Wayne Cook calls himself bumpy. Which is an apt metaphor for the story we are about to share. In it, Wayne plays a promising young athlete, a crash victim, a soldier in Germany, a child therapist, a stage actor, the Black Mr. Rogers, an arts administrator, a successful author, and Langston Hughes.

BIO

Wayne Cook worked at the California Arts Council for 23 years, where he was Program Manager of the Artists in School’s Program and the ADA/504 Disability Coordinator. He Currently consults for the William James Association and Arts in Corrections at Solano State Prison and other correctional institutions in California. In previous years, Mr. Cook consulted with the Educational Department for the Sacramento Theatre Company (STC) and was an actor in such productions as, “To Kill A Mockingbird” at STC. Other notable productions Wayne acted in were “The Iceman Cometh” for the Actor’s Theatre of Sacramento and only a few years ago received the Elly award for acting in “Learning Spanish” at the Wilkerson Theatre. Mr. Cook is the author of a drama curriculum, “Center Stage”, A Curriculum for the Performing Arts can be purchased on Amazon.com.

Notable Mentions

Mr. Rogers: Fred McFeely Rogers (March 20, 1928 – February 27, 2003), also known as Mister Rogers, was an American television host, author, producer, and Presbyterian minister.[1] He was the creator, showrunner, and host of the preschool television series Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, which ran from 1968 to 2001

Performing Tree: The Performing Tree was as arts education program that worked in schools in the Los Angeles area in the 1980’s and 90’s. 

Arts in Corrections: In the early 1970's, a time when work opportunities for artists and arts educators were diminishing in the mainstream culture, many professional artists began to look to society's forgotten corners for a new constituency. Patients and prisoners offered an alternative opportunity for artists to respond to a crying need to be valued. The emergence of these institutional art programs also provides a challenge to artists' preconceptions about the value and potential of the creative processes--a value which was as rooted in the issues of survival as those of aesthetics.

California Arts Council: Culture is the strongest signifier of California’s identity. As a state agency, the California Arts Council supports local arts infrastructure and programming statewide through grants, programs, and services.

Langston Hughes: Langston Hughes was a central figure in the Harlem Renaissance, the flowering of black intellectual, literary, and artistic life that took place in the 1920s in a number of American cities, particularly Harlem. A major poet, Hughes also wrote novels, short stories, essays, and plays. He sought to honestly portray the joys and hardships of working-class black lives, avoiding both sentimental idealization and negative stereotypes. As he wrote in his essay “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,” “We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, it doesn’t matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too.”

Senator Cory Booker: On March 23, 2022 Senator Booker quoted from Langston Hughes’ poem Let American be America Again, in his supporting comments during Senate hearings on Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination to the Supreme Court. 

Senator Booker an American politician, attorney, and author who has served as the junior United States senator from New Jersey since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, Booker is the first African-American U.S. senator from New Jersey. He was the 38th mayor of Newark from 2006 to 2013, and served on the Municipal Council of Newark for the Central Ward from 1998 to 2002.

Ketanji Brown Jackson: is an American attorney and jurist who has served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit since 2021.[2] She is an associate justice-designate of the Supreme Court of the United States, having received Senate confirmation on April 7, 2022.[3][4]

Let America be America Again: A Langston Hughes poem published in 1935

As I Grew Older: A Langston Hughes published published in 1935

CSCW EP 51 - Wayne Cook

As you might imagine, it’s a story that is characterized by abrupt changes, some potentially catastrophic and others, portentous. It's also a story of perseverance, actually not so much perseverance as a belief that if you keep your head up, you're focus straight and allow the story you are living to teach you, the twists and turns can make sense a way that is profound.

Part One: “The Holla”

WC: They would be bumpy. Yeah. 3909 bumpy street because in a bumpy street, there's those ups and downs.sometimes you're driving and it's nice and smooth. And all of a sudden you come to a bump you have to push yourself up that hill. Sometimes it's little, and sometimes it's steep,

BC: When I asked if all those up and down experiences had been a hindrance, he pointed to his experience as an artist as both a through-line and a life line.

It's part of life's process. we're, there's no way of getting around that. And it's how you deal with failure is whether it's it defeats you are inspires you.

But because of that flexibility, that is created in you within the arts and learning I've been able to, maneuver those bumps in my life.

WC: I was, the youngest in my family, And so I had the advantage of looking at six other people front of me going through life. And I really learned a lot from my four brothers and two sisters. And, that was really an amazing journey for me. It gave me the ability to try something, and stepping back from it and trying again. And that was the importance of the arts to me, which drew me to children actually, and which got me into the whole idea of children's play. because that's where I got started in theater is in children's play. I was going to study to be a psychologist. that's what I really wanted to be. I didn’t discovered theater until really later.

[00:04:39] WC: They called my neighborhood,” the holla.” My neighborhood was very unique. I don't know how true it is, you know how stories get passed from generation to generation. But I'm told that a group of Native Americans gave this land to a group of freed slaves in the hollow and they called it the hollows. The house where I grew up there was this really big hill and down in the bottom of the hill was this whole neighborhood of African-Americans and up above were all white.

I never did quite understand how that came to be. how could it be that you had to go all the way down this really extraordinary. And every, everybody, every home down there, everybody down there were African-American and you moved up the hill and they were all white. So I had very little to do with white people except going to school when I went up the hill. Itit fascinating.

Unexpected events often figure prominently in stories about how lives change. For Wayne Cook unexpected, doesn't come close to describing the devastating detour his life took on a hot humid evening in the summer before starting college.

And I ended up in the hospital and because I love to read books, I ended up telling my mother to bring me buy me some books. And, she brought me the books and I couldn't read a word of it. I saw it, but I couldn't read a word and I had to start from the very beginning all over again, to learn how to read. But that gave me the patience of, being able to work with kids, being able to work with youth.

And out of that, I began to do creative dramatics. Sitting down with a group of kids, and even before I knew drama. It's just letting them tell me where to go within this creative play and really started there and started to develop myself through that.

Part Two: Letting the Story Evolve

[00:08:00] WC: And I went into the service and after six months school and Fort Sam Houston got assigned to a Dr. Hudson in Germany. Dr. Hudson was one of the renowned child psychiatrists, but he used play therapy as his mode. And, we had this big theatrical, beautiful room with every toy that you can think of . And really. he taught me how to, involve kids, without telling them what to do, but letting them evolve. So that was really the beginning and it was so important for me in theater. in terms of developing characters and not telling myself who this character is, but letting them evolve

BC: Wayne is describing one of the big challenges that many teachers and therapists confront. Namely, you how to keep from casting yourself, as the principal change agent in your work with patients or students. How to avoid imposing the lesson or change you think is needed, and as Wayne puts it, letting a person's new or altered narrative evolve. In his continuing work in Germany with Dr Hudson, Wayne learned this lesson the hard way.

And so I took this child into the play therapy room and he sat in the middle of the room and I did everything possible to get this child to speak. I did. “I bet you can't touch your ears. I bet you can't touch your nose. I bet you can't touch your eyes.” I got airplanes. I flew them around him. I got trains and I rode him around. I made these sounds and wanting this child to say something to me and 45 minutes went by and this child sat there did not say a word did not move.

I was sweating, I was defeated and the 45 minutes was over. Parents came and knocked on the door. it's over it's time. They came to get the child and in our hall, in our therapy room, there's a long hallway. They grabbed the chid, and I walked all the way towards the end of the hallway and the child turned around and looked at me and went…

[00:11:32] WC: I knew what he was saying. He said, you big dummy. You sat me down there. And you tried to force all this stuff on me for 45 minutes. And all you needed to do is create a safe environment and let me grow on my own. on my own and, that was the, one of the biggest lessons that I have learned.

WC: One day I was walking down the hallway of our, therapy. of our clinic and there was this guy walking down the other way, and he says, have you ever been in a play? And I said, no, not really. He says, you want to be in one. It was called Finally Gray and it was a two person show. It was, an African-American guy and a white woman. And what happened was there was a atomic explosion and there were only two people left in the world and there was this man and this woman. And it was how they, dealt with the world after the explosion.

Part Three: The Black Mr. Rogers Goes to Prison

[00:13:05] WC: I came out of the service and went to theatrical school, went to Pittsburgh Playhouse, which is, right down the street from Carnegie Mellon. So, we shared, many of the teachers and quite a few plays from shin, Carnegie Mellon,

So from that did some theater And then from that, got the television show and called Cater Cousins. cater cousins means "friends.". And, because of my interest in kids and because of my interest in letting kids grow, on their own, I would, we would do stories from around the world on this television show. I was the Black Mr. Rogers of Pittsburgh.

I knew Mr. Rogers. In fact, I'd been on his show a number of times, and he knew of me as well. And, basically just because I worked with children. I sat and talked to children. and then when kids used to see me on the bus, I was this television show they never understood why I was on a bus. I couldn't get that together.

[00:15:31] WC: So I decided to leave that and come to California to become a star. And, we came out here and scrubbing pots for a company that made salsa. Then A lot of kids in theater, a lot of kids in theater. Yeah yeah. Yeah. Trying to figure out, trying to figure out how am I, heck I was going to get all this done in a then all of a sudden, one day I got a phone call from this guy named Bill Cleveland. he said, "Have you ever been in prison?” Just like the whole thing. “Have you ever been in a play?” There's that question again? “I have the prison for you.” Folsom, which was, just absolutely fascinating.

Oh boy, I was scared. I was actually scared what did I get myself into? it's I wasn't sure about this at all. And on many levels, I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure of my going in as knowing that, that I was aware of every stereotype about prisons, every stereotype about Folsom prison. And walking through those gates and, going through some of the training that you had to go through to go in, made you even more frightened, with whistles and, with, making sure that they know where you are at all times. Because you don't want to get caught somewhere without them knowing where you are in Folsom.

BC: Despite his misgivings Wayne did make the choice to become a full time resident artist in a new program called Arts-in-Corrections that was being established in California prisons up and down the state. Like the thousands of artists, free and imprisoned, who ultimately became a part of the Arts in Corrections family, Wayne learned that the people who live and work in prison are vastly different that he had imagined.

WC: Uh, I have a, I've learned that, uh, uh, there's much more to, uh, those guys that are incarcerated, then what you see. But, there's very few people that really take the time. to see, to listen and to care. And I think that those of us who, who take the time to go inside are appreciated by them, especially. And it's really important that these kinds of programs continue. otherwise they're lost completely and you're not gonna save them all but at least they'll know that there's some of us out here who care. And, I've always cared, but it's. it's rough because there's so many young people that are going in that direction.

Part Four: Langston and the Bureaucracy Whisperer

But of course for someone like Wayne there is always another chapter. This one involving a capacity that he feels has made all of this possible. Namely, his unique gift as a perceptive listener, and what I will call, his talent as a bureaucracy whisperer.

WC: The California Arts Council at that time was having a hard time with the department of Ed. (Education). And those two just did not get along at all. And because I worked on the K through 6 theater and, arts curriculum. with them, they knew I just knew how to talk to those educators. And so the Arts Council thought that maybe this guy, Wayne Cook, may be able to mend some fences here. And so I wasn't actually on staff, but I was an appointee to the director. And so that's what I did. I left Folsom and went to the Arts Council. And then my main job really was to connect the Arts Council with the Department of Ed. And it worked.

WC: It got around quite a bit. In fact, he got, he got adopted the state of Texas, which is a very impossible thing to do, and it was used in every state in the union except North Dakota.

[00:21:52] WC: Langston was, very important to me, his poetry, what he had to say. And taking him on and becoming him and reciting his work, has been extremely important. And that came out of an experience with a theater company in Los Angeles, where they were doing one of Langston's. two plays. And the director said,”Wayne, could you take one of Langston's poems, and read it to the audience, before the play. I did that before the play and so I decided to look at it further and developed it into a one person show with a jazz musician,

He was just shedding taking off this Western garb and going back to his natural self, and ending up with what happens to a dream deferred, as a dry up like a raisin in the sun, it's like, “If you don't pay attention to this stuff, man, it's going to, it's going to blow up in your face.”

BC: It is clear that Wayne regards Langston Hughes as companion, as a fellow traveler, speaking a fresh and relevant truth, to twenty-first century American power. In our conversation he called up that moment during the second day of Kentaji Brown Jackson's Supreme Court confirmation hearings when New Jersey Senator Corey Booker gave the poet a place at the table. (Quoting, Hughes’ Let America be America Again)

WC: He is still speaking. In fact, Booker, you know, he loves him, you know, so every time Booker comes on, he cites something from Langston.

Senator Corey Booker: And what were the words of your heroes in mind? What did Constance baker Motley do? Did she, this country that she saw in salt and injuries, when she came out of law school, law firms wouldn't even hire her because she was a woman. Did she become bitter? Did she try to create a revolution? No. She used the very constitution of this nation.

She loved it so much. She wanted America to be America as Langston Hughes, let wrote:

Oh, let America be America again. The land that never has been yet, but yet must be the land where everyone is free. Oh yes. I say it plain. America never was America to me, But I swear this oath America will be. That is the story of how you got to this desk.

BC: Like Senator Booker, Wayne is well known for his open heart and positive spirit, and as an actor he can play just about anything. But, when he puts on Langston's suit and tie something else is going on and, he becomes the poet in another time and place.

One day when I was visiting the Arts Council I saw this firsthand. Most of the administrators were there, including Wayne, in their suits and tie scattered around a long oval conference table. We were talking about artists working in schools and prisons, and, of course grants, which is the Council's principal business. Outside it was Sacramento summer scorching hot, and inside it was blinds drawn air conditioner stuffy. The best way to describe the scene was , well, sleepy. Just as the meeting was starting to break up a woman raised her hand and said, “Before we all go, I have a question.” All eyes turned in her direction. “Here we are at the State Arts Council, this is the art place right! where is the art?”

Hearing this, Wayne just stood up, he loosened his tie and started in.

It was a long time ago.

I have almost forgotten my dream.

But it was there then,

In front of me,

Bright like a sun—

My dream.

And then the wall rose,

Rose slowly,

Slowly,

Between me and my dream.

Rose until it touched the sky—

The wall.

Shadow.

I lie in the shadow.

No longer the light of my dream before me,

Above me.

Only the thick wall.

Only the shadow.

My hands!

My dark hands!

Break through the wall!

Find my dream!

Help me to shatter this darkness,

To smash this night,

To break this shadow

Into a thousand lights of sun,

Into a thousand whirling dreams

Of sun!

Well that’s it for this episode. thank you to Wayne for sharing his stories and to those of you out there listening and commenting across the globe. If you have a comment or a suggestion for a subject or a guest for the show drop me a line at bill@artandcommunity.com.

And for those of you who are teaching, or doing research, or just trying to absorb as much as you can about art and community change, we want to remind you again about our new Change the Story Collection. This new feature is our response to listeners who told us they'd like to dig deeper into art and change episodes that focus on specific issues, constituencies, their disciplines like justice arts, cultural organizing, change theater, children and youth, or music. If this interests you, please check it out www.artandcommunity.com under the podcast dropped down or click the link in our show notes.

Change the Story, Change the World is a production of the Center for the Study of Art and Community. It's written and hosted by me, Bill Cleveland, and our theme and soundscape are by the fantabulous Judy Munson, our editing is by Andre Nnebe, our special effects come from freesound.com, and our inspiration rises up from the mysterious, but ever present presence of UKE 235. Until next time, please stay well do good and spread the good word.