Youth Stories
by Sarah Biette, Manager of Partnerships & Outreach
A couple of weeks ago, in the midst of moving quickly from summer busyness to back-to-school busyness, my family and I decided to take a pause to see a live performance at The Theater Bug, an all-ages theater company based in Nashville. Some of our friends were performing, so that also offered an extra push we needed to get out of our endless array of events and to-dos for the evening. The Theater Bug was performing Stories, by Nashville playwright Nate Eppler, directed by Cori Anne Laemmel and choreographed by Bakari J. King, which premiered in 2021 as a web series. Seeing Stories live, as a full musical, offered not just a great way to spend time together, but also reminded me of the power that art can hold, allowing audience members to become connected to the experiences of others.
Stories follows the life experiences of five young people: Cam, Ty, Sonia, Andie, and Isabel Jane, each sharing their personal experiences, each important and relevant. Their stories felt authentic, devoid of the pandering, condescension, and silliness through which some writers seem to view young people. Eppler’s writing of the primary character’s individual stories moved me with their realness and the lens of respect, showing that young human lives aren’t simple, and oftentimes, can be marked by grief, pain, worry, and heartbreak.
I was moved by the skillful and beautiful performances of each of the cast members, and also, inspired by the very evident care with which The Theater Bug holds each cast member. A challenging production like Stories, especially when featuring an all-ages cast, demands a deep sense of safety, community, and support. I loved seeing that The Theater Bug invests in practices that create a healthy environment, including having a mental healthcare professional to offer support, intentional practices to create an inclusive cast, and the kind of direction that allows for expression and individuality.
I’m writing all of this, not just to share about a moving evening at the theater, or my deep appreciation for the efforts of a well-run theater company. Both The Theater Bug and Stories left me thinking. Stories didn’t shy away from the realities of racism and police brutality. It didn’t speak in coded language about the harm of bias, intolerance, or even the impact of systemic oppression. Stories didn’t obscure the reality or the prevalence of injustice. It didn’t make excuses or fall into a pattern of rationalization. Stories, and The Theater Bug, offered a container in which cast and audience members could feel, explore, and understand the human cost of all of the words we’ve been asked to ignore: discrimination, racism, homophobia, oppression, identity, and injustice.
While The Theater Bug and Center for Advancing Community are both now operating in a political and social landscape in which using those words can result in losses of funding, partnerships, and more, we are also operating with the ability to choose. By producing Stories, The Theater Bug demonstrated that it has chosen to center the wellness of its all-ages cast and to use the powerful combination of theater + music + reality to open hearts and minds.
And while we’ve rebranded, we’ve chosen to remain committed to providing safe spaces for our young people and to offering quality training to our partners. By doing so, we’ve chosen to invest in the kind of community that will value the full lives of young Black men like Ty, the validity of LGBTQ+ love demonstrated by Sonia, the power of female leadership shown by Isabel Jane, the lives of those who struggle with the care for ourselves + those grappling with mental illness like Andie, and finally, the kind of power that will unite, create, and catalyze for the better—the voices of young people like Cam.
