Today we’d like to introduce you to Harrison Young.
Hi Harrison, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself
Hey, thanks for having me! My name is Harrison Young, I’m thirty-six years old, and I advocate for new plays and local playwrights.
I accidentally fell into a Theatre class in high school because they wouldn’t let me take P.E. again. I was a small-town athlete and video gamer… I didn’t know that I would like theatre!
I had a great teacher though, Ms. Melissa White, who let me do a monologue from Steve Martin’s movie The Jerk. I hadn’t seen the movie at the time, but I had a lot of fun doing it anyway and she didn’t get mad at me for messing up her desk (sorry!). From that point on, I knew theatre would stay in my life to some capacity.
I ultimately studied Theatre in college afterward, where I trained as an actor but discovered my talent of writing along the way thanks to a non-credit class by Kali Meister. That undercurrent became my forefront over time, bringing me to New York at one point and then eventually back to Tennessee to make me who I am today.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Obstacles are all over the place — it’s all about navigating them where you can and sometimes even gaining momentum from them if possible. Everyone’s journey is different, and mine is certainly not the hardest despite the many challenges I’ve felt. Thank goodness for the impressive people having to deal with harder problems.
The biggest challenge lately is the pandemic! The theatre industry as well as so many venues have faced hardships and critical breaking points. It’s hard because playwrights need industry and venue around! We also generally don’t want to get COVID-19 though, so one thing I’ve done to adapt around this is treat theatre like our venues are digital now.
There have been many readings and workshops handled online in different video streaming apps since March 2020. The magic of theatre is certainly different in this space, but it’s also been exciting to discover things in a field where the industry has largely resisted up to this point. It’s been rewarding to see people both viewing and acting worldwide in unique ways like this.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I write plays and support other writers! I serve as the Tennessee Regional Rep for the Dramatists Guild of America as well as the Literary Manager for the Tennessee Stage Company in town.
I also mentor a local playwright each year through my Next Rung Productions program! This year Next Rung has got Sherridan Smee creating a play from scratch, and you can catch her play later this year when it’s complete. I teach other playwriting workshops along the way too.
The goal’s to make things easier for writers now than it was for me when I first started writing, so it’s really rewarding to see people work hard for opportunities and then land them in really cool ways.
Can you talk to us a bit about happiness and what makes you happy?
In the arts, I love the writing process. It allows me to create stories that are hopefully unique for others.
It’s also a great chance to learn things about myself. Some of those lessons are on the pages and some of them are off, but when I focus on every aspect of a heightened conflict it gives me interesting opportunities to walk in other people’s shoes.
Outside of the arts, I got some new cat toys recently for my calico Brighton. I smile every time we play together. Whenever I can, I also like to visit and eat in every county of the state (55/95 counties so far) as well as play video games (most recently Windjammers 2).
Contact Info:
- Email: NextRungProductions@gmail.com
- Website: https://nextrungproductions.wixsite.com/home
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thetennesseatin/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NextRungProductions
- Other: https://newplayexchange.org/users/13207/harrison-young
