Yahoo Lifestyle How the Seven Deadly Sins Got Writer Leslye Headland to Broadway
For Leslye Headland, the well-received Broadway play “Cult of Love” (pictured above) serves as a turning point and a culmination.
Listen to this week’s “Stagecraft” podcast below:
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For the last 15 years or so, the writer — who co-created Netflix’s “Russian Doll” and also created the “Star Wars” series “The Acolyte” on Disney+ — has been at work on a series of seven plays, one for each of the seven deadly sins. “Cult of Love,” inspired by the sin of pride, marks the end of that project as the seventh and last of those plays — and now it also marks her Broadway debut with a Second Stage production starring Zachary Quinto, Shailene Woodley, Mare Winningham, Barbie Ferreira and more.
“This series of plays has been such a gift,” Headland said on the new episode of “Stagecraft,” Variety‘s theater podcast. She described the idea for the seven-play cycle as akin to divine inspiration: “I had written one play and I was very frustrated that I couldn’t write another one, and then I had this moment where I felt like it’s part of something bigger.”
The structure of the series — one play, one sin — has served as a helpful roadmap for her theatrical writing, she said. “I tried to come at the sins in an unconventional way,” she explained.
The idea for “Cult of Love” was sparked by the election of Donald Trump the first time around. “My thought was: I don’t know why we’re pretending to be the same country anymore,” she recalled. “And then that led me to the next thought, which was: Why are we pretending to be a family anymore? What is the feeling of being compelled to this theater of the absurd that is clearly so divisive?”
With her seven sins plays completed, Headland now has to figure out what she’ll write about for her next theatrical endeavor. One strong possibility: motherhood. “I became a mom, and that is a mind-fuck,” she said with a laugh. “That’s something that’s in my head a lot.”
Also on “Stagecraft,” Headland discussed her longtime love for “Star Wars” and her experience playing in that sandbox with “The Acolyte,” which premiered in June and was not picked up for a second season. She watched the strong fan reaction to the show, both good and bad, with a sense of familiarity, because she used to be a part of that fan community herself.
“I have this theory,” she said. “At some point, the people that create content about ‘Star Wars’ will become essentially more influential than ‘Star Wars.'”
To hear the entire conversation, listen at the link above or download and subscribe to “Stagecraft” on podcast platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify and the Broadway Podcast Network. New episodes of “Stagecraft” are released every other week.
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