In April [co-author and former student] Nico [Wilkinson \u201916] <\/b>and I are gonna drop a digital album, which is basically us reading the poems from \u2018Inauguration.\u2019 We\u2019re gonna put that out in April, which is National Poetry Month, then we\u2019re planning to do another event in collaboration with a new press that\u2019s opening, a new local press called Peach<\/span> Press [by Han Sayles \u201915<\/b>] \u2026 based around the first 100 days of Trump\u2019s presidency.\u201d<\/p>\n Wait, though. He\u2019s not done yet.<\/p>\n \u201cI have this play called \u2018The Way the Mountain Moved,\u2019 which is a commission for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. It\u2019s a western set in the Utah area in the 1850s, historically based on a survey team\u00a0that was sent out to assess the feasibility of a transcontinental railroad. \u2026 I\u2019m doing a stage reading of it at the Kennedy Center\u2019s American College Theater Festival When Goodwin finally pauses, it\u2019s to check the calendar on his phone to see what else he\u2019s overlooked.\u00a0(That, and a dry-erase board in his office are what keep him on track.) Panels on race and the American stage at University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. Spoken word performances at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. Directing a show in Albuquerque, New Mexico, as part of the Revolutions International Theatre Festival, called \u201cHands Up,\u201d an anthology of monologues (including one he\u2019s written) in response to police shootings of unarmed black youth. And a hip-hop theatre weekend at Western Washington University in Bellingham.<\/span><\/p>\n He pauses again and says, \u201cI don\u2019t know if you want everything.\u201d Then he grins. He knows it\u2019s a lot. And on top of that, the world has taken notice.<\/p>\n Just since January, Goodwin has received the 2017 National Blue Ink Playwriting Award by Chicago\u2019s American Blues Theatre for his original play \u201cHype Man\u201d; his play \u201cBars and Measures\u201d was nominated for the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award; and his short play \u201c#matter\u201d \u2014 which he directed on campus in 2015, featuring Alex Sarche \u201917<\/b> and Alexandra Farr \u201917<\/b> \u2014 was selected to be produced during the March 2017 reopening of the Bush Theatre in London.<\/p>\n The awards are exciting, but they don\u2019t distract him from his primary goal: being creative. It\u2019s the only thing, Goodwin says, that has ever really centered him.<\/p>\n \u201cThe world does not want you to make art. The world wants you to go to work and push products and to keep the existing creations moving. The world does not want you to give birth to new things. The world needs you to give birth to new things, but the world is not set up to give you space to do that. You don\u2019t find time, you make time. And that\u2019s how I look at it. I fight for it. I go to bat for it. I go 30 rounds. I go two days straight in Fight Club. I will make that time.\u201d<\/p>\n Since he\u2019s primarily teaching classes during the day, making that time often means really early mornings \u2014 the path Goodwin took four years ago after his son\u2019s birth \u2014 or really late nights \u2014 \u201cwhich is a horrible time for me, my brain is like SpaghettiOs.\u201d But it\u2019s all just a part of the bigger picture.<\/p>\n \u201cAt this stage of the game, there\u2019s really no separation for me between teacher, artist, and even person, individual, father, husband. All of it is in harmony with one another.\u00a0It\u2019s all just creating. It\u2019s all improvisation. It\u2019s all just being open and being present and juggling and trying to be creative.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m searching for a holistic existence, where it\u2019s like when you make a soup, and you let it sit for two days, and Out and About<\/b><\/p>\n
\nin Denver. It\u2019s a big, giant, fat play.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nthen<\/i> you taste everything.\u00a0That\u2019s what I\u2019m striving for.\u00a0I\u2019m striving to be three-day broth.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/files\/2017\/04\/RS45587_VIEW-BOOK-OPTIONS05.jpg\")
<\/a>Chicago alumni can catch Idris Goodwin for a stage reading of his Blue Ink Playwriting Award-winning \u201cHype Man,\u201d