It Took Us to the Stars

The idea of Stars came to Annika and me late in the night in early January. Annika and I tend to have long writing sessions over the phone, stretching past midnight, filled with laughter, conversation, and inspiration. During one of these calls, we recalled something our band director had said about the connections between the arts and the sciences: how they both inherently stemmed from curiosity and wonder, but were constantly ripped apart by our society into two polar opposites. I pitched the idea of writing a short play for the TAEA One-Act Play Competition, which I had learnt about at the SFU Metro Regionals in early December. Annika and I met at a coffee shop the next day and began writing what would become the short play entitled Stars.

We began with the “Artist” and the “Scientist,” the protagonists of our story. We wanted them to be complete opposites, scoffing at each other, but we also wanted the audience to be able to realize that they were intrinsically identical. We wanted them both to be burnt out, disillusioned, and melancholic – reflecting on the complex paths they had taken here, and, most importantly, longing for the other side. Particularly, the Scientist aches for the arts more than the Artist yearns for the sciences. In our interpretation, the Artist chose the unsteady path of the arts, conscious with its risks and downsides, while the Scientist innocently pursued the path of sciences for its promises of riches and respect, without acknowledging the advantages of the pursuit of the arts.

The motif of the stars came to us almost as quickly as the characters of the Scientist and the Artist did. The word “stars” has so many complexities to it, which, in part, is why it has always been so tantalizing to us. “Stars” means precocious children ahead of their time. Stars are what human beings have looked up to for generations. Stars are what artists have spent centuries capturing, and scientists have spent centuries researching. There’s the saying, “The darker the skies, the brighter the stars.” There’s the imagery of stars inevitably burning too bright and being shot down by the cynics and critics back on Earth: stars going out with the flicker of a light.

Through many late-night phone calls, coffee shop sessions, and sitting in libraries until closing, we completed Stars. After we submitted it to the competition, it was almost like a dream when we heard back from Mr. John Lazarus, who launched us into the exhilarating yet terrifying experience of directing an original short play in under six weeks.

We began with casting by auditioning within our theatre company – which is also where I get to do the first of many acknowledgements. As soon as we saw Kahlian Lauzon and Sherry Xiong read their respective monologues, we knew we had our Artist and Scientist. There was this visceral, surreal reaction that I felt when I saw them perform for the first time. These characters, who were previously just figments of sleep deprivation, coffee and imagination, suddenly came to life, and Sherry and Kahlian were exceptional in their portrayals. We could never sufficiently thank Kahlian and Sherry – the two most talented actresses/performers/artists/scientists/people on this planet! – for taking these characters and welcoming them into their hearts.

We then turned to sets, tech, and lighting. Thank you so much to the kindest people, and most incredibly hardworking and knowledgeable team, we could have ever asked for. Thank you to Jeevan Sira and Siya Vasdev for dealing with our many incomprehensible lighting requests.

Thank you to Ashland McCullough for painstakingly building our sets, and thank you to Omera Mohsin for all the help during the run. A huge thanks to Karina Terry for transporting our sets from our school to Douglas College: without her help we would have performed in front of empty stages.

Throughout our countless runs and rehearsals, Annika and I tweaked the script and auditioned the remaining characters: the “Apprentices” and the “Demands.” The biggest thank-yous to Ivonn Canlas, Bailey Zhou, Ishika Linoj Kumar, Jenisa Kosar, Jaya Cheema, Angel Caddauan, Adda He, and Abby Terry. Stars would have never been possible without their tremendous help.

Piece by piece, line by line, and rehearsal by rehearsal, Stars came to life. Before we knew it, April 25th had come. The most wonderful dreamy purple lights, paired with our warm incandescent lamps, lit up the Black Box Theatre at Douglas College. 

Before I continue, I’d like to give some further acknowledgments. Thank you so much to Mr. John Lazarus for seeing potential in Annika and me, and giving us the honor of being one of the winners of the TAEA One-Act Play Competition. Quite literally, none of this would have been possible without him. Annika and I would also like to thank everyone who watched or read Stars. Thank you to everyone who embraced us after the show and told us how much it meant to you. There is truly no greater honor than to know others have enjoyed our work the same way we have.

Everything had come together. The curiosity. The wonder. The coffee cups, laid out between textbooks and papers. Paints and brushes laid upon canvases. The most talented cast and crew we could have ever asked for. A full audience, and the blazing lights that blind you when you’re on stage. Paintings of constellations and posters of scientific formulas. The longing. The melancholy. The nostalgia. The strangest feeling conjuring in our stomachs. The Demands. The Apprentices. The Artist. The Scientist. The beauty of it all. Art and Science, two pursuits divided by society. Art and Science, two pursuits both noble. It took us to the stars.