Hearing voices: Playwright/actor collaboration in Kira Obolensky's THE CHANGELINGS

On opening night of Ten Thousand Things’ world premiere production of Kira Obolensky’s The Changelings, the stage had no spike tape, there was no box office in sight, and—as with every Ten Thousand Things performance—the lights didn’t go down. At this performance (in a women’s correctional facility) there was, however: laughter, understanding, and a standing ovation.

“It was one of those amazing theater experiences in my life,” Obolensky says. Ten Thousand Things has taken several of her plays out to audiences in correctional facilities, homeless shelters, rural reservations, and other places where people do not have easy access to theater. The fact that Kira is still so strongly moved by these audiences is a key to how she writes so well for them.

Changelings cast member Kurt Kwan says Obolensky’s plays resonate with so many different communities because she starts writing the play with them in mind. He speaks of “her invitation for them to enter the story.”

This particular play, the third in three years written for Ten Thousand Things through a Mellon Foundation-funded National Playwriting Residency, started its life as a series of improvisational explorations with actors, some of whom, including Kwan, are in the cast now.

At those early workshops, says Kwan, “we talked about our own connection with the idea of a ‘changeling.’ I connected with the idea through my identity of being adopted. We had many discussions around the topic but eventually it was time to create on our feet.  A couple hours into a sweaty workshop of throwing around ideas, laughing, and conjuring different characters, I was on the floor flopping around like a fish because at the time there was a strong nautical theme. About a month later Kira said she had started writing the play based on me flopping around like a fish. This changed eventually. But for a few weeks I thought that I was going to be touring greater Minnesota as a fish.”

After those exploratory workshops, “I wrote 700 pages of this play,” says Obolensky. “Three versions of it: set on islands, and in lace factories. Twins switched at birth, all sorts of variations.” She realized these versions weren’t working and set out to gather the sprawling ideas into a singular, specific place. The character of a changeling—a child secretly substituted for another—isn’t new, Obolensky knows, so she approached it a new way, focusing “less on the mystery of identity and more on how families change.”

Ten Thousand Things partnered with the Playwrights’ Center, where Obolensky is a permanent Core Writer, through the Center’s partnership program called the Regulars. This was the fifth partnership workshop between the Playwrights’ Center and Ten Thousand Things. During the 15-hour development workshop, Obolensky and Ten Thousand Things Artistic Director Michelle Hensley worked with the same cast that would be in the production—rewriting, finding opportunities to further develop characters, and honing the rhythm of the piece.

Obolensky says developing the play with the production cast improves the writing itself. “This play was written for these actors—and having the ability to hear the play in their voices makes characterization and character arc something easier to more fully accomplish on the page.”

Kwan says Obolensky hears the actors’ voices almost unsettlingly well. “Having been part of the creation process and then encountering Kira’s script I had an interesting moment where I was reading my lines and suddenly felt like I was listening to myself on a tape recorder. I had to take a pause and ask myself ‘Do people see me like that or is that the way I sound?’ And of course when I went over it again I do sound like that. And that is scary when you realize someone has observed you enough to capture who you are and make you act some version of yourself.”

After all the workshops and drafts and 86ed fish, what is Obolensky’s favorite moment in the play? “There’s a hug in the second act that makes me ache every time I see it.”

The Changelings runs with Ten Thousand Things through June 5, with performances at Open Book.