Described as a coming-of-age sci-fi comedy, Westmont senior Emi Gruender’s endearing full-length play opens September 18 in a special “blackbox styled” seating arrangement in the Westmont theater! Emi, an esteemed editor of The Shield, was granted this incredible opportunity to direct and workshop her play, with rehearsal and performance space lent to her by Westmont theatre director Jeff Bengford. Many, many years have passed since Westmont previously performed a student-written play, so it’s due time to hear the writing of one of our peers on stage once again!
Being Human follows teenage android Bianca and her exploration of humanity. With an ensemble cast of family, friends, and even enemies, Bianca observes and interacts with the socially distinct people in her life, learning about the ups and downs of the human experience along the way. Saying much more would give away more than I’d like to! Emi and assistant director Otra Phillips took on the challenge of putting a play on its feet for the very first time. But with a hardworking and determined cast and crew, Being Human is set to be a humorous and heartwarming time.
I had the chance to sit down for an interview with Emi and ask about her writing process and other tidbits of fun info about this awesome achievement:
Logan: “Can you give us a little introduction about yourself?”
Emi: “Hi my name is Emi Gruender, I am 17 years old, I’m a senior here at Westmont High school, and I’m the director and playwright of Being Human.”
Logan: “Awesome! First question for you: when writing a play, do you usually have a big idea in mind beforehand, or do you figure it out as you go along?”
Emi: “What happens when I’m writing stories is that I depend on an outline, otherwise it becomes absolute nonsense…I wrote an entire 150,000 word story without a set plan—or with a set plan, just not very good? The story was not very good and it just became nonsense, so when I’m writing a play I do have a big idea in mind; as in like themes, things like that.”
Logan: “Did you find inspiration or ideas from any unexpected places?”
Emi: “Yes, I was in my bed one day and I was talking to my Amazon Alexa.”
Logan: “That’s it?”
Emi: “That’s it! [laughter] No, okay, I remember that, and I was on a road trip and I was sitting for six hours and I looked out the window—I didn’t see anything. I just zoned out and then I just started thinking about it, I don’t know.”
Logan: “Cool! You manage to balance so many talents and activities along with school, where did you find time to write a full-length play?”
Emi: “[laughter] So I started brainstorming it during school time, but it was during finals and then I started writing it after finals were over, so during my break when I didn’t have anything to do, I just wrote. I was writing a book at the time so I kept putting off writing the play to finish the book because I felt guilty about not finishing one project before starting another, but then I’m like, ‘you know what? I can take a little break.’ So I took a break from the book and I wrote the play and then I never went back to the book!”
Logan: “Do you think you’ll ever go back to that book?”
Emi: “It’s really bad so probably not. I learned a lot of things though, so like…I’m gonna write a new book that’s a lot better.”
Logan: “AI has been a largely controversial subject in recent years, did any of that discourse inspire the idea for a sympathetic android protagonist?”
Emi: “Absolutely! On one hand, I hate AI art, as you know, artists and writers ourselves, they’re kind of stealing our jobs. But another thing that really bothered me was that as AI gets more sophisticated and intelligent, where do we draw the line at sentience? Like how advanced can it get without having a consciousness? And when do we manufacture consciousness? That freaks me out.”
Logan: “How do you find your voice as a writer? What do you do to make your writing uniquely yours?”
Emi: “It’s purely stream of thought. I read a lot, I write a lot, I don’t read as much as I did before, but I used to read a lot, and I write even more so. It’s just a lot of practice over and over and over and over and over again not because I’m forcing myself to, but because I can’t do anything but [practice]. I don’t think about sentence patterns or vocabulary or things like that; the best way to express myself happens to be something really convoluted.”
Logan: “Which of your characters do you most closely resonate with, if any at all?”
Emi: “I really like Bianca’s wide-eyed-wonder. People tell me that ‘oh Emi you’re so innocent’— no I’m not. The choice to wonder at things is a choice, it’s not something you lose. I heard this thing in writing where to make characters, you break yourself into little pieces and give yourself to each one, so when you say “a character I resonate with,” it’s like all of them have part of me. Henry is the dumb humor, Archie is the nerd, June is the teenage girl, Natasha is the sarcasm, and Bianca’s the wonder. Just things like that, you just break yourself into little pieces. I don’t know. All of them. I love them all.”
Logan: “If you could meet any fictional robot, who would you meet and why?”
Emi: “Wall-E. Wall-E is so cute bro, he’s so iddy, he’s so biddy, I love him so much. Oh! That was Bianca’s inspiration by the way. Wall-E.”
Logan: “Do you see playwriting as a major part of your future?”
Emi: “I see storytelling as a major part of my future. I’m not sure if playwriting is gonna be a big part of my future because I don’t know if I can live on a playwriting thing. I wanna write, I wanna do theatre, but playwriting is probably not something that I will hone specifically. Storytelling in general, sure! But playwriting is just a form to get out the story.”
Logan: “Last question, why should everyone come see Being Human?”
Emi: “I think it’s a really entertaining show. Even if you don’t laugh it’s fun to watch because it’s just like a trainwreck over and over and over again [laughter] and I just think it’s…I don’t wanna say it’s good because I don’t know if it’s good but come see it! Yay!”
Interview ends.
Unfortunately for the readers of this issue of The Shield, tickets have already almost sold out by the time of this interview for both the 18th and the 19th, but I’d still recommend checking just to be sure! Being Human was a special opportunity for Emi, but it’s also a special opportunity for you to go enjoy a touching and hilarious story with a robot, Dungeons & Dragons, teenage drama, and cute romances! Congrats once more to Emi for this exciting achievement!