In Keen Company's All the World's a Stage, Big Emotions Come From Small Moments

Keen Company is currently giving a world premiere to All The World's a Stage, a new musical they commissioned from writer Adam Gwon (Ordinary Days). Starring Matt Rodin, Elizabeth Stanley, Jon-Michael Reese, and Eliza Pagelle, the show follows a small-town math teacher with a passion for theatre. When he starts coaching a misfit student so she can enter the 1996 State Thespian Convention, his carefully compartmentalized life starts to fray thanks to a devout school secretary (Stanley).

The work, the latest in a repertoire that has made Keen Company renowned for their excellent stagings of intimate musicals, has already been very well received, both by critics and audiences (the run continues Off-Broadway at Theatre Row through May 10). But the moment is also bittersweet. The production is director Jonathan Silverstein's final show as Keen's artistic director, with his 13-year tenure set to close at the end of this current season.

Playbill recently caught up with Gwon and Silverstein during previews of All The World's a Stage to talk about the moving new show, and Silverstein's upcoming exit from the Off-Broadway company. The conversation below has been edited for length and clarity.

How did this project come about?

Jonathan Silverstein: I knew I wanted to commission Adam. He really understood what Keen company was all about.

Adam Gwon: I pitched three ideas, but in my mind and I think in Jonny’s mind, too, one of them was clearly the front runner.

Which was this one?

Gwon: The core impetus was the same. But it really evolved, because the commission came during the pandemic. I knew that I wanted to write something about my relationship to theatre. Because there had been a shutdown, I had been really examining that on a personal level, with this thing that had been so much a part of my life suddenly gone. People suddenly had a very different relationship to it with everything online. When the shutdown first happened, there was a passionate, earnest desire to share work and connect online. But at a certain point, it took a turn into, "How are we going to sell our show on Zoom? Look at me! Showcase showcase showcase!" And I was like…this is not what that moment is about.

And that eventually led me to thinking about my teachers in high school, because those are the people who really forged that connection with theatre to me. And once that piece fell into place, it was around the same time that all the Don’t Say Gay legislation was in the news, and queer teachers were really in the spotlight in terms of what parts of themselves they were allowed to talk about, and what stories and histories they were allowed to share with their students. I was thinking about my teachers in high school who had introduced me to theatre and through that lens, because I was completely oblivious as a teenager about their lives outside of school.

Did you have queer teachers?

Gwon: I don’t know. I’m sure that I did and I just didn’t realize. It was nothing that anyone ever talked about. And I sort of started asking myself that question, would it have made my situation—wrestling with all of those questions as a teenager with no one to talk to it about—would it have made that easier if I had a teacher as a role model in that regard? Would it have actually been more complicated if I had a teacher that I knew was gay? All of those questions turned into this story.

I did have a teacher pull me into the hall one day and talk to me very sternly about needing to leave. I grew up in Baltimore, which is not a small town. But he pulled me into the hall and was so adamant that I had to go to college away from here, and in a place where I would meet more people and find my tribe. My being queer had to be some element of that.

So writing a show about what theatre means to you, how did you land on characters that not only don’t do theatre for a career, but aren’t even theatre teachers at school?

Gwon: The high school that I went to in Baltimore was a public high school, but it was a magnet school for the arts, and my freshman year was the year it opened. It had attracted all of these teachers from all around Baltimore. The reason they wanted to teach there, even if they were teaching math or biology or English or whatever, was because they really loved the arts. I had math teachers who were obsessed. That was the high school environment that I grew up in. As an adult, I realized I’d taken it for granted. It wasn’t until later I realized how amazing and special that was. That feeling is where this character came from, that he’s the math guy who just loves theatre. I get so moved meeting people for whom theatre means so much, but it’s not their whole life. We’re surrounded by theatre people all the time. You meet people who you never would assume have a huge personal connection to a piece of theatre—and that is so beautiful and powerful.

Jonny, from a Keen Company perspective, what made you pick this piece?

Silverstein: I had met Adam years ago on the urging of some board members who had seen Ordinary Days. They knew I wanted to do intimate musicals, and they thought we should do Ordinary Days. Adam and I got to know each other, and he came to see a bunch of shows, and we just started talking. In the back of my mind, I knew I wanted to commission Adam, commission a new, intimate musical that is more heart-forward than spectacle-forward. I found them very hard to find when I was looking for the next thing after we did the company’s first musical, Marry Me a Little. I though Adam was the person because he writes such beautiful, emotionally complex songs that move me to tears. But also it was Adam as a person after getting to know him that seemed so Keen, and so full of joy. We did some updates on Ordinary Days when we did that, and go to know each other even better.

Gwon: That was fun because I got to, 10 years after the original production, look at it through older, maybe wiser eyes. And I got to revise something with Jonny’s production, a test-run collaboration of what it would be like to shape a piece together.

Silverstein: During the pandemic, things crystallized that now was the time.

What makes a show Keen to you?

Silverstein: A few things. I always use the word “intimate,” and I don’t mean that in terms of size, though many of our shows are smaller in size. We excel at taking an honest look at the smaller moments in life. I’ve always believed as a director, and even more so at Keen, that as humans, we can only change so much. That if we can honestly represent small moments of change and put that under the microscope, then we’ve been successful. If I can get audiences to feel without manipulating them, I feel like I’ve done my job. That is a big part of a Keen show.

Matt Rodin, Eliza Pagelle, Jon-Michael Reese, and Elizabeth Stanley in *All The World's A Stage* Richard Termine

All of that certainly applies to this show, and not just because of the cast size. But to focus on the impact to one student, which is such a hallmark of the life-changing moments that do happen in schools. I also loved how you handle Elizabeth Stanley’s character, who could so easily be written off as just bigoted. I love that you take the effort to show she’s someone who just doesn’t know better, who wants to be and maybe even is a good person.

Gwon: The teacher-student relationship very much comes from my own high school experience. Didi, the Elizabeth Stanley character, that part of the story very much comes from my partner’s experience. He grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania in an evangelical family, and that character is very inspired by his sister, and the relationship we have with his sister, which is wonderful. I think she’s so cool. And then there’s this other complicated piece to it. What [Silverstein] said about trying to capture small changes, that really resonates with me and with this piece in particular. With that character especially, I was trying to capture the journey that my partner’s sister and parents took and are still on, which essentially went from them sending him to conversion therapy as a teenager to now sending us matching pajamas at Christmas. It happens. It took a really long time, but it happened. That idea is so important now. That’s what we as a society need right now, to come back to the people in our communities and talk to each other. That’s how change is going to happen.

My mind goes to what I love most about theatre, how it fosters and breeds empathy—even for bad people.

Silverstein: That’s another thing that makes this show really Keen. There are no bad guys, and no good guys. There are people. One of the things that I’ve tried to do at Keen is make people identify with views that they might not live. Whether that’s a view of a church lady that maybe we don’t see in New York, or maybe it’s a story like last year’s Fish, when it’s an underfunded public school and a story that perhaps the older Keen audience might not understand—but if they can actually see through those characters’ eyes and understand it and identify it, that’s where the empathy comes in. That’s where we can have conversations. That’s what’s beautiful about this piece. I do really think it reaches across the aisle in ways that a lot of shows only promise to do.

What has the audience response been so far?

Silverstein: People either leaving with teams streaming down their face, or like a little shell shocked, because they’ve really had an experience. I think this show quietly sneaks up on you, and people are really moved.

Do you think your core audience go in on the teacher’s side?

Silverstein: I do. Our audience generally goes in giving people the benefit of the doubt until they are shown otherwise.

Gwon: One question that had been on my mind from the beginning of writing this up to now is if people would understand why this character lives his life the way that he does. It’s set 30 years ago. A lot of things are different now, and obviously a lot of things are still the same. We had a group of college kids in the house the other night and we did a Q&A with them afterwards, and these kids (who were not even a twinkle in their parents’ eyes in 1996) were kind of flabbergasted that the conversations they thought only they were having today were reflected in this story that felt historical to them. That made me feel really heartened that there is a way in for contemporary audiences, even people who weren’t aware of that whole Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell era, that the question about identity and authenticity is still one people are asking and wrestling with today.

Yeah it’s interesting. That concept of things not changing can be demoralizing, but it can also make you feel better. We’re still here. We’ve gotten through this before.

Silverstein: One thing that’s beautiful about the character, and it really kind of came up beautifully in Matt Rodin’s audition, is that he sees nothing wrong with his life, at least at the beginning of the show. He doesn’t have shame about the fact that he’s one way at work and another way outside of work. It’s only through the discovery of the play that he discovers the challenges of what that all is and finally changes.

Jonny, what made now the time you are deciding to leave Keen Company?

Silverstein: The main reason is that I’ve been at the company now for 13 years, and I’ve seen a lot of change at the company. Especially over the last several years, we’ve shifted the stories we’re telling on stage. And not all of those stories are mine to tell. I’m a director at my heart, and so I’ve found that naturally, I’ve been pushing the company to produce and look at worlds that don’t center me. I’m really happy about that, but I want to direct more, and I’m looking forward to new challenges on the horizon. It’s been an amazing 13 years. If you add up from my first show that I freelanced with Keen it’s 20 years ago, so it’s been a huge part of my life. I love Keen. I love its ethos. I love the stories we tell. But there are a lot of other stories I want to tell, and I’m looking forward to that opportunity.

The idea of me leaving is something that started brewing during the pandemic. I thought 10 years was a good amount of time to be at a company. And then we commissioned Adam, and I wanted to see that through. And I couldn’t have planned it any better than to go out with this show, this show that is the distillation of everything I have tried to do at Keen and also that speaks to me so personally and deeply.

What have been the highlights? What are you most proud of?

Silverstein: It’s three things, and this musical actually contains those three things. I’m really proud of the musicals we’ve done, and that I added musicals to the repertoire. I’m really proud that Keen has done more new work and more contemporary work while I have been at the helm. And I’m also really proud of the work that we have done to bring a greater diversity to Keen, both onstage and off stage. It’s only enhanced our already open-hearted ethos in a new way.

And what were the biggest challenges?

Silverstein: The biggest challenges have been and always will be resources, and getting projects the resources that they deserve. Probably every company would say that, but it feels really top of mind to me right now, especially over the last several years. The other piece that has been challenging is that Keen Company is in a cynical town. That means the Keen mission and ethos is not always easy to sell. But it’s also been what sets us apart.

Well I’ve seen a lot of Keen shows over the years, and I have to say, I’ve never been in a sparse audience. And I also genuinely have never seen anything that was bad. That’s kind of magical.

Silverstein: Thank you. I’m really grateful to hear that. I think the quality of Keen Company is something that was there before I took over, and I’m really happy to continue that trend.

What has surprised you the most, that you did not expect when you started?

Silverstein: That I would essentially have to become both the executive and artistic director. When I began, I assumed that I was going to have a person next to me that was going to be in charge of all the producing. And for various reasons, we’ve never had that, so I re-jiggered the company to create a team of people that shared responsibilities, and I was the one that was at the cetner of all that. I didn’t see that coming. Because of that, in a challenging and also thrilling way, I had to learn every single aspect of what goes into running a theatre company, including having my nose in QuickBooks and spreadsheets and the grants. And everything made me a better producer, but I did not expect that.

And to that end, the other thing that I’m most proud of is the work off stage and the admin office team, generally the work that happens offstage, our ethos, our way of doing things. Making sure that we are a welcoming, productive, and joyous space is taken really seriously at Keen, and I can proudly say that we don’t just talk the talk. I’m really proud of and believe that Keen is a good place to work.

Gwon: From the creative side, we feel that in a way that you don’t always at other institutions. All four of the actors are making their Keen debut, and you can just feel them coming into this new environment, this new company, this new space, and being at ease from second one. It makes a remarkably productive rehearsal process, because you feel really taken care of. You feel like you can lead with joy, the way that Jonny still does.

Silverstein: That’s always been important to my work as a director, creating a safe space for artists to work. You can only do that if you lead with kindness.

So what’s next?

Silverstein: I don’t know! There’s several projects that I‘d love to see happen, and I’m looking forward to more directing opportunities and getting back in the classroom. I do teach a scene study class that I have not gotten to teach for a long time because I’ve been busy at Keen, and I’m really looking forwad to getting back in the room with actors. I love actors. I love creating grounded, honest performances, and I like helping people achieve that.

Do you feel like you’re leaving Keen in a good place, better than you found it?

Silverstein: Definitely. I think our reputation is really solid. But I also think I’m leaving it in a good place for someone else to take another step with it. I’m looking forward to someone creatively reinventing Keen for this moment, which is not an easy time. Someone has a great opportunity to make it their own.

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