Name: The Storytellers Transforming The American Theatre | Harper's BAZAAR
Uploaded: 2025-08-08T17:49:02.000Z
Duration: 3 min 9 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Present continuous

The arts is life, and if you're not seeing yourself in what you're watching, it really doesn't reflect life properly.

The superlative

Theatre, at its best, is the most democratic space possible.

To-infinitive

When we participate in theatre, we are reminded how to be human.

What's unique about theatre, you know, it's really trite, but it's all of the arts coming together.

The movement, the visual arts, very often music, so it is a big hallelujah chorus about the human condition.

The first time I experienced live theatre was actually at school.

I was part of a, and I'm proud to say this, a public school experience of performing Shakespeare.

I remember being a little girl and watching my mother in the theatre.

I really internalize the way that our pain and process can be transformed into something that really touches the spirit and the soul in a way that few things can.

The sense of community you can find in theatre can be beautiful.

I went to the University of Michigan and I got my BFA in theatre performance.

When I was there, I was struggling with roles, especially for a black woman in my department.

A lot of the time, when you don't see a reflection of yourself, it can make you feel like you don't exist.

When I started out, I did not see stories from an African female perspective.

I decided that I was going to write a play for myself and the two other black women in the department at the time.

The way that the audience responded to the things that I had to say and talk about, I thought, oh wait, I might not just be an actress.

I might need to be writing for the stage.

We're not going to watch it if we're not seeing our stories, you know?

And so I think we're starting to understand our own power and we're wanting that access.

What do we as theatre artists right now have to say about this moment that in 10 years, 25 years, 50 years, people can look back to get a human record of what these moments feel like?

I want to see theatre that challenges form.

I want to see theatre that speaks to things that many people don't want to talk about anymore or afraid of talking about.

There's so many more stories that we need to tell.

I think the thing that excites me is that theatre has opened its doors in a lot of ways.

I'm seeing a lot of voices coming through and innovative ways of telling stories that I didn't always see.

The future of theatre is exciting because of how we are finding each other in this moment in time.

That storytelling that is made by our folks looks and feels like our folks.

It's never enough because our stories are vast and tremendous and unique and incredible and there's so much to tell.

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The Storytellers Transforming The American Theatre | Harper's BAZAAR

perspective

struggle

incredible

process