Interview with Dianne Monroe, development coordinator, company member

By Keith Hennessy

Dianne Monroe: I am a writer and I am also the development coordinator.

Keith Hennessy: So, you are a company member and that means you are on staff?

DM: All company members are not on staff, but I am a company member and I am on staff.

KH: What is the work that most interests you, that you are doing, or that you are doing as a part of Jump-Start?

DM: What most, most interests me is developing my own writing abilities. In addition to that anything, that I do here is interesting to me because there is that principle of doing where their interest lies, or where their talents are. I am very interested in the development of Jump-Start’s education program and using arts in a radical social agenda to do — intervention isn’t the term I want — but you know, in terms of social issues, educational issues. I am interested in that. I am actually surprisingly interested in this development thing. To me it is a tremendous challenge. It is a gatekeeper role. It is a big challenge of who has the money and for what. The big challenge for me is: Can this institution, with its mission and its activities, grow financially without compromising those? Learning more about that gatekeeper function and how to punch holes in it is very fascinating to me.

KH: Talk to me about your writing. What do you write about? Where do you get ideas from? What is kind of the impulse?

DM: I don’t have a shortage of ideas. I usually have a shortage of time to develop them. I am actually very interested in pursuing a radical social agenda through my writing. I don’t necessarily do that in some of the ways that are considered most edgy. Performatively, some of the ways that I do that may be somewhat traditional. I am very interested in exploring questions that are outside what might be considered the normal range, solutions that are outside the range. What attracted me to the story of "Comfort", which was of course based in Texas history, was that these people had ideas that were outside and ahead of the mainstream, Southern, white, Texan. They paid a very high price for that. And what did they do in the face of that? And how are they remembered? I’ve done some other parallel things with other people who are sort of outside the lines of history. I am very interested in history to do that with, but I don’t think I am limited to history as a vehicle. It just is interesting to me.

KH: When you get an idea about something how do you interact with the larger company that is Jump-Start? What role do they play? How does your art fit here?

DM: It fits within the mission clearly. The good thing about the Jump-Start mission is that it is so broad. A lot of stuff fits within it. That was actually part of what attracted me to come and work here. There was a breadth of mission. A lot of things could fit in. Are you asking more how does a new work get developed here, that structural thing?

KH: Well, I am interested in that, but it is more like in terms of this is actually an ensemble. The company is an ensemble. For example in your newest play, there wasn’t a company decision to approach this material. I am assuming you made the decision to write a play about the Freethinkers. Once you make that decision, how do you go about producing it here and accessing all the resources of the group?

DM: Okay. I think a lot of the way things work is only informally codified. Part of it is what I was saying the other day, I think there is a sweat equity thing. If someone is willing to drive something, it can happen. What happens to people might be less bold than trying to drive something. Every year about this time in the company we start talking about what is on the agenda for the next year. There is an organic process. We do a retreat, a company/board retreat, I’m sure they have talked with you about it. People can put things on the agenda. Theoretically any Jump-Start company member can initiate the work. When that is done it is only a question of both setting it on a time table, which works prioritizing. There has never been a situation that I’ve seen where there was more new work than there was room in a season. You could assume that might happen. It is a question of fitting it in. There used to be a very loose system of how much money was put to different things. Some of that would have to do with because Sterling has kind of a reputation he can actually be on grants to drive funding besides our productional funding for his piece. Other pieces will be less funded. There is kind of an uneven thing. This year, we set a limit that any new work had a $2,000 budget that could be augmented from there. Mine and Shimi’s were written into an NEA grant so we got extra money on top or our $2,000. I went out and actually raised money, $750, to further underwrite mine. I don’t know if that is the question you are asking. That is the nuts and bolts. Were you asking about access to resources like other artists, or directors, or actors?

KH: I think I know the answer, which is if you are a company member, people have said your work can be produced here. You come up with it and people back you. I was just interested in hearing any of your own version of the story on it. Maybe what was it like the first time?

DM: Well, the first time I was very lucky. This has to do with the sweat equity kind of thing. I wasn’t yet a company member. The deal was: "Come here and work with us and we will see if we all get along." There has been a tradition that company people can pull in noncompany people if they want. Shimi had been wanting to do something and was very insecure of herself so we kind of did a double bill and she played the role of opening a door for me and I played the role of pushing and nurturing her. We did two joint evenings, by the second one I was a company member. I learned this rep thing.

KH: Talk with me a little bit about — and again this is kind of awkward cause I think everyone has their own language about what the work is, but I think part of our goal in the study is to get at some of these questions — what is ensemble theater? What is grassroots theater? What is community-based theater? Talk about how you see Jump-Start as an ensemble or as doing grassroots or community-based work. Do you have any relations to these things? Why is the work Jump-Start does a better place for you than say another theater company?

DM: I guess there are different interpretations of the word ensemble. So, I’m not sure that Jump-Start is an ensemble in the traditional sense. My understanding of what that would mean is that all these people would work together to make pieces. That is kind of not—

KH: You are more of an ensemble production company.

DM: Right. The person who is driving something can go negotiate with the director, can go negotiate with the actors. Each piece pulls different people either from inside the company or outside the company. To me that is not exactly an ensemble.

KH: That is alright. To me it is still a group theater company for sure.

DM: To me it is all umbrella-ed under a very wide mission within which each lead artist has a lot of permission and control.

KH: What would you say that mission is? You are the development director, so you must be pretty good at it.

DM: I should be able to recite it to you, but I probably can’t. What it is about is two-fold. Innovation in performance in form or content, in the message or the way the message is delivered. And this is directly from our mission, to be a lasting voice of many diverse cultures and also to address critical issues of our times.

KH: You’ve put it right out there that you have a radical social agenda and your personal vision is to marry that with a writing practice in the theater. So, you work at Jump-Start. Jump-Start supports you to do that, you support Jump-Start. There is a semiotic factor. maybe it is about diversity or this disenfranchised voice. What are the voices that you are interested in representing and how has that changed since you’ve been here, if at all?

DM: One thing that was interesting to me when I came that I didn’t necessarily see from far away is Jump-Start encompasses a wide range of views. Though I’m sure we don’t have a hidden Republican in our midst, let alone a public one, not every one is all that radical. I would say I am somewhere on the far radical pole, just in terms of the political stuff. But to me it represents a strength that Jump-Start can pull a wide variety of people from a wide variety of points of view. Sometimes there are works that we do that are very accessible, kind of feel-good works that aren’t that radical. But they speak to a need of one of the minority populations here and that is really valid and important. So, to me, there is a strength in the breadth of that. I am totally quite happy supporting. That, to me, makes Jump-Start a tougher nut to crack than things that are more narrowly political and can be more brittle. To me, that was actually an attractive asset.

KH: Talk to me a little bit about the structure of the company and how it has changed since you’ve been here. Also talk about the role of leadership. Where are you at within the role of leadership? Where do you feel like you are not? I know it is slightly amorphous, but there is also a lot of clear structure here.

DM: To me, how the company works is somewhat amorphous and like I think there is also a sweat equity thing there. If people put in more effort more can get done. That may exist in a conflict if someone has a full-time job outside of Jump-Start, has less time to put in. One of the things we started doing just recently is that we did just an artistic retreat. People just really like the idea of jamming together creatively. How to have that group function more cohesive artistically is important, I think. One of the things that has happened since I came which I think is important is that this is an aging company and it needs new people. Like we just added Annele and Jessica. That is really important, that it becomes young. As a future thing. I don’t know if that answered your question.

KH: You didn’t speak about leadership. I am always interested in different perspectives of a critique around power. How do you see whether it is Steve’s leadership or Steve and Sterling’s? I think you talked a little bit about how the staff, because of their involvement, might have a leadership role to the others.

DM: I think that when people say things happened organically there is a lot of leadership that goes unnamed because it might be easier. I think a large part of Jump-Start is Steve, for better or worse. Better, cause he is a rather uniquely talented individual. But then to the extent that any one person has all that knowledge then that can lead to, you know, idiosyncrasies of an organization that can be good or not so good. I think Sterling is kind of the — how do I say it — gentle, silver-tongued ballast to Steve. So, they are a good team. I think a lot of times organizations that grow up grassroots are like the particular vision of one person and then they take on a life of their own. I think that Steve has that particular vision and then it has gone on to a life of its own. Does that make sense?

KH: Yeah. That’s great. What do you think that life of its own is? How do you see the power structure changing, or the vision changing or even the work changing?

DM: I don’t know that I have been here long enough. For all of us and for Steve, part of the struggle is going to be like the whole thing you mentioned about he really wants to do that and have less power. There is a problem when you want to have less power but you still generally know everything better than everybody else. Figuring out how to do that is going to be a very important part of figuring out how to grow. One person only has 24 hours in a day, and you’ve got to be asleep for at least four or five hours.

Give me the second part to that question again...

KH: As the organization grows apart from a centrality around Steve how do you see that effecting the work or the visions that people have? Or do you see it?

DM: It would have to, but I’m not really sure how. It will have to but it would be fuzzy to me.

KH: I know that we talked yesterday about the Healing Arts Program, but if you could just talk a little bit more about how you see Jump-Start being involved in community or responsive to community.

DM: I think that everything Jump-Start does is connected to one community or another. One of the neat features that is both a strength and a challenge is that it is connected to many communities rather than one. For an example, people may have commented to you about this: Basically anything that we do that is Latino-themed and is easily accessible we usually sell out because there is a tremendous need for that. That audience, when we do something that is Latino and very avant-garde, it doesn’t translate. That would be a hard sell. The audience does not translate into something that is queer-centered. Even if it is a Latino queer doing it. I think that is one of our marketing challenges. Shimi and ourselves are historic hard-sell misfits because neither one of us has a ready audience here. Sterling is always a challenge, even though "Frontera" is going to be a big success in the schools, because it is a 6% African-American population and he doesn’t write traditional African-American stuff. That is really an aside. Everything we do is in relation to specific communities. Also, structurally, we are trying to build these structures where we get direct input from the various communities. Like the education programs, each program has its own steering committee and we have added education partners to our board. With the Young Tongues thing, which was an tremendous model, some young people got recruited. Staff said, "We’ll support ya’ll, go do this festival". So we are trying to do more of what we say, not outreach in a traditional sense, but inclusion. Ya’ll come tell us what ya’ll think we need to be doing. That is where we are some and we are trying to get more.

KH: I think there is a question that I don’t know how to ask, so I’m not getting an answer. I think it is: Why do this work in the first place? Why, especially as someone that has a, in your own quotes a "radical social agenda." For an example, why go and research and do a play about the early Texas Freethinkers?

DM: I’ve wondered that myself.

KH: What are some of the answers you’ve come up with?

DM: There is why do I want to do a play on the Texas Freethinkers and then there is why, if I have a radical political agenda, am I here at Jump-Start.

KH: Or why are you working in a grassroots theater project?

DM: Okay. Because I think that art has a tremendous opportunity, a tremendous power to act as a catalyst for social change. At times there are much more radical direct action things that one can do for social change, and sometimes it is not one or the other. Over a long term, I think if you look historically very radical people who are artists and what is art has just propelled history forward. That is something that is very attractive to me. I’ve also found that you can write all the informative leaflets and all the inflammatory speeches that you want, but there is a difference when you can touch somebody’s soul. Art has the potential to do that. That is another reason that I am here. Also, since you asked, I am interested in the development of what I call "safe spaces." I am interested in alternative institutions, recognizing that is an oxymoron, but can they be preserved. Can one actually work within the confines of the system and build an endowment so that this space is perpetuated for the next generation? The safe space to talk might not mean for Sarah what it means for me, but the safe space is still left. To me that is my interest in the organizational aspect of grassroots organizations. Can things not be so grassroots and shaky that they come and go, but can they evolve? Does that answer your question?

KH: How do you determine success or failure? Just talk about your personal projects.

DM: I think for me, one, by the quality of artistic development. Am I able to do what my vision was to do? Sometimes just by the mundanities of numbers, which is always a challenge.

KH: On the project that you are on now, is there anyone in particular that you want to reach with it? Is there anywhere in particular that you want to take your personal work? How do you determine these things?

DM: The other part of the success is also how do people hear the work, or who hears the work? It’s more than just who is sitting in the audience. I don’t want to reach an audience who is already convinced. What is the sense of that? Which has to do, probably, with why I am researching 18th century Texans. I want to make people think who would not ordinarily think about those things. And so, I am actually happy when I see an audience of over-40 white people. It is a play about white people who were willing to die because they opposed slavery. I would like white people to think about who those people were and what happened to them because of who they were. In another play I might not have the same target audience, but I would like to reach a traditional audience nontraditionally if that makes sense. You know?

KH: Yes. Good. Give me a closer. People are doing research on community based theater, they’ve never been to San Antonio, they’ve never heard of Jump-Start – what do you want them to know about Jump-Start? What is great? What is unique?

DM: We need to get better at the 25 words or less. Jump-Start I think is re-inventing the definition of art and its connections to the aspects of society that have been marginalized.

Keith Hennessy is a Canadian-born, interdisciplinary artist choreographer and community arts organizer living in community in San Francisco. Hennessy's solo work has been produced throughout the U.S., in Canada, New Zealand and Australia, including several gay and lesbian performance festivals. Since 1998, he has performed with Cahin-Caha, cirque bâtard, a French/American, mongrel circus based in France. Hennessy was a member of the performance collective Core and was a founding member and principle collaborator in Contraband, a San Francisco-based performance company. Hennessy co-directs 848 Community Space. He is a member of Alternate ROOTS, a service organization for community-based artists, and serves radical cultural agendas as a consultant, director, teacher, curator and agitator.

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