Is this f*cking play about us?

Writing and directing a play with my best friend

At the end of April, my roommate Chela and I put on a play about living together sophomore year. It was called I AM EXACTLY WHERE I NEED TO BE. We first had the idea in the fall, but it really came together in the week before opening night. Here’s how we did it.

THE SCRIPT

Chela and I had the premise for our play from the start: two single girls who never left their shared dorm room. They were named Charlie and Eden, after Chela and Arden. We knew it was going to be short—no more than 45 minutes—and composed of loosely connected vignettes. We brainstormed six different scenes, divided them between us, and wrote three each. In our first round of editing, we revised each other’s.

Halfway through writing, we decided to make it weird. The play is meant to be disorienting. We wanted the audience to ask themselves did that really happen? Tweaks to the script included turning a real man into a disembodied voice, rewriting a bad memory by telling it to your friend in a different way, and creating a dream interlude with a French narrator.

I had a lot of fun with the script. Dialogue is so, so hard, but I tried to take the pressure off by reminding myself that it didn’t have to be serious or profound. A friend told me after the show that she thought the conversations between the two girls were so full of love, and that is all I could have asked for.

THE ACTORS

We thought we were going to have to hold auditions. But then my brother gave me the brilliant idea to cast two girls in his grade. Millie and Evie were perfect…they looked like us, they were sophomores, and they were best friends. Chela asked Evie about it when she ran into her in Los Angeles, and Evie said yes! In one of our first rehearsals, Millie and I learned that we had the same niche Pinterest iPhone wallpaper. The rest is history.

Our first meeting!

We also cast our friend Ellie to play the French narrator, which she excelled at by being hilarious and charming, and Poe to voice the invisible man with an impressive robotic monotone. Very thankful for both of them.

THE SET

We wanted the set to resemble our sophomore year dorm room as closely as possible. Two generous friends offered their air mattresses. I ordered two lamps, star string lights, and floor cushions online. I brought a rug and two side tables from my apartment. We all contributed blankets, pillows, posters, and other miscellaneous decor: a vase with plush tulips, half a bottle of white wine, and a Miffy light. My friends were impressed by how much it looked like the real deal.

THE MUSIC

Chela wrote all of the songs into the script. Skyline To by Frank Ocean opens and closes the show. Caroline Polachek’s Welcome To My Island lulls the girls to sleep. Charlie jams out to Prince’s Baby I’m a Star and Justin Bieber’s Somebody to Love in her dreams.

She also made a playlist to set the mood before the show started:

THE LIGHTING

We knew lighting was going to be such an important part of setting a cozy, dreamlike, immersive atmosphere. Emiliano graciously taught me how to use the lighting board, and I designed 25 cues from start to finish. I loved being able to play with color. My brother Everett ran all of the lighting cues during the actual shows, and he killed it.

THE POSTER & PLAYBILL

Since the title of our play is an affirmation, I wanted the design of the poster to look like the Instagram memes that use neon glow effects around simple sans serif text. I found an old picture of our actual dorm room, and layered a bunch of light leaks and glitter on top. I think it’s funny that the poster doesn’t really tell you all that much about the play.

For the playbill, I knew I wanted to print it on vellum—a kind of translucent paper—so I designed the booklet on InDesign knowing that the front and back would be overlayed. I love the way it looks when you hold it up against the light.

Chela and I co-wrote the blurb printed on the inside:

I AM EXACTLY WHERE I NEED TO BE takes place in our sophomore year bedroom. The girls wonder and speculate about the truths of the world outside their bedroom walls…they also make shit up. The room is their sacred place, their alternate universe where everything makes sense.

This play is about living in a bubble, manifestation, in-betweenness, crushes, and endings. We still miss that bedroom. It was exactly what we needed.

A few thank yous:

Evie and Millie! Our mini’s <3.

Ellie and Poe: the GOATs.

Grace, our third roommate and best friend.

Our Franklin suite and the boys down the hall.

The friends we’ve been lucky to know since freshman year.

Our families.

We love you all. We’ve loved college so much.

– Arden and Chela

THE SHOW!

We had two shows, one on Wednesday night and the other on Thursday evening. The second one was better than the first—the lighting and sound transitions were smoother, we shortened some drawn-out scenes, and everyone felt a lot more relaxed. My parents also came from New York to see it.

I was so nervous that people wouldn’t come, but they did! Sitting with my friends in the audience, watching them re-live my (semi-fictionalized) memories from two years ago, laughing and whispering and nudging each other, was so awesome. When other people resonate with something that’s only existed in such a confined space, it’s intimate, but also freeing.

10000% would recommend writing a play with your best friend. I AM EXACTLY WHERE I NEED TO BE was proof that when you see an idea through to the end, it is immensely gratifying. I learned so much about things I had never tried before—scriptwriting, lighting design, fire drill safety protocols—and it only made me more excited to keep exploring.

Let me know if you want to watch it and I’ll send you a secret link. Thank you to our third roommate Grace for recording it!

Love you all so much!!! Happy to answer any and all play-related questions in the comments..