Breaking New Ground at Williamston Theatre: Playwright Terry Guest's Journey from 'The Magnolia Ballet' to 'Thirst'

'Thirst' explores late-stage capitalism in a dystopian Michigan with a blend of humor, intrigue and unexpected perspectives

Published: August 13, 2024 | Last Updated: August 20, 2024

Terry Guest gets compared to other playwrights — especially those who, like him, are Black, queer or Southern. But Guest’s voice is uniquely his own, creating stories that skew conventions and create magical worlds.

“People will just say, ‘You’re the next…’ and then insert whatever Black playwright they know,” Guest said. “They told me August Wilson. When ‘Strange Loop’ first came out, lots of people were comparing my work to Michael R. Jackson’s work. Let me say — Michael Jackson is amazing and I love ‘A Strange Loop.’ And our work is in the same museum, but not in the same frame.”

Currently based in Chicago, Guest’s theatrical work has received growing acclaim with such works as “The Magnolia Ballet” and “Marie Antionette and the Magical Negros” earning multiple awards.

In the 2022-2023 season, Plowshares Theatre in Detroit and Williamston Theatre jointly premiered “The Magnolia Ballet,” directed by Plowshare’s Gary Anderson, bringing Guest’s storytelling to Michigan audiences.

Tony Caselli, Williamston’s artistic director, was so impressed with Guest, his voice and his style that he tapped him for their first-ever commission, which launches their 18th season in September with a six-week run. “Thirst” is a futuristic thriller set in Michigan after the Great Lakes were poisoned by a catastrophic spill.

Williamston Theatre specializes in new works. However, “Thirst” marks a historic moment for the theater.

“It’s the first time I ever went to a playwright I liked and said, ‘Hey, I want to give you money to have you write a play that is sort of about these topics. Go and do that and if we want to produce it, we will. If we hate it, we just won’t produce it and you can do what you want with it,” Caselli said.

Repeated news stories about the Great Lakes, Nestlé and flooding in New Orleans had focused Caselli’s attention on what he wanted. He said he told Guest that Williamston wanted a play about water rights, human rights, late-stage capitalism and the need to profit off everything.

“He went away for a while and came back with the first draft of this awesome play set 20-30 years in the future,” Caselli said. “It’s not post-apocalyptic, we’re not in ‘Mad Max,’ but we’re well on our way to the ‘Mad Max’ world. It’s a murder-mystery thriller that’s got a ton of humor in it and a ton of intrigue.”

In “Thirst,” which Guest is still rewriting after staged readings and workshops with Williamston over the summer, Jazz lives in Tablet Housing. The residents of the low-income housing systems don’t have access to fresh water. Instead, the government provides them with tablets, which they claim fulfill the body’s need for water. Jazz’s wealthy boss offers her a way out, but only if she does the seemingly unthinkable.

The timing worked for Guest. He’d just come off several productions of “The Magnolia Ballet” and was ready to head in a new direction.

“I was at a point in my life and career where I had spent a couple of years working really hard to make my name as a writer and to start to introduce the world to the kind of writer that I wanted to be,” Guest said. “When Tony came to me with this opportunity, I felt like it was a chance to really say something important and to make an actual change in the world and my community.”

For a writer who, up to this point, had specialized in queer stories about the Black experience replete with magical realism, “Thirst” blazes a new trail.

Unnamed 20 — Terry Guest in "At the Wake of a Dead Drag Queen." Courtesy photo

“I wanted to create something that would challenge me,” Guest said. “I didn’t want just a show that would feel like people who are anti-climate change are bad and the activists are good. If you’re sitting in the theater watching it, then you know that you’re one of the good ones and they’re the bad guys out there. I thought it could be much more interesting if I created a show that implicated the audience to change things where they can in their own community.”

As for the genre, Guest said he relished the new challenge of writing science fiction. He is eager to see the audience respond to this work, hoping they will be surprised.

“They might expect it to be kind of serious and a show that is wagging its finger and teaching them about water injustice,” Guest said. “It’s fun and sexy and naughty. It’s a tone I don’t often write in. My experience as a writer has been mostly focused on the Black, queer experience. The main character [in ‘Thirst’] is a Black queer person — but I am putting my words in the voices of white people in a way that I haven’t done before.”

While “Thirst” works its way to opening in the fall, Guest continues to spread his voice throughout the theatrical world. His play “Oak” just closed at Urbanite Theatre in Sarasota, Florida and will be going on to three other theaters as part of a rolling world premiere. The dark comedy is a Southern Gothic horror about three kids, an old woman with a shotgun and a mysterious creek monster.

He's also been commissioned to write two musicals. The Goodman commissioned Guest and NJ Draine to create “Nightbirds,” which had its first public reading on July 14. A group of three theater companies commissioned him to create the children’s musical “Milo Imagines the World.”

Guest said he wants to keep writing plays and hopes to someday write and direct a movie and direct musicals.

“I want to get to a point where I can follow my creative curiosity and people will trust me enough to let me do that,” Guest said.

As for what he wants people to think of him, his answer came easily: “I want people to be like, wow, it’s so amazing that he is so kind for someone so talented."