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Exclusive: Talia Light Rake Talks Producing The ‘Find A Way or Make One’ Virtual theatre festival

by Dira M. July 25, 2020
by Dira M. July 25, 2020 0 comments
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Check out our exclusive interview with Talia Light Rake about the upcoming “Find A Way or Make One” Virtual theatre festival. 

The Knockturnal: What inspired you to launch this festival?

Talia Light Rake: Back in March, I found out that the rest of my senior year of college was going to be virtual and that my Senior Drama Thesis was canceled. I was heartbroken and felt lost without my theater community. When I was still in school in Ohio, I had spent time reworking and furthering developing the play I was working on with a playwright who was in New York. This showed me that you didn’t need to be physically together with someone in order to collaborate with them. This gave me the idea to start Playdate and so I created the first round of our new play development conference. As quarantine hit full swing, I noticed more and more zoom readings popping up. I was intrigued, but I always felt like something was a bit off. These plays were not intended to be performed virtually and so you could just tell that there were all these elements that were missing. I wanted to create work that was specifically intended to be performed virtually, through a computer screen. For the next round of our play development conference, I challenged all 70+ playwrights to write a play for the screen. “The Screen-Play”. I wanted to bring these works to life, and so I brought on a team of trusted readers, and selected six plays to produce for Find A Way Or Make One: A Virtual Play Festival. The title is based on the prompt the writers were given, but it also aptly speaks to exactly what we are all trying to do during these crazy, unsettling times.

The Knockturnal: Who are some of the playwrights and actors involved?

Talia Light Rake: Our playwrights span from emerging undergraduates to those who are already established in the theater community. Some of our writers wrote their very first play for our conference while others runs their own theater companies. The virtual space is new for everyone. It is an equalizer and it has allowed for us to connect with so many new voices. Jack Spagnola, Lauren D’Errico, Ben Kaye, Lizz Bogaard, Sarah Groustra, and Roseanna Zerambo have each done such an incredible job at accessing and addressing the spectrum of truths that only arise through distance. We are equally blown away by our cast. We feel so lucky to have had such amazing stars from Hollywood and Broadway donate their time to come play with us. You might recognize Haley Orrantia as Erica Goldberg on The Goldbergs and Marcus Scribner as Junior on Black-ish, but with us they are Catherine and Charlie — a couple in a long-distance relationship forced to DTR due to quarantine.

The Knockturnal: Tell us about the philanthropy angle!
Talia Light Rake: I have found art to be a solace during these times. When we began getting artists together to bring these plays to life, it only felt right that we used our power and artistic voices to raise money for these extraordinary social justice organizations and acknowledge this moment in time. YWCA and Color for Change are doing great work and I feel very excited to be able to support them with our festival.

The Knockturnal: Tell us a bit about yourself and your love of theater?

Talia Light Rake: Growing up, I was a part of the youngest Shakespeare group in America. I enjoyed school, but I would count down the hours till I could go run around the Old Magic Castle where the Los Angeles Drama Club was housed and dive into the wonderful world of theater. As I got older, I was your classic drama club president and at Kenyon College I helped to revive one of the only student producing groups on campus. I love creating theater communities and I love theatrical collaborations. Some of my closest friends and strongest partnerships have come from creating theater together. During my time as an Apprentice at Williamstown Theatre Festival, I led the charge in producing multiple Apprentice-Only events, and I believe that our cohort remains close because we were able to have other opportunities to collaborate with each other. I am currently on furlough from Manhattan Theatre Club and look forward to starting up with them again soon. As I move forward in my theatrical career, I hope to continue to bring people together around impactful and thought-provoking art.

The Knockturnal: Who is an important mentor in your career?

Talia Light Rake: I have been extremely lucky to have a whole crop of brilliant people in my corner. In High School at The Oakwood School in Los Angeles, I never wanted to leave my drama teacher Ren Bell’s office. He fostered the biggest “yes and” community, encouraging me to continue exploring all paths of theater. I wanted to learn more, so he threw me in as a stage manager and let me learn from the older kids. He introduced me to the whole behind the scenes world and started me on my path of producing. In college, I was able to work closely with playwright Wendy MacLeod who truly taught me how to be a powerhouse woman in theater. Wendy’s words of wisdom are like nothing else. When the Kenyon Playwrights Conference was still running in 2018, Wendy was their Artistic Director and learning from her allowed me to gain a better understanding of what it means to be an artistic leader. When working as an intern at Manhattan Theatre Club, I got to be a fly on the wall and learn from the best. When I was at a crossroads of wanting to remain creative and also explore the administrative side of theatre. Nicki Hunter showed me that there are ways to continue on both paths. This advice changed my mindset and allowed me to continue with all of my passions.
The Knockturnal: Final message/thoughts?
Talia Light Rake: I am so grateful for everyone on my wonderful team who has helped to create the first-ever online theater company! I could not have done it without Samara Handelsman, our Director of Artistic Operations, Mark Fuerstein, our Festival Producer, and Miles Shebar, our Technical Director as well as the rest of our team and of course all of our fantastic writers, directors, and actors.
Tickets are available with a donation of as little as $5. There is also an All Access Pass that grants automatic access to every show plus a “Talk-Back” after the last show. The actors are doing Behind The Curtain Instagram Takeovers, so head on over to @Playdate.Theatre to stay in the loop. They are also hosting an Emerging Playwrights Summit for rising 10th-12th graders which starts August 9th. All information on our Festival and Teen Summit can be found at PlaydateTheatre.com
Talia Light Rakevirtual theater
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Dira M.

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