Music Credits:  “NY” composed and performed by Kosta T, from the cd Soul Sand. Used courtesy if the Free Music Archive.

Jo Reed: From the National Endowment for the Arts, this is Art Works, I’m Josephine Reed

(Jaja’s African Hair Braiding excerpt)

Jo Reed: You just heard an excerpt from the Arena Stage production of Jaja’s African Hair Braiding which was written by the award-winning playwright and my guest today Jocelyn Bioh. Set in a bustling Harlem salon on a hot summer day, Jaja’s African Hair Braiding offers a comedic slice-of-life look at the lives of 10 women, both workers and customers, navigating the challenges of their daily lives. With enormous humor and heart, the play shines a light on the rich, diasporic diversity of the African community in New York.  Jocelyn Bioh also wrote the multi-award-winning School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play and won the 2022 Drama Desk Award for her Outstanding Adaptation of Merry Wives for Shakespeare in the Park. Jaja’s African Hair Braiding was nominated for five Tony Awards including best play. And it’s easy to see why: it is a funny, welcoming workplace comedy with a lot of important things to say about immigrants and immigration. Jaja’s African Hair Braiding is now playing at Washington DC’s Arena Stage and I am so happy to welcome Jocelyn Bioh

Jocelyn welcome!

Jocelyn Bioh: Thank you

Jo Reed: Jocelyn, your play, Jaja's African Hair Braiding, takes us into a salon in Harlem for one long summer day. What inspired this play and this setting?

Jocelyn Bioh: Wow. So many things. Well, first of all, I'm from New York City. I grew up in Washington Heights and have spent a lot of time since I was like four or five years old going to hair braiding shops in Harlem where I still go and get my hair braided every, you know, a couple of months. And I think I realized like how ripe with storytelling and comedy these spaces were. The different women who worked in the shop, the different people who came in and out of the shop, not even just customers, but, you know, vendors, people selling things, people who are meeting a friend. So they just felt like there was like a lot of story there. And I always thought it could be a cool setting for a play. It wasn't until a few years ago where there was a lot of conversation happening about immigration and types of immigration reform that were trying to be introduced. And immigration in some ways only had one face. And I saw the faces of these African women who worked in the shop, who were watching the news all the time and who were really concerned and quite frankly terrified by some of the rhetoric that was going around about immigrant communities. And I just thought I wanted to have an answer to that and kind of humanize the experiences and the people behind immigration. And so I put those two things together in a play.

Jo Reed: And it is fabulous.

Jocelyn Bioh: Thank you.

Jo Reed: It is rare for a play to have a world premiere on Broadway, but you did with this play. How did this happen? And what was that journey like going from an early reading to, hello, we're going to Broadway?

Jocelyn Bioh: Well, I mean, honestly, quite fast. It was pretty unorthodox. And so this is not normal, this is not a thing where many playwrights, and my playwriting colleagues, have not had this experience, and so I expected that I was going to have to go through a lot more tests, I guess, to get to Broadway. In normal circumstances, a playwright will write a play and then you send it off to a theater or some sort of play development institution and you usually develop it for-- it could be from a few months to a number of years, honestly, before a theater is willing to slot it in and get it produced. In the case of Jaja's MTC, Manhattan Theater Club, in New York is a incredible nonprofit theater organization that has a good fortune of having a Broadway house, which is pretty rare for many nonprofit theaters in New York. And so they had read the play and they really liked it and they wanted to do a reading of it for their artistic team and some invited friends, which included the woman who ran the theater, Lynne Meadow. And so we had this beautiful, lovely reading. We rehearsed for like, I don't know, maybe two or three days. It was a really  kind of, quick and dirty rehearsal process. We did the reading, and then maybe 15 minutes after the reading was over, me and my director, Whitney White, were asked to come up to the head of the theater's office, Lynne's office, and I had no idea what she was going to say. And we sat down and she was just like, "So, we have to do this play, and we have to do it on Broadway." And I was pretty stunned. Me and my director were pretty stunned. We were like, "Whoa." And we knew that the play felt like a Broadway play, we knew that it deserved to be there, we knew we would be ready for the challenge of opening it cold on Broadway. I don't think we anticipated 15 minutes after the reading, we'd get that offer. So it was a real surprise, but a great one.

Jo Reed: Yeah, well, five Tony nominations later and how many, two extensions?

Jocelyn Bioh: Yeah.

Jo Reed: So extraordinary. Because the play moved to Broadway so early in the process, how important were the collaborations with the actors and the creative team as you were putting it together?

Jocelyn Bioh: I mean, there was actually so much unique development and collaboration with the play. From the day that we were asked, or we were told, given the offer that we would go to Broadway, we had a little over a year before the play was actually going to premiere on Broadway based on the time slot that they gave us. So we also knew that we had to have some really quick discussions with some of our design team. And between Whitney and I, we called in all of our big heavy hitters, folks that we've always dreamed of working with, like David Zinn, who did our set design, to people who we've worked with a myriad of times, like Gigi and Justin, who did our lighting and sound, respectively. But the really unique kind of collaboration that had to come into play earlier than usual was a collaboration with the our wig designer, who in this case was Nikiya Mathis. And I had to bring her in early because the way the play was structured, I actually had to sit down and discuss with her, "How can we pull this off?" How can we show passage of time that three hours have passed by, but in reality, only 15 minutes have gone by? Is there even a world where the wigs can be able to manage or handle that kind of design? And so that was the first time in my life as a writer that I've actually had to collaborate with a designer in that capacity, and that early on in the process. And for anyone who sees the play, you will understand why that was so incredibly necessary. 

Jo Reed: Oh my God. Those onstage hair transformations are magical. And I'm sitting there, I'm close.What did I miss? How is this possible? This 12-hour procedure happened in 90 minutes. I don't get it. And she quite rightfully got a special Tony for her work.

Jocelyn Bioh:  . Correct. Yeah, we were thrilled by that. We were thrilled by that. The first time a hair and wig designer has ever received a special Tony. I mean, I think if anything, the design work that she did in this play makes a really good case for why that should be a category in the Tonys in the first place. So I was just thrilled by what she had done and what we were able to collaborate and figure out with the design, because it really does lean into the magic of it all. Our play is not some big splashy musical, it's a really kind of slice of life play that takes place in one shop over the course of 12 hours. And so when people go to see a Broadway show, they do kind of expect that little bit of magic that happens when Cinderella pulls a string and all of a sudden her dress turns from a raggedy apron and tattered dress to this beautiful ball gown. And we can create that kind of magic too, but we were able to do that with wigs and the incredible company members who also play multiple characters in the show, who also, I would say, have pretty lightning fast costume changes as well.

Jo Reed: And the costumes were also wonderful. Another Tony award for your designer. 

Jocelyn Bioh: Yes, yes. 

Jo Reed: Well, this is an ensemble piece. You have 10 actors playing 15-16 characters. So that's a lot of moving parts for you to keep straight and to create the nuanced characters that you do. Can you talk about sort of getting into the hearts of these women who we meet?

Jocelyn Bioh: Yeah, yes. Our company is an ensemble in full, of 10 actors and then there's three of them who play multiple characters. So in total, in the 90 minutes you're in there, you meet 17 different characters, which is kind of shocking. I've never written a play with that many people before. I think it was important too, to kind of just highlight the different people and different cast of characters you meet within a day at a shop. And honestly, like I could have written another 90 minutes to the play and still would not be able to capture all of the kind of archetypes of people that you meet. But inevitably, whenever you go into these spaces, and not just a hair braiding shop, it could be a hair salon where you just get your hair cut, or a barber shop, or a nail shop. There's inevitably always going to be that one customer who's like just having a really bad day and she kind of wants everyone to know it and feel it, too. There's inevitably going to be someone who has an impossible task or desire to look like someone. In our case, there's someone who comes in search of being able to walk out looking exactly like Beyonce in a particular video. You have people who are just like business women who are just coming in to get their hair done after a long work day. It just was important to me to kind of show the vast scope of people. And this is also a play that has all black actors as well, and so it was a really unique challenge to kind of show the diasporic diversity within the community as well. That it's not even just people from one particular country in Africa, that it's people from various countries all over West Africa, different people from different parts of America, Black America as well in the play. And that's a unique thing to be able to bring to any stage, but certainly to a Broadway stage, and now this Broadway production being able to tour all over the country.

Jo Reed: Why do you think it is that the more specific you are in telling a story, the more universal it becomes?

Jocelyn Bioh: Yeah, it's such a interesting conundrum that because I think there is beauty and unique connection in our big, vast, crazy, complicated, beautiful world. I think the specificity that I'm leaning into is also just a specificity of truth. And I think at the root of that is where actually the comedy lives, I think at the root of that truth is where the universality lives. I think we all share so many more experiences and have relationships with people in a very similar way than we don't, you know? There's so many people who come to see this play and they're like, "Oh my God, this woman reminded me of my aunt. This person reminded me of my sister. I saw myself in this one character." There's a really unique thing that happens when you double down in truth in that way. I mean, for me, the specificity, of course, is in culture and the unique space of this hair braiding shop, but there's also a rich universality. We all have had an experience of going somewhere to get a service done, whether it's getting our hair done, getting our nails done, getting our makeup done, you know, getting a haircut. We all have that experience, and in many ways, those spaces all operate and have that same perspective. They have those same kinds of people, they have those same kinds of personalities, and the same kind of vulnerability with each other exists. It's a very intimate thing to be able to walk into a space and ask somebody to please touch their hair and…

Jo Reed: Transform them. 

Jocelyn Bioh: Transform them, exactly, yeah.

Jo Reed: Yeah, it really is. It reminded me of when I was waitressing.

Jocelyn Bioh: Sure, yes.

Jo Reed: You know, and that same kind of camaraderie you have with your fellow workers of, "Okay, we have to get through the shift."

Jocelyn Bioh: Yes, yes, 100%.

Jo Reed: And it doesn't mean it's without friction.

Jocelyn Bioh: Yeah.

Jo Reed: But it also means you will be there to help.

Jocelyn Bioh: I know, a busy brunch day, you know, on a Saturday and a football team has come in, yeah, you know, that'll unite anybody.

Jo Reed: Yeah, exactly. 

Jocelyn Bioh: Yeah.

Jo Reed: I'd like to talk a little bit about Marie, Jaja's daughter and, you know, her wanting to write and wanting to go to college and being at odds with her mother, which really reflects just broader generational and cultural challenges in many, many immigrant families.

Jocelyn Bioh: I think she's representative of so many of us, I mean, I'm first generation, both my parents are from Ghana in West Africa. And, you know, I didn't know as a child that I would grow up to be an artist in this way. I knew I loved performing, I knew I loved dance, I knew I loved singing and theater and performing. I kind of slipped and tripped into playwriting, quite frankly. But I had no idea that a life in the arts was something that I really could pursue. Because I think, my parents, like many immigrants who came to this country at such a kind of like weirdly fraught time in America. My parents came in the late 60s, they came in 1968 and '69. And they want their children, they want them to have the successes and opportunities that they never had. And in many cases, those-- to them, they equate to having these professions that seem, you know, fail safe, doctor, lawyer, engineer,  professor, things that seem to like always put you in a particular financial bracket and that you'll be set for life. And I feel like Marie is kind of representative of that. She's part of the promise of America, the idea that you can come here and if you work really hard, or if you're born here, if you work really hard, you can be anything you want to be and be successful at that thing. But that's really at odds with many immigrant families and their mentality about, success, what is successful. And so I wanted to be able to put that kind of perspective and  in many cases, frustration that I had with my parents, that we just really couldn't get on the same page about that. I think it took them a really long time for them to be convinced that what I was doing was going to result in some sort of success and stability for me, but I understand why they had that concern. And so it was important, I think, to put that kind of nuanced perspective on stage. We just really never seen it before.

Jo Reed: And this becomes more complicated because Marie is also undocumented coming here when she was four. So there's not much hope for college, because how could she ever afford it or get financial aid or any of the identification she needs to get into college?

Jocelyn Bioh: Right. I think that's what makes the story and why immigration reform is such a huge topic and why we need to kind of address it. At the time that I wrote the play, the DREAM Act is something that, President Obama at the time of his presidency had introduced and put into play via executive order. And at the heart and at the center of all of these were these children who came here when they were very young and didn't have any choice. They were children and in many cases didn't even discover that they weren't citizens until they were old enough to apply for college or get a driver's license or something.. Sometimes at the heart of it are these innocent children who for all intents and purposes are American, in their eyes, and have no connection or, you know, cultural connection to their country of origin. And that's a part of the complication of this story too. And I think it was important to really highlight that it's not just one version of immigration that we're talking about. It's several different versions that are swirling around this really giant umbrella of immigration reform.

Jo Reed: Well, as we just said, immigration policies play a role in the backdrop of Jaja's African Hair Braiding, a play that is often very, very funny.

Jocelyn Bioh: Yes.

Jo Reed: And I really would love you to talk about why you chose to address these issues through that lens of humor.

Jocelyn Bioh: Well, I don't know any group of people, particularly I would say marginalized group of people, who have not been able to lean on humor or some sort of joy or comedy to be able to get through the hardships of their life. That is certainly true of everyone in the Black community and the diasporic community. And it's also just, plainly, the center of my world as a writer. I've tried to write serious dark dramas and then I would do a reading of the play and people would be laughing one page in and I'm like, "Okay, so I guess it's just a dark comedy." Like I can't help-- my voice naturally lives in a comedic space. But I also find that comedy is really powerful, that spoonful of sugar mentality is real. You're able to really get so many things across to people, there's so many ways that people can hear things when they hear it in a way that feels enjoyable and funny and they can laugh in recognition of whatever that truth is. And in this case, with Jaja's, you know, your folks I think are coming in to feel and have the experience of a really fun, funny play set in a hair braiding shop, but also at the heart of it, we're talking about the humans behind the immigration policies of America. It's just a powerful way for people to be able to connect with a story. And I read a quote when I was in graduate school that has remained with me, and I think has been the kind of the thesis statement of my work as a writer, which is just comedy is just a funny way of being serious. And I think being able to lean into that every single time, knowing that is kind of like the goal. My goal is still something that is tackling something serious, but the way in which I get there, the method in which I get there is going to be a comedic way, has proved to be really powerful. And I think the message of the play really lands on people in the end, because they just didn't see it coming.

Jo Reed: I think that's right. I think your plays have humor and they have joy and they have struggle, because I think there's this false dichotomy that you focus on struggle or if you're focusing on humor, you're missing the part where people struggle. I mean, you know, life, it's not just struggle and it's not just joy. It’s this combination and I think that's why your work is so compelling, because it is truthful and shows both.

Jocelyn Bioh: Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Once I feel like I'm not doing either of those things as a writer, is when I'll just go ahead and put the pen down. or the proverbial pen. I'll close the laptop because I haven't written anything by hand in a very long time.

Jo Reed: The symbolic pen.

Jocelyn Bioh: Yeah, exactly.

Jo Reed: Well, you mentioned you began your theater career as an actress and you worked with Brendan Jacob Jenkins a couple of times. And you were on Broadway as an actor in The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night. So what made you decide to commit to writing?

Jocelyn Bioh: Well, I went to… it's a funny story. I went to college, I went to Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio and I was an English and theater major. And the theater program at the time was a very traditional program where they only cast their plays to type, which meant that if it wasn't specifically specified that someone was a person of color in that play, they defaulted to it being cast with white actors. And so that severely limited many of the roles that I could be up for, and so I took a playwriting course to compensate for those credits. It was what I said earlier, that I tripped and stumbled into playwriting is truly that. And so I took a playwriting course and I found that I really enjoyed it, and I signed up to take the second version of that course. And the professor at that time told me that she thought I had a really good ear for dialogue and that I should maybe think about continuing to pursue a career as a writer, which I had honestly never thought about. And I was like, "Okay, well, yeah, maybe." And so when I was applying to graduate schools, I did the funny thing of applying to some as a writer, and I applied to some as an actor. And when I got into Columbia's MFA playwriting program, I just thought I would roll the dice and that I could learn on my feet what it was like to be an actor. If I got cast in plays, I could just like have that experience in that way. But if I really wanted to understand the mechanics of being a playwright and what the base of all of that was, I thought I should give myself a shot at really taking some years to study that. And so that's what I did. And by the time I graduated from school, unfortunately the country was in a major recession and even I would say my work as a writer wasn't strong. I had learned what it was to write a play, but I hadn't yet found my voice as a playwright. And so I threw myself back into performing and acting and just wrote some plays on the side. And so I was still doing both in tandem, it's only that my acting career in New York started to gain more momentum before my work as a writer did. And so when I was in Curious Incident on Broadway, which was like a goal I had been working for so long to be an actor in a Broadway show, I had really made a promise to myself that when I was done with the show that I would commit more of my time to my writing. And it was actually in the dressing room of Curious Incident where I started writing the play that ended up being my breakout hit, if you will, which School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play .  So yeah, it was like, I never let go of either. It's just my acting career happened in one way, and my playwriting career happened in a different way.

Jo Reed: You mentioned Issa Rae and Lucille Ball, of all people, as inspirations for you creating your own opportunities. Talk about that, and how their influence helped shape your own vision for your career as a playwright and as an actor.

Jocelyn Bioh: I mean, I think those two women, I've mentioned them before in other interviews and them being my role models. It's so interesting because I think like, obviously Lucille Ball was of another time, of an era where women were not given the opportunities that she really created for herself, having her own show, producing her own show, starring in her own show, creating her own production company where she could produce other work, vehicles for other people. It was just kind of fascinating. From a business perspective, it was just a really iconic thing that she did as a woman in a time where no one was able to do things like that. And then on top of that, she was just like a brilliant, genius comedian. I used to sit in front of my TV and they used to play these reruns of I Love Lucy on Nickelodeon at night when I was a kid. It was Nick at Night. And I would just watch hours and hours, I would record episodes of I Love Lucy and I would just watch her and study her. I just thought she was such a comedic genius. And there was actually so much storytelling in her physicality, in her physical comedy that I wanted to emulate so much. And I never really realized that… in my head, I was just watching it and enjoying it, and as an adult now, I'm realizing that it was my education in theater. It was my education in comedy, in storytelling, in acting. And flash forward all these years later, you have someone like Issa Rae who's ostensibly doing the same thing. A thing that was carved out by Lucille Ball. She has her own production company, she's writing, producing, and starring in her own show, but she's a Black woman. And not just a Black woman, a first generation African woman, able to do that. Literally the same thing that I am, a person who has an immigrant parent who came to this country, hoping to have a better life for their children, and she's been able to do that, and do it so successfully and in such a smart, unique way. But it's all wholly originally her and her voice. And both of them, I think, just hold the keys to what I hope many people in the industry who are like myself, who are not just writers, who are also actors, who also desire to be producers of their own work. And who knows, I have never thought about owning my own company, but now I'm seeing these women who've been able to do it. And it's just important that we have those role models in every generation. And I feel really blessed that I was able to really understand what Lucille Ball did in her generation, and that I'm living in a time where I can watch in real time, follow, admire, and hopefully emulate for myself what Issa Rae is doing now.

Jo Reed: You dedicated Jaja to the hair braiding ladies you admired growing up. How did that personal connection to these women influence both the authenticity, but the real emotional depth that's in that story?

Jocelyn Bioh: I think I've had such unique experiences with these women. I've heard them talk about their relationships and their struggles in their marriage, when I was eight years old and probably shouldn't have been listening in but I was sitting there getting my hair braided and just happened to be that wandering ear. I've helped one of my hair braiding ladies many years ago, fill out her citizenship application. She was nervous that she would mess up some of the things that she had to fill out and so, you know, asked me to guide her through it as she was braiding my hair. When I went to go get my hair braided for my wedding a couple of years ago, it was like five days out from my wedding and I was just having, as most brides do, just like a breakdown of like everything. And I just showed up at the hair braiding shop crying, and my hair braiding lady was my mom in that moment. In those six hours that she was doing my hair, she became my mother and really nurtured me and doted on me, and reassured me that everything was going to be okay. Those are such unique experiences that I've had with women who for all intents and purposes are relative strangers to me. They're not people that I know or speak to every day, they're not people that I call and have catch-ups with or sit down and have lunch with. They're people that I call to get my hair braided, and yet we share these vulnerable moments, these intimate moments, these moments of care. And those experiences have happened over and over and over. And I don't think any of them ever imagined that they'd see some facet of themselves on a Broadway stage. I never even imagined it. And so there was no question to me that I would dedicate the play to them.

Jo Reed: Well, the play has resonated with such a diversity of audiences. What has it meant to you to see your personal stories and experiences reach such a wide and appreciative audience,  to be heard and embraced in that way?

Jocelyn Bioh: I think it's the goal of every playwright. At the end of the day, you sit and write a play, a play is meant to be performed and seen and shared with an audience of people. Otherwise it would just be a book, you know? And so it's every playwright's dream that their play is done and produced, shared with audiences and hopefully embraced and accepted. For me, it just means that I'm doing the right thing, that I'm on the right path, that the stories that I'm writing are connecting with people, are inviting them in, are wanting them to kind of come back and re-engage, bring friends. That's the beauty of theater, that's how we're going to keep growing this industry that, you know, I feel like every few months, honestly, people keep threatening that it's dying, it's dying, the theater is dying. And it's not, it actually can thrive when you just like write things that speak to massive, huge swaths of people. Even if there's somebody who's never even been in a hair braiding shop, there's something about the play, about the characters, about the world that is still universal and inviting. And it just means a lot to me that there were people who were open to seeing the play and it didn't disappoint. It didn't let them down.

Jo Reed:   Not at all. And I think that is a great place to leave it, Jocelyn. Thank you.

Jocelyn Bioh: Thank you.

Jo Reed: Thank you for this play. Thank you for all your work, I am so glad to be going to theater while you're writing it.

Jocelyn Bioh: Oh, thank you so much. It means so much. Thank you.

Jo Reed: You're welcome. That was playwright Jocelyn Bioh—her play Jaja’s African Hair Braiding is running at Arena Stage until October 13. It moves to Berkeley Repertory Theatre November 8, and Chicago Shakespeare Theater January 14, 2025.  You’ll find links in our show notes. You’ve been listening to Art Works produced at the National Endowment for the Arts. follow us wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a rating on Apple, it helps other people who love the arts to find us. For the National Endowment for the Arts, I’m Josephine Reed. Thanks for listening.