The Lost Girls – Reflection on the Process

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In our final week of rehearsals, dramaturg Sara Keats took a few moments to reflect with playwright Courtney Meaker and director Kaytlin McIntyre. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Sara Keats: The three of us have been working on this play for a while now—I think you guys first invited me to the team last October [2015]—but I wasn’t around for the early drafts or the initial pitch to Annex. Tell me a little bit about how this play got started.

Courtney Meaker: After I graduated college in 2008, I worked at a summer camp in Vermont for a very small stipend. The counselors were all recent college graduates and all about to begin our lost year—that/those time(s) when you’re directionless, when before you’d known exactly where you were going. Summer camp was a great distraction from thinking about the future, but it occurred to me that each of us quickly realized the economic situation we were all in, the fact that we were working ridiculous hours for not much break time, and a very small stipend, and I saw each of us start to devolve into the teenagers we were watching. We were like them. They had rubbed off on us. We were annoyed and snippy with our bosses. We wanted to hook up with each other in secret and shirk all of our duties. Many years later, I decided to write about that time, but to focus it on queer women at all girls summer camp, and their economic situation. Naturally, it became it a horror.

Kaytlin McIntyre: Courtney and I first started working together when she joined the Seattle Rep Writers’ Group.

CM: Kaytlin was leading it the year I started and I was still playing with what I wanted The Lost Girls to be. She read an incomplete draft and wanted to take it to Annex.

KM: I’d admired Courtney’s work for a while, but I was particularly drawn to The Lost Girls’ combination of humor and high stakes, both the supernatural and ultra-familiar. Not to mention, it’s an ensemble of women, and these women are complex and flawed and brave—the characters in this play feel more connected to the people I see in my world than some other plays.

SK: And how refreshing to have a play with a bunch of queer characters that’s not overtly about being queer. That’s something I was excited about by this play from the get-go: Courtney, you’re so good at weaving your politics into the fabric of the play, without it being all issue, issue, issue.

KM: Right, and those issues do sometimes pop into the foreground, like the conversations in the play around student debt and college-educated people looking for work in the ressions, plus some of the moments in the play that deal directly with the rock-and-hard-place-ness of being a woman in this patriarchal world.

CM: The thing I’ve always loved most about this play is seeing the relationships between these women unfold in its humor, sadness, and psychological torture.

SK: This time last year, there were seven characters in this play and we lost one. What else has changed in the development of the play in the past year we’ve been talking about it?

CM: This draft is light years ahead of where I started. There used to be many more characters, for one. In one draft, the kids were visible. In another draft, there was a magic coat. In a lot of the drafts the haunting was hinted at without any explanation whatsoever, and also without being that scary. And there used to be dot matrix printer at the center of the action. So, yeah. It’s changed a lot.

KM: RIP, dot matrix printer sequence.

SK: It was sad to see it go, but I think where you landed with that sequence it better.

KM: Absolutely.

SK: I’ll say for me, one of the great joys of working on this project has been getting an upclose view of both of your untangling of the multitude of things going on in this play. And it’s also been so great to see it come to life in this space; I’m so excited for you to see it.

CM: Having to work on this play in Iowa City while [the cast and production team] toil away in rehearsals in Seattle has been really hard for me. I’m excited to see everything that’s happened under Kaytlin’s direction, the actors’ talent, and the designers’ thrilling spectacles.

KM: As a director, I’m excited to get to the point in the process where I hand this story over entirely to the actors. So much of the very root of this story—both the serious parts and the humor—are so personal. I can’t wait for the actors to fully own it on opening night and throughout the run.

The Lost Girls

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Written by Courtney Meaker
Directed by Kaytlin McIntyre
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October 28 – November 19, 2016
Thursdays – Saturdays at 7:30PM
PWYC Preview*: Wednesday, Oct. 26
PWYC Industry Night*: Monday, Nov. 7
~
run time: 2 hours, including intermission
At an all-girls summer camp, five recent college grads are charged with keeping a slew of hormonal teenagers alive. Saddled with crippling student loans and paid a pitiful stipend for ninety-one days of babysitting, the counselors forego their actual work to have one last hurrah before adulthood kicks in. But when campers start to disappear, the party is over. Our heroes turn to a mysterious teen who seems to have the answers. but will they solve the puzzle in time to escape? The Lost Girls is a new horror-comedy from celebrated local playwright Courtney Meaker about privilege and purpose, feminism and fear.

An Interview with Director and Playwright

Cast
Alysha Curry
Rachel Guyer-Mafune
Shermona Mitchell
Jordi Montes
Zenaida Smith
Dayo Vice

Design/Production Team
Dramaturg: Sara Keats
Assistant Director: Maggie Rogers
Stage Manager: Liza Vaughn
Assistant Stage Manager: Laura Owens
Scenic Designer: Jenny Littlefield
Props Designer: Emma Ambacher
Costume Designer: Corinne Magin
Lighting Designer: Gwyn Skone
Sound Designer: Erin Bednarz
Fight Choreographer: Ryan Higgins

*Pay-What-You-Can performances. Pre-order full-price tickets online, or name your price at the door.

The Zig Zag Festival

Curated by Catherine Blake Smith
August 4 – August 19, Tues-Wed at 8 pm
Opening Night: August 4

Six playwrights–all female, all young, all local–collaborate on an evening of short works. Each is playwright of one play, director for another, and an outside eye for a third. The ensemble cast performs in all six plays about a range of topics such as ghosts of ex-lovers, comedic nightmares, and an absurdly honest job interview.

Tuesdays

Job Search – written by Dayana “Dayo” Anderson, directed by Courtney Meaker
Roaring Girls – written by Seayoung Yim, directed by Amy Escobar
Mythologizing me like I do you – written by Catherine Blake Smith, directed by L. Nicol Cabe

Wednesdays

The Strongest Flavor – written by L. Nicol Cabe, directed by Catherine Blake Smith
After It Ends – written by Courtney Meaker, directed by Dayana “Dayo” Anderson
Scary Mary and the Nightmares Nine – written by Amy Escobar, directed by Seayoung Yim

Ensemble:
Kiki Abba
Devon Allen
Isabela de Campos
Rachel Delmar
Katie Driscoll
Nathaniel Leeson
Jordi Montes
Tatiana Pavela
Cody Smith
Sydney Tucker

Production Team:
Production Manager – Kaeline Kine
Technical Director – Ian Johnston

Chaos Theory, a play seeking order

Written by Courtney Meaker
Directed by Pamala Mijatov

April 18-May 17
Thurs-Sat at 8pm | All Thurs PWYC
Industry Night Mon April 28
$20 general/$18 advance tickets
$12 senior, military, TPS / $5 student
Running time: 2 hours, including intermission

When her lover disappears, Frannie and her friends seek solace in a book about chaos theory, leading them to build a machine that might take them into other dimensions—but instead they fall into different stories and just might bring about the end of the world.

Chaos Theory deals with contemporary issues (sex, identity, loss, crazy exes, mind games, doppelgangers) through the lens of absurdist science (and some actual science!).

Press photos

“Though the play has a blatant speculative science-fiction slant to it, it is surprisingly and refreshingly character-driven. The play grapples with ideas of perception of reality, time relativity, gender binaries, friendship dynamics, and heart-wrenching moral dilemmas… The cast was small, well-selected, and strong. Thanks to Meaker’s smart writing and the excellent cast, the play had me wishing I could be friends with Frannie, Seth, and Bach, and be a part of their quick back-and-forth verbal banter.” – Drama In The Hood

CAST
Keiko Green Frannie
Evelyn Dehais Bach
Drew Highlands Seth
Jana Hutchison Mack, others
CREW
Playwright Courtney Meaker
Director Pamala Mijatov
Stage Manager Kaeline Kine
Lighting Designer Gwyn Skone
Scenic Designer Robin Macartney
Sound Designer Kyle Thompson
Prop Designers Robin Macartney & Emily Sershon
Costume Designer Amy Escobar
Technical Directors Ian Johnston & Emily Sershon
Graphic Design Ash Williamson
French translation Evelyn Dehais

Sweet Nothing, a (grim) fairytale

Presented by Macha Monkey Productions
Written by Stephanie Timm
Directed by Laurel Pilar Garcia

Fri-Sat at 8 pm, June 1-23, 2012
Special Industry Performance Monday June 11 at 8pm
$15 in advance or $18 at the door

Macha Monkey is proud to present the northwest premiere of Stephanie Timm’s Sweet Nothing, a (grim) fairytale at Annex Theatre’s space in June 2012. Sweet Nothing explores the repercussions of violence and war through a fairytale lens. Once upon a time in a raped and pillaged land, the youngest of three sisters weds herself to a man she’s never met who lives across the sea. When the next youngest is offered a similar promise of living happily ever after, she discovers that hope might just be her worst enemy.

“…there really wasn’t an aspect of this production that didn’t appeal to me. From the outstanding script by Timm and direction by Garcia to the stunning cast to the gorgeously designed show make this one an absolute winner!” –Broadway World

“Timm is a smart, gifted writer and nicely sets up all the archetypal bowling pins—the three sisters, their ravaged land, the mysterious other-land where the youngest sister goes, the dangerous yet attractive wolf-man, the mute and sweet-hearted woodsboy, the alliteration and rhyming…” –The Stranger

“It’s a lovely evening’s entertainment, a little sticky in the chewing but tasty and a bit dark without being especially heavy.” –The Sunbreak

Photo gallery from the production

Playwright Stephanie Timm is company playwright for New Century Theatre Company, and recently finished a year-long residency with ACT Theatre. She was commissioned by 5th Avenue Musical Theatre to write Rosie the Riveter! with composer Albert Evans. She was nominated for a Gregory Award for New Century Theatre Company’s premiere of On the Nature of Dust. Her play Crumbs Are Also Bread was published in the Rain City Projects Manifesto Series, edited by Steven Dietz. Her plays have been produced and developed at Seattle Repertory Theatre, Portland Center Stage, Icicle Creek Theatre Festival, Kennedy Center, Lark Theatre, Boots Up Theatre Company, Washington Ensemble Theatre, and Live Girls! among others. Stephanie also teaches at Cornish College of the Arts, and writes for video games. Stephanie received her MFA from UC San Diego.

Director Laurel Pilar Garcia most recently directed a reading of Royal Blood by Sonya Schneider with Northwest Playwright Alliance, Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl for Lincoln Center Directors Lab and Center of the Universe by Dustin Engstrom at Open Circle Theatre. Additional credits include directing and producing WAKE by Sonya Schneider at the Little Theatre with Onward Ho! Productions, The Diary of Anne Frank for the Driftwood Players, Zapatista for Teatro Milagro in Portland, Ore., Two Rooms by Lee Blessing at the Freehold Studio Series, Dinner with Friends by Donald Margulies and A Christmas Carol, both at Whidbey Island Center for the Arts. Her assistant directing credits include several productions with former Intiman Artistic Director Bartlett Sher, including Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth, Shakespeare’s Richard III and Chekhov’s Three Sisters. She is a member of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab and received her B.A. in Theatre Arts from Lewis & Clark College.

CAST
Monica Finney Iris
Libby Barnard Lily
Samantha Leeds Violet
Quinn Armstrong Woodsboy
Jason Sharp Wolf
CREATIVE TEAM
Playwright Stephanie Timm
Director Laurel Pilar Garcia
Assistant Director Courtney Meaker
Movement Juliet Waller Pruzan
Set Design Montana Tippett
Sound Design Joseph Swartz
Light Design Danny Fisher-Bruns
Costume Design Kelsey McCornack
Fight Choreography Stephen Scheide
Stage Manager Catrina Vroman
Assistant Stage Manager Seayoung Yim
Production Management Alexis Holzer, Kristina Sutherland

Macha Monkey Productions is a nonprofit arts organization showcasing exceptional artists, delivering innovative educational programs, and producing new theatrical work that features strong female characters.