Who We Become: Interview with Actress and Producer Margaret Curry
“Who We Become” is a new show featuring a trilogy of one-act plays by departed playwright by Lanford Wilson. Performances are scheduled for July 17- 19 at New York’s 59E59 Theaters as part of East to Edinburgh 2025. According to the official press release:
“Who We Become” features:
• “Breakfast at the Track” (July 17, 18): a clever exploration of marital discord.
• “The Moonshot Tape” (July 18, 19): a successful writer’s interview with a hometown reporter takes an unexpected turn.
• “A Poster of the Cosmos” (July 17, 19): a tense interrogation about a mysterious crime.
Margaret Curry — an award-winning actress, director, producer, and singer — decided to produce this show under the umbrella of her live performance and film production company, Deep Flight Productions. Margaret recently discussed this show (and more) via an exclusive interview.
Meagan Meehan (Q): How did you discover your talent for theater and did acting, writing, or directing come to you first?
Margaret Curry (MC): I first fell in love with acting. As a kid, I was entranced by movies from an early age. The people and the worlds of the stories in the movies became a kind of lifeline for me through my formative, not-always-so-peachy years. I learned about life and people from the films I watched. Then, when I discovered theater, when I first experienced how that live performance would help me to feel things, to know myself in a new way, I was totally taken in. I think a part of why acting attracted me, honestly, was an unconscious understanding that art can literally save and change lives. I wanted to be a part of doing that for other people the way those movies and those plays had helped me.
Q: How did you get acquainted with the work of Lanford Wilson and why did you decide to stage these three pieces together?
MC: I first read Lanford Wilson as an acting student here in my first few years in NYC after college. I was in a professional acting program, and he was one of the playwrights whose plays were on the list we were able to choose among to work on. I was taught to read all of a playwright’s work when working on a play of theirs, to get to know their “mind”, so in doing that research I came upon “The Moonshot Tape & A Poster of the Cosmos,” which had been published paired as companion pieces. I was very taken by the characters of these one-acts, especially Diane. Her story held personal resonance for me in ways at the time I didn’t even understand, and I got it in my head that I wanted to play Diane no matter what at some point. Over the years, I kept thinking of those plays, and even looked for productions of them in the hopes of auditioning to win the role. In 2022, the themes of these two plays felt relevant in ways that felt very timely once again. I just made the decision to finally make it happen, and, as such things often work, once I made that decision, everything began to fall into place. In 2024, my company brought a production of the two plays to The Flea for a successful Off-Broadway short run.
Q: Can you tell us about the plot of these short plays and what you find most compelling about them?
MC: In “Breakfast at the Track”, a married couple’s early-morning clash in a hotel room offers a witty look at the complexities of marriage. This is a short play of Lanford’s that we added to the other two for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe production, to pair it with “A Poster of the Cosmos.” I loved it at first read, and totally identified with the challenges of two humans trying to navigate cohabitation. It cuts a little too close actually! He really gets the reality of the difficulty of two very different people trying to share their lives (and a bed). I love that Geoff Stoner (the actor who plays Tom in “A Poster of the Cosmos”) and I get to act together in this piece. The other two one-acts are both monologues.
“A Poster of the Cosmos” is set in a Manhattan police station, where a man’s tense interrogation about a mysterious crime evolves into a poignant meditation on love and commitment in the face of adversity. In “The Moonshot Tape,” Diane, a successful writer, has returned to her hometown to assist her aging mother. As she responds to the questions of an unseen local journalist, her answers weave a poignant tale of self-discovery.
Lanford Wilson wrote about all kinds of people, one of the first playwrights to bring certain voices to the stage. Marginalized, often overlooked characters. He didn’t shy from really bringing the complexities of human relationships and the impact of our histories on who we become to the stage. And he did in ways that were compelling and often humorous, definitely entertaining while at the same time exploring sometimes very uncomfortable human experiences. That’s what’s most compelling to me. I share Wilson’s need to dive into the nooks and crannies of humanity. And, I have a deep commitment to helping bring certain themes to the stage in the hopes of generating conversation and thinking around them. There are a handful of playwrights and screenwriters who’ve attempted to explore the themes I find necessary to explore. And of these, it’s a short list that have been done in a way that was accessible to the audience and allowed them to associate with the characters and enter into the material. “The Moonshot Tape” and “A Poster of the Cosmos” both really do that, I feel. My producing wish and desire as an actor is that the themes of these plays will generate helpful conversations around embracing “otherness” as well as greater understanding of the lasting impact of sexual violence and its effects on a person’s whole life.
Q: What’s your favorite moment among these plays and why?
MC: Lanford Wilson has written these plays in such a way that the unfolding of certain plot points is integral to the experience, so I won’t get too specific. I will say that I think that both Tom from “A Poster of the Cosmos” and Diane from “The Moonshot Tape” are unforgettable and heroic, each in their own ways. People still mention them to Geoff and I from our run Off-Broadway, that they keep thinking of them. I love that! That Diane and Tom — Lanford Wilson’s worlds — still live on in their imaginations, in their hearts. I know they sure do in mine.
Q: You run your own theater and film company, so what inspired you to establish that?
MC: These plays inspired me. In 2022, I created Deep Flight productions to produce these plays as well as a one-woman musical I’d been wanting to bring to fruition for years. I decided it was time to create the kind of work that I wanted to be doing, that I wanted to be seeing, on stage and on screen. To stop only looking to other people to offer audition opportunities for the stories I felt were interesting and necessary to bring to the stage and screen — because what I was wanting to do and see I wasn’t finding that often. I realized I needed to make the opportunities myself. That I also get to provide opportunities to so many talented people is a great joy for me. I love collaboration, and there are so many writers, musicians, artists, actors, directors, technicians, designers, stage managers, crew — all types of music, theater and filmmakers — out there who want to work and have so much to contribute.
Q: What are the major differences between stage acting and film acting and do you have a preference?
MC: Acting for camera and acting on a stage or in a theater space require very different technical skills, physically and vocally and an understanding of each of the mediums. I love both, for different reasons. Stage is in real time and immediate and the moments that you live there with the audience are fully embodied in the moment. So you have the visceral, sometimes transcendent experience, and then it is gone forever. You may have the next performance, but it will never be the same from show to show, audience to audience. It cannot be. That’s amazing and profound. Film, however, lives on and can touch an audience over and over. And the process of filming, of capturing life on film, is a magical, deep experience in and of itself. I love the filming process. I cannot really choose one over the other.
Q: What do you look for in the scripts that your company produces?
MC: I look for truth above all else. Stories that entertain, provoke, and reveal. Deep Flight is interested in bringing new life to established works as well as uplifting emerging writers and developing original projects in theatre, cabaret, digital media, and film. I’m especially interested in works that illuminate voices silenced by oppression or overlooked by mainstream entertainment, exploring the taboo, the inconvenient, the “hard to look at.” Deep Flight celebrates the human spirit through stories of ordinary heroes and quiet moments that hold lifetimes, finding the beauty and complexity in the margins and the mess. Our mission is to dig deep, to go to the difficult places, and to discover the life that wants to break through the cracks — where the real story lives.
Q: What do you hope audiences take away from this overall performance?
MC: I would feel we did our jobs well if people enter into the three worlds of these three plays, and that they find themselves moved, through laughter and through witnessing these characters’ deeply private unraveling. That maybe they find themselves thinking in a new way or asking questions, considering humanity in new ways. I believe the plays resonate, today more than ever, and it would be my wish that people leave feeling more alive, more human, more compassionate, more curious than they walked in.
Q: What is some of the best feedback you’ve gotten about this show so far?
MC: That the characters Tom and Diane stay on in their minds. That the plays helped them understand some things in a way they’d never considered before. At the Flea production, we had some followers of Lanford Wilson’s work come without knowing anything about our company, and they were thrilled to see these produced, and complimentary of our production. His plays touch many people in a way that matters a lot, and they go anytime they see them done. It was, and continues to be, an honor to be a part of keeping Mr. Wilson’s work alive.
Q: What other projects are you working on right now and/or what themes might you tackle in future works?
MC: First, we present these plays as “Who We Become: One Acts by Lanford Wilson” at 59E59 Theaters East to Edinburgh festival, before taking them to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe for the full run August 1–23. Just after the Edinburgh Festival Fringe ends, we head to London to present my one-woman musical show “The Space In-Between” with Gregory Toroian at piano/Musical Director/Arranger, Skip Ward on bass, David Silliman on drums, and directed by Lina Koutrakos. The London show is at Crazy Coqs on 28 August 2025. In November I’ll be in Paris, recording a few tracks for my first album with Lina Koutrakos as producer, Jean-Pierre Perreaux as engineer, and Tedd Firth as piano/arranger. There’s a new cabaret show in development, as well as an independent series I’m co-creating with Lindy Rogers and Burke Adams, produced through On the Nose Productions. It’s a dark comedy about middle-aged actors clinging to relevance in an industry that’s already moved on. For Deep Flight Productions, we have a short list of plays under consideration for our next full stage production, and we’ll continue reading plays, searching for stories to share with our audience live and on the screen.
Q: What are your ultimate goals for the future and is there anything else that you would like to mention?
MC: I plan to be bringing stories to life for many years to come, through Deep Flight, as well as through the many opportunities other producing bodies are creating. As many of us believe, theater and the arts are so important. To enlighten, to entertain, to create growth and expansion in our communities. To help bring all voices to be heard, for the full spectrum of the human experience to be brought to stage and screen so that everyone can see themselves reflected there — for healing, for movement, for more aliveness, more connection, and ultimately, more understanding of (or at least compassion for) those not seemingly like ourselves.
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More information is available at deepflightproductions.com