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Women Asking Women: Andrea Scott & Kamila Sediego
In today’s conversation playwrights Andrea Scott and Kamila Sediego talk about the emotional and creative depths behind their respective plays, Get That Hope (Scirocco Drama) and Homecoming (Playwrights Canada Press), both of which examine family, identity, and belonging across cultures and generations.
In honour of Women’s History Month, we asked women writers from across the country to pair up and interview each other about their process, their inspirations, and everything in between.
Interview: Andrea Scott & Kamila Sediego
ANDREA SCOTT: What was the most difficult issue to confront and write about honestly in Homecoming?
KAMILA SEDIEGO: There’s a line in the play, “Why wasn’t I enough to cross an ocean?” And when this line came to me, it was a real breakthrough (or breakdown, depending on how you wanna look at it) because it unconsciously came out of my own deep, personal struggle growing up as a child of the only immigrants on both sides of my family. I have lots of memories of being a kid and desperately wanting cousins, aunties, uncles, and grandparents. I wanted the big extended family that a lot of other kids around me had. A sense of belonging to something bigger than myself, bigger than my every day. And so, when that line appeared on the page, I had never fully realized until then that I had internalized it, and turned that lack into an equation of my worth. Writing this play and discovering the character of Vicky in particular, helped me take myself out of myself. So many immigrant stories focus solely on the person who left, and usually to some version of a “promised land.” But Vicky helped me imagine the reality that there might be a shared hurt and eventual redemption on both sides of the ocean.
KAMILA: Independence and freedom (of a country, of a history, of the family members and their roles, resentments, and lingering dreams) feel very present in “Get That Hope.” Was there something you freed yourself from, or did you gain a new kind of independence in the writing of this play?
ANDREA: I freed myself from being precious about my personal stories. When I began writing 14 years ago I vowed I’d never write about myself or my family. As far as I was concerned, my life was not stage-worthy. But then I attended Long Day’s Journey Into Night (LDJIN) by Eugene O’Neil at the Stratford Festival in 2018 and it changed my mind. I saw a depiction of an Irish American family squabbling with one another, holding grudges, sniping, self-pitying monologues, and parents who didn’t know how to communicate with their adult children and was set free. Odd, right? But to be a minority, especially a Black person in North America, is to present perfection in the presence of whiteness. Respectability politics is the enemy of good writing. Wanting to be well behaved and not conform to a stereotype has held me back as a writer of Black voices. O’Neill wrote LDJIN about his family and famously wanted the play locked away for 25 years to spare his family pain and embarrassment. I considered that as I began writing in 2018 but also took comfort in knowing that the majority of my family wouldn’t see it because never went to the theatre. The original draft was quite dark and titled Born Afraid, something Mary Tyrone says about her son, Edmund. But then 2020 happened and Black people couldn’t escape death and grief. I didn’t want my play to add to the trauma and what I call “trauma-porn” of Black life, so I eased up on my characters, gave the play a hopeful ending, and a sprinkling of humour.
ANDREA: There are no male characters or characterizations in the play and that feels deliberate. Why did you make that choice?
KAMILA: So much of what I have grown up seeing in my family and my friends’ immigrant parent families was the quiet strength and perseverance of the women in them. What I was witnessing, but not fully grasping as a young person, was the survival and continuance of family ties because of the efforts of matriarchs, eldest sisters, and aunties who were still living within patriarchal systems and mindsets from back home and in their new homes. These women were holding it down and carrying everything, every day. I wanted to highlight these women, and these female characters on their own, with their own voices, and not as a foil or in contrast to a man.
KAMILA: Are any of the characters inspired by real people? And if so, how do you find the balance between writing fiction and processing real life on the page?
ANDREA: The mother, father, son, and daughter are based on my family. Millicent is inspired by the housekeeper in LDJIN, but I made her Filipino to reflect a few women I worked with many years ago. Also, there is a closeness between Filipinos and the Black community in North America that I wanted to highlight and honour. I used real stories from my mother, my father, and my siblings to imbue the play with realism. Unlike LDJIN, drug addiction wasn’t a problem, and my parents never criticized and blamed us for their disappointments in life. But, West Indians (Jamaicans, in this case) have a way of speaking to their children that can be harmful. They may love their kids, but they never coddle them. When I think of how the auntie spoke to her niece in your play, I nodded in recognition because that is how my immigrant parents spoke to me and my siblings.
ANDREA: How did you know Homecoming had to be a play and not a novel, short story, film, or poem?
KAMILA: As the years of development progressed, an integral story ingredient revealed itself: Homecoming had to exist in a magical world where all time is the same time, made-up memory, memory, and real life were all congruent, and where those who have passed are still alive with us. This magical world and its precarity, its fragility became very clear to me as the story and characters developed. It was important to see this magic embodied with care and clarity, and with the specificity of live performance. It didn’t feel like a novel, or short story, or film could make that magical world possible in that exact ethereal, fleeting way.
KAMILA: Where does your humour come from and what’s your favourite way to utilize it in your writing?
ANDREA: My humour comes from my perspective that life is absurd. While I couldn’t possibly compare myself to Chekhov, I appreciate that some of his tragic plays are infused with humour. Life is chaos and sometimes the best way to portray its insanity is to laugh at it and us. Sometimes I don’t think I’m being funny when I write something in my play and it’s only after a skilled actor says the words that I hear the humour. My TV agent is convinced that I’m a comedy writer while my dream is to be respected like Suzan-Lori Parks or Lynn Cottage. But, after attending a few of my plays where actors have found the dark comedy evoking a lot of laughter from audiences, I have to concede that I may have a skill that needs interrogating. When I know I’m being funny, it’s entirely deliberate and precise. The first draft of my plays are always painfully earnest and serious. The humour I sprinkle in is to give the audience the chance to breathe and release the tension that inevitably grips my plays. My favourite way to utilize humour in my work is to give the audience a chance to laugh within the first five minutes of the play. That way they can relax into the show and know it’s not so serious. Of course I make sure to hit them with a tearjerking moment in Act Two.
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Andrea Scott‘s play Eating Pomegranates Naked won the RBC Arts Professional Award, and was named Outstanding Production at the 2013 SummerWorks Festival. Better Angels: A Parable won the SummerWorks Award for Outstanding Production, and was published in 2018. Don’t Talk to Me Like I’m Your Wife won the Cayle Chernin Award for theatre, and was produced at SummerWorks in 2016. 2019 saw her co-written play with Nick Green, Every Day She Rose wow audiences at Buddies in Bad Times. Her play about Viola Desmond, Controlled Damage, had its sold-out world premiere at Neptune Theatre in 2020. Get That Hope had its world premiere at the Stratford Festival in 2024 at the Studio Theatre. Andrea currently resides in West Hollywood, California, working for Disney.
Kamila Sediego (she/her/siya) is a Filipinx settler, daughter of immigrants, sister, auntie, partner, playwright, and dramaturg grateful to live on the stolen territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh people, colonially known as “Vancouver.” Her ancestral roots stretch across the Pacific and are embedded in the lands of Iloilo, Cebu, and Manila, Philippines. With the care and support of many, she is exploring trauma and its relation to Filipinx folklore, legacy, and spiritual safety in a new work, Engkanto.
Many thanks to Andrea and Kamila for their thoughtful conversation on personal stories and writing.
Order Get That Hope here and Homecoming here, or from your local bookseller.
Next up on Women Asking Women is Joanna Cockerline & Steffi Tad-y. Stay tuned for their discussion on Wednesday.
