Fellows Spotlight is our summer blog series that invites you to take a behind-the-scenes look at our Fellows program.

In recent weeks, we’ve introduced you to Rae Binstock, Kit Yan and Melissa Li, and Mathilde Dratwa.

Over the coming weeks, we’ll be hearing from all our 2018-2019 Fellows: Jay Adana, Rae Binstock, Zeniba Britt, Erika Dickerson-Despenza, Mathilde Dratwa, Aryanna Garber, Charles Gershman, Nambi E. Kelley, Melissa Li, Benjamin Velez, Kit Yan, and Zack Zadek.

Each of the Fellows/teams were asked the same 5 questions, exploring where these writers have been, are now, and are journeying towards. Our Fellows took this gentle structure and ran, each submitting responses as unique and creative as they are.

This week, we invite you to get to know Nambi E. Kelley:

What was your first experience with theater?

My first experience in the theatre was being in a production of The Mouse That Roared in high school. I played the secretary. I wanted to play the general. I understood completely why they cast a boy in that part, and I was mad as hell about it. 

When did you decide to become a writer? Is there a writer, show, or piece of writing that was particularly influential on your path?

I became a writer when I was about 8 years old. I spent half my childhood in places where children were not valued. I wrote to understand the world around me because it was never explained to me why things were so hard for some people. 

How do you describe your work overall? What sets your work apart?

My work stages a character’s interior thoughts. Other writers do that through subtext or immediate action. I am fascinated with seeing how someone arrives at a thought and staging that.

Can you tell us a little bit about the work you’ve been developing as a Fellow?

The fellowship play I’m developing is an adaptation of Toni Morrison’s Jazz.  I have chosen to structure the play like Rashomon, so it is structured into 5 different perspectives based on a singular event of a young girl being murdered in 1920s Harlem by her lover. 

What do you find most rewarding about your work as a writer?

I saw a lot of suffering as a young person.  What’s most rewarding for me as a writer is to be able to illuminate those dark spaces for others who may be in similar spaces. If I am not writing to make someone’s world better, or at least for someone to see a piece of their own experience in a character and provide perspective and context on their sufferings, I am not in a space of joy around creating work. My goal is to tell as many truths as I can, it helps me to know the suffering I’ve endured in my life was not in vain, but in service of others. And that gives me great peace. 

Fellows Spotlight is our summer blog series that invites you to take a behind-the-scenes look at our Fellows program.

In recent weeks, we’ve introduced you to Rae Binstock, Kit Yan and Melissa Li.

Over the coming weeks, we’ll be hearing from all our 2018-2019 Fellows: Jay Adana, Rae Binstock, Zeniba Britt, Erika Dickerson-Despenza, Mathilde Dratwa, Aryanna Garber, Charles Gershman, Nambi E. Kelley, Melissa Li, Benjamin Velez, Kit Yan, and Zack Zadek.

Each of the Fellows/teams were asked the same 5 questions, exploring where these writers have been, are now, and are journeying towards. Our Fellows took this gentle structure and ran, each submitting responses as unique and creative as they are.

This week, we are thrilled to introduce you to Mathilde Dratwa.

What was your first experience with theater?

When I was a teenager, I was cast as Juliet in the school play. I had to wear an off-white flapper dress – because obviously Juliet wears white. (I now know that this is a fundamental misunderstanding of the character: she’s a spunky teenager who makes the first move and can’t wait to get laid! She is thirteen and she is unafraid to lust and she dares to disappoint her parents and she would have had so much to teach me if only I had known then how to listen.)

Anyone who menstruates will tell you that there is no other way; if a director makes you wear a light-colored costume you will inevitably be on your period on performance night, this is a given. So I was on stage wearing a sanitary pad and a tampon beneath the off-white flapper dress, just in case. I remember my mother explaining the anatomy of my body through a closed door earlier in the day: push it back, not straight up, and trying her best to convince me that an applicator would make this whole endeavor so much easier. The good news is that at the end of the play I cried real tears — thank you, teenage hormones.

After the show I remember the curtain call: holding hands with other students in other grades that I would otherwise not know. I did not know to smile; my mother, watching anxiously from the audience, was worried that something was wrong. But nothing was wrong; this all felt wonderfully Serious and Important. People were clapping! For us! (“For me,” I remember thinking, because I was young and self-centered and also a little bit correct, and because the world hadn’t yet taught me that a woman – a girl! – shouldn’t think that way. In the car, on the way home, horror of horrors, I think I said it aloud, to my mother, with glee: “everyone clapped – for me!” and I think I remember that my mother nodded, because she was, indeed, clapping for me.)

When did you decide to become a writer? Is there a writer, show, or piece of writing that was particularly influential on your path?

I tried really hard not to become a writer. I tried really hard to become an actress. I didn’t write, because I knew, deep down, that I’d be better at writing than I was at acting; I feared that once I started, writing would become my focus. But one day, I met the wonderful Mary Bacon, who invited me to join a group she’d created with Heidi Armbruster: Dorset Theater Festival’s Women Artists Writing group. It consists of female-identifying actresses who also write. That was my gateway drug; I felt like I could write among actresses… Pretty soon, I was hooked, and I haven’t looked back (or auditioned) since. 

How do you describe your work overall? What sets your work apart?

Irreverence and theatricality. 

Can you tell us a little bit about the show you’ve been developing as a Fellow?

A Play about David Mamet Writing a Play about Harvey Weinstein. It’s basically what it sounds like. And also, not at all.

Francesca, a playwright, has several Reasons to be Pretty… Angry. Among them: David Mamet has actually, in real life, written a play about Harvey Weinstein. Francesca thinks that’s bonkers. So this is her play about David Mamet. He’s in it, and so are a bunch of other dudes named David who definitely shouldn’t even think about writing a play about Harvey Weinstein.

It’s really a play about women. About Francesca. About Francine, who can do it all (parent, act, sing, fly, castrate, kill)… until she can’t. About Zoe, who shows up to audition and can’t stop talking.

Turns out there’s a lot to say.

What do you find most rewarding about your work as a writer?

I like writing roles that I think my actor friends would love to play. And making people laugh despite themselves. 

Fellows Spotlight is our summer blog series that invites you to take a behind-the-scenes look at our Fellows program.

Last week we introduced the series with a spotlight on Kit Yan and Melissa Li.

Over the coming weeks, we’ll be hearing from all our 2018-2019 Fellows: Jay Adana, Rae Binstock, Zeniba Britt, Erika Dickerson-Despenza, Mathilde Dratwa, Aryanna Garber, Charles Gershman, Nambi E. Kelley, Melissa Li, Benjamin Velez, Kit Yan, and Zack Zadek.

Each of the Fellows/teams were asked the same 5 questions, exploring where these writers have been, are now, and are journeying towards. Our Fellows took this gentle structure and ran, each submitting responses as unique and creative as they are.

This week, we are thrilled to introduce you to Rae Binstock.

What was your first experience with theater?

This is the experience that immediately comes to mind, though it was far from my first. Growing up in Cambridge, MA, my parents started taking me to shows at the American Repertory Theater when I was very very young. (Potentially too young, but I’d say it all worked out.) One of those plays was The Birthday Party by Harold Pinter. I was around 10 years old. I had never seen Pinter before, and my father didn’t give me any context before the show started (he never did). I just remember the feeling in my stomach while I watched that play, like the first drop on a rollercoaster stretched out over two hours. I understood so little of it but I was transported by the sheer theatricality. It was that moment of realization that theater is nothing like anything else. It’s not movies, it’s not TV, it’s not reading, it’s not an exciting conversation. It’s an alchemical reaction in real time that happens to and with you, and as a child I remember being utterly obsessed with the how and why of that experience. 

When did you decide to become a writer? Is there a writer, show, or piece of writing that was particularly influential on your path?

My father is a novelist. He raised my sister and I to love first reading and then writing. I must have started at least fifty “novels” as a kid, but I never quite knew how to finish them. I was always so scared of “messing it up.” My mother, on the other hand, works in homeless housing, and she raised my sister and I to value planning and action over easily-exhausted fervor. I knew there was something to writing that made me feel strong and capable, but I couldn’t find it in the density of prose. When I got to high school, I was already a theater kid, but the tipping point was reading Angels in America. You know that feeling when you return to your childhood home as an adult and notice something – a room, a window, even a lamp – that had been there the whole time but never registered in the specifics of what you considered your habitat? That’s what it felt like reading Angels. Everything I knew suddenly appeared a little off, a little sudden and unexpected, because I had been presented with an entirely new way of thinking and talking about them. The language and scope of that play connected me with the power that I had been trying to find in writing since I was a little kid. I’ve never looked back.

How do you describe your work overall? What sets your work apart?

My work is about tension between the identity and the individual. Every society requires the people within to sort themselves into different groups, if only for the sake of organization. That “sorting” is the source of some of humanity’s worst tendencies, but the solidarity within the sorted groups is the source of some of our best tendencies. I have found in my own life that the more people rely on their category, the more strength they derive from it and the more fear they have of any threat to it. My plays explore the inevitable struggle that everyone faces when forced to confront their “sorting.” Race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, education – we are all eager to be defined in some way, but we are also borne out of molds with infinitely undefined shape. I write to try and, if not solve, then make peace with some of that contradiction.

Can you tell us a little bit about the work you’ve been developing as a Fellow?

That Heaven’s Vault Should Crack is a cycle of five short plays that reimagine stories from the Bible and the Qu’ran in terms of modern-day climate change. Each play transports a narrative like Noah’s Ark or the Crucifixion to the present day and overlays the moral lessons and strictures onto our seemingly more complicated modern system. I find myself fascinated by how resistant the human race is to the idea of climate change, despite how readily and deeply most of us ascribe to the idea of divine forces governing our reality. I think the two of them have to have something in common, and that we can only handle one of them at the time.

What do you find most rewarding about your work as a writer?

I talk a lot. My plays have a lot of words. Beyond anything, I treasure the moments I can create in a play where silence makes more of an impact than words ever will.

Fellows Spotlight is our summer blog series that invites you to take a behind-the-scenes look at our Fellows program.

Over the coming weeks, we’ll be hearing from all our 2018-2019 Fellows: Jay Adana, Rae Binstock, Zeniba Britt, Erika Dickerson-Despenza, Mathilde Dratwa, Aryanna Garber, Charles Gershman, Nambi E. Kelley, Melissa Li, Benjamin Velez, Kit Yan, and Zack Zadek.

Each of the Fellows/teams were asked the same 5 questions, exploring where these writers have been, are now, and are journeying towards. Our Fellows took this gentle structure and ran, each submitting responses as unique and creative as they are.

To kick off this series, we are pleased to present Kit Yan and Melissa Li.

(responses submitted by Kit Yan on behalf of the team)

What was your first experience with theater?

We became friends while performing at a Queer Asian cabaret at a divey drag bar in Boston called Jacque’s. Although Melissa had been writing and performing Queer theater with the support of The Theater Offensive, and Kit was already winning awards performing as a slam poet, we’ll never forget the first time we shared the stage together at that cabaret and how important it was to have a space that allowed us to tell our stories on our own terms.

When did you decide to become a writer? Is there a writer, show, or piece of writing that was particularly influential on your path?

Both of us were writers at a young age, whether we were writing songs, poetry, plays, or movies. We always felt the need to share stories and pour our feelings out on the page. But it was at Jacques that we witnessed a kind of theater that was a new experience for us — the art was bold, messy, risky, and unafraid, as were the artists that created it. Today, we try to keep the essence of these formative experiences in our work together.

How do you describe your work overall? What sets your work apart?

As Queer Chinese-American immigrants with very different but rich histories and identities, our work constantly investigates and explores gender, sexuality, and race. Stylistically, because of our artistic backgrounds, we like to break rules and blend style and form. Our work is often peppered with poetry, sugary pop earworms, experimental percussive soundscapes, and other motifs. We use familiar tools, and tools we discover, to tell stories that reflect our experiences.

Can you tell us a little bit about the work you’ve been developing as a Fellow?

We’ve been working on Interstate, a new musical that is semi-based on our own experience, and is very personal to us. It’s about two best friends — a transgender spoken word artist and a lesbian singer-songwriter — going on tour together for the first time, and the ways in which their journey changes the life of one South Asian trans teenager living in Kentucky. The show sounds stylistically similar to the work we used to perform together way back at Jacque’s, and is a love letter to our friendship and our community.

What do you find most rewarding about your work as a writer?

Being writers is powerful because we get to dream about the worlds to which we want to contribute. We get to bring together communities of people who ache to see themselves represented on stage. We get to ask tough questions, be accountable to each other, center friendship and love, and keep hope alive in a world that systematically erases so many of us. It is rewarding work — to be able to write our futures into existence.

Thanks to @melsaboo and @KitYanPoet for sharing! And be sure to follow @DGFound on Instagram and Twitter for more from Fellows Spotlight! 

We’ve added a surprise 11th day to our challenge; thanks to the contributions of a generous anonymous donor, we are hosting a contest where you or a friend could win $125!

We’ve offered a lot of writing exercises in our 10 Day Challenge, but we want to know– What keeps you writing for the stage? What rituals inform and inspire you to keep at your work?

To enter, go to our twitter, and retweet the contest announcement.

Then, email challenge@dgf.org with your answer to the above prompt, “What keeps you writing for the stage?” or “What rituals inform and inspire you to keep at your work?” Entries close at 12pm Eastern on Thursday, May 2.

We will be announcing the winner on Friday, May 3rd. Only one entry per person.

We’ve been so inspired by this community of artists lately. Thank you for sharing your work with us on social media. We love knowing what you’re working on, whether it’s a blank page, final draft, or opening night. In an effort to nurture this creative energy, we invite you to participate in our 10-Day Writing Challenge.

Below you’ll find the full list of exercises. Though we’ll be “hosting” this challenge on Twitter from April 17-April 26th, you can begin a challenge cycle at any time or host your own with a writing group!

Pencils ready?

Day 1: Spend 15 minutes in the morning writing in a notebook. Do this *before* you check your phone.

Day 2: Learn a new word. Use it in a sentence and tweet it to @DGFound.

Day 3: Send something you’ve written (a page, a play, a poem) to a friend. You don’t have to ask for feedback. Just get in the habit of sharing.

Day 4: Put your phone on airplane mode. Set a timer for 10 minutes. Don’t touch it. That’s it!

Day 5: Create a scene that teaches a lesson. Write it twice– once for your peers, and once for children.

Day 6: You’re more than half way through! Today, challenge yourself to write for 2 hours or until you have 5 pages (whichever comes first).

Day 7: Don’t write today! We mean it. Instead, see a show, visit the library, read a new play. Let your own ideas marinate.

Day 8: Adaptation. Choose a piece of work in the public domain. Write a pitch about how you would adapt it for a modern audience.

Day 9: Try the 20-20-20 exercise today. Every 20 minutes, look at something 20 feet away, for 20 seconds. It’s a great way to gather your thoughts and rest your eyes from the computer screen!

Day 10: Revision. On day six, we challenged you to write for 2 hours or for 5 pages (whichever came first) revisit those pages and revise them today!

Congratulations! And thank you for your commitment to your work. Maybe you’re ready for a day-off; maybe this 10-Day cycle will be habit-forming for you; and maybe you’re itching for more, so we present you with… .

BONUS DAY: Reflection. Dedicate 30 minutes of your day to sit and write. Free-write during this time about your experience. What worked for you? What didn’t? And if you still have time to spare, keep going. Some of the best (and surprising) thoughts come out when you don’t have a plan.

Be sure to follow @DGFound on Twitter and #DGFound if you choose to share your exercises and to connect with other writers participating in the challenge.