Some thoughts about The World:
- It is small.
- Terrible things sometimes happen in it.
- We are capable of changing it.
So, when a bit of research brought up a dear friend’s name, and I read she was doing some beautiful work, I was excited to reach out and learn more. Barbara Pitts-McAdams and I have known each other upwards of ten years. She is a long-time member of Tectonic Theatre Company, an original cast member and dramaturg of The Laramie Project, and a Moment Work master teacher. Her latest project, developed with fellow Tectonic artist Jimmy Maize, is #HereToo, a series of devised plays around issues of gun-violence, amplifying the voices of youth activists.
Kylie Vincent is a #HereToo Project associate and currently the March For Our Lives New York State Action Director, as well as an actor and comedian, recently returned from a tour abroad.
With a #HereToo presentation coming up in NYC on Monday, March 16, I wanted to learn more about their history with the project, the show’s creative process, and what the future might hold for it.*
RHF: Let’s get the fundamentals laid out - what is #HereToo and what do you want people to know about it?
BPMcA: The national #HereToo Project is a series of devised plays amplifying stories of youth activists as they strive to make change on national, regional and local levels. We have an open-source database of interview material, scripts, scenes, images and video available. This allows each community to customize the content. So each regional production is unique, but taps into the March For Our Lives events and activism as a throughline. Each production becomes #HereToo-[name of theater, town or school].
RHF: How did you come to be involved in the project, Kylie?
KV: I became involved in the project in November 2018. It was the weekend after my own hometown of Thousand Oaks experienced the tragedy of a deadly mass shooting at our neighborhood bar and grill, Borderline. When the Parkland shooting happened, I was a senior in high school, like many of the students who began March For Our Lives. At my high school, I put together a performance event that raised money for March For Our Lives, and I haven’t stopped with my activism and art since. That August, I moved to the East Coast to pursue my passions in the arts, and I was appointed March For Our Lives New York State Action Director. When the tragedy hit home, I was asked to speak at The Gays Against Guns Rally in Times Square in honor of the Thousand Oaks victims, speaking on behalf of MFOL and also my hometown. I spoke from the bottom of my heart that day...and people approached me afterwards for interviews, and Barb was one of them... We set up an interview together, and she interviewed me for probably about two hours, and since then I’ve been in the #HereToo script! Wanting to be involved in much more, I became an associate and even performed as myself when we workshopped at Penn State.
RHF: Barb, how long was the impetus for #HereToo living inside you before it came to life?
BPMcA: Not that long, surprisingly! I went to the March For Our Lives in NYC on March 24, 2018. It gave me goosebumps, made me feel inspired and hopeful - and when I asked my Tectonic colleague Jimmy Maize (currently associate director for Broadway’s Harry Potter & the Cursed Child) to partner on this, he was right there. He had been having similar conversations -- this wave of youth activism felt like a “lightning rod moment” in our culture. We initially thought we would focus on the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School survivors, but their story was already being documented in so many mediums. Also - it felt intrusive, to try to interview them so soon. And then, in June 2018, Jimmy and I went to a residency called The Orchard Project and worked with its CORE apprentice company -- college theater students from all over the country. Many had stories to share of the gun sense activism going on in their communities. And that’s when the hunch really gelled: stories of youth activism, stories of gun violence survivorship - it happens here, too. By the end of the summer, we had a production on the West Coast (with Rich Brown and Western Summer Theater, Bellingham WA) and workshops on the East Coast (at Penn State, helmed by Jeanmarie Higgins, who became our project dramaturg) Next year we have at least two more #HereToo productions - a high school in New Hampshire and the full production at Penn State.
RHF: How much does the show vary from presentation to presentation/region to region?
BPMcA: So much! For example: #HereToo-WWU from Bellingham, WA highlighted stories of tribal gun violence and prevention initiatives. It also tells the story of Maggie, a survivor of a local mall shooting who, motivated by the March For Our Lives activists, created a local teen gun-sense action group called Students For Action. #HereToo-Penn State highlights the experience of its international students as they confront their fears about America’s gun violence epidemic. There were also two shootings in State College, PA that the community is still grappling with, one involving a known mentally challenged African American man who was shot by police during a wellness check. This version also highlights the importance and emotional resonance of growing up in a positive gun culture of family hunting trips.
RHF: How have your communities reacted?
KV: Thousand Oaks is hard. Even when I did the walkouts for Parkland as a senior in high school, it was controversial because it’s a very red area that loves its country music and guns. When we went to Penn State, in central Pennsylvania, I did a follow-up interview with the school’s pro gun activist. He had protested when [gun control activist and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School survivor] David Hogg spoke at Penn State. We had such a good conversation; it was respectful, and we both saw where we were coming from. Barb always says, it’s so much harder for someone to hate you up close, and it’s so true! A one-on-one conversation, when you go in with good intentions, has so much potential - as does #HereToo, since it is showing different perspectives through art.
RHF: What’s been the most surprising aspect of the process thus far?
BPMcA: At Tectonic, we are always asking: what are the new forms? And what we’ve discovered and embraced with #HereToo Project, is that perhaps the new theatrical form for an interview-based play is the way content is gathered and shared. For example, Maggie’s story from Bellingham, Washington has become a “tentpole” for other productions. Her story of moving from victim to survivor to activist has a clear arc and is so uplifting. The most onerous part of devising long form narrative (both time and expense) is often gathering source material. Interviewing and transcribing can leave less time to create coherent narrative. So having the bulk of the source material already available means you can get to creation in a “normal” amount of rehearsal time.
RHF: Open-source theatre is so uncharted - what are your hopes for it and what are the challenges?
BPMcA: Three things are served with open-sourced material: 1: it allows for a “plurality of narratives,” as I call it. Jimmy and I aren’t gathering the material and determining the ONE narrative about youth activism and gun violence survivorship. Eventually, we’ll craft and produce a play that feels like it captures the gestalt of all the #HereToo productions. I mean, not everyone wants to devise, so they can just license our play! But that won’t prohibit another company from making their own version. 2: Open-sourcing allows an audience to delve deeper after the show. Often people are curious about the “characters” in The Laramie Project, but there is no mechanism for the public to read their entire interviews. And clearly, we made editorial choices about what content to share. So making these oral histories available (with any redactions requested by the interviewee) allows audience members or scholars or the general public to engage as they wish. And believe me - there is never enough room to share all the brilliant, moving, inspiring thoughts each person shares with us. 3: How great to have an oral history archive of teens and twenty-somethings sharing their feelings, their actions and their thoughts on this moment in our culture!
Of course, as we figure out how to make and organize the open-source portal, a lot of challenges and questions emerge. How will we fund it? Who’s server will house it? Do we need new consent forms?? How do we protect the interviewees? Currently, we use only first names unless the activist is already a public figure, but safety is a big concern. Our project dramaturg Jeanmarie Higgins of Penn State University is working now on the taxonomy - coding the interviews so topics are searchable, etc. It’s a big job, but it speaks to point 3 above: it is a lasting legacy of this moment in our culture.
RHF: What are your feelings about the intersection of art and advocacy?
BPMcA: When I was tapped to join the original company of the The Laramie Project, I knew that was the room I had been waiting to get into, and I dropped everything to be there. I am happiest when my work has some kind of real world or social justice impact. I’m in awe of the “rapid response” theater makers who can create work that helps heal right after a tragic event (like After Orlando). But that’s not my expertise. I’m used to working on plays that take a long time to develop and gestate.
RHF: What kind of an effect did working on #HereToo have on you? Has it changed you at all?
KV: It changes how I look at everything and everything I do. I do comedy as well as theatre, and every time I’m able to escape with these productions I feel like I found a calling. Even in my standup material, I try to address issues I care about and bring people together through laughter to talk about it... Some people respond to productions like #HereToo, that are so powerful and heavy, but with nuances that make them laugh or smile. I feel like I’ve always felt things very deeply and been severely empathetic because I’ve gone through so much personally in my life, to take on a greater purpose feels worth it! I really listen to every story, take in every speech, rally, performance, etc. I have moments where I feel so lucky to not only be alive to speak on these issues, but to be around such a powerful community.
Kylie Vincent and Barbara Pitts McAdamsBarbara Pitts McAdams is co-author of MOMENT WORK: Tectonic Theater Project’s Process of Devising Theater. With Jimmy Maize, she is co-creator of the national #HereToo Project: stories of gun violence, stories of youth activism. She is also on the advisory board for #ENOUGH: Plays to End Gun Violence.
Kylie Vincent is currently the MFOL NY State Action Director and an actor/sketch artist/stand up comedian. She recently returned from doing stand up in Amsterdam
*Answers edited for clarity and length.