One of the things I love the most about the entertainment industry is that there is room for every kind of artist. From mainstream to independent, every playwright, actor, singer, etc is creating art.

One of the things I have always prided myself on is that Call Me Adam is an Entertainment Platform for everyone, whether their name rolls off your tongue or you have yet to discover them, I am here to shine a spotlight on their talent.

The main reason I wanted to speak with Theater Maker Nicolás Noreña was because his new play The Kick Inside was written by 13 different playwrights. I have seen a lot of shows over my lifetime, but I had never heard of a play being written by so many people, so I just had to find out how this process worked.

The other reason I wanted to showcase Nicolás was because The Kick Inside was inspired by Kate Bush's album of the same name. As someone who has been influenced by so many artists, I couldn't wait to find out how the Kate Bush album sparked Nicolás' idea for this play.

In this interview, Nicolás answered my call to share: 

• Why The Kick Inside needed 13 playwrights to bring its wild language experiment to life
• How a mix of instinct, luck, and bold invitations shaped the playwright lineup
• How each playwright helped stretch the show’s language, scenes, and imagination
• What audiences should know before stepping into this kinetic, Kate Bush-inspired play
• How New York City becomes a dreamlike “lost city” inside the world of the show
• So much more

Connect with Nicolás: Website, Instagram

The Kick Inside is a Kate Bush-inspired exquisite corpse of a play written by thirteen New York City based playwrights.

The story follows Alenka, a woman who grows awfully tired of the way that people talk to one another and begins experimenting with language in every scene of this one-and-a-half-act play.

Visually rich and littered with strange phenomena, action sequences, dogs, algorithm possessions, hitmen and a world that speaks back, The Kick Inside uncovers a lost city that tilts language to ask where words come from within us, and how deeply we transform each other's emotional fabrics.

The Kick Inside will run from October 21, 2026-November 7, 2026 at HERE Arts Center in NYC. Click Here for tickets!

1. This fall, the new play you conceived, The Kick Inside, will be making its world premiere in NYC. The show was written by 13 different playwrights. How did you come up with the idea that this show needed to be written by 13 different playwrights? I originally thought I would write this play! I asked John Jesurun to come to an early workshop, take a look at the work we were doing, and give me some advice as a playwright.

He jokingly said “if I were you, I’d hire a young playwright to write this for you.” I laughed, but the idea stayed with me.

You know, the show is about this person who begins to experiment with language in every scene… and I’m okay with English. It’s my second language and I have my own relationship with it, but I’m definitely not a Master of it, so I thought well let me ask some people who are very good at this…and wouldn’t it be great if each scene was written by a different person!

It was a crazy idea and nothing excites me more than a far out thought.

2. How did you decide which playwrights you wanted to reach out to? There was not one method! Each playwright came on board in a different way. But they all said yes. And there’s something obvious, but very powerful in that.

I began by reaching out to some people I knew, Jess Barbagallo and John Jesurun. As a company we had been working on mostly silent pieces since 2020, so I needed some assistance from people I knew getting back into dialogue and giving this idea a go.

I also wanted there to be a big range of age, so I asked Richard Foreman (who had died a few months ago) and also asked Marvin Just, who is the thirteen year old son of Kara Feeley and Travis Just from Object Collection. Marvin said yes, and Richard’s offering from wherever he is was perfect.

I also wanted to get text from people I didn’t know, so I asked Emily Davis and Alenka Kraigher, the actresses developing the main role, to choose someone. They chose Fiona Templeton and Hayley Stahl.

We also made a call and received a bunch of different scenes for the ending scene and had the cast vote for one— Ethan Fishbane’s scene was unanimously voted to be the ending of our show.

Nazareth Hassan is my neighbor, Penny Arcade I met through my friend Pooh Kaye, Hillary Gao’s shows I’ve seen, Dhari Noel’s work I had only read. Normandy Sherwood is designing our sets and costumes.

Anyway, a mix of nose, luck, wishful thinking and happenstance!

I asked so many people, famous, less famous, emerging, retired and everything in between. I like to think the show attracted the playwrights it wanted during the past year and a half. I deeply admire each and every single one of them.

Nicolás Noreña
Photo Courtesy of Nicolás Noreña's Social Media

3. Why was it important that you hired downtown experimental artists to write this show? The narrative of this show runs parallel to what experimental playwrights do for a living. It’s some kind of inverse allegory.

So sure, there is a thin narrative of a woman who gets tired of the way people speak to one another, but this show is ultimately a formal love letter to the people who find this plasticity in language, who find the edge of the world in the exchange of words, who reify how we speak by writing for the furthering of theater.

4. Can you tell us a little bit about the writing process for the show? For example, did you assign different parts of the script to each playwright? After hearing the overall idea of the show, did each playwright get to choose what part they wrote? After the first workshop I had an outline of the scenes starting at “The Cinema” and ending at “The Piers”, fifteen scenes in an act and a half. That hasn’t changed.

I also had a good sense of who the characters were: Alenka, The man in her room, Felix a dog who is also a man, Jeannie the tech witch, Angel and Baba two hitmen, and Alenka’s cousin Frankie.

When I first started giving these out, playwrights got to choose scenes, later I was sending scenes to playwrights, I forget where the turning point happened, but I think if there were options I asked them, “these scenes are available, which interests you?”

All playwrights got brief character descriptions, the outline of the play and a description of their scene.

5. How was the process of putting this show together made easier by having so many different playwrights involved? Well I honestly think if this was written by one person the idea of the “experiments with language” would be much harder to differentiate and probably more contrived.

At the time I was thinking, hmmm maybe in one scene no one can use any spatial prepositions or spatial thinking… in this one they’re all referencing a fairy tale as code, but they’re all thinking of a different one ... so yes, I didn’t have to do that, the playwrights decided how to “test” language and experiment with it in their own scenes, and that was thrilling.

The Kick Inside Show Poster

6. What should audiences know about The Kick Inside before coming to see the show? It’s not only text, the show is very kinetic, there are fight scenes, dances, live foley! a moving set! It is about visual, textual and aural languages clashing, bumping, and running together.

7. How is the play inspired by the Kate Bush album of the same name? Her debut album was our inspiration and starting place. I have been saying it’s like a bone in a bone broth: you can’t see it, you can’t touch it, but it’s there!

I think every element has been infused by the playfulness, strangeness, mysticism and tenderness of The Kick Inside.

8. Press notes state that, "The Kick Inside uncovers a lost city..." What are some discoveries about NYC you have made that make you feel like this is a lost city? This show happens in a city that is like New York City, but it’s not the New York City that exists outside of my door, but the dreamt city I came looking for when I was 19.

It wasn’t here then, and it’s not here now, and who knows if it was ever here! But we all live in it, look for it and feel so lucky when we get a glimpse.

9. It is listed in your bio, that lately, you have been curious about "forgetfulness, dancing with sprinklers, and how places on earth attract ideas and people to them through magnetism." Let's break these topics down to find out more about you.

• What is something that you have been forgetting a lot lately? I can’t remember! 
• What is your favorite dance to do with a sprinkler? I love leaping at them as if they could hold me in mid air.
• What is the latest place on earth that you feel attracted you to, through magnetism? Verscio, Switzerland.

10. What is something we didn't get to talk about in this interview that you'd like my audience to know about you?  I’m more curious about them! Come see this show and tell me what you think. I’ll be there every night.

I get very self conscious about language, but love chatting and in some way this is where this show originates.

I don’t have an answer, but rather want to share a question, I guess that’s why the play is an act and a half…I’m curious to hear what people have to say.

Nicolás Noreña
Photo Courtesy of Nicolás Noreña

More on Nicolás Noreña:

Nicolás Noreña is a Colombian theater maker and performer living in Brooklyn. His work recognizes theater as a memory medium in relation to the forces of Chaos, Form, and Change.

He is the founder and Artistic Director of THE MILLION UNDERSCORES. With his company, he has developed, produced, directed and designed over twenty original productions presented at The Museum of Modern Art, Target Margin Theater, Theater Flamboyan, The Brick Theater, O.D.C San Francisco, Le Mondo Baltimore, 62’ Center for Theater and Dance in Williamstown, as well as in DIY venues, gallery windows, and public spaces in New York City.

He had the pleasure of working closely with Mary Overlie and Richard Foreman, their mentorship, their transgressive ideas on theater, and deep sense of humor have been foundational to Nicolás and his company.

Over the years he has performed with wonderful theater artists such as The Talking Band, Richard Foreman, Mary Overly, Jess Barbagallo, Liz Swados, Jeff Weiss, Theresa Buccheister, Normandy Sherwood, and Object Collection.

He was a resident artist with MABOU MINES 2015-2016 under the mentorship of JoAnne Akalaitis, a LEIMAY fellow 2015-2020, LAB artist with Target Margin Theater in 2019, and has developed work at multiple residencies at Mercury Store since 2023.

Nicolás currently teaches at the Experimental Theater Wing at New York University and is the Archive Director of the Mary Overlie Legacy Project. He has taught workshops and given lectures at Playwrights Horizons, MIT, Julliard, HB Studios, Mercury Store, as well as abroad in schools in Colombia and Switzerland.

Lately, Nicolás has been curious about forgetfulness, dancing with sprinklers, and how places on earth attract ideas and people to them through magnetism.

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