A Conversation with James La Bella
James La Bella discusses SEX VARIANTS and playwriting.
Josh Feye: Hi, James.
James LaBella: Hi. Sorry about that—I’ve been getting a ton of spam calls, and I forgot that I have unknown numbers sent straight to voicemail.
JF: Oh, it’s fine. I keep my phone on Do Not Disturb all the time. My friends get really annoyed because I never answer their calls. But thank you for doing this and taking the time to talk with me. How are you?
JLB: I’m good! Thanks for speaking with me. Things are good here. I just read an article called Media Training 101, so get ready for an amazing interview. It’s going to go really well.
JF: I’m excited. Did you have a good holiday?
JLB: Yeah, it was nice. I spent it with my family in Connecticut, helping out and catching up. It’s been good to see my brother. How about you?
JF: Mine was pretty lowkey. I’ve been reclusive lately—it’s Mercury retrograde—but I did see Sex Variants and loved it. That’s why I wanted to talk to you. I’m curious: how did it come about?
JLB: Thank you, that’s really kind. So, Sex Variants actually started in the '90s when Steve Cosson, the artistic director of The Civilians, found a copy of the medical book in a used bookstore—somewhere in San Francisco or San Diego. He thought it might make a good theater piece someday. Later, after founding The Civilians, the project stayed in the background for years. In the mid-2000s, they had a residency at Joe’s Pub and staged a kind of mock-up in 2014, I think. That’s when several composers wrote songs, including the Michael Friedman piece that’s still in the show. Then Steve did a residency at Princeton with visual artist Jessica Mitrani and taught a class based on the book. After that, the project moved to the Mercury Store, where I joined as dramaturg. We later had a residency upstate, and I was promoted to Additional Materials writer. By the time of the NYU Skirball production, I’d become Co-writer. So, that’s the short version of a long journey.
JF: And Sex Variants falls under investigative theater. Have you worked on similar pieces before?
JLB: Yes. I’ve dramaturged six or seven Civilians shows and done some additional writing for them, including for a residency at WNYC’s Greene Space. But Sex Variants is the first true investigative piece I’ve worked on directly. I’ve been around their process for a while now.
JF: Was it always meant to be a musical? Or did that evolve over time?
JLB: It was always intended to be a musical, though what that would look like wasn’t clear at first. From the Joe’s Pub showing, I think they knew it needed to be a musical because of the first-person testimony structure—it lends itself to song.
JF: I’m still thinking about David Greenspan’s performance of “Artist, Philosopher, Queer.” It’s such a haunting, beautiful ode to Bohemia and deviancy.
JLB: That song always moves me. It was originally written by Michael Friedman and then reworked by Stephen Trask for this production. It’s powerful because of everyone who came together to make that moment happen.
JF: Greenspan is one of those actors people will look back on and say, You were there when he did that?
JLB: Exactly. I picked up a book of his plays in high school and have been obsessed ever since. He’s one of the greats.
JF: I’m also interested in the character of Jan Gay. She’s like a Rosalind Franklin figure—this researcher whose contributions were overshadowed by George Henry. I loved the scene where she points out how the participants weren’t just case studies—they had spiritual and artistic lives. Do you think part of the critique that queer culture lacks a spiritual center comes from how medicalized it has become?
JLB: That’s a really thoughtful question. Jan’s most heartbreaking decision is letting a doctor into her research for the sake of legislative protection and harm reduction. Her project was about portraying these women as full human beings, beyond their sexual practices. Unfortunately, medicalizing queer identity was seen as a path toward decriminalization—hospital over jail. But looking at the broader picture, the doctors involved had mixed motives. Dr. Dickinson, who started the committee, was a eugenicist. George Henry appropriated Jan’s work. Thomas Painter wanted to prevent queer identity altogether. Yet Jan Gay stood apart. The more I read about her, the more it became clear that she just wanted people to experience these women as human beings—with no hidden agenda.
JF: Do you think gay culture can return to that sense of freedom that Jan Gay envisioned? When I saw the cast strip at the end, I felt the spirit of Whitman—just let go and be wild.
JLB: I wish I felt more optimistic about it. I think we’re too entangled in the project of America. Jan’s vision of liberation was about shedding historical and identity-based boundaries, but I’m not sure that kind of dissolution is possible right now. The scattershot nature of how we share information today makes it harder to dissolve boundaries. I’d like to believe we can move toward it, but it’s complicated.
JF: I’ve been reading a lot of Whitman and Lorca—both dreamers in their own way.
JLB: There’s something about Jan—especially her nudism and connection to nature—that challenges our relationship to history. One of the show’s demands is acknowledging that ahistorical living is impossible. There’s tension between returning to nature and living with historical awareness. I wonder if those things can coexist.
JF: That’s fascinating. Switching gears, you’re at Brown now pursuing your MFA. What are you learning about yourself and theater?
JLB: I’ve realized I need to buy a rug. (Bad answer—cut the tape!) I’m still learning how to be a grad student. I think the "machine" of myself as a playwright has been running too fast. I’m grateful to have time to read and write, and to be in community with other writers. I’ve learned that I write best when writing toward performance—even if it’s a reading in someone’s basement. Each semester at Brown has a theme for the writer’s workshop. This one is “drama” in the neoclassical or Greek sense. I think Julia Jarcho is pushing us to write plays with actual plot and multiple characters. I hate it, but I’m learning from it. Right now I’m writing about Evangelicals. I’m really taken with this idea that drama can only exist in the absence of God—because God's omniscience erases secrets. Without secrets, there’s no interiority, no plot. It’s connected to technology, too. Sex Variants also explores that blurred line between interior and exterior.
JF: Especially now, when social media erases the boundary between private and public. That’s a powerful theme to explore theatrically. Which playwrights are you most drawn to?
JLB: I really admire Peter Mills Weiss and Julia Mounsey, and also Fake Friends—Michael Breslin and Patrick Foley. They’ve all been generous to me, and I’ve learned so much from their work. Wallace Shawn, of course. Controversial? Maybe. But I love him. I’m also into Brittany Allen—she’s brilliant. Lately, I’ve been reading Rachilde, a French decadent playwright from the early 20th century. She wrote these lush, violent, gender-fluid works. Her name came to her in a dream, and she lived outside traditional gender norms. She’s wild and inspiring.
JF: She sounds incredible.
JLB: Also, I’ve been thinking about Cliff Cardinal. Do you know him?
JF: No.
JLB: He’s a solo performance artist. I saw a play of his at Under the Radar last year. It was the most contentious night of theater I’ve ever experienced. The premise was that he was going to perform As You Like It, but instead, he gave a 90-minute account of atrocities against Indigenous people. He kept saying, “Don’t worry, I’m going to do As You Like It,” but never did. People yelled at him to stop, and he just yelled back. It reminded me of Ubu Roi.
JF: That’s very Jarry.
JLB: Yeah, I’ve been thinking about him a lot.
JF: Final question: What are your dreams for the future of American theater?
JLB: I’d love to see a more equitable distribution of money—not just in terms of pay, but in how things are produced. The current model isn’t working. I also think the way we approach dramatic criticism needs to evolve. It’s too tied to financial interests. I want public arts funding—but that’s the dream, right? Personally, I’m kind of over theater as a tool for moral instruction. I don’t want plays that tell me how to be a better person. I want plays that make me worse.
JF: It’s more humanizing that way.
JLB: Exactly. I’ve been thinking about R.D. Laing—“They’re playing a game. They’re playing at not playing the game. If I show them I see they are, I break the rules and they’ll punish me.” There’s something liberating about dropping the game. Theatre that makes you worse dissolves this 20th-century fantasy that every action brings us closer to moral goodness. That’s not how the world works anymore. Embracing that chaos might be the most human thing we can do.