Review Fix Midtown International Theatre Festival Coverage: Ashley Lauren Rogers Talks ‘Pass/Fail’

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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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14230 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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