A Conversation with Jen Silverman: THERE’S GOING TO BE TROUBLE

Playwright, novelist, and screenwriter Jen Silverman joins actor and director Kirsten Fitzgerald to discuss their new novel There’s Going to Be Trouble.

Don’t miss these remarkable artists discussing how a life in the theatre informs writing sweeping and intimate stories in other media. Learn about the development of There’s Going to Be Trouble, and what draws Silverman to each format for which they write.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jen Silverman (they/them) is a playwright, novelist, and screenwriter.

Plays include: Spain; Highway Patrol; Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties; The Moors; The Roommate; and Witch. Their plays have been produced off-Broadway (Second Stage Theatre, MCC Theater, The Playwrights Realm), across the US (Steppenwolf, The Goodman, The Humana Festival, Williamstown Theatre Festival, The Huntington, South Coast Repertory Theatre, Writers Theatre etc), and internationally in Australia, the UK, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Brazil, Spain, and elsewhere.

Books include: the debut novel We Play Ourselves (named one of the best books of the year by Buzzfeed; a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award), story collection The Island Dwellers (finalist for a PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize), poetry chapbook Bath (selected by Traci Brimhall for Driftwood Press); and new novel There’s Going to be Trouble forthcoming from Random House on April 9th 2024.

Silverman is a three-time MacDowell Fellow, a member of New Dramatists, and a Scholar of Note at the American Library in Paris. They wrote The Miranda Obsession as a narrative podcast for Audible, starring Rachel Brosnahan. They also write for TV and film, including Tales of the City (Netflix) and Tokyo Vice (Max). Honors include fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim.

About the Book

Minnow has always tried to lead the life her single father modeled—private, quiet, hardworking, apolitical. So she is rocked when an instinctive decision to help a student makes her the notorious public face of a scandal in the small town where she teaches. As tensions rise, death threats follow, and an overwhelmed Minnow flees to a teaching position in Paris. There, she falls into an exhilarating and all-consuming relationship with Charles, a young Frenchman whose activism has placed him at odds with his powerful family. As Minnow is pulled in to the daring protest Charles and his friends are planning, she unknowingly almost repeats a secret tragedy from her family’s past. Her father wasn’t always the restrained, conservative man he appears today. There are things he has taken great pains to conceal from his family and from the world.

In 1968, Keen is avoiding the Vietnam draft by pursuing a PhD at Harvard. He lives his life in the basement chemistry lab, studiously ignoring the news. But when he unexpectedly falls in love with Olya, a fiery community organizer, he is consumed by her world and loses sight of his own. Learning that his deferment has ended and he’s been drafted, Keen agrees to participate in the latest action that Olya is leading—one with more dangerous and far-reaching consequences than he could have imagined.

Minnow’s and Keen’s intertwining stories take us through the turmoil of the late sixties student movements and into the chaos of the modern world. Exploding with suspense, heart, and intelligence, There’s Going to Be Trouble is a story about revolution, legacy, passionate love, and how we live with the consequences of our darkest secrets.

Kirsten Fitzgerald is a Chicago-based Actor and the Artistic Director at A Red Orchid Theatre. She has originated roles in the world premieres of Traitor, Pilgrim’s Progress, Weapon of Mass Impact, and 4 Murders by Brett Neveu and Grey House by Levi Holloway (at AROT), Swing State by Rebecca Gilman and I hate It Here by Ike Holter (Goodman Theatre), Lettie by Boo Kilebrew and Appropriate by Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins (Victory Gardens Theatre) as well as Tracy Letts’ Mary Page Marlow and Bruce Norris’ The Qualms (Steppenwolf Theatre) among others. Other recent Goodman Theatre credits include ROE and SWEAT. On television, Kirsten played Maria Walters in The Exorcist (FOX) and Mac in Sirens (USA), both for two seasons. In addition, she has made appearances on Shinning Girls (appleTV), The Big Leap (FOX), Proven Innocent (FOX), Chicago Med (NBC), Chicago Justice (NBC), Chicago Fire (NBC), Underemployed (FOX) and ER (NBC). Film credits include Widows (Steve McQueen), Killing Eleanor (Rich Newy & Annica Marks), and Working Man (Robert Jury).

As Artistic Director at A Red Orchid Kirsten has fostered world premiere productions by Brett Neveau (Traitor, Pilgrim’s Progress, The Opponent, Megacosm), Levi Holloway (Grey House, The Haven Place), Ike Holter (Sender), Grant Varjas (33 To Nothing), and Craig Wright (Mistakes Were Made, The Illiad) alongside numerous regional premieres and reimagining’s of rarely seen gems. In 2022, Kirsten directed A Red Orchid’s critically acclaimed production of The Moors by Jen Silverman. This production was honored with 5 Joseph Jefferson awards including one for Best Director of a play at a mid-size theatre as well as one for Best Production at a mid-size theatre.