We finally felt like fully realized people
Inside "Cast Party" with Gabi Stephens: time in fiction, linked collections, theater people
“The signs were all there. By the spring of their freshman year Edie had joined student government, been invited to the junior-senior prom, and was wearing a C cup from Victoria’s Secret. Cat still had her braces and wasn’t allowed to wear thongs (Edie already had three). And while Edie printed her name, neatly, on the sign-up sheet, checking off an extra-curricular box, Cat, unknowingly, was finding her place in the world, a place that would take her further from the person she loved the most.”
Cat and Edie have been friends since birth, bonded to each other even as they began to transform in opposition in high school. Now seniors, they’re preparing to say goodbye to each other and the lives they’ve known in their small town in North Carolina, but the sands of their relationship are shifting beneath them. How well do they still fit together? What has what they want from each other changed as they’ve evolved?
Published last month in The Rejoinder, “Cast Party” is at once tender and incisive. Gabi Stephens holds these characters with powerful narrative control, effortlessly dilating time to reach into the future that lies beyond the lives they’ve known on their school stage.
I spoke with Gabi about cast parties in fiction, the story’s manipulation of time, and writing a linked collection.
The setting of the cast party is so rich for bringing all of the characters’ desires to the surface. You have a background in acting—why did the cast party interest you for fiction?
You can only say so much about blinding stage lights and belting your heart out. What I remember the most about coming up in theater is all the wanting that went with it—wanting to be on stage more, wanting to kiss your dance partner. We were all sort of horny and unpopular. That’s the kind of person that gravitates to musical theater, in my opinion. When you’re a teenager, those shows are basically school sanctioned horny group activities where you get to be someone other than your sad, horny, unpopular self and everyone has to watch you do it. And the parties were where all the juicy stuff happened, where all that wanting turned into having, or not. They were loud, and gay, and debaucherous. For a lot of us, I think it felt like a setting where we finally felt like fully realized people, who could express themselves freely and act on their desires. It was a sort of fantasy—a heightened version of our day-to-day lives—a lot like fiction.
I’m really impressed by how you’re able to dilate time in this story. The narrator reaches into Cat’s future with such a light touch. How did you calibrate that narrative distance and relationship to time?
This story exists in a collection of linked ones that follow Cat’s theatrical life and explore pivotal moments in the lives of the other characters. I’ve already traced out a lot of the future for these characters and am trying to approach narration almost like I’m writing a biography of them. I have some drafts of a story about Nick that I’m cautiously excited about, where he’s at Yale getting an MFA in acting.
The parties were where all the juicy stuff happened, where all that wanting turned into having, or not. They were loud, and gay, and debaucherous. For a lot of us, I think it felt like a setting where we finally felt like fully realized people, who could express themselves freely and act on their desires. It was a sort of fantasy—a heightened version of our day-to-day lives—a lot like fiction.
In large part, I think that manipulation of time is effective in situating Cat’s future queer desires, which remain latent and unbeknownst to her at this moment. How did your understanding of Cat and Edie’s relationship evolve as you worked on this story?
Their relationship was almost cartoonish at first. I’d initially based Edie on a girl I’d gone to school with who was so innocent and devoted to Jesus. She was simple. She just wanted to share the gifts God gave her on the stage. I made the girls kiss at the end of that draft and it just felt like smashing two Barbies together (something I did a lot of as a child). Then the story went through a couple workshops—one where someone wrote a scathing letter saying Cat was an abuser and triggered trauma they had from their own teenage relationships. I was in shock, because I thought everyone had been through a toxic, sexually tense, same-sex friendship. Was it not a rite of passage? Anyways, that person didn’t show up to the actual workshop. Classic art school dramatics. But their response helped me realize that Edie couldn’t be so innocent, so passive. It couldn’t just be the “do I want her or do I want to be her” trope. Edie had to harbor some teenage confusion, too. She needed to want something and she needed to know how to get it. I knew a lot of theater girls like that, sweet girls who could be ruthless when they wanted something badly enough.
Also, I think Cat knows. She just can’t say it outright, yet.
“Cast Party” exists in relation to the future that awaits Cat, Edie, and Nick. Cat and Edie’s final exchange feels so honest and poignant. Do you have an idea of where things head for the girls from there, or does it remain mysterious to you?
In theory, the collection reaches into the characters’ forties or fifties. It is, admittedly, from my MFA thesis, so a lot of the future for these characters could use a few more drafts. As for the girls, I don’t ever think they’ll be as close as they were as little girls—they already aren’t in this story. I do think that they’ll always love each other, though. They’ll make attempts at closeness, even as they understand less and less about each other’s lives. For both girls, I think life won’t pan out the way they’d imagined.
What’s exciting to you in fiction right now? What are you reading, or what are you experimenting with in your own writing?
You know, I’ve felt let down by some of the more recent fiction releases I’ve read. Do you ever feel like books are getting churned out before they’re ready? Like, the marketing and the premise are so good and then the book itself feels like it needed maybe one more round of edits? It makes me feel less and less excited about traditional publishing. Mesha Maren wrote a great essay for The Metropolitan Review that put words to a lot of what I’ve been feeling about the industry, and art in general.
I have read and loved a lot of Maren’s work over the past couple of years. I also went down a Maile Meloy rabbit-hole last year and I love her stories. Unsurprisingly, I was also deeply moved by Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Quartet. And when I need spiritual guidance, or a reason to ever attempt to write again, I look to “Driving to Ypsilanti,” which I think is by Sarah Messer. I’m never sure, because it’s saved as a word doc on my computer with no attribution and I can’t find it anywhere online. I first read it in a class with Rebecca Lee and that’s how she shared it with us. I’m sure she could tell me who wrote it. I’d love a reason to email her.
I’m also excited about what you’re doing with Rejoinder—I love the space and possibility for character development that the serialized form allows—and I’m frankly jealous that I didn’t come up with the idea. I love anything that’s drawn out. I like long books. I watch a lot of TV. I want to be able to return to a world again and again. I just started watching Absolutely Fabulous, that British sitcom from the nineties about heinous women working in fashion PR. I love them.
Read “Cast Party,” follow Gabi on Instagram.
Reference Section
I’m going to be reading from my chapbook, Bottle Episodes, next week as part of UNC Wilmington’s Writers Week. This is a virtual event—I’d love to see you there!
DOTW: In my ongoing devoted relationship to BAM, I saw One Battle After Another last week. I loved the movie, Benicio del Toro, Regina Hall, love a solo movie night, and am now obsessed with the trust device melody (I found it weirdly calming during flight turbulence earlier this week).