Mother’s Day
SYNOPSIS
A new mom on a desperate quest for baby formula makes one more stop: an understaffed medieval-themed children’s store, where chaos reigns and a judgemental mom holds court. Will our intrepid heroine emerge victorious and, more importantly, unscathed? In this absurd take on modern parenthood, it takes guts to be a mom.
PLAYWRIGHT’S BIO
Betsy Anne Huggins is an educator, director and playwright based in Louisville, Kentucky. Her short plays have been read, developed and produced by Louisville Fringe Festival, This Bridge Theatre and Squallis Puppeteers. Her play Mother’s Day was selected for the 2024 Midwest Dramatists Conference. A career teaching artist, Betsy has taught playwriting with Actors Theatre of Louisville and Alabama Shakespeare Festival, guest lectured at Hanover College and University of Monticello, and led playwriting workshops for Auburn University, Alabama State University and Troy University.
A BIT ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT
When did you start writing plays? If you had a moment where you realized you wanted to write, what was it?
I wrote my first play, or rather 1/2 of a full-length play, during a college playwriting class. I never finished the play. As I pursued work as a theatre teaching artist post-college, I worked for a variety of companies, including Actors Theatre of Louisville. Actors Theatre of Louisville was arguably the home of the ten-minute play; back when it still ran the Humana Festival, it also hosted the National Ten-Minute Play Contest. Three of the best, most exciting ten-minute plays premiered each year during this Festival; I fell in love with the form. Ten-minute plays are tender, exciting and theatrical. And regardless of whether you like them or not, they’re over in ten minutes. The Education Department ran a festival similar to the national festival called New Voices. I taught for New Voices for about eight years, reaching hundreds of students every year in ten day residencies that culminated in each student writing a ten-minute play, and worked closely with selected playwrights to produce their plays in an annual festival. My work as a teaching artist inspired me to take up ten-minute play writing as I continued to teach playwriting at new jobs and in new contexts. Then, I lost my job at Alabama Shakespeare Festival due to the pandemic, and I had fewer opportunities to teach playwriting. Post-COVID, I have been grateful to work with a theatre group in Louisville called This Bridge Theatre, which produces Bake-Off-style shows a few times a year. That has reignited my love of the ten-minute play and spurred me to write again.
How did you come to write your OOB play? Was there a particular inspiration behind its creation? How has it developed?
This play was written for a Bake-Off-style short play festival and produced by This Bridge Theatre in Louisville, Kentucky, in early 2024. It was an audience hit and was reproduced in a “Best of Fest” retrospective at Louisville Fringe Festival later that year. It was also selected for the 2024 Midwest Dramatists Conference and was read in Olathe, Kansas.
The inspiration for the play came to me in a recurring dream. I have a chronic condition that causes me to have surgery every 3-5 years. After my last surgery in 2023, I had a recurring dream that I was in a grocery store when my surgical wound opened up and spilled my guts all over the floor. I wasn’t in pain; rather, I was embarrassed, frustrated and desperate for help. In my dream, a store employee came to clean up the spill, but I was on my own to figure out what to do next. I loved the idea of putting this moment of public vulnerability onstage. Plus, the metaphor of “spilling your guts” was too good to miss. My condition is pretty rare and wouldn’t be relatable to an audience without a lot of explanation. I’m at the age where my friends are having babies and wanted to bring attention to the struggles of new moms, both those created by our government and economy and those that we create ourselves. There’s no winning in being a new mom; you’re exhausted, overwhelmed, and healing from a major medical event and instead of helping, our society makes it clear you’re not doing a good job. I hope that dramatizing this on stage, albeit in a absurd and humorous fashion, can start a dialogue about how we treat new moms and what we can do better.
What are five words that describe who you are as a playwright?
Ambitious, unexpected, funny, bold, observant.
What/who are some of the major influences on your writing?
I started my journey in theatre as an actor and spent come time in college in an improv group. I tend to write in quick, staccato volleys back and forth between actors, similar to a lot of the work I did as an improvisor. I enjoy sketch comedy as well, which has impacted my writing style. As a teaching artist working mostly on ten-minute plays, I have a few favorite playwrights that I often reach for in the classroom, most of whom started their career at Actors Theatre. My favorite ten-minute playwrights are Gregory Hischak, Dan Dietz and Marco Ramirez. Their writing inspires me to be more inventive and experimental in form and push myself to write clear, precise dialogue.
I am always inspired by my students, especially their absolute disdain for all the “rules” of ten-minute playwriting I try to instill in them.
What’s one fact someone would never guess about you?
I am not a published playwright yet, but I have been cited in many medical journals. I have a rare condition called Gastroparesis, a paralysis of the stomach and small intestine. At 16 years old, I became the third American minor (9th worldwide) to be implanted with a Gastric Electrical Stimulator, which is kind of like a heart pacemaker but for a stomach. I have lived more of my life as a bionic woman than I did as an average human. I wish it gave me powers beyond digestion, but I’m content with it keeping me healthy and alive!
What are some of your favorite plays?
My favorite ten minute plays are Poor Shem by Gregory Hischak, 3:59 am: a drag race for two actors by Marco Ramirez and Lobster Boy by Dan Dietz. All are fantastic examples of innovative structure and effective dialogue (or monologue, in the case of Lobster Boy).
Any new projects you’re working on or shameless plugs?
I was just juried in as a new Teaching Artist for the Kentucky Arts Council’s Teaching Artist Directory!
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