Becky Byers as “Honey”, Allison Buck as “Danya”, & Emily Williams as “Ellen” in GEEK! by Crystal Skillman
Let’s forgo the klunky introduction and jump right into the mix. Playwright Crystal Skillman‘s play, GEEK!, opened on March 21, 2013, at St. Mark’s Church 131 East 10th Street, 2nd Floor, and runs through April 13. Tickets can be bought here. She is so great to interview and covers so much ground, nothing more needs to be said.
Oh, OK, if you insist, here’s the official play description:
“With pissed-off Pikachus, steam punk armies, stood-up Sailor Moons and roller-blading monsters on the prowl, it’s easy to get lost in the Inferno-esque anime convention where the fans, the otakus, and the geeks prowl. But to score a rare signature from their comic book idol, teenage outcasts Dayna and Honey will take on obsessive magic players, Jedis and elfs, cosplayers and convention guards - through all nine flights of Ohio’s Dante’s Fire-Con - to get a chance to shake hands with their pop-culture hero.”
Tim O’Shea: Was there a certain con experience in particular that inspired this play?
Crystal Skillman: Yes! About three years ago Fred and I were at the Miami Super Comic Con. We’d been to many cons together - I love being his girl friday and taking photos of him signing and being a booth babe and all. But I adore checking out each convention and how different they all are too. I feel like at each one you’re seeing who has come in, but also those who live in the area - one of the great joys is seeing Fred meet fans from all over. The Miami con was quite big and sprawled over three levels each clearly designated to comics, anime and gameplay. It was held in an interesting space full of nooks and crannies more than other cons I’d been too. While Fred was signing at the booth, I began taking photographs that began to truly inspire me. As I captured the awkward beautiful vulnerability and tenacity and just spunk of these cos-players, coupled with the experience of watching fans for so many years coming to Fred’s table being so affected, I strongly felt there is a play here. A play the explored and celebrated fandom. The play, as crazy fun as it is, became more and more personal reflecting my own Geek past, that has so inspired and affected by whole life (for example I’m the kinda gal that made my mom drive me to school, before I could drive, to avoid being made fun of on the schoolbus 
), suddenly kicked into high gear. I wanted to write a play that was poppy, fun and which captured the con experience, but truthful to the struggle all Geeks have to find who they connect with and who they are.
I have to know, the holy grail of this play (the pop culture icon) would it be giving anything away to say if the character appears in the play?`
Hmmm … I think you’ll have to come to see! What I can say is that Joto Samagashi, the creator of Dante’s Fire, the manga and anime these girls admire, is very reclusive and so many people want to see her so the girls really do have to race from level to level in such an exciting way. One of my friends read the script and was like - are you a runner? (I’ve started running outdoors). When I told her I was she was like, “Oh I see.” The play is an adrenial rush full of urgency which really strips away these girls as they go and we really get to know them and the past they’re running from. But one of the great joys of this play was creating this world and the elusive character of Joto Samagashi. The world is so detailed and Vampire Cowboys has done an incredible job making it feel so real. There’s fake mangas, ads, logos - and the story is told very much through the kids you meet dressed up as these fictional characters all coming to life through their awesome costumes. With Vampire Cowboy’s incredible design team you are indeed entering Dante’s Fire Con. It’s been so exciting that it feels so real but is all fictional! What keeps the drive of the play is the need to see Samagashi, their idol, which I’m so proud of capturing. In writing how each Geek feels about Samagashi, I realized to them she is god. What would it be like to meet God? That drove a lot of the writing for the Geeks drive to meet the ever reclusive, exclusive Joto Samagashi.
How did director Robert Ross Parker come to be attached to this production?
One of the great dreams of this opportunity has to been to work with Robert. I’ve been following his work with Vampire Cowboys of course (Soul Samurai, Agent G, She Kills Monsters, written by good friend and brilliant playwright Qui Nguyen). I’m also a huge fan of his other directing work which includes Goodbye Cruel World, an adaptation of an older Russian comedy. What makes Robert special is that his work has a poppy style but great humanity. He’s an actor’s director but so visual which is rare combo. You always feel for the characters. That’s perfect for Geek! Each real character is playing a larger thank life character from Dante’s Fire, so most of our work this year has been really fleshing out these characters acting like heroes, but keeping true to the reality that these are teenagers you’d meet in every day. So I guess the answer is more that I was a stalker of Robert Ross Parker’s awesome? And I’ve ended up the most happy stalker in the world! Working with him on this play has been so exciting and the results are beautiful, crazy fun, and touching.
Walk us through the cast (and their characters)?
One of the most amazing things about this play is that it’s a six actor ensemble playing all the roles! Danya and Honey are the two girls racing through all nine levels of this crazy. They are played by Allison Buck and Becky Byers and are truly extraordinary. But that leaves … um … like a shitload of characters left to play with zest and zeal! The ensemble is played by: Sheldon Best, Rebecca Comtois, Eugene Oh and Emily Williams!
On this hero’s journey in the middle of the Dante’s Inferno you’re going to meet:
Two old school Security Guards obsessed with Star Wars & Star Trek; mid-western pre-teen sisters playing Dante’s Fire Devil Angels; Miss Cosy Con! a cutie pie (with cute eyes and a hot temper!) animated downloadable iphone app of the con that Danya & Honey use to find their way; Brian, a fifth grader dressed as the Timekeeper running an illegal cos-playing fight club, Minnie, an overly dramatic girl dressed as a fuzzy Minotaur desperately trying to win at said fight club; Gwen, playing Cleo the arch rival in Dante’s Fire and Danya’s arch rival from her preteen days at another school; Battle Bot Boy, a head gear wearing third grader playing an evil robot; Two Devil Cats, my homage to mithras and who turn out to be quite evil!; An entire steam punk “army” being lead by Toby, Danya’s love interest, dressed as Steam Punk Army leader Ulee-o (who also turns out to be Gwen’s ex-boyfriend) AND a kid who will only “talk” as his loveable character he’s play called Squeaker (he speaks in squeaking horn honks) … you’ll have to come to discover him! But I’ll tell ya this: he’s big and orange and cute! Can you tell who he is? Other characters include: Two Princesses, one played by a Goth Boy and a Goth Chick; Manno, a kid who plays a very obsessed Wizard obsessed with Magic cards, Spring, a french Home-schooled Larping Archer Girl and Tiny Ajax, a very tall kid playing a Dwarf who loves to rock and roll (dice, of course!)
In a play trying to convey nine flights of Ohio’s Dante’s Fire-Con—on one stage. How challenging is that to pull off?
One of the most fun things about Geek has been this challenge. In one of the workshops we realized that part of the charm of getting into this Dante’s Inferno like-world was the idea that we can go every which way. Which is kind of a Willy Wonka elevator like logic. We began to realize part of the magic of this place was the idea that a hatch-door could be pulled from the ceiling or from the side or they could go through a grate. Let’s just say early on our girls end up being in serious trouble and for sure need to find alternate ways to meet their hero.
When did you settle upon the name Geek!-and were you ever hesitant thinking some may see that as a negative connotation?
The name is actually is a huge part of the play and much thought went into it. To me, this term is a perfect metaphor for someone trying to put you in a box. But also, it becomes a badge of pride, a rite of passage in growing up to take this term and use it to show WHO you really are. Growing up is realizing you can communicate who you are. Being a teenager or younger, that’s super hard. You don’t know the whole world yet. You wonder - will I step out and be this forever? And you love it and you defend it yet, you’re trying to find who you are. The most chilling part of the play is where we see how the word Geek is turned against our main characters in a youtube video of the past - when they were cos-playing in the park. They were just recording it the other day and I almost started crying. I remember what it was to be called these words. I still am even sometimes … though much rarer within hearing distance and for some reason lately I’m just taunted by being called “Tina Fey” in the streets of Brooklyn? Which is kinda great taunt to have. But the cruelty of others and preying upon those with other feelings and thoughts and viewpoints is what this play exposes. To keep true to our identity and self, do we retreat into fantasy which we use as armor against the world? As escapism? Or do we use and learn from fantasy what we learn about ourselves when facing such cruelty to turn it back onto the world. To put forth how much we transcend names. Life and people are much more complicated. That is something to celebrate! Geek is indeed a celebration of the imagination and using that to battle reality … and yet live in it and find a place to belong.
How long did it to take for you to develop the play from its initial idea to where we are now?
When Qui called me telling me the news that he was taking a break from the Vampire Cowboys show and commissioning me as a new writer,I danced around for joy. Then thought what will I write? This Geek idea I had just after returning from the Miami Comic Con just leapt into my head. I told them I wanted to capture the feeling of the fan and they whole play to be from their perspective. This is this first play that the brilliant Qui isn’t writing for Vampire Cowboys. For the play to be about fans makes sense to me. This is a play that embraces all of fandom and I hope our audiences enjoy that and feel like they themselves are racing through the con like our main characters Danya and Honey. I wrote the play in 2011, then we did two public workshops in 2012 and now we just opened this past weekend! It’s just been an amazing process. Much of the workshops and rehearsal was about walking that fine line between the big fantasy visuals being grounded from the given circumstances of reality. I’d call them Community rules, following up with how they did the western paintballing episode. You go with how they see things, but we never lose sight that these are real people, these characters on this journey. Our amazing VC team was dedicated to that and Robert lead them all the way. That team includes Kristina Makowski and Jessica Shay’s costumes, David Valentine’s puppet work, Matthew Tennie’s projections, Shane Rettig’s sound, Ray Rodriguez’s fights which all explode the incredible work Robert and the actors are doing.
What is Incubator Arts Project-and is this your first play associated with them, or have they always been associated with Vampire Cowboys?
Incubator Arts Project developed out of the Ontological Theater. They do AWESOME work. Ontological was Richard Foreman’s theater back in the day and I leaned a lot from theater in that space. One of my favorite actors who worked with him all the time was James Urbaniak who was in much of those Richard Foreman plays (and for our readers here is the voice of Doctor Venture on the Venture Brothers!)
Creatively, what else is in the pipeline for you?
Writer/composer Bobby Cronin asked me to hop on board co-writing the musical The Concrete Jungle and you can download the amazing international recording on itunes! It’s so exciting. We hope it finds a home super soon. At the same time I’ve been developing my new play Another Kind of Love, about a famed rock star singer seeking redemption in her niece who is walking a dangerous line herself. And hot off the press is the new play Drunk Art Love which is getting an incredible presentation - a fully staged workshop with the wonderful claque theatre in their Quick & Dirties series this April. Nick Leavens will be directing - super excited. Details are here! All the plays and playwrights are awesome. Check it out!
Anything we should discuss that I neglected to ask?
I just want to say I loved your conversation with Fred about his wonderful series Archer and Armstrong. I love all of Fred’s work and this series is very, very special. I’m also super excited about what he’s cooking up with Action Presidents and a few projects coming out soon. I’m a very lucky gal to live both in the theatre and comic book world and I love all the cross over happening with both worlds. Thrilled to be a part of that. We both hope to see you soon Tim at a convention!
