S2.E5 | Eric Ruffin | Crafting Theatre with Love at the Root

In this episode, I sit down with acclaimed director and educator Eric Ruffin to explore the artistry, history, and purpose that fuel his work. We talk about his unexpected journey from actor, to Navy submariner, to visionary theatre director, and how his lived experiences have shaped the way he tells stories.

Eric shares his insights on:
 ✅ Theatre as a tool for visibility and healing
 ✅ The responsibility of Black artists in storytelling
 ✅ How directing is an act of love and transformation
 ✅ The power of bold design choices in theatrical worlds
 ✅ His dream of leading a theatre company that serves the community first

...and lots more! This was a rich, dynamic conversation about artistry, legacy, and how we shape culture through storytelling.

Want to be a guest on KeyBARD? Send Thembi a message on PodMatch: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/1740803399472257afce75768

KeyBARD is produced, written, and hosted by Thembi Duncan.
Theme music by Sycho Sid.

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Transcript

Eric Ruffin: A Frances Cress Welsing quote: "He or she who controls the images projected to the masses control their self-esteem. You have the power to shape how your community sees themselves, and how the world sees them."

Thembi: Hello, hello and welcome to KeyBard. I'm Thembi, bringing you compelling conversations and content about technology, education, and the arts.

Howard University is well-known for its alumni who personify a legacy of black scholarship activism, leadership artistry, and just all around excellence. Eric Ruffin is no exception as both an alum and a professor of theater arts at hu. He carries that legacy forward through his own work in the American theater and in shaping the next generation of storytellers as they develop their craft. In our conversation, I talk with Eric about his career journey, including his time in the military, his expectations for designers during a production, some surprising questions from his students, and how theater can be a conduit of transformation. He healing and love. Stay with me, Eric Ruffin is up next. I'm here with the most incredible director in the world, Eric Ruffin. I'm going to tell you a little bit about him.

Eric Ruffin's most recent regional theatre directing credits include Shutter Sisters for First Stages, stirring the Water at the Reach Kennedy Center, mountaintop and A Raisin in the Sun at Lyric Repertory Company, Mary's Sea Cole, and Fabulation for Mosaic Theater, Seraphina Kennedy Center and Man Center, black Nativity for Theater Alliance, which received 11 Helen Hayes nominations and three awards, including best Musical two to Tango at Studio Theater Christmas gift at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, A Raisin in the Sun at Crossroads Theater, old settler for the African Continuum Theater Company Gutta Beautiful at new federal theater, New Kid for Imagination Stage, and the critically acclaimed New Jersey premiere of Top Dog underdog. For Luna Stage, he has also directed big white fog, multiple productions of black Nativity Radio, golf, hurt Village Venus Passing Strange and Cut flowers at the Ira Aldridge Theater. In addition to in the Blood Antione in Arabia, we'd all be kings.

Jesus hopped the A Train and Our Lady of 120 first Street for the Rutgers Theater Company. Other credits include public ghosts, private stories at the George Street Playhouse, Romeo and Juliet at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, the piano lesson for the African Globe, my Children, my Africa at Luna Stage and waiting to be invited for the Black Theater Troop. He founded the acting studio at the Newark School of the Arts, a professional training program for actors, and was the founder and artistic director for the Newark Youth Ensemble in Newark, New Jersey. Additionally, he has served as the artistic director for the New Jersey Performing Arts Center's Young Writer Workshop, and has taught acting, directing and performance theory courses at various schools, including Howard University, duke Ellington School of the Arts, and Rutgers University's Mason Gross School of the Arts. Eric Ruffin holds a BFA in theater arts from Howard University and an MFA in directing from Rutgers University. He's a society for stage directors and choreographers associate, a New York Theater Workshop, usual suspect, and a 1999 recipient of the New York Drama League directing fellowship. He has also been honored with the Shakespeare Theater Acting Fellowship and the Princess Grace Grant for dance, and recently Eric Ruffin directed for the O'Neill Theater Center's Playwriting Lab was commissioned by Studio Theater to develop a multidisciplinary performance centering the Port Chicago tragedy and is a board member for Wooly Mammoth Theater. Welcome Eric Ruffin.

Eric Ruffin (04:07): Wow, you left out. 

Thembi: I know, right? 

Eric Ruffin: You left out that I'm only 21.

Thembi: Oh, oh, okay. I see it right here. I'm sorry I missed that. He's only 21.

Eric Ruffin: He did all that between the ages of six and 21.

Thembi (04:26): It's incredible. It's incredible. I remain impressed. So let's jump in. Eric, I'm so happy to have you here on the podcast. I just want to start by talking about the beginning of your artistic journey. What is the first art form that you remember experiencing as a young person?

Eric Ruffin: I would've to say it has to be the storytelling or singing because I was in a household where music was always being played, always being played. I was introduced to so many different styles of music from my mom and my dad, everything from of jazz. And then the r and b of the time sold to country western stuff, which I wasn't as a child, but most proud of. My dad would play Country Western on Saturday mornings while we were cleaning the house. And I lived in North Philly, which is, it was a working class neighborhood.

Thembi: Yeah, that's interesting,

Eric Ruffin: Right? Interesting vibe. You blasting Kenny Rogers and I'm having to go outside and the kids know that my family is listening to country music in Philly, but then my mom was the gospel, but my dad was also listening to Parliament Funkadelic and it was just like, there's so many different styles of music, but I'd have to say it might be storytelling because I remember a story called Bloody Bone that my mother used an old paint story about going down into the basement and the entire family one at a time going down into the basement and not paying attention to the warnings of this ghost until finally the father with all of his machismo goes down all the way to the bottom of the stairs and bloody bone catches them. And it's one of those old Hank stories that was told to children at night to scare the shit out of them.

And I remember as a young person couldn't wait to get to my cousin's house to tell the story of Bloody Bone. So there's something about, yes, I was experiencing art, but then transferring that and becoming the artist, wanting to tell the story, wanting to affect people in one way, shape or form, teach people in one way, shape or form with storytelling. I don't know that in terms of musicianship, I did anything but sort of show off my vocal prowess when I sang. But as a storyteller, I couldn't wait to tell the story of Bloody Bone over and over again to schoolmates to cousins, to sort of change them in some way, scare the hell out of them.

Thembi (07:11): I love that. And I think a lot of times when I ask people about how they go from experiencing art to becoming an artist, I think there are different ways to define that, right? You talk about being a child and being excited about telling the story of Bloody Bone. Well, at that point you did become an artist, even though sometimes, and I'm guilty of this as well, I think of becoming an artist as the point where we're doing it for let's say we're studying it seriously or we're being given a paycheck for doing something artistic versus just the act of and the journey of, so can you talk about, are those things even separate to you or is it just from that moment as a child with bloody bone? I think

Eric Ruffin (07:49): That we are all artists, all of us. I love that whether we take the mantle on of being an artist with a capital A, that's something different. Whether we go to study it and then ultimately join this capitalist industrial model of sharing it and getting coins for the widgets that we exchange for the stories that we exchange, that's something different. But when a mother sings a song to her child to soothe them, to put them to sleep or to comfort them, whether we're teaching children the alphabet, A, B, c, dfg, we're educating, but at the same time entertaining. There's artistry to that. 

And so I think there's this sort of disconnect or cognitive dissonance that exists as we think that artists have to be trained in the institution to provide this sort of standard of artistry to their communities. That sort of standardization, that sort of industrialist, institutionalization, like how we institutionalize this whole thing, it's kind of problematic so that we don't think of ourselves, each individual as an artist in our own way, shaping our world with these beautiful anecdotes shaping our world and creating beauty with the visual arts that we create. How many times have we taken a child's artwork and put it on the wall and said, look at that.

Thembi (09:35): Yeah, yeah, that's true. That's a really good point. And so I guess then that makes me wonder for you, your journey, your artistic journey. So it sounds to me like you would say you've always been an artist, even though you've done really interesting things in your life that wouldn't be considered artistry, right? Including you served in the Navy, is that correct?

Eric Ruffin: Oh yeah. I spent four years on a submarine in Pearl Harbor and ultimately learned to be a scuba diver and an electrician, basic electrician for the submarine.

Thembi: And that's,

Eric Ruffin: Yeah, the multiple lives...

Thembi (10:13): Well, that's what I mean. It's like, okay, so you're right in that we are all artists from the beginning, but sometimes we can get caught in the idea of, okay, I'm an artist when I am in the act of performing some sort of art, like you said, for this whole capitalist complex that we live in as opposed to the many ways that we use art every single day. I would suspect that even though you were in the Navy, and even though you were scuba diving, you were still using art in those spaces. You were still an artist in those moments.

Eric Ruffin: If you only knew. There were times where I'd be practicing my tap dancing and they were like, this is the silent fleet Ruffin. You cannot be tap dancing on a submarine. Stop it.

Thembi: I would say you probably made history as the first person to be tap dancing on a submarine. I'm going to guess

Eric Ruffin (11:06): Absolutely. But just to segue, just for a nanosecond, being in the Navy, that was me sort of running away from being an artist. That was me trying to spend four years away from being this actor, singer, dancer to look at my life objectively and ask myself, is this what I really, really want to be doing with my life? I had spent four or five years in New York acting, singing, dancing, never making more than about $14,000 a year. And in the eighties, that was okay. It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't really good. There was me wanting to live up to my parents' expectations, having been the first person in my family to go to college. I was supposed to have gone to law school in their minds. In fact, still my mom is like, baby, it's not too late to go to law school. And I was like, well, then you go and join. Go to law school, live your dream. But

Thembi (12:12): As for me...

Eric Ruffin: As for me, right? And then there was me going to auditions and feeling like I was on this auction block, literally walking on my hands to get jobs. I literally walked on my hands doing acrobatics to get a job, and I thought, this is so bizarre that I'm graduating Magna cum laude from Howard University and I'm walking on my hands to get a job.

And so I sort of left it all and said, let me look at my life objectively. And I found myself in the Navy because it was something that I had put on my things to do list when I was a teenager. Let me see what this is like. I'll join the Navy. And it was in that four years that I realized, no, this isn't what you're supposed to be doing. Here are these young men taking you off to sing karaoke to the people in downtown y Kiki because they want you to uplift the spirits of the people in the bar that are singing at karaoke. They're ushering you off to take your Dunham dance classes over at the University of Hawaii. So here are these men who have chosen these lives that don't include artistry at the center, but they are supporting you because as one person said, it's like a slapping god's face that you are not sharing these gifts and talents that God has given you.

So me being in the Navy was a period of me really coming to terms with what it is I need to be doing as an artist, and it's there that I realized directing is the thing that I need to pursue. And then I went on to grad school afterwards and directed my first play and left all of those rehearsals crying, literally crying because all of those parts of me came together in a rehearsal hall, Eric, who was student government leader, elementary and middle and high school, Eric, who was a lover of history, love history, love stories and narratives and literature and reading about distant worlds. And Eric who loves to communicate, and Eric who had been a dancer and a singer. And so all of these parts of me came together in a rehearsal hall in service of a storytelling, in service of these other artists who needed guidance. They needed some five-year-old in the room to say, that's exciting, that choice, or you need to add more to that in order for it to continue to be engaging for an audience. All of these parts of me came together and having joined the Navy, it helped guide me towards I think is one of my purposes on this planet.

Thembi (14:55): And as a director, you have this really incredibly rich directing portfolio, which I mentioned earlier when I was going through your bio. So I'm curious, you talk about being a lover of history. You talk about all the experiences that you had in your life and the skills that you built that inform how you direct. So what are the dominant themes that you see coming through in your body of work as a director?

Eric Ruffin (15:19): It changes over time. I began with this sort of theme of needing to see, needing to render voiceless people in theater visible, needing to make sure that black and women and queer and people who had, when I was growing up, I never saw enough of. And so I said, that's going to be my voice rendering those folks who have been invisible, all of us rendering us visible. So I was the one doing the multicultural casting, but not doing it in a way that was just gratuitous. I was doing it for purpose. I said, we could say something very specific about race or gender or sexual orientation by casting that person in that particular role. So we illuminate something about this classic or we move to this contemporary piece and stop telling these old tales. Let's get some contemporary pieces. So that's where I began in terms of thematic chord that I sort of overlaid or marked my work with.

But I think now it's evolved into, I would say, how do I define the African American aesthetic with my work? I look at these ways that these rituals, these ceremonies, these aesthetics and conventions that exist in African-American culture, and I say, why can't that live on stage? Why is that a subculture thing? Why no, it's going to live on stage, it's going to be present for the world to celebrate with us. It's going to render us visible completely. So I think that's thematically something that runs through the work that I do now, so that if I can make that happen with the work or if the work comes to me and already gives permission for that, I'm all for it. I love going down that road right there.

Thembi (17:35): And so you go into the process with, a lot of times people are going to talk about, okay, what's the director's relationship to the actor? Right? I'm curious, when you're building a world, the designers are a really important part of that in my opinion. We don't talk enough about the director designer relationship because you're not just working with all of these actors, however big your cast is, but you're also translating and cajoling and pushing back and inspiring these designers who have to literally build the world that you're presenting to the audience, and I'd like to know in your eyes, what are the things that designers can bring to the process that help you see your vision through? Because, and I'd also like you to speak to, are there limitations to your vision when your designers don't bring certain things to the table?

Eric Ruffin (18:33): Well, the first question, what I love is when a designer thinks like a director also. So I'll say to designers every time when I'm working with them, I am not the be all end all. So as we move through this process and you see things that are happening on the stage that don't make sense, that don't have clarity, please let know because we all will rise together. So I like designers that think directors also in that regard. So I think in that way, I take down this sort of hierarchal world of everyone stay in their lane. No, we're all going to rise together. If this work succeeds, it's because we all have equal vested interest in it succeeding. So why should you sit back and watch the directing of the work fail while the design is incredible? I love designers who go bold, meaning if I'm going to invite you to a theatrical experience, it has to be something that people can't get from television and film.

So why would I give you just simply a slice of psychological realism, which is more effective in television and film? Give me a metaphor, exploded in some way. And I can look at this world and be like, this is like a candy shop. This is Instagramable, this is beautiful. And I can put a narrative on top of it that is rooted in psychological realism, but the work becomes so much more poetic when I'm looking at costumes and lighting and sound that is much larger than life. And oftentimes I'll have to tell the actors, look at that set. Do you see how grand it is? Unless you play at a scale that is almost operatic, you'll be upstaged by that set design. So you got to bring it. You got to play as if your life depends on it so that you are in balance with the set that's been created for you to play on. I think when designers have the courage to play in very bold ways, I want to encourage that. And if they're thinking like directors, then we can shore up each other because I'm going to be thinking like a designer, I'm going to say, no, we can't make that elevation bright yellow because the costume for the protagonist is bright yellow. They're going to disappear, so I'm going to be aiding them and they're going to be aiding me in this process. So we're colleagues, we're collaborators.

Thembi (21:28): Yeah, you're looking for directors who, I'm sorry, designers who think like directors. And you are coming to the process as a director who thinks like a designer and understands design, which really highlights how important it is for a director to have some knowledge of every design area, costume, lighting, scenic, props, sound, and that's a lot to know and understand. And I think it's helpful for people to understand what directors do because it's hard to see the work of directors a lot of times if you don't understand what they're responsible for and how they bring everything together. So have you developed a consistent creative process in your directing practice, or does your approach depend on what the source material is and how you come to it?

Eric Ruffin (22:17): There are some things that are standard. There is, you read the play for the enjoyment of it, then you read the play to analyze what it's about and narrow it down to just one central thought. One central theme there is the finding language that repeats itself throughout the work so that you can figure out, or some visual that repeats itself so that you can say, ah, let's explore that in terms of the design, and here's where it leads me. 

So here are some artists that inspire me when I read this play or I'm inspired to look more at this artist. There is the table work process, which is absolutely essential. I'm never going to go through a process without spending at least a week with the actors at the table answering that who, what, where, why, when and how. And then looking at the value system throughout charging the actors to choose the most second objectives and actions, tactics that they play, and they battle it out at the table and before we ever get up on our feet, because if it lives in your body at the table, then you can find the blocking quite easily.

You can learn the lines more easily once you know what you're of making sure that the designer run happens early enough so that the designers can adjust to how you've been playing so that the actors can see, Ooh, we got a lot more to do.

And giving the actors enough time with the play enough run throughs before you go into tech so that they own the show before you go into tech and they know the story that they're telling so that even if we don't have any design, they'd be able to get up and tell that story very effectively. There is the going through tech process, knowing that everyone's trying to figure some things out. 

Everyone has to be patient. Allowing the design tech process to catch up to where the actors have been over our tech process now might be a week, but we've had three, four weeks with the actors, so they're playing catch up. So being patient in that process and asking questions as opposed to giving directives. 

So those things are standard for me in the process, but each play, I swear, teaches me something different. And I may not know what that lesson is until after the work is done, but I leave myself open to being taught.

Sometimes it's something in the process that I've had to adjust and learn from that process. I remember once I was, oh, this with Marys Seacole, I was working and a bit insecure, it's all female cast, and I said, I don't know if this is the play for me. Why am I directing this? And Craig Wallace and I had a conversation about one of his favorite processes, and he said, the director took all of the actors aside one day for 15, 20 minutes and just ask them questions about their comfort level, ask them questions about their needs, really just made an attempt to take care of them by checking in with each one individually. 

And so I was like, oh, I'm going to add that to my process. I think that's so that could be so effective if actors understand that they are being supported, that they are heard, that their needs, someone wants to make sure that their needs are met. I'll add that to my process. So each process varies as I learn more as the play demands something different. But there are those standards that I've sort of mapped out there.

Thembi: So tell me more about Marys Seacole.

Eric Ruffin (26:22): Marys Seacole was for me a challenge in the best ways, but it was just after Covid. So we were trying to figure out how to resource theater again, how to take care of the actors, been to Covid, how to take care of that particular play. It is so antiestablishment in its structure. It is this form follows function. She was looking to disrupt the way that we tell stories. She said, I am centering a black woman that many people have never heard of. And just in that act of centering this black woman narrative, I'm being radical, but also in the structure, she had all of these scenes with characters that were all named Mary, spelled in various different ways, M-E-R-R-Y, M-A-R-Y, just different variations on the name Mary. And she was looking at how Marys, Mary Seacole had informed all of these women's lives or we were reliving aspects of a woman's expected responsibilities.

It's expected that a woman is going to take care of the people around them and their health and their wellbeing. And so she put it in all of these various locales that you say, oh my God, as a director, how do I make all these places happen as a director? How do I connect all of these seemingly disparate stories together and then at the same time honor Mary Al with the entire production? So it was great for me to sort of pull my hip boots up and try to figure that thing out. 

I had a great team of people to work with, but it taught me a lot about the need to disrupt what is the status quo and the need for playwrights to be sort of at the forefront, creating these new ways of storytelling that will engage audience and introduce us to new stories instead of the same old sort of 30 stories that the hero's journey over and over again.

Thembi (29:01): Keep recycling for the next generation.

Eric Ruffin: Right.

Thembi: Do you feel drawn to certain work and are there pieces that maybe you've been offered that you've turned down because you felt like you couldn't learn something from them or you didn't connect in some way to them?

Eric Ruffin (29:18): Ooh, I was presented with Liz Estrada recently, and I was like, I love what it says, love, love, love what it says. I'm not going to sit in a rehearsal process asking women to play with these sexual innuendos to really find a freedom in that I'm not that as queer as I'm, I can queen it up with the best of them, but that does not,

Thembi: But not for you, not that particular piece.

Eric Ruffin (29:50): That's right. And there are others that I just think that there are people whose temperaments and whose thematic chords are rooted in what that work is saying. Why aren't you asking them? Please ask them. I'm not the person for that. So absolutely there are works and then there are other works that I say, I want to direct this place so badly. Please don't give it to anyone before you give it to me.

Thembi: Okay. And which ones are those? I'm assuming some that you've done, that we've talked about.

Eric Ruffin (30:24): There are. I'm dying to Nina Angela Mercer stands as still one of my favorite, favorite playwrights. Her work Gypsy & the Bully Door, which has go-go music woven all the way through it. And in the last scene, the audience sort of resurrects with call and response the protagonist and joins the actors on stage with the Go-Go band. 

And the stage turns into a go-go love that world because there's something about going to a theatrical event and knowing that community will be created knowing that there's a healing, there's medicine, there's prescription in this work for how we as a community can gather around our healers and there be some reciprocity. They can't just be giving of themselves their entire lives and we not give back pour into those people.

She has another piece called Gutta Beautiful, where the strip club has become the metaphor for young people's lives. Women playing the, because they think that's what validates them in this contemporary world to present themselves in that way, guys having to play thug hustlers, pimps because they think that's where their worth can be had or found by others. 

And so we wear these masks and ultimately our relationships fizzle because we've never taken time to be honest and figure out who we are outside of the media projections. And so these are works that really, really excite me. There's a playwright, Nick Ku, who's written this piece called Why Africa, A queer African Fantasia, love, love, love that work there is, what's his name? Ladarian Williams wrote a piece called Hurt People, and I got to work on that at the Eugene O'Neill recently. And the Hurt people hurt people, and it's got a podcast as a theatrical device, and the podcast is just go at it.

The first line of the play is "Y'all niggas need therapy for real." And they go into dissecting the of Black manhood and the disdain that a lot of people have for black men doing anything but playing thug and hustler and pimp and machismo, that if you wear, I don't know, an ascot or yoga pants, suddenly your masculinity is in question. If you've ever been intimate with another man, suddenly you're no longer available to the women because you are queer, because you've had this moment of sexual exploration. 

And so I love it, you have the podcasters, but then you also have the linear narrative where a guy comes home to his hometown to celebrate his best friend's birthday. They'd not seen each other since they were both 17. When they were 17. They had an intimate moment. The best friend whose birthday it's he has been pining for his best friend. He is in love with his best friend. So when the best friend comes home for the birthday, he's going to shoot his shot. And I want us to be partners. I love you. But the challenge is that this partner who has gone away, this best friend who has gone away, he's coming home with his soon to be fiance, a female, and is looking to get married. And so there's this triangle of love, and I can't tell you all the story, just that it gets complicated.

And I just love these narratives that confront what we are dealing with in our everyday lives right now in our communities right now. The sort of questions around sexual identity, the questions around the sort of fluidity of sexuality and how we can confront the sort of media projections that we've allowed to define us against who we are authentically.

Thembi (34:47): Do you feel like theatre can be, for lack of a better term, a battleground for that? Are we fighting for possession of our own narratives? Are we fighting for the ability to tell our own stories against a lot of counter narratives to our identities?

Eric Ruffin (35:03): Absolutely. Absolutely. That's double fold. I think that there are enough writers, and I'm saying black writers who understand that theater is this middle class sport, and the majority of theater goers in the regional theater circuit and even on Broadway are white folks. That has been the sort of narrative for a while. And so we've got a lot of writers who write for that. They write modern day picnics where people go to the theater to watch some Black person be assassinated, some black person to be hung. 

They go to watch the trauma because they understand that as "Black life." And so for us to wrest from them, control of our own narrative, is a challenge because you've got people who are leaning into feeding that beast, feeding that appetite. And those playwrights who are writing for community and about community, they're not being produced as much. Their work is sometimes not understood or not welcome in those spaces. They're not wanting to talk about healing. They're not wanting to talk about prescription, they're wanting to talk about trauma in these regional theaters, or they want the song in the dance. It hasn't changed so very much. And I'd love to see that change. 

I'm looking forward to it because I do believe that theatre, theatre is going to be, have a resurgence, but it's only going to have a resurgence when the playwrights are writing work that demands people come together to experience it.

Because here we are with all of this technology and we're sitting back and we're consuming our narratives from television mostly right now, chilling in front of tv or we're watching them on our computers. But that doesn't allow for us to really connect as human beings. That doesn't really allow for two human beings to see the humanist in each other in real time flesh, touching flesh. And you can, in a theatre, you can open up the rapport so that it's not just actors with other actors, but it can be actors with community, it can be community members with other community members. 

There is this connection that can happen inside of a theatre space that can't happen from television and film. And so these gathering spaces that we call theaters can be transformed into something that society absolutely needs as we barrel forward into this technological connection, which is, it's not real, it's superficial. This technological connection.

Thembi (38:12): This sounds like something that you might talk to students about. You are, you've been a professor at the Mecca -- Howard University in Washington D.C. for a number of years, and there are many, many esteemed alumni who have attended Howard University, including yourself, and just the lore, the legacy, the iconic nature of Howard University, not just as an HBCU, but as a destination for black excellence and a producer of black excellence. What does it mean to belong to that tradition, including my dad, by the way, who also went to just saying you, right. So can you talk about what that means to be a part of that?

Eric Ruffin (39:05): There was an era where when people left out the door, we saw ourselves as race men and race women, that how we dressed, how we presented ourselves in public was a reflection on the entire race. It was a reflection of our family. It was a reflection of ourselves. And we have moved into an era where young people don't necessarily see themselves as representing anyone except for themselves. And I'll say that one thing that I still find happens at Howard has always happened at Howard is that we see ourselves as representing the race. That the choices that we make have to be with intention, that we cannot present ourselves in ways that are irresponsible, in ways that will be of detriment to our communities and to ourselves. That's taught in the classroom. And I don't know that going to places other than HBCUs, that's necessarily something that's taught in a classroom.

They're giving you the technique, but they're not engaging you politically. They're not engaging you to say that your black body on that stage is a political act. And the stories that you tell and the choices that you make are a political act. And that there are little black boys and little black girls who will shape their identity based on what they see you do and say. So think about that. 

That's something that is taught in the class. I know in my classes on the first day, I will say a Francis Crest Wilson quote, I'll say he or she who controls the images projected to the masses, control their self-esteem. You have the power to shape how your community sees themselves and how the world sees them. So consider

Thembi (41:09): That. Yeah. See, that's not being taught at PWIs.

Eric Ruffin (41:16): And so if there is a legacy of Howard alum who have been in the film, television, theater industry that I don't know that carries, I think it would be that we still see ourselves shape these narratives in ways that have integrity, looking to present the human condition in ways that allow the world to see the complexity of what it is to be of African descent.

Thembi (41:52): Yeah, that's interesting because with the whole conversation about affirmative action and the things that are happening at PWIs, especially the Ivys and how enrollment is down

At the Ivys, and especially the ones that are pushing away from incentivizing black folks to come to their institutions, and I would be interested in, when you talk about a resurgence of theater, thinking about a resurgence of black pride in the sense of people really being race men and women like you talk about, and understanding how important that is in a society where there is an active political campaign to erase the telling of our participation and our priceless and thankless and incredibly important building of this society that we live in. Not just the infrastructure physically, but the culture, right? And the soul of it. 

And so I love that you talk about that sort of carrying forth, but I can imagine when you talk about a lot of young folks being more focused on themselves as opposed to where they come from and who they represent, just being another symptom of the society that we're in, and you speaking on the technology as well. And so what kinds of questions are your students asking you?

Eric Ruffin (43:13): Ooh, oh, here's a question that comes with every assignment in every class, which I find troubling. "Is there a rubric?"

Thembi: Oh, wow.

Eric Ruffin (43:26): And I'm like, child, you are an artist. The moment...

Thembi: They just want to check the boxes,

Eric Ruffin (43:32): They just want to check the boxes because they've been so many of them taught to take the test. So then what do I need to do so that I can take the test and be successful? And that will be the benchmark that says, I understand this thing and can move on to the next level. I'll get an A. It's like, well, darling, that's the bare minimum. If I give you a rubric, that's the bare minimum. As an artist, this is an embodied practice.

So the complexity of human life and the psychology of a person can't be captured in a rubric. There's so many choices that you can make. What do I say be interesting? How do you put, and here was something that's a great way to segue into this thing. A couple of years ago, the students that I was working with, I explained to them that these plays are love letters that the playwright is writing about the human condition for their community. They're wanting to change this aspect of the human condition. 

So a play is like a love letter. You must find the love. All of these characters are fighting with love, whether you're on the far left or the far right, they're fighting with love to change the world that they live in. The argument of the plays, what we're fighting for or against. So what I want you to do is I want you, this is an assignment that I gave. I want you to write a love letter to another character in this play. I'd be very interested what it's you love about that other character. And I had students ask me, we were talking about questions. What's a love letter? How do you write a love letter? And I thought, what Sweet Jesus.

Thembi (45:28): Wait a minute...

Eric Ruffin (45:29): Wait a minute. Exactly. These are young people who, A, they've learned to type before, they've learned to write cursive is out of the question. They're not necessarily writing love letters. They don't know what a love letter is, or at least this collective didn't. And I thought, okay, you want a rubric for a love letter? I'm troubled, but I'm going to move beyond that. I'm going to give you what you need because I think this is a great opportunity for us to go back in order to move forward. But I mentioned that question because, and tell that little story, because my birthday's in a couple days, and I have this idea I want to for 365 days starting on my birthday, this is my way of challenging myself to write a love letter to someone every day for 365 days, and that'll be my social media post.

Thembi: That's beautiful.

Eric Ruffin (46:37): As opposed, yes, as opposed to social media post featuring me and look at me in the fabulous life. I'm living here. I'm on the beach here. I'm in my new outfit at the opening, nah. I'm thinking, what if I make this about all of the people that I love and have loved and what it means to love and what love looks like? And I'm a huge fan of Bell Hooks rest, her spirit and power. She wrote a book all about Love end of the 20th century, and for me has been on the syllabus since then. I've tried to have all of my students read it because I think that we need to create our art with a love ethic. If you love yourself, if you love your community, if you love another person, everything that you do is for their evolution is for their growth and development. So you make choices and you make offerings, and you assist in ways that will better that person or better your community. So your theater, your plays, your performances must be offered with love. So I said, okay, this would be a great way for me to pay tribute to Bell Hooks. This would be a great way for me to root love in everything that I do every day.

Thembi: I love that. Happy birthday.

Eric Ruffin: Thank you.

Thembi (48:15): Yes, yes. I mean, it's interesting because what you are describing to me feels like the antidote to the sickness of that, the individualism that we've been infected with, the idea of writing love letters and focusing and aiming our attention and interest and efforts towards other people and enriching other people. So I think that's an important thing as an educator and as an artist that you bring to the world. And you talk about Bell hooks, which sounds like what you're focusing on now, but I'm wondering, do you have other projects coming up that you're thinking about or things that are holding your interest?

Eric Ruffin (48:58): One thing that's holding my interest is to be artistic director of a theater company. I would love to, I'll be turning 58 and I promised myself, when 65 happens, I'm going to be sitting on somebody's beach with a coffee in my hand and espresso in my hand, just chilling. But between now and then, I would love to be artistic director of a theater company and sort of help select works to be presented to the community that are rooted in a love ethic, that are prescriptive and full of medicine, and celebrate culture, celebrate who we are and what we bring to this country and to the world. I look at the offerings that are happening at many theaters around, and I think that's more about commercial success than it is about community. And I would love the work to be start with how does this serve the community? Who will this work help? Who will it benefit rather than how do we keep the doors open?

I think both can exist, but I think that if we talk about, what is it, 70% of people who have advanced degree, a college degree have never been to a theater, and 90% of people who have a high been, that's a lot of money on the table. A lot of people who don't go to the theater because it doesn't speak to them either the price point or the narratives. They don't speak to them in the aesthetics, in the conventions, in the fact that there are modern day picnics with black folks being killed or assassinated in character or literally. So why would I go to that? Who wants to see that?

Thembi (50:49): Who wants to see that? 

Eric Ruffin: Right. 

Thembi: Somebody, but not us.

Eric Ruffin (50:54): Yes. And so I think we need a company. We need to shake up this industry in a way that we don't look to serve that capitalist model. We look to serve community first, and I think the money will come if you're serving community first.

Thembi (51:15): It definitely sounds like it would require a different model than the model that we're used to in the regional theater circuit. Certainly we wouldn't even bring in the commercial or touring theater circuit because we know that that is profit antithetical to what you were just describing in terms of service.

Eric Ruffin: Exactly.

Thembi (51:34): Yeah. You bring me back, I think just as kind of a closing thought, I think about the losses, the tragedies, the missed opportunities of theater. And maybe I'm saying it this way, you might have a way of bringing me out of the sadness of it. You mentioned Gypsy in the Bully Door, and I think about that piece and how on a personal level, how close we got to that, right? To that becoming a thing and how fraught it was with emotion when we weren't able to do it for a number of reasons. 

And so I guess the last thing I'd love to explore is the idea of where do you put put the longing to be heard and to be seen? Because it feels like that's such a big part of the work that we do, even though we get the opportunity to share, to tell stories, the longing never leaves me. The longing for that piece doesn't leave me. The longing for pieces, unwritten pieces that have been written and haven't seen the light of day. Where does that longing go while we're functioning in the world, in the work that we have?

Eric Ruffin (52:45): When a person passes away and we say, okay, as long as that person's name is spoken, they will always be remembered. So there are, I think Adrienne Kennedy, she didn't really get her dues until after she had passed.

Thembi: That's right.

Eric Ruffin (53:04): That's because people kept speaking her name and speaking of the merits of her work. And so that ultimately, it didn't happen in her lifetime, but it happened that people know her name throughout the industry and are even producing her work now. I think that there's something about continuing to call the names of those and the names of the works of those brilliant artists who are forwarding this conversation. I'll mention it in my classrooms. 

In fact, Nina Mercer popped by my office yesterday, and I was on my way to the directing class, and it was so interesting in the class before I had mentioned Gypsy and the Bully Door to them. So she popping by my office, I said, you must come with me. And I took her to the class and introduced her, and they were all just so excited to meet this living playwright who I spoke so passionately about. And they were all Googling and looking her up and trying to learn more about her works. So I say, okay, her work will get done. Her work will get done. She will get her recognition hopefully in her lifetime. My prayer is in her lifetime, but she won't be forgotten. I hope that answers the question.

Thembi (54:22): And she's real. It does. And it makes her real to your students because I think in a lot of ways, things aren't real to us in this digital world. We don't have as much of a grasp on reality versus fantasy and farces and facade. And so to bring in real living playwrights who create such incredible work to help your students actually make contact with human beings and connect to that humanity, like what you were talking about earlier, I think is so important. 

So yeah, it really does answer my question and it gives me and the listeners, I think, something to think about as people who may or may not be theater practitioners. Not everybody who listens is a theater practitioner, but certainly can appreciate the creative process in that way and can appreciate the importance of storytelling in whatever lane you're in as a professional and just as a human being. 

So yeah, that's really, really beautiful. I mean, Eric, I speak your name, Eric Ruffin, for all of the work that you've done and all the incredible passion that you bring to theater and to life, and the many students who have come through their educational experience and made contact with you and learned from you. 

And I'm grateful for everything that you've done to bring light to the world and moving forward as an artistic director. I definitely speak that for you. If that is something of fresh creation or something that exists that you take over, I think either way, that's going to be a really powerful next step in your adventure here on this plane.

Eric Ruffin (56:03): Thank you. Thank you for everything. I have to tell you, you have been my crush for long time when I was I love you. I love you. When I was working in Box Office and tickets for is this gorgeous woman, and she's so smart. I love this woman and I've been crushing for ages, ages.

Thembi (56:35): I appreciate you so much for that. I love you so, so much. You and I have an unbreakable bond, and I appreciate you, Eric. I love you. I think that's a Well, yeah. I mean, my whole thing is this is what life is supposed to be, that we love each other and we create together and we hold each other accountable. And that it really resonates with me when you talk about continuing to speak on each other and not allowing each other to fade away.

Eric Ruffin (57:15): Exactly. I told the students, what do we do on this planet? We eat, we sleep, we defecate. We procreate and make babies. And we also share information. And that's important because in the sharing of information, telling of stories, we make it possible for us to evolve as individuals, us to involve as communities, to keep each other safe and protect each other. So we must continue to share information and those stories and those individuals who are doing it exceptionally well, we have to continue to speak their names so that we have the models, we have the templates presented for future generations. So thank you for this opportunity. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Thembi (58:09): Oh, it's my pleasure. I'm grateful for the conversation. So give Nina a hug for me. Maybe one day she'll speak to me.

Eric Ruffin: Oh, she knows what this beast is. She will not. She knows what this beast is.

Thembi: Woo, y'all. That was something. Yes, it. That's a whole other podcast episode.

Eric Ruffin: Yes, it was. And no love is lost at all.

Thembi: Appreciate it. I appreciate it. All right, sir. Well, that is it for this incredible episode of Key Bard. I am Thembi. This is Eric, and we love y'all. 'Til next time.

Eric Ruffin: 'Til next time...