Circle Forward: Q & A with Playwright Deb Hiett

How and when did you start writing plays?

I don’t remember a time I wasn’t making up elaborate stories in my head (My poor family!). When I moved to New York City as an actor, I made money writing original monologues for my actor friends’ auditions, and wrote many short plays and one acts in the performance art scene there.

Tell us about how Circle Forward came to be.

When I first heard of the phenomenon of children “remembering” details of other people’s lives they could not have experienced in their few years on Earth, I became a little bit obsessed. Many of the facts they recall are verified, and usually they refer to unremarkable existences. No Cleopatras or Amelia Earharts. No one immortalized in a TV show or children’s book. But a prevailing theme is the child’s urgency of unfinished business of some kind. The memories usually fade once the child is 5 or 6, the nightmares stop, and life goes on. Usually.

What the heck is that about?

That research led me down a rabbit hole about memories — how they’re formed and what gets retained (or not), and why. Scientists are learning so much about the neural pathways of what they now call “motivated forgetting.” Fascinating.

Amidst the research of the themes of a new play, a particular story starts to form in my head, sort of like a little apartment being built. Then certain characters present themselves to me, and they move into that apartment. They bring a surprising variety of baggage with them. Sometimes these folks are supremely unhelpful, and I kick them out. Other times I must be patient until they really open up to me. If I’ve designed the apartment well, then the characters start unpacking, and interacting. If I’ve created interesting characters, then I lean in and take dictation from them.

If nothing else, the process yields interesting conversation when my husband asks me “so how was your day today?” In this case, it yielded “Circle Forward.”

Circle Forward was featured in our New Works Festival several years ago and has had several other workshops. Can you talk about the play’s development? What has changed? What has stayed the same?

I wrote the first draft in February 2021, as part of the annual Playwrights Union New Play Challenge (where we attempt a first draft completion by the end of the shortest month of the year!). New drafts followed, and the first public reading was in June of that year — just a few generous actors standing at music stands, reading the script from a binder, for fifty or so audience members.

For a playwright, this part of the development is incredibly valuable because you hear how it all is landing on an audience. You learn that those clever moments that really impressed your cat a few months ago might not have the same effect on strangers. You take notes, get feedback, and scurry away to re-write the whole thing. Then you submit the latest draft to several new play development opportunities around the country.

Circle Forward was selected for a workshop at Antaeus Theatre Company’s “2022 Lab Results New Play Festival” in Los Angeles, with different actors and a different director, and again, with an audience eager to provide constructive feedback. Scurry scurry, re-write re-write, submit submit…

Next up was its selection for Gulfshore Playhouse’s New Works Festival in 2023, which was particularly thrilling because I have such wonderful memories of my workshop and production of Miss Keller Has No Second Book here in 2018. I was able to make great changes to Circle Forward from my time with the talented cast, director Jeff Binder, and the encouraging audiences here. Off I went to re-write a new draft. (It was also the last festival at the Norris Center!)

Durango, Colorado’s 2024 Durango Playfest was the next stop for this play. I spent a glorious week there (at 6500 ft above sea level!) working with a new batch of brave actors, and got more helpful feedback from the enthusiastic audiences there.

Through each stage of the re-writes for Circle Forward, neither the basic structure of the play nor the characters’ key details changed, but each new workshop brought a deepening of the conflicts and a heightening of the stakes. I refined the characters’ stories, and tightened the pacing.

Since Circle Forward is a World Premiere, that means we’ve had the privilege of having you in the room throughout the rehearsal process. What was that experience like? Were there any important discoveries you made, etc.?

Gulfshore Playhouse has spoiled me rotten. To have the teams of such talented folks focused on creating the necessary environment to make this play the best it can be is a rare gift indeed. Here, I have the luxury of a full week to spend with the actors, the dramaturg, the director, the design team, and brilliant stage management before we even “get on our feet” and start staging.

That first week is really critical for me to crack open the top of my head and scoop out all the juicy bits of the world I’ve attempted to create. Our incredibly insightful, patient, and clever director Neel Keller gently guides us all through the journey of discovery.

It’s similar to the workshop process in that we all ask each other questions during rehearsals (actors: “why does my character have this reaction at this point?”, me: “does this play make sense to anyone else?” etc.), and at night I scurry off to re-write pages. It’s different in that the actors need me to stop re-writing at some reasonable point, so that they can memorize everything and the director can stage all the scenes properly.

It’s a bittersweet experience for me, because I have spent years in this world I’ve built in my head. With the workshops, I’ve let others have a peek inside. But now the doors are about to be flung open wide and everyone can traipse around inside it. Yes, it’s the ultimate goal! It’s a dream come true! Also, yoiks! It requires great trust, and a sense of creative safety, for a playwright to hand over the reins. I am supremely lucky to benefit from all of that here at Gulfshore Playhouse.

Some in the audience may recall we produced your play Miss Keller Has No Second Book in 2018. Both that play and Circle Forward, while very different from one another for the most part, share common themes of grief and memory and characters who are “stuck” in the past in some way. What draws you to these ideas and characters?

That’s an interesting observation, because I like to think each of my plays occupies a completely separate apartment in my head. But of course, they’re all in the same building! Grief is a terrifying topic to me, so I’ve done a lot of deep diving on the subject. I’m sure my writing is a way for me to attempt to process it. But I’ve always been fascinated with time and memory. Why do we remember what we do? How does our perception of time affect the way we live our lives? And how can we help each other become “unstuck?”

Another theme I’ve been noticing in my work is the idea of certainty. Humans want to be sure about things. Certainty equals comfort and safety. It makes sense. But the older I get, the more I appreciate when a doctor or a scientist says “to be honest, we don’t know for sure.” Because as hard as it can be to accept, there are some things we cannot know.

And actually, aren’t some mysteries the best part of the human experience? When you meet a total stranger and feel like you’ve known them all your life? The strong connections we form with each other can seem random, but are they? Maybe love is powerful enough to outlive death. Our tangled tethers are what make life worth living, and the bonds we form are how we grow and love more deeply. So if that means we might need more time (an extra lifetime or two? who knows for sure!) to process them all, well, I believe it’s worth it.

What is one thing you hope the audience walks away with after seeing this production?

I hope Circle Forward sparks good conversations for days afterwards. I want it to elicit feelings of hope and empathy. I want people to be entertained by the surprising, ineffable thrill that can only come from seeing live theatre. And I want Gulfshore Playhouse audiences to be really proud of supporting a brand new play, so when they read about it in years to come, they can say “you know, I saw the very first production of that play, and I remember it like it was yesterday.”