When the Library's a Stage

Episode Transcript

Adwoa Adusei Hi, Virginia. 

Virginia Marshall Hey, Adwoa. 

Adwoa Adusei I wanted to take a beat before we delve further into this episode to editorialize about this season so far.  

Virginia Marshall To pull the curtain back a bit, you mean? 

Adwoa Adusei Yes, a bit of behind the scenes, stage setting ... oh, I see what we did there! Theater puns. Because on today’s episode we’ll be highlighting BPL’s weekly Theater Workshop program at central branch. We’re a ways into our eighth season, and as many of our listeners have probably heard, this season’s format is a little different from last season. 

Virginia Marshall Our last season was a dedicated series called Borrowed and Banned, where we explored the history of censorship and book banning in school libraries and public libraries from the 19th century to today. 

Adwoa Adusei And, Virginia, as we’ve been developing this season, inviting more voices in and figuring out which stories to highlight here in Brooklyn, it struck me that even though we’re going somewhat lighter in tone, these two seasons are in dialogue with one another. While last season was about the disconnect between people and their public institution, this season we are highlighting programs and stories about people reconnecting with the library, and more importantly with each other.  

Virginia Marshall Yeah, exactly. So, this season, we are exploring ways that art, theater, literature and other kinds of free expression can be a way to counter the attacks on books and libraries. 

Adwoa Adusei As we were writing this episode, something that Richard Omar, the lead volunteer behind the theater workshop program, said really stuck with me. He said that while many of our freedoms are expressed through the Arts, it's through free public institutions like the library that those freedoms are preserved.  

Richard Omar The library is a free speech zone. I think sometimes it's overlooked that people really desire the freedom to listen as well, and to be in a room where we're going to read a play that you may not agree with, that may be uncomfortable or offensive to you, but you also have the right to hear it and to feel all those things about it without having to categorize it, without having to respond to it, without having to pick a side or a line ... is important for people.

Virginia Marshall Well said, Richard. It’s true, you know, that using our public institutions is a vital way to combat censorship.  

Adwoa Adusei On this episode, we’ll hear from members of central library’s theater workshop, where once a week, budding thespians and curious amateurs come together to read plays, talk about character motivations and work through a whole range of human emotions. I’m Adwoa Adusei. 

Virginia Marshall And I’m Virginia Marshall. You’re listening to Borrowed, stories that start at the library. 

[Music] 

Virginia Marshall What made you guys want to join the theater workshop? 

Dee Jay I've been going to the library since a very young age. I joined because I thought it was actually an acting class. And I love acting, and then I realized we dissect plays and learn more about the characters, and I really liked that.   

Ezra Roth We're reading, you know, really important literature that, you know, although these are Pulitzer Prize winning plays. Rich, I'd say he's definitely a crown jewel of the course. He really does his research for the plays. He really makes for amazing discussion. 

Diane Crthers It's great to be here. And Richard is a weird guy. And I met him in the creative writing workshop. And I love what he writes and I love how he thinks. So, I'm here. [Laughter]

[Theme music out]

Richard Omar I'm Richard Omar, and I am the facilitator of the Brooklyn Public Library Theater Workshop.

Deborah Markowitz I'm Deborah Markowitz. I'm a senior librarian at Brooklyn Public Library, Central, Languages and Literature.  

Richard Omar I've been an acting teacher in New York for 25 years, teaching at universities, conservatories, studios, privately, and it's the thing that I love to do most.  

[Music] 

Richard Omar I was attending the creative writing workshop here at the Brooklyn Public Library, which is wonderful. And, you start chatting with people, and Deborah is the person responsible for that workshop in a way. And we got to talking, and realized what I did ... and asked if I would be interested in teaching something. And then we started talking about what that could be. 

Deborah Markowitz And like a bell sort of went off my head. I said this would be something, I think very interesting, something new, something that we could build.  

[Sound of the class settling in] 

Eric Cohen Eric Cohen, and I am the assistant division manager of Languages and Literature at Central Library. As far as we are aware, this is the first program of its kind where we're reading and analyzing plays.  

Richard Omar The participants get to come in cold, which I think is one of the reasons it's successful. There's no homework. You don't have to do anything in preparation for it. Come as you are. And when they come in, we talk a little bit about the play that I've chosen or that Deborah has suggested, or that someone else in the group has suggested. We give a little bit of context about the writer in the time period, and dive in as soon as we can.  

[Music]  

[Sound from the class. Richard: "We left off last week on, I think we left off on page 53. We’re going to back up a little bit and start reading. Hey, Rebecca ..."]

Charlotte Johanna Hey, I’m Charlotte Johanna. I live in Bed-Stuy. The shows that Richard has chosen for this workshop don't gloss over everything. At first, when I heard this was a free workshop at Brooklyn Public Library, I thought, well, this is public money and it's a opportunity for everybody. And we might be reading shows that are Sesame Street-esque, I worried, and really the shows that have been chosen have delved into race and sex and poverty and people die. People kill each other. There's addiction. The shows that have been chosen have not been sanitized the way I was worried they might be. 

[Scene from "Wit," the patient is coding.] 

Diane Crothers I'm Diane Crothers. I am 77 years old. Sometimes I've had three jobs. I have three degrees. I'm a retired civil rights attorney. This last, play, “Wit,” has to do with a stage four ovarian cancer survivor. Well, she's only surviving as long as the play. And, so when people read these difficult things, if you should be assigned to something and someone you love has just died of this, there is a way to pass. And there are not only no questions asked, there's no pressure to do something that may be personally uncomfortable for you. And so that's a feeling of love and of support. That's a floor. And that's going to make for much better conversations, much more intimate revelations about connection, about meaning, all kinds of things.  

[Sound of Richard assigning roles, then people reading the play. "Jess, would you read Vivian? And we're picking it up after the silence, when Susie says Vivian, would you like a popsicle?"]  

Richard Omar We assign roles without any regard for age, gender, sex, sexuality, race, anything. Because we don't know who's going to be there on any given week. And you try to assign everyone a part to read. We switch it up as we go along, so that hopefully everyone in the room gets a chance to read. The joy of reading it is that it's not about you, and it's not about your life, and it's not about your circumstance. So, it doesn't really make any difference who is speaking the words. We tell them, we don't try to act like someone else. We don't do accents or dialects or try to embody some sense of what this person is. We read what's written, and then talk about it.  

Jen Bishop My name is Jen Bishop. The first play that I experienced was "August: Osage County," by Tracy Letts. And, I remember reading the role of like a 14-year-old girl or something. Later on, she's, kind of come on to by like a man who is my age difference older than her, exactly. Reading it as, like somebody who's 36, putting myself into the perspective of such a young girl and being like, wow, that is ... like it's kind of eye opening. And just being able to play roles that you are not necessarily cast as ... it lets you live a life that you don't necessarily get to be. And then like, once we are in dialog about the situation that's going on, it kind of opens up the room for everybody to talk about their own experiences.  

[Sound from people reading the play. "I can't believe my life has become so corny. But it can't be helped. I don't see any other way. We are discussing life and death, and not in the abstract either."]

Richard Omar The library is a great place for anonymity, and when you come into a workshop, no one asks you who you are. No one asks you what you're doing there, no one asks you what you do. You come into the room, we ask your first name and that's the end of it. So, you may be able to talk about certain things, or share views or hypotheticals, or take a devil's advocacy perspective, and no one knows.  

Deborah Markowitz For example, we did "Angels in America." I think that took us 3 or 4 weeks because there was a lot of meat there. There was the sexual issues, there were health issues. The AIDS crisis at that time.  

Richard Omar Yes, we have people in the group who worked in hospitals in New York during the AIDS crisis, who got to weigh in from their perspective, as well as people who were born in this century who can't imagine such a thing. And we get to talk about that. 

[Sound of class discussion. Richard: “We have an ex-nurse in the room.” Patron: "And I'm a respiratory therapist. How many codes have I been to in my life?" Richard: "And is it common or uncommon that a doctor that a doctor would...?"] 

Richard Omar So many plays are political by nature, based on the circumstances. And while we don't get into politics specifically, I know that we have patrons in the group and patrons at the library who have very conservative outlooks or very religious outlooks that maybe they don't see expressed at every New York cultural institution. And, they are relieved to be able to come in and talk about issues of gun violence or issues of consent and realize that there's no essential disagreement in the room. It's that no one gets to say the thing that's on their mind without being scolded or shouted down or judged based on it. 

[More reading from the play. Patron 1: "Well, that was pretty dumb." Patron 2: "No, it was funny." Patron 1: "Yeah, I guess so. In a dumb sort of way."] 

Doug Munson I'm Doug Munson. I'm 71, and retired. I live in Sunset Park. Part of my retirement plan, which was screwed up by Covid, was to get back into doing this kind of thing, the theater. I came to New York 50 years ago to be an actor. So I thought this was a great opportunity. You know, at my advanced years, you know, I'm fairly set in my friendships and all this, and this is opening up a whole new window of all kinds of different people who, just actually amaze me. I think I'm probably a fairly judgmental person, and I judge people by their appearance too quickly, you know, and I'm delighted to find out how wrong I am. And just, I just sit back and listen to people. And so many people have great observations.

Richard Omar It's a very mixed group. And because you don't have to worry that you are 80 years old and maybe there aren't a lot of roles for you. You can come because you're going to end up— 

Deborah Markowitz Because an 80-year-old can be a teenager in the in the play. 

Richard Omar You never have to worry about being excluded. Or, will something be right for you. 

Diane Desanders Diane Desanders. I used to be a history teacher. I'm retired. I'm 83 years old. One of the reasons I'm here is because I can't remember lines anymore. You know, so, I could never carry a play, and I could never be the main person. I just can't remember lines. It's horrible.  

Virginia Marshall But you can read them. 

Diane DeSanders I can read them. I can really read them. I can get what's happening real quick, you know, and read the lines, you know, but I cannot remember lines, you know. So, I don't want to start crying.  [Laughter] 

Diane Crothers That’s one of the things that a library gives us in terms of age diversity. Because you saw the thing that happened with Tyne Daly and having to pull out of “Doubt.” And she had a medical thing, and I think she's exactly my age, and I thought I could not be up there, you know, eight performances or however many a week. But she probably loves it, and she's good at it. So, what is the next step for people as we age, and how do we keep contact with the things that we love? What community accepts us? What community, nurtures us and helps us grow and helps us experience joy? 

[Music] 

Richard Omar It's the great thing about acting. It's one of the empathy-generators in life. That really makes you sit next to someone else, hear what they're saying without being it personal to you or them, and thinking, how is my life like this? In what ways am I lucky not to be in the circumstances that these characters find themselves in, and engaging your imagination? 

[Sound from the class, play ending, Richard reading stage directions: "The instant she is naked and beautiful, reaching for the light. Lights out. End of play. All right. Any thoughts?"] 

Deborah Markowitz We were originally going to do it just for eight weeks. And then like halfway through, Richard said, let's go. Let's keep going with this. And now we've been going for six months. Participants number has increased. We have up to 20 people on an afternoon. It's eye-opening. It's meaningful. And, it's not a college course, you're not getting graded on this, so I want you to have a good time. We are informers. We are entertainers. That's the joy I'm getting out of it, too.  

[Music] 

Adwoa Adusei Borrowed is brought to you by Brooklyn Public Library. This episode was produced by Virginia Marshall and written and hosted by me and Virginia. You can read a transcript of this episode and a list of plays you can check out from the library on our website: BKLYN Library [dot] org [slash] podcasts.  

Virginia Marshall Brooklyn Public Library relies on the support of individuals for many of its most critical programs and services. To make a gift, please go to B-K-L-Y-N-library [dot] org [slash] donate.   

Adwoa Adusei Our Borrowed team is made up of: Adwoa Adusei, Fritzi Bodenheimer, Robin Lester Kenton, Damaris Olivo, Virginia Marshall and Ali Post. Jennifer Proffitt and Ashley Gill run our social media. Our music composer is Billy Libby. Meryl Friedman designed our logo. We’ll be back in a couple of weeks with another episode of Borrowed: stories that start at the library.