Preadolescents: straddlers of a chasm of constant contrasts. Considered “too old” to still be treated like kids yet “too young” to be treated like anything else. Expected to “be themselves” in the face of peer pressure while still figuring out who “themselves” be. Yes, “kids” young and old have cringed, cackled, and clapped in unison over the highs and lows of maneuvering the maze of middle school for generations. But never before quite like this…
Middle school students banter back and forth in class… and have their quips reviewed in real-time by their publicists? Kids engage in the kinds of hi-jinks expected of their age… then reflect on their own motivations with a post-pandemic mental health vocabulary thought to be beyond their age? Viral TikTok dances become the cause of… a zombie apocalypse?
Welcome to the world of… Midiculous.
Preadolescents straddle a chasm of constant contrasts. While many books, shows, and movies have been written about the preadolescent experience, maneuvering the middle school maze has never been captured like it will be in this new offering from Drew Anderson and Dwayne Lawson-Brown, who will engage with D.C. students and invite them into the development of MIDICULOUS, where they will see their own words and ideas brought to life on stage. Building on the success of similarly developed plays at Keegan (PUSH THE BUTTON, FROM GUMBO TO MUMBO), this world premiere will be written for, with, and about middle-school aged students about the issues that concern their lives.
Keegan Theatre will bring 400 D.C. middle school students to attend staged reading performances of MIDICULOUS. As part of the complete field trip experience, students will participate in four in-school pre- and post-workshops, exploring the intersection between creative writing and theater, with the playwrights working directly with the students to create the content of the show. Through this experience, students will develop skills in improv, sketch comedy, creative writing, and performance, and engage in important conversations about issues concerning them in their everyday lives and the world at large.
A science teacher turned teaching artist, poet/parodist turned playwright, and marathon runner turned motivational speaker, DREW ANDERSON is founder and co-host of Spit Dat (the longest-running open mic in the nation’s capital) and co-creator of the critically-acclaimed stage productions Push The Button and From Gumbo to Mumbo (nominated for the 2020 Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Production – Theatre for Young Audiences, winner of “Best Of” at the 2019 Charm City Fringe Festival). A nationally-credentialed teaching artist and DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Fellow, Drew has merged his passions for entertainment and education into such arts integration initiatives as Spoof School and C.R.U.N.K. Academy, bringing his unique spin on hip hop, comedy, parody, drama and poetry to stages virtual and physical, local and international.
Previous shows include: Keegan Theatre: Push the Button (co-writer, music director), From Gumbo to Mumbo (co-writer, performer); THEARC/Woolly Mammoth Theatre: Spit Dat: Homegrown (co-writer, performer); Motor House: Fools and Madmen Present Hip Hop Much Ado About Nothing (Don Pedro), Fools and Madmen Present Hip Hop King Lear (Edmund).
DWAYNE LAWSON-BROWN, aka the Crochet Kingpin, is co-host of Spit Dat, the longest running open mic in Washington, D.C. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., they have performed and hosted at The Kennedy Center, Woolly Mammoth, Keegan Theatre, The Strathmore, the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, and others. In addition to various poetic accomplishments, Dwayne is a Helen Hayes-nominated playwright, competitive karaoke champion, and CEO of Crochet Kingpin Designs.
Previous shows include: Keegan Theatre: Push the Button (co-writer), From Gumbo to Mumbo (co-writer, performer); World Music Collective at Keegan Theatre: Dear Mr. Duncan (co-writer, performer); THEARC/Woolly Mammoth Theatre: Spit Dat: Homegrown (co-writer, performer).
LRR. Lila-Rose Roberts (interviewer)
DREW. Drew Anderson
DWAYNE. Dwayne Lawson-Brown
LRR. I’m really excited to get to talk to you guys about the play that you have written – well, play-rap-spoken-word-performance-art. I mean, how have you guys been – do you call it a play?
DWAYNE. I’d call this squarely a play. This is definitely a middle school comedy, with um, with heart. Yeah. That’s the way I’d say it.
DREW. Yeah. Part musical, part choose your own adventure. All farce. But with a message. Farce with force.
DWAYNE. Boom.
LRR. Talk a little bit about how the form and the content of the play interact with each other, how you came to arrive at this version of the story being told in this way.
DWAYNE. Drew and I both grew up respectively nerdy kids and we love the concept of choose your own adventure books, right? Figuring out that every decision meant something that could either alter the course of that character’s history or change the environment – every choice mattered. That is a really powerful tool to learn from. And a teacher teachable tool to use.
DREW. This is our third play and every play we do we intend for it to be entertaining, but we also intend for it to have a message. This is an age where people feel powerless for different reasons… you’re just old enough to have expectations of quasi-adults, semi-adult, kind-of adult responsibilities, but yet you’re not an adult. And so when you say how to and interact with the content, I feel like choice is one of the stars of the show because that’s what I really want. Like, you know, that’s where I think we really want to sink into their heads. You have choice. You have power. If we have Q&As after the shows, I hope the students ask what would have happened if we made that other choice? Because that’s an existential question. It’s something I want them to ask in real life. What happens if I pick that other choice?
DWAYNE. Another thing that’s really exciting about this show is how we went into schools and did a series of workshops for middle school students to help write the show… so it’s their sayings that’s in there. It’s character tropes that take the personalities that we’ve witnessed and that they described — and amped them all the way to 10. I’m really hoping… what I hope the audience gets from the show, the students who come to see it, I hope that they feel seen. The intent is for it to reflect their reality, and I want adults to recognize like, oh, the young people are facing the same issues that we’re facing. For the adults… I want the students to look at the show and say, you know what? My teacher is still human. My teacher isn’t, you know, some person that lives off on a mountain and doesn’t have to deal with these same issues that I deal with in my neighborhood, too. There’s the reflection of our reality.
LRR. I wonder if you could share a little bit with me about the specificity of this story in DC… how do you see it being special and specific to this city and these kids’ experiences, and how do you see it being transferable and universal?
DWAYNE. For this story, we’re kind of coming at a bunch of the youth’s concerns. These are things that they brought up. Things like feelings of isolation, right? And not knowing how to really connect with different social groups. They also brought up AI, right? They brought up deportation. And while some of the things that they brought up aren’t the key issue in the show, they get referenced and they get brought up. There are little moments where you realize that this show takes place in our real world, even with the hyper-blown out characters.
DREW. When people wonder why Shakespeare was great, it’s because he took what was universal and made it personal and he took what was personal and made it universal. Same thing that makes poetry great.
LRR. I just have one more question I would love to ask, which is just a moment of appreciation for something that emerged in this process that surprised you…
DREW. So when we wrote the scenes with L’apostrophe and Jacques, every scene has a different dynamic, a different energy, like there’s a romantic relationship. There’s best friends. There’s playful bickering banter. But we needed to decide what this relationship is… And so I had to go through and change things that they said to each other to define the relationship.
DWAYNE. There is a moment that happens with Mr. Robinson that is plucked directly from my past. And I’m very excited that I got a chance to write about that. Because it’s one of those stories where like the people expect that – a lot of the students feel like we haven’t gone through their type of experiences because we didn’t have the tech that they have and things of that nature, right? And there’s a moment that I don’t want to necessarily spoil in the interview, but a flashback happens for Mr. Robinson where he gets in trouble. Maybe – maybe in trouble. And it is pulled directly from my life.