Hometown: I’m originally from Chicago, and moved to Eugene, Oregon, when I was a kid.
Current Town: After living in Portland, Seattle and NYC, my parents, kids and evergreen trees eventually won out, and we now live quietly in green and rainy Eugene.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I work full-time and I’m a mom, so I let playwriting be a wonderful place where I can be open to whatever creative endeavor draws my interest, and right now, I’m working on an historical piece centered on Yoncalla, Oregon, a community 45 minutes south of Eugene. Weird, right?
But in Yoncalla, Oregon, in 1920, under everyone’s noses, a group of five women got themselves elected to the City Council, and it made national, even international news. There was a huge uproar, actually — “The world is ending! The women are taking over! How will they possibly be wives and mothers now?!” — Sound familiar? 100 years later, it can feel like nothing’s changed, or worse, that we’re sliding backwards.
This story piqued my interest because of the elected women, but as I’ve waded into the research, I’ve found many more narrative layers. In 1920, in a muddy little town in Oregon’s Southern Willamette Valley, you see a confluence of so many issues that we grapple with today.
So, beyond the kerfuffle of these five women elected to office, Yoncalla feels like a compelling, and timely, American story. But I’m just getting started.
Beyond that brand-new creative effort, I’m also working on refining a play that’s received some development opportunities, Canopy, to hopefully set it up for production. And I love to write short plays, often responding to submission calls with particular requirements (put a sock monkey in it, make it a fairy tale, set it under water, etc) as a way to flex new muscles and to experiment.
Since I only have about an hour a day to devote to writing, (usually 5-6AM!) I have to be pretty choosy, where to put my energy.
Q: Tell me a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person.
A: As a little kid in Chicago in the 1970’s, I always felt like I had room to do my thing. Kids growing up today will never know the benign neglect my generation enjoyed. (I’m only kidding, my mom was the director of education for the famous Field Museum of Natural History and knocking around that institution probably influenced who I became more than I’ll ever know.)
But back on my Chicago city block, left more or less to my own devices, I’d cross the street to go buy bubble gum at the corner store, or I’d ride my Big Wheel up and down the sidewalk, or I’d play paddle ball with my friends on my front stoop.
I was an only child, and in those early days, playing with lots of neighborhood kids felt so good. And we were lucky: Our apartment had a tiny backyard, with a little tree I could climb.
When we moved West, my parents told me that the building owners back in Chicago had cut down the tree and turned our backyard into a parking lot. I was pretty young, but I still remember feeling the weight of that loss.
I never thought of myself as a creative writer until fairly recently, but my sense of writing plays, I think, relates to that city block, that used to be my universe as a child. In my creative work, I keep asking similar questions:
What happens on full display to the outside world?
What happens inside, behind closed doors?
And what happens, that nobody sees?
Q: If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?
A: I wish that we lived in a country that prioritized funding for the arts and arts education. It breaks my heart that most theatre-goers in America have never taken a drama class, or perhaps even read a play. Actually, it’s just so sad that most Americans will never attend live theatre, period.
Changing theatre would require a focus on reducing barriers to arts engagement for young people, from one-off’s like exposure to a performance through field trips, to experiences like artistic residencies in the schools, to curriculum-based arts learning.
Every kid deserves access to the arts, yet increasingly, only children whose families can afford to pay for out-of-school activities, or who have the flexibility and resource to provide transportation to/from rehearsals and lessons, will have this opportunity.
I am encouraged when I see arts education initiatives build out from successful theatre companies, and I hope we continue to see more of this trend, because (climbs on soapbox) when theatres make the bold choice to expose audiences to new, contemporary work, they’re moving the dial. They’re encouraging artists to explore, experiment and create more diverse and inclusive work. When theatres create platforms for new plays, they’re helping to develop the artform, and enriching the society we share.
Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?
A: I was so fortunate to have teachers who exposed me the foundations of theatre, early. I took French in my public High School, and in our upper-level classes, we read Ionesco, Camus, Molière, Sartre, Racine and others, in French. I probably couldn’t do it anymore, but that was fun. (Please note: Brilliant plays, but all white, male writers. Huh.)
And in college, majoring in DanceTheatre, I continued chipping away at the classical canon, and I also took the headlong dive into feminist theatre that I’ve not yet surfaced from. My “sheroes” include Caryl Churchill, Lorraine Hansberry, Sarah Kane, Lauren Yee, Danai Gurira, Ntozake Shange, Yasmina Reza, Paula Vogel, Sophie Treadwell, Lynn Nottage, Wendy Wasserstein, Anna Deavere Smith, María Irene Fornés — I could go on and on.
These artists are all different aesthetically, but what they have in common is that in their work, no moment is wasted. They will develop and push a theme, extrapolating from a starting point to reach an imaginative, almost supernatural plane. Now, I would never intimate that I can do that, but I remain a humble student of their craft.
Q: What kind of theater excites you?
A: I’m excited by rule-breakers.
Last year, I went on a pilgrimage to Artists Rep in Portland to see Magellanica by E.M. Lewis, directed by Dámaso Rodríguez. Holy smokes! What a play. And it’s five hours long! Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s production of Mojada: A Medea in Los Angeles, by Luis Alfaro, at Portland Center Stage, directed by Julliette Carillo, was similarly stunning — Taking a classic and turning it on its head. And Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s groundbreaking gender-bent “Oklahoma!”, directed by Bill Rauch, was pure delight, and a seminal contribution to the world of casting possibilities, taking a stale, sexist plot and elevating it to a magical realm.
Since I live in a smaller city now, there’s not as much new work to be found, so I love reading plays on New Play Exchange, because the work there is often so fresh and experimental. I am continually inspired by my contemporaries, too many to mention. I’m excited by work that makes me think, laugh, cry. Work that makes me feel. Work that can only be in the theatre.
Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?
A: I’m just starting out, too.
I feel so grateful to mentors, who have shown me the ropes. My first playwriting teacher, Paul Calandrino, pulled me aside after class one night and said, “I think maybe this is your métier.” I had to go home and look up what a métier was, but yeah, I think Paul might be right.
I’m grateful to Donna Hoke, Stephen Kaplan, Carlyle Brown, Tammy Ryan, Sam Graber, for their guidance, and to Asher Wyndham, Ricardo Soltero-Brown, Greg Burdick, Emma Goldman-Sherman, Franky Gonzalez, Nelson Diaz-Marcano, Matthew Weaver and more, for their camaraderie and continuing encouragement.
I’m grateful to every theatre that’s produced my work, and to every director and actor who has brought the words to the stage. I’m even grateful to all the bazillions of places that have rejected my plays because it is all about learning.
I feel goofy offering advice, since I’m pretty new at all this, but here goes: Let’s believe in ourselves, read plays, see plays, make friends, and submit our work.
Q: Plugs, please:
A: Shameless self-promotion:
Upcoming productions include "Partner Of —" at Rover Dramawerks, in Plano, TX and Between Us Productions, in NYC. "Egg in Spoon" at Saw it Here First Productions in London, U.K.; "Inertia" at Oregon Contemporary Theatre, Eugene, OR, and 2Cents Theatre Group, Hollywood, CA.; "Maintaining a Space Cushion" at the Mid-America Theatre Conference, Cleveland, OH; "Incredibly Cute" at Cone Man Running Productions, Houston, TX; "Permission" at Flush Ink Productions, Ontario, Canada, and Itinerant Theatre, Lake Charles, LA; And I’m super-duper excited for staged readings of my full-length play "Canopy" at Parsons Nose Theatre, Pasadena, CA, and WriteON Festival, Cambridge U.K.
Find me on New Play Exchange:
https://newplayexchange.org/users/16553/rachael-carnes
And find the group that I founded, to write and produce plays in response to gun violence:
Code Red Playwrights:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1612954052087850/
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