PRODUCTION STILLS
BEHIND THE SCENES
TIMELINE
1997
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Arthur Aron publishes "The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness: A Procedure and some Preliminary Findings" in PSPB, cataloging the "36 questions to fall in love."
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2017
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Jennifer Lane is inspired by The New York Times article "To Fall In Love With Anyone, Do This" and writes the play in just three days, with Eric Casalini’s voice in mind for Wyatt.
The play wins the Tennessee Williams One-Act Play Competition in the Tennessee Williams New Orleans Literary Festival. In its world premiere at the San Diego International Fringe Festival, the play wins Best Writing and Best Drama. |
2018
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The play is a Semi-Finalist in the National Playwrights Contest at The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center.
The play runs as a site-specific show in Glasgow, Scotland while Beth is studying at RCS. A limited run of site-specific performances in San Diego, CA are sold out and well-reviewed. |
2019
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The play has a month-long run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
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2022 - 23
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To Fall In Love is adapted into a screenplay by Jennifer Lane, funding is secured, and the feature is filmed.
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WRITER'S NOTE
More than 20 years ago, psychologist Arthur Aron watched as two strangers, sitting directly across from each other, fell in love in his laboratory as they asked each other a series of 36 questions he created. Six months later, the two participants were married and invited the entire lab to the ceremony.
This story was written as a New York Times article titled “To Fall in Love With Anyone, Do This,” and it rattled around in my head for a couple of years before I sat down to write a play using the 36 questions mentioned in the article. I had been in something of a dry spell, creation-wise, and had been working with actor Eric Casalini on another project. It was his voice in my head as I wrote Wyatt, a role I created for him. I wrote the first draft of the play in 3 days, a huge relief after months of not writing, and the play is largely the same, having undergone only basic tweaks since I first drafted it.
I shared the play with Eric, and he loved it, so we decided to enter it into the San Diego International Fringe Festival. He was in an acting class with Beth Gallagher and they did a private reading of it, just the two of them, and I think they both ended up crying in a hallway somewhere. We workshopped it with director Jacole Kitchen, of the La Jolla Playhouse, and it went on to win Best Writing and Best Drama at the fringe festival, and it just continued to grow from there.
There were two versions of the play, a shortened version that we did at the San Diego fringe as well as at the Edinburgh Fringe, and a longer “full-length” version, which went on to be performed in Florida, Colorado, Wisconsin, Italy, New York, and elsewhere, and also won the Tennessee Williams One Act Play Competition. Now, of course, it has been produced as a film as well.
This story was written as a New York Times article titled “To Fall in Love With Anyone, Do This,” and it rattled around in my head for a couple of years before I sat down to write a play using the 36 questions mentioned in the article. I had been in something of a dry spell, creation-wise, and had been working with actor Eric Casalini on another project. It was his voice in my head as I wrote Wyatt, a role I created for him. I wrote the first draft of the play in 3 days, a huge relief after months of not writing, and the play is largely the same, having undergone only basic tweaks since I first drafted it.
I shared the play with Eric, and he loved it, so we decided to enter it into the San Diego International Fringe Festival. He was in an acting class with Beth Gallagher and they did a private reading of it, just the two of them, and I think they both ended up crying in a hallway somewhere. We workshopped it with director Jacole Kitchen, of the La Jolla Playhouse, and it went on to win Best Writing and Best Drama at the fringe festival, and it just continued to grow from there.
There were two versions of the play, a shortened version that we did at the San Diego fringe as well as at the Edinburgh Fringe, and a longer “full-length” version, which went on to be performed in Florida, Colorado, Wisconsin, Italy, New York, and elsewhere, and also won the Tennessee Williams One Act Play Competition. Now, of course, it has been produced as a film as well.