CD: Your Saturday Series reading will bring intrigue and poetic language to the stage, and we're excited! Can you tell us about the genesis of "Off with Her Head?" What about the period intrigued you?
Cate: I was reading a biography about Queen Elizabeth I and I was struck by the persecution of Catholics during her reign. I think we romanticize the Elizabethan era because the arts flourished so heavily during that time and because of Shakespeare. But religion was heavily politicized. Everyone was required to attend Protestant services. If you did not, you were fined. Also, there were random searches of the homes of Catholic families. If a priest was discovered, he was hung. I thought about the persecution of different groups today and felt like there were parallels I wanted to explore.
CD: How would you describe OWHH within the body of your work as a writer? Is this an extension? A departure?
Cate: In some ways, it is a departure. In the past, I have written period pieces where the language is faithful to the times. You’ll see that the language in OWHH is more contemporary. I decided to experiment with that based off of contemporary period TV shows. I thought it would make it easier to see the relevance to our current times.
CD: I’m struck by the breadth of your work and career. You write plays, librettos, screenplays, novels and poems. You've been a university lecturer, a tutor for federal inmates and a grant writer. Do all these talents and disciplines co-exist and build on each other, or have they been sequential endeavors?
Cate: I would say curiosity and dedication is key to being a writer or educator. The federal inmates were some of the best students I ever had. They had not been encouraged in academics when they were younger. When I was teaching them, they simply needed the care and support in nurturing their abilities in math and reading. They needed a judgment free zone.
CD: We are all about judgment free zones! Is that part of what you found when you were a MacDowell Fellow in 2017? You worked in the Star Studio, built in 1911-12, where other artists like Joan Acocella, Gish Jen, Galway Kinnell and Basil Twist have also worked. Did the building’s legacy imbue your work somehow or lend you a sense of freedom?
Cate: I did feel a historic sense while at Star Studio. Young Jean Lee had been there about a year or two before me. We sign our names on plaques in the room and I saw hers. I feel a historic sense when I walk into the Russ Tutterow theater too. I did not get to meet him, he was before my time, but having heard everyone at CD speak about him—he sounds like an incredible soul.
CD: As you work across mediums, do you have an established daily writing practice? Or does your work happen in bursts or stolen minutes as you find them?
Cate:
While I think there’s a way to work on plays for long periods in the day at a time, novel writing needs to be broken into a daily habit, where each day is a step in a direction. There’s only so much prose you can generate in a day. So, when I’m working on a novel, I write every day at 6 AM. When I’m working on a first draft of a play, I write five pages a day for a month or two. When I work on rewrites, I work in bursts in intervals I’ve blocked out for rewriting.
CD: Your opening lines in "Off with Her Head," “O/I come from Rheims/And before that,/Rome,...” launch us into a journey and land us in England “the snake pit for Catholics like me,” so we know we are already in deep trouble! What are you excited for audiences to experience and what do you hope they take away from the play?
Cate: I’m excited to see what people make of the Elizabethan England underbelly I navigate in the play, and whether they come away with new thoughts on political and religious persecution or find a character they really connect to.
