Epic Theatre Ensemble: Empowering Young People to Use Their Voice Through Performance For Social Change

Since its founding on September 11, 2001, Epic Theatre Ensemble continues to inspire young people to utilize their voice through performance to create social change and motivate civic dialogue. From school residencies to college, Epic is continuously building relationships with students and communities while producing bold theatre work.

We sat down with Epic's Co-Artistic Director, James (Jim) Wallert, and Director of Film, Michelle Beck to learn more about Epic's mission.

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First, I want to ask you individually how you both are doing during this wild pandemic? How are you feeling?

It's been a challenging time for Epic as well as a lot of theatres. We have made the transition to doing a lot of work in different digital formats. We have done a lot of work over the last eighteen months in film. Professionally, it's also allowed us to work with a number of different education partners in different parts of the country; in Seattle, Maine, Washington DC, and all over the country. Everyone was working remotely, but several of those partnerships have turned into in-person work. It has been challenging but Epic has managed to weather it and it's actually been a time of growth in terms of our program. I have managed to stay healthy, safe, and working. Just managing the complications of navigating life during COVID, but yeah, no complaints.

Great, and Michelle?

Michelle: Epic started on September 11, 2001. That was the first day of operation, and so I feel like because that happened to the organization there's always been this sense of flexibility and that's what's been so impactful about working through COVID with Epic. The connections we have been able to make in schools and the shift to digital programing have opened up a lot of opportunities for students. Students are able to work individually. They can work on projects at home. They're able to communicate their artistry about social justice issues through the film projects we have made, which is exciting! Also, it's been a chance for us to document the theatre work that we have done. There have been several touring shows that have gone all over the country and traveled internationally. With these shows, we have been able to develop the virtual version of them to be able to share with audiences and that's been really, really exciting.

Wonderful! Now I am going to go outside of Epic Theatre Ensemble for just a moment, can you tell me a little bit about yourself? Now is your chance to brag!

Michelle: I have been a professional actor for a very long time. I have worked on Broadway, a lot of Off-Broadway, regionally, and internationally. I have done a lot of Shakespeare as well. I have worked in a lot of avenues of theatre. I have done television and film. I am a recurring role on the latest episode of Power Book II: Ghost. I am in season two of Luke Cage. Also, I am in Homeland, Manifest, Madam Secretary... In addition to being an actor, I am a writer, director, and producer.

My short film, The Snakes, that I wrote, directed and produced is running on the festival circuit and is now on HBO Max. It's set in an alternate future where Roe v. Wade is overturned and a young depressed black woman witnesses the prelude to a sexual assault and guiltily joins the neighborhood watch group where she deals with the culture of fear and channels her rage into violent fantasies. All of the main actors are Epic actors. I actually wrote the role for myself, but I decided I wanted to focus more on directing, so Carra Patterson, who is a fantastic actress, graciously accepted the role and is so fantastic. We have such a great cast. We have Jacob Ming-Trent, Nilaja Sun, Stacey Sargeant; just a lot of theatre heavy hitters, and of course, Jim Wallert.

Thank you, Michelle, and Jim? What about you?

Jim: I am an actor, writer, director, educator, and producer. I have been acting in New York for about twenty-five years now. I have done a lot of Off-Broadway and a little bit of television and film. I am very excited to be part of The Snakes. I am one of the founders of Epic Theatre Ensemble. We founded the company in 2001 so I have worked as one of the co-founders, the administrators, and co-artistic director. I am also a playwright. We produced my play, The Winning Side, which is a play about the ethics of the early United States space program and scientific innovation.

Most recently, I am also a published author. I have a book called Citizen Artists: A Guide to Helping Young People Make Plays That Change the World. It's a book that looks at Epic's process of creating work with young people. Specifically, work that's geared towards addressing public policy issues. It sort of looks at how do we take young people and put them at the center of conversations about public policy and education. So many times there are a lot of rooms where young people and students are talked about but they are rarely given access to those rooms and even more rarely given access to decision-makers and policymakers.

So, the book is really about how you help young people form an ensemble, create new work that directly addresses policy questions and policy issues, and how do you take that work and those young people and put them in proximity to the people making those decisions about those policies. So that's been really exciting to write that book and go through the whole process of editing and publishing.

So what exactly is your relationship to Epic Theatre Ensemble? I know you mentioned it a little before, but can you go into more detail about what you both specifically bring to Epic?

Jim: Sure, so I am one of the co-founders and I am the co-artistic director of Epic. I lead a lot of our summer youth programs. Our youth ensemble is called Epic Next and I lead those Epic Next programs where young people are creating plays connected to public policy. Then as Michelle mentioned earlier, we tour those shows all over the city, the state, the country, and sometimes internationally. So, I kind of lead the process of identifying commissioning partners and lead the students on their process of creating that work. Also, helping to rehearse it, present it, and coordinate the tours of that work.

I do a lot of teaching artistry work with the company and work with our partner schools on in-school and after-school programs. I'm actually right outside the door of one of our after-school programs at Evander Childs Campus in the north Bronx. We're working on a series of short films that connect to Romeo and Juliet. They're expanding on characters that are mentioned in the play but don't make appearances or other sorts of small characters. We're going to be shooting those and screening those later in the spring. So, I do work with Epic as a teaching artist in school and after school, plus directing our youth ensemble and touring efforts. In addition, I am a company actor, playwright, and director.

Michelle?

Michelle: So, I am Epic's director of film. I actually directed a 40-minute original text version of Romeo and Juliet last summer. That piece is at the core of the after-school program that Jim just mentioned. The students come in and watch that version and build pieces off of that. The pieces are original text and in Shakespeare's language. It's set in the Bronx, and it features our Epic alumni and some professional adults. Not all the students who come through Epic become actors, but we certainly have had really talented actors come out of the program who are now pursuing acting professionally.

In addition to that, I run Epic's film school. It's a new program with Epic. It's in its second year. Basically, it's a group of students that get together and learn the technical aspects of filmmaking. They do cinematography, they do editing, and they develop projects around social justice issues, just like the theatre pieces we make at Epic. Those students were also able to be production assistants on Romeo and Juliet which we shot last summer. They're also getting exposure to a professional film crew as well.

I also teach in Epic Next, the summer program I just mentioned. I have mentored in that program for quite a while. I have my personal mentees in the program, but I also teach acting and I have a film class I teach as well. I have done the in-school residencies. I have done some writing residencies where students write their own monologues and scenes. We just really encourage them to investigate social justice topics and issues and create narratives from that.

Perfect, oh, just to clarify one thing. So Romeo and Juliet, the 40-minute original text version that you created. That features the alumni of Epic, correct?

Michelle: Yes, as well as Epic professionals; like mentor artists, so there are some adults... Oh, Jim, Jim is in it! He plays the Friar!

Jim: Yeah, it's nice to do. I mean, what's exciting about a project like that is so often if you see Romeo and Juliet in a regional company or in a professional setting, and Romeo could be in his 30s and Juliet in her late 20s, or 30s...

Michelle:...Yeah, I have seen Juliet in her 40s.

Jim: Yeah so it's exciting to have the young people played by teenage artists. It wakes up the play in some really exciting ways when you're able to have actual age-appropriate young people playing these parts. Just wakes it up in some really exciting ways. And it lets me play Friar Laurence!

So for Romeo and Juliet, did you say that you used the actual finished product as sort of a guide for the new incoming students?

Jim: Yeah, so we received funding from a National Endowment for the Arts program called Shakespeare in American Communities. And the purpose of that is to bring original text productions, fully original text productions of Shakespeare, and connect it to young people all around the city. And so, Epic had received that grant for five years to do theater productions of those plays. That's actually how Michelle first came to work with Epic where she played Isabella in our production Measure for Measure in 2015...

Michelle:...But ironically, Carra Patterson actually played the original Isabella and I came into it because it was a remount.

Jim: Yeah, but with COVID limiting the play production last year, they made an adjustment to the program to include film and digital projects. So the idea is that students see the version of the play that Michelle directed, the filmed version, and then they create their own work of art that is inspired by that. So it was the group that I'm working with in the north Bronx; they've decided to expand and we're calling it the Romeo and Juliet Cinematic Universe. They're taking a character like Rosaline, the girl that Romeo is obsessed with and in love with who just broke up with him before Juliet, and they're looking at that character that's named in the play, but we never see her. And they were creating her story. What's her deal? Why, what did she break up with Romeo? What is does think about what's happening? How does she connect to the story?

They're also creating another short film that looks at how the conflict between the Montagues and the Capulets began. We're told that these two houses have been in conflict with one another for years, but we don't actually see the genesis of that. There's a group of young people that are creating the film that looks at that. So we have students around in other programs with partner schools in different parts of the city. They see the film, and then they're creating an adaptation of that piece, they're re-mixing Romeo and Juliet using some of Shakespeare's language in some of their own writings to create their own version of the story. So the constant is that all of these students are seeing Michelle's film which is a very accessible, high quality, beautifully shot and well-performed version of Romeo and Juliet.

Can you actually explain what an average day would look like for a student who is in Shakespeare Remix, and maybe a student who's in Epic Next?

Jim: Sure. I can sort of walk you through it. There are three main education programs that we have at Epic. We have our in-school program in which we bring artists into English classrooms, history classrooms, science classrooms, civics classrooms, and we're using the tools of the arts as a way to enhance instruction.

So like arts integration?

Jim: Yeah, and they don't actually choose to participate. They just show up in their science classroom and an artist is there and we're going to be writing plays inspired by scientists who have wrestled with ethical questions connected to their work as one example. So there's the in-school work where we're partnering with teachers in classrooms. We work on average with about 2000 students every year in those programs. For students that are interested in continuing their work with Epic in a deeper experience, they can self-select and choose to come after school and participate in Remix. They will come two to three times a week after school usually for about two hours. And they will work with a group of their peers and several Epic artists to analyze a Shakespearean text. They'll work through the text as actors and discuss it, and then begin an adaptation process where they begin creating their own work, adding their own voices to the piece, and creating that text. Then we go into the full rehearsal process where they will work with Epic's design team and artists. Then we will mount a finished production of their work. Before COVID we would mount those pieces as plays that we would produce in Off-Broadway venues like Theater Row, Classic Stage Company, or National Black Theatre.

Epic Next, that's our youth ensemble, and those students want an even deeper experience. And they're electing to come work with us for about six weeks over the summer. They come to meet us in a venue; we often do this work on college campuses at places like NYU grad, or City College, or Pace University, and the students will come there and work with us for about six hours a day, five days a week for six weeks. And they receive training in acting and improvisation in playwriting, directing, and immersive theater. And while they're receiving that training, they also get commissioned by a partner organization to create one of these touring plays around the different aspects of educational justice. Things like educational segregation, standardized testing and assessment, sexual harassment in education spaces, and some of the federal protections that are available that a lot of people don't know about. So they're building those plays. While they're receiving artistic training, students in Epic Next over the summer get assigned the professional mentor; an artist to work with them. It's about a three to one student to artist ratio. Each artist has three students that they're working with closely.

Then we do a lot of college access work. So we'll take those students on college visits, sometimes to stay overnight on campus so they can get a feel for what these campuses are like. And we're also assisting them with their college application process, working with them on personal statements. For those who are looking at BFA programs, we're helping them with auditions. Our Executive Director, Ron Russell is actually a certified college counselor. So he works with the students and their families on the financial aid process. We've been really successful in helping students receive a lot of scholarships, grants, and financial aid. So yeah, those are sort of the three areas of our education work, it's really about the depth of experience that a student is interested in terms of connecting with Epic.

Can you expand just a little on the college part?

Jim: Yeah, in a lot of ways we tried to introduce the idea of college. Many of the students that we work with are first in their families to attend college. So very early in their work with us, our artists are really transparent and speaking about their process and their education. They talk about where they went to school and some of those decisions that went into it. Also, we do a lot of touring to college campuses with some of this work. Whenever we're taking students to different parts of the country, we try to connect college visits with that. We try and connect with admissions officers there, do college tours, and we try and arrange for students to stay overnight in the dorms. So they have that experience of it as well. A student's mentor will be working closely with them their junior and senior years to really get to figure out what kind of college experience they're interested in, whether it's a larger school or smaller school, a BFA program or a BA program, somewhere here in the city or getting outside of New York. We have a volunteer program, a corporate engagement program, where volunteers come in to look at students' personal statements, and offer feedback. Sometimes we'll do mock interviews to simulate when students would be interviewing with an admissions office or for a scholarship. Also, just working really closely with families. The financial aid process can be really daunting and really confusing. We have long-term relationships with students over the course of their high school careers. We tried to start really early having those conversations and cultivating a sense of trust with those families.

If you're an outsider wanting to help Epic Theatre Ensemble, what could you do? How could they do that?

Michelle: Well, they can certainly go to our website and make a donation.

Jim:...yeah, we are a not-for-profit. So fundraising is always an important part of the work that we're doing. I think folks that are interested in supporting in that way are always appreciated. They can go to our website and sign up for our mailing list and they can receive information about the presentations that we're doing both online and we hope in-person soon.

We're also very much are open to folks coming and seeing our work. We, for years, have had an open rehearsal policy, in that we invite folks to come into our rehearsal rooms and kind of see the work that we're doing. We dedicate a number of rehearsal days throughout the year to rehearse in classrooms. So we will have a regular equity day, but we'll be in an English classroom, and students will be seeing the rehearsal happen. And at different moments, the director might turn to the audience and ask for their feedback on things like that. So yeah, we also invite people that are interested in seeing the work that we're doing in schools, or after schools to come in and see the work and participate.

Where do you both see Epic Theatre Ensemble in the next 10 years? What's the ultimate goal?

Jim: You know, as we mentioned earlier, during that period of remote learning, we were able to work with schools all over the United States. We've worked with students throughout New York City for the last 20 years, I think the goal is to be able to expand and connect with students and educators in schools all over the country. Our mission really is to place theater at the center of civic dialogue. I think oftentimes people don't connect theater with social justice. I think it would be really exciting to encourage more young folks when they see social injustice; when they see something in their community that needs fixing to think of the creation of art, the creation of theatre, the creation of film as a way to activate that kind of change. I think that kind of a mindset shift is only going to happen through young folks who are able to re-envision the possibility for theater. I think working with more young people and in different communities. Changing what we think the possibilities and the efficacy of theater can be.

Michelle, would you like to add anything?

Michelle: I don't know if I could say better than Jim just did.

No problem! Is there anything specific you would like the BroadwayWorld readers to know?

Jim: Well one of the plays that was created a few years ago was called Nothing about us. That title was inspired by this sort of civil rights mantra of "Nothing about us without us is for us." And that really in a lot of ways has become the rallying cry for the students that we work with; this idea that if adults in a room are making education policy, and they're not inviting young people into that room, then something's wrong. I think that in a lot of ways it's impacted the way we think about our own education programs, and so I just think that's a mindset that I hope the theatre industry sort of takes on more of and takes more seriously. Thinking of young people in their education programs as collaborators, rather than customers. Really thinking about the young people that are coming through their doors. You know, how can we as adult professional artists, collaborate with those young folks and make work with them? Not just what we perceive will be interesting work for them. So yeah, that's a mindset that we've tried to bring to the table. I think it's been it's made an improvement in the quality of our work, and the quality of our collaboration.

Michelle: I think I would like to add just how important mentorship is in our organization. How critical it is to the development of young artists, particularly young black and brown artists. I think it's important for us to be looking at the fabric of the culture and values of organizations that we're a part of, and to ask ourselves, are there black and brown people represented in the senior leadership of the organization? And if not, how can mentorship invite some new relationships and new dynamics into the organization?

What are you both proudest that Epic Theater Ensemble has accomplished?

Jim: I would say in general, the thing I'm most proud of is that Epic has been able to maintain a relationship with the young people that we've worked with. And some of them are 10, 15, and 20-year relationships with students that we worked with when they were 14. Some of them are now professional artists on our stages or on our films and are working as mentors. I'm proud that we've been able to bring students we've worked with on staff and in full-time positions. In some cases, we have seen them go on to do work with other organizations or become board members or supporters of the arts. That's one of the most exciting things is just seeing those relationships and the growth of the young people that we've worked with...

Michelle:...Yeah I think that's one of the reasons why this particular project I am really excited by. So we developed a piece called Creation of the Nation, and it's inspired by The 1619 Project. It explores the impact of the legacy of slavery, as shown in the United States today. And basically, this piece was commissioned by an education conference to open for Nicole Hannah Jones, who is the journalist who created the landmark 1619 Project. I'm really excited about it because it's written and developed by our alum Epic students. It's so insightful, incisive, well researched, and beautifully articulated. It investigates how this paradigm shift could influence young people in the future.

And Creation is going to be at the center of citywide professional development sessions with teachers looking to create spaces and curriculum that is more culturally responsive. So we're working with the department of education right now to do those sessions. And the sessions will be led by our alum artists, which again, really speaks to what Jim was saying. You now have such an amazing cool cohort of young people who are brilliant artists, really socially-minded, and at the forefront of dialogue of this particular book.

Jim:....and the film made Nicole Hannah Jones cry, which that's something I want to put on my resume.

That is a big compliment! Thank you so much for sharing with us about Epic Theatre Ensemble!

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