by Lauren Gunderson
Study Guide Contents
Director of Community Engagement & Education Joann Yarrow (315) 443-8603
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Production Information
4.)
Letter from Community Engagement and Education Team
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Educational Outreach at Syracuse Stage
Associate Director of Education Kate Laissle (315) 442-7755
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Synopsis
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Meet the Playwright
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Meet the Director
Group Sales & Student Matinees Tracey White (315) 443-9844
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James Baldwin
11.)
Evolution of LaGuardia Airport
Box Office (315) 443-3275
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Harlem, 1940s
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Paris, 1940s
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Baldwin and the Civil Rights Movement
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People to Know
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Baldwin’s Work and Speeches
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Questions for Discussion
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Elements of Drama
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Elements of Design
20.) Sources
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To Donate To Our Education Programs: Wendy Rhodes Director of Development (315) 443-3931 wjneikir@syr.edu Research and text by J.R. Pierce Designed by Kate Laissle
Dear Educator, The best way of learning is learning while you’re having fun. Live theatre provides the opportunity for us to connect with more than just our own story, it allows us to find ourselves in other people’s lives and grow beyond our own boundaries. While times are different, we still are excited to share with you new theatrical pieces through pre-recorded means. We’re the only species on the planet who makes stories. It is the stories that we leave behind that define us. Giving students the power to watch stories and create their own is part of our lasting impact on the world. And the stories we choose to hear and learn from now are even more vital. Stories bring us together, even when we must stay apart. Stories are our connection to the world and each other. We invite you and your students to engage with the stories we tell as a starting point for you and them to create their own. Sincerely, Joann Yarrow and Kate Laissle Community Engagement and Education Team
2020/2021 EDUCATIONAL OUTREACH SPONSORS Syracuse Stage is committed to providing students with rich theatre experiences that explore and examine what it is to be human. Research shows that children who participate in or are exposed to the arts show higher academic achievement, stronger self-esteem, and improved ability to plan and work toward a future goal. Many students in our community have their first taste of live theatre through Syracuse Stage’s outreach programs. Last season more than 15,500 students from across New York State attended or participated in the Bank of America Children’s Tour, the Young Playwrights Festival, Backstory, Young Adult Council, and/or our Student Matinee Program. We gratefully acknowledge the corporations and foundations who support our commitment to in-depth arts education for our community.
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Educational Outreach at Syracuse Stage
Syracuse Stage is committed to providing students with rich theatre experiences that connect to and reveal what it is to be human.
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Education Advocacy Board
YAC: Young Adult Council
The Education Advocacy Board is a group of teachers from the Central New York region who meet four times a year with Syracuse Stage to share their ideas and concerns about current arts education issues. Members work with Education staff at Syracuse Stage to help tailor programming to best fit the educators and students served. This past year topics discussed have included creating more useful study guides, exchanging views on future programming, working towards more effectively engaging young people in the arts, as well as discussing the influence of the Common Core on arts education.
The Young Adult Council (YAC) at Syracuse Stage seeks to give teens a voice in the programming designed for them while exploring how theatre impacts their lives. The program focuses on peer led discussion and events in addition to advocating for theatre and arts participation to fellow students. The Syracuse Stage YAC is a group of high school students from the Central New York area that meets monthly to create and implement pre-show events that will help inspire the next generation of theatregoers. YAC members can also take advantage of opportunities to learn from professional theatre artists at Syracuse Stage and through workshops, internships, and shadow programs.
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Educational Outreach at Syracuse Stage Children’s Tour
Backstory
Each fall, the Bank of America Children’s Tour brings high-energy, interactive, and culturally diverse performances to elementary school audiences. Each performance is fully staged with scenery, costumes, and sound. This year you will be able to experience the performance as a pre-recorded production. Performances include a talkback with the actors and our helpful study guide for further classroom exploration. Pre- or post-show sessions with our talented teaching artists can be arranged upon request.
Each winter, the Backstory program brings history to life as professional actors portray historical figures in classrooms and other venues. Previous presentations have included historical figures such as Anne Frank; Ace, a Tuskegee Airman; and Annie Easley, a human computer for NASA. Our current tour is a digital performance of Citizen James or The Young Man Without a Country about a young James Baldwin - touring through 2022. https://syracusestage.org/backstory.php
Virtual Syracuse Stage Education Classes and Workshops
Young Playwrights Festival
Our program features engaging content for theatre-lovers of all ages. Delve deep into the craft through private classes, group acting courses, live virtual classroom experiences, and master classes on a variety of subjects. Please note that due to COVID-19, all of our programming is virtual. New class workshops for all ages available here: https://syracusestage.coursestorm.com
Each spring, Syracuse Stage invites Central New York high school students to write original ten-minute plays and other performance pieces for entry in our annual Young Playwrights Festival contest. Our panel of theatrical and literary professionals evaluates each student’s play. Semifinalists are invited to a writing workshop at Syracuse Stage where their plays will be read and critiqued. Finalists will see their plays performed as staged reading by Syracuse University Department of Drama students at the annual Young Playwrights Festival. The festival is free and open to the public.
Summer Youth Theatre Experience Come and play with professional teaching artists of Syracuse Stage as we dive into the magical world of creativity and performance. This summer our program for grades 5-8 will be the creation of Tik Tok musicals. Go to https://syracusestage.coursestorm.com/ for more information
Our very successful 2021 festival will be a virtual offerieng being streamed on the Syracuse Stage Facebook on May 20th and 21st.
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I and You Summary Isolated due to a life-threatening illness, Caroline hasn’t been to school in months. Confined to her room, she relies on Instagram, Facebook, and a stuffed turtle for company. That is until classmate Anthony bursts in – unexpectedly and bearing waffle fries, some Walt Whitman poetry, and a literature project due the next day. He’s enthusiastic, athletic, and charming in a nerdy sort of way, but Caroline is wary. Still, an unlikely friendship develops as a run of the mill homework assignment reveals the pair’s hopes and dreams. They come to realize that Whitman’s sense of interconnectedness means more to their lives than they could have imagined. This sharp, funny, and tenderhearted play won the Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award in 2014.
I and You on the cover of American Theatre
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Meet the Playwright Born in 1982 in Atlanta, Lauren Gunderson is widely considered one of, if not the, most produced playwrights in the country. According to American Theatre magazine, which annually collects season data from 385 Theatre Communication Group member theatres across the country, Gunderson’s plays were produced more than any playwright not named William Shakespeare during the 2017-18 and 2019-20 season. During the 2018-19 season she was second behind Lucas Hnath. In addition to playwriting, Gunderson is a screenwriter and short story author who received her BA in English/creative writing from Emory University and her MFA in Dramatic Writing from New York University Tisch. To date, Gunderson has had more than 20 plays produced to national praise and acclaim. She is a two-time Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award winner as well as a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn and One Chambers Award. She also has won the Lanford Wilson Award and the Otis Guernsey New Voices Award. In addition to her plays and awards, Gunderson speaks nationally and internationally about the intersection of science, theatre, and arts activism. In January 2021, Gunderson had the digital world premiere of The Catastrophist, about virologist Dr. Nathan Wolfe, Gunderson’s husband. Gunderson is also working on a new musical, Jeannette, with Ari Afsar, about Jeannette Rankin, the first woman elected to Congress. I and You, one of Gunderson’s two Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award-winning plays alongside The Book of Will in 2018, takes place in a realistic teen girl’s bedroom. High schoolers Caroline and Anthony are working on a homework assignment centered around Walt Whitman and his poem “Song of Myself.” Caroline hasn’t been to school in months, homebound due to an illness, and the arrival of the athletic, popular Anthony comes as a surprise. As the play progresses, and the two engage in study-buddy banter and proceed to let down their guards, Gunderson uses the play to explore themes of death and legacy, with an ending that has garnered praise from across the country, including the
photograph by Tess Mayer
Lauren Gunderson
New York Times calling it “an explosive twist.” Times critic Ben Brantley called Gunderson’s conclusion “genuinely shocking, on several levels,” when reviewing a 2016 Off-Broadway production at 59E59 Theaters. The play had its world premiere at Marin Theatre Company in California as part of a National New Play Network rolling world premiere in 2013. There were seven professional production across the country in 2014. The play won the Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award in 2014. In 2018, the play was produced at the Hampstead Theatre starring Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams.
The question is always: well if you want to write, what do you want to write about? I find such incredible intrigue in history. Theatre has this wonderful ability to feel like time travel, to write about historical moments. And I just love that. Also, it’s a place where we can examine our current state of mind, but examine them through history. The history is a lens to understand where we are now. I think that’s very true and helps us understand who we are by looking at who we were.” - Gunderson to St. Ambrose University
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Meet the Director Melissa Crespo
Melissa Crespo is a New York City based director of theatre, opera, and film. She has developed new work at The Lark, Atlantic Theater Company, Two River Theater, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Ars Nova, Labyrinth Theater Company, and more. Upcoming: world premiere of Daughters of the Rebellion by Guadalís del Carmen at Montclair State University. Recent credits include: In the Red and Brown Water by Tarell Alvin McCraney (Columbia Graduate Acting), Wickedest Woman by Jessica Bashline (Strange Sun Theatre), graveyard shift by Korde Arrington Tuttle (San Francisco Playhouse), Pedro Pan by Rebecca Aparicio and Stephen Elkins (NYMF), In the Blue Hour by Martina Potratz (Lil’ Explosions), Brother Toad by Nathan Louis Jackson (Kansas City Repertory Theatre), The Review or How to Eat Your Opposition by Donnetta Lavinia Grays (WP Theatre), eat and you belong to us by MJ kauffman (NYU Tisch School for the Arts); ¡Figaro! (90210) by Vid Guerrerio (The Duke on 42nd Street & LA Opera), ABC Talent Showcase (Disney NYC), Destiny of Desire by Karen Zacarías (Garden Theatre), Tar Baby by Desiree Burch with Dan Kitrosser (seen at 59E59, Edinburgh, London, Finland, and New Zealand). Fellowships and Residencies: Time Warner Fellow (WP Theatre), Usual Suspect (NYTW), The Director’s Project (Drama League), Van Lier Directing Fellow (Second Stage Theatre), and the Allen Lee Hughes Directing Fellow (Arena Stage). http://www.melissacrespo.com
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Characters Caroline: a girl, 17. She is in comfy clothing, she does not expect company, she is sick but mainly just looks a little weak. She doesn’t go out. She is cynical, over it, and does not let a stray “feeling” near the surface.
Costume Designs by Lux Haac
Anthony: a boy, 17. He is neat, poised, mature for his age. He’s an “A” student, a team player, a nice guy. He’s not really great around girls. He takes his homework very seriously. When he likes something he is all in.
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Walt Whitman 1819-1892
“
Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)
”
Born in 1819, Walt Whitman is considered to be one of the greatest American poets alongside the likes of Emily Dickinson. Though not quite the “homeless guy” Anthony suggests Whitman is in the script, Whitman did spend many years in the 1800s moving from region to region in the United States. Whitman was born on Long Island and lived both on Long Island and in Brooklyn during his time in New York, though he considered Brooklyn his true home. In fact, Brooklyn was where Whitman got his first job learning the trade of a printer and falling in love with the written word before a fire in the printing district ravaged the industry. By 17, Whitman was working in one-room schoolhouses on Long Island where he taught until 1841 when he turned his attention and career to journalism. Over the next decade, Whitman founded the weekly newspaper The Long Islander and the Brooklyn Freeman in addition to editing stints with the Brooklyn Daily Eagle and the New Orleans Crescent. The latter stop, one that only lasts three months in 1848, is said to have inspired Whitman’s love for the South. By July 1855, Whitman had published the first edition of Leaves of Grass, which at the time consisted of 12 untitled poems and a preface. A year later, the second edition was released, having grown to 32 poems plus a letter from Ralph Waldo Emerson praising the first edition. Whitman would continue to refine the book for the rest of his life, even after suffering a stroke in 1873 which left him partially paralyzed. He spent his final years working on additions and revisions to his final edition of Leaves of Grass. In total, Whitman published at least eight editions of Leaves of Grass, evolving from that 12-poem first edition in 1855 to an 1892 edition containing more than 400 poems. Whitman died on March 26, 1892.
Photo by Matthew Brady
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Song of Myself “Song of Myself,” the first poem of the original Leaves of Grass, is one of Whitman’s most famous poems. However, according to former United States poet laureate Robert Hass, it wasn’t until the end of Whitman’s life that it was given that name—one previous name was “A Poem of Walt Whitman, an American.” More radical though, Hass notes, is Whitman’s use of free verse instead of a traditional rhyme scheme, something poets didn’t start really experimenting with until the early 1900s. This work, along with some of the work of writers such as Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott, and Nathaniel Hawthorn, exemplifies the transcendental movement. The works of this movement placed value on intuition over rationality, with the belief that a divine spirit resides within everyone and that knowledge of oneself “transcends” what can be seen, tasted, felt, smelled, or heard. In simpler terms, it was a belief in the inherent goodness of nature and people as well as a connectedness to the world around. This manifests in three major themes in Whitman’s poem: the idea of self; the self in relation to others; and how the self relates to elements in nature and the universe. These themes are emphasized through Whitman’s use of repetition and exclamation, with many sections cataloging individuals, locations, and actions that moved him. And though the poem is written with the first person “I,” that “I” is not meant to represent Whitman, nor one individual at all. Instead, that narrative voice is meant to transcend the boundaries of what is typically considered “self.” With this in mind, the title of Gunderson’s play, I and You, through the lens of Whitman, the two pronouns essentially mean the same thing. This poem, and this larger sense of self, becomes the connective tissue between the characters of Caroline and Anthony.
Whitman’s annotated copy of Leaves of Grass
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“Sick Lit”
The genre and idea of “teen sick lit” has been around since the 1980s, with the Smithsonian magazine defining it in 2012 as a genre “awash with tear-jerking stories of ill adolescents who seek only to find the love of their life during their final days.” It’s a phrase that has become a derogatory label for this type of artistic work. Even the Smithsonian back in 2012 cautioning parents, saying that the genre’s penchant for using ill, white, middle-class women as vehicles for the growth of another character as well as its presumed promotion of negative stereotypes about those with illnesses should make parents “queasy.” This argument around the merits and values pops up every few years, with new takes on the genre and its failures. In a 2013 article from the Daily Mail, one thata subsequent article from the Guardian strongly disagreed with, points to popular examples like John Green’s The Fault In Our Stars, Megan Bostic’s Never Eighteen, and Jenny Downham’s Before I Die as problematic for directly dealing with the “harsh realities of terminal illness, depression and death” in novels meant for young adults. The unfortunate reality is, as the Guardian’s Michelle Pauli notes, that these are issues that teens will have to face in their lives, whether directly or indirectly. Even as recently as 2019, Kelsey Miller, writing for Refinery 29, was still pondering the impact of so-called “sick lit” on her childhood. But while she asks some of the central ques-
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tions to the “sick lit” conversation—What are we getting from these harrowing stories? Do they help us grapple with our own mortality?—she lands on an unsettling answer that this type of story pushes painful emotional buttons without having the reader actually experience the pain of living that reality much in the same way that horror movies or haunted houses allow people to experience fear without any actual danger. With I and You, Gunderson bucks this conversation through the use of themes derived from Walt Whitman’s poetry. Much like Whitman’s “Song of Myself,” the events and conversations of I and You transcend what can be experienced using the five senses. These two characters, more than anything, are characters who need each other. The journey they are on could easily be made about their pain or Caroline’s illness. Instead the play highlights two teenagers who let down their walls to confide in each other and trust each other. Ultimately, the transcendence of Gunderson’s play (and Whitman’s poem) is this mysterious human connection, that moment when two become one. A universal experience.
“And as to you Death, you bitter hug of mortality, It is idle to try to alarm me.” - Walt Whitman
What do you think the objects in Caroline’s room say about her personality? What objects in your own home help to define you? Have you ever become friends with someone because of a shared love of something: a poem, song, movie, novel, or other work of art? A sports team? An academic subject like math or science? If so, why do you think that happened? Has a poem, song, story,or movie ever helped you to understand things more clearly? Yourself? The world outside yourself? What was that moment? Is there anything that you hated for a long time, then realized you actually liked? What made you change your mind? In “Song of Myself ” Whitman writes about discovering yourself in others and others in yourself. Have you ever experienced this? Do you think Caroline’s dependence on technology leaves her more isolated, or more connected to her world? How do you think you would have answered this questions a year ago? Two years ago? Why do you think Anthony takes as long as he does to tell the story about his basketball game? Who do you think shows more courage in this story—Caroline or Anthony? How do they show courage differently?
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elements of drama PLOT
What is the story line? What happened before the play started? What do the characters want? What do they do to achieve their goals? What do they stand to gain/lose? THEME
What ideas are wrestled with in the play? What questions does the play pose? Does it present an opinion? CHARACTER
Who are the people in the story? What are their relationships? Why do they do what they do? How does age/status/etc. effect them? LANGUAGE
What do the characters say? How do they say it? When do they say it? MUSIC
How do music and sound help to tell the story? SPECTACLE
Any piece of theatre comprises multiple art forms. As you explore this production with your students, examine the use of:
WRITING VISUAL ART/DESIGN MUSIC/SOUND DANCE/MOVEMENT
ACTIVITY
At its core, drama is about characters working toward goals and overcoming obstacles. Ask students to use their bodies and voices to create characters who are: very old, very young, very strong, very weak, very tired, very energetic, very cold, very warm. Have their characters interact with others. Give them an objective to fulfill despite environmental obstacles. Later, recap by asking how these obstacles affected their characters and the pursuit of their objectives.
How do the elements come together to create the whole performance?
Other Elements: Conflict/Resolution, Action, Improvisation, Non-verbal Communication, Staging, Humor, Realism and other styles, Metaphor, Language, Tone, Pattern and Repetition, Emotion, Point of view. 14
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INQUIRY
How are each of these art forms used in this production? Why are they used? How do they help to tell the story?
elements of design LINE can have length, width, texture, direction,
and curve. There are five basic varieties: vertical, horizontal, diagonal, curved, and zig-zag. SHAPE is two-dimensional and encloses space.
It can be geometric (e.g. squares and circles), man-made, or free-form. FORM is three-dimensional. It encloses space
and fills space. It can be geometric (e.g. cubes and cylinders), man-made, or free-form. COLOR has three basic properties:
HUE is the name of the color (e.g. red, blue, green), INTENSITY is the strength of the color (bright or dull), VALUE is the range of lightness to darkness.
TEXTURE refers
to the “feel” of an object’s surface. It can be smooth, rough, soft, etc. Textures may be ACTUAL (able to be felt) or IMPLIED (suggested visually through the artist’s technique).
SPACE is
defined and determined by shapes and forms. Positive space is enclosed by shapes and forms, while negative space exists around them.
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Sources Academy of American Poets. Poets.org, www.poets.org/poet/walt-whitman. Brantley, Ben. “Review: ‘I and You’ Is Lauren Gunderson’s Sentimental Character Study.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 28 Jan. 2016, www. nytimes.com/2016/01/28/theater/review-i-and-you-is-lauren-gundersonssentimental-character-study.html. Edson, Margaret. “Lauren Gunderson’s ‘I and You’ Sings a Song of Whitman, With a Twist.” AMERICAN THEATRE, 5 Jan. 2017, www.americantheatre. org/2014/06/15/an-interview-with-i-and-you-playwright-lauren-gunderson-2/. “Interview with the Editor: Lauren Gunderson.” St. Ambrose University, www. sau.edu/interview-with-lauren-gunderson. “Lauren Gunderson Website Bio.” Lauren Gunderson, www.laurengunderson. com/bio. Miller, Kelsey. “How ‘Sick Lit’ & Books About Teens With Cancer Shaped My Childhood.” How “Sick Lit”, YA Books About Cancer, Went Mainstream, www. refinery29.com/en-gb/sick-lit-ya-book-trend. News Desk. “Before There Was COVID, Lauren Gunderson Married a Virus Hunter. ‘The Catastrophist’ Is Her Play about Him.” DC Metro Theater Arts, 23 Feb. 2021, www.dcmetrotheaterarts.com/2021/01/07/before-there-was-covidlauren-gunderson-married-a-virus-hunter-the-catastrophist-is-her-playabout-him/. Nuwer, Rachel. “Teen ‘Sick-Lit’ Should Leave Parents Feeling Queasy.” Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 29 Aug. 2012, www.smithsonianmag. com/smart-news/teen-sick-lit-should-leave-parents-feeling-queasy-18215327/. “‘Sick-Lit’? Evidently Young Adult Fiction Is Too Complex for the Daily Mail | Michelle Pauli.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 4 Jan. 2013, www. theguardian.com/books/2013/jan/04/sick-lit-young-adult-fiction-mail.
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“Song of Myself - Study Guide.” Song of Myself Study Guide, www.americanliterature.com/song-of-myself-study-guide. “Song of Myself.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., www.britannica.com/topic/Song-of-Myself. Tanith Carey for the Daily Mail. “The ‘Sick-Lit’ Books Aimed at Children: It’s a Disturbing Phenomenon. Tales of Teenage Cancer, Self-Harm and Suicide...” Daily Mail Online, Associated Newspapers, 3 Jan. 2013, www.dailymail.co.uk/ femail/article-2256356/The-sick-lit-books-aimed-children-Its-disturbing-phenomenon-Tales-teenage-cancer-self-harm-suicide-.html?ito=feeds-newsxml. Tran, Diep. “The Top 20* Most-Produced Playwrights of the 2019-20 Season.” AMERICAN THEATRE, 27 Sept. 2019, www.americantheatre.org/2019/09/18/ the-top-20-most-produced-playwrights-of-the-2019-20-season/. Weinert-kendt, Rob. “Lauren Gunderson on ‘I and You,’ a Play With an Explosive Twist.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 6 Jan. 2016, www. nytimes.com/2016/01/10/theater/lauren-gunderson-on-i-and-you-a-playwith-an-explosive-twist.html.
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