DIRECTING EMPHASIS
I was incredibly lucky to be selected for BoCo's Directing Emphasis my senior year. In the fall semester I directed three ten minute scenes (from "The Weed Play [...]", "You're Invited to Jessica's 10th Birthday Bash" and "I Tried to say I Love You but I Had a Cigarette in My Mouth"), as well as directing "Stop Kiss" by Diana Son in the spring.
STOP KISS
by Diana Son
Set in the 1990s in New York City, the story of Stop Kiss revolves around Callie, who works as a traffic reporter. She meets Sara—a midwesterner who, against her parents’ wishes, has moved to New York to teach third grade students in the Bronx. As the two get to know each other, their shared experiences and sense of humor create a strong bond, and the pair unexpectedly fall in love. As their lives intermingle, tension builds to one fateful kiss on a park bench in the middle of the night. The fallout of that kiss reverberates through Sara and Callie’s lives, changing them in ways they did not expect. Stop Kiss asks what we’re willing to risk to be with the one person we never expected to come along in the first place.
DIRECTOR's NOTE
Fall of my junior year was the first time I read Stop Kiss, thanks to the one and only Helen Lewis-Michelson’s Queer Theater and Film class. While we were discussing this play, I can so clearly recall frantically scribbling down ideas of how I would direct this piece if I ever got the chance. This staging of Stop Kiss comes straight from that notebook.
Taking that class was perhaps the greatest thing to happen to me in my time at this school for many, many reasons, but one of them being the confidence it brought me within my identity. If it weren’t for that class—material, teacher, and students alike—I wouldn’t be half the lesbian I am today. One of the questions Helen posed in this discussion was the following (paraphrased, of course): “In looking at the letters Callie has received from other lesbians regarding violence they have faced, do you think this then defines for Callie what it means to be queer?” It was vital that we explore this question as a company, to make sure this play did not just fall into the pile of other “tragic” queer stories. I think, if anything, this play displays that no matter how much people may try to destroy or hurt our community, we will not let violence define what it means to be queer.
I hope you leave this performance not exclusively swimming in the obvious grief that is presented in this play, but revel in the love that is so deeply embedded in this text. If you remember anything from the next 90 minutes, let it be the kiss shared between Sara and Callie. To the most incredible cast, thank you from the bottom of my heart for making this dream a reality. Thank you to Helen, my family, friends, lovers, and queers alike—your heart is in this piece, too. And thank you, audience, for supporting sapphic art—the world needs it now more than ever.
