We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jeffrey Barg a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Jeffrey, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about serving the underserved.

I began my professional life as a journalist, and worked as a writer and editor for many years, documenting the highs and lows of my hometown Philadelphia. But eventually I grew tired of just writing about the problems of the city I love–I wanted to actually solve some of those problems too. So I got a graduate degree in urban planning and worked for many years doing planning and policy. Eventually I pivoted back toward communications, working largely with nonprofits, and now I serve as director of communications for OIC of America, a national nonprofit that works to build economic justice through workforce development, job training and STEM education. I’ve always connected best with mission-based work: When I can direct my skills toward problems that need solving–and I can’t think of one more important than economic justice–I do my strongest work.

Though I’ve just started in this new position, the work feels important as ever. OIC of America is a 60-year-old nonprofit, founded by the civil rights titan Rev. Leon Sullivan. We work with more than two dozen affiliates around the country, but still have a lot of work to do to tell our story and help reach more people.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Communications is just one piece of what I do. I’m also a longtime grammar/language columnist, with a side life in theater and music.

I write “The Angry Grammarian,” a humorous and often political look at how grammar, language and punctuation shape our world. (Don’t come at me for the lack of an Oxford comma in that sentence; it was deliberate and correct.) The column ran for more than five years in my hometown Philadelphia Inquirer, and now I self-publish it on Substack. I’ve also turned the column into a musical, also called “The Angry Grammarian,” with my writing partner David Lee White. He wrote the script; I wrote the songs.

And in my spare time, I perform regularly at theaters around the region–dividing my time pretty evenly between plays and musicals. I’ve written tunes for a couple other musicals, including a folk adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part I, and I’m almost finished the first draft of an adaptation of the Epic of Gilgamesh.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

I spent many years not doing anything creative because I thought you had to get others’ permission.

This might not be true everywhere, but Philly is a city where the traditional artistic gatekeepers don’t really exist. I mean, they do, but you don’t have to play exclusively in their pool. If you want to create something, you can just do it. I’ve been deeply involved in two theater companies that were just a few friends who got together and decided they wanted to create. They had the drive and the moxie and the willingness to go find performance spaces and sponsors and audiences–and in both cases, they packed their respective houses.

The most recent one was Pier Players Theatre Company, which put on the world premiere of “The Angry Grammarian.” They had done only a few shows prior to taking on our musical, but they worked incredibly hard and were wildly talented, and we sold out the entire run of the show–before we even opened.

Philly is a city that both accommodates and rewards that kind of hard work. You don’t have to be a 50-year-old theater company with a $1 million budget.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

I started working on my “Angry Grammarian” musical on my own–just writing songs and attaching them to a loosely written story–before seeking out a co-writer. I talked with a lot of different potential writing partners, and the process is surprisingly like dating. You’re looking for someone you vibe with. You’re looking for someone who sees the world–or at least this project–in the same way you do. You’re looking for someone you can spend a LOT of time with. You get frustrated. You invest time and energy and sweat into a relationship that doesn’t end up working out, and then wonder if you should just say, “Screw this–I’ll just be happier on my own.”

But eventually, I met David through a mutual friend, and we talked. We traded ideas. We developed the story together. And at some point, we decided: Yeah, this could work. Let’s lock in.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.theangrygrammarian.com/home
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/angrygrammarian/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffrey-barg-82549021/
• Other: https://theangrygrammarian.substack.com/