Abby Auman, Technical Director extraordinaire at The Magnetic and playwright for our upcoming mainstage show The Splatter Play is a first time playwright, and she certainly knows how to arrive on the playwright scene in style! Check out some excerpts from an interview between Abby and our dramaturg/ASM for Splatter, Sarah Hajkowski!
Keep reading for an honest and in-depth look at the creative process and grab your tickets for The Splatter Play, opening on October 6!
To see the full article and interview, complete with Sarah’s amazing writing, check out Erato Magazine!
Sarah Hajkowski (S.H.): How has The Magnetic Theatre proven the right home for your debut as a playwright, and your continuous work as a lighting designer?
Abby Auman (A.A.): As far as this play goes, The Magnetic is probably the only theater around that would let me try it. The best thing about The Magnetic is their wholesale commitment to putting new art into the world. As a lighting designer I work on between 15 and 20 shows with a whole bunch of companies a year, each for no more than two weeks. I adore my job, but every once and a while, I get this horrible hamster wheel feeling. I put a show up, then in a month it’s gone, and I’ve stopped thinking about it well before then because I need to focus on the next show on my docket.
Furthermore, these theaters need to fill at least a portion of their seasons with shows that are famous enough to attract audiences by name alone. There’s a limited number of those, so I end up working the same shows over and over in different contexts. That really exacerbates the hamster wheel feeling. But at The Magnetic, every production is new. Even though each show only lasts a month, I’ve added something to the artistic landscape just by helping it exist, and that’s exciting! It’s satisfying in a way that helps me go back to my other work feeling refreshed.
S.H.: Why is theatrical storytelling important? What is its draw for you?
A.A.: My favorite thing about live theater is that every aspect of a performance is intensified when the audience and performers are in the same room. The smaller the theater, the larger the effect. Special effects that would be mildly interesting in a movie are crazy cool on Broadway, and would just about blow your mind in an 80-seat blackbox like ours. Most importantly to me, an amount of gore that you wouldn’t blink at in a movie or book is overwhelming in a live show. You get a lot of bang for your buck, and it all comes from the physical presence of the audience. That aspect is absolutely key to The Splatter Play.
The Splatter Play is a show that is at its best when you’re sitting in your poncho in the front row, bracing yourself for the splash mountain level wave of blood that’s literally coming at you with the next disembowelment or beheading. I can’t hit you with soggy intestines through a movie screen. I can’t send monsters running through the audience of a book. And how would I get gore on your glasses with a podcast? There’s just no other format that works for this story. It’s live theater or nothing.
S.H.: Your command of lighting design as a language is stunning. Maybe even a little scary. Speaking of frights, what is scary about handing off your original script to a production team and cast? What is exciting about it?
A.A: In this case it’s not that bad. I’ve worked with almost everyone involved many times over many years, and they’re all fantastic. I’ve learned to just trust them. It’s been especially great working with Jess. I told her from the jump that she had final say over the whole production, and that I didn’t want to be an impediment to her leadership in any way. I would have been happy to step back from the process entirely, but she kept me in the loop throughout every step of production, and went out of her way to ask my opinion on all sorts of things. She really didn’t have to do that, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it. Also, there’s a pretty great get-out-of-jail-free card that comes with passing your work on to someone else. I told my Mom that once you hand off a script it changes a lot as it passes through the hands of various designers and performers, and therefore if she found anything in my play to be distasteful or crude, it was definitely someone else’s fault. I feel good about that. I think it’s something that all playwrights should tell their mothers.
S.H.: What do you hope audiences take away from The Splatter Play?
A.A.: Let me start by saying that this is not a learning-lessons type of show. My main goal is for each audience member to have a truly memorable experience at The Splatter Play. I want them to have a wild time at the theater, for good or ill. That said, if you do care about the plot, there is some stuff in there involving the idea that “healthy” and “normal” are unrelated concepts. If we let people be their own version of healthy without trying to lock them into our version of normal, it can actually be pretty easy to reach a place of mutual happiness. So best-case scenario: audiences have an excellent time, and then go home and be a little easier on each other.
Wow. Abby is…kind of a genius?! Thanks again to Sarah for conducting a great interview. Be sure to grab your tickets and enjoy an experience that’s only possible in live theatre!
