11:11 Theatre

Jen Dubois is simply a phenomonal writer. It reminds me of finding that perfectly awesome indie band that no one else knows about, except you and your friends. For me, that was Chamberlain, a band out of Indiana that made three tremendous albums that almost no one outside of random European hotspots and rural indiana had ever heard, and then they broke up and are parents and probably professors now. Jen is like that. She is so talented it boggles your mind that she isn’t already an established writer with books published and plays done everywhere. Jen was a random craigslisted roommate I had when she was still at Tufts. I told her I wrote plays. She seemed surprisingly interested for a poli sci major. Turns out she secretly was an amazing fiction writer, which I feel like not many people in her life knew too much about. Talking to her, you could tell she was very quick and people-savvy, and very well read. She introduced me to Nabakov and made me wish I knew more authors so I could dish some cool writers back to her. She showed me one of her fiction stories. It was about a father and a daughter and eggs or something. I forget what, but it floored me. Some art just makes sense. When you read it or hear it, you feel like it must have been there all along and it was just your job to find it. She showed me two stories and then I bugged her to write a play. A couple years later her playwrighting skills put mine to shame. When we are in rehearsal, I can’t help but constantly think, wow, this is a real talent. She writes with precision and clarity. Her characters are eloquently indirect. This is the least amount of work I’ve ever done as a director, because the writing is so strong, the actors immediately can pick up what’s going on. There’s no need to really put my heavy hands on the thing. I’m just making sure the audience can see and hear them. I feel like it’s harder in theater than in music to find that neat underground artist that speaks to you in a powerful way. I couldn’t be prouder that we have Jen’s play in our season and that hopefully, this being the second play of hers that we’ve done, that she can be a continuing part of our writing community at 11:11 and that we see a play of hers on our stage every couple of years. We’ve found our secret band! The marketing team and i have been wondering how to get this coolness out to people and for it to be more accessible. Something like having the liner notes and the mixtapes of a musician. So we’ve thought hard on ways to give people a heads up about Jen. So we’re doing some interviews with her that we’ll send out links to and we’re also doing an audience talk back with her on opening night so you can get a glimpse. I think sometimes its hard to realize whats right in front of you with an emerging artist or a new band. Sometimes we wait til we read it in Rolling Stone or The Times or whatever, to know there’s a good writer or an artist doing something. I’m telling you, don’t wait for her to be huge to check her out. Don’t wait unitl tickets are $65 (currently they’re not). Check her out now. It’s worth it.

Tuttle

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