“It’s not a given that you will be applauded for what you are doing.” - Liz Lerman

Welcome to the first episode of Dear Multi-Hyphenate, Season Four!

Let's dive in with an amazing episode featuring the brilliant Liz Lerman! In this episode we discuss movement, creative tools, choreography and storytelling, Critical Response Process®, and Liz's upcoming new book Shape and Momentum: An Insomniac’s Guide to a World in Constant Motion.

Lerman is a choreographer, writer, educator, and the recipient of numerous honors, including a 2023 Guggenheim Fellowship, the 2014 Dance/USA Award, and the 2002 MacArthur “Genius Grant” Award. Beginning her choreographic career in 1974, she has spent the past five decades making her artistic research personal, funny, intellectually vivid, and up to the minute. A key aspect of her artistry is opening her process to various publics, from librarians to physicists, rabbis to bharatanatyam dancers, resulting in both research and outcomes that are participatory, relevant, urgent, and usable by others. Recently, Liz and her team of witches toured the dance theatre piece Wicked Bodies (2022) investigating the attempted erasure of embodied knowledge.

Current projects include building the Atlas of Creative Tools®, an online resource and archive, and Legacy Unboxed™ that involves a series of site-specific research performance events called My Body is a Library™. Lerman’s upcoming book, Shape and Momentum: An Insomniac’s Guide to a World in Constant Motion, is a collection of personal essays set to be published by Wesleyan University Press in 2026. Liz continues to evolve the Critical Response Process® through the Certification program, Fundamentals cohorts, and Essentials online course.

Liz founded and led the Dance Exchange from 1976 until 2011, where she cultivated the company’s unique multi-generational ensemble into a leading force in contemporary dance, including its residency at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. Lerman’s community-based practices have included residencies at Children’s National Hospital, Roosevelt Hotel for Senior Citizens, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and the Harvard ArtLab. Her work has been commissioned by numerous presenters, including Arena Stage, The Kennedy Center, Harvard Law School, and Portsmouth Music Hall.

She is the author of Teaching Dance to Senior Adults (1984), Hiking the Horizontal (2014), and co-author of Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process (2003) and Critique Is Creative (2022) with John Borstel. Liz’s retrospective titled Brett Cook & Liz Lerman: Reflection & Action was featured at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts from October 2022 until June 2023. She is currently an Institute Professor at Arizona State University’s Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts and a Fellow at the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy.

Born in Los Angeles and raised in Milwaukee, Liz attended Bennington College and Brandeis University, received her BA in dance from the University of Maryland, and an MA in dance from George Washington University. She is married to storyteller Jon Spelman. Their daughter, Anna Clare Spelman, is a documentary filmmaker.

www.https://lizlerman.com/

“I think one of the reasons I wanted to be a multi-hyphenate and wear all the hats in SUFFS was to hopefully, if I could, inspire others to show, specially young women,that’s an avenue available to us as well… and the multi-hyphenate male artist is sort of a moniker that goes unquestioned.”

On this episode of Dear Multi-Hyphenate, we have one of Broadway’s hottest writers, Shaina Taub, writer and star of SUFFS on Broadway. A true multi-hyphenate, we discuss:

The responsibility of starring in a musical you wrote.

Any ghostly visits from Alice Paul?

Sacrifice.

The creation of SUFFS.

Lessons learned.

Establishing boundaries.

Organizational tips.

Facing a dying nation and the progress we’ve made.

Shaina Taub is an American actress, singer, musician, and Tony Award-winning composer.Taub composed and starred in three adaptations of Shakespeare plays for The Public Theater's Public Works program: Twelfth Night in both 2016 and 2018 and As You Like It in 2017. Taub has appeared Off-Broadway in the revival of the revue show Old Hats in 2016, Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 as Princess Mary (2013), and Hadestown as a Fate (2016). She played the role of Emma Goldman in the Ragtime on Ellis Island concert and performed at Joe's Pub in Manhattan monthly during a solo residency.

In 2022, her original musical Suffs, based on suffragists and their American women's suffrage movement, premiered off-Broadway at The Public Theater. Taub wrote the book, music, and lyrics, and also starred as Alice Paul. The show transferred to Broadway in April 2024 to positive reviews. Taub won Tony Awards in 2024 for Best Book and Best Score.

Alongside Elton John on music, Taub penned the lyrics for the 2022 musical adaptation of the 2006 film The Devil Wears Prada, based on Lauren Weisberger's 2003 novel of the same name. It enjoyed a limited run in Chicago in 2022, and a new production is opened in London's West End in October 2024. In November, she reprised the role of Emma Goldman in New York City Center’s Ragtime.

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“You know – when you have multiple mini successes in a row, just how affirming that can be. And how for me, personally, it spills into the rest of my day, the rest of the week – there’s a part of me that wishes that career successes didn’t affect my mood that much, but it’s absolutely true that it does – and then I feel like it begets more success in just every other aspect of my life.”

In this episode we discuss…

Soda. Especially the ones from EPCOT.

Jobs vs. Careers.

How to pitch a project.

Letting people know what you’re good at.

Reality television.

Process vs. Product

The Writer’s Strike

How other people perceive you.

J. W. Crump is a Carolina-born, LGBTQ writer, game creator, and comedian represented by Authentic Talent and Literary Management. A seasoned game show producer and host, he developed a game show for Whoopi Goldberg’s production company in 2023 and has hosted over 250 live game shows. He served as Senior Producer and Head Writer for over 50 three-hour game shows for Microsoft's live streaming TV network.

His expertise spans live and televised game content, from writing and producing all content for the ESPN Table Hockey international tournament to creating over 50 original segments for TBS’s Gods of the Game. He also worked on ViceTV’s Super Maximum Retro Show, designing all gaming segments and scripting an entire episode solo.

Beyond game shows, Crump created the award-winning web series Kylie Jenner's Beauty Tips, which amassed over one million views. He produced Gas Station Horror, a Sony Pictures-sponsored B-horror comedy show, for seven years. His pilot, Ian Owes U, was an official selection at the New York Television Festival. Most recently, he wrapped six years with Pod Ledom, a comedic America’s Next Top Model retrospective podcast with over 2M listens and 700 five-star reviews.

@themichaelkushner

@dearmultihyphenate

@jw_crump

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