We were lucky to catch up with Cody Sullivan recently and have shared our conversation below.

Cody, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

My theater project CODY PLAYS has brought me an insane and unexpected amount of joy. For each show at the Gifford House, I write a new one act play, usually within a week, with the help of and for a guest collaborator to highlight their work/life. So far these have been people from my community here in Provincetown who make the town run, who give the town life. My guests have included writers and artists like Jeanette De Beauvoir, Forrest Williams and Pete Hocking. They’ve also included the journalists at our paper, the people who work at the pizza shop Spiritus, the people who run our local sandwich shop Pop and Dutch, my coworkers at the The Nor’east beer Garden and my friends who landscape in town. This show was the first time I worked with a company of actors who gave my words life on a regular basis. It was also the first time I wrote and directed people who didn’t act. I didn’t expect the joy this would create. Seeing people step into the light and share their story and get to be seen and heard for the work they do, to get recognized for their contributions to the town is the highlight of the work for me.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I started studying improvisation in Boston at the age of 21. I was at school at MassArt studying performance art at the time, and hadn’t found a form that fit my needs until I began classes at ImprovBoston. I was writing little sketches and stories at the time, and these excited me.
All the American comedians I loved had studied improv in Chicago, and so the next year I moved and started classes at the iO Theater. After my year of study I got on a Harold Team called Roundabout and performed as much as possible at the iO. I was also performing at the Improv Den, which was run by the incredible Dina Facklis, under the coaching of Micah Sterenberg, and at the Annoyance Theater. Over the next four years I wrote a radio play about a cyclops called You and Eye, a solo show about the Grinch called You’re a Queer One, and an art history lecture for my Godmother (who some people mistakenly say is me in drag) Saltine called Impressions. I moved to the all queer Team Dreamboat at the iO, Saltine began performing in drag shows, and I started working as a writer for Cards Against Humanity.
At a rough point in my sobriety, (or lack there of) I left Chicago to head home to Massachusetts. I ended up visiting Provincetown, fell in love with it, and moved their for the winter. A few months later pandemic hit. Over the next two years I began my practice of solo improvisation and solo theater in which characters engage in dialogue with each other. This resulted in my solo show Town Meeting, which ran for a sold out three night run this June at the Provincetown Theater, and which is being staged again this September. In June 2023, I began CODY PLAYS. So far we have written over 40 plays. I now live in Boston.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I grew up thinking that to be an authentic artist,I had to do everything on my own. Looking back I can see that I struggled for years because of this. There’s no going back, and no regrets, but I wonder where my work could be if I hadn’t been so isolated., artistically and generally in life. Doing CODY PLAYS I worked in a truly collaborative way for the first time. I accepted help in basic ways I didn’t allow before: setting up the room, making staging choices, allowing editing of the script etc…I allowed people into the creative process. I let down the wall that I felt protected my artistic integrity, which was a wall of fear, and let others have fun with me creating. I could not believe how much it opened the work up, how exciting the work became. It suddenly could breathe. Suddenly the work was easier to make. Suddenly, I wasn’t so stressed about setting up and I could focus on the directing. I could focus my attention on what I do best, while others did what they do best. By listening, and really hearing what my collaborative artists I trust said, I was able to make choices to make the work better. I started to write the plays over a few days, rather than the day of the show like I did at the beginning. I started to have a regular company come work with our new actor/guests. etc etc…The work improved tenfold and became much more exciting. There are certain aspects of the process that I treasure doing by myself, but I cannot do the whole thing all alone, and I don’t want to. I learned how to find that balance.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

Give unrestricted money, give space for free, commission new works without any demands from a board of a non-profit. Its pretty plain to me. For my work to flourish I needed free space to experiment. I was given that by Steve Azar at the Gifford House. His generosity facilitated the creation of this work, and could not have existed if he had charged me money, because I couldn’t have paid for the space. He allowed me the space to create.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://codyplays.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cody_playsss/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@codyplaysss

Image Credits

Joe Navas
Ben Weihbrecht