Meet (fake) home shopping host 'Babs' at Washington Ensemble Theatre's world premiere | Arts & Culture

Ever wake up in the middle of the night and flip on Home Shopping TV cuz you can’t sleep? Michael Mitnick admits to watching. He says, “I was working a job six days a week that went very late into the evening and when I got home, the only thing that seemed remotely entertaining on television was home shopping.” Maybe you ended up going back to sleep. Michael Mitnick wrote a play about it.

Babs the Dodo is now a world premiere play at Washington Ensemble Theatre (often referred to as WET), opening this weekend. It’s about a shopping host named Babs. Babs is getting older and feeling it, while in competition with the other hosts who maybe outsell her.

Michael describes the experience watching, “It was hypnotic - these cheery hosts promising happiness and fulfillment with the purchase of, say, a juicer. I then read some articles about the crazy process through which home shopping hosts are selected and it seemed like a harder gig to get than a position in the president’s cabinet.”

Michael studied playwriting at Yale University. He remembers applying to Yale. “I was feeling a bit aimless, sitting in my apartment writing plays and songs, so I thought what every aimless 20-something thinks: grad school.

“Yale Drama accepts 3 playwrights a year out of around 250 applicants. Fortunately, I didn’t know this when I wrote a play for my application – a play that will never see the light of day. I made a point to never read it again, though I do remember that audience members were to be brought on stage and receive haircuts during the play. It’s a mystery why this crappy play was compelling to Yale.”

Somehow, Michael managed to complete his MFA and continues to write plays. While he was at Yale, he met Michael Place, who is a founding member of WET and Michael Place saw a little test-run of Babs and wanted to bring it to WET. Michael Mitnick says, “At a very loud dance party he shouted at me, ‘I want to bring Babs to WET.’ I had no idea what he was saying, but I smiled and nodded. This is how artistic partnerships come into being.”

Michael, like many playwrights, gets an idea, but hopes that he will discover what he’s writing about from hearing his characters talk. After he wrote the play, he realized, “It became clear to me that we’re talking about materialism or promises hosts make to people at home.

“How objects can make us happy or how we use objects to fill holes in our relationships or emotional lives. How this weird business of home shopping seems to target a specific gender and specific age is curious to me. The hosts make promises that I felt were odd and disturbing, even in the way you could save or make money by buying the objects they are selling.”

When he watched the shopping networks, what did he find compelling? After all, he’s young and male, and not part of the prime demographic! Michael replies, “Many things. I didn’t know how they could keep talking. It seemed like their sales pitch was always headed somewhere, but it was circuitous. It made me feel led, but they just keep repeating. They have to keep talking or someone will change the channel.

“Because of the pressure to keep talking, they would say ridiculous things or even flat out lies. And sometimes  (even I was) persuaded. I wanted to cut vegetables into tiny pieces by pushing the plunger. I could have fresh soup in seconds. That sounds fantastic. At one in the morning especially, I think, ‘I really do need that, and it’s only 3 easy payments, not just payments, easy payments.’”

Michael is excited about coming to Seattle for the first time, and also working with WET. He says of Elise Hunt, founding member and director, “I trust her and think she gets exactly what the spirit is. There’s never one way to do a play, so I’m excited to see what she and the designers have come up with. I fly in next week to see the show. I cannot wait and couldn’t be more pleased that WET is premiering my play.”

For more information or tickets, go to http://www.washingtonensemble.org or Brown Paper Tickets: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/136826 or 800-838-3006.