“Killing Your Cult Leader” creators value art, humor and a dash of weirdness

The Pros and Cons of Killing Your Cult Leader, a new play running July 19 through July 23 at Aurora Theatre and August 6 through August 9 at the Shakespeare Tavern, uses physical humor and fun satire to draw audiences into a difficult, important subject: how the traumas of religious oppression can affect women.

According to director Lilliangina Quinones and playwright Becca Twiggs, comedy allows people to open themselves up to tough conversations.

“It’s a very funny play,” Quinones said. “There is a deep stuckness and sadness underneath the funny at all times. Twiggs really struck a beautiful balance between the humor and the poignancy.”

Tough conversations, in fact, are how the script began, Twiggs said.

The Weird Sisters Theatre Project, a collective of women artists in Atlanta founded in 2012, commissioned Twiggs to create this work, holding a variety of brainstorming workshops with female-identifying artists, letting them discuss their experiences in a variety of religions and how they have shaped them.

“A lot of them don’t even practice those religions anymore,” Twiggs said. “But the way they were raised and those mind-sets — purity culture and what their roles as women needed to be under those structures — still affect the way they behave and carry themselves right now.”

The playwright paused. “After hearing that and a few more meetings, I was like, ‘OK, we‘re going to set this play in a cult, and we’re going to murder someone!’”

Thus, The Pros and Cons of Killing Your Cult Leader is a pressure-cooker play set in a locked basement in the One True Way Intentional Living Community in 2021. The Elder Women’s  Chamber is welcoming a new member named Anne, played by Alejandra Ruiz. While the group talks, Anne begins to realize that her upbringing may have been toxic, and the group devises some extreme solutions. 

“I also thought, ‘What if the funniest thing a man did in this show was be a dead body?’” Twiggs asked. “That’s feminism, right?’”

The cast includes Jaclyn Faircloth, Parris Sarter, Kelly Criss, Brittani Minnieweather and Cate Lightburn.

Quinones said she signed on to direct the show on the strength of the Weird Sisters’ reputation.

“I just thought Twiggs’ script was so much fun,” she said. “For me, it was a no-brainer. Why would I not want to have a ridiculously good time all summer with these people?”

The director said the cast has been doing amazing work, particularly with physical comedy.

“We get to watch them be amazing for hours every day in rehearsal, and it is an absolute joy,” she said. “We are laughing with tears streaming down our faces regularly. It’s really been wonderful working with them.”

Twiggs said it’s been particularly thrilling working at Shakespeare Tavern and Aurora Theatre, two places that were formative in the playwright’s youth. Also, receiving encouragement from former teacher Faircloth, also a producer, is exciting.

“Fun fact about me: I first met Jaclyn when I was in high school,” Twiggs said. “I was a teaching assistant for the Aurora summer camps. And I met Kelly Criss and Tiffany Porter [from Weird Sisters] at Shakespeare Tavern. I was one of the summer-intensive kiddos. For four years, I scrubbed toilets and learned Shakespeare from some great Atlanta artists.”

Quinones said directing the show has allowed her to bring out more of the diverse cast’s physicality.

“As an actor first, coming into directing later in my career, I have had to work through embodiment practices a lot as an actor of color,” she said. “For actors of color, being in primarily White spaces can lock our bodies up. So much of my work as an actor and educator is about accessing and staying in our bodies. And this cast and these words have allowed us to really play in the space with our full selves.”

Another aspect of the production that excites Quinones is the sound design, provided by Imani Quinones, who has also worked on musicals at Jennie T. Anderson Theatre and the Alliance. Imani is also the director’s daughter.

Working with Imani has allowed the team to give the show a cinematic feel, with music underlying moments in the plot in an amusing way.

“She’s actually been in the room with us, which is different from how I’ve worked with other sound designers,” the director said. “We’ve devised the soundscape for this show together. It’s very musical, I think. I wanted it to feel like a TV show or movie. The music drives the humor and poignance.”

For Twiggs, a history with Atlanta theater created excitement about this show.

“From a personal standpoint, I think it’s very cool to have my work staged in two spaces that were integral to my artistic development,” Twiggs said. “To have people who taught me theater now be producing and acting in my work is something that I didn’t think would happen in my youth, and it was something that I secretly wished would happen.”

::

Benjamin Carr, a member of the American Theatre Critics Association, is an arts journalist and critic who has contributed to ArtsATL since 2019. His plays have been produced at the Vineyard Theatre in Manhattan, as part of the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival, and at the Center for Puppetry Arts. His novel, Impacted, was published by The Story Plant in 2021.