In a wide-ranging conversation, Daveed Diggs freestyles about art, democracy and activism

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] - Just over a decade ago, playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda gathered a group of his theater friends, all of whom were skilled at rapping, and shared some songs he'd been working on about one of the nation's Founding Fathers, Alexander Hamilton.

Every few months, Miranda would share new songs, and the cast would run through them a few times. Maybe some people would come to listen, and then everyone would share some cheese plates and go home. Eventually things became more formal, with a rehearsal process and a stage and costumes, and it wasn't long before the musical, "Hamilton," became the hottest ticket on Broadway. It stayed that way for years, with presidents and heads-of-state sitting in the audience, entranced, next to entire classes of schoolkids.

But for star cast member Daveed Diggs, performing in "Hamilton" was just "putting on a play with friends" - something he's loved to do ever since he was a student concentrating in theatre arts at Brown University.

Diggs shared that anecdote with a packed house at Brown's Lindemann Performing Arts Center on Thursday, Jan. 23. The actor, writer and producer, who graduated from Brown in 2004, had returned to campus to join Professor of Africana Studies Tricia Rose on stage for a conversation about art, theater, democracy and "keeping it real" (which happen to be the name of the first play in which Diggs performed at Brown).

The event ushered in Brown 2026, a campus-wide initiative that will mark the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States through an exploration of the important role of universities in fostering open and democratic societies. In addition to open-to-the-public lectures, Brown 2026 will include new academic courses, reading programs, research grants, fellowships for visiting scholars and more.

Widely known for originating the dual roles of Thomas Jefferson and Marquis de Lafayette in "Hamilton," for which he won a Tony award, Diggs has continued to explore some of the questions at the heart of a pluralistic, democratic society, such as who counts, who participates and why, throughout his creative career.

The plot of the 2018 film "Blindspotting," which he wrote, produced and starred in with his childhood friend Rafael Casal, follows a parolee who, just days away from the end of his probation, finds it difficult to avoid being sent back to prison. Diggs described "Blindspotting" as "a buddy comedy in a world that wouldn't let it be one," because it's about two guys who just want to have fun but are caught up in a racist, violent and unjust world.

Diggs said that he and Casal wanted to make a film that grappled with real events and addressed complicated social issues in their hometown of Oakland, California.

"My particular usual way of sweetening the deal for trying to not ignore embarrassing or difficult histories is by making jokes," Diggs said on Thursday evening. "It's easy to get pretty doom and gloom about things when you're examining the stuff that is doom-filled. And it's pretty doomy out there, real doomy… But that doesn't mean we're not going to have a good time in here tonight, you know?"

Diggs said that while he's always been a happy, optimistic person, he believes that most people "run towards the fun stuff most of the time." So as an artist and creator, he wants to give them something to run toward.

That's also what Miranda did with "Hamilton," Diggs said.

"It allowed everybody to feel that kind of patriotism that I think we were all wanting to feel despite the clear inequalities that still exist," Diggs said. "I think people generally wanted to have a reason to feel optimistic about America. And 'Hamilton' was like, 'Hey, these were dumb upstart kids, just like all of us once were. And they made a country! And of course it's flawed, but also, how incredible is that?!"

Two Brown seniors, Grace Mugo, who is concentrating in computer science and modern media and culture, and Rishika Kartik, an independent concentrator in disability and design, joined Diggs and Rose on stage to ask questions from audience members.

In response to questions about the relationship between art and activism, Diggs said he sees artists as well as art as playing an important role in a healthy democracy.

"Art gets to speak to the time that you are creating it in," Diggs said. "I want to be able to look back at that and either say, 'Oh, I don't believe that anymore,' or, 'I still believe that,' - but [either way], it's honest. And I think that tendency leads towards work that can be activist in that we are allowed and potentially required as artists to, if not critique the systems we're operating under, then to at least shine a light on them and allow everybody to see them and to feel them emotionally. That's the great value of what we get to do as artists: It gives people a way to emotionally enter situations that can feel intellectual. There's a lot more to be mined from having an emotional connection to something."

Diggs added that watching a play, reading a book or listening to music - consuming art in any form - is a democracy-expanding exercise in empathy.

"The more art we consume, the more I think it expands our capacity for empathy," he said.

Audience members were curious to know more about Diggs' time at Brown. He shared that during his first week on campus, he spotted an audition announcement on the door of what he would later learn was the Department of Africana Studies' Rites and Reason Theatre. He tried out, made the cut and performed in a play called "Keeping it Real."

The theater became his home away from home, Diggs said. He generally felt out of place in Providence, which he said felt so different, "rhythmically and energetically," than Oakland. But he felt embraced by the faculty and students at the theater, who treated him like family and threw him birthday parties every January. (In fact, he said with delight, they threw him a birthday party during his visit to campus for Thursday's event).

The method and process he learned at the theater also felt right.

"This method of research to performance, and creating art and theater based on rigorous research of the things going on in society around you, searching for the 'why' and then figuring out a way to perform that - that was what really my performance experience at Brown University was about," Diggs said. "Getting to come at it from that kind of perspective was a continuation of how I'd been growing up in the Bay Area and reaffirmed my already-existing value system on how we can create work that speaks to the moment - and that also was really fun."

While he returned to make his home in California (near Los Angeles, not Oakland), his years at Brown and in Providence continue to influence Diggs' creative work, he added.

"My experiences performing here and getting to create art here were actually so foundational," Diggs said, "and stuff I use still all the time."

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