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.
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!
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.
Constance: What do you hope audience members take away after experiencing your show?
Rahvaunia: My show’s message is layered, much like life itself. I hope that the audience members leave with the understanding that we are all navigating this world, doing the best we can. We don’t always get it right, but if we lead with love, kindness, empathy and non-judgment, we may realize that we are more alike than different. It would truly make my soul smile if women, in particular, embraced self-work, the importance of sisterhood,and emotional work, which would allow them to recognize their immense importance to the world and the human experience. It is also important for all genders to understand how special the woman truly is. We are all here because of a woman.
Constance: What’s been your biggest challenge in terms of your development/creation process?
Rahvaunia: Outside of never writing anything other than a couple of short films and a few synopsis… The biggest challenge in my development and creation process has been managing my grand dreams and high expectations. I envision everything on such a grand scale and my perfectionist tendencies, combined with a touch of OCD, make it even more demanding. I aimed to create something so impactful that the HIV storyline connecting 3 of the 15 characters becomes unavoidable and deeply relatable. Often, we shy away from topics we think won’t resonate with us, but that’s precisely why I created this show… to challenge those assumptions. This journey has been incredibly challenging requiring me to dig deep and find my inner voice, reminding myself to let go and simply create. I had to learn to step out of my own way.
Constance: What are you enjoying most as you create your show?
Rahvaunia: I most enjoyed the discovery of small nuances that make each character relatable to a diverse audience. It’s incredibly fulfilling to layer the lives of these women beyond their diagnosis, exploring their journeys before, during and after. Creating characters with fragments of all of us, regardless of race or gender, allows me to connect with the audience on a profound level. This process of crafting multifaceted, relatable women was both challenging and deeply rewarding.
Constance: What has been the most surprising discovery?
Rahvaunia: That’s been my ability to create something that is both entertaining and, at times, humorous, while addressing a topic that many consider heavy or taboo. Even the most touching and emotional moments are crafted to take the audience on a journey that ultimately ends in hope and a smile, both on their faces and in their hearts.
Constance: The work will be given away soon. How does that feel?
Rahvaunia: I’ve been blessed to share this work before, and each time I put it out there and leave everything on the stage it’s an incredible feeling. Knowing that my contribution is raising awareness and serving the community is immensely fulfilling. As a BIOPIC woman, my work directly impacts my community, but it also resonates with the broader global community. This sense of connection and service is what makes this experience truly amazing.
Constance: How long have you been sitting with this work?
Rahvaunia: For 16 years or so before finally bringing it to life. Life has a way of keeping you busy and pulling you in many directions, but I never let it discourage me. I knew that when the time was right, it would happen. And it did, at the perfect moment, just as the number of diagnoses among Black cisgender women was on a constant rise.
Constance: Why Fringe? Why this year?
Rahvaunia: Why not? I’ve been a Fringe audience member for some time, and it’s one of the few times in Hollywood when small theatrical productions get the support they truly deserve. LA might not be known as a “theatre” town, but for 30 glorious days, Fringe transforms it into one. The energy and passion during this festival are unparalleled. I originally wanted to participate in the Hollywood Fringe in 2020, but we all know what happened that year. I decided to step back for a while, observing how theatre adapted to streaming shows to keep the art alive during such trying times. But I had a desire to connect with live audiences and that was a priority for my “important” show. And here I am. Hello, Hollywood Fringe 2024. Thank you for making space for me!
Constance: Anything else that must be said – please add!
Rahvaunia: “tHis Is Very IMPORTANT” is my first written piece for the stage. Stepping into unknown territory this project has not only taught me invaluable lessons but also ignited a yearning to create more theatre work. It is my hope to be able to bring those ideas to a stage near you. In the meantime, I am manifesting that TIVI (short for tHis Is Very IMPORTANT) will be performed on stages worldwide. It’s a human experience that deserves to be seen by all. Beyond its stage life, it will evolve into a mini-series. Many people have expressed a desire to know what happens next for my characters, and I hope they won’t have to wait too long to find out.
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 Joy Regullano and her show, “Body Count”
Joy Regullano
Constance: What do you hope audience members take away after experiencing your show?
Joy: I hope that people learn at least a little something about themselves from my story. Maybe a little a-ha moment of why their relationships ended the way they did or an insight into their own relationship with their parents or family. In my fantasy of fantasies, people who need help would feel inspired to get the help they need, whether it’s through reading one of my recommended books, going to therapy or something else. I also of course hope that they’ll be entertained and laugh.
Constance: What’s been your biggest challenge in terms of your development/creation process?
Joy: It’s such a deeply personal show – more personal than anything else I’ve written and shared publicly, and that’s saying a lot because almost everything I write is very personal. So there’s a part of me that fears that anyone who is mentioned in the show will come to see it, haha! I’ve also been pushed by multiple people to go more into the dramatic and emotional, and as a comedian that’s not always my favorite place to go. But I hope that exploring those areas has helped make it more profound.
Constance: What are you enjoying most as you create your show?
Joy: It’s always really fun to see what the audience laughs at. What the audience responds to. Especially when it’s something I didn’t even think was funny. It’s a feedback loop – their reaction inspires me to tweak the show, which then hopefully causes them to laugh even more. I suppose what I’m speaking of is the workshopping process. I also enjoy connecting with people after they see the show and hearing what they resonate with, whether it’s a relationship with their parents, a way they’ve moved through the world in their romantic relationships, or something else.
Constance: What has been the most surprising discovery?
Joy: Just how many people resonate with what I talk about in my show? A lot of it is such a taboo topic, that it’s not like it’s the typical everyday conversation that always comes up. So I’m really glad to be part of an effort to normalize talking about these issues.
Constance: The work will be given away soon. How does that feel?
Joy: It’s scary!! I already feel the postpartum depression. And once you give it away, you can’t control how people take it. But it will also feel fun, connecting, and… relieving?? Haha. How long have you been sitting with this work? I’ve thought about writing something around this topic for a few years, but I think I needed some distance away from the events that actually happened in my life that inspired it before I was ready to shape it into a public show. So maybe like … 5 years? haha.
Constance: Why Fringe? Why this year?
Joy: I absolutely loved my last experience with Fringe in 2019 with my musical SUPPORTIVE WHITE PARENTS and wanted to do it again! I loved all the “fringeships” I made, and I love the community, and I found it to be an incredibly connecting experience. I had just come out of a solo show class at East West Players with a draft of this show, and it was either do Fringe now or wait until next year, which felt like an awfully long time to wait. So I did drag my feet a little bit, but I eventually pulled the trigger.
Constance: Anything else that must be said – please add!
Joy: Hope to see you at the show! I’m on IG @joyregullano and @bodycountsoloshow.n Our first show on Sun 6/9 @ 11pm is PWYC. No code is necessary! (And if you miss me at Hollywood Fringe this year, I’m taking it to NYC for a couple of show dates in late June as part of Pan Asian Rep’s NuWorks Festival! Check out the program here: https://www.panasianrep.org/nuworks-2024.)
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.
A couple years ago, Kacie Rogers was anonymously nominated for the Free The Arts Shay Fellowship, a paid opportunity to write and develop a solo piece. She seized the chance, and wrote a five minute submission piece. A few weeks later, she found out that she had gotten the fellowship. And thus—her solo show I Sell Windowswas born.
I Sell Windows, co-produced by Outside In Theatre & Bottle Tree Theatre (Kacie is one of the company’s co-founders), is an autobiographical collection of stories and reflections written and performed by Kacie. The anecdotes work through an artist’s experience of frustration and guilt, and let us be privy to a journey of self-discovery through grief.
After seeing a performance of I Sell Windows, I called Kacie to chat about the process of putting it together. As the show’s writer, producer and performer, Kacie and her personal collection of experiences are its driving force. Among other things, we talk about theater as therapy, the joys of working with great creative collaborators and writing about the things that scare you most.
Elana Luo: Let’s start at the beginning. Tell me about coming up with the idea for this show.
Kacie Rogers: What I was always interested in was writing all of the scariest things I could think of that I’ve never thought I could say in front of a roomful of people. Stories that were the most interesting, or formative for me in one way or another. So that was my approach. Because theater, in so many ways, has been such a home for me, and such a place where I have channeled a countless amount of emotions through characters. I just always wondered what it would be like to stand up there and do it as myself. I think it’s an act of bravery. I thought it would be very cathartic.
Kacie Rogers in “I Sell Windows” – photo by JJ Hawkins
But I was also terrified that people would hate me. And so I was like, well, I need a collaborator. If I’m going to write all these scary things, I need a collaborator who I can trust, and I will always know that she loves me enough. There’s nothing too scary for me to say in front of her.
Elana: Was that Jaquita Ta’le, the director?And she’s also a co-founder of your company, Bottle Tree Theatre?
Kacie: Yes. She would guide me to what was interesting to her and away from things that didn’t seem like they were serving the narrative. I remember for a long time she was like, we just have to find a container.
Elana: An umbrella of sorts.
Kacie: Yeah. One thing I did trust is that all these stories are coming from one common place. That common place is me. Ultimately, all we are as human beings are walking stories. So at some point if I just write down all these stories, I’m going to find a narrative somewhere, linear or non-linear. I am a narrative. And so I just kind of allowed myself to to write whatever and then trust that we would find a container.
Elana: And what did you find?
Kacie: It’s so interesting—the container ended up being window selling, yes, but ultimately, it’s the death of my grandfather. A common factor of a lot of the stories was the guilt and frustration I feel around being imperfect, and unforgiveness around missing my grandfather’s death because of my desire to serve my artistry rather than going to serve my family. That was a huge revelation for me.
Kacie Rogers in “I Sell Windows” – photo by JJ Hawkins
Elana: Once you had all these stories and their container, what was developing the piece like?
Kacie: It’s so deeply personal, every single part of it. It’s really hard. There’s a lot of self doubt that is all over this process, because it is me–performing me, writing me, about me. So it’s very, very vulnerable. And you constantly want to change things, because you’re like, maybe people aren’t responding to me, you know? Maybe I should “do me” differently. And that’s really hard.
Elana: Has there been anything that has helped you deal with that?
Kacie: I think I’m actively learning to deal with it. I have the best team around me. Like really top to bottom. Jaquita, Jessica [Hanna, Producing Artistic Director of Outside In Theatre] and Chelsea [Boyd, Co-Founder of Bottle Tree Theatre]; Arlo [Sanders], Paul [Hungerford] and Matthew [Pitner] from Outside In; my stage manager Arielle [Hightower] and my puppeteers [Brittaney Talbot and Perry Daniel]… all of those people are so affirming at every step of the way. They have been so selfless in all the ways that they are willing to throw themselves into the work because they believe in it so deeply. And if anything has helped me to quell those doubts, it’s been looking around me and being so humbled and so encouraged by the endless amounts of work and heaps of appreciation that they have gifted me with.
Elana: That’s beautiful.
Kacie: I’m so thankful. But outside of that, I think it’s really important to accept that your thing does not have to be for everybody. You can be fully you, and your thing can be fully your thing, and be amazing at being your thing, and still not be for somebody else. And that’s okay. I think that’s a big learning curve. So that’s the lesson I’m currently trying to speak into myself.
Jessica Hanna (Producer), Jaquita Ta’le (Director), Kacie Rogers, Chelsea Boyd (Producer), Brittaney Talbot (Puppet Designer_Performer), Perry Daniels (Puppet Performer), Arielle Hightower (Stage Manager) after “I Sell Windows” opening – photo by Mallury P
Elana: Moving along in the process, will you tell me a little about producing the show? How did it make it onstage at Outside In?
Kacie: In 2022, Jacquita found an opportunity with Greenway Court Theatre. They were looking to help produce a show, so she submitted I Sell Windows. We didn’t get that opportunity, but they gave us another opportunity to do a one-night-only performance as a part of their Jam Poetry Festival. So I did that last year.
And Jessica Hanna—she directed me in a play years ago and we just kept in touch because we’re both big theater gals. I knew Jess had taken several shows to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, so I invited her to a coffee to pick her brain about what that process is like. It just so happened that the one-night-only presentation of I Sell Windows was within the next couple of weeks, so I invited her to see the show. She ended up coming, and I remember her walking out and being like, “let’s meet this week.” From there, she was like, “I’m starting a theater company. I want to produce your show. I want to give it a run and then I want to take it to Edinburgh!”
Elana: Wow.
Kacie: It was just like that. It was one of those dreamy meetings where everything you ever want to happen, happened.
Bottle Tree Theatre’s Chelsea Boyd, Kacie Rogers and Jaquita Ta’le – photo by JJ Hawkins
Elana: You’ve been lucky, but you’ve also been prepared.
Kacie: Chelsea Boyd always says, “All things will come together with ease and joy.” We just kind of keep doing the work, showing up and taking the opportunities that fall in front of us, and as we have it, truly all things have kind of come together with ease and joy. And I’m so thankful for that.
This question – what defines an “important play” and what doesn’t? And do we, as playwrights, need to worry about this? It’s been…on my mind.
Yesterday I got to hear a reading of a play of mine that I hadn’t looked at in years. On a whim, I submitted The Sudden Urge to Jump for a new work series with Full Circle Players, a Riverside theatre company that is doing the good work in Riverside County to bring classic and new theatre to an area of SoCal that needs more theatre. (I grew up in the Inland Empire so I’m allowed to say this lol. Check them out in the area and support!)
The play takes place in a video store (that used to be a church) as two siblings try to pick up the pieces of their lives after their sister’s funeral. The sister may fall for the brother’s best friend in an vaguely enemies-to-lovers kind of way. The dead sister might monologue and try to control the story that is continuing after her death. There are a lot of movie references. A lot. It is ultimately about how we try to fit our lives so neatly into genres and categories and shape how things go…but that’s just not how this shit works.
I don’t know what made me specifically choose this play to submit to their call. Maybe I thought it was one of the most digestible, accessible plays I have, and knowing the Inland Empire like I do, I wanted to offer something that was…not alienating? I mean it’s about suicide, but it’s also a love story and there’s jokes so – wee! Maybe I knew that I’d never look at it again unless I had a real reason…and I hoped they’d give me a reason?
What came up for me really, as I was thinking about this play and doing a rewrite of it for the reading, was why I had kinda put it aside. I wrote the first draft of it in the first year I was in the Skylight Theatre PlayLab. It had a reading. And I remember feeling, in that group, that because it was a love story, that was at least vaguely a comedy, and was looking at things like human connection and depression…and maybe, possibly, because it was written by a (young at the time) woman, it didn’t feel…important? Despite it having a prominent storyline about suicide, it felt like fluff in the sea of other work being created in that group. And honestly, it felt like it set the tone for me for reactions in that group for the next few years as I wrote two other plays. Reactions from others, and self doubts and judgements within myself. Fluffy. Women problems. Working class problems. Not important.
So the play had another reading in Houston a year or two later. Both the original reading and the one in Houston had lovely responses. It was a crowd pleaser in general, the actors always had fun and felt connected. But still, I put it in a drawer. I decided that it was not worth investing time into, because it wasn’t about anything important.
When I look toward the “big” theatres, the ones we all aspire to be at, the gatekeeping contests and conferences, the dwindling new works development opportunities, it always seems like folks are looking for the next “important” play. The one, it seems, that is going to change the landscape of theater and American culture, that is going to solve climate change or racism or homophobia or misogyny, or, hell, cure cancer I guess. As if it is one voice that will be the hero, the savior, and not, instead, a diversity of voices in a rich ecosystem of society that will ultimately make a difference.
I write grants to pay bills, and this comes up a lot too. Every art project has to be solving some big problem and we need to show how we’re going to do that with the $500 grant. Solve the world’s problems with no money and no support. And then give us a 30 page report about it. So my mind is here all the time – trying to convince people why art is “important.” Why what I do is “important.” This happens all the time too in the theatre company I help run. Every show we ask these questions — why is this play important? Why are we doing this now?
I’m not saying it shouldn’t be part of our practice to ask these questions. We should know why we’re driven to do the things we spend so many years on! Having a purpose, a direction for our work is central to keeping ourselves focused and engaged and connected to the world. But twisting ourselves into knots to fit a box is not the way to good art. And convincing ourselves of our own importance is also NOT the way to good art or relationships or longevity.
But also…The Play That Goes Wrong is done everywhere and like…is that an important play? Please, I’d love to see an essay on that.
Do we only have room for fluffy slap stick and trauma porn? Is there nothing in between? Can we do some genre-mixing please?
I wrote a play last year that I thought had the real potential of an “important” play. It was ABOUT something real, a real problem, financial burdens, broken communities, the targeting of vulnerable women. I sent it out in earnest to the annual cycle of awards and conferences, which feel like the cost of being a playwright in this system. And usually I do this with very little expectation. Rejection, to me, is a Season. But this time…I had hope. I had an important play! If only someone would give me the space to develop it, I could change the world!
As one would expect, it got a few nods, a few pats on the head, and I’ll be traveling to Alaska in June for a reading at a conference. Cool! I’m grateful! And also…it’s not an important play, obviously.
Because I don’t know what an important play is. Nor can I, the playwright, be the judge of what that is, for my work. And I’m mad at myself for spending too much time worrying about whether that play, or any play of mine, fits into a box that is always shifting.
When it comes down to it, both of these plays are wildly not important. But they are important to me. They both were written not toward some person’s agenda, but toward my own obsession and curiosity about something. And ultimately a play will never be “important” if it is not important first to you. And frankly, we don’t get to decide what the play does in the world, or how people react to it. That’s not our fucking business. And I guess I’m a little tired of putting too much of my self worth on the validation of forces beyond my control.
So is the life of a writer.
When I sat in the reading of The Sudden Urge to Jump last night, I was reminded why I wrote it. I was delighted at my (slightly) younger self for writing it, for the little quirks of love and attraction I’m drawn to writing about, about the depression and frustrations I felt at the time, and how I still feel all these things. And that the only thing that made the play unimportant was my piss-poor attitude toward it.
Will the play ever get a production? I hope so. Will it ever win awards? Nah. Will it change the world if it does? Absolutely not. But the audience laughed at jokes, giggled nervously at the awkward romantic moments, and cackled or groaned or nodded at the endless movie references (I had chats about the pop culture nods with folks after). In the talk back, the playwright of the other play presented that night and I laughed at the way our plays were paired up, the parallel themes, the dead siblings in the plays, death and religion in general. the pop references, the way they did or did not speak to each other. In the words of one audience member, his play made them weep, and mine was charming. And I’m good with that.
I’m good with that also because I saw my dad laughing. And my mother, who often asks me to write something that is not so dark or pessimistic, who I partially wrote the play for (because love story!) she turned to me after the reading with a big smile on her face. And she said “That was so great!” She delighted in a happy ending, some hope, people taking a chance on each other. And you know what? That’s enough to make it an important play to me.
Go write your weird little love story. People need that too.
Welcome to the literary landscape of The Body’s Midnight by Tira Palmquist. This world premiere, a co-production of IAMA and Boston Court and directed by Jessica Kubzansky, is a delicately interwoven script with surprising, beautiful and challenging moments.
I read the script before the play opened, talked with Tira and Jessica, and visited a rehearsal — all to discover how Tira’s playwriting and collaboration process influenced the production. As we know, creative generation is primarily an individual undertaking, but with this complex project, I wanted to hear and understand more about Tira’s sourcing of material and development.
The Body’s Midnight text presents dilemmas of family, aging, relationships, and health diagnosis fragility — all embedded in the geographic and cultural complexity of a cross-country exploration. Anne and David, a long-term couple and the core duo of the story, are on a trip from California to Minnesota to witness the birth of their first grandchild. There is an immediate indication of an underlying, yet unspoken, tension: even though their dialogue has all the markers of the fun tug-and-pull of a loving relationship, there are little pieces of concern and abnormality that let us know that is not their usual cross-country excursion.
And as the play moves through — no spoilers here! — there is a linking of grand geological sites, park rangers, family phone calls, and mythic characters, all addressing the themes of aging, choice, health and change. Exquisitely interwoven.
Tira and I have known each other for a ‘few’ years, and I have seen and read other produced Palmquist plays, including Two Degrees, Age of Bees & And Then They Fell. I immediately noted key similarities in this work — a balance of the personal, imaginary, poetic and factual in a way that keeps the mind moving while still hitting emotional truth.
After talking to Tira about this particular play, I was struck by how she allowed real events to establish the foundation and then layered other ‘realities’ and fiction to amplify the themes. Writers are often told, “Write what you know,” but even with that dictate, the unique aspects of a script often come from research, discoveries and creativity. This is a great example!
Playwright Tira Palmquist
So, my first question? What was the impetus for the play? There are a couple of answers…
Tira told me that she had a doctor’s visit and a diagnosis that started her thinking: not the same issue as Anne’s, but enough to shake the norm. That, coupled with the challenging notion of ‘aging,’ brought the possible character and plot into place.
“In 2018, as the play first came to me, I thought about this woman getting a diagnosis, and then making this journey and having a bucket list for this adventure: trying to memorialize things and hoping against hope to make them permanent,” she said.
A family component also provided context: a few years before the writing, Tira’s mother had a mysterious and complex health downturn.
“In her 70s, my mother started to exhibit symptoms of what was initially misdiagnosed as a more common dementia, but an MRI confirmed, later, that she had had several strokes (probably what are known as ‘silent strokes’) that caused significant damage to important structures of her brain. I’ve had some significant migraines in my life that have mimicked transient ischemic attacks (sometimes seen as precursors to major strokes). The idea that something like this could happen to me, could rob me of my ability to use and appreciate language, was, frankly, terrifying,” Tira continued.
So, yes, Anne does echo Tira’s life experience — and the play deals with these fears and trials — but along the way… well, Tira expands relationships and environments that further reveal Anne’s journey.
Sonal Shah and Keliher Walsh Photo by Brian Hashimoto
Using her own experience of driving across the country, Tira fosters two particular aspects of travel to let Anne change. First, travel’s physical and mental impacts: “I am inspired by the way that travel (and longer drives) encourages a kind of patience and meditative attention to the world around you. Being willing to be surprised by the world rather than rushing through it,” she said.
With the travel disruptions, she allows her characters to veer off the planned path and dive into unusual locations that are surprising and allow for new realizations. There are deliberate jumps to locations that are not perfectly on the same highway; and there are jumps to memory locations that echo the past. This dance keeps the reader/audience in a mindset that discovers the roots of the relationships and story.
Her other use of travel is the specific locations: metaphorical representations that amplify Anne’s concerns and represent ideas about the planet’s fragility. Locations include the Grand Canyon, Glacier National Park, rest stops, and, of course, the Pando.
I admit, I did not know what the Pando was.
The Pando is a network of ash trees in Utah that are genetically the same tree, and what seems like individual trees are actually family branches sprouting from the giant lateral root of the parent. This is similar to the concept of character repetition and modification in the play.
“The inspiration for using the Pando in the play was actually a happy accident,” said Tira. “I started researching ‘disappearing places’ and mapping where these places would be along the route Anne and David would travel, and I just happened to stumble on information about this amazing place.”
Accidental finding. Well, maybe not “accidental.” As Tira described, it’s more the subconscious finding its way into a deep engagement with the core themes.
Another key to Anne’s core journey is her husband David’s embrace and care. I was curious about the sense of familiarity, and I gathered that there might be similarities in Tira’s own relationship.
“Well, the characters of Anne and David are drawn heavily from my husband and me — the kinds of conversations we have, the love language we’ve developed, the way I am his ‘monster’ and he is my ‘robot.’” (These are the quirky terms of endearment that they have for each other in the play.) “And while the catalyst for writing the play was a health scare I had, there’s not much else that is my particular story. The more that Anne, David and the other characters took shape, the more this play found its shape and purpose.”
Keliher Walsh andJonathan Nichols-Navarro Photo by Brian Hashimotoo
And the play does have a shape and purpose. For me, it felt like a challenge to understand, forgive, and maintain in the chaos of existence — but in a positive way.
Director Jessica Kubzansky described the journey as an “existential climb up a mountaintop,” which I agree with. It was lovely to see Jessica working during my brief visit to a rehearsal: the actors were just at the almost-memorized place, finding the details. Jessica was shaping the patterns and exceptions on the stage in ways to reinforce the “vast beauty” and the “crisis of connection” in the different environments. The actors — Keliher Walsh as Anne, Jonathan Nichols-Navarro as David, Sonal Shah as the daughter Katie and various other roles, and Ryan Garcia as son-in-law Wolf and also multiple roles — all were creating exceptional moments for the dance of dialogue, bringing all the voices together to remind the audience of the journey.
Director Jessica Kubzansky
Since this is a playwrights’ blog, there are a few points to highlight about getting the play written, read, developed and produced that might be illuminating. Tira is great at generating, then submitting, and then developing relationships that build ground for her work. She is also persistent: she keeps on track through the many steps and processes that may be needed to get to the desired end state.
As mentioned, she got the impetus for the play in 2018 and then began the initial draft in 2019, working through pages and ideas. The second inspiration or deep dive was at the Tao House in northern California (one of Eugene O’Neill’s homes). At that writing residency, she found additional inspiration from O’Neill’s plays and “found ways to thread those in as homage to him and that beautiful place.”
Next, as in many writer’s journeys, there was an opportunity for a deeper development at the Seven Devils Playwrights Conference in June of 2021. Tira was the Guest Playwright, and she felt this was “a huge step forward in the play — figuring out more about how reality and surreality could work in the play, to find the ‘rules’ of the world, and discover how to make some of the wilder poetry of the play feel authentic and earned, and not merely decorative.”
Also, the Boston Court was part of the process with their 2022 Playwright Group. That group gives an artist a year-long development process that provides the time to foster and deepen the world and characters of the play. This led to a public reading in April of 2023 at Boston Court’s New Play Festival – the first reading in front of a live audience! Jessica Kubzansky did a week of table work and rehearsal. Tira was especially grateful for her support, particularly Jessica’s fierce defense of how the play “plays with time and reality” and for providing support for expanding the poetry and magic of the play. As always, Jessica asked important questions about how The Body’s Midnight world operates and how that world operates on the characters. When I spoke with Jessica, she mentioned the rich challenges embedded in Anne and David’s relationship and how their realities intersect and collide, leading to emotional fruition.
And the reading? Tira said: “I really had no idea how the play would be received by an audience. I mean, Up until that point, I’d only experienced the play via Zoom readings and workshops… The reaction and responses really blew me away, and showed me, for the first time, that his was a play. A play that was important to other people, not just to me.”
Ryan Garcia, Sonal Shah Photo by Brian Hashimoto
It is now a year after the reading and it looks to be a full and beautiful production. The set design, bringing to mind the various natural locations, was just evolving when I saw the rehearsal. Now, I need to experience the full depth of The Body’s Midnight. Hope you do, too.
One more quote from Tira (and I’m sure writers can relate…):
“My writing process is, at best, chaotic. I have learned a couple things about myself: I can no longer just start writing with a kind of whim. I have to have the play sort of… gestate in my brain and in my body for a long time. I do a fair amount of very unorganized organizing work — as I said before, figuring out the beginning, middle, end, having a kind of shape or structure in mind — and then, when there’s a kind of critical mass of the play, I start to write. Usually, this first draft is pretty quick. I don’t honestly recall how long the first draft of The Body’s Midnight took, but I think it was a couple of months. Then there are moments of time and distance — returning to the play with new eyes, or with a new inspiration or realization. That recursive part of the process can take a few years.”
“The Body’s Midnight,” a co-production of IAMA Theatre Company and Boston Court Pasadena, opens April 27 and runs through May 26, 2024 at Boston Court. For tickets and information visit www.iamatheatre.com.
Know a female or FPI-friendly theater, company or artist? Contact us at [email protected] & check out The FPI Files for more stories.
I can remember almost every moment when someone has made me feel small and stupid for writing what I want to write.
These moments live rent free in my head, every time I sit down to the blank page.
At a writing workshop, a faculty person told me I was “putting on” a “quirky” sensibility, play-acting a quirky writer who writes quirky things, and that I would never succeed with this act.
Men have told me that things my female characters want don’t matter or the “stakes aren’t high enough” because the characters are unmarried and/or without children.
I’ve been told that a black comedy about criminals was good but that I was just play-acting at being a wannabe Martin McDonagh (this play was a finalist for the O’Neill).
Men have told me that my female characters are not “likable” particularly when they are not performing femininity in the way they expect it to look.
Men have asked me to think about what my plays are “about” without even trying to identify themes that are very obviously there (usually plays with all female casts).
I won’t even go into how many times people have looked down on genre (non realism) work.
I’ve heard the words “too weird” or “too experimental” or “too much (fill in the blank)” so often that every time I write I stop and doubt myself — checking myself in case I’m trying to be weird even when I don’t think the things I make are that weird. I would never call anything I do “experimental.” All I try to do is write what I’m interested in.
Everyone reading this has had an experience similar to these, or far far worse.
I’ve been thinking about these things because I recently finished a new play and had a reading at The Road as part of the Under Construction SlamFest. The play was about villains, female villains specifically, and not the Disney villains, but the ones who rip your life apart day-in-day-out. I’ve always wanted to go as far as McDonagh or Shepard or any other celebrated male writer who writes brutality and violence and ugliness mixed with humor. But there’s something inside me (possibly probably influenced by any version of the experiences above) that has stopped me from going as harsh or brutal as I could.
I’ve written violence before. My plays are dark as shit usually. But something about this play made me nervous. Every voice that has ever told me I’m just play-acting, every voice that told me women don’t act like this or don’t write like this, that women have to be likable, every voice that said they don’t like “experimental” work (does anyone even understand what that means?) — those voices surrounded this play in an intense and specific way. I could only really get pages out when I was under an extreme deadline (pages for writers group, pages for rehearsal, etc.) A deadline was the only thing that could silence the voices long enough so I could actually just WRITE IT. Because when I could write it, I could finally see it, without all the judgement.
And at the first rehearsal for the play, after we’d read it and were having a lovely chat about it, I asked the actors and director (a room full of women) if I could go further. Could I make it darker? More violent? Could I make the body count clear and HIGH by the end?
And everyone in the room said a resounding YES in unison.
And so I did.
Is the play perfect? Is it going far enough yet? Is it really truly itself yet? No. But that rewrite I did pushed it closer to its boundary. Because they said yes.
I will never forget the feeling of a room full of women giving me permission. I’m trying to reframe the negative voices as funny stories — silly interludes on the way to seeing the permission that was already mine. And yours, too.
Whoever is still saying that “Theatre is Dead” in 2024 needs to come have a serious talk with me – because theatre is and always has been alive and well, and the reason for such lives solely within the determination of theatre-makers like Beatrice Casagrán.
Producing Artistic Director of Ophelia’s Jump Productions (OJP), Beatrice Casagrán dives headfirst into 2024 with a whopping 7-show season that is “guaranteed to entertain with compelling stories and educate current and new generations of theatre lovers.” And I am certain 2024’s season will do just that – their theatrical programming range is outstanding, from musical, to historical, to traditional straight plays and reimagined classics. As a theatrical artist who is also living, working and producing in Los Angeles, I am deeply inspired by Beatrice’s commitment not only to the theatre, but to the people who make the theatre with Ophelia’s Jump possible.
Needless to say, I was thrilled to speak with Beatrice to talk about the upcoming production of Musical of Musicals, the wonders of adaptational storytelling, and the stellar lineup for OJP’s new season.
Carolina Xique: I’m sure top of mind for you is Musical of Musicals – it’s not only a massive undertaking because it’s a musical, but then it splits off into five different musicals. So I would love to hear about what that process has been like.
Beatrice Casagrán
Beatrice Casagrán: Before COVID, would do a small musical every two or three years because we have such a small space. During COVID, we lost one of the two theatres in the area that focused on just musicals. So I felt that to serve the community, we really needed to answer what they were asking for. So Musical of Musicals is our first offering this year. It’s also kind of tough because [while] musicals are super popular with patrons, they’re expensive – even a four-person musical like this one. But they also bring in new people who think that they don’t like plays. <laugh> When they come in and see the caliber of work that we do, we tend to see those people come back; they realize, “This is great!”
So that’s the reason that we chose Musical of Musicals for the opening show of the year. We tend to put up stuff that is newer and raises questions and we leave the mid-century musical style to others who do it very well. But this show pokes fun at that and lets everybody have a good time, so I’m really enjoying it.
It’s also a musical in which the book was written by a female [Joanne Bogart], so it met one of our criteria: that we mostly do works by women.
Carolina: Without giving away too much, what can audiences expect to see in Musical of Musicals?
Beatrice: It centers five little musicals all around the quintessential, back-to-silent-film early theatre plot of, “the landlord wants the rent and the ingenue cannot pay the rent.” <laugh> The same plot follows the five different little musicals in the style of five different masters in the field, so it’s the Rogers and Hammerstein team, Jerry Herman, Sondheim, Andrew Lloyd Weber and Kander and Ebb. We have a great time just really embracing all the kind of archetypes and tropes of each one of those. It’s very clever the way it’s written. And it’s just funny. I think it’s been described as a valentine to theatre.
Cast of “Musical of Musicals” – photo by Sej Gangula
Carolina: I wanted to talk about the rest of the season. I’m kind of a Shakespeare-head myself. I was taking a peek at La Tempestad which was particularly interesting to me because I’m half-Mexican, half-Cuban.
Beatrice: Represent, girl! Yeah. I’m so excited. Yay. This is a project that I have thought about for years. This year we were able to get a couple of grants, and I had enough downtime that I was able to connect with other artists and make these friendships with more Latino artists and musicians.
So I now have the wherewithal to do the collaboration that’s needed for that kind of project, and I am super excited. I’m working with a wonderful actor singer who is helping me with translations. And we are going to be doing all original adaptations and maybe some original music as well.
It just seems like The Tempest is perfect, right? There’s so much magical realism in across Latino cultures. But in Cuba… the Yoruba influence and Santeria is really going to be a good fit with The Tempest. We’ll be able to really delve into it and have a wonderful time sharing that part of our culture. I want to make sure that the team that we put together is fully diverse and has all the representation of the richness of what makes up our Cuban culture, and Caribbean Latino culture, and to pay respect and to pay attention to making sure that the story is told correctly.
“La Tempestad” will be part of OJP’s annual Midsummer Shakespeare Festival at the Sontag Greek Theatre, Pomona College
Carolina: It’s not an easy culture or history to explore, so I just want to convey thanks for bringing our stories to light. And some of the season’s stories – like La Tempestad or CJ, An Aspanglish Play by Mercedes Floresislas – are reimaginings of stories many of us already know. For these reimaginings, what seems to be the thread that brings them all together for you?
Beatrice: I’m a fan of history. My undergraduate degree is in political studies. So much of what’s going on in the world today is these hideously false, hurtful, dangerous narratives. I think theatre has an incredibly important role in reaching people who are being sucked into this, and telling stories that people might not otherwise have access to or think that they want to see. So taking these different stories and showing them through a female-centric, Latino focus is important to me. They’re universal stories.
I’m kind of old school in that way. I have always been drawn to stories that are about humanity. And a lot of us are losing the idea that human beings are human beings; we’re not different in our basic yearnings and desires. CJ is a work that I’ve been trying to do for years. It is basically an adaptation of A Christmas Carol, but it’s a human story, and I think it’s even more amazing to be able to tell it from this lens. I love Mexican culture, it has so enriched my life. The richness of the mythology is inspiring. We’re going to have a lot of instruments that are native to Mexican indigenous cultures to be able to make that connection.
Carolina: The ensemble of folks who are directing and writing these pieces is amazing. I would love to hear how you think their perspectives will influence these shows.
Beatrice: Sheila Malone, who is a company member and is directing[Lauren Gunderson’s] Revolutionists, is also a queer leader. She is one of the original members of Dykes on Bikes; she is an expert on lesbian bike culture and she’s a brilliant projection designer and lighting designer and has been a co-artistic director at her own theatre. She’s going to be super nuanced and and I love the energy that she brings to it. So it’s great for me to be able to produce and see another director bring their vision. I also love Lauren’s work!
Caitlin [Lopez, Beatrice’s daughter who is directing Knight of the Burning Pestle] and I founded the Shakespeare Festival in Claremont 10 years ago now. She is hugely into Shakespeare and and Elizabethan theatre, through a queer lens. She also has a very strong background in improvisation, so this version has a lot of audience participation. And we’re running it as a master class, the whole production. We are going to be casting about half the cast with local college students who will be paired with mentor professional artists in their areas of interest, and they will be getting other ancillary classes, seminars, workshops and other opportunities.
Kelly McBurnette-Andronicos [playwright of Second Death of a Mad Wife] is amazing. We’ve done two of her plays; this one is really interesting, too. I’m staging it in a way that I think is gonna be really fun because it’s gonna be somewhat immersive. Twelve Ophelias by Caridad Svich [directed by Elina de Santos] is amazing, too. I reached out to her and she’s like, “Oh yeah, do the show!” <laugh> She intervened with her licensing to make sure we got [rights], which was great.
Kelly McBurnette-Andronicos’ “The Hall of Final Ruin” (OJP 2022 Season) – photo by Caitlin Lopez
Carolina: What excites you most about this season? And what has been the most challenging?
Beatrice: I feel like for the last four years we had to kind of hunker down and, in some ways, make decisions to do things that were not necessarily what I see as core mission. Because we just were struggling like everybody else. I actually, like a lot of other artists, had this existential crisis where I found myself asking, “Is art even important? Does anybody care anymore? People are dying. And what is it that art brings to this? Who cares?” But art is what kept me going. And we were able to program for free and I think we kept other people going. It’s part of mental health, it’s part of community wellbeing.
This is the first season in which I’m doing what I want as an artist, what I think is important as an artist and what is important as a social-justice-minded organization. I am putting women and gender-marginalized people at the center of things. I am fully invested in hiring young people from local community colleges who are emerging artists, most of whom are Latino and of varying genders, who don’t have opportunities and who are learning. It’s an insane season. It’s insane – it’s seven productions!
The challenges? During the push for AB5, I was one of the leaders in the theatre community in California who said, “We have to stop fighting AB5. We need people need to get paid. We need to ask the government and people in the state to understand that our work is worth something and to fund.” But that hasn’t really happened. It happened during COVID and now the funding is all drying up. And so we are running at a huge deficit for every single production.
I’m going under the only way that I know how right now, which is full steam ahead and working my butt off to try to get grants and to spread the word, to reach out to patrons and say, “We have to have the help if you want us to keep going!” So part of the reason we have a season like this is we have a small crew and part of my personal commitment is I want to keep these folks employed. I need to give them hours because they need to live. I’m making a huge effort to try and make sure that I consistently have a number of hours for folks so that they don’t have to make huge changes in their lives all the time to try and make ends meet.
Carolina: If you could pick a classic tale to retell from your own lens, whether it’s your own story or somebody else’s story, which would it be and why?
Beatrice: Well, that’s kind of what I’ve done with La Tempestad. I was born in Cuba, but my parents left when I was just a baby. “My Cubans,” as I call them, are dying off, right? My dad’s 86, my aunts, and my mom are already gone. And like you say, it’s the history of this island; this little nation is so replete with stories that are important. So that’s really what’s in my mind right now.
I’ve retold Hamlet and used portfolio and other original writings to highlight Ophelia’s arc, which is how our theatre got our name. I made Laertes a lesbian character who was a suffragist and kind of looked at the female arcs in that play, and the different outcomes. A young woman who’s basically had her agency stripped [away] by the female in power and all the males in her life and finally takes agency in her last act, which is to kill herself. And then juxtaposed that with Laertes who was off traveling because they were not living the traditional female role. I’m constantly looking at projects like this and will continue to do so, I hope, through my career, ’cause that’s what really gets me going. <laugh>. Yeah, Shakespeare retellings through feminist lenses is really something I love to do.
“Musical of Musicals” runs through February 18th. For more information about “Musical of Musicals,” “La Tempestad,” and the many, many more wonderful productions that Ophelia’s Jump will be producing this year, you can find more information at opheliasjump.org. For information on how you can support or make a donation, please visit opheliasjump.org/ways-to-support.
Know a female or FPI-friendly theater, company or artist? Contact us at [email protected] & check out The FPI Files for more stories.
Paula Cizmar is an acclaimed playwright and professor of playwriting at USC’s School of Dramatic Arts. Most recently, she has been co-creator and producer of Sacrifice Zone: Los Angeles(SZLA), a nonfiction collaborative environmental justice project about the damaging effects of industrial pollution on South Los Angeles communities.
The idea for SZLA took root in 2019, and had an online iteration that was presented in 2021. The project is now an expansive multimedia exhibit and experience at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. A house-like set built inside the museum features rooms filled with animation and video, news shows, interviews with members of the Los Angeles community, truck-ride simulations and of course live immersive theatre performances.
I spoke to Paula about a week before opening about putting it together, and her experience as a female playwright working in the intersection between environmentalism, feminism and theatre.
Elana Luo:This is a huge undertaking, but let’s just start at the beginning. How did Sacrifice Zone come about?
Paula Cizmar: For the past ten years, I’ve been writing plays that take an environmental justice approach.
Paula Cizmar
[As a genre,] eco-theatre was a sub-category of theatre as a whole and it consisted of plays that were written by people who viewed the connection to the earth as important. A lot of the eco-plays were about endangered species—and, of course, the most photogenic of these is the polar bear. I love polar bears; I love all animals.
But my problem with relying on photogenic poster animals is that it says to people: Climate change is off in the distance, both in terms of location and in terms of time.
The fact of the matter is that climate change is affecting us now. I realized that we in Los Angeles need to start looking at what’s going on. Our own citizens are being affected. So I started writing plays that looked at how we, and cities, are upset by environmental justice issues.
Then, I was working on Warrior Bards, an Arts and Action Project at USC, and the Head of Arts in Action, William Warrener, knew I wrote a number of these plays; one day he said, ‘You really should do something for Arts in Action about climate change or sustainability.’ And I thought—hmm. Why not? So I pitched a multimedia project to my friend and colleague, Michael Bodie. Our idea was to allow the community in Los Angeles to tell their own stories about the environmental issues that were affecting them. We started investigating the oil wells that are less than a mile away from us. We worked with community activists and professional actors to turn the testimony of the community into a script.
Elana: In addition to the script, there are a number of other elements including video, interactive elements, and simulations. How did you decide on the mediums of the project?
Paula: I thought a climate change piece—in order to attract an audience—would need something more than a script. It would need some multimedia elements to engage an audience. As a filmmaker, [co-creator] Bodie has massive technological know-how and hands-on skills that I simply don’t have, plus he’s got storytelling sense—and maybe even more important, a sense of adventure. We knew we had to do something different that would maybe not even fit into a traditional space.
SZLA co-creator Michael Bodie with interactive designer Luke Quezada and set design assistant Zoya Naqvi (l to r)
When you go back to the history of theatre, you realize that theatre used to be performed around a campfire, and then theatre was performed on the streets. So in a way with Sacrifice Zone, we’re kind of taking theatre back to its roots. We were doing a big project that involved the community, and it would have many parts, so we needed to reach out to involve a lot of artists. And we’re not doing it on a typical proscenium stage. We’re bringing theatre to the people. I’m staring at like, honestly, two hundred kids right now [outside the museum, where the Sacrifice Zone team is working on the installation], and they will be able to walk through this exhibit and see the stuff that we’ve created.
SZLA installation inside the Natural History Museum waiting for its final touches
I have learned throughout my career, as a woman—and then as an older woman—that basically no one is going to pay attention to me. I’ve learned that I have to do it myself. As a playwright, I never really wanted to produce, but I decided that it was necessary to step up and create opportunities. I jumped into being a theatre maker/producer, not solely a playwright, for things like Sacrifice Zone.
Elana: From lighting designers to videographers to theatre actors, SZLA clearly has a huge team.How did you go about putting it together?
Paula: It was a question of, who do we think would be really good to work with, who can we afford, who needs the experience, and who is actually politically and socially interested in these issues and will work hard?
A lot of my work is about community service, and public service. I realized a long time ago that I wasn’t going to be making any money in theatre. You can make a bare income, but you have to do other things. Ultimately, I wanted to make sure that what I was doing was valuable. And so community service is just a part of my life in the arts, and I want to instill that in my students, too.
part of the SZLA team with Paula Cizmar (back, 2nd from l), director Fran de Leon (front l) and Michael Bodie (back r)
Elana: Did you get into environmentalism first, or theatre, or both at the same time?
Paula: I started off as a playwright interested in women’s rights. I wrote about violence towards women, domestic abuse, and human rights issues. And what became very, very clear to me is that climate change and environmental justice are human rights issues. So it was a natural outgrowth of interest.
Elana: Do you see any other intersections, and I’m sure there are many, between feminism and environmentalism?
Paula: Absolutely. What feminism basically asks for is equal treatment, equal rights. And environmental justice asks for the same thing. An equal right to having clean air and water, to being able to live a healthy life, to have access to health care. So things are incredibly connected because this is all about stewardship of the earth. Not just stewardship of nature, but stewardship of human beings.
SZLA actors Claudia Elmore and Alejandra Villanueva rehearsing behind the scenes
Elana: How about the intersection between environmentalism and theatre?
Paula: There have not really been very many plays that have been actually produced about the environment or about ecology. I find that interesting. I think that there’s a kind of diss to plays that people perceive as issue plays. I read plays about people, but they might be set against an environmental catastrophe of some kind. But that doesn’t mean that it’s an issue play. It’s a play about people. But what I’m trying to do is get my characters to address the world that we live in.
Elana: So an issue play tries to convey a specific message or view. But you’re interested in telling a story about the issue, instead of the play just being the issue.
Paula: Exactly. Sacrifice Zone is a very issue-oriented play. In fact, it started from documentary roots, because originally we were just going to do it as documentary theatre, with some media enhancements. As we developed it, and as we started to get to know the people involved, we realized that we wanted to tell a bigger story. It’s very hard in a documentary to get people to say exactly what you want them to say, with proper dramatic build, a climax and a resolution.
So we created fictional characters based on things that our real life community activists said, and challenges and campaigns they’ve been involved in. We then created a fictional story so that our audience can get an emotional attachment to the people, care about the people, and then, we hope, care about the issue.
SZLA lead writers Eliza Kuperschmid (l) and Alessandra Viegas (r), with actor Xol Gonzalez (c)
Elana: What do you hope the audience will take away from the piece?
Paula: I want to tell stories about people. But in our contemporary world, particularly here in California, if we ignore the environmental component of people’s lives, then we’re ignoring something that’s extremely important. So do I want to say that as a documentarian, or do I want to find a way to dramatize that so that somebody can come in and say, ‘Wow, I really fell in love with that character and it was really painful for me when I saw what they were going through,’ and then we hope that translates into ‘I care about this now, and I want to do something about it.’
“Sacrifice Zone: Los Angeles” opens January 13th, 2024, with performances through the 28th at the Natural History Museum in Exposition Park. Visit sacrifice-zone.com for more information. Reserve Free Tickets Here
Know a female or FPI-friendly theater, company or artist? Contact us at [email protected] & check out The FPI Files for more stories.
