Jacob Ming-Trent on How Shakespeare Saved My Life

FARAH KARIM-COOPER: From the Folger Shakespeare Library, this is Shakespeare Unlimited. I’m Farah Karim-Cooper, the Folger director.

[Music fades]

KARIM-COOPER: Name the greatest hip-hop artists of all time. Biggie? Jay-Z? Maybe make room for one more.

[CLIP from How Shakespeare Saved My Life at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, written and performed by Jacob Ming-Trent.]

JACOB NARRATOR: The word wizard, the Stratford Scribe, the Royal Rhymer himself, William Shakespeare.

KARIM-COOPER: That’s Jacob Ming-Trent in his one-man show, How Shakespeare Saved My Life. The play is based on Ming-Trent’s own experience discovering Shakespeare as a teenager.

Since that momentous discovery, Ming-Trent has appeared on Broadway in shows such as Gypsy and Shrek: The Musical; on TV series like Watchmen and Ray Donovan; and in films like Friendship and The 40-Year-Old Version.

Ming-Trent has also put his Shakespearean chops into practice. He played Falstaff in The Merry Wives of Windsor and Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night, both at New York’s Public Theater. He’s also appeared in The Merchant of Venice at Theatre for a New Audience and A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Folger Theatre.

How Shakespeare Saved My Life starts with Ming-Trent welcoming his audience like members of a church.

[CLIP from How Shakespeare Saved My Life at Berkeley Reparatory Theatre, written and performed by Jacob Ming-Trent.]

JACOB NARRATOR: What’s up, my people? Welcome, welcome. Welcome to my ancestors and spiritual protectors, and welcome to all of you. Yes, no matter where you come from, what you do or don’t do, whom you love or don’t love, I love you, because you’ve chosen to congregate here this evening. So thank you for coming, congregation.

KARIM-COOPER: How Shakespeare Saved My Life opens at the Folger Theatre on June 9th.

Here’s Jacob Ming-Trent, in conversation with Barbara Bogaev.

———————–

BARBARA BOGAEV: I really like how you start your play. I want to start there. What kind of atmosphere did you want to create in the theater with this kind of revival meeting opening?

JACOB MING-TRENT: Trying to create warmth, generosity, hope. You know, when people come to the theater, they’re buying a ticket, it’s usually kind of expensive, and they’re sitting in the dark with other strangers so they’re taking a leap. I want to embrace them and let them know they’re in good hands, that we’re going to have a good time. It’s a rollercoaster ride so they want to know that they’re firmly in their seats. There’s a plan. They’re being taken care of, you know? That’s really the goal.

BOGAEV: Yeah, you got the host-iness down. You know while I was sitting there, I was thinking also it felt a little bit more like a Shakespeare, kind of, Globe-like theater. Interactive theater, you know? It made it less formal.

MING-TRENT: Yes, I mean, less formal is what we’re going for. Also, you know, my first bit of storytelling was in church, so that made sense. And not to get too into the weeds, but, you know, in Shakespeare’s time, everybody would have gone to church, and that might have been a little bit more of a formal experience. So, Shakespeare’s kind of fighting against some of the Puritanical times that he’s living in. So, it makes sense for us to just let people know they’re embraced and let people know that they’re in for a good time.

BOGAEV: Well, this show, I understand, started as a bunch of unconnected stories that you wrote at some point. How did you end up workshopping them into a one-man show at the Folger?

MING-TRENT: Well, you know, when I first started, I wrote 16 pages and then I sent those rough, very rough, 16 pages to two theaters. One of those was the Folger, and then they commissioned it right away. So, I was on the hook at that point. I had to write it. They were paying me to write it.

So, you know, writing a play… you start writing a play, there’s a lot of different ways to attack that idea. It’s about a two to three-year process to write a play. That takes workshops when you’re in a room with dramaturgs. That’s sitting at home every night for three to four hours for two and a half years, you know.

BOGAEV: I’m feeling really bad for you right now.

MING-TRENT: No, no, no. Just going word by word—I love the process because I’m a storyteller, and so, it’s fun for me, you know. I’ve been doing this for 30 years so it’s fun for me. But yeah, it’s a day in and day out process at the laptop. No days off, really

BOGAEV: Were the stories, then, that you originally wrote about your family or about Shakespeare or both or what?

MING-TRENT: Yeah, they were about both. They were about, you know, being born into a complicated situation, an abusive household, and then looking for a lifeline, and Shakespeare was that lifeline.

The play starts with you seeing Shakespeare save my life, but then it gets more complicated. As I say in the play, “Shakespeare saved me, but he can’t save me.” We go on the journey of Jacob dealing with homelessness, dealing with broken relationships with his parents, you know, dealing with a myriad of issues, and really trying to use Shakespeare to unlock that door to society and hoping that society will embrace him because he’s good at Shakespeare.

BOGAEV: Was there a moment when you suddenly realized Shakespeare has been such a throughline in your life? Or was it just obvious once it started?

MING-TRENT: You know, I walked into the wrong classroom, and the teacher wouldn’t let me leave until I read a Shakespeare speech. Once I read that speech, it clicked for me right away. It felt like something that was fun, and it unlocked emotions and ideas that I had in me that I didn’t have the words for. And so, it was a miracle of a moment.

[CLIP from How Shakespeare Saved My Life at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, written and performed by Jacob Ming-Trent.]

JACOB NARRATOR: So, I’m walking down the school hallway. I got a bag of Nerds in my left hand and a box of Skittles in my right. I open the door with my belly.

Yo, I walked into the wrong classroom, y’all. I don’t know what these fools were tryin’ to learn, but it was better than sittin’ in math class, right?

So, I dump the bag of Skittles in my mouth and I began listening.

OLD TEACH: All right, all right. Let’s go, let’s go! Hmm. [Teach blows whistle.] Welcome to Shakespeare class.

BOGAEV: Jacob in the play, as you say, walks in by accident. You’re 12. Did this happen when you were 12?

MING-TRENT: Yes.

BOGAEV: Okay. So, you walk in, in the play, and it’s hilarious because you say the English teacher was also the football coach and blew a whistle in class.

MING-TRENT: That’s right.

BOGAEV: You must have… I thought you made that part up.

MING-TRENT: Well, I mean, you know, a lot of this is true. I think it’s surprising to people. Everybody asks that, you know, “What’s true in the play? What’s not true in the play?” But a lot of this, I would say 95% of it, happened.

Of course, because it’s an hour and a half, hour and 35 minutes, we can’t tell the whole real story because we’d be there for 40 days, you know? In an hour and a half, we have to make some decisions, and we have to combine some things. It’s like when you see a movie like Goodfellas, you know? Yes, in general that story happened, but not in that way.

BOGAEV: Right, the poetic license thing.

MING-TRENT: Yes.

BOGAEV: So, you said the first time you said Shakespeare’s lines out loud, though, that something was born. But what did you hear in those words? What was the effect?

MING-TRENT: When I said Shakespeare’s words?

BOGAEV: Yeah, because you said, “When I woke up that morning, I was a super-predator in the eyes of society. But after that class, I was a Shakespeare prodigy.”

MING-TRENT: That’s right. So, you know, Jacob in the play discovers that these words have power. Not just storytelling-wise, but they have power to change a teacher’s mind. They have power to woo a young lady. They have power to unlock doors to school, to scholarship, to so many things. And because he’s great with these words, he’s able to use them to navigate society.

BOGAEV: So, that’s what you heard in those words?

MING-TRENT: Oh, yes. See, the speech, the first speech is Henry V. Henry V is talking to his soldiers. They’re in France. They’re fighting a war, and they’re severely outnumbered. So, he gives this speech telling them even though they’re outnumbered, they can still win.

[CLIP from How Shakespeare Saved My Life at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, written and performed by Jacob Ming-Trent.]

JACOB TWELVE: We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he today that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now abed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day!

MING-TRENT: In a lot of ways, Jacob is outnumbered when the play starts. Society has already decided what he’s going to be. He has very little hope of changing their minds, and then, he reads this speech about Henry V fighting a war outnumbered, this boy king, and he realizes, “Oh, snap. I have some of that in me. I’m outnumbered, but you know what? Maybe I can win. Maybe there’s a king inside of me.” And so yes, that speech unlocks some things in his spirit.

BOGAEV: Okay, now we’re going to talk about you. We’re going to leave Jacob behind a little bit. How did you get out of Pittsburgh, where you grew up, and into acting classes? Where’d the money come from? What was that process for you?

MING-TRENT: I dropped out of high school, and I moved to New York City and I went to Stella Adler Acting Conservatory.

You know, I had to scrounge like anybody else. I had to battle to survive in New York City. It was much easier back then because you could get a cup of coffee and a bagel for $1.25, you know? So, it was easier to make it in that time as a young artist in New York.

And then, I went to the New York Public Theater Shakespeare Lab, and the Shakespeare Lab gave me a scholarship. You know, I was a teenager—I was the youngest person ever accepted there. I was the youngest person ever accepted at Stella Adler. Because I was able to speak these words in such a dynamic way and I had understanding of this, what people thought was this complicated text, doors were opened. People helped. Money was given. Scholarship was given.

BOGAEV: Okay, so, in the play, you do have this realization, and it comes through a really bad experience in an acting class, and it leads you to make a connection, which you explore all throughout the play between Shakespeare and hip-hop.

[CLIP from How Shakespeare Saved My Life at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, written and performed by Jacob Ming-Trent.]

JACOB SIXTEEN: Yo, you ain’t Prospero, bro, and I ain’t Caliban. This English language—it’s mine, man. Teach, you’re using the Bard to lock me behind bars, but I’m using the Bard like Popeye used spinach. I’m growing stronger from the Swan of Avon’s lyrics. Everything Shakespeare you fed me, meant to oppress me, I ingested it, I turned it into sustenance. Now I’m bending your prison bars by using the Bard. Now I’m a Shakespearean beast, and you know what Imma do? I’m tearing down your old school. And guess who you looking at? The leader of the new school. So, guess what I’m going to do? Imma put Shakespeare on the ones and twos.

[Musical hit]

JACOB SIXTEEN: Imma scratch him, remix him.

[Musical hit]

JACOB SIXTEEN: Then Imma roll Shakespeare in some flour and some Black seasonings. Imma shake him up, fry him up. Put him on a waffle and hot sauce him up. Then Imma f**king feed him back to you.

[Music comes all the way in]

JACOB SIXTEEN: Yes, I’m leveling up right in front of you, standing like a greyhound straining upon the start, ready to explode with my rhetorical skills, the ivory towers you built. To fight the institution, some say I’m embracing my destruction. To be or not to be? I choose to be. Class, that’s the end of my lecture. Teacher, any questions?

BOGAEV: Okay. Amazing scene. First, when did you make the connection between hip-hop and Shakespeare for yourself?

MING-TRENT: Well, Shakespeare’s one of the greatest poets of all time, and I talk a lot about Tupac and Biggie, two of the greatest poets of all time. So, it was easy to make that connection.

You know, I grew up in a family of writers. My father was a novelist and a playwright. My grandmother was a journalist and a poet. She was an editor for one of the largest Black newspapers in the country; she had met the president. My mother, British, studied Shakespeare all through her education. I grew up in a house of language, a house that used words. So, hip-hop to me was poetry, and listening to that language and then listening to Shakespeare just made sense. That connection was always formed.

At the time I didn’t realize this, but another reason why all three of those writers spoke to me was because they were urban poets. I mean, Shakespeare’s an urban poet, and Tupac and Biggie are urban poets. Urban poets have a certain style and a certain rhythm to their work.

So, for me, although for a lot of people there’s a great deal of separation between these writers because one is white and the others are Black, and because one was alive 400 and some-odd years ago, and the others were alive 30-some-odd years ago now, I see them as a part of the same canon because they’re writing about similar things.

BOGAEV: I see. So, when you were younger, then, and you had this incredible affinity for the language, it was coming unconsciously out of that beat?

MING-TRENT: They’re talking about the same things. It has nothing to do with the beat. It has everything to do with the language.

When you think of the violence amongst kids in Romeo and Juliet, and you hear about the violence that Biggie is talking about amongst youth, those connections are there, right?

BOGAEV: Mmm. You know, in the play, you quit school at 16. But you quit acting school too, and you go home to your mother, and she kicks you out. So, did you spend any time on the street when you were a teenager?

MING-TRENT: I was homeless twice before the age of 16.

BOGAEV: Wow, so young.

MING-TRENT: Yeah. So, I was homeless when I was around 10 years old.

When you say, you spent time on the street, like, it depends. There’s a lot of different forms of that, right? There’s sleeping on a park bench. There’s also sleeping in homeless shelters; I was in homeless shelters. Yes, there were a few nights where I slept in a bus station. So yeah, I mean, all forms of not having a home, I experienced, and by the grace of God, you know, I survived.

But yes, spent a lot of time sleeping in places that most people wouldn’t want to, and also searching for a home. As you look back, you’re a kid, so you normalize things. It seems as if every kid is homeless, maybe. But, as I look back now, I do feel how tragic that was, and I’m very empathetic to others that are going through similar situations now.

BOGAEV: Yeah, I mean, that’s so young and hard. And this is the part in the play when you run into some kids, and they have some choice things to say about Shakespeare.

So, I’m not going to make you go through what’s real and what’s not and all that anymore, but how often have you defended Shakespeare in conversations like this?

MING-TRENT: It depends what time in my life we’re talking. There’s a point in my life where I’m defending Shakespeare all the time because I believe he’s one of the greatest writers ever and his work is important.

You know, at this point in my life, I’m repurposing Shakespeare. If you can envision Shakespeare being a house, I’m tearing down that house, and I’m using all the materials of that house to build something different where all people feel like they can come into the house of Shakespeare and do what they will with the language, right? If they want to tear it apart, if they want to rearrange it like I do, if they’re purists and they just want to say it the exact way they think Shakespeare would’ve said it.

So, I defend Shakespeare because I do believe what Shakespeare does is, it brings us all around the fire, right? He’s still one of those playwrights where everybody kind of shows up. It’s cool in that way, and I love that it does that.

But I’m also like, “Hey, I don’t want to be so stodgy about this, that you can’t do what you want to do with Shakespeare.” I’m not interested in the rules. I’m interested in you using the language or being inspired by the language to create whatever you want to create, right? And so, that’s where I am with it now.

So, in the play, you know, Jacob’s trying to convince his crew members, “Look, Shakespeare’s valid.” And they’re going, “I read this in high school, when I was in high school, and it was horrible.”

And Jacob’s saying, “No, there’s a connection between Tupac and Biggie and Shakespeare. There’s a connection between these urban poets if you just listen to what they’re writing about.” And taking that line, “To be or not to be,” you know? And then we see that one of the crew members goes, “I get it. I get now why ‘To be or not to be’ makes sense for my life, too.”

BOGAEV: Okay. So, back to your story, I am curious what it was like auditioning for Shakespeare early on for you because you do have a lot of choice and funny things to say about casting ladies and how they reacted to you. And of course, the issues of weight and color, you know, “What’s an overweight Black man going out for these roles?” So, how much of that did you get?

MING-TRENT: A lot. I mean, it’s wild. You know, in order to do this writer at that time, you had to be able to approximate people like Ian McKellen or Laurence Olivier, and it’s crazy, right? Because I’m not that. But I was good enough to be able to approximate it. There’s a scene in the show where you see him approximate it.

But at a certain time in my life, I realized that I was never going to be my best self if I was trying to be Ian McKellen, if I was trying to be Anthony Hopkins. They are them, and I can’t be my best self if I’m also trying to be them.

So, I had to bring to that writer what I could bring. And to the industry, it was shocking because that’s not how you do this writer. I was playing with the rhythms, but they were the rhythms that I grew up with in my neighborhood. I was playing with character, but the characters were my uncles. The characters were my father.

BOGAEV: Can you give us an example of an audition that you did this way?

MING-TRENT: Well, yeah, one of the first auditions where I did this and I booked a job, I was doing Merchant of Venice with F. Murray Abraham, and I was playing Gobbo. And Gobbo was this bike messenger who smoked weed, but he was really smart. It was a time in New York where that was really foreign. It was like, “Wait a minute, you’re playing this as if this guy comes from the neighborhood you grew up in.”

BOGAEV: Which you were.

MING-TRENT: Yeah, and that to them was shocking. But the New York Times liked it, so then everyone signed off on it. Strange how that happens.

BOGAEV: How did F. Murray Abraham react to that?

MING-TRENT: He loved it.

BOGAEV: He got it?

MING-TRENT: Murray was great. He got it.

BOGAEV: He’s cool.

MING-TRENT: Yeah, I mean, you know, that’s what Shakespeare was doing in his time, right? They were writing characters and portraying characters that grew up in their towns. So, I’m just mimicking what Shakespeare originally did, right?

They’re writing about people that are coming from Scotland and Ireland or Venice. Or they’re writing about people that grew up in the southern part of England and, you know, they talk different, and they move different, and their humor is different.

You can see this if you’re looking at the Mechanicals, you know? It’s very funny, and it’s interesting. They didn’t have this very classical idea, because they were inventing it. So, I’m getting back to that place where I’m inventing it. I’m being inventive, and I’m making it super personal, which is what they would’ve done.

BOGAEV: Which of Shakespeare’s characters do you most identify with?

MING-TRENT: You know, I love Falstaff. I think Falstaff is beautifully flawed. He loves to eat and drink, and he loves women. He hates war. Falstaff is Shakespeare’s message to us about how we should live. Not saying that everything he does is right or to be admired or repeated. But Falstaff just wants to love and be loved. I think it’s one of his greatest characters.

BOGAEV: Is there one that you haven’t played yet that you’re dying to?

MING-TRENT: You know, at this point, I’m not sure. It’s more about what we’re trying to say with the play. You know, I have an idea for Richard III, but it’s more about what I’m trying to say with Richard III in this modern context that we live in.

I do theater that seeks to change the community in which I do it in, seeks to edify the community in which I do it in, entertain the community in which I do it in. So, I choose plays and characters based on the effect they can have on people.

There was a time in my life when I really wanted to play Hamlet because I wanted to show how good an actor I was. Now I’m no longer interested in that idea, right? If I do play Hamlet or I do play Richard III, it’ll be because we’re doing something with the play that’ll be edifying to people and talking about the current situation they have in their small community or large community or in the world.

BOGAEV: So back to your title, How Shakespeare Saved My Life. At the end of the play, you say that’s an incomplete statement. So, what’s missing there?

MING-TRENT: Well, you know, Shakespeare saved my life, but while writing this play, you know, I learned that that my dad’s spirit saved my life, and my grandmother and, you know, some teachers along the way. A lot of various characters saved my life, and while writing the play, I learned that. Yes, Shakespeare did, certainly, but so many other people did, too. It was great to be reminded of that. It was great to pass that message along. It really inspired me to really keep writing this play because I felt in a way that this play could save a life, and it was my way of giving back. So, that’s the title.

BOGAEV: Well, in that sense, do you think, looking back then, it could have been some other writer—you know, an Ibsen or Chekhov or August Wilson who might have given you that same sense of being able to transform yourself in the eyes of everyone else into something, to change how they perceive you—that might have saved your life way back when?

MING-TRENT: That’s a great point. For some, it is August Wilson, and for some it’s Brecht, or Baldwin, or Tupac, or Biggie. All those lifelines are available to us, and if someone out there needs a lifeline, if they need a word, then, you know, find the lifeline, the writer, the musician, the whatever that’s the lifeline for you to hold onto that’ll kind of bring you through those rough waters, you know? So yes, I think you make a great point. It’s whatever works to pull you through, to get you to the point where you can be a lifeline for someone else someday.

BOGAEV: Theater is so hard though. Did you have a plan B? Most of the actors I’ve ever talked to had a plan B.

MING-TRENT: Oh, no, I didn’t have a plan B. I was a high school dropout. I was trying to survive, and the only way I could survive was theater. That’s the only way I could make it. I had nothing else. And I look back on it now and I think, “Well, it’s a miracle that I’m sitting here today.” But God gave me a talent and I stood on it, ten toes down.

Were there rough times? Of course. Were there times where you’re wondering where you’re going to get your next meal, or how are you going to pay the rent, or are you going to have a place to sleep? But like I said earlier, I’ve been homeless twice in my life already, so I felt like I had been to the rock bottom already so, I wasn’t afraid of the bottom. I was on the bottom, you know? So, theater wasn’t a leap, it was a lifeline.

BOGAEV: Yeah.

MING-TRENT: It’s how I survived.

BOGAEV: So, now you’re doing this one-man show, and people like me are asking you questions about what’s your life, and what’s the play, and all that. But has it changed your relationship to Shakespeare in any way? The writing, or the stories, or the performance style, your performance style, or your goals, or your craft?

MING-TRENT: It’s validated what I thought might be possible. Like, I thought it was possible to go into a theater and really connect with an audience in a way that was spiritual, in a way that was communal, in a way that could alter somebody’s perception of so many things, you know, youth, Blackness, theater itself, Shakespeare, Tupac, Biggie, it could alter people’s perceptions of all those things.

And what I realized—so gratefully and thankfully to Berkeley Rep for supporting this, and the Folger, and Red Bull—I’ve learned that that is possible and it’s inspired me, too, “Okay, well, if we can do this, then I can go around the country and continue to do it.” As I’m writing other things, I can take those other things around the country, because people have an appetite for that.

I mean, you can stay at home and watch Netflix, and you can cry and you can laugh, and that’s beautiful. I want that for everybody. But there’s nothing like coming to a place where other people from your community are coming, where you don’t know them, kind of gathering around the fire and listening to a story, and also, being able to communicate with the actor while he’s telling that story. So, I think it just let me know that what I was dreaming about is possible.

BOGAEV: Well, I hope you come to LA soon.

MING-TRENT: Yeah, that’d be great.

BOGAEV: And thank you so much for this.

MING-TRENT: Ah, thank you very much. It was fun. Thank you. I appreciate you.

———————–

KARIM-COOPER: That was Jacob Ming-Trent, interviewed by Barbara Bogaev.

How Shakespeare Saved My Life is on stage at the Folger Theatre from June 9th through July 5th. For tickets and more information, visit folger.edu/saved.

The play travels to New York’s Public Theater for a run this fall.

How Shakespeare Saved My Life is a co-production of Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Folger Theatre, and Red Bull Theater. It was co-commissioned by the Folger and Red Bull.

This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the executive producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. We had technical help from the Podcast Studio in San Francisco and Voice Trax West in Studio City, California. Our web producer is Megan Fraedrich. Leonor Fernandez edits our transcripts. Final mixing services provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc.

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