Circle Theatre’s Marketing and Outreach Intern, Annie Egan, had the opportunity to sit down with the playwright of Circle’s current production, Girls’ Weekend, written by Karen Schaeffer.
Egan: These characters feel so real. They’re so utterly Midwestern. Dot reminds me of my own mother. Are there any real life inspirations behind these characters or these events?
Schaeffer: There is a real life inspiration behind the event and the characters. The event, probably 20 years ago. Wow, that seems like a long time. 20 years ago, some of our neighborhood friends, women, would get together, and we would read a book and then meet once a month, and so a lot of the women that are in the in the play have characteristics of my neighborhood friends and also a little bit behind the book club atmosphere where you spend a lot more time drinking and just socializing, than you spend talking about the book.
TO THE RIGHT: KAREN SCHAEFFER
Egan: What does your writing process look like when you’re writing a farce?
Schaeffer: So when I was 49, I was not happy with what I was seeing for women in our community theaters. You know, you can play the mom or you can play the crazy aunt, and a lot of times I would audition for the mom and get the part of the crazy aunt because I was being told that I don’t look like a mom, even though I had, at the time, an 18 year old son and a 13 year old son.
And so I decided that I would write something that reflected the women that I knew, the women in my neighborhood, the women I see at the grocery store, the women that I work with. These women were having second second lives, and we were losing our husbands, and we were divorcing husbands, and we were finding different careers and rediscovering ourselves. And I was not seeing that in the theater. So I sat down and I wrote Girls’ Weekend. I wrote it in two weeks without anybody knowing about it.
Then we did a table read with a group of friends who are the most wonderful people in the world, because every time I contact them, usually it’s when I’ve written a new play, I will say, ‘Hey, I’ve written a play. Will you read it?’ And every single person says, ‘yes’. So we met at a restaurant, I fed them, and we bought drinks, and we went around the table and did a reading, and I said, ‘Okay, what do you think?’ And they gave me valuable feedback. It’s one of the reasons why these people are still very trusted. They’re my trusted group.
And so I did some more rewrites. And I did rewrites for about two years, which is unusual,
I know, but it was my first play and so I wasn’t quite ready for the world to see it. Well, the executive director of the Playhouse, John Byers, came to me and he said, ‘I’ve heard you’ve written a play’. And I said, ‘Yes, I have’. And he said, ‘Can I read it?’ And I said, ‘Absolutely.’ So I sent it to John, and he read it. And he said, ‘I think we should do a stage reading of this play.’ We had 120 people show. And 80% of the people who responded to the survey said, Absolutely, there should be a main stage performance. So it ended up being on the main stage, and it started out right at 80% of tickets sold the first weekend, then it jumped to 90% and sold out the second weekend, and the third weekend sold out completely. It was unbelievable.
Egan: Well we’re having a lot of fun with it in Grand Rapids, we have a lot of funny women. Thank you for letting us tell it.
Schaeffer: You know, when I initially wrote it, and I think one of the reasons why I didn’t submit it to be produced initially was because I was told by people in the theater, that this will never be produced. And I asked, why? And they said, ‘because women aren’t funny.’
That was, you know, we’re talking about 11, 12, years ago. Even today, if you look at a lot of
plays with female centric characters, they’re not farces. They don’t have the women doing the physical comedy, it’s all male based. And I grew up with Carol Burnett, Mary Tyler Moore, you know, all these fabulous women of comedy and so I wanted to see women be funny, and to have women do the lion share the physical comedy.
TO THE LEFT: Stacy Dawe portrays Dot in Circle Theatre’s “Girls’ Weekend.”
Photo: Ashlee Lambart Photography
Dot, who is supposed to be somewhere in her 60s, as you know, has the lion’s share of the physical comedy. Those women, and I’ve had several older women come up to me and say, Thank you so much for creating a character like this and having the most fun doing it. So I’m so happy that those naysayers were proven wrong, and it has been produced, and it’s been produced quite a bit.
Egan: We’ve seen our favorite book club again in The Bachelorette Party. Is there any chance we might see them again? What might they be up to in the year of 2025 maybe enjoying some legal marijuana?
Schaeffer: I’ve actually got the first act done of the final Girls’ Weekend, and it’s called Girls Weekend; a Las Vegas Wedding, even though they end up back at the cabin. I haven’t given it to Kathy (Pingel) yet, she’s my editor. So I’m hoping that I’d have it finished by the end of August, but I think it’s probably going to be in September or October.
Egan: What will audiences take away from Girls’ Weekend, why should someone bring their own book club?
Schaeffer: I would say that sense of fun, the sense of camaraderie, an opportunity just to laugh and to see yourself on stage. They’re all the reasons I wrote it, and they’re all the reasons that still apply today.
Egan: And my last question for you, Karen, is what wine pairs perfectly with a night of theater?
Schaeffer: All the wine.
Egan: I love that, Thank you so much for speaking with us today.
Schaeffer: Thank you.