Tuesday’s Bare Essentials Play Reading is The Interim by Caroline Donica. Read on to learn a little more about the playwright and the play we’ll be seeing on Tuesday!
Caroline Donica is a producer, director, writer, and actor, whose work explores themes of identity, longing, and belonging with emotional precision and playful irreverence. A transnational Korean American adoptee, Caroline draws from her own experiences to tell stories that center overlooked perspectives. Her work spans genres but always returns to the human heart. Caroline is the CEO of Open Seat Productions, a film production company dedicated to empowering artists through craft, collaboration, and community. Her acting credits span from Houston to Atlanta to London. On stage, she has performed in productions with Aurora Theatre, Alliance Theatre, Main Street Theater, Adam Blanshay Productions, Horizon Theatre, and many more. Caroline is committed to storytelling that challenges perspectives and fosters authentic representation. Through her work, she seeks to create space for artists and audiences to connect over shared experiences of identity and belonging.
ET: Hi Caroline, what can you tell us about the play we’ll be hearing tomorrow night?
CD: The Interim is a postmodern reimagining of King Lear told through the eyes of Cordelia, reimagined as a transracial Korean American adoptee navigating the complexities of family, identity, and belonging. After refusing to perform the declarations of love her father demands, Cordelia is cast out and enters the interim, a surreal, shifting space where she encounters figures from literature and myth. These encounters challenge her to confront the expectations and prejudices placed upon her, reflecting the experiences of adoptees, immigrants, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ communities. Blending humor, vulnerability, and poetic imagery, The Interim invites audiences to consider how we define ourselves in a world that often seeks to define us first.
ET: Where did you get the idea for this play?
CD: I was inspired to write The Interim because I had never seen my own story—one of a transracial Korean American adoptee—told on stage. Growing up, I often felt caught between identities, navigating both the love and the unspoken tensions within my family, as well as the broader societal pressures to conform. By reimagining King Lear through Cordelia’s perspective, I found a way to explore the themes of authenticity, belonging, and the cost of speaking (or not speaking) one’s truth. The surreal interim world became a metaphor for the liminal space adoptees and other marginalized people inhabit, and writing the play allowed me to reclaim a narrative that is too often told by others rather than those who have lived it.
ET: How did you get into playwriting, originally?
CD: I first got into playwriting about two decades ago, writing 10-minute plays for my local children’s theatre’s original works festival, where my pieces were produced for six consecutive years. In undergrad, I continued honing my skills, taking scriptwriting courses and exploring more complex narratives. Later, with three other women, I founded a 10-minute play festival in Houston called Artists AF – All Female, dedicated to celebrating work written solely by women. In grad school, I wrote a one-act play that was produced through GradLab, giving me the chance to develop my craft in a collaborative setting. Most recently, The Interim won the 2023 Georgia Theatre Conference New Play Competition, marking an important milestone in my growth as a playwright and reinforcing my passion for creating work that resonates with diverse audiences.
ET: What is the importance of staged readings in your own creative process and the development of your play?What do you hope to gain from this Bare Essentials experience?
Staged readings are a crucial part of my creative process because they allow me to experience the play as a living, breathing piece rather than just words on a page. Hearing the dialogue aloud, seeing how actors embody the characters, and feeling the audience’s reactions—both in the room and during talkbacks—gives me invaluable insight into what is working and what needs to be refined. They reveal pacing issues, moments that may be unclear, and opportunities for deeper emotional resonance that I might miss when working alone. For The Interim, staged readings have been especially important in clarifying character arcs, testing the rhythm of the more surreal sequences, and ensuring that the themes land as intended. They provide a collaborative space where I can receive feedback, experiment with changes, and continue shaping the play into its most impactful form.
From the Bare Essentials experience, I hope to gain the opportunity to refine The Interim through focused collaboration and live audience engagement. Having the play read aloud by skilled actors in a supportive yet critical environment will help me identify moments that need tightening, clarification, or deeper emotional grounding. I’m especially eager to receive constructive feedback from both the creative team and the audience to ensure the themes—rooted in identity, belonging, and the adoptee experience—land with clarity and impact. This experience will also allow me to experiment with pacing, tone, and movement elements, providing a clearer vision for the next phase of development. Ultimately, I hope to walk away with a stronger, more cohesive script and a renewed confidence in the play’s ability to connect with a wide range of audiences.
ET: And where else can we see your work, either now or in the future?
CD: My work can be seen across theatre, film, and television in the coming year. I’ll be starring in an original pilot for a TV series called Sexploration, for which I am also the showrunner, blending my passions for both performance and creative leadership. My short film Sad Bathtub Girl, an exploration of adoption and identity, will soon be running the festival circuit. On stage, I recently closed a four-month tour of Kim’s Convenience in the United Kingdom, where I starred as Janet Kim. In addition to developing my full-length play The Interim through staged readings and workshops, I continue to pursue projects that tell authentic, underrepresented stories across multiple mediums.
ET: Well thank you so much for your time, and we look forward to your reading on Tuesday night!
The Bare Essentials reading of The Interim by Caroline Donica will take place at 7:30 on Tuesday August 26 at 7Stages in Little Five Points as part of the Essential Theatre Play Festival. Reserve your free ticket at EssentialTheatre.Tix.com!
