A Q&A with Rachel Hills, producer of The Sex Myth: A Devised Play.
Interview by Ann Mayhew
Image by Shanthony Exum
In 2015, Riveter co-founders Kaylen Ralph and Joanna Demkiewicz sat down at Minneapolis’ Magers & Quinn Booksellers to discuss Rachel Hills’ then-new release The Sex Myth: The Gap Between Our Fantasies and Reality. The resulting conversation on societal expectations regarding sex challenged notions of, particularly, how much sex is normal–and that there is something wrong if we’re not doing it “enough.”
The Riveter team was psyched to learn these discussions are being brought to even more audiences through Hills’ latest project, the transformation of her book into The Sex Myth: A Devised Play. Promoted as a “new Vagina Monologues,” this theatrical version of the book encourages actors and directors to share their own stories inspired by “the sex myth.” After a successful production in Boston last summer, Hills is working hard to put on a show in New York City this year, with a long-term goal of minor and major performances around the world. Riveter books editor Ann Mayhew caught up with Hills to learn more about this endeavor and how people can support it.
Ann Mayhew: What is The Sex Myth: A Devised Play, and how did it come to be?
Rachel Hills: The Sex Myth: A Devised Play came out of my book The Sex Myth, which was published in 2015. In particular, it came out of the speaking and activism work I’d been doing on campuses over the past year and a half. Last year, a young woman named Hanne Larsen, a student at Northeastern University, came to me with the idea of turning The Sex Myth into a play. Her idea for the play was not to have it traditionally scripted, not based entirely on my words or her’s, but instead for the book to be used as a kind of stimulus material for the director and the performers to then tell their own stories and explore how the sex myth played out in their individual lives and also how it played out collectively in their communities.
The show was performed for the first time in Boston last summer and I loved it so much that I began working with Hanne to turn that process into something that could be experienced by people in other communities. We produced a playbook and director’s guide, which we’re now distributing to universities around the country. I’m also now working on putting on a major production of the show in New York City, which we’re currently raising funds for, and I am also having a lot of conversations with theater groups around the United States and around the world, about how they can bring this concept to their communities, to explore the way that these rules and regulations about sex play out in their own lives.
AM: What are you doing in your role as producer for the New York show?
RH: That’s a good question. I want to say everything. I am securing a team of people to work on it, such as director Dana Edell, who is a feminist director and activist who has directed 70+ shows of her own. I have been reaching out to really interesting writers, performers and thinkers in this area as potential actors in our cast. I have been primarily responsible for raising the money for us to put on the show as well, so I’ve been working nonstop basically all year long on that.
As producer, it’s my role to build a community of support and excitement around the project. So I spend a lot of time reaching out to anyone who could possibly be interested in it, whether that’s in the capacity of writing about it, tweeting about it, contributing to our campaign on Start Some Good, performing in a show, or creating a show in their community. So I spend a lot of time talking to people and hearing what they have to say and trying to get people excited.
AM: And have people been getting excited when you reach out to them?
RH: Yes! It’s definitely one of the most fun things about working on this project. As a writer, books are obviously very important to me. But, I think the facts that books tend to be written by a single author, and that books are something we consume privately, mean that no matter how much we love a book and no matter how much it resonates with us, reading a book still ends up being a more passive experience. What really excites me about this production, and I think the reason that it’s so easy to get other people excited about it as well, is that I’m not just saying to people, “Hey I wrote a book, can you please read it?” which feels like a narcissistic endeavor–it can be destroying to the soul. Instead, when I’m talking about this project, I’m saying, “Here is a thing that you can be involved in, that you can be a creator in.”
I think the process for this play is much more active. The idea that people can be creatively involved in the play, that they can use it as a vehicle to tell their own stories and to create something that can make an impact in their community, is a much more compelling pitch to people than “Will you read my book?” or “Will you watch my movie?” I think that sense of community involvement makes it easy to get people excited about the play.
AM: What kind of feedback have you gotten from people who’ve read the book versus people who saw or were involved in the play?
RH: It’s hard to distinguish because the play is still in its infancy. The first production was in Boston last summer, the second production will be in New York this summer, and there are a couple of other groups interested in putting on shows in their community before the New York one. So basically I’m working with a really small sample size. And the other important thing is that anyone who’s involved in producing the play or performing in the play reads the book. So, that becomes part of their experience.
But, I would say whether people have read the book or seen the play, the main piece of feedback we tend to get from people is a sense of relief. I think because even though we live in a society in which people talk constantly about sex, there’s still a lot of silence about the types of things that make us vulnerable, the aspects of our sexual histories or stories that don’t fit neatly into boxes. What I think both the book and the play do is draw those out in a really human and respectful way, so that people who read the book or people who see the play go away with a sense that they are okay. Any shame or uncertainty they may’ve been carrying when it comes to their sexual identity or sexual history is resolved a little bit.
I think the difference for people who’ve performed in the play after reading the book is that the act of creating a show like this instead of consuming it means you delve into those issues so much more deeply. I know that the performers in the Northeastern show last year said that it made them so much more aware of how these ideas played out in their lives. The fact they spent six to eight weeks thinking about how the theories in the book play out in their lives makes it much more real.
AM: In the media release, you compare The Sex Myth: A Devised Play to The Vagina Monologues, and clearly they’re similar in format, but in what other ways do you see them as similar and in what ways are they different?
RH: I can’t speak for Hanne, the original creator of the play, because she’s obviously younger than me, but I think for people of my age group (and probably for many people in general), The Vagina Monologues is an inspiration that looms large. It is a very well known and influential piece of feminist theater. It’s something that’s certainly been influential and inspiring for me.
I think that the similarities lie in that both plays are about creating dialogue around a subject that there is often shame and silence around. The other similarity, obviously, is that the monologues or personal stories play a really key role in both productions. In the case of The Vagina Monologues, it is literally all monologues. And in the case of The Sex Myth play, probably about 60 percent or 70 percent of the total show is made up of monologues.
The primary differences between The Vagina Monologues and The Sex Myth: A Devised Play, are that The Vagina Monologues, and the vast majority of plays any of us will ever see, is based on a fixed script–they’re based on something that Eve Ensler wrote and then other people take and perform and replicate around the world. Whereas with The Sex Myth play, instead of working with a fixed script, those stories are recreated and retold each time the play is performed by a new cast. That’s one of the things that make it most exciting to me.
That means that for the performers who are involved in creating the piece, there’s this incredibly deep level of engagement. As someone who is really motivated by this idea of feminist-consciousness raising, how creation and discussion can change the way we see the world, I see the process of creating the play as being this incredibly powerful form of consciousness raising. But I think that, for the audiences, it also means that the stories being told become all the more real. Because if you’re hearing stories that come from within your own community, the sense of power and authenticity behind those stories, and the sense those stories can transform the way that you think about your own experiences, becomes all the more heightened.
AM: You also mention in the media release and again, in other descriptions of the play, that “the pleasurable isn’t just deeply personal, it’s also political.” Do you want to elaborate on what you mean by that?
RH: That phrase is derived from the feminist phrase, “the personal is political,” which is something that really drives any work that I personally do as a writer, whether it’s to do with feminism or to do with other issues that interest me. So, I guess what I mean–what we mean–when we talk about the pleasurable being political, is that the assumptions we carry around sex, the beliefs that we carry around sex, the way that we talk about and engage with sex in our daily lives, doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It happens in this massive social, historical, and cultural context, and The Sex Myth book and play are both about illuminating that context so that we can make sense of our experiences and engage in those issues in a way that is more authentic to us and makes us feel more secure in ourselves.
AM: Have your thoughts about or your approach to The Sex Myth: A Devised Play changed at all since when Hanne first approached you, considering the current political climate and Donald Trump’s presidency?
RH: I think one of the things I find most exciting about working on this project is that I am not the creative energy behind it. I am not the person writing the stories. I’m not the person directing the play. It’s not about what I have to say. Instead, I become the person who champions the project. So, I can’t speak to how Donald Trump being president is going to change the way in which people tell those stories on stage. But, from what I’ve seen, I do think it has illuminated the influence of the project in a couple of ways.
Firstly, I think that for LGBTQ people in particular, there’s obviously already beginning to be a kind of major assault of those rights, and on reproductive rights as well. So having these open conversations about sex becomes helpful and necessary in that environment.
As an activist, I think I can often be drawn with a sense to urgency to issues that I feel we need to fix. I am personally really concerned about things that are happening around immigration right now, the treatment of undocumented immigrants and Muslim immigrants–that seems like a subject that’s really urgent to me. And obviously, it is a subject that is extremely urgent. But I think that part of the appeal of a project like this in an environment that is so devastating is that it is an opportunity to put out into the world a vision of the culture that we want to see, in addition to all of the really necessary fighting that we need to do right now to stop the world that we don’t want to see from being created. Does that make sense?
AM: Yeah.
RH: I think that sense of positive vision, that ability to be able to create the world that we want to see, is something that continues to be really important to a lot of people under the Trump administration, and maybe is even heightened for some people as well.
AM: So, you’re currently raising funds to produce the New York show. What are some long-term goals that you have for The Sex Myth: A Devised Play?
RH: The long-term goal that I have for The Sex Myth play is for it to spread. While I expect that the New York show will be really fantastic–it will have great performers and there’ll be great stories, and people who attend it will have a great time–the real reason that we’re doing it is to show people what this play can be so they become inspired to put on The Sex Myth in their communities.
I’ve been talking to people in the UK, in Germany, in Australia, in Canada, in other cities across the United States who are interested in putting on productions in their communities, whether those become kind of main stage shows, similar to the New York one, or whether they become campus productions as well. I’d love it if there were a hundred different productions of The Sex Myth on college campuses across the United States each year, and then maybe a couple of flagship productions in big cities as well. That’s the ultimate goal that we’re working toward right now.
AM: For people who are reading this interview and they’re getting really excited about what you’re doing, how can they be involved?
RH: Our most pressing concern right now is the fundraising. We’re running a campaign on Start Some Good which finishes on March 29. If people read this and they’re excited by what we’re doing, then going to our campaign page and contributing, whether it’s $10 for a social media shout out or $50 for a t-shirt or a signed copy of the book, or purchasing tickets, is the most helpful thing you can do. As I’ve learned, building enthusiasm is not easy, but certainly doable, but funding things is a mountainous, scary challenge. And it will be done, but it will be right down to the last minute. That is the number one most helpful thing you can do.
Secondly, if you are a creative person, if you’re a director or an actor or a writer or just somebody who is really passionate about these issues and would love to play with the idea of bringing it to your community, you should reach out to me at info@thesexmyth.com. I would be really happy to talk to you about the process of bringing the show to your community and how we can help make that happen. Because ultimately, as I said, the purpose of this project is not to put on a play in New York City–although that’s great–it’s to create a movement of these discussions around the U.S. and around the world. It’s those fellow champions who want to bring this idea to their communities who are really going to make this movement happen.
Ann Mayhew is The Riveter‘s book editor and a freelance editor and writer. She works for the Minnesota Historical Society at two of their sites, the James J. Hill House and Historic Fort Snelling, and as the production coordinator for Band of Weirdos. In addition to The Riveter, her book reviews have appeared in BUST, Publishers Weekly, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Bitch, and the Rumpus. Find her on Twitter as @annmayhew and on Instagram as @akmay17.
