Autobiographical Performance for Teaching English as a Second Language

Ash Marinaccio: Hey, friends. It’s Ash, your host for the Nonfiction Theatre Forum podcast, produced for HowlRound, a free and open platform for theatremakers worldwide. The Nonfiction Theatre Forum brings together artists, documentarians, journalists, scholars, and theatremakers to explore the wide world of nonfiction performance, from documentary and autobiographical work to ethnographic, verbatim, and tribunal theatre and everything in between. Together, we’ll dive into how these forums intersect with community, collaboration, ethics, staging, and more.

Today, we are joined by Baha Sadr, Chris Ackley, Ana Bess Moyer Bell, Eve Kerrigan, and Noga Paulino. They are a team comprised of artists, social workers, language translators, and organizers from Providence, Rhode Island, who are the creators and facilitators of Creative Pathways, an innovative pilot program that teaches English as a second language to refugees and newly arrived Americans using theatre. Creative Pathways uses the tools of nonfiction and documentary theatre specifically to help English learners develop their voices literally and figuratively.

Creative Pathways is housed at the Genesis Center, which is an organization that offers a full range of services to immigrants and refugees in Providence, Rhode Island. I had the honor of collaborating with Creative Pathways last year and directing their first full-length show called I Am Home, which was written and performed by program participants. It was a moving testament to how theatre can transform not only how we communicate, but how we connect.

I’ve worked on similar projects, but something I took away from Creative Pathways, which I think is something that should be replicated in all companies doing this work, was how community-based this was. Local musicians, artists, and theatremakers regularly met with participants, inviting them to be part of performances, make work in their studios, and just become an integral part of the community. Participants were fed at workshops, they were paid for their time, and they were supported through a staff of artists and social workers. How was this possible? Well, we are going to talk with Baha, Chris, Ana Bess, Eve, and Noga to tell us more.

I am so thrilled to have you all with me today. I just gave a little bit of an overview, but can you give us a little background about the Genesis Center and Creative Pathways?

Chris Ackley: Sure. This is Chris, and Genesis Center is an adult education organization. We have been located in Providence for almost forty-five years. We were founded to provide services to immigrants from Southeast Asia that were fleeing the Khmer Rouge and the Vietnam War. Over the last forty-five years, we’ve been providing English-as-a-second-language, supportive services, workforce training programs, all with the ultimate goal of helping people achieve economic independence.

The Creative Pathways program is a sort of adaptation to what we normally do with English language instruction, but we took a different approach where we were incorporating creative arts, drama therapy, and wider community input to help people to learn English, gain confidence, and achieve economic independence.

Ash: And why are you using theatre? I know this was the first theatre program that you’ve done. Why theatre?

Chris: I’ll let somebody else jump in for that one because I’m not the theatre person. I’m not a theatre person. There’s plenty of them in the group.

Eve Kerrigan: I feel like Baha should answer that one.

Ana Bess Moyer Bell: Yeah, Baha, tell us.

Baha Sadr: I can just add a little bit to why Genesis, if that’s okay, Chris. I think it’s good to have that context. I work at Department of Human Services. I’m the state refugee coordinator, so we work with a lot of vulnerable individuals who are new to this country. When they come to this country, they have many issues. And also, they have to find ways to get themselves out of poverty because they’re introduced to poverty. Welcome to America. Figure out how to make it work with high cost of living and language barrier, finding a job, so there’s a lot involved.

We wanted to do a summit around what poverty is to really have a better understanding of how people deal with poverty, people who are deep into poverty. I think, again, based on what we see, some people get stuck in that cycle, so we wanted to do a summit. I thought doing a summit is not really going to give us much information. I think we really need to work with people who are struggling with poverty, find ways to empower them to talk about it, help us better understand it, and figure out what are some of the best practices to help people get out of poverty.

I have had many experiences working with either drama therapy, and Ana Bess and I worked together on a project in 2019 and 2020 with unaccompanied children. I feel like theatre can really empower the individuals to find ways to talk about themselves in a setting that a general audience can listen to it and better understand it. I think theatre has that magic. It’s a form of a art that stimulates minds.

And also, personally, I’m from Iran, so when I came here, I had trouble speaking English, adjusting to the culture. I felt like theatre and arts, in general, helped me find ways to better explain who I am, where I’m coming from, and how to fit in.

Ash: What kind of theatre programs did you participate in when you first arrived to the US?

Baha: I wanted to incorporate comedy and things like that, but it was really hard because I could not be funny in English. English didn’t make sense. My jokes didn’t make sense. I actually did pantomime because it didn’t involve any words, and people were really engaged. They were like, “Oh my God, I didn’t realize pantomime movement, telling stories without words.” Then gradually, I went to the conservatory Trinity Rep, and so I think that’s how I started. I felt like you don’t really need words to tell stories. You just need to find a way of communicating those images and ideas to people.

Then puppet was another form of theatre that seemed somewhat natural. I worked with a lot of different companies, I worked with a lot of youth companies, and then multicultural companies, traveled across Canada, northern Ontario, and just kept up going that route.

Ash: That’s fantastic. We’re going to talk a little bit about language later and incorporating language into the production, but I want to know a bit about the process of building this show. Ana Bess, you were the drama therapist on this project. Could you tell us a little bit about the process and how you started building this piece?

Ana Bess: What we started with was just introducing them, like you would with anybody, introducing them to different aspects of improvisation, of storytelling, of using their imagination, playing theatre games, talking about how stories are structured, and beginning to use their own narrative, their own identities, the roles that they play in their everyday life as a way to tell a story about themselves. They’re in the Creative Pathways program five days a week. On Tuesdays with me, we’re using drama therapy and theatre activities, experientials. Then on Wednesdays, they’re with Eve doing more expressive writing and getting their stories out either verbally or on the paper.

But between those two days, they’re learning vocal skills, embodiment skills, improvisational skills. Then we’re capturing their stories through verbal storytelling and written storytelling. We went on field trips to visit theatres, to go behind stage, to learn about costumes and lights. We learned about rehearsals, rehearsal processes, and all the nuts and bolts that go into creating theatre, and had other teaching artists come in to work with the participants on different parts of the theatremaking process.

They really got this cool kind of holistic behind-the-scenes look at what is theatre, how do you make theatre all the way from how do you create a script? How do you use your own story to create a script? How do you rehearse? How do you create costumes, lighting, scenic elements, and props? How do you rehearse? What does a dress rehearsal look like? What does a tech rehearsal look like, with all of the stress and chaos that ensues?

Through all of that process, there’s so many skills that one learns. They’re learning to work towards a common goal. They’re learning to work as a group, as a collective of people. They’re exploring inside of them what they want to bring out into the performance, what they want to show to the world. They’re also witnessing each other step into different roles, take on different roles, express their stories, and maybe express parts of their stories that they haven’t yet publicly talked about or haven’t talked about in a long time.

I could go on and on about all of the different skills and opportunities that arise from the theatremaking process, but we really push them in the deep end of learning about what it means to make theatre. I think that’s one of the coolest parts of Creative Pathways.

I think if you look at trauma-informed care or trauma-informed approaches, having agency and the ability to make a change in the moment is a huge tenet, and I think that it made a big difference.

Ash: What methods did you use to collect stories? I know for many of the participants, this was the first time they were sharing very personal narratives. How did you create that space where folks felt safe to do that? And then what methods did you use to gather the stories? Eve, tell us.

Eve: I can speak to that a bit. Just going off of what Ana Bess was saying about the theatrical process and their complete saturation into it very quickly, it was really incredible to be part of that because coming into working with this class, I came in a little bit later to collect stories. I realized quickly I was dealing with a broad spectrum of abilities in the room. There were people that had experience with theatre and storytelling in the past, and other people who had never, ever had any experience with anything like that. There were multiple languages in the room. Very few people had any or very little English acquisition. There were people in the room who spoke languages that were isolating languages because they were the only person in the room speaking that language. There are people who didn’t read or write in their own language.

We were really looking at a massive spectrum of ability here and thinking, “How are we going to get all of these people on the same page, get them all to be able to tell their story, to make sure everyone is heard, and everybody feels like they got their moment and were able to communicate effectively?” When I came in, I really made an effort to dovetail everything I was doing onto whatever Ana Bess was doing. I made sure that there was alignment between our classes, because I also wanted to be careful and therapeutic in my approach. They already had a level of comfort and rapport with Ana Bess and Noga, so I wanted to make sure they felt comfortable with me. They had never met me before.

I came in and immediately started doing just some really basic theatrical exercises, some really basic writing and storytelling exercises, just to get familiar with them and let them get familiar with me. I built a rapport with them and then I introduced new exercises weekly that would generally connect to something Ana Bess had done as well in her class. I would take whatever she was doing from a theatre perspective, and I would bring it into a writing or storytelling perspective.

I do say storytelling because, as I said, there were people that are not writing. I would find ways to collect their stories too. Some of that included interviewing with other people in the room. We actually talked a lot about interview skills and what does it take to be in an interview, to be interviewed, to interview someone else? What are you looking for? What are our goals? We talked about things like open-ended questions and inviting people to elaborate on their responses.

I think that just connects a little bit to what Ana Bess was saying about all the skills that people were getting from these classes that go above and beyond just theatre and storytelling, that are real-life skills, like hard skills. While I was building a rapport with them, it was becoming obvious to me that they had a burgeoning community there that was so tight, and they created such a beautiful safety net for one another.

Ash: That was something that really stood out for me in the process was just how collaborative and how successfully collaborative across the board it was. Ana Bess spoke a little bit to the field trips and the guest artists, the work that they were creating, all of these different workshops, the puppetry workshop with Big Nazo, and the music workshop with Rhode Island Community Works. All of this was brought into the final performance. Could you tell me a little bit about those collaborations?

Chris: It made me happy that two organizations that were involved throughout the process, Community MusicWorks, which worked on poetry and songwriting, music was eventually involved in the final performance. Then Big Nazo, which really did a lot to help students understand their stories, bring stories out, and then visualize them through props and puppetry. Those are both organizations that have long histories in Providence and deep ties in the community. I don’t even know how long Big Nazo has been around, but probably over twenty years easily. Community MusicWorks is also getting up there too. And so, they understand the work that Genesis Center does. Getting their expertise, getting their buy-in, and how the students responded to them I think was really special.

Eve: I just want to add that we didn’t necessarily know that these collaborations were going to emerge. It was through that incredible work that they were doing together that it became clear this should be part of the performance. Then Community MusicWorks invited the students to take part in their performance. It just became this rolling ball that kept picking up moss where we kept collecting more amazing stuff to add to this performance that we did.

Baha: I think a lot of the newcomers, adults who are struggling with cultural adjustment and also learning English, they’re intimidated by the new system. They’re afraid of making mistakes. Theatre has this magical, especially when you do theatrical exercises like what Ana Bess, Eve, and you were doing, it does have that magical power that people feel safe and they’re not afraid of making mistakes. Actually, opposite of trauma is play, so that playfulness makes people want to just do things, try things. Without language, they wanted to express themselves. I think that’s really one of the magical aspects of theatre that helps people tap into the powers that they have and they’re afraid of letting loose. That’s part of the reason why I think theatre is a good tool for this.

I remember we had a storyteller, Lenny Cabral, who’s very famous. Everybody knows Lenny, but the vocabulary that he was using maybe was second grade level. Most of the students were at literacy level or even pre-literacy. Some of them could not even speak English at all. For them to feel like, “Oh, somebody is just being so childish, just so free, and telling stories,” just his movements and the fact how animated he was, they were empowered to tell the story no matter what, by any means necessary. They pantomimed it. They used sounds. One of the students who was very intimidated and she always cried before she spoke because she was afraid of speaking in front of others, she got up and she started telling a story about her riding a bike and a bike path. She ran into a snake with her brother, and she told the story in whatever way you could, whatever she could. I think that, in itself, was really amazing, that she was empowered just because she saw how free and how playful Lenny was during his storytelling.

Opposite of trauma is play, so that playfulness makes people want to just do things, try things. Without language, they wanted to express themselves. I think that’s really one of the magical aspects of theatre that helps people tap into the powers that they have and they’re afraid of letting loose.

Ana Bess: One of the things that really helped was having our theme. Our theme was “home” for this production. The title of the performance ended up being I Am Home. Having one collective theme that we were all working on really helped everybody ground into something and connect us all, even if we weren’t in the room with each other when we were creating.

The other thing I noticed, and the thing I know about human beings, is that everybody processes things differently. Having the ability to engage with music, to engage with storytelling or writing, to engage with performance or theatrical games or the hero’s journey, to be able to engage with weaving or prop making or scenic making, but all under the theme of “home” offered the participants this opportunity to think about their story, think about home, think about dislocation or relocation, and be able to use these different mediums to do.

I think the thing we talked about in terms of expressive arts therapy is that it’s trauma-informed because it offers a little bit of space between the person and the experience that they’re trying to work through. Not everybody is going to perfectly align with drama therapy or music therapy, or drawing, or writing, or verbally processing, and so we were giving them this myriad of ways to engage with a difficult conversation.

And then all of those creative elements were on stage with them during the performance. When I think about it, I think about all of the creative elements therapeutically holding them, holding their story, holding the parts of their story that may not have made it into the script, but were living there on stage with them through a thread in a weaving, through the scenic element of their face, and really were operating as a holding environment for them while they were bravely performing their piece. Having that central theme of home really helped. Then, having this opportunity to engage with the theme and all of these different creative modalities I think just really worked well.

Ash: How did you navigate consent and ethical storytelling? Because there were many languages spoken in the room and even in the show, there was maybe five or six languages represented. Not all the participants fully understood English. How were ethics around consent to sharing stories and understanding of what they were doing and what they were going to be performing in front of a public audience navigated?

Ana Bess: Going back and making sure that whoever the participant was that was telling the story or having their story told, that they felt comfortable with their story being told, and with it being told the way that they were telling it in the moment. Ash, you did a really beautiful job of reinforcing the fact that they had agency to edit, change, and take out things from the script all throughout the process, even up to the moment when they were performing on stage.

There was a participant who really struggled around the rehearsal tech week with whether or not she wanted her a really painful traumatic story from her childhood to be shared. I think what made it possible for her to speak up and change her mind was the fact that we had created a container in which they all knew—I think one of the things is we made sure it was translated and we made sure we said it over and over again that they had agency, that this was their story, if they didn’t want to share it, that they didn’t have to share it, and they could pull it at the last moment. I think if you look at trauma-informed care or trauma-informed approaches, having agency and the ability to make a change in the moment is a huge tenet, and I think that it made a big difference.

Eve: I would just say everything Ana Bess just said absolutely was what I was thinking as well. Just that the roots of that were in every class because consistently across the board, I would always tell anyone that they’re never going to be required to share what they’ve written or what they’ve told someone else in the class maybe in confidence. Only with their permission would I ever share it with anybody else.

At the end of a class, I always would go around and take photographs of the work that they’ve been doing in case something got lost on the shuffle and I needed to transcribe it or something like that. Every time, we would have this conversation about, “Is it okay if I do this?” The funny thing is they were always like, “Yeah, obviously, of course. I’m doing it for you.” I’m like, “It’s okay. At any time, you don’t actually have to do that. You don’t have to show me anything. You don’t have to show me the drawings that you’re doing. None of this is for me, so you can absolutely take a step back.” I think they really got that.

Like I said, they had a rapport that was so strong with us and with each other that they were totally cool with it. And when it did come time to perform it in front of a bunch of strangers, aside from a few moments of concern or a few moments of wanting to shift into native language, which I think helped them feel more safe telling their stories sometimes, they were so available, so open. I remember that.

I also know that when it came time to ask for consent and explain what we were doing, it was translated in every language in the room. We would take ten minutes, twenty minutes, however long it took to make sure that everyone understood the steps of the process and what was being asked of them.

Ash: I want to know, following the performance, what were the audience reactions? I watched from the booth and then I went home the following day. You’ve been in the community. What were the reactions afterwards?

Eve: I mean, I think it was really positive. Ana Bess and I were running around during the performance doing props, cueing people to go on stage, and that sort of thing, so it was a little bit hard to gauge for me. I think I just said this to one of you or a few of you recently, but I actually felt more nervous about this performance than I have about any performance I think I’ve ever been in myself. I was really watching, whenever I had a second, the audience to see, are they getting it? Is it landing? I was really worried that they might not understand what they were witnessing and how huge it was. But as it turns out, from the feedback that I’ve gotten, it really landed, people really understood, and really were deeply impressed by the courage of the participants, and also the complexity of what had to occur for them to tell these stories in this way.

Ash: It’s the thing that came up for me while watching the performance and the conversation that I had with my husband in the car in between the final tech and the performance because I was so excited. We had actors and ensemble members who, for the first time, were speaking out loud in front of people and reading. It was a huge step in their language development and in their own personal journeys, learning English. I remember getting very choked up during the final tech. The audience would be like, “Oh my gosh, I hope nobody looks at me because this is very embarrassing because I’m welling up.”

Then getting into the car after and telling my husband like, “You don’t understand. She just spoke for the first time.” I’m like sitting there bawling, and thinking to myself and my husband, really loved the show, loved the work, and so much to say about it, perspective as a performer, and then also as a theatre scholar. But something that I was curious about was the process and can you see the process on stage?

Ana Bess: One of the notable moments for me during the performance was we get through the first scene, and we get into the second scene where our participants were going more in-depth with their journey from their home to the United States. The audience shifted into celebrating and clapping for each member after they told their story. At that moment, I felt like the audience was acknowledging not just what they were sharing on stage, being on stage, and the bravery, but also the bravery of leaving home and coming here.

For me personally, the moment at the end of the show where we are erecting Lady Liberty, and the participants are gathering around her and shouting, “I am home. We are home,” at this moment in history, is such a powerful image and such a powerful affirmation for new immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, people that came from all over the world, that are here, and may not feel fully welcomed and supported here. To say those words and to stand in front of the Statue of Liberty was... It’s hard not to cry just thinking about the image. It was really such a powerful moment, so many moments of deep reverence, respect, and understanding of the bravery of our participants.

Eve: Yeah. I just want to say I know that the performance, obviously, evoked compassion, and I definitely got that feedback, “My heart went out to this person,” or, “They were so brave.” But I also think it was eye-opening for people. One of my friends said specifically that she felt very humbled afterward to witness those stories. That’s a step beyond just having people feel compassion. That is then achieving the goal, which is to share these stories so that it can change hearts and minds.

I keep coming back to this refrain in my mind about this project, which is showing people that this is what immigration looks like. This is what immigration looks like. These people are what immigration looks like. It’s not what you’ve been told in the media. It’s not whatever weird, compartmentalized notions you might have in your mind. These are human beings. They’re whole and complete. They’re complex in myriad ways, and they can share that with you in myriad ways.

Noga Paulino: Some students felt relieved they could tell their stories. Some of them say, “I didn’t say enough,” and some of them say, “This is my home. I want to stay, and this country’s safe.” They all have different feelings, different thoughts, different approach. They do want to continue doing songs, some drama, some presentations, but at the same time, their interest leads to the English language because it’s a barrier for them to get jobs, to be able to make money.

I know that it’s hard for them to look around and find something that they want, maybe follow a career. This is a country of opportunities, but how do we get opportunities when we don’t speak the language? They do feel like we have to do something in this country. We have to make our voice heard. We have to tell our stories so other people won’t be afraid because it’s a frightening thing to be in this country and not be able to express themselves just because, “Oh, immigration’s going to get me. Oh, I don’t have the right papers. Oh, I can’t get this. Oh, I can’t get that.”

It’s like a lot of feelings in their minds, their thoughts, their future. What do they want to do? How are they going to proceed? But life is hard wherever. Haiti is not the same. Guatemala, we had a lot of hard times over there. Africa, we jumped from here to there and we saw people being displaced, dying, and lost a lot of things. But they will come up as they learn the language and they will tell the story a lot more. They will say a lot more of it now, but I’m glad that they were able to do it.

And on top of that, I wanted to say, all those feel angry. Why me? Why did I have to go through this? There is no answer to that, but I say to one of them, “Without war, there’s no victory. You guys are fighters. You guys are Warriors. you can tell the world about these to obtain the victories.” “But I haven’t done anything. My future is not done yet.” I say, “Every day, you have to work on your future.”

Ash: What advice or insight would you give to a community who wanted to start an ESL program with newly arrived folks to the US especially in this moment. If somebody were to replicate this program in their own community and wanted to do something similar?

Noga: I will always say guidance and resources. Without resources, they cannot go anywhere.

Eve: There’s a whole network of nonprofits and agencies that have programs that assist refugees, immigrants, and newcomers to the state, and provide various support to them. There’s actually a referral system that’s being developed to help guide people in knowing where to go for what. That’s happening and that’s in progress now, but there’s already a pretty firmly established network that’s here. Like Noga is saying, if people are interested in attending a jobs program or interested in attending any other of the kinds of programs that are out there, the various people in the agencies know where to point them to go.

As far as this arts-based program, arts-based ESL, because it is ESL, but also this arts program is very unique. So there really isn’t another one like it in Rhode Island. Maybe there are some things that are adjacent, but I think if somebody wanted to start something like this, it’s about partnership and collaboration with existing programs and existing agencies that are already doing this work. Obviously, we couldn’t have done this without Genesis Center to help recruit the participants, and to give us the space literally and figuratively to do what we’re doing. Now, there’s a context for it to grow, so in anybody that was trying to replicate this or create something similar, you have to take the resources that are already there and then put them to work for you in this unique way.

Baha: But you really need to look at the population, what their needs are. But one thing that immigrants have in common, they’re somewhat isolated. The degree of isolation for some people are really high, for some people are not as bad. You really need to create a sense of community in the class, so then they can feel supported by one another. And again, it’s traumatizing for people to speak English, for adults, when they’re not comfortable in it, so you need to encourage them.

When people are extremely vulnerable, they are struggling, and they’re caught in this cycle that they can’t find a way out of it, the only one who can really help them is themselves. They need to build up a self-esteem. And what Noga said that they said after the show, that they didn’t need a translator anymore, that’s really what they need. They need to envision themselves, and that’s one thing, again, what drama does. It tops your imagination because that’s what human beings do. If you can imagine yourself in a different place reaching for something greater, you will do that. That’s what theatre does. That’s the magic of it. I feel like for people who are struggling, and they’re caught in this vicious cycle, they can’t get out of it, this could be a really good tool.

We saw that in the class. One individual who was afraid of saying even one word, she was telling people what to do during the show. She was being the stage manager, telling people that you need to go here, you need to go there in front of an audience. That’s a leadership role to me. I know it may be really simple thing, but for somebody who’s been so frightened for years and years to actually say the slightest thing, but now she’s in front of an audience, she’s telling others where to go, what to do, that’s a huge step. So again, therapeutic skills, leadership skills.

And finally, if we’re trying to create a system that really helps individuals get out of poverty and build a life for themselves, the system needs to change as well. Because you can move them as much as you want to tell them, “Teach English,” tell them do this, tell them do that, “Create jobs. Go work here. Go have three jobs.” But if the system keeps going this way, that’s not going to really work, so that cycle is going to continue. No matter how hard they work, they’re still going to be behind. I think the system needs to change.

How do you do that? By putting on a performance that’s really engaging, entertaining to the audience so the audience who is like your mainstream public community, they actually learned from what is being shown to them, and they come closer to what the message is. The system will eventually change because of what they’re saying. I think it’s really a collaborative effort.

I think, again, when you think about poverty, because the focus of this project is really people who are trying to become self-sufficient and they’re struggling because of that, you really need artists to think creatively and mobilize the students, also mobilize the audience, and come up with a solution. How we can restructure our society for everybody to coexist and take it to the next level?

Ash: I think that is a great way to close this. I want to thank everybody. Thank you all for taking the time to talk about this and to share this work. It’s so meaningful and so important, especially in this moment.

This has been an episode of The Nonfiction Theatre Forum podcast. I’m your host, Ash Marinaccio. This podcast is produced as a contribution to HowlRound Theatre Commons. You can find more episodes of this show and any HowlRound show wherever you find podcasts, including iTunes, Spotify, and non-commercial, open-source apps, like Anytime Podcast Player for iPhone or AntennaPod for Android. Be sure to search “HowlRound Theatre Commons” and subscribe to receive new episodes. If you love this podcast, post a rating and write a review on those platforms. This helps other people find us. You can also find a transcript for this episode, along with a lot of other progressive and disruptive content, on howlround.com. Have an idea for an exciting podcast, essay, or TV event the theatre community needs to hear, visit HowlRound and submit your ideas to the Commons. Think you or someone ought to be on the show? Connect with us through Docbloc and on Instagram, @docblocprojects. That is D-O-C-B-L-O-C. Thank you for joining us at the Nonfiction Theatre Forum.