Laura Camien:

Welcome to The Town Hall Spark Sessions! I'm Laura Camien.

Susan Blackwell:

And I'm Susan Blackwell. We are creativity coaches at The Spark File, where we help people fear less and create more.

Laura Camien:

As creatives ourselves, we are obsessed with one of the most dynamic cultural centers in New York City, The Town Hall.

Susan Blackwell:

For over a century, The Town Hall has been a champion for artistry and advocacy, amplifying the voices of icons and emerging artists alike.

Laura Camien:

And now The Spark File and The Town Hall have joined forces to elevate and celebrate artists who are gracing the stage at The Town Hall and using their creativity to fight for the powers of good.

Susan Blackwell:

So, without further ado, let's get into The Town Hall Spark Sessions. Oh, Laura Camien, I have got a good spark for you today, in the form of Eisa Davis.

Laura Camien:

Oh my gosh, I cannot wait. I am, of course, familiar with the work of Eisa Davis, and I just can't wait to learn more.

Susan Blackwell:

Eisa is one of those artists who embodies The Town Hall spirit. She is beyond multi-talented. She cares about what's happening in the world. You may know her from her work on Broadway in Passing Strange. She was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for her play Bulrusher. She's released multiple albums, including with Lin-Manuel Miranda, the Warriors concept album. And, speaking of Lin-Manuel Miranda, folks might know her fromThe Town Hall Spring Shout honoring Lin!. She's everywhere you want to be. Let's get into it with Eisa Davis.

Susan Blackwell:

I am so excited that you have deigned to appear in the Town Hall Spark Sessions.

Eisa Davis:

Such a good word, Deign! I love that word..

Susan Blackwell:

You have deigned. You have Taylor Dayned to appear. I'm going to ask you five tight questions, but before I do, tell all of us how do you identify creatively? Buckle up everybody.

Eisa Davis:

Okay, I suppose I would call myself an artist, a multidisciplinary artist. I think that's probably the smoothest way to put it, because what I've been doing since I was five or six is making theater, writing it, performing in it, and also making music—performing and writing that, composing. So I do things now that are adjacent to that as well. So that means I'm working on television and film using these same skills. So it really seems like it's a whole lot of different things if you catch me on a single day or on a single project, but in my own ecosystem, they're all intertwined. They all depend upon each other. I need performance in order to understand what it is that I need to write. I need the extroversion of performance in order to have the introversion of writing. I need that balance, and I actually feel a little bit off kilter right now because I haven't been in a play since a proper play, a musica, it was in 2019, of The Secret Life of Bees. That was the last time that I actually was in a full run. So I feel a little weird because I've been performing on film and on television and one-offs here and there. But yeah, I need all of these things to work in tandem in order for my artistic health to be maintained in equilibrium.

Susan Blackwell:

I've never heard anybody articulate it in that way, but this idea of the writing serves my introversion, the performance serves my extroversion, so that you have this balanced ecosystem.

Eisa Davis:

Yes!

Susan Blackwell:

Alright, let's crack into these five questions. Tell us about what you're doing at Town Hall.

Eisa Davis

Well, I love Town Hall. First of all, it's just such an incredible place, incredible institution, and I just think of so many of the beautiful events and performances that I've been to there. And this time we're honoring my dear friend Lin-Manuel Miranda. I don't know how to put one sentence around this man, this entity, because you know he talked about someone who, that's another multi, multidisciplinary artist. I would say, and you know the work that he has done as a lyricist, as a dramatist, as a composer, as a philanthropist, as a performer.

Susan Blackwell:

Yes!

Eisa Davis

As a community member the way that he really is the mayor of Broadway. As a family member, I mean I love how he is with his family, and it's just been really remarkable for me to—I joke that he kind of sprinkled me with some fairy dust when he asked me to join him on making Warriors, because you know, we all know him because he's so open and shares a lot, um, but then you know, to be able to literally kind of join neurons with him as we have gone through this process of writing, I mean it has been a joy, a dream, like every possible accolade that I could give to him, I give to him, you know? So what we're doing at Town Hall is Kurt Crowley and Deanna Weiner are putting together this really beautiful evening that's honoring him and all of his work and of course we're going to include Warriors in that. So that's how I get to be part of the Fandango.

Susan Blackwell:

I love this. The Spring Shout on May 19th. I'm very excited. I can't wait to see what you do on the stage that evening, and you just mentioned again, this does not count towards your five questions, but is there an evening that you had at Town Hall that you still remember?

Eisa Davis:

Wow. Well, three things come to mind. One was going to the PEN World Voices Festival there and hearing an incredible panel of South American writers talking about how, how magical realism was a way to create the kinds of societies that they wanted to see and that always stayed with me. I got to also honor my dear friend, the playwright, Tanya Barfield, whom I've gotten to work with, and then I think of a really amazing Esperanza Spalding show that I saw there. Those are the three things that are coming to mind, and I've been there a bunch, but those are the ones that are popping out.

Susan Blackwell:

Those are some hot tickets they have. I love the programming at Town Hall and it's one of the reasons we were so excited to partner with them on this podcast, because they are doing such interesting, good, delicious, nutritious programming. So those are three hotties. What is sparking your creativity right now?

Eisa Davis

I think that creativity can be a remarkable form of resistance. And I’m constantly thinking about how it is that the work that I make can continue to create a sense of fortitude, a sense of knowledge, both of ourselves internally and then also of the world that we're in. It's really, really crucial right now to have a kind of refuge there, because our First Amendment rights are under attack, and every way that we can express our truths, express our truths the way that we believe in freedom and liberty in the best of ways, where we take care of each other and when I say freedom and liberty I mean positive freedoms right when we say yes to minimum wage and yes to unionizing and yes to healthcare that is affordable and yes to affordable housing. And there are all of these economic bills—an economic bill of rights that we need for ourselves. So it may seem in some ways that a piece that is about something that is very personal doesn't necessarily go into these political realms, but I believe that everything is political and that often we use our creativity in order to create spaces of rest, of contemplation, and then we can also use them as places where we rally together and find ways to be strong and fight back against all of the destruction that is being enacted upon us right now.

Susan Blackwell:

As a creative, how specifically are you navigating this moment?

Eisa Davis:

So I haven't really changed much of what I'm doing because I’ve always had this sense of my values being from the radical tradition that I come from in my family, and the social justice advocates, lots of artists as well. So, I've just kind of been at this this whole time. But I think that the difference now is that I am recognizing how all of these very somatic and spiritual practices that we have as disciplines, as artists, are really coming in handy when I feel very shaky, very much like everything that I care about is being taken away that I can keep returning to, I know it's again, it sounds so cheesy and so played out, but returning to bodily awareness, returning to breath, and returning to a sense of belonging, a sense of the fact that there is no separation between me and all the other beings on this earth. That, you know, I'm looking out at the trees and the sky and you know there's sun out there and we're all. You know again, this sounds so hokey, but it's just true. Scientifically, we're all connected and that's a huge… That's something that happens when we come together in a theater or in a club is that we feel a sense of connection, and so acts of art are ways that actually remind us of the connectivity that we have as a society and as, again, a planetary ecosystem.

Susan Blackwell:

I think you're absolutely right and that actor training is really paying off for all of us. Tell us something real about your creative process.

Eisa Davis:

I like to write in the morning and I also like to write at night, so that kind of squeezes my sleep a little bit. But I was introduced to [Julia Cameron’s] The Artist’s Way very early in my grad school by my acting teacher, Geraldine Baron, who's passed. She said do The Artist’s Way, and this is something that actors aren't necessarily taught you know that you really need to mine your own being um, as an artist, and so the whole practice of morning pages is something that I already was kind of doing as an inveterate journaler and and person who has kept diary since I was very young. But really writing longhand in the morning and allowing everything that can seep up from the unconscious and the subconscious and letting that be part of whatever it is that I'm making, whether that's a song or whether that's a play or a script that I'm writing for the screen. I find that there's a very strong generative process that can happen in the morning, and then nighttime is when I can sort of diagnose problems. It's when things kind of all start to synthesize and then I can sort of say all right, I know what it is that I need to work on in the morning. It's kind of like you're doing this work at night, that has a different flavor. So that's something real about my creative practice.

Susan Blackwell:

I find that very, very inspiring. After reading The Artist's Way, I journaled for years, rarely, rarely, missing an entry and I have gotten away from it, and hearing you talk about it it makes me want to return to it, because I do think that there is something that bubbles up from a deep wellspring when that pen is just moving without judgment. Learning how to move your pen without judgment first of all, but then all those great raw ingredients that come up that you can, in turn, by evening time, have not only incorporated into whatever it is you're working on. You're a person who's working on several projects simultaneously, but then you have that discernment in the evening. I love it. I love that.

Eisa Davis:

Yeah!

Susan Blackwell:

Eisa Davis, you work really hard. You are more committed to your creativity than most folks, and I just want to ask you what is it all for?

Eisa Davis:

I feel like it's all about being in relationship to each other, that it's all this kind of cosmic dance, you know, a kind of play, where we forget that we're all connected, and then we remember, and then we forget again and we remember, and that is a kind of rhythm, you know, and and I'm I'm borrowing that, that language from the, the great writer Kathleen Collins. She has a beautiful monologue about that, about how I forget in order to remember and I remember in order to forget. Yeah. Yup!

Susan Blackwell:

Eisa Davis, I adore you as a human and as an artist and I am so excited that we are all going to get to see you on May 19th, on the stage at Town Hall for the Spring Shout honoring Lin-Manuel Miranda and in all sorts of other interesting places and projects. So thank you so much for spending this time with us.

Eisa Davis:

Thank you, Susan.

Susan Blackwell:

Thank you, You're the best!

Eisa Davis:

You are! Appreciate this so much.

Susan Blackwell:

Thank you so much to our guest, Eisa Davis, for joining us forThe Town Hall Spark Sessions, and thanks to the team at The Town Hall who make all of this possible.

Laura Camien:

The Town Hall, and this episode ofThe Town Hall. Spark Sessions were made on the lands of the Lenape people.

Susan Blackwell:

If you'd like to learn more about the Spark File creativity coaching and how we can support you as you clarify and accomplish your creative goals, visit thesparkfile. com, and you can follow us on social @ theSparkFile.

Laura Camien:

To learn more aboutThe Town Hall and their exciting upcoming events, go to thetownhall. org, follow them @ TownHallNyc, and visit them at 123 West 43rd Street in the heart of New York City. It's all happening at The Town Hall.

Susan Blackwell:

And if something you heard inspires you to use your creativity for the powers of good, we are writing you a forever permission slip to make that thing that's been knocking at your door. It's your turn to take that spark and fan it into a flame!

Laura Camien:

We're going to wrap the show with a time machine trip to Town Hall. This is The Town Hall Ensemble recorded live at The Town Hall on October 22, 2017.