TWO SISTERS FIND A BOX OF LESBIAN EROTICA IN THE WOODS

written & performed by
Emma Horwitz and Bailey Williams
directed by Tara Elliott
design consultant Normandy Sherwood

sound design by Johnny Gasper
lighting design by Josiah Davis
stage manager: Allison Raynes*
production assistant: Jaden Tyler Urso

​In every woods, there is a box.
The box is full of lesbian erotica.
Emma and Bailey are going to read some for you. 

Set inside an intimate archive of towering bankers boxes, Two Sisters Find a Box of Lesbian Erotica in the Woods teases a literary reading, a dialogue, an interview, a magazine. A researcher collides with a librarian, paranormal investigators are abducted by aliens, and a pet shop owner receives a late night visitor. As these narratives weave and connect, the private becomes public. Two Sisters… asks how we become visible to ourselves.

​Two Sisters Find a Box of Lesbian Erotica in the Woods was originally developed in New Georges’ Audrey Residency program. A workshop production was presented in January 2024 by The Exponential Festival at the Loading Dock Theatre.

In process.  “TTWO SISTERS transforms a regular black box theater into an intimate archive full of towering bankers boxes. As we open the boxes and enliven them through sound and language, we enter a space of psychic and physical queerness, blurring the boundaries between writer and performer, performer and self, stage and living room, spectator and participant. … he experience of TWO SISTERS… – from hearing its title, to attending the production itself – is designed to feel like an underground cult classic. …

[It’s] an intimate performance piece that examines queer erotics and the dichotomy of lesbian fetishization and invisibility to create a fun, titillating, and surreal theatrical experience. It stands between literary reading, dialogue, and magazine. The playful title winks at society’s determination to neuter queer (and especially lesbian) relationships while simultaneously fetishizing them.

The piece weaves interconnected narratives and continuously interrupted action to mimic and pay homage to the movement of erotic texts. TWO SISTERS… never climaxes, setting up scenarios that abruptly end before the satisfying conclusion. A poet reads her work, a curator interviews an artist with whom she has a shared history, a researcher collides with a librarian, a paranormal investigator gets abducted by aliens, and two sisters encounter a witch who is not what she seems. Each recurring strand shapes TWO SISTERS… into an erotic text itself: what happens when we name our desires and make private intimacies public? Who can we become, once the lens shifts away from the dominant culture? How do we become visible to ourselves?  …

We are interested in a specifically lesbian perspective on queerness. The word “lesbian” vibrates at strange frequencies; it has been used to exclude queer trans women, to conjure specific cultures and in-groups within the community, and it has been reclaimed with more complexity by new generations. We are part of that reclamation. We aim to examine and expand the cultural figure of the lesbian to ask how we can challenge and embrace these multiplicitous legacies.” — Bailey & Emma