Feature: THE FORTUNE TELLER at TC Squared Theatre Company

Playwright Christina R Chan has been developing a new work, The Fortune Teller, which will have a premiere staged reading through one of TC Squared Theatre Company's Playwright Salons on March 1. This follows after her 2017 finalist entry for the Eugene O'Neill Play Conference, which also started as a reading in TC Squared's salon. I got to chat with Chan as well as TC Squared artistic director Rosalind Thomas-Clark about how The Fortune Teller has grown and developed through the Playwrights' Lab.

"The idea for the play came from a meeting with managing director of the Chinese Historical Society of New England. She told me about the historical burial grounds of early Chinese men at Mt Hope Cemetery in Mattapan in 2016." Chan explained how these men mostly immigrated to America to work on the railroads, but that ultimately, their burials did not align with their customs. "The Chinese revere their elders and predecessors. A well maintained burial site is the primary means to pay respect to ancestors. However, New England weather left many of the tombstones in disrepair, broken, lying on the ground. Who were these men there? I wondered, literally, what stories were buried there?"

Chan has fused her fascination of this history with an equal interest in the more contemporary issue of transracial or transnational adoption. "The second idea came from a documentary about a transnational Chinese adoptee finding her birth parents."

She went on to explain how the playwrights develop their works through TC Squared. "We are seated tightly at a wooden kitchen table each Saturday morning listening, sharing ideas, presenting writing and eating snacks people brought. I know I can bring first drafts of scenes that are raw, rough, or ugly to the PlayLab and get considerate, kind and constructive feedback. This is because of Marty Kingsbury, playwriting instructor/dramaturg and Rosalind Thomas-Clark." The cohort also partakes in group outings to see plays, with plenty of time to debrief afterwards.

Thomas-Clark supplied, "Play Lab gives writers the chance to try out their ideas in a safe and supportive environment. They can develop the plays over several months or years and get constant feedback. Then they get a chance to have a full reading of the play with professional actors and director and more audience feedback."

While Chan hopes the reading will give her a better sense of where her work needs to be tweaked, she also encourages "anyone who loves stories" to attend. "If Boston audiences don't engage with readings of new plays, they will be deprived of looking at the community around them, the world through a different lens. New works would die. Plays only exist to be heard."

Thomas-Clark also seems hopeful that The Fortune Teller will join the cohort of successful plays developed through the Play Lab, stating, "Audiences will be able to see new work come to life in an accessible environment. These are the first drafts of world premieres and feature some of the best up-and-coming playwrights."

More information about The Fortune Teller here.

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