It was the end of May 2023. As a WGA member, I was suddenly thrust into a vast expanse of unemployment, terror, and for the first time in years…free time. My life quickly descended into a daily routine of bad reality shows and feeling sorry for myself. When July rolled around and SAG went on strike, all of my friends were out of work and I had run out of new episodes of Below Deck. I thought, "well I really have no excuse now." I should make something all mine because for the first time in a long time, I have no one waiting on a script. Stop being scared and make something. A thing I do in the theater all the time, but am scared to do in film, which costs more and exists on vimeo forever!

 There was no doubt in my mind that I wanted to create something for actress Nicole Spiezio to star in. She’s been the lead of several of my plays around the country including 2017’s I Wanna Fucking Tear You Apart (Studio Theater, DC), and 2020’s Nicole Clark Is Having A Baby (Humana Festival, Louisville). She is a powerhouse actress able to be funny and then on a dime, she can rip your heart out. She also happens to be fat. And to see a body that looks like mine, and to get to decide how it is seen…how we as fat women are seen, is such a delightful gift. And something that’s true about Nicole in life and on screen is that she’s no sad fat girl. She’s no one’s victim. She is strong and confident and precise and bold and unafraid to be vulnerable.

Nancy Robinette, an absolute award-winning icon in the theater world was also a must-have. She, too, has gifted my stage plays with her work in 2020’s Nicole Clark Is Having A Baby, and more recently in 2023’s Jennifer Who Is Leaving (Round House, DC). She’s the kindest woman in the world who somehow has the capacity to play truly cruel women, to access deep  woundedness and still be funny. And Emily Kunkel is not only one of my oldest friends, she is an actress with unlimited emotional expanse and unparalleled (and yet sincere!) comedic chops. She has graced my work since my very first play in college in 2005. These three women together are like a perfect three piece orchestra, their different tones and skills harmonizing together in ridiculous, lifelike poignant hilarity.

 So I started to write the script. When it was done, I reached out to Chloe Sabin, our tremendously gifted, sharp, ALWAYS AHEAD OF ME producer. She had recently produced some shorts by other theater friends of mine and they had raved about her. She immediately hopped on board and we found the incredible, visionary cinematographer Alexa Wolf. Her inventive visual language, the willingness to push beyond the expected in a shot…I had to have Alexa. After a chat, I even discovered Alexa used to shoot plus size models. Okay, she’s talented, cool, AND she’s down with fat people?! Yes please!

 We set shoot dates for August and started pulling together the most incredible team. Jess Stathos on production design, the entire camera crew - all Alexa’s pals doing us a very discounted favor, our 1st AD, the major superstar Talia Light Rake was unreal, and our PA’s were lovely actors and creatives who were all out of work from the dual strikes. We shot on City Island in the Bronx in two pretty darn sane ten hour days. We were SO lucky that Emily, our actress,  has a perfectly designed house (with two real toddlers) right near the water. It made for the most hospitable (and gorgeous) shoot location we could hope for. It also served to underline the bifurcated nature of the film: it begins as a cozy family comedy and then breaks open and widens into a greater emotional landscape, just like the main location shifts from inside the house to the beach.