Playwright's note from Isabella McDermott:
As Big Time gears up for its stage debut, I wanted to share the journey we’ve been on to get here. Sometimes it can feel like productions come together with fast, easy genius, but more often the process is long, obstacle-laden, and full of uncertainty. And yet it’s worth it, every time.
I started writing Big Time seven years ago. I was living in New York and every Tuesday night, my partner Alex and I would go to Naked Angels in the East Village. I’d watch playwrights get up and introduce their new work to a theatre full of enthusiastic and receptive (see also: American) audiences. I was in awe of their bravery. I wasn’t sure that could ever be me.
I was in that squirmy, late 20s stage of life when you’re not quite sure what you’re doing, and what success looks like. In my creative work, I’ve since come to learn that a rising tide lifts all ships, but back then, it felt like a win for someone else was a loss for me.
I didn’t feel proud of that feeling but I did want to write about it.
So. I spent several days with Alex, taking hours long walks through Prospect Park figuring out the shape of this play that would become Big Time. I bought a forest green hardcover notebook and started writing it by hand.
It felt appropriate that a show about envy be set in the world of acting. I’d once thought I wanted to be an actress - before I realised I wanted more control of the stories - so I know first-hand what a brutal world it can be. I gave the characters my best traits and, more importantly, my worst ones. You simultaneously root for them and sometimes can’t bear them. When I was done, I felt like I had done what I’d set out to do: told a story that was painful and uncomfortable and highly entertaining.
I showed my first drafts to a couple of actor friends, both of whom said it brought them to tears. As Alex kept reminding me, everyone who read it loved it. But I wasn’t sure. It didn’t feel ready, and I wasn’t sure what it needed to become so.
A few years later, I wrote and staged a different play, Champions, which gave me the delightful surprise of being, in its own small way, a commercial and critical success. I was awarded funding to work on a new script.
And yet. Big Time. I knew there was something in that story. I wasn’t done with it yet. Two years ago, while I was living in Indonesia, my exceptional creative partner Harriett Maire ran a Zoom workshop of the script. And from there, I kept refining. I even cut out a whole character (men – who needs ’em!).
At the start of this year, juggling multiple projects, our small team, extracurricular, decided the time was right to bring Big Time to an audience. We were going to do a staged reading. We brainstormed how we would arrange the space, the music, which actors we’d reach out to. It was all moving ahead.
And then my mum died.
If you’ve been through a loss like this, firstly, I am so sorry. Secondly, you know how it feels. How those weeks and months following become a blank space in your memory. I’m still not sure how I got through it. But somehow, I did.
What I did not do was the staged reading. It was the right call, yet a disappointing one to make.
Harriett and I hadn’t put anything out since Champions, and we were desperate to make something again.
So when the opportunity came to bring Big Time to Q, we jumped on it.
We’ve had so much fun making this show. It’s been uncomfortable, cathartic, inspiring, and enlivening. Working with our spectacular cast and crew has been such an immense joy.
Images: Rehearsals and photoshoot BTS
Seven years after I started working on it, I get to share it with an audience. Given the journey it took to get here, I don’t take any of this for granted.
Big Time is funny, it’s tender, it’s punchy, it’s heartfelt!
Come and see what we’ve made. We can’t wait to share it with you.
Big Time runs in Q Loft from 16 - 18 October. Click here to book your tickets.
