Nilaja on No Child…

A talk with the creator and star of a a one-woman masterpiece

From The No Child Issue of ArtAntica

What do people need to know before coming to see the show?

That’s probably the hardest question because I want people to be as open as possible. They should know that this piece is about the education of our children in this country. And not just the education in the inner cities, but also around the country. People who have seen the show from all different parts of the USA have said “that’s my school and my school is not in the Bronx, it’s in Boise, Idaho.”

And it is also the story of a teaching artist. Teaching has been my life since ’98. So what they’ll see is a portion of the life of this actress who is performing the show.

In what ways has No Child grown and changed since you began performing it?

Well I didn’t expect this show to be the hit that it was. I really just wrote a 65-minute show about being a teaching artist and it just grew and it’s just growing and growing and growing. The story has not changed because I’m a little bit superstitious about the fact that if people really like something, don’t change it. I just made sure that for every single audience that came to the show, it was as if I was doing it for the first time, although it’s the 450th time.

Have any audience reactions stood out to you in particular?

I have had many people really crying in the audience. I remember a specific man who was sitting in the front row who was really sobbing. And when I bowed he just whispered “thank you.” I’ve had a few people try to give me high fives.

What kind of background did you have in solo performance before No Child?

I went to Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and I started studying theatre my sophomore year. It was a great place and there was a wonderful playwriting teacher. I took a scene class and I realized that all of my characters were black and Latino and it was a predominantly white school. So I created this solo piece kind of in response to the fact that I had no actors to pull from for my scene. And it was a big hit. So when I came back to New York, where I’m from, I just decided to shop it around. And the next year someone requested that I write a piece about dance. And the next year I wrote a piece about the day a good friend of mine died in a car accident. And then 9/11 happened and they asked for me to write a piece about 9/11. I usually just get commissions to write a piece. It’s not easy for me to sit there and figure out what I want to write.

After my 9/11 piece I got this Princess Grace Award. I think that actually was the one that I was like “I don’t know what I want to write yet, but I have a sense that with Spalding Gray’s death I want to add him somehow to the show”. And that one was called Blues for a Gray Sun. After that, I was commissioned to do a piece about education. And so I created No Child.

What advice would you give to a new teacher?

I’m more of a channeler of advice. When I have older teachers come to the show I say “listen, I’ve got a bunch of new teachers coming to see the show, what advice would you give them?” The number one thing I hear from all of the older teachers is pair up with a real positive mentor teacher who has at least been teaching for ten years in that school. And on the days you’re feeling like “wow this is a really low day,” or on the days you want to think about quitting, you’ve got that mentor teacher there who has been through every single emotion up and down.

Is there any teacher in your history who had a particular influence on you?

There is a college professor who would tell me “just do it.” In other words, just do it even if you have fear. And his name was Geoff Pywell. And I really, really took to what he had to say and just launched into anything I did. My senior year he was killed in a car accident by a drunk driver. That’s what I try to tell the young actors who ask me “how did you find the courage to create this piece?” I say “just do it and you’ll see what happens. Don’t think too much, just do it.”