We very much want the play to have a long and vigorous life
nationally and internationally---so that many more people can
experience these stories and become aware of the impact of war on
civilians.
In terms of the first question: the success of "The Exonerated"
meant that our research process didn't have to be quite as scrappy this
time around and that we had more structural support with the many
research-oriented tasks associated with making a documentary piece.
When we started the interviews for "The Exonerated," we literally made
cold calls to organizations and individuals to find our interview
subjects, then rented a car, threw our dog in the backseat, and drove
around the country sleeping in the car at rest stops as we
conducted the interviews.
We started with a small amount of seed money from the Culture Project (which ultimately produced "The Exonerated" beautifully and with great dedication) and we spent what tiny amount of our own money we could (we were pretty broke, and late on the rent a couple months in there). We raised some additional money during the research process for car rental and a couple of plane tickets to Georgia and Texas--but it came in fits and starts, pieced together through a patchwork of haphazard generosity: friendships and personal connections and a mailing we did to Jessica's parents' friends, and some "angels" from the New World Foundation who appeared at just the right moment.
We transcribed all the interviews ourselves with
the (extremely valuable) help of some NYU interns who we found on the
internet, and enlisted our actor friends to come read the transcripts
out loud with us for free. It wasn't till the play got further along
in its development that its production had structural support.
With "Aftermath"--in part because of "The Exonerated"'s track
record--the process was a little more formalized and stable from the
beginning. The play came out of an initial conversation between Jessica
and Jim, and further conversations between Jessica, Erik, Jim and Linda
Chapman (NYTW's Associate Artistic Director). NYTW helped to secure a
grant from the Ford Foundation to pay for our travel to Jordan. We started with a small amount of seed money from the Culture Project (which ultimately produced "The Exonerated" beautifully and with great dedication) and we spent what tiny amount of our own money we could (we were pretty broke, and late on the rent a couple months in there). We raised some additional money during the research process for car rental and a couple of plane tickets to Georgia and Texas--but it came in fits and starts, pieced together through a patchwork of haphazard generosity: friendships and personal connections and a mailing we did to Jessica's parents' friends, and some "angels" from the New World Foundation who appeared at just the right moment.
Given the logistically complicated nature of international research (especially with a language barrier), the costs were also higher, and we still wound up spending some of our own money on the research and equipment; but it was enormously valuable and comforting to have a single grant that covered the vast majority of the research costs and enabled us to hire translators, etc. We also traveled with the wonderful Marla Keenan from the humanitarian organization Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, who had done work with civilian refugees in Jordan before, and knew her way around.
When we returned to the states, NYU professor Sinan Antoon listened to the recordings of our interviews and translated the Arabic word-for-word, and then NYTW set us up with a network of interns who transcribed his translations. NYTW then sent us to their annual workshop at Dartmouth University, where we were able to workshop the transcripts intensively with a group of student interns and a cast of professional NYC actors hired by NYTW.
With "The Exonerated" we basically improvised our process as we went along, and brought people on board one-by-one along the way, relying on kismet and spontaneous generosity much of the time; with "Aftermath" the process was more structured, with NYTW providing a stable foundation for all our work, and that wouldn't have been able to happen without the track record of "The Exonerated."
Let's pause here. When we return, Jessica and Erik will discuss audience and critics' reactions to "Aftermath" and their plans for the future. Please join us!
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Aftermath website
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