Greetings from the wintry Upper Midwest! The power of conversation gives me hope and energy and life right now, so I am happy to share this particular feature with IArtLibraries readers today.
Earlier this winter, I spoke with three folks from Literature to Life (LTL). Based in New York City and presenting their work nationally, Literature to Life’s mission is to “[perform] great books that inspire young people to read and become authors of their own lives.”
With an extensive catalog of active titles, a diverse company of performers and teaching artists, and a mindset of creative collaboration, LTL is positioned to help kickstart inspiring and difficult conversations. I spoke with Elise Thoron (Co-Founding Artistic Director), Kelvin Grullon (Actor, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and Company Manager), and Lisa Beth Vettoso (Executive Director) in December about LTL’s evolution, how a performance comes together, and how they work with partners, including libraries of all kinds.
Literature to Life was born in the 1990s under the umbrella of the now-shuttered American Place Theatre (APT) in New York City, evolving into a distinct program developed by APT founder Wynn Handman and Elise Thoron, who had been collaborating with APT to explore social studies concepts with audiences through performances and interactive discussions. Over time, the core aspects of LTL – extensive analysis, adaptation work (verbatim excerpts are used to shorten the pieces), rehearsals and refinements, and finally, solo performances and interactive components – formalized in execution and collaboration with partners such as NYC neighborhood schools.
Decades later, and as of 2018, operating as an independent non-profit organization, Literature to Life’s partner community has grown nationwide. It now includes performing arts centers, schools - including universities and colleges, book festivals, prisons, and all types of libraries.
In an example of a recent LTL / library collaboration, an excerpt of an in-development LTL adaptation of The Great Gatsby was performed in conjunction with an exhibition at the Princeton Library of materials from their archive. In addition to the performance, Kelvin, Elise, and Bryce Foley (Great Gatsby performer) were able to spend time exploring the F. Scott Fitzgerald Papers at Princeton University Library.
Kelvin Grullon: There's something profound about spending time with the original materials like drafts, notes, correspondence letters. You're getting to see Fitzgerald's thoughts, perspective, development, and you get to experience the different print editions. Even the arguments and discussions he was having with his publisher adds richness to our stage work, myself as Director and Bryce as performer.
Can you share what a typical Literature to Life partnership or collaboration might look like, for example, with a public library? Do you tend to work with a similar slate of partners, or does it vary?
Lisa Beth Vettoso: Each partnership or collaboration has its own flavor; each experience is built alongside each partner to meet their specific needs. Frequently, partnerships tie into existing library programming series; for example, the Queens Public Library will host LTL performances for their banned book programming series. LTL appears in book festival lineups, Black History Month, and Hispanic Heritage Month celebrations. LTL works to ensure that their partner organizations have a voice in what they hope to say or do through the performance and extension activities. Partners typically want to facilitate the exploration of a particular title or want to add a literary-themed performance to their programming offerings.
Elise Thoron: For example, the Lewis Art Center facilitated the connection with Princeton University Library [for Great Gatsby].
Can you describe a “rhythm” or an order of events that exemplifies what an audience would experience during a Literature to Life performance or happening?
Elise Thoron: Typically, before the show, a question is posed to immediately connect the audience with the book. Then, there would be a performance and a discussion to follow. We also have interactive workshops on offer. For example, with The Latehomecomer, the teaching artist facilitated a writing workshop exploring the nature of home with the audience at the Voelker Orth Museum. We broke the performance into five-minute sections, mixed with writing prompts, discussion, and sharing of the written pieces.
Kelvin Grullon: With The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, we might perform for a school audience one evening with a book club discussion at a public library the following day – activities to extend the performance beyond that experience.
Lisa Beth Vettoso: Logistically and organizationally, I am usually the first point of contact with a partner. I’ll talk with them about what’s currently on the roster and what we can offer, and we’ll discuss their budget, timing, and what they would like the programming to look like. Then, I turn things over to Kelvin to refine timing and logistics and to coordinate planning meetings with artists.
Elise Thoron: Each partner works with a pair from Literature to Life: a performer and a teaching artist. The teaching artist is the point of contact with the partner helping to craft and coordinate the event, and because the performers are profoundly connected to the books they are performing, they are an essential part of the talkback and discussion after the performance.
Can you tell me about the process of and what’s involved with developing a Literature to Life performance? Kelvin, maybe you can start since you’re in it right now, and Elise, you can help build on it.
Kelvin Grullon: It’s a process. It’s slow, it has to simmer. You can’t cook it in 10 minutes. It’s got to stew. When you’re adapting, you have to figure out what’s at the story's core and what you want to lift from the story. Out of any book, you end up with about 25-35 pages of script. You sculpt the words from the page to what the performance will convey. That [writing/adapting] takes about 2-4 months.
Once you have a script that feels pretty final, we cast the show with a professional actor. And then there’s a period for rehearsal. This is where the actor learns the story, and the script is again sculpted and refined. The actor is bringing themselves into the piece. Their taste, style, and their understanding of the story all get to be incorporated. They discover the core. Then they must learn the word, ans We call this the “go away period” – it goes beyond just memorizing the words. They’re getting to a place of understanding every step of the story, its beats, so that words come naturally from a place of real need. [When they’re performing], they could come up with new words on the fly because they’ve committed the story to heart, but often actors are 99% accurate
And then there are the final rehearsals, where the actor has it “memorized.” At this point, it’s been edited and refined, and now they’re practicing and preparing it for an audience. We do theater performances in front of small audiences first to test it out – this is what we did in Princeton with Gatsby. Sound and limited tech are incorporated – we only use a laptop and speaker, basic lighting, and costumes.
Elise Thoron: This approach means we can have books available in our catalog for years, like The Giver or Black Boy. We’ve had actors come back from retirement to perform. Each book is “wedded” to one actor at a time, but you can bring in a new actor when someone departs. Each person sculpts a performance to fit their style. Each adaptation goes through some small adjustments when we introduce a new performer. It takes 6-9 months for the casting and rehearsal phases to try it out in front of audiences and different settings/spaces.
How did the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic impact LTL?
Kelvin Grullon: Zoom worked well [for LTL], meaning solo performances were possible in 2020-2021. People gravitate to live performances again. It’s like church. There’s something spiritual about being in a group, focusing together on the performance.
Lisa Beth Vettoso: Virtual or pre-recorded performances were a silver lining during the pandemic, adding less expensive options to our offerings – it can be an entry point for some partners.
The school and public library landscape is a fraught space right now with the coordinated rise in book challenges. Have you encountered questions, conversations, etc., related to intellectual freedom in your work with Literature to Life? What is the internal discussion at the organization like around these issues?
Elise Thoron: I would say we’re having internal conversations about being able to respond more promptly to new challenges and banned books if it comes to that.
LTL can voice and ensure the presence of these titles and stories. A teacher might think, “I can’t include this in my curriculum, but we can go in person.” There are places like an afterschool setting or a library where more access is possible.
Lisa Beth Vettoso: We’d been talking about what to bring back into rotation, and in 2022, we brought Fahrenheit 451 back to the catalog. At first, it didn’t book very much. Perhaps there was a fear to program it, fear about the conversation; but this year, bookings have increased in a way that we weren’t necessarily anticipating. Literature to Life is always an entry point to difficult conversations. Since our inception, we’ve focused on sharing a diverse set of titles, authors, and a company of performers who are comfortable digging into challenging topics and navigating difficult conversations.
Tell me about how you develop relationships with partners for the long term and how new partners can connect with you.
Lisa Beth Vettoso: One benefit of working regularly with the same partner is that you get to know a community – the performance spaces, the staff. The community gets to know you, too, and knows what to expect at a Literature to Life performance. Obstacles to working with partners in the long term are what you might expect: funding, focus, and communication. Since Covid, there’s been lots of turnover at arts and humanities organizations, which can be challenging when maintaining connections. We try to look for grant programs that might be opportunities to collaborate with partners, for example, the National Endowment for the Arts’ Big Read grant program.
Libraries, art centers, schools, and other organizations interested in exploring a potential partnership can find information and contact details on the Literature to Life website.