I very recently wrote an honest cover letter and thought it might be fun to keep the momentum going and write an honest artistic statement:

An Honest Artist Statement from the scattered, sleep-deprived, narcissistic mind of Rachel Lynett

I want to write specific, non-universal weird shit. I don’t want my plays to be relatable. I want them to be messy and disorganized like a jazzy scat. Rivera said we could tell one lie in every play. I want to write a play full of lies. I want to write a play that only has one truth. I want to create plays that break down the definition of theatre and make us re-evaluate the audience-performer relationship. If my plays are a cook-out, a whole lotta people in the audience shouldn’t have been invited so let’s talk about why they’re there.

My plays are imperfect much like their creator. I don’t want everything to make sense. And I don’t want to ever have to answer “What do you want the audience take away to be” ever again? Why? Because I write Black-ass, queer af plays and so far my audiences have been cis/het and white. Their takeaway should be that they’re getting to see something they wouldn’t normally otherwise be able to see and they should remember their place when they try to have a conversation with me about it.

When people look back on my body of work long after I’m gone, I hope to be remembered as an artist who was relentlessly honest, fearlessly playful, and radically inclusive. Theatre as an art form has become a playground full of broken glass. I’ve received a thousand cuts by tiny chards I never saw coming and every artist of color, every queer artist, every TGNC artist has felt those cuts as well. Artistic directors and their board have been launching glass at us since we entered this industry.

And here we are, still standing. Still making. Still creating.

Let me work on something that’s not immediately producible. Let me try something that supposedly doesn’t work and let me show you how it does. Let me prove you wrong about the capacity of storytelling in theatre and theatrical production.

Let me work on this very weird play and push the bounds of narrative without me having to explain every single choice. Or any choice.

I wanna get weird. Don’t you?