Interview with Charlene Olivia on the making of The Mushroom Kingdom of Ezili

a real deep dive on off-Broadway's ARS NOVA opener this ANT Fest

Hi folks,

So much of what I’m feeling, I haven’t been able to write myself. Life has been so full, all I can do lately is just be present and witness the miracle.

Thankfully, my friends have been able to press me and encourage me to find words what have been feelings. That leads to my friend Kat and their zine. Zine proceeds benefit Transgender Law Center & Point of Pride.

Kat had such a wealth of curious, invoking questions around my latest work, The Mushroom Kingdom of Ezili, which presented off-Broadway at ARS NOVA as opening night of ANT Fest.

I hope you enjoy:

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KW: Much of your work deals with the relationship between time and imagination — with Bricks you explored the reckoning we must have with our past and history in order to move through collective trauma and into the future. In The Mushroom Kingdom of Ezili, you are examining how we stay future-thinking and expand our imaginations rather than shrink ourselves as a response to crisis in the here-and-now. How did you start crafting these big, universal themes into a story about mushrooms? (Or did the shrooms come first?)

CJ: Speaking to the idea of expanding our collective imagination, much of my work is informed by New Age quantum leaping manifestation — particularly the law of manifestation, the work of Abraham-Hicks, The Secret, and A Course in Miracles. There was a time I felt really resistant to those ideas, but upon rereading, the themes of timelessness really resonated. I’ve also been very inspired by multiverses and alternate realities (films like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Everything Everywhere All at Once). So much multiversal thinking already exists, and I'm just catching up, and questioning how we can tap into these different realities in different ways.

Those themes were already on my mind when I began my journey with Mushroom Kingdom.

I've been a user of psychoactive mushrooms for a few years now, primarily as a healing thing I explored in my grief experience. I was doing shrooms and listening to Andre 3000 albums, doing a lot of foam rolling and myofascial release — those practices got me through. It got me into my body, and I realized, oh, the only way I can get through this is through pleasure. Shrooms really helped me tap into pleasure as a source of healing.

I wanted to figure out: How can I hold onto this world of pleasure and give it to others so they can tap into it in their own spheres? I started to really view art as evolution. Artists in particular have a huge power (and responsibility) to move thought evolution in one direction or the other, and we are living in a pivotal moment.

KW: Speaking of artists, who are some of the creators that inspire your artistry? Are there any artists whose work impacted Mushroom Kingdom in particular?

CJ: Well, I first came in knowing what kind of story I didn’t want to tell. I have some disdain for commercial musical theatre and take issue with some of what has been published and produced for Black, queer, fat folks and trans people. I just thought so much of it was corny! Those stories weren’t working for me and how I wanted to see those folks represented on stage.

But there is a fruitful history of work that I do love to look to: the legacy of Savion Glover with Bring in the Noise, Bring in Da Funk; Passing Strange, which was a rock musical that centered Black folks going to Germany and being part of the massive protests in there in the 80s. I mean, Nona Hendryx, Patti LaBelle, Funkadelic! There's such an amazing history of Black genius, writing, and imagination that I feel like maybe got off track a little bit. How do we reconnect with imagination? That's when I started to think, maybe mushrooms are gonna be part of a thought consciousness conversation. Maybe that’s our path back to evolutionary thought.

When I think about source and spirit and ancestors, humans are just the babies of the world. Not babies as in powerless — we're so powerful, we're such a part of things — but babies as in new and full of potential and possibilities. I think the universe and spirit and world is so generous with us because we're such babies — but I really want us to catch up with everything else! And I do think that mushrooms are an accelerator to that thought consciousness.

KW: Scientifically speaking, mushrooms move incredibly slowly, and so much of the show is about how we handle change. What do you hope your audience learns from taking a closer look into the tiny world of mushrooms?

CJ: They do work incredibly slowly! They eat, they process, they inform. Sometimes change feels like being in the darkness. But without the soil, and that slow gestation in the darkness, nothing could be born. Mushrooms are very connected and communal, and what I want audiences to remember when they see Mushroom Kingdom is that we are a community. In Bricks (another one of my pieces), I always said “we are a body, we're part of an ecosystem.”

I hope these mushroom characters help audiences internalize a new mindset around time: that we can move slowly because we're never going to run out of time. We can start to move slowly because we have never-ending patience and no frustration. How can we move that way in our world, remembering that no one is going to, like, come beat our asses for living a slow, deliberate life? How do we not be moved from fear or threat of violence, even when it appears that we live in that world?

KW: We get these lush dance sequences and orgies in Mushroom Kingdom — pleasure is a main pillar of the piece. The Mushroom Kingdom is being presented as a utopia that we, the audience, get to share in several moments. What yanks us out of that utopia is the death of an elder in Ezili, the leader Haumea, and the remaining trees warning Milfie that the pleasure force of their ecosystem is dangerously low. What inspired this loss of pleasure to be the catalyst for the conflict and rising action of this story? Does Haumea’s loss and grief play a role? What happens when a community loses its connection to pleasure?

CJ: I think the loss of pleasure is everywhere. I wrote Mushroom Kingdom primarily during the deepening of the Palestinian genocide, my own child loss, and my own restoration process. Shrooms, tree hugging and reading about mushrooms and astrology and mythology saved me in many ways. The philosophy and the pleasure got me through. And if I'm just one person, part of this larger body, then I figured the whole body must be feeling this loss of pleasure. I don't know many people who are writhing in joy right now.

I was very inspired by Maureen Murdock's idea of the feminine journey. So instead of the hero's journey, where it's all about doing, what if we have a show that centers the heroine’s journey, which is all about being and allowing and changing our mind? From a writing perspective, tracking action and conflict from this more feminine Yin space while keeping the stakes up is my new challenge. The natural conflict and stakes of Haumea’s loss, though, absolutely play a role.

Grief causes the loss of pleasure, but there are other losses: the loss of your homeland, the loss of your footing, the loss of the world that you grew up on. How do you recreate yourself when all that you’ve known is gone?

When a community loses its connection to pleasure, we see it. Folks on the subway who are afraid to look at each other, more fearful of one another than welcoming. A city of 8 million people who are terrified and can't cry in public; folks are laying out on drugs or exhausted or poor, and we just step over each other. That's a major loss of connection, which leads to a loss of pleasure.

KW: Tell me more about the inspiration behind War Tree and Mystic Tree’s dialogue, which was really a battle of philosophies. That was one of the most impactful moments of the show for me (and based on their murmured reactions, the rest of the audience, too.) Is War Tree entirely in the wrong, or can we partly empathize with his focus on survival at the expense of pleasure?

CJ: I'm so glad that scene resonated! These trees are really philosophers and elders in the context of Mushroom Kingdom. I spent some time at Ryder Farm upstate with my husband, and the man who runs the farm there said to me, “You know, if aliens were to come to this earth, they wouldn't be interested in us. They'd be interested in the trees. They are the ones who are the oldest. They're the ones who are the most net positive for the world.” So I really started seeing trees as aliens, as elders, as spirit leaders, especially during my grief process. I was hugging trees all the time, actually.

As for War Tree’s POV, I think you can tell this was a play written during war. I felt this guilt, as many of us do, about taking care of myself when there are atrocities being committed across the world and at home — like, I cannot believe you're sitting here talking about taking a hot bath right now. When Gaza is under siege, when Congo’s under siege, when Haiti is under siege…It's a lot. Writing this piece helped metabolize some of those feelings and work out how pleasure can coexist with pain in the world. There’s no clear-cut answer, but we explored that intersection.

I can definitely empathize with War Tree’s focus on survival. That's like my immigrant dad! It's like my family saying, “Hey, if you don't have money to make it in New York, you will not be in New York.” I don’t have that security blanket. There are the realities of survival to consider. Pleasure is, of course, not a luxury…but it costs! The spa day costs. Time in your living room stretching costs. What I think the War Tree / Mystic Tree dialogue asks us is, if you're in survival mode, how can you get to thriving? Where's the balance? Is it possible? Is it privilege?

KW: One of your main characters, George, acts as a foil to Milfie’s decadence, pleasure and openness — he’s a sad, unfulfilled Black author, and a bit of a sellout with a lot to learn. What did you pull from when writing his character?

CJ: I’m not trying to get into too much drama here, but it goes back to what I said about the Black stories I was seeing on stage. I remember there was one week where I went to see A Strange Loop, and then I also saw Caroline, or Change. I left feeling so hurt that Broadway for Black people is just portraying a maid that the audience views through the eyes of a white child’s need for approval, or playing a Black gay guy who's worried that he's going to get HIV and prays to his inner white girl.

Then I started to ask, what is actually happening here? What is wrong? Why are these the stories being written (and produced)? That's when I was like, this is something wrong with the way of thinking — a problem in the imagination itself.

That was more prominent in the first version that I wrote, and then I started to expand it to focus more on the mushrooms, because I just don't want to have it be a negative show. I still have to have people memorizing these words. Words hold so much power so I'm always trying to be cognizant of what I'm asking people to memorize.

KW: Bricks is a work of magical realism, but with Mushroom Kingdom you created an entire fantasy universe. Fantasy and fairy tales have often been used as allegories for us to understand injustices in the world and moral dilemmas. When writing this piece, did you intend for your fantasy world to help the audience confront their current reality?

CJ: Very much so! One of my favorite musicals is Into the Woods for that very reason. (These days, actually, it's definitely Cinderella with Brandy and Whitney Houston).

I one-thousand-percent wrote this piece to help the audience confront their current reality. We have Mushroom Kingdom candles! Light them and ask, how can I invoke Milfie in my current reality? How can you invoke this character from this fantasy world? That's how spirits become real. People believe it, invoke it, and then it becomes tangible.

KW: In addition to its deeper themes, the show is also silly and campy as hell — it brought to mind cult classics like The Rocky Horror Show and Little Shop of Horrors while I was watching, but it’s still completely its own and entirely new. What role does camp play in your work?

CJ: Camp is everything. Camp is life. I feel like what got me into musical theater in general was camp movie musicals. The Rocky Horror Picture Show is one of my favorite movie musicals of all time. Little Shop of Horrors is easily in my top five. I also adore Reefer Madness, Hellraiser. Madeline Kahn as a person, period. Bernadette Peters is camp!

I feel like it's so hard to explain what camp is, but when I see it, I know it. It's a lot like pornography. Camp and pornography are right next to each other in my mind. Camp is a lot like clowning in its ability to tap into this deeper truth and vulnerability through absurdity. It asks us to look at ourselves through these broad archetypes in order to find nuance. So if I'm playing the loudest, craziest character, it becomes such a fun challenge to find the nuance, without ever taking it too seriously. There is this level of playfulness and innocence. Like: I'm just joking, but I'm telling you the truth.

Camp is also theater — I just don't like playing small. Smallness, I think, has been giving me the ick. I'm like, Oh, my God, this can't be theater. Give me drama! In some ways, we need camp to make sure that we're not acting like film actors. We are on stage, honey! Give me something to work with!

KW: The Mushroom Kingdom of Ezili recently made its off-Broadway debut in ANT Fest @ Ars Nova. Prior to that production, you’ve been focused exclusively on writing. For ANT Fest, though, you took on the leading role of Milfie — the Mushroom Kingdom’s leader, and a role you’d written explicitly for a fat, dark-skinned femme (whose joy your work often centers while so many other shows & institutions do not). How did you decide to step into Milfie’s shoes for this iteration, and what was it like balancing your role as the piece’s author with now being part of the storytelling on stage?

I was asked to step into Milfie’s shoes, actually. I really didn’t want to do it. It felt vain to do it. I felt not fat enough, not dark enough — and to be completely honest I still kind of feel that way. But as the creator of the piece I did finally feel like I had the story fleshed out enough that I could step into being a storyteller again.

I realized I had been keeping myself from the stage from a wounded place, a shadow place. You know, I got started as a playwright because I wanted to act! I wrote these shows because I wanted to be in these shows. Why did I suddenly stop myself? When I was called to play Milfie, that part of me said wait, I’m scared — do I deserve to get what I want? Are people gonna think I’m too much if I get what I want? I’m still working through that.

KW: You excel at immersive experiences and are using every tool at your disposal to flesh out this mycelia world you’ve created — audience participation, merch, and a shroom extravaganza of a pre-production party to fundraise before ANT Fest. It’s truly 360-degree art-making at its best. Do you think the best theatre is immersive? How could commercial theatre adopt more immersive practices to invite the audience to journey with them?

CJ: I do think the best theater is immersive, and I think commercial theaters should let the artists lead, knowing that when we have immersive practices from the production/business side, there are deeper opportunities to create a world.

I used to work in experiential advertising. One thing about branding and advertising is that the most successful campaigns are about stepping into a world and actually buying into an idea and ideology. That's how you create brand loyalty. I think commercial theater can recognize that, especially with massive, fantastical worlds like Mushroom Kingdom, it has become an ideology, you know? That’s how cult classics are made, we just need to allow it to have that bigness and stop playing so fucking small out of a false sense of scarcity.

We can have different touch points that invite folks of different economic capacities into the world, too! It's like, okay, you can do the $5 party, you can go to the $300 soirée, or you can buy the $30 ticket. Then all of a sudden, there's diversity within the portfolio of this one massive idea — it can take form in so many different ways if you allow it to. It takes a little bit more creativity and intention, but it's worth it.

KW: Album to stage to screen, you are always reimagining the context in which your stories can be told. What is your next big dream for the world of Ezili?

CJ: I want a film! I would want the Mushroom Kingdom movie to be done a lot like how they made the movie version of Hair.

I also want a two-or three-day long production where we are at a farm and doing it on the land. Audiences come and see the show and have chef-curated meals to coincide with it. And programming: stretching, nature walks, horticulture, really expansive stuff. Then, you know, folks decide to have an orgy on their own. They can partake, but no pressure.

So I see a film, I see a partnership with a farm, and maybe even a new kind of tour where it's a private party — maybe twenty people in the audience watching it, and they pay, say $300 each to stay with us for two or three nights, with lodging and food included in that ticket price.

KW: Exploring polycule dynamics on stage is a version of queer representation we haven’t really seen on stage yet — certainly not in a musical. What made you want to bring poly relationships front and center in this piece?

CJ: Well, it’s because I'm poly as shit. I was folding a lot of my own experiences into the show and using my writing to process it, so why not do that with my relationships, too?

My therapist, actually, was like, “Oh, when we chat, you talk a lot about polyamory, yet your story has no polyamorous representation.” I thought, “Wow, you're right. I’ve been sort of hiding this big part of who I am and not putting it in my stories…Let's do that!” So it was really just deciding to write about what I know, deciding to process what I know, and deciding to heal from what I know.

KW: Last but not least: what the hell is up with George Washington Carver?

CJ: You need to watch The Secret Life of Plants! George Washington Carver is queer. George Washington Carver is a genius. George Washington Carver did so much for plant pathology, and he did so much for fungi and for the world. So I was thinking, if there was a God in this Mushroom Kingdom, who would I want? It's probably George Washington Carver.

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From magic school buses into the intestines, mycelial kingdoms, or Afrofuturist spirit-worlds, CHARLENE JEAN (they/them) loves scale - the massive, the microscopic, the multitudinous. Their inquiries around bodies and bloodlines/ home and belonging / joy, pain and their oscillations have led to significant grants: New Music USA, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, MAP Grant Fund, and their production benefiting from the Hal Prince Award. Their multidisciplinary works have been presented at ARS NOVA, 54 Below, Playbill, Queens Public Library, Weeksville Heritage Center, and Judson Memorial Church. Next? The Apollo. “Our fucking is political!” IG: @psalmsofchar

Click here to hear Char speak more about their influences for this project, and follow their Substack here.