The Prodigal Daughter Returns
Miami Native Premieres Play at New Theatre

By Kevin Johnson

In 2004, Lauren Feldman was cast a goat in a 10-minute play called The Prodigal Cow, which was part of the annual Summer Shorts Festival, produced by Miami’s City Theatre. 

Feldman has come a long way since that play, but in some ways, life is imitating art.  The native Miami prodigal daughter has returned to her home turf to premiere her first full-length play, Fill Our Mouths, at New Theatre.

Fill Our Mouths is about two American women who meet in Paris; one is hearing, while the other is hearing impaired.  As their friendship deepens, everything around them changes, affecting not only them as human beings, but other people in their lives as well.

So why did Feldman set in the City of Lights instead on home turf?

“I wanted to put the characters in a place of one part escape, one part disorientation, where they were foreigners, and, it’s a love story,” Feldman says.  “Plus, American Sign Language originally came from France, so Paris was an obvious choice. ”

Even if her play isn’t set in Miami, her roots played a big part in getting Fill Our Mouths produced here for its world premiere.

Feldman had been part of the City Theatre contingent since 2001, starting off as an intern, then working her way up to being an ensemble member two years in a row. During that time, Feldman racked up mileage points as an actor, performing for such companies as Mosaic Theatre and GableStage, earning a Carbonell nomination at the former theatre for her portrayal of a mathematician’s progeny in the Pulitzer Prize winning drama, Proof.

While her name was bandied about as a performer, Feldman always had a passion for another discipline—writing, something she’s been doing since middle school. After graduating from Miami Sunset Senior High in Kendall, Feldman attended Cornell University, based in Ithaca, New York. She got her Bachelor’s degree in English while concentrating on acting and creative writing. During summers she would come home, mostly for family reasons.

“I felt I missed my younger sister grow up while I was in college, so I wanted to come back and live as a family core again for the last year before she went off to school,” Feldman says.

It was during her time at home that Feldman started interning at City Theatre, eventually joining the staff as a literary manager and grant writer with hands in education and development.  Being at City Theatre made Feldman interested in using the acting techniques she learned at Cornell and she wanted to try them on stage.

“I realized after working there for a year and a half, I wasn’t an office job person; I wanted to create art instead of working as an administrator,” she says.

While she honed her acting skills at South Florida theatres, she got to show off her playwriting skills as well. She premiered Asteroid Belt, an autobiographical one act about what goes through one’s mind while being in a car crash, at Summer Shorts. The following year, she submitted two more plays while still being an actor in the company.

Then, a county-based arts program fell into her lap that altered her course for the long run.  Downstage Miami, a two-day workshop in playwriting, funded by the Miami-Dade Cultural Affairs Council, accepted Feldman and some other scribes to learn from the best of the best. Her mentor in the program was Arthur Kopit, whose plays include Indians, Wings, and Nine.

But the transitions from what she experienced with Summer Shorts to more long form wasn’t that easy. “I felt really comfortable writing shorts, but it’s a totally different form thinking in 10 minutes versus thinking in an hour and 10 minutes,” Feldman explains.

Through the Downstage Miami program and working with Kopit, Feldman was able to restructure her game. With Kopit’s help, she was able to turn a ragged rough draft into a solid full-length.

The following year, Fledman was again accepted to Downstage, (now known as the Playwright Development Program). Her mentor this time was Tina Howe, the playwright of Painting Churches. She also gained the confidence to apply to graduate school, and got a bite  from Yale University. She’s scheduled to graduate in May with an MFA.

While at Yale, Feldman’s connections down south were still tight. In the Downstage Miami program, Feldman was part of a trio of scribes who showed support for each other; David Caudle, whose plays include The Sunken Living Room and Likeness, now lives in New York; Ricky J. Martinez is now artistic director of New Theatre, the company that recently presented two of Caudle’s plays.

Martinez never forgot Feldman; both he and Caudle saw Fill Our Mouths when it was produced at Yale.

“[Ricky] responded to the piece so much that he wanted to pick it up for New Theatre, which was awesome to me,” says Feldman. “I love that my first production is at home and that everyone I know is going to come see it. Bless New Theatre for investing in new work and local writers.”

Fill Our Mouths will contain sign language, which Feldman has been learning on and off for a while.

“I’ve been wanting to learn sign language for ages and ages ever since high school, but something was always in the way,” she says. “By the time I got to Yale, I was determined to devote myself in sign language.”

The Ivy League school didn’t have a course, Feldman decided to crush that roadblock by petitioning and lobbying to get a class in. She started an independent class on her own by getting other students to pay an outside instructor to come in a teach sessions. After lots of bureaucracy and red tape, sign language was accepted as an independent study which will pay for itself, so students can take it.

“So I managed to get a beginner class, then an advanced/intermediate class of three students each which will continue every semester, which to me is a huge legacy that I’m very proud of,” Feldman says.  “I hope it continues when I’m gone and hopefully it will grow into a major department.”

Feldman also interned at DeafWest, a theatre company in Los Angeles known nationally for taking it’s production of Big River on the road with hearing and hard of hearing actors working together. The internship helped her shape Fill Our Mouths into what she brings to Coral Gables presently.

Feldman has earned the respect of the South Florida theatre community.  “I am a huge fan of Lauren's writing, and have been for a number of years,” says Michael McKeever, the successful Davie playwright who has also premiered plays at New Theatre.  “She writes with the clarity and purpose of someone well beyond her years, yet at the same time, her writing is very much of her generation.  Her language is very contemporary—very hip—and at the same time very smart; intelligent and learned, and yet completely accessible.  I foresee a career for Lauren filled with great success and many honors.”

And as for the daunting task of walking the halls of her local playwright predecessors, such as McKeever and Nilo Cruz, whose Pulitzer Prize winner, Anna in the Tropics was birthed at New Theatre, this Yalie is just grateful and excited to be here.

“This has been a huge learning curve,” Feldman says, “because I feel like I’m making mistakes everywhere and everyone is gracious enough to still talk to me.”

Full Our Mouths runs January 10 to February 10 at New Theatre, 4120 Laguna St., Coral Gables.  For more info and to purchase tickets, call 305-443-5909 or visit new-theatre.org.