Arts Engagement Programs Associates James Pillar and Randall Eames discuss The Old Globe’s youth programs and the impact of transformative programs for creative youth in our community.

James Pillar: What I love about working with youth and dissecting Shakespeare’s text with them is hearing their stories and seeing them connect with the characters in their own way. In our high school Summer Shakespeare Studio last summer we did a version of Henry V, and what came up for a lot of students was questions of leadership and responsibility. And the students began to debate among themselves about times when they had to make difficult choices and realized the weight of that leadership. 

Randall Eames: I think the process is often even more interesting than the final product. The past couple years we’ve written new musicals in our summer programming in City Heights. We work with middle schoolers to write a libretto based on prompts that the students answer. I remember one day our playwright came in with a prompt of “What was a moment that changed your point of view in life?” The students ended up sharing these really personal experiences, and they connected with each other. In this case theatre making was a cathartic, transformative opportunity for these students to feel seen authentically and to express themselves.  

Randall Eames with School in the Park, 2018.

JP: I really want to acknowledge all the richness that happens in the rehearsal room. Last summer, seeing this disparate group of high schoolers come together on this Shakespeare play, and really taking ownership of the story and how it was going to be shaped, I watched the students take on the complexity of the text, and it is always so amazing because they’re so fearless. 

RE: And some of them are just exploring the idea of theatre for the first time, and as the teaching artist, you literally watch them become more confident over time.  

JP: There’s something amazing that the theatre does in opening up that safe space and neutralizing it for people to come from anywhere and bring their own authentic selves to it. We had a student and it was her first time with Shakespeare. Daunting stuff, that language, and the beauty and complexity of it, and this particular student worked so hard to get it right. There was a moment in the performance where she got her round of applause for her speech, and you saw her shoulders kind of go back up and back like, “I did that!” I love those moments.  

I often feel like theatre is perceived as something that “other people are doing.” Like there’s this group of people who know all about this thing and they’re all doing it. It’s very exclusive. 

James Pillar with Pam Farr Summer Shakespeare Studio, 2019.

RE: And it seems like this is a moment to chip away at that. It’s the perfect opportunity to start at the new—the next—generation with theatre programs for youth and supporting arts education in our schools. 

JP: Yes! To help facilitate a new generation of theatre makers and hopefully spark them to make the theatre they want, the theatre they don’t see anywhere else. 

James Pillar graduated from Dartington College of Arts (U.K.) with an honors degree in theatre. He has worked throughout San Diego as a Teaching Artist for The Old Globe, and currently co-leads Reflecting Shakespeare, a program that navigates incarcerated populations through a course of investigating, personalizing, and performing Shakespeare’s text. 

Randall Eames is a multi-hyphenate teaching artist and has been with The Old Globe since 2018. He is currently an Arts Engagement Programs Associate and Teaching Artist for School in the Park and Creative Youth Studio. He holds an M.F.A. in musical theatre from San Diego State University.

All photos by Rich Soublet II.