LEGACY: KELLEY GIROD

Kelley Girod is not new to this. She’s true to it.

With the 13th annual The Fire This Time Festival opening in a matter of days, it’s only right that we sat down with the festival’s Founder and Artistic Director, Kelley Girod, to chat all things theater, community, and most importantly, having a vision for a brighter future.

The first time I went to The Fire This Time Festival was in 2017. My dear friend, Jordan Cooper, had been presenting a new work and of course, we all had to go support. What we hadn’t quite known was just how blown away we’d all be after leaving that night’s performance.

That season’s artists included the likes of Fredrica Bailey, Karen Chilton, Jordan E. Cooper, C.A. Johnson, Michelle Tyrene Johnson, Eliana Pipes and Shamar S. White. Each of these theater makers — world changers, have since gone on to do incredible work in this industry we love. That, alone, is a testament to the vision of The Fire This Time Festival. That night, my love for theater was reborn, like a Phoenix risen from the ashes, afresh and renewed.

TFTT is a sacred space. One where love, community and collaboration centers the creative experience, building worlds and stories from the greatest inspiration of all, life itself.

Now, having the opportunity to chat with the woman behind it all feels like kismet. A gift, delivered by the universe for us all to be inspired by.

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Renee Harrison, founder of BGDT, in conversation with Kelley Girod, Artistic Director of The Fire This Time Festival

Renee Harrison: You’ve been producing The Fire This Time Festival since 2009 — now approaching 2022, can you reflect on what you’ve learned about this work and your own creative process?

Kelley Girod: This is such a great question! I would say that the biggest thing I have learned from producing The Fire This Time Festival over the past 13 years is to empower those around you. The Fire This Time is really and truly a collective effort towards the main goal of uplifting as many Black voices as possible. The festival has been blessed over the years with an incredible producing team who continually bring great ideas to the table. Their ideas, thoughts, and contributions have shaped the festival over the course of the years in ways that I could not have imagined on my own. I've learned that leadership isn't about articulating one vision and then tasking people to carry out that one person's vision. Rather, leadership is about having enough confidence to let the talented people around you help to collectively shape and refine a vision together.

RH: You noticed a flaw in this industry and created a solution for it. What challenges did you overcome in those first few years? Specifically even, in the process of bringing The Fire This Time festival to life.

25 Plays from the fire this time festival, February 2022

KG: The biggest challenge was and still remains one of funding. We were incredibly lucky to find ourselves at The Kraine and have Erez Ziv give us a creative home. But for our first few years we could not pay the cast and creatives at the rates that they deserved. With fundraising efforts over the years we have been able to pay above industry standards for the core festival, but without grants that support general operation, we are still challenged in having our team funded in a way that can support the work that really has to be done year-round. I do hope that funding reform is on the horizon to better support the institutions like TFTT that are not operating at a budget threshold that is the required entry for more meaningful support.

RH: Were you ever nervous about what you were doing? If so, what helped to ease those nerves?

KG: I'm never nervous. The Fire This Time is like Christmas and a family reunion all rolled up into one. It will always be a joy for me, even when there are challenges, because TFTT is more than just a festival, we are a community and a family.

RH: Let’s talk about producing a season. How do you begin? What do you look for when deciding on the artists that’ll be joining the festival?

KG: The awesome thing about our selection process is that the artists who are recommended to submit a play come directly from our community. From day 1, the whole point of the festival was to increase the visibility of the many Black voices out there, and the only way to do that was to find a system where we wouldn't be tempted to continually fall back on our own circle of artists. So every year we ask the community to make recommendations on who we should invite to submit plays, and every year we get a long list of playwrights who are brand new to us. We then read all submitted plays blindly so that we are focused solely on the words on the paper. We also invite two extra readers every year to read scripts with us so that we are not falling into a groove of choosing plays that may align more with our own personal aesthetics. We then sit down with all of the plays, and discuss. And that is how we select the plays every year. After that we just work on a backwards timeline towards opening night.

RH: One of the most exciting parts of art making is the collaborative process. In many ways, I think you’re honing in on a deeper sentiment of the creation process for Black creatives. I read in your “The Theatre Times interview” that you “jokingly say that we produce a family reunion every year” which I love. — how do you all keep up with that community between seasons?

KG: Here I have to give HUGE props to our amazing producer AJ Muhammad. AJ is simply incredible at keeping up with what everyone in the TFTT community is doing. If you go to our FB page, AJ posts multiple times a day about what TFTT playwrights, present and past, as well as directors, actors, anyone affiliated with the festival over the years is doing. It is really incredible and I think it has become a huge part of maintaining that sense of community outside of the festival.

Antu Yacob and Joshua Josey in Epistles, or One Morning Soon by Niccolo Aeed

RH: I can imagine that you are proud of the work you’ve done over the last decade. What has The Fire This Time Festival been for you?

KG: The Fire This Time has given me so much. I came out of my grad school program feeling totally creatively depleted with no sense of community or sense of myself as an artist. I was so low that I felt that I had lost my voice and that maybe I would never write again.

“The Fire This Time gave me a community, and with the safety of a community, I found my voice again. It is difficult to even articulate all the ways in which this festival restored me and continues to do so.”

RH: What do you envision for The Fire This Time Festival in the next 5 years?

KG: The vision for The Fire This Time in the next 5 years is what it was 5 years ago, and what it will continue to be - space for as many Black voices as possible. The more that TFTT receives, the more we will continue to give back. More funding means more opportunity for Black artists.

Now, for the award-winning question (or the martini question, if we may), we asked:

RH: If you had the key to the theater industry in your hands, how would you curate the landscape?

KG: If I had the key to the theater industry in my hands, I would make 500 copies and hand them out to our artists and tell them to feel free to make more copies for others. We have come this far because we have emphasized community over individual gains. When we are all thriving creatively and financially The Fire This Time will have done its job.

The Fire This Time Festival runs July 7th - July 10th at the Kraine Theater (and virtually, for those who’d prefer). You can purchase your tickets here!