The Playwright’s Room: Catt Filippov
The Playwright’s Room is a series featuring the newest cohort of Columbia Playwriting students. These playwrights study under the tutelage of David Henry Hwang and Lynn Nottage.
This week, Playwriting student Catt Filippov sat down with us in The Playwright’s Room. Filippov is a Russian-Canadian playmaker from Toronto. After a brief stint teaching yoga to minor-league hockey players Filippov graduated with an Honours BA in Drama, Theatre, and Performance Studies from the University of Toronto. Her first play, The Stray Sheep Cabaret: Or, How to Become a Ghost and Stay That Way, was developed as part of Nightwood Theatre’s Write From the Hip emerging playwrights program in 2019.
Tell me about your first time in Theatre.
Catt Filippov: I was in my grade three talent show and it was the coolest thing. I loved being on stage but I loved being backstage even more. There was so much excitement backstage, putting on costumes, and getting ready to do the show.
Why did you pick Columbia for your MFA?
CF: My journey to Columbia was winding. I graduated from University of Toronto in 2017 and didn’t know what to do. I then audited a course at Columbia which got me a bit excited. Later I went to Clown Camp at Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre. Afterwards I applied to a bunch of schools for acting and playwriting. I got into Columbia for both acting and playwriting but chose playwriting. Getting into both programs was a life affirming moment.
Tell me about one of your plays.
CF: My first full length play was called The Stray Sheep Cabaret: Or, How To Become a Ghost and Stay That Way. As a first generation Canadian, I want to write about my Russian heritage and the Russian immigrant experience. I’m curious about the impossibilities of Russia and how nothing seems to be real there. This play is entirely type-written. Something about type writing stories about Russian people feels permanent. I can’t edit them and it feels solid, like it can’t be deleted. Russia has rewritten its history over and over again, and this can’t be rewritten. My grandfather who was a poet is a character in the play. I like to imagine he’s still alive and writing somewhere in a basement. I took his obituary and said what if he’s not dead, and that helped me create this play. He died in a really mysterious way. He was at a luncheon with some doctors, he started choking and he apparently was too polite to tell one of those doctors that he was choking. So he walked outside and choked to death. It seems very suspicious to me; that he didn’t ask for help and no one was around outside to help.
The Stray Sheep Cabaret: Or, How To Become a Ghost and Stay That Way was inspired by my grandfather and a video a friend of mine posted. It was an awful video of a library being gutted on the streets of Moscow, books in piles, papers flying everywhere. My friend went inside to save some books and people asked him why he was there because all of it was just trash. He was heartbroken. Imagining a pile of books like that on stage. This developed into the process of weaving all of these real things together. The play is dedicated to the journalists who have been assassinated or erased by Vladamir Putin’s government. The story in the play follows writers who have faked their deaths in order to continue their work in safety but because they are “dead” they can’t get their work out there. The play reminds me of how different it is in North America. We are incredibly privileged to say whatever the hell we want.
What’s a lesson you’ve learned from your time at Columbia so far?
CF: I keep thinking about my colleagues and how tremendously important it has been for us to remain a unit. Grad school is working for me in a sense. The fact that I’m surrounded by incredible creators and that I’m in art school is special. Another thing I’ve discovered is that I do my best work when I focus on what I made and was proud of it, rather than filling a requirement.
How would you define your writing style?
CF: I’m still defining it, when I'm in the right mood I’m the Hunter S. Thompson of my generation. My writing is whimsical and magical realism, kind of gonzo. The world is already so crazy and absurd so I rarely make things up, I just spice up the truth.
What’s your favorite play/musical?
CF: My absolute favorite play is Lungs by Duncan MacMillon. My plays have a ton of stage direction and Lungs has none. It creates a world just by having people live in it. It’s so beautiful.
What’s next for you?
CF: I want to keep riding the wave I’m on. I’ve finally figured out who I am as a student. This semester, I’m going to be teaching creative body classes. I’m going to combine my yoga and physical training into a magical movement and writing class. I’m looking forward to filling out these shoes in a sense. I’m super excited and grateful to be here in this moment. I’m literally just looking at the couple of books I brought from Toronto and realizing that this is what it is. I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing right now. Maybe one day I’ll publish a small book of poetry. I’d like to do that eventually.