Award-winning playwright Winter Miller is the author of our 2014 Fall Show In Darfur which was inspired by what she saw as New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof’s researcher at the start of the genocide in Darfur in 2004. She recently took the time to talk with WAM Theatre about her hopes for our production and her ongoing life and work.
WAM Theatre’s production of ‘In Darfur’ will run from October 30-November 16 at Shakespeare & Company. Click here for more information and to buy tickets.
WAM: What are you hoping the WAM production will look like?
Winter Miller: Everyone I have met from WAM is really open and warm-hearted and that’s special to find. It’s a privilege for me to work with people who are so invested in bringing this play to life. I feel I have a distance from this play now, so I can step back and allow myself to be intrigued to see how WAM will stage it.
WAM: How are you hoping it will effect change?
WM: I would like the play to stay with audiences longer than the duration of the performance. I am hoping for a rise in empathy towards others, an awareness of the privileges of being born in this country. It’s nothing like being born in Darfur. I would like audiences to come away with an inquisitiveness about the news they read and hear, and how it was gathered. This play also has deeply comical moments. I believe strongly that there is room for humor in impossible circumstances.
I hope that people see that this kind of work is worth making and worth supporting. It takes a lot of integrity to produce plays like this. It’s not Bye Bye Birdie, thankfully! I have respect for any theatre company that takes on this play. It’s a challenge to get audiences to see live theatre, but the reward is seeing their faces at the end of the show. It is a reminder that we are hungry for these kinds of shows.
WAM: Do you feel the play has made a difference? Is it even possible to make a difference with a play?
WM: Yes, it is possible to make a difference. It depends on how you measure “a difference.” I can’t give you the metrics. With In Darfur we collaborated with other groups to get New York State to divest from Sudan, and that bill passed. So there are ways that I suppose are calculable, but I hope anytime someone finds themselves involved in plays of mine there is an impact.
WAM: If you could accompany Nick Kristof on a trip today, and write about it, would you?
WM: The only thing that would have made me think twice about going would be if I had children.
WAM: You are an activist and most of your plays are issue oriented. Do you ever want to write a Neil Simon comedy or a Jane Austen novel just for kicks?
WM: No! I’m too curious to settle for writing something that I feel has already been written. Everyone has things they’re called to do and I feel called to tap people on the shoulder and ask them questions. It is across-the-board, in my plays, in my personality, in my teaching. I’m always asking myself what would I do in X or Y situation, so my story-watching and storytelling comes from that direction.
WAM: Do you feel a special link between the Edith Wharton novel The House of Mirth and In Darfur?
WM: I was reading House of Mirth after I came back from Chad and I found myself so moved by Lily Bart’s predicament – to be in her plight based on the accident of birth, that was akin to my In Darfur protagonist, Hawa. Lily endures tragedy because she wasn’t wealthy and because women couldn’t advance on their own. Hawa is smart enough and curious enough to be an English teacher in Sudan; who could she be if she weren’t in the midst of a genocide?
WAM: What genres do you enjoy reading?
WM: I would generally rather read than write, but one can’t change the world merely by reading. I love to read books about writing – I adored Anne LaMott’s Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. And I loved Lewis Hyde’s The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World. I love novels about experiences other than my own that are realistic and include acts of ordinary heroism. And I love memoirs. I loved Tracy Kidder’s biography of Deo Gracias, Strength In What Remains. I got to meet Deo and he’s a warm and inspiring person.
WAM: Where is your passion now? What are you working on?
WM: I am currently writing about the history of abortion in all its aspects. I am interested in the language of abortion – if you want to have it, you call it a baby and if you don’t you call it a fetus? What about male circumcision? How can we alter anyone’s body without their permission? I find art and literature to be a great way to continue to explore our values. I am constantly reevaluating mine because the world keeps changing.
I am also interested in why the Women’s Movement has been so squashed but the Gay Rights movement has been so successful. How do we get the gains for women that we’ve gotten for LGBT people?
WAM: Why do you love to teach writing?
WM: It feels like putting socks on feet – the thing that you do that feels comfortable. I don’t believe you can teach someone how to write but you can teach people how to listen. Learning to be an editor of your own work is as important as being able to tell the story.
WAM: What play of yours would you want us to produce if we could produce any one of them?
WM: Amandine – my musical about a 19th century intersex person. I hope that by mentioning it here we will inspire renewed interest in this work, which is close to my heart.
[Inspired by the memoirs of Herculine Barbin, a 19th century intersex person who was raised a girl and died a man, Amandine – book and lyrics by Miller and music and lyrics by Lance Horne – was set to open off-Broadway in January 2013 before plans unraveled.]
WAM: How do you divide your time today?
WM: I teach more in the fall and spring. I spend a lot of time watching my cat – I’m fascinated with his agility and that he’s self-cleaning. I try to get a lot of exercise to move my body around and feel good. And then I spend a certain amount of time just anxiety-ridden, worrying how will I pay my bills.
WAM Theatre’s production of ‘In Darfur’ will run from October 30-November 16 at Shakespeare & Company. Click here for more information and to buy tickets.