Little Monsters is a new workshop production written by Maria Alexandria Beech and directed by Michelle Bossy. Co-produced by the Brandeis Theater Company and New York-based Primary Stages, the play revolves around a young poet named Sara who lives with a hypochondriac mother. Sara seeks to find her perfect mate through the world of Internet dating, but she begins to learn that she's really trying to find herself. In an exclusive e-mail interview with justArts, Beech and Bossy provide a unique insight into the creation of the play.JustArts: How did you come up with the idea for Little Monsters?

Maria Alexandria Beech: I read over seven hundred scripts last spring for three panels and a theater, so I was pretty fried. I wanted to write something fun and light, similar to the plays and musicals I write for Bluebox in New York which produces pieces set in bars. But then I wrote a Christmas scene between a mother and daughter as a gift for my friend Marti Lyons ... and suddenly it occurred to me that a play about dates could be coupled with a play about a mother and daughter. In my experience, a mother sets the stage for how a woman approaches her dating (and the rest of her) life, so my exploration meant distilling that influence to dress, perception about men, behavior; the sky was the limit on how pernicious this dynamic could be. I was also interested in how the Internet created this strange world where people of diversely different religious and ethnic backgrounds could meet and possibly marry.

Finally, as a recipient of the Aspen Theatre Masters Award, I was commissioned by Primary Stages and Aspen Theatre Masters to write a play based on the 2009 Aspen Ideas Festival. That year, a prominent subject at the festival was the rise of new media, and how that affected traditional media like newspapers. It was interesting to explore how information is handled by different generations. It's funny because the play comes across as autobiographical, and while certain elements of it are, most of it is fictional. I love creating questions about DNA and lineage in my plays. The Mother character [in Little Monsters] is a combination of mothers I have known throughout my lifetime. Maybe she's the mother I never became, with her wisdom and practical approach to life. I'd say I relate to the stasis these characters are in. As a biracial woman who has never married or stayed in one career, I've never conformed to any particular role. This has often made me feel like I'm on the outside looking in, maybe in a state of limbo. Sara is me to the extent that she doesn't know her place in the world though she's determined to figure things out. She also sees the world through this little window that is her I-Phone which is my favorite device. So the psychological elements are mine but much of it is invented.

JA: Has the development of your other written works influenced this one?

MAB: I wrote most of this play in ten page increments in the Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group at Primary Stages, so I benefited from the feedback of my amazing colleagues there. ... Brandeis allowed us to go to a different level, to actually hear the play as it would exist in a theater on its own two feet. That's where you realize that certain lines don't work, they don't move the work forward, or they're murky. Jokes fall flat or create unnecessary distractions. Or certain lines are needed to illuminate a moment, or to create a transition. Because I've often explored politics in my earlier plays, I learned something really important in this particular process. I realized that some works are about politics, and some works are simply about our personal human relationships. Sometimes, the two don't mix. I kept forcing politics on this play until the rehearsal process naturally purged them out. I've moved away from this imperious urge to say something about my political beliefs, and moved towards a vulnerable place where we shed labels and personas, and just become people. I want to continue in that vein.

JA: Are there are particular devices you find yourself often gearing toward in your writing, in terms of characters and plot details?

MAB: I don't understand a term like "device" when it comes to the theater except as a deus ex machina in plays like Medea. Or how a toaster works in a scene. My approach to playwriting is simple. Sometimes, a story comes to me but most important of all, I base scenes on characters that have something to say to each other, even in silence. If that scene works on paper, it will tell me what the next scene is. You string those together, and you have a play. It's like writing code for a program. If each element of the code works, you get a program that does something interesting.

JA: Little Monsters is being billed as a "workshop-style" production. Does this mean that you're looking to tweak certain aspects of the show?

MAB: It's mainly a workshop production in that we're still carving the play out of the words as they existed in the first day of rehearsal. We're in tech rehearsal now, and I'm still cutting lines. I'm amazed by how talented and capable our cast is. We provide the changes, and within 24 hours, they've incorporated them into the play. . I'm really excited to get feedback from the audience. A play is a conversation between artists and the audience so it's strange when an audience comes to see something, and then there's no venue for the conversation. . Overall, I truly love conversations with an audience, both as a playwright and as a translator. Playwriting is a lonely, difficult endeavor that makes you question everything about your existence, so talking to people about your work can be fulfilling, affirming, and illuminating. On a practical level, there's nothing more useful than including a group of people in the creation of a work. A community can sometimes find defects or problems that are blind spots for the artists who are intimately involved with a production.

JA: What types of stories do you generally look for as a director, and what about Little Monsters compelled you to direct it?

Michelle Bossy: When I am directing, . the focus is always been on new work, and excellent stories. I look for stories of redemption, where characters truly change. Alex's plays are always fascinating but this play seems really special to me. It's a story I identify with, being a Mexican American woman, living in New York City, having a mother of my own, and having searched for love, to quote the play, "in a city of endless options."

JA: How did you become involved with Brandeis Theater Company, and what was the decision-making process in bringing the show to Brandeis?

MB: Primary Stages first began its collaboration with BTC a year and a half ago, when they solicited scripts from Elliot Fox, a Brandeis Alum, and the Managing Director of Primary Stages. Elliot asked me to send plays from the Dorothy Strelsin New American Writer's Group, and last season, BTC produced Cocktail Time in Cuba by Rogelio Martinez. I came up to see readings, rehearsals and the production of the play. After I sent Little Monsters (in addition to 3 other plays) to BTC, [Profs.] David Colfer and Susan Dibble (THA) chose the play. The play is fantastic for the program because it's age and theme appropriate, and tells a wonderful story. . Alex asked me if I would collaborate with her on the play and I was thrilled to accept the position.

JA: Has the directorial process been a smooth run so far? Are there any noteworthy challenges that you've encountered during rehearsals, relating to either narrative or technical issues?

MB: The process has been wonderful. The actors are smart and entertaining, putting their craft to use by creating dynamic characters. The design process has been really collaborative and has changed quite a bit. When you work on a new play, you have to plan for a lot of contingencies, and everyone has to stay loose and flexible. So it's about asking the actors and designers to commit and also change on a dime. It's tricky. We have cut about 8 pages from the script so far, and we will continue to look at the text for changes in the week to come. There's talk about even adding an intermission. Each show may vary based on adjustments that are made as a response to the audience reaction the night before. It truly is a thrilling process.

Little Monsters will be performed at the Spingold Laurie Theater from Thursday to Sunday.