TAKE ME (thru June 22 at Strawdog Theatre) with director Anderson Lawfer

Visit ViaStage.com for showtimes... Inspired by true events, TAKE ME is the story of Shelly, a woman trapped by the trauma of a husband in a coma and the chaos that followed. Looking for solace, she finds herself pulled in to the realm of wild alien conspiracy theories. Voices from the sky tell her the answer to all her problems is to build an alien themed amusement park in Roswell, New Mexico.

Episode Transcript

ViaStage (00:00):
ViaStage interviews artists producing the most
thought-provoking work on stage.
Today we're on the phone withAndy Lawfer who directed the
play TAKE ME, which isperforming at Strawdog Theatre
in Chicago through June 22nd.
Inspired by true events, TAKE MEis the story of Shelly, a woman

(00:22):
trapped by the trauma of ahusband in a coma and the chaos
that followed.
Looking for solace, she findsherself pulled into the realm of
wild alien conspiracy theories.
Voices from the sky tell her theanswer to all her problems is to
build an alien themed AmusementPark in Roswell, New Mexico.

(00:47):
What else can we expect from theplay TAKE ME?
Let's ask director Andy Lawfer.
Tell me a little bit about TAKEME over at Strawdog Theatre.
I understand that it's inspiredby true events.
Is that right?

Lawfer (01:08):
Yeah yeah.
It is right, it is right.
So, I did a play with MarkBarino and John Langford, the
guys who wrote TAKE ME about 10years ago for The House Theater
called All the Fame of LoftyDeeds, it was kinda like punk
country musical thing about thisold cowboy country singer kind
of guy.
And I don't know, we just kindahit it off.

(01:28):
And so Mark came to me aboutthree years ago when I was one
of the artistic directors ofStrawdog with this idea for a
play about a friend of a friendof his who, um, was abducted by
aliens and the aliens told himto build an alien themed

(01:54):
amusement park in Roswell, NewMexico.
So he went to Roswell and thenhe got, he went to the city
council, he got them to give himhundreds of thousands of dollars
for plans to build thisamusement park.
And, uh, then the, the marketcollapsed in 2007, 2008.

(02:18):
And they ended up taking alltheir money away.
And, uh, so the dream kind ofdied.
But, uh, now this guy is a big,like, uh, he's a big draw on the
like abduction circuit, youknow, shit about being abducted.
And, um, so anyway, we thoughtthat was a cool story.
So we changed it from a man to awoman.

(02:40):
We added a bunch of otherelements to, you know, kind of
make it more dramatic.
And, um, and uh, so that's Kindahow we came up with this thing.
But it's, uh, it's been a tripworking on it.

ViaStage (02:52):
You know, for some odd reason I feel like I've heard of
this story.
I might've read about it at somepoint.

Lawfer (02:59):
Yeah.
Maybe so.
Maybe so.
I think it was at the time, Ithink it was, uh, about 10 years
ago, it was kind of a big thing,it was going on.

ViaStage (03:10):
So as a, as someone that collaborate on this, did
you get to meet this person inreal life?

Lawfer (03:16):
No, no we've had dialogue with him.
But we have not, we haven't likehad a face to face meeting.
He was in a different state andum, so probably actually come
down and see the show.
He's super psyched about ithappening, you know?
But um, yeah, no face to facemeeting.
I wouldn't know what to ask him,you know?
Like that alien abduction stuff,it's wild man.

(03:40):
You know?

ViaStage (03:41):
Now in this play, like you said, you've changed this
person into a woman and the playfeatures her husband who is
apparently in a coma?

Speaker 3 (03:52):
That's right.
That's right.
So we've added some, one of thethings, we've added some PTSD
for her to get through, whichthis guy, the real guy really
went through some kind of PTSD,some, some family.
Um, yeah, drama on some, youknow, some, some trauma in his
life.
So we've, we've, we've created,um, the situation with, uh,

(04:14):
with, um, the main characters.
Shelly, um, her husband was thelast survivor of plane crash
that he was the pilot of and,and he survived.
But he's, he's basically inlength vegetable state.
Yeah.
And a that creates this kind ofPTSD where she starts her brain,
you know, just creates thisdefensive mechanism where she

(04:34):
starts blocking out parts ofreality to protect herself.
And that is where in, um, justfrom doing some research on
abductees, it seems like apretty common thing that these
people go through some trauma.
So, uh, the, uh, the trauma.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So we, so we focused on that,that trauma to kind of build the
world of why she is, um,putting, you know, so much

(04:58):
gravity in the, the alienabduction, that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2 (05:02):
Okay.
Maybe, I'm not sure if I shouldlaugh, but I guess this is
described as also as a, as acomic fantasia.
And when I, when I think of thatterm, comic fantasia conjures up
images of like really colorfulcostumes, like over the top
costumes and dreamy music.
Is it, is it that type of amusical?

Speaker 3 (05:23):
Um, it is in Carson is, it's really, um, you know,
we, we say comic Fantasia andthat what we're seeing is this
woman's memory of the time.
And so there's a lot of thingsthat are kind of jumping back
and forth.
It is not a very linear story.
Um, so, so, you know, when shegoes to the city council, the

(05:44):
city council is full of Russianspace dogs instead of people.
Um, you know, she, she conjuresthese, um, other voices in our
head become reality.
So she has a space, cowboypersonality.
She has a, a, a blue dog stuffedanimal that is one of our
personalities.

(06:04):
So there's a lot of different,wild, crazy, you know,
personalities happening onstageat the same time.
Um, so in that way, yeah, it is.
But we also see Shelly the maincharacter as just a kind of a
broken person through a lot ofthe shell, you know?

Speaker 2 (06:22):
No.
Okay.
So you've created thischaracter, Shelly, is this a
character that's a regularaudience?
Members can somehow relate to itand at some level?

Speaker 3 (06:33):
I think so.
I mean, we've all gone throughsome trauma in our life.
Halloween.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, there's all, I think weall have a probably a little
section of time where we're, youknow, there's like a bunch of
shame builds up about the way webehaved or the way that we feel
like we should have changedthings in our lives or the way
that we did, the way that we actor that we shouldn't have.

(06:54):
You know, there, there's a lotof truth to that character for
everyone.
Um, just in terms of how wetried to deal with pain, you
know?

Speaker 2 (07:04):
Right, right.

Speaker 3 (07:06):
I mean, life is hard and so your brain tries to
protect you from all that stuff.
And, uh, this is a real extremeexample, but I think it's true
for everyone that you, that youkind of create, you create a
world around you to make youfeel better in situations when
you, um, it's hard to deal withwhat actually happened, right?
It's a way of coping.

(07:27):
Yeah.
It's a way of coping.
And so that's just, that's kindof the story that we're telling
is, is this way that thiswoman's coping with this
terrible thing that happened toher and she just doesn't, that's
just the way that her brain hastaught her to cope with it for
whatever reason.
You know, and we kind of getinto, in the story, we get into
this kind of backstory of likeher parents and how, where they

(07:47):
came from and the way, you know,the way that they taught her to
think.
And, um, with all, it's all kindof explained.
So it's not out of any, not anowhere, you know, but it is
infinite.
It's an extreme example.
But, uh, it wouldn't be amusical if it wasn't a little
agreement.
Eaglets right.

Speaker 2 (08:06):
So, so as a musical, did you guys compose the music
yourselves?

Speaker 3 (08:13):
No.
John Langford, uh, who's amember of the Waco brothers in
the meantime, you know, likethat kind of the first wave of
British pond, they came to the us okay.
And, um, John Langford wrote allthe music.
We have a incredible woman andAnnabel revamp who, uh, arranged
John's music from punk countryinto orchestrated so that it can

(08:35):
be played by a whole band.
And, uh, we have this greatmusic director named Chuck Evans
who's putting it all together.
It's a, we're really lucky tohave this team and you know, for
everybody to be involved.
A lot of times when you getsomebody who's kind of a
celebrity like John, they,they're real hands off, you
know, and uh, John is not thatway.
So He's been involved from oftop to bottom.

(08:56):
Cool.
Coming in and checking in oneverybody and just being really
supportive and you know, helpingus with the art as well.
You know, John Langford is areally accomplished visual
artist as well.
So He's been, uh, you know,coming in working with the set
designer and we were trying tokind of put his mark on, on
everything across the board toshow is also super projection

(09:18):
heavy.
Oh Wow.
So we have like, I dunno, 12projectors in this little room
and a Tony Churchill who like,one of the best projection
designers in Chicago is doingour projections.
So we're, we have like just anincredible team working on this
show, so really won't be, and alot of people agreed to do the
shell out of designers agreed todo it because it's John Langford

(09:41):
music, you know, they wanted tobe a part of this kind of like
punk rock kind of style show.
So worked out for everybody.

Speaker 2 (09:48):
No, that sounds cool to be using.
I go theme and the SpecialEffects Sound pretty fried right
now.
The Straw dog theatre is, I'vebeen there before.
It's not a large stage.
Having all that going on and on,uh, in a storefront theater
space.

(10:08):
How challenging is that?

Speaker 3 (10:11):
It is a very fucking challenging, I don't know, I
can't think of another way totell you that wouldn't make any
sense.
So, uh, in the fall we did theshow called mass, my calm.
There was this whole immersiveshow where we used every room
and shot on.
Oh Man.
And, uh, that was super fun andthat was really challenging.

(10:31):
So I was like, there's nothing Ican do in one room that would be
half as challenging as massMcCobb because that took the
whole building, you know?
Yeah.
So, so I told him the news roomto be a clean attarian what a
planetarium.
And they were like, well, wecan't do that, but we could, you

(10:57):
know, use the walls and theceiling as you know.
And so we kind of came up withthis like middle ground where
every inch of wall is beingprojected on in the entire
space,

Speaker 2 (11:12):
even like the back wall and the side everywhere,
everywhere.
So the audience is pretty muchimmersed in this whole thing.

Speaker 3 (11:19):
Totally emersed.
Yeah.
So it's, um, it's, it's totally,it's really wild to see these
guys like making it and howit's, you know, how everything
moves from one thing to anotherand there's underscoring
throughout the whole show.
So it's like, it's almost likethis giant poem instead of a
play, you know, like there's somuch happening all the time and

(11:40):
it's all real image heavy and,and um, jumps back and forth
between reality and fantasy andit's, yeah, it's really, it's,
it's crazy man.
So,

Speaker 2 (11:50):
oh, it sounds like he's got a lot of energy and
would be a lot of fun

Speaker 3 (11:54):
to watch.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm really excited.
I'm really excited.
And how big is your cast?
It's loud.
People, them fully stand up,nine people and then a four
person, Bam man.
And that man is John Langford isgoing to be there on opening
night.
He'll be there, I think.
We'll see.
That's fantastic.
Well, this sounds like afantastic show and I'm

(12:16):
definitely going to go to theopening.
Uh, is there anything else thatyou want to share with the
audience about the, the, yourmusical take me.
I'm just really sad and I thinkit's going to be super fun.
Um, I think it'll be, it's a,it's heavy.
Yeah.
Not like a trying to light andit's not a life experience, you

(12:40):
know?
So come for the music, but stayfor the tiers kind of thing.
All right.
It's good.
It's going to stretch peoplefrom, yeah, one and two.
The other emotionally, which isgood at scripting, the scripting
is fantastical.
The music is his conch, contraryand say pure John Langford
mostly original.

(13:00):
You know, it's like originalmusic.
It's awesome.
And to be a great time

Speaker 1 (13:06):
to find showtimes for, take me visit[inaudible]
dot com where artists and venuescan post their own local live
shows.
This is Cesar Gonzalezpodcasting for via stage.