Emily Joy Weiner, Co-Founder & Artistic Director of Houses on the Moon, Talks The Company's Development Process

Jeffrey Solomon [co-founder of Houses on the Moon ] and I met in 1998 as teaching artist partners working at a high school in Queens. We were saddened by the amount of homophobia we were witnessing in the school environment and wanted to create a piece of theater that spoke to the isolation of LGBTQ+ students and educators. We set off on a creative development journey that included interviews with young people and educators around the country and beyond.

As part of our research we interviewed a lesbian teenager in New Haven and asked her about her role models. Having never had an adult gay role model, she talked about the impossibility of envisioning her own future life as an adult. She said:

"It's like trying to imagine your future taking place on the Moon. How can I picture what my house would look like on the moon? I've never been to the moon. Nobody's ever tried to build a house at such low gravity. How do I know whether to picture it on the surface, or floating? Trees and grass, or just rocks?"

This young woman so clearly articulated the need for our play and the space it should fill. She provided us with a title for our pilot theater piece, BUILDING HOUSES ON THE MOON, led us to the name of our theater company in its founding year of 2001, and captured the essence of our mission in a metaphor. By telling previously marginalized stories, we were 'building a house on the moon.' We were creating a safe place for new stories to be told and heard in previously alien, uncharted or even hostile terrain.

Over the past 21 years we have "built many more houses'' and created our own brand of theatrical storytelling with the mission of amplifying underheard voices and telling stories that are not often heard.. Community collaboration has always been essential, and we have gotten involved with dozens of organizations that do important human rights work and collaborate with us to ensure that our development is authentic.

We have always wanted Houses on the Moon to be an exciting, nurturing, and safe "home" for those who were looking...whether it be as an artist, an audience member, or a collaborative partner in other ways.Today I feel very proud of the body of theatrical work we have created, the resources we have been able to offer to those in need through our partnerships, and the "family" we have organically built.

We are currently presenting a new play called Shared Sentences that explores the experiences and journeys of six characters who all have (or have had) an incarcerated loved one. They meet every other week in a support group called United Prison Families, which is their lifeline. We travel with these diverse individuals through their navigation of our criminal justice system, the stigma and isolation they live with for loving someone on the "inside," and ultimately the joy, love, and nurture they find in a community.

Houses on the Moon has a special approach to creating excellent theater that also satisfies our mission. If a Houses on the Moon project is to be sustainable, it must come from this place of import: primal emotions stirred by real world problems, be it passion, anger, fear, love or pain.

We have created a unique development process to generate original plays based on a demonstrated social need. Our process consists of several steps.

The first is inspiration, and this may come from the artist or from a community organization or individual that approaches us with a desire/need for a story to be told. For SHARED SENTENCES the inspiration was a personal one that led me to theatrically explore the experiences of families and loved ones of people who are incarcerated.

From there we move into collaboration - the work should be born to address a demonstrated social need and created from genuine partnership with the community. Forming authentic community relationships allows us to identify an untold story that demands a wider hearing, helps connect us with people willing to share, enables direct feedback from those whose experiences are being explored on the stage, and ensures the storytelling is an authentic representation. Finally, it places theater and performance in the context of existing grassroots social change, engaging new and often underserved audiences and facilitating a rich life for the piece. For SHARED SENTENCES we forged deep relationships with organizations such as Prison Families Anonymous, The Fortune Society, American Friends Service Committee Healing Justice Program and many more.

The next step is investigation: for example, with SHARED SENTENCES, I conducted dozens of individual interviews with people whose loved one is/was incarcerated, and then co-facilitated creative storytelling workshops along with my colleagues Camilo Almonacid and Ian Eaton for further exploration. It was important that there were no preconceptions at this point in the process - I was not yet wearing the "playwright's hat". I embarked on an open-ended exploration and I immersed myself in the stories.

Curation comes next, meaning what is the specific story that needs to be told? And what is the right form to tell the story? Who are the characters and what are the journeys to explore dramatically? For SHARED SENTENCES, I began the curation step with a large amount of verbatim text and material from real people and their experiences that came from the investigation phase.

From there, we move into creation, letting the research inspire the form. With SHARED SENTENCES, I created six characters from very different walks of life (variance in age, race, backgrounds) who are inspired by real people I had been collaborating with. I spent the bulk of the pandemic writing the play, fully developing these characters and their journeys, and putting my own stamp on it all.

Like all Houses on the Moon productions, we do an enormous amount of community outreach to engage non-traditional (along with traditional) audiences. We have a ticket subsidy program and distribute one third of all tickets (at no cost) through our community partnerships. With SHARED SENTENCES, our specific focus is to reach those who have direct experience with the criminal justice system whether it be formerly incarcerated individuals or those who have an incarcerated loved one - of which there are millions. We have targeted special events which include post show conversations with the creative team and collaborators on the project with first hand experience. We offer resources and connections to those who need them. We sometimes have special guest performances as well.

Houses on the Moon would not be able to fulfill its mission without the support of a passionate and dedicated Board of Directors which includes several individuals in the commercial theater world and is chaired by Jane Dubin, along with the tremendous individuals and foundations that support us.

SHARED SENTENCES runs through November 12th at 122CC, Second Floor (150 First Avenue).

To post a comment, you must register and login.