S4E10: Schele Williams
In this episode, Hayley and Amy talk with Broadway director Schele Williams about authentic representation onstage and off, storytellers’ responsibility to choose values over biases, the diverse manifestations of women’s power, becoming friends with failure, and more. Scroll down for episode notes and transcript!
Episode Notes
Hosts: Hayley Goldenberg and Amy Andrews
Guest: Schele Williams
Music: Chloe Geller
Episode Resources:
Your Legacy: A Bold Reclaiming of Our Enslaved History
Your Legacy Begins: First Words to Empower
Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS
Women & Theatre: Hannah Coffman interview
Guest Bio:
Schele Williams (she/her) is a director committed to cultivating new musicals and devised work with authentic representation on stage and off. Profiled in Variety’s Top 10 Broadway to Watch, she is currently directing the upcoming Broadway revivals of Aida (Disney Theatrical Group) and The Wiz, as well as the premieres of Mandela the Musical and Indigo. She made her Broadway directorial debut this season with The Notebook (co-directed with Michael Greif). She will also be helming Hidden Figures, currently in development (Disney Theatrical Group). Schele has directed at regional theatres and festivals across the country and has a long history of work on Broadway in Rent, Aida, and Motown: The Musical. Passionate about pairing social justice with the arts, Schele is a founding member of Black Theatre United, an organization committed to dismantling systemic racism on our streets and stages. She has been a member of Broadway Inspirational Voices for over two decades and serves as Chairperson of the Board, and also serves on the board of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. Schele is the author of the children’s book Your Legacy: A Bold Reclaiming of Our Enslaved History and recipient of a 2022 Boston Globe-Horn Book honor.
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Episode Transcript
(Music)
Hayley: Hello beautiful people, and welcome back to the Women & Theatre Podcast! We’re your hosts, Hayley Goldenberg…
Amy: …and Amy Andrews. Grab a cozy beverage and join us as we talk to women and gender-expansive folks about their experiences at the intersection of womanhood and theatre.
Hayley: On the pod, we cultivate open conversations across identities and professional roles…
Amy: We look for opportunities to support one another in growing our careers…
Hayley: And we pool our collective wisdom to build the equitable theatrical spaces of the future.
(Music)
Hayley: Hello, beautiful people! Hey, Amy. How's your day going?
Amy: It is going solidly okay. How's your day going?
Hayley: It's good. It's good. It's been kind of a crazy week. But I'd love to jump into some Roses and Thorns with you. Do you want to go first?
Amy: Yeah. My rose for this week is all the hard work we're doing to up level this project. It's been a big week for Women & Theatre. We've been doing tech upgrades. We've been preparing for the Inaugural Rise Summit, we ordered merch for the first time. I am, like, into all the up leveling we're doing on this project. I'm really proud of us, because it's hard work, and I want to acknowledge that - that we are having the vision and putting in the work to make it a reality. So that's my rose for this week, and it's about us! Hee hee!
Hayley: Slay.
Amy: Yay! My thorn for this week is it's been a really, really busy one. I have been feeling very stressed and overwhelmed with just, like, a number of different things that are demanding my attention, just like maybe pulled in a couple too many directions at once. I hope that I'm starting to come out the other side and feel like I have a little more control over the things that are demanding my attention, as much as we ever do. But yeah, I've been grappling with that sense of overwhelm a lot this week. And that is definitely a thorn for me.
Hayley: Yeah. Heard.
Amy: So what about you, Hayley? What are your Roses and Thorns for the week?
Hayley: So I guess I'll start with my thorn, because I want to end on a high note this week.
Amy: I love that.
Hayley: Yeah, my thorn is just that I feel that overwhelm. Also, I think it's going to… I'm going to be echoing basically what you said. There's a lot going on, a lot of wonderful things that I'm so grateful for. And also, every time I get back from Canada, when I'm kind of living my two lives - which, listeners, I've been a little bit more open about this season, so you probably know - but every time I come back to the city, I sort of feel like this jolt to the system.
Like, I love the city and I love the pace of it. And I love all of that stuff. And also, my body really feels it when I go from going at just, you know, a different pace, different priorities, different things that I'm focusing on… To like, you know, work, work, work, hustle, hustle, hustle, run, run, run, coffee, coffee, coffee, all that stuff. So, it's wonderful. And also, yeah, I think my body is still adjusting, and that has its challenges.
My rose for this week is that yesterday, I had a really, really exciting meeting with a company that has made a lot of media throughout my life that really speaks to me and that has been a part of my life since I was a tiny child. I've been thinking a lot about this concept of leveling up. I love that you brought up that we've been trying to kind of, like, take the next step with this project and grow it and build it, because that's also sort of what's going on in my career as well, outside of Women & Theatre work. I'm really pushing myself to sort of, like, put on my big girl pants and take myself seriously so that I can achieve the dreams that I really want and believe that they're possible.
And so I had this meeting yesterday, and it was a real full circle moment with my childhood self. And it went really, really well, it honestly couldn't have gone much better. I feel like I made a new, wonderful contact and relationship and friend, and I'm just really proud of myself for how I presented myself. I felt like I was really authentic, and I felt like I was able to communicate the things that I do well in my work. So that's my rose for this week. I'm proud of myself, and I'm trying to get better at saying that too when it happens, so yeah.
Amy: Yay, congratulations! I'm proud of you too.
Hayley: Thank you. So I'm really excited, listeners, because today we're going to be speaking to one of the people that I look up to most in the theatre industry. It is Schele Williams. She is a total badass. She's the first Black woman to direct a musical on Broadway in 53 years. She made her debut as a director on Broadway this season, and she did two fricking shows.
She's so accomplished. She's so busy. She also is a mom. She's juggling so many different things all the time. She sits on so many boards, of Black Theatre United and BCEFA, and she's a part of a lot of advocacy groups to make theatre a more equitable space. So I'm thrilled to speak with her today. And I know that you are all going to love hearing from her also. So Amy, I think that if we're ready, let's chat with Schele.
Amy: Let's do it!
(Musical transition)
Hayley: Hello, beautiful people. We are here with the wonderful Schele Williams. Schele, welcome to Women & Theatre.
Schele: It is lovely to be here. Hello!
Hayley: Before we get started, can you just share your pronouns and tell us a little bit about the different hats that you wear in theatre?
Schele: Yes, my pronouns are she/her. And I am a director. I used to be an actor, I used to be a choreographer. Those are not hats that I currently wear, but they're certainly in my closet on the hook. And outside of theatre, I'm a children's book author.
Amy: Cool. Schele, can you tell us about something, literally anything, that's inspiring you right now?
Schele: Oh my gosh. There's so much. It's funny because the thing that inspires me the most right now are my kids. My kids are 13 and 14, and one just started high school, the other one is in eighth grade. And what is inspiring to me about them - they've approached this new season, you know, it's a brand new year for them... And the joy and optimism that they bring to every day inside a world that feels like it is falling apart, right? Like, every day I'm just like, “Oh my gosh…” I read the headlines…
Hayley: Yeah, you watch the news and it's like, “Oh my gosh, my head could explode,” yeah.
Schele: ...And then these like optimistic little beings come bounding down the stairs ready to approach a day with so much optimism and possibility that it continues to remind me not only to keep going... but the joy in their eyes is what I have to keep working to keep alive. So that, to me, is the most inspiring thing of every day. That no matter how hard the world seems, and no matter how impossible everything seems, there is a generation waiting for us to keep that brightness, that resilience, and that possibility alive.
Amy: Yes.
Hayley: I love that. What a beautiful answer.
Before we dive more into your theatrical work and all of the amazing things that you're up to, we're going to do a quick flash round of questions. Don't think too much. So the first question is: If you were an animal, what would you be and why?
Schele: Oh, wow. If I were an animal, maybe I'd be an eagle. There's something so majestic about eagles and this idea that you get to see the world from that perspective. And that there's a certain reverence that the other birds have to this eagle. They're both rare and magnificent. And also represents this beautiful aspiration. So I think maybe an eagle.
Hayley: Love it.
Amy: Schele, what's your weirdest hobby?
Schele: I don't know. Do I have a weird hobby? I'm a big game player. We play a lot of board games at our house.
Amy: Fun!
Schele: We have an insane board game closet. The games are like, pouring out of the closet. So I do have a real obsession with board games. And at The Notebook, for weeks, I just kept buying board games. They're big game players over there. I don't know if you've followed them, but like... they had their own Traitors game that was going on over there. Like they're super, super big game people. So yeah, that's an obsession of mine.
Hayley: That's awesome.
Amy: Schele, what is your favorite musical of the moment?
Schele: Wow. That's so interesting. There's a lot of musicals that I've been looking at lately. I’ve been doing, like, a deep dive back into Aida again, thinking about that in this moment. So that's the first one that's on my brain. The beauty and the depth of that piece and the resonance it could have in this moment. It's really interesting to think about an incredible Black woman leading a country, right?
Hayley/Amy: Yeah.
Hayley: Is it ever!
Amy: It feels somewhat relevant for some reason, yeah.
Schele: Yeah, so I've been thinking about that show a lot, so that's what's currently on my brain.
Amy: Love that. I loved that show.
Hayley: Yeah. Schele, do you have a song of the moment?
Schele: Every song that's in my ears, my kids have put there, and I can't say that I like it.
Hayley: Not by choice. You did not consent to having these songs playing in your ears. Okay.
Schele: Yeah, it's so funny. I've turned into that parent that's like, “What are those lyrics? What are you saying?” I was like, “Oh my god, what's happening right now?” I used to be so cool.
Amy: That's funny.
Hayley: “What happened to me?”
Schele: Yeah. what happened to me? Exactly.
Hayley: Thank you for playing along with our little flash round of questions.
(Musical transition)
Hayley: I would love for you to just share how you came to your field and the creative work that you do in the first place.
Schele: I started out, you know, as a kid, doing all things theatre. You know, I started out in dance. And then I kept on like, adding things on. My dad's a professional drummer for the Ohio Players - I then became a very serious percussionist. So that was kind of my way in. I never stopped dancing. My Saturday was all dance, and my Sunday was playing in orchestras. Theatre was something that I just kind of enjoyed on the side. And it's really interesting that that became the thing that kind of took over, you know?
Hayley: For sure, yeah.
Schele: I did theatre in school. We had a great theatre department in my school. So it was really fun to be in the shows. It was fun to play in the pit of the shows.
Hayley: So cool that you got to do both of those things - like, you got to approach it from both angles.
Schele: Yeah, it was all about - like, if I loved the score then I'd want to play the score. I've done A Chorus Line three times in my life, twice on stage. But the first time I did A Chorus Line, I actually played the drum part in the pit for the community theatre. And I was like, “This show is great!” You know? And then the next time it was like, “Oh, it's also fun on stage,” right?
Hayley: That's also an iconic drum line.
Amy: Yeah.
Schele: Oh my gosh. Yeah, I mean Cassie’s solo, so fun. So it's really fun to like, know both sides of that. So I dabbled in both for so long, but then once I ended up doing Dorothy in The Wiz, that was really the thing that kind of tipped me over. Like, that story, the personalization I felt inside that piece, the joy it brought me, the way the music spoke to my soul, it kind of cemented for me that I wanted to be a performer first and foremost.
Hayley: Yeah. Well, and now just to see that full circle moment of you directing The Wiz on Broadway. Can you tell us a little bit about what that means to you to have that great responsibility?
Schele: It's been extraordinary. When I think about the trajectory of my life, I never saw the next step coming, but I feel like I was always being prepared for it long before I figured it out. Like, I'm the last person to figure out what's happening next, right? That's what it kind of felt like to become a director.
It was like all of these years of preparation of being a swing and directors being like, “Hey, would you assist me?” And I was like, “Yeah, sure. You know, I have nothing to do next week…” You know, kind of prepared me for that moment. And now that we've done The Wiz, first as a tour and then an incredible limited run on Broadway, and now it's going back on the road, I've just been knee-deep in auditions again. And what a privilege to see the incredible talent.
It's such a joy to meet people and to have that unbelievable offering of their gift. I love auditions so much, and it's such a special covenant between the creative team and a human walking into the space and saying, “This is who I am.” And so I'm reminded not only of the love that I have for the show, hearing these songs every day again, but also the joy of what it means to be a director and to meet incredible new talent and to embark on a journey of storytelling.
Amy: That is so beautiful. I feel like so often we hear about like, “Ugh,” the slog of auditioning and how horrible it is and dehumanizing, and it's so great that you're like, centering literally the humanity in that, because it is. It is about being like, “This is who I am.”
Schele: Yeah. I mean, I did it for so long. I know what it means to get up early and get makeup on and hot roll my hair and get on the subway and warm up as the trains go by, because that's when you can belt the loudest. You know, I remember all of those things... and then, you know, walking into the room and thinking, “Pick me, pick me, pick me,” you know, and like, wanting a show so badly.
And so it's never lost on me when someone walks into the room and they look dynamite. I'm always like, "Oh, you look great. I love that dress. Nice outfit." Like, you know, just to say like, “You work so hard to show your very best to me and to the room. And I want to acknowledge that that care and that love that you brought into the room, we're receiving it.”
So I - yeah, I love auditions, and I love the fact that I get to meet new people and have people I've never met before now stay in my brain. There are a couple of people that we saw last year for The Wiz... I'm a big sports person, so I will say, “I'm gonna keep them on the farm.” And what I mean by that is like farm team baseball. Like, I want to see them next year, I want to see how they grow, right? So there's a couple people who are on the farm that came back this year, and they're amazing.
Hayley: That's so exciting.
Amy: So good!
Schele: And I do all my notes electronically, so I can immediately type in somebody's name and see, you know, what I thought of them last year. And so a couple people, I’ve done that, and I'm like, “You have grown so much, oh my gosh!” You know, like, just like you needed that one extra year to cook, you know?
Hayley/Amy: Yeah, totally.
Schele: Yeah, so it's really exciting when you get to like, root for someone, and you're hoping that they're going to put in the time and the rigor and really focus and work on their skill a little bit more and hone it and do some regional theatre and, you know, dive into that craft a little bit more. And then they come in and you're like, “You are everything I wanted you to be this year,” you know?
Hayley: Yeah, yeah. Oh my gosh. And listeners who are early-career artists, I want you to hear what Scehele just said. Just because you don't book something the first time doesn't mean that you're out of the race at all. Like, you're still in people's minds.
Schele: Oh yeah.
Amy: Schele, I want to hear a bit more about all the things that you're working on creatively, because it has been a giant year for you. You had your Broadway directorial debut this year, and you directed two shows on Broadway this year, because why do something halfway? So congratulations, and can you tell us a bit about that process and about what's lighting you up creatively right now?
Schele: Oh my gosh, it was the most incredible year. It was a year that no one could have anticipated. Michael and I both had multiple shows on Broadway, and that was only because of the pandemic. Like, that was not the plan.
Hayley: Right, that makes sense, because the shows had been in the pipeline.
Schele: They've been in the pipeline, and we had all hoped to have The Notebook out the year before, and it was just a matter of, like, theatre availability, right? So all of a sudden, we were both in this position where we had multiple shows, and it was a champagne problem, as I like to say.
Amy: That's a great way of putting it.
Schele: So, you know, the answer is yes. How do we make this work? And we were able to find a schedule that allowed us to do all the things that we needed to do. You know, I left the opening night party for The Notebook, and the very next morning at 10 am, I was in rehearsal for The Wiz.
You know, it was quite a journey. And I'm so grateful - like, what a privilege to have a year like this. It, in so many ways, exceeded every expectation I could have ever had. I was blessed to work with amazing talent in both casts, creatively. Really supportive colleagues in the industry who would just reach out and say, “Hey, honey, do you want me to bring you some dinner? Like, are you tired?” You know, just like really, really good friends.
Hayley: That’s so nice, that you could lean on your community that way.
Schele: Yeah, you know, Leigh Silverman and I were right next to each other in theatres. Suffs was right next to The Wiz, and we were teching at the same time. We opened a day away from each other, and we would like, leave tech and pass each other on the street and just kind of high five and be like, “Okay, we're almost there,” you know?
Hayley: “You good? You okay?”
Schele: Yeah. Leigh and I have known each other for years and we love each other. And we went to brunch on the Sunday before both of our shows opened and just kind of sat there and just kind of looked at each other like, “We're almost there.”
It was just so wonderful to have so much camaraderie. You know, as people talk about the competition - they focus on that, but boy, they don't talk about the love and support. There was just so much love and support among so many of us this year. It was great.
Amy: That's wonderful.
Schele: Yeah, and obviously Michael and I had each other. We left in The Notebook, and he went right into Hell's Kitchen and I went right into The Wiz, and we met up for lunch almost daily.
Hayley: Amazing. Schele, I've heard you talk a lot about authentic representation as a creative mission for your work. Could you dive into that a little bit for our listeners? And if there's anything else that kind of ties into your creative mission, we'd love to hear about it.
Schele: Yeah, I think one of the most important things is “not about us without us.” So, really thinking about the stories that we are choosing to tell - myself included, right? If I'm taking on a project, I'm thinking very thoughtfully about the team I'm building to tell that story and ensuring that, as we are developing this team, we have a broad spectrum of representation.
It doesn't mean that your team has to be of one race because the show is of one race, right? Diversity doesn't mean that suddenly everyone's just all Black. Diversity means generationally, diverse in terms of experience, diverse in terms of having thought partners that are thinking from many perspectives and that are able to collaborate from all of those perspectives to create something that is a true reflection of humanity in its fullest.
So when I talk about representation, it's deeper than “Does everyone share the color of the storyteller or the protagonist or the writer?” It is much deeper than that, because sometimes the story is more about gender, or it's more about generation, or it's more about what are the themes of the piece and are we really speaking to that in the best way we can.
Amy: That's great. Yeah.
(Musical transition)
Amy: I'd love to shift gears a little bit and talk about womanhood. Can you tell us a little bit about how womanhood fits into your broader identity and plays into your theatrical work?
Schele: It's a huge part. You know, when I walk into the room, it is very clear. Like, there's two things that people identify from me, that I'm Black and I'm a woman, right? So, it is the way that I am perceived, and because of that, it cannot be erased from any way that I am in conversation with people. Like, I have to be aware that that's always at play.
So when I'm reading a piece, if the protagonist is a woman, I'm really thinking about everything from how they're speaking, how they're perceived when I'm staging, are they sitting, are they standing… Making sure that the story that we're telling physically, verbally, aligns with the story that we want to be telling in our minds. Oftentimes we'll say, like, “The woman is the star of the piece,” right? But then we'll find that everything we're doing in this piece is undermining their status.
Hayley: You see that a lot on stage. I mean, all the time. Yeah.
Schele: Yeah, and they're like, “But there are more women's roles in theatre than any other roles.”
Hayley: And our audiences are like 70% women, almost, I think.
Schele: Yeah. And yet, are we authentically telling the story of women in their fullness? Are we capturing all of who they are? Or are we leaning into stereotypes again and again and again? Are we positioned, this country, to say that we are afraid to have a woman leader because we continue to reinforce stereotypes about women leaders?
It's so interesting. When I was doing research for Aida, I went back and researched the 25th dynasty and really looked at women in the piece. Because I was like, okay, we have Amneris, we have Aida, and I wanted to look at these two cultures - Nubia, Egypt - and what I found was shocking to me. It was shocking to me that back during that time, women were of equal stature to men in society. Women were pharaohs. Women were commanders of the army, because women are strategic thinkers. Women were doctors, women were musicians, women were storytellers, women were gods.
Now, the influx of religion changed all that, right? Women, when they got divorces, held on to all of their property. There was a society in which women were revered and equalized. So you look at that and you go, “Oh, I actually just want to go back a few thousand years to where we were.” And how did we lose that? We lost that because when we stopped telling our history, we stopped controlling the narrative.
We actually have to go back and look at research and go, “Oh, none of what we thought was true,” because we just keep on saying the same crap over and over and over again, right?
Hayley: Yeah, it just cycles.
Schele: But when we go back and look at our history and we go, “Oh, maybe women actually should be like the generals and armies,” because we do think about 15 things at one time, right? We are strategic thinkers. And women were soldiers in the army, so you know, when you look at the way that we have continued to reinforce stereotypes about women on stage, it's time for that to change.
It's time for us to question everything that we put down on paper and go, “Does this align with our bias, or does this align with our values?” Is this exactly what our character would be doing, or is this what we're presuming our character should be doing? And what is leading us to make these assumptions? Is there anything in the text that supports this? Are we pre-supposing our own biases onto this?
So that's where I constantly question, “Why is she saying this? Why is she weak in this moment? What is it in her character that is telling us that this would be her response?” You know, the rigor of just making sure that we are always going back and checking our own biases, even as women.
Hayley: Yeah, of course. Well, we're fed this information from the time we're so tiny, right? So, of course. We have to check too. Yeah.
Schele: Right. You know, and just going, “Okay, are we telling the most complete version of this without any biases in them?” How is this representation a reflection of this character, no matter what their gender would be?
Amy: Yeah. I love that. How do you balance authentic representation within the context of theatrical story structures?
Schele: Yeah, I don't think that things are mutually exclusive, right? I think you can be authentic without being like, letter-perfect true, right? You can still have playfulness. It's just, you know, there is, I think, a responsibility - if I were going to tell a story that had a trans lead in the story, it would be very important to me to ensure that I had someone on the creative team that could speak to that in an authentic way. That's authentic representation, right?
It doesn't mean that that character can't be flawed. It doesn't mean that that character can't be fantastical. It doesn't mean that that character cannot have dilemmas and challenges that are not specifically unique to their identity. But it does mean that as we are talking about this character, we are not falling into tropes and stereotypes and things that can become harmful. Because in some ways, a theatre can be a bully pulpit in the way that we have captured an audience, and sometimes the things that we tell people, they believe those narratives. We can reinforce stereotypes, we can create opportunities for us to consider humanity in a new way.
Hayley: Yeah. I love that you're highlighting this responsibility that we have as storytellers. I think it's really important.
Schele: Yeah, so that's it. It doesn't mean that we're now only doing like, nonfiction, and everything has to be true. And, you know, if the parent is this, then the child has to be this. I mean, there still is like the imagination and the playfulness of theatre, right? But in that imagination and that playfulness, there's still responsibility. As we are continuing to talk about the world that we live in, we have to, I think, in theatre, take responsibility for stereotypes that we have reinforced, that have gotten us to a place where we have not allowed ourselves to even grow inside the characters that we continue to regurgitate over and over and over, right?
And, you know, as we're thinking about, like, “Who is going to be the hero in the story?” How many times is it the woman that saves the day? How many times is it that the person who is neurodivergent saves the day? Are we always looking for that cisgender male to save the day, right? You know, I mean, like, these are the kinds of things where we go, “Okay, wait a minute.” These are the stories that we've been told over and over and over. How about we tell some stories that are also true, right? Because there are people that fit all of those categories that are incredibly heroic.
So why don't we then say, these other people can do this too, right? We're not erasing anyone. We're actually creating space to illuminate that other people can be included in these kind of narratives.
Amy: Yeah, yeah. Thank you for unpacking that for us and for our listeners.
Schele: Yeah, absolutely. Those kind of questions, I think, to me, are the most interesting. How are we fully developing the characters? How are we, as women are singing in songs, making sure that they're not always screaming their emotions?
Hayley: Yeah.
Amy: That's real.
Schele: I love a high belt. I was a high belter myself, right? However, the power of my voice is actually in the epicenter of my voice, right? Not always when I'm screeching the highest. And so what kind of stereotypes are we reinforcing when we're saying every time you're powerful, you're screaming?
Hayley: Yeah. That's a really good point. And playing with expectations that way too.
Schele: Yeah. And just rewriting that idea of: Where is her power in this moment? Where is her truth?
Hayley: Yeah. There's power in vulnerability too, you know, and like, what does that look like? And what are the different versions of that?
Schele: Yeah.
Amy: Right, and there's power in confidence. There's power in not having to be in this emotionally heightened state to be able to be emotionally grounded and sure of oneself. Yeah.
Schele: Yeah, and it doesn't mean that one is bad or the other is good or that one is right and the other is wrong. It's just about: How are we continuing to explore all of those things and making all of those things true? That's when we're talking about a broader idea of humanity.
Amy: Yeah. Awesome. Schele, I'd love to hear a bit about inspirational mentors that you've interacted with in your professional career, and like, if there are bits of advice that you've picked up from folks that you'd like to pass along to the next generation.
Schele: Yeah, absolutely. Baayork Lee is one of the greatest humans on the planet. I did A Chorus Line many years ago, and Baayork saw me in the show, I was Maggie. And a couple weeks later, she invited me to be in her Porgy and Bess European tour. And I learned so much from her. Maybe like a year later, I got an offer to be a swing in Tommy, and I called her and I was like, “Baayork, I got this job offer and I don't know whether I should do it. I've never swung before.” And she was like, “Okay, girlfriend, I'm going to teach you how to swing.”
And she told me exactly how to do the job. She explained to me what the responsibility was, she explained to me what the expectations were. She explained to me, like, how to build a book, how to watch a dance number, when to get up - you know, she was like, “On those breaks, when that stage is free, you get up on that stage. You know, when you're in rehearsal space, you stand on those numbers. You follow one person at a time.” Like, she really taught me how to see the big picture. And then later on, when I was asked to be the dance captain of Rent, I was like, “How do I do this?” And she said, “Okay, this is how you build a dance captain book.”
You know, I've had incredible women in my life who have mentored me. Marlies Yearby, phenomenal choreographer. She leads with her heart. She is a true storyteller. She was the first choreographer I'd ever worked with who doesn't work with counts. She works on the breath. And I was like, “I don't know how to notate a breath.” But she was like, “You can't feel a seven. Humans exhale.” The whole show is built on this bit of humanity that exists in this space of the East Village. And how do all of these individual humans - what is their internal rhythm, and how does that contribute to the story in this moment?
And surrendering all of my cerebral “5, 6, 7, 8” and diving into the breath of a character took me all the way back to, like, college breathwork, right? And, like, you know, scene study and all the things. And suddenly, like, the world's connected in such a visceral way for me. The dance became a different kind of a story, and maintaining a dance number was not just, “Is everybody perfect?” It was all about, “Is everyone telling the story true to their character? Is their body moving the way the character should move?” And that's very different than a “5, 6, 7, 8” or chorus line, right?
Hayley: Definitely.
Schele: And so, not only did she teach me that, she taught me how to talk about dance in a way that is only about story. Talk about body shape, all about story. And she is, I think, one of the kindest, most thoughtful storytellers. She never raises her voice. She leads a room with power and command, but in a way that is so affirming for everyone. Like, she really showed me a different kind of leadership, and I will forever be grateful for her for showing me power in a different kind of way.
Hayley: Yeah. That's profound, for sure.
(Musical transition)
Hayley: Schele, if you could make one change to the theatre industry, what would it be?
Schele: I would change the workshop onboarding into a new show process. I really do think that it is really hard to work on a show and give it enough of a runway to have its final shot, right? You got like, one big shot for Broadway or one big shot to get in a regional into Broadway. And I wish that shows had more time to cook, that it wasn't so expensive to develop material. Because oftentimes you see shows and you're like, “Wow, you know, two more iterations and that would have been it,” you know? You really kind of want to have a longer runway.
And I know that it takes, like, you know, seven years to get to a show. Please, I'm in like multi-years of working on a show right now that is still, like, in its nascent stages. And so I'm not saying that it needs to be longer. I'm saying there needs to be more opportunity to work on it and really grow it so that by the time it gets its shot, it really has had plenty of opportunities to germinate. That the creative team has had opportunities to create together, to think together, to be partners together.
That's the part that I feel like is really, really missing, where I feel like we’re so, so close when a show makes it to the stage but not quite there. And that's the difference between a shorter and longer life of a show.
Amy: Schele, before we got on this call, Hayley was saying to me, “Schele does so many things, and I have no idea how she does them all.” So I'd love to hear from you: How do you think about creating balance between your creative work and, like, the rest of your life, all of it?
Schele: You know, every day I think I fail a little bit, right?
Amy: That's so real. Yeah.
Schele: Yeah. You know, yesterday I was in auditions, and my husband sent me a text and he was like, “Tonight is back to school night,” and I was like, ugh…
(Laughter)
Schele: I missed that email, right? So, like, you know, there's just always some place to be. And at every moment, there's a balance of what is the priority in this moment, you know? And sometimes, the kids are just gonna have to eat something frozen out of the freezer. They're not getting, like, a great organic meal from mom, right? They're gonna be fed, and they're gonna be fine, right? But my attention actually needs to be here, right? And it doesn't mean that I love my kids less or that I love the show more, right? But it just means that, like, at any given moment, I'm constantly making those decisions, right?
Right now, I've got, like, Wiz auditions happening, and I've got replacement rehearsals for The Notebook. And thank God, Michael and I can tag-team these two. If I had been the sole director, we'd be in trouble right now, right? There's always competing things that need to be happening at the same time. And it's just about, like, what gets priority. Forgiving myself for moments that I fail, and just knowing that every day I'm trying hard to be in all the places I need to be.
And because we do what we do, we always have a lot of balls in the air. You know, all of a sudden, there's a lot of energy. A producer comes aboard, and there's a theatre available, and like, this thing gets greenlit. And suddenly, you're going really fast in one direction that you hadn't anticipated going in, and - you know, that quickly.
I choose projects that I deeply care about, that I feel like bring something vital to the world that I think is necessary. And because I have the ability to do that at this point in my career, I do feel like if I'm making a sacrifice, it's because the thing that I'm making, I think, is necessary. And that gives me permission to say, “Okay, yeah, the kids will eat pizza tonight.” Because this piece of theatre that I'm creating, they're a part of all of it. There's not one story that I tell that I don't think about the impact it's going to have on them.
Amy: Yeah.
Schele: And so for me, it's very simple. It's also - there's nothing that I'm creating that I'm not sharing with them. So when I say to them, “I'm so sorry, I couldn't be at this thing tonight. Let me tell you about what happened. And this is what we're working on.” You know, when they came to Wiz rehearsals, they had seen the pictures of the costumes. They had seen the audition videos with me. They're so deeply invested in the thing that we're making, because they're at the heart of all of it.
I have a why, you know, and sometimes the why is the world needs joy. And so that's what I'm leaning into, right? The why for me is very easy. And so, as I'm balancing things left and right, that's what I'm grappling with, yeah.
Hayley: You said as you were talking about this that you have to forgive yourself a lot or like, give yourself that permission. How did you learn to do that? ‘Cause I think that's a hard thing to do.
Schele: I do believe that we try and fail every day. My favorite gospel song of all time is a song called “We Fall Down.” “We fall down but we get up,” right? It's like what keeps getting repeated. And I think the lyrics are “We fall down but we get up. We fall down but we get up. We fall down but we get up. For a saint is just a sinner who fell down and got up,” right?
And I think about that and I just think like, every day I'm going to fail, and every day I'm going to get back up again. I'm just going to get back up again, and I'm going to get back up again, and I'm going to try again. And that, to me, is the exact thing that I want my girls to know. You're going to fail. And if you can extend grace to others, you also have to give it to yourself. And so I cannot say to my girls, “I want you to know it's okay to fail and know it's okay to get back up again” if I am not modeling for them that Mommy is doing this every single day.
Every day we grow, right? As long as I am breathing, I want to be growing, I want to be learning, I want to be evolving. That is a journey that I hope to be on for the rest of my life.
Amy: Yeah.
Hayley: Thank you. I needed to hear that today.
Amy: I think I really needed to hear that today too, thank you Schele.
Schele: You're welcome.
Amy: That hits right there, yeah. Schele, what are you most proud of in your life and in your work?
Schele: You know, my children's book, I think, is the thing that I'm most proud of. My children's book is called Your Legacy: A Bold Reclaiming of Our Enslaved History. And it is the one thing in my life I never saw coming. I'm very proud of it. It's an award-winning children's book. The second book in the series just came out, which is like a prequel called Your Legacy Begins, and it's a board book for toddlers.
It is a story that I wrote. It came out of a very difficult conversation I had with my kids about their enslaved ancestors. And I realized I didn't know how to have that conversation that was not marred in shame and the humiliation that I felt when I was told about our enslaved history. And I wanted to find a way to talk about our ancestors in a different way. And I did a lot of research, and it just cracked open to me, the story unveiled itself. And that story was to start actually not from the middle of the story, but from the beginning of the story. Not talk about our ancestors from, you know, what happened to them, but actually talk about who they were long before they were enslaved.
And that, to me, I am most proud of because it is an arena I had never imagined being in. It is the boldest and bravest thing I've ever done, is to say out loud, “I want to write a children's book” and to look at myself in the mirror and be like, “Who the hell are you to write a children's book?”, right? And to say those words out loud, to have someone actually say to me, “You should stay in your lane.” And be bold enough to say again, “You know what? I actually do want to write this children's book.”
And then someone said to me, “There's nothing like that in the market.” I had an agent say to me, a literary agent, say, “You write this book, and I will sell it.” And I wrote that book, and it got sold, and it has been the thing that proved to me that I have the ability to do anything. I have to be braver than I've ever imagined. And if you want to do something, you put it into the universe and you make it happen. And so, that was like a beautiful surprise that happened to me in my life, and I never saw it coming.
Hayley: Thank you so much for sharing that, Schele. Can you share with the listeners where they can find you on the internet?
Schele: Yes, you can find me @ScheleWilliams on Instagram.
Amy: Thank you so much for being with us today, Schele.
Hayley: This was so delightful. Thank you. You're always so inspiring. And I just thank you for sharing your time with us and our listeners.
Amy: Yeah. We really appreciate it.
Schele: It was an absolute pleasure.
(Musical transition)
Amy: Wow, Hayley. That was a fantastic interview that we just had with Schele Williams. What an inspiring person. I'm so glad we were able to chat with her.
Hayley: Yeah, she's an absolute delight. A class act in every way. And when I think about the women in this business that I would love to take inspiration from, she's always on the top of that list. So I'm just so grateful that she shared her thoughts with us.
Just hearing her talk about the way that she approaches the work and her creative mission, and that point that she had about her values, that idea about: Are we aligning with our values or are we reinforcing old stereotypes? The way she said that was so potent to me and so useful as a touch point to keep coming back to as we continue to try to make work that's more equitable, more authentic, and more representative of the world we want to see.
Amy: Yeah, I love that she talked about that, like, particularly as a responsibility for us as storytellers to be thinking about those things. I also - I mean, I think in the interview we both had this, like, visceral gut reaction to when she was talking about that we fail a little every day.
Hayley: Yes!
Amy: That's a thing. And that, I guess, separates the strong from the weak or whatever, is the failing and getting back up again. Especially on such a busy week like we've had, it's so important for us to remember.
Hayley: I love it. Yeah, I certainly needed to hear it. And I think also, just knowing that someone who's as successful as she is is so… friends with failure. There's no sort of, like, fear around it. It is a fact of life that failure will happen every single day, and that that's okay. And the idea of how she's modeling for her daughters, I just think it's so, so beautiful.
Amy: Yeah, and the perspective that like, you have to be friends with failure in order to achieve the level of success that she has. Yeah, that's important. Good interview!
Okay. So, let's talk about our Trailblazers of the Week. We're gonna take a moment to uplift the people who inspire us. It can be someone in our immediate circle or someone we admire from afar. So Hayley, who's your Trailblazer of the Week?
Hayley: My Trailblazer of the Week is my good friend, Hannah Coffman.
Amy: I love Hannah!
Hayley: She actually - for those of you who are OG followers of the blog, she was in that first year of interviews. Her blog post is still available on womenandtheatre.com if you want to check it out. We'll also link it in the show notes. But Hannah's my Trailblazer of the Week, because she's had a bit of a rough go recently, and she's one of these people who just always brings positivity, humor, and determination and grit to everything she does, regardless of what the circumstances are. I'm just really proud of the way that she's been working towards her career goals and her dreams and just sort of like, on topic of, you know, facing situations that are out of your control, sort of showing up as the best version of yourself that you can. That always inspires me. So Hannah's my Trailblazer of the Week.
Amy: I love that. Yay, go Hannah! My Trailblazer of the Week… I'm kind of between two, but I'm gonna make a strong choice. My Trailblazer of the Week this week is Kamala Harris. By the time this episode airs, the whole thing may be over. But I just am really impressed. I've actually, I've been following her career for quite a while, from back when I lived in California when I was in college. And I just, I find her so refreshingly grounded as a politician and clear on who she is, clear in her values, very clear in her communication. She's smart, I think she's driven, and I think she's inspirational. And I really love that she's leading a campaign filled with joy and hope.
Like we were talking about with Schele, it's a really heavy time to be a person in the world and to watch the news. There's just all these horrible things happening. And so to lean into joy and hope feels to me so quintessentially human. That resilience is how we make it out. Like, that to me is the path forward. And I think Kamala Harris and her campaign really exemplify that.
I'll also share a tiny personal story. I was at a conference a bunch of years ago in a former professional life, and I was pregnant with my daughter. And Kamala was one of the speakers at this conference. And when Kamala took the stage and she spoke, my daughter was just doing backflips in my belly. Like, she was so excited as like, a little pre-person. She was just like, “That's the one. I like her.” And I was like, “Girl, you know what? I like her too.” I'm really inspired by Kamala Harris. And I'm happy she's doing what she's doing in the world.
Hayley: That is so awesome. Yay. I want to hype you up for a second, Amy, before we run away from this lovely interview.
I actually want to circle back to the top of the day when we were talking about just how busy things have been and how much we're stepping this up. You really show up for me, both in our personal friendship and in this project. And I've said it before and I'll say it again, that you are so open to communication, but it's not just about the communication. You then take that next step and take action, and you take things into your own hands and you make them happen.
And it's really beautiful to be a part of a project with you like this, because we get to go through these, like, growth periods together. And that can be hard and that can be scary, and it can also be exhilarating and exciting and joyful and… Yeah, I just feel very supported. I feel like you've got me and I've got you, and so I want to hype you up for that.
Amy: Aww, thanks Hayley. Yeah, I wanna - I think on a similar note, I wanna hype you up for being an awesome friend. I just, I really love and value our friendship. Listeners, you may not be aware of this, but Hayley and I are not exactly the same age. But we have this beautiful friendship that really transcends that gap. And I just, I really appreciate how communicative you are, how self-aware you are of your needs and your boundaries, and how open you are, and how fierce you are as a friend - how fiercely protective you are of your people, how fiercely you hype your people up. It is such a joy and an honor to be your friend as well as your professional partner.
Hayley: I love you.
Amy: I love you too.
Hayley: This is so cute. We get to finish every episode this season just loving on each other.
Amy: Yeah! You know what, listeners? Hype up someone you love today. Tell someone you love why you love them. That's a good thing to do.
Hayley: Yeah. Go squeeze your friends. Okay. Love you.
Hayley/Amy: Bye!
(Music)
Hayley: Thank you for listening to the Women & Theatre Podcast. We’re your hosts, Hayley Goldenberg…
Amy: …and Amy Andrews! If you like what you heard, subscribe and give us a 5-star review wherever you listen.
Hayley: You can also follow us on social @womenandtheatreproject to make sure you never miss an episode.
Amy: The music for this show was written by talented Women & Theatre community member Chloe Geller.
Hayley: Thanks again for listening, everyone. See you next time!
Amy: Bye!
