Still Stuck at Home

With Bryan Starchman

What inspired you to write this play?

I was inspired to write this play because like everyone else, I found myself stuck at home staring at the same four walls and I wanted to process how my life had changed. While I don't have kids, I went through a lot of the same challenges like running out of toilet paper, putting on a hazmat suit to go grocery shopping, and surviving one terrible day without WiFi. 

Where did the characters come from? Are they based on people you know? 

Even though I don't have kids, I have two sisters and my parents are a bit like the parents in this show. After writing additional scenes I started to realize that I was also inspired by the family dynamics in Schitt's Creek (a show that I binged in about a week during lock down). I feel that the sister is definitely inspired by Alexis Rose from that show.

What did you try to achieve with this play?

This was such a stressful time that I needed to find the lighter side of something that we were all struggling with. I had drama students who were seniors and they were realizing that they would never be in another high school production. I was able to workshop an early version of this script with them and it gave us all some closure as we ran the lines over Zoom. I feel that once we are able to return to the stage, students are going to want to work through the stress of 2020 and I think this show will be cathartic for both the actors and the audience.

Do you have anything else you'd like to add?

This was a challenging show to write because it is also a very serious subject. I strived to never poke fun at the real tragedy of this pandemic. It has affected us all. I've lost people to it. And I hope you will produce this show understanding that we all need to talk about the last year and find the collective humor while respecting just how serious this pandemic was.