Review Fix chats with playwright Ashley Lauren Rogers, who discusses her production “Pass/Fail,†set for a run at this year’s Midtown International Theatre Festival.
About Pass/Fail:
PASS/FAIL by Ashley Lauren Rogers, directed by Samantha Elizabeth Turlington; starring Ashley Lauren Rogers. Through stand up comedy and video segments, Ashley Lauren Rogers tackles the pervasive nature of passing privilege within transgender circles by analyzing her own failures… or instances of “not passing,” in life. (Comedy)
Performance Schedule: Tues 3/8, 7:00pm; Wed 3/9, 8:45pm; Fri 3/11, 6:00pm
Review Fix: What was the inspiration for this project?
Ashley Lauren Rogers: I’d been sitting on this one for almost ten years. Ever since I started college I’d been told I should do a one person show but all the ones that I had seen had been winy and preachy and I didn’t want to do something like that. It wasn’t until I started doing stand-up comedy and found out most stand up comics market themselves as “One Person Show,” performers that I started playing with the form so I said “OK… I’ll just write a stand-up act and cry sometimes.” And so Pass/Fail was born.
Review Fix: What’s your creative process like
Rogers: I try and write a new play every month and challenge myself to try something I’ve never tried every time. Now that Pass/Fail is on paper one of the major elements my Director Samanatha Elizabeth Turlington and I are working on is to make sure I break my usual standup comedy delivery. Not because it’s bad, I don’t think it is at least, but to make sure I’m playing with the piece in ways I hadn’t thought of.
Review Fix: What makes this different or special?
Rogers: If I can be an ego-maniac for a moment… ME! I’m working on portraying information for a diverse audience, people who have only recently learned about trans issues, people who are trans allies, and people who maybe are trans themselves so I’m trying to cast a wide net, not talk down to my audience but still be informative… oh and funny. Also funny!
Review Fix: What did you learn about yourself through this process?
Rogers: Even though it’s a central part of the play I learned it was ok to fail. Not only was it OK it’s a thing we do every day and instead of embracing and laughing about our failures we try to be these perfect infallible creatures and in doing so we can do nothing BUT fail. Just like how gender itself has no right or wrong, no true binary, there’s more to life than just the black or white passing and failing. By failing for years to create a one person show I actually DID make a one person show!
Review Fix: How does it feel to be a part of something like this?
Rogers: I think it’s awesome to be a part of MITF! I’ve been working so how on independent productions and to be a part of an entire festival, especially one with the history that MITF has, it feels like I’m more a part of something much larger.
Review Fix: What are your ultimate goals for this production and for the future?
Rogers: I really want Pass/Fail to be the type of show that I can tour with.
Review Fix: What do you think your audiences will enjoy the most?
Rogers: I think the audience is going to love the conversational style and the mixture of stand-up and multimedia.
Review Fix: What’s next?
Rogers: I’m currently in talks with a few universities in the WI area about bringing Pass/Fail to a few colleges and performing the show for their Gender/Women’s studies courses, I’m leading a panel on playwriting at the Women Out of Binders professional writing convention in Los Angeles, and I’m working on a couple of other independent shows but we’re keeping things pretty under wraps until we get all of our ducks in a row.
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