Voices Festival Productions’ moving new work Who Cares: The Caregiver Interview Project shares the impact of caregiving on the care providers themselves. Often pulled into service as a last resort, everyday people see their everyday lives upended by unexpected responsibilities, expectations, and duties. The stories are taken from transcripts of interviews with people from varied walks of life dealing with the challenges of showing up to care for loved ones dealing with memory loss. Ari Roth, founding artistic producing partner of Voices Festival Productions, described his intent for the project this way: “To honor what might have otherwise remained an isolating experience. To be demonstrative where we might have stayed quiet. Something elemental is at play here. Our need to tell the most elemental aspects of life — private stories, family hardship, the stuff of drama — shared in a circle.” ‘WHO CARES’ CREATORS IN CONVERSATION (FROM LEFT): Co-writers Ari Roth and A. Lorraine Robinson, actors Lise Bruneau and Laura Shipler Chico, and dramaturg April Sizemore-Barber. I spoke to five creators of Who Cares — co-writers Ari Roth and VFP artistic producing partner A. Lorraine Robinson, actors Lise Bruneau and Laura Shipler Chico, and dramaturg April Sizemore-Barber — about the process, experience, and adventure of bringing characters to life from transcripts and performing a new theatrical work that continues to evolve. In the Who Cares playbill, Roth described the work as “part of a larger cultural community conversation, and one of our healthier post-pandemic developments: recognizing the importance of care. We all need it, and we’re all, increasingly, being summoned to give it.” The script involves participants who have been “intimately involved in different caregiving intensities” and weaves the experiences into a theatrical story. Ari Roth: These stories come from our midst — from within our theater community and beyond. We are compelled to care for loved ones as an expression of love but also out of a sense of responsibility. Yet the reality of caregiving’s demands leads to conflict, both internal — as some of us battle feelings of guilt or resentment — and external, as we fight uncaring bureaucracies, dismissive social networks, and the natural despair from being close to disease. These are the hard facts of caregiving: We are pulled. We are overwhelmed. We are hurt. We grieve. Debbie Jackson: April, you’ve been part of the project from the beginning as an interview subject — the play is derived from transcripts of interviews with caregivers, so you’ve been in the heart and thick of it. You’re also a dramaturg working through the dramatic elements, and one of the characters is based on your experience. Why don’t you start us out with your take on the project? April Sizemore-Barber: Well, to put on my dramaturgical hat, one of the fascinating aspects of this play is that it is extremely committed to the particular stories, the narratives of the people who were interviewed. It’s very much in the verbatim theater tradition, Anna Deavere Smith being probably the best-known. There are acting choices being made, but the real commitment is to the character, the lived experiences, the voice, and recapturing and performing that. It’s almost like the audience is the interviewer, so there’s a real intimacy and liveness there. In working with the transcript, these are real people’s stories that we’re portraying, so the characters, the people, have been in the room, albeit with pseudonyms. That’s been the center of the play, and the fact that this is so specifically DC and specifically a particular part of the theater community makes it so personal, so real. But then, in rehearsals, I’ve watched it become transformed through imagination and collaboration, and characters in conversation with each other become something that everybody is globally going through — making it universal. The conversations become a kind of chorus, both Greek and/or musical, with voices interlacing with each other. The text was developed in isolation, but now, these characters interact with each other. It’s not a static docudrama — it moves, with dream spaces and imagined spaces opening up a dramatic theatrical world for these ideas, for these narratives that are specific but also so incredibly human. The stories resonate within the audience, and that becomes a broader circle. This has been such an evolving process with actors providing feedback about the text. That’s very different from the traditional way with actors receiving the script and saying their lines. How has that open flexibility worked for the actors? Lise Bruneau: I’ll jump in here. Coming into the process was fascinating. It was really rewarding. To me, in a way, it’s like cooking — there’s not one way to make cookies; it’s our choice. So my favorite thing to say about theater and about art in general is you can do whatever you want. To me, making good art requires being thoughtful, being intelligent, and being careful. The fortitude that everyone has shown, along with the number of voices that have contributed and are a part of this, is remarkable. Creating this piece is really impressive because you cannot help but have a little ownership. I’ve defended choices I’ve made; we have ownership. Another thing I’m fond of saying is, I don’t care about critics and opinions. That’s not what drives me. Instead, what I’m going for is where someone can sensitively express, “I have a reaction to the work that I heard, and I want to give you an honest response to what I saw, what I felt, what I heard, what I experienced, so that you know — you did that to me.” Joelle Denise, Laura Shipler Chico, Kelly Renee Armstrong, Lise Bruneau, and Kendall Arin Claxton (from back) in ‘Who Cares: The Caregiver Interview Project.’ Photo by Peggy Ryan. You’ve done some serious work with the source material as a basis for the characters. Generally, they’re renamed for privacy. But it got to the point where that stopped working for one of the characters? Lise Bruneau: Yeah, it felt like we were playing a little bit of cat and mouse saying that one of the characters is a renowned director, that she created a pathway for Black artists in DC, etc. It started to feel complicated because I just wanted to hear her name — Jennifer Nelson. Right?! I agree; she’s such a historical force in the theater community. It’s wonderful to have her named. Ari, I know it involved extra steps and clearance for you and Lorraine [Robinson] to work through all the confidentiality releases to make that happen, but I’m so glad it did. It’s such a tribute to such an incredible artist. Ari Roth: Yes, our release forms specifically asked all of the participating subjects whether they wanted to participate pseudonymously or not and whether the people they were caring for or referring to should be talked about as pseudonyms or not. We confirmed with and got permission from her daughter to bring Jennifer Nelson into the conversation. We’re really glad for that. Meanwhile, Laura, you’ve been part of the project from the very first workshop and have taken on several roles. What has your journey and experience been like with all this, especially considering this is your U.S. stage debut as well? Laura Shipler Chico: I remember that very first workshop where we were given the raw material, and we were each randomly assigned a couple of interviews, and we went through using color-coded highlighters to pick out things that touched us and that stood out. The result was almost like a Quaker-style meeting or worship presentation, where we came in with little snippets or some short stories in response to others, which laid the groundwork for the transition from an interview to a conversation. We portray characters as part of a support group and relating to other people. So while staying true to the depth and essence of the words, you also have to lean into an emotional landscape that we know as being human, touched by aspects of our own real lives; it’s all there. But as actors, we have to put ourselves in an emotional space to open up and lean into it with — OK, I’m feeling this, I’m coping, but we have to feel it and mine it, and so that’s been a really interesting journey, taking these interviews into new imagined conversations. The other theatrical element is, while we’re using the exact words, characters have to shift and change over the course of a story for it to be theatrically interesting. One character I play is Jana, who was diagnosed with Lewy Body disease at the age of 52. Last night, I was in tears after rehearsal — it was unimaginably devastating what that loss represents. To put myself into the shoes or into the heart and mind space of someone who’s losing those things is really powerful for me and connects me to my other characters in a different kind of way, in trying to portray her from the inside out.   Lise Bruneau: I really want to piggyback on something that Laura said about playing Jana. If you were portraying your character from the outside in, you would be like — she’s losing her memory, she must be sad. And this is what I get from high schoolers all the time. “So you want me to be sad?” It’s like, no, I don’t want you to be sad. I want to get across what Laura has done. The “instrument” of Laura allows her to react organically and naturally to the situation. So we don’t see Jana being sad because she doesn’t remember things anymore. We see her fight it; we see her deny it. We see her resist it. We see her get scared about it, and it’s like this whole incredible palette of responses that are incredibly organic, beautiful to watch, and that really fill that story out. It is a privilege to watch you, Laura. TOP: Lise Bruneau and Laura Shipler Chico; ABOVE: Laura Shipler Chico and Lise Bruneau, in ‘Who Cares: The Caregiver Interview Project.’ Photos by Peggy Ryan. And finally, Lorraine, what is it like to have been an interviewer and then to find yourself as the protagonist or “journeyer” in this play? The character portraying your experience interacts with this other figure named Bee, based on your sister, who you lost at an incredibly young age. That’s another character come to life with their own theatrical reality to it. Lorraine Robinson: Well, I honestly don’t know how I became the protagonist in this play [laughing]. Not sure how that happened. I was not anticipating that at all, even though I was, yes, an instrumental instigator of this project and process. Sometimes, I find myself watching the rehearsal process for the play and script, and it all seems normal. And then there are times when things in the script jump out and hit me, and it’s actually very disorienting, these characters either saying my words or something that happened in my life. Another thing I’ll note is some of the musical choices that I’ve put into the script; those are all very personal things to my sister that she regularly listened to on her iPod and during her two-year journey with dementia. The music has resonance. Her music listening was on frequent rotation; certain songs comforted her, so we’d let her go with the music. There’s a kind of soundtrack to this experience, and some of it’s in the play, and that is very resonant to me. April Sizemore-Barber: This piece is a resurrecting of these people through storytelling — we are bringing them into the room through the music, through our stories of them. And so, in some ways, this honors the people who we’ve worked with. It honors the caregivers, obviously, but also the people who are no longer with us. It’s a healing space. It’s a space that is in and out of time, and in some ways it can be a mourning space as well as a gratitude space. Ari Roth: I think what’s really exciting in a “page to stage” way is the embodiment of all of these people who at one point were just names in a transcript. And then all of a sudden, it’s not a six-actor play; it’s a 40-character play. The elderly are present, the children are present. The ghost figures, the people who are no longer living, are present with us, and they are the most poignant figures of all. Lise Bruneau: We’re honoring the people who are sharing their stories, and what I find to be incredibly beautiful, too, is the respect that’s even sacred. Listening, the reception, you know, I’m going to receive your story, I’m going to hear what you’re going through, what your life is, and everybody is doing that for each other. It’s quite beautiful. You’ve taken so much time crafting this brand-new play, a world premiere. Why is it important to have this show up now? What do you want the audience to come away with? Lise Bruneau: Well, an actress I’m really fond of, Charlotte Rampling, does a lot of unusual, scary, slightly uncomfortable portrayals. She says she loves finding scripts that push the boundaries and put people in extraordinary situations or reveal sides of people that are not necessarily revealed to the mainstream because she says it helps people feel less lonely, in this case, when they see someone experiencing something they’ve experienced: eldercare. Laura Shipler Chico: There’s a quote — I’m not sure who first said it: We need to know that we’re not alone. I think we go to art to know that we’re not alone. I think about my sister-in-law, who has been this warrior for her parents. She’s going to take a few precious hours out of her intense schedule to come and see this play. I want her to recognize herself in what we’re doing. There’s also why I have been drawn to work as an actor. I call it “radical empathy.” I think part of our work as artists is to invite people to imagine themselves in other people’s experiences. Lorraine Robinson: I became inspired by my sister as she went through the journey of facing this disease, and I found inspiration in how we were able to navigate the journey through this together. I discovered I wasn’t as isolated and alone as I thought I was. This piece opens people’s hearts, minds, and souls to an incredible wealth of personal and emotional experiences. Will there be talk-back opportunities to help process the material? Lorraine Robinson: Yes, we recognize that the audience’s emotional journey for this kind of dramatic piece doesn’t stop when the curtain goes down or the lights come on. We’re working on a schedule of discussions that will be available after each show so the audience will be able to share their experience, have a chance to talk, and reflect on this piece — they are part of this journey and process, really the final part of it. Any concluding thoughts, Ari? Ari Roth: Just that one of the many things that I’m most proud of is using all local talent from the DMV, the first time for this company that has an international reach. From writing and preparing the script to the stellar performers, everyone is based here, adding to the closeness and trust in sharing the sensitive issues and experiences, as well as bringing attention to the crisis of care in the local community. I know that Voices Festival Productions appreciates the spotlight on caregiving in recent theater productions throughout the metro area, and we all look forward to continuing that energy and momentum with this work. Thanks to all of you for taking the time and energy to share your thoughts and the process. I hope everyone involved in the project realizes how much you’re all making a difference in lives and art. ‘Who Cares’ cast. Photos courtesy of Voices Festival Productions. Who Cares: The Caregiver Interview Project plays through February 2, 2025, presented by Voices Festival Productions, performing at Universalist National Memorial Church, 1810 16th St, NW, Washington, DC. Tickets ($45, with discounts available for groups, patrons under 30, affinity groups, and artists) are available online. Running Time: Two hours and 20 minutes, including a 15-minute intermission. Who Cares: The Caregiver Interview Project Co-written by Ari Roth, A. Lorraine Robinson, and Vanessa Gilbert With original stand-up material from Jim Meyer and excerpts from the work of M.T. Connolly and her book, The Measure of Our Age: Navigating Care, Safety, Money, and Meaning Later in Life Directed by Kathryn Chase Bryer CAST Kelly Renee Armstrong*: Rachel, Rev. Leslie, Tyra, Bee, Tanty Lise Bruneau*: Theresa, June, Nurse, Hospice Laura Shipler Chico: Sarah, IONA Program Director, Jim’s mom Kendall Arin Claxton*: Kris, Kathleen, Cecilia, Selam Todd Scofield*: Jim, P&P Owner Joelle Denise*: Lorri Understudies: Rachel Manteuffel, Llogan Paige, Robert Bowen Smith Casting: Daryl Eisenberg, CSA, Eisenberg Casting *Denotes member of Actors Equity Association CREATIVE TEAM David Elias* (Stage Manager); Nora Butler (Assistant Stage Manager); David Smith (Lighting Designer); David Lamont Wilson (Sound Designer); Brandee Mathies (Costume Designer); Heidi Castle-Smith (Scenic Designer); Tyra Bell (Props Designer); Robert Bowen Smith (Movement Director) SEE ALSO: Intimate immersion in the emotions of caregiving, in ‘Who Cares’ world premiere (review by John Stoltenberg, January 15, 2025) Voices Festival Productions to open ‘Who Cares: The Caregiver Interview Project’ (news story, December 27, 2024) Voices Festival Productions announces cast for ‘Who Cares: The Caregiver Interview Project’ (news story, October 16, 2024)