Music Credit: “NY” composed and performed by Kosta T from the cd Soul Sand, used courtesy of the Free Music Archive.

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Brian Jenkins: … Humor is such a powerful back door into unlocking our experiences and processing them in a new way. Right? So, when someone goes to—to create a joke it actually allows us to talk about something that could be very serious, and could be very painful, but it allows us to laugh instead, and it actually gives the audience permission to laugh as well, and I think that-- that takes something that is a very vulnerable experience and turns it into something that is strengthening and emboldening.

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Jo Reed: That’s Brian Jenkins. He’s the executive director of the Armed Services Arts Partnership or ASAP and this is Art Works, the weekly podcast produced at the National Endowment for the Arts. I’m Josephine Reed.

The Armed Services Arts Partnership or ASAP is a nonprofit organization located in Hampton Roads, Virginia and the Washington DC area that works to bridge the military civilian divide and build community. It does this by offering classes and workshops across a wide variety of art forms—stand-up comedy, improv, acting, storytelling, creative writing, drawing. They run the gamut from glassblowing to songwriting. They are available free of charge for veterans, service members, military families and caregivers. And folks who enroll in the performing arts classes are given the opportunity to perform publicly in local venues. The results have been outstanding. People not only find community in the classes themselves, but they get a chance to get on stage and tell their stories—often through humor.

Brian Jenkins has been executive director of ASAP since the summer. That’s when Sam Pressler, the founding director of ASAP, stepped down. Sam began ASAP in 2015 when he was an undergraduate at the College of William and Mary, in Virginia. I’ll let Sam tell you the rest of the story.

Samuel Pressler: I was doing research on veterans’ issues for a government class. It was around the veterans claims backlog at the VA. And in doing that research I got really connected to the veteran military space for two reasons. One was around some of the mental health challenges that the veteran and military community was facing. I come from a family where a close family member died by suicide and I saw the impact that that had not only on my family but also the ripple effects it had on my community. And I just couldn’t really wrap my head around some of the challenges in the space. And the second, I grew up a few miles outside of New York City. I was in third grade on 9/11. And when my school got evacuated the first place I went was a good friend’s house and his father was in one of the Twin Towers and he survived. He was one of the first people I saw on 9/11. And I had this direct connection to the events but then I actually didn't know anyone who served afterwards. And really until I went to college I didn't know anyone who served in the military. So I realized I was on the other side of the civilian military gap. And looking at that, looking at these issues of veterans-- some veterans’ mental health and the civilian military gap, I thought, you know, what better solution to these problems than stand-up comedy. And I say that somewhat in jest, but really humor was my way of coping during the difficult times in my background. And on a more broad level I think humor and comedy is a bit of a universal language. And laughter kind of brings people together. So as a somewhat naïve 20-year-old I started what became ASAP.

Jo Reed: Okay, we all have these great ideas but then to actually do them is a whole other ballgame. Now, William and Mary does have a lot of close ties to the military community, doesn't it? If no other reason because of its geographic location.

Samuel Pressler: Exactly. So, William and Mary is in the middle of Hampton Roads which is the most densely populated veteran military community in the United States. About a third of the people in Hampton Roads are either in the military, affiliated with the veteran military experience. So when I was getting started it was one of these things where there weren't any comedy classes for veterans out there. And rather than kind of start from scratch I wanted to partner with organizations that already existed. So we reached out to a group called the Veteran’s Writing Project, led by Ron Capps, and brought Ron Capps to campus.

Jo Reed: Ron has been a guest on this show.

Samuel Pressler: Amazing. And he's an incredible human being. And so brought Ron to campus. He ended up doing our first workshop, I think it was December of 2013. We ended up filling with 25 participants. We actually had a 10-person waitlist. We ended up doing two more workshops in the spring of the next year to meet demand. And what we started hearing was, “This is an amazing opportunity to express myself, to connect with fellow veterans.” But the question that was asked was “What's next? What do we do after this?” And that was the catalyst for what became ASAP. So what we focused on was building a community where you can have ongoing opportunities to engage in the arts with fellow veterans. And so my senior year, we built out the William and Mary Center for Veterans Engagement. I'm not one for short names, clearly. And that ended up adding a writing group that met monthly. We added a stand-up comedy class full circle. We had a music program, improv programming. And that really became the foundation of what this organization grew into.

Jo Reed: Wow. Well, let me throw this out to either one of you and that is what were you hearing from veterans about what it was that they wanted? And they want?

Samuel Pressler: I think, it comes down to a few different things. One is community and camaraderie. Right? Because when you’re in the military you have a really strong sense of connection and camaraderie with the people around you. And when you leave there's a real abrupt transition and that-- that goes away. And so it's the opportunity to reconnect with people who have your back, where you're working towards a shared goal or purpose. And that actually leads me to two is purpose or mission. You have that very strongly in the military and when you're out sometimes it's really hard to find in civilian life. And actually doing a performance, writing a piece, that is so mission oriented and it’s so collaborative where you can do that as a team. And so what we saw is people were getting that same sense of mission. And I think the third piece is this narrative in identity. It's like you have a very clear sense of identity when you're in the military or you’re a military family member. But when you are out it’s “Who am I now?” Right? And this allows you to have "I'm a veteran and I'm a comic. I’m a veteran and I'm writer." And it helps you expand that identity and kind of have a more inclusive story of what the future looks like.

Jo Reed: Brian, why don’t you jump in?

Brian Jenkins: I think that's exactly right. Those three pieces that I think they can be distilled into three different words and that's community, purpose and identity. Those are three themes that we see over and over again for everybody who comes and stays as part of our community. I think that a common theme that I see a lot is when someone chooses to serve in the military, they very often are a person who is geared inherently towards service or being part of something that's bigger than themselves. And when we return to civilian life—I think when a veteran returns to civilian life, I think that this world doesn’t operate in quite the same way all the time. We are very individualistic. We are very siloed. So for someone to be a part of such a tightknit group where you are ready to defend one another at any given moment, and to return to this space, where everyone is milling about in their own lives is jarring and confusing. So part of what is so important and valuable about ASAP is when someone sits in a classroom with 12 other people who have a common experience that they do and you’re writing a story that you're going to deliver in front of an audience, you're able to build these stories together and you have a common investment in one another's success and a common investment in one another's narratives.

Jo Reed: And, I just want to continue that conversation because it goes to what Sam was saying earlier about—Well, you're in this workshop. You write the story. What comes next? And that's part of the way you’ve built ASAP out, as you said. You provide venues for people to, in fact, share their work.

Brian Jenkins: Yes, absolutely.

Jo Reed: Brian.

Brian Jenkins: So someone can join the ASAP community by taking maybe a one-off workshop or an eight-week long class in any of the given artistic areas that we offer. As soon as they have their graduation show, it doesn't end, exactly as you were saying. And so what we like to -- what we purposefully offer is continued opportunities for engagement that include community performances at a local bakery or a coffee house, at a brewery. Or maybe opportunities to perform for some of our corporate partners whether that's Google or Amazon or Accenture. And so we try to make sure that there continue to be opportunities for people to hone their craft, gain additional skills, and continue to be part of the same community.

Jo Reed: But I would think at the same time, by providing veterans the opportunity to do that you’re sort of at least throwing a plank across that divide between the military and nonmilitary people. Sam.

Samuel Pressler: Yeah. I'll jump in. I think when we started this there was really designing with what is the journey of a veteran who goes through this program? What is the journey in mind? And I think the underlying thesis was that you can't just have a class, a workshop, a pat on the back and you’re done, because although that's a good experience and it feels good, the data doesn't show that that sustains the impacts and well-being that we’re trying to produce. And so what we did was map out a journey and really the start of that journey was the graduation show—was what you would think is the end of the journey. And then it's what comes after that, so it's the continued performances that Brian talked about. It's also we have a leadership development program. So when you graduate from our classes you can then go on to become a mentor and then go back to the class and serve your fellow veterans. You can go back and become a teacher eventually. So that was really important. We have ongoing workshops throughout the year so that you can keep doing the workshops. And all of our classes are offered in partnership with local arts organizations so that when you graduate from the class, you can continue on in the higher-level programming of those arts organizations. So you take intro to improv with us. We do it in DC with Washington Improv Theater. And you do the intro with us and then you keep going on as part of the broader community. So what we’re doing is we’re providing a place for veterans to continue to engage with fellow veterans if that's what they want. But, also, it’s a soft nudge to integrate into the community and be part of the broader community art scene, and not just have a separate veteran artist community. And that's integral. And what we found through our research is that's producing the statistically significant improvements and well-being that we thought would happen because they’re continuing to engage in the arts and continuing to engage with fellow veterans.

Jo Reed: How do you measure success? What methods do you use to evaluate success? Brian.

Brian Jenkins: There are couple of ways. We've actually just come to the tail end of an 18-month long program impact evaluation that was a mixed method study, qualitative and quantitative, on our programs. It involved focus groups. It involved interviews. It involved surveys before someone takes an ASAP program, as well as after at three and six months, as well. We also had, of course, a control group of folks who were interested in participating in ASAP programs but had not yet. And so we did the control surveys as well. Moving forward beyond that, we’re very excited to get ready to publish those results within the next couple of months. We’re finalizing a public report. And so I won’t speak in great detail to the results but what I can say is that we’re very excited to see very clear evidence that ASAP’s programs produce increased resilience, increased self-esteem, increased sense of purpose, increased social support, while reducing depression and stress and that these results are sustained over time. So very exciting results that we’re looking forward to sharing in a public report very soon. Beyond the program impact evaluation, we also have a monitoring and evaluation system that is born out of the results of that longer 18-month study. We've taken it and we've turned it into surveys that allow us to see whether the same results are happening over time with different classes and different locations and different instructors.

Jo Reed: Sam.

Samuel Pressler: When I—when I started the organization, research was at the foundation of what we did because as a nonprofit organization we’re taking money from individuals, we’re taking money from grantors, and it's vital that we don't just tell stories about the impact but that we’re able to generate a base of evidence to—to prove that impact.

Jo Reed: Yeah, to demonstrate it.

Samuel Pressler: And I think when you're talking about something like the arts where people who are engaged in the arts know very well that it's impactful and affecting, but those who are outside of it, there's even additional burden to show that proof and to have a really rigorous study. And so, I think he could've sold the control group even more, the fact that we had a control, so we can say that because of our programs you are experiencing these improvements in well-being and because we have an 18-month study we can show that this sustains over time. That's integral and I think that's worth talking about. Growing and affecting other organizations, we want to make sure that these key pieces that we've learned are proliferated out to other organizations and to other locations because this is such a sacred experience to be able to share potentially the most important story of your life. Right? And to do it in a way where you're not given that continued avenue to have—to have that outlet for expression I think we’re not doing it fully the way that we should. And so it's just really important as folks are thinking about designing programs for the veteran and military community it's how do we build sustainability? And how do we continue to measure our impacts so we know we’re improving our programs and delivering effective programming.

Jo Reed: Yeah. There's no mercy in comedy. Somebody is laughing or they're not. And it also depends on self-revelation. And I'm just in awe of anyone who does it but especially a veteran who can stand up and talk about experiences that are harrowing and twist it in a way so that it brings a room together through laughter. And I'm curious—When they go through comedy bootcamp, how you kind of set the stage to allow that to unfold?

Brian Jenkins: It's such a great question. The first thing I'll say is it does go back to the community piece where when you walk into this room and you know the affiliations of the other folks in the room, you know that there are other veterans or other military family members in the room, there is this instant sort of exhale of release, of “Okay, these people understand. I will be able to share my experiences with these people.” And so we focus on the skill building element in these classes. Right? We focus on “What's your setup? What's your punchline? What's your tagline?” And that allows people to put all of the content that they have-- their experiences, into a joke. And I think that something that's also really important to mention here is for so many active duty servicemembers humor is a way they get by. Dark humor is an inherent and very powerful part of the military experience. And so we’re kind of taking that and adding some specific training and skill to it and allowing someone to get up on stage. Another thing I'll say as well is that humor is such a powerful back door into unlocking our experiences and processing them in a new way. Right? So, when someone goes to—to create a joke it actually allows us to talk about something that could be very serious, and could be very painful, but it allows us to laugh instead, and it actually gives the audience permission to laugh as well, and I think that-- that takes something that is a very vulnerable experience and turns it into something that is strengthening and emboldening.

Jo Reed: We have to say, because we have to say it, that this is not art therapy and there's a difference. And if one of you could articulate the difference that would be great. Brian.

Brian Jenkins: Yes. Thank you for bringing that up. We’re very clear that we’re not an art therapy program. We are a community arts program. And I think that when we are inviting folks to participate in these programs, it is about the skill building. It is about a strengths-based approach. And it is about community. And so, you know, we welcome folks in to—to share the arts with them. And it just so happens that there are a lot of really cool and positive and exciting things that come out of it as well.

Jo Reed: You’ve mentioned that you have partnerships with a lot of arts programs. And—I get a sense of what the arts programs brings to the table for the veterans who are part of ASAP. But I wonder what the veterans bring to the arts programs? And if you’ve heard about how they've enhanced, the other arts organizations that you work with? Sam.

Samuel Pressler: I really believe the value of these partnerships on the class side—It's bidirectional. Right? So on our end we’re able to provide that continued avenue for artistic engagement and artistic skill development for the veterans and service members who go through our programs. But on the art organization side, a lot of the challenges for them is accessibility. Right? How do you create a diverse community arts experience? And oftentimes what we hear is it tends to be white, middle, and upper-middle class people who engage in the community arts and who pay for it. And so what ASAP has done is we've created this bridge into the community arts. Our classes are free. Once you graduate you can pay for the higher-level classes. We usually get a discount for them. If you need support to engage in the arts because of financial reasons we have a scholarship fund that we've developed so that you can apply for that and you can continue to engage. And what we're hearing is that it makes a much more diverse experience for the people involved on the community arts side as well and that-- that's really important. And we believe that this could be a model for getting other populations into the community arts who aren't. And so I think that's really important for us as well.

Jo Reed: What was the most challenging part of this for you, Sam?

Samuel Pressler: We have to balance play and humor with really intense powerful experiences and threading the needle between those two. Because on any given day we can have a really hysterical silly improv class and we can have a storytelling class where people are telling the most tragic and important story of their lives. And to be able to hold both of those spaces, to be able to honor both of those experiences and make sure that if someone-- this is not art therapy and we’re very clear—but if someone is opening themselves up like that and they feel that they finally have the comfort to be that vulnerable, that their classmates are prepared to support them and that their instructors are prepared to support them. And we provide that space where we are not letting people down in that point of vulnerability. I think we've been extremely intentional about it and we've done a really good job. But I know when I was running this full-time that was the stuff that I thought a lot about is just every person, just to think about how much it takes to raise your hand, to spend a Saturday doing something for yourself. It might be the one thing you do for yourself all week. And it's probably going to be something that scares the crap out of you at times. Right? Stand up comedy—this stuff. So to honor that and to give that the treatment that it deserves I think that's the core to me of what I thought about every day and how important it was to deliver really quality programs for people.

Jo Reed: Brian.

Brian Jenkins: I think that hits the nail on the head. Absolutely. That—that has certainly continued to be.

Jo Reed: So, given that, I would think that artists and instructors who are teaching those classes have to be informed not just about their craft but also about how to deal with a triggering event, for example. Brian.

Brian Jenkins: Absolutely. Something that is very clear for us is that there are arts organizations across the country who are eager to connect with veterans and military families. They’re eager to provide the arts and offer their classes to—to that community. And, yet, one of the challenges is being culturally aware and being culturally connected to the military community. Less than one percent of this entire country has served in the Armed Forces and so there’s a very significant gap. And one of the ways that we bridge that is every single year we have a teaching artist retreat where we bring all of our instructors across all of our programs and our different partnering organizations together and we go through a curriculum where we talk about what it means to teach the military community, what it means to be culturally aware—aware of trauma that a person might have experienced.

Jo Reed: Sam.

Samuel Pressler: Yeah. So the teaching arts training really emerged from this gap where our instructors were excited to engage in the classroom but they didn't necessarily have all the tools they needed. So, basically, what it looks like there's three parts to it. So it's first a cultural competency training—how does the culture of the military and the veteran experience intersect with the community arts? That's designed and led by the veterans who have gone through our programs. Because a lot of our instructors are veterans they're able to speak to that from a peer to peer nature. Then we go into kind of some foundational elements of the community arts and how the community arts interacts with trauma and mental health, recognizing that we are not an art therapy organization, but understanding that those things will come about through expression in the community arts. And so we work with professional social workers and art therapists to lead that session. Where we do the foundations of trauma, we talk about grounding, mindfulness techniques, and what to do in the case of emergency or a triggering situation. And then we allow people to apply their learning in a simulation-based environment where you come in-- we have our alumni of our program are actors acting out scenes. We have social works providing feedback. And then our instructors come in and engage with those scenes and practice the mindfulness and grounding techniques to de-escalate those situations and then triage to get additional support. So that's a program that we've done internally for our community and we’re starting to do externally for other organizations. And so I think we’re really excited to use that as a capacity builder for these arts organizations that want to engage with veterans but maybe their instructors have some hesitancy of how the military experience and trauma may emerge in the classroom.

Jo Reed: And what surprised you as you’ve been doing this work?

Samuel Pressler: The listeners are going to think I'm not very creative but, for me, the thing that always surprises me is the opportunities that come when you build community. There have been so many things I would've never expected, by bringing people together, that have formed. We've had people officiate one another's wedding who they’ve met in the stand-up comedy class. There's one woman in our program who her husband was hit by a car and was actually in ICU. He was paralyzed from the waist down. And we had a fellow classmate from a program who would go visit them at the VA hospital every weekend, and buy the supplies that they needed, and be there to help out with all of the tasks they needed to do. That's not something we designed into the program. But that's something that happened when you bring people together. And for me, like—every time I hear a story like that I'm just blown away by the power of human connection. I—I really think the value of ASAP is using arts as a lever to build community. Where they came in expecting to learn stand-up comedy, or they came in expecting to learn writing, they left having friends they would have for the rest of their lives.

Jo Reed: And that sounds what you also found so gratifying about it. Sam, why did you step down?

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Samuel Pressler: Oh—this is the first time I’ve gotten this question publicly. It's—it’s interesting. So, because I never had the intention to do this for the rest of my life and it was this kind of beautiful accident that evolved to meet demand, I didn't ever have the feeling that this was tethered to my identity. Right? I didn't feel like I'm the founder of ASAP and this is my life. And so it got to a point in 2018 where we had done really well in fundraising. We had hit a lot of these indicators of sustainability that I had drawn out for myself. And I just did a pulse check, you know. I was like “Do I have the energy and vigor to lead this next stage of growth?” Because, you know, our board and our community wanted us to grow. And I had to be honest with myself. I said, “No.” And if the answer to that is no it's time to step aside. And so from that position of strength I communicated with the board that I thought it was the right time to make the transition. And, you know, there's always things that could go better but I felt like it was an extremely healthy transition and that's a testament to my therapist.

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Samuel Pressler: And to my family, to the organization, the community, our board. And now with Brian, coming to—Brian navigating what I think could be a really difficult process which is a founder transition. And I think Brian has done a fantastic job in seeing that through. And so that's made it a lot easier for me as well to have a partner like that in this transition.

Jo Reed: You’ve taken over now, Brian. What made you want to take this job?

Brian Jenkins: The mission of my career is community building. I've had the opportunity to do that with a few different groups and a few different kinds of organizations. A couple of years ago I was in Williamsburg, Virginia and a couple buddies said, "Hey, there's an open mic. A bunch of veterans are doing stand-up comedy. Do you want to go?" You know, I went just expecting to enjoy a couple of beers with my buddies and turned out that I was blown away by the show. I thought it was just incredible to see the talent and the stories that were shared that evening. And I loved seeing the energy and the mutual support of the community. And so two years later I saw Sam letting the world know that he was stepping down and so I reached out and said, “Hey, let's talk.” And since that moment I've had the honor of getting to know this community more and more and to see exactly what Sam has talked about. It's that—when someone takes a class with us, they become part of one another's lives in every single way, shape, and form. It’s just stunning to see.

Jo Reed: Where do you see ASAP in five years? What are your goalposts?

Brian Jenkins: I am so excited. I think there's so much that we can do. The first thing that I want to say is that when we become part of someone's life we stay there. Right? And so the communities that we have now in Washington DC, the whole metro area, and across Hampton Roads, Virginia staying as part of those communities, continuing to be as consistent and comprehensive as we possibly can be there is critical. And at the same time we’re now looking to see, “How do we take this—and how do we turn it into something that allows us to bring the arts to so many more, thousands and thousands more veterans and military families across the country?” And so we’re doing some research right now. We're—we’re having some conversations with our partners trying to talk about, you know, what would it look like for us to grow as an organization? What would it look like for us to expand access to the arts for veterans and military families across the country?

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Jo Reed: You just heard Brian Jenkins. He’s the executive director of ASAP, the Armed Services Arts Partnership. With him was Sam Pressler, ASAP’s founder who now sits on its board. You can find out more about ASAP, its classes, its upcoming performances at asapasap.org. That’s A-S-A-P-A-S-A-P.org You've been listening to Art Works, produced at the National Endowment for the Arts. You can subscribe to Art Works wherever you get your podcasts, so please do. And if you like us, then leave us a rating on Apple because it helps people to find us. For the National Endowment for the Arts, I'm Josephine Reed. Thanks for listening.