An Interview with Karina Patel - What is Gen Z Theatre?

Karina Patel (she/her)

Karina is a devised theatre artist, director and dramaturg originally from London, UK. She is currently the New Works Manager at Jackalope Theatre Company and Assistant to the Creative Producer at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. Karina has developed new and devised work with The Understudy Chicago, APIDA Arts Festival, TimeLine Theatre Company, Token Theatre, 24 Hour Plays, Pocket Theatre VR, Physical Festival, the Actor's Gymnasium, and Telling Humans Playwrights Studio. She loves new plays, especially ones that highlight the stories of Asian, immigrant, and Asian-immigrant communities in the United States and beyond. She graduated from Northwestern University in June ‘22 with a BA in Theatre, History and Service Design.

3/11/2024

GENEVIEVE: I'm sure everything that you're going to say is wonderful and beautiful so don't even worry about a thing. 

KARINA: I'm so excited.

GENEVIEVE: So, my first question is, can you introduce yourself, how you got into theater and kind of what you're doing now?

KARINA: Yeah, my name is Karina. I'm from London originally but I grew up moving around a lot. I came to Chicago to start college in 2018 and then after graduating I decided to stay in the city and see if I could get work and mostly wanted to be pursuing directing, so I was assisting a ton. I also did some acting, devising, directed some scrappy little readings of my own. I started working at the Actors' Gym and directing circus shows there, which was super fun. By the time that first year post grad came to a close, I had got a visa to stay here for longer. So now I'm here working mostly in arts admin. I’m working at Chicago Shakes as the Assistant to the Creative Producer during the day and I'm also the New Works Manager at Jackalope. Outside of that, I have started pursuing the literary management/dramaturgy world a lot more. Mostly all of my freelance stuff is either new play development or script readings for several companies.

GENEVIEVE: Congrats on both of those.

KARINA: It's so fun. I love the nine to five. I'm not gonna lie.

GENEVIEVE: I definitely get that. Since leaving Northwestern, how has your view on the industry changed?

KARINA: That's such a great question. Before I graduated, especially because Northwestern has such a robust student theater program, I was really, really eager to see what it was like in the real world because it's very interesting to come from this very small community that's doing all of this theater (and all these people know each other and sometimes there’s drama that happens and it's all because everybody knows each other). I was excited to graduate and get out into the “real world” and for it to be fresh and different. Surprisingly, I feel like it has been similar in a lot of ways, especially in Chicago. The community is so small and everyone genuinely knows everyone. What surprised me the most… I thought I was walking into a much larger scale. I think if I had graduated and moved to New York or moved back home to London, I certainly would have felt the effect of that more. But being here in Chicago has made it kind of an easier transition into working in the industry, because it's an actual community where a bunch of people are just working and making stuff in ways that are quite similar to my student theater experience.

GENEVIEVE: Thinking of industry standards that you've seen, either in those smaller community companies or these bigger organizations that you're working with like Chicago's Shakes, what kind of industry standards have you found challenging and how do you hope they change in the future?

KARINA: Something I have experienced on a few of the projects that I've worked on and am really curious about is… We've done a really good job talking about conflict resolution, anti-racism, and doing all these trainings, like intimacy trainings. Like, when we start rehearsals it's not just for the people who are kissing on stage, it's for everyone to talk about how we're discussing these concepts in a safe way and holding everybody accountable to practicing that, even if you're not directly involved in it. What I'm curious about is how we maintain those practices in times of crisis. When we're scrambling to do damage control or something major has happened (because things go wrong in the theater all the time) and we're scrambling to find a different solution, sometimes those processes that we agreed on get lost or get forgotten. They aren't put into practice as intentionally as we said we would because we're in this moment where things are urgent. It's not like this is a challenge that we are chipping away at every day but rather something that came up today that nobody was expecting that we now have to deal with super quickly. So what I'm curious about is the relationship between these new industry standards that we have (having intimacy training, doing DEI work, having all these conversations in the room, setting community guidelines) and how they actually get applied in the moments we really need them. 

GENEVIEVE: Yeah, that is a really great point. These things are stated on day one in the name of transparency, but how do you, like you are saying, implement them on day 25? Having to go revisit those and make the time and space for them in times of crisis is so counterintuitive to the way things normally operate.

KARINA: Yes because the last thing that anyone wants to do is stop, breathe, slow down, think. Because it's like, “Oh my god, we have to fix this right now.” I've been thinking about that a lot lately.

GENEVIEVE: For my next question, I wanted to talk a little bit about your focus on new work. With your position at Jackalope and working around Chicago, are there any consistent themes or topics that you've encountered in the new work that you are around?

KARINA: Do you mean topics like in terms of what the work is about or rather how we develop it?

GENEVIEVE: I'm curious about your answer for both.

KARINA: I have seen much more work that is identity based. I think that's really exciting. I'm seeing a lot of new work that is trying to chase a universal theme through people who are really specific, through characters who are really specific, and through problems that are really specific. I think it’s great, rather than writing a piece that's more general, because in specificity you find a lot more universality than otherwise. I've also seen a trend towards really, really playing with form and structure. I have seen a lot of really great plays lately that actually lean into genre quite effectively and that's really exciting, too.

GENEVIEVE: When you say leaning into genre, what do you mean by that?

KARINA: I don't know if you saw Mothers at Gift Theatre?

GENEVIVE: No, I didn't.

KARINA: It's fantastic. The play is post-apocalyptic, very dystopian, really eerie, very very odd, and kind of futuristic in a way that feels like this could be us right now, today. The spookiness of it… They pursued that genre and the tone of that piece so effectively, both in the production but also in the text. It didn't shy away from being something weird, different, and non-realism. 

GENEVIEVE: I love that! I'm definitely writing that down. What values do you yourself hold as a theater artist?

KARINA: At this point, a lot of people hold process over product. I think the process should be the product. I don't think we should shortchange taking care of each other and having important discussions because “we need to fine-tune this one thing so that it becomes perfect for audience members”. When people say “process over product” they hold those two things at odds, but I'd like to work towards a place where those are actually the same thing. I think that's where things are going more and more. I think another one, especially when thinking about new work, is really, really prioritizing what the play needs. I so often see plays that get a staged reading and have one rehearsal, but could have actually used two weeks of development. And plays that get two weeks of development that are actually ready to be produced. It makes it so that a lot of new work sits in this weird purgatory where they keep getting stuck in this cycle of development. To get your play produced, it looks really good to have had five, ten, fifteen stage readings of it, when that's actually not what it needs anymore. What it needs, even if it's extremely low budget, is people in a room to put it on its feet. That's the next way you learn more about it. Even if it's a bad production. There is a point at which plays need to be put on their feet so that we can figure out how they need to change. When you're focusing so much on the text and how it sounds out loud, you can really, really fine tune that, but so many more things come up when you put it on its feet for the first time. I'm trying to be mindful of projects that I either seek out or sign on to where I think that what we're doing with this is what the play actually needs, and I am the right person for it. As individuals, it's very easy to get caught up in trying to direct this play, and direct that staged reading, and collect them all. I'm trying to put myself in the other person's shoes a little bit. Like, if I was a playwright, producer, or director and this person signed on to my project, just for the sake of doing it, not because they actually cared or actually feel like they're the right person for this particular piece, I would be bummed. I would rather they tell me honestly, “Hey, super exciting that you're getting this opportunity! I don't think I'm the right person for it. I don't think I'm what your play needs. Let me help you find someone else”. I’m trying to focus on that. 

GENEVIEVE: I think that's really wise and also so easy to not follow. It’s a good reminder that, especially in early career, you don't need to be doing everything you can. Not valuing quality over quantity of your own work is a disservice to the other people in the process. 

KARINA: It's so hard because we're trying to make a living here, too, right? It’s so valid to be like, “Yeah, I'm gonna sign on to this project even though it's not the thing I love the most because I need to right now”. That's where one of the other values that I hope, one day when I am a little bit further along in my career, I'll be able to pursue comes in. That is paying people more.

GENEVIEVE: Yeah, I definitely agree with that. I think those values are really strong and I am inspired by them so thank you for sharing. It's like that balance of wanting to be the right team member for that project but also not refusing to do things that are not directly within your lived experience because you want to be able to help other stories be told. Where is that line? You have to take it project by project and have that honest conversation with yourself and the team every time. It's hard work that not a lot of people are willing to do.

KARINA: It's really, definitely hard. I'm certainly not perfect about it either. Especially in Chicago, there's so much opportunity to go around. Sometimes it feels like it's scarce, but actually we are so lucky to be in a theater community where there's so much happening. The community is genuinely accessible and we can make our own stuff. It's hard but it's kind of feasible. I'm trying to remind myself that if I say no to this, or if I pass this on to someone who I genuinely think is better for it, I will be okay. There's enough to go around, and if everyone practices like there's enough to go around it will all just sort of start to come around. 

GENEVIEVE: That's so nice, to get out of that scarcity mindset, because it's so easy to fall into it. My last question for you is, what impact do you think like our generation will have on the industry moving forward?

KARINA: Our generation specifically is really concerned with equity, with uplifting the voices that need to be heard, and with prioritizing safety and care in rehearsal rooms. I think that we're actively dismantling some of the needs for perfection and needs for urgency that this industry sometimes places on us. It's an industry standard that we rehearse for four or five weeks and then the show goes up. That's not a lot of time. I'm seeing our generation prioritizing the work in the room and knowing that that has its own merit. Ultimately, if I'm a director or a dramaturg in a process, I have someone sitting in a seat for maybe 90 minutes watching the product that I create.  I have an effect on those 90 minutes of their lives and that's a lot of power. That's really great but there's a whole section of people that are in the room with me for four or five weeks every single day. That's way more time and a lot more power. That's a lot more impact because these people are coming in and participating in the space that you're creating every day, all day. I see our generation really cognizant of that and actually satisfied with an imperfect product. I hope that we become a little more forgiving in what final products look like. Not that we shouldn't hold our work to the same standard of quality as exists, and should not shoot for that. I hope that our generation is one that starts to see that there is value in several places of what you just witnessed and a lot of that value you actually didn't get to see. You're sitting and watching the final product. 

GENEVIEVE: Everything that you're saying is really scratching my brain and you say it so beautifully. Thank you.