Steve Cuden: On today’s StoryBeat…

Catherine Filloux: It took me a long time to learn this, and, you know, I honestly was very bad at this, but I did finally learn this idea of asking for something. And it is amazing how if you are clear on what you want and what you are asking somebody of, and this could be like, a playwright you admire, could you read my play or whatever? If you construct the ask clearly so that the person can say yes or no, there oftentimes somebody will say yes. And that is really worth developing your skills at asking.

Announcer: This is StoryBeat with Steve Cuden, a podcast for the creative mind. StoryBeat explores how masters of creativity develop and produce brilliant works that people everywhere love and admire. So join us as we discover how talented creators find success in the worlds of imagination and entertainment. Here now is your host, Steve Cuden.

Steve Cuden: Thanks for joining us on StoryBeat. We’re coming to you from the Steel City, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. My guest today, the award-winning French Algerian American playwright, librettist and activist Catherine Feu, has been, for the past three decades, traveling to conflict areas, writing plays that address human rights and social justice. Catherine’s new play, how to eat an Orange, will open at La Mama Theater in New York City and her new musical, welcome to the Big Dipper, written with composer Jimmy Roberts of I Love You, you’re perfect now change fame, will premiere off-Broadway at the York Theatre in New York. It’s a national alliance for musical theater finalists. Catherine’s play White Savior is nominated for the venturist playlist. Her, many plays have been produced around the US and internationally. I’ve read her play Lemkin’s house and can tell you it’s an intense and engaging exploration of the politics of genocide through the surreal landscape of the mind of Raphael Lemkin, the man who invented the word genocide. Catherine’s also the librettist for four produced operas, including New Arrivals Where Elephants Weep and The Floating Box. Her works have been played on Cambodian national tv, on Broadway, on demand, and chosen for opera news critic’s choice, and her opera Orlando is the winner of the 2022 to Graumeyer Award, the first opera by a woman composer and woman librettist in the history of the Vienna Staatsoper. Catherine has traveled for her plays to countries including Bosnia, Cambodia, Guatemala, Haiti, Iraq, Morocco, Northern Ireland and Sudan and South Sudan. On an overseas reading tour with the University of Iowa’s international writing program, Catherine received her French baccalaureate in philosophy with honors in Toulon, France, and is the co-founder co-director of Theater Without Borders. So for all those reasons and many more. It’s a true honor for me to welcome the extraordinarily multitalented writer and activist Catherine fill to StoryBeat today. Kat, welcome to the show.

Catherine Filloux: Thank you, Steve. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Steve Cuden: Oh, the pleasure is all mine, trust me. So let’s go back in history a little bit. How old were you when your interest in writing for the stage first began?

Catherine Filloux: I started as a bad actress, Steve.

Steve Cuden: And they all start as bad actresses.

Catherine Filloux: And I loved the theater, and I was cast in high school as I went right to character roles. I was cast as the fortune teller in skin of our teeth.

Steve Cuden: Okay.

Catherine Filloux: I loved the prospect of playing that role, and I loved playing it. the director put me sitting on the lip of the stage for the monologue, and I was just transformed. so I think that’s when I started being a playwright, because I was very attached to the words and very attached to this sort of inner world of the character. And it was, only a bit later that I came to play writing. I wrote my first play, about a man who I met, who was actually a junk man, who sold junk. And, so I created that role, that play, and then from there, went on, to write plays, in a variety of different ways.

Steve Cuden: While you were still in. In school?

Catherine Filloux: yes, yes.

Steve Cuden: So you were. You were very young when you started to write plays, then?

Catherine Filloux: Yes, I started young, and I continued to work as an actor. And I then went to, NYU dramatic writing program. And, from there, one of the first projects I worked on was about a group of Cambodian refugee women who suffered from psychosomatic blindness after what they witnessed during the Khmer Rouge regime.

Steve Cuden: How did you find that story? How did this begin? You’ve been on this search for political and for social and justice and peace stories for your whole career, basically. How did that begin?

Catherine Filloux: Well, that’s really a great question. I was handed an article that was in the New York Times, which was, it came out, I believe, in the very late eighties, early nineties, about this story of these women who, when they went to the eye doctor, the eye doctor said you can see, and yet they said they couldn’t see. So there was a lot of scenarios such as malingering or the idea that they thought they might not be telling the truth. And I was captivated by that story. But what happened is, before I could even begin to write about it, I ended up doing an oral history in the Bronx, actually, where there was a refugee center. And I spoke to many Cambodian refugees about their stories which ultimately led to eyes of the heart, which was the play about blindness. But along the way, I wrote, I think, about three other plays about, Cambodia and the US complicity and what happened in Cambodia, and then sort of genocide and cultural clash and those kinds of issues.

Steve Cuden: I’m always fascinated by what actually triggers someone to do what it is they do for their life’s work. My guess is that something infuriated you or really got your attention. Is that something that would seem to be correct?

Catherine Filloux: That’s a really good beginning. because, yes, I think infuriated is definitely, at the core of being an activist and being the kind of writer that I am. I think really what prompted me from the start is that I was from. My parents were immigrants. My language was. French was my first language. We’re talking about a large amount of. My mother felt like she was in exile, having been from Algeria. My father, was from, France, with some conflicts and tragedies that had happened right before I was born. And so all of that, and then this sort of absurd and somewhat hilarious culture clash, which was that I was living in San Diego, California, and we camped a lot in Mexico. Sort of created this sense of not belonging, being an outsider, and then also understanding sort of quickly that there was a huge amount of economic disparity right in front of me, and trying. And injustice and trying at an early age to understand and identifying very much with the underdog.

Steve Cuden: Coming from a family of immigrants would have also had, I assume, a sense of who the other is, the quote unquote other.

Catherine Filloux: Absolutely. Yeah. Because they were definitely. The parents were definitely the other, and, so were we. I was four of four siblings. And, but also we always had to explain everything to them. We do not understand what peanut butter is. Then it was just like an endless,

Steve Cuden: But all you have to do is taste it, then, you know, it’s delicious.

Catherine Filloux: Exactly.

Steve Cuden: So you then went to school and studied also philosophy, obviously, in France.

Catherine Filloux: Yes. And, Steve, that is really. I’m glad you brought that up, because I had the desire on my own. Nobody forced me to do this, to be completely, bilingual and completely, like, both in American and French. And so I went and got my French baccalaureate in philosophy. I, graduated a year early from high school and decided I would do that. And once I got embroiled in that, I think I was like, that was not a great idea because it so much work. I mean, it was just. And, you know, like a 17-year-old or almost 18-year-old studying Freud and Kant. And Nietzsche and, you know, it’s sort.

Steve Cuden: Of like in French.

Catherine Filloux: In French, like what? But I did it, and I did get my back with honors. And, I think my grandparents were very proud.

Steve Cuden: So, notoriously, philosophy degrees tend to seem to the majority of the world to have no purpose other than maybe to teach or to write, which, obviously, you became a writer. And I’m curious, how important has your background in philosophy been to writing plays?

Catherine Filloux: That’s such a great, question. And it really is only in hindsight that I can say that how important it is and how I reflect back on that, on that particular education, and know that it truly paved the way for understanding only now how absolutely tragic life can be and how painful life can be and how, you know, in Albert Camus is, of course, a hero and a hero of my mother’s because they both are pienoir people. And to really identify with his idea of absurdity and of Sisyphus and the idea of pushing that rock up the hill, which, you know, would make me cry right now, because we all, as humans, are set on that journey, don’t you think? I mean, somewhat ill equipped to figure it out?

Steve Cuden: I think we are all ill equipped to figure out what life is supposed to be.

Catherine Filloux: So now I look at that. You know, at the time, I was, I was just. I had a certain OCD quality. And in France, it works well because they’re always like, you write all the notes, you. You have a ruler with you at all times, and you, like, you, you underline things. And so I set, out on.

Steve Cuden: That journey, a pursuit of some form of perfection, whatever that is, actually.

Catherine Filloux: Exactly. That’s another thing.

Steve Cuden: Well, sure. Would you say that your ability to speak multiple languages, or two languages, has been influential in how you think and how you devise lines and characters and scenarios? Is the dual language a, help to you?

Catherine Filloux: Yes, absolutely. And I mean, that exists in terms of simply the concept of translation, which, is the sort of literal, answer, and immediately equips you with the knowledge that there’s no. It’s very difficult to translate things. For example, at the end of Lemkin’s house, which you so kindly read, the last word is a home. And there is, in fact, no word in French for home.

Steve Cuden: Is that right?

Catherine Filloux: Yeah. My mother told me when I was so shocked. She’s like, it’s an anglo saxon term.

Steve Cuden: I did not know that. That’s very interesting.

Catherine Filloux: Yeah. You know, so you start already. You’re stuck, you know, and so you’re already trying to figure out how you’re going to capture something that doesn’t actually exist.

Steve Cuden: Well, what I find impressive is you have for me, for my. I’ve got a pretty decent ear for it. You have no discernible french accent in your English, and yet from my understanding, a pretty good french accent.

Catherine Filloux: I do, but I have an accent, an american accent when I speak French.

Steve Cuden: You have an american accent in French.

Catherine Filloux: But a true about a lot. you know, when I was there for the studying.

Steve Cuden: And, do you translate your own plays?

Catherine Filloux: I have done so, yes.

Steve Cuden: Is that preferable to you? Do you prefer to be the translator of your own work?

Catherine Filloux: I translated a play called photographs from s 21, into French with my mother. And, my mother passed away a few years ago, and I just really hold that dear. It was really a great experience. Lemkin’s house was translated into French for a, production in Brussels, and.

Steve Cuden: Somebody else did the translation because translations are super tricky. There’s going to be certain idioms and expressions that will be native to.

Catherine Filloux: Absolutely.

Steve Cuden: And how you get there and make that still sing the way it’s supposed.

Catherine Filloux: To sing, very, very tricky.

Steve Cuden: That’s what most people don’t really understand is it’s not a transliteration. You’re not literally translating word to word. You’re trying to translate essences.

Catherine Filloux: Right, right. And so as you know, as a. As a family, we spoke Anglais, which is French, and English, which is, you know, when you hook up with people that do that, it’s really, really fun because it gives you, like, double the options in terms of what you can come up with.

Steve Cuden: So I know you focus on art and peace building. That’s what you seem to focus on in your work, and that you’re an advocate for both peace and justice throughout the world. How did you arrive at making peace and justice the driving force? Was it going back to your original experiences with the cambodian plays, or was there anything else that drove you forward into peace and justice as the driving force in your creative life?

Catherine Filloux: Yeah, it was really the topics that I chose to write about as a playwright. And I equate it, like walking on the beach. If you walk one rock, that’ll lead you to the next one. I was always led to the next play based on a burning need to unpack a subject that either I was confronted with or that I, came across that was human rights, religion. And so the thing that I’ve discovered is that it was always the micro story which, for example, an honor killing in Turkey in which I needed to understand how something that sounded like from the western point of view, like, oh, how could a mother do that? Understanding the other side of the story, in a very kind of focused, cultural, maybe anthropological way, I did that to now being able to see that there are some very clear trends that are global trends, such as violence against women, which exists with roe versus Wade in one way, all the way to women being, literally killed because they’ve done something like dishonor their family for, believe it or not, being raped. But again, the umbrella being violence against women and the other large ones are post traumatic stress disorder, which I’ve studied very. In a very focused way, but that I see now prevalent totally globally. And then the other one would be climate change.

Steve Cuden: Do you spend, a lot of time studying the news to look for stories, or do they just sort of fall your way?

Catherine Filloux: no, I don’t study the news. They come from experiences in communities that I have. So in living experience where I’ve met someone or I’ve seen a community. And that makes me want to. One of the operating principles is listening. And so I listen a lot to try to understand something that I don’t understand. And, I wanted to give a shout out to a collaborator, somebody I know called KJ Sanchez, who’s a great actress and now a director and a writer. And she just interviewed me last week for a book she’s writing on listening. I don’t know the exact title, but. But this idea of active listening, which completely ties into peace building, because that is one of the things that peace builders talk about all the time. This idea of listening to different groups, that are perhaps not at peace, but the opposite of that piece. And listening to how there might be a way, for them to come to some kind of understanding.

Steve Cuden: Well, it’s interesting because the term listening, I teach in an acting and directing class that I teach. I teach the difference between listening and hearing, which a lot of people don’t understand. They usually conflate the two. But listening is an activity. It’s something you do as opposed to hearing, which is autonomic, and you can’t help it.

Catherine Filloux: I never thought of that. And that’s really, really, an interesting distinction.

Steve Cuden: If you’re not deaf, you hear. Yeah, right. But. But to actually listen requires you to make some form of commitment to listening.

Catherine Filloux: Right.

Steve Cuden: And. And what you are talking about, I think, especially in all of your work, is how frequently people in power don’t listen.

Catherine Filloux: Well, yes. And. And I think that that is a. Where, I can tie this into a very hopeful feeling that I have right now as somebody that believes very much that change is possible. And I think that that’s where, change does become possible, is in actually the antithesis of what you just described of somebody, you know, a politician or a leader who does not listen, because by listening to everybody, in fact, that’s the sort of pledge you have to make by listening to all sides, which is the opposite, I think, of maybe a dictator or a tyrannical leader. One can actually pretty easily, actually, with common sense and logic, understand how to make change.

Steve Cuden: What would you say are the biggest challenges in creating art that’s intended to build peace?

Catherine Filloux: Well, you know, I would say that I don’t. In my artwork, I’m a storyteller. So I come from a belief that what I do as a playwright is I create structure, and that there is a very defined playwriting and dramatic structure that I believe in. And I don’t think that. I’m not saying that everybody should believe it.

Steve Cuden: Oh, I’m a structuralist. I love structure.

Catherine Filloux: You know, I love to tell a story. And the story, requires, such things as a dramatic hook, which asks the audience to get on board, to care, and that what. That’s like a craft. And that one can actually, I think, get better and better at that craft, and that that does not in any way involve a message or a theme. And. And I just want to go back to Mylin Stitt, who is my very first teacher at NYU. He taught a dramatic structure course over a weekend. He smoked a cigarette because we could smoke, and he would smoke it until, like, we were all like, the ash was like, so long, and, we were like, wow, that. That’s maybe gonna fall soon. And he taught me structure, and it was just so extraordinary. What he. What he taught us.

Steve Cuden: Well, structure is everything. It’s the. You’re. You’re literally building the work one block at a time.

Catherine Filloux: Absolutely. And he. He said, like, in this. In this course, which was very clear, you know, no writer thinks about the theme is not for you to think about. You’re not. You don’t start a play like, I’m, gonna write about the theme of love or, you know, you don’t write. You. That’s not how you do it. Or peace for that.

Steve Cuden: And that’s how I was taught to write, too. You worry about the story, the characters, the play plot, and so on. And later you may understand the theme.

Catherine Filloux: Exactly. And you yourself will be surprised because you thought you might be writing about one thing and you’ll find out that, oh, absolutely not, you’re writing about something else.

Steve Cuden: Do you think of yourself in, as a particular genre person? Or you, do you think of yourself as an existentialist or an absurdist or one of those genres at all?

Catherine Filloux: I think, you know, I never really did, but I wouldn’t say absurdist. I wouldn’t say, the other one. You said, existentialist. I would say a humanist.

Steve Cuden: A humanist, yeah.

Catherine Filloux: Yeah.

Steve Cuden: And that’s where the optimism comes in.

Catherine Filloux: I think so. I think so.

Steve Cuden: Because I think it’s pretty. I think personally, it’s hard to be, ah, an optimistic existentialist.

Catherine Filloux: Exactly. And, you know, I was just rereading the Sisyphus thing and he. I mean, I don’t even know what he’s talking about exactly, but. But he says, I imagine, or we imagine Sisyphus happy.

Steve Cuden: That’s a bit of a stretch for me, I’ll tell you.

Catherine Filloux: Yeah, I mean, but that’s what he says.

Steve Cuden: I guess you could look at it as, that’s his life’s work and he’s doing his life’s work, which is to endlessly go up this hill and come back down. In your experience with your work, how positive an effect have your plays had on communities or countries or other people? Especially in the theater, where theater is, different from movies, it’s just a totally different experience. Do you find that your work has a positive influence on people?

Catherine Filloux: Well, I always remember the time that we did photographs, ah, from s 21, my play in Khmer, in Cambodia, cambodian language, and in Phnom Penh. And we did the play and it was beautifully done by khmer actors. And when it was done, everybody just stayed there. They didn’t move, they didn’t leave. They did, they. Some people cried, some people. but it became clear that everybody wanted to talk. And so that was, Like, that was something that was shown to me that I never knew. And what they wanted, what people wanted to do was either talk about their own stories or they wanted to ask questions, or they just wanted to hang around. and so that was an example for me that, yes, theater does something that is not done in any other way, and that is, it creates something that people do not have to talk about themselves. They don’t have to bring up the political thing. And, it’s something that’s there for them to experience and it allows people not to be, put in a position of having a political opinion, or it allows them to, like, I said, have emotions. And that was something that allowed me to go on as a playwright in understanding. When we did, the opera where elephants weep, it was a similar situation.

Steve Cuden: So what is the dog and wolf community outreach program?

Catherine Filloux: Oh, thanks for asking. Yes. So we did, after we did the play dog and wolf, which was a play about political, ah, asylum, we decided that I was very interested in this idea that a theater is not something that lot of Americans, get to go to, and that there’s a sort of rarefied group often that get to go. So bring the theater to underserved audiences and, to neighborhoods where people might not get to see theater. And so I. I’ve selected some communities where we brought the play to the people, to these communities, and I.

Steve Cuden: Where they might otherwise not have gotten a play.

Catherine Filloux: Is that the idea? And it just made me remember that one of the characters that was called Joseph, who was, in fact, the attorney that was giving, trying to get political asylum for the refugee, was in a wheelchair. And so John Daggett, the actor, was in the wheelchair. And we were at a community, place where there were disabled people. And there were two things that were interesting. People were purchasing sodas right nearby, so you could hear, like, the thump of the can as it was coming down, you know, when they were buying it. Sure. So that was interesting. And then after, at the talkback, this person said, you know, I had a really big problem because the attorney had to go into this bar to wait for this refugee woman that he was trying to find. And he just said, that’s not going to work for the guy in the wheelchair. And in fact, the john is. Has multiple sclerosis and is disabled. But the guy said he’s going to need, one of these leg bag things, because with the amount that he’s drinking in there, he’s going to need one of those things so that he can urinate into the. And it was just like, great.

Steve Cuden: So the idea behind the dog and wolf community outreach project is that you bring theater to communities.

Catherine Filloux: Yeah, exactly.

Steve Cuden: And does that also have an impact socially in terms of social justice and so on? Are you able to then bring information through a play to them? Is that how it works?

Catherine Filloux: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Because this play was, not necessarily the typical story that somebody would see. it was about a, bosnian refugee woman who was trying to get political asylum in the US. And her lawyer is, like, completely, like, linically knowledgeable of how to do it, but ultimately, she, like, screws up in court and disappears on him.

Steve Cuden: I always wonder about this. Do you think theater as an impact on an audience, which is a group activity, to be in an audience versus reading a book? Do you think theater has, more power than literature?

Catherine Filloux: Yeah. so I can answer that better now. you know, through the. All the years, people would always say theater has so much impact for x, y, and z reasons. And, you know, I’d be like, I get it. But then I realized after, you know, I know we’ve had many pandemics, but after Covid that, this idea of something that’s live, that happens every time differently, that forces, no matter what, people into a group setting. I mean, you’re forced. You are not watching this on a screen. That all of those things I realized firsthand, again, create something that is just not the same as anything else.

Steve Cuden: And and it’s a communal experience, as I say it is.

Catherine Filloux: I went to see a play, you, know, one of. Not the first, but one of the ones after Covid, where I was actually back in the room with people. With people on stage. It. It was about a subject that I kind of thought, okay, yeah, I get. I know all about this. I mean, I. Because it just felt like, how could I not understand? I mean, that I felt like I knew the right and the wrong for that story. I came out of the theater completely reconfigured.

Steve Cuden: Well, it’s interesting, because when you read a book or when you see a play, your experience is likely to be different than the person you’re sitting next to or the person who’s reading a book with you. that they’re perceiving it differently than you are. Even though you’re looking at the same words or hearing the same words or seeing the same action. And that’s why I think theater is so powerful. Because you’re, as a group, seeing the same thing, but yet you’re each experiencing it in your own unique way.

Catherine Filloux: Absolutely. And then you bring that together, and you bring the actors, the performance. Performers are part of the community as well. They change every night. They are involved in all sorts of dynamics.

Steve Cuden: And as you just said, you’re seeing every performance of each production is slightly different. Even though they’re going in the same places, they’re, saying the same words, they’re, having the same cues and so on. But yet each performance is unique. It’s ephemeral in that way, which, I mean, makes it wonderful.

Catherine Filloux: Yes, I agree.

Steve Cuden: So then tell us about theater without Borders. What’s that?

Catherine Filloux: Yes. So, we, a group of us. Roberta, Levitow, Deb Brevoort, Erik and me had met after 911, and we noticed that whereas if we went to another country, we were very welcomed and embraced. But after 911, there was this battening down of hatches, you know, stay out kind of mentality. So we created this grassroots volunteer organization called Theater without Borders, which is now, like, 20 years old. That is really a network for cultural exchange in theater, a way for people to, find each other around the world. It has a virtual presence through its website. And then what we did is we created projects that people wanted to do, one of them being peace building in the arts. We were part of peace building at the arts at Brandeis University.

Steve Cuden: I see.

Catherine Filloux: Where we did a big project which is called Acting Together, which you can see there’s like, it’s a two volume anthology, and there’s a documentary film involved in that. Cindy Cohen actually established that program.

Steve Cuden: Does it also help folks get plays produced?

Catherine Filloux: Not in any way, like, as a producing entity, but certainly if, let’s say, a person wanted to collaborate with an american, with somebody in Palestine, and we who we all hooked them up, and then suddenly they’re working on something and they bring in, somebody from Iraq, you know, that. That has led to productions of work.

Steve Cuden: So you’re a form of matrix, where you introduce people to one another or groups to one another.

Catherine Filloux: Right. And we are all practitioners of theater. Roberta is a director. and then. And deb, I think the rest of us were playwrights, pretty much.

Steve Cuden: So I’m going to ask you a question I ask lots of guests. I’m always fascinated by the answer. What for you, makes a good story good?

Catherine Filloux: A good story needs to grip an audience with its question. And for me, it involves the caring that the audience would have for characters. I don’t know that that’s always necessary. Necessary. But they talk about. And you know this from your great screenwriting experience. You know, they. They do talk about character driven stories, which I suppose that there’s more emphasis on character and maybe a little less on the actual, like, action plot, but it is genuinely the dramatic question and the character caring that one has for the characters and the. The reveal. You know, how. How does the playwright make their way through the story so that the reveal is something that is surprising?

Steve Cuden: You just said one of the best answers I’ve ever heard to that question. And really, correct me if I’m wrong. Now, what you just said was, the essence of a good story is the question that it asks.

Catherine Filloux: Oh, thank you. Yeah, well, thanks. I mean, that really is wonderful to hear. And, you’re a structure.

Steve Cuden: I have a hard time with, stories that meander. I like stories that stay focused and on target and have a through line and a good spine. That’s just me. other people are very comfortable with sprawling stories. I’m not me. Not so much. Are you deep into various forms of research with each of your projects?

Catherine Filloux: Yes. so there is a lot of research, and it depends, like with my new play, how to eat an orange, which, I’ll tell you just briefly about it. The research was delightful because basically what happened is Claudia Bernardi and I were thrust together in Belfast, northern Ireland, to, do this arts and peace building project. And, the lady that was brought us there decided that we would live together. And so we were roommates. And so I listened to my beloved Claudia, regale me with stories at dinner. And I just jokingly said, claudia, I would love to write a one woman show about you. And I know the perfect actress to play the role, never imagining that that would happen. And it turned out that, yeah, Mercedes Herrero, who was the actress. One day I found out that Claudia and Mercedes lived like 20 minutes away from each other in Virginia.

Steve Cuden: Wow.

Catherine Filloux: Yeah. And so I was able to write, the play for, for Mercedes to play Claudia.

Steve Cuden: Obviously, you write about conflict areas in your. And so do you research those by going to conflict areas?

Catherine Filloux: Totally. I mean, that’s what happened with, Cambodia is I went there to try to understand, and it was life changing experience for me. And then, you know, the same thing happened with Guatemala when I wrote a play called lose. You know, I went there and I was transformed. And the research was, of course, things that I read about in books. But also then when I went there and I, you know, you can’t know what a, what a, what it’s like to live in a trash dump, which I’ve experienced in Cambodia and in Guatemala.

Steve Cuden: Lived in the trash dump?

Catherine Filloux: Yeah. I mean, you know, people live in the, in the smoky mountain and in a variety of places that are trash dumps because they make their living getting trash that they recycle and. Yes.

Steve Cuden: How dangerous is that for you?

Catherine Filloux: well, I mean, I just, I went there to visit, it’s just amazing, you know, the first time I went to the one in Cambodia, there was a woman I know called Laura, Smith, who was working, in a variety of ways in NgO’s. And we went there together.

Steve Cuden: I would be remiss if we didn’t talk about musicals and operas. Because you’re into that, too?

Catherine Filloux: Yes.

Steve Cuden: What attracted you to writing musicals and operas?

Catherine Filloux: Well, with the opera world, it was very, very specifically that people would approach me, with a project to be the librettist, and the project was already in place in the sense that there was an opera company, there was a composer, and there was usually either the seed of a story or an actual adaptation or whatever. And so I would join up, and what I learned with that is how much I really love composers and how idiosyncratic they are. And, you know, we would, in all cases, I would listen to them and start a dialogue that would continue for years and know after a while, just by looking at their face, literally, by if their eyebrow went up or something, if they liked something or not. A, very. I found very aesthetically, precise.

Steve Cuden: Are you also the lyricist?

Catherine Filloux: No. So in this. Yes. So, in a libretto I write, I’m only the. I only write the words, and they do the music.

Steve Cuden: Well, sometimes people are librettists, but they write the story and someone else writes the lyrics.

Catherine Filloux: Yeah. So with the libretto, I’m always the storyteller writer, and I write the words for the music. That is different than, a musical?

Steve Cuden: Well, yes, although that happens there, too. There are people in musicals that write both the words of the, play and the lyrics as well, of the song.

Catherine Filloux: I said that wrong. All I was saying is that I’ve only written one musical, and as a, you know, in that situation, I’m only half the book writer, and it was.

Steve Cuden: And it was more of a traditional style book musical where there’s a music.

Catherine Filloux: Absolutely, absolutely.

Steve Cuden: So there’s dialogue, not just sung through.

Catherine Filloux: Yeah. And I’m half. Only half the book writer. Yeah.

Steve Cuden: When you say half the book, right. You mean you co wrote it with someone?

Catherine Filloux: Yes. So there’s. John Daggett is the other half of the book, and Jimmy is the composer and lyricist with additional lyrics by Jimmy.

Steve Cuden: And are you used to writing the words first or waiting for the music to come and writing the words to the music?

Catherine Filloux: Generally, I write the words first, but not. That’s not always the case. More often than not, for the libretti, I write the libretto first.

Steve Cuden: And that comes after a series of long conversations over time with your collaborators.

Catherine Filloux: And hearing all their music and attending what they do and listening and. And trying to understand. And, the first opera I did, with Jason Wang, I did 13 drafts of the libretto, before any of the music was scored.

Steve Cuden: How, did that work when you would submit a draft you would submit a draft to them, and they would then comment on it.

Catherine Filloux: Yeah.

Steve Cuden: And those comments that would drive you to go make changes and revisions.

Catherine Filloux: Exactly.

Steve Cuden: And then eventually they said, yep, this is it. And they started to set what you had written to music.

Catherine Filloux: Yeah. And then the funny story is that because it was my first opera, when they set some of the stuff to music, I heard it. And when we had enough of it, I said, well, we should really cut, like, that chunk right there. And it was as if I had said, I’m going kill your child. It became clear that that’s not the way it works in opera. And playwriting is fine, but not enough.

Steve Cuden: Well, it’s curious, isn’t it? Because in a play or a book, editing and cutting things out is really the heart of making the actual art. You know, your first draft is usually not the art part. It’s all these revisions that become the art part. But once they’ve written music, they don’t want to touch it.

Catherine Filloux: Yeah, it was. It was not. Yeah. So, you know, granted, it was for an entire orchestra of people, of. Yeah. Ah, musicians.

Steve Cuden: So how did you learn to be a librettist? Was there something. Did you read a book? Did you just study it? What did. How did you do it?

Catherine Filloux: I learned, I think, you know, in the way I say I learned from the composer, you know, and I learned from myself. And I learned because it’s, you know, there are similarities to playwriting, of course, and poetry. I mean, I do write poetry, and I think that there are a lot of, Not. It’s not the same as poetry, but there are some aspects that are simple.

Steve Cuden: Absolutely. Lyrics and poetry have similar expression, but they’re not necessarily the same at all.

Catherine Filloux: Yeah. The other thing that’s just so clear and becomes clear, it was very clear with Orlando, is it’s a really a matter of distilling. Because what words go a, very, very long way in a composition, like, you have to be really. You cannot do, very much well.

Steve Cuden: In an opera, the words are in the music. They’re carrying both story, character, and some form of artistic expression in the song itself. But in a musical, one of the beauty parts of a musical is that a song can do what you can’t do in a play normally, which is to go inside the thinking of a character, inside their, emotional life. So you can’t get into a character’s. You don’t know what a character is actually thinking of unless they express it or do something. But in an opera or in a musical, you can sing what they’re feeling and thinking.

Catherine Filloux: Totally, totally.

Steve Cuden: And that makes a huge difference. So what for you then comes first? Story, character or style in a musical? In a musical or in a play, what comes for you first?

Catherine Filloux: Oh, wow.

Steve Cuden: you typically say, oh, there’s a great story. Now I have to create a bunch of characters to make it work.

Catherine Filloux: No, I think that’s a question that. The way I look at it is it’s a bit of a kind of like, organizational, exciting, imaginative, process where you’re like, you might have the two characters and a little bit of the story, and then you start with that and then you’re like, oh my gosh. This one character who I didn’t think was the lead is taking over, or they can only. The two of them can only really believably continue on this story if this happens, you know, so you’re kind of going on this, creating this canvas, you know, that you is ever kind of. Of changing.

Steve Cuden: So you’re. You’re finding it as you’re going. You’re not sitting down and saying, and we’re going to do this, this, this and this. You start somewhere and just dig in and find it as you go generally.

Catherine Filloux: I mean, I. There was one play that I really did a very firm outline for. It was a play I wrote about Pol Pot, who’s the dictator of, you know, and, and I, and I. It was very outlined. It was more outlined than I ever had before.

Steve Cuden: When you’re writing about real people, people that exist or you’re writing an adaptation of a real story, have you had to go obtain rights?

Catherine Filloux: well, with Orlando, you know, it was Virginia Woolf’s book, and they. Van Esta obviously did that. It was, you know, it was decided before, with new arrivals. The opera at the houston Grandolf Opera, it was based on a real person from Houston who was a local hero, so they would have definitely had to obtain the rights to her story. I did write a play about Ingrid Bettencourt, who, is the woman who was taken hostage in Colombia. And what I did there. And sometimes what I do is something, in that says, this is based on the public record and is a, ah, work of my imagination, some language that is put there. and then, of course, then I am bound to not, of course, using any source material that is somebody else’s.

Steve Cuden: In other words, you’re only working off the source material you are given, under that commission.

Catherine Filloux: no, in that case, it would be under the public. It’s all in the public record.

Steve Cuden: It’s in the public domain, in the.

Catherine Filloux: Public record in the sense that it is a known fact that she is a hostage. And it’s out there in the world, in the news.

Steve Cuden: In the news.

Catherine Filloux: Right. I’m not in, I’m not stealing anything from anybody because it’s. It’s in the, public record.

Steve Cuden: So the fact that you even have to think about that is important because you could get yourself into legal trouble if you just went and did something and took somebody’s story.

Catherine Filloux: Absolutely. Yeah. All of those things are thought out.

Steve Cuden: Very carefully, especially someone who’s still alive.

Catherine Filloux: Yeah. And then there’s that too.

Steve Cuden: I must ask you about selling. You have sold a lot of work one way or another. Whether someone has come to you and commissioned you, or you’ve gone out and tried to sell your work to a producer, and they said, yes, let’s produce this. What would you say are smart ways for artists who are up and coming to think about properly approaching the world of producers and theater in terms of how do you make a sale in the world?

Catherine Filloux: So I think a good structure is a commission, and a good way to do that is to, of course, establish relationships with theaters and producers. Also, pitching, I think, is a really good way to do it to always, you never know who’s going to be interested in a story. And pitching is a good way because you’re not. Nobody has, it’s not written yet, so you can pitch it and somebody can say yes or no, and it’s a good way to gauge interest.

Steve Cuden: And do you have any advice for the best way to pitch a story? Pitching is the weakest part of my whole game, yeah.

Catherine Filloux: Well, you know, I shudder in fear at what one might have to do in Hollywood. I don’t know how to do that.

Steve Cuden: It’s quite fearful that it really is.

Catherine Filloux: But in the world of theater, I mean, I remember with that Pol Pot story, it was going to involve a woman, an american woman journalist, and a variety of characters. And I had had a play done at contemporary american theatre festival that had gone well. So I pitched the story to the artistic director, and he took it on faith, you know, I think he took it on the idea that I had had a play there that went well before. And, also there were character cast size restrictions, you know, so if I could say to him, it will only be x amount, that was helpful. So I think, you know, being able to be practical always, well, it helps.

Steve Cuden: That you’re an established playwright, that you already have had shows produced, then the pitching gets a little easier, but if you’ve, if you’ve never sold anything and never have had anything produced, people are a little reluctant to take it on unless they see proof of it.

Catherine Filloux: Yeah. However, I do think a young playwright who came to an artistic director with a, great idea that might be an idea that is, going to appeal to their generation. That could be very appealing, of course.

Steve Cuden: And that, that’s the whole key, is how do you then pitch that unique story so that somebody can get it? Because that’s frequently, you might pitch something and you think you’re saying one thing and they’re hearing something else.

Catherine Filloux: I think you have to be invested, like we were talking about in the story itself and how you very succinctly can tell that story so that, you know, on some level, the person’s at the edge of their seat and they are thinking, wow, I really would like to produce that or know, you know, how that could, actually happen on stage.

Steve Cuden: Well, this is the weird thing for, at least it is for me, and I know it is true for other friends that I have, that you can be a really good storyteller on paper, but, you may not be a very good storyteller under the pressure of being in the room.

Catherine Filloux: Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Cuden: And that’s the, that’s the real difference. Now, perhaps you can get away with it if you’re pitching on paper, which I’ve done as well. And so that’s, for me, that’s the distinction, is, can you actually open your mouth and tell the story in a way that’s compelling for someone else to get and say, yeah, we’ll do that?

Catherine Filloux: Yes, absolutely.

Steve Cuden: So I must ask you, you’ve done a lot of collaborating. You’ve collaborated with, directors and with companies and with people in the field and with actual writing partners. What do you think makes a good collaboration work?

Catherine Filloux: I think one of the things is loving, your collaborators. I happen to love actors, and I think trust is another very important factor. You know, I’ve worked with directors who are my dramaturgs also, and I trust them, and so I’m willing. I’m the kind of writer that, but once I’ve had my little moment in the sun alone, am willing to, go places with directors. You know, I’ve had directors who will slash, you know, and burn, and I trust them with that. Sometimes I want to hear what they have to say in the, in the room so that, having the, the joy of working with people again, you know, actors over and over again, can be just really.

Steve Cuden: Without naming names, have you had any experiences in which someone either made a suggestion or actually made a cut or changed something and it wasn’t to your satisfaction? And what do you do? How did you handle it?

Catherine Filloux: You know, I would say that an artistic director recommended that a play that wasn’t a love story or. Oh, actually, I’m sorry, it was the director. I can’t remember if it was the director or the artistic director suggested, you know, this needs to be a love story. I’m not so sure they were right.

Steve Cuden: And how did you handle that?

Catherine Filloux: I didn’t, So I’m saying, in retrospect, I changed it. I did what they suggested.

Steve Cuden: I see. And then after the fact, you thought to yourself, this might have been the right solution.

Catherine Filloux: In the canon of now, like, 25 or whatever amount of plays, I can look back and think, you know, I. Why was that necessarily the way to go? It certainly, I think, made it more possibly commercial, maybe.

Steve Cuden: Well, that’s, that’s always a consideration for a theater that’s trying to survive.

Catherine Filloux: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Steve Cuden: Because money is still money, and it’s, not cheap to put on plays.

Catherine Filloux: Yeah. And it felt a little. In retrospect, I’m like, was that the cheap way to go? I don’t know.

Steve Cuden: The theater is so, odd today, at least, where in my experience has been that very, few, if any theaters actually survive on tickets. They have to go get funding elsewhere, they’ve got to get foundational money and so on. and for you, the artist, to come in, it’s not your concern. But yet at the same time, it is. Because if you write a play with 100 characters in it, they’re not likely to produce it.

Catherine Filloux: Yeah, there’s the cast sizes, too.

Steve Cuden: Absolutely. And do you have twelve sets or do you have one set? Makes a huge difference. I’ve been having the most marvelous conversation with cat for you, talking about playwriting and traveling around the world and dealing, with all sorts of very, provocative work, which I think is a really good way to put what your work is. It’s provocative, it makes people think, which is a really great thing. And I’m just curious, in all of your experiences, do you have a story you can share that’s either weird, quirky, strange, offbeat, or maybe just plain funny?

Catherine Filloux: Oh, sure. Well, you read Lemkin’s house, and when we had the, I think it was the first production of it, the whole concept of the play is that, proxmire who’s a senator, comes into Lemkin with a piece of paper that is going to show him that finally, after all this time, his genocide convention has been passed and ratified and everything is hinging on that piece of paper. Well, the one night I was, I noticed that, he comes in without the law. And so I’m just like, that’s going to be a big problem because like everything that’s ensuing is going to be fucked up. And, and then suddenly Laura Flanagan, who’s playing the mom, comes in with the bread, the challah. And it’s, she’s a somewhat magical character and somehow she pulls from the bread the stage. And Lemkin, the actor is just like, I was watching it. It was just like, wow, you guys get the prize for that.

Steve Cuden: that’s really good because I’ve heard all kinds of stories about weapons on stage not working. So somebody goes to fire a gun and the gun doesn’t fire. Right. And so what do they do? Well, they go bang or they throw the gun or whatever they do. but that’s unique. I’ve never heard of anyone, making, paper appear out of bread.

Catherine Filloux: Yeah. Yeah, it was really good.

Steve Cuden: That’s great. So, all right, last question for you today, Katie. You already given us just a huge amount of really great advice along the way here. But I’m wondering what is a solid piece of advice or a tip that you like to tell to young playwrights about the way to go about the business of being a playwright or maybe somebody that’s in a little bit and trying to get to the next level.

Catherine Filloux: Yes. Well, so it took me a long time to learn this and, you know, I honestly was very bad at this, but I did finally learn this idea of asking for something. And it is amazing how, if you are clear on what you want and what you are asking somebody of, and this could be like, a playwright you admire. Could you read my play or whatever? If you construct the ask clearly so that the person can say yes or no, there oftentimes somebody will say yes. And that is really worth developing your skills at asking. And that, that’s something that can be developed and honed and that can, you can get better. at. And I highly recommend it. I mean, I started like, I tried to do it at first and somebody said, well, how do you do it? And I, I showed them an email that was two paragraphs long that said this and that. And the person’s like, well, you didn’t even ask for the thing, you know, so it really clearly, learning how to ask, I think, is, and if anybody’s listening and wants to ask me something, please do, and I will, and I will answer.

Steve Cuden: Well, that’s very kind of you. And not everyone will be that kind. So it’s true, if you die, don’t ask, you will never get, yeah.

Catherine Filloux: And people can say no. And that’s another big lesson, is that once you set yourself up, somebody’s going to say, sorry, no. But the quotient of times that they may say yes is, is high.

Steve Cuden: Well, I think a lot of, artists don’t get asked that a lot, and then they’re honored by the fact that someone asked.

Catherine Filloux: Absolutely.

Steve Cuden: But the question is, how do you make that ask? Like you said, you were writing an explanation of the thing you were pitching, I guess, but you didn’t make the ask.

Catherine Filloux: Right. The way you do it is it needs to be very succinct, I think, and it needs to be clear. You know, I’ve admired you all for many, many years, and I have a play that I think you would like very much. Will you read it?

Steve Cuden: And there’s the ask. And it’s that simple.

Catherine Filloux: Yeah, very. I mean, you need a little context because you can’t be like, will you be my friend?

Steve Cuden: I think in this day and age, people are quite leery of strangers sometimes. And so, it is how you go about that ask that doesn’t seem like you’re stalking somebody or you’re attacking them or you’re coming on too strong. I think that if you do it properly, that is really wise advice, because, again, if you don’t make the ask, you just, you’ll never get to what you’re trying to do. Cat, for you, this has been an absolutely wonderful hour plus on, Storybee today, and I can’t thank you enough for your time and your wisdom and your energy and all the great work that you’ve done over all this time.

Catherine Filloux: Thank you so much, Steve. I really enjoyed it.

Steve Cuden: And so we’ve come to the end of today’s story be StoryBeat. If you liked this episode, wont you please take a moment to give us a comment, rating, or review on whatever app or platform youre listening to? Your support helps us bring more great StoryBeat episodes to you. StoryBeat is available on all major podcast apps and platforms, including Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Stitcher, Tunein, and many others. Until next. Next time, I’m Steve Cuden, and may all your stories be unforgettable.