For Such a Time as This

I started writing For Such a Time as This when I was eight years old. I started my writing career with only the most shocking of melodramas. Dreaded cousins, scarlet fever, and the occasional tax collector haunted my protagonists, borrowed from my favorite stories. My mom gave me a notebook where I kept my hidden worlds, and I would show them to her proudly. Over the years my notebooks became a collection of unfinished narratives of worlds I wish I could complete. It wasn’t until my Junior year of college that I revisited those notebooks.

I’m quite confident that all twenty-somethings can attest to the sudden realization upon coming to college that you might not be able to handle things exactly like you thought you could. I was no exception. The year 2017 was a brutal time for me, and my mental health was suffering. I had faced rejection upon rejection and as I stared at an assignment asking me to represent my life through a single metaphor, my cynical state could only think of dreams that never happened. My tendency to cling to nostalgia led me to a box of dusty notebooks. As I sorted through my old journals, I realized how long I’ve clung to stories. I looked through the events of my past and realized that the only way I’ve ever know to process was to write. So, I figured out my project for class. But, I couldn’t stop thinking about that girl that wrote all those stories and how she came to be me: the girl who felt incredibly broken and that she would never break through the cloud of hopelessness. I started to connect that thinking to an idea I’d had for a play months and months before. A dual timeline, a mother and daughter, and depression. I took those thoughts, the giant tangled web of my life, past and present, and I put my pen to paper. At the time, my computer was broken. So in the span of 24 hours, on loose-leaf notebook paper, the first draft of For Such a Time as This was born. I wrote the words “End of Play” and for the first time in months, I felt hope.

I continued to write and rewrite, getting feedback from friends, and ended up with a pretty decent one-act. In a whirlwind decision without letting myself overthink, I submitted my draft to the Kennedy Center American Theatre Festival Region 5 One-Act Play Competition. I didn’t think anything of it other than this was the first time in a while that I believed in my work, and I thought it was worth a shot. Meanwhile, I talked to my department about doing a staged reading and started letting more people read the play. And then, at 11:57 on a Wednesday, I checked my email before going to sleep. Out of my entire region, my play was one of three chosen as semifinalists. I was invited to present a staged reading at the festival and continue to compete. I. Was. Floored. I found out later that there had been 41 submissions, most from schools with playwriting programs. But my play that I’d written in a 24-hour frenzy, made it.

We had a while to prepare before the festival, so my department was so kind to volunteer their time to help me prepare. It was so amazing to see my play come to life for the first time. Seeing people fall in love with something I wrote and be so excited about it was a beautiful end to the season of darkness I’d been hiding in. We took our prepared staged reading to the festival. I sat in the audience and heard people behind me cry and laugh at the words I wrote. People told me how the play resonated with them. Renowned playwrights gave me feedback and told me I wrote a beautiful show. I ended up taking second place in our region and my play was considered at the national level.

After the festival, I knew I couldn’t let this momentum stop. I immediately worked on rewrites and expanding the world I’d created. My dear friend, Sophia Marsh, worked as my dramaturge and the wonderfully talented Brittany Davis worked as my director and choreographer. We got together a team of actors and started workshopping the play.

Towards the end of my Junior year, my professors asked me to meet them in their office. They asked me to sit down, and I didn’t know what to expect. And then they asked my permission to produce to For Such a Time as This as one of the plays for the 2018-19 season. Needless to say, I was surprised. I managed to hold off my tears until later, but I truly have never experienced such happiness until that moment. For Such a Time as This will have it’s premier in April of 2019, right before I graduate college. I would say that I can’t believe I am so lucky, but I know that’s not the case. Getting here was excruciating, and I worked my way out by clawing through the murk and grabbing hold of a pen so tightly I couldn’t help but write something down. Luck didn’t get me here. I got here because I worked for it. And because the people around me were so incredibly loving and supportive through all the rewrites and confusion and insecurities they pushed me through. And now I’m here: excitedly awaiting for rehearsals to start and to see a full-fledged production of For Such a Time as This.

“And who knows if perhaps you were made queen for such a time as this?” -Esther 4:14