October seems so far away now.
My life has moved on, and I forgot to reflect on one of the coolest experiences of my career.
An incredible project by Latitude Theatre, in which I made my debut as a published and professional playwright.
And, award-winning playwright, too.
If you take a look at my portfolio, you’ll see I’m not wholly new to the playwriting thing. In the three summers of 2020-2022, I and my incredible writing/business partner Mikayla Delos-Santos wrote and produced three shows with our own community company, Colorado Springs Young People Theatre Troupe.
We won awards for our work! I did consider that to be more for the productions, however, not necessarily for the scripts.
This was different.
For one, I got paid.
There is something very different about putting money into your account and thinking — my writing earned that. Nothing else.
For two, I was not involved in the production.
I came to our first get-to-know-you meeting and my cast’s first rehearsal. And then I came to opening night a few weeks later.
As I told my director, “I’m obsessed.”
To which she responded, smiling, “Well, don’t be, it’s a weird play.”
I suppose I should tell you more about the project. Latitude is all about translation — from cultures, from languages, and from art forms. This was their third show where the plays are translated from images.
Framing Device is a collection of six short plays, each written by a different playwright, and each based on a different painting by Edvard Munch, the artist of The Scream.
I got picked as one of the playwrights just by asking. Latitude’s director, Chris Kidder-Mostrom, is super keen on supporting playwrights of all skill and experience levels. I was so blessed to be involved!
Our paintings were randomly assigned to us. I got “Self-Portrait with a Bottle of Wine.”
And at first, I kinda hated it.
Munch did so many fascinating paintings with expressive characters and weird situations, and here I found a normal man in a normal restaurant. Wow.
But, of course, I had a job to do. A fifteen-minute play was hiding somewhere in that painting, and I had to find it.
There were four figures in the painting, and thankfully, that was within the limit for my cast size. I needed all of them.
Those two waiters in the back look suspicious. They’re looming over Edvard’s head. And who is that huddled in the corner? The person is sitting at a table without a tablecloth, and they don’t have the upright appearance of the other three figures.
And, wait a second.
Edvard has a bottle of wine, and a glass. And a plate.
But where’s the food?
And thus, my play was born. I couldn’t decide on a meaningful title or a funny one, so I decided to use both. It is officially titled, The Light from the Window, or, Where’s the Food.
My character Edward is looking for an excellent meal, and he’s greeted by the waiters, who promptly offer him wine and tell him the food is on its way. They tell him to watch where he looks — it changes what’s real.
What’s real certainly does change as the play goes on; things start to slowly fade around Edward as he sips his wine and waits forever for the food. Everything fades except the blinding light coming from the window, and Crazy James, who always sits next to it.
If you’d like to read it, I’ve added sections to my writing portfolio.
Oddly enough, it reflected a lot of themes from Munch’s life at the time of painting Self-Portrait with a Bottle of Wine, even though I did no research beforehand. I guess he was good at translating his emotions into art, and I got to translate them to a script.
Caitlin Frances, who directed it, did an amazing job. As did my incredible cast — Thurman Kellogg, Ali Kidder-Mostrom, Dan Ruiz Salvatura, and Joshua Holguin. They took these abstract, artistic pages and brought them to life, and watching the process from afar this time was thrilling.
Every audience member got to vote on which play was their favorite, and which was the best translation.
Mine won the translation vote.
The script says, at the end, that the stage should look like the painting. Caitlin’s blocking made it look like the furniture in the room was slowly spinning throughout the play, and it made a full rotation to end up looking exactly like the setup in the painting. I wish I had a full stage picture of what it looked like, but here’s something similar, from early in the play:
What a gift it was to work on Framing Device. It challenged me, offered new ideas and opportunities, and affirmed my relevance and gifting simply as a playwright. My work is good enough to be produced by other people — praise God, from whom every good gift comes.
It encourages me to write again, always remembering 1 Corinthians 10:31:
“So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” (NIV)
With that in mind, maybe don’t accept wine from mysterious waiters.
Audrey A McGee 
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