TFLL: Evan Johnson is a Theatre Maker, Teaching Artist, and Community Activator. He is a graduate of Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre. For the City of San Francisco, he co-founded the Harvey Milk Center for the Arts’ Junior Acting Troupe, launched the New Play Factory, a playwriting lab for teens, and taught Senior Theatre Games and Improv to adults over 55. Evan’s work with older adults led him to launch the Cosmic Elders Theatre Ensemble, a collaboration-based platform for seniors and partner with the Center for Aging and Brain Health Innovation. Evan is running a four-week theatre workshop with older adults in summer 2021.
TFLL: Tell us how you got into theatre and what drew you to physical theatre.
Evan Johnson: I was a performer as a child. I was always putting on plays with my neighbors and my siblings. I would say, “Well, you’re doing this and you’re doing that and I’m going to stand right here.” I look back at that time, and I was always interested in playwriting, directing and acting. [I was] always thinking like an actor creator.
I first encountered [Dell-Arte] when I was 14 years old. I went to a summer program called California State Summer School for the Arts. It was the first time I had encountered queer people, people of color, trans people –it was incredible and so formative. There was music, film, [and] writers. I became friends with people from all walks of life [and] different disciplines. Dell’Arte had some guest faculty teaching there. Their approach to movement, the practice of just focusing on the body in space and time moving, how that tells stories, how there are metaphors, can imbue physicality with so much content creatively.
When I moved to the Bay Area it was the first time I was living in a city. I was like, “I’m a community explorer.” The Drag Community was a huge impact and transformation. I created a character that was a physical performance, Martha T Lipton…that I performed as for four years. It was [a] community-building theatre of place. Drag was really the way I connected to San Francisco.
I was teaching concurrently [while] working at a coffee shop and performing as Martha T. Lipton. Then I started booking jobs teaching after school theatre programs for young people. That led to teaching older adults because my supervisor [said] one day, “You gotta run over there and help! The teacher didn’t show up!” So I came to the rescue to teach the senior theatre games and improv class.
I told my supervisor right afterwards, “I love this community. I love this experience. Don’t hire somebody else for that job! I want that job, please!” She let me pivot five years ago and I began offering older adult programming.
TFLL: How do you think theatre and performance benefit older adults?
Evan Johnson: Theatre can be so many things. It’s a great way to explore different dynamics both socially with a group of other participants in a workshop setting or individually as an artist. Theatre gives you permission to be another way.
[Theatre] is just such a wonderful generous gift. I always felt so lucky to be in a theatre class as a kid. It was like my people. That sense of belonging comes out of that experience. You feel like you have permission to take big risks. You have permission to be vulnerable. I think that is just a really valuable framework, no matter what age you are.
TFLL: How do you think physical theatre benefits older adults?
Evan Johnson: Devised theatre, and certainly movement training, allows for artists to access their creative side through a practical [and] experimental iterative process. You get to try out physically putting yourself in a situation, pose, or posture.
A lot of times we put so much pressure on ourselves to be perfect in the here and now, and to show up and be perfect. Physical theatre is a great way to take a step back and say, “Okay, hmm. That went that way. Let’s try it another way. Let’s try this other approach and see if it’s more successful.”
Physical theatre is about activating yourself to engage with others in [a] direct way. It’s not psychological like other theatre approaches. It’s based in space and time and those are fundamentals of performance. Older adults have a great perspective on both of those things, space and time.
TFLL: What’s your favorite type of performance to create with older adults?
Evan Johnson: I love interdisciplinary theatre. Bringing in a collaborator like a sound designer, a video designer, or a lighting designer [is] really exciting. Any time I can engage older adults with other disciplines, [like] an older adult singing group or a youth singing group, is exciting to me. Intergenerational, interdisciplinary, and multicultural, would be the power trio in terms of the aspiration to the kind of work I want to make.
TFLL: Why is this your favorite?
Evan Johnson: It takes me out of my comfort zone and it widens my comfort zone. There was something I recently came across about clowning, that it’s not about going outside of your comfort zone. Maybe it’s about making it bigger.
I think that’s why I like engaging collaborators from other traditions and backgrounds. It puts me into a new relationship through collaboration. It’s a new energy and a new stimulus.
TFLL: What new skills have you developed from working with older adults?
Evan Johnson: Mindfulness. I found that working with older adults provided me with this invitation to show up as my highest self, to represent youth in a noble way, and to not ever [be] exploitative [or] direct them and move them around like chess pieces in my vision of my play.
That’s not how I work. And [that’s] why it’s meaningful; I am working on myself and I am showing up and regarding this as something quite powerful.
TFLL: What do you want to get out of ensemble building when you’re working with older adults and intergenerational performers?
Evan Johnson: Once we witness the activation of a community through the practice of art, storytelling, or devising, there’s something magical when a group gels and clicks. I’ve been lucky enough to see that happen in different settings where a company is birthed.
The Cosmic Elders Theatre Ensemble is that for me now. And I also look to the future and think how else can these kinds of activations happen and through what channels does that occur? I’m inspired and motivated to pay witness to more of that.
I [also] think it’s exciting when you have that sense of belonging and you feel like you’re not conforming. To belong and also be autonomous with whatever skills you’re bringing to the table.
Every partner is the perfect partner. That’s something that ensemble work and improv has really taught me. The total acceptance of the partner that you’re working with and whatever they’re throwing at you, or whatever they’re giving you, that you’re receiving it fully and then offering something in return.
TFLL: What are you challenged by in your journey with Cosmic Elders Theatre Ensemble?
Evan Johnson: The lack of infrastructure is challenging. They started as a program through San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. I was supported very much by the city and county of San Francisco. Then with COVID, I’ve had to pivot and figure out a way to keep that community activated, engaged, and that’s through partnerships and other groups.
They’ve jokingly said they’re like the E Street Band and I’m Bruce Springsteen. Wherever I show up, there they are. I thought that was really sweet. Because it’s a year into this pivot and we’re on the precipice, figuring out, “Is this going to return to being a Parks program? Am I taking this and running with it?” The infrastructure is really the biggest challenge.
TFLL: How has developing theatre with older adults changed your perspective about theatre and performance more broadly?
Evan Johnson: It’s been such an incredible eye-opening experience. [In a way] it’s radically shifted my priorities. Now my priorities are less focused on myself and my contemporaries, and what the goals are, who [I] am, or what [I] am striving for. It’s made me think more broadly about where I am in the spectrum of aging and how life and all these moments we’re experiencing are so ephemeral. And being present [has given me] great moments of reflection and gratitude.
I feel so grateful for [Cosmic Elders] and so gratified by knowing them and having witnessed this group harness the community spirit during this challenging time. It’s been incredible and really really inspiring.
TFLL: Share a memorable moment of collaborating with older adults.
Evan Johnson: In 2017, I [had written] Barn Owl, a play I was considering [performing as] a solo play. I had done two solo plays previously, so I assumed it was going to be another solo play. But in the process, I brought in my collaborator Teddy.
[We had] this idea that [we’d] have two of us on stage and a chorus and I thought, “I’m going to ask my senior improv group if they’d want to show up for the run of shows.” And they said, “Yes.”
We had a bunch of robes that were volunteered to us from a production at San Francisco Playhouse. They were this weird kind of robin’s egg blue choir robes, really kind of far out.
[Then] we got this technical design residency at Z Space for a week. [The improv group] showed up and they were moving around the space and they didn’t have a name yet. I saw them moving with those robes on, with the lights, video, and sound. And Cosmic Elders was born.
I have a lot of great friendships that I’m so grateful for that are the result of [Cosmic Elders]. There was a guy named [Disco] John Lind who has since passed. I look back at that video of him as a Cosmic Elder and it’s just so touching. He was there on the dance floors at night, every week at the Cat Club, in his little hot pants and this long white hair. He was a legend and I became close friends with him.
TFLL: What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever given or ever received about theatre or performing?
Evan Johnson: [A teacher] was noticing something in my performances. She told me to allow myself this body with the grace of an angel by fully being present. By being in your skin and moving through space, you can have the grace of an angel.
[At the time], I was engendering myself in heteronormative roles of theatre. I was cast a lot as a brother or as a friend where I would change my physical stature. I would stiffen or tighten. It was like I was projecting or pushing something that didn’t need to be there.
I think that was what she was sensing [and that was why she told me] I could fully be myself and have the grace of an angel. Just that word “grace” was a really beautiful thing to [hear].
Photo Credit: Jim Watkins, “The Cosmic Elders with Evan Johnson,” June 13, 2021