Have you ever had clothes custom-made for you? I have never been rich enough to afford such a luxury; but theatre, never ceasing to infuse my life with ironies, provided me once with an opportunity to have a pair of 16th Century “pumpkin-pants” plus doublet perfectly cut and stitched to my then much slimmer proportions for a run as Berowne in Love’s Labour’s Lost. Rich or poor, ironic or not, it is always a superbly satisfying feeling to have a something fit you like a second skin. I imagine actors must feel a similar satisfaction when roles are tailor-written for them, which is exactly what I have done for two extraordinary Seattle actors, Hana Lass and Rebecca Olson, in a play called Ballard House Duet, premiering in a little over two weeks at Washington Ensemble Theatre.
It started with an email from Olson back in June of last year, asking if I would be interested in being the guinea pig playwright for her proposed project to develop new plays written specifically for local actors. For this first outing, she said, the actors would be herself and Hana Lass.
I responded with interest. It certainly sounded like a strong move toward the sort of locally grown new work I had been advocating here at Just Wrought. I told her my one caveat was I wanted only to write: no producing, no promotion, no administration. Having served as Newswrights United’s Executive Producer, and having just staged the second of two fully produced Living Newspapers, I was burned out with wearing other hats.
Rebecca agreed to my proviso, which then left us facing the proto-existential question: how to start? Okay, so I am writing for Rebecca and Hana, but what am I writing? What kind of characters do I build for them? What kind of story? Would the play require additional actors? Would I write specifically for them as well, or write now and cast later? I decided to pull a trick out of my NewsWrights bag. I set up casual interviews with each actress. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. Maybe it was just an excuse to indulge my nosiness without seeming too creepy. I drafted up a list of questions which, digital packrat that I am, I still have.
Questions for Hana and Rebecca
What kind of roles do you get type cast in?
What kind of role have you always wanted to play but never got a chance to?
Do you have a sister(s)? {Clearly I was already thinking in that vein.}
Tell me about your relationship to her.
If you could change one thing about your sister what would it be?
What are your weaknesses as a performer? Strengths?
What are my weaknesses as a playwright? Strengths?
If there’s one thing you could change about Western / American Culture what would it be?
I had a lot of fun indulging my nosiness under the guise of art. I found out way more about Hana and Rebecca than I ever could have through casual conversation. Crucially, I discovered that the three of us all had a close relationship with someone who suffered from the very real disease of hoarding. I seized on this as the foundation for the play, literally the ground on which my characters would play. I also confirmed through these conversations that my instinct to make the characters sisters was dead on; but it also raised a problem: Rebecca and Hana look nothing alike, not even close. No one would buy them as biological sisters. “Fine. They’re adopted,” I decided.
Next I concluded there was no up-side in expanding the character sheet. I would focus on the two sisters, tracking them back and forth through time. If they needed to interact with other characters, the audience would have to play them. I was already experimenting with this technique in another, weirder play I am devloping, Philosophical Zombie Killers. This piece for Custom Made Play Project would give me the opportunity to test it in a more realistic framework.
Armed with my interview notes and my burgeoning ideas, I started to build a proto-draft, one plot point and/or dialogue scrap at a time. What I didn’t know, I left blank. From the outset, I was determined to see these two singing. My own sisters sang all the time in my house, as did my mother, who sang opera as a young woman, and still sings in two church choirs. My wife also sings opera and jazz. So somehow, on stage or off, family for me is inextricably mixed up with music: specifically female voices.
Point by point, emerging limitations made the play grow. This is not surprising. Problems are a playwright’s best friend. Conflict is our soup; obstacles, the chewy nuggets we chop into it. The unique qualities of my two performers sharpened my focus and maximized my momentum. For the first time in a long time, there was something— or rather someone or some ones— tugging from the other side.
Hana claims I had a first draft within two weeks of the second interview, but my rather anal-retentive record keeping shows it was more like five. Still, that’s a damned fast turn-around for me. The play has come a long way since this first stab, but the basic shape of the plot and the relationships has survived and expanded.
The most remarkable aspect of the process, which I feel cannot be emphasized enough, is that Ballard House Duet simply would not exist if we three specific people had not existed and offered it some part of ourselves. Without Hana and Rebecca to build them for, Holly and Heidi simply would have never occurred to me. Not only would the story have gone untold, it would have gone unconceived. For me that fact is fundamentally astounding and magical.
I have no idea yet if the play succeeds or fails. We will need an audience for that final analysis. (That’s where you come in. Go get your tix!) What I do know is that the experiment itself was completely, utterly worth it. I encourage every playwright to give this sort of personal tailoring a try.
Despite how exciting this Custom Made Play Project has been, it only seems like we are doing something new and innovative. The truth is most of the plays we praise in the canon were created bespoke for specific actors. Following this old process is not immediately easy or intuitive, but in the die-press production line, hub-and-spoke distribution network that is 21st Century American Theatre, Seattle is perfectly poised in its Goldilocks perfection— not to big, not to small— to revive a method that can maximize the vitality of locally grown new works for stages across the nation.
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