An Interview with Tori Keenan-Zelt

When did you write your first play? What was it about & how do you feel about it now?

My first plays were elaborate Victorian death scenes that I forced my neighbors to stage in my backyard. They were heavily influenced by Little Women, Anne of Green Gables, and The Little Mermaid.

What are your main influences for your writing?

It usually starts as an irritation or puzzle about something I encounter in my own life and becomes more concrete as people, images, and contexts jump out at me. I seize that foothold and dive into research, building the world, developing characters, and devising plots until I feel mischievous enough to start writing.

Do you have an established writing process or do you approach each project differently?

Every play is different, so every process is different. But I think I always know I have to make friends with the cat.

What do you consider the major milestones of your artistic career?

Getting to the end of the play every time feels like an accomplishment. But I was particularly proud to be on the Kilroys List because it showed me the breadth of people my plays were reaching and the impact of the work that the Kilroys had done to move women’s voices out of development and into the production pipeline.

What has been your most ambitious undertaking as an artist?

This play.

Which other playwrights have inspired you?

Caryl Churchill and Maria Irene Fornes showed me what was possible. More than other playwrights, though, I’m inspired by clowns, musicians, contortionists… people who speak with bodies.

What is your favorite play written by another playwright?

Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again.

Where does your interest in real-life stories come from?

I think there are stories we tell about ourselves and to ourselves. I’m very interested in how and why we do that, both as people and as a society. What we frame. What we omit.

Which of your plays would you most like to see produced?

This play. In rep with the backyard death scenes.

What was your catalyst for writing How the Baby Died?

As my marriage was ending, many of my peers were having babies. Watching them, I realized how deeply the assumption that I would one day do the same had scripted my life in both seductive and destructive ways. I had nowhere to talk about the strange pain of that. So I started asking other women what things in their lives they couldn’t speak about. Many described ambivalence about motherhood, pregnancy, miscarriage, and abortion. Incredibly, we still lack safe room to discuss such things openly (except when defending our rights). I wanted to kick down the door to that room. And fuck up the lock with a screwdriver. And then I found Grand Guignol.

What are you hoping to learn from How the Baby Died appearing in BAPF 2019?

I want to see what it’s like for the audience to experience this world. And what the SF audience brings into and out of the room.

What do you want audiences to take away from your work?

Uncomfortable delight and delightful discomfort.

Which other #BAPF2019 play are you most excited to see? And why?

All of them. Plays plays plays!

Which of your plays would you most like to revisit?

AIR SPACE. It’s a play about millennials vs. baby boomers. A millennial couple moves into a foreclosure, but the boomers who built the house refuse to leave and are still living in the walls. It’s had a lot of attention but hasn’t yet been staged. After the last reading, I saw it in a brand new way and am itching to explore it with time, space, and a killer creative team.

What themes or ideas do you like to engage with?

I’m always into the interplay between humor and horror and the space that that intersection opens up. Specifically, in romantic female friendship, girlhood as gothic, twisted history, and millennial domesticity.

What’s a favorite memory of your time in theatre?

When I was 12, my friend Kyle and I performed “Light My Candle” from Rent in a Presbyterian Youth Camp talent show. And yeah, we nailed it.