Ryan Haddad, Ife Olujobi, and Julian Goldhagan are three artists who worked in collaboration with The Public between 2022 and 2024 as part of CRNY’s Artist Employment Program. Working directly with Ife and Ryan, Director of New Work Development Amrita Ramanan shares the profound impact they had on The Public. Julian Goldhagan, who worked in The Public’s Public Works department, was likewise an incredible presence within the organization, and Julian has stayed on at The Public as a staff member.

In July 2022, the Public Theater welcomed three extraordinary artists to engage in a two-year residency as part of the Creative Rebuild New York Artist Employment Program. I arrived at the Public Theater as the Director of New Work Development only one month earlier — a time when there were high hopes that the COVID-19 pandemic was on its way out. We believed that we were entering a phase where New York theater was safely re-opening its doors to the world.

I think back on that time with fascination and perhaps a little embarrassment for my idealism. Between 2022-2023, nearly every show I worked on experienced an encounter with the various COVID-19 variants. I myself contracted COVID three times. Suddenly, our field was swept back into a web of constant fear and anxiety that stemmed from the COVID-19 pandemic, but also a result of the many societal pandemics that exist in our country. It brought me back to the question that haunted me since 2020: What is the purpose and function of art in these times?

Thankfully, my teachers became the Public Theater’s Creative Rebuild New York Residency Artists, who forged a new pathway during their two-year residency with their compelling artmaking, their advocacy for change, and their vision for innovation. Playwrights Ryan Haddad and Ife Olujobi took residence in the New Work Development department, and I am honored to share a brief reflection of their time here.

During our first meeting, I learned about Ryan’s desire to develop his work as a playwright/performer, first with his production of Dark Disabled Stories, an autobiographical theatrical journey of Ryan navigating the world as an adult with cerebral palsy who travels with a walker. Ryan spoke about the trajectory of his work that held disability aesthetic and narrative at the core, and how his engagement with the Public would be one of our learning how to support artists with disabilities in practice. He reminded me of the importance of aligning values with actions — that a theater producing work for artists with disabilities should be better constructed to physically support them. During his residency, Ryan participated in conversations about rebuilding the Delacorte Theater as an accessible theater and established a travel fund within his residency budget in noting how inaccessible the subway system is in the city. Dark Disabled Stories was a tremendous production, significant in its deft storytelling, representation of company members with disabilities on and off stage, and the many ways it met the access needs of the audience. Ryan continued developing his playwriting work with a workshop of his play Good Time Charlie toward the end of his residency. Working with him, and learning with him, remains a gift.

Ife Olujobi’s ferocity toward labor rights and pay equity is unwavering, and created a field-work shift through her Creatives Rebuild New York residency. Similar to Ryan, Ife also mounted a production of a new play during her residency – a sharp, profound, audacious satire about DEI in the workplace called Jordans. Within her exploration of the Public Theater’s budgeting process, Ife lobbied for greater pay equity for playwrights employed by the Public Theater, an artist group who are not represented by a union compared to actors, directors and choreographers. Her advocacy shifted the pay structure for playwrights within the Public Theater and created a ripple effect across US theaters, many of whom admitted having not examined their pay practices for playwrights for many years. Ife’s championing of better pay for playwrights aligned beautifully with the mission of the Creatives Rebuild New York residency, supporting the recognition that none of what we do in theater could exist without the written word on the page.

As we look toward the end of 2024 and into 2025, I am grateful to Ryan and Ife for instilling in me a hope that was dwindling in the years prior. They exemplify the power artists have to enact positive change, to explore new possibilities expansively, to uphold their values in practice. Our field — and the world — are better with them as working artists, and I look forward to supporting what they create in the future.

Photo from Dark Disabled Stories with Dickie Hearts and Ryan J. Haddad. Photo by Joan Marcus.