Review Fix chats with playwright Lynda Crawford, who discusses her production “Stars Out of Balance†and what’s like to be a part of the 10th anniversary season of Planet Connections Theatre Festivity at the Theaters at the Clemente.
Review Fix: What was the inspiration for this project?
Lynda Crawford: I wrote a play a while ago called Strange Rain that was in FringeNYC 2013 and in it there were a few lines about a family of acrobats affected by climate change in the Little Ice Age:
ERICA: The last time we had a major shift was the Little Ice Age in Europe. No summer at all for about fifty years. I saw a bit of that. You know… (Indicates that she means psychically.) Came upon this family of acrobats trying to make a living performing outdoors.
(Bright lights and lively gypsy MUSIC as ACROBAT(S) cartwheels across the stage. SPARROW wakes momentarily from under newspapers and watches.)
Four generations of acrobats, they traveled around the countryside setting up their tents for a week or two at a time. But when the cold came, it became impossible for them. They couldn’t layer up with clothing; it would hinder their acrobatics. And cold forced the audiences to dwindle until, eventually, they had to stop performing.
(The wind is so strong, ACROBAT(s) have trouble maintaining balance. Mid-act, ACROBAT(s) bow and exit. SPARROW goes back to sleep.)
Damn, they were good. I have drawings I could show you.
Someone who read the play suggested the acrobats deserved a play of their own. The idea stayed with me. I made an attempt at one a few years ago, but it was too big, too many characters, and there was something old fashioned about it that I felt didn’t work for today. But I always hoped to find a way to make it work. Then I saw the film The Greatest Showman over the last winter, and I immediately went back to working on it, honed it down to just the most essential characters, set it among people displaced by war and weather, which felt more current to me and that I thought might resonate more, and then began writing from there.
Review Fix: What’s your creative process like?
Crawford: I try to write daily, not always succeeding with that because of various jobs. I often take off with just a glimmer of an idea, not knowing where I’m going, following more than leading. Once I have a little something, then I hone it, develop it. I do a lot of research reading as well. In this case about refugees and people displaced by war. And I had read a wonderful book called An Acrobat of the Heart that gave me a feel for where the older character comes from in teaching the child in the play. In the book, it is really about acting, but it applies to acrobatics as well. Often it takes several drafts and a couple of preliminary readings for me to find real depth and layers. After the early readings, I can see maybe where I need to add foreshadowing of conflict, or eliminate something that’s not needed. And I’ll still keep poking at it into rehearsals.
Review Fix: What makes this different or special?
Crawford: Well, this project is different in that I made a play and then made a play from that play, so it went through a much longer process of becoming. Some of the original play remains, the major characters, but many others did not, and the new material I feel made it more relevant to today. The character of the child became more prominent, and I even added another child. I saw the film The Florida Project over the winter with those wonderful kids in it, and I know I was influenced by that as well.

Review Fix: What did you learn about yourself through this process?
Crawford: That’s a hard question. Maybe that I need time sometimes to know what to do…for the play to tell me.
Review Fix: What are your ultimate goals for this production and for the future?
Crawford: My goal is a production, maybe many productions. But certainly one! And to find the play in all its possibilities in the process.
Review Fix: What’s next?
Crawford: I have a staged reading of another play of mine, Night Shadows, at HB Playwrights Theatre on Thursday, June 28th—part of HB’s Spring Reading Series. It is a play about the Russian poet Anna Akhmatova and what she went through, having her poetry banned and so many loved ones lost. Then this staged reading of Stars Out of Balance on August 1st at LATEA. We’re casting next week. Very excited! That’s what’s on my plate right now.
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