When Jennifer Hair penned Saints of My Own Design, she heeded the advice of her former scriptwriting professor: “Write what you know.”
The play, which is a fundraiser for breast cancer awareness research, addresses the topic of breast cancer and how it touches the lives of the characters involved. But in an interesting twist, it’s derived from Hair’s own experience with breast cancer that really wasn’t.
“Well, first of all, I’ll admit I’m slightly a hypochondriac,” she explained. “And one day I found a small spot [in my breast] and I went to the doctor. My kids were really young at the time, and I started thinking all these things like, How am I going to tell them? Who will take care of them? Then my doctor told me everything was all right and to quit being a worrywart.”
Though Hair’s situation turned out well, it became the basis of the play. Saints of My Own Design is a reading that details the experience of a woman who’s lost several family members to breast cancer and fears the loss of her own life. The characters all examine the ways breast cancer has touched their lives. Hair said the play is autobiographical in the sense that there are stories from her own life in it. For instance, the title comes from two memories from her childhood.
“When I was very young, there was a family that lived right across the street from us and they had eight kids, and they all had saint names. I thought that was kind of neat,” Hair said. “But also every Christmas I used to dress my Barbies up in tinfoil and arrange them under the tree as a nativity. So the title comes from those experiences, but also the main character ‘sees’ visions of her family members who have passed away due to breast cancer.”
Hair is quick to point out that the play isn’t a depressing look at a horrible disease.
“It’s got humor to it. It’s not a downer. It talks a lot about breasts,” she said with a laugh.
“It was fun to write for one particular speech,” she continued. “One of the actors has 20 different ways to say breast in one of her speeches.”
The message is powerful, but the motivation behind the show is even more rewarding. The play is put on by Lompoc Civic Theatre professionals, and Hair said people don’t often realize that the civic productions are entirely volunteer run. What’s even better, she said, is that this show is all volunteer run and it’s to raise awareness of a good cause.
“For me, getting to do my show I wrote is absolutely wonderful, but it means we get to make a donation to the Susan G. Komen Foundation—and that’s the best part,” she said.
Arts Editor Shelly Cone thinks doing something for a good cause is always the best part. Contact her at scone@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Oct 6-13, 2011.