A Case Study
Narrative | Dramatic Features
Film Name: Call From Godot
Genre: Comedy, Theater
Date: July 2020
Director: Olivia Miller and Anita Castillo-Halvorssen
Producer: Olivia Miller and Anita Castillo-Halvorssen
Writer: Olivia Miller and Anita Castillo-Halvorssen
Editor: Olivia Miller and Anita Castillo-Halvorssen
Starring: Olivia Miller and Anita Castillo-Halvorssen
Original Music: Hannah Van Sciver
Awards: Best of the Fest (Manhattan Rep’s Stories Film Festival 2021), Best Short Film (Manhattan Rep’s Stories Film Festival 2021), Best Screenplay (Manhattan Rep’s Stories Film Festival 2021)
Website: CALL FROM Web Series YouTube Channel
indieactivity: Give a background of your personal experience with the story, writing, and production of your script?
Olivia Miller and Anita Castillo-Halvorssen: During our time as grad students at the Brown/Trinity Rep MFA program, the two of us collaborated on directing and performing our two-woman take on Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead. We learned two things: we love working together and we love working together in an existentialist, absurdist landscape. We recognize that these landscapes are typically dominated by white men, and we relished the opportunity to seize a “classic” canonical theatre text…and rip it to comedic shreds.
The Official Trailer for “Call From: Godot” directed by Olivia Miller and Anita Castillo-Halvorssen
When stripped down to basic questions of should we or should we not exist, the stories that excite us most are those in which seemingly very little actually “happens.” In choosing Waiting for Godot as our playing field for adaptation this time around, we were able to access that fertile playing field again. We adapted the story of Gogo and Didi to our world, placing it in our time and circumstance, transcribing it into a script that reflects our voices and makes space for our bodies. The act of questioning one’s purpose and very existence belongs to all of us, especially now. We are all in crisis.
The structure of “Call From: Godot” adheres to a traditional three-part dramatic structure. The piece unites the audience with two unlikely heroes on a journey of remote calls, doom scrolling, and plenty of bananas, as they discover what it means to live for something, anything – but most importantly, each other. Our goal in creating “Call From: Godot” was to bring the essence of live theater to life in a world where “live” theater is not permissible due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Critical to that essence is spontaneity, collaboration, and absolute joy.
Did you start writing with a cast in mind?
Olivia Miller and Anita Castillo-Halvorssen: We are two actor-storytellers who, before the pandemic, primarily worked in live theater. Since graduating from grad school in 2019, we’ve been finding our artistic footing in New York City, hoping that a future project would bring us together again. Strangely enough, it was the pandemic that allowed that to happen: with the world at a standstill and our industry paused indefinitely, we had the time to create something together that we felt would sustain us artistically through this turmoil. Our work on this project began out of a profound desire to actually collaborate with another person, to feel spontaneity and creation in a world where every action must be carefully planned in order to protect yourself and those around you.
As we began diving deeper into Godot, we also felt invested in our casting choices within this piece. In casting ourselves, two women, in the leading roles of this adaptation of Waiting for Godot, we created a situation that felt surprising and rife with discovery through the immediate visual of seeing two bodies in roles they would not be in under typical theatrical circumstances. To this day, playwright Samuel Beckett’s Estate has strict gender rules set for all plays within the Estate; that means that legally, women cannot play the characters of Didi and Gogo onstage until 2059 (when the copyright expires). So while we certainly had a cast in mind (ourselves) when we began this journey, we’ve absolutely developed new insights and opinions about the weight and meaning behind those casting choices the more time we’ve spent with the piece.
What was the first writing project that you were involved with or that was out of the gate?
Olivia Miller and Anita Castillo-Halvorssen: We began creating a web series “CALL FROM” in early May 2020. By November, the entirety of Season 1 was available on YouTube. The series covers classic plays from the “dead white man” theatrical canon and lovingly pulverizes them with the basic concept: What if these characters were forced to communicate with each other over Zoom? In each episode, we take aim at unstable Zoom connections, how old people interact with Zoom, Zoom sex, Zoom tardiness, Zoom cancellations – each playing nine different characters. The series is a cross between sketch comedy and live theater (a cross that nearly edges into mockumentary at times), allowing viewers to root for our characters even while laughing at their failure to get what they want over Zoom.
Before “CALL FROM,” both of us premiered original one-woman plays in the spring of 2019. Anita has presented her comedic solo show All She Has in Rhode Island and Vermont. The piece is an interrogation of this word “woman” we all use, but by which we all seem to mean different things. With an irreverent dose of humor, All She Has tells a story of redemption and self-discovery in the face of the global patriarchy’s absurd constraints. By focusing on Anita’s story and her traditionally-minded Norwegian grandmother’s place in it, All She Has gives viewers a space to confront the many, seemingly insurmountable challenges of living as a woman – while making room for joy along the way. Anita will perform an excerpt of the piece as part of the 2021 On Women Festival hosted by Brooklyn’s Irondale Ensemble Project on Saturday, March 20th at 7:30 pm (co-directed by Olivia Miller).
Likewise, Olivia is the creator/performer of the one-woman show Bloody Mary: LIVE, which envisions a teenage Queen Mary I defending her “bloody” legacy through a stand-up set. European history and Olivia’s personal history clash and intertwine in this highly interactive theatrical experience. The show was produced at American Repertory Theater’s OBERON in August 2019 and at the PIT Underground in January 2020. Bloody Mary was shortlisted for the prestigious 2020 LET Fringe Award, and consequently had its London debut at the Greenwich Theatre in February 2020. The show was set to premiere at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2020 but, due to COVID-19, is now slated for the Fringe 2021 lineup. In the meantime, Olivia has been working on a research podcast about the history behind the show: “Bloody Mary: On Air” can be streamed on Apple and Spotify.
You wrote and directed the film, what measure of input did it take to don these two hats?
Olivia Miller and Anita Castillo-Halvorssen: With our background in live theater, we’re used to wearing many hats to make a story work. And this is part of the collaborative nature that we were craving: we wanted to take risks, we wanted to try and fail and try again, and we wanted to avoid being precious in our pursuit of making something happen. With these goals in mind, it felt only natural that we would both step into a variety of roles. We also had the pandemic to consider…and by nature of the pandemic, we wanted to keep this project as contained as possible. So it’s just a two-woman band over here.
Where do you think your strengths lie as a filmmaker?
Olivia Miller and Anita Castillo-Halvorssen: We’ve been trained as storytellers, meaning that everything we do should be in service of the story. We think that’s translated really well from our stagecraft over to filmmaking. We’ve also found strength in the zany and the wacky…so it seems appropriate that the tone of “Call From: Godot” is comedic, quirky, and unabashedly truthful under untruthful circumstances.
What do you hope audiences get from your film?
Olivia Miller and Anita Castillo-Halvorssen: By placing famous theatrical characters Didi and Gogo in COVID-19 circumstances of mandated distance, lack of circumstantial control, and Zoom fatigue, we hoped that we could reach our peers and strangers in a way not unlike what we experience live in a theater. This new world of waiting is something we all know, something we are all living through. Call From: Godot is an original narrative experience that peers and strangers alike can connect to intimately and personally, perhaps in a way that is usually reserved for live performance rather than for the screen. It’s a story of waiting and hating waiting and needing to wait and refusing to wait. It’s a story of profound loneliness and profound togetherness, in which we hope audiences will be able to see themselves. We wanted to share a tale of hope, breaking routine, and being present when it matters the most. It’s also a comedy. So we hope it brings everybody a good chuckle.
What else have you got in the works?
Olivia Miller and Anita Castillo-Halvorssen: We would love to produce Season 2 of our web series “CALL FROM” at some point – we already have a couple of episodes written, and it’s going to be quite a departure from Season 1 (which we’re delighted about). Some of what we’ve got cooking would lend itself beautifully to a live outdoor experience in NYC over the summer, so we’re also pursuing that avenue at the moment. If you want to stay tuned, follow us on Instagram (@thatoliviamiller and @anita_c7h) or check in on our websites (olivia-miller.net and anitacastillohalvorssen.com).
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