Calvin: The MUSICAL!

Naomi Avadanei

Back in the Fall of 2022, while I was on maternity leave and soaking in those delicious contact naps, I felt the need to keep my brain busy, so I scoured the New York City DOE offerings for educators and stumbled upon Lambda Literary’s LGBTQ Writers in Schools grant for educators. It is a virtual and in-person program that connects K-12 students with working LGBTQ+ authors. “Since 2015, Lambda Literary’s LGBTQ Writers in Schools program and the NYC Department of Education have partnered to provide LGBTQ+ students with an experience that creates critically necessary, safe spaces for students to talk about great books and how to thrive as an LGBTQ+ person.”

I am the theater educator at Ella Baker School, a small Pre-kindergarten-Grade 8 school on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The Ella Baker School was founded upon the principles of Ella Baker herself and the Civil Rights movement. We approach learning through project based inquiry, with an emphasis on social-emotional growth, anti-racist practices, and social justice activism. Students and staff come to Ella Baker School from all five boroughs, making us one of the most truly diverse schools in New York City.

After applying for and receiving the grant I was tasked with the job of choosing which authors (and in turn which text) we would like to work with. Calvin immediately caught my attention as it features a young, multiracial, trans character: a character that many of the students in my classes and in the Ella Baker community could identify with in some way. Additionally, I appreciated that the book was written by husband and wife team JR and Vanessa Ford. After reading their biographies, I thought this would be a great book to bring into our community. 

Typically, those working with Lambda Literary’s Writers in Schools Program have the opportunity to give copies of the books to their students, meet with the authors, and discuss the book. This all sounded great to me, but being a theater educator, I knew I wanted and could do more! As an artist and educator, my passion is devising original theater with young people. After connecting with JR and Vanessa and reading the book numerous times, I knew what the story of Calvin needed: to become a musical! Who better to adapt it than my 6th grade ICT class?!

Over the course of the next few months we did a deep character exploration and study of Calvin, putting characters in Calvin in conversation with characters from other LGBTQ+ books, creating timelines for the different characters, studying the inner and outer thoughts of the characters, and deciding on key moments in the story. Thanks to JR and Vanessa we also had the opportunity to interview trans artist, educator, and activist Rebecca Kling about her experience as a trans woman and how theatre and the arts helped her along her own journey. Finally, we created an outline for our musical and began writing. After our script was finalized, we worked with my incredibly talented colleague, friend, and composer Michael Finke to co-create lyrics, music, and melodies for our musical. 

After our first draft was finalized and edits were made, we decided that instead of performing our full musical this year, we wanted to do what professional musical theater artists do (on Broadway and the like) and workshop our musical, getting input and feedback from our Ella Baker community. 

We spent a few weeks in rehearsals and students took their roles as actors and set/costume/light/sound designers very seriously. Again, thanks to JR and Vanessa, our designers had the opportunity to meet with Kayla Harren, illustrator of Calvin, and learn about her concepts (in terms of shape, color, and texture) and allowed that to inform their own preliminary designs.

Finally, it was time for our students to share their workshopped performance! Students had the opportunity to present their work to students in the Ella Baker Community (PK-8), an audience of their friends and family and, most excitingly, with JR, Vanessa and their child, Ellie, whose own story inspired the story of Calvin. 

Students received incredible feedback and suggestions from their audiences. In their post-show reflections, they decided on additional scenes, songs, and design elements that they would like to add in future versions of their musical. 

We will begin the 2023-2024 school year reflecting on this year’s process and writing new scenes and songs. After that, we’ll dive into rehearsals and production meetings and we’ll finally get to perform the fully realized "Calvin: The MUSICAL!" in all the glory it deserves. 

Additionally, in reflecting with my students, we would love to eventually make our Calvin script available to schools to perform for their school communities. This entire process has been one of the most wonderful highlights in my ten years as a theater educator and I can’t wait to see where this project takes us next.

Thank you to JR and Vanessa Ford for entrusting us with their story and for affording us the opportunity to work so closely with them, their family, and their circle of advocates. This project is so much richer because of their support! I even had the opportunity to ask them a few questions, which you can see below:

Can you talk about what you were thinking when you heard I was interested in adapting Calvin into a musical with my 6th graders?

When we learned about Naomi bringing Calvin to the stage we were blown away. But nothing could have prepared us for the staged reading we witnessed in May! The music! The words! The students! The study of our book! As a former teacher, I know great teaching when I see it and yet I wasn’t prepared for how incredible the production would be. We are so thrilled to see the FULL production during SY23-24 and continue to work with Naomi however we can.

I also want to share my trans child’s perspective on this as Calvin is truly based on their life. They gave it a 13/10 and were so proud to see their story on stage in such a beautiful way.

What was your favorite part of the process so far?

We really loved meeting the kids. Seeing the impact our story had on the students, answering their questions, and following them as they brought our short children’s book into a full-length play was incredible! We hope we can spend a day with them as they are preparing for the “big” production next year.

Where do you see “Calvin: The MUSICAL!” going in the future?

I’d love to see it continue to gain momentum. It’s a real musical… with real music and lyrics! I’d love to see it Off-Broadway or even a documentary about the making of the play. With the state of public education under attack, it’s quite something to see a school, and teacher, leaning into a text that is banned in other states and bringing it to life.

Anything else?

The power of theater education is amazing. I am in awe of Naomi, her students and the work and can’t wait to see what next year holds for Calvin!