School of Drama
Preparing Drama Students for a New Theater Landscape
written by
Shannon Musgrave
The future of the American theater is being rapidly reshaped in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resurgence of the racial justice movement in our country. As the industry itself is shifting, so are the methods and practices of teaching the next generation of theater makers.
Professor Kaja Dunn joined the School of Drama in fall 2022 and brings with her a vision for creating a more diverse and inclusive theatrical landscape.
"I see a space where the stories that have been pushed to the side or hidden are brought front and center," she said, and beyond just telling these stories, broadening the ways in which they are told. "Using aesthetics from Asia, from the African diaspora, from the Latinx and Indigenous and Middle Eastern diasporas, and seeing how that changes the way we think about musical theater, or theater, or film."
She reflects on her own conservatory experience as one that was designed to "tear you down to build you up," forcing everyone into one type of Eurocentric mold. She’s much more interested in cultivating students’ understanding of their truest selves and building them up from there.
"I’ve been really interested in better ways of training theater students of color," she said, "and I think when we center the most vulnerable, we help everybody."
She hopes to accomplish this by exposing students to a broader history of theater and the people who have been making it, and to expand the ways in which students can learn about and tell those stories. In the fall, Dunn taught a course in anti-racist theater where students were assigned to research both theater companies and theater makers who center the work on, or are members of, the global majority. Their final product, however, was not a research paper or a report, but a TikTok or Instagram reel. Students were invested and excited about this work, Dunn said, and got creative with their projects; one even wrote an original song about Alice Childress.
Bringing Professional Experience into the Classroom
"Theater has changed faster in the last three or four years than it has in about 200," Dunn said with a laugh, "so there’s a lot that theater and academia are figuring out for the first time."
Outside of the academy, Dunn works professionally in theater, television and film as an intimacy director and diversity consultant, and serves as the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Specialist for Theatrical Intimacy Education — a consulting group specializing in researching, developing and teaching best practices for staging theatrical intimacy. She sees firsthand the shifts in the industry as she works with theater companies around the country to create more equitable and culturally competent practices.
In a field that is so rapidly changing, Dunn said she feels an urgency to ensure that students are not only prepared for those changes, but also equipped with the knowledge and fortitude to push them forward. Keeping her finger on the pulse of what is happening in the industry is a tremendous benefit to her students.
"It’s important to be able to tell students, 'This is what’s happening in the field,' and as the field is changing, to bring that into the classroom," she said. For Dunn, maintaining the duality of working professionally and in the academy is vital. And she is driven to utilize the experience and knowledge that has been passed on to her, to encourage and lift up the next generation of artists.
"I’m teaching," she said, "because I feel like it’s really important to pass on the legacy of people who fed into me."
