What is STALLED?
STALLED is a play/modern musical that uses music and spoken word to explore the multi-layered nature of the lives of women. Set in a boogie building’s executive ladies room in Seattle, four very different women, all stuck and trying to find their way forward, collide in small ways as we learn what they’re each hiding from. As the story unfolds, the women connect in ordinary and surprising ways as they see each other in themselves and find the courage to tell their respective truths about motherhood, daughterhood, addiction, loss, identity, and love.
The STALLED cast at Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice, CA, singing each other down the road. April, 2022. (photo credit: Jeff Lorch)
Read/learn more about the first staged production here:
http://stageraw.com/2022/04/19/podcast-stages-of-our-city-episode-9/
and
https://splashmags.com/index.php/2022/04/11/stalled-a-first-staged-workshop/#gsc.tab=0
Four Women, One Bougie-Ass Ladies Room
Maggie is White, 40s, a small business owner from Eastern Washington, but instead of running the very successful salon she owns with her sister, Maggie is cleaning the fancy digs of a Seattle executive ladies room, described as one of the bougie-ass-est bathrooms around, with a cozy lounge where, it turns out, she has been living for a couple months, hiding out from a trauma she’s unable to fully face back home. She’s warm, a natural caretaker, with a family history of addiction.
Serena is 16, Mexican-American, and has Big Huge Plans to leave for New York, but they may be pregnant by their 23-year-old boyfriend (Tim the building manager) who has no idea how young Serena is. Their mom is MIA and dad’s on the couch with a bottomless gallon of cheap wine, making it seem equally imperative and impossible to leave home. Serena’s a gifted slam poet who thinks in verse, performed at times and morphing into song at others, as they come to terms with what they can and can’t count on, their gender identity, and who to lean on in times of crisis.
Cynthia , 30s, whose therapist is in the building, is a wealthy African-American woman who has everything she never knew she didn’t want, including a young neuro-diverse daughter and a husband who works too much at his startup. She’s highly educated and could be a gifted painter but is spinning her wheels and not sure who she is. She’s drinking too much to cope with her fears that she’s made her daughter weird via nature and nurture and just wants to help her be normal, but that’s not the path her kid needs to follow to be happy.
And finally, Krystal 23, is a Korean-American programmer at a fitness device company in the building who is facing both that she’s gay and that she doesn’t want to go home to her family in suburban L.A. after all, something her family expects. When Krystal’s mother shows up, Krystal has to come clean about who she is or sink under the weight of what feels like cowardly dishonesty. It’s less about being gay than not wanting to go home, and not wanting to let them down by being who she really is, but the guilt! Her parents worked two jobs to get her to college and want their little girl home and married to a Nice Boy.
A NOTE ON CULTURE AND RACE
STALLED is an ensemble piece intended to let us into the inner worlds of women of differing races, ages, socioeconomic statuses and cultures. Because of the history of oppression of people of color, the construct of race, and the emotional harm of racial and cultural stereotypes especially to historically (and continually) marginalized people, the story of these women may be told without specifying the elements each actor brings to the role. The intersectionality of their experiences and identities will enrich the characters in beautiful ways. We deeply desire a diverse cast and are mindful of how some parts if not cast thoughtfully could play into stereotypes, so implore casting teams to avoid where possible placing a person of color in a role with elements of stereotype or otherwise triggering issues (someone who cleans, for example, or someone with a drug problem should only be cast as people of color with the greatest care and sensitivity). The above racial and ethnic identities were present in the developmental production in 2022, and consultants reviewed the details of the script for accuracy and sensitivity. Many thanks to the cultural consultants and dramaturgs who helped us find our way and bring these women to light in a thoughtful and celebratory way, including Renee Madrigal, Tom Bryant, Sabrina Zanello Jackson, Elaine Romero, Sook Hyung Yang, and August Romero-Lopez.
(Un)STALLED in Development
STALLED grew from an award-winning short story by Liesl Wilke about women in a mall bathroom in New Jersey who all could use someone but have no clue how to reach out (“Stalled Symphony”, Carve Magazine, 2011). The story was developed into a television series pilot set in Seattle, in which the women were (finally) allowed to connect, to be friends, to move forward. A dear friend in LA (bless you, Jimmy!) called Liesl one day and said: “You should adapt this into a musical!” and she said, um, yes! And then mere days later met Andy Marsh, a brilliant composer with film scoring and original songwriting experience galore who’d always wanted to write a musical. They began writing lyrics together for the music Andy composed for the moments in the play when the characters just had to sing. In the summer of 2020, Marilyn Fox of Pacific Residents Theater in Venice, CA directed an online workshop and reading of the play. Songs were played during the reading from prerecorded tracks, and Liesl and Andy collected feedback from friends, writers, musicians and mentors. Liesl began revising the script with Tom Bryant, gifted dramaturg, and she and Andy completed the remaining musical numbers in 2021. A first staged production of STALLED rolled out at Pacific Resident Theater, where these ladies were finally brought to life in April, 2022. (www.pacificresidenttheatre.com)
The Artists Behind “Stalled”
Liesl Wilke – Book writer and co-lyricist (created by and adapted from her short story, “Stalled Symphony” (Carve Magazine 2011). She is a former lawyer and award-winning author of novels (Circle of Three, Reader’s Digest Self-Publishing Contest Winner), Unfurling Lily (PNWA winner), Jordan Falls, and short stories appearing in Narrative Magazine, Carve Magazine, Happy, Short Story and the G.W. Review. STALLED is also a television show under development and written by Ms. Wilke, who writes television dramas on subjects ranging from the Seattle tech scene to growing up in the 80s in a family with an Open Marriage.
Andy Marsh – composer and lyricist. Mr. Marsh scores films, freelance composes for film and television, and writes and produces his own solo work. Credits include: “Conducting a Revolution” (commissioned by Bvlgari, debuted at Tribeca), “This Is Our Home” (Horror/romance, streaming on Amazon), “Gabe” (Documentary about a young man living with Muscular Dystrophy, streaming on Amazon), and original music for Netflix’s “The Kissing Booth 2”. He’s worked with musical labels such as Atlantic’s APG, Crush Records, Pulse Music, and written with/for musicians such as: Charlie Puth, Akon, and FloRida.
