No doubt many of the playwrights in our community are feeling the sudden pressure to write and create during time of self-containment. So often we writers use “No Time” as an excuse, and now that we have the time, I suspect some of us are remembering that time was never truly the factor. We could churn out a play overnight if inspiration took us properly. Rather, artists draw from experience. For most of us, our experience is now contained in our homes and that can put a huge damper on inspiration. Or has it?
To find out, I checked in with some of my playwright friends to see how they are doing in these strange and anxious times.
Erica Smith, Playwright (She/Her)
- What’s something you’re known for?
I’m the Co-Artistic Director of The Coil Project along with Rebecca Fischler.
- What’s something you’re working on?
I’m working on a few things; I’ve been writing for The Coil Project Variety Hour (the company’s biweekly radio show) for the past almost-year. Since the start of Social Isolationfest 2020, I’ve been writing monologues for individual people, and doing some of that editing I’ve been putting off for awhile now.
- What are the trademarks of your writing?
Trademarks of my writing… Run-on sentences are a big one. Humor in some form, even if it’s a really serious piece. Rapid-fire dialogue.
- What are things about the world around you that inspire you to write?
More now than ever before, I’m inspired by the actors I know. I meet and/or work with an actor, whether I’ve known them for years or just met them, and I’ll see something that sparks the I-want-to-see-more center of my brain. So I’ll start writing to that, and often it veers off.
I’ll be honest: mostly, I write to entertain people. Occasionally it’ll occur to me (or someone else, who then tells me about it because they themselves don’t write plays) that I haven’t seen a ton of plays written about a particular topic–polyamory, electing not to have children, fear of rollercoasters–and I’ll tackle those, but on the whole I write because I have an idea (“Say, what would happen if someone got a ghost for Christmas?”) and it sounds like fun. (I did mention the run-on sentences.)
- What is the importance of art in the time of COVID-19?
People are bored. People are scared. People are cooped up. There’s a meme going around on the various social media that boils down to “The world’s ending, so you turned to artists,” what with all the binge-watching and such. Distraction is one thing, but this is much bigger; people use art to self-soothe, to laugh, or to work themselves up into a good cry, or to have any number of reactions. So much has changed and is changing so fast, there are hundreds of new bits of information every day, big and small, almost all scary, and it can get completely overwhelming and start to lead to a panic-spiral. And if I can redirect my brain by writing it down, or re-reading a Donald E. Westlake novel, or watching an episode of Big Mouth, it lets my hind-brain process the panic and disperse it little by little while I’m paying attention to something else.
- Why is it important to you to keep creating in times like these?
I’m a sluggish writer at the best of times, and these are NOT the best of times. I want to keep those muscles in shape, so I don’t completely fall out of practice. I mentioned above that I’ve been writing monologues for specific people; if me writing for someone else can distract them, or make them happy, or spur them to create art of their own? I’ll take it.
Doug Robinson, Playwright (He/Him)
- What’s something you’re known for?
I’m the writer of the Pride of Doves that premiered in the Capital Fringe Festival in 2019. Most recently my play Welcome to Sis’s was remounted at Ally Theatre Company. Welcome to Sis’s was a commissioned piece that came out of the Mapping Racism Project.
- What’s something you’re working on?
I am working on a play entitled Cactus Queen about a Mother’s grief over the murder of her son. Informed by Black Lives Matter and inspired by Antigone. The play follows Queeny, as she tries to rally people to her cause to tear down the brick wall that her son had his back to when he was shot by police.
- What are the trademarks of your writing?
My plays usually have 1 or 2 larger than life expressionistic images that represent the conflict of the play. In Doves it was hundreds of dead bloody doves and with Cactus Queen it is a looming cactus.
- What are things about the world around you that inspire you to write?
I am inspired by things I do not know or do not understand. I use my writing as a way to explore and solidify my feelings on a particular topic or idea that I assume others are also interested in exploring.
- What is the importance of art during the time of COVID-19
Art is important in the time of COVID-19 for the same reason it was important before COVID-19. Art is a means of understanding the world as you see it, and as another sees it. Art builds bridges for people to better understand one another and understanding is just as important today as it was yesterday, and will be tomorrow.
- Why is it important for you to create art in times like these?
It keeps me sane.
Dane Figueroa Edidi (She/Her)
- What’s something you’re working on?
Currently working on a one act play called Between Time about two people who live in Baltimore. Their windows are across from one another, separated by a small alleyway. They meet during the quarantine. It’s a love story. I told everyone I am writing it because I am holding on to joy and hope as I witness the expansiveness of love through and from the community even as I handle my rage due to the mismanagement of this crisis by this current administration.
I am working on another play in my Baltimore Cycle. Act 1 takes place in a brothel during the Civil War and Act 2 takes place in a house in Baltimore after World War II. The overarching theme is about the treatment of the Black and Asian communities but also the power inherent in us supporting one another.
I am working on a 10 minute play to help spark joy, it is called The Diaz Family Talent Show about a Family in Baltimore who are at a family gathering and they throw a talent show to help the shy protagonist gain confidence in her gift.
And, of course, still working on my novel that takes place in the year 4,000, co-editing The Black Trans Prayer Book, and the next installment of the C. Muhammad Series which is a group of novellas about a Witch Detective and her agency of Supernatural fixers in D.C.
- What are some of the trademarks of your writing?
I guess I would say complex women protagonist, poetic language, LGBTQIA characters, and magical realism.
It is really important for me to center and celebrate the communities I am a part of. To push for us to be reflected on that stage. And it is also important for us to be able to connect the dots to the origins of oppressions/problems we face. Things like classism and racism have an origin and it is important for me to show/explore the ways in which interpersonal issues people face are often sometimes byproducts of historical/ collective trauma, and systematic oppression.
- What are things about the world around you that inspire you to write?
Well everything, really. Nina Simone says “Art must reflect the times” and I think when we examine and I mean really examine the world, the people, these systems, emotions we will find that there are certain things people have been dealing with since the beginning of time. For example, I think that’s why things like love stories continue to come up in artistic canon. We are always being examples of or asking ourselves and each other, how do we love, how do we love in a world with these circumstances, why does it come easier for some more than others.
- What is the importance of art in the time of COVID-19?
Art is good for our mental health, it is good for our spiritual wellness, it is essential to our individual and collective humanity, it is good for our collective memory, and our historical documentation.
Like the food of a people tells a story, art does too. Like Love, Art offers us something to help us process while we go through this, and like accountability it holds the mirror to us, our societies, our communities, political administrations and these systems.
Art helps us imagine new ways of being. Sometimes in Art we find the solutions a system of oppression pretends could never be. Art is an activator. The world needs Art and Artists.
- Why is it important for you to keep creating in times like these?
I am an Artist. Creating art is one of my gifts, one of my callings, and one of my responsibilities. It is one of the ways I have been able to help and heal my community. It is one of the ways in which I have been able to write love letters to the universe, hold oppressors accountable, cultivate healthy relationships and demonstrate what a world free of oppression, steeped in healing and living in and with liberty could be like.
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