Playwrights and stars of Stir Melinda Lopez and Joel Perez chat about being siblings in another life, bonding over family camping trips, and creating art during the pandemic.

Melinda Lopez: We’re doing a show!

Joel Perez: Yeah we are!

ML: I think it’s great. I wanted to say for clarity, we are not siblings. Or were we in a past life?

JP: You think in a past life? Oh, I don’t know.

ML: We just fell into that sibling thing pretty easily. Do you have a sister?

JP: I don’t. I have brothers. This is very much an acting exercise.

ML: And I do not have a brother. I have a sister. So we are transposing some lived experiences into some imaginary spaces.

JP: Which is how this collaboration started to begin with. It was just us brainstorming ideas during the pandemic, and then this came out of it.

ML: Yes. What would not be sad? What would not be boring? Even though there are some sad things in the play we kept coming at it from—

JP: From a place of joy.

ML: Yes. A desperate joy. A desperate need to feel joy. 

JP: I love that. 

ML: And then we found all of these things that we had in common, which I thought was really weird.

JP: Growing up as a Latino in Massachusetts was really interesting, and that’s definitely a shared experience that we were able to draw on for our characters and for the given circumstances of the play. Which was kind of surprising. Even that our families used to go camping in New Hampshire.

ML: I know! Isn’t that weird? I think we’re—what is it? “Brother from another mother?”

JP: Sister from another mister.

ML: Sister from another mister!

JP: I think we were also both trying to, as an experiment, write something that was very close to who we are as people rather than trying to access the writing from an intellectual research place. It was kind of fun to write from a place that feels very close to who we are.

ML: I think Henry is very close to who you are, and Mariana is all my worst qualities. 

JP: If we were less put together, this is who these characters are.

ML: We would devolve into these characters. Without all the therapy we’ve had. This is who we’d be.

JP: Where did the food element come from?

ML: We were talking about doing a talk show during the pandemic. We would meet and talk and maybe cook something.

JP: Maybe invite people on and share a family recipe.

ML: But then that turned into wanting it to be more of a play.

JP: For me, the cooking came from my experience during the lockdown of missing food from home and not being able to get it. I think we were all feeling very nostalgic during the lockdown.

ML: Oh my God, that’s so true.

JP: I was watching old videos and movies and craving food from childhood, which led me to call my mom and be like, “Can you talk me through this recipe?” Now I had time on my hands that I didn’t have before.

ML: Right. And the last thing you wanted to do was go back online and look something up. Craving that connection, that person you can talk to old-school. I think we talked early on about Cuban black beans.

JP: That sort of came from my husband, who is Cuban, so I have a closeness to Cuban culture. I’m Puerto Rican, but Cuban and Puerto Rican food have very subtle differences. Also, when we were writing this the first go around, I was in Miami. My husband and I went down to Miami in 2021 to escape New York City and spend time with his family. And you’re Cuban, so that seemed like a cool way to explore our shared cultures. But also we talked about a lot of recipes that we could make, and black beans was something that could realistically be made within the time frame of a play.

ML: “Realistically.”

JP: From beginning to end, there can be edible food that the audience can experience in real time.

ML: I want to eat some now.

JP: We’re going to get so sick of them! What do you want audiences to take away from seeing Stir?

ML: I hope they came with a sibling or loved one or they call them when they leave. I hope they remember that underneath all the bickering that family is family. I think that’s what I’d like. Also, they have a good recipe for black beans. How about you?

JP: I hope it makes people curious to deepen their family connections and encourages people to share a meal with a loved one. I think that’s such a big part of the show. Sitting around a table with people you love.

ML: Sharing a meal is such an intimate, ancestral, and profoundly human experience. I love that.

Photo: Playwrights Melinda Lopez and Joel Perez. Photo by Rita Corona.