By Bob Bartlett
“Whereas the tourist generally hurries back home at the end of a few weeks or months, the traveler belonging no more to one place than to the next, moves slowly over periods of years, from one part of the earth to another.” ―Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky
Late this summer, I returned from Italy with a new play, Mary Shelley’s Monsters, which I wrote while with the good folks at La MaMa Umbria International, a nonprofit cultural center and artist residence in Spoleto founded in 1990 by La MaMa founder and legendary theater pioneer, Ellen Stewart, and a program of NYC’s La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club. Upon my return to my little farmhouse in central Maryland, I pitched an article to DC Theater Arts, mostly a travelogue but also a preview of the play, an adaptation of Frankenstein, which opens next week at the historic chapel at Congressional Cemetery in Washington, DC. And they said, yes!
I’d never travelled much until a few years ago, when I started solo travelling to write — and quickly fell in love with the adventure of it all. In recent years, I’ve spent two to four weeks each in Reykjavik, Iceland; Rhodes, Greece; a redwood forest outside of Eureka, California; an eco-farm in the Green Mountains of New Hampshire; a shack on a tree farm in the panhandle of Florida; and, most recently, Spoleto, Italy, in La MaMa’s restored 700-year-old monastery. Some of these travels were residencies and others were inexpensive Airbnbs far from the trappings of tourism.
I’m always curious about the habits of writers, their inspirations and work routines. I generally need noise, white, brown, or gray, which often presents as trance-inducing songs and music, a movie I’ve seen thousands of times playing in the background, or strangers milling around bookstores or chatting with friends in cafés. I’m not a writer who can work in silence or without focus-inducing distraction or low-level external stimuli. And I’ve learned that getting away from home plunges me into story in unexpected ways, and gets me to places and spaces unfamiliar and exciting.
I’d heard of La MaMa from playwright and director friends who had attended one of its residencies in Spoleto, and I’d never been to Italy, so with a grant from Bowie State University, where I am retiring professor of theater, I was on a plane from DC to Italia in early August.
I can’t say enough about the positive experience of being in Spoleto. The converted monastery/villa is everything I’d dreamed. For ten or so days, I worked and studied with 20 other writers and La MaMa’s staff and interns. This residency was led by Dael Orlandersmith, writer of Pulitzer Prize finalist Yellowman and Spiritus/Virgil’s Dance, which recently premiered at the Contemporary American Theatre Festival. Almost each morning, Dael led a three-hour workshop/session, which often drifted into the spiritual, and had writers spread about the floor of a lovely movement studio built into a hillside. I learned much about the play I was writing from hearing the work of peers and Dael’s compelling responses to our work.
La MaMa’s website accurately notes that writers are “immersed in the creative, natural and regenerative” while living and working at the historic villa, which is nestled in the Italian hills and surrounded by olive trees and offers breathtaking views of distant villages and valleys. Generally when I travel for writing, my routine includes exploring historic downtowns and regional must-sees, but my time in Spoleto was spent primarily on the grounds of the villa, which provides all a writer could need: so many stirring spaces to write, read, and wander; a café with morning cappuccino made by one of the remarkable interns; and locally-sourced meals including pastas made in the kitchen, pizza in the outdoor wood-fired, stone oven, and veggies culled from the garden.
I never quite adjusted to the time change, so I was often working throughout the night. I went to Italy with two pages of a play and came home with a messy 125 or so, which I’ve trimmed to a 65-page production draft.
Last fall, I was fortunate to present my horror play, Lýkos Ánthrōpos, which asked audiences over a chilly month to bring fold-up chairs or blankets and sit among the graves at Congressional Cemetery to witness a ghostly interaction between a werewolf and his victim. As that production ended, I pitched a new horror play to Cemetery leadership, an adaptation of Frankenstein, which would run in their chapel the following Halloween, and here we are. I knew only the title, Mary Shelley’s Monsters, and that the play would in some way bring Shelley face-to-face with her creations. The three-hander, directed by friend and collaborator Alex Levy, artistic and executive director at 1st Stage in Tysons, features Katrina Clark as Mary Shelley, Jon Beal as the Creature, and JC Payne as Victor Frankenstein. As with my other site-specific projects with Alex, this is a speedy affair with only a couple of weeks of rehearsal. I am a writer inspired by geography, so I was thrilled to spend a recent week alone and editing in the chapel, which was built in 1903 and has hosted countless interments, serving as a conduit, if you will, from one world to another, which my Mary Shelley spookily addresses in her opening monologue.
I couldn’t be happier with the play, although I admit to many sleepless nights this late summer, crushed by the immensity of the task of retelling a story (in only 85 minutes!) for audiences who revere the novel — and for those who know only Boris Karloff’s brilliant wordless monster and not the poetic and philosophical creature of Shelley’s cautionary and too relevant tale. My experiences in Italy, of course, have found their way into the play, including at least one significant panic attack, a late-night lost-in-the-hills walk in the rain, and many chats about story (and monsters!) with Dael and peers, as well as a half-day and 30,000 steps on a bum ankle, which took me to Rome’s Basilica, Forum, and Coliseum.
I hope you can make it out to Congressional Cemetery this fall to experience the horror of Mary Shelley’s imagination, as filtered through my lifelong obsession with her frightful fable. And if you’re considering solo travelling in support of your writing or attending La MaMa Umbria International, I’m always happy to share my experiences and methods.
Mary Shelley’s Monsters plays September 18 to October 12, 2025 (Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 8:00 PM and Saturdays and Sundays at 2:00 PM), at Congressional Cemetery, 1801 E St SE, Washington, DC. Tickets are $35 and available online. Some content may not be appropriate for children.
The program for Mary Shelley’s Monsters is online here.
Bob Bartlett’s plays include Love and Vinyl (Kitchen Dog); Swimming With Whales (1st Stage); E2 (Rep Stage); Happiness (and Other Reasons to Die) (The Welders); The Accident Bear (Avenue Laundromat); Lýkos Ánthrōpos (Congressional Cemetery); and new full-lengths Writing In Diners, Mediocre White Men, A Boy on a Bed, and The Regular. MFA, Playwriting (Catholic University) (bob-bartlett.com)
