If it takes a village to raise a child, then three theater companies were needed to help bring Sarah Gubbins’ world-premiere lesbian drama, The Kid Thing, to fruition.
“It’s really a 50-50 match,” Gubbins said about the play’s co-production between About Face Theatre (where she is an artistic associate) and Chicago Dramatists (where she is a resident playwright). “Both companies were interested and they liked each other and they decided that they wanted to do a co-pro[duction].”
Also invaluable was Steppenwolf Theatre Company, which provided Gubbins workshop hours and a reading of The Kid Thing as part of its 2010 First Look Repertory of New Work (Steppenwolf is also presenting Gubbins’ lesbian-teen drama, fml: how Carson McCullers saved my life, this season part of its Steppenwolf for Young Adults series.)
“For me it’s all of the resources of these theaters coming together so it’s a super-size production from my vantage point,” Gubbins said, glad to have all these theater teams on her side.
Gubbins’ play focuses on the conflict that erupts at a Chicago dinner party between two longtime lesbian couples when one pair announces an impending pregnancy. The bombshell revelation forces the couples to re-evaluate their relationships.
The notion of LGBT families raising kids is one that Gubbins wanted to explore dramatically, especially with all of the questions faced by a same-sex couple.
“Reproduction can be challenging for straight couples, let me say that,” Gubbins said. “Yet when you’re dealing with gay couples, there are so many more things to think about in terms of how to have a baby—adoption or who is carrying especially with lesbian couples and then obviously where does the sperm going to come from and if that’s going to be a transparent donor or an anonymous donor—just the myriad of other factors that go into that decision.”
However, the whole notion of child-rearing wasn’t so gay-centric when Gubbins first started thinking about writing The Kid Thing. Simple biology and timing were also factors.
“[It was] more an observation of my peer group around the kid question,” Gubbins said about being a 30-something woman. “There’s a ton of issues about being a woman and when to have kids and what that means—issues of timing and I what I was really observing was women in their 30s—early, mid and late—who just kind of wake up one morning and think ‘F***! I haven’t thought of this! I have to deal with this now or really, really soon!'”
That individualistic decision to reproduce, but also one made within in a lesbian partnership, is what spurred Gubbins to find the heart of her drama. In the process, Gubbins also wanted to explore butch/femme dynamics within a lesbian relationship.
“The couples are very old friends and both couples I would say have various gender presentations being enacted,” Gubbins said. “More so masculine-presenting and more traditional in terms of a hetero-normative construct just boils into lesbian couples.”
Gubbins says The Kid Thing is presented in a strictly realistic style, and is unashamedly proud of its Chicago-setting and roots. Gubbins is also pleased to be working again with director Joanie Schultz and a cast that includes Kelli Simpkins, Halena Kays, Park Krausen and Rebekah Ward-Hayes on this dramatic play that questions the hurdles of child-rearing for LGBT families.
“It’s so simple biology,” Gubbins said. “The fact that we’ve been reproducing for a couple of eons now, but now it can be so terribly complicated in our modern psyche.”
About Face Theatre and Chicago Dramatists’ co-production of Sarah Gubbins’ The Kid Thing continues in previews before officially opening on Sept. 9, at 1105 W. Chicago Ave. Performances are 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays until Oct. 16. Tickets are $32. Call 312-633-0840 or visit www.chicagodramatists.org or www.aboutfacetheatre.com.
Women’s Work Weekend
Pride Films and Plays (PFP) shines a spotlight on the ladies with its Women’s Work Weekend featuring readings of new plays and screenplays with lesbian characters. The eight works represented are the top four finalists of PFP’s two recent contests titled Sapphics on Stage and Sapphics on Screen. All readings take place at the Center on Halsted’s Hoover-Leppen Theater, 3656 N. Halsted.
Here’s the Sapphic schedule:
Pat Branch’s screenplay Girls Out Loud focuses on a 30-something cynic who gets pregnant just before meeting the woman of her dreams. 7:30 p.m. Sept. 7.
Jennifer Hoppe-House’s play Bad Dog concerns an alcoholic lesbian named Molly who must deal with her dysfunctional family after a major car accident. 7:30 p.m. Sept. 8.
Dawn Marie Guernsey’s screenplay The Basement is about a woman who must face her personal demons when trapped in the basement of a tornado-destroyed building. 7:30 p.m. Sept. 9.
Diane Edington’s screenplay ’70s Shuffle delves into the life of a straight FBI agent who comes to rely on a butch woman bartender to help her navigate the Mafia underworld. 6 p.m. Sept. 10.
Vanda’s play Patient HM is about a lesbian neuroscientist who is haunted by her memories of a lost lover as she treats a man with major memory problems. 8 p.m. Sept. 10.
Alicia Lomas-Gross’ screenplay Leap of Faith reveals what happens when a timid lesbian Catholic schoolteacher falls for a student’s devout mother. 3:30 p.m. Sept. 11
Cassie Keet’s play Still Fighting It shows the conflict that erupts when a college student returns home to her family with her serious girlfriend. 6 p.m. Sept. 11.
Tickets to each reading are $12, or $70 for all eight admissions. For more information, visit www.pridefilmsandplays.com. To purchase tickets, visit Brownpapertickets.com or call 800-838-3006.