Interview with Playwright Chisa Hutchinson (She Like Girls)
ST: Please provide SistersTalk readers with a little biographical information. How old are you and where did you grow up?
Chisa: I was born in New York in 1980 and raised in New Jersey (no jokes, please).
My biological mother gave me away when I was four and
I've been unofficially adopted by a couple different
families since then: one hard-working, God-fearing black
woman who, despite not having the money or the room,
took in kids the way other women take in stray cats,
and one wonderfully enlightened white woman (she wouldn't really
describe herself as enlightened, but that's part of why I think she is)
who offered me her home after I got a scholarship to a private high
school in her neighborhood. I moved from Newark to Short Hills
when I was fourteen. It was like colonizing another planet.
ST: Have you always had an interest in theatre, or did that interest develop while you were a student at Vassar College?
Chisa: For the most part, I grew up piss poor
so I'm not one of those people who can
say I've been into theatre since I was
like, a fetus. I saw the commercials for
Phantom of the Opera and Les Mis' and Cats
(oof), so I wasn't oblivious, but I didn't
see a real play until high school.
I had a drama teacher, Mr. Pridham (I
get to call him Bob now) who was adamant
about getting us off campus to see theatre.
I saw some incredible stuff: Julie Taymor's
Juan Darien, Cabaret with Natasha Richardson
and Alan Cumming (he winked at me!). It was
exciting to be studying something that was
soooooo beyond academic, and to suddenly become
aware of the possibility of theatre not only
as a profession, but as a priority, period.
This was unheard of where I came from.
And then as a bonus, because Bob took kind of a
shine to me, I got to see August Wilson debate
Robert Brustein about color-blind casting.
And that was it. That sealed it for me.
ST: What was it like being the only Black drama major at Vassar College?
Chisa: I absolutely loved my experience at
Vassar (loved it!) but oy.
Serious melanin shortage in that
department. I remember my freshman year,
they were doing a Greek theme and I was like,
"Oh well. A quarter of my college career.
In togas." Well, there weren't any togas,
and I did get to play Chorus Member #2 in a
funky adaptation of Phaedra. But apart
from one course offered by the Africana
Studies program, there was no real space for
black students to explore texts by black writers.
So I wrote my own. I concentrated in playwriting
and most of my coursework was independent.
Ultimately and fortunately, I got plenty of
support from the department once I decided what
I wanted to do, but I was still decidedly on the fringes.
ST: I've noticed a few common themes throughout your work: race, sexuality, and gender. As a Black female blogger, I noticed those
are common themes for me as well. What's your take on that?
Chisa:
Of course I'm going to say that these
issues are important, and of course,
you would agree. But just because it's
what's close to me doesn't mean that's
the end of it. If some other human or group
of humans is dealing with some issue or another
that doesn't directly affect me, I'm going to
care and I'm going to listen because otherwise,
I may do or say something to piss somebody off, or
step on somebody's proverbial toes. And then something
will happen that will affect me directly like, oh
I don't know, somebody might hijack a plane
and crash it into my house or something.
ST: In a recent press release for She Like Girls, you were quoted as saying, "If I sit
through two hours of a middle-aged white guy having an existential crisis or
well-off white chicks debating the merits of marriage,
then why not expose the white folks to the plight of poor Kia Clark, lesbian teenager
fighting against the doubly oppressive forces of the inner-city?" Do you believe white audiences have a sincere interest in
art related to a Black, inner-city, lesbian teenager?
Chisa: I think that the only real way anyone
is interested in any kind of art in
which they are not the immediate subject
is if they focus on how the subject is similar
to them. And I get that and I'm cool with that.
Someone in the audience at the Lark's reading
of She Like Girls remarked that they loved the
play because "first love is everybody's story."
That was really one of the nicest things
she could have said. Despite the abrasiveness
of the characters and the harshness of their
language and the ruthlessness of their environment,
which I'm going to go ahead and guess was probably a
foreign thing for that particular audience member,
she was able to see it as a universal love story.
That's where meaningful interaction happens, I think.
Where drastically different cultures overlap.
And then on top of that, you have the amateur
anthropologists who like to romanticize
and fetishize all things non-white. They're always fun.
ST: Your two plays The Schematic and #9 each tackle what some would call the interracial dating taboo.
Do you think interracial dating is indeed a cultural taboo,
or would you agree that mixed-race coupling
is becoming quite common in the United States?
Chisa: Oh yeah. And, despite
some disturbing stuff I
occasionally read in the
Rants-and-Raves forum on
Craigslist (don't act like you don't do it),
I like to think that more and more people
who are dating interracially are doing it
for the right reason: true and transcendent love.
I think it used to be that people of color
were really only attracted to white people
as status symbols and that white people only
dated people of color to show everyone how
open-minded and progressive they were. I'm
sure this is still the case sometimes, but
we're moving past that. I hope.
ST: I was first introduced to you through a press release that announced the opening of
She Like Girls. Are you suddenly bombarded with
questions about your own sexual orientation?
Chisa: Nah.
I think most folks just automatically
assume that I'm a lesbian because of the play.
I mean, really: why would a straight person
be so concerned with how gays are treated,
right? Whatever. I don't bother to correct
them because I think it's funny and kind of
refreshing to, for once, be in a situation in
which people aren't assuming heterosexuality.
And for the record, I'm bi.
ST: You teach Playwriting and English Literature at Sage High School in Orange County, CA.
Do you see any promising young playwrights in your classroom?
Chisa: Absolutely! I have some incredibly gifted students.
I try not to be so obvious with my agenda of turning
them all into little theatre freaks, but they see right
through me most of the time. I figure if can just
nudge one talented writer onto the path, though,
my existence is justified.
