Meet Che’Rae Adams

We recently connected with Che’Rae Adams and have shared our conversation below.

Che’Rae, so many exciting things to discuss, we can’t wait. Thanks for joining us and we appreciate you sharing your wisdom with our readers. So, maybe we can start by discussing optimism and where your optimism comes from?
During a board meeting at PlayPenn the other day, one of my board members asked me this exact same question. I was taken aback at first, but then reconsidered the relevance of the question. Given the current state of the American Theater, how can I remain so optimistic about the implementation of our initiatives and funding for our programs? My answer came quickly and easily. I believe that the programs that we provide free of charge to Philadelphia playwrights and audiences are valuable to the community. Therefore, I think the community will continue to support us and that our munificence will come back to us ten-fold.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
December 1st, 2023 will be my two year anniversary as Artistic Director of PlayPenn. PlayPenn provides programming, support and initiatives for American playwrights. It is the premiere new play development organization in Philadelphia, and it is known nationally for its annual New Play Development Conference. The work I do at PlayPenn is in collaboration with Associate Artistic Directors, Susan Dalian and Santiago Iacinti, both of which are new play development proficients from historically marginalized communities.

Two years before I started my work, the board of directors and staff had begun to reimagine the organization. After the Black Lives Matter movement took hold, PlayPenn started on their journey of becoming an anti-racist organization. These values are at the core of what PlayPenn strives for and works hard to achieve everyday.

Community and Collaboration has always been a big part of who I am as a leader. When I took on my new role at PlayPenn, I brought the part of me that longs for connection with my community. I started by meeting with Philadelphia artists, grantmakers, donors, artistic leaders and audience members. I listened to their concerns about the harm that had occurred in the past, and asked them to be part of the solution as I began the work of healing and rebuilding.

My first year, we were tasked with presenting our annual Conference. Before we could initiate the event, we needed to look at the existing Conference policies and procedures through an equity and inclusion lens. As a result, we modified our blind submission policy to reflect our values of diversity, equity and inclusion. For the first time, playwrights were asked for their demographics so that we could match them with readers who had similar ones. We felt that this gave each play the best possible chance of moving forward.
But the question remained, how can we show the Philadelphia community that we are committed to not only telling them stories, but to telling their stories? The answer was to do something that was unprecedented in the history of PlayPenn. We asked for play submissions exclusively from Philadelphia playwrights. Eighty of our community members agreed to be script readers which led to them becoming essential voices in choosing the finalists in the 2022 Conference. It continues to be our commitment to amplify these stories from the communities which reflect the town in which we live.

With the closing of other new play development institutions such as The Lark, The Humana Festival and the Sundance Theatre Lab, our work became even more relevant. We started 2023 with the question “how can we serve more playwrights while experiencing funding challenges?” The answer came in the form of new initiatives, partnerships and programs that serve Philadelphia based writers.

This year, PlayPenn was thrilled to add something new to our season by teaming up in an exciting new partnership with The Sol Project, a groundbreaking national theater initiative dedicated to amplifying Latiné playwrights’ voices. This collaboration nurtured the work of Latiné Philadelphia playwright eppchez yo-sí yes. With this partnership, PlayPenn has the important opportunity to serve the mission of both organizations and expose the work to more audiences. In addition, the advocacy work of Artistic Director for Native Voices and citizen of the Cherokee Nation, DeLanna Studi, came to our attention. As a result, we presented a virtual reading of her new play “I” Is For Invisible”, which addresses the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women in America. Together, these two workshops further our mission to raise up voices from marginalized communities.

Also in 2023, The Playwrights Cohort at PlayPenn was born in partnership with the Dramatists Guild. This year-long professional development program serves 29 emerging Philadelphia playwrights and focuses on navigating the industry. Our existing education program, The Foundry, will continue to center on the playwright’s artistic growth, while the new Cohort will empower freelance writers to grow as entrepreneurs capable of making savvy business decisions.

The most exciting and special part of my job is PlayPenn’s commitment to maintaining the organization as a new play development hub in Philadelphia that supports playwrights from communities who have been historically marginalized. We feel strongly that it is important to tell these stories in order to further the conversation about diversity, equity and inclusion in this country.
With the addition of the Cohort, along with The Foundry and workshops, PlayPenn serves more writers annually than ever before.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
The most obvious area of knowledge that I acquired over the years is the skill of developing a new play. After directing them for many years, I sort of became a dramaturg out of necessity. Once I was focused on directing, I started my career in regional theater, and then made my way to small experimental theaters. My first job out of college was assisting the Staff Producer at The Mark Taper Forum where I worked on the writing workshop of the Pulitzer Prize winning “Angels in America, Part II: Perestroika”. Also for the Taper, I coordinated the 1991 Taper Lab Series and Mentor Playwright’s series. These projects were like master classes in new play development. During my early training period in the theater, I wanted to assist as many professional directors as possible so I could learn from them. Some highlights from that time were Tom Hulce and Jane Jones on the premiere of “The Cider House Rules”, (another Pulitzer Prize winner) at The Seattle Repertory Theatre. I also worked with John DiFusco on the 20th anniversary of “Tracers” at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble where it was originally developed. Regional theater introduced me to the best artists in America and taught me discipline, structure, and best practices. Eventually, I moved out of assisting and into directing my own work. I was lucky enough to establish relationships with local playwrights and went on to develop and direct their work.

Eventually, I became more of an advocate for playwrights than anything else. When I first started, I saw the need for an organization that nurtured talent and provided services that playwrights needed in order to take their work to the next level. As a result, I founded The LA Writers Center in 2006 which began at the Lankershim Arts Center in North Hollywood as an invitation-only writing workshop for local writers. Those same writers became LAWC’s first members and are still part of the advanced writing workshop. Their work has consequently been produced in theaters across the country.

The best advice I would have for others who want to nurture new voices, is to find mentors who direct or produce new work and apprentice with them. These mentors will lift you up and give you the knowledge, skills, and connections that you need in order to move forward. When you are ready, connect with playwrights and ask to read their plays. The plays that move you will be the ones that you will be hungry to develop.

A quality that I feel was impactful on my journey in new play development would probably be flexibility. For example, during the pandemic LAWC pivoted and moved all programming and classes online. There was a need for a call for action after George Floyd’s murder and we wanted to stand in solidarity with Black Lives Matter. We decided to introduce new initiatives such as the “Breathe Reading Series” which was designed to amplify BIPOC stories; “Home: Asian Voices Reading Series” which was in direct response to the anti-Asian violence; and “Voices From Afghanistan” which was based on a series of interviews with artists in hiding after the 2021 Taliban invasion. HowlRound TV came on as a partner which increased our global reach to over 1,500 viewers.

The best advice I would have for others who want to develop their flexibility, is to keep yourself open to ideas that are outside of the box, surround yourself with people that are smarter than you and listen to them, and above all, do what really matters to you. Identifying the three things that I just mentioned is the hard part, but once you do, your options will be limitless.

Before we go, maybe you can tell us a bit about your parents and what you feel was the most impactful thing they did for you?
My parents exposed me early on to organizations such as EST (Werner Erhard )Marriage Encounter, and The Forum. I was taught to think critically and interact with others on a more personal and intimate level. I was a shy child, so these programs helped me to become more gregarious, communicative, and open minded. I also learned practical people skills that I could use in my personal life that eventually spilled over into my professional one.

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Image Credits
Photography by Ken Sawyer and James Kern

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