BJ Jones talked with Jenny Laird about making it fly.
BJ Jones: So, Jen. Eighteen months from beginning to end. You did the first reading at Chicago Dramatists. How long before the first reading did you start writing (Sky Girls)?
Jenny Laird: About a month. I had been doing research for about two years, but I wrote the first draft in about three weeks.
BJJ: But you have a sort of history with the aviation industry yourself.
JL: I was a flight attendant for two months. I had just graduated from college. I thought it would be really cool to see the world in an inexpensive way. I did a lot of backpacking around the South Pacific and thought, ‘I’ll be a flight attendant.’ Of course it is the worst job. I’m serious. There is no worse job than being a flight attendant, and I say that with compassion for all flight attendants. Because people are just … they are in this heightened state for all sorts of reasons.
BJJ: People (on flights) are frequently drunk and you can’t escape them.
JL: (Laughing) That’s right. And we didn’t actually serve meals, we served muffins. So I did four short flights a day and I spent my day walking down the aisle of a 143 seats saying ‘Muffin? Muffin? Care for a muffin?’
BJJ: Not the world you wanted to see. So what inspired you to do Sky Girls?
JL: I was researching flight and World Ward II information because of Fred Rochlin. You and I brought in his one-man show.
BJJ: Old Man and a Baseball Cap, which Bruce Weber from The New York Times told me about and I told you about it.
JL: Right. When I contacted Fred he had just been diagnosed with cancer and he agreed to do this one last show at Northlight. And it was amazing and he is amazing. And I wanted to be able to speak to him with some sort of an intelligent background.
BJJ: World War Two-ease.
JL: Exactly. My grandfather was a sailor so I knew plenty from that end of it, but I didn’t know much about the flying end of it. I found this Web site and literally my heart skipped a beat, and I went, ‘Oh my God.’ It was one of those things where it all just unfolded and I thought, ‘How could no one have picked this up and written a play or movie about it?’ I was especially surprised that Hollywood hadn’t snatched it up. I have since heard there is a movie in the works. I think Spielberg but I don’t know.
BJJ: That Web site is www.WASPS.com. Now, Disney designed the Fifinella logo (for the women pilots). And Neiman Marcus designed their uniforms. So there was some merchandising involved in ’41.
JL: And it is interesting because Jackie Cochran who was the leader of the program, she was what they called a beauty operator at the time. And she developed her own cosmetics company. She learned to fly so that she could deliver cosmetics across the country and surpass all of her competitors by being able to get there faster. But in order to get these really snazzy uniforms with the Neiman Marcus design, she hired this gorgeous Italian model to wear the design that she wanted (by Neiman’s). Then for the design that was less expensive and that the Air Force probably would have chosen, she hired this (other) woman to not look very good in that uniform. And she brought them both into the General and said ‘We have these two choices, sir’ and of course he chose the Santiago Blues as they called them (with the Neiman’s design). It’s so ridiculous! They made so much of the clothes and what the hair was like and they had to wear lipstick. And they all had their nails painted.
BJJ: It’s extraordinary! They have so well documented their history. And yet everyone I tell about this topic, their ears perk up and their eyes open up. They are absolutely fascinated because it is kind of a historical nugget of our Armed Services that isn’t well publicized. And yet, Jimmy Carter finally gave them some kind of …
JL: Official Military status
BJJ: During his four years. And then Bill Clinton, a few years ago, signed into law that they could be buried at Arlington.
JL: Well the first woman was buried a couple of months ago at Arlington cemetery and her daughter spoke. They had a 60th reunion last year in Tucson. She gave a very moving speech about what that was like to have her mother actually get a full military burial.
BJJ: For those of you who don’t know Jenny is largely responsible for the beginning of the Selma Melvoin Award, which funds new playwrights, because one of her students was passionate about writing a play and wanted to do this both for Jenny and for others. This is our first (play form that grant). It’s a play I am passionate about and that everyone is very excited about. At one time the piece went through several transformations. We realized at a talk back after one of the readings, that people really wanted to know more about the WASPS. The women’s stories were very rich. But one of the things people kept asking about was the WASPS. And one of the things that you have done very deftly is to salt in the history of the program and the journey, the hope and the pain and the disappointment in the arc of the program. You made that echo through what is happening to the protagonist in the play.
JL: That is a big challenge for a writer to organically tell a story that has already been told. It’s factual. It’s history. And to weave it into personal lives and make the stakes … personal and real for the people involved. My process has always been to just create the people first and see who they are and how they might link to different ideas that I hope to articulate in a play. (You) kept me on track with that. I mean our sensibilities are different enough that we balanced each other out.
BJJ: The character we are talking about specifically is named Bishop.
JL: I was interested in dealing with this character (Bishop) that is living under this whole new set of rules. (Bishop) is already a pilot. She already knows how to fly.
BJJ: She was a barn stormer. A hot dog.
JL: And then she has to go and learn to fly the ‘Army way.’ There were actually a couple of cases where (women) pilots got washed out because they were better than their instructors.
BJJ: Their MALE instructors. And that’s an issue in this play. There was a question as to whether or not there was sabotage (toward) some of the women’s planes.
JL: There are incidents of sabotage where women died. And carelessness. This is not to say it was running rampant in the program but (the women) definitely were butting up against some discrimination and just ill feelings. There were people who just didn’t think women could fly military planes. There is a PBS documentary out called Fly Girls. It’s a great documentary. There’s a great story of the B29, this hot dog plane, which is actually the plane that dropped the bomb
BJJ: On Hiroshima.
JL: Yes. These men were afraid to fly the plane. Literally no one wanted near this plane. And Colonel Tibbets, I think, had this idea to train two WASPS to fly the B29.
BJJ: One was Dora Daugherty who went to Northwestern.
JL: Yes. They trained these girls in a week or literally four days. I call them ‘girls’ because that is what they were called then.
BJJ: Well that is the name of our play.
JL: Right. Sky Girls. They trained these women to fly the B29 in this amazingly short period of time and they fly into this field with all of these top pilots in the Air Force and they come out of the plane and take off their caps and down comes their long hair flowing in the wind. And the men just freaked out! And never again had a problem flying that plane. Apparently the reason women were so good at flying was the specification. They were doing what they were told. On NPR a couple of weeks ago there was a woman (pilot) talking and she said part of the reason they were so good at training was because much of it was repetition. Women were so used to routine. You do the dishes three times a day. You fold the laundry a certain way. They were just used to repetitive tasks.
BJJ: Boys do not read the instructions.
JL: But on the other hand, sometimes you have to think outside of the instruction book, and as a woman if you think outside of that (set of) rules, you can have the finger pointed at you. And then someone can say ‘See you are not following the rules’ and that becomes an argument as to why women should not fly planes. They get emotional.
BJJ: We should talk about the actresses in the show. It is an amazing cast. Paula Stevens, Julie Ganey, Lia Mortensen, Michelle Graff, Jen Engstrom, and Ana Sferruzza. They are all fabulous and I am the only boy!
JL: No, no Gavin Witt (literary manager/dramaturg.) Who is, what can we say, the wet nurse? Is that appropriate?
BJJ: Completely appropriate. The play would not be the same without both of you.
Sky Girls plays through March 9 at Northlight Theatre at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie, 9501 Skokie Boulevard, (847) 673-6300, www.northlight.org.
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