♪ Hi, everybody.

I'm Felicia Curry.

And welcome to "WETA Arts," the place to discover what's going on in the creative and performing arts in and around D.C.

In this episode of "WETA Arts"...

Performers: ♪ If we only come together... ♪ Felicia Curry: a new musical with its eye on Broadway premieres at Ford's Theatre.

The more I delved into the history, the more the history started singing to me.

Curry: A new museum in downtown D.C. celebrates language.

The words you use matter.

Don't take them lightly because they do have so much power.

Curry: We revisit a story about an artist who uses an ancient Korean quilting tradition to take on bigotry.

I'm using the color yellow to satirically reference my own skin color.

All these stories coming up on "WETA Arts."

♪ Local composer-lyricist- musician-conductor-producer Nolan Williams Jr. has as many projects as hyphens in his title.

When his mentor approached him with curated research materials about historic Black food culture and suggested he write a musical, Williams said, "Thanks for the books.

I'll look at these when I have a moment."

When he finally got that moment, he started on a journey that might lead him to Broadway.

Performers: ♪ By grace ♪ Hey, Miss Minnie, how do you do?

[Indistinct].

♪ By grace... ♪ Nolan Williams Jr.: Good.

Let's hold.

In the scenes, we always come together.

If you are onstage then, find a way to think up an out.

Curry: At Ford's Theatre in northwest Washington, a new musical is in rehearsal.

Williams Jr.: And just be mindful of the modulation.

♪ By gra... ♪ Williams Jr.: Yes, that "By" needs to be higher.

Curry: The show is called "Grace," and it's been almost a decade since D.C.-based composer and lyricist Nolan Williams Jr. started writing songs for the project.

So "Grace" captures a day in the life of the Mintons, a Philadelphia-based family that has a long and storied connection with African-American food traditions largely through the restaurant that they've owned and operated for over 100 years.

This family has come together to mourn the loss of their matriarch.

[Singing] My name is Arica Jackson, and I play Haley in "Grace, the Musical."

Haley grew up in Philly, and she is larger than life.

She's always ready to confront the problem head on, especially when it comes to Minton's Place.

And she's always protective of her family and of that legacy.

How many years has it been?

It hasn't been years.

Arica, as Haley: No, it's been years.

Jarran Muse: My name is Jarran Muse, and I'm playing EJ Minton.

He didn't participate in the family restaurant that the story centers around.

He had nannies.

He traveled around the world.

He was accustomed to a different life than the rest of the family was, and they resent him for that.

I think it's called "Grace" because it's about the process of grieving.

When we come together, we can console each other and give us the time and space, the food to just be ourselves in order to heal, that safe space that Black people, or just a family like this, creates this grace.

Jarran Muse: At this point in the process, I'm also unpacking baggage from my past that the show is forcing me to unpack.

Performers: ♪ By grace ♪ Curry: The inspiration for the musical came from an unlikely source.

I started off with a curiosity around African-American food traditions.

Now, I have to admit, I'm not a foodie, but I am a history buff.

W.E.B.

Du Bois, in his book "The Philadelphia Negro," he went to Philadelphia to explore the life of these migratory African Americans.

He unearths for us and preserves for us the history of the early culinary chefs.

They made enough money to buy buildings, even in Center City of Philadelphia, and to establish these brick and mortar restaurants.

To think that a restaurant with that kind of history might shutter because the community no longer sees the viability of this kind of place, wow, that's a conversation we need to be having, because there are Minton's Places in urban centers all across this nation that are faced with that very dilemma.

The more I delved into the history, the more the history started singing to me.

And before I knew it, I was just writing music inspired by it.

Curry: Robert Barry Fleming is "Grace's" director and choreographer.

Williams already had a dozen songs completed when he met Fleming.

I had a really valued colleague that says, "There's this wonderful artist.

Can I make the introduction?"

I said, "Yeah, of course."

What I began to hear was such a singular voice.

I said, "Oh, OK.

So this is just one of those seminal moments.

You're meeting a really extraordinary artist."

There was a kind of clarity about, like, your job is to just try to shepherd and be as helpful as you can in making that voice heard, seen, felt, and fully realized.

I initially got involved with the musical that is "Grace" with the director.

He told me that he met a brilliant composer and lyricist, who had a body of work that he was sure was a musical and wanted to know if I was interested in writing the story writ large, and how the songs play a role in the story and the dialog that serves to bridge from song to song.

Williams Jr.: The very first time we met, she said, "So about 'Grace,' tell me how you're reflected in this story."

And I said to her, "This story is not about me.

"This is about these characters.

"This is about this food tradition, this is about this family."

And I'm like, "No, that's one of the angsts of being a writer "is that you can't hide behind the word.

"It reveals who you are, what you think, your perspective, "your history, your biases, your prejudices, everything.

It's exposing it.

It's in writing.

It's forever."

[Singing] Nikkole Salter: And I saw the light bulb click in him that this thing that he was trying to do to honor the food traditions and cultural ways of African Americans was actually about a deep need to make a contribution to the preservation for himself.

And I knew that I wanted to be a part of this story that, ultimately, when I dug to the bottom of Nolan's soul, I realized was about cultural preservation, and that really stimulated me as a writer.

Curry: Among the food traditions "Grace" explores is eating black-eyed peas for good luck.

I grew up in a home where my mama cooked black-eyed peas every January 1st, and she force-fed them to us whether we wanted them or not.

And even if she's the only one there to eat them, she still cooks and eats black-eyed peas every New Year's Day.

There's a wonderful scene in the show where the family members are bringing potluck dishes to this memorial gathering, and they have more than one version of black-eyed peas.

And the question is, Whose dish are we going to serve first?

Well, them there is fighting words.

So I didn't have the typical black-eyed pea/ greens/yam existence.

I grew up with my mother's family, and they're all from Providence, Rhode Island.

My family would throw out newspapers and all measure of seafood and sit there and suck and drip... [Chuckling] into all the things with their clambakes and their lobster bakes.

And, like, that's sort of how I grew up.

Now, I had the other foods as well, but, like, that was the soul of my family at the time.

When I'd come to D.C. and I'd see my family, that's the only time I got to eat ham and black-eyed peas.

When I was home in Kentucky, my mother was a nurse, and she wasn't much of a cook, and we had Swanson TV dinners.

It kind of centers back to those two characters, Haley and EJ.

EJ's experiences, having been a man of economic privileges, he doesn't know how to make soul food dishes, and Haley didn't spend summers in Europe.

She's been at the restaurant.

And that's how she's learned how to be a part of the family.

I related to EJ immediately.

And I am well-traveled, and I speak another language, so I connect there, but also I was treated unfairly by many people.

I was just being myself, but I was told that I wasn't enough, and it just wasn't OK. And I think there are a lot of people in the African-American community that are EJs.

Maybe they want a different life than what many of their family members have.

And because they achieve a level of success, they are given a lot of negativity.

[Performers singing] Haley also has had to be tough because, you know, her whole life she's big, and people erase you sometimes.

EJ and Haley used to want to be there for each other until one time, his white friends started teasing Haley.

And instead of defending his cousin, he jumped onboard.

I can't believe you're still holding on to that.

I was a kid.

That's what kids do.

They want to fit in.

And now that you've grown?

You want me to apologize for something that happened when you were 12.

No, I don't want you to apologize for that.

I want you to stop doing it... Jarran Muse, voice-over: Haley holds on to a lot of the hurt that EJ put on her 20 years ago.

I don't think EJ meant it, you know.

I really think he's gotten over it, but Haley hasn't.

The interesting thing about trauma is that the person who is the perpetrator never holds on to that memory like the victim.

Some of the pains that come with the inheritance of being African-American comes from not being able to maintain our autonomy over our capacity to self-identify, which is basically the root of what culture allows you to do.

♪ More than ever, we have got to show them ♪ ♪ That we've been here ♪ ♪ And we're still here ♪ ♪ We belong here... ♪ This music not only has all these influences of musical theater but authentic R&B feels, authentic choral sounds.

It just shows, like, Black people are not a monolith.

And I think that's another huge theme about this show.

Curry: It's opening night, and it's all hands on deck.

[Applause] [Music] ♪ By grace ♪ Thank God you made it safe.

Yeah, after 9 hours in that car.

♪ By grace ♪ So glad y'all could come early to help, girl.

We family girls like to do our part...

I hope that this experience inspires people to honor what they actually have, to inquire about the culture that they're a part of, and to seek to preserve their own and to help others preserve theirs.

The representation that the show has for artists of color and the music that we sing, it's just very different than what we're used to.

♪ Granny picked me up from school ♪ ♪ And brought me here to this place ♪ It's important for generations after me to see that "I can do this."

[Singing] As a church boy at heart, I see theater as another form of sanctuary, a safe place, and a place for us to really be able to advance culture and advance important conversations.

And that's exactly what we're trying to do with this musical.

Performers: ♪ Let's just thank God ♪ ♪ We're all here ♪ ♪ By grace ♪ [Cheering and applause] "Grace" also stars homegrown talents Nova Payton and Solomon Parker III.

You can see "Grace" at Ford's Theatre through May 14th.

Check their website for tickets.

A new museum is becoming a must-see and must-say attraction.

Planet Word is dedicated to the wonders of language and reading.

It's the brainchild of founder and CEO Ann Friedman, a former first-grade reading and writing teacher in Montgomery County schools.

She read about the Museum of Mathematics in New York and thought, Why not a museum for words?

we met with her at Planet Word to hear the whole story in her words.

Hi, Ann.

Thank you so much for being here today with us at "WETA Arts."

Well, thank you for inviting me, and it's great to have this opportunity to share Planet Word with everyone.

So could you tell us where we are right now?

We are in the magical library of Planet Word.

And this is a place where language truly does come to life.

That's our tag line: the museum where language comes to life.

The front entrance is the backyard of the original Franklin School that was built in 1869.

It was a flagship of the D.C. Public Schools.

We have a black-and-white, marbled, diamond-shaped landing.

We have cast-iron railings and trim that are full of design.

The Franklin School operated until the 1920s, and then this building became the offices of the D.C. Board of Education.

It was abandoned and shuttered from 2008-2018.

I got the lease from the District of Columbia, 99 years at $10 a year, in return for restoring and rehabilitating the building.

What made you decide to craft a museum specifically around words and language?

I started working on ideas for Planet Word in 2013.

I thought it was going to be mostly about books and reading and inspiring a love of words and language, but words started to be the focus of attention in politics.

How do you define the meaning of hero?

How do you define an insurrection, a mob, a riot?

So there was all this focus on words and language like never before.

And we have so many very complex issues nowadays that voters have to decide about.

Without a literate population, we will have a hard time supporting our democracy.

I was just trying to think of, How can we create a nation of readers?

I want to start with coming into the museum.

Outside, you have a speaking willow.

Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Friedman: When people walk under the branches of this sculptural metallic tree, motion sensors trigger the speakers to go on.

[Overlapping voices] They speak 364 languages representing 99.9% of the language spoken in the world today.

In this case, with your motion, and you're making things happen with your voice.

Curry: The interactivity starts right outside.

I love that.

I'd love to ask what you hope people take away from the exhibit with the speeches.

In the Lend Me Your Ears gallery, which is about oratory, we highlight what the speaker is doing, with the hope that when you go into our recording studio that you can recreate and use those techniques, and the same with our karaoke gallery.

Karaoke's my favorite.

And you're going to have to sing.

Here's our playlist of all the songs you can choose from.

Press that pink button, "Add to playlist."

Get ready.

And then we just walk up to the microphone?

Here's your chance.

[Music] ♪ The snow glows white on the mountain tonight ♪ ♪ Not a footprint to be seen... ♪ Songwriting was an obvious topic that we had to cover in a museum about words and language.

And also I wanted to show how words could be fun and playful and meaningful.

Curry: And what about painting with words?

Friedman: An important concept is how you can describe a setting and make it come alive with words.

That was basically the direction I gave to the exhibit designers.

This is our Word Worlds gallery.

It's really cool.

You've never seen anything like it.

No, I have not.

It's the most fun you can have learning vocabulary.

So take one of our smart paintbrushes.

OK.

It's in a word palette right now.

What is the word?

Magical.

OK. See what happens and what that word must mean.

[Chuckles] When the plane flying overhead flew through your magical scene, it turned into...?

A magic carpet.

A magic carpet.

There's a word in that gallery that almost every adult who comes in here says, "What does that mean?"

I'll say, "Hmm, well, what did it do?

How did it transform the walls?"

I'm not going to tell you the definition of that...

The teacher's still teaching.

Yes.

Ha ha!

So let me ask you, What's your favorite exhibit?

You're sitting in it.

Ha ha!

Tell me why.

Friedman: I set out to bring language to life, and it happens right here in this library.

All the books with their jackets, they sing out, have chips in them.

And when you lay them in one of our special cradles on this story table, the chip will trigger projection technology with sound and beautiful artwork.

And the idea is to make someone want to read that book.

Can you tell me about Spoken Word?

It's the great hall of the original Franklin School.

It's the space that's adequate for a topic like the diversity of the world's languages.

Namaste.

I'm Priya.

I'm from India, and I speak Hindi.

Friedman: In the middle of the gallery is our 12-foot-diameter globe covered with almost 5,000 LED lights that respond to your talking to our language ambassador.

We have 28 language ambassadors speaking their native languages and two who are signing.

So, for instance, this man on the iPad, he's Gus, and he's from Brazil, so he speaks Brazilian Portuguese.

In Brazil, "little cat" is gatinha.

what you find out is how important language is to people.

[Speaking Quechuan] Imaynalla.

Allianchu.

My name is Elva... Friedman: I've had two people from Peru come up to me with tears in their eyes and say, "Thank you for including Quechua."

It was important that we have a diversity of content in every gallery.

[Speaking native language] Friedman: And in there, that meant endangered languages have to be part of it.

What's the thing you want people to leave with after they've gone through your museum?

One day at the beach in Montego Bay, there was a magician named Popsi... Friedman: Before you go out on the street, we want to make sure that you've gotten our central message that the words you use matter.

Don't take them lightly because they do have so much power.

Also, how language, in particular English, is always evolving, and we want to celebrate that.

It's exciting!

There's a renaissance of rhyme and word play today.

It's really a great time to be using the English language.

Curry: Your idea and how you brought it to fruition here is really exciting.

Congratulations.

Thank you so much for visiting with us here at "WETA Arts."

My pleasure.

Planet Word is a free museum.

It's at 925 13th Street, Northwest, and it's open Thursday through Sunday 10:00 to 5:00.

Check the website for tickets.

Same-day tickets may be available based on capacity.

The artwork in the next story is from 2019, but its message is timeless.

Woodbridge, Virginia-based artist Julia Kwon is confronting racism and sexism toward Asian-American women with brush strokes and stitches.

Her dining room is where the paint meets the canvas and the thread hits the fabric.

[Sewing machine whirrs] Julia Kwon: I've been painting and also making textiles of Korean object-wrapping cloth called bojagi.

Historically, they were made by women who had limited contact with the outside world during the Joseon Dynasty.

I took Korean textiles, I started painting them and disrupting them in different ways to sort of capture that sense of disruption that I felt living here.

My work is about my experiences of being seen differently in the U.S. although I am American, because I look different, I'm a woman.

Racist comments that have been talked about me or shouted at me, it's more so about how other people see me and what other people try to put on me because of my gender and ethnicities.

Curry: The Korean fabrics Kwon collects are usually solid colors or simple stripes.

Kwon: Many of the more ornate- or exotic-looking fabrics are actually from here in the U.S.

The conceptual idea behind the work is about cultural hybridity.

Curry: Kwon's work caught the attention of Ji Young Yun, curator at the Korean Cultural Center.

The center featured Kwon's bojagi and also her painted fabric objects.

Julia not only just preserves the meaning or the culture and history of the tradition of Korea, but also she transforms the tradition with her challenges of the society that she grew up in.

♪ Curry: This human-sized box is made with structure bars and stretched canvas with traditional Korean stripes.

Kwon: From a distance, it may look exotic, but if you actually examine it, it's consisting of everyday global logos that we recognize.

The work itself is also about me sort of feeling boxed in.

Ji Young Yun: She questions, and she makes us think, so I think that's part of her work.

Curry: The Arlington Arts Center also featured Kwon's work, which occupied a whole room.

It featured her series entitled "Like Any Other."

Kwon: There is a double meaning to the title "Like Any Other."

One is that I want to be seen as a full human being with multiple facets like any other person, but also my experience is just one other experience of the other.

I'm using the color yellow to sort of satirically reference my own skin color.

It turns to white to talk about whitewashing and erasure.

The abstracted figure is being bound to but also trying to escape the frame.

I also have larger human-sized figural works here.

The subtitle of the piece is "Womanspreading" in response to manspreading.

Oftentimes, I feel women are expected to take up less space and not speak up.

And so, this piece is definitely responding to that.

I definitely have visitors go up close and poke, ha ha, just to make sure that they aren't actual human beings underneath there.

Oftentimes, Korean women come up to me and say that the work is very moving to them.

That really means a lot.

Curry: As she prepares for her next exhibition, Kwon focuses her work on current events.

Kwon: I've been using safety pins to sort of write texts.

I've been using a lot of blue and red in my work to sort of reference the contemporary political climate here in the U.S. that feels more and more divisive.

Ji Young Yun: She is inventing.

She is trying to find her identity as an artist.

I'm very excited to be part of her artistic career.

Kwon: I've sort of made peace with the fact that I am a Korean-American.

There are nuances.

There are subtleties, different levels of oppression.

And so even if I don't change someone's mind instantly with my work, it's still the opportunity for them to confront these issues.

♪ Since this story first aired, Kwon has launched new projects, including "Unapologetically Asian": a series of Korean patchwork facemasks confronting the rise in anti-Asian violence and discrimination during the covid-19 pandemic.

An online project called "Exultant Divergence" uses photo collage to curate her work alongside other art to create surprising connections and new meaning.

If you're heading to New York, you can see her work at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in an exhibit called "Design and Healing."

It runs through August 14th.

Closer to home, she's got a solo show at VisArts 255 POD Space Gallery in Rockville, Maryland.

It runs through April 30th.

Here's something to consider from the England-based street artist and activist known only as Banksy: Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.

Thank you for watching this episode of "WETA Arts."

Be well, be creative, and enjoy the art all around you.

I'm Felicia Curry.

Announcer: For more about the artists and institutions featured in this episode, go to WETA.org/arts.

♪ ♪ ♪