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| Douglas Lyons outside Valley Youth Theatre on opening night photo courtesy Valley Youth Theatre |
by Haddi Meyer
In order to remove a diseased tree, you have to pull out its roots, no matter how deep they run. The roots of prejudice run deep in America, and often people address it on an adult level. However, one man is tackling the issue from the bottom up. Douglas Lyons is an incredibly accomplished actor, writer, and lyricist who, in his own words, strives “to use diverse stories to inspire children through art and remind them of their fullest potential and worth.”
This is exemplified in the musical he conceived, Polkadots: The Cool Kids Musical. The show tells the story of Lily Polkadot, a child with polka dotted skin, who moves to an all square town and the one curious square-skinned boy who decides to befriend her. Polkadots is a powerful story of friendship and overcoming perceived differences, and preaches love and acceptance.
While there is a current tour of the show on the road, Phoenix audiences can see the show right now as Valley Youth Theatre just opened their production, which is the Arizona premiere of the show.
Despite being as busy as any actor/writer/lyricist would be while also performing in Broadway’s Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, Lyons found some time to speak with me about the show's meaning, its inspiration, and importance.
This show takes heavy inspiration from the civil rights movement, specifically Ruby Bridges and the Little Rock 9, the group of children who integrated an all-white Arkansas school in the 1950s. It is a perfect way to introduce younger kids to the idea of racism and bullying and what can be done about it. How did the idea to create a show about these issues, which are so relevant to today's society, come about?
“I saw a YouTube video of Phylicia Rashad, and she was being interviewed and she talked about growing up in the Jim Crow south in Houston, Texas, and being a little black girl in a grocery mart with this curiosity for a white only water fountain. When no one was looking she went and tasted that water to only realize that it tasted the same as her water and how ridiculous this idea that you could separate the races and separate humanity. My favorite quote is ‘Humanity had tricked itself into dividing the races’ she said, and that was sort of this light bulb of an idea. It was just kind of like how innocent and curious that children are that they will defy American tradition and division with their own curiosity. It seemed like a perfect way to introduce our issues with race to [use] water fountains in which you put the same identical water in as a backdrop to have this conversation with the next generation.”
As an African American man, did you bring any personal experiences you encountered of racism or bullying to the show?
“Well, living in America everyday is a personal experience when it comes to racism. But yes and no. Honestly, the beauty of Polkadots is that it’s actually honoring a time in history that I don’t think is as comprehensible to us. The fact that we were not allowed to be in the same rooms, in the same balconies, in the same parts of the buses. Racism as it stands is already pretty horrible now, but to think of where we came from it seems a little alien and so truly what we’re trying to do is honor the people who have lived through segregation. My mother was the first the girl of all of her sisters to be in a desegregated school, so it isn’t that far away, you know? I’m honoring people who had to truly endure the negativity and harshness of racism because I have a more glorified, if you will, experience of it because of my ancestors, so I am really trying to honor them.”
Polkadots addresses what many would consider an 'adult' topic. How does the show explain an issue as complex as race relations to children?
“I mean it breaks it down to its smallest form and how stupid it really is. When you take a water fountain and you’re pouring the same water into both fountains and just placing a different title on the outside, it doesn’t make sense and that’s one of the things that Phylicia Rashad said, she said ‘you know with racism I knew what was going on but I didn’t really know why because it really doesn’t make sense’ and it still doesn’t make sense. When you really break it down we’re purely operating on fear and you know being unintelligible to truth, which is passing down the tradition of theatre, that’s all racism is and hopefully this show can stop that tradition with this next generation of folks that are now living in a Trump America.”
Clearly, using polka dots and squares instead of black and white is an interesting way to distinguish the differences between the characters. Was that decision an instant one in creating this show, or were there other ways you had originally come up with as a way for the show to demonstrate racism and bullying?
“I call them mosquito bites, when there are ideas that come to me in my sleep or before I get in the shower. You know like how mosquitoes fly around, and you swat them and sometimes they bite you and Polkadots had come to me actually in the winter of 2014 but I put it on a shelf for six months and it just kept biting at me. In January, February of 2015 I was like, oh my gosh and I just wrote this six page manifesto of what the world would look like, who the characters were and it seemed like a simple analogy for race. It’s really not just black and white though, and that’s the beauty of Polkadots because you can’t patent a pattern. The actress going out on the national tour is an Asian actress playing Lily Polkadot, the idea being that whatever makes you different makes you a polkadot. It doesn’t have to be specific to skin but in the case of what it is based off of it becomes a black and white story but part of why we made it polka dots and squares is that hopefully you can see yourself projected in any of the positions. For instance, if all the squares were black and the polka dot was middle eastern or something. Racism butts its head in many, many different ways. It could be class, poverty, all that stuff.”
This show is subtitled the 'Cool Kids Musical, referring to the group that is considered to be the "in crowd" or the most popular group of kids. Did you ever consider yourself to be a member of that club?
“Not really, haha but this is kind of the fun thing too. Melvin, the book writer actually really likes the play on words. It can work in two ways. Polkadots is for all the cool kids right, or it can be the cool kids musical. Kids musicals have this bad wrap of being cheesy and corny so it’s kind of like it’s the coolest one of them all, so there are a few play-on-words there. I’ve never been the cool kind. I have always kind of created my own path and the older I’ve gotten the more I’ve seen how to do that. I think the show has made me maybe a little cooler haha, but I’m not like a cool person everyday of my life, no way. It also beckons what is it to be cool? In the end of the show the lyrics [say] ‘You’re a cool kid even if you’re…’ and there’s a listing, ‘you’re a cool kid because you were there, though some people stare, somebody care’ and so we try to meet the kids where ever they are and take that title to everyone it’s not for a select group of people.”
This is Polkadots first performance in Arizona, after debuting just a couple of years ago. Have you made any changes to the show since it first debuted as you've seen it be produced in other cities?
“I think the only thing that changed from Ivrington, which was our developmental production to the Atlantic, and the album was the squadot. We added a rap section, that I think was not there initially. It was just sort of the instructional part of the 11:00 dance number and for the recording we added versed that then went into the show permanently so they’re performing the squadot in a way that it wasn’t performed in 2016 in Ivrington.
What do you hope audiences take away from seeing Polkadots?
“Love, community, not tolerance because tolerance is just dealing with someone different but actual acceptance which is embracing them into your community. I honestly hope it’s just a beam of light in a time that is very dark, unfortunately. To see kids of all different races on stage telling a story of unity and history will hopefully inspire and empower people to keep that mindset fresh and to use it everyday since we’re combating so much division right now.”
CLICK HERE for more information on Polkadots: the Cool Kids Musical, at Valley Youth Theatre through October 28th
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