June is here and “Women on the Fringe” are again onstage!
There is nothing quite like the buzz that’s created during the Hollywood Fringe. It is a time filled with risk-taking, courage, hope and independent artists creating new work by any means necessary. Each year, I ask women writers a new series of questions influenced by the Proust Questionnaire and Bernard Pivot’s French series, “Bouillon de Culture.” The goal is to understand the artist’s work and their full nature while allowing them a space to reveal their authentic self. It is a great gift and a true honor to introduce women who will be presenting work in myriad genres, exploring a wide range of topics that allow us to examine who we are as individuals and as a society.
Introducing Marisa Ray and her show, “Amen.”
Constance: What do you hope audience members take away after experiencing your show?
Marisa: I hope more than anything that audience members leave with more questions of their own. Our show talks about a lot of big ideas in a very silly and absurd way, which I love, but I hope it can serve as a conversation starter for some of those big ideas.
Constance: What’s been your biggest challenge in terms of your development/creation process?
Marisa: Allowing myself to just let the project go. I found myself still trying to make edits, and it got to a point where I had to just cut it off and give it up to creatives who I could trust to bring it to life.
Constance: What are you enjoying most as you create your show?
Marisa: Watching my director and actors find new nuances and meanings that I didn’t even realize I was writing into the show. In particular, some of the jokes are being added to both visually and sonically in a way I couldn’t have ever imagined. Though that makes sense – my friends and co-creators are all funnier than me!
Constance: What has been the most surprising discovery?
Marisa: In the rehearsal process, we ended up finding mantras that we started repeating at the beginning of every run. One of those was to “find the love” and compassion in every scene, no matter what was happening in it. This isn’t exactly groundbreaking I suppose, but it served as a reminder that theater is about caring deeply, and even in moments of anger or tragedy, it’s impossible to carry out without a strong core of love – for the characters and for the craft.
Constance: The work will be given away soon. How does that feel?
Marisa: Definitely anxiety-inducing, but also cathartic in a way! I’ve been sitting on it for so long that it’s nice to finally call it done – at least for this phase of its lifespan.
Constance: How long have you been sitting with this work?
Marisa: I wrote the first draft of this play in 2019, and largely forgot about it until recently, when I went back and reread it and found myself genuinely entertained. Since then, I started soft pitching it as just an informal table read, and when we finally did the read this past October, I had actors come up to me afterward asking that I please put it up somewhere. That felt like the kick I needed to actually take the next step and produce it.
Constance: Why Fringe? Why this year?
Marisa: In a world that feels increasingly disconnected from community and the events that shape our lives, Amen questions how things have been, and how we can take back control over our narratives. Who decides the way that things are, or how we think? If they were relevant once, are they relevant now?
Constance: Anything else that must be said – please add!
Marisa: I’ve had a few people come up to me and ask dubiously if the play was religious – and while it sure does feature God as a main character, I’d issue the disclaimer that God is as much a fictitious character as any other in this play. We don’t discuss or touch on any institutional religion at all – so feel free to come ready to laugh and immerse yourself in a world only slightly similar to our own!
For info and tickets visit https://www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/10427
