Questions prepared by Artistic Coordinator Maya Cantu

MC: What was the genesis of Grace, or the Art of Climbing?

LF: I knew I wanted to write a play about rock climbing. I just didn't know the story. Or the characters. Or the setting. Or the plot. Or the themes. Or the point… I tried out different kinds of climbing stories, peopled by different characters and relationships, different tones, different settings, different kinds of climbing, different ways of using climbing. Grace is the climbing story that took root.

MC: What are you most excited about (or looking forward to) in this rehearsal and production process?

LF: The collaboration – with the director, the designers, the actors, the managers and producers and associates. There are so many challenges and unknowns inherent in producing a play with climbing: what's the physical world? The visual/aural world? What's the movement vocabulary? How do you stage it? When is the climbing literal verses stylized? What does “stylized” climbing look like? Because there are so many limitations and so many possibilities, I'm excited to see what we as a group will discover and create.

MC: In addition to writing and rock climbing, what activities and/or hobbies excite you?

LF: Learning American Sign Language and getting to know Deaf culture continues to be a deep interest of mine. I've also found myself thinking a lot about what it means to be female—if it “means” anything—what that is culturally, biologically, physically, evolutionarily, historically, spiritually and sexually. I'm finding myself drawn to reading feminist theorists and thinking about art and life, with gender in mind. I've been thinking a lot about the human body, and the connection, or disconnection, between body and self. I've been thinking a lot about women warriors. And quests. And adventures.

Did I answer the question? Let me try again. At the moment, the activities that excite me most—besides writing and climbing—are reading, ruminating, learning ASL, exploring body and movement, and, honestly, doing my dishes. Taking showers is up there too. For some reason, simple physical tasks, especially those involving water, seem to hold great satisfaction for me at the moment. Preparing and cooking food is another.

MC: How long have you been a rock climber, and what do you like best about it?

LF: When I was in 7th grade I went to a sleepaway camp for the first time in North Carolina. It was my best friend's idea. Charna and I went, and it both sucked and was incredible, and one day they took our bunk to a climbing wall – basically a very tall slab of wood at the end of the soccer field with ceramic holds screwed in, and they harnessed us up and we tried climbing up it. And everyone was giving up. And for whatever reason, I thought, “Lauren, you are GOING to do this.” And after a great captivating epic struggle—of a few minutes—I made it to the top. Aside from the 1st place ribbon I won doing the wheelbarrow race in 3rd grade (I was the wheelbarrow), ascending that wall had been the only other great physical accomplishment in my 13 years of life.

And then I didn't see a climbing wall again until I went to college. Cornell has the—let me see if I can get this right—“the largest natural-rock man-made climbing wall in the country?” “In the Northeast?” “Indoors?” Anyway, it's got this ginormous gray real-rock climbing wall. I took a women's rock climbing class my freshman year, and we had four women teachers, and each one was wildly different from the others. One of them was a former ballet dancer. In a demonstration one day she performed a ballet routine on the climbing wall in order to prove a point about gracefulness and climbing. And we learned about the history of women climbers. I don't remember any of it, but, I completely fell in love with the class and with the sport—which is, in essence, non-competitive—and I went to the climbing wall so often that I earned the name Wall Rat.

When I returned home to Miami that summer, they had just built a climbing wall close to our house. That indoor climbing gym became one of the most important, and intimate, places in my life. I've been climbing, off and on inside and outside the US, for the 10 years since.

MC: In what ways do you think rock climbing can help a person learn about herself?

LF: The great thing, one of them, about climbing is that it's a double joy. Part of the joy comes from your relationship with yourself: how you move, how you think, how much you can push yourself, what your limitations are, where your power is, how to access it, and those times when you discover against all logic that you are capable of far, far more than you think. Climbing taps into the intelligence and instincts of your body, which is very freeing for those of us who tend to rely almost exclusively on the intelligence and instincts of the brain and heart.

The other joy is in the peer support. Climbing culture is filled with great generosity and encouragement. Because climbing is, at heart, a solo sport, it frees all of us up to push and support each other as much as possible. And there is an incredible thrill and intimacy in pushing someone, or being pushed by someone, to maximum performance. And what's incredible is that, almost invariably, it works.

Read about Lauren Feldman