David Lindsay-Abaire Risked Enraging His Neighbors With ‘The Balusters.’ It Was Worth It

take it with you, railing post Do. For four months, board members bickered over speed bumps and bumps, racial profiling, homophobia, neighborhood watches, PETA, nepotism, a baby named Rocket, and — yes — anachronistic railings. Alliances formed. “White girl tears” were shed. Identity politics continues to surface. Faux pas and microaggressions abound.

Lindsay-Abaire has a habit of writing about fear—his 2006 play rabbit holeAs a new father, he wrote the show that centered on the loss of a child—but the show also fed into his own anxieties. “Am I scared? Of course, I am scared…this is 10 people talking about the porch,” he said. “But every play I write scares me in some way.”

One risk in this case is writing for many identities that are not his own. “I’m worried they’re all wrong,” Lindsay-Abel said. “But because the show is so much about a community, not just people on a journey, I felt like it was my job to create a fully fleshed out, three-dimensional community.” To stay on track — especially when it came to his non-white characters, he did something he rarely does: Throughout the revision process, he shared the script with trusted peers, particularly writers of color. “They not only allowed me but encouraged me to make the colored characters as prickly as the white characters,” he said.

“There wasn’t a moment after I read the book where I thought, ‘Oh, she probably wouldn’t say that,'” says Anika Noni Rose, who plays outspoken Vernon Point newcomer Kyra in the show, which takes place in the comfort of her living room. “As a black woman and having people from different fields write for me, you often have these moments where you’re like, Can we talk about this? But we didn’t. “

The show’s rowdy chessboard was inspired by the neighborhood association in Lindsay-Abell’s own historic neighborhood, Prospect Park South, Brooklyn, of which his wife, Christine, is a member. The playwright summed up their conflict as “operatic”, recalling Christine returning from a meeting to recount the aftermath of a gutter problem. “I’d be like, what is this about? It can’t be about the gutters,” Lindsay-Abaire said. “Someone is obsessed with something else deep within their soul.”