fbpx Confessions of a Reluctant TYA Playwright | HowlRound Theatre Commons

Confessions of a Reluctant TYA Playwright

A few months ago a play of mine, fml: how Carson McCullers saved my life premiered at the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago as part of their Young Adults programming. It was the first play I’ve ever written that was produced for a young adult/teen audience. I didn’t anticipate writing for this audience and I’m not sure, when all is said and done, I was writing for a target audience. I was writing a play and a predominately teen audience saw it, but does that make it a TYA play? I don’t know.

Here’s the backstory: One balmy fall afternoon in late 2010 I was sitting on my back porch in Chicago talking to my friend, director Joanie Schultz. The news of Rutgers student, Tyler Clemente’s suicide was all over the media. I was angry and shocked but mostly I was confused. How did this keep happening? What makes someone willfully want to bully another person just because they are gay? Why are gay individuals so threatening to these bullies? And what would it take to stop this epidemic of teen suicides?

I’m two decades beyond high school. When I was in high school, we didn’t have GLBT clubs. No one came out. The gay kids just did theater. Or passed. Or didn’t pass and tried not to get beat up for not passing. There were no mainstream gay celebrities. So I thought teens today had it better. I taught at Columbia College and would hear my students talk about being out in high school. I thought, after Ellen, after Rent, after Will and Grace, after the Matthew Shepard tragedy woke the country up to hate crimes and the Laramie Project took the place of Our Town in countless high schools across the country, surely, surely things were better for gay teens today.

I was so wrong.

In the following months I’ve thought hard about this question. Especially as literary managers at various theaters decisively tell me the play is too much of a TYA play for their main stage and too mature for their TYA programming. What makes a play a TYA play?

Joanie Schultz suggested I approach Steppenwolf with a play. I didn’t have a play. I only had a lot of rage. (Truthfully, I was mostly despondent and deeply sad, but I masked that in rage because I’m not one for tears.) So I talked with Hallie Gordon who is the Director of Steppenwolf’s Young Adult Programs and Polly Carl, then Director of Artistic Development at Steppenwolf. They were interested in having me work on a play for them. They also handed me the novel, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers and asked if I would read it. They were going to be producing a stage adaptation of the novel in the fall. My play would premiere in the early spring. They were interested in talking to students about how literature inspires interpretation. But Hallie and Polly were very clear, “Gubbins, use the novel if you think it will support the play you want to write. If it doesn’t, just write your play.”

So I read the novel. And it affected me. And a week later I outlined a play that would be fml. Steppenwolf was behind it. We started setting dates for workshops. And then it dawned on me. I needed to know what the “rules” were. I just signed on to write a play for a teen audience and I had no idea what that meant.

Me: What can’t I do? Like what’s off limits.
Hallie: Don’t worry about that now.
Me: Is cursing okay?
Hallie: I’m telling you don’t limit yourself yet.
Me: Is shit considered a swear word?
Hallie: I don’t want you to start from a restrained place. Just write whatever you need to get this draft out.
Me: Obviously nudity is out. But I don’t typically write much nudity in my plays.
Hallie: We can talk about all that after you have a first draft.
Me: Drugs? Are they forbidden?
Hallie: Just write what you need to write to tell this story.
Me: Really?
Hallie: Really.

So I did. And then it came time to title the play, and I made sure Hallie knew that fml meant fuck my life in text vernacular and she didn’t bat an eye. (Or she might have but I never saw it). And one workshop led to another until finally we had a production draft. Up until then I hadn’t thought about the play as a TYA play. It was just a play. Straining to become realized by actors and a director and myself.

I was reminded this was a TYA play when we started casting. The folks at Steppenwolf pushed to find age appropriate actors to play the teen roles. I didn’t think it mattered. But they knew the potential impact having actual teens on stage could have for a teen audience. And then someone suggested I might cut down the use of profanity in the play—maybe just a few f-bombs instead of the thirty-five. But that was it. That was the extent of the editing I had to do to write for teens.

But unbeknownst to me a storm was brewing. For in fact, there were quite a few people that did not think fml was an appropriate play for their high school students to see. It wasn’t the swearing, it wasn’t the sexually suggestive material (there isn’t any), it wasn’t gratuitous drug use (none of that either), it wasn’t the racial slurs (not a one in the play), it was the gay stuff. And by gay stuff, I mean there were gay characters on-stage playing openly out gay teens. Let me be clear. There is no gay sex in the play. As Neil Steinberg, a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times pointed out, the play borders on being practically sexually chaste. But it didn’t matter. Many high schools deemed it not appropriate for their students.

Midway through the run, Dan Savage and his brother Bill Savage came to see the play and have a conversation afterwards with the audience. It was a Friday night. The theater was packed with Dan Savage fans, teens, parents of teens, and just regular ole theater folk. They seemed to enjoy the play. There was a lot of laughter and some red eyes too. A number of adults came up to me after the play and said they were going to send their adult friends to see the show. And parents of teens wanted to send their friends who had teens to see it. And of course there were some teens who went to schools who wouldn’t bring them on a school trip to come see the play who were going to encourage their friends to come see the play. I was more confused than ever. Was this a TYA play? Or was it just a play with characters who were teens struggling with what it meant to confront homophobia and bullying in high school?

In the following months I’ve thought hard about this question. Especially as literary managers at various theaters decisively tell me the play is too much of a TYA play for their main stage and too mature for their TYA programming. What makes a play a TYA play?

The only answer I have is the one I heard when I listened from the back row of the theater during the student performances at Steppenwolf. It was the sounds of shuffling when the students were losing interest, the near perfect silence when they were captivated, and the peels of laughter when they were connecting to the characters on stage. Characters they understood were struggling to do right and feeling the pangs of loneliness and despair that they would never be understood by the outside world.

Bookmark this page

Log in to add a bookmark

Comments

8
Add Comment

The article is just the start of the conversation—we want to know what you think about this subject, too! HowlRound is a space for knowledge-sharing, and we welcome spirited, thoughtful, and on-topic dialogue. Find our full comments policy here

Newest First

Sarah,

Sounds like a terrific play. I hope I get a chance to see it one of these days in the San Francisco Bay Area.

A question, several actually, for you and others in the TYA field: Are most TYA plays commissioned for and by a particular theatre? If so, are there established pathways for interested playwrights to put themselves forward in addition to the occasional national script contest? And does anyone out there accept submissions of completed scripts in the vein of FML (i.e. focused on teen characters but not written specifically as a TYA script and might be considered too edgy by some)?

Yes, these are self-interested questions but I trust I'm not the only one wondering about the process.

Thanks,
Carol

Such a thoughtful posting. I would love to see the trend of schools and parents "protecting teens from what they already know" gone. The notion of offering teen audiences watered down views of life as a theatrical experience and expect them to become adult theatre-goers makes no sense. And hoping the play makes it to the Twin Cities.

Proud of you & Hallie & Joanie & the rest of the Steppenwolf team for bringing this play to life.

The (insane) fact that some schools thought just seeing evidence that gay people exist was somehow inappropriate for their students proves how important it was to produce the play for teen audiences.

Sarah - what a great, candid and inspiring story of this play's inception and reception. I can only imagine that however much you have troubled those who seek to label your play and narrow it's audience, your boldness shall win the day. Bravo to you and Steppenwolf. Keep faith. Stir it up. And thanks again.