Knitting A Comedy Together
Dorothy “Dee-D.” Miller and Otto Konrad in Cadence Theatre's "Cross Stitch Bandits," which will be staged at the Libby S. Gottwald Playhouse in the Dominion Energy Center, 600 East Grace St. from March 9th to 19th. Photos by Jay Paul Photography.
Originally published by Style Weekly
By David Timberline
A playwriting couple’s world premiere opens at Cadence after an assist from Pulitzer Prize-winner Lindsay-Abaire.
“My dad attempted to put my mom in a coffin for her 40th birthday to have eulogies read about her life,” recalls playwright and filmmaker Steven Burneson. “She obviously said, ‘absolutely not, we’re not doing that.’ But the story was told in my family my whole childhood.”
Years later, when Burneson’s then-girlfriend-now-fiancé, Sanam Laila Hashemi, heard the story she immediately saw the dramatic potential. “She was like, “That is amazing, we need to make that into something,’” he says.
What they eventually made was the play “Cross Stitch Bandits,” which will have its world premiere this week at Cadence Theatre company, in partnership with Virginia Repertory Theatre.
The couple were able to expand the anecdote into a full show after their acceptance into the Pipeline New Works Fellowship program developed by Cadence. Burneson and Hashemi joined three other budding playwrights in the inaugural cohort of fellows in 2018. The initiative recently announced its 2023-24 fellows, extending the program to screenwriters as well.
The fellowship gave the couple the opportunity to work with playwright David Lindsay-Abaire as a mentor. Lindsay-Abaire won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2007 for his play, "Rabbit Hole," and the musical adaptation of his play, "Kimberly Akimbo," already a Best Musical award-winner for its Off-Broadway staging, just moved to Broadway last November.
Lindsay-Abaire stressed the fundamental importance of the hero’s journey narrative to the playwrights. “He sent us four wildly different plays and asked us to read them before the fellowship began,” recalls Hashemi. “As we learned about the basic structure of the hero’s journey, we could go back and see how it played out in very different contexts.”
After months of writing and editing, “Bandits” received a staged reading in 2019. It will be the first show developed through the Pipeline program to receive a full production. The couple have continued to tweak and refine the show working with the production’s director, Sharon Ott.
Otto Konrad and Cyrus Mooney in "Cross Stitch Bandits."
“We’ve had to address some basic things,” says Hashemi. “Like quick changes where a character ends one scene and then has to be at the top of the next scene and a day has passed.” A veteran actor with several local credits, Hashemi says her experience blocking shows helped but didn’t stop the need for adjustments. “Sharon has been a lovely collaborator, really helpful in guiding the process.”
Ott comes to the play with a decades-long passion for new work. She’s been at the helm of numerous world premieres over her storied career, going back to 1978 with the Obie-award winning production, “A Fierce Longing,” while a member of experimental troupe Theater X.
“It's like birthing a baby,” says Ott, also an associate professor of theater and former department chair at Virginia Commonwealth University. “That's always a beautiful process but involves unique challenges and, you know, maybe a little pain.”
Ott pays particular attention to respecting the playwrights. “I bug actors about being exact with the words,” she says. “Every author has the way they write and one of the biggest challenges for actors working on a new play is to catch that rhythm and not paraphrase. They really need to be truthful to what these authors are writing.”
The director describes “Bandits'' as having a Wes Anderson-style quirkiness but with more warmth. She says it fills a niche that has been neglected as more writers have pursued work tackling thorny cultural issues. “It has a comic engine to it and a warm engine to it,” she explains. “I think we're in a time where it's nice to do things that emphasize warmth and humanity and family without being saccharine.”
Hashemi concurs: “We didn’t come to this play from a lofty place of brilliant ideas; we had this hilarious anecdote and we took it and ran.” Burneson adds, "People have asked what we hope people take away from the play and it’s just: We hope they laugh and then go get dinner with their family.”
“Cross Stitch Bandits” can be seen at Libby S. Gottwald Playhouse in the Dominion Energy Center, 600 East Grace St. from March 9th to 19th. Tickets and information available here.