[music]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. If you missed hearing our former colleague, Rebecca Carroll's insightful stories and criticism on WNYC, here's a treat. She's curating a celebration of Black women and nonbinary people who come together for live performances of storytelling, music, comedy, and monologs. One of the things Rebecca was and is so good at is complicating our understanding of identity, one of many reasons her work has reached so many people. The new performances that she's curating are called In Love and Struggle, this new particular thing coming up In Love and Struggle, Volume 3, The Future is Around Us. It's produced by The Meteor.

The performances will take place this Thursday through Saturday at the Minetta Lane Theater in lower Manhattan. This year's installment is inspired by science fiction writer, Octavia Butler, and other futurists. We'll hear more now from Rebecca Carroll, writer and cultural critic, author of her book, Surviving the White Gaze: A Memoir, and former host and editor at WNYC, and Cree Summer, one of the preeminent voice actors in America. You will recognize Cree's voice, if not the name, and a contributor to this year's installment of In Love and Struggle. Rebecca, welcome back to WNYC, and Cree, welcome.

Rebecca Carroll: Thank you, Brian. It's great to be here.

Cree Summer: Thank you, Brian. It's a beautiful day to hang out with you.

Brian Lehrer: Rebecca, by way of background, can you introduce everybody to the series and how you got the idea for it?

Rebecca Carroll: Yes, for sure. The title of the show comes from an encounter I had with Alice Walker almost 25 years ago, where I went to one of her readings and I had a book and I was just a young starting out baby journalist writer, and I asked her to sign my book. She asked me what my name was, and I said Rebecca, and, of course, her daughter's name is Rebecca, so she said, "I know how to spell that." Then she signed it "For Rebecca In Love and Struggle, Alice Walker."

As my career evolved as a writer, as a Black woman writer, it was so resonant, that moment and that interaction with her. It just occurred to me and occurs to me more vividly every day that all we do for and with each other as Black women is in love for each other and in struggle for us. That is how the series came about.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Alice Walker. Do you want to also introduce our listeners to The Meteor and say a bit about how the company's work and mission intersect with yours?

Rebecca Carroll: Yes, for sure. The Meteor is a collective of storytellers and artists and creatives who believe in the power of storytelling to change the world. Just that small thing, changing the world, but to enhance racial equity and gender equality and the things that we, of many identities, are constantly trying to improve upon and amplify.

Brian Lehrer: Before we bring in Cree, this is the third installment of In Love and Struggle. I want to play a short clip from the first installment to give people a little context. This took place back in 2020, just before the pandemic forced us all indoors. Here's activist, educator, and organizer Brittany Packnett Cunningham. Actually, do you want to set up what we're about to hear? You brought us this clip?

Rebecca Carroll: Yes. This is Brittany Packnett Cunningham, as you said, and she came and talked about what it meant for her and Black women to wear the color white that was popularized by the Suffragette movement.

Brian Lehrer: Here she is.

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: I wear white for every vote that can free up my uterus and my schooling, my living wage, and my safety.

[applause]

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: I wear white for my great, great grandmother who was baptized into your hell, but who would always create her own glory. I pledge allegiance not to your flag, but to her blood and her sweat, to her wildest dreams that I am responsible to make manifest.

Brian Lehrer: Any other past highlights you want to shout out for anybody who's interested in perusing the archive real quick before we get to the new thing and to Cree's role?

Rebecca Carroll: Sure. The first one that you just played was Brittany Packnett. We also had Anita Hill and Sasheer Zamata. Then we came back in 2021 with A Black Woman Grows in Brooklyn, which had Black women from the ages of 17 to 90, and that was Carmen de Lavallade. Those can be found on Audible and The Meteor's website.

Brian Lehrer: Cree Summer, I see that you've agreed to read a small part of your opening monolog from this performance that's going to take place Thursday, Friday, Saturday at the Minetta Lane Theater, but you want to set up for us a little bit how you came to be involved in Volume 3?

Cree Summer: Certainly, I'd love to set it up. I'm not going to suck I tell you. I'm going to leave that monolog for the beautiful people who decide to come and hang out with us on 14th, 15th, and 16th. I came to be involved through Rebecca. She contacted me about the possibility of us collaborating and expanding her work with Surviving the White Gaze and the connection between how we met and the performance of In Love and Struggle is just a mirror.

As soon as I read Rebecca's book, I couldn't believe how accurately she told my story. This is what I find when Black women come together as complete strangers. We sit down together and we talk for a period of about 2.5 seconds and in that moment we are family. Because the way this world is upside down and sideways, Black women have had to come together on a level that is so profound. That is exactly the story that we are going to be telling this weekend.

Brian Lehrer: For people who might know you mostly as a voice artist in animated features, I'm just reading from your Wikipedia page now, so tell me if this is wrong, because sometimes Wikipedia is wrong, that people may know your voice from characters such as Susie Carmichael in Rugrats and Elmyra Duff in Tiny Toon Adventures and your roles in Inspector Gadget, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Codenamed: Kids Next Door, The Lost Empire, Puppy Dog Pals, those kinds of things.

Cree Summer: Good Lord.

Brian Lehrer: Very different from what you're talking about here.

Cree Summer: Yes, that's just a subtle flex. I've got 500 characters under my belt now. I'm also a recording artist. I released a record that was produced by Lenny Kravitz called Street Faërie. I was on a television show called A Different World on NBC for six years. I have been on television for 40 years of my life. I started as a child actor in Toronto and also on stage. This is going to be a pretty magic for me. I haven't been on a stage singing in 27 years. Yes, it's going to be a very powerful night.

Brian Lehrer: Rebecca, this year's iteration is inspired, I see, by Octavia Butler and other futurists. Why is science fiction, particularly Afrofuturism, such a powerful lens for you to explore issues of identity through and representation and social justice? Why Afrofuturism, and what does Octavia Butler mean to you?

Rebecca Carroll: In regard to Octavia Butler, the main premise for her was that we could imagine worlds that we wanted that would offer futurism as opposed to escapism. That really is what Black folks have lived in our entirety on this land, the future. We are the future. We are constantly pitching forward and moving forward and creating movements and keeping it pushing. That's where that vernacular comes from, is that we are the future.

The other thing that I love about Octavia and the idea of Afrofuturism is that it's happening all the time. It's happening all the time and the subtitle of this Volume 3 is actually The Future is Around Us. That is the sense of -- we hear this phrase a lot, "Listen to Black women." This is a very immersive experience of what it sounds like and feels like to listen to Black women.

Brian Lehrer: You want to tell us a bit about this year's other guests, Rebecca, who are they besides Cree, and what should we look forward to about their performances?

Rebecca Carroll: We have the Mother Metaverse, Nona Hendryx, who was an original member of LaBelle who sang The First Lady Marmalade. We have the activist and poet, Adrienne Maree Brown, we have her voice. She recorded a special piece, and also Mahogany L. Browne, who is the first poet-in-residence at Lincoln Center.

Brian Lehrer: Cree, did I hear you woo-hooing at the mention of Nona Hendryx's name?

Cree Summer: I just got so excited. Nona is really just one of the mothers of Black rock and roll. Again, when we talk about Afrofuturism, Black women have been so excluded, Black men as well, but in particular, Black women from the White Boy Club that is rock and roll. Nona Hendryx is one of those women that just kicked down the door and didn't give a damn, and is still upright rocking today.

Rebecca Carroll: Amen.

Brian Lehrer: Rebecca, do-- go ahead. Did you want to say something? Go ahead.

Rebecca Carroll: No, I just said amen to that.

Brian Lehrer: Do you want to talk about the Minetta Lane Theater? Have you worked in that room before? Does it have any particular features that you think are going to be conducive to this? Talk about Minetta Lane.

Rebecca Carroll: It's a very cozy space. We were there in 2020, literally five minutes before COVID hit. It was the last live event that people were in certainly my network, in my circle, and for me. It's a very cozy and very inviting, pleasing space. It's perfect for this kind of gathering because it's live, but it's also going to be recorded and released in 2024 as an Audible original. It's just a lovely place to feel both intimate and also a little bit loud.

Brian Lehrer: A little bit loud?

Rebecca Carroll: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Right there in the village off the West Fourth Street subway stop, for people who-

Rebecca Carroll: That's right.

Brian Lehrer: -don't know how easy it is to get to the Minetta Lane Theater. Somebody's ears out there perked up at the mention of A Different World, and a listener writes, "What did she play on A Different World?"

Cree Summer: I played the character Freddie Brooks, the resident activist.

Rebecca Carroll: [laughs] Of course, you did.

Brian Lehrer: On television as in real life a little bit, right?

Cree Summer: Yes, in television as in real life. Yes. As an actor, sometimes I think that they definitely sculpted that character after me because I remember auditioning and that character was one thing, and then after the interview, she was me.

Brian Lehrer: What else are you doing these days, Cree? People might be interested.

Cree Summer: I'm a voiceover director. I just directed a show that was executive-produced by the late great Norman Lear. I was probably one of the last people to get to give him vocal direction. It was an honor. We were doing a remake of Good Times for Netflix, an animated remake.

Brian Lehrer: Wow.

Cree Summer: Let's see what else is coming out. Oh, I've got some top-secret things that, of course, the NDAs won't let me talk about coming to Disney Plus. Also, I'm on several cartoons simultaneously. I'm on--

Rebecca Carroll: Emmy nomination.

Cree Summer: Oh, I just got my first Emmy nomination for--

Brian Lehrer: Oh, really?

Cree Summer: Yes, I'm on the very first all-native animated show called Spirit Rangers on Netflix that I am profoundly proud of. The Indigenous people have been so invisible in media and art, and it is one of those special shows where young Native children get to see themselves at last.

Brian Lehrer: That is all so awesome. Rebecca, you must be thrilled that with all that Cree is doing, that she's got time to do this three-night gig with you in the Minetta Lane.

Rebecca Carroll: She's the first person I called, so I am thrilled. Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Can you tell us more about the animated Good Times that you're working on?

Cree Summer: Oh, sure. It's not an exact replica of Good Times. It is the generation that comes two generations after the original family. Good Times was edgy, but this is real edgy. It's just got all the modern-day humor and still the same struggle baby. The same struggle in the same apartment building and everything. To get the blessing from Norman was really wonderful.

Brian Lehrer: That's coming to Netflix, you say?

Cree Summer: That's coming to Netflix soon. Now that we're out of the strike, hopefully, sooner than later. You're lucky I finally got to announce it. They just announced it last night, otherwise, I wouldn't be talking about it right now.

Brian Lehrer: That's awesome. Now people know.

Cree Summer: Now people know.

Brian Lehrer: Do you want to give us just like 30 seconds because I want to have time to ask Rebecca our last question about the event? 30 seconds on working with Norman Lear near the end of his life.

Cree Summer: Oh, it was so delightful. He was a hundred years old when I met the man. I got to tell you, sharp as a knife, still quick, still funny, took direction, made me laugh, and was just an overall beautiful human being. My only regret is that I met him at the last minute and I didn't get to hang out with him on purpose longer.

Brian Lehrer: You say took direction, is his voice as a voice actor on it?

Cree Summer: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Really?

Cree Summer: We put him in one of the episodes of Good Times.

Brian Lehrer: I can't wait to see it and hear it. Rebecca, 30 seconds.

Cree Summer: Amazing.

Brian Lehrer: Where can folks learn more about this weekend's event? Shout out the details before we run out of time.

Rebecca Carroll: You can buy tickets at wearethemeteor.org, or audible.com, or the minettalanetheater.com. I hope that's right. Come see us. It's 14th, 15th, 16th, 7:00 PM curtain.

Brian Lehrer: If it isn't right, you can Google Minetta Lane Theater. It's not complicated. Rebecca Carroll-

Rebecca Carroll: Thank you, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: -writer and cultural critic, author of Surviving the White Gaze: A Memoir, and former host and editor at WNYC, and Cree Summer, voice actor. One of the most recognizable voices, I think we've all established that in animated things, and a contributor to this year's installment on stage this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night of In Love and Struggle. Thank you both so much for sharing this with us.

Rebecca Carroll: Thank you, Brian.

Cree Summer: Thank you, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: That's The Brian Lehrer Show for today. Produced by Mary Croke, Lisa Allison, Amina Srna, Carl Boisrond, and Esperanza Rosenbaum. Zach Gottehrer-Cohen produces our Daily Politics Podcast. Our intern, who we say goodbye to at the end of fall term, is Muskan Nagpal. Muskan, thank you for all your help this semester. Megan Ryan is the head of Live Radio. We have Juliana Fonda and Milton Ruiz at the audio controls. Stay tuned for Alison.

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