Ella Talerico, Studio’s Artistic Producing Fellow, interviewed Seshat Yon’shea Walker, playwright of Familial Comforts, which will be featured in the inaugural New Pages, New Stages Festival.
ELLA: How did you fall in love with playwriting?
SESHAT: I come from the spoken word and poetry scene in D.C., so I was surrounded by artists—some of whom were actors. This was the late ’90s. I was pregnant with my daughter and wanted to write a play about Black girls—about all the different Black girl experiences. It was a love letter to my unborn daughter, but also to myself. Something I would have wanted to hear when I was younger. That piece became Black Girl. Later, I self-funded a production through a grant from D.C. Arts Center.
After Black Girl, I had stopped playwriting for a while, but during the pandemic I started again. On a whim, I applied to the Kennedy Center Playwright Intensive. That’s when I truly started to love it.
ELLA: Was there something particular about that program that inspired you?
SESHAT: We were placed in affinity groups, and I was in a BIPOC group. We got very close. We shared stories about our lives and how we came to writing. I learned a lot. From that group I also met Henry, the director of my play Church, who I have been friends with ever since.
ELLA: Why are you a playwright? What about theater captivates you?
SESHAT: I’m naturally an introvert, and theater is full-on drama. I can be whoever I want through my characters. I can share truths I might be scared to say in real life. It’s like therapy—without paying anyone. It’s the fullest way to express everything in my head.
ELLA: If everyone in the world knew your work, what do you think would change?
SESHAT: I think how people feel about Black women would change. I’m interested in dismantling stereotypes about Black women but also questioning where they come from. Familial Comforts is deeply personal. I center Black women in my family and Black women on the Eastern Shore. These voices aren’t often represented. I want audiences to see that these women exist, that they’re thriving despite all the odds, and that they are complex. Black women are not a singular voice. We are not a monolith. We come from all kinds of backgrounds and experiences.
ELLA: What inspired you to write Familial Comforts?
SESHAT: It started with a memory of my great-grandmother’s kitchen—her making homemade peach ice cream. From that moment, the characters emerged.
ELLA: How has it evolved?
SESHAT: It began as a short piece in 2021, then grew to 30 pages. I did readings, got feedback, and realized “Oh my God, I have so much more to say”. I put it down for a bit, then revisited it through Theater Alliance’s Hot House New Plays Experience and Workshop Theater’s Spring Intensive. Seeing other writers be honest about their revision process—hating their work, then rediscovering it—was transformative.
I also just saw Paula Vogel’s The Mother Play at Studio, and her approach to the autobiographical memory play was so clean, humorous, and imaginative. I helped me see Familial Comforts in a new light.
ELLA: What are you still exploring through this process?
SESHAT: The biggest question I’m asking is if I’m done with these characters. I’ve been toying with making a play-within-a-play, where the next play explores the four women who play the characters and how their lives parallel (or don’t parallel) Familial Comforts.
I'm also thinking about the trope of grandmothers, particularly Black grandmothers. I’m a grandmother and looking at my own grandmothers, well, we are all so different. Grandmothers are people, too. And they had lives before they became grandmothers.
ELLA: Anything else you’d like to share?
SESHAT: I’m excited to see what resonates—what makes people laugh, cringe, or feel surprised.