Audience Guide: The Call List - Third Avenue PlayWorks

Audience Guide Researched and Written by Tina Kakuske

Playwrights – Between the Lines

Playwright Brian James Polak is an originator of The Subtext podcast which started in Los Angeles in 2015. The Subtext is a “monthly podcast focused primarily on playwrights, their process, and their journeys through the American theatre.” American Theater Magazine currently presents the podcast.

Wheatfield with Crows

Post-Impressionist painter Vincent Van Gogh is mentioned in The Call List. Van Gogh struggled with a mental health condition that affected his life and work. He lived at an asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence from May 1889 to May 1890, where the view from his bedroom was a wheatfield, changing with the seasons and weather. From this perspective, he created several oil paintings known as The Wheat Field series.

Van Gogh wrote his brother Theo from Saint- Rémy that the “vast fields of wheat under turbulent skies” he had become obsessed with “represented his sadness and extreme loneliness.” In the play, Sam’s father is obsessed with Van Gogh’s painting from the series, Wheatfield with Crows, perhaps for a similar reason.

Easter Egg

An easter egg is a surprise, joke, or extra bit hidden within the play. The Call List has a fun easter egg in it. Hint: for those aware of the pop/hip hop music scene in the 1980s/90s, this easter egg may have sung a poisonous tune.

Which Jenny?

Jenny’s name is on the call list, but which barista named Jenny did Craig mean? This is a valid question because Jennifer was the “number one most popular name for girls” in the United States from 1970-1984 and had been in the Top 20 for 33 years. The Findings Report places the blame for the plethora of girls named Jennifer on Baby Boomer parents and the popular film, Love Story. Jen Gerson from The National Post (a Canadian publication) coined the situation, The Jennifer Epidemic.

Eventually, the prevalence of Jennifers in the world created a backlash against the name Jennifer and there was once a website established (in jest) with the acronym SPPNTCJ, the Society for Preventing Parents from Naming Their Children Jennifer.

Regular Customers

It is not unusual for coffee shop employees to give their regular customers descriptive monikers, like “day old scone guy.” There is a reddit thread about this, and some nicknames found there include The Residents, ten toddlers in a trenchcoat, and creepy vanilla latte guy. If you could choose, what would your coffee shop nickname be?

Did You Know?

The Call List by Polak was inspired by the actual call list of John B. Mclemore of Woodstock, AL, from S-Town, an investigative journalism podcast.
This is the Subtext is a memoir play written by Brian James Polak about producing The Subtext podcast.
The Call List uses dark comedy, a subgenre of comedy characterized by elements of comedy and tragedy, to invite audiences to consider uncomfortable subjects through humor.
“A doodle is a casual little drawing, [often scribbled] while doing something else, like talking on the phone or listening to a teacher’s lecture.” Benefits of doodling include relaxation, mood regulation, memory recall, creativity and authenticity, and problem solving.

The Process

Brian James Polak interviews playwrights about their writing process for The Subtext podcast, so we thought it would be nice to ask him about his process, in general about playwrighting and specifically about The Call List.

Polak listened to the S-Town podcast which is where he first heard about the call list of John B. Mclemore. The list stayed with him and after listening to the podcast again, he became “more hung up on that call list.” Polak credits the call list idea evolving into a new play with his desire to write a solo play for his wife to perform and says, “If [my wife] wasn’t in my life this play wouldn’t have happened. I just would have been fascinated by a moment on a podcast and moved on to other things.”

“When I first have an idea for a play, as in this case, I sit with it in my mind for a very long time,” he continues. “The process can look a little different from play to play. But two things are true for most of my plays. I spend months and sometimes years thinking about a play idea before writing it. And then on the back end I rewrite as much as possible.”

When he knew that he was going to write the play based on the call list idea, he thought about the solo character and circumstances – who made the calls and why. “I chose the very relatable setting of a typical office job with a bad boss. And I created a character who had a lot going on in her own life outside of work so there would be parallel stories.” He made the decision to have that character be the only one speaking in the play.

With this structure, Polak wrote a list of 10 calls, wrote out the calls themselves, and then wrote the play beginning to end. Calls were added and moved around as revisions occurred. The Call List had about five revisions, becoming more detail oriented, with seemingly small changes having an impact on the performance.

Polak says he has benefited from Director Jacob Janssen’s commitment to producing, discussing, and reading the play, providing feedback, workshopping it and continuing the work via Zoom. Actress Eva Nimmer has also worked with Polak on the play early on beginning in 2023, helping to make valuable improvements. He says, “I have never worked on a play where the director and actor have been so entwined with the development of the piece …. I care about making the best play I possibly can and so are they. This makes the process an incredible joy.” He concludes, “What started as a fun idea for a little play has bloomed into this wonderfully complex, funny, and human story that I’m incredibly proud of. And none of it would be happening if not for Eva and Jacob.”