Girlhood, Uninterrupted for a Chaotic 90 Minutes Straight: A Conversation With Lilia Buckingham and Maddie Schumacher from New Play, Meet Me In Five
Written by Erin Norton
Meet Me In Five, the new play created by playwright Becca Carter Freeman, directed by Emma Garner, and produced by Cherubs Productions, is a dramedy that examines the way in which female friendships can create and destroy you. Starring Shahadi Wright Joseph, Kaci Walfall, Lilia Buckingham, Maddie Schumacher, and Isa Barrett, Meet Me In Five is a tour de force in both writing and acting. In this conversation with actors and producers Lilia Buckingham, Maddie Schumacher, and Dreamworldgirl Zine writer Erin Norton, the multi-faceted nature of women and the performance of girlhood take center stage. Meet Me In Five will open this September at ARTXNYC. The location will not only be a space for performance, but also one that will transform into a nightlife destination following the Saturday night performances. You truly do not want to miss this stroke of genius.
Erin Norton: I saw this opportunity in my inbox and I was really stoked because when it comes to writing and interviewing, I really specialize in women-led and femme-led things. I’m really glad that Daphne was like: Erin, you have to do this.This is a bit of me.
Lilia Buckingham: It was really important to us as well to reach out to people who we thought aligned with us in that sense; that it’s so important to uplift female led projects. We’re equally as grateful that you want to talk to us about that. Obviously, the play is amazing and we can’t wait to be acting in it. The concept of having such an incredible female team and a story is so exciting.
Erin: Let’s begin with a baseline question: what initially drew you to this story?
Maddie Schumacher: Lilia, you go first because you were attached to it before me.
Lilia: I received this script while I was still in college, when I was a junior. I had just moved out of my sophomore year suite where I lived with five of my best friends, and it was literally the best and most formative year of my life. I didn’t know these girls when we originally moved in, and now they’re literally like my sisters. I was grieving not living with them anymore and what it was like to, on Fridays, dance on our couch before we went out. I was so grateful and so lucky that I had such a beautiful experience with all of these fantastic women. Then I got sent this script. The incredible writer, Becca Carter Freeman, went to the same college that I did. She lived in and based this story on an apartment that has been passed down through my sorority. So, I knew the lore of the apartment. I read the script and was like: is this fucking play about us? I was just so obsessed with the way [Freeman wrote] these incredibly complex, very real, female characters. For me, it’s super important to me what I’m producing and what I’m attached to [...] I’m playing Ingrid and her story and her arc throughout the play is something I really, really related to and understood. As I read the play for the first time, I felt that these were real girls. They are important stories to tell. I could literally go on and on about what drew me to this play. But it was definitely one of the first pieces of work that I thought: this will get made. And I will be in it. I just know it’s going to happen. Now, four years later, we’re here. I was manifesting! But also, when you care about something, when you’re passionate about something, and it’s the right thing and you’re doing it for all the right reasons, oftentimes, it really does come to fruition. And we have just the best cast. Everything has worked out beyond anything I could have ever imagined.
“I read the script and was like: is this fucking play about us? I had never related to a piece of work more than I had with this play. I was just so obsessed with these incredibly complex, very real, female characters.”
Maddie: I agree. I got involved with the play in kind of a funny way where I had come off of doing a very different play, where I was the only woman in the play. I had just come off of a couple of years of being in plays where it was not female led. That was okay for then. Those projects were fun and great. But I told all of my friends when that play was ending that I want the next project I do, I want it to be super female led. Obviously,“ the girl play” has been having a really big moment in the last year or so.
I’m from New York originally. I grew up seeing a ton of theater. I went to a performing arts high school and college. Even in all of those spaces, it was genuinely impossible to find“ girl plays.” I knew they were having this [new] moment, these“ girl plays.” I was working with Emma Garner, our director. She directed the play I was in previously and I had been saying to her that I really wanted something very different. I want it to be mainly women. I want it to be stories about women my age, not high school, more like college and onwards. Emma and Lilia told me about this play. It felt like one of those things where you’re told about a project, you’re definitely going to read the script, but something will be off because there’s no way that something like this could just happen, cosmically. But I went home after having dinner with Emma and Lilia—
Lilia: That was the first day we met!
Maddie: Wait, it was the first day we met. So there’s that, which is so funny because I feel like I’ve known Lilia for 10 years. But I went home and read the play and was like: I have to do this.
There are really, really special projects. Like Lilia said, you read it and it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. It happened really fast after that. I had read the play [...] and I didn’t care about anything else but this play. We had to do this play and I didn’t care who I played. I just needed to be a part of it in some way. This feeling has stayed the same. Which is cool because that was six months ago.
Erin: I’m curious, since reading the script independently was such a great experience, I wonder what the first table read was like?
Maddie: We knew who all the five girls were going to be, but you have no guarantee that the five of you are gonna [vibe]. We never chemistry read. We all auditioned separately. I remember showing up to the reading thinking this could either click or go horribly wrong. You just don’t know. Literally five minutes into the reading, I knew we had the best cast ever. This is a good team.
“We never chemistry read. We all auditioned separately. I remember showing up to the reading thinking this could either click or go horribly wrong. You just don’t know. Literally five minutes into the reading, I knew we had the best cast ever. This is a good team.”
Lilia: Kaci and Shahadi we didn’t know beforehand. We got incredibly lucky that they liked the script and that they wanted to be a part of this because they’re both so successful and talented. They are absolutely incredible actors. The way they brought their two characters to life, I was starstruck during the table read. Genuinely, the choices they made and their understanding of who these two women are was a masterclass in performance.
Maddie: It was insane.
Lilia: I was like: Oh, shit I have to read my line, sorry! I was just so enamored with their performance. It was really exciting. Can I say this in an interview? I was like: I have to step my pussy up!
“I was like: Oh, shit I have to read my line, sorry! I was just so enamored with [kaci and Shahadi’s] performance. It was really exciting. Can I say this in an interview? I was like: I have to step my pussy up!”
Erin: Yes, you can absolutely say that in this interview!
Maddie: Retweet!
Lilia: It was so incredible. I wanted to be on that level with them because the whole team is just so perfectly cast.
Maddie: Which is something very interesting. All five of us are around the same age, if not the same age. Were we all going to sound like a group of friends? Like we knew each other, and were close enough to live together? There was a lot of fear surrounding that. But I feel like the minute we started reading, even though I didn’t know these girls, I knew these girls. Their acting made it so easy. Which is obviously a gift and doesn’t always happen, it was so special that it did.
Erin: For sure. What was it like for you both to get into character? Like preparing for it?
Lilia: For me, personally, when I read the script I was like: there’s no other role. I actually don’t think there’s ever been a more perfect role for me. I got to work developing Ingrid and I’ve been developing her since I read the script. Once we officially got the play going, the process became a little bit more concrete, but I had the gift of dating our director. We live together, and she is just the smartest person I’ve ever met. She’s so eloquent. She understands character so deeply. Being able to soundboard off of each other was so helpful. [Discussing with Emma], this is what happened their freshman year. This is who [Ingrid] was in high school and these are her baseline emotions. [...] I’ve had the opportunity to be working through [Ingrid] all the time and I’m working with someone that I trust so deeply in a creative sense, but also in an emotional intelligence sense that comes with understanding queerness and this character’s struggles. I also like getting to make [Ingrid] a playlist, a Pinterest board. Those little things really do help you sit into who this person really is.
“I had the gift of dating our director. We live together, and she is just the smartest person I’ve ever met. She understands character so deeply. Being able to soundboard off of each other was so helpful. I’ve [been able to channel Ingrid] all the time and I’m working with someone that I trust so deeply in a creative sense, but also in an emotional intelligence sense that comes with understanding queerness and this character’s struggles. I love queerness!”
Maddie: That was wonderful.
Erin: That’s beautiful!
Lilia: I love queerness!
Maddie: I had a very different experience because I’m kind of nothing like my character. [Well] that’s not [completely] true. When I first read the play, I wanted to play Sasha, which is the role I’m playing. Sasha, in a nutshell, is super cosmic, very witchy, astrological, and very chaotic. I have a lot of Sasha in me. Sasha is very hopeful and believes in things. I think I have that. But the witchiness… I’m just not that witchy. So even stuff like her verbiage in the play is a different language for me. I didn’t know what Venus in Libra meant up until two weeks ago. So, there’s been that part, learning things I didn’t know before, which can be so fun and I’m really enjoying it. I wanted to play Sasha because I knew it was going to be a challenge. I also knew that Sasha, and I won’t spoil the play at all, makes decisions very quickly and not very intentionally. There is something really, really nice about playing someone that just throws things to the wall and hopes they stick. I’m just not like that at all. So, I get to have a lot of fun being Sasha because she’s a lot more chaotic than me.
“I have a lot of Sasha in me. Sasha is very hopeful and believes in things. I think I have that. But the witchiness…I’m just not that witchy. So even stuff like her verbiage in the play is a different language for me. I didn’t know what Venus in Libra meant up until two weeks ago. So, there’s been that part, learning things I didn’t know before, which can be so fun and I’m really enjoying it.”
Lilia: Maddie, I met once and told her,“ you have to read this play, this is what you’re looking for.” I had talked to Emma for a long time about how casting Sasha would be a real challenge because she’s one of those characters where if you don’t have the right person playing it, she could be very misunderstood. Maddie is the perfect person to be playing [Sasha]. It’s so funny because I didn’t know Maddie. I had never seen her act before, but the minute I met her, I realized she has this energy to her, where you love her immediately and she has the warmth and kindness that is so necessary for this character. Watching Maddie bring [Sasha] to life with her comedic timing and also vulnerability, Maddie has really done this character such justice.
Maddie: That’s so nice! I appreciate that Lilia! Love you! Lilia is totally right, there is a version where Sasha is kind of the villain in the show and Sasha is the chaos. I don’t know that there’s a villain in the show, but Sasha makes decisions that a lot of people are not going to agree with. There’s this pressure for me, which I love, that's like: how do we make the girl making the bad decisions the most likable? This is the hardest thing to do. That’s what being a girl in college is kind of like. You do stupid things but you don’t mean to, you don’t mean it. You’re just a work in progress. Sasha is a big work in progress. So I hope that comes out.
Erin: I like two things. I really like listening to you guys talk about your characters, that there’s so much nuance going into your characters. I mean, that’s to be expected given the fact that this entire project is femme-led. Obviously there’s going to be nuance. Secondly, I also really like that you both kind of highlighted how on one hand, for you Lilia, your character is a little bit more relatable to you. Whereas, Maddie, it's more like you’re turning into someone else, like a different energy. I love hearing an actors’ perspective on what it’s like to get into the nitty gritty.
Maddie: I do think something our playwright has said to us a lot is that this is loosely based on her experience in college. But something she’s been saying since the very beginning is that these five girls, our playwright is all of them.The nice thing about that is you can act like Ingrid, but you can also act like Sasha. Women are multifaceted. We had these descriptions in our casting like: Little Miss Manifest, etc.
Lilia: They’re all Little Miss something. That’s the only description [the characters] have.
Erin: That’s cool!
Maddie: It’s adorable! Sasha is definitely Little Miss Manifester, but she’s also a lot of other Little Miss’ because no one is just one thing.
Erin: With that being said, I wonder if you guys could, if it’s possible to even describe your characters with three words?
Lilia: Oh, that’s a great question.
Maddie: I love three words.
Lilia: The first word that comes to mind is princess. I think [Ingrid] is a total princess. Feminine. I love that about her. Her queerness is also really feminine. You’ll see! … Emma! What three words would you use to describe Ingrid?
Maddie: She’s going to have the best words you’ve ever heard in your life.
Lilia: (talking to Emma) I said princess, feminine…
Emma Garner: I would say anal.
Lilia: That’s great.
Emma: I like feminine. And—
Lilia: She’s correcting my answers.
Emma: I’m trying to think of a kind/more peaceful way to say closeted.
Lilia: I was going to say repressed.
Emma: Repressed is great.
Lilia: That took me a sec. I wanted to make sure it was perfect for you.
Erin: Thank you!
Maddie: For me, I would say Sasha is messy.
Lilia: In so many ways!
Maddie: She’s cosmic. That’s half of her arc. Then I would say the other half of her arc is hopeful. But she’s a lot of things. But those three things are for sure.
Erin: That’s exciting! Getting a little bit more philosophical, I’m curious if you guys could speak to the differences between acting on stage as opposed to film?
Lilia: I grew up doing musical theater, but then I went into more film and TV acting, so I haven’t done theatre in a couple years. I was so excited to get back into theater because I think they’re so intrinsically different. It comes down to only getting one chance. You have to be so in the moment. Just in terms of stylistically, you have to be bigger, whereas in film, you have to be more subtle. I’m filming a movie right now, so I’m going back and forth from set to rehearsal and it’s been a really interesting journey to sort of figure out how to switch back into what style of acting I’m supposed to be using. Film is so amazing because you get multiple takes to try it in a different way. You have more time to think about your performance. Whereas in theater, you can prepare, prepare, prepare, but the minute you get on stage, you really have to know this character because you don’t get to think about your choices before slate goes in, in terms of film. Both styles are so exciting and so wonderful in different ways, but I think theater is a real challenge as an actor because you have to be in character for the entire run, because you don't have time to recuperate or try again. You have to stay in it. It’s a challenge, but it’s a wonderful challenge.
“theater is a real challenge as an actor because you have to be in character for the entire run, because you don't have time to recuperate or try again. You have to stay in it. It’s a challenge, but it’s a wonderful challenge.”
Maddie: Theater is much more physical in a different way. When I do film, I’m very cerebral. It’s all in my head. It’s smaller. It’s quieter. Obviously, not for every project, but with theater, you’re using your body in a way that feels kind of insane because you’re so open. The smallest part of your body not being relaxed, not being open, [the audience] can pick that up on a stage. There’s this awareness of the body that is really fun, but also really, really hard. We’ve been told since day one that the play is so physical. We’re dancing and we’re throwing up and we’re drinking. We’re doing it all! I find that even in the scenes in this play that could be considered quieter scenes, more cerebral scenes, if you don’t warm up, your body can’t keep up with it because it’s 90 minutes straight through and you don’t get a break. It’s like a marathon. I really love that about theater because it’s so hard. It’s like this thing that you want to keep doing until you’re better at it. Film is great, but theater is fucking crazy. And you can quote me on that!
“Film is great, but theater is fucking crazy. And you can quote me on that!”
Erin: In addition to all the throwing up and dancing, what about theater makes it the best medium to tell this story in?
Lilia: Personally, going off what Maddie said, and the fact that fear is so physical and we’re using our bodies [...] a big thing the writer has tried to drill in our heads is that there are certain points in this play where the girls are supposed to be animalistic. We’re supposed to see them entirely raw. I think being able to use such physicality and being able to connect with an audience so vulnerably, like you do in theater, is exactly what we, what Becca, our playwright, [intended] to be the point of the show. To rip these girls open and see these parts of them that you don’t really ever want people to see. This is a thing that women deal with all the time. Constantly putting on a performance. Then when you’re alone, [you have] the ugly parts of yourself that [were locked] away. Being able to have that physicality and that connection with the audience and have it be so intimate is something that I don’t know would read as well on screen.
Maddie: I would also like to add that this is something very exciting, but also very intense given the fact that there is no break in the show. We don’t have an intermission. It’s not a film you can press pause on. I think that’s very important for both the actors and the audience because the runs we’ve done so far where we’ve gone so far without breaking, it’s a lot. It feels like a lot. My biggest hope is that an audience watches this and gets overwhelmed by everything that’s going on because that’s what being a girl in college is like. You get really drunk and you throw up, but the next morning you have a test and you have to get up. There is no break. I think that weirdly is perfect for a play. There was a time when this play did have an intermission and it was super symbolic where we took the break. It was good, but there is something really cool about making people sit in their seats for 90 minutes and watch all of this because it’s intense. It’s really happy one moment and it’s very dramatic the next. I think that young girlhood is kind of like that so I think it’s perfect for a play.
Erin: I really like what you both had to say about that. Maddie, what you’re saying about the perpetualness. And Lilia what you’re saying about the performance. The performance of being a woman never ends, no matter how old you are, but specifically when you’re in girlhood. We really associate these things to be true with womanhood too. It makes me wonder if you think the script acts as more of a timeless portrait or do you think it might even stand as a period piece as time goes on?
Maddie: Something that’s been very important for the playwright is that there are a lot of odes to the 20s in this show, right? Not to spoil anything, but there’s some 1920s burlesque vibes. Something I love about this play is that it’s supposed to be set in the early 2020s and we picked 2022. Which, if you remember, was a really crazy time to be a young girl because if you were in college, or if you were in high school, you took this big break in life and now you’re back. I remember college in 2022, I was literally an animal. I was going out and having so much fun. But I don’t think it’s a period piece. The play is an ode to the 2020s, 100%. All the things we talk about are very culturally relevant to the time we’re in right now. However, my mom and all of her college friends are coming to this show and they went to college in the 80s. While some of the pop culture references are very new, living with girls is timeless. It’s always going to be like that. I didn’t mean to make it that poetic.
Lilia: Yeah, you ate that.
Maddie: My mom didn’t experience texting, figuring out what to text a boy in the dorm, but my mom had a version of that in the 1980s. Who knows! I do think it’s timeless, I don’t think it’s a period piece.
“My mom didn’t experience texting, figuring out what to text a boy in the dorm, but my mom had a version of that in the 1980s. Who knows! I do think it’s timeless, I don’t think it’s a period piece.”
Lilia: Took the words out of my mouth.
Erin: For my final question, though I feel like we’ve really touched on this throughout the entire conversation, I was curious if you guys wanted to speak to why being a part of a femme led production is so important to you?
Lilia: It’s so life imitating art, being a part of this production team while also being a part of the cast. Getting to bring these very real girls to life, while working with girls who I’m constantly inspired by. They’re all so smart and good at what they do. Being able to uplift each other is… we need more of that. We need more of that in theater and in film. As women, if we are not uplifting each other and working together, what are we doing? We’re so much stronger and more powerful when we can kind of bring all of our beautiful minds together and create something that feels raw and representative of what it’s like to be us. Women are so multifaceted and I’m constantly in awe of all of my girlfriends, but especially this production team. The way their minds work is so beautiful and fascinating. It’s so incredible to watch all of them do the work that they do and be inspired by them and then to be uplifted by them. I just think it is truly one of the most beautiful things in the world and I constantly want to be working with women. When I was in Hocus Pocus, our director was a woman. Our lead producer was a woman. We had, actually, a pretty female team. I remember looking around on set and recognizing that this is not something that happens all the time. I’m incredibly lucky that that was one of my first big projects, and I was being directed by a fantastic woman. It was so inspiring to me. My only hope is that maybe one day, girls, maybe younger girls who come to see this play and recognize that it was brought together by an all-female team, will be able to realize they can do this too, in the same way that my director and producer on set inspired me to have the confidence to do this.
“We’re so much stronger and more powerful when we can kind of bring all of our beautiful minds together and create something that feels raw and representative of what it’s like to be us. Women are so multifaceted and I’m constantly in awe of all of my girlfriends, but especially this production team.”
Erin: It is really true [...] It’s crazy to think that when we find ourselves in these situations we feel lucky? Shouldn’t that be the standard, that we have the pleasure of working with women constantly?!
Maddie: It’s really crazy also because women get shit done. There’s no ego attached to it. Women just do shit because it’s for the greater good. Women are just focused on the greater good and they don’t really care how to get there, but they’ll do it. They are so creative and so insightful. I agree with Lilia, the true definition of multi-hyphenate is women who are artists. Women who are artists are many different things. They do a thousand things. Half of our team is producing and acting, and it’s no big deal that they’re doing both. You know what I mean? Why wouldn’t they?
Lilia: Maddie, that was so well put. Women who are artists are all multi-hyphenantes.
Maddie: They are!
Lilia: Women, naturally, are all multi-hyphenates. We as women carry so much on our shoulders. We are all multi-hyphenates because we have to be. But also, because we can be.
