This past Summer, the TAPS community found itself working together in NYC, with TAPS students, alumni, and professors all helping to make an original work come to life.

TAPS graduate student Kari Barclay directed a week-long workshop of recent TAPS graduate Lillian Bornstein (‘18)’s play, MEAT SUIT. Lillian first started the script in TAPS Associate Professor Young Jean Lee’s class TAPS 178C/278C: Writing a full-length play.

Lilian’s play, MEAT SUIT, chronicles two souls that meet at a body struggles support group, and try to come to terms with their chronic pain and gender dysphoria (portrayed by a teddy bear and evil clown, respectively). As their love grows, they try to escape their bodies entirely through the arcane art of “astral planing.” But what does love mean outside a body? The play offers an absurdist take on how we are to treat this meat suit we drag around with us every day.

During the workshop, Lillian edited the script every night, and Kari came back each day to try it with actors — one of which was another recent TAPS alum, Julio Chávez (‘18). The process concluded with a public reading at the Dramatists Guild Foundation in late August.