About the Play:
In the midst of depression, drought, and famine, twelve year old Naveen, determined to remain a child, runs away in search of the family she never had.
About the Author:
Jessica S. Hinds: NYC credits include: Nevin (2010 O’Neill conference Semifinalist), Barren, CA (34th Annual Samuel French OOB Short Play Festival), Control (FringeNYC) Barges (2009 Heideman Award Finalist, Eagles Short Play Lab) Zugzwang (Vagina Festival), A New Shade of Red (33rd Annual Samuel French OOB Short Play Festival) Other credits include: Preservation (2008 O’Neill Conference finalist) Rupert’s Drop (New Voices Festival). Jessica is currently writing the musical FEAST with composer Mason Beggs. www.jessicahinds.com
Jessica’s Forty Days to Forty Plays Interview:
OOB Festival (OOB): Tell us a little about your playwriting career. When did you start
writing plays? What are some of your proudest accomplishments as a playwright?
Jessica S. Hinds (JSH): I started writing plays in undergrad (I wrote A LOT of bad poetry
in junior high), it was sort of by accident but I fell in love with it. I think my proudest
moments as a writer are whenever I’m in a rehearsal, and the play starts to click. It’s like
falling in love over and over again.
OOB: Talk about your entry to this year’s festival. How did you come to write this play?
Was there a particular inspiration behind its creation? What do you hope festival audience
will take from your play?
JSH: My play this year, What Dies Inside Us While We Live, was inspired by a very odd
dream. I dreamt of a young girl searching desperately for a father. The girl eventually
convinced herself that a stranger she once saw chopping wood was her father and tore
herself to pieces trying to please him. It was very unnerving for me. The next week I was
asked what I would like to write my next one act about…so, that’s what I did. Yes the
play is about the need for family, but more importantly the need for human connection.
OOB: The OOB Festival has had the pleasure of hosting three of your short plays,
all which share similar thematic qualities — isolation, alienation, and uncomfortable
environments, among other themes – and wonderfully complicated female protagonists.
Can you talk a little bit about these themes in your work and how they relate to some of
your other plays? Is there a common thread among your plays?
JSH: Isolation, alienation and uncomfortable environments…………………………………..I’m
trying to think of a play I’ve written that does NOT have these themes…give me a minute.
Nope. All my plays have characters desperate to connect. It’s not something I have been trying
to write, it just happens. I spend so much of my time and effort trying to communicate, not just
as a writer, but as a human being. It’s exhausting. Every interaction is a desperate attempt to
translate needs and wants that are deluded and often misrepresented by language. Sometimes
I get unbearably frustrated just trying to order a coffee. That’s why I like theater – I can show
you, put you in the situation, the character, the action, the world, and hopefully you will see/feel/
hear the world the way I do, just for a moment. That’s when the isolation is broken, just for a
moment. But it’s enough to keep me going. Everyone needs to be known. To be known/loved/
connection/family bla bla bla. It’s cliché because it’s true. As for environment, well, it should be
a character itself, or at least have as much power. Everyone has conflict with their environment.
So yes, basic human need that drives people to extremes in uncomfortable situations that demand
change…that’s gunna be in a Jessica Hinds play.
My other plays. Yes! All these themes and complicated protagonists are present in my other
plays. Class and family continue to be subjects I can’t seem to get away from as well. You
can see for yourself in my next piece Why They Came, premiering at the Strawberry Festival
on August 14th at 9pm (www.jessicahinds.com)! It’s even bleaker than What Dies Inside Us
While We Live…I think. So if this play doesn’t depress you then come see Why They Came…a
guaranteed existential breakdown with every ticket.
OOB: What is the history of your festival entry? Do you plan to hone and
further develop the play in upcoming rehearsals? Has it already been produced?
JSH: An earlier version was performed at the New School for Drama last year. I am
continually working on the piece and now hope to include it in a seven play series that all
take place in the same destitute world.
OOB: You are a recent graduate of The New School for Drama (congrats!) and have
been producing work in New York for a little while now. Talk a little bit about upcoming
projects. Do you have any new plays or productions in the work? What are you currently
writing?
JSH: I am also working on a musical with my director, Mason Beggs. It’s been in the works
for about a year. Off and on. It’s got freaks and cannibals and depression and famine…it’s
a comedy. No really it is. Offensive but melodic. I’m also starting a web series. Writing
a few screenplays. I am working on the second draft of a play about fallen Idols, that
epiphany when you see someone for who they really are, and your whole world shifts. I am
writing a third act to a play I thought I finished five years ago. And I’m turning Barron,
Ca (from last year’s festival) into a full length. That one’s a tragedy. Total destruction of a
human being. I have other little projects floating around but those are the big ones.
OOB: Tell us a little about your producer? How did you come to form your relationship
together? If you are self-producing, please talk a little about that process—have you ever
mounted your own work before?
JSH: This is my third year participating in the festival and am looking forward to process.
Producing a play on no budget is a great test for writers.
OOB: Looking back over your personal history in the theatre, what emerges as your
favorite memory? Is there a particular story you’d like to share?
JSH: My favorite memory? hmmm. There are little moments. After the first performance
of What Dies…(at the New School for Drama) a stranger chased after me and tried to
express what the performance had meant to her, but she was so overwhelmed, she couldn’t
put it into words. That was the best compliment. It was beyond words and she gave that
back to me, and I felt connected to this complete stranger in a truly intimate way. It reminded
me of when I was 14 and saw Othello at the Ashland Oregon Shakespeare Festival. After the
performance I approached the actor who played Othello. I tried to speak, I couldn’t, and I just
burst into tears, thanked him and crawled into the restroom. That performance changed me.
That’s what I want to give people. (To learn more about Jessica Hinds and buy lots of tickets to
her mind blowing plays visit www.jessicahinds.com)
