Iyvon Edebiri

interviewed by BT Hayes

BT Hayes: The Parsnip Ship was founded in 2015, so you’ve been in audio entertainment for a long time. Have you been feeling a new wave of interest during this period of theatre in isolation? 

Iyvon Edebiri: Oh, for sure. I think it was quite interesting. After all the theatres shut down, everyone moved into the digital space. Some people did it really quickly, some people did it sloppily, some people did it well. It was so wild, and I just had to kind of take a step back and go, “Oh, like… I don’t need to scramble.” All I need to do is figure out how to use the content that we had, and re-purpose it for the moment that we’re in. So luckily, we already had 42 episodes, [and] we had one left to release because we did our February episode, fortunately, before everything shut down. 

I feel like there’s a renewed interest. I know there are more people listening to Parsnip. We have way more fans than we had before. A lot of people are leaning into theatre not just being in a brick-and-mortar space, and that you can carry theatre with you and yeah, theatre can be accessible. I think we’ve been conditioned to a certain point in society that theatre ... [is] for the “haves'' and not the “have-nots,” and that’s not true. 

BH: Parsnip Ship has been hosting weekly “pop up” sessions, which I think speaks to Parsnip Ship’s methods of community engagement. How do you create community when podcasts and radio plays can be such a solitary experience? 

IE: I definitely lead in terms of the programming I try to generate. It’s like, “What is going to continue to connect people?” I often think of this image, of the black and white image of all these people gathered around this old, tiny radio, whether that’s family or friends or whatever, that’s still a community that’s being made. And so when thinking of what programming we can do during this time, we had done a pop-up in January when we could physically meet, and that one I said, “I just wanna have friends come and write and have a space to network and connect, and I’ll give them waffles.” And that was literally just the simple premise, because who doesn’t like waffles? 

I also realized that people, with all the craziness happening, even before the social unrest started to rise, people were struggling to feel productive, you know? And this is not to say that during a pandemic, you should need to be productive, but some people need that kind of structure, and some people know that they need to have a community to work and engage with to hold them accountable. I like to say “Accountable Lite,” because it’s not like I’m gonna say, “Grr! You didn’t do this! That’s bad!” It’s more like, “Hey, we’re here for you. We’ve got you if you’re feeling stuck.” 

I tell people if they’re writers, if they’re feeling stuck –I’m a dramaturg, I can give you a prompt to kind of jumpstart your juices so you can continue writing somehow. [It] doesn’t need to be the thing, but continuing that progress of art and community engagement is so key. It’s even more key as theatre is burning, and systems of inequity are being shown; it’s even more important for us to lean into the community we want because the community that we have is gonna dictate what kind of community we want, [and] the community we have is what’s gonna dictate the theatre environment that we wanna come back to after. So for me, I’m really about strengthening community bonds, and I want Parsnip to be a platform for [that] in the artistic scene.

BH: The Parsnip Ship is at the crux of two crucial points that are highlighted now in the American conscious – online/accessible storytelling as well as marginalized communities and their stories being told by their members. You've been at this for about five years and The Parsnip Ship has always advocated for artists of color/queer artists and accessibility to work – how does it feel to see the wider theatre community suddenly own up to and share stories openly about marginalization within the arts? Is this why you created Parsnip Ship?

IE: Yeah, when we started Parsnip – me and my old business partner – I don’t think it necessarily was with this intention. We definitely did want to bring radio plays and do that, and then she left Parsnip in 2017, and I had to be the one person steering the ship. Knowing that I was putting my own money and resources, and my team’s resources into Parsnip continuing to function, it really became, “Who do I want to support with my dollars?” 

We already are systematically conditioned and forced to spend our dollars in institutions and organizations and people that are harmful to us. And if there’s any way that we can take a stand with our dollars – because really dollars are so key in all of this, right? – if we can take a stand with our money and our resources to go, “I’m not going to continue to support the erasure of queer/black/BIPOC womxn in American theater,” that’s what we need to do. So you’ll see that [in] Parsnip, we began with Season 4; I charted a new course – pun intended – to go, “Who are the groups in this country who are systematically marginalized and erased in American theater, and how do we provide a platform where it’s all of these stories and there’s less of an excuse to not program them on the American stage?” 

So our 4th season was all playwrights of color. Our current season, which was interrupted because of COVID, was womxn-identified/nonbinary femme stories, and next season, which would have been in 2020 but it’s now gonna be in 2021, is queer playwrights. After that – who knows? I could do a whole season of black playwrights; I could do a whole season of Asian playwrights. I can make it hyper-focused so I am not supporting and giving even more of a platform to straight, white men. Because they already have a lot of the space, and if I can not be part of that, that’s how I feel I can be some form of change in American theatre, that I can see. Because most of my friends are not straight white men, and most of my friends deserve to feel themselves onstage and feel that they are not being traumatized when they see themselves onstage. That they're not being maligned when they see themselves on stage, and that it’s not through a white, male gaze that they see themselves onstage. That it is through the gaze of people who look like them and their community. 

So yeah, I mean, I’ll say I’m just watching American theatre burn, and it’s great. I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time. I feel like…It just feels like everyone’s catching up to us, in a way. I’m just kind of like… I don’t want to say I don’t have to do anything, but I’ve done the work, and I’m in this place where I want the artist to reap the benefits of all of these systems burning down and them becoming part of the forefront of how American theater will be changed. 

BH: Before COVID, Parsnip Ship’s plays were recorded in front of a live audience. Recently, the company has been streaming live performances from years past. I know your preparation for Season 6 of The Parsnip Ship is underway, but what’s happening with the technical aspect of The Parsnip Ship? Are there plans to still include audience response and engagement, to capture that same liveness?

IE: That’s a really good question. A lot things were interrupted with COVID, so when we come back, we already know [what] we have – and this includes the plays that we were gonna do out of town at certain universities who are still committed to bringing us in. This includes the interrupted Season 5, the writer’s group which had five commissioned plays, and the ten plays from Season 6 for queer writers. And then we were gonna do two Parsnip re-mixes. We were gonna redo some of our earlier episodes, so all of that comes up to 25 episodes that we’re really committed to and excited to bring to life auditorily. 

In terms of what we're doing in the meantime, before we can gather again (which is looking more and more like March 2021), we are looking at how we can bring audience participation into it. Because we could easily just go and do a number of these plays with everyone siloed. We know that there’s ZenCaster. We know that we can just set people up, but there’s something about the alchemy between the audience and the actors and them seeing each other and feeling each other, and that energy in that space is really key. I feel so, so strongly about that I don’t wanna let go. 

Even though there are people that have just been like, “Iyvon, Parsnip can just do plays in the fall.” And I’m like, “Yes, we can, but not the way I feel makes it really special and magical.” I mean, we’re still looking into it – it might mean a blend of different platforms. There’s no platform that does this yet, but I’m hopeful that the tech people and the arts people – we can come together at a table and figure out solutions because we’re going to need to be less siloed from each other. 

I think there’s this weird spectrum that goes, “Tech is on this side because they make x amount of billions of dollars and they just deal with technology and not people and culture,” and then there’s art that deals with the culture, it’s for the people, and it makes no money at all but - we’re literally going to need to meet at the table for the sustainability of arts. Like more people are on Zoom now, right? There’s so many Zoom plays, there’s StreamYard, there's all these platforms that are just really focused on the one way aspect of “This is a thing for you to consume.” But what I’m really interested in is how do we have artists kind of get something back? And I think we just really need to play around with it. 

One thing we’re looking at is Virtual Reality and how you can recreate some kind of virtual space in terms of the ritual of theater and of being in a new environment and meeting other people and chatting, even though it is still in a virtual space and will never come close to what is the real thing. But we need to try and get as close to that as possible until we can gather for theatre’s collective mental health. I think that’s what we need. How do we gather, like actually gather, in a different way?

BH: Do you feel people have been turning to Parsnip Ship for advice? Do you have advice for theatres looking into producing radio drama?

IE: We have had some theaters reach out, and we’re talking with some theaters about partnering with them regarding radio plays and audio drama. I’ve also had some theaters reach out going, “We wanna do radio plays! How do you do it?” And I’ve now had to go, “No one was checking for me and Parsnip before, so now y’all want this info, but you also want it for free?” So I’m taking a stance. I can’t give this info for free because it took a lot of time and money and resources and heartache and emotional labor to make Parsnip what it is now. Those spaces and institutions with more money and resources, that are now scrambling to figure it out, like …  that’s your problem. And if you need help, and if you want to chat about, just come correct. Because as a black woman, [I’m aware that] there are not many black artistic directors. And the level of funding and support that BIPOC-led organizations get versus white-led organizations is astronomical. It’s night and day. And so it’s laughable for white institutions, with all the money and resources, to go, “We don’t know what to do! Can you let us know?” Like, you literally have the money and resources. 

And I literally tell people, for Parsnip and in this moment, all I want: I want money, I want resources, and I want people to get out of our way. Those are the three things I need, and Parsnip can go to even higher heights, Because we’re doing some amazing things now with the money and resources and the model we have, but I know we can do better. We just need money, we need resources, and we need institutions to get out of our way and not take up space. This wasn’t your space before, don’t try to take it up now because that’s also white supremacy – taking up [the] space. So if they really are about breaking down inequities and looking at themselves and how they’re complicit to white supremacy, sometimes the best thing to do is give money and resources and get out of other people’s way who are doing the work. And that is what I would offer to American theatre. 

BH: NPR recently published an article about radio plays having a comeback, but The Parsnip Ship was omitted from the text. There was a social media buzz afterward in the comments. Have you heard about this article and the surge of mentions of The Parsnip Ship in response to it? Why do you think this omission occurred?

IE: Yeah, I do know about the article, and it’s funny because there were a few people who had tagged me or Parsnip about the article. And I was like, “Oh! We’re mentioned in an NPR article.” And then it was like, “No! We’re not mentioned in this NPR article! Wait! What is happening?” And I have gotten to a point, and I told my team this [in] a team meeting – I have gotten to a point where it’s expected, it’s just disappointing to constantly feel like we’re being erased. 

And it’s not even for me, it just means that the plays and the work of the artists that are on our platform are being erased. And it is not lost on me that the irony of that article specifically talked to white artistic directors who had never been in this [radio] space before, and who now have to come into this space because they no longer could produce physical theater in their spaces. And the irony also wasn't lost on me that it was a white male writer, so I wrote a response to the NPR article in which I connected these dots of “This is how erasure happens, and I can’t stand for it.” I cannot stand for it in this digital space, and I cannot stand for it in defense of the artists that we have on Parsnip’s Platform. There’s something about radio plays that’s so white and Eurocentric, understandably. Radio plays and audio dramas are still very big in the UK, and they have a more sustainable funding model and audience development model around audio drama, whereas that kind of went away in the U.S. as the rise of regional theaters happened, and TV also became a thing as well.

So I understand the lens of “Oh! Orson Welles!” This white man! I love War of the Worlds, like I love War of the Worlds, but that’s not the world we live in anymore. Also, specifically BIPOC cultures have a strong lineage and history of oral storytelling. Just because it’s not recorded on some fancy radio with some British accent does not make it less viable as a form of oral storytelling. There are just so [many] little pieces of erasure, whether that writer was intentional or not, but the effect still happened. 

And I’m really so happy to hear, and so honored, that there were people who were so staunch in their support about Parsnip and making sure that we weren’t erased in the conversations about radio plays and theatre companies now moving into this space. 

 And there's no rule that says that only white, Eurocentric spaces own radio plays. My vision for Parsnip [is] I would love Parsnip to have plays that are also in Spanish, and in other languages. We need to transcend borders, we need to transcend cultures, we need to transcend  audiences. Parsnip’s audience is quite interesting. We have listeners in India, we have listeners in Brazil, we have listeners in Hong Kong. It’s like a weird smattering, and I think that’s something about the accessibility of it all, but we can be further accessible because right now everything is in English. And a lot of the Latinx playwrights that we featured on Parsnip, their plays tend to be quite interesting and really rich in terms of how things are written for sound and when I talk to them, a lot of them have said, “Oh, I grew up listening to telenovelas,” or, “I grew up listening to radio plays on car rides in Spanish,” and I'm like, right, cultures have had that, we just don't talk about it enough, and maybe it's time that we actually bring that here. 

So I look forward to a future in which Parsnip has plays that don’t have any English so that someone’s abuela can actually understand their grandson’s (who’s a playwright) play. I'm interested in bridging that gap, especially if, you know, someone’s grandma has internet and she can just log onto our website and press play and listen to something in her native tongue and feel comforted in that and feel like she's not siloed from what theater is. That's what we need to be moving towards. 

BH: What is your process for finding scripts for Parsnip’s season? What qualities make a play a good radio drama?

Ooh sure. So we put out our call for submissions every spring, and we open up submissions ranging from one month to two months. This time was weird, we were like, “Things are happening, let's just keep it open until like the end of April.” It was like a three month open process. We started out with the first 15 pages of the play for the first round, and if you are chosen, we have readers read it and score it and give comments. My artistic associate and I, we go through all of the comments, we go through all of the reading, and then we make the call for the final 20, top 20-25, and then those people get invited to send in their full play for consideration. The last two seasons were POC and womxn-identifying playwrights, so the reading/submission team is always really eclectic and diverse in range. 

For season 6, which is queer playwrights, I did not read for the first round. The first round submissions readers were all queer – either playwrights, directors, actors, just people we knew from our community who know Parsnip and know us, and we trust their artistic opinion. That was really important for me because there’s something about the lens and being cognizant in whatever lens you’re gonna to be reading in. I, as a straight person, did not want to read [for] what would be a queer play. I didn’t want a straight lens to color someone’s submission, so we made that conscious effort to go, “Only queer people are reading for the first round.” 

The second round, I’m coming in to read the full plays with a group of ten readers – it’s ten of us total but the majority are still queer. And that's more reading for if the play is good all the way through. We do [the first 15 pages] because it's radio, so there's nothing really to look at, so you really need to be specific about how you're tapping into people’s imagination and how they are cultivating imagination. If you don't get us in the first 15 pages, you're probably not gonna keep listeners in, right? 

Then I gather up this committee, which will now be via Zoom, and we talk through all of the plays. Then Al [Parker, Artistic Associate] and I, we ask “What are your top ten for the season?” And then anything else that we are stuck on or have questions about, we go back to the submissions reading: “Why would you do this play? Why would you not do this play?” And then we come and we figure out what the ideal schedule would be. 

It's a process of a lot of talking, a lot of thinking, a lot of dialogue with people going, “Oh, I actually didn't catch that,” or, “I don't think this is what they thought it was.” I really feel it’s important to – as much as possible – to decentralize the artistic decision making process. Art is so subjective, and there is no way an Artistic Director can like everything or understand everything. I know I personally struggle with experimental plays, so when an experimental play is submitted to Parsnip I go, “I don't get this!” and I have someone who does love experimental plays to go, “Hey, can you read this, and tell me what you think and what you got from it?” Then it becomes a discussion, and if I'm swayed – “Let’s put in.” Everything, again, is so subjective. This may not be the play that changes my world, per say, but it could be the play that changes one of our listener’s worlds, and that is what we should always be striving for. 

BH: In terms of art’s effect on a person, how is radio similar or different from theatre in the embodied experience of the audience?

That’s a really good question! I think radio plays really challenge the audience. Because you’re not physically seeing anything, or you’re not supposed to – so if you’re listening to Parsnip on Spotify, you're not gonna see anything but our logo. But you're gonna hear descriptions, you're gonna hear sound foley or sound effects, and that's really a cultivation of your imagination. 

How I picture something that Guadalís [del Carmen] wrote is gonna be different from something that you picture Guadalís wrote, but both of those are still very viable, right? They're still very rich. They still color the experience of putting yourself into the world. [That’s] what I tell the writers after I choose them. I chat with all the writers, and we talk about how their play needs to be adapted for the radio format. One of the differences I talk about in terms of radio plays versus audio dramas is that when you’re watching theatre, there's something about it unfolding in front of you. If you're just seeing, there's distance between you and what's happening onstage. And then with radio plays, I think there's something about immersing yourself within the story, and seeing it happening around you. So that then becomes a responsibility for the audience to 1) pay attention and 2) be bold in their imagination. And also to trust that their imagination is okay, in that their imagination is valid. 

I think that in this country, and [this] society in particular, we have such a problem with re-imagination. We have a problem with imagination as we grow older, and we tend to second guess ourselves. We want to see the thing to confirm that that's the thing that we imagined. You can't do that with radio plays, unless the radio play becomes a physical production and again, that's also just one designer’s take. That play can go to another city, and it’ll be a completely different play! So again, you have to take responsibility for your imagination! I think that's the key thing, and I think sometimes if people have kind of pushed back on radio plays, it's because there's not one common thing, but that's fine. Just lean into your imagination because Lord knows, this country needs it. 

But this country also pushes back upon it, and we're seeing that reckoning, right? When people are like, “Abolish the police, defund the police,” [others] are like, “But what will happen with the police?” and blah, blah, blah. Police are problematic, but we can imagine a different way of being, and people are afraid of that. People are afraid to re-imagine because it's been – I don't wanna say beat out of us – but it's been stamped out of us through [the] capitalism of being busy. You can't take time to think, and you can't take time to daydream and imagine and wander your mind. And I think that, yeah, [for] radio plays, you have to do that. It's your responsibility. I can't cultivate that imagination for you. It's your brain. Do [with] it as you will, as you can. 

Learn more about The Parsnip Ship here and hear them on Spotify here.