The Civilians’ next in-person production is a project seven years in the making. Sam Chanse’s WHAT YOU ARE NOW has been with The Civilians since 2015, when Sam developed the project as a part of the R&D Group, the Civilians’ writers and directors group. The show was an exploration of trauma and memory, specifically within a Lowell, Massachusetts family experiencing the ripples that continue to follow the 1970s Cambodian genocide. Now, after development before and throughout the pandemic, WHAT YOU ARE NOW is set to premiere at Ensemble Studio Theatre on March 9th, set to run through April 3rd.
“It’s been such a strange and fucked up, bewildering time, and working on it throughout [the pandemic] has made me feel very tender towards the play (and toward theater in general),” playwright Sam Chanse said of the show’s development. “For two years, we couldn’t come together physically in space, we didn’t know for how long, and the show felt like an uncertain and fragile thing. Plans were always changing, always tentative. And coming together now, […] being together in space feels familiar and rare and fragile and precious all at the same time. The sense of taking nothing as certain, and feeling gratitude for having the chance to be working on this at all, with this creative team, has become wrapped up in my experience of this play and developing it.”
Just before the start of the pandemic, The Civilians held a reading of WHAT YOU ARE NOW, after which Sam spoke to Extended Play about the creative process. Now, two years following that interview, the creative process has had to change with the times. “On a personal, creative, and visceral level, I love being back. Being in a room with people making theater together is energizing and thrilling and satisfying. and after so many years of zoom workshops, rehearsals, and readings, it’s especially beautiful to just share physical space and air. At the same time, I know it’s not as comfortable or as safe for everyone, I know nothing’s guaranteed. A lot of folks are more vulnerable to being together, and coming together and relaxing restrictions is complicated.”
Though the play’s subject matter was developed long before the pandemic, it, too, is unintentionally in conversation with the years in which it was developed. “The play explores trauma and memory, and these last two years have inflicted and brought to the forefront different kinds of trauma on and in different communities, and devastating loss, which will have deep reverberations through time, and our memories, and how we see ourselves.”
Now, following the loss and trauma that WHAT YOU ARE NOW has been developed within and informed by, The Civilians has been able to return to in-person theater and finally, after seven long years, host the show’s world premiere with Ensemble Studio Theatre. “The cast and all of the creative team have been doing such beautiful work; I’m looking forward to their work and collective artistry being shared with audiences. And I’m looking forward to seeing how the play moves and breathes with the elements of performance, design, direction, text, audience, all coming together.”
Sam adds, “And then on a basic but fundamental and profound level, I’m most looking forward to (and terrified about) the show coming to the stage, period. It’s been a journey getting here.”
Learn more about and purchase tickets to WHAT YOU ARE NOW here.
Extended Play is a project of The Civilians. To learn more about The Civilians and to access exclusive discounts to shows, visit us and join our email list at TheCivilians.org.
