We’re looking forward to introducing you to Kay Moore. Check out our conversation below.
Hi Kay, thank you so much for joining us today. We’re thrilled to learn more about your journey, values and what you are currently working on. Let’s start with an ice breaker: Have any recent moments made you laugh or feel proud?
I felt inordinately proud when our nonprofit helped our community discover a long-ago story about itself. At Garland’s Juneteenth observance, our nonprofit was asked to go on the big outdoor stage in downtown Garland and perform a scene that told about a little-known fact in Garland history. Most people there didn’t realize that almost a century ago, a free-standing Black community with its own stores, homes, school and church occupied a fairly sizable portion of downtown where the city hall and the performing arts center complex now stand. The scene included an original song and script I wrote and that was performed that night in front of hundreds of people on hand for Garland’s Juneteenth. I was so proud to realize that I and our group had been part of this special moment that would live on in citizens’ minds and that might prompt further questions and dialogue about what life was like in the long-ago, especially for an under-recognized segment of our community.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I am a career journalist that spent more than 40 years involved with the printed word: newspapers, corporate communications, and book writing and publishing. In retirement my husband and I returned to my growing-up community and turned our attentions to restoring my old neighborhood, which had decayed but which through our efforts and those of others is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. I now use my writing skills helping under-recognized neighborhoods and sites in our town receive their own historic recognition. Besides my journalistic training, I also studied piano for many years. I use my music training along with writing skills to compose original musical dramas and individual solo numbers to bring our town’s history to life on the community stage. A nonprofit that my husband and I began has produced four musical dramas that help our citizens learn little-known facts about their town. Besides narratives about our historic street, the nonprofit Friends of Garland’s Historic Magic 11th Street also has brought lore about our Black, Latino and Indigenous communities to life on stage.
Great, so let’s dive into your journey a bit more. What breaks the bonds between people—and what restores them?
One of our nonprofit’s goals has been to do just that: restore bonds between people. For example, in our original musical drama, “The Flats”, about the free-standing Black residential/business community that existed during racial segregation, we strove to educate citizens of all races about the things that separated Garlandites during that painful time in hopes that history never repeats itself. Sharing stories like this facilitates communication and spurs conversations between individuals. Even some of the young Black students that were actors in the play were growing up in an age in which they knew little about this type of history. They wondered whether we had made up scenes that showed Blacks having to sit in a “coloreds-only” balcony in the city’s movie theater and didn’t realize that some of the privileges they now enjoy were nonexistent not that long ago. They performed alongside Anglo students in the play; this allowed for a chance at dialogue that might not have happened otherwise. The same type of situation occurred when we produced “The Cactus Chronicles” about Garland’s first Latino family of record—some of the challenges and victories that the Valle family experienced with discriminatory rules in their town. Anglo actors in the play were aghast in the scene where a highly educated Latino job applicant was turned down by a school district because she was a minority. Again this facilitated conversation and broke down barriers. Our current project is to illustrate the Native American past of our community that existed before modern-day history. We believe that much of this will come as a surprise to citizens as well. We trust that these efforts will help bring healing and will be reparational
Was there ever a time you almost gave up?
Because I was way out of my comfort zone in the type of theatrical work that was needed to stage original productions, I found casting for the musical dramas we produced highly challenging. Especially difficult was finding actors who were Latino and Black, since I was an Anglo. I thought of myself as progressive with friends of all ethnicities, but I began to realize how actually few people I had in my network that were not “like me”. Then, after working my contacts and obtaining references, finding people who would commit to the time required was another hill to climb. Both productions called for a fairly sizeable cast. The latter production, about Garland’s Black community, required a mainly student cast, and students are very busy with extracurricular activities, especially if they’re talented. On each occasion I came close to throwing my hands up in frustration. And then on each occasion I would find some small encouragement to power me through that day—some new lead, some new prompt that seemed to propel me on. It was the biblical story of manna from heaven—just enough to supply that day’s need, but enough, nevertheless. When show-time arrived and I set out the lobby photo board containing the mug shots of all the cast members, it almost took my breath away. Where had all these people, that I had once struggled so hard to find, come from? It was a visual reminder of the difficulties I had overcome. How glad I was to have persevered!
I think our readers would appreciate hearing more about your values and what you think matters in life and career, etc. So our next question is along those lines. Whose ideas do you rely on most that aren’t your own?
My husband, Louis Moore, has always been a person of vision. He has a true gift for the “big picture”. He can see possibilities from afar off, He is of the “ask not because you have not” school of thought, and he’s never afraid to propose something that may seem far-fetched to others. Most of the time, he’s able to see these ideas to their conclusion. My gift is for enabling his ideas. I’m a detail person and immediately begin mapping out the steps that could be taken to bring his concepts to life. This is how the idea to write musical dramas to tell our town’s history began. One morning when we were on our fitness walk outdoors, we were discussing how we might apply for a cultural-arts grant for our organization, since the grant guidelines included historic-preservation organizations such as Friends of Garland’s Historic Magic 11th Street. When I noted that we weren’t fine-arts oriented, he suggested that I write a play about the history of our neighborhood, which is quite old and has a unique story behind it. I commented that if I did this, it would need to be a musical drama, because it was impossible to tell a good story without putting it to music. Once the words left my mouth, I was incredulous at what I had proposed, yet I immediately began mapping out a detailed strategy to bring this to pass. That very weekend I sat down and sketched out melody lines for all the numbers that would need to be created. He has done this again and again for our nonprofit: hatching up broad-brush plans to better our community. Some have come to fruition; some haven’t, but none would have had his vision not been there first. He also has no fear in approaching higher-level or high-profile people, even those he doesn’t know, with his requests, believing that the law of averages is on his side. A vast majority of the time, he gets some form of a yes. None of these ideas is mine, and I can take no credit for them, but I always take a stab at executing them.
Okay, so before we go, let’s tackle one more area. What is the story you hope people tell about you when you’re gone?
That my most creative years were my senior years. I’ve spent my whole life creating, from the time I wrote poems as a preschooler to authoring books and newspaper stories and church curriculum. But the creativity in this latter portion of my life has been vastly different and more expansive, because it has been wholistic. It has utilized every part of me–portions of my brain that I didn’t know existed. This not only applies to the plays and the musical compositions and casting and blocking and all that has been required to produce the musical dramas that tell stories about our hometown. It also applies in the personal areas of my life, such as cooking and sewing. I’ve always been highly structured and recipe-bound when preparing meals. Now I keep the fridge full and the pantry stocked and experiment with what I have, substituting ingredients liberally. I’ve sewn garments from discarded draperies and used any material I have on hand for gift-wrap–even piecing together discarded paper scraps. I would never have “colored outside the lines” in my younger years. I hope others will be inspired to do the same . . . to live a little and find out that there’s more to us than we realize.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://friendsofgarlandshistoricmagic11thst.org
- Instagram: magic_11th_street
- Linkedin: Kay Moore
- Facebook: Magic 11th Street
Image Credits
Kay Moore took all photos except #2 house with group in front and #4 Kay on stage with Pascual Valle and #8 (people clapping hands) (all by Deborah Downes of Take to Heart Images) and #5 photo of Kay with MLK portrait behid her (by Fred Downes).
