Talking with Tim

Nosedive Productions' The Little One

Growing out of my recent Crystal Skillman interview, I learned about playwright James Comtois‘ upcoming production of The Little One (opening June 18 [after a June 17 preview] and running through to July 10 at New York/East Village’s Kraine Theater [85 East 4th Street). As described at the Nosedive Production site:  "Cynthia, a fledgling vampire, is taken under the wing of a more venerable one, Marie. Marie tries to teach Cynthia how to hunt, be merciful towards humans and make the most out of immortality. However, like all rebellious children, Cynthia intends to carve out her own path." My thanks to Comtois for talking to me about the play in this email interview, as well as discussing the 10th anniversary of the theater company (a company with the motto of "Theatre for Sick Little Monkeys") that he co-founded.

Tim O'Shea: Vampires are a frequently explored theme in movies, plays, novels and music--how did you decide to approach the subject in a way that makes it stand out from the current Twilight-happy trend (Given that as you noted several months back:  "My goal was (is) to make the main characters interesting, sympathetic and (in their own way) likable, but periodically remind the readers/viewers that if they were to hypothetically meet any of these characters, they'd be running for their lives, crying and screaming.")

James Comtois: Well, making The Little One different from Twilight was pretty easy, since not only am I not very familiar with the Twilight franchise, but from what I hear, I'm not very interested in changing that. My interest level in exploring the vampire as a metaphor for unrequited young love or abstinence is at about zero.

In a lot of ways, the vampires in The Little One are very traditional. They drink blood. They stink of death. Some of them get off on terrorizing humans. They're the stuff of nightmares.

But this show also plays around with some conventions of the vampire tale. Without giving too much away, we have our own rules regarding crucifixes. We offer specific—and I hope, new—reasons for why the vampires in this play can't socialize with humans. A lot of the vampires have very different ideas on how to make the most of immortality. Some thrive on cruelty towards humans, while others prefer to be merciful to their meals.

Ultimately, The Little One focuses on the vampires: they're the main characters, not the humans. So the challenge for me was to make the vampire characters sympathetic and somewhat relatable, since they're the ones we'll be following in this play. At the same time, there are some scenes that will remind the audience that, although we're interested in following the trials and tribulations of these characters, they're savage, nightmare-inspiring monsters.

O'Shea: How many folks did you audition before settling on a cast? Is the majority of the cast made up of folks you've worked with before or first-time collaborators with you?

Comtois:  We didn't audition very many. We had pre-cast three actors before auditions and asked about nine or 10 people to read for the six remaining parts. They were all people we knew. We like to mix it up a little with each cast: have some of them regular Nosedive veterans and some of them newcomers. In this case, six cast members are Nosedive vets, two are actors we've worked with once before, and one is a first-timer.

O'Shea: In the midst of the audition process, you wrote: "Yes, I'm quite jazzed about this. Not just casting, mind you, but for this show as a whole. I think it has the potential to be great fun for us and for audience members." In terms of audience dynamics, how important in a play like The Little One is it to have a responsive audience for the actors to feed off of that energy?

Comtois:  Well, I think it's important to have a responsive audience for all our shows. The Little One isn't special in that regard. We always say after a few weeks of rehearsals, "it's time to get this in front of an audience." We can only do so many full runs of a show before the director, the cast, and I start getting antsy and want to see what other people besides ourselves think of this thing we've created.

As for the specifics of this play, it's a genre piece. There are elements of horror. There are elements of film noir. We've got some really good actors and really good designers working on this. It has some potential to be very fun for an audience. And I'm really looking forward to seeing what the cast and [director] Pete [Boisvert] bring to the table with this.

It’s a little different than the shows we’ve done before. We’ve done horror shows, but never supernatural horror. We’ve done genre pieces, but they’ve taken a more deconstructionist approach. The response I’ve gotten from those who’ve read the script has been on the whole really, really positive. So like I said, I’m really excited about getting this one in front of an audience.

O’Shea: Nosedive Productions Co-Founder Pete Boisvert is directing the play, has he directed all of your plays at Nosedive? What is about his discretion that makes him a good match for your work, particularly with The Little One?

Comtois:  He’s directed all the full-length pieces since the very beginning, yes. In addition to Pete and I knowing each other sensibilities really well, he’s been really into doing more horror for the stage. He and Patrick Shearer created our annual Blood Brothers horror anthology series. And from our talks, I get that he’s really pumped to tackle a full-length supernatural horror piece, something we’ve never done before. With the Blood Brothers shows, we make it a point that the horror is never supernatural; those shows are always about unremarkable people doing horrible things to others. So this is a way for both of us to tackle something that’s somewhat familiar but also very new.

O’Shea: In September of last year, you noted that you were “finishing up the second draft of The Little One so the crew can read it aloud next week, which will help me figure out how to shape up the script for its third draft.” Can you discuss some of the changes you made between the second and third draft (or some of the feedback the crew gave you on the second draft)?

Comtois:  I should probably note that I didn’t really get any feedback at the reading sessions, aside from some suggestions here and there by Pete about specific lines that caused confusion. We don’t do talkback sessions after readings of my scripts. I don’t think they’re very helpful. But hearing the piece out loud helps me figure out which scenes drag, which scenes aren’t effective enough in conveying what needed to be conveyed, what needs to be cut and what needs to be added.

After hearing the play out loud, I realized that the second act was too thin and ended too abruptly. I wanted to make the character of Marie, the elder vampire that mentors Cynthia, somewhat mysterious, but I realized she was too mysterious: almost a cipher. I also thought Cynthia and Marie’s relationship needed to be fleshed out more. Plus, there was a very minor character I introduced in the second act, but based on actor Christopher Yustin’s reading—he was one of the actors we pre-cast—we realized he needed to be a much bigger part.

So, those are the aspects that I incorporated into the third draft. I’m sure that when we have the next reading at our first rehearsal, I’ll do one final round of rewrites and that’ll be the script we rehearse with.

O’Shea: Judging by this post, you really tried to avoid writing a play about vampires, given how much of a pop culture trend it’s been in recent years. Did it surprise you that as much as you wanted to avoid it, your mind was also coming up with great scenes–drawing you back in to the tale?

Comtois:  Oh, absolutely. I had the idea for the story for this play a little while, but decided to hold off on writing it precisely because of the glut of vampire flotsam out there. But the idea kept gnawing at my brain, so I decided to write down the two or three scenes that were running on a constant loop in my head just to get them out of my system. Of course, after those two scenes were written, I had about four other corresponding scenes that sprung into my head, so I wrote those down as well. When I was done I had written about 20 pages in one sitting, and more scenes kept springing up. The next day I had written another 20 pages. I realized then that this was going to be the next Nosedive show.

At the time I was surprised at the time that my brain kept forcing me to go back to the subject, but in hindsight, I shouldn’t have been, since that’s how most of my plays are written, or at least completed. I write about the things that are rattling around and coalescing in my brain the most. Whenever I try to give myself an “assignment” it almost never gets done. It almost always only gets done when it’s the primary story that’s on my mind.

O’Shea: Who did the iconic cast promotional shots? Not surprisingly, the blood red aspects really popped.

Comtois:  Heh, you like those? Yeah, I do, too. They’re candid shots or headshots of our cast members that Pete’s retouched. The one exception is the one of Becky Byers (the titular little one). That’s a self-portrait she took specifically for this show. I really dig ‘em.

O’Shea: Are there any unique nuances to the Kraine Theater’s stage that you hope to capitalize upon with The Little One? Are all Nosedive projects performed at the Kraine Theater, or do you sometimes stage them elsewhere?

Comtois:  The main thing with the Kraine is it’s in a great location (the East Village) and has a large house (99 seats). We’ve also done shows run by the management (Horse Trade Theater Group) and they’re good people. We’ve never done anything this big before. We staged one show at the Kraine before, but it was for a limited run. And most of the spaces we’ve staged our shows in have had 40-60 seats. So we’re quite excited—and more than a little apprehensive—to do a month-long run in a 99-seat theatre. But, hey. This is our 10th anniversary show. Now’s as good a time as any to get in a little over our heads.

O’Shea: It’s been 10 years since you co-founded Nosedive Productions, have the past 10 years met or exceeded your expectations for Nosedive?

Comtois:  Considering I went into this hoping to just get two or three of my plays staged and had no idea we’d last 10 years, let alone two, I’d definitely say the company has far exceeded my expectations.