Lights up on a couch potato. Literally.
When I was 9, I wrote my first play about a boy who ate so much junk food and watched so much TV that he turned into a starchy crop stuck to his sofa. A troupe of professional, traveling actors from The Imagination Machine performed my comedic skit in front of giggling elementary school students. As the audience laughed at my human-turned-couch-potato, I knew I was on the right path to winning a Tony Award–after all, a potato is like a play.
It begins underground. The roots push through darkness, reaching for nutrients and a strong grip on the earth. I am alone in my room with the seed of an idea that consumes me. Words fill the page in a frenzy that would make Samuel French flinch. Lights up on news articles and personal, intimate histories collected from hours of research. I dig until I can curl my fingers around what feels like a story: conflict, check. Biting dialogue, check. Characters I want to simultaneously hug and slap, check.
Because my perspective has shifted, sprouts spring from the seed’s eyes and the plant breaks the surface. I format and muster up the courage to send my words into the unknown, to collaborate with artists and bring it to life. My play no longer flourishes through willpower alone—it is a team effort to take care of the seedling. The countdown to opening night begins.
“You want to hear the backstory I came up with for my character?”
It is questions like these from actors that captivate me in rehearsal. The universe is no longer only mine–directors, actors, producers, stage managers live and breathe in a world I build. Cue the Italian runs, unscripted curse words, and giggles in an empty theater–yet theater without an audience is just rehearsal.
Life as a potato isn’t easy. There are powerful forces of nature to deal with and the struggle to grow, to emerge stronger than before. Every meeting with an artistic team of visionaries scrapes away an unnecessary scene, or discovers another layer, or goes off on a tangent entirely–and those are the best conversations. Conversations that deeply move me when an actor shares his own experience about losing a parent, that reaffirm me in my moments of soul-crushing doubt, that validate the reason why I write, in hopes that my stories may resonate with even one person in the audience.
The potato reaches maturation when it loses some of its leaves, vines changing color to something more beautiful. It is now ready to be presented to the public eye. Cue gasps, wet cheeks, and laughter from the audience, united in that moment. Everyone eats potatoes–theater equalizes the playing field. Just as the potato spreads across the globe, whether my plays are performed in a school’s church-turned-theater, a white box in New York, the Stella Adler theatre in Hollywood, or the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, we clap because we believe. After house lights go up, audience members approach me with their life stories in hand, and those are the moments I tear up and marvel at the power of words.
After experiencing imagination in action, I don’t think I’ll be turning into a couch potato anytime soon. After all, a potato is like a play, not a playwright, and one potato can yield an entire harvest more.
Second Star Cass 