FringeNYC 2013: Strange Rain

All About My Show · Lynda Crawford (Writer)

1. Complete this sentence: My show is the only one in FringeNYC that...?
   can make it rain.
2. What do you think this show is about? What will audiences take away with them after seeing it?
   It's about two reporters as they try to unravel the mystery of a prolonged rain with the aid of lesbian psychics, comic meteorologists, a street-kid poet, and a mysterious man who talks of UFOs and secret experiments in the desert, all leading back decades to the real-life experiments of Wilhelm Reich in the 1950s. The story, though, is not so much about Reich as about deciding what is real and making peace with a difficult past. There are several love stories—central, a boy's love for his father.
3. Why did you want to write this show?
   It started as a dream about two reporters on the trail of a possible weather conspiracy. One of them was previously fired for inventing stories, so he has to convince the other reporter to write the piece, as no one would believe him—and the fact that he found out about the conspiracy from a posting by psychics on the Internet made it almost impossible to take seriously. But the dream stayed with me and so I had to write it.
4. Who are some of the people who helped you create this show, and what were their important contributions to the finished product?
   A playwright friend, Katt Lissard, read the script and asked me if I'd heard of Wilhelm Reich and his cloudbusters. She said, "That's got to be in your play." So I looked into it. Reich did create and experiment with cloudbusters in the 1950s—machines to make it rain—and the U.S. government and others worked on similar experiments after that. As part of this research, I read a book by Reich's son Peter, "Book of Dreams." I found the heart of the play from Peter's story of being with his dad during these experiments and what it was like to lose his father when Reich was imprisoned in 1957. I have since met Peter and he gave me one additional moment that I put into the play between him and his father and the moons around Jupiter. I'm also grateful to Reverie Productions who selected the play as a finalist in their Next Generation Playwriting Competition. And every actor who read the play in its numerous readings also contributed greatly to its evolution. This opportunity to work with Simone Federman and our present cast is bringing the piece into exquisite focus.
5. Which character from a Shakespeare play would like your show the best: King Lear, Puck, Rosalind, or Lady Macbeth -- and why?
   I think they all might enjoy it—Puck for it's playfulness and humor, Rosalind for it's beauty and the Ganymede moment, Lear could certainly relate to the storm and re-evaluating family relationships, and Lady Macbeth would much admire the power of Mother Nature.

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