Side Effects May Include…
Side Effects May Include…
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About
A look at the pills we take to keep chasing the American Dream…at any cost.
The readings will be followed by talkbacks about the play and the development process, which includes a week of workshopping the piece with Loomer, director Vanessa Stalling, dramaturg Tom Bryant, and the cast, including Amy Pietz as HIS MOTHER as well as an ensemble featuring David Kelly, Erica Sullivan, and Ellen D. Williams, with stage directions read by Ethan Grabowski.
“I found this play harrowing and heartbreaking,” says ANPF Artistic Director Jackie Apodaca. “It’s an unflinching look at pharma, consent, and motherhood–a necessary exploration of and for our times.”
Loomer is a multi-award winning playwright with credits including the play Roe, which premiered at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and received the 2017 PEN Center USA Literary Award for Drama. Her plays have been seen around the world at many renowned theaters, including a production of Distracted at the Roundabout Theatre Company that starred Sex and The City actress Cynthia Nixon. Her screenwriting credits include the Oscar Award winning film Girl, Interrupted and several pilots for HBO, CBS, Fox, and Showtime.
With plays like Roe, a drama reflecting on abortion rights, and Living Out, an examination of race, class, and motherhood, Loomer has consistently used her work to ask pressing cultural questions, and Side Effects May Include… is no different.
Who
| His Mother | Amy Pietz* |
| Ensemble | David Kelly* |
| Ensemble | Erica Sullivan* |
| Ensemble | Ellen D. Williams* |
| Stage directions | Ethan Grabowski |
| Production Manager and Stage Manager | Haley Jane Forsyth |
| Production Assistant and Sound Operator | AJ Ark |
*Appearing through an Agreement between ANPF and Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.
Poster art by: Kara Q. Lewis and Kristy Ewing
Genre:
Keywords:
Play Length: Runtime will be announced during the development week
Side Effects May Include…
March 25 and 26, 2023
Developmental workshop
Lisa Loomer’s plays include Roe; Living Out; The Waiting Room; Distracted; Homefree; Café Vida; Expecting Isabel; Two Things You Don’t Talk About at Dinner; Birds; Bocón!; Maria! Maria, Maria, Maria; and Broken Hearts.
Her work has been produced at Roundabout, Vineyard Theatre, Second Stage, INTAR, The Public, Mark Taper Forum, Arena Stage, South Coast Repertory, Kennedy Center, Seattle Repertory, Denver Center, La Jolla, Trinity Repertory, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Missouri Repertory, and in Mexico, Israel, Egypt and Germany.
Screenwriting credits include Girl, Interrupted and pilots for HBO, CBS, FOX, and Showtime.
She has received awards from the American Theatre Critics (twice), Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays, Lurie Foundation, Edgerton Foundation, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Jane Chambers Playwriting Award (twice), an Imagen Award, and an Ovation Award.
She’s currently writing the books for the musicals Real Women Have Curves and Like Water for Chocolate.
Grew up in: In New York and Mexico.
Creative beginnings: When I was about seven or eight, I used to invite friends over to do West Side Story in my living room. Many years later, I suddenly found myself working on Broadway musicals.
Playwriting inspiration: One thing that empowered me was growing up with a political mother who was not afraid to speak, even when that was dangerous. As a young actress, I was nurtured—and produced!—by Wynn Handman, an acting teacher who saw that the comedy I was writing for myself was actually pretty serious. Irene Fornes was an important mentor and a role model who taught me that having “a voice” is everything. And Gordon Davidson, a producer deeply committed to social change, produced four of my plays at The Taper in L.A. In terms of life experience, I think what affected my work most was growing up in two cultures, carrying two perspectives, which is a lot of internal drama in itself.
Writing process: Please. Don’t ask. It involves cookies. It involves stealing time. When I am employed, it starts in the morning. I appreciate the quiet. When it’s going well, it’s like listening and writing down what the characters say. And then looking at a first draft and seeing what the piece itself really wants to say.
The origin of your play Side Effects May Include…: My son was injured by a medication. It sent us on a Kafkaesque journey toward a diagnosis. And it made me look at everything differently…pharma versus the natural world, psychiatry, capitalism, motherhood, love, the limits of love, religion, marriage…life.
Favorite moment or line: There’s a scene between the mother and a psychiatrist who has diagnosed her son with “Adjustment Disorder,” and the mother asks, “Adjustment to…what?”
Hope for audience takeaways: I hope we will all actually read that little piece of paper that lists the side effects of our medication. You go first, sometimes I’m too chicken. I hope the audience will have an understanding of akathisia because many, many thousands of people are suffering from it. And that suffering is being covered up by those who value profit above healing. I hope to increase compassion for the complexity of the human condition—which is a notion I got from Father Greg Boyle when I was working on Roe, that pretty much sums up my goal with any play.
Most looking forward to at ANPF: The play has never been spoken before this brief rehearsal time and reading. I am so curious about the audience’s reaction. Will it make people uncomfortable? Will they go on the ride anyway? Will they feel free to laugh? And what will they add to the conversation?
