Here are the facts: I am an emerging playwright. I am a black queer woman. I am a nerd who has loved actors ever since the first time I saw Mary Stuart Masterson cry at Mary Louise Parker’s bedside in Fried Green Tomatoes, and on March 12th, 2020, my Off-Broadway premiere about a Black queer sixteen-year-old who loves the movies was shuttered by COVID-19. Sitting here in my apartment in Astoria Queens where reruns of Funny Girl and 9 to 5 abound, however, I have no interest in waxing poetic about loss. All the Natalie Portmans played twenty performances before closing, so my hurts are nothing compared to those of productions that never made it that far. Therefore, when asked to write this piece I thought I’d share some facts that have sustained me rather than kept me nursing wounds. They are not facts I could have checked by some staffer at a magazine, but they are facts that have nourished my love of the theater lately. They have also nourished my love of myself, and in doing so, have taught me that the lines between this work we do and the lives we lead are sliver thin. COVID-19 might be with us for a while, but what a boon that our very selves are enmeshed with the theater. Fates willing, it will sustain our art form beyond this crisis.

Unprovable Fact #1: The first time I watched All the Natalie Portmans with an audience was unbearable. I know what you’re thinking, “Bummer, CA,” but hear me out! They tell us as emerging playwrights that the audience will be that final piece of the puzzle, which, when settled in place, makes all of the hard work worth it. And they aren’t wrong. Hearing a room full of strangers laugh and cry with my characters was a constant joy and surprise. That being said, whether those strangers could fully accept the emotional realities I presented to them was less about some dramatic puzzle piece and more about the literal folds of my Black queer self. I, the playwright, had to sit amongst a (predominantly white) group of people as they judged whether realities I know to be true are universal: whether the emotional costs of poverty are worth noting, whether queer identification or the lack thereof is worth understanding, whether the pervasive nature of whiteness is something we should grapple with, not merely a story point that made them ask me silly questions about a famous person. Sitting in that theater, being held by its darkness, cost me something.

But then we had a party. MCC put some drinks and nibbles out in the lobby and our entire company hustled out to eat and drink to our heart’s content. As I nervously walked amongst this crowd, though, there were these tiny moments: lightly touching hands with one actor, a wink and a smile from another, a firm, but anxious nod from my director, a frenzied mini-dance break with my designers…it all added up to one thing. It had cost them something too. And that fact, that collective sigh of, “Oof, theater,” is the very reason I came back for most previews. Sure it hurt, but the warm embrace of a company of theatremakers didn’t hurt one bit.

 Unprovable Fact #2: I freaking love actors. I mean, I wrote an entire play about a girl who loves Natalie Portman so hard she dreams her up into the perfect imaginary (girl)friend. Then when that imaginary pseudo suitor lets her down, Keyonna still clings to dreams of her own name in lights because, ultimately, it means being closer to literal human magic, to acting. I’ll never get over the first time the sounds I’d crafted into Keyonna came out of Kara’s mouth, the first time Josh made me laugh so hard I forgot how much I miss my own brother, or how when Montego cut her eyes just so, I was eleven years old again, afraid of my mother’s disdain. Or how about the way Renika took up the exact cadence of a girl from my childhood without even knowing it, even mastering how her infuriating sideways glances inevitably evolved into open, hungry stares. Then there’s the way an audience ate up Elise’s comedic timing, but then shrank back when Natalie got complicated, Elise’s open heart suddenly a land mine. Folks, acting is a strange art, but the first time an actor takes a deep breath, looks up, and embodies emotions you wrote in the dark is indescribable.

Unprovable Fact #3: Kate Whoriskey exists. Okay, someone could prove this one scientifically, but I’m not talking about temporal truth here, so it counts! I’ll also keep this section short because Kate and I are alike in our desire to say what we feel quietly and with sufficient intellect. There’s this thing that more people should tell young playwrights, and I’ll share it here: the world is full of great directors, but you should pick the ones who know what the spaces between your lines mean. I write big verbose plays, but the directors I trust with them know the words aren’t the real point. It’s about the utility and futility of language, the promise of a shared breath. I never had to tell Kate that. She just knew.

So what do we make of these facts? What do we make of my experience putting this little play up only for COVID-19 to leave our company rudderless in cramped apartments? I think the answer is simple. I big love the theater. I big love the people I got to make it with. And I am endlessly hungry to do it again, as I’m sure many of you are from your corners of the field. So, take note of these facts, and name what they are for you every day. I don’t care if you just think about them, jot them down, or whisper them to a lover. Just promise me you’ll hold onto the crazy, unprovable facts that make the theater our home for as long as this crisis requires.

Editor’s note: All the Natalie Portmans opened at the Robert W. Wilson MCC Theater Space and closed after twenty performances on March 12, 2020.

All the Natalie Portmans is about the refuge and pitfalls of fantasy, specifically a white Hollywood fantasy, for sixteen-year-old Keyonna who is growing up in DC, poor, black, and queer. Threatened with eviction, Keyonna escapes into an unreal world of all the iconic characters played by her muse, Natalie Portman.

Banner photo by Daniel J. Vasquez, featuring Elise Kibler and Kara Young from All the Natalie Portmans at MCC Theater.