From our 2021-2023 Artistic Cohort
As we near the end of our inaugural Artistic Cohort and the deadline for 2023-2025 submissions, our current members share thoughtful reflections on the past two years and their time serving here at the Jungle Theater.
From Sequoia Hauck
Being a part of the Jungle cohort has really allowed me to grow as an artist. I was able to get opportunities to grow and expand as an artist while being supported by the Jungle. I was given the opportunity to document the LynLake Street Art Festival and direct an all-Native staged reading at the Jungle during my time as a cohort member. I have been able to learn more about myself as an artist and focus my energy toward my art-making during this time.
The cohort-shared leadership model is so important to the future of theater because not one person can understand the nuanced experiences of all theater-makers, attendees of theater, and beyond. Having a group of people to discuss, contemplate, and dream about the future of theater is how theater should be created. I feel so very grateful that I was able to be a part of the inaugural cohort at the Jungle and hope that it continues to evolve and shift our perspective of theater and art-making.
From JuCoby Johnson
Three years ago, the world stopped. We were faced with something unlike anything we’d ever seen, and our lives hang in the balance. It was a terrifying time to be a human being and a terrifying time to be an artist. When hard times arise, as an artist, my impulse is to create. To find some way to talk about this collective issue through theater. But that wasn’t possible. At least, not in the same way. I worried I wouldn’t be able to survive this moment. Financially, creatively, physically. I was terrified. Then, my friend, Christina Baldwin, came to me with an opportunity to be a part of this new entity called the Jungle Cohort and I had hope again.
During my time in the Cohort, I made two of the projects I’m proudest of in my career so far. The first, was an adaptation of one of my short plays as a radio drama. It was a play about the time we found ourselves in. It centered around two friends/former lovers reconnecting on a walk during the height of Covid lockdown and in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and the uprising that followed. In adapting it, we also made it an ode to the memory of live theater. Though only audible, we added a narrator character who walked the audience through the journey in a kind of meditation, guiding them to close their eyes and imagine these events happening on a stage, right in front of you. I had the opportunity to write, direct, and cast the piece. I worked with a sound designer I’ve admired for years and was deep in the editing process with him. When it was finally released into the world, I felt a kind of pride I’d never felt before. I loved the thing that I’d made and I knew it deserved to be out in the world. The Jungle and their belief in me made that possible. They had a trust in me and a belief in my work. There’s not much more an artist can ask for.
The second project was the world premiere of my play, 5. It’s an epic story about friendship, betrayal, legacy, and the end of the world. I wrote this play in September of 2020, trying to dream myself into the future and think about what kind of exciting stories I’d want to see when the lockdown was finally over. As a result, the play is no walk in the park for a theater produce. Especially in the midst of a devastating recession, when so many incredible theaters are being forced to close or postpone. This play isn’t a safe bet, in a time where everybody is desperately searching for a safe bet. Despite that, the Jungle believed in me and the story enough to fully produce the show. We were scrappy, inventive, flexible, and daring in our efforts to make the best play we could and I can say, without hesitation, that we made something truly magical. Again, the Jungle showed up for me and the results were beautiful.
An artist can only grow through receiving the kind of trust and belief that the Jungle gave to me. Which is why programs and leadership models like the Jungle cohort are so important. Being a part of the Jungle cohort has been the helping hand, financially and creatively, that I’ve needed to survive the pandemic and this early time after. I can confidently say I’ve been made a better artist because of the Jungle’s willingness to put me in the driver’s seat. I truly hope this program stays around for many years to come and is able help many generations of artists to grow and expand, both as artists and as human beings.
From Angela Timberman
Being a member of the Jungle’s first Artistic Cohort has given me some wonderful opportunities. I have learned from engaging with other artists through projects and conversation and I benefited from taking advantage of the resources that the Jungle provided for us. It was also useful to see the administrative and production side of how the theater functions and to have a voice in that process. The monetary compensation has helped me live somewhat easier during this time of change and crisis we’ve all experienced in American theater these past two years. When an artist is supported and recognized by an organization like the Jungle it encourages us to keep working at our craft and remain hopeful that what we offer our world is important. I am grateful to have been a part of it all.
From James Rodríguez
The last 2 years have been the most informative, challenging and exciting years of my career. As a part of the Jungle Theater’s Artistic Cohort I have had the opportunities to learn, watch, support, and lead. I’ve learned a lot about myself and the way that I want to live and work as an artist. I've learned about what it takes to work as part of a team; not just on a single production, but on a whole theater season and beyond. Coming out of the “stay at home” era of the Covid 19 Pandemic, I didn’t know what to expect or how to think about how theater would or could work, but I knew that things weren’t and would never be the same. This made it an exciting yet challenging moment to embark on a new artistic model like the Jungle Theater’s Artistic Cohort.
My time with the cohort couldn’t have started in a more fulfilling way. When The Jungle came back in 2021 to produce Every Brilliant Thing, I was thinking about easy, safe and thoughtful ways to engage our audiences with auxiliary programming. The piece dealt with themes of suicide, so even a well thought out and intentional post-show discussion didn’t seem quite right. The show also investigated so many other themes; gratitude being a big one that kept ringing true to me. I’ve had a pretty consistent meditation practice for some time now, and while I am not a meditation teacher, I came up with the idea of leading a short and simple meditation around gratitude after a handful of performances throughout the run. I don’t know if it was anything revolutionary or if it will be remembered in the history books of the American Theater, but it was well received and finding a way to be creative and bring my authentic self to this work was really exciting. I knew this was how I wanted to engage as part of the cohort. Over the next 2 years I would continue to support auxiliary programming in other ways including conducting a number of promo interviews with artistic and creative members of various production teams. One particularly memorable highlight of working on auxiliary programming came when I had the honor of facilitating a post-show discussion of Redwood with a group of college students who were visiting Minnesota on a service trip. I am not always a fan of the post-show discussion, but our conversation was so rich and nuanced that with such a dedicated group and a focused and mindful approach to our discussion, I experienced the power of thought and emotional provocation that theater can provide in a way I had never felt before. I believe the sentiments were shared by the students and their professor as we received a beautiful and heart-felt message from them a few days later.
Other highlights of my time as part of the cohort include casting and coordinating various internal and public readings. I got to bring in some of my favorite artists to help shape and inform the future of The Jungle’s voice and programming. And of course the biggest highlight of my time as part of The Cohort is the journey I was able to take with The Courtroom: A Reenactment of One Woman’s Deportation Proceedings. It's an experience I will never forget. The trajectory of this journey started with simply finding a unique and exciting piece, using the opportunity that the cohort afforded me to pull a reading together, and eventually directing the piece as part of the Jungle’s main-stage season. I am still so grateful for the journey and opportunity. Throughout this process, I was able to challenge myself as a theater maker; I had never been able to envision and drive the realization of a vision like this before. The nature of the piece challenged me to not only be a director but to be a community builder as well; the conversation we built in producing this piece was a true testament to being in community and in communion with parties we don’t always find ourselves in contact with when making art. I could write pages of reflections on that process alone.
While I consider my time as part of the cohort a success in many ways, the experience was not without challenge. The biggest challenge I faced personally and artistically was timing. I feel like the pause the pandemic forced us all to take gave us an amazing opportunity and called for something bold like a new creative model, but coming out of the pandemic ended up being more challenging than I had originally anticipated. If I am being honest, I was surprised that theater “came back” when it did. We were months out of people receiving the first round of vaccines and the theater world wanted to get back to “normal”. I was still emotionally and experientially raw from the pandemic, the murder of George Floyd, and the the subsequent uprising. I don’t know if I was my most creative and helpful self at that particular moment in time. I also found that when I did feel creativity and inspiration, I was so worried about disrupting any of our programming with a breakthrough case of Covid that I maybe suppressed some of my creative instincts. For this reason, I am so grateful we were granted a 2nd year as part of the cohort.
The idea of the artistic cohort or any model that challenges the top-down way of making theater is absolutely vital. I am fully aware that what I have done in my 2 years as part of the cohort has merely scratched the surface of what a model like this could be. We had the challenging yet exhilarating experience of being part of a new team that didn’t quite know what it was or it wanted to be. We did not “crack the mold” or “fix theater”. But the intentional move that recognizes that many different voices and perspectives at the table is not only desired, but needed, is what is going to give us the richest, most sustainable and most empowering spaces to make truly creative, engaging and courageous art. I have full confidence that a model like the cohort can, will, and must work.
I am so grateful for the last 2 years. Being a part of the cohort has taught me so much. As a freelance actor you don’t always get the chance to work with all of the amazing people that help make theater happen. I’ve had the privilege of working directly with some of the most thoughtful, intelligent and creative artistic and administrative staffs at The Jungle Theater. I’ve learned the value of leaders that listen. Christina Baldwin has taught me so much about meeting the moment where it is and meeting both joy and challenge with a true sense of equanimity. Over the last 2 years I learned a lot about myself. I have learned about my capacity to grow and challenge how I perceive myself as an artist. Before the cohort, I didn’t feel the confidence to dream outside of my comfort zone. The confidence and trust that The Jungle instilled in me was inspiring and I wish all artists could experience the sense of support, community and love that has been extended to me. I’ve gained new insight on how how to deal with fear, doubt, anxiety, and at times “imposter syndrome”. And I’ve learned about how to give myself grace, how trust in my team, trust in the process, and most importantly trust in myself.
REMINDER! Our application for the 2023-2025 Artist Cohort closes THIS FRIDAY. Interested in becoming a part of the Jungle Theater artistic team? Learn more here!