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Conversations with TyLie Shider

Today we’d like to introduce you to TyLie Shider.

Hi TyLie, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I am a proud American playwright. My father is the first writer I met. He is a self-taught guitarist and songwriter, and I taught myself how to write songs by watching him work and studying his notebooks as a boy.

My songwriting evolved into poetry, scenes, and short stories, etc.

However, it is my obsession with magazines and newspapers that led me to an undergraduate education in journalism (BA). While in undergraduate school, I took a course called Modern Drama where we studied the biographies and plays of canonical American playwrights from Eugene O’Neill to Suzan-Lori Parks. And by the time we finished the unit on August Wilson, I had picked up a minor in theater studies and decided to pursue a career in playwriting. I believe the medium gripped me because it was a playground for me to exercise all of my literary interests like, songwriting, poetry and prose, and even journalism. This is why I call myself an investigative-playwright, because I approach writing for the stage with an investigative sensibility.

I was born in Plainfield, New Jersey to a musician and a gospel singer/ beautician. I am the firstborn of 6 children. All of us are creative.

My parents met as children because their fathers sang in a gospel band together for decades.

In the summer of 2019, shortly after I graduated Tisch (MFA), I moved to Minneapolis on my first Jerome Fellowship at the Playwrights’ Center, and it was the first season of my life where I was provided an opportunity to write full-time without the pressure of academia or a “day job.” I have gratefully been in residence at the Playwrights’ Center ever since. Minneapolis is one of my creative havens. It is an important city in my literary journey, because my aesthetic came together here. Partly because I was given the time, space, and resources to write, and partly because there’s just something in the air here for emerging creatives. A kind of homecoming.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The road has been relatively smooth for me, because I am not a first-generation creative. Therefore, I possess an undying will to succeed in the arts, because I have witnessed the diligence of creatives and the possibilities of creative success all of my life. Growing up, I spent most of my extracurricular time in my parents’ respective band rehearsals, recording studios, and concerts. These memories led to my “Mom and Pop” plays – which are a set of companion plays that I wrote based on the original music my parents recorded. I wanted to concretize and honor their ambition, because their ambition led to my professional ambition. The plays are set 5 years apart, and set against the backdrop of transformative moments in American history. The first installment, Certain Aspects of Conflict in the Negro Family (Premiere Stages), is set in the “long hot summer of 1967” when uprisings broke out across the country. And the second play, The Gospel Woman (National Black Theatre), is set in 1972, and it explores what happened to my hometown, Plainfield, NJ, after the riots. Both of the plays are family dramas that center on two very different families in the same city. However, I call the plays “Rehearsal Dramas.” I define “Rehearsal Drama” as a domestic drama that unfolds at a rehearsal. Which is very much how I remember the events of my life unfolding. There was always music playing in the background. In essence, I believe the key to overcoming the struggles that a career in playwriting, or any creative medium, may present, is to remember why you are committed to your craft. Most of us stick with it because we have no other choice.

What are you most proud of?
Well, I am really proud of the work I am doing on my new play Whittier. It’s a play I’ve written based on the interviews I conducted with my neighbors (and members of surrounding communities) here in Whittier, Minneapolis, during and after the 2020 uprisings.

The play was born out of a short documentary (Sign O’ the Times) I made in an effort to concretize the murals, lawn signs, and other protest signage that emerged in protest of the public murder of George Floyd.

In the play, I am seeking to show as many perspectives as possible around the incident, while also providing a series of portraits of a neighborhood that comes together in the wake of a local tragedy.

We recently had a workshop and public sharing of the work at the Playwrights’ Center as part of its Ruth Easton New Play Series/ and PWCs’ public season. This is probably the most ostensible example of my investigative sensibility, but most of my plays are born out of the investigation and a series of interviews around a subject that grips me. I am very interested in concretizing oral histories and keeping a record of many perspectives.

I also wrote a short film called Truant for the Science Museum of Minnesota people really love. You could check it out on YouTube!

What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
Theater is a relatively traditional way of storytelling. It’s like a stone’s throw away from humans telling stories around a campfire for a means of disseminating information or entertaining one another. I think the magic of theater is that, at its core, it doesn’t change. We’ll continue to tell stories to a live audience in the dark, or even with the house lights up. But, however, we tell our stories in the theater, we will continue to meet a primitive need of coming together in a space to share stories. The innovation is that there really is no foreseeable innovation in the convention of theater itself. My only hope is that we continue to provide space to tell diverse and nuanced American stories.

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Image Credits

Headshot by Hollis King
“The Gospel Woman” by Marcus Middleton
The Sign o’ the Times by Nick Clausen

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