“I feel like a lot of Gen Z-ers have the idea that we are just headed towards doom and that we were put in a situation that we had nothing to do with; that we came into a world—we were born into a world, post-911—that is racist, that hates the planet. We grew up in Armageddon. So to be at that protest [in Kenosha for Jacob Blake] and to hear people talk about how they saw the future in us, and how they saw hope in us, and the way we interact with each other, the way we care for each other, and view each other as human beings before anything else, that was super inspiring and something I’ll carry with me forever.”
After a tumultuous and unpredictable year that completely shook up the world, we’re back at the mic and looking to the future! The season five premiere episode kicks off with Nick Daly, a musical theatre and playwriting student at the University of Michigan and the winner of Playbill’s Search for a Star contest. We discuss his experience of performing in the first high school production of The Scottsboro Boys, rising to TikTok fame, and protesting in Kenosha this summer with a Gen Z perspective.
Recommendation: August Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle and any play by Branden Jacob-Jenkins
Shout out: Alyssa Wray, TikTokers of Wakanda, Caleb, Gabriela, Cat Christmas, Sania McKnight, Ben Woods, and UMich musical theatre students Sevon, Thomais, Timmy