Novel Moms (Working Title)

NOVEL MOMS
(working title)

A new interview-based play by Ashley Thaxton-Stevenson about moms who read romance: the how, the why, the smut, and the self.

Contemporary romance fiction is having a renaissance.

From dedicated romance bookstores to #booktok to midnight release parties to virtual book clubs and bridgerton balls, a genre that has long been stigmatized and minimized is sliding its way into the limelight.

But one particular place where romance seems to have an especially tight hold on our psyches (like the 22 year old FMC has over her 500 year old shadow daddy) is American moms, in part through the e-readers and audiobooks that allow us to read out our fantasies in total privacy while simultaneously raising our kids.

As a dramaturg, mother, and self-proclaimed romance devotee, I need to know why.
Is it about pleasure? Is it about community?

Is it a way to find meaning and identity outside of our relationships and children?

And the question that haunts me (like the brooding stare of an enemy soon to be lover ) what might we be compromising of our own reality and our own embodied pleasure in spending so much time in a disembodied fantasy?

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My first love was stories. My childhood was full of books of all kinds, and adolescence captivated by the likes of Jane Austen, Harry Potter fanfics, and a few VERY adult fantasies that went right over my head. But somehow when I "grew up," in college, grad school, and then working, I stopped reading.

When the COVID pandemic started in 2020, I found myself drawn back to the books of my youth, racing back through Narnia, Pemberly, Middle Earth, and Tortall (#DaineAndNumair4Eva). I started reading novels again, and haven't stopped. And then in 2021 two very important things happened in my life: I had a baby, and I found my old Kindle Keyboard. As I began to emerge from the postpartum fog (but do we ever, truly, fully emerge??), I could read books one handed AND no one could see what I was reading...

And thus, as I learned how to be a human with a body again, romance entered my life. With a few thoughtful recommendations from friends and a crash course of Jasmine Guillory, ACOTAR, Emily Henry, and Bridgerton, it was off to the races. My fave genres are Regency, Romantasy, and Paranormal, but honestly if there's a halfway decent plot, consent, and spice, I'll read and enjoy just about anything. And the community I have found with other moms who read romance has been one of the great joys of the last few years.

I have studied and created interview-based theatre for the last 12 years. As a student at NYU, I studied with innovators of the field Anna Deavere Smith and Joe Salvatore, and am an Acting Ensemble Member of the Verbatim Performance Lab. With my frequent collaborator Jenn Bokoch, I have directed/dramaturged TOKOPHOBIA, an interview based play about the birth process, Where Hope Is, an interview-based plat about the radical nuns of the Erie Benedictines, and The Heteromonotony Project, a new piece exploring gender, marriage, and divorce.

When I'm not reading, I am making and teaching theater, working as a nonprofit administrator, and living life in Brooklyn with my spouse and preschool aged son!

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See more of my directing/dramaturgy work here

After completing the Potential Interview Questionnaire, you can expect to hear back from me via email so that we can schedule our interview time. Prior to the time of our interview, you will complete an Interview Release form.

Interviews will take place via Zoom and will last approximately 45 minutes. At the start of the interview we will review the release form together and you will have time to ask any questions. All interviews will be recorded (both audio and video). Over the course of the interview, you are welcome to pass on any questions you are not comfortable answering. If at any point you wish to end the interview early, you are welcome to do so.

At the end of the interview, we will again review the release form and if there are any sections of your responses that you do not want to be used, you will be welcome to share that information with me.

After the interview, I will transcribe your responses to create a text that will be scored to preserve your syntax, pauses, any filler words, or other vocal occurrences (like ums, ahs, likes, hmms, laughter, sighs). The transcripts will then be coded and sorted, and put into relationship with other transcripts. This will eventually lead to the final script. Not all transcripts or interviews will be used in the final piece.

When the piece moves into rehearsal and performance, actors may perform sections of your interview. As part of the rehearsal process, actors will be given access to the selections of audio and video recording of your interview.