By Nate Drackett
In Spring 2023, Nate Drackett graduated with a MFA in Theatre from University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. His MFA thesis production was titled, unspecified: a theatrical exploration of identity. He reached across the disciplines of philosophy, social work, and theatre to explore aspects of identity (race, gender, sexuality, mental health, and others) that many have a hard time specifying for themselves. This multi-disciplinary exploration served as a very practical example of how creating space for diverse and multitudinous ideas not only affords deeper inquiry, it also provides the opportunity for shared power, and it facilitates the creation of a community of co-creators. Through the process, he found creativity and curiosity are very closely linked, and many different fields including education, theatre, and philosophy, are using a variety of tools, sometimes overlapping, to tap into their innate power. In this blog he shares the story of his own educational journey and the tools he has discovered for fostering community, inquiry, creativity and a love of learning along the way.
In grade school, I was privileged to attend an alternative school founded and run by my own mother, Susan Drackett. In rural New Castle, Indiana, The Growing Tree Learning Center used an original model of schooling that drew from Montessori and other methods with a student-centered pedagogy. Success was measured not by grades or comparative standing, but rather in routine meetings between teachers, students, and parents, as well as qualitative progress reports written by the teachers. A student’s curriculum was not based on a student’s age alone, but rather followed that student’s own rate of progress in a subject. For example, I remember working quickly up to an 8th-grade level in math when I was the age of a 5th-grader. I also needed more time and guidance with visual art where my classmates progressed more quickly. To support this individualized progress, students were placed in larger “Units” (A, B, C) instead of grades K-8. This allowed for a greater normalization of and flexibility for students moving at slower or faster paces in their subjects.
Though I attended more traditional private schools for the remainder of my formal education, there were a few large takeaways from my early education at The Growing Tree that stayed with me into adulthood and fostered my love of learning. Among them–if we are hoping for the success of individuals, we must create systems that support those individuals’ needs, and recognize how to feed them when they are flourishing and support them when they are struggling. This also means that the metrics for success should be communally devised, rather than systematically prescribed. Though this requires frequent and consistent reflection, and takes additional time up front, its benefits are felt both individually as well as communally. I also learned that sometimes thinking outside of the box and creating new, non-traditional systems can have vast positive impacts on communities. This could be as large as revamping an entire schooling system or as specific as really interrogating how to create a piece of theatre. Overall, I learned the importance of continually asking: what systems truly support a community and which hinder or even oppress the individuals within it?
It’s no wonder that in 2006, my final year of undergrad at Northwestern University, I was attracted to Michael Rohd and his method of communally “devised theatre” pieces. While a traditional American theatre director might seek an existing script to explore a topic, or even commission a playwright to create a new play about it, Rohd and other theatre devisers rely on a community of co-creators to explore that topic in a rehearsal process who ultimately can create the movement, text, and design of the production. Through a series of activities, inquiries, group sharings, and self-guided research assignments, our temporary community created the raw performative material that was then edited by Rohd and his Assistant Directors into a staged production that was shared with audiences in May of 2006.
There are many advantages to this method of devised theatre creation. For one, the gap between the actor and the material they are performing is dramatically narrowed. This reduces the need for formal performance training in the actors of such a production, because what is created and performed is necessarily linked to who is in the room and their skills and experience at the time of creation. This makes “devising” a fantastic tool for working with non-actors and actors alike. Devised theatre has its challenges that should be acknowledged, though. Care must be taken in what is performed and what is edited from the raw performative materials. Who decides what stays in, and what is discarded? More time, flexibility, communication, and creativity is often needed to be successful.
Despite these challenges, devised theatre was an obvious choice for me to use to tackle the questions of “unspecified identities” for my graduate thesis. While I could have written a show about my own specific experience of unspecified identity, devised theatre offered a vehicle to highlight many different individuals’ perspectives. This multi-pronged, diversified approach simultaneously broadened the scope of the project while also localizing and grounding the experience to the here and now of the project’s co-creators.
While I knew from my own experience that devised theatre could provide invaluable tools to co-create theatre, I still wondered how the sensitive, potentially risky subjects of identity could be honestly and safely explored in a theatre community. My experience in many ensemble-based theatre processes equipped me with some basic skills to create temporary communities based in mutual respect, play, and risk-taking. Still, I wondered how do we create space to share openly and to listen deeply?
Fortuitously, I had taken a class that would provide the unspecified process with a framework of care, listening, multitudinous points of view, and communal inquiry. It also exposed me to the mindful facilitation of a broad variety of topics. The class was an introduction to Philosophy for Children (P4C), a progressive education teaching practice that has been cited many times on this blog. In the class, Dr. Thomas Jackson (Dr. J) and Dr. Benjamin Lukey (Dr. Ben) introduced me to a number of facilitation methods and philosophies that would be touchstones in my developing theatre process.
For example, most P4C inquiries democratize the selection of “the wondering”, or the question that the community will be pondering collectively. A method that I borrowed was to have each participant of unspecified contribute a question they would like to explore. These questions were collected and presented to the community, with each question being spoken aloud or highlighted either by the facilitator or the questioner. Then each community member voted for the question that they wanted to pursue as we ideated and developed the production.
unspecified Rehearsal
University of Hawai’i at Mānoa Department of Theatre and Dance, and Late Night Theater Company
Photo credit: Alison Bruce-Maldonado
We also used a “community ball” to facilitate listening and turn-taking during the process. This community ball, beyond a simple metaphor of our community, served as a sort of talking stick. In P4C and my own unspecified process, the ball was used to give everyone “a chance to listen and a chance to be heard”. For the unspecified participants, this served us during communal inquiry to tackle questions like “what story are we missing in talking about unspecified identities?”, and was also used during reflection or feedback. At the end of every rehearsal, for example, we would have a closing feedback session where co-creators were invited to reflect on that day’s rehearsal, including positive and critical feedback. The ball was also used for a check-in with various icebreaker questions to open rehearsals. Each rehearsal began and ended with the community and what we had built together, metaphorically the community ball, and everyone had a chance to speak and contribute to that community.
I also learned from P4C that “we are not in a rush.” I found in the process of creating unspecified that the times we rushed allowed us only a surface understanding or performance of material, whereas holding true patience to listen to someone or to create a piece allowed a deeper understanding, and created space for another’s perspective or point of view to compliment your own.
Now as I reflect on my experiences of the unspecified process, I find myself leaving with a greater respect and trust in humanity. Though I placed myself in a position of leadership, I found that the key to building a stronger community was not necessarily to tell them what they needed, but to ask them instead, and empower them to create it themselves. I was reminded as a facilitator that it was not always my job to hold the answers, but rather to listen to others for their point of view, and trust that deeper solutions are often created communally. A theatre deviser, a philosopher, and a teacher might all benefit from saying this more often: “I don’t know, but let’s figure this out together.”
unspecified Performance
University of Hawai’i at Mānoa Department of Theatre and Dance, and Late Night Theater Company
Photo credit: Alison Bruce-Maldonado
On November 18-20, 2022, unspecified was performed live for in-person audiences. Many of the performers relayed to me how proud they were of the performance, and a few even considered applying their work in production into their own studies or subsequent artistic creations. Creation begets creation. Multiple audience members approached me and mentioned how the production made them feel “seen” in ways that they usually do not experience. Personally for my own learning, though, the biggest successes of unspecified lay in its process. It proved to me that care for the individual has radiating positive impacts on a greater community, that wondering on deep topics requires more time and more points of view to be truly fruitful, and that creating space is infinitely more empowering than “powering through”. All this leaves me wondering: How many of our institutions are built on “efficiency”, and what is lost in such a system? Who does the “swift hand of justice” really serve? Why are so many of our decisions that impact a large community of people made behind closed doors by relatively small boards of people? What do we do about the “loudest voice in the room” when it drowns out quieter ones? These questions need more than me to wonder about, but I hope to help mindful, empowered communities of care thrive both in my art as well as the world around me. This will take time. But we have got to start now.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Nate Drackett (he/they) is a teaching artist living in Seattle, WA. Nate recently graduated with an MFA in Theatre (focus in Theatre for Young Audiences, or TYA), and is currently teaching theatre full-time at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, WA. Nate believes in theatre’s ability to empower people and to create tools for us to rehearse the change we hope to see in the world. Born into financial and educational privilege, Nate hopes to share power with others, create space for voices that are ignored, and collaborate to find solutions that benefit all people, with particular support and activism for LBGTQIA+, indigenous populations, and people of color who are all systematically disempowered in America. Nate received his undergraduate BA in Theatre from Northwestern University in Evanston, IL, and worked with Filament Theatre, a TYA company, from 2009-2016 as an actor, Resident Artist, and collaborator. In Chicago, Nate also worked with The Actors Gymnasium, Lyric Opera Chicago, Piven Theatre, University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and often taught and performed various circus arts. Moving to Seattle in 2016, Nate has worked with Dacha Theatre, Kitsap Theatre, and SANCA (School for Acrobatics & New Circus Arts) as a Program Director. He lives with his wife Lauran Drackett and his two rescue husky-mixes, Balto and Kitt. www.nathandrackett.com
