The Pipeline premiere reading of Amy E. Witting’s Eleven Shades of Blue is coming to our Bonfire Series this coming July 15, 7:30PM. In advance of her reading, we asked Amy to tell us a little more about how this, her lightest and perhaps most outrageous play yet, came into existence.
And don’t forget to reserve your seat to Eleven Shades of Blue, July 15, 7:30PM, South Oxford Space.
Pipeline Theatre Company: What do you want us to know about your play?
Amy E. Witting: This play is a love letter to my MFA professor Tina Howe. She inspired my imagination to go in fantastical directions. I never thought this piece would ever have a life because of how outrageous it is but grateful for Pipeline’s commitment to the unbridled imagination.
PTC: When and where did you decide to start writing this play? Why?
AEW: As a writer based in Queens I’m often found writing on the Q train riding from Astoria to Coney Island. One hot summer day a couple years ago I went on an adventure with Tina Howe to Coney Island. We went to the aquarium and stood watching the fish swim around and around and around. We ate at a place called Paul’s Daughter and I thought that would be a good title for a piece. After chewing on it for a bit Tina gave me a prompt (or perhaps a challenge) to write a play that was outside my normal wheelhouse.
THE PROMPT
- The play should be set in Coney Island with scenes in and around the rides and/or the aquarium.
- The time frame is is up to you. You can use time as you will.
- The characters should include:
a) A precocious little girl between the ages of 8 and 10 who has some enormous ambition
b) Someone with a physical disability who works on one of the rides or at the aquarium
c) A member of a royal family from a far away foreign country who’s lost
d) A photographer
The zero draft was workshopped in my class and I started doing a first round of rewrites though Mission to (dit)MARS and finally committed to doing a page one rewrite during the PlayLab this past year. I intuitively write plays that deal with darkness and the complexity of the mind in relationship to others, and Tina encouraged my lighter side, which was a delightful challenge.
PTC: What excites you most about this project?
AEW: The fierce women that occupy this Dreamland.
PTC: In one sentence, tell us something strange that happens in your play.
AEW: I don’t think anything normal happens in this play.
PTC: Are you working on anything else? What?
AEW: I’m working on a few things at the moment but most pressing is my new TV Pilot WIDOWED – about a woman in her thirties whose husband dies just before she asks him for a divorce and freezes his sperm to please her mother-in-law. It’s a traumcom.
PTC: Two truths and a lie, go:
AEW: I once got stuck on a log flume ride at Great Adventure.
I briefly lived overlooking the Coney Island Boardwalk.
My first rollercoaster ride was by myself at Busch Gardens after winning a giant Shamu doll.
PTC: What’s next for you?
AEW: End of July I’m gratefully going back as an alumni to the Kennedy Center to workshop my new play HOUSE ON THE HILL as part of NNPN’s MFA Playwrights workshop.
About Eleven Shades of Blue
by Amy E. Witting | directed by Sash Bischoff
Friday, July 15, 7:30PM
Reserve Your Seat
Four women in search of a missing piece of themselves meet on the Coney Island boardwalk. Through their unlikely adventures, each learns to let go of her past and move forward alone, together.
