When Lois first introduced me to the project, the goal was not to create a feature film. There had been several video recordings of her play from 2015, and I was brought on as an editor to see if I could cut and crop the single wide shot from the back of the room into something that was, as she put it, “watchable”- not just for herself, but for an audience. After a few months of meeting with Lois and working with the footage, it became clear that there was a singular fundamental problem that we couldn’t get around. In a play, the audience is expected to imagine with the actors- everyone’s “in the same room,” both literally and figuratively. In film, the audience needs to see the world through the eyes of the protagonist; or, at the very least, how we see a story on film is important, and needs to be considered. I felt that if the protagonist, as we see in the play, disappeared into another world, we, the audience, would need to travel with her. Otherwise, there would always be a disconnect- we would always be watching the trials and tribulations from afar. The same story would become exploitative or voyeuristic, and we’d never achieve the level of understanding that we wanted.

Lois and I began to talk about adding supplementary footage- shots and scenes to represent what our titular character was experiencing. That became maybe shooting a couple scenes, which led to maybe making some kind of free-form art thing.

We were both pretty opposed to having a script for a long time. At this point, I was very familiar with the play and had an attitude of, “I have a camera, let’s just make something.” It was very organic. Though, when we started getting other people involved, the first question was “when can I read the script?”

So I would write scenes, send them to Lois and we would talk about it. The biggest change from the start was removing the narrator; then we changed some songs and added a few characters (namely, The Goddess). The whole thing was written in a very unconventional way. I never really considered the usual structural elements of a film. Instead, I just followed what made sense to me emotionally- moving from one scene to the next- stopping along the way to make sure the route I was taking felt “true” to Lois. It needed to be exactly the same and at the same time entirely different from the play.

Artistically, I was always very interested in the idea of only having a handful of actors play many different roles in the film. In my opinion, this was a very successful choice that carried over from the play. The everpresence of The Father character throughout the life of Babs made the trauma feel inescapable- the same face with a different name.

This sentiment continued with the set itself, the door, the box and the chandeliers; consistent grammatical elements that make up the language of the film. These elements were never meant to be analogous, but instead symbolic- the distinction being that they are not intellectual, but evocative, ethereal and meant to be interpreted. Symbolism will always invite an audience to participate in a way not too dissimilar from a stage play. I feel that this participation is what contributes to the relatability of the film. The audience is not simply presented with a grab bag of analogous elements that they have to solve for in order to understand what’s going on. Rather, they are shaping their own narrative- finding themselves in a film about nobody else.

-Jasper Hamilton

In my late 20s, I found myself at “Stories Inc.” a weird and crazy theater company where I made music and sound effects for a handful of productions. It was fun and it felt easy to me. I followed the thread into film composing. More than a decade later, I read the writing on the wall. My pencil and piano couldn’t compete with the deluge of self assured masculine plastic poking that flooded the industry, and promising to “do it for free.” It was 2000 and I was 39. 

Unable to figure out what kind of job I should even be looking for, I decided to create my own. If you can’t join ‘em, beat ‘em. 

Like many of us, I was in and out of mental hospitals in my twenties. Thankfully, I was able to add fun things to my resume, like “schizoid affective disorder” and “borderline personality” - though I initially preferred “lost touch with reality”. While my friends saw me crying or laughing, inside, I was violently ricocheting between “my father raped me” and “I’m a god.” With time and support, I realized what I was doing was in fact “regaining touch with reality.” 

In the eighties and nineties there was a wave of one-person shows telling personal stories. I saw a few of these, and it made me think, maybe this could be my “job”, or at least a direction to go in. I asked myself, could I write a one-woman show about how the sexual abuse I experienced from my father impacted my ability to express myself musically, and how I worked through the damage after recovering my memories? Sure. It would capitalize on my musicianship, and I would drive around the country, putting it on for anyone who’d watch. After a year, I had a first draft. It was 2009 and I was 48.

At some point in the fifteen drafts that followed, the play became what we in the biz call a “two-hander.” I knew something wasn’t working, but I wasn’t sure what. My baby needed a midwife and it just so happened that his name was Richard Keeshan. In 2014, I brought him on to be a co-writer, and together we finished a workshop script entitled “Who is Babs del Rio?” We described it as, “2 actors, 14 characters, 7 instruments, 7 original songs, some poetry, and some dance. When you can’t get away, you have to find a way. And if tragedy plus time truly equals comedy, things could get a little funny.” 

After the sold out seven night run in midtown Manhattan, I couldn’t think or breathe. Life went on. I had a day job, I was paying the rent, but I kept returning to the show in my mind, wanting it to live again. In 2023, I reached out to Jasper Hamilton, a filmmaker, musician and visual artist. Could we work together to film-ify the stage footage? Make a new piece? Something worth watching? There was only one way to find out. Jasper immersed himself in the footage and the script. We entered what I call “the cave” - a sacred safe place where all conversations, and all scenes and dialogue were possible. Many months later, after meeting just about every Wednesday, we decided that no amount of digital trickery, miniatures or puppets was going to work. What was working, however, was the deep and trusting artistic friendship we had developed. We sighed and faced the facts. The next best step, the only real thing to do, was just to make a fucking movie. It was 2025 and I was 64.

Because of our months of conversations, Jasper now had more stories about my experience. Armed with those, and his already deep knowledge of the footage and script, he retired to his neutral corner to write. We’d meet regularly about what he had written, and our well-developed “cave” art-spelunking paid off. Jasper didn’t keep the rhyming narration. He dropped and added characters and songs. Each time he shared new pages, I was blown away by how he was telling the story, and where he was taking the audience. We soon reached a place where I utterly trusted his choices and supported his vision, and I happily stepped back to the actor / producer zone.

His screenplay retained the arc from the stage play. While it remained my story, it had also become anyone’s story. Under his gentle yet firm-handed direction in production, and through his editing and sound choices in post, I could finally see his vision for the piece. I’m extremely proud of what we have made together, and am curious and excited about how it will be received. 

-Lois Dilivio