How We Got On
How We Got On, produced by Haven Theatre in Chicago: Ireon Roach and Tevion Lanier.
“ “A thoughtful coming-of-age tale enriched with hip-hop lyricism, insights about creativity and a lovingly wry perspective on the ’80s...A spoken-word artist and essayist as well as a playwright, Goodwin has suited form to content here: The dialogue often displays a pulsing poetry.””
Show Bio
How We Got On made its first appearance on the theatrical landscape in 2011, when it received the prestigious honor of being workshopped at the Eugene O’Neill New Play Conference (for reference, the O’Neill generally receives 1,200-1,500 play submissions and chooses only a few for the workshop - simply being named as a semi-finalist is every playwright’s dream). Following development at the O’Neill, the New Harmony Project, and the New Leaf Theatre, How We Got On premiered at the 2012 Humana Festival of New Plays.
Following this production, the play went on to have several runs in regional theatres, including B Street Theatre, the Cleveland Playhouse (where Miss Leah first saw it!), Available Light Theatre in Columbus, Ohio (where yours truly first saw it!), and the Haven Theatre in Chicago, where a critic wrote of the play:
“Goodwin uses the techniques of hip-hop itself as the structural DNA for his story, without ever letting it spin into fanboy pedantry…[the play] is both a nostalgic snapshot of a cultural phenomenon about to go mainstream in a big way, and of kids who know that they’ve got something to say - if only [the characters] can weave together the beats and the words that will get the world to listen.”
JUMP IN!
Exercises (coming soon!)