The best-known opera composers tend to have one thing in common: They’re men. This weekend, the Maryland Opera Studio presents new works by New York-based female composers Justine F. Chen and Missy Mazzoli. “TWA” graphic by Eric Wheatley
From Claudio Monteverdi to Benjamin Britten, the classical music canon’s best-known opera composers tend to have one thing in common: They’re men.
This weekend, the University of Maryland’s Maryland Opera Studio (MOS) presents new works by New York-based female composers Justine F. Chen and Missy Mazzoli. Though both operas take on timeless themes—including love, jealousy and the pursuit of wealth—and are at least partially set in the past, they aim to resonate with modern audiences.
“These works show opera is still living and breathing,” said soprano Kira Neary, a second-year Master of Music student who will perform in Mazzoli’s “Proving Up” on Saturday night. The 2018 piece, which The Washington Post called “a true opera of our time,” is a commentary on the American dream as experienced by the Zegners, a fictional family of 1860s homesteaders.
“Of course, there will always be a certain joy for me in performing works from the 18th and 19th centuries,” Neary said, “but there is something so exciting about a work written by a young, contemporary voice, with a message that is so timely.”
Chen’s “TWA,” commissioned by MOS and composed in collaboration with its singers, was inspired by the historic folk ballad “The Twa Sisters,” which recounts the tale of a girl drowned by her lovesick, jealous sister.
“We are incredibly fortunate to have such a well-established composer write a work for our singers,” said MOS Director Craig Kier. “This is our form of scholarship. This is our form of research. And this is our way of moving the operatic canon forward.”
Chen signed on librettist Jaqueline Goldfinger to create an episodic work in two acts. The first retells the dramatic tale, while the second looks at the story through the present-day lens of social media and internet trolls.
“I want to make opera something that everyone feels is relevant to their lives now,” said Goldfinger. “Canonical works are great works, and they should be performed. But if we’re making something new for today’s audiences, it should reflect their lives. This is really an opera for all.”
Throughout the process, Chen and Goldfinger met with MOS students, individually and as a group. Chen called the singers “fascinating individuals” and said: “I’m so happy to be working with them.”
For first-year Master of Music student Claire Marguerite Iverson, a soprano who will perform in “TWA” as a sister in the present-day, working with Chen and Goldfinger has been unforgettable.
“As singers, we can be left wondering what composers like Mozart intended, but seeing an actual person as they try and understand how they want to tell a story is amazing,” she said. “We’ve seen it come to life in front of our eyes.”
Article by Jessica Weis ’05 for the University of Maryland’s Maryland Today.
KCRep long-awaited debut at Copaken runs through February 19th.
Darren (Matt DeCaro) and Edith (Laura T. Fisher)
Friday night saw the debut at the Copaken theatre of Mashuq Mushtaq Deen‘s Flood, an absurdist tragicomedy making its first appearance on stage courtesy of the KC Rep. This reviewer has always been a fan of absurdist theatre, so it was with considerable excitement that she attended the evening’s performance, eager to see a premiere that has come a mere 3 years after its workshop reading in 2019 (thanks again, covid). Happily, this reviewer can safely say she was not disappointed.
Playwright, Mashuq Mushtaq Deen
Flood takes place in a cozy, midcentury modern apartment on the 19th floor where Darren (Matt DeCaro) and Edith (Laura T. Fisher) live in quiet retirement, a pair of boomer empty-nesters marking time. The names, by the way, are no coincidence: the relentlessly cheery domestic sitcoms of the 50’s and 60’s are an ongoing motif in the play. It is very much the world that the couple has created for themselves: clean, domestic, and isolated from the not-so-niceties of the outside.
During the play, Darren (wearing what one might call his “Father Knows Best” mask) labors away at his “great work”, a baffling construction of toothpicks and glue. Edith, ever the pleasant and patient hausfrau, hovers by his side, waiting for the moment that the work is done, when at last they shall have tea, enjoy their Very Nice View, and all questions will be answered. So far, so Beckett. But the story really takes an extra dimension when the pair’s grown children, Darren Jr. and Edith Jr. (Darrington Clark and Jamie Morrow, respectively) enter the picture. The two children, having moved down to the lower floors of the same building with families of their own, try desperately to raise the alarm: the building is flooding, the water is rising, and they are scared for themselves and their families.
Their protestations are less than successful: the elders, having grown up in a world where such things Do Not Happen, are unable to comprehend what they are being told. Darren Sr., in particular, refuses even to speak directly to them, too wrapped up in his “magnum opus”. But as the waters rise, and the view outside becomes less and less familiar, even they have to eventually reckon with the world.
The production is a clever one, very well staged in a way that lets the world gradually intrude itself into the main characters’ lives. The view outside the windows slowly transitions until there is nothing but blue, blue, blue. The books of unanswerable questions (which Edith has been carefully writing down for the glorious day when the work is done) grow and accumulate around the couple until it seems a wave is about to come crashing down on them. Mr. Deen’s script is witty and skillful, taking us step by step through the story and keeping a good balance of humor and tension. There were no weak spots in the cast, though special mention must be made of Ms. Fisher who ably carries the great bulk of the play.
Overall, Flood is a splendid work, a truly contemporary take on absurdist theatre written with sharp and fresh relevance. It is first and foremost a story of generations: of the ones that were raised in one world and imparted the values of that world to a generation that finds itself in a very different one. Those of the protagonists’ generation will recognize the bafflement of finding themselves in a time where the old rules seemingly no longer apply. To the younger viewers, the frustration of the children trying to make their progenitors understand will no doubt ring all too familiar. And to the very pleasant older lady in the elevator on the way out who loudly asked if anyone could tell her “what all that was about”, the answer, dear lady, is that it is about time that you looked out the goddamn window.
Tickets available HERE at KC Rep, performances through Feb. 19, 2023
Airea D. Matthews, Emma Copley Eisenberg, Nikil Saval, Warren C. Longmire, Jacqueline Goldfinger, Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow, and Greg Pizzoli come through with book recs this holiday season.
by Julia Shipley, For The Inquirer
Dec 19, 2022
Philadelphia is packed with literary talent. We chased after some of the city’s finest to ask what projects they’re working on, and got them to suggest what books (and tickets!) to gift this holiday season.
Author Jacqueline Goldfinger is a Philadelphia-based playwright and author of “Playwriting with Purpose” and “Writing Adaptations and Translations for the Stage” (co-written with Allison Horsley).
For your loved one who wants words that leap off the page … and onto the stage
Who: Jacqueline Goldfinger is a Philadelphia-based playwright and author of Playwriting with Purpose and Writing Adaptations and Translations for the Stage (cowritten with Allison Horsley), published by Routledge. They are also the cofounder and director of creative affairs at Tripwire Harlot Press.
Currently working on: Goldfinger’s opera, Alice Tierney, will premiere at the Oberlin Opera Company in January. The libretto, written in collaboration with Philadelphia-based composer Melissa Dunphy, is based on an infamous true murder story from the days of colonial Philadelphia and features Penn archaeology students who excavate Tierney’s home to figure out what really happened to her. Goldfinger is also premiering a new choral work, A Bright Morning Dawns with Philadelphia conductor and composer Dominick DiOrio of the Mendelssohn Chorus. And their new play, Backwards Forwards Back, will premiere in 2023.
Holiday season rec: Three Plays by Christina Anderson, Rarities and Wonders by Phillip Howze, and Doodles from the Margins: Three Plays by Hansol Jung. Fans of Anderson’s play, How to Catch Creation, (produced at Philadelphia Theatre Company), and fans of Jung’s plays, Wolf Play and Among the Dead — both performed at Theatre Exile — will enjoy the latest works from these powerful playwrights. Goldfinger says these books include visual art alongside the text, “They’re mini-performances on the page.”
Audrey II (voiced by Katrina Lauren McGraw, puppeteered by Brandon Leland, puppet by Matthew McAvene Creations) demands food from Seymour (Phil Wong) in TheatreWorks Silicon Valley’s “Little Shop of Horrors.” (photo: Kevin Berne)
Forget the poinsettias and celebrate this holiday season with an Audrey II. Perennial stage favorite “Little Shop of Horrors” is blooming in the Bay Area for a second time this year (Another production was mounted at the Berkeley Playhouse in the spring) at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley), and for good reason.
With its pop-culture savvy book and lyrics by the late gay writer Howard Ashman, a zippy 1950s pastiche score by Alan Menken and an off-kilter monster movie-meets-“Sesame Street” scenario adapted from Roger Corman’s grindhouse classic, “Little Shop” offers family-friendly entertainment (Let’s say for ages 10 and up) with a full stratum of funny subterranean dirt for adults to dig while the kids remain oblivious.
Chief among the musical’s adult pleasures is the sadistic dentist, Orin Scrivello, played here to puffed up perfection by Nick Nakashima. Under the wise direction of Jeffrey Lo, he combines the looming but cartoonish physical presence of a parade float with an endlessly elastic repertoire of facial expressions to simultaneously portray and undermine his potentially problematic character. (Orin physically and psychologically abuses shop girl Audrey, played by Sumi Yu, who effectively conveys a growing confidence as the show progresses).
Late in the second act, Nakashima nearly steals the show altogether, unexpectedly popping up in three smaller roles —one of which is female— in rapid succession. But complete larceny is impossible given the wealth of talent on stage here.
In addition to Yu, whose comic sweetness feels entirely natural, Phil Wong turns in a deliciously self-conscious Seymour, keeping you on his side even when his dorkyness turns to darkness; and the Motown Greek chorus of Ronette, Chiffon and Crystal (Lucca Troutman, Alia Hodge and Naima Alakham) aces their giggle-inducing blend of choreographic slinkiness and editorial side-eye.
Audrey (Sumi Yu), Seymour (Phil Wong), and Mr. Mushnik (Lawrence-Michael C. Arias) investigate an unusual plant (puppet by Matthew McAvene Creations) in TheatreWorks Silicon Valley’s “Little Shop of Horrors.” (photo: Kevin Berne)
If Ashman and Menken, who also wrote the lyrics and music for Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Little Mermaid,” are role models for teamwork, their standard is lived up to by this production’s puppetry crew. Matthew McAvenue Creations’ design, Brandon Leland’s remarkably expressive manipulation and Katrina Lauren McGraw’s disco diva vocals combine to give Audrey II, the man-eating plant, an alluring vegetal vavoom.
As Mr. Mushnik, Seymour and Audrey’s boss, Lawrence-Michael C. Arias’ turns in another yet another laugh-out-loud performance. He takes a character usually played with the exaggerated shtetl schmaltz of a downtown Tevye and instead pushes the caricature full-on Filipino, complete with thick accent (Think: “Ip I were a rich man!”).
Director Lo’s decision to make this switch from “Oy!” to Pinoy, trading one comic stereotype for another, feels clever given Arias’ background, and inoffensive given the show’s broad brush humor (The character’s name remains Mushnik; Wong’s Chinese-American Seymour’s similarly semitic surname is “Krelborn”).
Unfortunately, in marketing this otherwise top-notch production, Lo and TheatreWorks have effortfully stressed the fact that they’ve set their “Little Shop” in San Francisco’s Chinatown and cast mainly AAPI actors. It’s great to see representation, but other than a bit of set-dressing —a tail-wagging cat clock, a mural of Bruce Lee, Chinese characters on store signage— the shift feels largely irrelevant otherwise.
There’s a little rainbow flag by the cash register and a photo of Harvey Milk (next to a headshot of former SF Giants’ Tim Lincecum) pinned to the flower shop wall; a nice little bit of queer and local representation on stage, yes. But is there any deep meaning? Might Mushnik be growing pansies? I noticed these clever details without a press release extolling their virtues.
“Little Shop” is a smart, silly comedy. TheaterWorks’ noise about its version subtly addressing issues including Chinatown gentrification and domestic violence in the Asian-American community feels overstated and unattractively opportunistic. There’s a theater marketing strategist who deserves a meeting with Audrey II.
‘Little Shop of Horrors,’ through Dec. 24. $30-$100. Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto. (877) 662-8978 www.theatreworks.org
Do we feel the environment breakdown in our gut? Will people looking back see art that conveyed the existential threat of the emergency?
Playwright Tira Palmquist — “I’m drawn to stories or art work that make the questions (and potential answers) immediate, visceral, possible.”
Back in 2005, author and environment activist Bill McKibben wrote a piece called “What the Warming World Needs Now is Art, Sweet Art” in which he wondered why the climate crisis had “yet to register in our gut,” that it hadn’t become part of our culture: “Where are the books? The poems? The plays? The goddamn operas? Compare it to, say, the horror of AIDS in the last two decades, which has produced a staggering outpouring of art that, in turn, has had a real political effect. I mean, when people someday look back at our moment, the single most significant item will doubtless be the sudden spiking of temperature. But they’ll have a hell of a time figuring out what it meant to us.”
Nearly two decades have passed, and our culture has changed. Far more books, poems, plays, and even “goddamn operas” inspired by the climate crisis have been produced. But do we feel the environment breakdown in our gut? Will people looking back see art that conveyed the existential threat of the emergency? Have artists dealing with the climate meltdown had any “real” political effect? I would argue that our art has not delivered a gut punch and that contemporary American theater has pretty much been missing in action. And that is symptomatic of our dangerous embrace of denial — or is that innocent trust? — that those who got us into this mess are going to get us out, without our pushing them with all of our might to do the right thing. “Perhaps the way we respond to the crisis is part of the crisis,” observed Bayo Akomolafe. Producers can’t decide how climate change should be presented to theatergoers: they fear that scripts that come on too strong will scare off well-heeled audiences. Preaching is frowned upon. The scripts I have read tend to separate into three categories: warnings that inaction contributes to the coming catastrophe, dramatizations of people seeking solutions, and utopian scenarios that posit an optimistic vision to work toward, including eco-socialism and ecodharma.
These theatrical approaches have their strengths and weaknesses. Scripts that combine elements from each might be the most effective. But theaters have up until now generally ignored the forces that need to be placed center stage — politics, class, and spirituality. Of course, stage companies, for the sake of maintaining “business as usual,” neglect these hot-button targets. But those who are pumping out hothouse gases — and their enablers — must be confronted. The fossil fuel industry is not the only culprit, but its collaborators, including megabanks and governments, through greed and arrogance are killing the planet. It is time to name names. In the American Repertory Theater’s Ocean Filibuster, for example, the polluted oceans were given (intentionally?) bad legal advice: they should have been suing oil and gas companies, wealthy countries, oligarchs, megabanks, and dictators, not “Mr. Majority.” The future will call for stories that strengthen our primal interconnection with nature, tales inspired by the biophiliac perspectives of Indigenous people: “Before, nature had a life and spirit of its own. The trees, skies, and rivers were living spirits. Now we are only concerned with how they can serve us.” — Phra Paisal Wisalo. Finally, stage companies should be challenged: how can they help create the kind of broad collective — across the classes — that will be needed if we are going to force the necessary changes? Dealing with the crisis will call for well-led and well-organized groups of people, millions (eventually) who will demand that we slow and then reverse our mad dash toward extinction. Theaters could be one of the institutions that inspire that broad alignment, strengthening the resolve of what might become an army of dissenters from the neoliberal status quo.
A partial model for this partnership would be ’60s protest theater, which drew on the era’s spirit of civil disobedience. Companies such as Bread and Puppet Theater, the San Francisco Mime Troupe, and The Living Theatre were spawned by — and at times coordinated with — the era’s protest movements. They staged entertaining but pointed works that raged against the Vietnam war and capitalism, that condemned race and gender discrimination. What’s missing today is that crucial link between the stage and real-life efforts to demand justice and confront authority. I suspect it is because our highly commercialized, Broadway-crazed companies are genuflecting to economic interests. Outside of this hermetically sealed Neverland, however, protests — in the streets, at private airports, and in the lobbies of banks condemning fossil fuel companies and their investors — are growing in number and fervency. And these could be used to inspire drama that explores acts of rebellion and repression, such as 2016’s generation-defining struggle against the Dakota Access Pipeline or the growing number of lawsuits being brought against countries because of their grievous inaction.
Greta Thunberg leads climate action campaigners in a march in Stockholm on November 25. Photo: @GretaThunberg/Twitter
More outrage is sure to come as environmental disintegration continues without the requisite global responses. As public anger mounts, I am confident our “concerned” stage companies will find it difficult to remain so comfortably disengaged. Lip service will wear thin as the earth warms and the oceans further acidify. The sooner this indifference — driven by short-term concerns and fealty to head-in-the-sand conventionality — ends, the better. People in the future will look back at the passivity of our stage artists with justifiable disgust. Why were they so timid as the earth tipped into environmental free fall?
In that spirit, I wanted to talk to a dramatist who has written theater pieces on the climate emergency. Tira Palmquist has penned one play about the crisis, Two Degrees, which has been produced professionally. She is currently writing another script about the warming planet. I asked her about why so few dramas are being produced about the crisis, greenwashing in the arts, and what she thought about the chances for the appearance of activist theater.
[Note: A staged reading of Two Degrees, co-presented by Central Square Theater and Catalyst Collaborative@MIT (as part of their Science on Stage reading series), will take place at the MIT Museum, 314 Main Street, Cambridge, on December 5 at 6:30 p.m. 6 p.m. cash bar and refreshments. The performance will be followed by a conversation with a guest scientist.]
The Arts Fuse: Researchers at HowlRound have noticed the low engagement with the topic of climate breakdown by theater practitioners and members of the industry around the country. Why do you think that is, given the enormity of the emergency?
Tira Palmquist: I think the level of engagement is connected to how overwhelming we perceive the problem to be. But also, I think many people think — and who could blame them — that there’s a kind of inevitability to the issue. No matter how we tell the story, the story is, “And we all die in the end.” And who wants to go to plays where that’s the inevitable, predictable outcome? Basically, what an effing downer, and let’s go see a comedy instead.
I think that people don’t want to be yelled at, nor do I think that yelling at people changes their minds. That’s not to say that yelling isn’t appropriate, given the size and scope and terror of the problem. But I wonder if this has something to do with the power of boards regarding programming. That is to say, that the issue of engagement and what plays get programmed have less to do with what the audience wants, or will tolerate, and more to do with what sells, or what is perceived to be sellable. That’s unfortunate, but true.
AF: You have written a play about the climate emergency and plan to do another. What are the challenges of writing scripts about climate change?
Palmquist: The first challenge has to do with your first question. Are there other stories instead of the tragic story we think we all know?
The second challenge is being more precise about what we mean when we say “I’m writing a play about climate change.” That topic is so broad, so unwieldy. Sort of like saying, “I’m writing a play about history!” So, like any writing challenge, it comes down to clarifying what the story is. Whose story is this? What do they want? What’s the conflict? What’s the obstacle, standing in the way of the fulfillment of their desires?
Kathleen McCall in Two Degrees at the Jones Theatre. Photo: AdamsVisCom for the Denver Center for the Performing Arts
With Two Degrees, for example, I knew I wanted to write a play about a woman, a scientist. I knew I wanted to write a play about grief. But I also knew it wasn’t just? a story about grief. It was, essentially, a play about how we have to figure out what to do? with all that grief, how to figure out how to communicate. Recently, someone told me about something that Anthony Fauci (apparently) said: Science + politics = politics. And if that formula is true, then what can science do not to get erased? That’s essentially Emma’s journey in the play: to find a way forward, fueled by fury.
The third challenge in writing a play about the climate is to do the research, to understand the science, to get all that right. I think it’s an absolute necessity to learn the science and communicate that science — clearly and effectively. Because, ultimately, I think knowledge is? power — and we have to trust our audiences enough not to dumb that down.
AF: What role, if any, should local institutions play in helping theaters deal with climate breakdown, in terms of making facilities and organizational practices greener? What might educational institutions, banks, and philanthropies think about doing?
Palmquist: That’s an excellent question that I’m not sure I can answer completely — but one thing that can help making theaters greener is to have shared resources — such as clearinghouses of sets, costumes, set pieces, and the like. I also think that there’s a lot we can do to encourage the use of local resources and hiring local talent. I recognize that these may seem overly simplistic — but not having to fly in artists from around the country when communities may already have those artists available can certainly help.
I think this is related to what institutions and philanthropies can support in terms of these more sustainable practices. I mean, these are interconnected systems — and funders or backers might need help in seeing the value in funding more local initiatives.
AF: Address the thorny issue of theater and greenwashing. How can we distinguish between radical approaches that meet the demand of frontline communities and efforts that are simply about commercial lip-service?
Palmquist: I hope I know exactly what you mean in this question. I think you mean — is it enough to have QR codes and not print programs? No. After all, making your patrons use their electronic devices rather than providing a paper program is still a use of resources. (And if you don’t have free WiFi, then, please, don’t do this.) Is it enough to have recycling in the lobby? Probably not, especially if you still have plastic cups and plastic bottles. So a more radical approach to hospitality or front-of-house aspects of audience hosting might be necessary. But this probably requires hiring more front-of-house staff, and that’s another? thing that some theaters don’t have the budget to cover. So, funders take note: not all staffing issues are artistic staff, and these staffing requirements are just as important as hiring artists.
There are many other issues about more sustainable practices that are complicated by the realities of small theaters’ budgets. For example: Productions require electrical power to run lights. How many theatrical spaces have solar panels or battery systems? Probably not a lot. This is partially because — again — that’s just not in the budget, and I’ve seen grants that will pay for everything except? capital campaigns or brick-and-mortar upgrades to a venue. That’s one place where institutions or philanthropies could help arts organizations to operate more sustainably, and make a measurable difference in the long-term carbon footprint of the performing arts.
AF: What are some of the strongest scripts (or art work) that you have come across — and why are they effective?
Palmquist: Well, of course, I’m mighty fond of my own scripts.
I’m drawn to stories or art work that make the questions (and potential answers) immediate, visceral, possible. For example, the visual/installation artist Olafur Eliasson does astounding things with ice and temperature and space — making the audience confront the changing world.
Paula Plum and Karen MacDonald SpeakEasy Stage’s 2020 production of The Children. Photo: Maggie Hall Photography
Two of my favorite plays that I think of as climate change plays (or, at least, plays about our future world) are The Children by Lucy Kirkwood and Mr. Burns by Anne Washburn. These are successful because they demonstrate the alarming capacity for humans to fail to deal appropriately or effectively with devastating change — and they put our human responses in the center of the play. I also love these plays because they don’t offer overreductive questions or oversimplified answers. They are complicated, unsettling stories about what it means to make sense of difficult moments, that challenge our role in the world, or our role in how it fails or thrives.
AF: In a HowlRound essay, Thomas Peterson argues that “the climate crisis demands new, locally specific plays to respond to the unique challenges of the place in which they are created and performed. After all, climate change impacts different places in different ways and at different times, challenging the very possibility of universal climate stories.” Do you agree?
Palmquist: Absolutely. This is one reason why I started my new play Memory of Winter. This play is set, primarily, on or near Lake Superior. People think about Northern Minnesota as somehow beyond the effects of climate change, as a “climate refuge.” But of course that’s not true. While Duluth might not see the same climate effects of, say, Las Vegas or San Diego, changes are happening there. And this may be part and parcel of why people don’t perceive the real and profound threat of the climate emergency. If we think of climate change as only one thing (melting ice caps, for example), and we don’t see that one thing anywhere near us, then it’s easy to dismiss the emergency altogether. As humans, we’re very good at minimizing changes as they happen slowly, over time. You know: frogs in pots, unable to see the threat gradually cooking us.
I also think something that we don’t talk about enough is how climate change impacts different communities inequitably. Someone might ask, how can climate change be racist? How can climate change be classist? Racism and classism is baked into the system, into the design of our cities, in the inequitable response after disasters. This is one reason why I think the art and the plays should come from the very communities that are under the greatest threat from the kinds of impacts we’re seeing in this changing world. Their stories matter, and should be in front of us.
Aimee Doherty, Joseph Marrella, Gillian Mackay-Smith, and Linsey McWhorter in the Lyric Stage’s 2016 production of Mr. Burns. Photo: Mark S. Howard
AF: Why aren’t theater practitioners and members of the industry more politically engaged regarding the climate breakdown? Agit-prop theater has traditionally been involved in protests. In this case, one of the targets would be the power of the fossil fuel giants.
Palmquist: I suppose the real question is what it means to be politically engaged, and what political engagement looks like. Agit-prop has, to some extent, gone out of style, though the need for agit-prop has not vanished. But ultimately, I don’t think agit-prop is the only game in town. It’s like … the activists throwing soup on paintings. These are headline-catching events, and certainly that has some appeal — but what impact do these events have, past the headlines? I’m not sure.
I think it’s a genuinely useful question, though, to ask what it means to be politically engaged, and what it means to engage with the public. I’d like to broaden our definition of what “political theater” is. If the ultimate goal is to have these kinds of profound and lasting conversations with the public, then we need to have theater that matters to people, stories that matter, stories in which our audience can see themselves, and can see their role in all this.
