Baby Mama: One Woman's Quest to Give Her Child to Gay People

Written by Mariah MacCarthy
Directed by Sara Lyons
Produced by Caps Lock Theatre 

Nominations: Outstanding Original Full-Length Script: Mariah MacCarthy; Outstanding Solo Performance: Mariah MacCarthy


About the Production
Producer, writer, and performer Mariah MacCarthy talks to us about her show, including her motivation for doing it, its impact on audience, and other revealing insights.

Mariah MacCarthy (Photo credit: Kacey Stamats)



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What attracted you to this project?
Mariah: I'd had a unique and incredibly intense experience (placing my baby in an open adoption), and I didn't know anyone else who had gone through this. So I decided to be the role model I didn't have at the time.
What was your favorite part of working on this production?
Mariah: Looking each member of the audience in the eye at the beginning of the show, and eliminating any distance between them and me. Holding audience members in my arms afterwards and hearing their stories.


What was the most challenging part of working on this production?
Mariah: I hadn't acted in nearly a decade. I had rapped and done stand-up and burlesque, but I hadn't been in a show since college — let alone one where I was the only performer. I had to learn how to keep my energy up, how to dance with an audience, and how to not blow out my voice.


What was the quirkiest part of the production?
Mariah: The day of the inauguration, during the first break in the show, I asked the audience from the stage, "How you guys doing? Anyone need to scream into the void?" No one took me up on the offer, but I just needed to do something to acknowledge the elephant in the room, and the very real possibility that the world was ending. Mercifully, the world didn't end that day, and I did the rest of the show as usual.


What was it like working with this group of artists?
Mariah: This show is about the year that I was pregnant with my son. That was the same year that I started Caps Lock Theatre. I'm so glad, in retrospect, that I didn't let my pregnancy and adoption experience stop me from producing my own work. Self-producing has led to everything good in my career. I can't tell you how freeing it is to know that you don't need to wait for a gatekeeper. You don't need permission to do your work. Just find a time and place, and do the thing.

Mariah MacCarthy (Photo credit: Kacey Stamats)

What will you take away from your experience working on?
Mariah: I learned that even if your entire first row of audience has resting bitch face, the back rows might be getting a phenomenal show, and you're not allowed to give up just because you're not getting anything back in the moment.

 

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