The journey that led to So Close, Yet began when a student shared a video performance of a slam poem by Sainee Raj called "Sex Ed for Adults." This started a conversation about how sex education in the United States often fails women and members of the LGBTQIA+ community. We shared our own experiences and the ways in which various communities have been excluded.
A group of Michigan State University students virtually came together throughout fall 2020 to create a series of 5 new audio plays, each connected to the themes of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). As a starting point, we all brought in poetry to share. We read and discussed dozens of poems from diverse artists and used those as a jumping off point. The poetry evoked frank and honest conversations about race, gender, and sexuality, and every member of the ensemble shared deeply moving personal experiences about how these impact the way they move through the world today. We then created scenarios and improvised scenes until the basic structure for each play began to take place. Individuals and groups of students took on the challenge of weaving these experiences into cohesive audio dramas.