Press

A petite woman climbs an eight-foot construction ladder while singing about ableism and her own self-loathing. Her gold tulle dress and matching top hat sparkle. Two strapping men, dressed as tennis pros, spin the ladder from below.

Watch Me Walk is Gridley's debut as a solo playwright, and it's hard to imagine that someone so fierce found the prospect of creating this play "terrifying and overwhelming." Having only ever worked in an ensemble — Gridley is a founding member of Nature Theater of Oklahoma — she was skittish about writing on her own.

Director Eric Ting saw the earliest version at CUNY's Prelude Festival. It was only thirty minutes long. After Soho Rep commissioned a full-length play, Ting collaborated closely with Gridley over the development of the script, urging her to open up more about her personal experiences with HSP and its connection to her family.

When Gridley had difficulty picking photos for a family slideshow section, she went to Ting. "He started looking through the photos and said, 'This reminds me of picking out photos for my mother's memorial,' and I was like, Oh, that's exactly it," Gridley recalls. "We're both orphans, so we have that understanding of grief."

Annie Rasiel: How did it feel to take something that started as a one liner and turn it into such a personal, vulnerable piece?

Anne Gridley: It was exciting. I had never written a play before. I was also constantly questioning Eric, like, You really want this? You want this moron to write something down? Are you sure? Eric would give me prompts, and I would write well. But it wasn't really my voice. That was always Eric's note. It was too polished, not as swear-y as I tend to be. So I started recording myself just riffing on ideas, just to get my voice.

AR: How do you think about the role of inheritance in the play?

AG: It's complicated. We all inherit things from generations that we don't even know. There's a great mystery to that. Sometimes that mystery feels like chains. I don't know who the first person in my family was to get this genetic disorder, but they've passed it down, and now here I am. But there are other things that we inherit that are wonderful. One of the songs in the show is about this; I call genetics "the gifts you cannot see." Sometimes it's the shitty gift you didn't ask for, whose value you don't realize until later.

I once fell in Brooklyn, and there was a construction guy who asked if I needed help, and I said, "no, thank you." And he said, "I'm just going to stand here with you until you get back up." It was so kind.