PREVIEW: My Sister’s Lipstick

Anna King Skeels’s play, My Sister’s Lipstick, premieres at The New Hazlett Theater on January 30th and 31st. Inspired by isolation, queer repression, and a Judy Garland obsession, My Sister’s Lipstick follows George, who locks themself in their apartment to escape the troubles of the outside world. Their sister, Morrison longs for her sibling to come back into her life. This is an intimate play about how isolation affects self-expression and the active choice to continue living.

Ticket information can be found here: https://ci.ovationtix.com/36406/performance/11549004?performanceId=11549004

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Melissa Cardello-Linton: What inspired you to write My Sister’s Lipstick, and how did the themes of isolation and career repression shape the story?

Anna King Skeels: I started writing My Sister’s Lipstick in a college playwriting class, where I was really just looking for a queer-centric show with a main character that just was lovely and gorgeous and had so much to explore and find throughout the play, and just really looking at that one person and their experience through a hard time. I think that where isolation and queer identity, queer oppression come into this play is in an exploration of, what does queerness look like without community, and what does queerness look like with community, and how we as individual queer people find that?

 

MCL: Can you talk about, without giving any spoilers, the significance of Judy Garland in this piece? And why is she the focal point of George’s obsession?

AKS: For our main character George, I was looking for a kind of vintage nostalgia, longing and the missing of a life that you weren’t even part of to begin with. And Judy kind of becomes this partner in crime for George as a performer, as a person who had a really magical, but really hard and stressful kind of life, and was at odds with the magic they were creating. There’s also a lot of Wizard of Oz-ness there that leads me straight to Judy, and leads George to Judy that I think just made her that perfect little partner in crime for them.

 

MCL: How do you approach portraying the relationship between George and their sister? What does their dynamic reveal about family bonds and lines of struggle?

AKS: In writing a sibling relationship into this play, I was really thinking about characters who are always telling the truth to each other, are always longing for connection to one another, and have just bountiful love to give each other, but have so many life obstacles in the way of that, and that there’s no bad blood between them. There’s nothing that’s stopping them from loving one another, but there’s this sense of life ugliness that’s getting in the way, and how they go through loving each other through ugly times, and how it changes their relationship.

 

MCL: Isolation plays a central role in this play. How did you explore its impact on self-expression and mental health in your writing?

AKS: I think that isolation is something that’s been on all of our minds for the past few years, in different values and different experiences. But it’s also something that I think is very often part of the queer experience and this idea of finding something on your own and finding out who you are on your own. So, I was really thinking about when something becomes true, and if it becomes true when you know it, or if it becomes true when you tell other people. And what it means to be so completely and totally yourself is a central theme of this play, of who you share yourself with and how you become able to open the door and share yourself with everyone.

 

MCL: The play tackles heavy themes such as repression and the choice to continue living. How do you balance these moments with lightness or hope?

AKS: Something that maybe surprised me even about the play in talking about grief and talking about isolation is just that it’s funny. Like, I think I just love to laugh. I like to be in a theater and just be laughing with people and be in that kind of community. And finding that inside of a play that is about so much ugliness, so much hardship, that it’s also about the fact that there’s beauty on the other side, and that there’s love throughout the hardship, and there’s funny things to say, and there’s people who are with you that can joke with you about it, is so much of rounding out the play and making it a true fully formed piece. And so I think having lovely people around who are ready to laugh about it, but also having those laughs built into the play is how we kind of circumvent a couple hours of crying.

 

MCL: How does the staging or set design reflect George’s inner world and the themes of the play?

AKS: I’m really thrilled about the scenic design of this play. Natalie Rose Mabry has been doing really gorgeous work. There’s something about such a vulnerable and genuine play having a really fantastical setting and a setting that isn’t exactly what it would look like in real life, that it has magic, that it has things that trick you, that find new ways to look like something else, to look like something magical, is like adding a million layers to the play. I think that it is the inner world of the characters, finding fantasy to live in so that they don’t have to live in this world that we do, and we get to experience that as the audience looking at the set.

 

MCL: What do you hope audience take audiences take away about the complexities of queer identity and mental health after seeing this production?

AKS: I hope that as our audiences watch this story and these characters who are just living in their vulnerability, living with each other in their vulnerability, are taking the moment to be open, to watch it, to let it simmer with them and stay with them, and to bring that vulnerability into their lives, to find places where they can be more open with people and can lean on the people in their lives. And that more than anything, it’s about seeing people who you can relate to and who you can take a piece of home with you.

 

MCL: Can you share some insights into the creative process? For example, how did the story evolve from initial concept to its form now?

AKS: I think that a lot of the creative process has been about expansion. It started with one character, one act, and it started with one circumstance, and it’s become about relationship and about people around this one person, about the experiences that they’ve had and what they’re going through. And it’s become a lot more of a wholehearted play and a play where you really get to know everyone, that you’re not just in one person’s world, but you’re in their family and you’re in the world around them as well, and you get to see what’s interacting with them, what has influence upon them. And that it becomes more of a well-rounded piece, but also a piece where you get to really be friends with the characters and know everything about them and share in their experiences as well.

 

MCL: Is there anything you’ve learned during this process that surprised you as you’re creating this piece?

AKS: I think that often writing can be spoken of or experienced as really lonely, that it’s kind of one person at their computer typing away. So, what has become the biggest part of this process for me is creating a team to love this play and to work on this play and to share in the play with me. So that when I’m writing it, when I’m feeling that kind of lonely, “This isn’t working. I don’t like this play. I’m not sure what I’m gonna do” moment. There are people to come in and be like, “Hey, we’re invested in this. We believe in it, and we love it, and we want it to work.” And that that kind of support system makes writing so much easier and makes expansion so much easier and is just truly delightful.

 

MCL: What is your role in this performance, and who are your collaborators?

AKS: I’m the playwright for My Sister’s Lipstick, and I’m so lucky to have the most gorgeous, brilliant team of collaborators, in my director Priya Dahiya, who I just love dearly. In the dramaturg, D.T. Burns, who has been so integral to the creation of this piece. And our really just amazing designers, Natalie Rose Mabry, Mars Elsheik, Lillie Tuck, Liliana Tomasa Sharp, Jeremy Pitzer, and Eve Bandy. Also, our lively, gorgeous, incredible actors that we have in June Almonte, Audrey Klein, and Annie Morehead, plus our amazing understudy, Jillian Lovelace. It’s just a really dream team of collaborators. I’m so so happy to have them on this.

 

MLC: If you could describe My Sister’s Lipstick in just one sentence to someone unfamiliar with it, what would you say?

AKS: My Sister’s Lipstick is a queer and trans celebratory play that surrounds siblinghood, grief, and loss, but also these gorgeous communities that we get to call home.

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My Sister’s Lipstick runs at the New Hazlett Theater: January 30 at 8pm, January 31 at 10am, 8pm. Tickets can be found at:https://ci.ovationtix.com/36406/production/1218642

Anna King Skeels Writer, Creator, CSA Artist 25
Pria Dahiya Director

Cast
(in order of appearance)
Annie Morehead George
Audrey Klein Morrison
June Almonte Jane
Jillian Lovelace U/S for Morrison & Jane

CREATIVES
Alyse M Hogan Stage Manager
D.T. Burns Dramaturg
Eve Bandi Lighting Designer
Natalie Rose Mabry Projection Designer & Scenic Designer
Mars Elsheik Sound Designer
Lillie Tuck Prop Master
Jeremy Pitzer Costume Designer
Iliana Tomasa Sharp Intimacy Choreographer

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Accessible seating and assistive listening devices are available for all CSA Season 12 productions.

The New Hazlett Theater is also eager to invite student groups to the theater, including talkbacks with the artists.

Please email Nathan Wagner with any questions.

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Season art & design: Bootstrap Design Co. | CSA Season 12 Artist Portraits: Matt Dyak | Performance photos: Renee Rosensteel

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About Community Support Art (CSA)
Since 2013, the New Hazlett Theater’s CSA Performance Series has brought emerging and mid-career performing artists to the stage. We’re passionate about providing a space for Pittsburgh’s amazing pool of creative talent to develop, collaborate, grow, and flourish. From dance to music and original plays to experimental animation, our CSA pushes the boundaries of performance at every show. For more information, visit https://newhazletttheater.org/csa 

About The New Hazlett Theater
The New Hazlett Theater is more than a beautifully restored historic building.  We’re a nonprofit organization working to nurture and promote art in Pittsburgh through innovation and collaboration. As a creative hub for a diverse range of artists, audiences, and performances, we provide vital resources to creators to enrich our cultural community. For more information on who we are and what we do, please visit www.newhazletttheater.org