| THEATER TIMES DIALOGUE / FLIGHT PLANS |
INTERMISSION . . . 15 minutes with . . . .
Adriana Sevan
I met Adriana Sevan when she one of ‘Two Sisters and a Piano’ in the 1999 West Coast premiere of the
Nilo Cruz play at South Coast Repertory. In response to the September 11 bombings two years later,
she began writing 'Taking Flight,' her first one-person show and first playwriting of any kind. As she
continued acting – notably in Cruz’s Pulitzer Prize-winning ‘Anna in the Tropics’ – she worked on her
story. In spring 2006 it had its Los Angeles premiere as part of the Kirk Douglas Theatre's ‘Solomania,'
rotating with works by Dan Guerrero, Jerry Quickley, and Roger Guenveur Smith. The 82-minute, one-
act drama was both a theatrical achievement and a tribute to the tortured survivors of the terrorist
attacks. But it would hold its biggest revelations for the writer-performer herself. On Opening Night, as
if the powerful elements within the story suddenly took over, 'Taking Flight' took off on a story of its own.
In March 2007, ‘Taking Flight’ took to the air in a TheatreWorks broadcast and to the stage at San
Diego Repertory Theatre, under he direction of Giovanna Sardelli, who guided the Douglas run.
In August 2007, Sevan performed seven shows at the Fountain Theatre in Los Angeles.
On the morning of Oscar Sunday, February 25, we sat down at a familiar coffee shop near her home in
Toluca Lake to get all the stories straight.
INTERVIEWER: I was impressed by how effortlessly ‘Taking Flight,’ which is a story about an extremely
sensitive subject, embraces both the tragic and comic, shifting between emotions without jarring the
audience. Did that organically emerge out of the storytelling or did you have to hammer at it to get that
rhythm just right.
ADRIANA SEVAN: For my first experience with solo work, understanding the relationship with the
audience, that they are in fact my scene partner, has been an amazing journey of discovery. I’ve not
deliberately sat down with the script and said, ‘Okay here’s where I want them to do this, here’s where I
want them to do that.’ It’s much more intimate than that. In telling the story I am immersed in the step-by-
step journey of this character. It’s more [about] accomplishing the moment-to-moment as I get there. I
know this sounds cliché, but, unlike anything I’ve ever done, every night performing this has been
different, because I have the license as the writer to improvise. When I get to a moment, I’m more
interested in being in that moment truthfully -- in that night, in that performance, with that audience –
which is different every night as well. So I will improv.
INTERVIEWER: You wouldn’t cut anything. . .
ADRIANA SEVAN: No. It’s maybe adding a word, or a sentence: something that connects to the
immediacy of that moment of the storytelling.
INTERVIEWER: Like in a conversation.
ADRIANA SEVAN: Yes. And their response is vital to the storytelling. I had only one show out of all the
ones at the Kirk Douglas where the audience was very quiet. I couldn’t hear them at all. It was very
challenging because I was not aware of that scene partner and how it was going. It really is
discovering the reactions in the moment and responding to them.
INTERVIEWER: So you started by writing? Or you started telling the story as performance and then
converted that to a script?
ADRIANA SEVAN: I wrote the first 18 pages in a workshop at the Taper led by Diane Rodriguez. So, the
bones of the play were written in that workshop. And then I had the good fortune to do workshops over
four months with Tony Plana, who worked on the faculty of the theater department at Rio Hondo
College. He let me come in, do a little studio work and then do readings in front of audiences to get their
feed back. I can’t say that I developed the rest of the play in response to the audience. But I developed
it in collaboration with them. Feeling what was landing and what wasn’t. What felt great on the page
often proved way too narrative when it was performed. So I discovered the essence and the rhythm of
the play in performance.
INTERVIEWER: So it did happen organically.
ADRIANA SEVAN: Yeah. And when I got to the Sundance Theater Festival where I had been invited to
develop it further, I told Philip Himberg, the artistic director, that it was 90 percent finished. So he said,
‘Since it doesn’t need the full three weeks, I’m going to give you two weeks and you can present first.’
Well, when I got into the room with the director, Giovanna Sardelli and the amazing dramaturg Mame
Hunt, Mame’s questions and responses were so deliciously provocative that I sat up each night working
on the play. I ended up rewriting about 40 percent of it. Then I wished I had that extra week back.
INTERVIEWER: Was Mame asking questions about things that weren't clear or things she felt deserved
to be explored further?
ADRIANA SEVAN: Both. But mostly it was going deeper with what was there.
INTERVIEWER: The play begins immediately following the bombings.
ADRIANA SEVAN: Yes. The play initially started with the character of Adriana searching for her friend,
Rhonda, on the phone, looking in every hospital . . . .
INTERVIEWER: And when she finds her, Adriana visits and cares for her to an extraordinary degree.
But eventually she has to stop.
ADRIANA SEVAN: One day she wakes up realizes that her life is a mess because she has neglected
her own partner. He also had been a psychological victim of 9/11, having witnessed horrific things. But
because he wasn’t physically injured the Adriana character chose to help the horribly damaged friend in
the hospital. There she felt like she could affect a change, easing someone’s pain. At home with her
own partner, she was completely ineffective and they became strangers. So she decides to just take a
time out and collect herself, but is afraid of the repercussions from the hospitalized friend, she writes
her a letter. That is justifiably perceived by the character of the friend as selfish and cowardly. And
that was really the beginning of the end. There was never again contact.
INTERVIEWER: And the friend this was based on? Where is that woman now?
ADRIANA SEVAN: I don’t know.
INTERVIEWER: Really.
ADRIANA SEVAN: I don’t know.
INTERVIEWER: Because, in reality, you had a break, too?
ADRIANA SEVAN: Well, this play is a theatricalized account inspired by a real-life experience. So, is
there a red-headed investment banker that loves Bon Jovi? No. Is there a woman who I loved deeply
and had a profoundly live-changing experience with? Yes. So, sadly, that is one of the facts. We have
not been in contact since I took that time out.
INTERVIEWER: In addition to the ongoing drama between the people who inspired the fictitious story, the
run at the Kirk Douglas Theatre began with an incident that I'm sure many people have told since it
happened.
ADRIANA SEVAN: Yes. It was amazing. Fifteen minutes into Opening Night I severed my ACL [anterior
cruciate ligament]. They called paramedics and got the audience out of there. And Diane Rodriguez
comes up to me and says ‘Adriana, Kirk Douglas is here.’ He had been in the front row. I mean, it’s his
theatre! And I’m lying on the stage floor and I can’t move. I’m in so much pain. They’re trying to move me
but I can’t move. And all of that stopped and I was like ‘Mr. Douglas,’ putting out my hand like I’m on some
kind of chaise lounge. ‘It’s such an honor to meet you.’ And he says, ‘Can I do anything for you? I’m
going to the lobby. Can I get anything for you?’ And I joke, ‘Can you get me a stiff drink? And he smiles,
‘I'll see what I can do.’
So he leaves and the paramedics arrive: three of the most handsome firemen you could imagine.
Firemen. And I’m lying on a stage in a play about 9/11. I’m injured and I can’t move and there are firemen
kneeling around me caring for me in their bright yellow rubber pants and their blue T-shirts like they were
in New York. Do you know what I mean? And I look up and it was like, ‘Of course, you’re here with
me.’ And there was one who was by the book. He was so adamant about getting me to the hospital
immediately and stopping the show. And then another one leaned into me and – I sometimes wonder if
he was an angel – he just says to me, ‘You do whatever you have to do today. Just make sure you
don't take so much medicine that you don’t feel your pain.’
And then it was, ‘I’m doing the play.’ He somehow gave me the permission to finish. I said I’d finish and, I
didn’t know this, but Equity has a time limit from when you stop. If you exceed that you can’t start again,
no matter how good the conditions are. So I made the decision to do it within a minute or two before that
cut-off. And then they packed me in ice, sat me on a chair and put a pillow under my foot so I could take
the pressure off. And then in came the audience, who just looked like such scared children as they
were being ushered back in. And I say, "I’m okay. I’m going to go to the hospital after this, but let’s finish
the story. It’s been a while since we were last in these seats, so here’s where we were." And I
started a synopsis of what had happened and slowly I’m feeling tech come in around me . . .
INTERVIEWER: Scott Harrison was stage managing, right . . . ?
ADRIANA SEVAN: Yes, Scott. . . . and seamlessly we just picked up where we left off. And about 10
or 15 minutes into restarting the nerves just started firing and I was in so much pain. And I thought, they
will kill me if I stop a second time. You said you were going to do it and you’ve got to finish it.
And I did. And it will be an ovation to remember for my life. There was nary a soul sitting down. There’s
crying and I’m holding my heart saying this is not what I imagined. Then Kirk Douglas bounds up again –
and this is a man of 90 who’s got two new knees – bounds out of his chair and he takes my face and he
hugs me and he raises my hand like I’m some sort of sports champion. And it’s lovely because in the play
there’s a whole scene that’s re-enacted from 'Gladiator' and here is Spartacus in the front row. He
quiets the audience and he says, "My name is Kirk Douglas, and this is my theater. I am happy that my
wife Anne and I drove all the way from Santa Barbara today to see Adriana perform for two reasons.
First is her talent and second is her courage."
INTERVIEWER: Amazing. But then your surgeon needed you to cut the run a few performances short
so he could perform your surgery. So you took some time off to recuperate and earlier this year you
were recovered enough to join Roger again for five performances of your show and his for the LA
Theatre Works series at the Skirball Cultural Center. Did you have to redo anything for a radio version?
ADRIANA SEVAN: What I did was I had to recreate the score. So I applied for and received a Durfee
Artist Resource Completion Grant. And that generous grant allowed me to pay a composer and
musicians and singers. And, the singers are the Agape Choir, who are part of the Agape spiritual center
in Venice run by Michael Beckwith, who is now getting all kinds of fame from his association with the
film ‘The Secret.’
INTERVIEWER: This is 'The Secret' Oprah Winfrey's become interested in?
ADRIANA SEVAN: It basically says that The Secret to having everything you want in your life is working
with the law of attraction: like attracts like. So the thoughts that you think, not only the ones you’re
conscious of but also the ones you’re unconscious of, are really what draw and magnetize things to
you. So if you’re deliberate and disciplined about where you let your mind go and what you choose to
put your attention on, it will show up in your life. And so Michael Beckwith, who is one of the core
teachers of this, has his place in Venice and he’s amazing.
I’ll tell you a story.
So, I’ve been estranged from my friend for the last four-and-a-half years. And, it took me to write this
play to realize that I . . . I think I wrote this play because I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to
bridge this gap of silence and I had so much fear in doing so. And I think when I started the play I had a
lot of anger, hurt and a lot of self-righteousness. And in all this time, and certainly through the
perspective of playing all the characters, it’s really alchemized into an awareness of love and
forgiveness. But I still didn’t know how to bridge the distance with my friend. And Michael Beckwith
says, on 'Oprah,' on February 8 [two-and-a-half weeks before this Intermission interview], the complete
act of forgiveness is not possible until you can be grateful to that person for the gift of that experience in
your life. And no matter how difficult it is, it has really shaped who you are.
INTERVIEWER: That's a challenge.
ADRIANA SEVAN: [Nods] So I called her the next day. I didn’t catch her but I left her a voice mail and I
said that I didn’t want to leave the planet or hear that she had without her knowing that I loved her very
much and that with all the time that has passed, it’s been constant that I think of her and wish her well
and if she’d like to have contact, here’s my number. And if not I respect that and continue to wish her
well.
INTERVIEWER: So, in fact, not being forgiven is what ends up happening to you. Did she call you back.
ADRIANA SEVAN: [shakes head] Well, I’m changing the ending.
INTERVIEWER: Oh? [laugh] Is that a secret?
ADRIANA SEVAN: No. Well, not really. No. I told [San Diego Repertory Artistic Director] Sam
Woodhouse I was going to do it. I had to. Having had this journey with severing my ACL on opening
night. And then getting the transplant from a cadaver donor who I never knew . . . .There’s something
about being gifted something so profound, literally the part of another human being’s body that has
passed on, without any judgment of who I am, what my ethnicity is, what my religious beliefs are, what
will I do with this gift. A gift given to a stranger anonymously before the stranger even knew they would
need it, has so touched me in a way that I cannot end the play without bringing this illumination of my
own experience in.
I’ve spent the last nine months learning how to walk again. And it’s such a parallel to the character of
Rhonda in the play, who has a lifelong journey of walking again. And what it means to be able to walk
again and what it means to not be able to walk and what I’m experiencing is only a paper cut by
comparison, it’s taught me a lot. You know I got a blood clot from the surgery and had to get two
injections a day of blood-thinning into my stomach. It was horrible, my stomach was covered with
bruises, my hair started to fall out . It was like, "Oh my God! What is happening!" For whatever reason,
this story insists on being told through experience. My destiny is such that I’m supposed to have this
experience. I’m going to tell this story. It’s not as if it happened. There’s some things you can’t possible
understand until you've really put your foot in those other shoes . . . . Even if it's just for one step.
So, yes, the ending onstage at San Diego Repertory will be a slightly different direction than the one that
will air on the LATW recording on March 24.
And with that, we finished our coffees, hugged good-bye, and walked off into our individual stories.
Adriana Sevan
I met Adriana Sevan when she one of ‘Two Sisters and a Piano’ in the 1999 West Coast premiere of the
Nilo Cruz play at South Coast Repertory. In response to the September 11 bombings two years later,
she began writing 'Taking Flight,' her first one-person show and first playwriting of any kind. As she
continued acting – notably in Cruz’s Pulitzer Prize-winning ‘Anna in the Tropics’ – she worked on her
story. In spring 2006 it had its Los Angeles premiere as part of the Kirk Douglas Theatre's ‘Solomania,'
rotating with works by Dan Guerrero, Jerry Quickley, and Roger Guenveur Smith. The 82-minute, one-
act drama was both a theatrical achievement and a tribute to the tortured survivors of the terrorist
attacks. But it would hold its biggest revelations for the writer-performer herself. On Opening Night, as
if the powerful elements within the story suddenly took over, 'Taking Flight' took off on a story of its own.
In March 2007, ‘Taking Flight’ took to the air in a TheatreWorks broadcast and to the stage at San
Diego Repertory Theatre, under he direction of Giovanna Sardelli, who guided the Douglas run.
In August 2007, Sevan performed seven shows at the Fountain Theatre in Los Angeles.
On the morning of Oscar Sunday, February 25, we sat down at a familiar coffee shop near her home in
Toluca Lake to get all the stories straight.
INTERVIEWER: I was impressed by how effortlessly ‘Taking Flight,’ which is a story about an extremely
sensitive subject, embraces both the tragic and comic, shifting between emotions without jarring the
audience. Did that organically emerge out of the storytelling or did you have to hammer at it to get that
rhythm just right.
ADRIANA SEVAN: For my first experience with solo work, understanding the relationship with the
audience, that they are in fact my scene partner, has been an amazing journey of discovery. I’ve not
deliberately sat down with the script and said, ‘Okay here’s where I want them to do this, here’s where I
want them to do that.’ It’s much more intimate than that. In telling the story I am immersed in the step-by-
step journey of this character. It’s more [about] accomplishing the moment-to-moment as I get there. I
know this sounds cliché, but, unlike anything I’ve ever done, every night performing this has been
different, because I have the license as the writer to improvise. When I get to a moment, I’m more
interested in being in that moment truthfully -- in that night, in that performance, with that audience –
which is different every night as well. So I will improv.
INTERVIEWER: You wouldn’t cut anything. . .
ADRIANA SEVAN: No. It’s maybe adding a word, or a sentence: something that connects to the
immediacy of that moment of the storytelling.
INTERVIEWER: Like in a conversation.
ADRIANA SEVAN: Yes. And their response is vital to the storytelling. I had only one show out of all the
ones at the Kirk Douglas where the audience was very quiet. I couldn’t hear them at all. It was very
challenging because I was not aware of that scene partner and how it was going. It really is
discovering the reactions in the moment and responding to them.
INTERVIEWER: So you started by writing? Or you started telling the story as performance and then
converted that to a script?
ADRIANA SEVAN: I wrote the first 18 pages in a workshop at the Taper led by Diane Rodriguez. So, the
bones of the play were written in that workshop. And then I had the good fortune to do workshops over
four months with Tony Plana, who worked on the faculty of the theater department at Rio Hondo
College. He let me come in, do a little studio work and then do readings in front of audiences to get their
feed back. I can’t say that I developed the rest of the play in response to the audience. But I developed
it in collaboration with them. Feeling what was landing and what wasn’t. What felt great on the page
often proved way too narrative when it was performed. So I discovered the essence and the rhythm of
the play in performance.
INTERVIEWER: So it did happen organically.
ADRIANA SEVAN: Yeah. And when I got to the Sundance Theater Festival where I had been invited to
develop it further, I told Philip Himberg, the artistic director, that it was 90 percent finished. So he said,
‘Since it doesn’t need the full three weeks, I’m going to give you two weeks and you can present first.’
Well, when I got into the room with the director, Giovanna Sardelli and the amazing dramaturg Mame
Hunt, Mame’s questions and responses were so deliciously provocative that I sat up each night working
on the play. I ended up rewriting about 40 percent of it. Then I wished I had that extra week back.
INTERVIEWER: Was Mame asking questions about things that weren't clear or things she felt deserved
to be explored further?
ADRIANA SEVAN: Both. But mostly it was going deeper with what was there.
INTERVIEWER: The play begins immediately following the bombings.
ADRIANA SEVAN: Yes. The play initially started with the character of Adriana searching for her friend,
Rhonda, on the phone, looking in every hospital . . . .
INTERVIEWER: And when she finds her, Adriana visits and cares for her to an extraordinary degree.
But eventually she has to stop.
ADRIANA SEVAN: One day she wakes up realizes that her life is a mess because she has neglected
her own partner. He also had been a psychological victim of 9/11, having witnessed horrific things. But
because he wasn’t physically injured the Adriana character chose to help the horribly damaged friend in
the hospital. There she felt like she could affect a change, easing someone’s pain. At home with her
own partner, she was completely ineffective and they became strangers. So she decides to just take a
time out and collect herself, but is afraid of the repercussions from the hospitalized friend, she writes
her a letter. That is justifiably perceived by the character of the friend as selfish and cowardly. And
that was really the beginning of the end. There was never again contact.
INTERVIEWER: And the friend this was based on? Where is that woman now?
ADRIANA SEVAN: I don’t know.
INTERVIEWER: Really.
ADRIANA SEVAN: I don’t know.
INTERVIEWER: Because, in reality, you had a break, too?
ADRIANA SEVAN: Well, this play is a theatricalized account inspired by a real-life experience. So, is
there a red-headed investment banker that loves Bon Jovi? No. Is there a woman who I loved deeply
and had a profoundly live-changing experience with? Yes. So, sadly, that is one of the facts. We have
not been in contact since I took that time out.
INTERVIEWER: In addition to the ongoing drama between the people who inspired the fictitious story, the
run at the Kirk Douglas Theatre began with an incident that I'm sure many people have told since it
happened.
ADRIANA SEVAN: Yes. It was amazing. Fifteen minutes into Opening Night I severed my ACL [anterior
cruciate ligament]. They called paramedics and got the audience out of there. And Diane Rodriguez
comes up to me and says ‘Adriana, Kirk Douglas is here.’ He had been in the front row. I mean, it’s his
theatre! And I’m lying on the stage floor and I can’t move. I’m in so much pain. They’re trying to move me
but I can’t move. And all of that stopped and I was like ‘Mr. Douglas,’ putting out my hand like I’m on some
kind of chaise lounge. ‘It’s such an honor to meet you.’ And he says, ‘Can I do anything for you? I’m
going to the lobby. Can I get anything for you?’ And I joke, ‘Can you get me a stiff drink? And he smiles,
‘I'll see what I can do.’
So he leaves and the paramedics arrive: three of the most handsome firemen you could imagine.
Firemen. And I’m lying on a stage in a play about 9/11. I’m injured and I can’t move and there are firemen
kneeling around me caring for me in their bright yellow rubber pants and their blue T-shirts like they were
in New York. Do you know what I mean? And I look up and it was like, ‘Of course, you’re here with
me.’ And there was one who was by the book. He was so adamant about getting me to the hospital
immediately and stopping the show. And then another one leaned into me and – I sometimes wonder if
he was an angel – he just says to me, ‘You do whatever you have to do today. Just make sure you
don't take so much medicine that you don’t feel your pain.’
And then it was, ‘I’m doing the play.’ He somehow gave me the permission to finish. I said I’d finish and, I
didn’t know this, but Equity has a time limit from when you stop. If you exceed that you can’t start again,
no matter how good the conditions are. So I made the decision to do it within a minute or two before that
cut-off. And then they packed me in ice, sat me on a chair and put a pillow under my foot so I could take
the pressure off. And then in came the audience, who just looked like such scared children as they
were being ushered back in. And I say, "I’m okay. I’m going to go to the hospital after this, but let’s finish
the story. It’s been a while since we were last in these seats, so here’s where we were." And I
started a synopsis of what had happened and slowly I’m feeling tech come in around me . . .
INTERVIEWER: Scott Harrison was stage managing, right . . . ?
ADRIANA SEVAN: Yes, Scott. . . . and seamlessly we just picked up where we left off. And about 10
or 15 minutes into restarting the nerves just started firing and I was in so much pain. And I thought, they
will kill me if I stop a second time. You said you were going to do it and you’ve got to finish it.
And I did. And it will be an ovation to remember for my life. There was nary a soul sitting down. There’s
crying and I’m holding my heart saying this is not what I imagined. Then Kirk Douglas bounds up again –
and this is a man of 90 who’s got two new knees – bounds out of his chair and he takes my face and he
hugs me and he raises my hand like I’m some sort of sports champion. And it’s lovely because in the play
there’s a whole scene that’s re-enacted from 'Gladiator' and here is Spartacus in the front row. He
quiets the audience and he says, "My name is Kirk Douglas, and this is my theater. I am happy that my
wife Anne and I drove all the way from Santa Barbara today to see Adriana perform for two reasons.
First is her talent and second is her courage."
INTERVIEWER: Amazing. But then your surgeon needed you to cut the run a few performances short
so he could perform your surgery. So you took some time off to recuperate and earlier this year you
were recovered enough to join Roger again for five performances of your show and his for the LA
Theatre Works series at the Skirball Cultural Center. Did you have to redo anything for a radio version?
ADRIANA SEVAN: What I did was I had to recreate the score. So I applied for and received a Durfee
Artist Resource Completion Grant. And that generous grant allowed me to pay a composer and
musicians and singers. And, the singers are the Agape Choir, who are part of the Agape spiritual center
in Venice run by Michael Beckwith, who is now getting all kinds of fame from his association with the
film ‘The Secret.’
INTERVIEWER: This is 'The Secret' Oprah Winfrey's become interested in?
ADRIANA SEVAN: It basically says that The Secret to having everything you want in your life is working
with the law of attraction: like attracts like. So the thoughts that you think, not only the ones you’re
conscious of but also the ones you’re unconscious of, are really what draw and magnetize things to
you. So if you’re deliberate and disciplined about where you let your mind go and what you choose to
put your attention on, it will show up in your life. And so Michael Beckwith, who is one of the core
teachers of this, has his place in Venice and he’s amazing.
I’ll tell you a story.
So, I’ve been estranged from my friend for the last four-and-a-half years. And, it took me to write this
play to realize that I . . . I think I wrote this play because I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to
bridge this gap of silence and I had so much fear in doing so. And I think when I started the play I had a
lot of anger, hurt and a lot of self-righteousness. And in all this time, and certainly through the
perspective of playing all the characters, it’s really alchemized into an awareness of love and
forgiveness. But I still didn’t know how to bridge the distance with my friend. And Michael Beckwith
says, on 'Oprah,' on February 8 [two-and-a-half weeks before this Intermission interview], the complete
act of forgiveness is not possible until you can be grateful to that person for the gift of that experience in
your life. And no matter how difficult it is, it has really shaped who you are.
INTERVIEWER: That's a challenge.
ADRIANA SEVAN: [Nods] So I called her the next day. I didn’t catch her but I left her a voice mail and I
said that I didn’t want to leave the planet or hear that she had without her knowing that I loved her very
much and that with all the time that has passed, it’s been constant that I think of her and wish her well
and if she’d like to have contact, here’s my number. And if not I respect that and continue to wish her
well.
INTERVIEWER: So, in fact, not being forgiven is what ends up happening to you. Did she call you back.
ADRIANA SEVAN: [shakes head] Well, I’m changing the ending.
INTERVIEWER: Oh? [laugh] Is that a secret?
ADRIANA SEVAN: No. Well, not really. No. I told [San Diego Repertory Artistic Director] Sam
Woodhouse I was going to do it. I had to. Having had this journey with severing my ACL on opening
night. And then getting the transplant from a cadaver donor who I never knew . . . .There’s something
about being gifted something so profound, literally the part of another human being’s body that has
passed on, without any judgment of who I am, what my ethnicity is, what my religious beliefs are, what
will I do with this gift. A gift given to a stranger anonymously before the stranger even knew they would
need it, has so touched me in a way that I cannot end the play without bringing this illumination of my
own experience in.
I’ve spent the last nine months learning how to walk again. And it’s such a parallel to the character of
Rhonda in the play, who has a lifelong journey of walking again. And what it means to be able to walk
again and what it means to not be able to walk and what I’m experiencing is only a paper cut by
comparison, it’s taught me a lot. You know I got a blood clot from the surgery and had to get two
injections a day of blood-thinning into my stomach. It was horrible, my stomach was covered with
bruises, my hair started to fall out . It was like, "Oh my God! What is happening!" For whatever reason,
this story insists on being told through experience. My destiny is such that I’m supposed to have this
experience. I’m going to tell this story. It’s not as if it happened. There’s some things you can’t possible
understand until you've really put your foot in those other shoes . . . . Even if it's just for one step.
So, yes, the ending onstage at San Diego Repertory will be a slightly different direction than the one that
will air on the LATW recording on March 24.
And with that, we finished our coffees, hugged good-bye, and walked off into our individual stories.
Adriana Sevan appeared at
four productions at SCR:
Sarah Ruhl's 'The Clean
House,' Nilo Cruz's 'Anna in
the Tropics' and 'Two
Sisters and a Piano' (also at
The Public in N.Y.) and
'The Caucasian Chalk Circle.'
She was Norca in the LA
Theatre Works production of
'Our Lady of 121st Street.'
She also appeared in Derek
Walcott's 'The Odyssey' at
Willow Cabin Theatre
Company, Stoppard's 'Indian
Ink' at ACT, 'Henry V' at
Shakespeare & Co. and 'A
Royal Affair' at INTAR. She
has appeared in
guest-starring roles on "Law
& Order," "Sex & the City,"
"Deadline," "Law & Order:
Criminal Intent" and won an
award at The Denver
International Film Festival for
her portrayal of Priscilla in
Patrice Johnson's critically
acclaimed debut film, 'King's
County.' Ms. Sevan
re-created the role of
Conchita in 'Anna in the
Tropics' in a production
directed by Cruz at the
Coconut Grove Playhouse in
Miami. Taking Off is her
first full length play
developed in the inaugural
Latino Theater Initiative
Women's Writing Retreat at
the Mark Taper Forum.
four productions at SCR:
Sarah Ruhl's 'The Clean
House,' Nilo Cruz's 'Anna in
the Tropics' and 'Two
Sisters and a Piano' (also at
The Public in N.Y.) and
'The Caucasian Chalk Circle.'
She was Norca in the LA
Theatre Works production of
'Our Lady of 121st Street.'
She also appeared in Derek
Walcott's 'The Odyssey' at
Willow Cabin Theatre
Company, Stoppard's 'Indian
Ink' at ACT, 'Henry V' at
Shakespeare & Co. and 'A
Royal Affair' at INTAR. She
has appeared in
guest-starring roles on "Law
& Order," "Sex & the City,"
"Deadline," "Law & Order:
Criminal Intent" and won an
award at The Denver
International Film Festival for
her portrayal of Priscilla in
Patrice Johnson's critically
acclaimed debut film, 'King's
County.' Ms. Sevan
re-created the role of
Conchita in 'Anna in the
Tropics' in a production
directed by Cruz at the
Coconut Grove Playhouse in
Miami. Taking Off is her
first full length play
developed in the inaugural
Latino Theater Initiative
Women's Writing Retreat at
the Mark Taper Forum.
PHOTOS
Adriana Sevan
'Taking Flight' at the Kirk
Douglas Theatre
CRAIG SCHWARTZ
Jill Remez and Sevan on
Robert Brill's 'Two Sisters and
a Piano' set at SCR
CRISTOFER GROSS
Adriana Sevan
'Taking Flight' at the Kirk
Douglas Theatre
CRAIG SCHWARTZ
Jill Remez and Sevan on
Robert Brill's 'Two Sisters and
a Piano' set at SCR
CRISTOFER GROSS
