Tuesday’s Bare Essentials Play Reading is ladies of the by Hailey Sipes. Read on to learn a little more about the playwright and the play we’ll be seeing on Tuesday!
ET: Hi Hailey! Welcome. Tell us a little bit about yourself!
HS: Hi! My name is Hailey Sipes. I’m an Atlanta-based playwright originally from Dallas, Texas. I’m a graduate of Emory University where I received my degree in Playwriting and Classical Civilization. As such, I adore straddling both disciplines, be that in my own writing (my plays, “The Anamorphosis” and “gold dust woman” are both classical adaptation), or through my own theatrical pursuits (I served as dramaturg for Theater Emory’s production of “Lysistrata or Lucy’s Strategy: Atlanta’s Stolen Erection in 2024, and was the student dramaturg for their 2023 production of “Britney, Approximately” – a Britney Spears and Medea mashup). I have a recent budding interest – or rather obsession – with horror playwriting, specifically gothic and folk, but would also cite María Irene Fornés, Sarah Kane, and Anne Carson as my greatest sources of inspiration.
ET: Very cool. Can you tell us a little bit about how you came to write this play?
HS: “ladies of the” started as an exploration of my own agnosticism and the weird limbo I find myself in when it comes to spiritual situations. It was a series of answers to the question: would this weird document summon a demon? Then, it evolved into an exploration of uncertainty more broadly writ, including uncertainty within friendships, within romantic relationships, and with the self. Jo, Farah, Niamh, and Levi are so young, they are still developing as individuals and trying to figure out who they are. Their future is uncertain, and it isn’t helped by the fact that it keeps changing. That uncertainty is also reflected in the title of this piece as well: what are they ladies of? Even they do not know yet.
ET: You’ve said you’re an Emory alum. Is this something you started writing when you were in school there?
HS: Yes, actually! My idea for “ladies of the” germinated in a Contemporary Drama class my junior year at Emory University when I was doing research for my final paper. I stumbled across this document on Demonic Rituals and Summoning, read the first few sentences, and I immediately put it away. It was so bizarre, and I found myself in this weird position where I did not want to keep reading because it clearly wasn’t an academic article, but also felt ridiculous not wanting to read because what was going to happen if I did? I said to myself: if anything were to summon a demon, it would be something trying so hard to be inconspicuous like this that it just oscillates so far in the other direction. Rather than doing any work on my paper, I spent the rest of the night word vomiting ideas for a play. “ladies of the” was ultimately written in my Advanced Playwriting course as my semester long assignment. As a double major in Playwriting and Classical Civilization, much of my work up until that point had been rooted in Classics and ancient mythology. I loved doing that, and I still do, but I wanted to broaden my horizons and instead do something that allowed me to draw more on my own personal experiences. Haskell became a mirror image of my own high school; Farah, Jo, Niamh, and Levi patchworks of my loved ones bundled up in their own unique identities.
ET: How did you get into playwriting? Did you always know you wanted to be a playwright?
HS: I have known I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was in the second grade, writing short stories in my Language Arts class; however, for most of my life I thought I wanted to be a novelist. Then, my junior year of high school, our theater department produced a play written by a student. I was in tech theater at the time, and so impressed with my school’s willingness to help a student flourish like that. So, I decided to take a stab at it. I only made it about half way through my intended narrative before I slowed, not really sure what I was doing. When I got to college, though, I realized that Emory University offered a degree in playwriting. I was interested in writing more scripts, and preferred theater classes to English literature ones, so decided to take the Intermediate Playwriting workshop with Kimberly Belflower. Little did I know I would fall so in love with it. Kimberly’s passion for writing plays imbued me with my own, and I realized the world of theater was far wider than the Broadway view of it I had.
ET: That is SO true. Well tell us, what are you hoping to get out of your Bare Essentials experience?
HS: “ladies of the” is still pretty early on in its development stage, so my greatest hope for this experience is to leave my reading with a better sense of what the narrative needs, and if I’ve accomplished that, or if there are (almost certainly) places that need some tightening or adjusting.
In my experience, there is only so long a play can live in the brain of its playwright before the playwright starts to go insane and doubt every choice they’ve made. A staged reading gives a more objective perspective, seeing it through the eyes of other collaborators rather than just your own. I find staged readings often unlock something I didn’t even realize in the script, be that just from hearing it out loud or through the interpretation of the actors/director.
ET: And how has your experience with this reading been thus far?
HS: After what has been a rather creatively unfulfilling year for me, this reading has reminded me of why I love being a playwright in the first place. Even though this is ladies of the‘s first time being read out loud with actual actors, I was ready to lock it in a trove and never let it see the light of day. It was about ten minutes into rehearsal when I fully understood that that was just me being my harshest critic. These actors were able to bring my words to life in a way that reminded me that I was onto something, and that this script did matter.
ET: That is great to hear. Well you’ve got a great team, and we’re looking. forward to seeing your play come to life in front of an audience for the first time on Tuesday!
ladies of the, by Hailey Sipes, will take place at 7:30 on Tuesday August 12 at 7Stages in Little Five Points. Reserve your free ticket at EssentialTheatre.Tix.com!
