Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Paige Esterly. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Paige thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

During the pandemic, I began work on a play about Eve Adams. Eve is an often-overlooked historical figure, a queer Jewish immigrant who came from Poland to America in 1912. During prohibition, she opened NYC’s first lesbian bar, Eve’s Tearoom, also called Eve’s Hangout, which served as a community hub for queer women of the era. She also wrote and self-published a collection of short stories called Lesbian Love, which is now considered the very first ethnography of lesbian life in America. But despite all this, since she was a woman, a Jew, an immigrant, and a lesbian, she is largely forgotten by history. (America, am I right?)

I discovered Eve in the midst of sorting out my own sexuality. I lamented the lack of queer representation in the stories I grew up on, and here was a woman who, a century earlier, had seen the lack of lesbian literature and self expression and decided to do something about it, despite the dangers. As a queer Jewish writer myself, I related to her deeply, and felt simultaneously relieved to find community in history and angry that I hadn’t learned about her sooner.

My play, The Great Lesbian Love of Eve Adams, is meant to share Eve’s story with a wider audience, just as she aimed to do with her own writing 100 years ago. I have an incredible team working on the project with me, including Lily Lester, Jenny Lester, and Brittany Martel. We’ve had sold-out workshops at The Space at Irondale in 2022 and The Tank in 2023, and shout-outs in publications like Hey Alma. The audience reaction has been incredible, and by far the most rewarding part of the process has been introducing hundreds of people to Eve and seeing them laugh, cry, and celebrate along with her. It’s such a huge honor to carry Eve’s story, and I’m still pinching myself that I get to have her as part of my life.

Paige, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m a playwright, producer, director, and general theatermaker working in NYC’s indie scene! I’ve always loved both theater and creative writing, so becoming a playwright was a little bit inevitable for me. I went to school for playwriting, and pretty much immediately jumped into the Off-Off Broadway scene after graduating. Haven’t looked back since!

My full length plays have been produced all over the city, including at The Space at Irondale, Theater for the New City, and The Tank. I’m the creator & producer of Fucked-Up Play Fest, which is a recurring festival of 6 short plays by super talented New York playwrights, all performed as the drinking game for the audience! I’m also a writer, director, and administrator for SERIALS, which is a long-running indie theater scene staple. Five playwrights write 10 minute episodic plays, and the audience votes on their three favorites. Those three playwrights come back the next weekend with a brand new episode in the same continuing storyline. It’s a totally different approach to new work creation, and the team of actors, writers, and directors is truly the best the city has to offer.

I LIVE to develop new work, both my own and that of others. I think new plays are just the best! I’m excited by work that’s super theatrical and uses language, subject, genre, and outside of the box storytelling to push the envelope of the form.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Being a theater artists brings me SO MUCH JOY on the daily. There’s a special kind of satisfaction to seeing your work living and breathing onstage and seeing the audience get wrapped up in it in real time. It still blows my mind that entire teams of theatermakers have devoted hours and hours to stories that just pop out of my brain, and that audiences are so willing to share that journey.

A more unexpected reward has been the incredible community I’ve become a part of. Working on a play with someone takes so much effort and so much intimacy, and you really become family for the duration of the project. The NYC Off-Off Broadway scene is also so incredibly welcoming and supportive; rather than devolving into competitiveness and jealousy we’re all about celebrating one another’s successes. All of my favorite playwrights and performers are people I get to work with, which inspires me even more. As a theatermaker, I get to not only create my art with the best people around, but also belong to a giant, loving, silly extended family who love both my work and me as a person.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

When I started writing plays as a kid, my goal was just that: to write plays. Once I decided I was going to go to school and try to make a career out of this whole theater thing, my focus changed to what (at the time) I saw as professional success: fellowships, commissions, Broadway productions, probably a Pulitzer. It took me nearly a decade to break myself from my quest for external validation. Now, I’m driven by the desire to create the best theater I can, to collaborate honestly and earnestly, and to bring entirely new, exciting stories to audiences. I have a lot of strong feelings about mainstream commercial theater (mainly that 9 times out of 10 it’s boring as hell), and I hope my work can not only offer an alternative to Broadway, but maybe even push the entire industry to become riskier, fresher, and more exciting.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @poutywriter
• Other: You can read my plays on New Play Exchange: https://newplayexchange.org/users/35627/paige-esterly

Image Credits

Madison Scheps
Rachel M. Hammersley