Rotterdam - "no, Of Course Not...i Was Scared."

It's New Year in Rotterdam and Alice has finally worked up the courage to send an email to her parents telling them she's gay. But, before she can hit send, her girlfriend, Fiona, reveals that HE has always identified as a male and wants to start living as a man named Adrian.

Now, as Adrian begins his transition, Alice must face a question she never thought she'd ask...does this mean she's straight?

Rotterdam is a bittersweet comedy about gender, sexuality and being a long way from home by acclaimed playwright Jon Brittain (The Sexual Awakening of Peter Mayo, What Would Spock Do?, Margaret Thatcher Queen of Soho).

10/27/15

Fiona: I wanted to tell you, OK? I just...I didn't know how you'd react.

Alice: You think I'd just pack my bags and go?

Fiona: No, of course not. I...I was scared. I wanted to say something. So many times. I just...Look, it's not like it was a light bulb moment, y'know? Like suddenly I realized...I mean, I always thought I was gay, I mean, I was a tomboy, I liked girls, I thought, yeah, gay, that makes sense...But then bit by bit as I got older it didn't anymore...But, I mean, how do you tell someone that? I didn't know how to put it into words. I still don't. It's just this feeling. Like, every time I open my mouth, it's not my voice, or when I look in the mirror, it's just not quite me. And when I think about men, or see them, I just...I know that...

(beat)

It's not that I'm trying to change. I don't want to become a man. I...I think...I know...I already am one.

Alice: And you're sure? I mean, absolutely sure?

Fiona: Yes.

Alice: But how —I mean how can you know for certain?

Fiona: I dream as one. (beat) In my dreams. I'm a man. Every time.

Alice: Since when?

Fiona: Since always.

(beat)

But you know this doesn't change anything between us. You do know that?

No, of course not. I (was scared)...I was scared. I wanted to say something. So many times. I just (didn't know how you'd react)...Look, it's not like it was a light bulb moment, y'know? Like suddenly I realized (this about myself and was going to tell you right away. And it's scary because I was so sure of who I always was)...I mean, I always thought I was gay, I mean, I was a tomboy, I liked girls, I thought, yeah, gay, that makes sense...But then bit by bit as I got older it didn't anymore...But, I mean, how do you tell someone that? I didn't know how to put it into words. I still don't. It's just this feeling. Like, every time I open my mouth, it's not my voice, or when I look in the mirror, it's just not quite me. And when I think about men, or see them, I just...I know that (I am one too)...

(beat)

It's not that I'm trying to change. I don't want to become a man. I...I think...I know...I already am one.

No, of course not. I...I was scared.

I wanted to say something. So many times. I just...Look, it's not like it was a light bulb moment, y'know? Like suddenly I realized...

I mean, I always thought I was gay, I mean, I was a tomboy, I liked girls, I thought, yeah, gay, that makes sense...But then bit by bit as I got older it didn't anymore...

But, I mean, how do you tell someone that? I didn't know how to put it into words. I still don't.

It's just this feeling. Like, every time I open my mouth, it's not my voice, or when I look in the mirror, it's just not quite me. And when I think about men, or see them, I just...I know that...

(beat)

It's not that I'm trying to change. I don't want to become a man. I...I think...I know...I already am one.

1

Introduce yourself. Look at your partner and say...

"Hi, I'm Rachel, and I'll be doing a monologue from Jon Brittain's Rotterdam.

2

Maintaining your posture and your breathing, simply look at a spot on the floor that is about 5 feet in front of you. Look down only with your eyes—do not drop or hang your head.

Slowly count down "3...2...1...GO,"

At GO, look up over your partner's head to your chosen focus spot. This is when you begin the first moment of your monologue.

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I want Alice to accept me as a man.

I want to dispel any misunderstandings she has about my sexual identity.

I want to apologize for not having told her sooner.

I want to defend myself // justify why I am only revealing this now.

I want Alice to understand this is not easy for me to explain.

I want her to know that this doesn't change anything between us. This doesn't change the nature of our relationship.

Alice is "finding this quite hard to work out." It puts a BIG question mark around her own sexual identity. "What am I now? If you're a man, am I...straight? I thought I was gay. I am gay. So, I'm just trying to work out what this means for me." (24) She wants to figure out her label now when actually she doesn't need to label herself at all.

She's upset that I've waited this long to tell her about the truth about myself.

This is an internal battle for me because even though I am a man stuck in a woman's body, other people don't perceive me that way. It's this constant struggle of having to feel validated. I want to be seen and treated as a man. But I don't pass as one based on society's standards of masculinity // cliche stereotype.

25

A: Are you sure this is what you want? I mean, really sure? You really want to do this? You want to become a man?

F: No, Alice...I just want to stop trying to be a woman.

I'm afraid of how Alice will react to the news. I'm scared that she will leave me. That I am the one jeopardizing our relationship. She is the love of my life and I can't afford to lose her. I don't know what I'd do if she did.

And Rotterdam is so isolated from the rest of the world. It's literally just been the two of us for the past seven years. She is my best friend and love of my life. I stayed this long in Rotterdam for her.

Who are we?

Alice is my girlfriend of 7 years.

Where are we?

At a cafe in Rotterdam

Why are they there? What is my objective?

What is the pre-beat?

How does the scene start?

Alice is sitting at a table, waiting. She has a sandwich in front of her. I arrive, flustered.

What aspect of performing do I enjoy most?

Who are my friends?

What is a typical day at school for me?

Who do I talk to?

How am I as a student?

Why do I have a video blog?

Why does Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible mean so much to me?

How did I meet the boy I had sex with?

Why did I have sex with him?

How did I feel about the abortion? Scared? Relieved? Upset?

What does the Speech & Debate club represent to me?

How do I feel about waiting tables? Do I enjoy it? Despise it? Indifferent?

What keeps me fighting after so many rejections?

What is urgent about this monologue?

STEPS IN PREPARING A MONOLOGUE or SCENE FOR PERFORMANCE:

1. Read the script for enjoyment.

2. Read the script a second time to gain understanding of the goal(s), theme(s) and conflict(s)

3. Read the script for a third time to analyze as an actor – mark initial BEATS with a “/”.

4. After marking the initial BEATS, re-read a fourth time to check yourself and add any additional

minor BEATS that you find.

5. REMEMBER: Purpose, emotion or dynamic should probably change AT LEAST a little on each

sentence. Sometimes they will change in the middle of a sentence as well. Try to find ALL the

changes in your selected script.

6. When you have marked all the BEATS you can find – you should SCORE the script.

Accuse

Annihilate

Attack

Awaken

Assure

Announce

Beg

Belittle

Berate

Bombard

Build

Challenge

Coax

Confront

Comfort

Confess

Convince

Counsel

Crush

Help

Hurt

Ignite

Implore

Incite

Inspire

Lambast

Lecture

Persuade

Preserve

Plead

Ponder

Reassure

Relent

Resign

Ridicule

Regroup

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2- REHEARSE – REHEARSE – REHEARSE ! MEMORIZE – MEMORIZE – MEMORIZE!

Practice in front of a mirror...in front of your classmates... in front of your relatives – ask them for advice or suggestions.

This is a process – not a perfect event the first time you work it.

- You can make changes as you practice.

- Mark the changes down as you go in order to keep track of your process. (This document will give you something to start with if you work on the same script again.)

The more you practice and the more comfortable you are with the words, gestures and movement – the better you will be in the final performance!

2

Take a monologue you are working on and do it 3x's imagining you are in different physical spaces.

Then say it 3x's as if you are speaking to (different people):

- your best friend

- your bf or gf

- your crush (while having sexual fantasies of them)

- an ex

- a therapist / psychologist

- your boss

- a stranger

- your mom or dad

- a kid

- your pet

- a celebrity

- your idol

- the president

Finally, go back to your original choices and see if you have any new spontaneous moments emerge from your work.

4

Express the monologue only in body movements.

Scene location

Time of day

Character description

Then go beneath the words...

Does "yes" really mean "no?" Figure out what your character needs most (SUPER OBJECTIVE) and define it with an active verb, it helps you to know what your character is fighting for. It is to plead, to confess, or to praise? Decide what you want most from your imagined scene partner. You'll also have little objectives along the way, or BEATS.

The Action is HOW you’re going to get the character what she wants.

An action doesn't require you to be in a particular emotional state in order to begin performing it. Under the pressure of an audition, it is impossible to control how you feel. Having an Action that doesn’t rely on your feeling a certain way to do it gives you something to do when you DON’T feel like it. NOTE: that all kinds of emotions are engendered in you as you pursue an Action in the moment. These emotions occur naturally because of the difficulty in achieving the Action, not because you are trying to make yourself feel a certain way. Thus, the emotions and moments you experience as you pursue the Action are always truthful.

What does the character want the other character(s) to do as a result of hearing this monologue?

What do I want the other character(s) to do?

Which Actions could get my character what she wants?

What inner imagery do I have to create?

What emotional triggers do I need?

What are my specific emotional relationships to all persons, places, objects, and events in the script?

How do my relationships change emotionally to the other characters within scenes and from scene to scene?

What personalizations or “as ifs” do I need to create for these persons, places, objects, and events? (Remember: sometimes the specifics of the script stir you emotionally every time you work on the material so that you don’t need personalizations and “as ifs.”)

What physical choices do I need to make? Does the character have any specific impediments? A specific walk or carriage? A habitual gesture or a gesture at a specific moment? What physical business can I create to illuminate the character and the text?

What is my character’s back story? (Remember: be specific and detailed, and if you create a back story, make sure it triggers you emotionally, not just intellectually.)

Can I do an animal exercise to help me with my interpretation of the character?

What piece of music would you pick to symbolize the character? (Listening to the music can be used as part of your preparation. It can be especially helpful as you explore movement for the character.)

How does the location where the scene takes place influence my character’s behavior?

What are the sensory realities of the scene and what preparations can I do to bring them to life?

What is the moment before each scene?

What size should my performance be for the medium that I’m working in?

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As an actor you always have to ask yourself…

How you feel about the place your character is in?

What does the place mean to me in terms of creating possible behavior for my character?

How do I live in the space?

Why did the writer place me here and what is my job in living in this place?

What behavior can I find that grows out of my relationship with the place?

What is the scene about?

What is the event of the scene?

What happens in the scene?

How does the event contribute to the overall story?

WHERE is the scene taking place?

What is the physical nature of the place?WHY are you there?

WHERE were you just prior?

WHAT aspect of your background comes into play in the scene?

What is your relationship to the other character(s)?

What is at issue for you?

What are you literally doing when the scene starts?

What do you seek or want to have happen?What are you doing to get it?

WHY is it important?

WHAT is standing in your way?

WHY don’t you just walk out?

Don’t answer these questions factually and intellectually. LOOK for something that lights you up, something “juicy,” an angle, an answer which by virtue of some personal enthusiasm, POV, or experience, connects you, the actor, to what is going on for the character in the scene. One answer to any one of the above questions will work if it is meaningful enough. Any one can unlock the answer to the crucial question: “What is the scene about for you?”

What are your values?

What are your interests?

Where are you vulnerable? What makes you vulnerable? How can you be hurt? what's at stake for you?

What are you not saying?

Whom or what do you trust?

Look for ways that you are facing some unpleasant truth about yourself -- or refusing to face it.

Look for ways that you make mistakes.

What are your dreams? Your hopes? Your fears? Your longing?

What is your "soft spot"?

What have you seen happen to others that you are determined to keep from happening to yourself?

What are you smart about?

How do you use your intelligence?

In what way are you an artist?

Are you protecting yourself from pain in the past?

What hunger drives you? (e.g. hunger for affection, for respect etc)

What are you looking for in a mate?

What makes you laugh?

What might cause you to lose your sense of humor?

What is your biggest problem? Your most immediate problem? Long term problem(s)? In what ways have you dealt with your problem(s) in the past?

Who do you look up to? Who do you admire?

What is the biggest thing that has ever happened to you?

How are you different at the end of the script (or scene) than at the beginning?

What is happening to you for the first time in this scene?

What are you doing in this scene that you have never done before?

What are you lying about? to others? to yourself?

What are you doing in this scene that you have never done before?

What are your demons?

What is your blind spot?

What secrets do you have? Which one is your most important one? and why?

What have you been doing just before the scene starts? What would happen next if the scene didn't start now?

The use of the word stealth has lost its meaning in the last decade. I hear people who go to trans support group meetings, activities and who run trans websites claim to be “stealth” now. When I came out, going to trans support group meetings, activities and running trans forums was the definition of being out in a big way! Some now say that “stealth” means one thing and “woodworking” another. I call BS. You can’t woodwork without being stealth. It’s like saying that the word “hide” and “conceal” are fundamentally different. If you’re going to conceal something, you have to hide it; if you’re going to woodwork, you’ve got to be stealth. Some say “stealth” just means privacy. Privacy is not telling my spouse that I had a wart removed years ago; stealth is not telling my spouse that I had testicles removed years ago. Pretending that being “out” means telling everyone you meet you’re trans is BS. Associating with others in the trans community while claiming to be stealth is a mischaracterization of what stealth is.

Stealth is pretending to everyone that you’re a cisgender female. It means living in fear that the spouse you lied to will find out that you didn’t actually have a hysterectomy. It means always wondering if your friends would really like you if they knew the truth. Stealth is running away from or verbally running down your trans brothers and sisters so that others won’t make the connection. Stealth means that you hide being trans. Stealth is about shame and nothing more. Not telling the grocery sacker that you’re trans is not stealth. Trying to get your parents to lie to your new boyfriend is being stealth. Not telling every co-worker in the building that you’re trans is not being stealth. Not telling your best friend is being stealth. If you associate with other trans people, you’re not in stealth because you’re putting yourself in a position of allowing more and more people to know the truth about your history. Isolating and hiding your history is what it means to live in stealth.

Stealth people say things like “I just want to get on with my life as the woman I am” – a sentiment that sounds rational enough on the surface. The problem with that sentiment is that it’s also a delusion. Stealth people rationalize their lies by believing that being trans was only a medical problem that was fixed – kind of like a cleft palate; purposefully pretending that there wasn’t a social transition that entailed violating numerous cultural norms. Stealth is purposefully taking away the choice of letting the people you claim to love the most decide if they are willing to take on the potential social costs (as unfair and stupid as those social costs might be) of breaking those backwards cultural norms by being with you. If you believe that it is only a medical condition, remember that I said that you’re delusional when your best friend, your husband or wife, your boyfriend or girlfriend, your adopted child, etc finds out that you lied about your social and medical history. Yes, it is a medical condition that should be treated medically, but to pretend that this medical condition is exactly like having laser eye surgery is nothing more than living in denial. Living an authentic life means having the courage to stand firmly on the ground on truth regardless of what stupid, moronic and asinine stereotypes and/or fears others may choose to cling to.

Anyway… pretending to be a cisgender female to everyone in your life practically never works in the end. In the digital age, you can never destroy every piece of history documenting your true past and you certainly can’t kill everyone how knows the truth. Choosing stealth is a shame-based way to live because it supports the belief that being trans is bad and should be hidden. Being a transwoman and being a ciswoman are just two somewhat different ways of arriving at being a woman; living stealth supports the bogus idea that you’re not really a woman and you must therefore hide the truth from discovery. If you want to save yourself a lot of misery, be truthful about the history that made you into the wonderful person you are today with the people who matter to you. You don’t need to tell the gas station attendant, but the point of transitioning is that you get to live authentically. Don’t put yourself into a position that you have to go back to living a lie; don’t go from one closet to another.

Being completely closeted – being stealth – takes away your freedom of choice. After a while, you’ve constructed a life whereby you can no longer enjoy the freedom of sharing your history with the people you care about because to do so would risk the very relationships you so value. Choose to give yourself the power of choice. Be judicious about who you give this very important piece of yourself to. Privacy is a good thing in that it’s empowering; preserve your right to pick and choose who knows your history. Choose the power of choice and use it to give yourself the best possible shot at a happy life.

Author’s Note: I wrote this piece in 2010 after meeting a transwoman who had transitioned in the 1970s. She’d been instructed to live a closeted life by her doctors at the time. Unfortunately, she took their advice, married and never told him. He found out years and years later and she lost practically everything she valued after the lie got out – to everyone in her life. The devastation her life had become was profound.Since writing this, I understand that others – especially others in different geographic locations – view stealth and out as a binary continuum so that one can be both stealth and out and proud in the exact same moment. I can see how this view has its conceptual benefits for those who use it in that way. For me – and perhaps this is simply an artifact of my own geographic location – stealth means that one is not out. When I began transition, the only people who were stealth were those who actively shunned other trans folk. For me, stealth continues to have a very specific conceptual framework that does not include being out and proud about being trans.

Rotterdam is a play that explores so many complex personal issues, what made you want to tell this story?

It was a combination of two ideas. I had had a couple of friends over the years who came out as trans and it made me a lot more conscious of how little popular culture had explored trans characters and their experiences. I’d also been toying with writing about the fluidity – or lack of fluidity – of people’s sexual orientations. One day it struck me that these two ideas might work in the same play, and the two characters arrived pretty much fully formed in my head. Alice, who has finally come to terms with being gay and is ready to come out to her parents, and her girlfriend Fiona, who has finally come to terms with the fact that he has always identified as male and wants to start living as a man named Adrian.

Rotterdam is obviously set in the Netherlands, was there any specific reason for setting it there?

I moved to the Netherlands when I was 13 with my family and went to a British school near The Hague for five years. I love Holland and I wanted to write about a bit about the culture and the place as it means a lot to me. However I also wanted to isolate the characters from support groups, friends or family. Rotterdam is a kind of limbo for them. It’s somewhere they ended up but not somewhere they ever intended to stay. I liked the irony that Rotterdam is a port, with lots of people and things just passing through, but these characters are stuck and can’t leave.

Do you feel that plays which deal with topics like this need more of a platform to ensure that all voices are represented in theatre?

I think you might be asking two different questions. Yes, I think plays that deal with trans issues should be given a platform, but I don’t think that that solves the issue of representation. I am very aware that my voice – white, cis gendered, straight, middle class, male – is massively overrepresented in theatre, and just because I’ve written a play that features underrepresented characters, does not mean that their communities are being properly represented. I think it’s important that playwrights feature members of the trans community in their writing, as it will continue to increase their visibility in popular culture, but I also think it’s very important that opportunities are made for people in the trans community to make work themselves and to put a spotlight on the work that they are already making. You’ve created your own scratch night Brain of Brittain.

As a writer, what are the advantages of exploring work in this physical way?

It’s been great. Usually, you’ve got to rely on other people to create the opportunities to develop work ‘on its feet’ – directors, producers, literary departments etc – so it was nice to take matters into my own hands and just put on a series of shows where I tried stuff out. Rotterdam got its first rehearsed reading at one of these nights, and we tried out a lot of material for Margaret Thatcher Queen of Soho as part of them too. Actually, the show in which we tried out Thatcher material was the one that we performed on top of the set for the show Land of Our Fathers which is set down a pit. It was very funny to have Thatcher singing songs in a coal mine.Even in your more dark or serious work there are plays plenty of laughs. Is this a deliberate device or do you think this is your coping mechanism coming through in your writing?Bit of both. I find it very hard to go too long into a conversation without throwing in some jokes. At the same time I personally prefer work that has a lot of humor in it and I wouldn’t want to give my audience anything I wouldn’t want to watch myself. Having said that, I always try and make sure its rooted in character and I’d probably never do a show which was just funny (not that there’s anything wrong with that); I always like to use the humour to counterbalance or highlight something serious – whether that’s the exploration of identity in Rotterdam or the advocacy of gay rights in Queen of Soho – as Mary Poppins said “…a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down”, but you do need the medicine.You enjoyed huge success with your cabaret show Margaret Thatcher Queen of Soho.

Having both co-written and directed the show, how much were you able to distance yourself from the writing when directing?

I don’t know if I have to distance myself from the writing. It’s not so much a question of trying to ignore the fact that you also wrote it when directing, more that you exercise good judgement in deciding which job is more appropriate for solving a given problem. Sometimes you can save a lot of time directing by fixing a script problem; alternatively you can make stuff work in a completely different have to be open to that.

Thus far you’ve managed to find a delicate balance between writing and directing, is this something that you hope you’ll be able to continue, or do you eventually want to put more focus on one or the other?

Any balance I’ve found is purely accidental. Weirdly, I started out directing plays at university and I feel I am more naturally suited to that than I am writing, but after writing my first play The Wake, I fell in love with making scripts and so let the directing go for a while. A lot of people who didn’t know I had directed before were skeptical when I started directing my own work, but after Queen of Soho and What Would Spock Do? I feel confident enough to now be able to tell people whether or not I want to direct a play myself. With Rotterdam, I wanted to collaborate with a director rather than do it myself, and luckily Donnacadh O’Briain is fantastic so I feel in very safe hands.

You’ve directed a few stand up shows in recent years, what are the greatest challenges when directing a stand up show?

Taking your own ego out of it is crucial. You are there to be invisible – to support the comedian, not to impose your own values or goals onto their show. When working with a comedian, I try and adapt myself to fill whatever rôle it is they need filling. With Tom Allen I was a sounding board for ideas during the writing process, whereas with John Kearns I was more involved with watching and feeding back on the show during previews. It all has to depend on what kind of director the comedian needs you to be. Crucially though, I only work with comedians that I love, so I am only trying to help them unlock what is already there, as opposed to trying to ‘fix’ them.

Having done some stand up yourself at university does this new route make you want to dip back into performing stand up?

Well, I stopped performing stand up after university because I felt like I wasn’t good enough. I certainly have a lot more confidence in myself than I did at 22. I love performing and making people laugh, but I do feel a bit like I missed my window to make a go of it. The stand ups I know have worked so hard for so long to become as good as they are (on top of being naturally talented) that it’s very daunting to even consider trying it again. Occasionally, I will do five minutes here or there, or perform a character in one of the Weirdos show, but I think – realistically – that it’s best left to the professionals. In any case, writing and directing are more than enough hats to be getting on with.What advice would you give anyone who wanted to go into writing?Don’t wait for someone to give you permission. Just do it. There are books you can read and courses you can do, and they can all be useful, but honestly none of them will be as useful as just sitting down and writing something. Set yourself goals. Force yourself to do a scene a day. Finish a draft and then put it away for a while, give yourself time to come to it fresh. When you do read it try and do so as if someone else wrote it. Everyone has the ability to say what they do or don’t like about a movie or a book, so apply that basic critical analysis to your own work, then fix the things you don’t like. That’s my approach to writing in a nutshell – write the sh*t version, then fix the problems until it’s not sh*t anymore (or “fail better” as Beckett said, but I like my version). Also, don’t rely on other people to make it happen once it is written. If you know anyone with a venue, or actors, or have access to a good video camera, then use it. Make stuff. That’s how you learn how to do it better. By doing it.

And finally, what’s next for Jon Brittain?

I’m quite busy actually. I’m writing a musical with Harry Blake called How to Stop Being Fat and Start Being Happy which is about the diet industry and a play called A Super Happy Story About Feeling Super Sadwhich is about depression. Then next year Queen of Soho is going on tour and doing a live gameshow.What Would Spock Do? is going to Australia, and there’s a play that I’ve been trying to get off the ground for years about a little girl whose imaginary friend is Patrick Stewart that I would love to make happen. And a holiday. It would be great to go on holiday.

How did you become a playwright?

Kind of by accident. When I was a kid my Granddad would write me stories and my brother and I would make up our own. I always wrote jokes, stories and sketches but was also interested in acting, directing and comedy. I thought I was going to try and be a stand up comedian but it didn’t work out that way. At the end of university each drama student had to write and perform in a 15 minute show and so I wrote my first play The Wake. It went very well and in an extended form was selected for National Student Drama Festival. I thought everyone there would praise my incredible performance but instead they said they quite liked the script. There was no epiphany moment when I realised that writing was what I needed to do with my life, but it slowly dawned on me that that was the case. And here I am.

What is Rotterdam about?

Rotterdam is a love story about a woman named Alice who has always identified as gay and her partner Fiona who reveals that he has always identified as male and wants to start living as a man named Adrian. It’s about how their relationship changes as they try to work out who they are themselves and how they reconcile their gender and sexual identities with their feelings for each other. (and it’s got jokes in).

What prompted you to write Rotterdam?

It was just one of those ideas that wouldn’t leave me. A friend of mine came out as trans many years ago and I’ve known other people who have been through experiences that have made them question their sexual identities. Fusing aspects of those two situations together just seemed like a really interesting way to explore questions about gender, sexuality and identity in an entertaining and dramatic way.

How did you research the play?

I started with first person accounts by trans people and their partners about their experiences of the transitioning process. For me, it was important to get to grips with the emotional truth of the situation rather than starting with more academic research. In particular there were some great video blogs on youtube made by trans people and a book called Queerly Beloved which is a funny, frank and warm account of a trans man and his lesbian partner’s experience of his transition. Once I’d done that and started thinking more about the story I then started to read around the issue and think about the play within a wider context. Having done that I approached trans friends to drafts, as well as organizations such as Gendered Intelligence, All About Trans and Trans Media Watch and through them I met several fantastic people whose feedback really helped me flesh out the story.

What’s the process been like getting the script to where it is today?

Long. I started a draft in 2011 but abandoned it, then started another in 2012 which I actually finished but I wasn’t happy with it so I put it in a drawer for two years. Eventually I came back to it and found the time away had given me the answers to a lot of my problems. A few drafts later, I did a reading at New Diorama Theatre and that was when I started to feel like it might be not terrible. A few months later Steve at Theatre503 read the latest draft and sent it to both Donnacadh O’Briain and Roy Williams. Roy selected it for his Playwrights Presents nigh t at Theatre503 and Donnacadh decided he wanted to direct a production of it.

Why did you choose to set the play in Rotterdam?

I knew I wanted the characters to be isolated. To take them away from a support base or community that they could look to for help. I don’t remembeer when I decided to set the play in Rotterdam but I do know that as soon as I had the idea I didn’t consider anything else. I lived in the Netherlands when I was growing up so I was very familiar with the culture, the people and what it’s like to be an ex-pat abroad. Once I’d made the decision it really helped to give the play a richness that it didn’t have before. And it gave me lots of ideas for jokes.

What do you hope audiences will take away from the show?

I hope that people will open themselves up to things they hadn’t considered before. I hope they engage with the questions about identity, gender and sexuality. I hope that they empathise with the characters and their predicaments and enjoy the story and nominate us all for awards. Mostly though, I hope that they laugh at the jokes.

I felt butterflies. And I didn't know why at first. I just looked at her, this girl...and I just knew that something was going on but I didn't know what, and then suddenly, all at once, it hit me and I realized, "Oh sh*t, I like girls." And I waited for it to go away, I tried really hard to make it go away, but it didn't. And even when I went out with boys, I could never say it but I knew deep down that I liked girls. I like girls. I like girls, and I've always liked girls, and I still like girls, and who are you to tell me I don't? When I have accepted everything that you've said to me. You want to be a man? Fine. You need to change your name? Alright then. You want to wear those clothes and lift these weights and have an operation to give yourself a dick? Whatever! I have accepted that because it was what you wanted, what you needed, who you are. Fine. And I tried to change, I tried so hard to change, but there are some things that I can't change, there are some things I don't want to change because they are a part of who I am. And why is that less important? Why do I just have to stand aside and deny that because you're going on your own personal journey? I want you to be happy. I want you to get what you want. But what you want is to kill the person I love and replace her with someone I don't. Someone I can't. Because I am gay. You want to be a man? Adrian? Fine. But I like girls.

I felt butterflies.

And I didn't know why at first. I just looked at her, this girl...and I just knew that something was going on but I didn't know what, and then suddenly, all at once, it hit me and I realized, "Oh sh*t, I like girls."

And I waited for it to go away, I tried really hard to make it go away, but it didn't.

And even when I went out with boys, I could never say it but I knew deep down that I liked girls.

I like girls.

I like girls, and I've always liked girls, and I still like girls, and who are you to tell me I don't?

When I have accepted everything that you've said to me.

You want to be a man? Fine.

You need to change your name? Alright then. You want to wear those clothes and lift these weights and have an operation to give yourself a dick? Whatever!

I have accepted that because it was what you wanted, what you needed, who you are. Fine. And I tried to change, I tried so hard to change, but there are some things that I can't change, there are some things I don't want to change because they are a part of who I am.

And why is that less important?

Why do I just have to stand aside and deny that because you're going on your own personal journey?

I want you to be happy.

I want you to get what you want.

But what you want is to kill the person I love and replace her with someone I don't.

Someone I can't.

Because I am gay.

You want to be a man?

Adrian?

Fine.

But I like girls.