A CONVERSATION WITH PLAYWRIGHT CHRISTINA PUMARIEGA
What year(s) were you at the New Harmony Project?
Summer of 2023.
Can you talk about a favorite memory or two? If you were asked to describe NHP to someone, how would you do it?
There are so many! Large and small, shared both with our whole cohort and in conversations over dinner or long walks.
In our first circle conversation as a company, we discussed what brought us to New Harmony and how we planned to spend our time. I was pregnant with my first child, having just entered the second trimester. I hadn’t even told my parents yet, but listening to my fellow writers’ stories buoyed me to share my excitement. And fear. And curiosity as to how it would affect my art. And of course, warn them I’d be the reason for any mysterious food shortages.
Working with masterful dramaturg Phaedra Michelle Scott on an early draft of my play ¡VOS! was a dream. The brilliant Lori Wolter Hudson took me on a golf cart ride through corn fields where we discussed how family inspires storytelling.
Later, on our last night at NHP, a flock of us found ourselves under a starry sky and a full moon. We howled. It was exhilarating.
New Harmony Project provides a community that allows makers to get quiet and know themselves. I made discoveries, both on the page and in my life, that I’m still turning over. Which is why NHP will always feel like a creative home.
Where do you find inspiration for your writing? What other writers (in any genre) do you find inspiring?
Women of all ages and walks of life. Human rights activists. Teachers. My parents. My grandmothers. My sister. My hybrid Cuban and Italian-American identity. Religion. Journalists. Novelist Zadie Smith. Playwright Maria Irene Fornes. Poet Larry Levis. Drummer Carl Allen. Actor/director Alan Rickman. Journalist Christiane Amanpour. Theatre maker Zelda Fichandler. The southern US. Cuba. Mountains. Anyplace new to me, there's always a story to learn.
What's your writing process/ritual?
When I started, it used to be very particular — I’d fit it around my acting career, writing late into the night. Television writing shifted this to a reasonable 9 to 5. There were hard deadlines. I learned to make bold changes fast.
Motherhood integrated these rituals. Now I care less about when I write and more about how. Strong coffee is a must. I treat writing time like meeting a person. I show up, even if the result is completely unusable.
What advice would you give to a playwright approaching their first major production?
You have more say than you think. Playwriting is producing from page one. Get involved, have opinions, and choose your team judiciously. I’d spent some years working as an actor so I’ve amassed a community of people I’m obsessed with working with. You get more work done with communicative, kind collaborators who push you in their honesty.
Do you have a dream project that you're dying to work on?
Several. And always.
Some are sprawling, athletic events in our histories. Others are intimate dissections between an actor and us. Some on the brink of being shared, a couple others itching to come out. I promised myself I’d wait until after our opening for ¡VOS! before I get myself into more trouble…
Can you tell us a little bit about ¡VOS!?
Annie returns to her estranged birthplace of Buenos Aires to undergo IVF treatments from the famed Dr. Cossi. But her motherhood journey brings to light the lives of two women lost to the Dirty War decades ago. ¡VOS! is a hunt for home, family, and the Disappeared; inspired by Las Madres—past, present and hopeful—and told by two Latina actors spinning as fast as they can.
¡VOS! grew out of my own taxing infertility journey and a subsequent trip to Buenos Aires that allowed me to become financially solvent again. But Argentinos taught me so much more—they’re beautiful and political and impossibly funny. Then there was Argentinian Spanish—putting my non-native Spanish under immediate scrutiny. I had to listen differently, speak differently and learn this fascinating place on its own terms. I stayed two months, and didn’t skim the surface… Two weeks before I left, I sat down at a Palermo café and wrote ¡VOS! My fingers couldn’t keep up: the story came pouring out of me. Hours after I wrote “End of Play”, I flew home.
