Presented by the Lewis Center for the Arts’ Program in Theater.
To All the Babies I’ve Killed Before:
A Love/Hate Letter to Storytelling
by Jenni Lawson ’23
Run Time
2 hours, including a 10-minute intermission
Content Warnings
This production includes references to abortion, references to body dysmorphia and eating disorders, vehicular assault, references to and depictions of physical assault, and gunshot sounds.
Program Notes
To All the Babies I’ve Killed Before: A Love/Hate Letter to Storytelling aims to investigate the challenges of being heard and cultivating self-empowerment as a queer, cognitively-disabled (ADHD) woman in artistic spaces that traditionally center archaic, western, patriarchal narratives grounded in firm structures of storytelling and comedy.
The title of this show twists a well-known saying to many writers, “sometimes you have to kill your babies,” in a manner designed to pose the questions: Why should I? And who are you to tell me that I have to?
Questions of agency and womanhood have, of course, long plagued our society in more ways than just artistic expression. Today, in the U.S., more than 19 million women live in contraceptive deserts, lacking access to affordable reproductive healthcare, and legislative proposals across many states threaten to exacerbate this disparity even further.
Visit the Planned Parenthood website to learn more about reproductive healthcare resources in our local community and/or to donate to Planned Parenthood of Northern, Central, and Southern New Jersey.
Special Notes
Please silence all electronic devices including cellular phones and watches, and refrain from text messaging for the duration of the performance. No flash photography permitted.
Faculty Advisors
Vince Di Mura, Musical Advisor
Nathan Davis, Writing Advisor
Sam Pinkleton, Directing Advisor
Jane Cox, Advisor
A Note from the Thesis Proposer
I am so grateful to everyone who has been part of this project and who has supported me in so many ways throughout this process. Watching this show come to life has been quite a journey, and I am incredibly lucky to have so many kind, caring, and truly hilarious people in this cast and production team.
To Vince: thank you for always rolling with the punches (and for using Taylor Swift songs to explain things #ally), to Sam and Nathan: thank you for sharing your honesty and insights (and for sometimes being my therapists), and to Jane: thank you for telling me to go to sleep.
Lastly, thank you so much to my aunt Tonya, who taught me to figure skate and to never give up on my dreams, even when it feels like nobody wants you to be heard.
— Jenni Lawson
Land Acknowledgement
An estimated 10 million Native Americans lived in North America before the arrival of European colonizers. Many thousands lived in Lenapehoking, the vast homeland of the Lenni-Lenape, who were the first inhabitants of what is now called eastern Pennsylvania and parts of New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware.
Princeton stands on part of the ancient homeland and traditional territory of the Lenape people. In 1756, the College of New Jersey erected Nassau Hall with no recorded consultation with the Lenni-Lenape peoples.
Treaties and forced relocation dispersed Lenape-Delaware to Ohio, Kansas, and Oklahoma. We acknowledge the violence of settler colonialism and pay respect to Lenape peoples past, present, and future and their continuing presence in the homeland and throughout the Lenape diaspora.
For more information, see the websites of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Initiative at Princeton (NAISIP), Natives at Princeton and Princeton Indigenous Advocacy Coalition.
Lewis Center for the Arts
Chair: Judith Hamera
Executive Director: Marion Friedman Young
Director of Program in Theater: Jane Cox
Producing Artistic Director, Theater And Music Theater Season: Elena Araoz
View a full list of the Program in Theater Faculty & Guest Artists
For a look at all the people working behind the scenes to bring you this event, view a full list of LCA staff members »
The programs of the Peter B. Lewis Center for the Arts are made possible through the generous support of many alumni and other donors. View a full list of LCA Supporters »
