“I’m a Jersey Girl”: A Ten-Minute Cig With Playwright Vogue Giambri

 

THURSDAY 9:32 PM JANUARY 30, 2025 WILLIAMSBURG

To watch Vogue Giovanna Giambri’s sold-out play I Can’t Make Sense is to consent to a certain amount of whiplash. The production opens with Tei Shi crooning into a microphone as the four cast members file on stage, while act one begins with a provocation: “I FUCKING HATE MY MOM!” announces one performer. What proceeds: a collapsing house, diary entries, washboard abs, appearances by an explosive sister and a house-trained skater boy, love curdling into anger, ass shakes, assholes, needing everything, needing nothing! And it all, miraculously, makes a lot of sense. 

Giambri, a writer, director and creator of Bebop Productions, is something of a savant, churning out 19 short films in three years. I Can’t Make Sense premiered in London in 2024, and this past weekend had three sold-out shows at the historic Studio 17 theater. After opening night, I tracked down Giambri for a much-needed smoke while she told me how her Chinatown writer’s group—comprised of the  “the coolest, hottest people”—helped bring this night together. 

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ELOISE KING-CLEMENTS: So, Vogue for Interview.

VOGUE GIOVANNA GIAMBRI: I love it. I’m scared.

KING-CLEMENTS: Don’t be. How are you feeling?

GIAMBRI: I feel really excited and happy. It was a crazy stressful week with tech and we only had two weeks to rehearse and there’s a lot of lines and monologues for me.

KING-CLEMENTS: I wanted to ask you what the first line is?

GIAMBRI: “I fucking hate my mom.”

KING-CLEMENTS: When did that come to you?

GIAMBRI: Yeah. Tour was over and I was back in New York and I had kept a tour diary and I tried to write every day. And when my mom passed away, I stopped writing for a little bit, but then it came back again. And I was looking at all of these collected entries and poetry that I knew I had, because I have a typewriter. 

KING-CLEMENTS: You’re a writer.

GIAMBRI: I remember that I wrote a poem about my mom, and I had my big cardboard box full of my archives of all those poems since I was like 17 years old. And I was just going through all of these old poems and I saw this one that was like, “I fucking hate my mom. When I think of my mom, I think of the deepest fucking…” and I was like, “Whoa.”

KING-CLEMENTS: Whoa.

GIAMBRI: I was like, “That’s the opening of a play.” I had written some dialogue on the actual tour bus, but I was like, “This isn’t the right opening.” It was missing something. It needed this monologue that was so real and scary and sad. It’s…

KING-CLEMENTS: Like, wrong?

GIAMBRI: Wrong, yeah.

KING-CLEMENTS: And it’s perfect.

GIAMBRI: And then you learn by the end of the play that she doesn’t hate her mom, but she hates that she didn’t have those things, like a mom.

KING-CLEMENTS: How did you find the cast? What were the auditions like?

GIAMBRI: Oh my god. I don’t trust auditions, especially with this. I had this play for a while, I wrote it in 2023. And I had this cast that I found in L.A. I had met Veevee [Viviana Valeria] and I had—

KING-CLEMENTS: Is she the main girl?

GIAMBRI: Veevee’s the main girl. She has this powerful attitude and she’s been hurt and you can just feel that all the time. I was like, “Oh, you could do this part. You’re the only one.” She’s in the Labyrinth Theater Company, which I’ve been obsessed with since I was younger and I’ve always wanted to be in it. I knew she could handle it. It’s really hard to find an actor who could do that. And then it was just game on. Like with Ana Sofia [Colón], I went to a Labyrinth Theater Company summer Intensive Showcase and I saw her and I was like, “I want to work with her.”

KING-CLEMENTS: You plucked her.

GIAMBRI: I’m in a writer’s group that’s really cool in Chinatown. The coolest, hottest people are in it. And there are certain people you hear perform and you’re like, “They would be good in a film.” So I knew Vivi, I knew Ana Sofia could do the sister, I knew Tim could do the ex-boyfriend. And for the construction worker I was like, “Well, that’s the easiest one.” And then I was like, “We have no money.” It’s so hard to put up stuff, especially with live jazz bands.

KING-CLEMENTS: Did you raise money?

GIAMBRI: No, we didn’t. I posted on Instagram. I was like, “Does anyone want to help me make my play?” And Ruby McCollister, who’s in my writing group, reached out and was like “Me. I have this theater that I’m about to manage and we’re reopening it and renovating it.” So I came to the writer’s group with a film script that I based off of the play. And Brook [Sinkinson Withrow], who produced the play, is in my writer’s group as well and she was like, “Wait, I want to be involved. I’ve never produced theater before, but I just want to work with you guys.” And we were like, “Okay, fuck it.” And we got this team together.

KING-CLEMENTS: That’s amazing.

GIAMBRI: And Dunya [Korobova] responded to my Instagram and was like, “I’ve never done theater, but I can help make it happen.”

KING-CLEMENTS: Were there any catastrophes?

GIAMBRI: Oh, of course. There always are. First of all, there’s not enough time. We only had two weeks of rehearsal, and that’s a lot.

KING-CLEMENTS: What?

GIAMBRI: Two weeks of rehearsal and then you don’t really see the musicians until a week before. Because they’re a new theater, they’re still building, so I was scared. I was like, “Oh my god, I have this fucking play with music. And I can’t…” It was a disaster. I wanted to give up, and everyone was like, “It’s fine.”

KING-CLEMENTS: What’s your directorial style? How do you assert your power?

GIAMBRI: I’m just a chaotic, spontaneous person. Even my films are very chopped up and backwards and it’s all this memory that’s catching up to itself and spiraling and upside down. You’re happy and then you’re sad and then you’re happy and then you’re scared. This play doesn’t give you a second to be one thing.

KING-CLEMENTS: It does not.

GIAMBRI: That’s my vibe, because that’s how life is for me. It’s New York. It’s constant. I can’t stop. I always have to be doing stuff.

KING-CLEMENTS: So in the play, the women hold the emotional resonance, and the two male characters are the comedic, big dumb-dumb relief. How did that come to you?

GIAMBRI: I hate men. I’m a major feminist. No. [Laughs] I invited my professor from college and she’s like, “I’m on sabbatical right now, but I still have my Mary Wollstonecraft book you gave me if you ever want to get back to that.” I’m like, “Oh my god, I was such a good annoying feminist back in college.” I don’t know, I grew up with boys. But my mom was so feminine, my mom was so special. Everyone would talk about her, obviously bad things, but she had that special thing. She had this light that she would bring when she walked in. She just had this charisma. And I’ve just always been searching for mother figures since I was younger. Now I feel lucky and grateful that I have so many amazing women and even men in my life. I’m like, “I’m living in the best city in the world, and I have friends who love me, and people believe in me, and people count on me.” 

KING-CLEMENTS: That’s beautiful. Okay, sharp left. What are you wearing?

GIAMBRI: I’m wearing my mom’s dress.

KING-CLEMENTS: Oh my god.

GIAMBRI: She didn’t have a lot of stuff.

KING-CLEMENTS: It’s this beautiful pluming, feathery—

GIAMBRI: Like, boa, cabaret.

KING-CLEMENTS: Is it vintage?

GIAMBRI: Yes, it’s from the nineties.

KING-CLEMENTS: Amazing. And you’re smoking weed?

GIAMBRI: I’m smoking a joint from California that my friend sent me.

KING-CLEMENTS: You have tiny little fingers.

GIAMBRI: Oh, thank you. And my French tips with my broken nails. I’m a Jersey girl.

KING-CLEMENTS: Where in Jersey?

GIAMBRI: South Jersey, near Philly.

KING-CLEMENTS: What else should I ask you? 

GIAMBRI: I don’t know. I was really scared about it because it’s so weird, I guess. But when you see it all come together and other people see it, you’re like, “Oh, it’s not weird and people are feeling this and get it.” 

KING-CLEMENTS: Does weirdness come naturally to you? It’s very experimental, especially with the jazz.

GIAMBRI: I like to think that it was like Sam Shepard back when he was doing his experimental weird plays like Suicide and B Minor. Like Patti Smith and him making Cowboy Mouth, just weird musicians on stage with nonsensical lines. I’m just like, “Life is short.” And you’ve just got to do whatever you want to do and say whatever you want to say. I wanted to be cool so much when I was a kid because I moved like, 12 times. I’ve always been the new kid and I’ve always tried to fit in. And now I’m like, “You know what? What people like are the weird things about me.” And I feel less alone because these people get it.