Tell me about the play you are working on for Emerging Artists Theatre. What do you love most about this play?
I love that Emerging Artists has chosen Sex Work/Sex Play to be part of its 30th Anniversary Return to Off-Broadway. It’s a thrill to be an older playwright and have my first professional production!
Can you tell us a little about your artistic process or background? How is that process is being realized in your work on this play?
I’m a human archeologist and mine people for their stories. As an extrovert, I love unexpected connections. Theater is an art form that has a live audience. There is nothing more thrilling than to share my art in real time.
What compelled you to write the piece? How are you personally invested in this work?
I saw friends of all ages struggling with making lasting relationships through dating apps as well as heard from a therapist friend how pervasive pornography was impacting relationships. I also found that sex work is being normalized, particularly by younger women. I found it all fascinating and worthy of creative sociological exploration.
Is there anything important or meaningful about this piece to you?
I wanted to present taboo topics in an easy-to-digest non-judgmental way.
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Caytha Jentis (Playwright) Caytha, a writer and producer, began making movies while driving carpools in suburban New Jersey. Her first feature, a romantic comedy called And Then Came Love, stars Vanessa Williams, Eartha Kitt, and Anna Camp. Caytha followed that feature with a romantic light drama called The One. Turning to theater, Caytha wrote a stage play called It’s All About the Kids, a dark comedy about suburban sports culture through the eyes of a soccer mom. The play won the NJ Playwrights Competition and had a limited-run production. Due to the success of the play, a movie version was produced called Bad Parents, starring Janeane Garofalo, Cheri Oteri, and Christopher Titus. It has played on Netflix, HBO, and was a Top Comedy on RedBox. Other major credits include The Other F Word, a short-form episodic series about an empty-nester mother’s reinvention journey, and Pooling to Paradise a road film about four strangers, each at a crossroads in their lives, who find connection in a rideshare. The play was selected to be part of Emerging Artists Theater Spring New Works Series. Caytha has produced several storytelling events called Women at the Crossroads. She recently co-chaired the Gold Standard Arts Festival, a week-long festival that celebrates film, theater, and comedy emerging and established artists who are a minimum of fifty years old. The proceeds from the festival go to creating year-round programs for older artists. She began her career as a literary agent in New York. She has an MFA in Screenwriting from UCLA and a BS in tv/film from Syracuse University. Caytha was profiled by the Writers Guild as well as Screenwriter Magazine, and is a member of the Writers Guild, Honor Roll, NYWIFT, and the Producers Guild. Caytha would like to thank Paul Adams and Emerging Artists Theatre for this opportunity.
