Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. We here at WNYC partner occasionally with a group called Theater of War that does a very interesting thing. They pick a story. Lately, these have been works of journalism, but earlier on in the group's history, they focused on, among other things, the work of Sophocles, and they invite big-name actors to perform readings of the story. Then along with other relevant voices, they hold open discussions about the reading, the content, with an audience that has a particular interest in the story. Tonight, starting at eight o'clock right here on our air, you'll hear the first installment of a series called Theater of War on the radio. Tonight's story focuses on how schools and educators in Minneapolis are are navigating the situation with federal immigration agents camping out in their cars just outside of school property. There's going to be a reading that's part of this by the actor Sam Waterston. We're going to preview it now with Bryan Doerries, artistic director of Theater of War Productions. Bryan, thanks for joining us live on the radio about nine hours before your show.

Bryan Doerries: Oh, good morning. Thank you so much, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: For folks who aren't familiar with your work, what's the shape that a Theater of War production usually takes?

Bryan Doerries: Our projects all take the same basic form. It's a charged and powerful reading of an important text that has something to say about a pressing issue in the present moment, that could be anything from an ancient Greek tragedy to a poem to a historic document to works of journalism, performed by some of the best actors on the planet as a framework for a discussion that follows. In our model, the discussion is the main event. The whole point of performing these texts is to create the conditions for dialogue and for understanding and for discussions across difference that wouldn't have happened had we not performed the texts we present.

Brian Lehrer: I see that the origin story is that Theater of War Productions grew out of a series of readings of the classic Greek playwright Sophocles with a discussion component afterwards. You want to tell us a little bit of that origin story?

Bryan Doerries: Sure. We got our start performing in hospitals and then ultimately for the US military back in 2008, 2009. Our first audience was 400 marines in a Hyatt ballroom in San Diego at a moment when it was seen as a career-ending gesture to talk about mental health in the US military. These Marines had just returned from deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.

We performed six scenes from two ancient Greek plays about the Trojan War and scheduled a discussion afterwards, having no idea what would happen. What happened that night is really emblematic of what happens every time we perform. That discussion, which was to be 45 minutes, ended up lasting three and a half hours. Marines quoted lines from memory from the plays as if they'd known them their entire lives and related them to stories they'd never shared in private, let alone in front of 400 of their peers. We obviously won't do that on the radio. We have a tight hour tonight, but that energy that comes from hearing great actors read powerful texts always results in powerful discussions.

Brian Lehrer: Are you going to take calls after the reading?

Bryan Doerries: Absolutely. It's a call-in show. That's the sort of innovation for us. We've done some work on Zoom, so we've prepared a little bit for the liveness, but the pressure of the short format of the radio, I'm excited because I feel like this is the origin of radio. One of my heroes is Orson Welles, who had a theater company called the Mercury Theater, where he had great actors performing live on the air nationally many nights of the week. Sometimes those actors were handed the scripts on the way to the radio station. I feel like we just cast our last actor yesterday, Julianne Moore, who will be joining us, and we basically handing her the script and going live on the air and seeing what happens.

Brian Lehrer: Gee, a call-in show, a live call-in show. What a concept-- [crosstalk]

Bryan Doerries: I know. You're the exemplar of par excellence of call in shows.

Brian Lehrer: It just might work.

Bryan Doerries: Well, we'll take your blessing, Brian. I really appreciate that.

Brian Lehrer: That's very nice. Why theater of war, by the way? Why not theater of thoughtfulness or something?

Bryan Doerries: Well, it's a much longer story, but there's an idea that theater and storytelling in the Western world was born out of military conflict. By that I mean the Homeric epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey were stories passed down from generation to generation by veterans about their experiences of war. Greek tragedy, which is the origin story of our company, was not just a form of entertainment in the 5th century BC, it was a technology, a civic ritual aimed at communalizing the trauma of war. That's why the plays, a lot of the plays dealt with subjects that those who'd been to war understood.

Sophocles was a playwright as well as a general in the Athenian army. From that lens, and that's been the lens we've been looking at it for some time, theater and storytelling emerges as a kind of offshoot of not just war, but of democracy itself, and a way of communalizing our experiences, and I think hopefully bringing people into healthy relationship as a community to face some of the darkest and hardest aspects of what it means to be human together.

Brian Lehrer: Your appearance right now is not going to wind up being much of a call-in segment, but listeners are wondering if anybody out there right now has been to any Theater of War event. We've done some with them live in the green space, or maybe some other Theater of War event that you want to call in and talk about. 212-433-WNYC. If anybody out there happens to have attended one or participated in one, 212-433-9692, or anything else you might want to ask Bryan Doerries, artistic director of Theater of War. Tell us about tonight's event. I mentioned Sam Waterston, you said you've added Julianne Moore. What exactly are you doing on the air tonight at 8:00?

Bryan Doerries: Sam Waterston, Julianne Moore, and Daphne Rubin-Vega are going to read two pieces. One is a New Yorker article called ICE's Assault on a Minnesota School District, about the challenges that parents, teachers, school administrators, and children are facing in Minnesota, but in cities and communities all across the country when navigating the practices of ICE and federal immigration enforcement. It's a powerful piece that drops us into, essentially, the day that Liam Ramos was abducted from the streets of Minneapolis along with his father and sent to Texas Detention Center.

Then after we've read that, we're going to take calls. We're going to hear from, hopefully, teachers and administrators and parents who are out there in the New York City community and beyond who are struggling with questions about how do we protect our children, how do we prepare for this type of incursion into our communities?

At the latter half of the last segment, we're going to have Sam Waterson read this beautiful judicial opinion by Judge Fred Biery in Texas that was actually written later that same day, January 31st, in which he orders the immediate release of Liam Ramos. It reads more like a poem than a judicial opinion. That's why we wanted to hear a great actor like Sam imbue it with all of the subtlety that, I think, he'll be able to bring tonight.

Brian Lehrer: We didn't ask you to prepare for this, so I don't know if you can do it, but I wonder if you have that court decision.

Bryan Doerries: I do.

Brian Lehrer: -and could give people a little bit of a sample. Just read a few lines, if you think you can do that.

Bryan Doerries: Sure. I'm going to start from the beginning. "Before the court is the petition of asylum seeker Adrian Conejo Arias and his five-year-old son for protection of the great writ of habeas corpus. They seek nothing more than the same, some modicum of due process and the rule of law. The government has responded. The case has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children. This court and others regularly send undocumented people to prison and orders them deported, but do so by proper legal procedures."

He goes on to quote, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, of course he references the Great writ of habeas corpus and Scripture itself, and one of the last quotes that he references is from the New Testament. He just quotes the line, but he said it's Jesus wept. There's a whole literary flavor to this opinion, which Judge Biery closes with a judicial order in the constitutional dyke, "It is so ordered." Of course I'm not Sam Waterston, but I'm really excited to hear Sam perform it, imbue it, embody it tonight on the radio.

Brian Lehrer: No, I can't wait. The judge from the bench wrote, "Jesus wept"?

Bryan Doerries: He didn't write Jesus wept. He just quoted Scripture at the very end. At the very, very end, under his signature, it says, "Fred Biery, United States District Judge." He includes a picture of Liam Ramos, which I think we all know, of Liam standing with his backpack on his shoulders and his bunny hat next to an ICE vehicle. He says, "Credit bystander." Then under that it says Matthew 19:14 and John 11:35, Jesus wept.

There's an emotional quality to this opinion that I think a good actor can bring us closer to. That's the idea behind the series, that the mediation of actors performing important texts of our time, whether they're pieces of journalism or their historic texts, like this opinion, can bring us closer to the news and make it far less abstract. Just like that photo of Liam, it can move us in ways that maybe we need to be moved.

Brian Lehrer: I love this idea of reading an actual court decision, by the way, and I could think of a couple of related examples. Every year on the fourth of July, NPR hosts, take a few lines of the Declaration of Independence each and read the Declaration of Independence on, I think it's usually Morning Edition. I was invited to participate a few years ago when the Mueller Report came out in a bookstore event, where they had a lot of people come in and read some paragraphs or a few pages from the Mueller report each and read that whole thing out loud. That one took like a day or a day and a half. It was such a long document.

This idea of reading from actual documents, I'm sure many Supreme Court decisions or dissents would be really interesting in this kind of context as well. I think that's awesome what you're doing. Fleurette in Flatbush has been to at least one of your events. Fleurette, you're on WNYC with Bryan Doerries, artistic director from Theater of War. Hi.

Fleurette: Good morning, Brian. I'm so glad I finally got through. It's Fleurette from Flatbush. Well, I'm calling because I participated in one of Bryan's events before COVID, Brian. Are you both Brians?

Bryan Doerries: We're both Brians. One with a Y and one with an I. Yes.

Fleurette: Yes, I know.

Brian Lehrer: He does it wrong.

Bryan Doerries: I beg to differ.

Brian Lehrer: By the way, for Brian Lehrer's information, I'm an old caller, I celebrated my 92nd birthday on New Year's Eve.

Bryan Doerries: Congratulations.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, Congratulations.

Fleurette: That's how faithful I've been to you. Okay?

Brian Lehrer: Awesome.

Fleurette: I saw Bryan Doerries back before COVID. This was when you had, I think, probably the last presentation at St. Anne's in Brooklyn. Do you remember that?

Bryan Doerries: Antigone and Ferguson. Absolutely.

Fleurette: Yes. Well, I'm glad. Of course, I was going to say, "I think it was Antigone," and it was. You let me be the last one to speak. Remember?

Bryan Doerries: I do remember hearing your voice. I do remember. Yes, absolutely.

Fleurette: It's a long time. I've been very able to follow them. Actually, when I was in Acapulco about three years ago, you did one, and I was able to hear you down there.

Brian Lehrer: From Acapulco to St. Anne's, she's following Theater of War. That's unbelievable. Fleurette, do you remember at St. Anne's what you said?

Fleurette: Oh, well, I was very pro-- How can I say? I was very supportive of our policy, our constitution. I just remembered, in my last line, I said, it's everybody's country, because the division was really starting to spawn, and you see where we are now. It's still my comment, it's everybody's country. It's not just for the racists and the misogynists and all the others. There's so many good people out there.

Brian Lehrer: Fleurette, thank you very much for calling in. Keep calling US when you're 93, 94, 95. By the way, listener writes, "You can find the judge's opinion, same thing Sam Waterston will be reading tonight, on page 18 of The New York Times on February 7th. Of course, the print edition, you can find it online as well, for people who want to just read through the text." Another person writes about this idea of reading court decisions. Shades of Nina Totenberg reading the Supreme Court dialogue. Heather in Brooklyn has attended a few Theater of War events. Hi, Heather, you're on WNYC.

Heather: Hi. Thanks, Brian. Always happy to call in. I've been to a couple of Theater War events, but recently was at the MLK one at BAM, and it was a Drum Major Instinct. Brian, I just want to say every time I go, I come away energized and actually a little hopeful. Even though we're in a really tentative, chaotic kind of somewhat scary time, there's always hope when I come out of your Theater of War production.

That one, what was interesting was the celebrity, and I'm using air quotes, was Jeffrey Wright, but Tish James got the biggest applause, from what I could tell, and obviously Mayor Mamdani, Alvin Bragg, Jumaane Williams, I think I got them all right. Thank you so much for the work you do. It keeps me hopeful, and I think that's really important.

Bryan Doerries: Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Heather, thank you very much. Well, is that part of the goal, to instill hope, or when you're picking which plays or works of journalism or original documents like this court decision that you choose, is it to instill hope or any other particular emotion?

Bryan Doerries: Well, I would say, it inspires hope to face these challenges as a community. That's what we see, you hear in both callers responses. There's a sense of solidarity and I don't have to face this alone. From that comes hope. To be clear, we're also talking about some of the most challenging aspects of what it means to be an American citizen at this moment. We're talking about situations of life or death stakes. The hope isn't in the play, the hope isn't in the story necessarily, the hope is in the audience that comes together to bear witness to its truth.

There's a line in the article that we're going to be reading, where the principal of Liam's high school goes to meet with a fifth grade class, and he asked them if they're scared of ICE, and many of the students raise their hands. Then Jessica Winter says the response in the room is evidence of the old adage, courage is not the absence of fear. I think that's where the hope can be found, in collective courage and bearing witness and hearing each other's perspectives across difference, the power of a shared text to bring us together in unexpected ways.

Brian Lehrer: When you're looking for works of journalism as those shared texts to bring us all together, a listener writes, "Do they source only from specific journalism outlets like The New Yorker or New York Times?" How do you look? Because you can't do a piece every day, so you're obviously required to be selective in what you perform and what you try to recruit some of these big-names actors to perform or to read. How do you choose?

Bryan Doerries: Well, so far we've worked with The New Yorker, The Atlantic, ProPublica. Those have been the core outlets. We're looking to expand. We're excited about engaging with other reputable, fact-checked-for journalistic outlets. I'm really excited and bullish about the idea of performing local journalism from around the country as well and centering the perspectives of local reporters writing about national issues that affect us all.

As we continue to expand this idea, we're going to continue to work on stories that touch all Americans, especially locally here in New York, as we're on WNYC, but I'm excited about finding and platforming and elevating the voices of local journalists too. It's very early days. I would like to do this every day, to be clear, Brian, just like you. I think we could do an article a day, but not put the cart before the horse, tonight is sort of an experiment and we're excited to hear what listeners think of it.

Brian Lehrer: I think Jacob in Queens is calling in with a suggestion for something you might choose as a reading. Jacob, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Jacob: Hi. Thanks for having me on. A long time ago, I read a play by a German Jewish author. His name was Peter Weiss. He wrote a play that he called The Investigation. In German, it's called Die Ermittlung. This was basically transcripts of trials of Nazi war criminals. It was a fascinating read at the time. I think the play came out in the 1960s.

Bryan Doerries: Yes.

Jacob: He was a German Jew that fled the Nazis to Sweden and he settled after the war, became a Swedish citizen. Then he visited Germany after the war a number of times, and he wrote a number of books about that, among which was this play.

Bryan Doerries: I'm pleased to report that we have performed that play, Jacob. We performed it at the Museum of Jewish Heritage downtown in New York City, and we also performed it at St. Anne's Church for a huge audience that spanned many different demographics, including large Jewish population as well as African Americans. There was such a powerful sharing that came out of that performance, where people could see past their own historic traumas and acknowledge the suffering of others.

I would say that's also the goal of our work, to see past our own challenges and acknowledge the suffering of others, even people we don't agree with, because to not acknowledge the suffering of others is an injury unto ourselves. I really appreciate you mentioning it. We've done it a couple of times here in New York City. We'd love to do The investigation again. I don't imagine every caller who's going to call in will name a play that we've performed before, but we have about 45 projects in our repertory and it continues to expand every month.

Brian Lehrer: That's awesome. Jacob, thank you for calling in with that. As we start to run out of time, I will give listeners one more time, and for those who've just been joining us, details about tonight's eight o'clock special. This is the first in what's ultimately going to be four different Theater of War on the Radio productions. What do you have coming up?

Bryan Doerries: Well, we don't actually know. Tonight, obviously, we have these two articles that I've mentioned before, and we're really excited for people to tune in and participate as callers. Every month we're going to do one, and we want to be responsive to the moment. I was talking about the Mercury Theater and Orson Welles and handing actors scripts on the way into the studio. I think it's going to be like that, because in order to be responsive to the present moment, we have to wait until the right story emerges.

In this case, the judge's opinion, which was flagged by one of the producers here at WNYC, Emily Botein, we said, "Oh, that's the right story. Now let's find something to pair it with," and there turned out to be this beautiful article in the New Yorker by Jessica Winter that spoke to the other part of what Judge Biery's opinion is referencing, the actual abduction of Liam and what it did to the school and the community.

That's how it's going to, organically, flow. We'll definitely take suggestions from listeners, writers. You can write us at info@theaterofwar.com, and we hope there'll be a nice reciprocity with people who participate and listen and the choices we ultimately make in the months ahead.

Brian Lehrer: Theater of War on the radio, episode one tonight at eight o'clock to hear from Julianne Moore, Sam Waterston, and Daphne Rubin-Vega, along with Kai Wright, my former WNYC colleague who's now at the Guardian, maybe you've heard Kai's voice on the promos for this, and Bryan Doerries, artistic director of Theater of War, who's been my guest for this preview. Bryan, good luck tonight and thanks for joining us today.

Bryan Doerries: Thanks so much, Brian. I really appreciate it.

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