RAC is excited to partner with Humans of St. Louis to highlight stories from some of the talented creatives and artists who call St. Louis home. All stories and photography in the RAC + Humans of St. Louis series were created by and are credited to Lindy Drew, co-founder, lead storyteller, and book co-author of Humans of St. Louis.

 

Kathryn Bentley

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“I’m Kathryn Alise Bentley, named after both my grandmothers. My mother’s foster mother was Katherine. And my father’s mother was Alice. When I was younger, I thought I was going to be an actor. I don’t remember wanting to be anything else. That’s what I wanted to do. I used to do a lot of theater stuff at home when I was little. I have a younger sister, and my parents put us in dance class. I don’t know if this is true, but apparently, we would just make up shows. I’d be the director, and I’d make my sister do all sorts of things, playing theater with me. My mother was just reminiscing the other day that we’d put on a dinner theater and take our parents’ dinner orders. And the menu had to be what we could cook, like cheese toast. So we’d write down their order, we’d make their dinner, then they’d watch a show that I’m sure I would have written and acted out. We’d use any of my mother’s accessories that she’d let us, so her scarves and hats would be our costumes. And we’d come out and do theater and dance and sing for our parents. That was me as a young actor to be, director to be, writer to be.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“I am a daughter of an 88-year-old mom and an 86-year-old dad, who are the reason I do theater because they introduced my brother, sister, and me to all kinds of arts. They took us to New York and Chicago to see all sorts of plays. We’d go to Alvin Ailey whenever they were in town. So I am quite blessed to have been exposed to the arts early on. And they went on to support me to work in the arts. Well, they kind of also said, ‘You need to double major.’ To which I was like, ‘Uh huh.’ So I was actually a mass communications major. But they’re very much supporters of the arts, and supporters of me. And that’s been a very important part of my life. Aren’t I lucky? They still come to my productions when they can. You know, they’ve missed a few because of illnesses, but they try to get to everything. They couldn’t get to the reading of my playwriting debut because they just weren’t feeling well. But when that full play goes up, I’m hoping that they’ll be able to go.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“I loved dance school, but middle school is when I started doing theater, and by high school, I was just all in when it came to theater. My sister and I used to take dance from Pelagie G. Wren Academy of Dance. A lot of the young Black children in St. Louis took dance from Ms. Wren, who was awesome. She was a ballerina and the first Black dancer at The Muny. I remember one time we had a show in Heman Park when I was eight. I got up on stage to dance, and I fell. So my classmates just danced over me. I was like, ‘Oh my god!’ That was devastating. I was so embarrassed. But I was little. Like, ‘Whatever. The show must go on.’ What an awkward moment in my career. But, you know, theater is live. So a lot of awkward things can happen.

High school drama was a lot of fun as we put on musicals like 𝐾𝑖𝑠𝑠 𝑀𝑒, 𝐾𝑎𝑡𝑒, and 𝑀𝑢𝑠𝑖𝑐 𝑀𝑎𝑛. I remember we did this play called 𝑆𝑝𝑜𝑜𝑛 𝑅𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝐴𝑛𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑦, and I had to kiss this guy who, in real life, was a jock. Well, I saw him at our class reunion not too long ago, which did not go well because he wanted to relive that moment. I was like, ‘Get away from me. Eww!’ Yeah, he was drunk. But back in high school, kissing someone was a big deal. I was the thespian, and he was the jock. So I told myself, ‘I can do this. I’ve had my first kiss. I know what I’m doing, I guess.’ The good thing is that stuff didn’t show up on Instagram back then. Thank god we didn’t have the internet when I was in high school. I can’t even imagine.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“My high school drama teacher, Mr. Kenney, became my good friend and mentor. He shaped me and really guided my future in so many ways. I spent a lot of time in the theater at Webster Groves High School with him. He was just the coolest. He always had this little twinkle in his eye kind of thing, so he’d look at us and smile out of the corner of his mouth. And he always smelled like smoke. I don’t know how many packs of cigarettes he smoked a day, but it was way too much. 

My father’s from DeSoto, Missouri, so some of the ways I pronounce words are from there. And when I’d say, ‘I’m gonna warsh this,’ or ‘I’m gonna go to Warshington,’ Mr. Kenney would say, ‘Bentley! It’s wash.’ I’d pronounce the word ‘um-brella,’ and he’d immediately correct me, like, ‘It’s umbrella, Bentley. Umbrella.’ Then he’d just look at me and kind of half-smile. He was so funny to me. And he was also very encouraging.

Since then, that little high school theater has changed so much. Last summer was our 40th class reunion, so I got to see it newly renovated. It’s in the back of the high school, and as kids, we’d be out there doing whatever. You know, having fun. But man, when I walked back into that place, I felt Mr. Kenney’s energy still in there. Like when we’d be back there having fun, creating, and learning about ourselves. I haven’t been back to teach or perform. But I had been back because my daughter graduated from there, too.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“That’s an interesting question because I’m not quite sure what that means for me and my career. After high school, Mr. Kenney was so helpful in getting me into The Goodman School of Drama in Chicago, which is now The Theatre School at DePaul University. So I did that conservatory my first year of college and didn’t like the setting. I did well, but it just didn’t feel right. I wanted to come back home. So I returned to St. Louis, ended up interning at The St. Louis Black Repertory Company for a semester, and that’s where I met my next mentor, Bill Grivna. These two men have just completely shaped my path.

Anyway, I was stage managing a show that Griv was directing, and while getting to know him as the director, he was like, ‘Why don’t you come to Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE), and finish your damn degree?’ He cursed a lot. Well, my parents had let me know, ‘Yes, you came home, but you can’t stay here. You gotta do something.’ So Griv was very convincing. Like, ‘Come by and visit the campus.’ Knowing that my father had gone to SIUE, and how he was one of the first students when the school was still in East St. Louis before moving to Edwardsville, I went to visit. And that’s how Griv got me to finish my degree there. You ask about a big break? Maybe that was it. Meeting him and working with him did shift my life and trajectory. After all, he became my dear friend and mentor.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“Going to school at SIUE and studying theater was not the greatest experience in the ’80s because there were hardly any opportunities for the Black students to perform. This is when people would say they were doing nontraditional casting, but that didn’t mean colorblind casting for real. They just weren’t there yet. There were so few of us, and I was on stage a few times. So to do the real, meaningful roles, I’d drive over to St. Louis to do shows with The Black Repertory Company.”

𝐷𝑖𝑑 𝑠𝑡𝑢𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑝𝑢𝑠ℎ 𝑏𝑎𝑐𝑘?

“The pushback would fall on deaf ears. Maybe we’d get an understudy for a role, for example, or sometimes we’d get cast. But for me, I knew my theater home was The Black Rep. So I thought, ‘I’m just gonna do stuff there cause I know it’s gonna be cool and meaningful. Plus, I’m already connected.’

But the reason I loved Griv so much was that we could have that pushback, and he would listen. As a student in school, he was this hippie white man who I just loved, loved, loved. He was from Minnesota, and as cool as cool can be. And in his mind’s eye, he was very inclusive. But there I was as an undergraduate in his directing class with this project to research a director. He had given us a list of them, and I spoke up, like, ‘Where are the Black directors?’ He said, ‘Well, there aren’t any of note.’ So I said, ‘Wait a minute. What?’ Looking back, he said that’s when I called him racist. I don’t remember that, but I’m sure I did. He had to be challenged. I ended up naming Lloyd Richards, did my report on him, and turned it in. After college, Griv and I became good friends, and we maintained a close friendship. It was really rough when he passed away. That was hard for me. What a good dude. I don’t know the last thing he saw me perform in, but he was the reason I taught for 20 years.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“I finished all my classes at SIUE except for one, but I was like, ‘Whatever, I’m still graduating.’ So I ended up moving to New York, where I lived for 10 years. I was acting with a theater company there that does work in Harlem, and that’s when I started getting into directing and more community-engaged work. I got married when I was there. I had a daughter. Then I got divorced. This whole time, I maintained contact with Griv. So when I moved back home to St. Louis, I told him I wanted to get my master’s. He was like, ‘Okay, get a master’s.’ So I went to Lindenwood University because it was the only program that was close, and I didn’t want to move away again. Then Griv was like, ‘I want you to come to SIUE to teach.’ I started teaching with him. He got me an adjunct position, and eventually I got a full-time position there teaching theater. I retired not too long ago. So now I’m an associate professor emeritus, all because of Bill Grivna. I’d try to get together with him to have a nice brunch, maybe every six months or so. And at our last brunch, he was giving me advice like, ‘You need to put money away for this and that as you get ready to retire.’ So I was taking notes. Well, he wrote two books after he retired, and he went to his car to get me a copy of his latest one. I still remember him jogging across Grand and then coming back to say goodbye. I never did see him anymore after that. Looking back, when I left SIUE, I was that student who said, ‘I am NEVER coming back to college.’ College was not for me. I did it. I didn’t fail. I did well. But I did not feel like I was cut out for that setting. So the fact that I went back there to teach for 20 years, yeah, that was Griv.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“Griv grew to teach a class called multicultural theater in America, which he developed with another professor who has also since passed away. He wrote in his story that my interactions with him as an undergrad helped him to grow in those ways. He also taught that class because he had done so much work in Asian theater studies and wanted to bring all of that in. When I first started as an adjunct, I team-taught that class with him. Then I continued teaching it for 20 years. I respected him and Mr. Kenney a great deal, especially the way they worked with students and influenced me as a student and a teacher. Eventually, we made multicultural theater a mandatory class because it should be. And a few years before I left, it became mandatory for all of the theater and dance majors, not just the performance majors.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“I was proud of the things we did to try to give our students a well-rounded experience in theater. Lisa Colbert, the first Black professor in our department, collaborated with Griv to start the SIUE Black Theatre Workshop. We did a yearly performance that sometimes the students wrote and directed, or sometimes I directed. And I was the artistic director. It took a lot of effort. And it was always stretching me, even though it was considered something extra for a while, like, ‘That’s cute.’ But our school and our department began seeing the value in it. They could have said, ‘You know what? We’re not gonna support this anymore.’ But they started to understand that Black Theatre Workshop was important. As a result, so many students’ lives were changed. They wrote, directed, or were the producers because of it. They developed leadership skills because of it. They stayed in school because of it.

I always taught them that we were actors and that we were also artivists — we’re activists through our art. The students had so much in them that they wanted to share, take control of, and express. They were working through things like Trayvon Martin and Mike Brown’s killings, and I was with them through those too. So I knew these young people were dealing with a lot. In fact, we wrote a whole special production about that so these young people could express themselves using art. That’s what kept me going, too. Because I couldn’t think of any other way I would want to express what I was feeling in times like those. Some students were so driven; they were such leaders. Now they’re out here doing their thing, acting and having their own theater workshops. I’m so proud of them. Sometimes you just gotta make stuff like that happen because it feels right.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

𝑊ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑖𝑡 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢’𝑟𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑑𝑖𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑜𝑟 𝑚𝑜𝑑𝑒 𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑢𝑠 𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑚𝑜𝑑𝑒?

“Director mode is when you’re the point person for everything and everybody. So it feels like a thousand questions are coming at you every day. Kind of like being a mother: ‘Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!’ You’re collaborating with designers and producers. And you’re shaping the entire story, the entire everything, so you have to make all these decisions. I love putting that puzzle together. However, it’s also extremely stressful. At night, you’re not turning it off, and your mind races constantly, like, ‘In that one moment, what do I need to do to get this actor to that part? The lighting wasn’t right here, so I need to talk to the lighting designer tomorrow.’ But then, when everything comes together, I get so excited.

I directed the Shakespeare Festival’s Shakespeare in the Streets in East St. Louis, which is in the streets outside, and we missed a dress rehearsal because it was pouring down rain. So we rehearsed inside, which was good because we still rehearsed. But it’s different because, like, you don’t get the feel of how long it takes to put on a costume backstage and then run out. Our first full run-through was the day before opening. And sometimes with theater, opening night is your first real run-through. So that’s nerve-wracking. But it’s like, ‘What can you do? We’ll be fine. See you tomorrow.’ I’m like a yogi; I’m flexible. And I’ve gotten past people judging, like, ‘That play was terrible.’ Whatever. I know where we came from. So, ‘We’ll be out here tonight, having fun. And we’ll be out here tomorrow again.’

Then there’s actor mode. A friend of mine was directing one summer when I acted in Shakespeare in the Park. Theater in the park is a huge endeavor, and I was giggling to myself, like, ‘Luckily, I don’t have to make any of these big decisions. I can just focus and be concerned about what I need to bring my character to life.’ Actors who also direct can be critical, too. But I can turn it off so fast. I “…do my blocking, I let the director say, ‘Oh, that light’s not hitting Kathi,’ and I stand still. Then I can just relish in being an actor. That’s why I tell actors all the time: ‘Just do your job. There’s a whole team in charge of this, that, and the other. All you gotta do is learn your lines and do your character and your blocking.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“I do still act. So I get to focus on using a whole other side of my brain than when I’m directing. I was recently in 𝐸𝑚𝑚𝑎 with the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis. But when I was teaching, it was really hard to juggle acting. I also had my daughter, so when she was little, it was hard to split my focus. I did a couple of plays early on, and I could direct because I could kind of set my schedule. But that first summer I retired, I had a role in the Shakespeare Festival’s Shakespeare in the Park and was like, ‘Yes, I finally can be in this!’ The production was 𝐴𝑠 𝑌𝑜𝑢 𝐿𝑖𝑘𝑒 𝐼𝑡, and I said my little parts. I know it’s said that there are no small parts, but I don’t care — that performance was fun. And I’m not saying it’s not stressful. Acting is stressful. My gosh, for the last play I was in, I was looking at my lines, like, ‘I’m scared. I still gotta learn these.’ And if I’m not prepared, that makes me nervous. So there is a level of pressure. And there is a sense of vulnerability as an actor that makes me wonder, ‘Why the heck did I say I wanted to do this? What if you make a fool of yourself?’ Then I just get out on stage. Directing is vulnerable as well, but nobody in the audience knows what might be off. Being on stage, however, that makes me nervous. Nervously excited. Sometimes I sign up to be a part of production, and I ask myself, ‘What are you doing?’ And then I’m doing another play. People ask me, ‘Aren’t you retired?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, I retired from SIUE so that I could do all this stuff.’”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

𝑊ℎ𝑎𝑡’𝑠 𝑏𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑟𝑜𝑙𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑙𝑖𝑓𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢’𝑣𝑒 𝑒𝑛𝑗𝑜𝑦𝑒𝑑 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑦𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑠𝑡?

“The best part of my life has been being a mother. My child is grown now. But there is nothing like having raised her. It is the absolute joy, and sometimes heartache, of my life. That has been the most challenging role, where sometimes the job is thankless and sometimes the rewards are great. My daughter, Essence, is brilliant, beautiful, and unbelievably talented. She has a huge heart. Very giving, very loving. She’s an only child. She’s strong and has been since she was young. Her dad and I are her closest cohort. We’re her peeps. We’ve gotten to see her brilliance as a performer, and I’m just like, ’Oh my god. Who is this child?’

Growing up, she was with me a lot. She saw stuff she probably shouldn’t have seen because she was up under me as I was directing all kinds of stuff. I mean, when I was pregnant with her, I was directing a children’s show. Her dad was in it, and we were married at the time. So she’s just always been around theater. As a young baby, she used to sing in a perfect pitch. She had a beautiful voice and a great ear. And she had to put it out there that that’s what she wanted to do. So when she said she was ready, I put her in dance school as my parents did for me. Then, when she was 12, she wanted to audition at The Muny. I was never that stage mom. So I had my good friend coach her. I still remember going into the audition with her. She was a little bitty thing, but held her sheet music and walked like she just knew what she was doing. And I knew she was so nervous. I’d worked with too many kids, too many young people, to ever, ever, ever push my child into doing something she may not want to do. So I walked behind her because she had to lead it. And she absolutely did. She did her audition, and she became a Muny kid. And then she was a Muny teen until 18.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“My daughter has come to me for advice, especially when it was time for her to audition for college. I was her coach for her monologues. And she had a voice teacher who a lot of The Muny kids worked with. One play she finished in Colorado was a one-woman show about Billie Holiday, and she was brilliant. There were musicians, but she was the only actor. It was 90 minutes of extreme emotion. Lots of singing, lots of three-page monologues. I was like, ‘I’ve seen this performance six times.’ Because, you know, if I visit, I’m gonna see it. And I was watching my child, like, ‘How did this happen?’ I was looking at the audience, and they were so into it. Just amazing! People were crying. People were coming over to her afterwards. And I just sat in the back so proud.

For me, the most challenging thing was to let my child, who is an adult, be an adult and do her thing and make her own choices and be there if she needs me. So for this last show, there was some calling Mama to ask me things. And that’s what you’re supposed to do because you gotta be resourceful as an actor. But as a parent, I want to make sure she doesn’t have anything bad happen. And that’s ridiculous. Like, I had to have stuff happen. That’s how I grew into who I am. I’ve been growing a lot just in the last couple of years because she’s moved to New York now. And she’ll be like, ‘Mom, it’s okay. Get off me. I’m good. I’m fine. I’m gonna do it this way.’
So I might think, ‘I did New York.’ But she’s gonna do New York differently than I did. It’s a different time, and she’s totally a different person. It’s hard. I’m not saying that I’m good at it. I don’t have it yet. But I’m working on it. And I have to work on it.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“When I’m creating work, it always feels like art is imitating life. I’m a co-founder of Action Art Collaborative here in St. Louis, and our work is all about social justice. Fellow creative producer, Colin McLaughlin, and I released our first show, 𝐴𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛, about activist Percy Green and his organization, which was also called ACTION, that unveiled the Veiled Prophet in the ’60s. Colin wrote the piece, I directed it, we co-produced it, and it did very well. But the work we do isn’t gonna be the kind everybody is going to love, especially because sometimes we call people out. You know, sometimes big names in St. Louis need to be called out. So the audience listens, the art connects, and it allows an opportunity to be changed. And an opportunity to go out of the theater differently than when you came in. Like, ‘Did you learn something? Do you want to take action about something now?’

We told the actors, ‘Look, you all gotta be ready for this kind of work. Because, yes, it’s a strong play. The message is strong.’ And some admitted, ‘I don’t know if I want to be saying these things about some of the families we mention.’ But what was really beautiful to me was that the activists we interviewed and talked about in the play came to see the play. We’re connecting with the activist community and the labor movement. And, as a result, we have a family of folks who like the work we do and activists who respect the work we’re doing.

I love creating something out of nothing. When I lived in New York and started working with another mentor and big sister of mine, Stephanie Barry, and her small company in Harlem, Blackberry Productions, we were doing meaningful community-engaged work created for and by the people. And there was very little money. So I brought that grit back to St. Louis with me. Then, to meet my like-minded brother, Colin, who was like, ‘Yeah, let’s start something.’ You don’t have to have anything but an idea. And all these wonderful things can bloom out of that one idea. Now, Colin is a phenomenal grant writer, so we do get funding. But we could also put on a production with very little. You don’t have to have a Muny budget to do a show. In fact, I prefer not to. I like less spectacle. Just start with a conversation with somebody. Just do it, and go.

I saw the change happening with the St. Louis art scene over my years of teaching, because every year I would have more and more students saying, ‘I’m gonna stay in St. Louis after I graduate. I’m not moving to New York, L.A., or Chicago.’ That’s how I knew that our city’s theater scene was changing. Theater is so big here that there are so many places to see good theater. St. Louis is blooming all of that right now. And it’s not just with theater but with visual arts and music, too. People are being creative and even saying, ‘I could do something in this backyard over here.’ So you don’t have to have anything except an idea, maybe a couple of friends, and a heart to do something cool, fresh, and new. Maybe it’s just you.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

𝐻𝑜𝑤 𝑑𝑜 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑓𝑖𝑡 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑙 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑜 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑙𝑖𝑓𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢’𝑣𝑒 𝑔𝑜𝑡 𝑠𝑜 𝑚𝑢𝑐ℎ 𝑔𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑜𝑛? 𝑊ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑤𝑒 𝑜𝑓𝑓 𝑡𝑜 𝑛𝑒𝑥𝑡? 

“What feeds me right now is freedom. I have an enormous amount of freedom that I didn’t have when I was working full-time, and I love it. Actually, at night I’ll say to myself, ‘What do I get to do tomorrow?’ And I look at my calendar, and I say, ‘Ooh, I get to do that.’ Sometimes it’s something like paying taxes. That’s not fun. But sometimes it’s, ‘Ooh, I get to go meet with Lindy.’ That’s my day, and I feel so grateful. Like, today. What did I do? I went for a two-hour walk. Because I can. And there are some have tos. But the wonderful thing about my have tos right now is that they’re all connected to something I love that I get to do. I have deadlines when I’m directing. Things have to be done for pre-production. I had to put a cast list out recently. But it’s all towards something that I get to do, so for me it’s all exciting.

I also get so much out of traveling. I like to go somewhere every year when my birthday comes around in February. I don’t know where, but somewhere warm. I’ve been to Africa a few times and would love to go back. I didn’t see any theater when I was there, but I would like to go back and see live performances.

I’m really proud of the work I’ve done with The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, trying to get the community out to see a particular play. And the thing is, the play was beautiful. And people were coming to see it. But one year, they put on a play that my daughter happened to be in, and that was written by a Black playwright, but the audience was not representative of the folks in the play. Very few Black people came. And it’s hard for a performer when you’re doing a play that speaks to a certain culture, and you look out to the crowd and don’t see the folks it’s intended for. I really didn’t want that to happen again at The Rep. So it was rewarding to invite people to the theater who might not think there’s a place for them.

People need to know, ‘Theater’s for you. It’s for you. It’s here.’ But, oftentimes, theaters are so elitist. I mean, we used to go to Forest Park when I was little because my grandmother would get us on the bi-state bus with a little box of food, and we’d get to The Muny and sit in the free seats. A lot of theaters are not accessible, and something like free seats makes it accessible. That’s why I was hired to recruit. So there were pre-activities and follow-up discussions on Zoom for those who wanted to process the play because it’s a very layered and beautiful work. People just needed to be invited and to feel welcome.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

𝑊ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝑎 𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑠𝑒𝑒𝑚𝘦𝘥 𝑡𝑒𝑚𝑝𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝑠𝑐𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑡𝑟𝑦?

“Playwriting. And in this class I was taking, they wanted us to write and share. Writing, I’m very nervous about doing. I’ll get there. But I was so nervous to write because it feels extremely vulnerable. You write something, your name’s on it, and it’s forever. Directing, people forget that ish. You direct a play, it sucks, and people forget it, even though the review is out there forever. But writing, I get caught up in my head. And I have other projects in me that I know I’ve got to put down. Like, I’ve got to write about my mom and dad. My mom had a clinic for 33 years in St. Louis named CHIPS Health and Wellness Center that served the uninsured and underinsured. In fact, I have a Regional Arts Commission (RAC) grant, which is gonna jumpstart me to write about it.

And something I’m fearful to try that I haven’t done yet is direct a movie. I’ve got to direct a film. I’ve got to get into that realm of storytelling. I know I’m supposed to. I’ve even said to some of my actors over the years, ‘I’ve got to direct a movie because I’m sick of you all changing stuff.’ I mean, I’ve said that to myself, too. We’re human, so things change day to day. My daughter hates sitting next to me after I’ve directed a play and I come back to see it because I’m squirming or holding onto my seat because I can’t believe what the actors are doing. But just like human beings grow and change, they mix stuff up, too, to do different things on stage. So I’m gonna direct a movie so it’s edited and that’s the story I was trying to tell and it can’t be changed.

For now, I have this huge project in my head, which is why I’m so grateful to RAC because I can begin. And it’ll be bigger than talking about my mom’s clinic because it’s actually about my parents’ love story. They’ve been married 67 years. And my mom’s clinic, where my father was also the longest unpaid bookkeeper, is the offspring of their love story. You know, we called CHIPS our youngest sibling? She was 33, and she never got a job, but she gave a lot of people a lot of love. She’s another baby my parents poured into, and she poured into the community. The story starts there. Not only is it tempting to try and write it, but it’s inevitable. It’s necessary. It’s a must. I gotta do it.”

𝐼’𝑑 𝑎𝑠𝑘 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑞𝑢𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠, 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑖𝑡 𝑠𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑠 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑡𝑒𝑙𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑦 𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑑𝑎𝑦!

“Okay!”

 

Kathryn Bentley | @kathibentley

 

About Humans of St. Louis
Humans of St. Louis (HOSTL) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization with the mission of sharing photographic portraits and first-person stories to highlight local needs, issues, and experiences from people in the St. Louis region. HOSTL gives followers an intimate look into the lives and struggles of the people of St. Louis, one photo and story at a time, and is the second most popular “Humans of” site in the U.S. after Humans of New York.

RAC is excited to partner with Humans of St. Louis to highlight stories from some of the talented creatives and artists who call St. Louis home. All stories and photography in the RAC + Humans of St. Louis series were created by and are credited to Lindy Drew, co-founder, lead storyteller, and book co-author of Humans of St. Louis.

Content Warning: This story contains references near-death experience and suicide. 

 

Cameron Jamarr 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“I went to Clayton High School, where my dad worked in their preschool custodial side. So K through 12, I’d book it out from the Southside to Clayton every day. That’s where my friends were and where I’d start to get my exposure to the arts. In 2nd grade, we had Fairy Tale Theater, and I played Rapunzel’s father. In 4th grade, we had a Renaissance festival, and our teacher asked, ‘Who wants a big speaking part, and who wants a little one?’ So I spoke up: ‘I want the big speaking part!’ and I became Dromio of Syracuse. I didn’t know what I’d be doing, but I came home like, ‘Mom, I’m doing this part.’ I just always thought it’d be cool to go on stage, speak, and shine. In 6th grade, I went to Wydown Middle School and did musicals like 𝐵𝑦𝑒 𝐵𝑦𝑒 𝐵𝑖𝑟𝑑𝑖𝑒 and 𝐽𝑜𝑠𝑒𝑝ℎ 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐴𝑚𝑎𝑧𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑇𝑒𝑐ℎ𝑛𝑖𝑐𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑟 𝐷𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑚𝑐𝑜𝑎𝑡. Then in 8th grade, I played Jim in 𝐵𝑖𝑔 𝑅𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑟. That’s how I found my place in the arts. Outside of acting, I was a choir kid, a band kid, and I played the clarinet. It was always a little bit of this, a little bit of that. Because, why not? That’s what we’re here for.

Who really put me on the acting path, though, was my high school teacher and local actress, Kelly Weber. Sophomore year, there was a meeting after school one day about the fall play. At first, I was very against doing plays. Like, ‘I’ll do a musical. But a play?’ Well, the show was 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑊𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟’𝑠 𝑇𝑎𝑙𝑒. And that play ended up following me later in my life. We’ll circle back to that. So, I was sitting in the black box, thinking, ‘This is cool but not for me.’ And as I walked out, Kelly said, ‘Where are you going? Here, read this.’ She gave me the role of Camillo. So I got up there, did my lil’ Shakespeare, and next thing I knew, I was in the play. We mixed the play with Baroque and operatic songs, so we actually sang monologues and worked with voice instructors who taught the school choir. As I stepped into theater, I was getting this cross-training out the gate that was synthesizing music, poetry, acting, and theater all together. I was hooked. I was in. From there, I was a drama kid.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“I was all over the place in high school because I had to be there early since my dad worked for the district. Junior year, I became the drama guild president. Senior year, same thing. Part of that was just me killing time. It was me as first chair clarinet in the band every year, ‘And don’t come for it because I want it.’ It was me in the show choir and the chamber choir. It was me in musicals and plays. And I had to stay on top of my grades, which I did as much as I could in the subjects I cared about. In advanced English and AP Literature, I was reading these rich stories, learning grammatical structure, and how to write with complexity. That’s how I discovered a passion for poetry and writing. Sophomore year, I was asked if I wanted to participate in the Missouri Fine Arts Academy, MFAA, but I didn’t know what I wanted to go for. I could go for clarinet. I could go for singing. I could go for acting. I wanted to go for all of them, but we live in a world that often makes you choose. Until you start learning how to play by your own rules.

So I chose to go for acting, and I met all these cool people from high schools all across the state. We’d get together at arts camp for the summer, and we were learning how to create. Part of my journey hasn’t been just performing, but meeting artists who empowered me to go within to create something. They’d say, ‘You know you can make something yourself outside of us and apart from taking up someone else’s stories or words. You have it within you.’ Some of the best pieces of art I’ve seen have been passionate artists being like, ‘F*ck it. No budget. Here’s the idea. We’re gonna throw this together. Let’s go!’ One of the coolest pieces I saw at MFAA was 𝑆𝑢𝑏𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑒𝑎𝑛, this dark, moody, eclectic composition of dance, movement, music, and poetry. It was everything an adolescent was at the time. And I was like, ‘Yes, sign me up for more of this.’”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“High school was like college prep, and my classmates were already doing some dope ass Ivy League sh*t, so there was pressure on me to do the same. Meanwhile, I was just trying to make sure I kept my grades up so I could do fun things like stay in theater, or so my parents would maybe get me a car. Fast forward to senior year. People were asking, ‘Where do you want to go? What do you want to do?’ I wasn’t even thinking about what I wanted my future to look like. I was involved in so many things, like the Principal’s Advisory Council, student government, Black Student Union, class treasurer. I was also a marching band drum major. I kept getting bombarded with, ‘Don’t you want to go to Northwestern or Brown?’ The thing is, I was schooled out. I had the brain for it, but I just didn’t know what was next.

When it came to college applications, I cast my seeds wide to at least 11 schools. Some were art schools, and some were academic. I applied to Northwestern, had my final interview, and got in. I also applied to the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music – CCM. Okay, storytime. I’m probably gonna detour, if that’s okay… The week of my CCM audition coincided with our Peppers Prom, which was our high school’s unofficial prom. A week or two before, the school had to nominate who they wanted to be in the court, and I didn’t even know I was nominated. But what I did know was that I had these important auditions coming up and had to work on them.

My drama teacher said, ‘I know the artistic director (AD) of the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival. I’d like her to watch your monologues for your auditions.’ So she gets the AD to come to my school to coach my college monologues during my lunch break. Turns out, when I got to school that day, I was also going to get kidnapped as part of the prom court nomination. Pillowcase over my head, I was put in a car, driven to someone’s house, and dressed in this insane get-up — some multi-holiday sweater with Halloween, Christmas, and Chanukah all mixed together. We’re talkin’ frills and tutus and makeup on my face. I looked a hot Grinch mess. Because the idea was that you’re supposed to draw attention to yourself at school so people would know to vote for you. Even more awkward, I still had to do my monologue coaching. My first audition piece was fine because it was a comedic Shakespearean monologue from Trinculo in 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑇𝑒𝑚𝑝𝑒𝑠𝑡. But my second monologue was me playing a bisexual jazz musician dying from AIDS and confessing this to his mom. And there I was dressed like every goddamn holiday.

Later that day, I was on the bus going home when I got a call from my teacher saying, ‘Shakespeare Festival wants you to audition for Prince Edward in 𝑅𝑖𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑑 𝐼𝐼𝐼 in Forest Park this summer.’”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“Fast forward to my college audition. Peppers Prom was the night before. I won King. I also got the flu. Cold, chills, cough, fever. And my parents had to take me to Chicago, because that’s where the auditions were. So they drove me, but we could hardly see because the weather was so terrible. We get into the city, go to the hotel, and I wake up the next day not feeling better at all. I barely knew where the hotel was that was holding the auditions, and by this time, I’m running late, sick, anxious, sweating. Finally, I find the hall my auditions are in just as the program chair announces, ‘Cameron Davis.’ I get my sh*t together, walk through the door, and it’s go time. He asks, ‘How are you feeling today?’ I was like, ‘Eek.’ I performed the two pieces I just had coaching on — one which was full of energy, and the other where I was very sick. And because I was actually very sick, I used it.

Now, a lot of my friends had auditioned for different programs, too, and eventually they began getting rejection notices. Rejection is a reality. It happens. So I was like, ‘Damn, I ain’t heard nothing back yet. This must mean I’m getting super rejected.’ I remember thinking, ‘What are you gonna do? You’re waiting to hear back about a professional play. You could be going to acting school. How is this all supposed to play out?’ This was all happening while I was directing our student-run musical, a version of 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑇𝑒𝑚𝑝𝑒𝑠𝑡. And it was lit. It was so, so, so, so, so good! Well, I was working on the set with a friend who said, ‘Honestly, if everyone else has heard back, you probably didn’t get in.’

Not one minute after he said that, I got an email: ‘Congratulations, you’ve been accepted to the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music – CCM.’ And I geeked. Like, ‘Holy sh*t, I got in!’ I mean, they saw thousands of students, and only let in 15. And that 15 got whittled down to 11 by the time I graduated. Other acceptance letters came back, and now all these schools were waiting for my decision. So I told myself, ‘If I get into the show at the Shakespeare Festival, that will be the sign that I should go to acting school.’ Lo and behold, I booked it. My first professional show. And that’s when I said, ‘I’m gonna go to acting school.’

Now, my parents weren’t necessarily all about it. They thought I should have gone to Northwestern. I got into an argument with them, and I was so upset that I went to my computer and sent my acceptance to CCM. Then I told them the next day.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

 “When it came to my high school graduation, I gave one of the commencement speeches, which was the same date as opening night for my first professional show with St. Louis Shakespeare Festival. So I gave my speech, my parents were in the bleachers, and my drama teacher was right there waiting to drive me to Forest Park. It was so aligned. I walked straight off one stage in my cap and gown to go straight onto another stage to play Prince Edward in Richard lll. For me, there was no preparation for one or the other. I was ready and just had to trust it. I was operating on a huge degree of faith. Coming from the church, I guess I was raised to have that. Also, I had a lot of love from my family. My mom was the most supportive. She was always like, ‘You can do anything.’

I was actually just reflecting on that show, and how I’m grateful I was to have been surrounded by some top-notch actors then. Even though I was young and didn’t know much, I knew these people were good. They took time to mentor me in the kindest ways. Like, I’d take lunch breaks with this powerhouse actress named Claudia Robinson, a sista from the UK who had the most elevated, darling British accent. She acted her ass off. She played Queen Margaret, the prophetic, sharp-tongued, Widow Queen. Her scenes would kill every night. And I’d just watch her in awe, like, ‘I want to be like that.’ So I’d ask her, ‘How do you do it?’ And she’d tell me what she knew.

That summer, while also doing the Shakespeare Festival’s teen camp, I played Romeo in 𝑅𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑜 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝐽𝑢𝑙𝑖𝑒𝑡. So I remember being in my trailer during a performance of 𝑅𝑖𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑑 𝐼𝐼𝐼, and going over my Romeo lines. And when you’re in the trailer, there’s a monitor to hear the show and the lines to make your entrance on time. So I’m going through my lines for Romeo when all of a sudden I realize I’m supposed to be on stage as Prince Edward. I missed my entrance, and the scene started with me. I had the first line! I ran for my life to the stage and jumped straight into the scene. After, I get off stage, walk back to the trailer, tail between my legs, feeling awful. But all the other actors were like, ‘Dude, that was great. It happens. We waited for you. We improvised. We made it work. You started the scene with a different energy tonight. And it was fun!’ To be so seen, so supported, so encouraged, I will never forget it. At that moment, I was an actor. A professional actor. Before I’d even set a foot into acting school.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“Once I finished that summer with the Shakespeare Festival, I felt confident about starting college. Like, ‘I got this. Of course, there are things to learn. But I know a little something.’ I didn’t know what it was or how to define it, but there was something. The thing is, when you’re young, you’re caught up in proving yourself. So even when you’re confident, there’s still a degree of insecurity. And I wasn’t in my hometown anymore. I was in Cincinnati with a bunch of other actors, who had been handpicked just like me, who I assumed were also the best at what they did. So there was something to prove.

When people ask me about my time at CCM, I tell them I’m grateful for what I learned there. The experiences I had were transformative in some of the best and worst ways imaginable. It’s a party school, especially the arts school. And I was ready for that. I literally went into college as a sophomore because I had so many AP credits, which is why I felt comfortable kind of f*cking off to a degree. I was like, ‘I’m good. I’m locked in. I’m gonna graduate. All I have to do is complete my program. I’m ahead of the game. Let’s kick it.’ 

But CCM was its own experience. Let’s talk about the welcoming performance board you do immediately upon arrival, before starting class, before anything. Boards are essentially you performing for the entire department and whoever else wants to be there. Your teachers sit in the front row, taking notes on you, grading you, judging you. And after, they let you know what they thought. So I performed the same two pieces I’d already done for the faculty to get into the program, and I was all feeling all the nerves. My first point of feedback, the thing I remember the most, was one professor saying, ‘You weren’t a human being. I struggled to see a human being.’”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“I was blessed that I was always booked every summer, and there was always some professional job right around the corner. My freshman year, I did a three-month performance internship with the Hangar Theater in Ithaca, New York. My first summer break in college was also my first encounter with death. And death is part of my story. Three other actors from my class and I drove upstate and lodged together in a house. The first week, one of my buddies and I got into a car accident in the backwoods that left us stranded about 30 miles out of the city. I remember seeing my life flash before my eyes as he drove off the road into a ditch, crashing head-on into a tree. We spent hours trying to rescue ourselves. We stole an ax from a nearby farm in an attempt to cut down the tree we were stuck on. But the car was totaled. And we were pretty much at rock bottom. No phones, no money, no car, no help. Nothing.

Eventually, a man and his wife found us. The man’s name was Jim, and his last name started with a C, so I recall him as JC. And to this day, I say, ‘Jesus Christ saved my life,’ because that couple spotted us off the side of the road and saved us. At first, we denied them and said, ‘No, we’re fine. We got this.’ You know, we were two young guys who thought we could rescue ourselves. But there was no way we could have gotten out of that situation alone. Jim came back and said, ‘I got a friend with a tow truck. Happy to help you fellas if you’d let us.’ JC took us to his house, let us shower, and gave us a fresh change of clothes. His wife made us breakfast, and then they drove us home. Once I got inside my room, I remember lying in bed hugging myself in shock, like, ‘I just almost f*cking died.’ And I should have. Knowing what we were doing, I was like, ‘I should be dead right now. What?! Why am I here? Thank you, God.’ And I cried myself to sleep.

My mom was livid and scared, saying, ‘I want you to come home right now!’ And I was like, ‘No, Mom. I have to finish what I started here. I got this. But I won’t do that again, I promise.’”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“The summer of my sophomore year, I ended up booking my second summer at Shakespeare Festival. I came back to St. Louis to do 𝐻𝑎𝑚𝑙𝑒𝑡, where I played Reynaldo, the assistant to Polonius. And that’s when I was starting to see a certain degree of treatment from faculty at CCM. I was the only Black actor in my class and the only one consistently booking work outside of school, actually getting paid to act. But I was also getting some of the most negative and critical feedback from the faculty that they weren’t giving to other actors in my class. Even when it came to the performance boards. You were given a grade of satisfactory or unsatisfactory. In my opinion, and in the opinion of my colleagues, I killed my last performance board. But the faculty was like, ‘No, this is unsatisfactory.’ And a couple of them kind of took pleasure in it as if they enjoyed telling me I wasn’t good enough. What they didn’t know, however, was that I had already booked and signed my next summer contract. So while they were telling me their feedback, I responded, ‘I hear you. I respect that. Just so you know, I won’t be able to finish the semester here because I’m performing in 𝐻𝑎𝑚𝑙𝑒𝑡 for my second summer with the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival.’ My program chair was mad mad. I left regardless. And that’s when I began to build this rebel spirit.

I returned to school as a junior, and that year was the most devastating and destructive. I had this overbearing tenured professor who I saw five days a week. She taught acting Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and combat Tuesdays and Thursdays. The irony is, out of all my teachers, she brought me some of my most cherished insights about being an actor. I treasure the knowledge and lessons to this day. But since I wouldn’t, in her words, ‘submit to her will,’ we had a lot of friction. That turned into stalking, harassment, and intimidation tactics. She tried to push me out of CCM because she couldn’t expel me. She verbally assaulted me. She physically assaulted me before my peers. She intentionally lowered my grades. My family and friends were all in St. Louis, so I felt alone. It was bad. It broke my spirit. It went from me pursuing this thing that I love to me fighting for my life. And I didn’t know why.

I was at a party one night, and asked my buddy who I got into that car accident with, ‘Dude, what is happening? What can I do? How do I stop this?’ I had people in my class spying on me, reporting my actions and conversations to this teacher, who used whatever info against me. My friend said, ‘I don’t think there’s anything you can do.’ I left the party, went back home to my room, and cried on the floor. It came to that teacher saying, ‘You can either get down or lie down. If you want to just go act, go act.’ But no one in my family had ever finished college, and I wanted to graduate. She said, ‘You have spring break to think about it.’

So, that spring break my friends and I took a trip to Little Rock, Arkansas. And on a bright, beautiful Sunday morning, we visited Little Rock Central High, where the Little Rock Nine integrated a racially segregated school in the 50s. No one was there, just us. The sun was shining on the building. I was walking around the empty halls outside. And sitting on the school steps, I decided, ‘You will not run me away. I will stay in school even if that means I have to be the bitter spouse in this relationship that just stays and stays f*cking bitter. I will stay. Because you will not stop me from achieving my goal.’”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

”That year, CCM was putting on a show called 𝑅𝑒𝑑 𝐿𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑊𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟, and I wanted to play the lead. I was the only person yet to play a lead role in school in my class. I was constantly working outside of school, but somehow, school was telling me I wasn’t worthy of a serious role within its walls. I killed the audition because people told me that the teacher I struggled with said I gave the best audition. But apparently, she didn’t want to cast me in the role because the character rapes a woman at the end of the play, and she didn’t think that Cincinnati audiences could tolerate a Black man doing that to what would be a white woman playing the role. As if Black rape is worse than white rape? My bigger issue was that they didn’t respect me or think I was adult enough to have that conversation. Instead, I was gaslit and told, ‘You’re being an egoist and need to apply what we’re learning in class. We already have a Black President.’ I eye-rolled, sighed, and said, ‘Tell the truth. Treat me like an adult and an actual actor. And be willing to face your own racism. Is Black rape really worse than white rape? Because I think rape is just bad.’

I was so dejected. Then, the weekend the cast list came out, I didn’t get cast as a lead in either show. My coping mechanism for trauma became escapism. Like, ‘Turn up, let’s party!’ I was gonna try to have a good time as much as I could. Junior year was when I first did LSD. And when people look at my work, I think that’s evident. Like, ‘The way this person’s mind works, he’s had to have some things crosswired up there.’ So when a friend of mine said, ‘Wanna do some acid?’ I was like, ‘F*ck yeah, I’ll do some acid. Run it.’ The first time I did one hit, it was incredible. My little hippie tribe and I were like, ‘We’re so bonded by this experience now. These others, they just don’t understand what we’ve been through.’ So the second time we got together, we decided, ‘Let’s do three hits. Why not?’ But what we didn’t know was that every hit was actually a triple hit. So I ended up doing nine hits the second time I ever did it. That was crazy. “…But from then on, my mind has just been unlocked. The gateway was opened.

That summer, I ended up doing 𝑃𝑖𝑝𝑝𝑖𝑛 at a nearby theater with another local college. I had a good ole time doing 𝑃𝑖𝑝𝑝𝑖𝑛. Because I love doing musicals, under the right circumstances. And that one found me at the perfect, magical time.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“Spring of my Junior year, CCM was participating in its first and only cultural exchange, called 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐷𝑎𝑑𝑎𝑎𝑏 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑃𝑟𝑜𝑗𝑒𝑐𝑡. Graduates of the program started their own initiative to work with the United Nations to go to Dadaab, the world’s largest refugee camp, in Nairobi, Kenya. They were doing arts and storytelling work with the people who lived there. For months, five actors from my school collaborated with this group of artists before meeting in person for World Refugee Day to present a show we’d create together called 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐶𝑜𝑙𝑙𝑎𝑝𝑠𝑖𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑆𝑝𝑎𝑐𝑒 𝐵𝑒𝑡𝑤𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑈𝑠, an original devised performance piece about the human condition and the inseparable bonds that unite us despite geographic and cultural barriers. The universal human string, if you will. I was the only Black actor from the U.S. And this was during that year I was so broken that I kind of no longer knew who I was. But when I went to Nairobi, I had the most profound spiritual experience of my life.

After we did our show, we were watching a group of Congolese drummers, dancers, and acrobats. I was sitting on a patch of grass, and I was blown away by how incredible the performers were. I’d never seen anything like it, from their attire to the way their bodies moved. The way they danced and did these insane acrobatics, I didn’t even know bodies could move like that. And then the drum… I had an appreciation for music of all degrees. So I was listening to these drums, in total awe, when these spirits started speaking to me. Like, ‘These are your people. This is you. Do you see you? Not only are these your people. This Earth, can you feel it? It too is yours.’ Something started channeling through me. The drum beat got more intense. And everything around became white noise until all I heard was the drum beat ringing in the back of my skull like I was in a trance. Then I heard this voice say, ‘You are home,’ as energy shot up from the earth, surging through my being. I could feel the earth vibrating under me, and before I knew it, I was crying in a way I’d never cried before. Bawling like a newborn baby. I got my soul back. That thing CCM and that one professor tried to break. Unbreakable. It never left. It just retreated until it was safe again to return. I had to remember it, reclaim it, re-own it. I had to take it back.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“My experience in Nairobi gave me what I needed to come back my senior year to be like, ‘Respectfully, f*ck y’all.’ I was ready to wrap up my final year of college and graduate. We were doing another show, and, again, I wanted my lead role. Like, ‘Can I please get a lead at school? This is what I’m paying for. I have leading man qualities. I’m a leading actor. I’m damn good. Give me a role already.’ So we did a show called 𝐶𝑜𝑟𝑎𝑚 𝐵𝑜𝑦, and I auditioned for the lead, who is a villain. But the character also gets publicly hanged at the end of Act 1, so you know they were not about to let a Black man play that role. Instead, they made me Dr. Smith, the choir teacher, who started the show. I went into rehearsals like, ‘I’m cool to do my little role or whatever. This one’s for me. I told you, I’m a motherf*cking actor.’ So we were rehearsing a big scene in which we were about to catch the villain, and it was time to hang him. The scene starts with the entire town in an uproar. Our director goes, ‘All right, everyone. And, begin.’ So I came in hot, like, ‘Down with the villain! Damn, devil!’ But no one else was giving. The director shouted, ‘Stop! So I guess Cameron’s the only one who came to act today? Try again.’ Then everyone in the room got with the program and got the sh*t poppin’.

Now, in the middle of this show, I booked my first paid Screen Actors Guild commercial. Didn’t mean to do it. I only went in because my agent said, ‘You should go out for this. We’re submitting you.’ And as it was starting to look like I could book it, I told my director and program chair, ‘The commercial shoot is also during tech week for our show. Would it be possible for me to do it?’ He said, ‘No, it’s a conflict. So we won’t be allowing you to.’ Mind you, I was going to school to be a paid actor. So I told my agent, ‘My program chair said I can’t do the commercial.’ My agent did not take kindly to this. They called the chair, like, ‘This is absurd. Why are you not letting him do this project? You are ruining his career.’ That turned into my program chair kicking me out of my final show at school. He said, ‘You went behind my back, and I didn’t appreciate it.’ And just like that, I was crying my eyes out again, like, ‘Why does this keep happening?’

The student body threw a fit. The director then felt bad and gave me half of my performances back, but still made me split my role with a sophomore when I was a senior. Whatever. In the end, it was all about hearing my mom scream when I walked across the stage that June for graduation. My mom, dad, aunt, and best friends were there celebrating with me — all the people who had been holding me up that entire time. But my mom really lost it when she saw me walk and accept my diploma in my cap and gown. Her baby was a college graduate. The first in the immediate family from both sides. I had survived it all. Every obstacle, prejudice, disappointment, and heartbreak. Seeing her smile made it all worthwhile.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“After graduation, I was like, ‘What’s next?’ I came back to St. Louis to get a job at Starbucks, because that’s the job I had in college. And I was 22, running around outside, getting in bar fights. That summer, I was in a show called 𝐷𝑜𝑛’𝑡 𝐶𝑟𝑜𝑠𝑠 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑆𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑚𝑠, a musical fan parody of 𝐺ℎ𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑏𝑢𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑠, which got picked up and went to the Cincinnati Fringe Festival. And while doing that show, I got offered a job with The Children’s Theater of Cincinnati. I figured, ‘I should probably get out of what I’m doing in St. Louis, and get back to what I’m supposed to be doing out here.’ But I quickly got disillusioned. It was not for me. The hours were grueling. The pay was underwhelming. I was exhausted, performing with 102-degree fevers, going across state lines, driving and performing all day. On top of that, the artistic director, a Black woman, said one day that our cast was suffering from n*ggeritis. I was like, ‘I cannot do any of this.’ When I had the conversation with her, I was told I had a chip on my shoulder and that Black people needed to get over themselves. I said, ‘Well, this Black person quits. And you can hire another one.’ I don’t know what came over me. It had to be the spirit of my mom. I’ve always been a little saucy, and I knew, ‘This is what I am gonna do, this is what I’m not gonna do, and you need me more than I need this.’ So the day I quit that contract, I needed another job ASAP. And Starbucks wasn’t gonna cut it. That’s how I started working in upscale hospitality.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“A graduate from my acting program was the floor manager at this restaurant called the Taste of Belgium. So I walked in and was like, ‘I just quit a job and need a new one.’ She said, ‘Cool, got you.’ I started in the back on expo as a food runner, and then became a host, which I got really good at from being able to talk to people as an actor. Before I knew it, I was a bartender and a barista, and just doing my thing in my cozy little life in Cincinnati. I had my work, my art, and I was dating a bit. 

I eventually went to New York to see this person for their birthday, and she asked, ‘Why are you in Cincinnati?’ I was like, ‘Because I’m doing things. Trying to figure it out.’ She said, ‘I think you’re just afraid to move.’ I was like, ‘What do you mean?’ She said, ‘You’re afraid. You should just do it.’ And because I love a challenge, she got me a babysitting gig and a bartending gig, and I moved to New York City at 23 years old with $300 and two duffel bags on a Chinatown bus. The day I showed up, of course there was a blizzard, and there I was trying to figure out the A train in the thick of it. Talk about a crash course welcome to the city. Because now, I was in this b*tch.

So I was makin’ it happen, figurin’ it out. I was auditioning, but I hated it because I was bombing in the room. I hated myself. I hated how I was showing up. I was just too in my head. And I had all this unprocessed trauma from college that I was bringing with me. I didn’t understand it; I just knew I didn’t like how I was feeling about acting or my work. I felt so bad, I quit acting for about nine months. Like, ‘F*ck it, I don’t want to do this right now. I’m gonna be a 23-year-old in NYC.’ Whatever that meant.

I ended up getting a job working room service at The Standard Hotel, a really posh, celebrity hotel in the Meatpacking District. I was making some good money, and had a room for $450 at 157th and Amsterdam with some cool roommates, all Black actors in Harlem. So I told myself, ‘This is what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna get this bread. I’m gonna live. And I’m gonna be young, wild, fast, and free.’”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“Working overnight room service at the hotel by myself was like the devil’s playground, and oh boy, did I see some things. I was like, ‘This is fine. This is new. This is fun.’ But my soul was dying. I finally admitted to myself, ‘This isn’t what I came to the city for.’ I wasn’t performing or being creative. I was just living and surviving in NYC. So I decided to focus on writing. I figured, ‘I’m just gonna write things out. I’m gonna reflect and try to identify what I’m going through.’ So I started writing poetry and journaling again. Then an audition came about for the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival. And I love Shakespeare. So, I told myself, ‘Okay, if I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it on my terms. I’m going to act how I want to, not how I was trained to, told to, expected, programmed, or conditioned to. I’m going back to what I do for me.’ And I did. I did the audition, but didn’t hear anything for the longest time.

During that time, I got hit with a wave of bad luck, back-to-back. I got fired from my room service job after helping a drunk hotel guest into the wrong room. I ended up twisting my meniscus on some ice at a club and couldn’t walk, so good luck with the new job hunting. And while I was sitting in my house with insomnia and a bad knee, one of my roommates’ friends spends the night and dies that evening in our living room.

I heard him dying, but I didn’t know that was what I was hearing. Since I had insomnia from working overnights, I was falling asleep at 7 in the morning, unknowingly listening to his final gasps for breath, thinking he had sleep apnea or he was snoring. So, that day, my best friend, Brad, was moving to New York to stay with me for two weeks so he could figure out his transition to the city. When I woke up to greet him, I saw my roommate’s friend with his clothes on, ready to go, but seemingly sleeping with his mouth open. I thought, ‘He must have fallen asleep again.’ I let my friend in, and we caught up for two hours. We had no idea the man on the couch was deceased “…until one of my roommates came in and asked about him still sleeping despite us talking so loudly. We were like, ‘Oh.’ Then we all looked at the man asleep on the couch, wondering, ‘Actually, how is he not awake yet?’ We checked on him, and he was cold. 

We called 911 and were told to put him on the ground to do CPR. I went to help lift his legs, only to discover they were locked stiff. This was my first time touching a dead body. I saw where he’d already vacated himself, so I already knew he was gone. And that was my first close understanding that death is real. People die.

None of us living there was the same after that. And that was the beginning of what would become a deep, dark, and highly spiritually trying time for me. A man dies in my apartment. I’m broke. No job. I can’t walk. I can’t pay rent. I don’t even have money to eat. Like, it was bad. I was trying to stay optimistic, waiting for unemployment to come in, and then I discovered that the AD who cast me in my first professional show was holding auditions for another Shakespeare Festival. So I put myself together the best I could, and went.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“I auditioned because it was the one thing that brought me joy in the midst of the f*ckery that was life at that time. I remember leaving the audition feeling strong, confident, and really good. The best I felt in weeks. Then I got a call from my dad to tell me one of my close childhood friends died by suicide. Completely shocking. A second death in less than a month. That friend and I hadn’t talked in years, but I loved this person. I knew I had to get to St. Louis to see him off. But my dad was very against it. So, in defiance, I used the last $100 to my name to buy Greyhound bus tickets so I could go to my friend’s service. It took me a day and a half to get there from New York City.

I stayed with my mom because my parents had separated by then. And after the service ended, it was time for me to go back to NYC. This was in January, in the thick of winter. I had to wake up super early to leave, before my mom had to go to work, to catch my bus on time. And there was so much I wasn’t telling her. I didn’t want her to know that I was broke or worried about food or that I was struggling to survive. I didn’t want her to worry about me. If she was worried, then I was worried. And nobody had time for that.

And as I was about to go out my mom’s door, she gave me this huge hug and was just holding me so strongly. At first, it was like, ‘Oh, I love you, Mom.’ But she wouldn’t let me go. It was such a strong embrace. A mother’s embrace. And I was like, ‘Mom? I love you, too. It’s okay. I’ll be fine.’

When I got back to New York City, I had 75 cents in my bank account. I’d tell people that I fasted for a week, but in all honesty, I starved for a week. And maybe that also forced me to be in a spiritual place. At that point, I’d already been stealing groceries to eat, and I didn’t have it in me anymore. I didn’t know where life was taking me, but I was in one of the darkest places I’d ever been. I had to surrender to it. While I was waiting for unemployment and food stamps to kick in, the only thing that sustained me was reading Julia Cameron’s 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐴𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑠𝑡’𝑠 𝑊𝑎𝑦. So I kept writing. It was literally all I could do.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“Once I received government assistance, things started to happen for me again. February, I heard back about my audition for Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival. I was offered a summer contract as an acting apprentice understudying their lead male roles for the season, including 𝑂𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑜. Even though I was only going to be paid $100 a week, I had some motivation knowing what that season was going to look like and that I’d finally get the chance to act and take on some roles with weight. So I got a job working at a gym and another as a host at a restaurant in Hell’s Kitchen. My knee was doing better, so I felt like I was finally back in the game and not on the sidelines anymore. Plus, I was working with actors who were showing me a new way to work with pure craft and creativity. And they taught me where my artistry wanted to go. I was eating it up, tearing it up. People were encouraging, and life was finally starting to go in the right direction.

I ended up getting a job on the Upper West Side at a private school getting paid really well as a substitute teacher. I had an agent. I was auditioning. And I booked the lead in a show upstate called 𝐿𝑜𝑏𝑏𝑦 𝐻𝑒𝑟𝑜. At that point, I hadn’t been home in over a year. So I told my mom, ‘I’m coming back to visit in March, and I’ll surprise my dad for his birthday. Don’t tell him. I’ll just pop up.’ She was so excited. But then I had to call back to tell her, ‘Mom, I just booked this new show, and rehearsals start the week I was gonna come home.’ I remember her saying, ‘You’re breaking my heart.’ I knew she understood. But it didn’t change her wanting to see her son again.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“A blizzard was coming into town, and school got dismissed early. So I was sitting in the cafeteria to kill time before getting on the subway, and I decided to call my mom. I was like, ‘Hey, Ma! How you doin’? You good?’ It was the most mundane conversation you could have with your parents. She said, ‘I’m at work. You alright?’ I was like, ‘I’m fine. I was just callin’ to check on you before I leave work.’’ She said, ‘I’m good, baby. I’m just at work. Can’t talk on the phone too long. You need anything?’ I was like, ‘Nah, just want to hear your voice. Call me later when you get off work.’ But we ended up not calling each other later. I went to bed and woke up the next day to a bunch of missed calls and texts from my aunts. Her sisters were all asking me how to get in contact with my dad.

I was like, ‘Why y’all calling me? Why do you want my dad’s phone number? I don’t have time for this. I have to go to work.’ I called my dad to let him know they all wanted to talk to him. And he called me back, like, ‘Hey, can you get to St. Louis?’ I said, ‘No, I’m broke. Why do I need to come to St. Louis?’ He said, ‘Well, your mom just needs you to be with her right now.’ This quickly turned into them buying me a first-class ticket for a flight leaving in three hours. I got to LaGuardia, and my flight was delayed five hours. So I was sitting in the airport all day, calling friends, giving them the update, like, ‘I’m coming back home. I don’t know why. But I’m coming home, so let’s hang.’

I’m such an impatient person. I hate lines. And the wild thing is, in the midst of all this, I was so peaceful. Because there was nothing else I could do. I even remember before I left my house, thinking, ‘God, whatever is going on, just let my mom be okay.’ I knew she had high blood pressure. She’d been in the hospital for it before.

So, I finally got into St. Louis at 11:18 p.m. I saw my dad, and I was like, ‘Where’s mom? What hospital? Let’s go see her.’ He was still acting so aloof that he wouldn’t even look me in the eye. So I was like, ‘What’s up?’ He said, ‘We got some decisions to make.’ And didn’t say anything else.

In the silence, I started backtracking my day. Then it just came out of me: ‘Is my mom dead?’ Still, he didn’t say anything. So I continued, ‘If my mom’s dead, and you’re not telling me, that’s really unfair right now. Is my mom dead?’ Too shocked to say, he answered in three looks that I remember to this day. First he looks at me, then up, then away. It wasn’t even like he said yes. His response was, ‘There was nothing we could do.’

March 5, 2015. Remember the date.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“Talk about spiritually broken. My mom was my rock, my best friend, my biggest support system. Just ripped out of nowhere. She had an aortic dissection, meaning her aorta split. It’s so rare that you have a higher chance of winning the lottery or being struck by lightning. And even if you survive it, your life span is super short afterwards. My mom had high blood pressure and would be on and off her medications. She had to be on them for life, and they slowly wore away the lining of her arteries. That day we talked, she had gone shopping and told her sisters she felt a cold snap in her back and that her back was hurting. My mom was such a strong woman. She even carried her pain with strength and grace. Her sisters told her, ‘If you’re hurt, you should probably go to the hospital.’ But she didn’t want to. Finally, she got one of her neighbors to help her get herself together and go. The ambulance took her to SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital where she let the team know what her complications were. But they ignored her and she died in their waiting room.

The hospital didn’t contact the family to let anyone know she died. Her sisters had to call looking for her, and that’s how they discovered what happened. Once we started investigating, you could see they were doing a whole lot of backtracking to cover up where they f*cked up with my mother. It was infuriating. Heartbreaking. Still, over a decade later, it was just a blow I had to accept.”

𝑊ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑤𝑎𝑠 ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑛𝑎𝑚𝑒?

“Regina Hall. Like the actress.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“My mom’s neighbor, who waited with her while the ambulance came to get her, didn’t find out my mom died until I was cleaning out her apartment. When she saw me, she was like, ‘Who are you?’ And I was like, ‘Who are you?’ She said, ‘I ain’t seen my friend since I helped her go to the hospital two days ago.’ And I had to be the one to tell her. That was hard. We cried together at her front door. 

As my mom’s only child, who’s also an actor, I immediately knew, ‘No one’s doing her eulogy but me.’ Fast forward to her funeral, it was a beautiful service. Standing room only. My mom was a legend, so many people loved her. I’m talking like damn near 200 people showed. I’d never seen such a turnout for a funeral. And it was nothing but performances, mostly from youth in the family. We turned the day into art.

The week before she passed, I’d auditioned for Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival again. Then, as I got in the hearse to go to the cemetery, I got the email: ‘Congratulations! We’d love to have you back for another year.’ It was almost divine. Like my mom was saying, ‘You have to keep going.’ So I stayed in St. Louis for a month to handle her affairs. Then I went back to New York City and moved out of my place after having a fallout with all my roommates. Everything just started falling apart. Later that summer, my girlfriend’s apartment burned down, so we moved to Los Angeles. 

The two shows I’d end up doing that season were 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑊𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟’𝑠 𝑇𝑎𝑙𝑒 and 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑂𝑛𝑒 𝑇ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑠𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑂𝑛𝑒 𝐴𝑟𝑎𝑏𝑖𝑎𝑛 𝑁𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑠 by Mary Zimmerman. That’s where I got this quote in Arabic from on my arm that reads, ‘Fear not death, for you have known love.’ It’s from “The Story of Perfect Love” in the play.

I had said 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑊𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟’𝑠 𝑇𝑎𝑙𝑒 would be a show that’d follow me, and it did. The play involves a beloved queen who dies from the heartbreak of grief and imprisonment from being accused of infidelity and having her child murdered. Sixteen years pass, only to discover that she’s been preserved as a statue by a mystic maiden. And at the end, the statue comes back to life, and the queen returns.

The day we first rehearsed that scene was Mother’s Day. I was a f*cking wreck. And I’d be performing this show for three months, two to three times a week. But what I didn’t expect was that this scene would become my healing ground for everyone to bear witness and see onstage every evening. I understood there was a reason for me doing that show at that time, and I knew this was where I could learn how to heal and let art transform me. I held nothing back. Leaning in, that’s when I realized how much art can heal. Art can save. Because it did for me.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“After my mom died, I lived for months in this perpetual fear of dying. I was like, ‘Any day is the day.’ Knowing she died of a heart condition, anytime my heart rate would go up too much, I’d get even more anxious, thinking, ‘Now’s the moment. I could die right now.’ Well, there’s a story in 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑂𝑛𝑒 𝑇ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑠𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑂𝑛𝑒 𝐴𝑟𝑎𝑏𝑖𝑎𝑛 𝑁𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑠 called The Dream. And in my performance, the story before The Dream entailed this big ass party that involved me running around a massive field waving colorful smoke bombs. Because we were right across from West Point, which has this huge promenade, I was running with full physicality and stamina, only to get on stage and then have to sit down and pretend like I was asleep. So I’d be in front of 500 people every night, heart pounding out of my chest, thinking I was going to die on stage.

Now, The Dream tells the story of a man from Baghdad who has a dream that says, ‘Go to Cairo, because a fortune is waiting for you there.’ So he decides to go only to get beaten up, robbed, and thrown in jail the moment he arrives. While in jail, the jailer asks. ‘Why are you even here?’ He replies, ‘I had a dream that said come to Cairo, because there are riches for me here.’ The jailer says, ‘You’re a fool. Who would I be to leave my beautiful home with my fountain and rose garden and beautiful bricks?’ And as the jailer’s talking, he’s exactly describing this man’s home but doesn’t know it. So when the man goes to sleep that evening, he has another dream that tells him, ‘Go back to Baghdad. Your fortune is waiting in the garden of your home.’ He returns home, digs up the earth underneath his garden, and finds a wealth of gold and riches that have been there for him the whole time.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“I finished the contract, and I was done with New York. Like, ‘I don’t want none of this. I want peace. I need to find myself again. I need to heal. I need light. I need warmth.’ Once my mom passed, I was her sole inheritor. Coming out of a season of being broke and hungry, I now had funds and the ability to do anything I wanted. So I left. I was like, ‘I’m going to LA, where there are beaches and where I can sit in the sun and find myself.’ And also, where I could get paid to be young and youthful. I had just turned 25, I had friends out there from college, so I went out west. With my obsession about death, having seen so much of it, and me thinking I was going to die, my big question was, ‘What does it all mean?’ I started asking myself, ‘What is it like to die? How did my mom die? What was that like for her? Did it hurt? Was she in pain? What is death? You know what it is, but you don’t know what it is. What IS it?’ Long story short, I got drugged at a club one evening and almost died.

Being new to LA, I went out to this spot even though my spirit told me to stay home. And my friend gave me her drink after I lost mine, not knowing hers had been spiked with GHB, liquid ecstasy. When you compound that with alcohol and marijuana, it can cause your system to shut down and kill you. Well, I didn’t know I got dosed with it. And that’s when I thought I was dying. I went from feeling really great to really awful really quickly. I felt my heart rate slowing down. I was coughing up blood. My body was getting cold. By the time I got home I felt like, ‘This is it. Let me get in a warm shower. So if I go, I go there.’ After what happened to my mom, hospitals were the last place I wanted to go. I remember being back in the fetal position on the floor of my shower. I was in so much pain and just wanted it to stop. To end. I just wanted peace. To sleep, no matter how deep. And I said, ‘God, if I’m going to die, just let my mom come get me. And I’ll be cool with it. I’m okay. I’ll accept it.’ And I passed out.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“I woke up hours later, the water still running on me, sunbeams spraying through my shower window. And as I came to, I realized I was alive and immediately started laughing, like, ‘I’m alive?’ And then I started crying in pure shock and gratitude, like, ‘Why am I alive? I’m alive!’

It was then that I knew I had to start making some changes in my life: ‘There’s something here I’m living for. There’s something that wants me to live. I have to figure it out.’ So I did that. And I lost all my friends, ended my relationship, and had a fallout with my roommate over racial politics. Before I knew it, I was homeless, living in my car on the streets of LA. And this was all within a year of my mom’s death. It was just me in the back of a Pontiac Grand Prix, thuggin’ it, figurin’ out how to live under these new circumstances. From what I inherited from my mom, I paid off some student loans, got an apartment, and got some things for myself. But, by this point, I had no more of it. I fell into tribes of hippies and different spiritual people. I expanded my consciousness even more than I had in college.

Then, in the middle of things being f*cking awful, I ended up booking my first equity show. I was doing 𝑃𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑐𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑎, 𝑄𝑢𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐷𝑒𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑡 with the Celebration Theater, the country’s longest-standing LGBT theater. It’s a great show about a group of traveling drag queens across the Australian Outback told as a jukebox musical, so we sang all these hits from the ’70s. The show starts with ‘It’s Raining Men,’ and I’d come out in my trenchcoat, just living my best Chippendales life, and having so much fun. I was living, doing my thing again. It didn’t matter that I was sleeping in the back of my car every night. It didn’t matter that I was hungry because it was feeding my soul. But I’d leave these rehearsals knowing I was about to go to sleep on the street. And not only did it wake me up to realize how many people are homeless and sleeping in their cars, but it woke me up to how many people were just like me that I had completely ignored before.

I was getting paid sh*t even though I was equity, working my ass off as a swing for the show. Equity means you’re a unionized actor, which means producing companies have to follow certain protocols, you get health insurance, you have to be paid a certain rate. It’s a labor union, so you’re protected. So I was like, ‘Tickets are $75. I’m getting paid $25 per performance. I know the rest of y’all are making beaucoup money.’ Also, I knew how much the show was benefiting me and my mental health, so I questioned the producers like, ‘Why are you not opening this show up to more people? There are homeless, queer, youth struggling on the street who need this experience as much as I do. You could be providing that for them.’ But the theater turned them away. Even if they stood nearby listening to our rehearsals, they’d be accused of loitering and asked to leave. I thought, ‘This isn’t right. If I’m ever in a position to do better, I will.’”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“Eventually, I was in Beverly Hills, wearing an all black three-piece suit as a host in this ritzy-ass steakhouse, trying to make it all work. This would be my life for about a year and a half before getting a job at a five-star beachfront hotel in Malibu, which allowed me to finally get out of my car and into an apartment again. I had a place that was entirely too small and expensive in Koreatown. But I was grateful to have a bed, running water, a kitchen, and a bathroom. I was grateful to not be outside, grateful to have somewhere to cook a hot meal and stretch my feet. Basic needs. Not wants, needs. 

I was around all these celebrities and insanely wealthy people. I was looking at the beach every day. I was seeing dolphins. As a host, I’d stand there with a lot of free time to read during the day. And I had time to think about what my future could look like. So I’d be daydreaming, and I’d tell myself, ‘When I’m in my mid-40s, early-50s, it’d be nice to start a theater company. And my theater company is gonna do better than what I’ve seen from some of these other companies I’ve worked for. I might not know how or when. But, damnit, I’m gonna.’

Well, a kind woman named Kelly was staying at the hotel where I worked, and let’s just say she was generous. She’d bless you if you gave her a lighter or an umbrella. So, one day she called me over to the bar, where she’d post up with her red wine and do her thing. And she said, ‘I keep hearing you talk about this theater thing. What do you do?’ I told her, ‘I’m an actor. I want to have a theater company one day.’ She said, ‘Sounds interesting. Do you have a business plan? I’m here for a week.
Give me something.’ So every day after work, I’d go home and put together this plan for a theater company I wasn’t even ready to make.

I thought, ‘Let me come up with a name. Soul Siren Playhouse. We’d do this, and here’s a season I would do, and here’s a budget I would need, and this is why I’d do it, and this is what I want the company to do.’ I figured it out in a week and sent it to her. And she replied to my email saying, ‘I looked over everything and sent my correspondence via mail to your job.’ That kinda caught me off guard. I was like, ‘She could have just told me to f*ck off over email. Like, who sends personal letters anymore? This is strange.’

I went to work on my day off to get what she sent. It was a large envelope with a letter inside written on her own personal letterhead. It said, ‘I looked over everything. I think this is an exciting project. I’d love to help support. Here is what you’ll need for operational expenses.’ And there was a check for $25,000 dated March 5, 2019. The day my mom died four years prior.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“I was on the side of the Pacific Coast Highway crying my face off. I had just come out of such a trying season of being homeless, broke, hungry, lonely, and losing everything. And this woman, who didn’t know me from Adam or my dreams or my talent, saw me and believed in me off the cuff. I told myself, ‘Now I have to do this.’ So within the month, I incorporated the company and used the funds to get going. I didn’t know how I was going to do any of it, but I was going to keep stepping out on faith.

The idea was always to start Soul Siren Playhouse in LA, and keep the company there. Until COVID happened. I never dreamed about coming back to St. Louis. My mama wasn’t here anymore. The earth didn’t feel the same anymore. How was I supposed to come home when the one who made me feel like home wasn’t home? I didn’t want to be here. I’d rather be lost in the world and find myself there. So I was sitting in my apartment with my best- friend-turned-partner, Brad, like, ‘We’re here, but I don’t know why if we can’t do what we came here to do. We can’t act right now. We’re trapped in this small space. We can’t do half the things that make this city worth living in.’ I started questioning why I was living there.

I remembered my aunts saying, ‘We miss you so much. When are you gonna come back to St. Louis?’ And I said, ‘Since the world is shut down, I might come sometime this summer.’ One of my aunts asked, ‘You’re gonna move back?’ I said, ‘Absolutely not. Don’t ever ask me to move back.’ And this was all around Mother’s Day, which is close to my birthday.

The day after I said no, everything started saying — and I’m talking a deep ancestral pull — ‘Time to go home. The world’s changing quickly. And if the world’s about to fall apart, even if your mom’s not there, St. Louis is your home.’ Then, on my birthday, The Dream started speaking to me. Those words: ‘Go. Go back to St. Louis. A fortune is waiting for you in the garden of your home.’ And quickly, I was like, ‘I’m out. Today, maybe tomorrow. Swiftly.’ And within a week, I left and was back in St. Louis in May 2020. I simply said, ‘We will take the company home. That is where Soul Siren is supposed to be. That is who needs your mission. That is who needs your story. These are the people who need to see you. Your home needs you. Return.’ And I returned as a bit of a stranger in my own backyard.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“No one really knew me in St. Louis anymore because I had been gone for over a decade. So the past few years have been a slow road of me proving myself. This is the ‘Show Me State,’ afterall. And that’s the mentality here in St. Louis: ‘What you got? Show me something. Period.’ So we shot a film. We shot some music videos. We couldn’t do theater immediately due to the pandemic. But since I had just come from a film town, I knew how to be behind the camera, shoot, and edit. So I shot two PSA films in alignment with the social consciousness and social outreach mission of Soul Siren Playhouse. Our first film, 𝐷𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑠 𝐿𝑜𝑣𝑒, was about domestic violence in queer melanated relationships, because people normally only discuss the topic in heteronormative dynamics. Our second film was a horror thriller we released around Halloween called 𝑆𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐶𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑟 𝑈𝑛𝑠𝑒𝑒𝑛, exposing human and child trafficking influences in our modern media, and how maybe we need to look at a greater pandemic outside of Covid. And that’s what the company does. It creates high-caliber art that speaks to the heart, opens the mind, and hopefully transforms the soul. 

Then I started making small moves in the direction of professional creative leadership to help the company gain legitimacy and awareness. I knew it would be hard, and that I needed to do things strategically. So I got a fellowship assistant directing 𝐴 𝑀𝑖𝑑𝑠𝑢𝑚𝑚𝑒𝑟 𝑁𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡’𝑠 𝐷𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑚 with the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival to position myself outside of being an actor. I ended up getting my first acting role back in the city doing 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐴𝑓𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝐶𝑜𝑚𝑝𝑎𝑛𝑦 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑅𝑖𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑑 𝑙𝑙𝑙 with The Black Rep. I won the St. Louis Theater Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor in a drama. And I went on to do a Community Arts Training cohort with the Regional Arts Commission in addition to continuing to act on professional stages across the city.

Then I started figuring out how to apply for grants and pursue artist residencies. It was just the right move after move until I got to a place where I’d be able to produce my first professional stage production in the city. Soul Siren Playhouse did its first show, Amiri Baraka’s 𝐷𝑢𝑡𝑐ℎ𝑚𝑎𝑛, on the first day of Black History Month in 2024, right around the 60th anniversary of the play’s first production at Cherry Lane in New York. And to produce that show, especially as a first as a Black theater company, set a new bar and identity for us. We had arrived, and we weren’t just surviving, we were thriving. The pandemic didn’t kill us. Everything happened in its own proper divine time.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“I’m blessed to say I’ve had a strong stage career since I returned home. I was in 𝑀𝑢𝑟𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑂𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝐸𝑥𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠 at The Repertory, 𝐶ℎ𝑖𝑐𝑘𝑒𝑛 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝐵𝑖𝑠𝑐𝑢𝑖𝑡𝑠 at The Black Rep, 𝐴𝑖𝑑𝑎 and 𝐶𝑙𝑢𝑒 at STAGES, and an educational musical concert called The American Musical at The Sheldon. Most recently, I finished a literary artist residency with the Kranzberg Arts Foundation, where I developed 𝐷𝑒𝑎𝑡ℎ 𝐽𝑎𝑚, a poetic, dramatic retelling of half of the stories I told you here, and me reconciling my relationship in the space between life and death. Essentially, it’s shadow work presented on stage, and how you must embrace your shadow to heal and return to light. I was also able to leverage that time to make Soul Siren one of their newest resident organizations.

Currently, I run Soul Siren with Bradford Rolen, our director of operations, who I’ve known since fourth grade. It’s just us, a two-man crew holding it down. We’re also connected to a lot of theater companies in St. Louis. My passion for music has me teaching myself how to DJ. I’ve been designing video projections and editing, experimenting with visual and electronic art and media outside the theater space. So I’m back in the flow.

The love I have in the world and the love I’ve been shown, it’s been beside me the whole time. Friends and family support me. The love of my mother continues to heal, sustain, inspire, and elevate me. My mom’s sisters, my aunts, make sure to pour into me. They allow me to experience the love I miss from her at the times I need it most. Then to be celebrated as the artist I am in my own hometown, and to create with people I admire for audiences that reflect and resonate with my creative expression — my heart is full.

I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else. People are like, ‘You went to New York and LA, and you don’t want to go back?’ If you only knew my story. Then you’d know why I’m so rooted and comfortable being home.’ How good it feels to say, ‘I’m home.’ How powerful it feels to have a home. I feel powerful now. There’s something in me that’s indestructible. So many people have their hands on my shoulders saying, ‘Go. Go. Go. Go with bravery. And go with courage. And go with love. Go with everything we have given you to go.’”

 

 

Cameron Jamarr | playsiren.com

 

About Humans of St. Louis
Humans of St. Louis (HOSTL) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization with the mission of sharing photographic portraits and first-person stories to highlight local needs, issues, and experiences from people in the St. Louis region. HOSTL gives followers an intimate look into the lives and struggles of the people of St. Louis, one photo and story at a time, and is the second most popular “Humans of” site in the U.S. after Humans of New York.

RAC is excited to partner with Humans of St. Louis to highlight stories from some of the talented creatives and artists who call St. Louis home. All stories and photography in the RAC + Humans of St. Louis series were created by and are credited to Lindy Drew, co-founder, lead storyteller, and book co-author of Humans of St. Louis. 

Kyla Kikkawa

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“I thought I was going to study dance and movement in relation to neurological and neurodegenerative diseases. When I was 13 years old, my grandma was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. She’s still alive at 98, which is wild because she had an operation that relieved her cerebral spinal fluid, and it really helped. Now, when I go back home to California, I still dance with her. I try to take her to classes, too.

I came to St. Louis because there was a program at Washington University that was like, ‘We’re interested in allowing exploration of the intersection between multiple disciplines to solve greater problems. Basically, not limiting a problem to a single discipline.’ I thought, ‘This is right up my alley. They study this here? That’s what I want to do.’ After freshman year, I was going to finally jump into that work over the summer, but the pandemic happened. Then everything was online. As a sophomore, I had one in-person class per semester. I ended up taking an anthropology class called Music, Sound, and the Body with Esther Viola Kurtz, a professor who does research about capoeira. That’s how I found myself doing a research project that introduced me to KRUMP.

I had met Krumpers at the WashU underpass, which they called the tunnel spot, where students paint murals for their organizations and hang out. I don’t even know what happened, but I somehow blacked out and hopped in the cypher. Afterwards, they were like, ‘We’ll add you to our Facebook page.’ I’d been interested in this dance style for a long time. So I ended up reaching out to the admins, like, ‘I’m interested in learning. I’ll pay for lessons.’ Since then, one of them has been my big homie, my mentor.

I began interviewing dancers about the background of the KRUMP community here in St. Louis while also trying to incorporate this dance style into my own dance framework. So I mixed things together, got into my body in terms of expression and comfort level, and my center of gravity became krumping to R&B music and to KRUMP tracks, because that also has its own genre of music. I took lessons with Tyrus Watson, a.k.a. SmallTalk, a.k.a. X/O. Over time, he gave me the name Princezz. So now I’m also known as Princezz X/O. I’ve been in the KRUMP community ever since, and it’s been my first real community in St. Louis.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“I was always drawn to KRUMP. I just didn’t know if I could do it. Luckily, my mentors and the Midwest KRUMP community have shown me a lot of love over the years. Some have been dancing this style for a long time, and I’m super biased, but everybody’s incredibly creative. That said, they’re also a goofy group of people. KRUMP is an acronym that stands for Kingdom Radically Uplifted Mighty Praise. It really highlights the roots in praise dance and the connection to spirituality. Oftentimes, people will say they know the word or what’s being done when it’s danced. But they’ll connect it to the action of getting crunk.

Historically, the style’s pretty new, having only been around for about 25 years. And in St. Louis, the movement started around 2008-ish. Seeing the Krumpers in the club is my favorite. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it brings me so much joy. Especially when the whole cypher is doing the same thing.

I’ve been thinking about what my next steps are as an artist, and I’m interested in exploring the cypher and concentric circles across different cultures. The cypher was originally coined as a manifestation of Hip Hop, a space of possibility where freestyle would manifest, whether it’s rapping, dancing, or just expression in relation to the music’s beat. So, we cypher in KRUMP. And when all the energy is facing in, a lot of attention and energy can accumulate in that space. When we’re in that orientation, we’re all watching somebody dance, we’re feeling them, and we pick up quickly on what they’re doing. So if they do a move once, we’ll be there the next two times it happens. In KRUMP, there’s also a thing where anything done three times or repetitively is called a bang. So sometimes that’ll happen. But, overall, there are certain moves where, when the energy is high enough, the repetition is powerful.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“None of my time in college was ever linear, and I had this traumatic experience within my first three weeks there, but I didn’t psychologically feel the fallout until over a year after the event. I was trying to push through whatever was happening, not really connecting with anyone. I found myself just running and continuing to run. I was doing dance, a cappella, and musical theater, staying busy by taking classes across multiple schools. Then the pandemic made me stop. Even though my mind took some time to catch up, that’s when I started to feel the impact of what happened to me in my body.

I was in physical therapy for 10 months. Then I was having psychological symptoms of trauma, which I was dealing with in my sophomore year and beyond. There were times I felt like I was just surviving. And, honestly, KRUMP saved my life from where I was. I was trying to learn different ways of feeling music, and being in touch with and feeling autonomy over my body. I wanted to use dance to express myself to the fullest extent. And all of this coincided with me also learning KRUMP.

The community knew I was showing up for a reason, but they were never like, ‘Oh, you got something going on.’ Their response was just affirming. I’m a small Asian female from California who had never Krumped before, which is ironic because it started in LA, and I grew up in LA County. But the dancers never questioned me or what I was going through. They mostly saw that I was eager to learn. I felt like I didn’t necessarily get the help I needed in other places. And instead of feeling like I had to explain to myself what was going on with me, I danced. I took a lot of pride in watching how the Krumpers expressed themselves and evolved in their styles. And I came to learn that they moved energy through space to connect to the past, the future, and with their ancestors.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“In LA, the KRUMP community always tells me I’m welcome there, which is lovely. When I first went to visit, they were wondering, ‘Where did you learn to KRUMP?’ I’d tell them, ‘The Midwest. St. Louis, Missouri!’ To which they’d ask, ‘People do that there?’ It’s international now, which is beautiful because I studied abroad during my junior year and focused a lot on dancing. I took two dance courses. One was an introduction to somatic studies, and the other was a class I took in Chile. For the latter, we had a reggaeton unit, a dance hall unit, a hip hop unit, and we danced to house. That was the vibes. Our profe, our teacher, was also getting a master’s in education with an emphasis on neuroscience. I was like, ‘Cool!’ I recently found a video of me talking for like an hour in Spanish, trying to explain something or another. All this time during my education, I really tried to go from depression to long-term potentiation and bigger systems change in my brain. It was a lot. Then I realized I couldn’t do what I was trying to work through, especially in another language. Still, people listened, which was a beautiful thing, too.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

𝐻𝑜𝑤 𝑑𝑖𝑑 𝐾𝑅𝑈𝑀𝑃 ℎ𝑒𝑙𝑝 𝑦𝑜𝑢 ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑙?

“I identify as a fourth-generation Japanese American. My family experienced World War II in the U.S. and Japan. And there was a lot that wasn’t always talked about. So I feel like I’ve inherited a lot of blockages in terms of expression as it relates to my lineage and even my experiences. As a result, when I was going through some tough times and feeling uncomfortable talking about things, KRUMP was helpful in not needing to have words. KRUMP is a lot more linguistic than other dance styles. There are basic steps and other components, but we can immediately move to show different forms of expression, such as using our hands as language. On top of that, our hand movements are used to talk. In KRUMP, you can have so many conversations within the framework, and the nature of how physical it is, down to our hands. A conversation is happening. There are interactions back and forth. Maybe there’s a call and response. And there’s a lot of interacting with the self, with people around you, and with a greater spirit to say what you need to say. All the while, you’re building sentences through what you’re doing.

The hand movements mean different things, and where you are in space means different things. Sometimes when someone’s dancing, and people say, ‘I hear you,’ it’s not because someone’s talking out loud like with spoken word or rap, yet they’re still communicating. There’s so much seeing, feeling, and connecting in KRUMP. Especially when dancers really need to meet up, get something off their chest, and cipher. They could talk later about what’s going on inside of them if they wanted to. But Krumping is more about being able to have a space held for them to release whatever they don’t feel comfortable talking about. And, yeah, to do all this in a way where people hear what you’re saying without saying any words is wild to me.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

𝑊𝑜𝑤! 𝑀𝑦 𝑤ℎ𝑜𝑙𝑒 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑗𝑒𝑐𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡𝑜 𝑝𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑡𝑎𝑙𝑘. 𝐴𝑛𝑑 𝑦𝑜𝑢’𝑟𝑒 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒, “𝑊𝑒 𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑑𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑖𝑡 𝑜𝑢𝑡.”

“Yeah! And sometimes that’s where the KRUMP world and the dance world actually run into issues because people are talking too much. The world’s problems can’t be solved through dance battles. But a lot of things can be because it offers a space for conversation, release, and improvement. And it can do a lot of healing. Cyphering with others, moving energy in space, learning from each other, and pushing each other definitely makes me feel this overwhelming sigh of relief.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

𝑊ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑒𝑙𝑠𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑙𝑖𝑓𝑒 𝑑𝑜 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑓𝑒𝑒𝑙 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑑𝑜 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑑𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒?

“I feel it when I meet with people who are wiser and older than me. And when they can reflect things back to me in our verbal or written conversation. I especially feel it when I can ask them questions they haven’t thought about before. I like to ask random questions. When I can make somebody think differently about what they regularly talk about, I feel very seen and proud of myself. I identify as neurodivergent, so sometimes social cues and I will fight with each other. Sometimes I’ll dive into asking questions too deep, too fast. But usually, people are receptive to it. I have a notebook I bring around with me, and I’ll ask people things like, ‘What shape is time?’ That’s just me doing some qualitative people research, you know?”

 

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“Having random conversations in Spanish, I’ll tell people, ‘I only speak English and Spanish,’ and they’re always so confused. They’ll say, ‘But you don’t look like you do.’ And I’ll reply, ‘Yes.’

I love Latin America. My first trip to Latin America was to Nicaragua. My high school had a relationship with a sister school there, and I was supposed to go back, but the country had a political uprising. So when I studied dance at WashU, I was also studying Spanish and did a study abroad in Santiago de Chile. And while I was there, I scoured Chile for the Krumpers. I finally found them near the tail end of my trip. There was at least one KRUMP family somebody was building, so it was very new. But I got to meet up with them outside a metro station and session with them. Even though their community is smaller than in other places, connecting with them was so special. I’d been searching for months, and I ended up hitting up the leader — the big homie, the mentor of the fam — on Instagram. I was like, ‘Hey! I’m from the U.S., and I’ve been looking for y’all.’ At first, I asked one of my dance teachers, but she didn’t know anybody. As I got more comfortable speaking Spanish, I kept asking around until someone told me, ‘Oh, I’ve seen this one guy.’ What was really cool was that when I met up with him, he asked, ‘So how do my littles look compared to dancers in the U.S.?’ It’s great to still follow them and watch their progress.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

𝑊𝑎𝑠 𝑖𝑡 ℎ𝑒𝑙𝑝𝑓𝑢𝑙 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑑𝑢𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑐𝑜𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑔𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑡𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑜𝑓𝑓 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑆𝑡. 𝐿𝑜𝑢𝑖𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑙𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑎𝑏𝑟𝑜𝑎𝑑?

“Yes, I needed to get away from the WashU bubble. I needed time away to process things, figure out how to be more in my body, live in the present, and appreciate new experiences. Actually, I was processing in Spanish for a lot of the time. And Chilean Spanish is so unique, too. I did do some dancing, mostly at the university, which was beautiful because they gave me the Mejor Compañera award, which translates to the Best Classmate. Then, when I came back to St. Louis to finish college, I think I had a bit of reverse culture shock. St. Louis cracks me up because if people don’t know you here or what your intentions are, there can be a hesitancy to connect. Then, once you mention something or somebody you have in common, there can be a lot of excitement, immediate trust, and comfort. That was actually quite similar to what I experienced in Chile.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“I mentioned how I take a lot of pride in bringing up moments that hadn’t happened before with people who are wiser or older than me. Well, while I was in Chile, the coordinator for my exchange program had lived in the U.S. for some time and was giving a tour at a former detention center. And during the tour, he revealed to us that he was actually detained during the Chilean dictatorship at that site. I was interested in talking to him more, so we got coffee soon after. And I asked him, ‘What does dignity mean to you? Or, what is your definition of dignity?’ And he gave me an answer.

Later that night, he emailed me: ‘This question has been circling in my head. I gave you an answer, but I need to add another part.’ So he explained how dignity relates to one’s own physical circumstances. Then he added that it also pertains to how one perceives what their abilities and resources are, especially considering their lived reality of what’s possible. I felt so honored to spend time with him and then to hear back. How special that he wrote to say, ‘Thank you for helping me think in a new way.’ That was one of the proudest moments of my life. Because, for me, I came to understand that healing from intergenerational trauma is a global thing and that my silly questions may hold the power to inspire new perspectives about humanity.

There’s so much untangling that needs to be done throughout all of our lineages and, in particular, for minority communities in the U.S. Being Japanese American, I’m not always able to untangle all of that for myself. I dream about what it would be like to globally redefine what we consider to be humanity. And that might seem idealistic or far-fetched. But my small version of practicing that was kind of by asking this man that question. As somebody who was detained during a dictatorship, who saw some crazy things and then went on to retell them to people at the actual site where it happened, I was so curious to know more from him. That I could even open up a mind like his when he already had to open up his mind so much, and heal to the point of being able to publicly share his memories for the betterment of understanding the past so we can go into the future, that was impactful for me.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“I’m grateful to be able to look back at certain things in my family history and know that those things were true; they were factual. It’s not always the case that people can look back in their family’s history and say, ‘This is what I know is true.’ I know I’m Japanese American. I know I’m fourth-generation. And I know because I’ve had family around to tell me that, and family who were interested in documenting that.

My grandparents were all born in the United States. Two of them were interned during World War II, and two of them moved back to Japan and were stuck there during the war, even though they were American. Experiencing World War II as an American-born Japanese person was not great in either country. And for my grandparents in Japan, in particular, there was a lot they didn’t talk about. I had family members who were in the city when the A-bomb dropped and passed away from the impact of that. And my grandma and her sibling saw the plane before it dropped the bomb. That time in history feels so far away. Yet, I have somebody I’m very close to who witnessed that, felt the impact of it, lost a family member to it, and still struggles as a result. So I think a lot about the impact of intergenerational trauma in my family as it relates to nuclear warfare, citizenship, erasure, and loss. Being American and being in a Japanese military school, along with familial trauma experienced from nuclear warfare, the topic is delicate. I’ve seen the desire not to talk about it because it was complicated and complex as it relates to citizenship and coming back to the U.S. and making a family here.

I’ll explain to people, ‘I don’t speak Japanese because we lost that language with the third generation. People who were in the U.S. definitely weren’t learning or speaking it when they were interned because they were forced to surrender their ancestry. I mean, I had some family members who were moved to a different camp because they didn’t note on a questionnaire that they would surrender all of their loyalty to the Japanese government.

What’s so unbelievable about all of this is that one set of my grandparents was interned while my other set of grandparents came back from overseas to live in California. And my dad’s parents got married on the same day in 1953 as my mom’s parents. Plus, they both had their wedding receptions at the same venue. And no one in our family ever knew any of that until my parents were engaged. It’s funny looking back at pictures because both weddings had similar styles in the ’50s. I got a tattoo of the year to commemorate that story and that time. It sparks a lot of conversations when people say, ‘You don’t know anything about 1953.’ I’m like, ‘That’s fair. I didn’t claim to.’ But it’s a good conversation starter. And it’s a reminder for me of all of those histories and even the lives before them in our genealogy that led to that year.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“It’s been a lot of putting pieces together in ways that feel central to understanding my family as it currently is. And as it relates to understanding how I feel in relation to other communities, other minorities, and the history of the United States. A lot of these things were never talked about in my family, so the stories weren’t transmitted. As a result, I was on a hunt for knowledge. Through my digging into the research, I came to the conclusion that the citizenship of my grandma’s sister was American, and we lost her to the A-bomb in Japan. Once I understood that, I understood why there was silence around it in my family. They were in survival mode to get through certain things. And then there was this push towards, ‘Okay, we’re gonna keep things very American, very light.’ It’s painful to explain something like that to younger generations. So it just never got passed down orally. I did find this shirt in my grandparents’ house, though. When I saw it, I was like, ‘This is mine forever now!’”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“I’ve kind of felt like the black sheep in my family. I’ll get very emotional about some of these things. Sometimes I’ll cry and feel grateful at the same time. It’s hard for my grandma and my parents to cry. And if I can cry, and they haven’t been able to, then that’s a bit bittersweet. But I’m hoping that through my passions and being intentional about the art I’m creating, I can bridge cultures and worlds. It seems like a lofty goal, but my dream would be to support efforts of breaking intergenerational curses or trauma through art and movement. In time, my hope is that I’ll be able to show my family, and they’ll understand. They do acknowledge that dance has always been my path in terms of finding myself. As it relates to my ancestors, in particular, I think about them not having the privilege to pursue artistry in this way because they were too in survival mode. Although I did come to find out that my grandparents, who lived in Japan, also loved to dance recreationally. And they did ballroom dance together. So, how special. But there wasn’t a lot of open emotional expression in those generations. That’s also why KRUMP and movement and me not needing to be confined by words are such a privilege. In thinking about my lineage, it’s an honor to dance because of the suppression in my Japanese culture that’s been present for more lifetimes than I even know.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“Lately, I’ve been struggling with taking a leap to put some of my visions into reality. I’ve been studying large choreographic works on groups since college. I ran a team at WashU for a couple of years, working with 30 dancers to help them align with an appreciation for hip hop in history. And since then, I’ve been more on the freestyle side, helping dancers bring their visions to life, and bringing my dance style into other people’s choreographed works. So I’m trying to figure out, ‘Is that my main offer? How can I bring groups together to make something larger?’ I’m very much a fusion dancer. And in this space, at That Untitled Project, I was grateful to name my class Fusion Hip Hop, even though it wasn’t just that. I dance other street styles, too, so we also talked about the geographical and historical origins of many things relating to dance.

What resonates with you is what’s most important. Because there’s so much controversy in the world, when you’re attracted to something, keep that spark and follow it. So, for me, I’m thankful to have connected with others who are also looking at their lineages. And I enjoy figuring out how to connect the dots. I’ve been in more conversations with people passionate about showing the impact of dance as it relates to holistic wellness and mental health. It would be cool to champion movement as a tool for healing in our community in St. Louis, too. St. Louis has shown up for me when it comes to my own personal development and intergenerational healing. Things can be so tough here. And having lived here, I see it and want to fight for this place. I also want to fight other people when they don’t understand it.”

 

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 

“Through mentoring youth, it’s also been beautiful to show them that their art is valuable. I knew a 17-year-old who had lost her mom to drug use and who I low-key considered adopting at one point. I considered it, but I was 23, and it just wasn’t the right time. Still, we really connected, and it felt good to be there for her when she’d reach out. Having at least one trusting relationship with an adult will make a huge difference. And that’s what I was for her in her time of need. She’s such a talented artist who really wants to help everybody around her, to see the people she loves have everything they want. And I have these words to say about her now because recently I had to write a reference for her. She reached out to apply for a housing program. She’s 18 now and was like, ‘I’m really proud of myself. I applied. Would you write me a reference?’ And since then, she moved into the program. But I had known her for a couple of years, and she was in our art program one summer when I got a call. So I reached out and told her, ‘I heard you’re sleeping in your car outside of a QuikTrip. We need to talk about that.’ So, it’s been great to be able to still be a source of trust and somebody she came back to to confide in. And how special for her to figure out how to also want great things for herself.”

Kyla Kikkawa | kylasumiko.com

 

About Humans of St. Louis
Humans of St. Louis (HOSTL) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization with the mission of sharing photographic portraits and first-person stories to highlight local needs, issues, and experiences from people in the St. Louis region. HOSTL gives followers an intimate look into the lives and struggles of the people of St. Louis, one photo and story at a time, and is the second most popular “Humans of” site in the U.S. after Humans of New York.