“IDK:” Playwright Maggie Kearnan Responds to Pandemic Theatre
by Ally Lardner ‘21
Last week I had the pleasure of speaking with Maggie Kearnan BC ‘14 about life, art, and her new play, IDK [What This Is], premiering at the Boston College Theatre Department, February 25-28, 2021. Maggie spoke about her relationship with theater, her writing process and the experience of producing her new play all the way from the ideation stages to the main stage.
Hi, and welcome to the first (and possibly only) BC Theatre Department Podcast-Style Audio Interview! My name is Ally Lardner, and I am chatting on Zoom today with Maggie Kearnan; she wrote the play IDK [What This Is], which is being produced at BC in 4 live shows, streaming February 25-28 of 2021.
So, Maggie, let’s talk about you? How long have you been writing plays?
I wrote my first full-length play in 2018, but I’ve been writing plays since my time here at BC. My first ten-minute play went up as part of DSTP Fest, which is Scott T. Cummings’ DSTP course that he teaches to all the freshmen who are considering a theatre major. Yeah, that was my first ten-minute, and then I had a ten-minute in the After Hours productions, which are student-produced ten-minute student play festivals, and in New Voices, which is also one of Scott’s projects. I have only been writing longer plays, full-length plays, the last couple of years.
I love the full-circle aspect of like, your first ten-minute play being a part of Scott’s class, and then now, with this being directed by Scott! I love that. Could you tell us about what your first full-length play — that you said was in 2018 — what that was about?
I wrote this play called Idawalley, which is based on the story of a famous female lighthouse keeper named Idawalley Zoradia Lewis, who lived on Lime Rock, which is a little rock of an island in Newport Harbor, Newport, Rhode Island. She kept the Lime Rock Lighthouse, which is stationed on Lime Rock. And she saved more people from drowning than any other individual in Coast Guard history. And she and I happen to have the same birthday, so I found her story and was like, This feels like the first play that I need to write, because I was determined to write my first full-length. So I found her story and wrote that play fairly quickly, in two months back in 2018. And then — as far as full circle moments go — Scott, who’s directing IDK [What This Is], asked to produce Idawalley, in this time slot, a year ago.
And then, as we know, the pandemic happened. And theatre shifted in an entirely, brand-new direction for most theatre artists.
And we didn’t believe that we could serve the play — Idawalley the play, or Idawalley the woman — by trying to do this very grounded, historical family-drama play, that’s set in a lighthouse in the late 1800s over Zoom! So we decided to write this brand new thing! So that’s the answer to the question, how did IDK start? and what was the first play you wrote?
Yeah, amazing. What a transition, also! Let’s talk more about IDK. Tell us a little more what the process of writing IDK has been like for you?
So, over the summer, we were still holding onto hope that we were going to do Idawalley for a while, not knowing what the coming year would look like. In the summer months, I was working on editing and rewriting Idawalley to prepare for production, and working closely with Scott on that process. And then, just towards the end of August, we decided (or realized, or accepted, all of the above) that it was just not going to be possible to do that in-person, in the Bonn, in February of 2021.
So Scott asked me to brainstorm new ideas, just something that could be done, not even knowing what the limitations would be. We weren’t sure of what we were going to be allowed to do based on the University’s guidelines, or what would be safe to do. And every production this year has been like that, in the Theatre Department — what’s going to be safe and also serve the play, serve the story, and serve the artists creating it.
So I wrote up what I referred to as a “pitch packet,” which was just five to ten different ideas, and some of them were just literally a sentence and an idea, and some of them were a few pages of text.
Just kind of throwing ideas Scott’s way to see what caught his attention, if anything. I wrote eighteen pages of a document that I then titled “IDK what this is” because I didn’t know what it was! And those eighteen pages became this little nugget of what is now a full play that will be produced next week! So that’s how it began.
Yeah, and just to steer away from IDK for one more second, I am so obsessed with this idea of your “pitch packet,” where you just threw a bunch of ideas out, and saw if they stuck. Is that a tactic that you think you’ll use in the future, or was that just kind of a it had to be done, and I had to do it this way?
That’s interesting — I could do that again. I’m certainly planning on going back to some of the plays in the pitch packet and seeing if they could actually become something. It was interesting to tackle that knowing that there were limitations, because you know, it wasn’t just any idea I could come up with, it was any idea I could come up with that could be produced with actors not necessarily being in the same space, with there not being an audience in the room, or maybe it’s virtually, over Zoom, or whatever it needed to be.
I think I would go back to that. I always have a long list of ideas that might become a full length or a ten-minute or whatever. Yeah, it’s a great way to brainstorm, to just get away from writer’s block, to just write down everything that’s in your head and see if it can become something.
Yeah, cool. Awesome. Tell us a little about what the plot of IDK is.
Sure. It’s a trickier question than you would think it is!
It is a collective retelling of a shared experience between six young people who go to a secluded house in quote unquote “middle of nowhere” in Wisconsin.
And one of them, her name is Beth, has created this social experiment for them all to make the world, try to find ways to make the world a better place, and better themselves along the way, sort of bettering the world through bettering yourself. And the structure of the play is very narrative. So the characters are kind of moving in and out through the narrative tense of the play and the present-tense action of what happens at the house, which has been fascinating to watch the actors tackle that in rehearsals. As I was writing it, it was very stream-of-consciousness;
I’ve always envisioned it as six voices that sort of become one shared consciousness telling this story together. It’s very much an ensemble piece.
Yeah, that’s so interesting. I know when I skimmed through the script — and from what you said right now — this idea of retreating, and isolation, and maybe quarantining oneself away from the world reflects — that’s a very COVID kind of thread that goes into this play. Are there any other pieces that you can think of right now that have been a thread of the play since the very beginning, when it was in that pitch packet?
Yeah, the structure of it has. And actually, very late in the rewriting process, right before rehearsals began, I did a full overhaul of the script, having gone back to those original 18 pages I wrote to try to like, recapture some of the original energy that was in those first 18 pages that I wrote back in September. And that shared energy, and that shared collective consciousness vibe has always been there. And there are certain specific moments in the play or certain specific lines that have always been there.
And the characters too, the characters kind of existed, have always existed the way that they are. They’ve become more detailed and clear and fleshed-out.
But isolation for sure, and not trying to put too much — there are no technical needs in the play. So like, there’s no, I’m not forcing any specific technical moments on the show so that it can be produced however it needs to be produced. So there’s not like “this person needs to run up the stairs” or “this person needs to go open the fridge” or whatever. It’s very open to however somebody needs to produce it, if that makes sense, I feel like I’m rambling around in circles at this point! Did I answer your question?
Yes! I think you definitely did.
Okay.
Cool. You referenced the rehearsal process a little bit, you referenced what it’s been like seeing six actors kind of deal with this stream of consciousness thing — Can you talk a little bit more about what the rehearsal process has been like for you?
Yeah, I find it fairly — I’m still learning how to be a playwright in the room.
Because I’ve been a lot of other things in the room: I’ve been a performer and a director and a designer, etcetera, in the room — and even a stage manager — and being a playwright is the one where I feel the most loss of control. Which is important to —
it’s not necessarily a loss of control, it’s learning how to let go of control?
It’s always about balancing what to tell the actors, what to reveal, especially — this play has a lot of mystery and moments that… I have some answers to things, and there are some answers I want to be in the script, in the text, and some answers that I want to be clear to the actors, and others that I want to be clear to the audience, and some that I don’t need anyone to have an answer to that question, whether I have it or — some I don’t even have the answer to! So, figuring out what best serves the process, and the play, and whatever future it has, even beyond this production.
I learn something new (even this late in the process), I learn something new about the play every day.
Because actors are thinking so deeply about their specific characters and why their character is doing XYZ, in a way that I’m not really, I’m just like the words are falling down on the page, especially with the nature of this play in particular. And each actor is like, Why am I saying the word “okay” in this moment? And I’m like I don’t know, you tell me! So that’s fun.
I’m just curious, how much rewriting have you been doing during the rehearsal process?
Not too much. There’s been a little bit here and there, but it’s a short rehearsal process, and I’ve been trying to be kind to the actors who have to memorize it, and get off book, and it’s a tough script to memorize because it’s this — we keep referring to them as “cascades of dialogue” because it’s so, it’s this collective narrative and they’re all telling the same story, together. And there’s so much back and forth and popcorn dialogue and some overlapping stuff, so: already difficult to memorize in the time allotted, so I’ve tried to be kind to them.
There is — It’s mostly the section at the end of the play that I’ve rewritten over a couple times, and just a couple of weeks ago, gave them some new pages there.
I’m gonna pull back a little from the script itself, to kind of leave some more mystery — we do want people to tune in and find out what exactly is happening, with all these cascades of dialogue! — and let’s talk about more the technical process of realizing the script.
So, you’ve just mentioned that you’ve done a couple different things within the room itself — you’ve performed, and you’ve directed, and you’ve stage managed — you have this kind of understanding of how a rehearsal room works. But you also do a couple of things for the BC Theatre Department as a whole. Can you explain for our listeners now what your other jobs at BC are?
Yeah, so I’m the scenic paint charge, which means I’m the lead painter in the scene shop. So I’m responsible for teaching any students who come in how to paint, and execute the designs for each department show that we do per season. This is my second year as the paint charge. But I’ve been back since when I was here, as a student. I was a student scene shop employee, really just as a carpenter, I wasn’t a painter yet, I kind of became a painter more post-grad if anything. But since I graduated, I’ve been back as an overhire carpenter and painter, so I don’t think there has been a year in the past ten that I haven’t worked in the BC scene shop. I love being in that space.
What has working in the shop for this play specifically been like for you? To quite literally — you’re building the words, and you’re also building a lot of the physical aspects of what it looks like! How’s that felt?
It’s been kind of wild; this show specifically, because — Crystal Tiala is our scenic designer, and the set is these six individual, small rooms, basically, that we’ve constructed so that the actors can perform in there safely, to their webcams, because this show will go out over the Zoom format, which we’re manipulating in all kinds of crazy ways (that are still very new to me!). So the actors are each in these individual rooms — and the rooms are not their literal rooms where they are, and the nature of the text doesn’t place the characters anywhere in particular, other than their memory of this time together. So the set is their individual emotional spaces, that’s how we’ve been thinking of them through the design process.
So not only did I write these characters into existence, now I’m painting their emotional spaces.
So it’s another way that I am learning more about them as people on a daily basis. Yeah. And it’s also — I mentioned that loss of control as a playwright in the room, and sometimes I channel that energy of I’m not in charge in that space, to literally being the paint charge in this other space. So I get to take all my frantic energy that I can’t express in the rehearsal room, and just paint the walls however I would like to. And because I am the playwright, and kind of double-dipping in this process, Crystal and her design team have been really open about me kind of — not necessarily taking liberties, but following my heart as far as paint treatment goes, which has been some cool freedom. I’m not making any big decisions off of the design, but just to not be held down to a rendering sometimes is really nice.
That’s so amazing. Do you think that that’s something that you’d like to happen again in the future? To be the playwright and the paint charge? To have more than one, kind of, job in the process?
Sure, yeah. It is — I mean, for the past couple weeks, all day every day has been working on this play in one way or another. It does get a little — I really have to compartmentalize when I’m in these different worlds. There was an early part of the design process where me as playwright wanted certain things, but then me as a painter was like, Don’t do that! Think about what your tomorrow looks like if you make that decision!
So that’s tough, that’s tough. Just the difference between making a creative decision and having to be the person who executes it as well.
But I kind of do that a lot, I do multiple roles a lot, because I do work with high school drama students as well, and I’m often directing, designing, leading students in the execution of all of those things. But yeah, I really don’t mind diving full on in every direction into this play for this month. It’s been good.
Yeah, I love that. What do you think is something you’re excited about for your future in theatre? You know, obviously pending whatever’s happening with the pandemic, whatever’s happening with the vaccine… What do you think your next steps are?
Yeah, as you said, everything’s up in the air, and one of the (kind of nice!) things that has come out of 2020 and the uncertainty of these times has been that I’m kind of just like, Well, let’s just see how things roll. And not getting too stressed out and locked down by having to plan. But as far as —
I finally feel like a playwright, versus just writing plays in a vacuum.
Even writing ten-minutes, I never really locked into the feeling of being a playwright, and I certainly feel like one now. So I’ve now written four full-length plays just in the past year; all of them have been produced somehow, which is also part of the nature of how, quote unquote “easy” it is to produce virtual theatre. I think it kind of serves playwrights in a way, that you can — to put together a reading and hear your own work that way. But, just the fact that I’ve written four, and somebody has been interested in each of them! So that’s really exciting, and confidence-building. So I’m just going to keep plugging along, keep writing plays, and my daily life right now is painting sets, which I really don’t mind doing!
So, you referenced four plays, and I think we’ve talked about two of them, right? Idawalley, IDK [What This Is], and then two mystery ones! Do you want to give us a sneak peek of what those ones are like, or if you have any plans for them being produced again in the future?
So the first one was — is — called Changing Lanes, which I wrote with my good friend Taylor Buehler, we went to high school together and we work together when we direct shows for high school drama kids. And that had a reading through Theatre At First; it’s called First Works, they have a new works program. So that went up in June. Normally it would have been in-person, an in-person reading, but it was an over Zoom reading — which kind of meant that it was more produced than it would have been, because they were making more specific choices about what we see the characters, how the characters are presented, whether they’re moving around, things like that. And then the other one is called The Mrs., which is a political thriller, which I wrote just over the past year, and that was produced through Newton Theatre Company back in August. And it was more of a — It was not technically a reading, it was technically a Zoom production, which, I think there is a thin line between that distinction!
So, going back to this idea of things being full circle, and things coming back around — I am assuming that has been a really crazy experience for you to go to BC as an undergrad, and then come back, and not only be such a present, physical part (via painting) of all of the productions, but especially to have this one be truly realized by Scott, and by — I’m sure a lot of the faculty have remained the same, and they knew you as a student, and now they know you as an adult — okay, cool, I see that you’re nodding, and I’m glad that I’m not just throwing all these assumptions on you!
With this idea of you coming back, what is something that has changed about BC theatre specifically, since your undergrad days here?
That’s a very interesting question. I mean, a lot feels the same. A lot feels the same. Like, most of the professors — I’m still working with Crystal and Scott and those are the people that I was working with when I was here as a student. I have been slowly figuring out the dynamic of what this is like now that we’re working together and I’m not a student anymore.
It’s so weird, because I’m still learning from these people constantly. In a lot of ways, that also feels the same, the dynamic. They’ve all been doing this, making theatre for so much longer than I have. As long as I work with all of them, I will still be learning from all of them.
Something I love about this place is the welcoming atmosphere, of like you can come on by. We have a student in the scene shop right now who just needed an extra credit, and kind of likes to paint, and doesn’t know anything about theatre, and that’s so exciting. I’m like, great! It just reminds me of how much we all know about theatre, to tell someone brand new, This is what a black box is. So, that’s fun.
Yeah, I feel like I didn’t answer the question! I guess the question is: not a lot feels different. I feel different, and my relationships to the space feel different. But yeah, aside from the pandemic nonsense, everything feels really familiar. Which is why I’m here, I like things that feel familiar. Also why I went to BC, because my mom went here and both my brothers went here. Yeah, I like familiarity.
Yeah. That was a super comforting answer to hear — as someone who is a senior, and preparing to say goodbye to BC, it’s comforting for me to know that, in a lot of ways, you still feel as at home here as you might have when you were a student too.
Yeah.