Revolution(s) is on stage through November 9.
By Anna Rogelio Joaquin, School Programs Manager
ANNA ROGELIO JOAQUIN: We actually first met on the WGA (Writers Guild of America) picket line back in the summer of 2023! So I know activism isn’t new to you—in fact, you were kind of born into it. Can you share a bit about your personal connection to resistance and revolution?
ZAYD AYERS DOHRN: I have a family history of activism and resistance. My parents were anti-war and civil rights activists in the 1960s and 70s, and then actually became anti-government revolutionaries. They went underground, and my mom was even on the FBI’s top 10 most wanted list for a while. They were kind of dedicating their lives to making the world a better place, resisting the government, changing things, acting in solidarity with their Black and brown comrades and other groups. That was just a big part of my childhood. I was born underground when we were running from the FBI.
All that said, I did not become an activist the way my parents were. I think I became a writer partly because I had this strange early childhood experience of being up close to a family that was actively engaged in that kind of resistance. It was inspiring in a lot of ways, but it was also difficult in a lot of ways. I mean, my mom went to jail when I was very young. Many of my friends’ parents were imprisoned or killed in that struggle. I saw the consequences of that kind of militant activism up close. It’s always been a part of my life. I wrestle with my own ideas about making change, building a better world and also knowing that certain kinds of resistance have consequences for the people involved and their families. I think for me as an artist, that’s always been a big part of what I’ve wrestled with in my work—the political necessity of changing things in our society, but also the personal costs of that change.
ANNA: Building on what you shared about making change— what does “revolution” mean to you? How does that shape the title of your play? And what’s the story behind the “(s)” in parentheses?
ZAYD: The word “revolution” is such an interesting word to me. For one thing, it’s a very rare kind of word in the English language—it’s a contranym, which means it has two meanings that are kind of the opposite of one another. It means a dramatic change in something, but it also means a revolution around a center that brings us back to where we begin. I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of, you know, what is change? Can change take us to somewhere we’ve never been before, or is change cyclical? Do we find ourselves in history repeating patterns? And even in families, are we totally different from our parents, or do we repeat some of the patterns of our parents? The title refers to the fact that in the play, but also in our country and in our world, we keep having these moments of dramatic change—of turns and struggle—and then we have backlash, counter-revolution and moments of kind of conservative and revanchist triumph. I got very interested in the idea of a family that’s been involved in that struggle for multiple generations and involved in various kinds of activism, militancy and even criminality. And we see the consequences of that in this family, and we also see the kind of seeds of revolutions start to bear fruit again. For me, the “s” in parentheses is about that question of whether there is ever one big revolution that changes things, or whether we’re in a long arc of history that requires multiple revolutions, and it requires each new generation to put their own hand on the wheel of history.
ANNA: The study guide poses two essential questions that resonate with your play: “How do voices of the past influence the present?” and “How do voices of the present influence the future?” Your script includes many historical references and echoes of the past—how did you decide which voices to include, and how did you approach weaving them into the story?
ZAYD: I like that framing. I think for one thing, it’s been very clear to me my whole life that no revolution, no struggle and no coming of age starts from nothing, starts from ground zero. You’re always building on things that came before. One of the things about this country is that it has a long legacy of injustice, but it also has a long legacy of resistance. Any time people are trying to figure out how to change things, they are looking back at people who came before them. There is a sense of no ideas are ever wholly new. You’re always trying to find inspiration in the voices of the past, whether it’s the voices I mentioned in the play—books by James Baldwin, Franz Fanon, Karl Marx—those kinds of intellectual ancestors of revolution. But also, you’re sometimes looking back at your own family members or people you know or people you’ve read about and trying to kind of fit their struggle into your own context. For today’s generation of young people, what do they want to take from the past? What notes of inspiration can they learn from? How can they do things better at this time? I think that’s the key thing about the essence of revolutions, is that we want to try to build a revolution that’s better than the last one each time.
ANNA: To your point about being able to influence the future, what would you say to students who might be feeling hopeless about their ability to make change?
ZAYD: I would say that the cyclical nature of history and of revolution can be discouraging sometimes because it feels like, do we ever make permanent change? But it can also be inspiring in moments like our present one because you realize that our ancestors have faced even darker moments. I agree with your framing that the voices of the present are going to influence the future. How they go about making that change and the struggles that are happening right now are going to be the ones that define the rest of their lives and the generations to come.
ANNA: I hope students feel that sense of agency reflected in the play. Another element I think both students and teachers will connect with is the setting—specifically, that it takes place in Chicago. Hearing CPS (Chicago Public Schools) mentioned by name is rare, and I think that will really resonate. Why was it important for you to set the play in Chicago, and how does the city shape the story?
ZAYD: I grew up in Chicago. I went to high school here, and I still live here. I always feel like Chicago is such an interesting place in terms of its history of resistance, and I wanted to tap into some of that history. In the play, I mentioned Fred Hampton and the Panthers, mentioned the Haymarket Riots in the 19th century. There’s a long history of radicalism, working-class labor activism and racial activism in this city. So to me, it was kind of a natural place to set the play. And I should say my collaborator Tom Morello also grew up in Chicago and Libertyville nearby, so both of us are Chicagoans and Midwesterners. I think we were always interested in this as a play that was about America, but about Chicago, more specifically. Because it’s a play about race, because it’s a play about class— Chicago is a place where those fault lines in the American experiment are especially visible and dramatic.
ANNA: Speaking of Tom Morello, did you always plan to write with Tom? Did you always set out to write a musical? How did you start Revolution(s)?
ZAYD: Basically, during the first presidency of Donald Trump, I was thinking about people I wanted to collaborate with and ways I wanted to use art to make a statement or to resist what was happening in the country. I was listening to a lot of Tom’s music—to Rage Against the Machine, but also more of his contemporary music. For me, it became kind of a soundtrack to that era of resistance. It channeled some of the anger, hope and struggle that I was interested in thinking about. Because the music was speaking to me in that way, I reached out to Tom and I basically said, “I’m interested in writing a show using some of your music. Would you be open to that?” And I said, “We can see if you like it, and you don’t have to decide now. I can just write it on my own time, and then we can talk about whether you want to do anything with it.” And he was super generous about it. The Goodman commissioned it, and I took a year to write the show. When I showed it to Tom, he really liked it and was like, “Let’s do this.” Then we started putting together a team. I should say it’s really inspired by Tom’s music in the sense that I didn’t have a story in mind, except that I knew I wanted to write something about revolution, and I wanted Tom’s music to be the soundtrack to that revolution. Then I started listening to a lot of his catalog and thinking about where there were pieces of narrative, pieces of story, pieces of character that I could thread through that music. And yeah, it all kind of came out of that.
ANNA: We don’t often include musicals in the School Matinee Series, since Goodman’s musicals typically run in the summer—so for many students, your show might be their first time experiencing a musical live. Can you talk a bit about the role music plays in the piece, and how you use it as a storytelling device?
ZAYD: There are so many ways to talk about it. First of all, I would say the play has lyrics and music not just by Tom Morello, but by Big Boy, Killer Mike and Grandson, and a bunch of the people who worked with Tom on these various songs. It’s a really interesting blend of rock, rap, hip hop, punk and metal. We have a lot of genres colliding in his music, and that was one of the things I thought was so interesting about it because it speaks to a real spectrum of musical modes and modes of resistance. In the show, many of the characters in the play are musicians. They’re rappers, guitar players and singers. It’s not the kind of musical where people are going about their business and then suddenly burst out into song. It’s a show about people who express themselves through music, and their music is the soundtrack to the way they’re trying to understand their lives and make a better world.
ANNA: There are such rich layers of collaboration at play—especially in the music, but beyond that as well. You mentioned that The Goodman commissioned Revolution(s), and in 2023, it was featured in our New Stages Festival. What kinds of changes have you made with your collaborators along the way? And what has the process of workshopping a new play been like for you?
ZAYD: One of the things that’s so great about a piece like this is it really is collaborative at its very core. Once we had a script, a book and a song list, we brought in a director, Steve Broadnax. We started talking about what it might look like up on its feet on stage. We brought in a music director, Jason Michael Webb, and started talking about what Tom’s music might sound like in the context of a stage musical. With the addition of those incredibly brilliant people working on it, it started to grow into a real show—Jason’s orchestrations, Steve’s ideas of how to frame the show and how to stage it. Then when we got the chance to workshop it for New Stages. The core of that process was the four of us with a bunch of really talented actors, designers and musicians trying things out and getting it on its feet for the first time, hearing it aloud for the first time. It gave us a few weeks to really think about which parts were working, which parts weren’t. I worked on every part of it—we ditched a lot of songs, added new ones, tom wrote some new things, we changed some lyrics, I’ve revised parts of the book, added new characters and cut scenes. So, a lot of it has changed as we’ve gone along.
ANNA: And now it’s ready for its world premiere! I’m excited for students to see it. Anything in particular you hope students take away from the show?
ZAYD: First of all, I hope it’s fun. In terms of what they take from the play itself, I hope they recognize people, ideas and words from their own lives. I hope they feel inspired— there are a lot of different ways to make a difference— and that it’s young people trying to change the world who have always pushed our country forward to a better place. That’s the goal—inspire change, ignite revolution.
This article is adapted from a study guide created by The Goodman’s Education and Engagement Department for the Student Matinee Series. To view the full study guide, click here.
