IN conversation: 
​Tina Satter

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Richard:
So, Tina Satter is a New York-based theatre maker. Her recent show Is This a Roomjust had a very successful run at the Vineyard Theatre. The show was based on a transcript, an exact transcript of the arrest of US whistleblower Reality Winner. I recently caught up with her at her apartment in Bushwick.
…
 
So, Tina Satter, you're a theatre maker based in New York. You've been making theatre for 10 years?

Tina:
Since 2008, so 11 years.

R:11 years.

T:Yeah.

R:And how did you get into theatre?

T: I got into it sort of backwards in a way. I was living on the West Coast in Portland, Oregon. I had had no theatre training, I'd been an English major at undergraduate, but I took an acting class and thought maybe I wanted to be an actor, and there was this company in Portland that cast me in Blood Wedding, even though I was a very bad actor. They were called Imago Theatre, they're still there. So, they were very interesting to me, and they would often deconstruct classics or write and direct their own work.
And so, I had no theatre background, but was like, that process was really interesting to me. And they were really interested in The Wooster Group and Richard Foreman. And even though I wasn't a good actor and realising that, and that I didn't really enjoy it, I was like the process somehow was becoming intriguing to me. And then the other thing I really remember from that time is there was a young, really interesting theatre maker in New York named Richard Maxwell. So, then I went and ordered his books. So, that is this kind of thing that I think is really relevant to my trajectory because I had no... I didn't even know what those people were deconstructing at first. I'd seen plays in the world, but I come into it totally from the side with contemporary experimentalists as my way in. Because I wasn't even someone who was like, "I'm going to make theatre." It was really Richard Foreman's Unbalancing Actsthat was this like urtext for me, because as soon as I started reading that I was just like, "Oh, this is a fascinating way to process the world." That book is really incredible. It's like his theatre's very opaque, but when he writes about what his ideas for why he makes theatre and how he makes it, they're crystal clear and actually really all on the page. And it really spoke to me, and then, yeah. So, that was sort of the very, very first way in.

R: And so, I've seen a few Half Straddle plays, your company, but I've always seen them on video.

T: Oh, really?

R: Which just from talking to you earlier, that's something you do as well. You've seen a lot of people's work on video.

T:Yeah, when I like the stuff, it's kind of a cool way to see it.

R:Yeah, it's not bad. But so, I'm not as embarrassed to say that I haven't seen your stuff live. But tell us about Half Straddle then. 
 
T: I was interested in Richard Maxwell and the New York City Players as a writer/director, and Young Jean Lee, who then at that time had Young Jean Lee's Theatre Company. I could see the autonomy as a writer/director that if you could frame it that way, you could make it, and you didn't have to wait necessarily. We would always apply and get space or be curated into seasons, but I could see that, that allowed a frame to do that work when I looked at those two models. So, that was also in my head, and yeah, that's sort of how the company…

R: So, you were very attracted to the auteur theatremaker, when you're directing you write your own stuff.

T: Yeah. I went back to grad school when I was at Portland at Reed, and wanted to do this final project in the theatre class I was taking. And they're like, "Choose a text you want to direct." And I was like, "Oh, I'm going to direct my own." I tell this story a ton, but the teacher was like, "Oh, you don't want to direct your own text. It's too hard, and you won't have enough distance." And I was totally confused because I was like, "What do you mean? I know how it goes." It's hard to explain how naïvely and amazingly, actually confused I was because I was like, "I know how this will go."
It wasn't even like I had some ego ownership of like, "It's my text." I had put words down, I wish I could get back to this feeling that I then knew how I would... or I was going to figure out how I'd activate them. And it was very confusing to me that there was some rule that you wouldn't direct what you wrote.

R: It's a very confusing rule, yeah.
​
T: And then that professor was actually amazing, and he was like, "Oh, well you should read María Irene Fornés,"  who became a really seminal person for my work because she was a writer/director too.
So, I guess, yeah, that auteur thing. Yeah, I wasn't from the onset being like, "I want to be an auteur," but I was like, "I'm making things, and I'm going to write what it is, and then I have a lot of thoughts about how it will look and feel." So, that turns out is labelled an auteur.

< it was very confusing to me that there was some rule that you wouldn't direct what you wrote >

R: That's directing. So, tell us the story of Reality Winner because she's a fascinating-

T: She's fascinating.

R: ... person, and what happened to her is important, yeah.

T: She's 27 now, so this happened when she was 25 years old. Her real given name at birth is Reality Winner, she's from Texas. At 18, so nine years ago, from high school, she went into the military and was in the Air Force and she served six years and she was a crypto linguist. So, there she learned three Arabic languages in the Air Force, and was mostly using that in relation to drone operations then. And then when she left-

R: Did she operate drones?

​T: I don't think she did it herself. She would have been very involved with watching and translating documents related to them because the languages that would have been being heard on the videos and stuff on the live feeds would have been in Pashto, Dari... Ostensibly, I don't totally... But I know she was using her language work and watching and witnessing some of those drones happening in Afghanistan and Iraq. And then when she left the military on her own volition, and then she was honourably discharged, and then she was working because she had high security clearance, she got a job at an NSA place, and she... Sorry, there's so much to say about everything, but she, basically... Why she's fascinating, she's a military person. She owns three guns, all this comes out.

R: But the story is that she was-

T: But she was not into the current administration, she wasn't into Trump. And so, in that winter of 2017 in the US, and whatever Trump was trying to say that the Russians had not interfered in the election, it wasn't yet public. She makes public for the first time, proof... Because she could see-

R: So, she's the person who makes public-

T: For the first-

R: Proves that the Russians were interfering with the election.

T: Yeah, that thing that The Intercept publishes that she sends to them is the first time that there's literal proof in US media.

R: Oh, so that was a big... So, she WikiLeaks classified documents.

T: Yeah, they-

R: But it was a big deal.

T: But weirdly, her case never gets that much attention like that, but it was. It's then cited in the Mueller Report and then the Congress talks about that, but that's what she leaked. She can see with her NSA clearance... She goes into a part she's not supposed to go into that's outside her range of work, all this is in the transcript, but yeah. And then she's this total millennial and then she makes this really rash choice ostensibly. I don't think she was like a Snowden plotting away to flip her whole life upside down in a martyred way, but she is like, "I can see this news is right here." She clearly was reading things like The Intercept and other more progressive things at the time.
We don't totally know what went into her head or why she makes the choice to send this information to The Intercept that showed clearly that the US was aware of these-

R: Russians.

T: Yes, and it's very specific. It's into like literal election places in Florida, and it's fact, you know what I mean? They have this.

R: And she got tried, and she's now in jail.

T: She goes to jail the day of this, June 3rd, 2017, the day that we show on stage. She's never been out of jail since.

< She goes to jail the day of this, June 3rd, 2017, the day that we show on stage >

R: And she was convicted for how long? Five years?

T: Five years, I mean, she ultimately took a plea deal. She never went fully for her trial. She was in jail for a year and a half, she would have gone to her trial a couple months after that, and could have served up to 10 years if she'd just gone to her trial and been then fully thrown the book and convicted. But at that year-and-a-half point she decided to switch it and take a plea deal, and she plead guilty and they gave her five years, which is considered a record-breaking sentence under the Espionage Act.
And that whole time, of course, she's denied bail, which is very, very uncommon for a whistleblower. She was treated on the hard end of all of that stuff for whatever reasons.

R: Yeah, because she just published it. She was not that high-level and she'd gotten access to the documents.

T: Yeah, I mean, she breaks a rule, right? The clear thing is she's not supposed to send those things out, and that's when they charge her under the Espionage Act, which now my brain's a little fritzing, but that is something to do with aiding and abetting. They could have charged her under something less like mishandling of classified docs would have probably been a more... They could have done that, her family would argue that, and she would have still been punished, but it would not have been severe. The Espionage Act is a whole other ballgame, and it's also this wildly outdated-

R: Now she's in there with top-level spies.

T: Yeah, and considered an enemy of the state and considered by that sentence, which is also very intense for her and her family because she's served the military and they argue she was doing this out of love of country, which also makes it really fascinating because she can also operate as being seen as a patriotic figure in a very confusing time, which is now in the US of what are you supposed to do if you have that kind of information?

R: If the government is lying. She is a patriot, right?

T: I think so.

R: Dare I say, she's from a different background to you. She's like a... I don't know-

T: Well, that's what's interesting to me.

R: But I don't want to be judgmental though.

T: That's what was really interesting to me on a personal level when I read the first article about her, which was like six months after she'd first been arrested because I hadn't paid attention to it actually very well. I'd heard her name, but had not followed up on that story at all. But when I read about her, I was like... So, I read about it in December 2017, at that point I'm going around post-2016 election of Trump feeling like, "Eww I'm disgusted by... " I mean, I've been feeling that basically since 9/11, but I'm grossed out by our country,there's this weird jingoistic strain, I don't feel relation to the state, I don't feel pride in the state.
And when I was reading about Reality, I was like, "Wow, here's someone who actually feels engaged with what the possibility of our country could be, still thinks it should have values. It was weird, I had this snarky hipster remove like, "Ugh, I hate being from America," thing. You know what I mean? And I'm a little too old to not have a more complicated... But she really waked in me like, "Oh, what would it mean to care? The step... " Because I really feel like even if it's very idealistic, I was like, "Oh, this is this very millennial patriot, she's not removed from this. She's not just tweeting stuff, she actually takes a step that is a crazy step to take, whether it was very thought out or not.
She took all these steps knowing at a certain level, and that to me implied a level of caring and a level of, "I don't want people to not know that our country does know they interfered." And, "We are being lied to. Shouldn't we know that?" And really stepping into that really made me feel really fascinated that there are people that care that much. And yeah, I didn't serve in the military. And then I was thinking, what's also interesting about her background that made her very, to me, like, "Wow, let's look at 2017. What is a whistleblower? A whistleblower is a 25-year-old blond girl who owns three guns, served in the military, also teaches yoga, and the last Instagram before the day she goes to jail is a kale bowl."
That is amazing, right? That is an incredible cross-section of our moment that she totally without meaning to ends up standing for, and I found that super fascinating. And when we do the show in New York, some of the talkbacks... You know these New York theatregoers like, "I'm just disappointed she had guns." And it's like, "No, that's what's amazing. People in our country that don't like Trump own guns." Let's think about... There's no easy solutions to any of this, but I think being open to how dynamic the reality, no pun intended, is I think, ultimately helpful. I mean, we're in such a crazy moment, I don't know where information is helpful anymore frankly, but it still feels important to understand, yes, someone can be against our current administration and have complicated thoughts and own guns.

< "Wow, What is a whistleblower? A whistleblower is a 25-year-old blond girl who owns three guns, served in the military, also teaches yoga, and the last Instagram before the day she goes to jail is a kale bowl." >

R: Yeah, and these contradictions are surely what we should be striving to become more sympathetic with because-

T: Yes. Yes, empathy. Yeah.

R: Empathy and that kind of thing. And then this idea... So, you came across this transcript. It's public knowledge this transcript.

T: Yeah, when I saw it, it was a link from the article, which I was reading, which is in New York Magazine. But it had been published in Politico, this was in the public domain, I think probably because it had been. The recording itself was used in one of her early indictment things or something. So, at that point somehow Politico had their hands on it, either from a Freedom of Information Act or it had just gotten out there.

R: Gotten out there, and it's a great play. Yeah.

T: I mean, the script is good.

R: The script is good.

T: Yeah.

R: I liked about it was I felt like it's also meta because it's a-

T: It's totally meta.

R: - it's a real dialogue, but she's lying for about three quarters of it because she's pretending she didn't. She's trying to get away with getting caught, and then the cops are also doing their very rehearsed performance of being cops.

T: Yeah, it's totally meta, and we talked about that a lot when we were making it, me and the actors. It's like this crazy meta thing, everyone's performing. It's the highest stakes performance all around.She's lying, like you said. They're pretending it's not such a big deal. When they talk to her about CrossFit, Agent Garrick, we've only been able to find one evidence at all ever of those two agents that are named in it, and it's a courtroom sketch of Garrick. And when we saw that, someone on our design team or someone was like, "That dude doesn't do CrossFit. He just doesn't." Because they would have known everything. So, anyways, but just all to say-

R: Oh, you think that maybe he read up on CrossFit, so that he could chat to her about it?

T: Maybe, I mean, we've had agents say that was very realistic, and then that... Anything is possible, and I don't really... I mean, I don't know, he probably did, but they're definitely bro-ing down with her. Like the dog chitchat, they’rre finding... It's unequivocally, and we've been told it's in their toolbox to find ways to-

R: To relax her.

T: Very just chitchat. So, whether they are totally thinking that or just massaging it so that she feels really like she's having just a conversation with these people and this isn't a big deal, and we get what you... We know, you're angry. That is all very, very rehearsed and acted, which is very interesting at that level being in the theatre world and then that's happening in someone's house one afternoon as part of the machinations of the state. It's super fascinating.

R: Amazing.

T: And then just the thing related to that, I just think it's really interesting at the level of making it and working with actors is like that thing how you talk about everyone Is on stage, the most important thing is like the listening. This day, all of them are listening word for word actually, because at any point she could admit, or she could go for a gun. And then for her especially, it's very clear she's really trying to track “what do they know?” If I tell them I printed something, so it's like this hyper listening that is happening that day that then becomes really fascinating.

R: Remember that bit where she goes, she's lying about dumping the piece of paper, and she says, "I just folded it in half and dumped it." And the guy goes, "Folded in half?"

T: I know it's really... That’s the moment.

R: And he's like, "We have evidence that this piece of paper was folded in half."

T: Right. Yes.

< that's happening in someone's house one afternoon as part of the machinations of the state >

R: That was the moment she was caught?

T: No, it's not, but it feels like it's the beginning of the end. When you watch the show a second time or a bajillionth time, the first time you see it you don't realise, but that is the moment. That's the moment that... But for whatever reason, she offers that information, it's so crazy. She brings it up first.

R: Yeah, but also, it's not a giveaway.

T: No, but he just says... I mean, and we also choose him to say, "Folded... " He said, it but we put a little spin on it, but I think that's the moment they seem… because then... So, shortly, within a page-and-a-half or within several minutes in real life, they say, "How did you get it out of the office?" And then she says, "Folded in half in my panty hose." So, that's the moment though.

R: So, maybe in her mind she realised that they know way more than I'm hoping that they might.

T: Yes, yeah. And the article had not yet run in The Intercept yet. It would go on to run on June 4th, 2017. So, she's also trying to figure, "How did they know? Did The Intercept give me up?"

R: It wasn't published.

​< AND THEN SHE SAYS, "FOLDED IN HALF IN MY PANTY HOSE." SO, THAT'S THE MOMENT >

T: No, and I just learned this a couple weeks ago when we did it at University of Michigan from an expert there who, he's an expert on election tampering, and he's on faculty. And The Intercept sent the evidence Reality sent to them to him to be vetted, and yeah. I always assumed this had been published. So, she's in her house... Emily Davis and I were talking, we were like, "Ooh, that's a whole other layer." We literally never knew that she's, in addition... Yeah, how she keeps her cool, but that's another layer that she's trying to figure out how do they know? But anyways, it doesn't-

R: So, she was hoping her lie was going to get her out of jail.

T: Yeah, who knows? There's so much-

R: Who knows?

T: Within any human's psychology, we know as actors, which is probably a decent level of human psychology analysis, but that she at least is hoping, maybe semi-believing them because they keep saying it's not a big deal. If she tells a little, they'll say, "You get some reprimand." Or is she trying to flat out lie? It's a whole dance until the moment she finally admits it. Which is really fascinating.

R: That's wild, because she is clearly an honest person to a degree. Military people in my mind are very direct.

T: I mean, that's what super interesting. We've now talked to other whistleblowers, and they're like she really fits the persona of the person who chooses to do that ostensibly martyred act because several things she says in the transcript and in the show are, "I wasn't even thinking about myself at that moment." She repeats that twice, once she's admitted and... And this whistleblower Thomas Drake, who's considered the signature whistleblower under the Obama administration, she's considered the signature whistleblower under Trump. It's like a whole culture of whistleblowing. But he's like, "I relate so deeply to that."
So, I guess less of honesty, but at that point she's... So, there's honesty and then there's not thinking about yourself, and he's like, "There's this way you've chosen to make this act that's bigger than you, and maybe even bigger or separate than honesty." And then in the day when she's being questioned, and he said it was similar with him being questioned at his home, you're trying to find a way to not give up your facts and what you did. Protect that information and not lie, because you are going to get in trouble for lying to the... It's this weird dance that is very particular. I mean, there's a lot, but it's interesting too.

R: Interesting. And maybe-

T: Yeah, because I don't know how to answer if she's honest or not.

R: Maybe you kind of want to tell them the great thing you did as well because you're proud of what you did.

T: Right, and they of course say to her like, "We get it." Sort of, again, trying to appeal to that idea of we understand things are yucky right now or whatever in the government.

R: This is the thing we're getting into now is, even though you have this real transcript, the room for interpretation, and bringing your own theatre development from the last 10 years, 11 years, 12 years into this project. You don't change the dialogue in any way.

T: No, we don't change any of the words.

R: To edit or-

T: No.

R: The transcript is kept the same.

T: Yeah, it's all the words and redactions and coughs and dog barks.

R: So, I don't know, tell us how you saw the story.

T: Yeah, and I mean, we've never heard it either, which is-

R: Okay, so it's just the words.

< it's all the words and redactions
​and coughs and dog barks >

T: We just have the words. Yeah, one of my first impulses around it, not even knowing yet if we'd actually do it, but that was that there should be no set, and that there'd be this really simple... I mean, it's the scenic designer, Parker, who I work with came to the idea of that quite beautiful and simple thing we ended up staging it on this platform. But I just knew there should be no set. The main drama was this conversation, and the energy between all of them.I just had this murky, but clear sense like it's like just watching that as starkly as possible.
And I also from the beginning thought, maybe there's audience on both sides, which is not something I'd ever done, that felt like this instinct. And we now do it that way, it always feels nerve-racking, but it feels like right now, but that there's audience on both sides just to frame up this crazy tension in that moment. And then, so knowing there's no set, it's like there's no like she doesn't lean against a counter or something. So, then how do you stage it on there, and in real life they take her ultimately to this tiny room so that she stands... We've seen pictures of it. She was stood against a wall in a tiny room, and just two agents like that.

R: Yeah, yeah. With 11 men, there's like 11 men in her-

T: Yeah, then moving around her house, which was not big, but moving in around her house and taking all the evidence and taking her laptop, and just searching for any stuff, clues. But yeah, so then it was just once we got in the room with the actual actors in the rehearsal room was like finding this choreographic score, like the moving towards Reality and away from Reality was sort of... That somehow tracked abstractly, but specifically with this conversation, which is the play that unfolds.

T: But in this play, the actors talk, it's total naturalism overall with the lines, along with this slight stylising that happens because they hit every single stutter and break, which actually then makes it not realistic. Because those would be sort of... in real talk, those would get roughed over. But Pete Simpson especially, who originated the Garrick role, he kind of did this thing where he hits every single thing, and that then became this important tension, which gives it its slight unnaturalist thing that merged with the natural. It's like this weird delicate thing that sort of has set the tone for how it feels up there. Yeah, it's hard to sort of talk about some of this stuff-

R: It is, isn't it?

T: With specific language.

R: Yeah, because it's the surreal thing that's pleasurable. Like I've seen Nature Theatre of Oklahoma's show, they're singing those ums and ahs and stuff, and it's delightful, is that a phrase to use?

T: Yeah, I think that's delightful, that quality of when they sing those things.

R: And then I remember watching the video just recently, and then it was in the morning and my girlfriend was getting ready for work. She started watching it with me for a while, and she was riveted. It speaks a lot to female experience.

T: Yes.

R: And how power works. I don't know-

T: I mean, that was... Yeah, I'm glad you said that because that was... So, amidst all of that movement thing we were figuring out, it always was one dramaturgical through line just to anchor that was what does this feel like for Reality second to second? For Reality Winner. That was a thing that would anchor us, or for me directorally, and always this idea of what would it feel like if you were home and 11 men came into your space. And you know you've done something wrong. You know there are... They take your phone away right away, they take your car keys.
That is so specific and so terrifying, and that's actually cool... I mean, it's neat to hear she... Because that is something for me, that was always at work at trying to... That is a huge part of that day for me is that Reality's body was in that room with those people. And I've talked about this a lot, but if I had read about Reality, the article I read, and then read this transcript right away, but Reality had been a young man, I would have been totally intrigued by the story because it's interesting, but I would have never had an artistic impulse. The huge impulse was like this woman's in this, then all the charge of that, and yeah.

R: Especially in the times we're in now, it's pertinent to be discussed.

T: Totally.

R: Yeah. But I don't know, there's something about the brutality of that situation. I'm kind of digressing here, but I wanted to talk about political brutality in general, and different other people that I'm going to talk to, to do with this. And this is the thing I found interesting was this is how state brutality manifests itself, and it's kind of... It just seemed very transgressive to me, everything about what was happening. They walk into her house, they go through her stuff, they tell her where to move, where she has to go, where she has to stand.It seems like in the play as well, but you say it's close to what would happen in reality. They invade her personal space as well, in general, to intimidate and to-

T: Well, they did because... Yes, that's what happened. They came to her house and all the things were said like, "I need to take your cellphone." So, just to step back a little bit to the legal part of the Reality thing, but tied to what you're talking about. People always say, "Well, why don't you just say I need a lawyer? And doesn't she have a case because they didn't Mirandize her?" And so, the things we've learned from doing this is that the FBI considers what happened to Reality that day a non-custodial interview. They never said, "You're under arrest." They never took her into custody. So, because they never said that, they didn't have to read her, her Miranda rights.
But her family and others argue, and other people in general around these kind of cases - If you come into a person's home, say I need to take their car keys giving them no clear option. I suppose she could have said... Men come to a young woman's say, "All right, we need to talk to you for a little bit." But before they do that, and that's early in the play, "We're going to take your car keys. Do you have a cellphone?" You've given your-

R: Safety, your security. You can't escape.

T: Yeah, so even if they've never... I just talked with her mom about this, and it really struck me. I never conceived of it actually that of course she doesn't... That's all part of the thing. She no longer feels she has autonomy. Literally, what would she do. Of course, somewhere in there she could have said, "Stop, I'm calling a lawyer." But I don't even... They've literally, systemically almost in those physical actions, that circuit's been cut almost.

< She no longer feels she has autonomy >

R: Disempowered her massively.

T: Right. I think you have to be some very singular person, and she's quite singular and really smart, and even despite that tries to... She doesn't immediately say, "Okay, I know I did it. I sent something to The Intercept." She tries to survive that.

R: She could have been innocent at that point. She does admit that she-

T: I mean, they know she's not though because they have hard proof. So, that's another-

R: Okay.

T: They know it's her. I mean, they have this printer that it's just, everyone knows it's Reality, so it's sort of... Yeah. I mean, that lawyer, this really cool lawyer did a talk back-

R: But why was there 11 men? Why didn't a... There must be something about the intimidation that I don't really understand.

T: Same, I mean, those are things that are case to case how they do each of those in FBI. And again, they consider this an interview not an interrogation. There's lots of things about Reality's... Like why was she treated so intensely all along, and it seems mostly like one thing from the outside is that mostly at that moment in time, the administration wanted to deter leakers. So, she became nailed to the door as an example.

R: They wanted to display power then, in that sense. They wanted to-

T: Yeah, that's one thinking especially because her stuff was related to the Russians, which clearly is some sort of particular point for Trump. This loaded relationship there. But I don't... There's varying... Yeah, we haven't yet talked to anyone who's clearly like, "This is why they did that day with 11." Everyone we've talked to, journalists, experts in the security space and FBI people say it is very strange they didn't bring a woman. That, that seems really particular, because they say at one point in that warrant that they could search her.

R: Well, if they're going to search her-

T: So, unless there's something we misunderstood in this, we were really pretty sure there were no women there. Everyone's just like that's very crazy, and we've even had an FBI agent be like, "That's not smart that they didn't have a woman there." I don't know, you just hear so many things around these, so.

R: Yeah, yeah. Would you, more broadly speaking, have you in your own experience of the world seen power at play in similar ways? I don't know, you've got, is it stop-and-frisk? Where as a citizen you can just be stopped on the whim of a police officer and checked. Is there, I don't know. Is there more to it on a social level to this kind of display of power? Maybe not, maybe because I'm interested in it-

T: I think yes, but I think it's such a big question.

R: It's a massive question.

T: Yeah.

R: Yeah, I'm asking a nasty question, yeah.

T: Yeah, and I'm like it's almost so big I can't... Because I start to just think of myself moving through a day or the things I witness constantly of how other people in the city are treated, women, and women of colour, that you almost take... If you move about in the city, you just see that stuff unfolding second by second. I mean, I've seen people arrested... So, I'll say you see people arrested on the subway stuff all the time, and I'll just say every single time I've seen that person they've been a young black man of color who's being talked to by police.
I can count on my hand, actually, how many times I've seen that, it's not like... But every time that's who's being talked to.

R: And did you... I don't know. Yeah, it just felt like in the piece that it was speaking more broadly to not just this particular situation.

​T: Yeah, I think it's like anything one makes. I didn't... Or at least how I make it, I wasn't worrying about that. I had to figure out how to make that show. And the concerns were Reality in the space, and then I of course knew what's fascinating about this is it comes out in so many ways. There's so much this could come out and be in conversation with, about how people get punished. How do you have access to information? How do you share it if you have it? How are women treated in rooms? How are women treated in rooms by law enforcement?
I knew all that was in the mix, but I didn't... Then you just go in and make... I just remember we're staging every word on here, let's figure that out. And I guess, it's an exciting and terrifying thing because of what these things speak to that then out of this one hour that happened on a hot afternoon in Georgia in one person's home, it actually has all these stark resonances with the things you're talking about.
So, that's, I think, why staging this kind of real document is really interesting in this moment in time. It was new for me to do that, but I was like this is in conversation with so many things that I wouldn't know how to make a piece of work about or even have the interest in. But that they are in conversation with this is amazing, and actually feels really vital. And all of us that collaborated on it, were feeling that as we were working on it. But I'd stumbled upon it as a cool text.

R: But everyone felt there was this vitality in what you were doing with it.

T: Yeah, but I wasn't... Because I'd never made political theatre. I was just like Reality is rad, this piece is like a thriller, the language is incredible.And then as we're working on it, it's like... Then aware it's going to sit interestingly, but over time of like, "Whoa, this is... " Just the more time we all spent on it and figuring out all the movement because all the actors were talking about how to play those agents, and that then led to all these discussions of how men stand by women, or men in power can use their bodies.

R: Yeah, the way they dress, the way they carry themselves.

T: Yeah, exactly. Exactly, and playing with that.

< How are women treated in rooms? How are women treated in rooms by law enforcement? >

R: Cool. What's your own political? If you were an anarchist, an anarchist anti-authority. I don't know, I'm being silly, but-

T: I don't know. So, to answer that really honestly, it's still not clear to me, but the thing why I also like this play is it hits a really complicated spot in this good girl part of me that's all along like, "Well, she did break a rule."So, it's like really, because people will be like, when occasionally there's some hardliner person in an audience, which is just unusual for... who's like, "Well, I don't know. She was just an idiot." You see online that's how people talk about her, but some of the...
Not she was an idiot, no audience ever says that, but they're like, "She was just kind of dumb. Shouldn't she have... Why is she being held up by you all? She broke a law." And I'll always be like, I'm kind of in agreement with you. She broke a law, that's actually weirdly complicated. I still have this part even though... It's just this weird little tinge I have in me that I'm always having to reckon with, like where does that come from because overall, I find the Espionage Act abhorrent.
To me the biggest thing is that in a democracy this idea that if you see wrongdoing, we actually have no system... The whistleblower system is completely... It's not actionable. There's no way to actually have proper discourse and complicated conversations around things within the state or within even corporations anymore. Obviously, the side note of all the Me Too and all the ways we're trying to figure out.
But anyways, I have a mix. I'm definitely a total progressive human, but I don't actually know if I'm an anarchist. I think I almost have some part of me that's scared if we don't have structure, but I'm totally disgusted and horrified by the structure now.So, it's a really good question that I don't push myself to actually answer. I would need to sit down and write about it. I've never done that for myself, and be like “what do you think?”

R: Sounds like the human experience in a way. I did a project where... Another reason I was interested in this, where I took newspaper articles, and we were making theatre out of newspaper articles. And the ones I chose were... Well, to start, we were choosing them by chance, chance operations. And everything was ambivalent. I think that was the... Every time you'd get an article you would say, "That's a shame that this happened." But then you'd almost have this kind of ambivalence because it would be, "But what about this? And what about that? Or maybe there's another viewpoint." And I did it with a big team of people, so there was always this opposing viewpoint. This little voice like you said, "Oh, she did break a rule."

T: No, I know.

R: And what I liked about this project was there seemed to be through that ambivalence…

T: Yeah, and that was something important to just always be like if we stuck to… these are the words that happened, and trying to keep a sort of neutrality. That was the thing that always felt the strongest to do with it was just stage what happened that day. Because there were people who were like, "Shouldn't you amp up Reality as a folk hero?" And it's like, let's just let her actions that day and her amazing thing she says at the end of the play do that. And even if those FBI agents are agents of a state I find really problematic, they're also just humans doing their job.And let's just also show what their job is, and the grey area in there.
That felt like the clearest thing, strongest thing for us to do was to treat it like that. Sort of related to what you're saying, I also think there's some question around at the end of the day, it's human connections that are stronger than even ideologybecause this is like Reality's family is trying really hard to get clemency and a pardon for her. And they are even appealing to Trump, and would take that from Trump, and it goes against their politics. So, my partner was kind of like, why would they do that because at the end of the day they want their daughter home. That is literally what they want, even over... They would totally align with Trump if he would get her out of prison, and that's really complicated.
But that somehow seems at play in some of this... I don't know how that ties to my inner voices about lawbreaking, but it's something to do about human things actually trump all of it or something. I don't know, and I just find that really interesting because principles... I guess it's like principles are so mutable to experience and emotion, I guess. Or maybe even over other things. I don't know.

< principles are so mutable to experience and emotion >

R: They're even kind of hard to accept, if you let's say, had made a piece that showed her as a folk hero and this pure clear person, then you'd probably find it hard to maybe even side with her or accept maybe a critique of the state in that situation.

T: Yeah, right. I think that's a really good point because it hearkens back to my first instincts of showing this complicated intelligent human, who's got this going and also makes this choice that's questionable, but inarguably the good is what gives it, its-

R: Its impact.

T: Its impact, yeah.

R: Yeah.

T: Yeah.

R: Sure.

T: Or Reality has impact in that way.

R: She is probably if you met her in a bar five years ago, she would maybe... Mightn't even have voted for Obama, I don't know.

T: Right. Right.

R: She's like a conservative pro military person.

T: I find that so interesting, I don't know her larger politics before-

R: Yeah, she's pro-gun for instance.

T: Totally, which yeah. Yeah, so again, it's very like this is America now, and we need to look at it.

R: Yeah.