Use All Available Doors
[1 woman, 6+ gender neutral]
Use All Available Doors follows a soon-to-be-decommissioned WMATA train car, a grieving operator re-evaluating her life’s path, and a revolving door of passengers as they travel the length of the Red Line from Shady Grove to Glenmont. A vignette occurs between each stop, highlighting the diverse nature of the Red Line’s path, including a parade, a sing-a-long, and unsolicited foot washing.
Read this script on the New Play Exchange.
Press
"The interior of a rickety old Metro train serves as the backdrop to a varied display of human emotions — where people fall in and out of love, commit random acts of kindness and spark bizarre altercations. Riders grapple with their angst over American politics and reckon with their own loneliness or existential quandaries. In other words, this isn’t just a play about Red Line delays." - Washington Post
"It is Willis’ and Salmi’s insistence on bending that format as far as it can go, Davonne’s charisma as Sherry, and an ensemble capable of playing a wide variety of characters from the most archetypical to the most eccentric that keeps the audience riding to the end of the line." - DCMetroTheaterArts
"A trip...on the WMATA Red Line takes a little more than an hour and costs three and a half bucks. A trip on Pinky Swear’s Use All Available Doors is forty-five minutes longer and costs more, but is more interesting. The great writing teacher Gary Prevost once said 'writing isn’t life, it’s life’s greatest hits,' and Willis applies that principle with a vengeance, providing startling snippets of slice-of-life between the stops." - DCTheatreScene
INTERVIEW: "Ride Metro's Red Line? Now You Can See A Play About It" - WAMU
INTERVIEW: "A Conversation with [Tristan B] Willis and Toni Rae Salmi"- DCMTA
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Production History
Pinky Swear Productions - Washington, DC, 2018
This project was developed in part through support provided by CulturalDC's Performing Arts Initiative.
Development
Kennedy Center Page to Stage Reading with Pinky Swear Productions - Washington, DC, 2016