“Drawing Lessons” is about finding your own voice in art and life

The most important conclusion from “Drawing Lesson” is that anyone can draw.

“Drawing Lessons” takes place during the 1995–1996 school year in Minneapolis and focuses on 11-year-old Kate, an aspiring artist. Throughout the show, Kate finds her artistic voice through an unexpected mentorship with a comic book artist and reconnects with her Korean identity through her bond with her great-aunt through art.

“Drawing Lessons,” commissioned jointly by Ma-Yi Theater Company and Children’s Theater Company as part of Generation Now, a multi-theater project of Children’s Theater Company, will premiere on October 8 in Minneapolis. The show tries to “diversify the canon of children’s theater,” said the show’s director Jack Tamburri, by commissioning new plays from artists and theaters of color.

“Drawing Lessons” is not only about art, but also features live drawing performances by the actors themselves, along with graphic designs by Minneapolis-based graphic novelist Blue Delliquanti, author of the graphic novels “Across a Field of Starlight” and “Across a Field of Starlight”O Human Star.”

Why comics?

“One of the things we really hope to achieve (with this play) is to draw people into the world of a graphic novel, using graphic novel strategies but on stage. We hope it will feel familiar and new to those familiar with the form – an exciting interpretation of what a graphic novel is, as well as the creative process of creating a comic book,” said playwright Michi Barall.

Delliquanti was approached about the project through the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, where he is a faculty member. They say the project has allowed them to take part in a more collaborative process, which is a “refreshing change of pace.”

“Theatre is an inherently collaborative space,” Delliquanti said. “I work with a projection director who is responsible for projecting my work and (for) moving from image to image in a really cool, sophisticated way. Without the work of (Elizabeth Barrett), my work would not be presented in the way it is. You’re working with the actors themselves, who don’t consider themselves seasoned artists when it comes to drawing, but (who) are really great to work with in terms of making them feel comfortable drawing live. They will draw live and these drawings (will be) projected to the public.”

As a graphic novelist, Delliquanti was also able to provide the production with necessary historical context regarding the comic book industry.

“I’m 35 years old, so I was also a kid when the mid-’90s (and) late-’90s were going on,” Delliquanti said. “It was a time when the North American comic book scene was going through a lot of big changes, or big changes were about to come. This was around the time that comics and graphic novels began to be legitimized as works of literature. You have your Art Spiegelman (author of “MAUS”) (and) your Chris Ware (author of “The Acme Novelty Library” series). A little later, Raina Telgemeier (author of “Smile”) became a huge figure in comics. Around this time, comics began to be imported from Japan and Korea in larger quantities, which began to change the way young comic book readers drew and thought about comics as a medium. I have provided context as to what changes may be taking place. I also provided some suggestions for drawing exercises that a beginning artist can receive from a mentor and which will allow her to change and develop her style through practice.

Reconnecting with identity

“Drawing Lessons” was described by Barall on the Children’s Theater Company website as “a love letter to Minneapolis and its diversity.” Barall set the action in Minneapolis because longtime collaborator Matthew Park, who plays Kate’s father Matt, grew up in Minneapolis. The multicultural nature of Minneapolis also allowed her to tell the story of how children from immigrant communities deal with their identities.

“I wanted to highlight the kind of friendship and solidarity between communities of color and children of color who often meet in school spaces. Lia’s character is Hmong American, as there is a significant Hmong population in Minneapolis, and Omar’s character is described as Somali American. He traveled more and (his family came) through London to Minneapolis,” Barall said of her heroes.

In an earlier version, the show included a Heritage Day event in which children shared elements of their culture, such as food and traditional clothing, at school. Although this scene is no longer present in the play, the question of whether to assimilate and/or how to adapt to the dominant culture remains part of the story.

“The larger culture is trying to create space for children from all over the world, but it is also struggling to know how and whether to assimilate them. Children also ask the same question: “How much do I want or need to assimilate in order to function?” I wanted to intertwine these stories because I didn’t want it to be just Kate’s story or to feel like Kate had to navigate this space on her own, because I think a lot of us see our experiences in other families,” Barall said.

This journey is different for each actor playing Kate due to the actors’ different racial identities.

“We have two (actors playing Kate) – one is biracial (Mars Niemi) and the other is Korean-American (Olivia Lampert), although she is also adopted. Both Kates are written slightly differently in the text to highlight their experiences of trying to grapple with what it means to them (to be Korean, American), especially because their dad came to America as a young person to study in the U.S. (i) has a much stronger connection to some kind of Korean identity. (Kate’s) trying to reconcile the expectations that her (and) his father has of what success looks like for immigrants. What it means to define yourself in relation to American identity. “At the beginning of being Korean, there is a kind of denial of being Korean, and then a gradual acceptance of those parts of yourself, those parts that correspond to elements of the culture and that seem faithful to it,” Barall explained.

Part of Kate’s understanding of her identity comes from her Aunt Gomo introducing her to Korean comics, or manhwa.

“For (Kate), there is something intuitive about the (manhwa) form that helps shape not only her racial identity, but also her aesthetic sense and aesthetic identity – how she wants to create art and what she wants it to look like,” Barall said. “We wanted to give her the experience of what it feels like to have your racial and historical identities fit together in a way that feels cool.”

For Park, the play reflects his own experiences growing up in mixed-race Minneapolis, especially as he watches Niemi play Kate.

“It’s a huge privilege to play with a mixed-race actor because it’s rare for me to do that,” Park said. “There is a scene where the character Gomo (Kate’s aunt) tells Kate about how her mom wasn’t very good at Korean, but (the family) accepted her even though she didn’t speak Korean. It was similar to my mother’s story. When my mother first met my grandmother, (my grandmother) shook her hand and then went into the other room and cried and played the piano. She replied, “My son is dating a white lady.” I heard this story after my grandmother died, but I didn’t know about it when she was alive because my grandmother and mother were very close. My mom was completely accepted in my dad’s family and actually speaks better Korean than I do because she had to in that family. Seeing Gomo with (Niemi as Kate) and just watching them interact is incredibly familiar to me.

Sanity

The show also explores how art provides Kate – who struggles with public speaking and sensory overwhelm – with a means of communicating through her anxiety.

“We convey (Kate’s) experiences through all kinds of scenic means, including the way we treat sound and light in moments when Kate’s anxiety is particularly heightened when she has a panic attack,” Tamburri said.

Kate’s struggles are not specifically named due to the play’s setting in the 1990s.

“We (now) have a framework to talk about anxiety, sensory processing (and) disability in some way (that we didn’t have then),” Barall said.

“One of the things I wanted to do was see what would happen if you put a very quiet character at the center of the drama,” Barall said. “Drama is really talkative, but you can (put a silent character at the center) in a graphic novel because you’re really relying on the image that’s being conveyed, and you can hear the character’s thoughts through the thought balloon. For me, it was an interesting challenge: “What if you put someone on stage who is shy and has difficulty talking to new people in new spaces?” What if we saw it as a strength rather than a deficit?”

In the play, Kate scribbles to block out the outside world, which may be overstimulating and causing her stress, but her social studies teacher misinterprets this as a reluctance to engage or use her voice – as something that needs to be fixed or changed. But there are different forms of intelligence, Barall said. For Kate, her peace is the ability to observe the world around her.

“Americans tend to overestimate extroversion. We think extroverts are smarter, we think they’re nicer, we think they’re funnier. This is not true in East Asian cultures. So I wanted to look at the kind of cultural dissonance in this area and the cultural assessment of introversion and extroversion,” Barall said.

Kate isn’t the only character struggling. Paul, the comic book artist who mentors her, also struggles with his own mental health.

“It doesn’t come up as much in the script anymore, but we understand that Paul is going through depression. His partner, John, is on tour with Broadway shows, so he’s out of town most of the time,” Tamburri said, adding that Paul was experiencing writer’s block and his dog died at the beginning of the show. “The two of them (Kate and Paul) meet at a time when she is desperate for mentorship from a small voice that trusts her, that doesn’t push her, but provides her with some paths to explore. He wants very much to be heard, to be taken seriously (and) to be seen as an artist. The impression of him is that he is a creative and successful person and that strengthens him.”

Their meeting sets them on the path, Tamburri says, to the confidence and well-being they need.

Kate says meeting Paul allows her to “discover alternative ways of communicating in which she is confident, and ultimately build confidence in the area where she is most concerned: public speaking.” Meeting Kate reminds Paul of the openness of a young person’s imagination. He recalls a time in his practice when he didn’t expect to see a daily gag, and begins to explore the possibility of creating a more personal work that doesn’t necessarily have a predetermined outcome.”

“Drawing lessons” will last until November 10.

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