ivoriesprocess | Riley McCarthy

the “bisexual” problem

a scrapbook meditation on re-adapting & reinvention of self work

From its origins of a late night staged zoom reading, to The Tank, to workshops, to The Brick, to Yale, to publication, 59E59, Fringe, and beyond...
IVORIES is Riley's ever-evolving horror machine.

or, how one playwright learned how to recreate a piece, and themselves, over three years of constant work.

Click to read along.

In March 2021, I had ascended to the lead producer of Student Theater at Marymount. At the time that I was in undergraduate, it was considered a massive honor to be a part of STAM's season. Marymount was shifting in the work it was producing, and with the power bestowed in me, I ran STAM's New Works Festival as the sole producer, gathering 12 original pieces from students to produce in a festival showcase. One outlier, however, was a 10PM showing of a play I hadn't even written yet, IVORIES.

In 24 hours, I'd written what would be the first draft of Ivories after promising a 30 page play to my collaborator, Hope Johansen. I asked Hope, "Do you think we can pull off a full zoom reading?" And we did! At 10PM on April 1st, about 250 people zoomed in to watch the first ever reading of Ivories. This draft was not 30 pages. It was 136. Oopsie. I had written. One hundred. Thirty six. Pages. In 24 hours. I couldn't stop! And that draft didn't even have the infamous garden scene in it... that scene came about a friend suggesting that Gwyn needed more time with plants. He'd spent an entire draft as a botanist not touching plants! What was I thinking? Ten minutes before our first table read, I wrote the garden scene, which has remained largely untouched, and sent out a new draft seconds before logging into zoom.

I designed multiple original artworks and projections for this reading of Ivories, including some that I'm sharing here. From that very first table read on March 28th to the reading on April 1st, the team all felt we had something really special in our hands. Hearing Beckham profess his love for Gwyn to Sloane at the initial table read was the first time I wept listening to my own text read by an actor. It was a powerful moment for me that made me realize that this was something I wanted to keep working on. I think the lightning in a bottle was captured in that reading, a high I've been chasing my entire career. Ivories is, and remains, incredibly special.

It was important to me in initial writings to capture three bisexual characters whose bisexuality was a positive aspect of their characters, and not the definition of their humanity. It was also very important to me that the audience couldn't discern a "villain", a true evil amongst this haunted house, that every person had compelling wants and needs and a desire to be humanized in who they are. It was important to me that the biggest horror in this story was the real threat of losing connection with each other.

I initially pitched this piece as my thesis to Kenny Finkle, my mentor and instructor of playwriting, as a piece that explored horror in a trans/cis bisexual relationship between a nonbinary person and a cisgender man, and the forced binary and conformity that comes with dating a cisgender man, an experience of feminization I'd experienced with the cis people I'd dated-- women included. The concept of being "straight-passing" in a queer relationship, and when we weaponize that, had been on the forefront of my mind.

I pivoted mid semester to instead write SHARON AND MELINA, the now-Eugene O'Neill semi-finalist piece about Freddie Mercury and Elton John's multi-decade friendship. That's a piece I'm proud of too, that came from a place of a need of radical bisexual representation that I didn't have in my life or the media around me.

I turned back to Ivories to write a piece for my friends for STAM New Works Festival. I had no idea at the time of writing it that it would be larger than a zoom reading that was supposed to just be for fun. I had no idea that I was about to write my magnum opus, a bestselling published horror play, or that this piece would take me on an ongoing journey of a lifetime. How could I have known? This is IVORIES.

"Basement Light Productions" was borne out of the titular basement lightbulb hung over the basement door in the play, a pivotal and important stage picture in this play that is referenced quite frequently. It's almost its own character, how embedded in this world it is. Basement Light Productions, my producing company, was formed around this play and the people who have come in and out of it, to create rich, compelling, and dynamic horror theatre for the stage. I continue to run my own horror work under this banner. We formed it to present Ivories at The Tank, an opportunity we could not pass up.

Shortly after the reading, we found out that The Tank would be returning to live programming. We had a three week turn around between hearing that we were cleared to do the play, and having it ready for the stage. Eager to get this piece on its feet and chase the lightning, we did not care whether we could stage the play as written (with a house set) or not, we were eager to hear an audience respond to these characters. With so many COVID restrictions, Hope Johansen returned to direct Ivories... over zoom, with just myself and the three actors in the rehearsal room, using my laptop. It was an intense and short process, with many of us taking extra hours to put in the work for the play. This also introduced me to Godfrey James, a brilliant lighting designer who has beautifully lit the show twice thereafter.

We had our first table read over zoom, before we'd even been confirmed for performances at The Tank. Call it manifestation or otherwise, but we were rocking and rolling to put the show up and afraid of losing any possible time on the show.

The first put-in for Kira and Raffi, Sloane and Gwyn, with Michael Darby (center), Beckham.

We took advantage of the empty Marymount Manhattan William J. Bordeaux Blackbox, which had been empty since March 2020. In June 2021, there was no one on campus still, so we received special permission from the school to rehearse the show here.

I moved all the way from cold and rainy Rhode Island back into New York City for Ivories, but also because I had been offered a position as a bookseller & barista at The Drama Bookshop. I trained for the Drama Book Shop at day while Ivories rehearsed at night.

We moved into teching the empty Tank, which had sat empty for over a year, on June 15th, 2021. It was so empty that the 56 seat blackbox was still full of the props and set of the show that had been loaded in before it shuttered in March 2020. We excavated light rigs and built the show with Hope Johansen, Julia Gaudioso and Godfrey James working away at setting up the show.

This pic is of the Theresa Lang Theater's ghost light, which had been left on the entire year of COVID shutdown. I snuck out after my tiny college graduation to sit with it for some time. I was never afforded the opportunity to perform on the mainstage, but we sat and did Ivories tablework under the glow of the ghost light. Seemed fitting for this play.

Here's Raffi during a light cue to cue.

This video of a clap-in led by our fearless director Hope Johansen preceded our first dress rehearsal.

Hope Johansen and Godfrey James discuss the lighting design in the booth of the proscenium.

Another lighting test, of Gwyn's nightmare scene (I believe this is Act One, Scene 3?).

This image captures a moment that has long since been cut from the show, of a monologue from Sloane to her grandmother that only existed in early versions of the play.

The first time I saw the ominous Basement Light on.

Some final touches to the basement scene was happening here.

Ivories was the first time a large audience had come to see my work. While we nearly sold out the run (the sunday matinee, we learned, is a hard sell for horror, but we were at half-house, which was not too shabby), my last premiere in New York City had an audience of... hmm... ten! With two out of three performances sold out, Ivories was a hit, and all of my friends had come to see it... here are the many, many bouquets of flowers, the first I'd ever gotten at my own work, from my windowsill at the nun boarding house where I lived (yes, you read that right, I lived with nuns). I was very touched by the audience reception to the piece. Unlikely friends and some heroes of playwriting had come to see this premiere of what was a rough, but successful workshop of this show.

Raffi Manjikian stepped in last minute to take over the role of Gwyn, as did Kira Williams for Sloane. By last minute, I mean, tech week... three days before opening night! Raffi, Kira, Michael Darby (Beckham) and I had all been in Marymount Manhattan's production of She Kills Monsters together in March 2021, and the opportunity to perform on the stage was invaluable. But I cannot forget the great deal of effort Raffi and Kira put in to learn this show with a 24 hour notice they were being put in. It was an incredible feat.

This is where I would credit what has become an iconic collaborative partnership between Raffi Manjikian and I. Raffi is an incredible talent of an actor, and his Gwyn was injected with sunshine from the very start of his performance. At the closing performance of Ivories at The Tank, he garnered a standing ovation and round of applause at the end of the garden scene. I'd never seen that happen at a play before, let alone mine. He had captured the audience's hearts, and mine as a playwright. He just has a raw emotional energy that is untethered and wild, but it's always within his control and his palette, and he is an actor who speaks his limits but isn't afraid of a challenge. I adore Raffi, and have been lucky to see him play every part in this play except Sloane. Maybe one day I'll let him.

This iconic image of Kira Williams as Sarah (in this production, Kira played both Sloane and Sarah, a choice that was intended by the original text but very hard to pull off onstage) is captured by my friend, photographer Ian McQueen, who's seen every production of this play ever. As productions went on and I edited the play more, Sarah started to show up more within the story, and, I realized it was very impractical to not split the track into two very distinct roles.

Raffi and Michael's final Garden scene, closing performance of Ivories.