The area’s inaugural Fringe Festival is upon us, and its convergence with Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month has proven fortuitous for one group of writer-performers. The Asian-American Playwrights Collective is staging “Spiritual Advisors,” a collection of short plays (we’re talking four plays in under an hour!) as part of the fest Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday – and is using short pieces to make big statements about family history, representation and culture. And yes, despite the seeming weight of these topics, there will be laughs.
Jamie Lin, a steering member of the collective and director of “Spiritual Advisors,” filled me in on the fast and frantic process of bringing this show together in time for the festival’s debut. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What are you able to share with me about the plays?
“Spiritual Advisors” feature four visits from specters: a mysterious truth teller, a warrior goddess, a dream fairy and a 7-year-old with curious arcane insight. Our plays showcase the breadth of AAPI stories by featuring various cultures (Philippines, Taiwan), family dynamics, surviving Western stereotypes and, most importantly, giving AAPI actors the room to play characters previously inaccessible to them.
How did the creators decide to contribute them to Fringe?
The AAPC really wanted to be part of Boston’s first Fringe! That being said, knowing the quick turnaround, we wanted to emphasize a plays we’ve staged before, to help make rehearsals easier, and select member playwrights who have had fewer chances to be produced in the area, part of our goal to uplift AAPI work for the stages. We also looked for small casts – no play has more than three characters – since we’re sharing an ensemble of five actors across all four shows.
What makes them well suited for Fringe?
The throughline of our shows is a spiritual presence, which is evoked by characters who are both traditional to their culture (like Urduja, the Filipina warrior goddess) and silly (a 7-year-old hustler running a fortunetelling stand). We think the four shows touch on a lot of topics that may be common for our AAPI communities but don’t have the advantages of being staged as frequently as more common classics like Shakespeare, or even contemporary theater works. Some questions we ponder: What does it mean to pursue a dream? Is it a dream you even want? How cathartic is it to blow up at your absentee ex? What is possible when you mix in some surprising cards into a tarot deck?
Are there particular challenges that come with putting a play up for Fringe?
The No. 1 challenge has been timing. Casting and rehearsing a show in less than two months is no small feat. A big challenge has been finding rehearsal spaces, especially given that our entire show is self-funded and independent, so we don’t have access to a traditional theater to rehearse in. Big ups to the Somerville Arts Council for providing free rehearsal space for Bipoc artists, which we’ve taken advantage of for this show.
“Spiritual Advisors” plays the inaugural Boston Fringe at 9:15 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday and 7:05 p.m. Friday. All three will take place at The Rockwell, 255 Elm St., Davis Square, Somerville. $15, or a festival pass gets access to 20 shows for $75.
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