(intriguing bright triumphant music) (intriguing bright triumphant music continues) - Central Illinois has a thriving theater scene; you can see a variety of plays and musicals from big Broadway hits to small community productions.

And there's one theater group in Bloomington-Normal that hopes to do a lot more than just entertain.

We're joined by Coalescence Theatre Project Executive Artistic Director, Don Shandrow, and Director/Actor, Myesha-Tiara.

Thank you both for coming in.

- Thank you.

- Thank you for having us.

- Thank you.

- Don, let's start off by talking about Coalescence, and how this all started.

- Well, first of all, I'll preface this by giving you the mission and our mission is to utilize theater to understand, acknowledge, and dismantle all forms of systemic oppression as we explore identity and our place in a global community.

And we did a show up in Chicago this year, and I ended up shorthanding that by telling people we were Black, brown, queer, and femme.

- Okay.

Well, that's a good explanation right here.

- Yeah.

- But tell me exactly, you know, when this started and how you got the idea and all that good stuff.

- Well, it was in 2010, and I stood up during intermission at a theater and turned around and looked at the audience, and I saw one demographic.

I saw older people and primarily white people.

And I thought that was a problem because it didn't express the diversity of the community that we lived in.

And so, my question, and it's the eternal question that I have, is why?

And Coalescence Theatre Project is an attempt to answer that question, and to not only answer that question, you know, philosophical way, but answer it in a tangible way by building an audience that is younger, that is more diverse.

- Mm-hmm.

And you definitely put on some diverse productions, we're gonna talk about those in- - Oh, absolutely.

- In just a second.

Myesha, how did you get involved in this?

- Well, Don came out to see a show that I was directing in Chicago in 2023, which was called "Panther Women: An Army for the Liberation" by India Nicole Burton.

After the show, Don stayed back in the audience and was like, "Hey, I'm Don, I run Coalescence in Bloomington-Normal."

I'd never heard of Bloomington-Normal, and I was like, "Oh, okay."

And Don was like, "I would love to have this show there."

And I was like, "Okay, let's see what we could do.

I'm very excited to do so."

And that's how we found each other, is in 2023.

- So a guy from the Deep South came all the way up to Chicago?

(Don and Myesha laughing) - Well, that happened because Coalescence has a playwright advisory board.

- [Mark] Okay.

- And those playwrights are from all across the country.

And there was a playwright from Connecticut who emailed me and said, "There's somebody in Chicago you need to meet," and it was Myesha.

- It was me.

(laughs) - So that was why I went to Chicago, to meet Myesha, to see Panther Women, and I said, "We've gotta do Panther Women down in Bloomington."

But then I thought- - Exactly like that.

- Yeah.

- And I was like, "Okay."

(chuckles) - No, but then I thought, "No, you know what?

We're gonna still use Central Illinois actors, but why not bring the director who knows the show?"

- Sure.

Now, as I said off the top, we've got a great theater scene here in Central Illinois, lots of different options.

How do you find folks to work on your productions, whether it's acting, set design, lighting, things like that?

- Referrals primarily from other actors.

We don't really put out any kind of calls, although if people are interested, we're always looking for actors, we're always looking for designers.

So if anybody would like to reach out to Coalescence, they can reach us on Facebook at Coalescence Theatre Project, or they can go to our website which is coalescencetheatre.org.

- One of the other interesting things I think about Coalescence is that you don't have just one spot where you do your performances.

I mean, I've seen you do restaurant/bar, church, the normal theater.

Would you like to have a home base, or is that intentional to kind of move around?

- It's intentional when you don't have the money for a space.

(laughs) - Yeah.

- And we are itinerant for that very purpose, to make sure that we get down into the community, and we make sure that we go down into the communities that we're trying to service as well.

- It's something I actually really love about Coalescence is how diverse the settings can be.

As a Director, I'm always very excited to see where I'm going to have my actors play.

And so, when I did Panther Woman with Don, it was immersive, 'cause I love immersive shows, and they were right there with the audience.

So they were able to come in and out of the audience and, like, make the audience a part of the show.

So I'm very happy that Don does have the shows in like so many different places, 'cause as an audience member, you never know what you're gonna get and you're always pleasantly surprised.

I love it.

- Myesha and I were talking about it before we came here, and Myesha did a brilliant job directing the show.

Heck, in Chicago, the show was nominated for Jeff Award.

- Yes.

- So she was the right director at the right time to bring down here and to work with the actors that we had down here.

- I also love that Don, going back to how you get the actors, there were a lot of the kids that were actually from the university.

So we were actually able to work with people who wanna do this for a living.

A few of the university, like, theater program students, we had two of them for sure that were in the show and they were main characters.

So I love being able to like impress upon them the, like, next generation of actors that are coming up.

And they're actually able to get paid, and it's not just like a school play, but it's, like, this is you really working with a real director, a real theater company, and then this is what you wanna do in the future, and you're doing it right now, while you're still in school.

So I love that Don incorporates the students from the college.

- What you may not have known is that I talked to them specifically about that.

I told them that, "If you want to know what's going on in the professional world up in Chicago, you are going to need to talk to Myesha, and you're gonna need to ask her questions."

And one of the actors, I swear, was always talking to you.

- Yeah, it's Anissa?

- Anissa, yeah.

- I love Anissa.

Anissa's now... Anissa Davis, I believe is her name, she's actually in Chicago now.

So she graduated, and now she's actually working in Chicago as a working actor.

- Yeah, that's right.

- So she works at multiple places now, so I'm very proud of her.

- So a lot of brain-picking there- - Yeah.

- With how do I get to where I wanna be?

- Yes, yes.

- That's great.

When looking at some of the productions that Coalescence has done, we're not seeing any Guys and Dolls, or Wicked, or anything like that- - And you're not going to.

(Myesha laughing) - Right.

And that's on purpose, I'm sure.

Tell us about, you know, when you do pick a performance to do, what are you looking for in it, and who do you wanna reach?

- Sometimes people will approach me with passion projects, and I'm more than likely to say yes to a passion project.

"Diary of a Gay Disaster" was somebody's passion project, and they had shopped it around to a number of theaters in central Illinois who all said no to her, until finally someone at another theater said, "Go to Coalescence, and they'll do anything."

No.

(laughs) No, they said, "Go to Coalescence."

And after they pitched the play to me, I said, "My only question to you is why didn't you come to us first?

Because this is the kind of a play and the kind of demographic that we want to reach."

And I had just been in the process of working with Jan Lancaster, who owns The Bistro in Bloomington-Normal, about doing a series of plays there.

And this made for a very first, a really very good first play.

It's a play by a playwright from the United Kingdom, and the director found it on TikTok, and had contacted the playwright.

And then, in turn, I followed up and contacted the playwright and contracted the playwright.

And then we have the contract now to do it in Chicago.

- [Mark] Okay.

- And I also opened the option up to do it in New York if we wanted to as well, so... - Yeah, why not?

(Don and Myesha laughing) So let's talk a little bit more about "Diary of a Gay Disaster," and we're showing some video of that performance now.

What's it about?

- It's about a young woman who is conflicted about her sexuality, and she's visited by the gods of sapphic desire (chuckles) to help her sort out her life.

And it's a comedy and it's a musical, it's a cabaret musical, so it's fun.

- Mm-hmm.

- It's fun.

- If you had to guess, I mean, like we said, there's plenty of other theater groups in the area, do you think maybe they passed on it because it wasn't mainstream enough, they couldn't sell enough tickets, or maybe because it was controversial, or both?

- I don't know.

You know, I can't tell you why theaters designed their seasons the way they do, and why they choose the kinds of plays that they choose.

They kind of nibble around the edges of what we do.

And my feeling about that is that the farther they push things as acceptable, that means the farther we can push things as being acceptable, too.

- Sure.

Myesha, have you ever had any instances with these productions where maybe someone in the audience came up to you afterwards, or gave you some feedback and said, "Wow, that's kind of mind blowing.

I'm not used to seeing this type of thing"?

- Yes.

Actually, when we were doing Panther Women, we had quite a few different organizations that came to see, I know the NAACP in the area came to see it.

- Right.

- And they hadn't, I'm not sure, seen a production in this way, and they'd never seen anything by India Nicole Burton.

And so, they were very like surprised and excited that they're like, "Oh, wow, they got a director from Chicago to come out here."

And I was like, "Yeah, I have a car, I can make it happen."

(all chuckling) But they really enjoy seeing themselves, especially the younger crowd.

The kind of work that I do oftentimes does bring a more younger crowd to see the shows, more younger, more diverse.

And I think that with them coming and like seeing representation, seeing themselves, and also just seeing something from someone who is younger, and they're like, "Wait a second, you did this and you're how old?

Oh, so I could do this?"

so it's like not that hard, like, I mean, clearly, you know, it takes a lot of work, I went to college for this and what have you.

However, they have come up and have been like, "Wow, I have never seen anything like this.

I've never seen an immersive show where like an actor's right there next to me, and I could literally look at them and see everything that's going on and their whole thought process."

So I love hearing it.

- The other thing that's really interesting is that they're not familiar with that period of history, and they have a lot of... When you say Black Panthers to a lot of people now, there's some negative connotations.

And the thing is, the Black Panthers were about free lunches, and about tutoring, about working in the neighborhood.

and it was the white groups, like the weathermen, that were blowing up bathrooms.

(Don chuckles) So, you had a really productive group, and a lot of people don't understand that, don't know that.

We just got finished doing a production in Chicago of "Measure of a Man" about Chairman Fred Hampton, the Deputy Chairman of the Illinois Black Panther party, and the development of what was the Rainbow Coalition where he reached out to white gangs and to Puerto Rican gangs and built a political movement, and was assassinated by the Chicago police and the FBI because of it.

And you talked about the NAACP.

The people that I work with at the NAACP in McLean County drove up to Chicago to see that show, it's an India Nicole Burton show as well.

- That's great.

- Yeah.

- Mm-hmm.

- I wanna talk about something you did recently that got you a lot of press; it's called, "So You Think You Can Stay?".

- Right - In a very timely production, tell us about that.

- Oh, "So You Think You Can Stay?"

is... When I first selected the play, I thought it was going to be political satire.

It's about a game show where you have five immigrants, and whoever tells the most compelling story is selected by the audience, the actual audience who comes see the play, to stay.

But, as part of that premise, they're not only choosing one person to stay, they're excluding four people.

So, hopefully, what the audience does is they go through that kind of a thought process when they're making their votes, and then some audience members will refuse to vote.

But it's for lack of a better term, and people may not even know the term, agitprop.

It's agitprop theater, agitation and propaganda.

- Okay.

- It's meant to elicit a response.

- And it seems like a lot of the Coalescence productions do make people think.

- Yeah.

- I mean it's not just kind of a time to zone out and sing along with the songs- - Yeah.

- It's learning about things and maybe looking at things from a different perspective.

- Yeah.

- Do you feel that way?

- Absolutely, I love theater that makes people think.

Those are the only kind of shows I even think of directing.

Because I don't want you only to... Yes, have a good time, theater is a opportunity to escape from reality sometimes, but also it's also an opportunity to reflect, because life imitates art.

So we're able to see what we're really going through and what others may be going through that you have no idea of.

And so, I am often astonished by the plays that Don is able to find for Coalescence to produce, because something like that is very mind-boggling, and it does make you leave the theater saying, "Wow, what were my views on this very real issue before I got here?

And have they changed now that I've seen how this can affect real people in real-time, especially in a time that we are living in currently?"

- Mm-hmm.

We talked about ISU students have worked on your productions.

- Yes.

- Correct.

- Do you have a core group of people that help you out with these, or is it a lot different coming in and out?

- Because it's a lot of ISU students just like us, it's transient.

You have- - Lot of turnover.

- It's a lot of turnover, exactly.

So you have a new crop of students all the time.

This past year, I had all the graduate MFA directors wanting to direct for us, and they weren't reaching out to any of the other theaters to direct.

I guess one of them did, but for the most part... And some of them I'm gonna continue to work with, one of them now is teaching at Bradley.

And I'll definitely be working with them again.

- So it definitely sounds like Coalescence relies a lot on word of mouth.

You're on social media, I haven't seen any commercials run on TV for you, but- - No, no.

- You know, you've got troops on the ground, so to speak.

- [Don] Right.

- How do you see the theater group growing in the future?

How would you like to see it?

I'm guessing you don't wanna get too big, you know, you don't want a big marquee and lights and- - No.

My concept is for a constellation of community's vision of theater, where we look at servicing an area that includes Peoria, Decatur, we've already done a show in Springfield, Champaign Urbana, Joliet, now we've done a show up in Chicago.

So we have a constellation of communities.

And hopefully people who get used to seeing us in one area will travel to another area.

- [Mark] Mm-hmm.

- Like, I had the people from Bloomington travel up to Chicago to see our production of "Measure of a Man."

- That's great.

Myesha, we gotta get some more Chicagoans down here.

- Absolutely- - Let them know- - I'm working on it.

- We have electricity and everything.

(Myesha laughing) Gotta get 'em down here.

- I'm definitely working on it, yeah.

(chuckles) - Speaking of the future, do you have any productions lined up for this year already?

- We're working on The Bistro queer series, and have some shows in mind, nothing that's actually firm yet.

We do have another show coming up in Chicago.

It's a new show that's going to be a developmental workshop reading.

And the playwright really wants to just be specific about that, because they are in the process of working on the script.

The play is called "Rare Wolves", and it's about a pack of transgender and non-binary werewolves, and one of the pack is murdered by an outsider, and the pack has to decide how they're going to deal with this outsider.

- Interesting.

Kind of an inside-out reverse horror- - Yeah.

- Story.

- Wow.

Myesha, what's on your agenda for 2026?

- 2026, well, I just had a baby seven months ago, so- - Congratulations.

- Thank you.

(chuckles) So he's on my agenda every day.

(all chuckle) - [Mark] In your hip in your back- - Yep.

- And everything else.

- My hip, my back, my everywhere, he is all around the place.

And he's just starting to learn how to crawl, so he's about to be all around the house.

But other than that, I'm gonna be assistant directing over at the Marriott in the spring, I am artistic director at Perceptions Theater, which is in Chicago.

So we have some upcoming readings, some festival shows that happen in the summer.

I'm very excited to work with Don again on any number of projects.

Don is always a great host for the Chicago people, so I'm always like, "Hey," when Don calls, I come.

But as of right now, that's what I'm doing directing-wise, acting-wise things are picking back up, so I'm excited to see where things go.

But directing-wise, I'm very much so booked in the early spring and summer, winter, fall is very open for me, so I'm very open.

- [Mark] Okay.

- One of the things that's opened the doors for us, to actors in Chicago, has been a simulation training project that we have been hired for statewide simulation training project.

And so, we do simulations in Bloomington, we do simulations in Chicago, and we're gonna be discussing adding some additional sites in Chicago.

- How do you find the productions that you end up putting on?

Do people come to you, or is it mostly you seeking them out?

- People come to me or I find them, I will get sent scripts.

Our playwright advisory board members will tell me, "Have you read this script?

", and they'll give me ideas.

So ideas don't all have to come from me, but I want ideas to come from people who I respect and trust as far as generating those kinds of ideas.

- Typically, how many shows are you putting on a year?

- Well, this last year, we did five.

- [Mark] Okay.

- And the year before, I think we did three.

So it really depends on our capacity at the time.

Three of the shows that we did, we did between August and December, so that was a lot of running.

And one of the shows was in Chicago, and one was in Normal and... Well, the other two were in Normal.

- Do you like the fact that you're not beholden to someone, like you have to have X amount of productions a year, you don't have these huge productions, so you don't need to worry a lot about logistics and things like that- - Mm-hmm.

- You can kind of do it where you see fit.

- Exactly.

I remember how the theater company started, it started with me turning around and looking at the audience.

Coalescence has always been about the audience first, and that's the answer to the question.

And the answer to the question are people like Myesha who are willing to come down from Chicago and direct for us.

- Yeah.

- And I'm gonna ask her again.

(Myesha chuckles) It's gonna just be the vehicle that she gets excited about- - It's something I also love with the fact that you are able to do it in so many different places and bring the theater to Peoria, to Bloomington, to Normal, to Springfield, and everywhere, is the cast size.

The fact that you can have anywhere from one to six actors, which makes it easier to tour shows.

And you can be like, "Hey, yeah, this comes from Coalescence," somewhere over in, you know, central Illinois.

And this is the talent we have here, because some of these shows have the very people that are part of this community, and it's not just, you know, people who come from Chicago, it's actually the homegrown talent that is already here, which I love.

- What would you say to someone maybe who isn't a regular theater goer and they hear about Coalescence?

What would be your pitch to them to say, "Hey, come check us out, come see something different."

- Oh, goodness.

I think that deep down inside, everybody wants to see something different, everybody wants to check out something that is out of what they ordinarily see.

And I think that if they give us a chance and they do see us, even if the play is there to cause them to ask questions, I think people like to ask questions.

I'm hoping that people, after they see a show, go out for coffee and drinks and talk about our show until midnight.

- One thing I can say is the experience I've had so far with working with Coalescence, after the shows are over, people do not walk out of the exit door.

They stay behind- - That's right.

- They wanna see the cast members, they'd be like, "Hey, is the director here, is the playwright here?"

They really want to get to know them and know how, "Hey, how do you do that?"

Sometimes they even have talkbacks after the show, so that they can get a more behind the scenes looks of things.

So I definitely think that pitching it to someone saying, "Hey, you want different theater, you want fun theater, you want theater that makes you think?

Coalescence is where you need to be for sure.

- And that's a great thing that you have going in your favor, that one-on-one interaction with the audience.

Well, it's a very interesting project, the Coalescence Theatre Project.

How can people find out more information?

- They can go to our website which is coalescencetheatre.org, or they go to our Facebook page, Coalescence Theatre Project, and they can like us and they can follow us on Facebook.

- Okay.

Well, Don and Myesha, we appreciate you coming in today all the way from Chicago, thank you very much for that.

And we wish you best success in the future.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- All right, thank you for joining us.

You can share this video with someone who may be interested in theater or maybe not, whatever, it's an interesting topic, just go to wtvp.org, check it out, and you can find us on Facebook and Instagram.

Thanks for joining us, we'll see you later.

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