Make Art Because You Love It: A Conversation with Colette Freedman

Colette Freedman is a prolific playwright, screenwriter, actress, producer, novelist, and educator who is passionate about telling women’s stories on the stage, screen, and printed page. A Dramatic Writing Faculty in Antioch University’s MFA program, she is most known for her award-winning indie films, as well as her hit play, Sister Cities, which has been produced around the country and internationally thirty-one times. Her works manage to combine biting, dark humor with militant optimism and wonder, and it is with all these qualities that she approaches her favorite role: that of a teacher.

In our conversation, we discussed her love for writing strong female characters, the pleasures of collaborating and writing adaptations, and the importance of—and tips for—getting work out into the world. Throughout the interview, Colette’s talent and charm was as palpable as her indefatigable commitment to championing her students and helping them fulfill their dreams. As one of her former mentees, I am sure that one day Colette will not just be known for her great works of art, but for showing her students that they could create something great, too.

AMALIA MORA (AM): Did you know from an early age you wanted to pursue the performing arts and writing?

COLETTE FREEDMAN (CF): I always wanted to be an actor, but growing up in suburban Baltimore, it wasn’t really an option. When I was in fifth grade, I really wanted to be Kate Jackson in Charlie’s Angels. I had this delusion that Aaron Spelling would come to my house in Baltimore, come down the stairs and see me doing carefully constructed roller skating routines that I choreographed, and say, “Hey, I’m going to make you the young Sabrina in Charlie’s Angels!” That didn’t happen, but I was so determined to be Sabrina that I wrote a play in fifth grade called An Archie Bunker’s Thanksgiving where Archie and Edith Bunker invited all the sitcom characters to Thanksgiving, and I played Sabrina. So, I knew I wanted to be an actor, but I learned very early on that I would have to make it happen myself.

AM: That’s a great story, especially since as a mentor you’re always saying, “Great art should never stay on the computer screen. Get your plays and films made. Do it yourself.” So, that spirit has been within you from a really young age!

CF: Yes! My parents gave me enormous confidence to believe that I could do anything, and that confidence is something I try to instill in my students. My coaches were also incredibly influential, especially my life-changing lacrosse coach, Deb Gallagher. And then, of course, there was my best friend when I first moved out here—the actress Jill Gascoine. She was very famous in England, and she ended up being the star of my play, Sister Cities. I was twenty-four when I met her, and she said, “Oh, darling, nothing’s going to happen until you’re forty.” And I said, “What, what am I supposed to do for the next sixteen years?” And she said, “Oh, darling, just be happy.” And you know what? She was right.

AM: Many protagonists in your work—from Mellie and Jo in your film, 7000 miles, to Janet in your novel, Tugnutt’s Creek—are really strong female leads. Why do you think writing empowered, unconventional female leads is important to you?

CF: I’m a strong feminist, so I rarely write about men, and not because I hate men. I love men, but I think women are more interesting. There’s so many layers to women and writing—especially playwriting—but really all writing is about subtext, and I think that women speak a lot more subtextually than men do… now every man reading this is going to stop reading!

AM: Ha! Well, I think you capture women’s complexities brilliantly. For example, the mother character in Sister Cities is both deeply loving but also the source of many of her daughters’ traumas, and you show so poignantly how both of these things can be true in a person.

CF: And she’s incredibly selfish, right? Honestly, I found that to be a little more true in the play, and a little less in the film [adaptation]. But then when I dove into the novel [adaptation] I decided to write alternating chapters in her voice as letters to her daughters from 1967 to the present, and through these letters she told me so much about her, things that were way below the surface. I wish I had had all that information about her before. [The play], Sister Cities, is still done everywhere, and I always say read the book, too, because it’s going to give you her backstory.

AM: Can you talk a bit about the process of adaptation—how you turn a play into a film, for example, or a film into a novel—as you did with Sister Cities?

CF: I love adapting. I actually prefer adapting other people’s stuff, because I love reading. I do a lot of ghostwriting. I do a lot of book-to-script adaptations, and I love the luxury of reading a novel with the chewy words and the character descriptions. I think the easiest adaptations are novel-to-screenplay. I have such a good time pouring through a book and saying, this belongs, this doesn’t belong, and seeing how I can translate it visually.

AM: Do you feel like there’s been a story idea, whether it’s a client’s or your own or a student’s, where you’ve felt, this really can only be a play, or this really should only be a ten-minute film?

CF: When someone pitches me an idea, I immediately know if it’s a film, a play, a web series, a book. That said, if it’s a good idea, it generally can work in different forms. There are a lot of plays that will translate beautifully to film. The only one so far that I don’t think translated well was August, Osage County. It was such a beautiful play, but it didn’t work as a film.

AM: Have you ever adapted one of your films into a play?

CF: No, I don’t think so. I mean, Serial Killer Barbie I turned from a ten-page play into a musical. So, that was taking ten pages with only four characters and making it much bigger. That was a delicious challenge. But when I think of [my films], for example, And Then There Was Eve—so much of it is the relationship between these two women, and this relationship really relies on the simple gestures, like moving a piece of hair behind an ear, or the touch of a hand, and you can’t see that from the back row of the theater. The camera really plays a specific role. And, so, a lot of times, it wouldn’t make sense to turn a film into a play. But—challenge accepted!

AM: One of your recent films, 7,000 miles, is set in 1977 and relies on the premise that Amelia Earhart might still be alive. Clearly, the film had to take place in the past, so that it would make sense for her to still be living. Since period pieces can be expensive, can you talk about some of the tips or tricks you have used to produce an affordable indie period piece, or to produce on a small budget in general?

CF: None of my indie films have ever been more than $250,000 to make, and many of them have been a lot lower than that. You just have to be creative. With 7,000 miles, to make it [a period piece], it was all about the costumes and location. Most of the location we shot was in and around the house. The rest of the cost was really just the set decoration and wardrobe. When we filmed away from the house, we rented cars that were from that period, which was not that expensive. And then, when we shot outside the house, we shot angles where you don’t see all of modern-day technology.

AM: Interesting! And related to your insistence that great art shouldn’t stay on the computer screen—

CF: That’s my motto. That should be on my epitaph.

AM: Ha! Well, another role you play is mentor and dramatic writing instructor. You’re also now working on your PhD in MFA Pedagogy. What do you think stands in the way for most emerging writers when it comes to getting their work produced? Do you have any advice for someone who wants to get their script out there in the world?

CF: I started as an actor, and it was just—reject, reject, reject, reject—oh! Accept! Reject, reject. I got so used to rejection, it became easy for me. The trouble with being an actor, which is, in a way, also the trouble with being a writer, or any kind of creative, is you’re always waiting for the phone to ring. I think there’s a time in your life, and it usually is around forty, where you stop caring what other people think, and you become wholly and completely unapologetic in your quest for excellence. It was sometime around then that I thought, I’m not waiting anymore. I’m going to make things myself. The reality is the only thing standing in your way is money. I don’t know rich people, but I know people, who know people, who know rich people. And if you’re impassioned about a project, like when we did Quality Problems, which was a beautiful independent comedy film about cancer, you’ll figure out how to get it done. We were a five-person team, and we cared so much about this project that we did anything we could to pitch it, to talk about it, to get other people excited about it. So, the money came in pretty easily. The same thing is happening with the podcast, Cheating History, which is about going back in time to fix the future—but ultimately, it’s about how can we, in today’s incredibly complicated world, make a difference? How do we fight back? The three writers—Jenny Sterner, Nunzio DeFilippis, and Christina Weir—and I are producing this, and we all equally care so much about it getting out in the world. So, the answer is, look, write something that you can make. Yasmine Reza, one of my favorite playwrights, just made theater in a tiny, little black box theater in Paris, and now she’s a household name as a playwright, because a lot of her plays have been adapted into films. If you put in the work and you’re impassioned, then be a part of the team that gets it out there. Don’t just give it away.

AM: The film, television, and theatre industries are undergoing lots of changes. What changes would you say are making it harder for writers and theatre and filmmakers, and what changes, if any, might be making things more accessible?

CF: Look, it’s not hard to make a film. We made Pilgrim, our last film, for $5,000. How do you make a film for $5,000? You beg, you borrow, you steal, you have friends who give you places to shoot. You use your own camera. You use your own crew. And this little film, co-written and directed by father-daughter team Doug and Scout Purdy, just won the New York City Theater Festival for Best Feature Narrative. So, what does that mean? Are we gonna get a $100,000 deal? I don’t know. I mean, that’d be nice, you know, we’d make $95,000 and we immediately put it into our next project. It’s a crapshoot, but you have to make it because you love the art. We didn’t enter this profession to get rich. If you did, get out! There are other ways to get rich. But if you make your art, you’re going to be happy, and you’re going to be fulfilled. And same thing with a play. If you have a play, make it happen. With Sister Cities we rehearsed in living rooms and garages. And same thing with Blind Spots, and with Serial Killer Barbie. You get actors who really care, who don’t have any diva attitude, who all want to be part of this collective. You have to be discerning about the people you want to make art with, because there’s no room for cynics. There’s no room for Debbie Downers. You all have to be aboard the train and have the faith that it’s going to make it around the world and back to the station.

You have to be discerning about the people you want to make art with, because there’s no room for cynics. There’s no room for Debbie Downers. You all have to be aboard the train and have the faith that it’s going to make it around the world and back to the station.

AM: How do you apply this approach to the professional development mentorship you provide to your students?

CF: I want my students to succeed more than I have. It’s not so much a matter of empowering them, it’s that I believe in them already. If they’re good writers and good people—and they care about community, the world and their place in it, and leaving this planet better than they started it—and have a story that they need to tell… I don’t give them a choice. I tell them they have to get it out there.

AM: Well, I know many of your students–including me (!)—are so grateful for the collaborative mentorship! Speaking of collaboration, I’d love to ask you about ghostwriting. How do you bring in another person’s voice—their tone and tenor?

CF: That’s just being an actor. Honestly, it’s fun getting in someone else’s shoes and being able to tell the story through their lens. Now look, I absolutely will weave in compassion, weave in gratitude, weave in things that I fully believe in. And if there’s any kind of racism, antisemitism or Islamophobia, or misogyny, I will not include that. But as a ghostwriter, your job is to bring their story to life. It’s about finding what they want and then their trust in me to bring it to the finish line.

AM: On a related note, you have co-written many films and novels and musicals. Obviously, this is different from ghostwriting because it’s much more collaborative…

CF: Yeah, it’s completely different. I love writing with other people. Brooke Purdy has been my writing partner for twelve years, and it’s so much fun to have a partner, because you get to play off of them. I’m funny, but Brooke is hysterical, so she pulls out my humor. We get to build the world together. We mix characters together. When we wrote the YA novel, The Last Bookstore, it was so much fun. It’s a kid’s journey in a post apocalyptic world to find a book that’s going to save humanity. And we got to play each of the kids. We built a new world and put our own values and ethics into these kids’ journeys, and had fun with the bad guy who’s trying to thwart them. I could not speak more fondly about writing with a partner. I’ve written books with several partners over the years, and it’s a relationship you’ll have for life. The book or movie is always out there. The residuals are always out there. The odd interview comes up every once in a while. You are always connected to this person somehow. So, make sure you like them!

AM: Well, given that you’ve played so many different roles in the literary and performing arts—writer, producer, director, actress, teacher—which of these roles would you say you love the most?

CF: Teaching. Absolutely. One of the main reasons I’m getting my doctorate is because I want to be armed with as much information as possible to help my students. I love my students. Look, Antioch attracts a very specific kind of student—as you know it has a social justice mission. People care, they genuinely and emphatically care, and are compassionate and filled with gratitude, and love, and just champion equity and equality. The goodness is already in them, and the care is already in them. It’s really easy for me to inspire good people and to then allow them to be a little selfish, to say to them to go all in and tell their story.

AM: One of your students described you as the kind of professor who holds an uzi in one hand and a magic wand in the other. How would you say you balance giving honest but compassionate feedback to students?

CF: I don’t suffer fools. And I guess what that means when giving feedback is, if you’re doing stuff that doesn’t work, I’m not going to sit blindly. I can’t help myself—it’s the lacrosse coach who is still inside of me. When I see how you can improve, I’m not going to waste either of our time by saying, Oh, this is so great. I would rather erase fifteen pages and say, start again. Or I’ll say, here’s this one sentence, which is unbelievably magical. Now create the rest of the fourteen pages to match this one sentence, because I don’t want it buried in the rubble. I want everything to elevate to that level. So that’s the directness. But I will always champion you as well and say, I know you can do those fifteen pages, and I haven’t seen a sentence like this in a long time, so I know you have it in you. And I will be here on Zoom, in person for coffee, or through email if you need help with those fourteen pages. I’ve always loved being part of a team, and I think that good teachers always work as part of a team.

AM: If you could work on a dream project, what would it be?

CF: Me and my writing partner Brooke turned the YA book I mentioned—The Last Bookstore—into a script. I would love Taika Waititi to direct it. I think that would be my dream project—getting that out there, because there’s not a lot of great young adult films that aren’t about makeup and boys. This project kind of heralds back to The Goonies and Spielberg films of the 80s. I think the dream project is already written—we’re just waiting for someone to give us, you know, $50 million to get it made!

AM: That sounds awesome, and I can’t wait to see it! I have one last question, and it’s a big one: What would you love your legacy to be?

CF: My students. Empowering my students, so that they’re not afraid, so that they believe in themselves, so that they’re living their authentic selves, and following their dreams. It’s a very complicated world we live in, and it’s very easy to have golden handcuffs, or take a nine-to-five job just because you feel like you should. But, if you’re an artist in your heart, and this is what you want to do, my legacy would be that my students continue to do it. It doesn’t matter if you become an Academy Award winner, or if you’re walking the carpet at the Venice Film Festival, or sitting in a tiny film festival theatre in Poughkeepsie; it’s that you’re making art is what’s important. My greatest legacy would be that I’ve inspired other people to fulfill their dreams.