INTERVIEW: ‘Generation NYZ’ explores being young in New York
Photo: Generation NYZ features a cast of young New Yorkers and continues through Feb. 3 at La MaMa. Photo courtesy of Alexis Buatti Ramos / Provided by Everyman Agency with permission.
The hit show Generation NYZ returns for an encore engagement in New York City. The play, which details the lives of young New Yorkers in the age of President Donald Trump, plays through Feb. 3 at La MaMa’s Ellen Stewart Theatre on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
In the show, seven young New Yorkers open up to the audience about their many triumphs and challenges of being just that: young and in New York. The actors are between the ages of 19 and 22, and the stories they tell are true, making this a stirring night of documentary theater.
The play comes to La MaMa thanks to Ping Chong + Company, and the actors come from a variety of neighborhoods in the Big Apple: West Harlem, South Bronx, Far Rockaway and many others. Their backgrounds are equally diverse — Black, Mexican-American, Puerto Rican, Caribbean, South Asian and European — and the issues that matter to them are topical and important. Everything from depression to gender identity to domestic violence are discussed.
Chong conceived the project, and Sara Zatz and Kirya Traber directed the piece. The performers joined with Zatz and Traber in the writing process.
Recently Hollywood Soapbox exchanged emails with Zatz about the unique show. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
Could you describe how the development of this play worked?
Generation NYZ is the 25th anniversary production of Ping Chong + Company’s community-specific series of interview-based theater works known as the Undesirable Elements series, which features real people telling their true stories of identity and belonging on stage. Since 1992, there have been over 60 productions in the series created in cities around the country, exploring themes as diverse as immigration, disability, Muslim identity and the experiences of survivors of sexual violence.
Ping Chong + Company was commissioned by the New Victory Theater to create this anniversary production, featuring a new generation of young adult New Yorkers, ages 18-22, telling their own true stories of becoming an adult at this turbulent moment in time. To find the participants, co-director Kirya Traber and I reached out to over 50 community organizations and schools across the five boroughs of New York City seeking young adults from a range of neighborhoods, identities, neighborhoods and experiences who were interested in telling their own stories on stage.
The script is based on interviews with the cast, weaving their individual stories together in a chronological narrative touching on both political and personal experiences. While it is impossible to represent all the diversity of NYC in one group on stage, the hope is that by amplifying these specific young voices, more will be inspired to share their stories and speak their own truths.
What do you believe the audience members, many of them much older than the cast, will take away from the performance?
Generation NYZ is a love letter to New York City. Whether you are 16 or 60, I think people will find that the show highlights the grit and resilience that makes people true New Yorkers. My parents grew up in the Bronx in the 1950s, and the stories of the cast spoke to them because it’s about growing up in New York. The struggles may be different, but the heart is the same.
In addition to the public performances, with the support of the NYC Department of Education, we are offering three free student matinees, for public school students from across the city. It is incredibly powerful to see young audiences hear their own stories, told by people who look and sound like them, reflected on stage.
Were you surprised by what you found out from these young New Yorkers?
I continue to be surprised and awed by their maturity and self-awareness, and ability to navigate the world with clarity and determination. They know who they are inside and what their dreams are. These are young people who have not had an easy path at all, who have not had anything handed to them, and yet they are optimistic, joyful and willing to work so hard to be themselves and to succeed.
Anyone who has something negative to say about this generation needs to meet the cast of Generation NYZ. I know I didn’t have a fraction of their sophistication and critical analysis of the world at their age.
Is this show a snapshot of young New Yorkers in these difficult, divisive times — or is more universal and speaks to youth in general?
I think it’s both. Their stories really speak to the very real struggles thousands of young New Yorkers are facing right now, many of which are topics kids can’t speak openly about at school: economic disparity and experiencing homelessness, living as an undocumented immigrant, systemic racism, domestic violence, or claiming your identity as a queer or gender non-conforming youth. But it also speaks to broad youth experiences — applying to high school, going to prom, finding your true friends, playing video games, testing your boundaries with your parents and learning to believe in yourself.
How did these encore performances come about?
When we finished the run at the New Victory last year, we knew we wanted to create more opportunities for the performers’ stories to be heard. And we wanted to do it soon because the point of the show is to hear directly from the young people, and their lives are changing rapidly as they finish school, get jobs and even move away from New York.
Ping Chong + Company is a resident theater of La MaMa, and we have performed many Undesirable Elements productions there. So, when they told us they had a slot available in their season, we jumped at the chance. It’s been a wonderful experience to reunite with this group exactly one year later and see how much they have grown, and how their stories are still so urgent.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Generation NYZ plays through Feb. 3 at La MaMa’s Ellen Stewart Theatre on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Click here for more information and tickets.
Revised: 01/19
