Mona Pirnot
On Thursday, January 16, this year’s EST/Sloan First Light Festival will feature as its first event a reading of OFFSHORE CLINICAL TRIALS by Mona Pirnot, member of EST/Youngblood. Set in a beach house on Saint Kitts in the Caribbean, the play brings together four strangers so debilitated by herpes outbreaks that they agree to participate in a risky clinical trial of a new vaccine. Hear more from playwright Mona Pirnot:
(Interview by Rich Kelley)
What prompted you to write OFFSHORE CLINICAL TRIALS?
William Halford, the dying microbiologist who conducted the herpes vaccine trials in the Caribbean in 2016. Photo: Jason Johnson, SIU.
A year and a half ago, I read a Wired article about a dying microbiologist who flew participants to the Caribbean to run clinical trials for a herpes vaccine. The particulars of the story are completely bizarre. I was immediately obsessed. I read everything I could find about this scientist and these trials and the FDA and vaccines. All of the research exploded into a play. I wrote the first draft in a week, which is very unusual for me. I have since rewritten it thirty times, which is not unusual for me.
What research did you do as part of writing the play? Did you use a medical consultant? How did using a consultant change the play?
Tracey Van Kempen Photo: John Abbott
I’m a compulsive researcher. Always. For this play, I read articles and peer reviews and medical consent forms and blog posts. I bought a small press libertarian manifesto about the right to choose drug treatments. I read that in a day. There’s a lot you can find on the Internet. But nothing matches talking to a person. Over the summer, a friend introduced me to a medical director named Tracey Van Kempen, PhD. I was floored with how generous she was with her time. We talked on the phone. We met in person. She answered all of my questions and sent me articles. We nerded out together. It was helpful to have a human cut through the conjecture. Before I met her, I would read an article and have a question and try to answer the question by reading another article. After I met Tracey, I’d read an article and ask her a question and she’d be like, “Okay, let me tell you why that article is crazy.” It was great.
Your play focuses on the participants in the clinical trial rather than on the researcher conducting the trial or the science behind what is being tested. What went into making that decision about the play?
In past drafts, I was preoccupied with the science and the experts. Then I remembered I wasn’t an expert on science. I turned my focus to the trial’s participants and the good stuff started surfacing. I’ve become more interested in questions about the patients. What compelled them to participate in something so risky? What’s at stake for them? Where does their understanding of the science end? How do I relate to that? After I started engaging more with the questions I shared with the patients, I felt myself getting closer to the play I wanted to write all along.
Has the play changed much as you have developed it? How so? How is working with the EST/Sloan Project different from other companies in developing this play?
YES. BIG YES. I’m an aggressive rewriter. I’ve turned this play inside out ten times. Graeme Gillis (Program Director of The EST/Sloan Project) can confirm. I don’t shy away from slash and burn rewrites. Of course, the scary thing about being that sort of rewriter is, you run the risk of losing something crucial along the way. But I’m not too worried about that because I have Linsay (Firman, Associate Director of The EST/Sloan Project) and Graeme. We share a collective vision of what this play wants to be. I don’t imagine they would ever let me stray too far from center. Not only have those two helped me write a better play, they’ve helped me write the play I want to write. That’s a big deal.
Have you written other plays about scientific or medical topics?
Poster for reading of Private at Premiere Play Festival at Kean University in 2018.
I have a play called Private that’s set in a world where people pay premiums for privacy like we do for health insurance. That’s sort of a pop science idea. The play is hardly speculative fiction though. It focuses more on the drama of privacy in interpersonal relationships. That’s something I’m interested in. I like starting plays with big novel ideas and then making each draft more intimate, more about the specifics of human relationships.
What impact has being a member of EST/Youngblood had on your playwriting?
Youngblood is one of the seven wonders of my life. I’m so grateful. Since joining the group, I’ve felt myself multiply. Like a virus! I’ve grown so much. I’ve become more formally uninhibited, more prolific, more daring, less precious. And I am in constant awe of the work of my friends. Some of my favorite playwrights are my friends. What a special thing.
The 2020 EST/Sloan First Light Festival runs from January 16 through March 12 and features readings and workshop productions of ten new plays. The festival is made possible through the alliance between The Ensemble Studio Theatre and The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, now in its twenty-second year.
