Peggy Stafford explores friendship, her involvement with WP’s Labs and the development of WAPATO.

Set in a home for aging women, Wapato focuses on 4 women and the role forgiveness and redemption play in their lives. What do these themes mean to you?

Well, I was raised Catholic, so there’s that.  But this play looks at forgiveness inside a close-knit community. Not at all a simple question of heaven or hell.  In fact, there really is no redemption at the end of the play. These are old friends who have known each other since childhood.  They now live together in an assisted living community. But along the way, through their life together, they’ve harmed one another.  In some cases, in substantial ways like affairs and theft and gossip.  So why do these long-historied friends stick together like this through thick and thin?  What happens when someone fucks you over so bad -- or your child, or your country, or your dearest oldest friend?  Do you cut this person out of your life forever?  Some people do this.  Do you seek revenge or villainize them?  Some people do that.  But in this story, the women care most about their tribe, their togetherness, and are willing to incorporate past transgressions to insure that their community remains nearly-completely intact.

Wapato is also insanely funny!  Why do you think humor allows us to gain great insight into serious issues?

People are fragile.  Fragile is funny.  It’s a nervous kind of funny, a knowing kind of funny, an empathetic reaction.  The women in this play are old – their bodies, their minds, their hearts are worn and tired.  So they’re vulnerable.  And that vulnerability is beautiful  -- or rather, there’s a deep beauty made visible, and a corresponding humor, when these women bare their truest selves.

What's the significance of the movement sequences throughout the play?

There were sections of the play that when I attempted to write them, the words kept repeating themselves. I was trying to find the “language” of cardigans, lipstick and pumps, and articulate the women’s progress from the familiar and civilized towards a wilderness, and then back again.  Finally it occurred to me that these sections of the play might be best told with just movement.  And music. Words aren’t the truest way to convey what the women are going through at these points in the play.

As a HotHouse production, Wapato has the unique opportunity to rehearse for three weeks, go up in front of an audience, and then go back into rehearsal for two weeks before its final three performances.  How do you think this is going to help you as a playwright?

I think it will help a lot. I have weeks to work on my script with an incredibly talented director, cast, and designers.  The script will turn into a play.  And then, having learned from rehearsals and from our audience, we’ll be able to reverse the production clock, revisiting choices and experimenting with new solutions.

You are a member of WP's Playwright's Lab. What are your personal and professional highlights from this experience?

I’ve met a number of inspiring, passionate theatre-makers.  I’ve made new friends.  I think Julie Crosby has done an amazing job with the Women’s Project Lab.  It’s a vibrant community of women theatre artists who offer one another a really rich exchange of ideas and experiences, as well as concrete opportunities.  My plays have been read aloud in the Playwrights Lab and with the full company, and I’ve received insightful comments about the work.  I’ve connected with directors with whom I’m pursuing future collaborations, and formed other important new relationships that I’m certain will carry forward for many years and projects to come.

A curly question to finish.  Would you like to share with WP's audience something about yourself that no one else knows...

Like a character in this play, I am deeply afraid of fast-moving squirrels.