Ari Post • December 1, 2011

As a Christmas present from Across the Cutting Board, chef Ris Lacoste wants to answer all your culinary questions. Do you have any inquiries on cooking techniques, recipes, cookbook recommendations, or epicurean gift ideas? We want to hear!

Email any and all questions to Ari@Georgetowner.com and look for Ris’ responses in The Georgetowner’s Dec. 7 issue next week.

Happy Cooking!

Ari Post • November 28, 2011

Join the Georgetown Business Association at City Tavern Club this today, Nov. 9 for “Economic Development in Georgetown,” a presentation by D.C. community leaders and Georgetown business owners exploring the current state of economic development in Georgetown and its impact on business.

The list of speakers includes D.C. Councilmembers Jack Evans and Vincent Orange; ANC 2e Commissioner Bill Starrels; Michael Fitzgerald, President & CEO of Bank of Georgetown; as well as a handful of prominent small business owners, such as John Hays of The Phoenix and Karen Ohri of Georgetown Floorcoverings.

Wenesday, Nov. 9, 2011, from 6 – 9 p.m.
City Tavern Club
3206 M St., NW

6:00 Registration
6:15 Presentation
7:00 Q&A
7:30 Reception

For more information visit GTownBusiness.com

Ari Post •

My grandparents taught me never to waste food. Raised in the Great Depression and ushered into adulthood through World War II, food shortages and rationings were ingrained somewhere deep within them. As food became more plentiful, their habits of conservation never changed, and by the time I was a pitter-pattering little nuisance, what I most looked forward to when visiting them was the fridge full of leftovers, the well-preserved remains of the previous day’s feasting. I lived for cold slices of roast beef sopped with day-old juices at two in the afternoon, picking with reckless abandon at congealed masses of macaroni and sour pickles shoved lazily into Ziploc bags. Every piece of food in my grandparent’s house tasted better to me the day after we ate it as dinner. As such, my favorite holiday was Thanksgiving, the patron saint of leftover-producing meals.

“At Thanksgiving, we produce many times the amount of food we need,” says Ris Lacoste, chef and local food advocate. “That plentiful feast, brimming with the harvest’s bounty, is meant to provide a continuous meal of endless duration.”

The history of Thanksgiving is complicated and somewhat controversial—and it’s been seared in the old Hollywood light of Quaker Oats pilgrims and happy, unfettered Indians—but its basic roots lie in traditional European and Native American festivals, held after the harvest cycle to give thanks for a good harvest and rejoice as a community after so many difficult months working the land. It is a holiday where we can break our rules of moderation for an evening, overindulge and get swallowed up by the bounty of the season.

“Thanksgiving Dinner is truly my favorite savory meal,” she says. “It’s certainly not the easiest meal to pull off, but it’s an event of pure experience and orchestration. My mother was a pro. And she, before all else, enjoyed the leftovers—and deservedly so. She made the best potpie for late night snacks after dinner, and for lunch the next day she made us all stuffin’ sandwiches, griddled like a grilled cheese, with turkey, her French Canadian pork stuffing and cranberry sauce. There is nothing like it!”

A sandwich is, of course, an obvious and delicious solution to dealing with Turkey Day leftovers, Ris says. “But you’re really sitting on the precipice of endless possibilities. As seasonal foods go, what you see on the table is what grows together in the fields. They were tailor-made for each other. You can recombine them in almost any way and it will be a success.”

As a chef might, Ris has an array of special leftover tricks up her sleeves. Sweet potato-marshmallow or turkey croquettes are recent creations, served with a cranberry “dipping” sauce (i.e. leftover cranberry sauce). “And I bet green bean and onion casserole would make a handy croquette as well,” she says, “bound with some of those leftover mashed potatoes.”

Turkey chow mein is also a household favorite of Ris’. “And then there are turkey tacos with cranberry and lime, jalape?o cream and ancho-orange sweet potatoes. Turkey hash, turkey chili with sweet potato, peas and pearl onions, turkey and bread salad—a great way to deal with leftover bread.”

But all Thanksgiving leftovers begin with turkey stock, she says. “And it’s so simple! Pick the carcass clean, cover it with water in a stockpot and add loosely chopped onions, carrots, celery, thyme, sage, parsley, bay leaf and peppercorns. While you’re doing the dishes, bring the stock to a boil, reduce it to a simmer, skim on occasion and just let it cook until the vegetables are soft and the carcass appears to have rendered all of its flavor into the stock. From there, you can store it in baggies in your freezer and pull it out when you want to make potpie, soup or anything else later on down the road.”

Ris can write a formal recipe as well as any professional epicure, but in situations like this it’s thrilling to just sit back and listen as the inspiration rolls off the tip of her tongue. Once on the topic of leftover meals, she began rattling a stream of culinary concoctions, making them up as she went along, and it was everything my pen could do to keep up. How many teaspoons of rosemary or tablespoons of butter was the last thing on either of our minds.

“And that can sometimes be the joy of cooking,” Ris says. “In the restaurant, I need to have consistency with every dish, making sure that the lamb shank comes out true to the recipe every time. But cooking at home, I can just make something delicious. It might never be made again, but if it’s really good, the memory will exist forever.”

Thanksgiving is the most genuine holiday, Ris believes. “It is the least cluttered by commercialism—it’s all about food, family and thanks. Pausing to say thanks is something we do not do often enough and acknowledging those who haven’t been as fortunate as ourselves is part of that pause.”

For over two decades Ris has worked with DC Central Kitchen, contributing her culinary wisdom to help feed and educate the less fortunate. “Food is what I know,” she says. “It’s what I do, and it’s what I am. I love working with DC Central Kitchen because it allows me to give back in the way I know how—through food and cooking.”

DC Central Kitchen turns donated food, leftover food into millions of meals for thousands of at-risk members of our community, while offering nationally recognized culinary job training to once homeless and at-risk individuals. They recycle 3,000 pounds of food each day, converting individual donations into 4,500 meals that they distribute to around 100 shelters, transitional homes and rehabilitation clinics throughout the District. They also provide counseling services to the chronically homeless, and employ graduates from their culinary program in the kitchen’s full-service catering company, or place them in jobs at restaurants and hotels.

I accompanied Ris on a visit to DC Central Kitchen where local chefs and members of Les Dames d’Escoffier gathered to host cooking classes with the kitchen’s Culinary Job Training program’s 86th class. The students came in to observe and get exposure to new ingredients and techniques from local restaurant chefs, and all were ready to jump in front of the stovetops and give the techniques a try.

Ris and I walked around the kitchen during a downbeat, peaking into the pantries and refrigerators. “During my time off I came here every Thursday,” she said. “I would organize the pantry and make 50 gallons of some protein or salad with the miscellaneous cans and jars donated to the kitchen. We used all of it, these odds and ends—from crackers to canned corn to butterscotch sauce—and turned it into really great quality food. I always felt better when I left than when I arrived.”

The spirit of giving, of making something from nothing, of leftovers, was wafting in the air like firewood on a chilly evening. At the end of the day, a feast was had by all the chefs, students, staff and volunteers of DC Central Kitchen: papaya salad, Irish soda bread, lentil soup with citrus, chicken stir-fry with lo mein noodles and sautéed green beans. It was like an international food fair.

But it ultimately comes back to the kitchen, and the art of cooking without wasting. “Just like your grandparents or my mother,” said Ris, “DC Central Kitchen is making beautiful and nourishing meals without wasting a drop. But this kitchen is more than just leftovers—it’s real cooking. What they are able to accomplish humbles me.”

For Ris, this is the soul of Thanksgiving. “Be thankful for what you have, and for what is at your table,” she says. “And don’t forget to do what you can to give back to your community.”

For more information on DC Central Kitchen and their culinary training program, donating and volunteering opportunities, and catering services, visit DCCentralKitchen.org.

As a Christmas present from Ris, we want to answer your culinary questions for our next column. Questions on cooking techniques, recipes, cookbook recommendations, or epicurean gift ideas? We want to hear! Email your questions to Ari@Georgetowner.com and look for our answers in The Georgetowner’s December 14th issue. Happy Cooking!

Ari Post • November 21, 2011

In the pictorial lexicon of American history, there is perhaps no image more potent and quixotic than the archetype of the Native American on horseback. From Walt Disney to J.M. Barry, the lure of the American Indian’s intimacy with these deeply spiritual and powerful creatures has inspired imaginations for generations.

But horses as we know them today didn’t get to the Western hemisphere until Columbus brought a herd of 25 over on his second voyage to the new world in 1493. From this first handful of animals, the lives of Native Americans changed forever. From the way they traveled and hunted, to their celebration rituals and ceremonies, to new artistic expressions and traditions that continue to this day, horses quickly became an indispensable component of Native American life. In their newest exhibit, “A Song for the Horse Nation,” the National Museum of the American Indian takes us deep into the bond between our native citizens and the Horse Nation.

Walking through the exhibition, there are more words and artifacts than you can wrap your head around. But even as you process the first pieces of information, something makes itself clear very quickly: as a culture, American Indians are abundantly thoughtful people. Most of the artifacts and artworks on display in the exhibition have very utilitarian functions, from saddles to headstalls for horses, to basic clothing and housing. And yet everything is executed with a fine and personal sense of style, beauty and aesthetic that recalls some of the great artistic movements of the Common Era. You see the vibrant, earthy color palette of the impressionists, the sophisticated, stylized flatness of the Byzantines and the hieroglyphic narrative of the ancient Egyptians.

Native American culture is well known for its distinct visual language, which seems to have naturally enveloped the Horse Nation upon its introduction into their society. They became expert in fabricating horse gear for hunt and for war while transforming this equipment into a unique level of art.

Some of the most beautiful displays are of the horse masks, used in wartime and in peace to adorn the animals. Made of materials such as owl feathers, hide, buffalo horn, porcupine quills, brass tacks, ermine and even sinew, these masks are haunting and dreamlike, and you can imagine how utterly transformative these head coverings would be if, say, it was charging toward you in battle or part of a ritual dance ceremony.

But perhaps the most significant way that horses transformed Native American life was in their ability to hunt. Before horses, buffalo hunting on the Great Plains was a risky, exhausting and arduous job. Hunters had to track them on foot, and the process involved many men and took days of planning. But on horseback, a lone hunter could bring down a buffalo by himself and with relative efficiency. Furthermore, since tribes could travel farther, access to resources was expanded and people were better fed. As such, they acquired more time for art, spirituality and philosophy.

As their lifestyles now permitted more time for temporal liberties, Native Americans forged unbreakable bonds with the Horse Nation. Plains tribes embraced the horse as a brother in spirit and a link to the supernatural realm, embodying it with beauty, energy and healing powers in ceremonial objects representing these connections. Dance sticks on display in the exhibition were once carried by warriors in ceremonial dances, decorated symbolically with such flourishes as brass bells and eagle feathers.

With the arrival of horses, new ideas in design and ornament circulated through Native trade routes from Mexico to the Pacific Northwest. And while some things were acquired through trading with the Spanish, Native craftsmen largely made their own devices. From saddles, bridles and cinches, to whips and ropes, each tool, as seen in this exhibit, took on a remarkable level of craft and spirituality. Blending a variety of international influences—Spanish saddles, eastern beadwork, traditions of family and tribal identity—Native artists created a rich new visual art form.

The status of women also improved as a result of the Horse Nation. Horses helped lighten the workload, and women gained more time for creating art and enriching their society. Women’s arts, such as beadwork and ornamenting hides with porcupine quills, flourished.

The issue of Native identity continues to resonate today, as Native people across the country seek to claim the future on their own terms. Ushering in Native American heritage month this November, “A Song for the Horse Nation” shines a light on the soul of the American Indian’s national community and invites us in to experience it ourselves. It is difficult to encapsulate everything within this exhibition, but as a whole, it resonates with the strength and beauty of a stallion.

“A Song for the Horse Nation” is on view at the National Museum of the American Indian through Jan. 2, 2013. For more information visit the museum’s website: NMAI.si.edu.
[gallery ids="102428,121620,121625,121615" nav="thumbs"]

Ari Post • November 3, 2011

Watercolors are an often overlooked medium, their subtleties and patiently layered depths seemingly run off by the raw energy of so much popular expressionism and abstraction. Angela Iovino’s series of landscapes at the Parish Gallery, open through May 18th, is a kernel of cool mint, cleansing the palette between the explosive, bright flavors being offered around the city.

Even with such tangible titles as “Eastport Maine Morning” and “Hot Spring I,” to call these studies ‘landscapes’ is more of a projection than a precise definition. Iovino’s paintings are the geography of dreams that pull the viewer in only to stand beyond a world that cannot completely be entered.

Iovino lets the water do a lot of the work in her paintings, allowing the colors to dissipate, diffuse and coagulate in their wet state. I am inclined to believe that puddles of water may well have been spread carefully around the paper. The atmospheric effect created by this technique is thick and simultaneously transparent, recalling the feeling of intense humidity.

Like looking into a marsh, or staring fixedly at something and then closing your eyes – what is seen in Iovino’s work is more of a feeling of brevity, a weightlessness that cannot last. But in the meantime, it is a beautiful sight.

Through May 18 at the Parish Gallery (1054 31st St.)

Ari Post •

Born in Southwestern Nigeria in 1954, Tayo Adenaike, whose show “Faces and Emotions” opens June 18th at the Parish Gallery, recalls the looks he would get from his mother: “Depending on the occasion, her look could mean “Don’t eat what you have been offered,” “Get up and let’s go,” “Say yes,” “Say no”, or “Keep quiet.” Every facial expression conveyed specific meaning and every visual admonition must be heeded. Failure on my part meant a long pull on my ear or strokes of the cane the minute we got back home.

“?jú róró ?a. I knew what it meant. These three simple Yoruba words translate as “Words come from the eyes,” “Words are embedded in the eyes,” “A face says it all,” or “A face never belies the truth.”…They all see some evocative strength in the expression. This interaction between my mother and me, made me realize how much more powerful facial expressions are, than loudly spoken words. Over time, I have also come to realize that facial expressions and unspoken words, can say a lot about the society we live in. Within these frames, I have tried to capture faces and the emotions – the unspoken words that they portray.”

In Adenaike’s work, the audience is privy to a surreal conversation unfolding on the canvas. The figures, vague, conjoined, defined simply by negative space, speak to each other in a language of reverberating expression.

A master watercolorist, Adenaike’s backgrounds are a hazy atmosphere of dissipated symbols, stars, and full constellations, speaking towards a rich cultural tradition, perhaps muddled by globalization and the loss of ancestral knowledge. The dynamic faces among the figures, varying in detail and abstraction, recall the detached, languid repose of de Chirico, while simultaneously drawing upon the geometric harmony of the faces on antiquated Nigerian stone carvings.

There is also a certain melancholy and sobriety to the work, and not without reason. The human condition, one could gather from these works, is one of reservation and reticence. Says Adenaike, “I am not unmindful of my environment and the faces I see around me, as my country is about to celebrate fifty years of independence. Perhaps I should have painted the hopeful faces of us, as flag-waving children of fifty years ago, and not the adult faces we have grown into, with guarded emotions and veiled expressions.”

It is a show with a strong voice. Adenaike is an artist with something to say, even if one can only hear him by using their eyes.

For more information contact the Parish Gallery, 1054 31st St., or visit www.parishgallery.com.

Ari Post •

When searching for an area’s freshest, local produce, farmers’ markets are likely the first places that come to mind. And why not? A congregation of local and regional farmers who harvest their produce at dawn, load it up in a pick-up, drive into town, and set up shop in a vacant parking lot or community space, creating a makeshift open-air market. Sounds just about perfect.

And they are. Farmers’ markets have had a large hand in bringing around the local, organic revolution, and allow farmers to put more of their hard-earned living directly into their pockets by cutting out the costs of third-party distributors — a necessary, but often short-shrifting result of the modern, industrial-scale food industry.

By the same token, there is comfort and exhilaration in a customer being able to shake the very hand that plucked their food from the ground earlier that morning. There is a sense of ownership that comes with fresh produce, a shared intimacy in knowing that your food has been cared for from seedling to the harvest. The experience of eating a fresh beefsteak tomato becomes more than the entitled consumption, but a considerable gift, a sensory delight in the richness of your bounty.

However, living in a city as bustling and frenetic as D.C. often creates elephantine obstacles of mere daily routines. Farmer’s markets often come around at odd times of day, and weekends can find many of us booked full with the chores and leisure unafforded by the work week, leaving little time to focus on fresh produce on top of our regular shopping needs. It is easy to overlook the value of fresh produce when it’s not in plain sight.

CSAs — Community Supported Agriculture — are a form-fitted solution to the busy metropolitan who still craves the flavor, community and health benefits of local, organic produce.

The idea of a CSA is simple and efficient: Instead of the buyer coming every week to a farmer’s market to pick and choose among all the local harvest, they sign up to receive a weekly package from a farm, consisting of a wealth of the freshest and best produce from that week, selected by the farmers themselves.

CSAs were developed in Europe back in the 1960s as a way for people to be more involved with the foods they to eat. As Alan Alliett of Fresh and Local CSA explains, “It allows people to join in a partnership with the farmer and his farm — to produce food of higher quality that can’t be found elsewhere in the marketplace.” The customer is guaranteed to get a box of fresh, tasty fruits and vegetables each week, and all they need to worry about is cooking and eating it.

Beyond a greater convenience, the advantages still abound. CSAs were created so people could work cooperatively outside the American economic model, which doesn’t allow farmers to produce quality produce under the strain of such tremendous quantity requirements. CSAs aim to keep good farmers on the land to pass on their skills to the next generation, while allowing farmers the space to produce food naturally and of a higher quality.

For the farmers, there is the comfort in a guaranteed sale. They already know when they plant the seed that their produce is sold, which gives them more time to focus on tending the harvest. As almost every CSA is certified organic, this means a lot for quality assurance. It also gives them personal contact to their customers and to the community. Louise Keckler, who owns and operates Orchard Country Produce with her husband and children, even sends out weekly emails to keep her customers in touch with farm news and the harvest updates.

There are also many benefits for the buyer. “They are guaranteed to get certain produce,” says Keckler. “Some stuff there wouldn’t be enough of for us to sell it at the farmer’s market. So getting the CSA, you can show up and pick up your cooler and you’re guaranteed to get a delivery.” Farmer’s markets often give farms visibility, functioning as a platform to show customers what they can get through CSA shares.

While most CSA distributors also have stands at the local farmer’s market, the CSA packages open the doors to a greater variety than a customer might know to choose without the help of the farmers, who are naturally more tuned in to the ebb and flow of the growing season. “People like the idea of local fresh produce,” says Keckler, “and [the CSA shares] offer a variety of things that they probably wouldn’t have bought if they just came to the farmer’s market.”

For instance, according to farmers, most customers that show up to a farmer’s market buy fruit instead of vegetables. Fruit is more visually appealing, and it’s much easier to eat. If you buy an apricot, you can just eat it right where you stand. It’s easy to overlook the lush mounds of kale and blossoming clouds of cauliflower if you don’t already have a recipe in mind. But the vast majority of farms’ harvests are veggies. When you receive a box of summer squash, mesclun, zucchini, corn and gooseberries from your weekly CSA share, you may find yourself planning a loose meal schedule for the week, or perusing a cookbook to find new recipes that use an uncommon ingredient. It allows your diet to be more experiential, more interactive.

There is also a lesson to be learned in the CSA experience about the pace of agriculture. “It makes people realize that even if you take a vacation, vegetables don’t,” says Keckler. If you’re out of town, “you have a friend pick it up, or donate it to a soup kitchen. You can’t stop the vegetables.”

As a result, many CSA farms work closely with area homeless shelters and soup kitchens. Unused shares are regularly donated. CSA farmers don’t want to see their produce go to waste, and the leftover vegetables aren’t ever of enough abundance to be sold. They take the time to pick it, and it would be a shame to see it discarded or unappreciated. There’s only so much they can eat, so they give back to the community, knowing that it is being put to good use.

But with every successful, honest business model, there are bound to be a few dime store rip-offs. Middleman CSAs, or “fake CSAs,” as Alliett calls them, are merely in the business of selling produce, not growing it. Underneath the fine print, the careful shopper will see that a good number of self-proclaimed CSA farms don’t have farms or farmers at all.

“They’re just pushing produce,” says Alliett. “Buying and reselling, instead of producing.”

Since the idea of a CSA is to be getting quality local goods, it doesn’t seem logical that a customer in Washington would want tomatoes and corn imported in bulk from the Carolinas that could just be gotten from the grocery store for less.

So, when picking a CSA, be sure to do a bit of research. Talk to the farmer, figure out where the farm is, even take a weekend drive to visit. Here’s a list of A-grade CSAs that distribute around the D.C. and Downtown area. Some only have a few shares left for the 2010 season, so it’s best to act fast.

CSAs Around Washington:
—

Bull Run Mountain Vegetable Farm
The Plains, VA
[www.bullrunfarm.com](http://www.bullrunfarm.com)

Clagett Farm
Upper Marlboro, MD
[cbf.typepad.com/clagett_farm](http://cbf.typepad.com/clagett_farm)

Fresh and Local CSA
Shepherdstown, WV
[www.freshandlocalcsa.com](http://www.freshandlocalcsa.com)

Orchard Country Produce
Gardners, PA
[www.orchcountry.com](http://www.orchcountry.com)

Potomac Vegetable Farms
Vienna, VA
[www.potomacvegetablefarms.com](http://www.potomacvegetablefarms.com)

Radix Farm
Upper Marlboro, MD
[radixfarm.wordpress.com](http://radixfarm.wordpress.com)

Ari Post •

As the old adage goes, “Those who can’t do, teach.”

However, this is not quite the case for Tyler Herman, the 23-year-old theatre instructor of Washington’s acclaimed magnet school, School Without Walls.

Referred to by students and faculty as “Walls,” the institution is well recognized as the best public high school in the District, and one of the best in the region. Established in 1971, SWW is of a certain Montessorian ilk, helping students to expand their education beyond the classroom “Walls” and turn the nation’s capital into an equal player in their intellectual cultivation. With a student body of less than 500, the students are afforded plenty of individual attention to help shape their futures.

Backed by new principal Richard Trogisch and Chancellor Michelle Rhee, the school has recently been restructuring itself to achieve higher academic standards in an ever-expanding, open-ended classroom environment. The new building, in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood, forgoes lockers to keep the school looking less like an institution, and more like a welcoming environment for children to learn.

SWW has a partnership with The George Washington University to provide classes free of charge for qualifying juniors and seniors. The newly established GW Early College Program offers students the opportunity to achieve an Associates Degree in Liberal Arts while they’re still in high school, granting them access to all the educational amenities that GW has to offer. The school’s Gilder Lehrman Initiative funds historic field trips around the region with visiting historians serving as guest lecturers and seminar leaders.

The list of student electives — of which they are free to take plenty — rivals some colleges, and there are mandatory internships within the city for graduating seniors.

Yet, as of last November, there was no theatre department. Enter Herman.

A recent graduate of Cornell, Herman came back to the area, having grown up in Silver Spring. With a degree in theatre and dance, and a minor in music, he didn’t have much intention to teach upon graduation. “I wanted to be an artist,” he says.

Picking up small work in a number of local theatres, he began instructing youth theatre programs part-time at Round House Theatre and other local high schools. “I had heard a lot of horror stories about public schools,” says Herman. “Students are unruly and uninterested.” But when Walls approached him to take on a position in their theatre program’s maiden voyage, he was surprised at what he found.

“A 99 percent graduation rate, and a 95 percent college-bound rate,” he exclaims. “These kids are smart. And they want to learn.”

Still, Herman maintained that he didn’t want to simply be a teacher. He laid out his objective in starting the theatre program as a working actor. “I’m big on creating work,” he says. “I am a working actor in this town, so I want to bring it around to the community, create a mindset of not just fun, but a career.”

Herman’s mission is to use the school’s fresh program as a way to reach out to the community, producing relevant work with as much input from the students as possible. The productions are not just for the public, but are inspired from within the public.

As SWW’s first main-stage production, Herman chose Molière’s “The Miser,” a satirical comedy about a rich moneylender and his children who wish to escape his penny-pinching household (allude away, my fellow metropolitans).

However, the copy Herman had was a translation from the 1950s (Molière was French), which, according to Herman, “Felt stuffy, not very timely or relevant.” So Herman, fluent in French, took it upon himself to re-translate the show, change a few characters around, put in a song and dance break, and fill in plot holes from the original script.

The style of theatre is actor driven, the leads played their own instruments, most being members of the high school band. Herman even decided to have the students play their own songs, which they began improvising onstage, creating a different theatre experience every night.
In many sections of the new text, Herman would merely write down framework and recommendations, then had the students “Create their own moment.”

“They made the show their own by crafting the characters they were creating, making it genuinely funny for them and the audience every night. Taking ownership of the theatre … I come in with my ideas, and they take it and do their own thing, and sometimes it’s even better. So, encouraging that creativity has become a huge part of the process.”

He wants his students to tell their own stories. “I don’t want to create high school-level work,” he says. “I want to create real work that’s done by high school students.”
Herman is now looking to get certified as a teacher — no teaching degree, just to be clear, but a vocation degree.

As far as his own work is concerned, he is working through the summer with Young Playwrites Theatre, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Arena Stage, and Round House Theatre. He will soon be appearing in “In Faction of Fools” with Welders Theatre Company.

A year out of school, and Herman is entrenched in theatre. He is beginning the framework of a winter festival at SWW with work primarily written by his students. A Shakespeare drama in the fall, a musical in the spring, all while working on his own theatre projects outside the classroom.

If the old adage had come about with Herman in mind, it would surely read a little differently: “Those who teach, do.”