SOPHIA ROOKSBERRY
Staff Writer
Two summers ago, Sharyn Rothstein got a call from some colleagues she met while working in the American theater scene: Jade King Carroll, producing artistic director at Chautauqua Theater Company, and Laura Savia, Chautauqua’s vice president of performing and visual arts. They were calling to see if Rothstein wanted to participate in a new play commissioning program, and with that call, Best for Baby was born.
“I wanted to write a really big play about a really big issue, and I thought, ‘Surely they’ll run for the hills … especially in this moment of arts funding issues and political sensitivity issues,’” Rothstein said. “To my ever-loving surprise and gratitude, they were like, ‘We’re in. We’re so excited about it.’”
Beginning its robust string of performances with a “pick-your-price” first preview at 5 p.m. Saturday in Bratton Theater, Best for Baby will make its world premiere for Chautauquans this summer as the culmination of an intense new play development process.
In 2024, Rothstein began the three-year commissioning process with a residency on the grounds to begin writing the script. Motivated by her master’s degree in public health and an interest in the political dimensions of “community wellness and societal well-being,” Rothstein’s work took the shape of an ongoing legal scandal.
“I picked up The New Yorker and there was an article about the Johnson & Johnson talc litigation,” Rothstein said. “Some of that stuff I knew. What I didn’t know was the whole long history, starting from the ’60s and ’70s, and it read like Big Tobacco — all of the interplay of lobbying and FDA interactions and what the company knew and when they knew it — and so all of that really ticked [my creative] boxes.”
Best for Baby is based on the tens of thousands of claimants who have accused Johnson & Johnson of knowingly selling asbestos-ridden baby powder for decades. Rothstein was inspired to tell a courtroom story by her time as a writer for five seasons of the legal drama “Suits,” as well as her feminist drive to disclose the gendered implications of the corporate scandal.
“Women were the ones targeted by the company in their advertising, and so that also opens up all of these really interesting thematic explorations about our bodies and what we consider being a good mother and what we consider being attractive and smelling attractive,” Rothstein said. “There’s an entire aspect of race that gets involved because the company was specifically targeting Black women and Latina women.”
According to Rothstein, Best for Baby is a “very tragic story” at its core, but the play leans on moments of comedy to communicate a specific message and authenticity.
“We are doing it with a lot of comedy because it’s a satire … and comedy is the only way in my family we ever get through anything, and I think that’s true for a lot of people, and I think it’s what humanizes us and what connects us,” Rothstein said. “For me, if you’re going to tell a tragic story, to leave out the comedic parts of it is to leave the heart out of it.’
In 2025, this dichotomous script was introduced to Chautauqua Institution as a New Play Workshop. This stage of development meant Rothstein was not only receiving guidance from CTC’s creative team and a collection of dramaturgs, but the play now had performers to inspire her process, including lead actress Crystal Dickinson.
“She is one of the best actors working today, and she has given me so many insights into the character and the story, and then there’s the audience,” Rothstein said. “… You need an audience to tell you what works and what doesn’t, and Chautauqua is one of the smartest audiences you’re going to find, so getting feedback from people last year was enormously helpful.”
Another vital branch of new play development comes in the form of the director, Oliver Butler.
“This is an incredibly theatrical play to begin with, and he has a great sense of how to raise the stakes in a really fun way,” Rothstein said. “That experience has been 100% positive, and our designers are doing incredible work. I think they have created in Bratton a space that is interesting and fluid in a way that we really wanted for this play.”
Before achieving the last stage of the commissioning process by officially opening on July 22, Best for Baby will enter a three-day run of preview performances. At 5 p.m. tonight and 7:30 p.m. July 19 and 21, Chautauquans can witness a fully staged and rehearsed iteration of Best for Baby while still influencing the future of the play.
“The play is not frozen until opening night, so if a joke is not landing, I’m going to try to change the joke,” Rothstein said. “If something goes wrong in tech, we’re going to fix it … Everything changes when you get an audience. The pace changes. You learn about moments you actually didn’t quite know were there, and now they’re there, or laughs that you didn’t know were there, and now they’re there. It is a work in progress, literally until opening night.”
The last performance of Best for Baby will take place on Aug. 2, and Rothstein hopes the next two weeks in Bratton Theater will encourage audience members to use their voices to influence their elected officials’ stance on the litigation.
“This actually is a story that is going to affect every single person in the audience,” Rothstein said. “Even though it has been covered in the press … I know so many really smart, well-read women who actually don’t know the specifics of this story, and so … I am interested in the feeling of reckoning that might come with seeing this play, and what I hope is that people are entirely entertained, deeply moved and it sparks conversation [about] what our collective role is in policing these companies.”
