Name of Respondent: Caitlin Graham (Founder)
Name of Company: Coyle Street Productions
Name of Show: The Next Stage (the panic attack play)
“At first I was disappointed about not being able to do it in an actual theatre or performance space, but I’m actually loving what it’s doing for the show. It feels like the MTV Unplugged version of it.”
1. Why should people tune in to your show?
If you or anyone you know has suffered from mental illness, it’ll be a night of finding the humor in it all and finding the needed self-compassion to get through it. Bonus: I’m revisiting the site of my trauma in this show (I had my first panic attack on stage two years ago), so there’s always the chance that I’ll freak out during the performance, and that might be fun or at least interesting for you to watch.
2. What about festivals intrigues you? Any why the Atlanta Fringe?
I love the diversity of artists and material that ends up populating a festival, especially Fringe festivals. I’ve been intrigued by Atlanta as a creative hub for the last few years (especially as someone who’s also a filmmaker), but I’ve never had the opportunity to spend much time there, either recreationally or professionally. While it’s a shame that we won’t be able to convene in person this year, I hope the virtual festival is a good entry point to me spending more time there in the future!
3. What inspired you to create this?
I had my first panic attack two years ago about ten minutes into a show I was doing. I’d been an actor on stage for fifteen years at that point with no issues, so it really terrified me and threw me for a loop. I ended up having to leave the show and spent the rest of that year grappling with a panic disorder and full-on mental breakdown. Since then, it’s been a slow journey getting back to my life as a performer, and I have my share of trauma around performing as a result. I’ve been genuinely concerned that I wouldn’t be able to perform on stage again without having another attack. Because I’ve also been a writer for a long time, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to create a show that allows for the panic. The show is about what happened, so there’s no pressure to “hide it” or “perform through it” or pretend that I’m okay when I’m really not. And I’ve been able to set up the show in such a way that I can feel as comfortable as possible performing it. With the virtual festival, it’ll be in my living room. Can it get more comfortable than that?
4. This year ain’t normal and there’s no sense pretending it is. How has Covid affected what you’re doing for this festival?
In lieu of a proper venue, we’ll be shooting a pre-recorded version of the show in my living room. At first I was disappointed about not being able to do it in an actual theatre or performance space, but I’m actually loving what it’s doing for the show. It’s meant to be super intimate, and I think it’s going to serve that well. It’s going to do interesting things for the style of performance and the overall tone of the show. It feels like the MTV Unplugged version of it.
[Above: a still from Caitlin’s performance and, yeah, that’s a pretty cozy living room. She’s in her socks!]
5. What have you learned from working on your show so far?
Yeesh. What haven’t I learned? Looking at something you went through in your own life and distilling it into a narrative forces you to find the lessons, which is all in the show, so I don’t want to spoil you. Perhaps the most interesting thing I’ve learned so far is that I’ve made more progress mental health-wise than I thought I had. We had our first reading of the script in the same theater where everything went down, so I was literally revisiting “the room where it happened.” I was expecting it to be scarier than it was, and I was expecting this huge emotional catharsis afterward. My director came up to me after the show, hugged me, and said, “You did it!” And I just shrugged and told him it felt like another day at the office. I was disappointed by that lack of narrative satisfaction in my own life, but he reassured me that it probably means I was just ready to do the show and I was comfortable. (He also said, “You had a full-on mental breakdown; I think you’ve had enough emotional catharsis for a while.”)
6. There’s a mysterious, anonymous little square watching your show and sticking around for the talkback. In your WILDEST dreams, who is that mysterious stranger grooving on your work? (Please note, this question is inspired by us recently learning that Neil Patrick Harris has been doing this.)
Janet Jackson. She’s been my favorite person since I was a kid. Granted, my head would actually explode if it happened. I’ve gone to see every tour she’s done since I was in high school, and my goal is to get closer and closer every time. For the last tour, I made it to the third row and broke down sobbing at being so close to her. I am ridiculous.
[Not ridiculous, Janet Jackson is The Truth]
7. Fringes are the place to really push the boundaries so we gotta ask: are your parents getting the link are or you gonna be like, “Uhhhh, I dunno, the website doesn’t seem to be working, Mom…”
Definitely the latter. I’ve already told them to skip it. It’s too close, I think, and our family history plays a huge role in the narrative. They also had a front row seat to everything that happened, and I don’t think they’d want to relive it. That said, there are really beautiful moments in the show with my parents and my brother, so I may want to share some pieces of it with them at some point. But for now, I’m not ready, and I’m not sure they would be, either.
8. We’ve asked this question every year for the past nine years or so but it hits different this year: Will your show change the world?
My ultimate goal is to bring it to mental health facilities – so if and when that happens, I certainly hope so.
9. Zoom meetings: dress up head to toe or Donald Duck it?
Full-on scrub all the way!
10. We’re making an excellent Spotify playlist. Describe your show in two or three songs we can add to keep the jams flowing.
I actually have a great pre-show playlist that unfortunately I don’t think will make it into this virtual version. There isn’t any thematic consistency; they’re just songs that make me feel joyful and confident. Three of my favorite songs on it are: “Return of the Mack” by Mark Morrison; “Stand Back” (live version) by Steve Nicks; and “The Glamorous Life” by Sheila E.
Sounds pretty awesome, right? Like you want to hang out with Caitlin all day long, right? Well, grab your tickets now to hang out with her for at least an hour!
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