Discovering theatre later is often the case for folks of color, who have historically been overlooked for leadership positions, marketing, and season selections at theatres, let alone for educational opportunities. After the murder of George Floyd and the We See You, White American Theater movement, these disparities received renewed attention.
In the 2021-22 school year, the Next Narrative Monologue Competition kicked off, aimed at centering Black professional playwrights and uplifting young theatre students of color. Inspired in part by the long-standing August Wilson Monologue Competition, Next Narrative is the brainchild of Jamil Jude, artistic director of True Colors Theatre Company in Atlanta, which hosted the Wilson competition since it was founded there, by then-artistic director Kenny Leon, in 2007. Next Narrative pairs working playwrights with high school performers, who are then mentored in their regions. Participating regions send their top two finalists to New York City, with all expenses paid. The finalists participate in workshops with theatre professionals, see a Broadway show, and perform at Harlem’s historic Apollo Theatre. The top three winners also receive cash prizes.
For Jude, who grew up on the work of August Wilson and his contemporaries, Next Narrative is a way to continue that legacy by lifting up new voices to expand the American theatre canon, all while feeding a teen pipeline that will fill college programs, professional stages, and audiences well into the future.
“There are a hundred contemporary writers and only one Mr. Wilson, right?” asked Jude. “I think that’s the Trojan horse: getting kids in high school speaking the language of these contemporary writers they will ultimately go out and audition for and give them a leg up, we hope. Getting that training in high school programs, and not leaving it up to the universities that unfortunately have been slow to incorporate more contemporary work in their offerings, is important.”
Next Narrative makes intuitive sense, said Meg O’Brien, director of education at Boston’s Huntington Theatre Company, which has been heavily involved with both monologue competitions. “These are writers in the American theatre currently, so they’re also writing about what it means to be Black in America today. We are able to provide students with arts learning that provides a brave space for them just to explore who they are and how to express themselves, while also providing them the text to analyze, dig into, and improve literacy.”
O’Brien started off at Huntington Theatre Company as education manager in 2008, before moving into her current role in 2017. In 2023, the Boston region saw its entrant, Sakura Rosenthal, win the national Next Narrative championship, and a $3,000 scholarship, with a piece titled Happiness by Rachel Lynett. In addition to highlighting and advancing young talent, the aim of NNMC is to maintain the freshness and contemporary sensibilities of today’s dramatic writers, all the better to make theatre relevant to today’s students.
“We have a lot of love for Shakespeare, obviously, but he’s old, he’s dead, he’s white, he’s British,” O’Brien said. “For teenagers today, there’s a really hard sell to get them to understand the universality of that text, just by starting out with basic history of who he was and where he lived.” The other thing that excites O’Brien about NNMC is when “our students choose to pursue the arts post-high school…It’s a dream and a joy.”
Even competitors who don’t choose the arts as a career are more likely to be lifelong theatregoers, which bodes well for the ecosystem as a whole. Writers, actors, and patrons of color are needed now more than ever, with perilous attrition in every corner of the industry. And a greater preponderance of stories by and about people of color means that trained and skilled writers and actors are needed to tell and interpret those stories.
These competitions may be audience builders in themselves. As Jude put it, “A lot of people who come to our high school monologue competition regional finals in Atlanta—that’s the first time they’re seeing a True Colors event. So now we can say, ‘Hey, remember that monologue you liked? It’s actually written by this person and their whole play will now be onstage.’”
Every high school theatre educator invites their students to examine the world in a new way through this ancient art form, in a pursuit that requires self-interrogation, maturity, and courage. The words can come from classic or contemporary text, but the skills required remain the same. Put another way: Late in The Diary of Anne Frank, Margot rebuffs Anne’s offer to join her and Peter for company, saying no for a simple reason. “I have a book,” Margot explains.
It is hard not to look back and think about that line, delivered by a kid who struggled to master the task of reading. Sarah, offering that line with delicious irony, didn’t throw away an opportunity to pen her own chapter as a teenage thespian. As so many teens have learned firsthand by stepping onto a worn-down high school stage, sometimes just a few words delivered to an audience can change a life in magical ways.
David John Chávez (he/him) is a regular theatre contributor to the San Jose Mercury News, San Francisco Chronicle, American Theatre magazine, and KQED (NPR/PBS affiliate), among other publications.
