Kristen Caesar
Photo courtesy of Kristen Caesar
A good amount of actors in the New York area would not be where they are today without Kristen Caesar.
Kristen founded the youth non-profit theatre company, Kidz Theater, when she was in her teens. Since founding it in California, it has become an environment in NYC that attracts a wide range of actors: take for example, a 19 year-old Ben Platt auditioning for the same show as a 12 year-old me. It’s a place where everyone in the rehearsal room cares more about each other and the process than the actual final product. Of course, by making sure that the cast of the show and the material of the show are the most important priorities in the room, the final “product” transforms for the better.
Kristen’s journey, her ideology as a teacher and mentor, and her passion for changing this industry from the bottom up are more inspiring and relevant now than ever.
How would you identify yourself as an artist? When people ask you “what do you do?” what do you tell them?
Usually when people ask me what I do, I say that I run a theatre company for kids but mostly teenagers, that is geared towards helping those young people meet professional musical theatre performance goals. We have a lot of the top kids from the tristate area coming together pushing each other to be the best that they can so it’s really a professional training program.
I guess I identify as many things...a business owner, an artistic director, a director, a choreographer, and the umbrella over all of that is probably a mentor and a teacher.
If you could put your “why” into one sentence (why you do it) what would it be?
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, but just really over the past couple of years, because we have kids that have professional parents or kids that are professionals themselves and they bring their professional friends. And people are always like “oh you do such good work you could be directing professionally, you could be directing on Broadway!” and the thing that I always say, besides “thanks, that’s nice!” is that I like my job better because I feel like I have so much control over the future of Broadway.
If I were to direct on Broadway I would have who I have. Whoever would be coming to me to audition, I would be at the mercy of their skills and whatever it is that they’re able to do. Especially as Broadway has become more commercial we’ve really moved away from the Bob Fosse’s and the Jerome Robbin’s who considered themselves teachers as much as directors. They brought people in and they trained them. I mean, that’s just not what we do anymore.
So when I’m working with kids, and with somebody like you who came to me when you were 11 or 12, I feel like I got to be so instrumental in your growth as a performer but more importantly as a person. The kind of person you and your peers are when you go out into the professional world as actors, as directors, as whatever people you end up being in the performing arts, I have so much say in the kind of professionals you are. We bring so much other stuff into the room, for example social justice is such a big part of what we do. Now there’s a formal word for it, but anti-racist training is something we’ve always been doing. And a love for the craft and a deep love for learning and growing. And if I can send all those artists out to their BFA programs and people will look up to them and emulate that, then that spreads. Then all of those people graduate and they go off into the professional world. I actually have a lot of control over the future of Broadway looks like. So that’s my long “why” answer.
Could you talk about your journey and how Kidz Theater came to be the place that it is today?
I’m lucky enough to have been able to watch your process unfold in the rehearsal room for a big portion of my life, of how you direct and how you choreograph. And I was always in awe of how organized you are, because that’s not really a common thing to see with all directors and choreographers. So could you talk about what your process is to you specifically as a director/choreographer, and what’s most important to you as you’re realizing a production on its feet?
“First and foremost, the story is the most important thing to me. But that’s sort of a general statement to make….at the end of the day I want to take the audience on an emotional journey. A very carefully crafted emotional journey. And I want to affect the audience emotionally. Every moment should be affecting the audience in a specific way”
Has there been a moment in your career, or an instance, where you dealt with blatant disrespect or discrimination? And how did you deal with that?
Well I’ve been thinking about this a lot. Because I think a lot about that time period with those awful moms who wrote those awful emails (note: a few years ago, a mother started an email chain attacking Kristen and accusing her of being abusive and sent it to everyone who had ever been on the Kidz Theater mailing list. It was blatantly disrespectful and catty, to say the least) And I think about that period a lot for a lot of different reasons. And I remember right after the election I was talking with one of the moms about sexism and how it came into play with the 2016 election, and she was like but Hillary Clinton is so incredible...how could sexism even be a factor? How could people deny how incredible she is? And I don’t know how we came to this, but I was like do you remember those emails? And she was like, of course I remember those emails. I was like do you think that if I was a man, those emails would have been sent? And she sat and thought for a second. And she was like—there’s just no way. There’s just no way that those emails would have been sent if you were a man. And I was like actually, a lot of the things that people complained about, about me being too strict or whatever, would have been things that you thanked a male teacher for. Do you know what I mean? Nobody looks twice at a male teacher, like a football coach or even an acting teacher, I’m sure. I mean I know it, because I went to NYU and I had male acting teachers who were 10,000 times stricter than I ever was and people thanked them.
Yeah, and teachers who are actually borderline abusive. You meet male teachers like that and their acting students will be like “they saved me, they shaped my life”, that kind of stuff.
Yeah. And in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and these Black Lives Matter protests I’ve been thinking a lot, especially because I’ve been in lockdown, about my own experiences. About my own sets of privilege and the ways that I’ve also been oppressed, and my mind drifted back to those emails and when I think about prominent white women in my position at youth theatre companies in the tristate area…...I also couldn’t imagine those moms sending those emails to those women either. I couldn’t even imagine it. It’s really shaped a lot of the ways, positively and negatively, that I’ve had to deal with parents and kids.
As awful as it is I’ve taken it as a time to reflect on what I could do better. What I could change. Yes, this person didn’t need to send an email to hundreds of parents saying awful things about me, but where could I improve? So I think that in some ways it’s what’s catapulted me on this journey to being a much more loving teacher. It was a long journey, because these emails were in 2014 and here we are six years later and I’m getting to an understanding of the kind of teacher I want to be.
What are the cons of being a very outwardly, supporting loving teacher? I’m not sure.
We’ll talk about musical theatre: I am not setting you up to deal properly with the toxic, hierarchical, misogynist, racist musical theatre system. What I realized was: first of all, I want to set you up for the system that YOU want to be a part of. You know when Paige did the West Side Story protests, she was like “you know, I might burn some bridges but these are bridges I don’t want to be on. I want a future of Broadway that is a future that does not involve hiring sex offenders.” That’s a good example of: if I train people to demand support from the people that they’re working with, then hopefully we can change the system.
We shouldn’t be teaching our students how to be a servant to a toxic system. We should be teaching our students how to dismantle the system.
Kristen on why she decided she’s not going to yell at her own kid, either:
What kind of stories do you wish we saw more of onstage and on screen?
We’re trying to set up a program, we’re actually going to meet with some of the Black Kidz Theater alumni this week, we’re going to try to do a yearly program (and the first show would be in January) with an all Black staff, all Black performers (unless the story calls for performers of other races) and we want to find a show with a Black composer and lyricist. And it’s just so sad how few it seems there are….I know there must be Black composers and lyricists and book writers out there so we’re going to find them. But the number getting published in musical theatre, you could count on one hand.
When I look at shows that are available to me, especially because we try not to repeat shows within a five year cycle, I just get so depressed. The stories are very white. But on top of that, and maybe this is a function of them being white, a lot of the stories are very inconsequential. It’s like, what is the point of this? What are we learning from this musical? Yes it’s fun. Yes the dance numbers are great and the music is fun, but what I have learned about myself? What have I learned about life? What was the purpose of spending millions of dollars and putting this on a stage? There are some musicals that change the world and make such a big difference that it’s strange to me that musicals keep getting written that are just, inconsequential.
I want to see more women in positions of power on Broadway and I want to see more people of color in positions of power on Broadway: producers, directors, choreographers, book writers, composers, lyricists, designers. Women and people of color are also designers, and more than just costume designers! Lighting designers, set designers, sound designers.
Right before everything had shut down I had been looking at the next two years of shows that were slated for Broadway, and I think that out of 2 years of shows (which is maybe around 50 shows) there were maybe two women directing and like one person of color.
When Disney announced that they were doing a new film of Once On This Island, I read the article on it and crossed my fingers—I’m really glad that both the person who’s adapting the screenplay and the director are both women of color, both Black women. And I was saying this, I was shouting this from the rooftops and people looked at me like I was crazy, I was like: Michael Arden shouldn’t be directing Once On This Island. Why are we standing for this? Just because he hires his friend Nikki James to be assistant director, which is basically just for her to be a Black prop which is even worse….it’s just crazy that he was directing it. As much as I love that show and as much as I love Ahrens and Flaherty, why are they writing some of the seminal Black musicals? Ragtime and Once on This Island. Where are the Black writers? And I love those shows, I’m not saying I don’t love those shows.
Who and what inspires you?
I’ve been thinking a lot about this because lately I’ve been so uninspired by musical theatre. It’s the kids that I work with. They’re just so giving as performers, and there’s so much emotional risk taking, it makes me love musical theatre again. I have so much hope in their future and what they’re gonna bring to the table. I know it’s the cheesiest response but I genuinely mean it.
listen to the rest of her response:
What brings you joy besides career related things?
I think it’s just my family. Ashley and I always talk about how we haven’t gotten bored of each other in this time. As awful as this has been in so many ways….us being sick and the uncertainty of the future of Kidz Theater and basically giving up everything that I love besides my family, it’s been really incredible. I was talking to Ashley and I was like, think about how much it’s gonna shape Leo’s future, that at such a developmental time of life at 4, right before he’s starting school he will have spent six straight months with us every single day. The bond that the three of us will have as a family, that’s gonna carry through forever. We just have so much fun together, we all have a really fun sense of humor. We have equal fun laying on the couch and watching TV as we do going out and going to the beach or the zoo or whatever. It’s definitely my family. As scary as it is having somebody’s life in your hands having a kid, it’s also really incredible to get to be a parent and shape somebody’s life in so many ways.
We were watching Harry Potter, and it got to the dance part and he was like “oh they’re getting married!” and we were like “no, it’s just a dance”, he had never seen a dance before. And he said “well why are there no boyfriends at the dance with boyfriends? Or girlfriends at the dance with girlfriends?” and I was like “I know Leo! That’s so silly!” and he was like “Yeah! A boy can be best friends with a boy!” (he doesn’t know that it’s called a relationship). It’s cool that at 4 this is his thought when watching Harry Potter.
Image courtesy of Kristen Caesar.
Absolutely that’s really cool.
Yeah it is. I mean it’s scary, raising a mixed-race Black boy is scary when I think about everything that I have to teach him and how I have to teach him. But at the same time it’s really exciting.
Last big question! What changes do you hope to see in the theatre community once we return from COVID-19?
I want more diversity on stage, I want more diversity in places of power. I think that all performers of color, but especially Black artists, have really been taught to swallow so many microaggressions. Microaggressions happen because the person in the place of privilege, their privileged perspective doesn’t allow them to see that it’s a microaggression. I want a situation where people of color feel like they could voice the privileged person’s microaggression and their response would be: oh my gosh I’m so sorry, I could totally see how you felt that way, I’ll change in xyz way. No defensiveness. No threats, no threat of then firing that person of color, no actually firing them. That’s one of the main things that I think could really change Broadway.
I want to create a world of body positivity. Where we have many different bodies and many different types of people of Broadway and there isn’t a “Broadway Body”. It’s like when you hear people say “If I’m wearing a bikini, then I have the bikini body” it should be the same for “if I’m on Broadway, then I already have the Broadway Body”. Up until really recently, when you auditioned for CCM it said on their website: “take a moment to look in the mirror, evaluate yourself, maybe you don’t need to be eating cheeseburgers from McDonalds.” It literally said that on their website. Basically they were like, try to lose weight before you audition for CCM.
My god.
Yeah. I think that Broadway claims to be inclusive and it’s not at all inclusive. More people of color, more women, more stories told by these people, more of these people in positions of power. Because I think if we do that a lot of the toxic culture will change.
Watch Griffin’s video here.
Speed round! What was the last thing you watched?
Knives Out!
What was the last book you read?
I’m currently reading the sequel to Children of Blood and Bone, the sequel is called Children of Vengeance and Virtue. It’s kind of like a Black version of Hunger Games and combined with Harry Potter. It’s set in a fictitious Africa, it’s really cool.
What has been the best part of quarantine for you?
Definitely time with my family for sure. And I've spent a lot of time in nature. I’ve gotten out of the city a lot and had a lot of lake, beach, forest time and it’s really nice.
What has been the worst part of quarantine for you?
Definitely us all being sick. Just that moment of uncertainty of: is one of us gonna end up hospitalized? Is one of us gonna die? It was so, so scary.
That is so scary. I’m really glad you’re all okay. Finally, if you could tell your younger self one thing what would it be?
That’s such a good question. I would say…. you’re a cool person and people like you. I always thought it was a given that people didn’t like me. I walked into situations assuming people didn’t like me, and I carried that with me for so long that I’ve finally gotten to a place now in my 30s where I realize wait! People do like you. I would like to tell myself: don’t go in assuming people aren’t gonna like you.
