From left, Lisa Joyce (Sara), Kat Keenan (Elsie) and Kelsey Didion (Alice) rehearse for “Everything is Ours” Wednesday afternoon at Brawdy Theater Studios. The New Play Workshop, written by Nikole Beckwith and directed by Adrienne Campbell-Holt, opens tonight at Bratton Theater. Photo by Michelle Kanaar.
Jessie Cadle | Staff Writer
Nikole Beckwith decided to write the play she would most want to be in, so she concocted her first work, Everything is Ours, a surreal yet startlingly realistic comedy.
“It was a lot of things that I was thinking about at the time — the relationship of being a woman and how defined that is or is not by having children. Nature v. nurture,” Beckwith said.
Her play is the first Signature Staged Reading at the New Play Workshop put together by Chautauqua Theater Company this season. Everything is Ours opens tonight at 8 p.m. and runs through July 14 at Bratton Theater. The Brown Bag discussing the play is at 12:15 p.m. today in Bratton Theater featuring the playwright, director and cast.
A Signature Staged Reading is the equivalent of a miniature production designed by the four design fellows of CTC, acted by conservatory actors and guest artists, and directed by guest director Adrienne Campbell-Holt. The entire production comes together during a one-week rehearsal period.
Changes are made between performances to help the playwright see what a full-scale production would entail. The two Signature Staged Reading plays chosen for this season were picked from almost 200 plays submitted, said CTC Artistic Director Vivienne Benesch.
“Everything is Ours is a frighteningly accurate satire of the post Gen-X state of alienation,” Benesch said. “Both (Resident Director) Ethan and I had this experience where we laughed out loud reading her play … not just little chuckles.”
The play follows Sara and Mitchell, a couple who have made it big in technology and are now lost together. When a child, Elsie, is thrown in the mix and a more traditional couple, Alice and Tim, comes to visit, the couple’s precarious life is put in perspective.
“I was exploring with Sara and Mitchell how you share so much of your life with someone, and at some point something will come up and neither of you will want to touch it,” Beckwith said. “You can’t pick and choose what’s on the table and what’s not.”
Beckwith resonates with each character. Though she initially aligned herself with Sara and saw her younger sister playing Elsie, by the end of the play, Beckwith found that she had brought a piece of herself to each of the characters.
“I definitely relate to children as human beings — which is what they are,” Beckwith said.
It is the human element to all of her characters that Beckwith likes most about the play; each character is truly himself or herself.
“I think the characters are really good people, but also really flawed — and that’s not a bad thing,” she said. “I hope that people will leave feeling a little more connected to that aspect of themselves.”
Since her first play, she has written two others, but it was the first play that opened the door for Beckwith to move from an actor to a playwright and to explore a career in writing.
“This play has worked so hard for me. I’m excited to work hard for it,” she said. “I am so happy to give this play life.”
Everything is Ours is the first show in a month of new work. Fifty Ways, a full production and Chautauqua’s first world premiere, will debut next week, followed by the second Signature Staged Reading, Muckrakers.
The Chautauquan Daily 
