Q&A with Cartography playwright Christopher Myers
The author & illustrator discusses his first play for young audiences: a theatrical exploration of migration.
Christopher Myers is an American author and illustrator of children’s books. His illustrations in Harlem won a Caldecott Honor in 1998, and Black Cat earned a Coretta Scott King Award in 2000. He has illustrated and/or written some 20 books and is also a visual artist who designs clothing. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, but travels worldwide. Cartography is his first play.
How did the idea for Cartography take shape?
In 2016, there was a massive influx of refugees into Europe from Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, Eritrea, West Africa. I was spending time at the International Youth Library in Munich, Germany, and that area was receiving thousands of refugees every day. I had this thought, that while there was obviously a need for social services, there was also a need for storytellers, too. The act of migration is an act of storytelling, an imagination of a future, a rewriting of the past. Storytelling is central to the process of moving, and it is essential that alongside medical assistance and social assistance that we think about the stories that have drawn our borders and our needs to cross them.
The library provided space and support for myself and my collaborator Kaneza Schaal to talk with and work with these young refugees. They ranged from 11 to 17 years old and came from all across the world. Kaneza is an ideal collaborator. We were working with young people who spoke Arabic, Pashto, French, and other languages, and communication presented its own challenges. But Kaneza brought the language of theater and performance which is more than just words — it’s movement and action and sound and images.
The importance of stories is a recurring theme in the play. Why is storytelling important, especially for refugees?
These young people urgently wanted to share the stories about their lives, and I think young people in general are desperate for stories — to tell as well as hear them. In a very real sense, they all are in the process of writing their own.
What I found is that, more than most people, these young people must contend with stories being told about them in newspapers and other news coverage. They, themselves, rarely have a chance to tell about their experiences.
Stories of human migration run throughout human history. Why is this show particularly timely now?
Everyone has a story of migration in their past. My grandfather came to the United States from Germany in the 1920s. Kaneza’s family fled strife and genocide in Rwanda. We are all on the continuum of migration; we are all part of this story.
Movement is part of what it means to be human. It helps us see our place in the grand scheme of things and in relation to each other. I really want young people to see themselves in that context, whether their stories are personal or farther back in their family’s history.
Performances of Cartography run January 11–13 in the Kennedy Center’s Family Theater. Visit our website for tickets and information.
