Actress Nilaja Sun’s still learning from her hit one-woman play

Courtesy of Long Wharf

(Courtesy Of Long Wharf)

No Child …

Ends April 18. Long Wharf Theatre, Stage II, 222 Sargent Drive. $30-$65. 203-787-4282, longwharf.org.

Nilaja Sun could have left No Child behind long ago. The one-woman show she wrote and has performed solo more than 600 times — including a hit Off-Broadway run, a national tour and several engagements at education conferences — “has really taken on a life of its own,” she says. The frenzied multi-character piece, about a New York City theater instructor coaxing cynical teens into staging a production of Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Our Country’s Good, now gets done in schools itself, with a different actor for each role. Many other solo performers have interpreted Sun’s semi-autobiographical educational odyssey onstage. And now, Sun’s bringing No Child to Connecticut herself for the next month.

Sun’s seen half a dozen different productions of No Child now from the audience rather than being in it herself, and is astonished at “how differently people can interpret one thing.” The experiences remind her that she herself had originally envisioned it as being done “by two or three people, before I wound up doing it solo. I just went a little crazy.”

Says Sun: “At the same time, we’re now giving the play away for others to do; there’s a contingent out there still interested in seeing my performance of it. I’m still asked to do it a lot. It’s a fun play, so fun to do. I just hope it won’t be like Hal Holbrook [who’s been portraying Mark Twain Tonight for over half a century], still doing this in my ’80s.”

Sun, who despite the several playwriting awards No Child has garnered, still sees herself primarily as an actress, continues to teach acting programs in prisons even as she’s been getting small roles in Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz movies due to her newfound fame. She’s still happy to be reliving No Child onstage, especially when the bookings bring her to urban environments like New Haven.

She loves feedback from inner-city students and their teachers, who recognize aspects of themselves in her show. Sometimes she even gets counseled by teachers on how she could have better defused some of the raucous situations she recounts in the play. Some of those scenes, she laughs, were exaggerated for dramatic impact, and she really does know better: “For example, when Miss Sun [her same-named character in the play] walks into the classroom, you see the students being resistant. On the realistic level, I would never take 10 minutes to squash that kind of language. But for the audience’s sake, I need to show what Miss Sun is up against.”

Sun expresses great pride when describing how her comic drama about student/teacher interaction in an urban high school has “opened this dialogue about education.” To that end, she turns teacherly for a moment when talking about her imminent five-week run at Long Wharf: “Throughout the tour, I found that the first week would sell out pretty quickly, but it would seem like there’d still be a lot of tickets left. Then as soon as it opened, word of mouth would happen, and it would sell out right away. So I’m really not trying to be blowing my own horn or something here, but if people want to see it they should get tickets now.”

Listen to your teacher. Miss Sun insists. Get to your seat early, or you’ll miss class.

No excuses.

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TeacherTeacher  - Go See It   |2010-03-20 20:54:51 I saw this with my 70 students from the New Haven public school where I teach. My students were captivated and so was I. Bravo, Ms. Sun! Thank you for making it about the kids. Reply 0   0

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