By: Sydney Ellison ’24
This March, the Theater and Arts Department is putting on the Spring Playwriting Festival, which will include work by Macalester’s own students. The Words caught up with one of the students who will be sharing their work, Birdie Keller ‘25, and talked to them about their experiences in the Theatre and English Departments, We also have a Words-exclusive sneak peek of the work they will will be sharing at the festivities, as well as what words of wisdom they would like to share for other students seeking to create and share their creative work. Birdie is currently studying as an English Creative Writing major, with a minor in Theatre Arts.
Q: “How did you initially get involved with the Theater Department at Macalester?”
“For theater, I kind of just in general got involved in it behind the scenes. I worked as assistant stage manager for Thunderbodies last year, and then stage managed a collaboration between a dance composition and Lighting Design class.”
Q: “How did this involvement lead to you becoming a part of the upcoming festival?”
“I took a play writing class last semester, and that’s how I got involved in the festival, because the professor [of that class] is directing and putting together the festival”
Birdie talked about later receiving an email requesting for any interested Theatre students to submit either or both an original 10 minute play or one act they had created. They were able to take the workshopped and revised one act and 10 minute pieces they had created in their writing class to submit for festival selection. Birdie believes that this is a great opportunity for creative students, and specifically playwrights to have an opportunity to have spaces to share their work.
“It’s because there haven’t been as many opportunities for playwriting or just people on the writing-side of theater to do stuff and get involved, so it’s an opportunity for students who have written plays to be involved in a rehearsal process from the playwright side”
Q: In what ways did your Creative Writing major influence your processes as a playwright?
“I kinda approached it the opposite way, I was ‘I’m gonna take playwriting because it’ll help my Creative Writing’. I thought, ‘I’m bad at dialogue. Plays are mostly dialogue; Taking a playwriting class will make my dialogue and prose better!”
Q: Can you tell me a little bit about the piece you will be staging for the festival?
“They picked my one act, Everything is Kinda Unraveling, which is about 30 minutes long, and about 40 pages. It surrounds these couple of characters that have been living in my brain for a while, doing some funky things.”
Q: How would you encourage other students interested in Playwriting and/or interested in sharing their other creative works?
“Definitely take a playwriting class! Also, don’t be afraid to actually do things, even if you think your piece is not necessarily ready I think sharing your work is very scary because it can feel like it has to be the right moment or right thing, and representative of you as a writer, ad everything piece you put out there has to be perfect because people will be looking at it and judging you and saying, ‘That’s how good you are as a writer!’ But I’m trying to not think that way…If you don’t ever put anything out into the world, or finish anything… then you’re not gonna get better.”
Q: Any words for the readers of The Words?
“I love you, readers of The Words! Thank you for reading The Words!”
Birdie will present their one-act submission at the Spring Playwrights’ Festival on Friday, March 3rd at 7:30pm, and Saturday, March 4th at 7:30pm. The festival will be hosted at the Huber-Seikaly Theater in The Janet Wallace Fine Arts Building.
The Words thanks Birdie for conducting this interview and congratulates them on their play’s acceptance to the festival!