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MARCH 22–MAY 19 PLAYWRIGHTS HORIZONS A CO-PRODUCTION WITH >>>BOOK YOUR TICKETS NOW FROM THE DESK OF CASTING TIM SANFORD UPDATE as of 1/7/13 DEAR FRIENDS, Those of you who saw Tanya Barfield’s headed into gently satiric territory about Blue Door here in 2006 may be struck, well-meaning white liberals. Yet there is when you read her Playwright’s no glib edge to her tone. The uncertain Perspective, by a kind of shadow parallel shifts in this couple’s journey seem between that play and Tanya’s description grounded in humility, not presumption. KERRY BUTLER BROADWAY: Gore Vidal’s The Best of the genesis of The Call. Blue Door tells Gradually, the title of the play comes Man, Catch Me If You Can, Rock of Ages, Xanadu (Tony the story of a super-assimilated African to seem somewhat ironic in that there nomination), Little Shop of Horrors, Hairspray, Beauty & American math professor who becomes is no one clarion call of moral certainty the Beast. TV & FILM: “White Collar,” “Blue Bloods,” “30 increasingly haunted by specters from that beckons them to answer. They are Rock,” “Rescue Me,” Borough of Kings. America’s and his own ancestral history. in fact pulled in a host of directions, by The path that led Tanya to write The the burdensome requirements of the EISA DAVIS PH: This. BROADWAY: Passing Strange. OFF- Call seems to have run in reverse. She adoption bureaucracy, their own parental BROADWAY: Passing Strange (Public); The Violet Hour describes how her natural predisposition instincts, issues of pragmatism, their (MTC); June and Jean In Concert (Public, Signature). TV to write about African American history intermarital dynamics, self-doubt and & FILM: “Hart of Dixie,” “Smash,” “Mercy,” “Damages,” seemed to leave her as the specter of her a gnawing categorical imperative. The The Stare, In the Family, Welcome to the Rileys. own personal story began to call to her. polyphony of calls threatens to paralyze them with indecision for a time. There’s CRYSTAL A. DICKINSON PH: Clybourne Park. BROADWAY: I was grateful to Tanya for her openness no reasoning their way out of their Clybourne Park. OFF-BROADWAY: Born Bad (Soho about her personal adoption story, not conundrum, yet not choosing is also a Rep); Broke-ology (Lincoln Center Theater); Ruined because it explains the play somehow, choice. (Manhattan Theatre Club); The First Breeze of Summer but mainly because it makes it easier (Signature Theatre). TV: “Tyler Perry’s House of Payne.” to talk about the levels of complexity Tanya’s perspective piece movingly and ambivalence the play contains. It shares how the personal and the political RUSSELL G. JONES OFF-BROADWAY: Marie & Bruce might be understandable to assume have merged in her own life. And for (The New Group); Ruined (MTC, Goodman); A View from that a play titled The Call about a white me, the wallop that The Call delivers 151st Street, The Fairy Tale Project (LAByrinth Theater couple adopting a child from Africa might stems from the skill and subtlety with Company); God, The Crackhouse & the Devil (La Mama). deal substantially with issues of global which she backs the play into this TV & FILM: “Smash,” “Law & Order” franchise. politics. But the tone of the play is much truth. Politics is just posturing without more slippery than that. When we start personal investment, and individual out, we think dreams are ephemeral in a social vacuum. we might Playwrights attune their ears finely to be their inner voices to hear a call to write a MEET THE TEAM play, just as all of us listen for the call that During the run of The Call, post-performance discussions guides our own aspirations and actions. I with members of the creative team have been scheduled listen for a similar call when I bring a play for the following dates: to you. I look for plays that speak to all others as a culture and a nation, and I Wednesday, March 27 with Tim Sanford, Artistic Director look for plays that speak to me personally. The Call does both. I am confident it will Sunday, March 31 with Adam Greenfield, Director of New Play Development (following the matinee) speak to you as well. Tuesday, April 2 with Tim Sanford, Artistic Director Thursday, April 18 with Andrew Leynse, Artistic Director, Primary Stages Wednesday, April 24 with Michelle Bossy, Associate Artistic Director, Primary Stages Tim Sanford These discussions are an important aspect of our play Artistic Director development process. We hope you can take part! Show your PH community spirit and keep abreast of everything we do through our social media networks: Facebook.com/PlaywrightsHorizons Twitter.com/PHNYC PHOTO BY CHRISTINE GATTI PlaywrightsHorizons.Tumblr.com PLAYWRIGHT’S PERSPECTIVE: TANYA BARFIELD I did not want to write this play. I refused. Without realizing what I was biography of a great writer. It was terrible; terribly mundane and doing, I pointedly and stubbornly refused. It wouldn’t make a good play, I uninteresting and excruciating. thought. And I didn’t know how to write it. What I knew—what I was known for—were plays about the African-American experience through history. I After a while, I found myself sitting in my friend Lucy’s kitchen. Stymied and did not want to write a contemporary play, a play close to me, a play about stubborn with the answer right in front of me, but I couldn’t see. adoption. “Just write it,” Lucy said. “Write about adoption, and you don’t have to And so I didn’t write. show it to anyone.” And I didn’t write. I didn’t write. For over a year, I got up at 4:00am to figure out this play. My kids would Anything. wake up two hours later, at which point being a mom would kick-in, leaving little room to write, let alone to write something deeply personal. Here As my mentor Marsha Norman had said to me and I had told my students was a play that required ME—and the many other moms I had met along hundreds of times, “Write what you don’t want to write. Even if it’s a the way to motherhood —as the primary source material. It was scary. It comedy, write what makes you uncomfortable. Let yourself be afraid when was uncomfortable. you write.” But, instead, I tried to continue on my steady path. And yet writing through history—once so easy for me—had become hard. The Doubt surrounding motherhood is a taboo subject. Images of idyllic moms characters wouldn’t emerge. So, reluctantly, I decided to give in and write and their babies are everywhere. The iconography of picture-perfect a contemporary play. I decided that it would be neat, tidy and well-made motherhood fills our culture: perfect moms and perfect babies. And yet with just enough idiosyncratic wordplay and character eccentricity that what mother is actually picture-perfect? In writing The Call, I try not to anyone could enjoy. A wise play, a funny play that had great ideas and was sugar-coat adoption or the prospect of parenting in general. When it comes also whimsical and wouldn’t push anyone’s button—especially mine. I to adoption, many people ask “how can you raise someone else’s child?” didn’t want to write a play that was Answering—no, asking—this question is what this play is about. I love all heart. So, I began many tidy, my children more than anything else in the world and I can’t imagine life whimsical plays but quickly without them. It was love at first sight. But, I’d be lying if I said that I never discarded them. Then, stopped to question what I was doing and wonder if I was doing it “right.” I decided to embrace I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that self-doubt and tears didn’t accompany the writer’s block. joy and pride. “I’m having writer’s block,” I’m a bi-racial gay woman, raised by a Caucasian mom and African-American I thought, “and stepdad (who was just Dad to me). My family wasn’t picture-perfect. My it’s going to parents loved me—the same way I love my kids—more than anything else be poetic.” in the world. Yet, from the time I was a baby, “political” was stamped on It wasn’t. It my forehead and became the fabric of my identity. Today, many families was not at all are interracial through biology or adoption. These cross-cultural bonds similar to a are still sometimes viewed through the lens of politics but for the most writer’s block part we have come to understand that it is not politics, but love and care, from a that weave people together. Four decades after I was born, Americans are redefining what it means to be a family, and I have found that today my “political” identity is personal to so many. The Call is about adoption, yes. It’s about race, midlife, Africa and marriage. It’s also about taking a leap, as terrifying as it may be. It’s about stepping outside your comfort zone and committing to something bigger than yourself. It’s about recognizing the power of change and then actually doing it. About being an active member of society—the global society— and improving upon it. It’s about hearing the call to be something more, and then taking that call. As uncomfortable as it may be. No, I didn’t want to write this play.

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