01 Jul Jordan Ramirez Puckett Artist Talk

An Interview with Jordan Ramirez Puckett

Get your tickets to To Saints and Stars, and all the BAPF2020 plays, here. 

What does the day-to-day process of playwriting look like for you personally?

I crave structure so most of my mornings start with journaling, then I exercise, and then I write for an hour.  For me, this process helps my mind to settle on the work and have a really productive hour of writing.  It doesn’t happen every day, but I do it more days than not, which feels like a win in these times.  It helps that I don’t let myself have caffeine until I sit down to write.

Was there a specific moment for you that defined the direction you wanted your play to take? 

Without giving too much away, I wrote the final scene of the play fairly early on.  It’s always been the scene that the rest of the play is writing towards.  I always feel some intense emotions when I read that scene and I hope the audience responds to it as well.

What is it about playwriting that you feel effectively told the story you wanted to tell, especially over other forms of storytelling?

I love theatre because it relies on language and imagination to create the world of the play, which I think makes it the perfect vehicle for science fiction.  Theatre also brings people together in the same space to experience the same emotions as a collective, much in the way that the church has functioned for centuries.  So for this story which transports the audience to Mars and to church, I felt like there was no other form it could take but theatre.

Is there any message or anything in particular, that you want the audience to take away from your play? 

In a lot of my work, my goal is that when an audience walks out of the theatre, the play moves them to call a loved one.  That is certainly true with To Saints and Stars, but I think it takes it a step further.  I hope this play makes them want to reach out to a friend of family member that they’ve had a falling out with.  I hope this play inspires people to mend relationships with those who might have a different viewpoint from them about the world.

Is there a specific character in your play that you felt you resonated with the most while creating them?

I often joke that if the character Sofía was not an astronaut but a writer instead, then the play would be autobiographical.  That’s an exaggeration, of course, but Sofía and I share more than a couple similarities.

Are there any contemporary plays that inspire you as a playwright and/or gave you that push to begin and continue writing your play?

Paula Vogel was the playwright that made me want to be a playwright and her work continues to inspire me.  I remember the first time I read Baltimore Waltz and just sobbing in public during the waltz scene.  That play made moved me in its ability to use theatricality to tell an honest and raw story.  A lot of my work is stylized but I always try to stay true to the emotional heart of the piece and I learned that from Vogel’s work.

As both a playwright and lighting designer, do you feel like your work in these two fields have had any influence on each other? If so, in what way?

Being a lighting designer heavily influences my writing.  I love to create plays that I would get a kick out of designing.  Having worked in a lot of 99 seat houses, my plays tend to not demand big set pieces but instead rely on lighting and sound design to help tell the story.  One of my favorite stage directions from To Saints in Stars is “The sun moves in reverse”.  I love thinking about how I would bring that to stage as a lighting designer.  And when I get to be a designer (which is sadly less and less these days), I feel like I bring a really dramaturgical eye to my work.  It’s not just about what looks cool, but how the characters can really motivate lighting choices and motifs.

Jordan Ramirez Puckett is a Chicana playwright and lighting designer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She often writes about being caught between two identities and our intrinsic desire for human connection, no matter how brief. She recently participated in the 2018-2019 Playwrights Realm Scratchpad Series. Her work has also been produced and/or developed by 2Cents Theatre Group (Los Angeles, CA), Abingdon Theatre Company (New York, NY), Custom Made Theatre Co. (San Francisco, CA), Goodman Theatre (Chicago, IL), Harold Clurman Laboratory Theatre Company (New York, NY), Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, National Winter Playwrights Retreat (Creede, CO), Playwrights Center of San Francisco, San Diego Repertory Theatre, San Francisco Playhouse, among others. Her plays include En Las Sombras, To Saints and Stars, A Driving Beat, Las Pajaritas, Restore, and Inevitable. She has designed lights for the world premiere productions of Bauer by Lauren Gunderson, 77% by Rinne Groff, and 1 2 3 by Lila Rose Kaplan, among others. She is a graduate of Northwestern University and the former Associate Artistic Director at San Francisco Playhouse. She is currently pursuing her MFA in playwriting at Ohio University. www.jordanramirezpuckett.com

About The Play

Sofía, a NASA astronaut, and Zoe, the wife of a Greek Orthodox priest, have been friends since they were children and not a day has passed where they haven’t seen or spoken to each other. Their lives and friendship are forever changed when Zoe becomes pregnant with her first child and Sofia is chosen for the first manned Mission to Mars. As their priorities drift further away from each other, their relationship begins to become strained and their lives are changed forever. To Saints and Stars explores the intersection of science and faith and the power of lifelong friendship.