Ahoy, outcasts and underdogs!

Did you know that our next show, SHIP, begins in just two weeks? Rehearsals are in full swing, and we can’t wait to share this world premiere story with you.

Douglas Williams, the playwright of SHIP, sat down this week to talk — including about growing up next to the play’s tourist trap seaside setting of Mystic, Connecticut, and where inspiration struck to ask “What would it be like to try and fail to grow the longest fingernails in the world?” You can find the video below, as well as a transcript. (Plus — wondering about that artwork in the background? It’s by the wonderful @scraps_collection on Instagram!)

SHIP runs February 26 - March 15; you can make your Pay What You Decide reservation by clicking right here!

Below is a transcript of the above video, which has been edited and pared down for clarity from the original footage.

“My name is Douglas Williams and I am the playwright for SHIP!

SHIP is a play that’s about a young woman named Nell who has just returned to her hometown — she’s coming home from rehab. She’s kind of stuck and starting over in her hometown; it’s kind of the last place on Earth that she really wants to be at this moment. And one day she meets a man who tried and failed to grow the longest fingernails in the world and she thinks that’s, like, the most badass, coolest thing that’s ever happened in this town. And so together they form a kind of unlikely friendship, and they both together concoct a plan for how to kind of both redeem themselves and become unlikely hometown heroes. And so the play is really about redemption, and recovery.

They both have things that they’re looking to redeem, one a failed endeavor to grow fingernails, which is goofy and odd — and Nell, the main character, I think perceives her reputation around town...she believes she’s being perceived as kind of a fuck-up after coming back from rehab. And so together, they sort of join forces to redeem themselves.

If you’ve seen Moon Cave, my first play, and Shitheads which was my last play at Azuka, this one is a little bit of a blend of both; there is kind of a darkness in Moon Cave that I think exists in SHIP. And Shitheads I think, generally....Shitheads was my third play I had produced, just generally, and I learned a lot, I really feel like I found my voice with Shitheads in a way. There was a nice mix of autobiographical things in there, there was a dialogue and kind of a pace that I really responded to. I think SHIP has that. I would say generally if you liked Shitheads, you’ll probably like SHIP; I think they’re similar in tone. It’s funny, or it should be, I hope it’s funny! But there’s kind of a quickness, and of course it’s Azuka so there’s this kind of ‘Outcasts and Underdogs’ — I mean these are characters who are struggling to kind of grow and find themselves, and Shitheads felt like it was about that a lot, where it’s about trying to find your place in the world. And so that’s in SHIP as well. If you liked those plays, you’ll probably definitely like this one!

I grew up in Stonington, Connecticut, which is right next to Mystic, Connecticut, and Mystic is kind of this tourist trap of a New England town. I mean it’s a beautiful place, but the play is kind of based on the idea of — as a kid, even when you live there, if you’re a high school kid, like I think you just, like, fuckin’ hate your hometown no matter what. No matter where it is, it could be the most beautiful place on Earth! And so the play deals with that, where it’s kind of this idealistic setting, but the characters in the play — at least Nell, this character — it’s the last place on Earth she wants to be. And I think even this place that really, like, beautiful and if you went to visit if you went to visit, and it is, it’s an amazing town, but — for her, like, any town can feel like a trap. And so that is a strong theme in this play. But it was fun to write because yeah, I grew up in the area, and so there’s a lot of elements of my adolescence in the play. So it was kind of easy to draw on, because it’s just the next town over, and people know Mystic I guess as a town, and so that was a lot of fun, and also a challenge.

When I started writing the play, I was surprised that I ended up setting it in my hometown; it definitely wasn’t something I set out to do. But, it feels — it’s a location that is ripe for a setting for a play at least, and so it really ended up paying off, I feel like for me and through the process. Even if you haven’t been, I think like you have ideas about…there’s, like, an affluence in Connecticut I think that is like the vibe. I think that it feels very, like, white and rich? And it is those things for sure, but — that was something that was interesting to me with this play, is that even if you haven’t been to Mystic, perhaps you’ve seen Mystic Pizza, you can have a perceived notion about a town like that. But if you dig just a little deeper, you know, there are the same problems that people that live there go through as they would in any town. And so that was interesting to me, I think the duality of this place that appears to be just like paradise, in the summer at least when there’s beaches and there’s water and it’s very nautical, I mean it’s a very nice place to visit. But there’s an underbelly to that, as there is with any town in any place you live. That felt like an interesting theme to explore.

So the fingernail thing came from...I was sort of a Guiness Book of World Records kid when I was growing up, it’s very like...I think it, like, strikes some kids and they just kind of go with it, and so I was one of those kids. I remember having — we’ve been talking about this through the rehearsal process of the play — I had one of those daily calendars where you rip off every day. It was a Guiness Book of World Records one, and every day was like a thing, it was like “The Largest Gallblader!” and you know, someone who whistled for, I don’t know, 36 hours straight! And I’d rip them off and I would save them, I like saved the pieces of paper and I, like, loved these little pictures of people doing these odd achievements. It just, like, struck me later in life, a couple years ago, where I remembered the story — I think Shridhar is the guy who’s sort of very famous for having the longest fingernails in the world, he just cut them off a couple years ago. But he’s kind of like the celeb — like if there’s one weird Guiness Book of World Records guy you know, it’s probably Shridhar!

That was sort of the jumping off point I guess, like what would it take to dedicate yourself to something like that, and what would happen if you failed at it? That you had tried and really dedicated your life to something like that...the character — it’s not too much of a spoiler because it happens very early in the play — is in a car accident, so he had these long fingernails, working towards that goal, was in a car accident, and his fingernails were smashed, basically. And so it’s like, what do you do when you come back from something that’s devastating like that, and this thing that you’ve been working towards now you don’t have anymore, and you have to move back to this weird hometown where, yeah, this thing that you were kind of known for and working towards is no longer a part of your life. And so that was kind of where it started. But I think there’s something off and kind of lovely about the Guiness Book of World Records, in that oftentimes they’re kind of like regular people achieving these odd things — it’s like a kind of odd clout to being in the Guiness Book of World Records. And that was dynamic was interesting to me, and I thought really funny honestly.

A desire for any writer, I would assume, or at least for me when I write, is to have an audience hopefully walk away having recognized something about themself in the characters that they saw on stage. And also, this is something that I learned with Shitheads that I’ve really kind of tried to pursue — I’ve written four plays since Shitheads, including this one — and something that was fun about that play: on the surface it’s a very funny play, I mean it’s called Shitheads, it’s about a bunch of losers working in a bike shop. You could leave the theater being like, ‘That was pretty funny. That was a fun night.’ And then, like, that night when you’re brushing your teeth, or if you’re doing the dishes the next day or something...this is so ideal! I mean this is like, I’m describing, whatever, maybe nobody feels this way! But it would be so cool if someone was doing the dishes the next day, and thinks about a moment...that you can recognize some of the small tragedies within a play. And I love it when it happens to me, some of my favorite work is when it’s like ‘Okay I think I got that’, and then like a day later it’s like ‘Oh!’ That, like, something reminds you of this moment or a beat in the play kind of hits you differently.

There’s a lot we explore in this play about a sibling relationship, specifically an adult sibling relationship. You know, if you’re lucky, you go through ups and downs with the relationship — and it gets complicated. By the time you’re an adult, that relationship is incredibly complicated, or it can be. So that’s another thing I guess that I would hope people leave with — if they have a sibling, how that relationship can be complicated later in life. And the joys of that relationship too, if you’ve gone through trauma together, pain, if you’ve hurt each other, and you’ve come out of that.

The actors are amazing, the whole design team is amazing. It’s Pay What You Decide, so take a shot, come see the play; there’s little risk involved! You can just kind of show up and have fun, it’s gonna be short and funny. And I’m just so happy and thankful to be back at Azuka for this play, so — yeah! Come on out!”