Dear friends,
I am writing to you from a mini-getaway to Austin, where it will briefly hit 71 degrees today before descending back into Arctic chill. I am in town to celebrate the birthday of brilliant scenic designer Lisa Laratta (whose credits include the Montag set at Soho Rep and the red curtains at Austin Film Society). Happy Birthday, Lisa!
IN PRAISE OF EXPERIMENTAL THEATER FESTIVALS RETURNING
It’s been a whirlwind social week. I trekked to NYC briefly to catch some experimental January festival shows. Like everyone else, I was devastated when The Public Theater cancelled Under The Radar and so relieved when Mark Russell’s spirit proved indomitable in return. What the hell would theater be without a research and development wing?
Of the five shows I saw, a standout for me was Two Sisters Find a Box of Lesbian Erotica in The Woods, written and performed by Bailey Williams and Emma Horwitz and presented by the Brooklyn-based Exponential Festival. This was a collage play woven together not through linear plot but with recurring tropes, scenarios, lines of text, and motifs. At times it reminded me of a Lesemysterium, which is just a fancy German way of saying a work of fiction that initiates you into a sacred practice, in this case the sacred mystery cult of lesbian good times.
The thing that really made it cohere into resonance was the easy yet deep intimacy of the performers / real-life partners, Emma and Bailey, which I would call the true subject of the play. In the final scene, Emma and Bailey sat on the floor facing each other with a filing box full of twinkly lights between them. They held intense eye contact and smiles while a recording played in which we heard them traipsing and bantering through the woods, falling in love and talking about writing. Presumably, they had skillfully re-created an early falling in love scene, but it was the most naturalistic writing in the piece (this is the second time I’ve seen Bailey save naturalism til the end, to powerful effect) and thus felt the most real, even as it did the most blurring between truth and fiction. It was a deceptively simple scene that built radiant intensity through vulnerability and presence, as well as through contrast with the more madcap scenes that had come before. Theaters, read and commission these writers.
IN PRAISE OF MID-SIZED AMERICAN CITIES
Monday I had dinner in Fox Point with Paula Vogel and two other Providence-based playwrights. (Not sure if they want me to drop their names so I won’t.) It was so good to see Paula, who was in top form, scheming and dreaming the theater forward. She is starting rehearsals soon for Mother Play on Broadway. Paula’s still a fan of weird, working-class Providence, where she chaired the Brown MFA program for decades. We talked much about hard moments in teaching and about this off-the-map city in between Boston and New York, aka the Midwest of the Northeast. I personally love mid-sized American cities and the kind of live wire creative spirit you can often find in the air and on cryptic flyers on telephone poles (instead of captive behind the cautious doors of august institutions). I know how to be a person in cities like this.
Providence is more of a thriving literary city than a powerhouse theater city, and of course RISD’s impact has made this a city of potters, painters, and printmakers as well. But there are playwrights and theaters here too. How many playwrights does it take to make a scene? I don’t know. (It takes us ten drafts to change a lightbulb.) But I am enjoying living outside of New York again, and finding a kind of reality-check value in being rooted somewhere where theater can’t be too self-important. Feels like there’s just a little more breathing room to re-imagine here… and the American theater needs people, right now, who are willing to start things over from scratch. I appreciate that I can’t make excuses here, or feel like I’m accomplishing important things when I’m really just going to see plays. The main thing is always to write.
UPCOMING WORKSHOPS
On that subject, I’m offering not one but two classes this February through March:
DRAFT ZERO: A GET-IT-DONE PLAYWRITING SPRINT
Mondays, February 19 - March 25, 2024
Meets via Zoom from 8 - 10pm (ET)
Online class / community / salon, six sessions.
Look, this class is just the best, ok? That’s why I keep teaching it. Come start something new and have more fun while doing it.
THE REWRITE: DEEPEN YOUR MIDDLE DRAFT
Wednesdays, February 21 - March 27, 2024
Meets via Zoom from 8 - 10pm (ET)
Online class / community / salon, six sessions.
This is a new offering, and I’m psyched for it. Folks have been asking for a Draft Zero sequel for a while now, so here you go, this is it! This is for you if you’re in the messy middle of a new play. It’s a continuation of the playful spirit and format of DZ, with additional food for thought and prompts geared toward refining and deepening your draft.
WRITING EXERCISE
Describe your protagonist’s ideal birthday party. What would they wear? Who would be there? What would they eat? What would they be celebrated for? What celebration ritual would thrill them, move them, complete them? What incredible gift would someone give them? Then describe their absolute nightmare birthday.
(I once tried skipping celebrating my birthday and ended up in Green-Wood Cemetery sitting next to a grave and fretting morosely over my mortality. NEVER SKIP A BIRTHDAY PARTY.)
yours,
Kate