Interview: Award-Winning Playwright Sandy Rustin Makes Broadway Debut with THE COTTAGE

Award-winning playwright Sandy Rustin's stage adaptation of the film, CLUE, was one of the most produced plays of the 2022-2023 season, and she was recently named to American Theatre Magazine’s list of 'Most Produced' Playwrights. Now, Rustin is making her Broadway playwrighting debut with The Cottage, running through October 29 at the Hayes Theater!

Directed by Tony Award winner Jason Alexander ('Seinfeld') making his Broadway directorial debut, The Cottage is a laugh-out-loud comedy starring Emmy Award winner Eric McCormack ('Will & Grace'), Tony Award nominee Laura Bell Bundy (Legally Blonde), Tony Award nominee Lilli Cooper (Tootsie), Alex Moffat ('Saturday Night Live'), Nehal Joshi (The Phantom of the Opera), and Dana Steingold (Beetlejuice). 

BroadwayWorld spoke with Sandy Rustin about her lifelong dream of becoming a Broadway playwright, her inspiration behind the play, and more. 
 

You are one of the most-produced playwrights of 2022-2023 season, and now you are making your Broadway debut with The Cottage. How does it feel to be making your Broadway debut with this play?

Oh my gosh, it’s so exiting. This has been my lifelong dream. I have a bio that I wrote in a school project in the 6th grade, it was a write-a-book-for-your-mom-for-Mother’s Day kind of project, and I had to write an ‘About the Author’ on the inside cover of that. And it said, ‘Sandy grew up in Chicago, and has a dog,” and at the end it said, ‘She hopes to grow up to be a Broadway playwright.’ So, it’s been a long time that I’ve been dreaming of this experience. And I’m thrilled.

How does it feel for you to know that you are one of the most-produced playwrights of this past season?

It’s pretty surreal, it’s hard to wrap my head around it. Mostly I feel so happy that my work is resonating with theatergoers. That people are enjoying it enough to continue producing it all over the place is incredibly gratifying, and I’m so happy about it.

Can you tell me what inspired you to write The Cottage?

I set out to write The Cottage after Rated P for Parenthood closed. I was looking to write something new, and I wanted to do something different and give myself a challenge. Rated P was a sketch comedy musical, so I was like, ‘Alright, what can I do that is totally opposite of that?’ In college, I had been in a production of Hay Fever by Noel Coward, and it was the most fun experience, so I thought, ‘Well, what if I tried to write a show like that?’

First I did a whole bunch of research, and read shows from that time period, a whole bunch of Noel Coward, and Oscar Wilde, and I came to realize that there weren’t really any of those shows where the plot was female-driven, where the female characters were really there just on their own terms. And so, it made me wonder what it would look like to try to write something in that genre from a more feminist point of few. And those two ideas came together, wanting to write something in this genre, but wanting to put my own spin on it.

What did your writing process look like for this play?

My initial sit-down to write the first script, I sort of had the idea all at once. I saw the characters, I saw how I wanted it to unfold, I knew the intricacies of the ‘who’ and ‘what’ and what the plot would look like, and who these people were and how I wanted them to inhabit the space. So when I wrote that first draft it was really like a brain dump, I think I got the whole thing out in less than a week. But then, over the last 10 years, I have refined it, and rewritten, and revisions have been plentiful over the last decade. It’s really been a work in progress, and a process for a long time.

The company of The Cottage is filled with incredible talent. What has it been like working with them?

Amazing! Who could ask for anything more? These actors are out of control stupendously wonderful. They are inventive, and creative, and collaborative, and funny, and smart, and all of the things you could ever dream of for a cast. I am eternally grateful for this group of performers, they are amazing.

You said you wanted to write something in this genre from a feminist perspective, how does it feel to be charting new territory on a Broadway stage with this?

I don’t think I really realized that I was doing that. But now I sort of realize that this style, there haven’t been a lot of women represented on Broadway who are working in comedy in this way. So I’m delighted. I feel like I am standing on the shoulders of all the women who have come before me, charting their own path. If I can be that for future generations of writers and theater makers, that’s incredible. Because I am certainly only here because of the women who were behind me, and have created space for me to find my own way.

What would you like to say to audiences who are planning to come see The Cottage on Broadway?

Just come to have a great night! This play has been designed to give audiences a respite from the seriousness of our world right now. I think that the show has evolved over the last decade in reaction to our world. We have made our way through a global pandemic, and political strife, and all sorts of really serious things happening in our world, and to be able to provide and evening out that just feels fun, period, full stop, is something that I’m proud to be able to offer to audiences. Come for the fun! And if you take away some moments of thoughtfulness as well, that’s always good too.