The origin story

In 2013, playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury participated in Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor Summer Residency Lab. Artistic Director Tony Taccone spent a few hours one afternoon talking with Jackie in the kitchen (where all the good things happen), and came away from the conversation deeply impressed by Jackie’s intelligence, wit, and unique perspective on the world. In her typically humble fashion, Jackie attributes Tony’s interest in her and her work differently. She was assigned Tony’s office as her writing space during the Summer Lab, and says, “I think I was on Tony’s mind because I had literally taken over his office. Whenever he forgot something I would just be sitting on his couch.”

Director Sarah Benson was also here for 2013’s Summer Residency Lab, though she was working on a different project. As the artistic director of Soho Rep. in New York, Sarah is always on the lookout for interesting collaborations and new ways of working. She found herself in conversation with Tony, and the two started to think about ways their theatres might work together. They remarked on how different their companies were: Soho Rep. is a tiny, black box space known for its debuts of experimental works, while Berkeley Rep produces an eclectic variety of plays in two sizable spaces. They landed on commissioning a new play that would fit in both spaces, and they quickly settled on Jackie as someone who would be up for the challenge. This unexpected pairing of theatres officially co-commissioned Jackie to create a piece flexible enough to move from a small, downtown New York space to our larger regional house in Berkeley.

Jackie and Sarah returned to The Ground Floor Summer Residency Lab in 2015, this time to work together. They began thinking seriously about surveillance, and, inspired by an abandoned office building across the street that we were given access to, used the space to inform their process. They asked six actors to do some deep internet research and gather information on other Summer Lab participants. One evening, they invited us into the office space, took each participant into a cubicle, and interrogated that person individually. The desired effect of unsettling the unsuspecting audience had been achieved, and this experiment helped to construct a foundation on which the play could grow.

Over the next two years, two more workshops took place with scenic designer Mimi Lien, who began to think about how the play’s ideas would take physical shape in the room. Sarah said, “Those [conversations] were huge in terms of starting to figure out how the theatrical form was serving these ideas, and how naturalism and that convention were such a big part of what we were trying to explore.” It gradually became clear that the play wanted to start in a familiar, realistic space, then expand out to explore uncharted territory.

Jackie eventually titled the piece Fairview, and it premiered at Soho Rep. in 2018, in association with Berkeley Rep. It was extended three times, becoming one of Soho Rep.’s most notable hits. In preparation for its move to Berkeley, Sarah and Tony found themselves talking about their respective spaces again. How to move the set from a small black box to a large thrust? Mimi rejiggered her set, moving a wall in the process; Sarah reblocked actors’ movements; Jackie tweaked language; and all three artists worked together to reshape the entire ending of the play for the Peet’s Theatre. No longer an experiment in a black box, the play now engages in a wider dialogue with a larger audience at Berkeley Rep.