Generation Now: The 5-Theater Collaboration Creating Your New Favorite Plays

Generation Now is a collaborative program between five theaters that all share one mission: to expand and diversify the plays that exist for multigenerational audiences. This partnership between theaters spans the entire country: Ma-Yi Theater Company represents New York, Penumbra Theatre and Children’s Theatre Company (CTC) represent Minneapolis, and Latino Theater Company and Native Voices represent Los Angeles.

Generation Now has the ambitious goal of co-commissioning and co-developing 16 new plays that uplift BIPOC voices. Some of these plays are written by established playwrights, others are emerging artists — all tell fresh, exciting stories in which audiences will delight.

Earlier this fall, CTC hosted the first Generation Now Reading Series. The series began with a thoughtful panel between four Generation Now playwrights. The series also included three readings in addition to a viewing of the world premiere of “Drawing Lessons” on the Cargill Stage at CTC. The weekend offered an opportunity for the participating theaters and the associated artists to connect, compare notes, seek community and — most importantly — dive deep into some pretty phenomenal stories.

The introductory panel for the Generation Now Reading Series was a thoughtful conversation with and introduction to the first four playwrights in the program. They spoke about their works, their inspiration and the impact of the Generation Now program. These playwrights included Gabriel Rivas Gómez (“Level Up”), Ifa Bayeza (“One Small Alice”), Dustin Tahmahkera (“Comanche Girl on the Moon”) and Michi Barall (“Drawing Lessons”).

Because these works are aimed at multigenerational audiences (which is usually understood to include everyone over the age of five), many of the playwrights spoke about the influence that their own children have had on the works they created for Generation Now.

Barall spoke about her teenager’s love for graphic novels finding its way into the heart of “Drawing Lessons.” Gómez joked that Generation Now gifted him with a rebuttal to his three kids’ frequent query: “Why do you write plays we can’t see?” Tahmahkera spoke about the way that his play was meant to honor his daughter just as much as the aunt whose storytelling and artwork were foundational to its creation.

Stories aimed at multigenerational audiences have a lot of work to do. “Each generation might take something a different way,” Bayeza mused, followed quickly by agreement from Gómez. “What is an injustice to me is not a big deal to my daughters and vice versa,” he said, going on to explain that when families see a play where the parents learn to understand the children and the children learn to understand the parents, it can help that family more clearly see and heal their own miscommunications.

All four of these works could be considered coming-of-age stories, but their similarities in style, perspective and theme pretty much end there.

Gómez’s “Level Up” deals with themes of gender identity and technology and is steeped in nerdy (primarily ‘90s) references that will be enjoyed by geeks of all ages. Bayeza’s “One Small Alice” uses familiar touchpoints from American folk tales and Alice in Wonderland to tell the story of an enslaved girl pursuing her freedom. Tahmahkera’s “Comanche Girl on the Moon” is a lilting love letter to sci-fi and Comanche culture told in verse and brimming with magic and dad jokes. Barall’s “Drawing Lessons” is about a girl with crippling social anxiety who finds her voice through a pencil, a drawing pad and the encouragement of a local art shop owner and her aunt’s love of manhwa.

Generation Now is successfully platforming innovative, engrossing storytelling that will make kids whose backgrounds are often overlooked feel seen. It also affords audiences of all ages the opportunity to appreciate the Venn Diagram diverse storytelling offers. Diverse perspectives overlap. Diverse perspectives differ. Diverse perspectives allow one audience member to experience a story fresh for the first time while the person in the seat next to them delights in references that hit their nostalgic touchpoints.

The readings, in addition to being an introduction to Generation Now’s current works in progress, also offered some soft workshopping elements. At the end of each reading, attendees were invited to tell the playwright what they liked about the piece, ask them neutral questions and offer opinions if the playwright wanted opinions. Playwrights were offered the chance to ask attendees questions about how they experienced the play. The kick-off panel of the reading series was skillfully navigated by moderator DeLanna Studi, artistic director of Native Voices. Michael Winn, associate artistic director and director of equity and community partnerships at CTC, moderated the talk backs and ensured that they were both productive and affirming for the participating artists.

The one deviation in the reading series was the world premiere of Generation Now’s first production: “Drawing Lessons.” “Drawing Lessons” fairly leaps off the stage, utilizing innovative, multimedia techniques that pull audiences directly into the mind of the play’s main character. Considering the highly imaginative worlds that all four of these playwrights have built, I can only assume that it was exciting to see the enthusiasm with which the participating theaters are bringing these new works to life.

All four of these works exist in vibrant, beautiful worlds. All four of these works are funny, difficult and accessible. All four of these works wrestle with painful parts of the human experience that will inspire conversations in the multigenerational audiences that they are intended for. All four build a propitious sense of anticipation for the continued development of Generation Now projects.

Hopefully, Generation Now will have an impact on kids (and adults!) who finally see themselves and their peers represented on stage. Whether the story is empowering or elucidating, Generation Now aims to make it clear to young theatergoers that they belong on the stage and in the stories told there. This writer is proud that two of the five theaters represented in this program are local to the Twin Cities and is looking forward to the rest of the stories Generation Now will find and share here, in New York, in Los Angeles and beyond.