At first glance, the two shows that make up the split bill Real Estate / Letters from Tyra (at The Brick Theater as part of Exponential Festival 2026) appear quite different. Real Estate is a domestic dance duet by equal turns piercing and beguiling, while Letters from Tyra is a hysterical solo show salvaged from the ruins of a fake two-hander. However, placed side by side, the shows communicate in surprising ways. Amidst the January festival, I sat down with Isa Spector (Real Estate writer and director) and Derek Smith (Letters from Tyra writer and performer) to talk duets, Gay Guy Land™, and being inside/outside of the art you’re making.
Note: The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Ethan Karas: What was the initial seed for both of these pieces?
Isa Spector: I actually submitted the title of this show before I started working on it because there was a deadline for the festival. (laughs) And then I hired these two actors and that was the initial seed.
Derek Smith: Mine was a couple years of failing to write a succinct solo show, and a period of loss struggling with a collaborator and close friend.
Ethan: Was there initially something where you wanted to do a split bill, or was it something that came about organically?
Isa: We were both invited to be a part of Exponential Festival on the basis that we would be sharing a bill. I had no idea who Derek was. I don’t think Derek knew who I was. They certainly didn’t know what my show was going to be because I hadn’t made it yet, so this was a bit of a shot in the dark, but I think it worked out in such a fun way. I think it’s such an exciting and dynamic pairing of two shows.
Derek: I was not familiar with Isa at all. Isa and I did not meet until the Tuesday of tech week. And when we did, it was the same day that I saw Real Estate. And I remember really loving it, but also just guffawing at moments that felt so linked to what we had been working on. I feel very lucky about the pairing that happened. I think they speak to each other despite them being so different.
Isa: The idea of a duet is such a clear through line with both of these shows. Mine, in many ways, is about making a duet, or trying to make a duet. And I think Derek’s is about, in some ways, the failure of a duet or the absence of a duet.
Derek: And I think both pieces also, in very different ways, are playfully grappling with individual places in queer community or in like Gay Guy Land. (laughs) From very different places, but similarly emotionally, I think.
Ethan: Are there things that change for you as you generate work when you’re able to take an outside view (Isa) versus being inside of the piece (Derek)?
Derek: Oh, that’s so interesting. Part of my process of this piece was when I was writing this failure of a solo show, one of the parts of it that was so difficult was being at a computer and trying to write it that way, which I have done before, but it broke me to the point where I forced myself to spend half a year doing standup comedy mics and using that as a way to develop material. And I learned that that’s just my favorite thing to do, writing on my feet, and that is how Sarah (Blush, director of Letters from Tyra) and I also developed this show together. It was just trying stuff out as opposed to being on the outside of it.
Isa: I like to have my hands in everything, and so I do really like to just be alone in my room, be both of these characters, choreographing their gestures and their mannerisms, and just having that kind of exchange. When I’m inside of the work, it’s a little harder for me sometimes to understand the joke or understand where the feeling is supposed to be moving, because I’m so self-conscious about my “inside-ness” of it. It’s so much more vulnerable, I think, to perform in your own work, and it’s so much scarier. I think being outside, I’m able to sculpt a little bit more and see how things move more easily. I do still like living inside of it and moving inside of it.
Ethan: Both pieces have text, and then there’s movement, and there’s also song. Because you’re incorporating so many different art forms within the piece, is there a way that you approach it?
Derek: For mine, it was mostly about the order of how each moment will serve revealing and building the reasoning for it. The main thing is really just allowing it to speak for itself at the right time.
Isa: This one was really exciting. I think it’s kind of a continuation of what my practice has been for the last couple of years, of trying to negotiate this relationship between text and movement. A friend came and saw the show and described it a little bit as like the horses in a race. So much of this process was finding out when one would lead and when the other one would lead. Feeling that balance and feeling when it could complicate or when it could overwhelm or when it could knit more seamlessly. And trying to find out when the audience could kind of catch on or not catch on to those things. It’s always about moving against a moment that you think is established and then kind of shaking it up with something else. The process was so generative in that way, it just felt like everything kept feeding the next thing, which was really nice.
Ethan: What about Exponential attracted you?
Isa: I really love Exponential. I think their ethos of platforming people who work all across performance and the weirdest and wackiest and wildest things makes me really excited. I feel like I traverse different kinds of performance areas of dance or performance art or theater, and I don’t necessarily feel like I belong to one of them. And so I knew that this was an opportunity to really invest in what my very specific thing of dance theater is, and just go for it.
Derek: The thing that drew me to Exponential Festival is a lot of the work that I’ve seen done there before. All of these artists who are being tasked to varying degrees produce their own work, and on this scale that is wild. What Exponential Festival does with the resources they have is kind of unheard of across the city. They do so much programming for so many artists and at so many venues in such a resourceful way, and they ask their artists to step up to the challenge. This year, the programming all feels so exciting and fun, and it feels like there’s so many people involved. There’s a real camaraderie around people wanting to see each other’s work, and that’s the kind of thing that I want to be involved in.
Isa Spector is a writer, choreographer and director. Their work straddles postmodern formalism with ridiculous narrative. Spector has presented across New York at venues including Performance Space New York, Abrons Arts Center, Center for Performance Research, WSA, Offline Gallery, Pageant, QNCC, The Slipper Room and Montez Press Radio.
Derek Smith is a writer and performer from Northern California. Select Theater: Letters from Tyra (Exponential Festival/The Brick), On the Rocks’ Edelweiss (Ars Nova, Soho Playhouse), Wolfert, The White Stag Quadrilogy, and FRED (Dixon Place), Hartwell Church of God: The Musical (Ars Nova), EVENTS (The Brick), Buffalo Bailey’s Ranch for Gay Horses, Troubled Teen Girls and Other (Expo Fest/The Brick), Oedipus Rex XX/XY (La MaMa), War Lesbian (Dixon Place), R*NT (University Settlement), Molly Murphy and Neil DeGrasse Tyson on Our Last Day on Earth (Incubator Arts Project). Other full-length solo works include The Music Monica (Panoply Performance Lab) and Lee Buliay: the lost year of Dean Moriarty (Dixon Place). He’s also performed at Joe’s Pub, New World Stages, Under the Radar, UCB and many normal-smelling queer bars around the city. The seven issues of his pandemic-era lifestyle parody periodical, Errands Quarterly, raised over $4K for various community funds, and can be found at @derekrsmth.
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