The year of Chekhov

I’ve only seen one Chekhov play, but I have seen it twice: two productions of The Cherry Orchard, each with a different take on the dog – yes, one was real and one was a robot. I’m thrilled to be encountering my second ever Chekhov with Twenty Somethings’ production of Dirty Bird, an adaptation of The Seagull, which I am told has no dogs in it whatsoever. Written and directed by Whit Flint, Dirty Bird runs September 4 – 20 at ErF Gallery, a venue that hosts raves, concerts, and ceramics classes and feels perfect for this production that opens with an experimental film and a killer soundtrack.  

I’m even more thrilled to have sat down with Raina Soman and AJ Molder, two of the cofounders of Twenty Somethings, to talk about all things DIY – from Pittsburgh house shows to Shakespeare boat shows. They’ve done it all and will continue to, at least until they turn 30. 

 LINDSEY WALKO: I’d love to hear about the genesis of Twenty Somethings, the origin story. Oh! And also the name. I love hearing how people name their companies.

RAINA SOMAN:  We all went to school together, the main five of us – me, AJ, River Knight, Jonathan Lefebvre, and Madeline Rostmeyer. Most of us were actors. And then, we graduated into the writer’s strike, and we were kind of like, “well, we’re shit out of luck”. There was nothing to do except stare at each other and waste away our souls. So we were sitting in this bar and we were a little drunk and we all collectively agreed to start a company. And then we did our first play, and it was really awesome, and we’re like, “I guess we can just keep doing this, because we don’t have to wait for anyone, and we can just work for each other and fuel each other” – which is the best part of it. 

AJ MOLDER: And we were lucky because we had a play called Gray Whale that we wanted to do, which was written by River Knight, and we all felt very passionately about it. We realized that we were going to do the thing that our teachers told us we would have to, make our own work. In school, we were very certain that we wouldn’t need to do that. We were all just going to audition and book. But then we realized they were all right and we had to call up our business of acting professor and ask for the budgets he gave us back, because we threw out our copies. 

We literally just put up a play using our friends and our teachers. It was in the back of a record store, in the middle of heat wave in August. The guy running the store wouldn’t turn on the AC. We were dying and sweating and learned so much, clamping all the lights, only giving ourselves a half a day for load-in. I remember us sitting outside at like 9 PM – we kept having to extend our rehearsal time – and we really all don’t know if this play was gonna get put up. Then eventually the play went up and it meant so much to so many people and it felt like we were making the theater that we wanted to be performing in. All of a sudden we were knew we had to keep going. 

RAINA: And the name, we were in the same bar, wondering what we were going to call it. And then Jonathan said, “Well, I actually have a name. I had a name this the whole time.” And it was Twenty Somethings. And it was perfect. We don’t know what will happen when we turn thirty, but for the next couple years, why not? I think it’s Twenty Somethings because it’s this youthful thing that doesn’t have to be perfect. We’re doing it because we have to or we can’t stay afloat. Our souls can’t stay afloat, you know? So that’s the energy even when we grow up. 

LINDSEY: My follow-up question was going to be – will you disband when you turn thirty- but it sounds like Twenty Somethings is not necessarily an age, but a state of mind. 

AJ: I think our hope, when we came up with the name, was that by the time we’re all reaching thirty, we’ll have a bunch of new young artists to bring into the company. We’ll be able to spearhead things and put up their work and act and give them a platform. 

LINDSEY: I feel like it’s a rite of passage of every post-grad artist to have an impulse to start their own company. It’s an impulse I’ve totally had and valiantly failed at bringing to fruition. But it’s been two, three years now and you’re still producing, both theater and concerts. How did you take this from an idea in a bar, from that one show in a record store, to now? 

RAINA: After Gray Whale, we were addicted. I remember the day before we were to open and thinking that the show can’t go on. That we might as well give up. It felt life and death. Like performing surgery. And I think the high stakes of the situation just made all of us feel so alive. And it kept us going. Dirty Bird is our 4th big show and still every time it’s like, there’s no way we can go on. But then you keep going. And it all happens. The concerts, AJ really spearheads those, and it’s awesome that we might be a part of this downtown scene that’s coming back. We do concerts and skate shows in a wrestling ring, and people are here to see music and chat and be a part of something outside of themselves. We get to be a tiny piece of that, which keeps us going, too. 

AJ: Part of the company’s growth is Jonathan. Jonathan brings a lot of ideas to the table, and he was the one who, after we did the play, suggested we do a concert to raise some money for the next one. And I volunteered to book it because I love to date musicians and I would love to get revenge on them and book really cool bands. I had no experience in music, I just loved it. We wanted to foster this environment that I think is hard to achieve in the music industry. We didn’t want any coolness factor. We just wanted to create a communal event, and that’s something we’ve tried to carry that through all of our shows. I grew up going to little garage punk shows in Pittsburgh, and I want to keep that tradition going in New York. There’s a real hunger to make a moment of a show rather than just putting a show on in a traditional venue. People want to feel like they’re coming together over something, I think. 

LINDSEY: I’m thinking about Dirty Bird, how that piece feels so much like music and theater combined. What was the process of choosing this show? How did you guys find it? Did it find you? 

AJ: River Knight and I, we had always wanted to play the roles of Nina and Constantine. So we brought this to our friends and they, because they’re the best humans ever, said they were going to make it happen. We all love Chekhov. We all love The Seagull and love this idea of being able to bring it to a younger crowd. Even though there are new versions of Chekov being produced all around New York, I still think it caters to this usually older, more established audience who can afford to get tickets to these types of things. But you know, we are the ages of these characters. We want to play them while we’re in that mindset. And River had seen a play when they were 16 years old by this writer/director, Whit Flint, in Utah and knew that he had an adaptation of The Seagull that would be perfect. Whit generously gave us the script – previously he hadn’t let anyone besides his company Riot Act produce his work – and we all read and decided we had to do it. It’s talking about Lou Reed and The Pixies. It’s perfect for our company. 

RAINA: We invited Whit to come to New York and direct, he got here a few weeks ago. This show was originally produced in London 10 years ago and it’s been cool to watch him change it for a Brooklyn mindset. And the space we’re doing it in is off the Morgan L at ErF Gallery, which is an artistic workspace in addition to a warehouse space where they throw raves and have concerts. It’s a space that’s a blank slate and you can make it anything you want. Which actually, is kind of like all of these Chekhov adaptations. Sometimes the reaction you get is, “oh another Seagull adaptation” but to me, that’s the best part. That there’s another one. It’s gonna be totally different than the last one. You’ll leave and have something new. 

LINDSEY: Regrettably, I am not a Chekhov scholar but I do feel like this is the year to get into him. Everyone is producing Chekhov right now. What draws you specifically to him? Is it about having this classical training and wanting to take ownership over that? 

AJ: For me as an actor, the first experience I had with Chekhov was in college and it was during COVID so all of our classes were online. We had this wonderful teacher at Stella Adler, her name was her name is Alice Saltzman. And she decided she was going to host our classes in Central Park. And so me, River, and Raina, we’re all in this class and River and I were assigned Nina and Constantine, and I didn’t know anything about Chekhov. I got the script and I remember thinking about how it’s written super fucking weird. Nobody talks like this. But then as River and I did the scene, I realized that, oh my God, no actually this is how we all talk and how our minds function. It moves too fast for you to even know what’s happening in the  moment. You’ll say the line and there’s so much going on underneath the line that’s the opposite, and it’s the closest I’ve ever experienced to what it’s like to relate to people in real life. There’s a certain magic to it. It’s Shakespearean in a way, he wrote these stories and they still endure. They just endure. They endured at this day because they’re so human and so fundamental. It’s a joy to be able to live that every night on stage – something that is so human. Everybody gets a little chance to experience what it is to be truly lonely or to truly have regrets or to make a big mistake. There’s just something about his writing that feels so special and rare. 

RAINA: We saw the designer run a few days ago, and it’s masterful. Whit’s done a beautiful job adapting it, the actors are doing a beautiful job, and Chekhov just wrote a story that is – right. It’s a bunch of actors and artists just losing their mind. And if that’s not what we’re doing, then I don’t know what’s happening. I’m so happy that people care about it enough to keep doing it. I feel so lucky that it’s the year of Chekhov, and that we get to be a part of the year of Chekhov, because it’s so damn good. 

LINDSEY: I’m thinking about how music is so connected to this play and your company, and what is music if not also the exploration of the human condition? It makes sense to bring these two mediums together in a DIY kind of way. How does working in nontraditional venues shape the story you’re telling? 

 RAINA: I feel like there’s something so accessible to other people when it’s not in a theater. Listen, I’m an actor, I love to be in a theater. I want to be on a stage, put me there! But as an audience member, sometimes it feels like I have no idea where I am when I’m sitting in a traditional venue. I want my parents to come and watch a show and think that it’s cool as opposed to being in Lincoln Center and feeling a little bit sleepy. In a DIY space, it’s all about being with people in the room. 

AJ: We did a show on a boat last year, which was very special. And the boat was rocking during the play. It would be slamming into the dock and everybody’s feeling it together. We felt like, holy fuck, we’re at the whims of nature. It really adds something else to be there, all in, and maybe it’s not the most comfortable but that’s okay. Getting to come to these spaces where theater doesn’t usually happen, it feels a little special to create something. It’s just a fucking empty warehouse that we’re doing this in, and our team is going to bring in lights and sound and set dressing. To be able to put something up where it’s not meant to be feels like a real labor of love. It makes me fall in love with theater making even more. 

RAINA: Our designers are some of the best people that have ever existed. They do insane work – they hung up an entire light and sound grid on a moving boat last summer. And they’re gonna do it again for Dirty Bird in a space where lights aren’t meant to be hung. Everybody just cares that much to figure it out. 

LINDSEY: Raina, you’re acting as the producer for this show. What does that job entail? Sometimes I think the role of the producer is an elusive one – it could mean you’re doing everything, you’re on the ground daily, or it could mean you’re throwing money at a project from afar. I assume it’s the former for you. 

RAINA: Maddie Rostmeyer and I are producing. All of us learned out of thin air how to do this. Like we said we did actually rip up our producing papers in college, never looked at them once.  But for this, it is everything. Maddie figured out how to do a budget within the first month of Twenty Somethings starting and we were all in awe. We thought she was a wizard. And apparently I can send emails. We don’t have any special skills. I know that AJ and River need to be in this show and so we’re going to figure out how AJ and River are in this show. We love each other very much and so we’re just going to make it happen. 

AJ: I think that the drive to be producers comes from just being true artists. None of us are just actors. We all want to make art that makes people feel something. Maddie and Raina are both phenomenal actresses, and Maddie’s also an amazing costume designer, but they produce because they want to put this play up. They work harder than anybody, I feel so lucky. I would not want anybody else to be a producer on this project. Trust me, we’re not doing it for the money. We’re all best friends, and we want to make art together and make an experience for the audience that feels really special. 

LINDSEY: A very Twenty Somethings’ attitude. I read Famesick recently and I was like, “I gotta rent an office and get 18 of my friends together and we’re just going to make everything”. 

AJ: And isn’t it so beautiful to be a part of that tradition that has existed for so long in this city? And we don’t take it for granted, keeping that alive. It’s a lifeforce, really. 

RAINA: I’m glad it feels like life or death sometimes. I really am. Honestly, thank god.