Stephanie Weeks (Performer) has performed at many regional theaters and Off-Broadway. Favorite roles include Salima in Ruined, Belle in A Christmas Carol, Tituba in The Crucible and Shark in Oh My God I’m So Thirst(y), Innovative Theater nomination. Film: Ex-Doofus… Dir: Melvin Van Peebles, Tribeca Film Festival.

TMT: You have been in multiple productions with Target Margin such as Dinner Party and As Yet Art Young & Rash. Tell us how your work with TMT has influenced your career and what’s unique about Drunken With What?

SW: I guess the biggest thing I can say about how TMT has influenced my career is that it basically started it! David was the first person to cast me in my first real professional show in New York. So I’ve always seen that work, especially the work we did in As Yet Thou Art Young and Rash as a home base for me and set the bar. I really loved being a part of that show. It’s still one of my most cherished experiences and though each creative room I walk into is different and unique. I do compare a lot of them to As Yet Thou Art Young and Rash because it was the really my first and special. I’ve also met soooo many wonderful artists through TMT that I’ve collaborated outside of TMT. I consider it a gift that keeps on giving.

I think there are many things that are unique for me about Drunken With What. For me one of the biggest things is that all four of the actors are all company members and have worked with David on multiple occasions, so we may not have all worked together before but there is a lot of history that we all have with him. We were all on board from the very first day. It’s challenging and hard and all that but I think we all knew that and signed on anyway because the work is fulfilling. I don’t necessarily have that when I am first beginning to work with a new director in a new room. There isn’t that shared language or trust that has been established yet. I’m always hopeful but, honestly, sometimes that trust or that shared language never comes.

TMT: Drunken With What is our first pass at Mourning Becomes Electra—O’Neill’s take on the Oresteia set in New England at the close of the American Civil war. From your point of view, how present is the setting and has it had an effect on your approach to portraying Christine?

SW: Hmm… This is an interesting question. I mean the setting is somewhat always present because the language is different and incredibly heightened and that alone reflects a different time. I am also a Black woman playing a matriarch of this household at the close of the Civil War of this very wealthy family in Connecticut so it’s always in my mind in terms of my back story of where Christine comes from and how and why did she get to be the Lady of the house. It makes for very very juicy imagination on my part but ultimately, for me, it just makes the stakes in every scene higher.

TMT: Christine is a character that is full of hatred towards her daughter and husband but she is also loving towards her son and her prohibited lover. Like anyone, her humanness is reflected in her inconsistencies and flaws. So… the world wants to know, what makes Stephanie Weeks human and do you ever contradict yourself? How so?

SW: Ha, I contradict myself on a daily basis!! I mean what makes me human is that I am a woman living in a world with hopes and dreams and sometimes I’m successful at accomplishing them. But sometimes I’m not and I get really angry and sad and pissed off and exhausted by all of it and I want to give up but then I do get up (not necessarily the next day) and put my game face on and try my best to go at life hard again.

TMT: Our productions are known for atypical casting and Drunken With What is no exception. In particular, this production provides opportunities for African American, Chinese America, and Indian American actors to play lead roles that are typically not available to them. In what way, if any, does this production reflect what it means to be American today?

SW: Yes and no, YES because it’s happening and it’s fantastic and exciting and I LOVE that this can happen in the theater and I really think it works because we are all so present and giving our best to the project. No, simply because I’ve truly only felt this with TMT’s work…. I don’t see many other companies doing this. I see a lot of companies doing a lot of theme based casting… i.e lets do Mourning Becomes Electra but with an all (Black, Asian, Middle Eastern cast) or an all female cast or an all male cast which is all fine and great. But I think it’s essential to keep pushing the boundaries of our people’s imagination of what is possible. What’s exciting about Drunken With What is that all the relationships are there, we are just challenging the audience a little more to say “Hey, this is a family, and no, they don’t look alike.”

TMT: What’s next?

SW: I am thrilled to be in the early stages of developing a piece with the wonderful playwright Chiori Miyagawa, who I actually met through David a few years ago (again, the gift that keeps on giving). Emily Mendelsohn is directing and Jubilith Moore and I are two actors playing all parts in a four person play.