what’s the story? in the press

The Journal of the Dramatists Guild

September - October 2004

September 22, 2006

from Going It Alone

    by Mark Blankenship

As she works on her latest project, actor-playwright Stacie Chaiken is occasionally gripped by fear. "I don't know yet if it's going to be a solo play, but every morning I wake up and pray that it's not," she says.

That may seem strange coming from someone who has had so much success with one-person shows. Chaiken, who is based in Los Angeles, has toured extensively with successful solo plays such as Looking for Louie, about her quest to uncover family secrets. Since 1999 she has taken it to locales from California to Israel; she even teaches a workshop at the Powerhouse Theatre in Santa Monica, Calif., called "What's the Story?," helping others turn their private histories into theatre. So why does Chaiken hope her next play demands multiple actors? "Because it's lonely out there," she says with a laugh.

Of course Chaiken is only half serious, but her cry of loneliness helps explode one of the biggest myths about solo shows: They might be small, but they aren't easy -- either to write or perform. They are unique theatrical beasts, teeming with as many challenges as massive musicals or dense classics face.

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From another perspective, however, solo performers have a number of collaborators: the ones who buy tickets. Says Chaiken, "The audience is your scene partner in a solo piece, and they're wildcards." Instead of fellow actors whose performances are more or less the same each night, solo actors bounce their work off an unpredictable crowd -- and no matter how much the actor has rehearsed, that work must be adjusted to fit the audience's mood. "If you're actually talking to the audience, there has to be a deep willingness to be affected by what's happening in the room," she says. With Looking for Louie, she adds, "even in terms of rehearsal, I knew I wasn't going to learn anything until I did it in front of people."

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Though Looking for Louie isn't as overtly political as Schofield's work, Chaiken says she has felt the same unity with audiences. "What I heard was that people were connecting to my very specific immigrant story through their own experience," she says. Yet this personal relationship to the material raises another question: When is it time for a writer-performer to let his or her creation go? Chaiken recalls that at first she felt too close to the material in Louie to let others participate in its creation and performance. But when she allowed director Stephanie Shroyer to join the project, her contribution was invaluable. "She had insight on the story that I could not have as the writer and creator," says Chaiken. "That added a dimension and a soul that I could have never seen on my own."

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The development of a solo piece requires this navigation between the personal stakes felt by the show's creator and the need for assistance. Chaiken concedes, "I think [Looking for Louie] is a show that other people can do. It doesn't need me. It just needs a great actress."