INTERVIEW: The Homebound Project utilizes theater talent to raise funds to fight hunger
Photo: The Homebound Project was co-founded by Jenna Worsham. Photo courtesy of artist / Provided by Everyman Agency with permission.
When Jenna Worsham and Catya McMullen realized the implications of the coronavirus pandemic and how it was impacting the country and the world, they decided to get to work and see how they could help. Their idea has turned into The Homebound Project, an independent theater initiative that raises funds for No Kid Hungry, which helps hungry children impacted by the pandemic.
The third edition of The Homebound Project will stream online beginning Wednesday, June 24 at. 7 p.m. EST and continue until Sunday, June 28 at 7 p.m. EST. Joining this livestream is a talented group of actors and playwrights, including Daveed Diggs, who will perform in a work by C.A. Johnson; Jennifer Carpenter and Thomas Sadoski, who will perform in a work by John Guare; Diane Lane in a work by Michael R. Jackson; and Phillipa Soo in a work by Clare Barron. They are joined by Blair Underwood, Ralph Brown, Paola Lázaro, Joshua Leonard, Eve Lindley, Arian Moayed, Ashley Park and Will Pullen.
Tickets for The Homebound Project begin at the $10 donation level, and so far the initiative has pulled in more than $73,000.
Recently Hollywood Soapbox exchanged emails with Worsham, director and co-founder of the project. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
How did the idea for The Homebound Project first come about? Did it come early in the pandemic?
It did, almost immediately. I had a show off-Broadway that, like so many other plays, got shut down in mid-March. By early April, my wife and I were sheltering like the rest of New York, eager to help make a difference for all the brave people working on the front lines. Not being a healthcare professional or essential worker, I felt pretty useless sitting at home. I’d just had this artistic process cut unnaturally short — and my brain still wanted to ‘make, make, make something!’
My close friend and longtime collaborator, playwright Catya McMullen, felt the same way. We kept saying to one another, via late night phone calls, what if we could help those at the forefront of this crisis by actually doing what we do best: gathering artists and telling stories. The short answer came while sitting on my porch one April night, when Catya simply said, ‘Well, nothing’s stopping us.’
By mid-April, we’d researched a lot of organizations in the city that were working hard to keep kids fed during school closures, and we began to make asks to our artist friends. These initial asks to playwrights like Martyna Majok, Rajiv Joseph and C.A. Johnson, would end up forming our First Edition creative team.
What are the unique challenges of presenting theater virtually?
Well, theater is meant to be live, after all. At its core, theater requires the act of gathering. We just had to re-imagine what ‘gathering’ looks like in 2020 and then just figure out how to bring about theater’s second essential ingredient: collaboration.
Just like in the ‘old days’ when we made theater in the same room, it comes down to the generosity and artistry of the people you bring together. So we thought, OK, not only are we looking for brilliant and talented collaborators, but also folks who are game to take this on and help us figure it out as we go.
A great example is Andy Jean, our amazing costume consultant. Andy has an innovative way of collaborating with actors, and she possesses a rare generosity of spirit, along with being wicked talented. Once you have collaborators like Andy, you’re able to work as a team and be flexible in your approach to each play you produce. Not to say that we didn’t have our challenges — this is a new medium of sorts, and we learned a lot after the first edition aired! Encouraging joy in the work between our volunteer artists was key, and I think this enabled them to dig deep — even while rehearsing via Zoom and communicating only digitally.
How do you curate each edition? How do you select the works?
We start with the writers, gathering 10-12 playwrights per edition. The play’s always the thing, whether it’s live or recorded theater. Catya said early on, ‘I want to hear from those voices in our community who will speak the truth, and speak to the moment, in their own unique way.’ We were overwhelmed with the amount of folks who said yes; it turns out a lot of other artists also wanted to help feed kids, and they wanted to make something.
Once we have a playwright confirmed, we think of actors we know, or know of, who seem like an excellent and exciting fit for that playwright’s voice. Sometimes we ask the writer if there’s someone they love working with, and other times we make the match based on instinct. Once the writers and actors are paired, we ask them together if they want to work with a directing consultant. Half the time they do, I would say, and the process repeats.
Once each series lineup is finalized, Catya and I share the ‘theme,’ or prompt, with each creative team. We often come up with these themes in our all-staff Zoom meetings. For example, ‘Champions,’ our third edition theme, was Andy Jean’s idea.
Playwrights have a week to write a 2-5 minute play based on the theme, and once we receive the scripts, Catya and I start to make a hypothetical lineup for the show. We set out to create an arc for the ‘evening,’ based on the theme and each playwright’s way of speaking to it. We really don’t finalize this lineup until about four days before the show airs honestly, once all the taped plays have been submitted from the actors.
Actors also have a week to record their piece. I collaborate closely with our amazing video editor, Jon Burklund, and our wonderful sound designer, Fan Zhang, on each cut of the performance. Sometimes the three of us are making changes as late as Tuesday evening before the show airs on Wednesday; the more we get a feel for each series’ tone and mood, the more we are inspired to curate further, as this tone is inspired by the beautiful work of our volunteer artists. We respond instinctively to what they have made, and how the collected plays inevitably enter into conversation with one another.
What are you looking forward to in the June and July editions?
The Homebound Project staff and community keeps growing, and Catya and I are looking forward to this artistic family expanding even more. There’s so much talent and passion in our theater community — we honestly wish we had enough shows planned to include more of the amazing writers and actors out there.
As a playwright and a director, Catya and I were very new to running an organization and producing — and we’ve found it to be an exhausting but also deeply rewarding experience. We love to facilitate and gather artists together in order to bring great stories to life, and as we get better at that, we’re looking forward to a lot more of it.
Most of all, we’re looking forward to raising even more money for No Kid Hungry, to help feed hungry kids around the nation. We’ve raised about $75,000 to date, and we are eager to continue the mission.
What motivated you to select a hunger nonprofit for all proceeds?
Child hunger is a cause very personal to Catya and myself. I experienced hunger as a kid, and my wife, playwright Lucy Thurber, even more so. Lucy was a kid who depended on school lunches and food stamps growing up, and early on in the pandemic — while watching the news on school closures with her — I saw how much she worried, how her heart went out to all the kids in NYC and beyond who were going to suffer. Child hunger is an ongoing pandemic in this country, one that existed long before the coronavirus did, and it is a crisis that we can all fight to end.
No child should go hungry, and Catya and I strongly believe this is a cause that no matter your politics, people agree with and can get behind.
Our intrepid creative producer, Mary Solomon, brought us to the incredible folks at No Kid Hungry. We knew about them from our research, and we were thrilled after our initial Zoom meeting with Executive Director Billy Shore, the founder of Share Our Strength. It all came together very quickly after that first meeting — Billy and his team loved the idea. They are such a smart, passionate and inspiring organization, and they felt like the perfect fit for our mission. We liked that they not only were enthusiastic about the funds we could raise for hungry kids, but also how The Homebound Project could help raise awareness around child hunger during this time of crisis, in a creative way.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
The Homebound Project’s third edition will begin live-streaming Wednesday, June 24 at 7 p.m. EST and continue through Sunday, June 28 at 7 p.m. EST. Click here for more information.
