Mind Boggling
Dialogue

SUZANNE CHESSLER
SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

Kitty Dubin's career
as a playwright gets
help from her
daytime career.

K

itty Dubin spends a ers just right and deciding the
lot of time listening to style in which those words are ex-
people talk. She pays pressed. She also is an award-
careful attention to winning playwright.
their words and the
"I hear what people say and
style they use to ex- what they're really saying, so di-
press themselves. alogue is what I have a talent
She is a psychotherapist in pri- for," said Ms. Dubin, of Birming-
vate practice.
ham, whose sixth play, Change
She also spends a lot of time of Life, is being produced by the
writing dialogue. She takes great Jewish Ensemble Theatre (JET).
care selecting words she consid-
"Therapy and playwrighting

are a natural merger. They have
a lot in common.
"When you're a therapist,
clients come in during a crisis,
and that's usually how people in
a play begin. Then clients go
through some sort of journey
where they grow, and that's also
what people are doing in a play."
Change of Life, which runs
Feb. 8-March 5 at the
Maple/Drake Jewish Communi-
ty Center, is about two women
who meet as hospital patients,
form a very unlikely friendship
and help each other through their
mid-life crises.
"When I finished my last play,
I started thinking about this play,
and I sort of knew the territory
I wanted to explore — women in
their 40s making a change," said
the dramatist, who is in the same
age group. "I picked out a couple
of different plots and settled on
this one.
"I want the audience to know
that change is difficult but there
are certain periods in everyone's
life when they change or their cir-
cumstances change and they
have to be brave to meet those
changes."
Ms. Dubin's latest work is
more of a comedy than her earli-
er pieces, but certain elements
assure it falls right in line with
its predecessors.
"They all have women protag-
onists and are comedy/dramas,"
she explained. "They are come-
dies, but there also are a lot of se-
rious subjects being addressed.
In these ways, they sort of form
a pattern.
"They are very contemporary
with a right-now feeling about
them. Women keep changing so
tremendously in their roles that
it's very easy to be dated.
"The first play I wrote, Cook-
ies, which was completed in 1970,
had the then-radical idea that
women could have their own
identities and not be defined by
their relationships with men.
Now, that's old-hat."
Ms. Dubin's entry into the
world of theater was unplanned.
"I was at Wayne State Uni-
versity pursu-
ing a master's
Kitty Dubin:
degree in Eng-
Two careers.

lish, and I took a course play-
wrighting," she said. "I wrote a
play because it was the assign-
ment in the class, and then my
professor suggested that I sub-
mit it to the annual Detroit Mo-
tion Picture Playwrighting
Competition.
"It won first prize, and I got a
cash award as well as the oppor-
tunity to have it produced at
Wayne. That was a wonderful
surprise because I had never
written a play before, and I de-
cided that I was going to be a pro-
fessional playwright."
With the goal of marketing
Cookies for larger audiences, Ms.
Dubin went to the library, looked
up the name of Edward Albee's
agent and sent him the contest-
winning play. •
Although not 'critical, he was
not able to represent her. Twelve
years went by before her interest
in theater resumed.
During those years, Ms. Dubin
taught English at Oakland Com-
munity College and attended
Oakland University for her mas-
ter's degree in counseling.
"There was a part of me that
thought my first effort was a
fluke, but there was another part
of me that kept thinking maybe
I could do it again," she said.

Jewish characters
are instinctive.

"What got me going after all
those years was writing three
psychological articles and having
them accepted for publication.
That really gave me a boost of
confidence in my writing ability."
Ms. Dubin went on to complete
four professionally produced
plays: Mirrors, which was per-
formed at the State Fair Theatre
in Detroit in 1986; The Last Re-
sort, which was presented by the
Live Oak Theatre in Austin in
1989 and JET in 1990; and Ties
That Bind, which was staged by
Jeff Daniels' Purple Rose Theatre
in Chelsea during its 1991-92 sea-
son. Time's Up has been the sub-
ject of staged readings and
workshops.
MIND-BOGGLING page 88