Communities in Connecticut are facing many challenges these days. Can theatre help to meet and resolve those challenges? Kristin Huffman and Jeffery Fletcher say yes. Kristin Huffman is the Co-founder and Artistic Director of The New Paradigm Theatre in Stamford. Jeffery Fletcher is the owner and collector of the Ruby and Calvin Fletcher African American Museum in Stratford. They speak with WSHU's All Things Consider host Randye Kaye about their collaboration on the play, Hairspray.
Randye Kaye - Now, full disclosure, Kristen and I know each other. I've performed with you numerous times, and most notably in two of your summer productions, which also had nonprofits that summer, and always a fabulous experience. So let's start with telling us about the mission of New Paradigm and what makes it different from other theater youth programs in the area.
Kristin Huffman - We promote social responsibility, foster creative problem solvers and leaders and global citizens through theater arts education and productions. And I don't know if we'd call ourselves a youth theater, I think we would just say theater that has a very strong emphasis on creating young leaders through the arts. So they get to learn from people like you. And that's how I learned the best, if we're just talking theater in general, that's how I learned the best as a Broadway performer and working at a ton of other nonprofits around the country, was working with people better than me, more experienced than I am. I learned what to do, and sometimes what not to do. And so I thought I want to set up my theater company that way, so that the young people, and I mean, like even college kids, you know, we've got a lot of them in Hairspray, can learn what they're supposed to do from things like make sure you do all your background work, make sure that you wear a rehearsal skirt. Things that maybe they're not being taught. And then the even younger kids learn from those young people how to be professionals. It's not that we're not trying to make little Broadway stars, right? We actually aren't. We're trying to take a lot of those kids and teach them the sort of leadership skills through the arts that they can take into their lives. So that's our mission, sort of in a nutshell.
Randye Kaye - And I would say definitely, because I know that you have a youth board, and the youth board is involved in leadership and decision making. And thank you notes.
Kristin Huffman - Absolutely, yeah, it's not a club. We literally have an adult Board of Directors and a youth Board of Directors. I was never on a board of directors until I was a much older adult, and I had no idea how that operated. These young people handle that on their own. They report to the adult board and they work side by side with those officers.
Randye Kaye - And I think that's such a fabulous thing, because every time you do a play, you don't just learn about your character. You have to live your character, and you live inside their head for as much as possible. You and I have both played villainous people, and you have to find a spark of empathy in there for them, or at least understanding. So tell me a bit about your idea, and I know you've done this with every single youth summer production that you've done to partner with a non profit. I think starting with Oliver, when you partner with Bridgeport food bank or Okay, so what, where did this idea come from, to partner with a non profit, and how does that help create leaders of tomorrow?
Kristin Huffman - You know, my dad was a Lutheran minister. My mom was a choir director, and they're still life, and they really emphasize that service over self. We did a lot of singing for charities and so forth. And then when I went on to I won Miss Ohio, and I was a runner up to Miss America, which, PS, makes me perfect for Velma, except for all of her bullies.
Randye Kaye - You were a nice a nice contestant,
Kristin Huffman - But there the Miss America contingency or pageant wanted people to have platform issues. So it made sense to me to go, well, here's what I think altruism should be an emphasis, not just talking about it, but really actively doing it. So I sat in a dumpster for on Ohio State's campus for the homeless shelter, and people would come in and throw money in the dumpster. I took a pie in the face for cancer. I went to visit hospitals and so forth. I'm not saying that to pat myself on the back. I'm saying it because with a crown on your head, I don't know why people think that that's important. It was important for me because it paid off my student loans, but it attracted attention. You. So then I thought I had never thought about starting a theater company, but I could see where the industry was headed about 15 years ago, and it needed to be more social media. It needed to be more inclusive. It needed to just say something and connect to the community, because all their audiences were aging out. So how did I do that? I thought, well, it needs to be a local charity or something that reflects whatever we're doing. So like when we did Little Mermaid, it was the Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk, that we partnered with, doesn't cost them anything. They are our partners, and they get highlighted a spotlight thrown on things that are important. And we thought marine debris was important for that one, and we made all our props, costumes and sets out of the trash cleanups we did with the aquarium.
Randye Kaye - Including your costume, I believe,
Kristin Huffman - Including mine as Ursula, which was all black plastic bags. It was really fun, but it taught the kids at the same time, this is an important issue. It highlighted the museum. And then they speak at our curtain speech with me, or whoever a board member you know, which is the same that we'll do with Jeffrey, so that they can get their mission and their ideas out to all of our audiences. So we we feel like it's a good marketing strategy, but it's also just a good way for a theater to connect to the community, not just as here's fun stuff to come and see, but here's how this theme makes a difference in the world,
Randye Kaye - Absolutely. And so Hairspray, for people who don't know it, what are some of the themes that you saw in the script that led you to Jeffrey and the Ruby and Calvin Fletcher African American History Museum?
Kristin Huffman - Well, if you know Hairspray at all from the John Waters movie and then all the different versions that have been on TV. You know that part of it is about Tracy, who is not tiny, skinny, but is robust size. She's a wonderful dancer, and she wants to be on the Courtney Collins show. And Velma is insistent in the 1960s on keeping it just thin white girls. So what's great about it, and we taught our youth this through workshops, is this is not just about Tracy. She then becomes an ally for the African American community and says, Listen, if I'm going to be on the show, you need to have more people like our viewing audience, which is exactly what I did for Oliver and all that. I made sure we had diversity on stage, because that's who our audience wants to see. They want to see themselves on stage. You can tell you get excited when I talk about so the themes was African American people at that time. What were they going through? And I wanted some place. And Jeffrey's going to tell you that they're the only African American History Museum in the state, I believe. And it was great. They're in our backyard. They're in Stratford.
Randye Kaye - All right, thank you. And I know that you also had a visit there. You always include the kids. You don't just mention this, you involve the children. So Jeffrey, welcome. Tell us about this museum. Tell us what we need to know. What's the mission?
Jeffery Fletcher - This has been a passion and dedication to my parents, Ruby and Calvin Fletcher, to talk about the museum and how we got started. I would say the main motivated factor behind this, and the person who has pushed this project, both emotionally spiritually, was my mom. My mom was a child growing up in Camden, South Carolina during the early 1930s and my dad was a child as well, growing up in North Carolina. But as I said, my mom has always been the motivating factor in how we came about, and I say that only because, as a child, growing up in the Jim Crow South she lived on a sharecroppers farm with her mom and my grandfather and grandmother and seven brothers and sisters. Out of the seven brothers and sisters, she was one of the two oldest, and she had to work the farms. She had to help out in the fields, and back then, a sharecropper, they utilized as much help as they can, because that was their only way of being able to reside on that property and maintain their family so being that she hadn't missed a lot of school due to the fact during the harvest and planting times and seasons down there, she was very bitter about that. But what was her safe place was whatever little bit of money that she would make, she would take that into town and buy these little tchotchke figurines and glass, salt and pepper, Butler and things.
And she would collect those until one day she got tired, and she said, at the age of 16, she heard about this great black migration from south where African Americans, as we know today, migrated from oppression, civil rights violations, housing, looking for better housing and employment. So she heard that there was a place in Connecticut called Colchester, and she migrated there, got on the bus at 16, unbeknownst to my grandparents, and came to Connecticut to seek a better way of life for herself. As she got there, she realized that there were no people there that really looked like her. Was a community that was inhabited by Orthodox Jews, Russian Jews, and they saw above and beyond her color, that she had a lot to offer. And what they did was they took her in, not as a domestic but as someone who they wanted to show their culture, their spirituality, teach the religion same as their way of life. So at that point, she continued to collect. And 10 years later, my dad evolved, and they got together, and they had a family. But meanwhile, my mom continued to collect up until the time she passed, and at that point in time, being one of four children, I was the one that inherited her collection of 500 objects. And so at that point, I had to decide, what did I want to do with this collection? Did I want to just throw it out? Did I wanted to just give it away? What could I do to pay homage to my mom, because she was a civil rights activist as well as an advocate for black, white, Latino, Muslim people all her life, and a testimony to all who my mom was at her services when she passed, I saw all of these hundreds of people filing in, and I asked my dad, I said to him, who are these people? He said, These are the people that your mom advocated for. They came from all walks of life. So I decided that I needed to extend and talk their legacy. So my dad was a co pilot in this situation, right? And my mom was the pilot of that ship, or the pilot of that plane, so to speak. And he would, she would drag him to tag sales, estate sales, and she would pick up these things that she felt were reminiscent to African American culture.
Randye Kaye - Oh, so these weren't just, it wasn't just a collection of tchotchkes. It was a collection related to the African American experience.
Jeffery Fletcher - That's correct. And at the time, being young, I did not realize that but she realized what it was. But again, being at a young I thought it was tchotchke, but soon to learn that it really represented her life. It represented how she saw African Americans in a negative light, how they were perceived as being buffoons, clowns and idiots through these objects, which are now today I use as teaching tools when folks and young children come to the museum.
Randye Kaye - So how did this evolve into the museum as it is right now? Because I understand that it is a personal experience, an immersive experience. Can you tell us a bit about the museum as it is right now, and what somebody would expect when they come there?
Jeffery Fletcher - Well, the museum, if it hadn't been for the the Honorable Mayor Laura Hoydick of this community who embrace this, this concept, when I bought it to her and her administration, we wouldn't be here, but Mayor Hoydick saw that this could fit right in her community, as well as the greater Fairfield County. So when she offered me the opportunity, I always say this, my mama didn't raise any fools. So I jumped at the opportunity, and we sat down and hammered out the details, and here we are going on four years. I'm happy to say that we will be transitioning to a bigger location in the town of Stratford, between the library and the Sterling Community Center, where we are going to be renovating the home of John W Sterling, who is a very prominent attorney in his time, and also developed and started the chairman stone law firm. So we will be starting the construction process over there, because the traffic here is getting to the point where this venue cannot hold the folks coming through.
Randye Kaye - That's a really good problem to have. Okay. So what can people expect when somebody comes to visit Kristen, when your young leaders came to visit what? What do they experience? I'm sure it's more than tchotchkes. What is there for them to see
Kristin Huffman - Our cast and some parents were given a tour by Jeffrey Ann Creflo Botweh, who is the guy playing Seaweed, but he had been a tour guide when they first opened up, because it was a partnership with Bridge Academy. So that was kind of a neat thing to find out. He was so excited when he found out this was going to be our partner. And I asked a lot of the people afterwards, you know, what did you get out of this? And there were a lot of things. It was overwhelming at first. Some were things we knew about. Some were things we had no idea about. Going through history, you know, it's interesting with people trying to sort of erase that history, saying, Oh, it makes so and so feel bad. Well, then you're not understanding history. You need to, so you don't repeat it, first of all, but second of all, it's uplifting.
You know those things about Martin Luther King Jr, there were things about how there were people who served in the war, but yes, there were things about slavery. Yes, there were things about the KKK. We need to know that this happened. As a white person myself, I didn't get all this education in school. Now it looks like it's going to be getting erased more and more. Well, this is a way for us to lift it up with Jeffrey, so that he can get this message out there so we we understand our humanity, and that's what I heard, mostly from the tour. We have a YouTube channel, and on that, I put our two minute recap of the visit, which, you know, doesn't give you nearly what we learned, but it gives a recap
Randye Kaye - That is fantastic, and does it help inform your cast and crew and members about them? The meaning of a fun show like hair space, it's a fun show. The music is amazing, but it's not like a like the show Ragtime. I mean, there are things that highlight, in an artistic way, the things that we should never, ever forget.
Kristin Huffman - Yeah, I think so. In fact, yesterday, we were rehearsing the song with Motormouth is played by Tiffany T'Zelle. And oh my gosh, what a great gospel singer and pop rock singer. She was singing, I Know Where I'm Going, which Mark Shaman and Scott Whitman said was their favorite of the show, because it's the heart of it. Yes, we all love Good Morning Baltimore. We all love You Can't Stop the Beat, and they're all so fun. But I Know Where I'm Going talks about we have so much more to accomplish. And she just she's gonna bring down the house. I told everybody, as she's singing it, we're singing back up. I don't care how good everybody else is in the show, this is all they're gonna talk about. And that's what Jeffrey is going to talk about in the beginning of our curtain speech, where he's going to give the audience a little bit of context. And then our youth are doing two talk backs, one after the matinee on Saturday and one before the matinee on Sunday. Of everything they have learned about equality, they've been taught by Dr. Rydel l Harrison, who's the DEI expert in the entire state of Connecticut, and on our board of directors, so that they understand now how to work with compassion and community and helping, and allyship, so you'll hear firsthand.
Randye Kaye - I'm so excited, because I am, of course, going to get tickets back to you. Jeffrey, what would you like people to walk away with when they visit the museum.
Jeffery Fletcher - History! I'd like them to walk away understanding that you can't broad stroke. You can't rush this type of information. It's information that we take time to walk folks through things that occurred here in the United States, Connecticut. That African Americans were oppressed and are still fighting for their rights. And as it was alluded to earlier, it has been canceled. Some of it has been canceled, but I'm trying to keep this history alive, and I want folks understand that this is, this is a very difficult topic, and I understand folks right now don't want to hear it, but you have to talk about it.
Randye Kaye - People will most definitely want to experience it for themselves. I'm assuming school groups will be coming and you know, knowledge is empathy. Prejudice is when we don't understand and we don't take the time to understand. So who's been a good at heart influence in your life that that you feel is sparking this, this mission to be good at heart yourself.
Jeffery Fletcher - It's only one person, one entity, that's God.
Kristin Huffman - And I would say it's my parents living the mission they taught me being good examples of how to behave in the world. They're not perfect. I grew up in Virginia, you know, I grew up where we were the first school in Virginia that was desegregated, and that was interesting, and my parents very much wanted that for us. I was lucky that they had certain values, and it's your parents that often. You know, we have to be carefully taught, right from South Pacific, we're seeing it more and more that way. So I think that parents and teachers, the teacher need to model that behavior. And that's who were influential for me.
Randye Kaye - All right. Thank you so much. And you know, dare I say that, in the current political climate, it can be difficult to interpret God in a different way than you do. Jeffrey, I like the way you do interpret it. You know, God inspiring good works is kind of my feeling about it, but it's people like you that make the difference. So is there anything that you wanted to say that I didn't give you a chance to say Kristen, I'll go to you first.
Kristin Huffman - Yes,they can go to The New Paradigm Theatre and yes to spell it with the R, e.org, We're also on Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, and you can follow. And you can follow along. You can sign up for our e-blast list, but we'd love to have you come see the show August 8 through the 10th. It's at Stratford High School, their newly renovated, gorgeous theater, and just come up and say hello.
Randye Kaye - Wonderful. Okay, and Jeffrey, same question.
Jeffery Fletcher - Our website is African American Museum and we are located at 952 East Broadway, Stratford, Connecticut, and we accept everybody coming to the museum. And this is not a museum where you come and you walk through and walk out. We are accommodating. And I thank everybody for wanting to come out to see this, this venue.
Kristin Huffman - You know what? One more thing, we lost our National Endowment of the Arts grant for $10,000 recently because we would not give up on how we're pushing ahead with diversity and equity and inclusion and allyship. This whole show is about that we'd have to have dropped the show. That means we have a $10,000 deficit, but we are absolutely not going to give way on what our mission is, and our board was unanimous about that.
Randye Kaye - Wow, I did not know that piece of it. As a member of the NPR family here, I understand what it is to lose funding, believe me. And so thank you for sharing that Kristen and Jeffrey. Thank you so much for joining me.
