Veterans Write A Play

Made possible with support from California Humanities, a non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities, VETERANS WRITE A PLAY was a series of playwriting workshops for veteran participants, led by Humanities Artist Leilani Squire and facilitated by professional writers, playwrights, and theatre directors. The eight veteran workshop participants learned the basics of playwriting and then collectively chose a topic, theme, story, and characters for the original play, Grandfathered: Where War Lingers.

Grandfathered: Where War Lingers tells the story of four generations of a military family who come together under one roof and must face each other, and their haunted pasts. It interrogates how war affects those who go to war, and how war affects those who live with those who go to war. Characters in the play include a grandfather - patriarch of the family - who is a veteran of the Korean War; his son who is a conscientious objector of the Vietnam War; his grandson who is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom; and his granddaughter’s father who is currently serving in the Army. When the play begins, the granddaughter’s father is about to be deployed to Syria. But the play is about more than following the daily lives of these characters. As one of the veteran—a seventeen-year-old combat medic during the Vietnam War—playwrights said: “We are demystifying PTSD.”

In April 2018, Returning Soldiers Speak announced the staged reading and discussion of VETERANS WRITE A PLAY’s final activity for the Humanities For All Quick Grant project. Participants rehearsed with Theatre Directors James MacDonald and Keith Szarabajka and presented a live staged-reading to the public, followed by a discussion with the audience. The play Grandfathered: Where War Lingers was presented on May 5th in the Community Room at the North Hollywood Amelia Earhart Regional Library.

“Veterans Write A Play is one of the most exciting and meaningful projects I have been involved with,” said Leilani Squire, Project Director and Humanities Artist. “The project has been an opportunity for veterans to come together and collaborate in a way that they have not done before. Grandfathered: Where War Lingers is an intimate look into how war affects four generations under the roof of one family’s house. Through writing the play, the veteran participants—who served from the Korean War through Operation Iraqi Freedom—processed their experiences in war, their military service, and the challenges they faced after deployment and discharge from the United States Armed Forces. I am proud of what the veterans have achieved in writing this play. Another important element of this project is the opportunity for the community to hear the veterans’ stories, and to discuss how their military experiences informed the writing of the play. Humanities Advisor, Sandra Fluck, Theatre Directors James MacDonald and Keith Szarabajka, Graphic Designer Dallas Dorsett, and I are grateful to have worked with these terrific and talented veterans and to be a part of such a worthy and meaningful project.”

In March 2019, as a work-in-development, Grandfathered: Where War Lingers was first read as part of EST/LA’s L.A. FEST Annual Celebration of the Distinct Voices of Los Angeles at Ensemble Studio Theatre. The playwrights were Adam Cloys, George Cantero, Terre Fallon Lindseth, Lucy Meseberg, Scott Mueller, Les Probst and Leilani Squire, and directed by Keith Szarabajka. The readings were followed by a post-show conversation about the work and its important message on how war affects those who go to war and those who wait for them to come home.

Humanities For All Quick Grant is a competitive grant program of California Humanities that supports locally-initiated public humanities projects that respond to the needs and interests of Californians, encourage greater public participation in humanities programming, particularly by new and/or underserved audiences, and promotes understanding and empathy among all our state’s peoples in order to cultivate a thriving democracy.

California Humanities, a nonprofit partner of the National Endowment of the Humanities, promotes the humanities – focused on ideas, conversation and learning – as relevant, meaningful ways to understand the human condition and connect us to each other in order to help strengthen California. California Humanities has provided grants and programs across the state since 1975.