Quarantine Q/A: ASHLEY NAFTULE

Ashley Naftule
photo by Mimi Snow Photography

by Gil Benbrook

Our series of "Quarantine" interviews that focuses on individuals involved in the Phoenix theatre community and their reaction to our current stay at home mandate continues today with a conversation with Phoenix playwright and Space 55's Associate Artistic Director Ashley Naftule.

COVID-19 has affected us all in many ways. The theatre community has been harshly impacted with show closures and postponements. We hope this series of daily interviews will be a way to provide some personal insight to what people are doing during this period of time while highlighting familiar individuals from the theatre community in town.

Was there a show you were in or involved with or preparing for when the stay at home order started?

"Yes. We had to cancel a show at Space55, Night Of The Chicken 3, before it could do its final weekend run because of the order. We also had to postpone a show Ricky Araiza was going to direct for us, Fade, that was already well into rehearsals when this came down. We were also about to start work on bringing my play, Radio Free Europa, to the stage in May at the Space but had to reconceive our approach and take a different tack.

How have you been personally impacted by our current situation?

"I’ve been very lucky, honestly. I work as a copywriter for a local school whose student body is almost entirely online, so we were able to transition into a remote situation without it being a major disruption. My family is healthy, as am I, and we have just enough toilet paper left to keep us from being crippled by the dreaded mud-butt.

On a less cheerful note: my other line of work as a freelance writer has been devastated by this. Magazines and online outlets across the country are reeling from all this. Many places freezed their freelancer budgets entirely or reduced them to a bare pittance, and some places I used to write for have outright closed up shop. It is, to put it mildly, a terrible time for any kind of arts writing in this country. The critical apparatus is rotting away in real time and I’m not sure how much of it will come back when this is over. But again, I’m lucky: if this plague came down two years ago when I was still doing full-time freelancing as my ONLY gig, I would have been screwed with a capital-S."

How has your daily routine changed?

"On the positive front: I don’t have to commute to work every day or dress up in professional duds, so that’s kinda nice. On the everything-else front: there’s not much variety in my day-to-day life. I work 9-5 at home, get a few hours of writing and reading in after that, and occasionally hop on to Roll20 to play RPGs like Monster Hearts 2 or Starfinder with my friends. I take walks in the neighborhood and occasionally see javelinas rooting around for trash to eat in alleyways. Pretty much everything I’d do to get out of the house (dancing, concerts, theater, improv, open mics, museums, etc) is a non-starter right now for obvious reasons.

I can’t even go swimming at my gym, though that hasn’t stopped them from charging my card every month, quarantine be damned."

art credit: Dai Quentin Gore

What do you feel will be different when theater restarts?

"Hooooo boy. A LOT. For starters, I think it’s going to take time to get audiences back. I imagine folks are going to be fairly gun-shy about going out to public events for a bit after this is over. So I think adjusting all our expectations for audience turnouts is important. As is potentially rethinking our seating capacities- if there isn’t a vaccine in place until next year (if there even is one), then we may have to think about spacing patrons out more or limiting crowd sizes. We have to also address the elephant in the room: theater audiences trend towards the elderly. The people who are most likely to come out and see our shows are either in the danger zone, demographic-wise, or on the cusp of entering that category. So we have to keep their safety in mind and create environments that will both appeal to them while also doing everything within our power to keep them safe.

I also think theaters need to take online content and remote theatrical experiences seriously. At Space 55, that’s something we’re looking to grow beyond just our upcoming Radio Free Europa show. Creating good, QUALITY content that theaters can share remotely (and figuring out a way to do that that properly suits the medium and isn’t just “let’s film a table read of Shakespeare with a webcam”) is a skill we all need to develop. Because even if this quarantine subsides over the summer, who’s to say how long it will be before we have to go through another bout of social distancing because Coronavirus comes back or (God forbid) another disease comes along that we have to quarantine from? If and when we go through this again, if we want our art to survive, we have to develop compelling ways of doing it without a stage."

When do you think that’ll happen?

"I have no idea. I hope it ends this summer, but who knows? I’d rather not set an expectation or hope for a particular time frame for it to end and then feel crushed when we’re still stuck at home after that date passes."

What have you been doing to stay creative during this time?

"The biggest thing is my play. Radio Free Europa was originally going to be a stage play, but I had an eureka moment that it could work as a remote piece. The play is inspired by Art Bell’s paranormal radio show- most of it takes place as a series of phone calls. I had the thought of rewriting some sections of the play to make the whole thing work as live phone calls between actors. Nobody is ever in the same room together in this story; they’re all apart from one another, communicating their feverish stories about UFOs and Bigfoots and chupacabras without the benefit of seeing the other person at the end of the line. 

Once I pitched that idea to my collaborators at Space 55 and they all confirmed that it wasn’t a stupid idea, I spent most of my quarantine reshaping the play into a radio play that specifically works within the format of a Zoom conference and takes advantage of what that medium can (and cannot) do. The show is cast and we’re rehearsing remotely for it so the show can be ready to open on May 15th, our original opening date, but as an online-only experience that people can watch for three weeks. The entire production is remote: rehearsing, sound/visual design, and performances are all being done through conferencing."

Any binge tv shows you’ve watched?

"I hadn’t seen the 21st century version of Battlestar Galactica, so I started watching that when this started and I just got completely sucked into that world. Fantastic series, even if the ending is a bit meh. Also been keeping up with Better Call Saul, which has just been phenomenal this year. I’m now working my way through Castlevania and The Midnight Gospel on Netflix."

Any new hobbies you’ve taken on?

"No. I’ve been picking some old ones back up. I dusted off my SNES Mini and I’m going through Final Fantasy 6 again. And sometimes I’ll do crosswords when I feel like my brain needs a kick in the ass."

How has this experience changed you?

"It’s definitely made me more acutely aware of how good I have it, to the point that just thinking of all the times I’ve groused about my life in the past makes me feel profoundly embarrassed. It’s also made me realize just how much I miss being around people. While I am an introvert, I love being around people in certain contexts: a packed theater house, hanging around backstage, out on a crowded dance floor, going to a mad show at The Lunchbox or The Trunk Space or Valley Bar. I miss those moments of connection with both friends and strangers, and I worry about how many of the venues that help facilitate those moments might not make it out of this. "

What is the one thing you’re most looking forward to when the stay at home order is lifted?

"Not to be crass, but I think this quote from Tom Waits sums it up: 'I'm so horny the crack of dawn better watch out.' "