On April 20, Masquers, Northern State University’s theater organization, went to Fargo, N.D. to view an unpublished adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s play “The Good Person of Sezuan” by Pulitzer prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner. They also had the opportunity to visit a series of seminars featuring Kushner on theater as a sociopolitical tool. The trip was sponsored by the Student Association.

The first seminar featured Kushner and a variety of theater experts from the midwest discussing the play “The Good Person of Sezuan” and it’s author, Brecht, and the ways he tried to express his political beliefs through his plays, and if they were good ideas or not. Brecht’s idea was to try to make the audience an objective judge of what was happening on stage, rather than try to involve them emotionally in the story. This is done by having the actors and actesses speak directly to the audience, and by having them move around freely among the audience before and during the play when they weren’t acting.

The second seminar consisted of an onstage interview with Kushner, during which the audience was allowed to ask questions. He spoke about his own experiences as a playwright and director, and how he’s attempted to follow in Brecht’s footsteps and write socially relevant plays.

“Tony Kushner was a very nice man, had a great sense of humor, and was very knowledgeable about the subject matter. We learned a lot from him,” said Greg Parmeter, Huron, senior, president of Masquers.