Why Does “In Darfur” Scare Kristen van Ginhoven?

kristen[button link=”https://app.etapestry.com/onlineforms/WAMTheatreInc/donate.html”] Donate Now[/button]

I am scared. I am scared that our audience won’t come, that new audiences who have heard of WAM and are curious to come see a show won’t come, or will come and will stereotype our work and then never come again.

I am always nervous and afraid going into a production but this year something is different. Because this year I have chosen a fall play that scares me as both director and producer. A play that faces head on the issues that our beneficiaries are working so hard to take action against. I have always said that I don’t have the resilience to be one of those people on the front lines, that what I can do is create an entertaining, intellectually stimulating, and imaginative evening in the theatre, but that I cannot come face to face with the issues for which I am fighting.  That is why I have chosen to become a theatre philanthropist. That is how I have found my way to take action.

So, why am I scared?

Because this year, all signs have been telling me to choose Winter Miller’s play In Darfur as WAM Theatre’s fall production. I have loved this play for four years, since I met Winter at an event and she sent it to me. But it never felt like a ‘WAM’ play. Although it is clever, theatrical, and yes, even funny, it didn’t feel like the type of play I wanted WAM to be doing. Because I didn’t want to be doing ‘those plays’, the plays that my head told me were ‘issue plays.’ The type of plays that producers fear won’t sell tickets because they are ‘important’ but ‘upsetting.’

My greatest fear as the Artistic Director of WAM is always that people won’t come to our shows. – ‘Butts in seats’ we call it – therefore I have worked extremely hard over the past five years to build an audience. We now have an engaged and passionate audience who loves that we bring new plays by women playwrights or plays about women’s stories to the Berkshires. Our audiences love our ‘WAM plays’.

I have had this existential conversation about what kind of play is a ‘WAM play’ with myself, the board, and others for four years. Do all the plays we choose have to have a happy ending? Do all our main characters have to have found a way to turn oppression into opportunity? Having been inspired by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity my answer has always been yes. I want to focus on action, on the people who, through sheer courage and resilience, have found a way to turn their oppression into opportunity. Therefore, until this year, I have chosen plays that focus more on the intellectual, entertaining and imaginatively theatrical aspects of my aesthetic.

Starting WAM Theatre five years ago was the single most vulnerable thing I’ve yet done with my life. It has also been the most gratifying because I have found a way to use my skills in theatre to take action for a cause I believe so strongly in, turning the oppression of women and girls into opportunity.

There are two days during the year when I am at my most proud. The first is when we all gather for the first day of rehearsal for WAM Theatre’s fall play. I am proud that day because it means we have raised all the funds we need to produce the play, we’ve received the rights to a play I adore and am excited to produce and we’ve gathered a together team whom I believe wholeheartedly will tell the story with grace and passion. The second day I am most proud is the closing day of our fall production. I am proud that day because it means we will be making a check presentation to an organization we have chosen as the beneficiary of our production. We will be donating 25% of our box office proceeds to an organization that works on the front lines, taking action for women and girls. People with resilience who put themselves on the front lines and face the issues day in and day out. We will donate funds to them raised by performing a play. It never ceases to amaze me that, through creating an entertaining evening in the theatre, I have become an activist and a philanthropist.

And so, In Darfur.

Hawa, our central character, represents to me the stories in Half the Sky. She is going through a harrowing experience yet finds the courage to keep going, to keep finding a way to put one foot in front of the other. We see Hawa’s journey through the eyes of Maryke, a New York Times journalist, who is working hard to get the genocide in Sudan onto the front pages of the New York Times, and Carlos, an aid worker, who tirelessly works to save and protect lives.

There are many triggers in this play and I feel them all keenly, which is why it has remained in my mind but not on our stages for four years. Yet, all signs throughout this year have been telling me to take my fear, embrace it and do this play. It IS important and we SHOULD do it.

Oskar Eustis, in notes preceding the play says, ‘the greatest theatre reminds us that our responsibilities do not end at the boundaries of ourselves, or our nation.’ He goes on to say, ‘We have produced In Darfur twice, once as part of our Public Lab series and once for a magnificent night at the Delacorte in Central Park. That evening was a great event: A theatrical offering that was also a call to arms.’

A theatrical offering that was also a call to arms. That sounds like a play that WAM Theatre should do. That sounds like a ‘WAM play.’

So, I will embrace my fear and do what WAM is dedicated to doing, which Oskar Eustis writes in his last sentence about Winter Miller’s In Darfur: ‘give voice to those who would otherwise be unheard, to make their story our story.’

[button link=”https://app.etapestry.com/onlineforms/WAMTheatreInc/donate.html”] Donate Now[/button]

Leave a Comment