Jessica Johnson and Scott R. Sheppard could be any couple about to make love. A kiss, some hurried fumbling with belt and zipper, boxers and socks, and oops, don’t knock over the computer rushing to bed.
Except they’re going to be doing this on stage, with an audience watching every move. InterAct Theatre Company’s world premiere of Jahna Ferron-Smith’s “Step Mom, Step Mom, Step Mom” (Jan. 26-Feb. 18) is full of such moments as actors Sheppard and Johnson play spouses wanting a little more kink in their sex life.
Audiences can expect scenes involving masturbation, nudity, intercourse, and oral sex, all performed in the 121-seat Proscenium Theatre at the Drake, where a front-row seat isn’t more than a few bed-lengths from the action.
But in a rehearsal less than two weeks before opening night, Sheppard and Johnson, who only knew each other as Philly theater acquaintances before starting rehearsals Jan. 2, looked relaxed, as if they had been romping around that bed many times before.
So intimately comfortable. So private, and yet so public.
How did they get there? With the help of Shaquan Pearson, an intimacy coordinator hired by InterAct to help the four-member cast as well as the director and other creative staffers manage both the movements and the feelings. “It fills a real need,” director Matt Dickson said. “It allows you to sculpt the storytelling and create the framework. Then the intimacy coordinator comes in to add shading in a safe space.”
“The safe space makes a way for creative risk-taking which is great for a director, because you want the actors to feel safe and secure, so they create fearless acts,” he said.
“It’s really about the choreography,” said Johnson.
Pearson begins his work with discussions and exercises on the first day of rehearsals.
Two actors, calling themselves Partner A and Partner B, face each other and move their hands over their own bodies, showing where they feel comfortable being touched. The exercise sets boundaries and establishes a culture of consent.
Pearson introduces an emergency cease-and-desist word. The word shouldn’t be something easily misconstrued in rehearsal, such as “stop.” Better to use something completely unrelated, like “button” – easy to say and unlikely to be confused with any action on stage.
If it happens, Pearson will ask the actor, “`What do you need in this moment?’” It might be just a moment to pause and reset.
If an action causes discomfort, Pearson collaborates with the actors and the director to find another way. “We don’t have to have our boundaries crossed to tell the story,” he said.
Pearson provides vocabulary – a way to describe three types of touch pressures, for example. “Skin level” is feather-light, “muscle level” involves rubbing, and finally, “bone level,” Pearson explained, “is like modeling clay.”
“You really want to de-load and de-sexualize the language,” he said. “It helps foster that separation between performer and character, so they aren’t taking things home with them.”
Place-holding techniques are part of his toolbox (along with breath mints). Suppose the script calls for a kiss, but it’s too early in the rehearsals to practice it. Pearson teaches a high-five placeholder, using elements of pressure and timing. For example, the actors replace a kiss with a high-five using muscle-level of pressure for two beats.
“It’s a study in human behavior,” said Sheppard. “It seems somewhat scientific, somewhat anatomical. You don’t talk about whether it’s a good kiss or a passionate kiss. It’s a muscle kiss, or a bone-level kiss. It de-romanticizes it.”
Sheppard and Johnson described the process as being more like two friends working on a puzzle together: How can they tell the story using this vocabulary of motions?
“It’s always theater,” Sheppard said.
Pearson’s work is also technical. In one scene, for example, Sheppard needs to look like he’s ready for oral sex. His boxers must come off and out from under the covers. The scene requires both choreography and modesty garments made of skin-toned material like silicone baking sheets.
“It’s a little coverage for the actor’s body. It reduces sensation. Ideally, it’s impermeable,” Pearson explained.
The concept of intimacy coaching is relatively new – and grew out of similar specialized coaching for realistic, yet safe, on-stage fighting, violence, or duals. In Philadelphia, Colleen Hughes and Eli Lynn handle most intimacy work. Pearson hails from Theatrical Intimacy Education, a consultancy founded in 2017 by Chelsea Pace, assistant professor of movement at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County campus.
“Step Mom, Step Mom, Step Mom” deals with issues of both sex and race.
As is customary with InterAct, the theater company is hosting events discussing both.
- Post-Saturday and Sunday matinees typically feature a discussion with a cast or production member paired with an expert. Among them: Playwright Ferron-Smith with Olivia Tayler, content editor at Dipseastories.com, an app for sexy stories (Feb. 3) and actor Donovan Lockett with Colby Agostinelli, a queer, non-binary, neurodivergent sex therapist (Feb. 17). · InterAct’s founding artistic director Seth Rozin leads talkback sessions after 7 p.m. performances on Feb. 7, 8, 14 and 15.
- On Feb 2, ticket holders can arrive at 5 p.m. to shop for wellness products in the lobby, stay for the 7 p.m. show and “a boozy talkback with Femmes and Thems of the InterAct Theatre Company.”
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“Step Mom, Step Mom, Step Mom,” InterAct Theatre Co., Jan. 26-Feb. 18, Proscenium Theatre at the Drake, 302 S. Hicks St., Phila. 215-568-8079.
