Pop Culturalist Chats with Abby Rosebrock

Abby Rosebrock steps on stage—and stays behind stage—as an actor and the writer of the Ensemble Studio Theatre’s production of Dido of Idaho. We were able to chat with Abby about the development process, what inspired her to write, and why being both an actor and a playwright are essential to her artistic experience.

PC: How did you get started in theater? Since you do both writing and acting, did one lead you to the other?
Abby: I always knew I wanted to be an actor growing up. I ended up coming here to school in New York and getting sidetracked with literature. As I was exploring academia, I realized I needed to be performing and writing creatively. So, I guess, I started doing comedy, writing, and acting…and writing for myself which is way more common in the comedy world. Then I found my way to play-writing while I was in academia, and I’m not in academia anymore.

PC: What inspired you to write Dido of Idaho?
Abby: A lot of things inspired the play, I guess, simultaneously. One thing was that I asked Layla Khosh—who plays the lead character and is my roommate, best friend, and frequent collaborator—if she could play any role what [would] she want to explore. She said she was interested in alcoholism and substance abuse and patterns of obsessive and self-destructive behavior. I noticed I was really interested in that, too. I noticed that I had been writing a lot about women who were attached to unavailable men, and I wanted to come up with the smartest possible character that I could that was also dealing with these humiliating, self-destructive patterns. I wanted to make that person fascinating and heroic at the same time. The drive to create a character for Layla as an actress, but to also create a character dealing with these issues was really important to me from the start.

PC: Did you have to do a lot of research? How did you go about diving into that topic?
Abby: Well, I drafted the play in 2015, and it started out as this eccentric, kind of romantic comedy. I don’t know if anyone else would ever describe it that way, but, tonally, my focus was just on making it funny. As I got deeper into the play, my colleagues kept encouraging me to look deeper into the darker themes that were [in it]. I did more and more research on the spirituality of recovering from destructive relationships, habits, and behaviors. I also had to explore my own relationship to my late mom and the way that’s effected my life over the years. I’ve never really done that excavation before working on this play.

PC: Since you’ve been developing and working on the play for several years, what’s the biggest change it has seen?
Abby: I’m really grateful for this and really grateful for the people who pushed me to continue revising it. I think it [went] from a more private story to a story with more public implications. In doing a lot of the research I just talked about, I think I discovered some ideas about the relationship between healing private pain and dysfunction and healing more collective or public brokenness. It’s not really terribly explicit in most of the play, but I think that spirituality and religion come in because part of [the main character] Nora’s problem was a sort of obsessive focus on herself and a blindness to the need for her to participate in the world in a productive and healing way. So, over time, spirituality and politics came into play a lot more than I anticipated.

Abby Rosebrock and Layla Khosh in Dido of Idaho

PC: Either with this production specifically or with productions generally, what is your favorite part of the development process?
Abby: I would say collaborating with my director, the actors, and the designers on the team has been my favorite part. I really love the energy in the room when all the actors are on board with the story and really committed to making it be all it can be. That sort of social aspect of playwriting is really vital to me.

PC: Speaking of acting, you’re also an actor in the play. Is that more of a challenge for you? How do you separate the roles of writer and actor?
Abby: I love working that way. I love the camaraderie of being a part of the cast and the ease and comfort with which other cast members are willing to place confusion with the script as it’s in development. I find, in theater more than comedy, there’s definitely a hierarchy, sometimes, where the playwright stands apart from the process. I much prefer feeling like I am a singer-songwriter working with a band to create a performance experience. That’s probably the best metaphor I can come up with for what’s it’s like being an actor-playwright. And, I love working with directors who are comfortable with that. I love getting my hands dirty, being told things aren’t working, and trying new things as an actor. As a writer, there’s something really energizing and invigorating about playing both of those roles at the same time.

PC: Do you find writing dramas easier than comedies?
Abby: Writing can be so painful and isolating that I can only do it if there’s comedy in it. I try and find the comedy in everything that I can. I think that’s just sort of how I was born.

PC: Looking forward for you, is there anything that you really want to explore in the future in either writing or performing?
Abby: I mean, these are the things that I am also committed to exploring. Layla and I have worked on this sort of in partnership knowing that we have very similar thematic artistic interests. I’m interested in pieces of healing and personal growth as they relate to making positive change in the public sphere. And I’m also very interested in the role of spirituality in all of that.

PC: So, at this point in your life, if you were giving advice to a young writer-performer, what would you tell them?
Abby: This is going to sound hokey, but it’s sort of giving advice to myself because I am discovering that you just have to listen to what your heart is telling you what the world needs from you and commit to that 100%. If you pay to much attention to what other people are saying critically or professionally about what they think you need to do to get ahead or please other people, then you are not fulfilling your potential as an instrument of change in the world. It can be pretty hard to trust yourself to create what you’re being called to create. Developing that sort of self-trust is really essential to sustaining a career and way of working.

Pop Culturalist Speed Round

Guilty Pleasure TV Show
It’s hard to feel guilty about TV because so much of it is so good right now. I’ve been revisitng Friends recently and discovering it’s way better than I ever gave it credit for.

Favorite Movie
Home Alone

Favorite Book
War and Peace

Favorite Play or Musical
Three Sisters

A Musician You Can Listen to on Repeat
Sam Cooke

Favorite Place You Have Been To
The mountains of southern Appalachia in South Carolina

Place You Most Want to Go to
Norway

Person You’d Most Like to Meet Someday
Either Gillian Welch or Oprah

Stay up-to-date with Abby Rosebrock by visiting her website.

Photo Credit: Gerry Goodstein