HUMANS OF ST. LOUIS

co-adapted by Lindy Dew
and Joe Hanrahan
August 2023
St. Louis Fringe Festival

I came upon the book in a library. I picked it up, glanced at two pages, and said “This is a play.”
The deadline for the St Lou Fringe Festival was imminent, and I immediately felt this was the right time, the right place, the right story.

I reached the book’s co-writer/photographer, Lindy Drew, in a trans-Pacific call (she was in Australia). And she very quickly saw the possibility. When she was back in town, I shared an approach, asked Lindy to share the adapter role with me, and we were on.

Once we wrapped up the script, casting began. There was some talk about involving actual
people from the book, but as time went on, casting evolved from personal contacts. There were a few actors I wanted, as well as other colleagues. Za Goodbrake, who I was talking with about another show, jumped in an suggested a couple of possibilities (all rappers, it turned out),
including Zeus Rebel Waters who provided the music for the show.

Rehearsals and the production was simple - all actors on stage, seated with a script. Ash Aurora played our Lindy character, introduced the concept, and took us through the show
with questions. Zeus contributed the periodic music, his original songs complementing the shows themes, and it added the life the show needed. The actors had lived with their scripts, and they did a great job, adding texture to their stories.

The show was a hit! Audiences were drawn in, and the production received the Spirit of the Fringe Award, and it was well-deserved. The spirit was abundant during the process. The cast - a very disparate group from many walks of life - bonded and committed to the process and the production. They were a focused artistic team, and they presented a focused, and lovely, show.

The simplicity of the show suggested that this could happen again. Everyone seemed up for
that. So, keep a look out for another HUMANS show sometime down the road.

(Other cast members, besides the ones mentioned above, were Bates, Hittamane Yates, Larry Dell, Joe Garner, Maya Harris, Don McClendon, Margery Handy and Payton Gillam.)

Joe Hanrahan

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Riverfront Times

by Tina Farmer / August 16, 2023

The “Humans of…” movement began in New York City on Instagram and, as the posts and photos were shared, the concept quickly spread to other cities. Two sociology students started the Humans of St. Louis account in 2014 to fulfill a course requirement. Armed with a camera and a series of open-ended questions, they sought out participants at events and large gatherings, spent time wandering busy streets sidewalks and connected with thousands of people from all over the region.The posts became a book and inspired the creation of poems, songs and other art.

Earlier this year, one of the creators of Humans of St. Louis teamed up with local playwright, director and actor Joe Hanrahan to create the staged version, which premiered at Fringe. The well-constructed play is framed with a narration representing the student creators and features songs and a spoken poem inspired by the project, which are interspersed between a series of vignettes. Each begins with a question that is answered using the responses gathered by the project. The performers fully internalize the answers included in the script, and their replies and characterizations come across as genuine, hopeful and compelling.

The resulting show is engaging and thought provoking and ends with an uplifting song and invitation for the audience to celebrate all of the Humans of St. Louis. You have three more opportunities to see this captivating community-centered show

 

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KWMU

August, 2023

Regional live theater venues across the country are struggling to bounce back since the COVID-19 pandemic shut down productions for nearly two years.

STL Fringe Festival weathered the disruption, and for this year’s festival organizers are seeing an uptick in sales and original, local storytelling. The festival began Tuesday and will continue through Sunday.

STL Fringe Fest has brought stage performances from independent artists for 12 years. This year’s festival has sold more tickets than in 2022, but Matthew Kerns, St. Lou Fringe’s president and artistic director, told St. Louis on the Air that he’s more interested in the art than the revenue — especially after COVID-19 restrictions shut down theaters.

“[This year] we are fully back into theaters and there are more patrons than ever. We have had record patronage this year, the ticket sales are through the roof,” he said. “We're so thrilled because our mission is to get our audiences connected to our independent artists and have their work be seen.”

Lindy Drew, co-founder and lead storyteller of Humans of St. Louis, has taken her photography and storytelling project from social media, to a self-published book and now to the festival stage. Drew said that the collaboration with writer and director Joe Hanrahan started a few months ago when Hanrahan admitted that he had not heard of Drew’s project or book, but after seeing a copy at a library, he saw a possible stage play.

“I don't have any experience with theater, [so] we met up, and [Hanrahan] gave me such a great vibe. I decided, let's do it, because part of publishing the book is figuring out, ‘What are people going to do with it?’” Drew said. “We had this really creative idea. He wrote the original script from stories that he had highlighted, and I came in and tweaked some things. We had two rehearsals. Yesterday was opening night, and they crushed it.”

Though St. Lou Fringe is all about putting indie acts outside of the mainstream onstage and collaboration among different cities to support artists across the nation, Kerns champions keeping many of the festival’s acts local.