Exclusive Jen Silverman interview about ‘Witch’

Jen Silverman, “Witch” playwright. This show is Iowa Stage Theatre Company’s next production, Oct. 4-13. Photo credit: Jen Silverman

Iowa Stage Theatre Company (ISTC) will produce Jen Silverman’s play, “Witch,” this month. This bit of news holds a wealth of appeal, as ISTC will produce this compelling play dedicated to its new seasonal thematic concept format with 2024 dedicated to “inspire, enlighten and entertain” around a common theme — the power of women.

Silverman’s career included a formative chapter in Iowa City where she earned her MFA in the celebrated Iowa Playwright’s Workshop. Silverman also is a successful novelist and screenwriter. Another of Silverman’s plays, “The Roommate” (starring Patty LuPone and Mia Farrow), is playing on Broadway. Silverman is a three-time MacDowell Fellow, a member of New Dramatists, and a Scholar of Note at the American Library in Paris. Honors include fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim. This rich background of creative success is why Silverman’s plays are infused with layers of contextual brilliance in the storytelling, and “Witch” promises to carry its audiences into a thought-provoking live theatrical journey.

“I read the original play, ‘The Witch of Edmonton’ (an English Jacobean play, written by William Rowley, Thomas Dekker and John Ford in 1621), and found it to be remarkable,” Silverman shares. “One of the things to me that was so remarkable about it is that it falls historically under this tradition of ‘witch plays’ and what those were in the Jacobean Era and other eras were plays that were written to sort of teach and warn their audience about what a witch is, what she looks like — generally an older woman and someone who is a little eccentric and outside of the community, and also what to do about her. And, what to do about her was to dispatch her. 

“The thing that was so subversive about the original play is that, although it masquerades as one of these witch plays, it puts you on the side of the witch from the beginning, which is an incredibly unexpected and sort of subversive thing to do. I read the play, was fascinated by what it was at that moment in time. I was really curious about what an engagement with it could be at this moment in time, so it was a different moment in time but my curiosity was really, instead of adapting it or faithfully replicating it, how could I be in conversation with some of those questions in such a way that an audience wouldn’t even need to know that the original even existed, although even if they did, they could also enjoy being part of that conversation.”

This “Witch” includes several exceptional moments which Silverman calls the play’s arias. 

“For me, I use that almost as a code for the specific designers of the show and directors who worked on the show…that it’s a moment in which we really get to share a kind of closeness and intimacy with the character.”

ISTC’s “Witch” promises to be a thought-provoking theatrical gem thanks to the gifted pen of Silverman and the high production values this company is celebrated for. Add its thematic underpinning — a talented, all-woman production team — and impactful ripples will spread throughout the community. Silverman’s full interview can be found in The Culture Buzz Podcast Library – https://archive.org/details/@the_culture_buzz.

Future-speak and Halloween delight

“Back to the Future: The Musical” makes an early landing in Des Moines on its national tour and is sure to delight audiences with its award-winning adaption of the iconic 1985 cinematic sensation. Audiences will be riding shotgun as this smash success revs up to 88 miles per hour, whisking everyone to another era of entertainment.

Wearing garlic necklaces may become the vogue as the Des Moines Playhouse presents “Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors.” Imagine Bram Stoker blended with the Marx Brothers, and you may have an inkling of the rib-tickling (with a wooden stake) that this comedy will deliver.

John Busbee is a creative project developer, critic, playwright, author, producer and media professional. He has produced his weekly show, The Culture Buzz, on KFMG since 2007.