An alum in the arts: playwright playwright Philip Dawkins
Philip Dawkins (BA ’02) is a graduate of Loyola’s arts department, and he’s putting his
education to good use. ● A successful playwright, teacher, nonprofit coordinator, and activist, Dawkins has accomplished a lot in his 27 years. ● Thanks to a lot of passion and hard work, Dawkins is making waves in the arts and a difference in the community. ● As a theatre major at Loyola, Dawkins’s was the first student-written play to appear at the Mullady Theatre on the University’s main stage. ● His plays have been produced in Chicago and beyond and have won several awards. ● He teaches playwriting in the Chicago Public Schools and serves as arts program director of Pegasus Players (a nonprofit organization), placing artists in residence in Chicago schools. ● In his spare time, he coordinates urban street art projects and has written for Loyola’s “Blog Around the World.” ● He was recently named one of the Windy City Times’s “30 Under 30” in Chicago. ● Although he’s clearly a busy guy, Dawkins was generous enough to sit down and have a conversation about what he does and why he does it.
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Catch Dawkins’s show just down the street from the Lake Shore Campus: PerfectBy Philip Dawkins Directed by Stephen Cone February 3 – March 2, 2008 Ticket info: |
I’ll come across something new that will catch my imagination and I’ll want to know everything about it. I’ll research it and research it and find a way to latch onto it and then write about that. I want to find something I can connect to in somebody else’s life.
Where do you get your ideas?
Ideas come from all over the place. One came from a Japanese print I saw. I thought it was beautiful, but I didn’t know what was going on in it. So I made up a story about it, and that turned into a play that was done by TUTA Theatre Chicago in 2005. Other times it’s something that comes up in conversation. I’ll be talking with friends and think, “I wonder what that is like. Who is that person who lives that way?”
So once you have the idea, what do you do?
There’s a doorway into every subject. If I research it and interview people about it and live in it enough, I’ll find what that thing is. I wrote one play about a tent revival that was actually an FBI setup. That idea came from a sermon I heard. Anyway, I looked through old FBI files and I spent time interviewing FBI agents. I followed a tent revival around North Carolina for awhile. I turned 25 under a tent in North Carolina while some guy threw Holy Water on me. I just thought to myself, “How did I get here?” But I’m happy with the way the play turned out.
When did you write your first play?
I’ve always been writing plays. I used to set up stages and have my friends act out plays when I was little. I would direct, and usually play the villain, too. My first one was produced when I was 16. The director of a children’s theatre I was part of called me and asked if I would write the book for a musical he wanted to write. I thought at the time that he legitimately needed somebody to write the book. I realize now that he could have written it himself, but he wanted to show me what I could do.
So you were a theatre major at Loyola?
Yes. What I really liked about Loyola’s theatre department was that everybody got a theatre degree, but you could customize it the way you wanted. The year I was there, Nicholas Patricca, the teacher who had been teaching playwriting, retired. So I talked to him and said I was interested in playwriting, and he stayed on just for me. He was retired, but he taught me and mentored me all through my four years. He’s still my very close friend and mentor.
And now you teach other students the same thing.
I teach playwriting to kids in junior high through high school. It’s exciting to find students who love it, and then to find opportunities for them. I had a student who went for a scholarship and got it, and it was so exciting.
Tell me about your work at Pegasus Players.
It’s a nonprofit organization. I place artists in residence in Chicago public schools. Arts programs at schools are endangered. Sometimes we go in and they say, “You know what, we just lost our music program. Can we have a music teacher?” And we get them one. I’m grateful to have a job where I can give away education for free. One of our schools doesn’t have a drama program—a math teacher and a history teacher were doing their best. They told us they had enough kids interested in drama, but they couldn’t run it themselves. So we found funding and brought in two artists to work with them. They performed Raisin in the Sun on Pegasus’s stage, and it rocked. Next year they’re doing Animal Farm.
And what is this “urban street art” you’re involved with?
We call it the Positive Reinforcements. It’s a sort of a “Guerilla Happiness Group.” I think someone should stand on the street and not want anything from people and not tell them what’s wrong, but give them positive reinforcement. We started by standing on the street and giving out free compliments, and then we upgraded to free high fives.
How did people react?
Tourists who thought it was funny took pictures of us. We did positive graffiti in sidewalk chalk all over the city. We slipped positive inserts into books in libraries and bookstores. I put “Congratulations for making it this far,” in a really long book.
Is that legal?
I don’t know. We did an “air kiss tennis tournament” in Millennium Park. It’s just like tennis, only instead of a tennis ball you lob air kisses at each other. It was slow going at first; people would just watch and laugh and take pictures. But then they started playing and getting into it. Lots of kids played. It turned out to be a real workout.
Who does this with you?
It’s just a group of friends and anyone who’s interested. The three people who did the air kiss tennis tournament, I’d never met until that day. It worked out great. We’re growing in rank. This week is silkscreening. We’re making screens that say, “YES,” in big letters and handing out clothes for free to people who want them. I’m hoping some people will let us silkscreen something they’re wearing.
What’s going on with your plays right now?
The latest one is a short play going up at Stage Left in Lakeview. And I have a play going up in New York, my first play there, Saguaro. It’s about a woman who falls in loves with a cactus. I’m also working with my creative partner, Eric C. Reda, a composer, on an opera trilogy exploring modern American patriarchs. The first one is about Ronald Reagan.
You were just named one of the Windy City Times’s “30 under 30.” How does that feel?
I’m in really great company—the award is for people working in the gay and lesbian community in Chicago. It was asesome to sit shoulder-to-shoulder with these people and hear about all the incredible things they’re doing.
So, with all of your jobs, projects, and hobbies, do you have any free time?
Sure. On the ‘L.’