You’ve gone over it before, but tell us again: how did this piece come to be, and why did you work on it together?

EMILY: KJ and I are both members of The Civilians and have been working in theater that is taken from interviews. We became friends as well as colleagues, and would spend a lot of time talking about our military families and the different experiences that we had with that. ReEntry came about because KJ was granted a commission at Two River Theater Company and decided that she wanted to work on a project about what it was like for service men and women to come home after combat, and she asked me to work on it with her. I had been doing a lot of interview based theater, and I had actually been interviewing my Marine brothers for different projects here and there for a long time because they were so entertaining and had such strong opinions about everything. And one of my brothers was getting ready to deploy for the first time when we began working on the play. But we had no idea what the play was going to be like when we started.
 
KJ: then once we had the commission, Two River got a generous grant for the Stephen and Mary Birch Foundation, which allowed Emily and me to travel and interview — so we started in DC, where we had great luck meeting some commanding officers that provided incredible access. We also spent time at Camp Pendleton in Southern California, as well as folk on the East Coast. After each interview, we then transcribed everything they said. We then edited those transcriptions — just a bit — keeping what we thought were the "meat" of the interviews. Then we would sit down and read the interviews over and over, highlighting sections that we found compelling, sections than hooked us in some very intuitive way. Then we'd sit down, with all the highlighted material, and weave it together into something that had a sense of flow and arc. When we had our first few drafts, we sent them back to those initial folks we interviewed, they'd read the script and tell us, "you're missing this voice" or "You need to talk to a female Marine." So, in a way, a handful of Marines became our dramaturgs!

How would you describe the collaboration?

EMILY: It helps that we adore each other and are pretty similar in a lot of ways. We are both very opinionated and strong and have wicked senses of humor. But we did have some pretty major knock down drag out fights in the beginning when we were trying to figure out how to work together! One of the things we are most proud of is that we've never had the same fight twice. We would get into a huge argument and at the end of it we would figure out how to move forward, and then we would hug, say "Good Job. That was a good one," and laugh about it. Also, we never thought that we would stop working together, even when there was conflict. One time we got into what we call the "screaming whisper fight", during a really intense technical rehearsal. We thought that we were being discreet, but the cast acted the fight out for us when it was over. But more important, we did work together very well. We would keep each other in line—KJ is very good at deadlines, and I am good at admin stuff. We would work on different pieces on our own and then send them over to each other for revisions. We would sit across from each other and write together a lot and do intense cross-fit workout routines when we had writers block. We traveled together and did crazy trips and adventures to get interviews and meet people.

KJ: Your description of our collaboration is perfect! The part about adoring each other? In a major way. I remember those fights so fondly! We were always able to be completely honest with each other — which led to the arguments — but also led to learning a TON from each other. You know, usually when you collaborate, you can't help it, there's a lot of ego involved — if you offer an idea and it gets shot down by your collaborator, it can hurt. But with Emily, the two of us were so frank — maybe because our passion didn't come from ego but rather from the idea that we were both working on something way bigger than ourselves. We had been spending time with men and women who live by the phrase "it ain't about you" And maybe that rubbed off on us a little. This play is so not about us — it's about those serving, and so when we fought — we were always fighting for the sake of those we interviewed. We were willing to go to the mat to serve the voices in the play.

Why Marines?

EMILY: We had an in with my family, because two of my brothers are Marines. We started there, and then they introduced us to several more Marines, who introduced us to several more. We had a lot of access to them, and were able to go on the bases and get more involved with the community. We initially thought that we would do interviews with service men and women from all of the branches, but then it became obvious that would be too much. We also wanted to focus on the culture of the military, and each of the branches has their own. So eventually, we just decided to just stick with Marines.

KJ: That's right, we thought the "Corps Values" of the Marine Corps offered an interesting lens. (My brothers were Air Force and Army.)

What is the most surprising or unexpected comment you got during your interviews?

EMILY: The whole "how do you feel when people come up to you and thank you" was very interesting and surprising to me. So many of them don't like it. Usually the reason is that they feel that they are just doing their job, so to be thanked for it is awkward. Many of them just didn't want to have to be singled out or be made to feel special—they felt that it was a form of bragging in a way? But I was surprised by that. I thought that they would appreciate civilians saying thank you to them. And some Marines did appreciate it, but a lot of them felt uncomfortable.

What has tended to surprise audiences the most?

EMILY: I think people come into the show expecting to see a bleeding heart liberal viewpoint, and a condemnation of the wars. I think that they expect to see a "war play". I think they are surprised that it isn't those things. Also, I think people are surprised at how funny it is. Marines are hilarious. They are some of the most creative and verbal people I've ever been around. They try to make each other laugh constantly, and as a result, they can tell you a story that will be horrible and brutal and hysterical at the same time.

KJ: And that too is how this process has changed us — never in my life have I worked with a bunch of artists with such an irreverent sense of humor!

What was the most challenging aspect of putting this together?

EMILY: When you start a show like this, you cast a wide net. We had a topic that we wanted to explore, but we didn't know what the outcome would be. We had so much amazing material that we couldn't put in the show because the show would have been 17 hours long. And there were huge topics that we felt we couldn't cover. For example, the VA—there was just no way we could go into that. A topic that large needs its own play.

Was it always going to be a play?

KJ: Yup. It was important to us that the listening to these stories be a shared experience. There are a lot of great documentaries and podcasts out there about issues of returning from combat but for us, there's something about sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with others, especially when there are veterans and civilians watching the play together — you hear it differently I think.

How have you yourself changed as a result of working on this project?

KJ: I think we both had a great deal of respect for national service when we started this process, but that respect has certainly grown. And the culture of the Marine Corps has so much to offer — I've definitely become a different director after encountering this culture. I've learned things about leadership and how to communicate that have helped in all my work.

Did you do anything specific to try to sustain balance, or keep from getting explicitly "political"?

EMILY: We were adamant from the beginning that we didn't want to go into politics. We felt that at this point, everyone has very much explored the why's of this war and how they feel about it. I'm also not interested in political theater that tells you how to feel. But strangely, I think that by focusing solely on the personal journeys of these men and women who are fighting our wars for us makes the show strangely very political, no matter what side of the aisle you are on. We have had a lot of people say that this isn't a political play, but that it does make you think very strongly about when we should send these brave men and women to war. They are skilled and trained and want to fight for our country, and we should really make sure we understand the gravity of that.

KJ: Right. I also think this play is not political theater because the people we interviewed — for the most part — consider themselves apolitical. They are truly "the arm of the people" and that's — like you said Em — the most political statement we could make.