work you engage in, if at all? Does this work impact your ability to complete other forms of work? Do your other forms of work impact your ability to engage in this work?” It made me instantly realize that I was probably in a different situation from most of the others who would be taking the survey, as I am a straight white male with a full-time job outside the theater industry; twi-ny is really a labor of love.
Olujobi understands this is not a scientific undertaking. “This endeavor is not, and was never meant to be, any kind of demographically comprehensive or definitive statement on ‘how theater people are feeling right now,’” she writes. “I have never taken on a project quite like this before, and my information gathering methods were unofficial and imprecise and resulted in a fascinating, if not always easily contextualized, array of responses from participants. . . . Despite the inherent faults of my process, I am thankful for the connections I made and can stand behind the relative diversity of the voices included across race, age, gender identity, disability, vocation, and career level.”
I was somewhat surprised when Olujobi later asked if I wanted to be interviewed, but I immediately agreed and was glad I did. (I was one of eleven participants who filled out the survey and were interview subjects.) We had an eye-opening talk on Zoom in which we did a deep dive into my privilege, exploring such questions as “How much time do you spend working for money?,” “How has the pandemic affected your creative working process?,” “How have you engaged with Zoom and ‘virtual’ theater, either as a creator or a viewer?,” and “What does ‘doing the work’ mean to you?” I responded openly and honestly, and Olujobi never let me off the hook if I unintentionally skirted the issue. All along the way, Olujobi made it clear that there are no wrong answers.
Now that the book is out, it is even more eye-opening to read the other participants’ answers. “COVID shut everything down, and when I couldn’t work I found myself losing my purpose. Losing my identity. Which made me look at my creative work differently. It was difficult. Lots of sleepless nights,” actor-artist Alana Bowers says. Playwright-actor Jake Brasch explains, “I’m collecting unemployment and I’m teaching a section of fifth-grade playwriting and I’m under a couple of commissions. [Pre-pandemic] I was a birthday party clown on the weekends, and also lived in a work-trade situation that fell apart because of COVID in which I walked the dogs for discounted rent.” And playwright Dan Giles admits, “I guess my job is twenty-eight hours a week, or twenty to twenty-eight hours depending on the week. And then the writing stuff sometimes feels like I’m writing for money and sometimes not. And that can either be all-consuming or it can be like half-an-hour working and then four hours of staring at a wall, full of despair.”
There are not a lot of fans of Zoom theater. While I fully engaged with online shows, having watched more than a thousand since March 2020 (theater, dance, music, art, film, food), I was in the minority. “I have not watched any Zoom theater, and am not that interested in seeing theater virtually,” one anonymous respondent says. Artist-researcher Janani Balasubramanian replies “I honestly have not, with the exception of work made by my friends, logged on or watched a lot of livestreams or Zooms. I basically don’t have the capacity after my work days to do additional online commitments because I already have so many during day-to-day work. I kinda wanna throw my computer in the Gowanus Canal, is a real feeling I have on certain days.”
But Olujobi goes beyond the pandemic, also delving into why the participants got into theater in the first place, what they love about it, and what they would change going forward. Reading other people’s origin stories is energizing, summed up by writer-actor Harron Atkins remembering the exact moment he decided, “I’m gonna do this for the rest of my life.”
When it comes to “the most pressing work that needs to be done right now,” theater maker Mattie Barber-Bockelman gets straight to the point: “Redistribution of wealth.” Writer Melis Aker says, “Tackling income inequality and segregation that has only reinforced racist segregation. Divesting and reinvesting. Money flow needs to change for corporations to change their values.” Playwright Joshua Young declares, “Erasing the way capital informs primacy. It’s not enough to have more diverse boards or employees. We’ve done all this work to dismantle the systems of power. We can’t stop now.”
Ife Olujobi explores the effects of the pandemic lockdown on theater professionals in No Play
Diversity and equality are at the heart of what comes next. Actor-singer Jenna Rubaii advises, “Everyone in the world needs to start looking at each other as equals.” Set designer and educator Carolyn Mraz says, “Getting white people to shut up (me included) and decenter themselves, so that we can listen, step back, and figure out how to give our support where it can be useful in support of BIPOC voices and leaders.” Writer, actor, and comedian Obehi Janice declares, “People need to leave Black women alone and figure out their own shit.” And artistic director RJ Tolan concludes, “We have to try to renovate the story that America tells itself about itself. If there’s one thing that theater is, it’s sitting in a room and telling some stories and hopefully you have an influence on people. That’s definitely moving the sand dune with tweezers.”
As Olujobi explains in her introduction, “The confluence of the gig economy and the era of identity politics has caused an increasingly consequential melding of personal and professional identities, so that the question is no longer just ‘what do you do?’ but, ‘who are you?’ and therefore, ‘what can you do?’ or, more directly, ‘what are you doing?’ Of course these questions are not exclusive to the performing arts, but as a result of the complete shuttering of theater as we knew it since March 2020, they feel acute, almost violent to pose to anyone who, at one point or another, has called themselves a theater artist.” She adds, “What was meant to be an excavation of the present ended up being just as much about the past and future of financial stability, physical and mental health, survival for marginalized peoples, and the ways that a career in theater presents these necessities as luxuries.” (Proceeds from the sale of the book, available in a print or digital edition, and the accompanying Generator zine go to Lenape Center, Black Trans Liberation, See Lighting Foundation, and Access Acting Academy.)
With Broadway and off Broadway reopening, these issues are more relevant than ever, not only in theater but in the world outside as we (too slowly?) emerge from the pandemic. The coronavirus crisis has forced us all to look deep inside ourselves, figure out who we are and what we want — or, more important, what we need. Olujobi has done a great service by putting this book together and investigating this moment in time, just as the best theater does, even if the work is called No Play.