Wilma Theatercast
A place for conversation around the Tony Award-Winning work of Philadelphia's Wilma Theater
Wilma Theatercast
Clash of Titans – Masculinity, Culture, and Justice
In this episode of Wilma Theatercast, hosts Dwight Dunston and Toby Fraser take us inside one of the most electrifying moments of The Half-God of Rainfall—the confrontation between Shango and Zeus. This battle isn’t just about divine power; it’s a collision of ideologies, masculinity, and justice.
Joining the conversation are three brilliant artists: Jess Conda, Jen Kidwell, and Mel Crodman, who explore gender, power, and resistance—both in the play and in our everyday lives. They reflect on the Masculinity Action Project, their past collaborations on Those With Two Clocks, and how theater can disrupt patriarchy and expand gender possibilities.
The episode also features a special performance from The Half-God Mixtape, blending music, mythology, and movement to reimagine the story beyond the stage.
Guest Bios
- Jess Conda – Performer, producer, and educator. She is the Director of Education and Community Practice at the Wilma Theater, using theater as a tool for social change.
- Jenn Kidwell – Obie-winning artist known for Underground Railroad Game, which challenges power, gender roles, and capitalism through provocative performance.
- Mel Krodman – Queer, trans nonbinary performer and cultural organizer exploring gender, Jewish identity, and collective storytelling as resistance.
Topics Covered in This Episode
🔥 Shango vs. Zeus – A Battle of Masculinity and Power
🔥 How Gender and Justice Shape the Play’s Storytelling
🔥 Breaking Patriarchy with Theater – Lessons from Those With Two Clocks
🔥 The Masculinity Action Project – Reclaiming Closeness & Softness
🔥 Personal Gender Journeys – Metaphors of Identity
🔥 How Music and Movement Expand the Play’s Mythology
Featured Music & Resources
🎭 Explore More About the Play
The Half-God of Rainfall is playing at The Wilma Theater live in Philadelphia February 11 – March 2, 2025, and streaming for a limited time in March. Visit WilmaTheater.org for tickets and more information.
- The Half-God of Rainfall at Wilma Theater – Visit here
- Wilma Theater’s Dramaturgy Page – Read more
🎵 Music from the Episode
- The Half-God of Rainfall original score by Jordan McCree & Elle Morris of Ill Doots
- The Half-God Mixtape by Dwight Dunston & Martronimous
- Additional music from Epidemic Sound
🎧 Listen to The Half-God Mixtape
- Available on iTunes and Spotify – Just search The Half-God Mixtape by Sterling Duns
What does gender liberation look like to you? Share your thoughts on social media @WilmaTheater and be part of the conversation!
📱 Follow us on social media:
@wilmatheater
🎭 The Tony Award-winning Wilma Theater joyfully produces the Wilma Theatercast as part of our Accessible Productions Initiative. This program brings community partners into the rehearsal process and invites them to respond creatively to the work. This program is made possible with support from the William Penn Foundation.
Welcome back to Wilma Theater Cast, where we take you behind the scenes of the Tony Award winning Wilma Theatre. I'm Dwight Dunston.
>> Toby Fraser:And I'm Toby Fraser.
>> Dwight Dunstan:And today we're talking about the clash of titans. This episode takes us to the heart of one of the most electrifying moments in the half God of rainfall. The confrontation between Shango and the Yoruba God of thunder, and Zeus, the Greek God king.
>> Toby Fraser:Two deities, two forms of power. But not the same kind of power.
>> Dwight Dunstan:No, not at all. Shango and Zeus aren't just characters, they're these representations of masculinity, of leadership, of destruction, of creation. Zeus rules through domination and fear and a hoarding of power. And Shango, he's powerful, but his power is fire. Volatile, emotional, and deeply connected to his.
>> Toby Fraser:People, M. And when they meet in battle, it's more than just lightning bolts flying. It's a collision of ideology. And what makes this confrontation even more powerful is who is watching. The orishas, the Olympians, and most importantly, the women and demigods who have been harmed by Zeus's unchecked power and sexual assaults.
>> Dwight Dunstan:Because this story isn't just about two men fighting. It's about what comes next. It's about the way Oshun and Hera Modupe and other women refuse to stay silent and the ways they collectively rise up and push back against that unchecked patriarchal power.
>> Toby Fraser:They don't just seek revenge, they seek justice. Here's another excerpt from the play with Shango and Zeus confronting each other.
>> Dwight Dunstan:Zeus, you rule by fear, by force, by flame. I am fire too. But fire that feeds, that warms, that claims its people. What are you but a storm that destroys?
>> Toby Fraser:And what are you but a, ah, God who bows to the weak. You let mortals whisper their names beside yours. You call it strength, I call it shame.
>> Dwight Dunstan:You call it shame, then let shame strike like lightning. If the heavens must burn, let them burn for the justice. Whoa. So this scene, whoa, that, uh, one. It's huge, Toby. It's a fight about more than just power. It's about who gets to hold power and how power should be wielded.
>> Toby Fraser:Which brings us to our guests today. Three incredible artists who have thought deeply about masculinity, power and justice.
>> Speaker D:In performance, we see so often the relationship between fear and hate.
>> Speaker E:The gender violence that's showing up is really causing me to take some bolder steps into self actualizing.
>> Speaker F:My gender is like eating one of those peanut butter cups that's stuffed with like tiny M&Ms. And like take five. My gender is take five.
>> Toby Fraser:We M have history with these folks, which we'll tell you about in a moment. But first, let's introduce our guests.
>> Dwight Dunstan:One of our guests is Jess Conda, a performer, producer and teaching artist based in Philadelphia. Jess is currently the director of education and community practice at the Wilma Theater where she works at the intersection of theater and social change.
>> Toby Fraser:We are also joined by Jen Kidwell, a uh, performing artist whose original works challenge power structures, gender roles and capitalism itself. You may know Underground Railroad Game, which won an Obie for the best new American theater work.
>> Dwight Dunstan:And finally, we welcome Mel Crodman, a collaborative devising artist, queer and trans non binary performer and cultural organizer. Mel's work explores queerness, Jewish identity and collective storytelling as forms of resistance.
>> Toby Fraser:Jess, Jen and Mel have been an important part of the work Dwight and I do with the Masculinity Action Project. Mel and Jen were able to join us for Reclaiming Closeness way back in 2020, which is a program we've now done three times in MAP. It's a space to find connection with each other through all that society puts in our power, privilege, race, gender. Through that experience, Mel, Jen and Jess invited us to partner on their show those with two clocks. That was an epic comedic takedown of patriarchy. Two clocks was on stage live at the Wilma back in 2022 and we're so excited to be able to join the Wilma Theater on another epic production, this time with the Half God of Rainfall.
>> Dwight Dunstan:You might be asking what happens when we bring these three brilliant minds together. Well, we work to break down aspects of gender, culture and justice in the Half God of Rainfall and in our lives.
>> Toby Fraser:Let's dive in.
>> Speaker F:I would be remiss if I didn't shout out the Wilmer Theater's education and community practice department. Shout out to the people who remind us that nature is queer as hell. And a lot of these systems already exist, like indigenous wisdom already exists. Complicated, beautiful, wonderful, changing, ever morphing. Gender is everywhere. Thinking about the ways that we can queer systems. We don't have to work ourselves to the bone. We don't have to make this work without centering the humans. These were all things that the 2Klox team brought to the Wilma in 2022. The elevator speech for those with two clocks. A quick change comedy about the patriarchy by these wacky lady or something comedians. You know, that'll make you laugh and make you think, but it's so much more than that.
>> Speaker E:Jess and Jen, we found each other in Graduate school. And what I recall is that we would sometimes get put together as a trio to make something in school and like, indubitably, that would fail pretty hard and we were just have the most extraordinary and hilarious failures, but we would have a really great time making together and cracking each other up and that there was something magical happening in that.
>> Speaker F:We know that imagination is a tool that artists wield like no other. So I'm forever in favor of anything that's working the imagination, including this conversation.
>> Dwight Dunstan:Reclaiming Closeness and just for our audience. So, you know, Reclaiming Closeness just completed its third iteration and really is a program designed by map, the Masculinity Action Project, to interrogate, hold up a lens to the ways masculinity, as we're taught it, often strips us of being soft, being tender. To reclaim that softness is a liberatory act and also necessary if we are to do things like end gender oppression, if we are to raise the next generation with more care and empathy, more of a sense of justice.
>> Toby Fraser:I feel super thankful for you, Dwight, in helping to come up with the idea of it in the first place. Finding those ways to connect to each other through all, uh, that our society puts up as barriers between us as people. So incredibly filled with joy that you, Mel, has now joined us on the facilitation team.
>> Speaker E:I feel that Map and Dwight, Toby, the two of you, yes, have changed my life.
>> Dwight Dunstan:There's this point in the play, the Half God of Rainfall by Inua Ellams, where the characters, and one of the main characters in particular, is tasked with or takes up this challenge to do gender differently. And I'm thinking specifically of Modupe at the end of this play. And spoiler alert for folks still going to see it there. Madube is faced with this decision whether or not to kill Zeus in terms.
>> Speaker F:Of this framing of an Afro futuristic lens, which is such a broad idea. Telling a story after an oppression is so in the past that it's now myth, but the body always remembers. And so that's an interesting tension too, to consider. Could we ever get so far away from this impression that it's a cautionary tale?
>> Dwight Dunstan:And as an audience member, when I first saw this in the rehearsals, it was jarring to have to really sit within myself. What I wanted to happen, what I felt like needed to happen, what ultimately happened. And I couldn't help but as a, uh, CIS man, think about how those part of my identity shaped how I was taking in that part of the play. And so I'm curious because you all have been, I imagine, on your own journeys with relating to your own gender and how you see yourself in a gendered world. Maybe each of you could just take a moment to share, uh, with us today. Just like where are you today in your gender journey? Maybe we'll start with Mel and then go Jess and Jen.
>> Speaker E:Well, wow, thank you for the opportunity to go first so that I can't censor the image that came to my mind. I feel today that my gender is a suede tan colored boot with like a soft, like cozy inside. Like maybe it's an ugg. I've never worn an ugg in my life. But I'm thinking about like a soft exterior, soft interior but strong shaped boots with fur and hair hanging over the top. Like a hairy, hairy boot is apparently the image that my gender wanted to offer for itself today. Definitely on a journey of gender transition that feels slow, which is not foreign to my timescales in general. About 11 years ago really started understanding my gender differently and was offered some vocabulary that explained, explained a lifetime of gender confusion and trying to really comfortably put words to how I identified in my gender. Just think I grew up in a time where, yeah, wasn't exposed to, didn't have an easy way into understanding some things about myself. When offered both some stories around and vocabularies around non binary identity. It was like my full body cracked open, oozed out, lighted, just felt deep resonance right away. And um, I would say that in this current moment I'm trying to really find like what are the gratitudes I can offer for this full frontal, full frontal fascism that is here. And I think the gratitude I have for it is that the gender violence that's showing up is really causing me to take some bolder steps into self actualizing in ways that I've been kind of just really, really slowly moving through. And that when there's the sector of having certain access and rights taken away, it's really prompted me to get real into embodying shifts that I think have been just slower moving. That feels really good. Androgynous forever is how I move.
>> Toby Fraser:Thank you, Mel. Jess, where are you feeling these days around your gender journey?
>> Speaker F:My gender is like eating one of those peanut butter cups that's stuffed with like tiny M M's and like take five. My gender is take five. And feeling like a woman. Plus plus plus plus plus Infinitely forever feels awesome. And playing with gender expression and gender fluidity feels awesome and right and of me, yeah, my gender just feels like thick and full of Beautiful detail. Yeah. And that rocks. I love my gender journey.
>> Toby Fraser:Thank you. Jess.
>> Dwight Dunstan:Jen, come on in.
>> Speaker D:I originally was gonna say I was going to put my gender somewhere between Lakeith Stanfield, Eartha Kitt in a tree. If I was gonna put it in terms of half God of rainfall, I would be like, it's somewhere between Oshun, a legba and a tree. And then I was like, you know what? My mom tells me that my first word was no. And I think that my gender is just in defiance of what anybody thinks it should be at any given moment. Like, my body is just like, no, I won't. No, no. And a tree. Always a tree, always a tree. Like an old tree. You can really see the root system.
>> Toby Fraser:Wow. Wow. Y'all are incredible at, ah, metaphors and painting pictures. And I am in awe of, uh, the way that you can talk about gender and your own gender and what it is for you and how you feel about it. What do you hope for gender or masculinity to be? What do you think is going on with gender in this future space of liberation?
>> Speaker D:I, ah, probably need a second more to consider your question because I started asking myself two things. One was, I was curious if you and Dwight wanted to share your gender journey. Then the other thing that came up was like, right, well, do I quibble with the notion of masculinity or femininity? Or is my big issue really with the control where I'm like, I don't care energetically what's happening. I think we all are dipping into both of those spaces or we would dip into those spaces if it felt safe in our bodies to do that. But what happens is that need to clench and bear down is born of fear. And we see so often the relationship between fear and hate and this kind of behavior. Right? Like, I am afraid of how femininity exists in my body because I've been told I'm supposed to behave masculinely, I'm supposed to behave in a certain way. And if I don't, I fear recrimination. And thus that fear gives rise to a, ah, need to control other people and jealousy that I can't allow myself to be that free. And so I'm like, well, if I strip all of that away, what am I left with is like my desire is simply to not feel controlled.
>> Toby Fraser:I would describe my gender in some ways as like a little dust. Funny. It's a little bit confused, a little bit in a corner. It's a little bit scared of doing it wrong. Right. It's a Little bit fragile, which is scary. And there's something that's also solid and real about it. It's not imaginary. There are things about what I was taught it meant to be a man that do fit me m. Right and feel okay on my body. And it's something that needs, uh, a little bit of wind at my back to blow me around the room, out of my corner to see what else might be out there, what other little splinters in the floorboards might snag me and keep me there for a minute. Of other ways to do this, do this gender performance that we're all working on. So I'll offer that for me. Just really resonating with that piece around fear.
>> Speaker D:Jen, I've done a lot of vacuuming today, and I feel like your gender expression invited me to consider that dust bunnies are like, little quivering repositories of personal history. And, like, I have to say, I don't find them, like, gross at all. Like, I feel a kind of comfort in that. And I was a little bit like a dust bunny. Toby. Your gender. But now I'm like, oh, my God. Yes. A. Ah, Dust bunny. Jen. A, uh, dust bunny.
>> Toby Fraser:Dust.
>> Speaker F:A.
>> Speaker D:Sweet. Yeah, just like a little friend that's there under. Under the couch.
>> Speaker F:Just a little guy.
>> Speaker E:Reminded me of those little characters from, um, my neighbor Totoro. Those little dust bunny characters from my neighbor Totoro that are like. They, like, hide until they. They, like, show up when they perceive that people are safe and good. Maybe I'm getting that. I don't know. Maybe someone listening is like, that's not at all.
>> Toby Fraser:But anyway, thank you for all of that. Wow. Okay. I need to watch that thing. I've never thought Dust bunny. It just came out tonight while we were here. It's like, well, those words got. Here we are.
>> Dwight Dunstan:And Toby, I actually think we should have a longer episode where we answer this question in length, because it's. It's really beautiful. I'm an ocean old cat. I would describe my gender as the ocean and an old cat. The ocean always gives enough. It never gives any more or less than it is to give. It's. It's an ocean, you know, the ocean always gives enough. And an old cat just knows when it wants to be moved closer to, you know, interrogated, you know, played with, and knows when it wants to be left alone. Like, you really know. The old cat just knows. And that's. That's how I feel in dating somebody who has long distance and who has children. I can feel my protectiveness which feels it might span across many genders. But I have my dad who passed away, you know, 13 years ago. The ways that I felt his protective energy over my family, I have embodied that in my dating life in a way that I m never thought I would and hadn't shown up in other relationships. Actually, because I'm long distance and because my beloved has children, I am so much more protective. And it's really profound to notice that. So that's me.
>> Speaker D:I just want to say nothing's more protective than a mama bear though, right?
>> Speaker E:Yeah. What? Thank you for saying that. Because Dwight, when you mentioned old cat, went to this question of, uh, like masculinity, femininity, the soup, uh, stew that we would envision. The image for femininity that keeps returning to me is the ferality of a cat. And the cat as this soft, luxuriating animal who loves to sleep, sleep in the sun and stop and caretake for the litter, provide the milk for the litter, but also we'll fucking bite you. Has that power and can be aggressive. Like, I don't think the binary of femininity to soft masculinity too hard does not work on me. But masculinity, I can't help but always get distracted by the mask at the center of masculinity. And that there's this way in which masculinity has come to represent such a need to perform. I know that word performance came up already, but a need to perform a certain kind of gender presentation, perform a kind of role of protector. I mean, I'm thinking so much about Trump and Zeus and just that mythic daddy protector figure that apparently humanity continues to be obsessed with, with and the violence that he can bring about. But I wonder about this thing that we kind of talked a lot about in two clocks of, um, penetrative versus an invaginated, you know, receiving energy versus penetrative energy. And the way that this, the piece of two clocks functioned, where the first few sections were energetically penetrative and we were really like, coming to the audience and performing for the audience. And then there's this portal toward a receiving energy and a real, like, coexistence and a landscape of multiplicity. We need all of those energies, and they all exist in the universe. Like, I keep thinking about this moment that the play kind of zooms out and goes into outer space. And we are on a planet in such a volatile universe. There's so much destructive force and creative force. And, you know, I don't know that it's fair to ask humanity or any species or any manifestation of this universe to exist without destruction.
>> Dwight Dunstan:Toby and I would just love to thank Utah Order, Jess, Mel and Jen for being with us and for, yeah, giving. Giving me. I'll speak personally. Giving me more to think about, more to chew on, more to grapple with, more to release, more to hold on to as it relates to gender liberation, the future we dream of. Yeah, just so grateful for this, for this conversation and already sending a forward blessing into all the ways this. This combo and so many others we've been having. Toby will continue to, um, unfurl and invite me into new ways of being in the world. So thank you all. Tall Order so much.
>> Toby Fraser:Thank you, thank you, thank you for laying deep.
>> Speaker D:Thank you so much for this time and these questions.
>> Toby Fraser:And I very much look forward to.
>> Speaker D:Further discussion of Dust Bunny's oceans and.
>> Toby Fraser:Old f. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. How they hang out trees and boots and everything else.
>> Dwight Dunstan:Everything.
>> Toby Fraser:Uh, wow.
>> Dwight Dunstan:Wow. Toby, as is becoming custom in conversation with those three, I'm called to think differently about gender and power, how we show up collectively to work towards dismantling and transforming these systems that keep us separated. And I, uh, feel just so grateful for those relationships and those three and the art that they make and. And to be also Toby learning alongside you as you've been one of my greatest teachers and. Yeah, just inspirations and incredible. Accompany her in my journey around these things as well. These big old things.
>> Toby Fraser:Big old things. Wow. Well, from this Dust Bunny to that ocean and a cat, I gotta say, I am learning a lot every time I get to hang out with you. And also, yeah, every conversation with Mel, Jess and Jen is. Is a deep one, one that leaves me curious about so many things.
>> Dwight Dunstan:You know, we're nearing the end of this series, and I hope that for folks who have seen the play and folks who are listening to this podcast, that you find grace to be with whatever joy and. Or pain has come up for you. And seeing the play or listening to this podcast and that you don't feel alone in it. Because I know for me it's. It can be a place when I really tap into some of the joy and pains around gender and fighting towards gender justice, I can get stuck in some places and feel really alone. But my hope is that the podcast. Or the play itself can really be a, uh, guide or companion as you move through your own experiences around some of these themes that have arisen.
>> Toby Fraser:Yeah. Continuing on that theme of love and pain, definitely. When I think about gender and masculinity I'm gonna say just masculinity for right now. I can see a lot of the ways that often we are taught as men to show up in the world can cause a lot of pain, can be hard to find the love. And I know that's what your work in the world often is about. Dwight. That's what we're up to in the Masculinity Action Project is finding a way to bridge those divides and to make sure that pain, when it is caused, is able to be healed from and changed. That we can make different choices for those of us who are socialized into masculinity and sometimes feel like we don't have other options. To know that we can really be anything we want and still be good enough and still claim masculinity and manhood. And it doesn't just have to be the one way. The often dominant way of manhood equals anything that's not feminine. That we can do it differently and find a lot more love and a lot less pain. And now we're going to share Far Star A uh, track from the Half God mixtape. This song captures the energy, mythology and movement of the half God of Rainfall. Take a listen.
>> Dwight Dunstan:The far star, the far star Speaking from the far star I swore to the far star we swore to the far star the far star M. Half. Gods do half decent jobs of being human Learning to live just above the ruins and not too much in the clouds that you lose touch with the crowds and how they doing we learned our habits from somewhere why else would we do them without question with little shame and much aggression? Some gods we know protect us Some gods we need protection from. I take the good with the bad over having none um that's what we tell this newborn son the false star that was born that's who we bleed from we died for we dreamed towards and we reached for we tried more A vision of heaven that's too far out of reach Shines light on this new heaven between you and me between you and me, you and me, you and me, you and me, you and me.
>> Toby Fraser:You can find the Half God mixtape by Sterling Dunns on itunes and Spotify. Just search for it and give it a listen.
>> Dwight Dunstan:The Half God of Rainfall is playing at the Wilma Theater Live in Philadelphia from February 11th through March 2nd, 2025 and streaming for a limited time in March. Visit www.wilmatheatre.org for tickets and more information and follow us on social media.
>> Toby Fraser:Hewilma Theatre Wilma Theatrecast is joyfully produced by Peterson Toscano for the Tony Award winning Wilma Theatre as part of our Accessible Productions initiative, a program that brings community partners into the rehearsal process and invites them to make creative responses to the work. This program is made possible with support from the William Penn Foundation.
>> Dwight Dunstan:Music today comes directly from the composers of the Half God of rainfall, Jordan McCree and Elle Morris of Ill Dudes. We also have music from the Half God mixtape, a project by yours truly and Martronomous. And other music comes from Epidemic Sound.
>> Toby Fraser:A, uh, huge thanks to our guests Jess Conda, Jen Kidwell and Mel Crodman. And to all of you listening. We'll be back soon with more from Wilma Theater cast, uh.
>> Speaker E:Splash.
>> Toby Fraser:You took out your own wow. Wow, wow, wow.
>> Dwight Dunstan:You're just gonna wow it and then I go in? Um, I guess so, yeah. All right, go ahead, go ahead. I'm sorry. Start over. Can you say your wow like you really mean it? Is your wow you wow.
>> Toby Fraser:Zowie.
>> Dwight Dunstan:Plow. Wait, no. Okay, you might have to compile something later on.
.jpg)
