Becoming, Unbecoming: An Interview With Playwright Terrence Riggins

By Lucy Gellman 

Unbecoming Tragedy begins and ends in a single cell, as playwright Terrence Riggins blurs the lines between perception and reality, metaphor and memory. Conceived when Riggins was in solitary confinement at the Cheshire Correctional Facility, the work tells the story of the playwright’s life, from a childhood in Los Angeles to his daughter’s birth while he was performing August Wilson to his brush with law enforcement. At every stage, he manages to bend space and time, an alchemist as much as he is an actor and a wordsmith. 

Now, New Haven gets a chance to see it. After Riggins moved to New Haven, he worked on the piece for close to a decade before sharing it with the community in a staged reading at Bregamos Community Theater in 2023 (you can read about that in the Arts Paper). At the time, it was produced by both Collective Consciousness Theatre and Long Wharf, with direction from Cheyenne Barboza and assistance from Finn Wiggins-Henry and Valerie Badjan. In May 2025, Long Wharf Plans to stage the piece at  Yale’s Off-Broadway Theatre. 

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity. It is a collaboration with the Arts Paper, the news arm of the Arts Council of Greater New Haven. 

Could you introduce Unbecoming Tragedy briefly to readers who may not know this work? 

Unbecoming Tragedy is an autobiographical telling of a pivotal point in the journey of my life, when I was at a crossroads. I was coming out of a very despairing and doomed period, and had the opportunity to reflect [on] and examine where I wanted to go from there. I was grappling with my responsibility and my burden. That was heavy on my spirit—fighting through to a more optimistic, intentional course of my life, taking responsibility for the rest of my life. I think it's probably the most vulnerable that I've been in the world.

Unbecoming Tragedy takes place in a single solitary cell. How did you come to that framing? So many folks who have lived experience with the carceral system never want to go back to that place, mentally or otherwise. 

I have a responsibility as an artist, in my creative imagination and in the theater, to tell this story in the way that I'm telling it. That was a decision that I didn't come lightly. I had to really ask myself: Do I want to be this vulnerable? And then when I thought about, [when I] considered how I thought about theater … my journey is like, I don't shy away from emotion. And despair and tragedy. I don't run from that kind of stuff. 

In the course of my life, you know, there've been some very heavy experiences, and I'm okay with being vulnerable. I'm okay with my emotions now. I always knew that I was an empath—as a kid and I was overwhelmed by how much I felt in the theater—but I want that emotion.  Many times, personally, I've been wanting for more emotional connection, longness and vulnerability and I realized then Terrence, if you're going to be creating theater, then you have to accept the responsibility of creating and doing that. .

Talk about the journey that this has taken you on.

At one point, I asked myself: “T, is your ego preventing you from telling the story that insists on being told?” You know, me revealing my heaviest burden. And then I realized, well, what is the theater? What is the theater for? Traditionally, where did the theater come from? You know, what's its origin? It was about community. 

It was about working through issues—social issues, community issues, personal issues—publicly in front of the tribe, in front of the village, and exposing ourselves. When members of the village crossed certain lines and transgressed, they had to give themselves up. It would be acted out—grievances and conflicts and all of that would be acted out. And I think that's where original theater came from. 

Then I realized that this is just not a theater piece. It's not just for folks to just escape their daily lives and come to see some piece of theater or some story that they can just compartmentalize and keep at the theater. I realized that this is a ritual. This is actually my rite of passage for the rest of my life. 

And I'm working through my grief, my guilt, you know, all of that, my transgression, all of that in community, and trusting community, and yeah, offering myself up in a way. And I don't want to sound like a martyr or, you know, in all of that, but those are the considerations that I had to make. 

When I was writing about this the first time, you mentioned that you don’t see it as a show, but as a play. Can we talk about that?

You know, the traditional genre of the show is that the audience and the performers understand that they're in the same time and place, that this is happening real time. The performer comes out, aware that there is an audience, [and] they address the audience. I always had issues with that. The fourth wall is important to me, because I think that voyeuristic kind of aspect of theater is engaging. Is is engaging. I was asking, how can I tell this story without being so retrospective and so inactive, like telling what happened instead of showing what happened?

When I was in prison and in solitary, I was trying to work through this period of isolation with no distractions, no entertainment. I really had to go into my own psyche. There was no avoidance. There were no books. They gave us pen and paper for like, five hours of the day to write letters. But there was no reading material. There's nothing. So I had to go in my imagination … [and] I imagined the other side of the wall. The brick wall was there, and it was on the other side. What's on the other side of that? And then that's when my imagination went beyond the wall. 

You are highly influenced by the work of revolutionaries, and that comes across in the play. Tell me about that.

That's part of the empathic sensibility that I have. When I was discovering theater, my first poem was about Kitty Genovese, who was murdered years ago in the 60s. I was in third grade, and there must have been a memorial for her. I was so disturbed by it that I wrote a poem about these people not showing up for this woman and closing their windows and shuttering themselves in and not helping this woman who was pleading for assistance and humanity. 

So I'm saying that, how do I process all of that emotion, all of that sense of injustice, all of that impulse to to to be a revolutionary and to act against injustice? That’s how I express myself, That's how, over the years in theater, how I channel that, that that impulse, that instinct, and all of that emotion in a way that allows me to to be safe.

Theater also played a really active part in how you ended up in New Haven, and I would love for folks to know that before they see this work.

When you're nearing your discharge date, they ask:  ”What city would you like to be discharged to?” I knew New Haven. I had friends that had gone to Yale, but more than that was the influence of August Wilson. August Wilson is so important in the journey of my theater career and my life. New Haven was my first choice. And fortunately, there was space in the halfway house so they could accommodate me. 

My birthday is February 22—two-twenty-two—and when I was out in the world, I would look at the clock, and I would see it just so coincidentally. Two twenty-two—it was like an existential moment. When I was discharged, the halfway house was a few blocks away from the Yale Rep. When I walked down York Street, I saw that the Yale School of Drama is 222 York St. Long Wharf used to be at 222 Sargent Dr. 

I think some people actually don’t know about Wilson’s connection to New Haven.

Many of his [Wilson’s] plays were produced at the Yale Rep. Lloyd Richards, who directed Sidney Poitier in the stage production and the film of A Raisin in the Sun, directed Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom at Yale [in 1984]. (Richards, who also helped workshop and midwife Wilson’s Fences in the 1980s, served as the dean at the Yale School of Drama from 1979 to 1991).

I feel like there are people that we’ve lost in the past couple years—David Pilot, Aleta Staton—who were very formative to your work. Who are some of the folks who have really lifted you up, and are still championing what you do?

New Haven is the longest that I've ever lived in the same city, and it's the greatest sense of home that I've felt. The idea of home has been elusive to me … I've lived a pretty nomadic  existence. I've been to 17 different schools in five different states.

So when I got to New Haven, the community really was welcoming and I greatly appreciated Aleta Staton [Aleta passed away in July 2024]. She was a great friend and a great support. And then I met Dexter [Singleton] and Jenny [Nelson] at Collective Consciousness Theatre, who invited me to audition for the role of Martin Luther King, Jr. in Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop. It was the first play that I had done in seven years—the last play I had done was August Wilson’s Radio Golf at the Denver Center Theatre Company.

I don't know where I would be without them. It's just been a continuously wonderful relationship, This is the journey. This is where we are now.

So much of this play is about the carceral state. And in the work, prison is a concept that is both physical and psychological. Where do you fall on the spectrum of carceral abolition versus reform?

I think that as a society, it's important that we respond to folks that violate laws, that commit crimes across the board, that we are fair and equitable. In a community, any community, it's important to check transgressive behavior. And of course, it's uneven—justice and enforcement is imbalanced. There's a preponderance of Black and Brown folks who are disproportionately affected. I have issues with mass incarceration and how it's weaponized [against those folks]. And for me in my journey, it was important for me to deal with my issues, my personal issues. 

This is not a protest play against solitary confinement as cruel and unusual punishment. I did not want it to go into that and for the conversation to become political, because this is just not a political play. In that regard, there's definitely room for political plays addressing mass incarceration and solitary confinement as cruel and unusual punishment.I needed to be segregated from the community for the time that I was because it gave me time to reflect.

Now to be spending years and years in solitary confinement, that's an issue, but I think everybody can take a week or 10 days to be removed, to be by themselves, to go into their own thoughts and do some self reflection. It was important for me.

What did we not talk about that is really important to you as you bring this show to the New Haven public?

I just want to offer this piece up and share it with the community. And I look forward to offering an example of resilience and possibility. It's like … it's not, it's not too late, you know? I try not to get into ageism, but when they asked me to write a letter to aspiring and emerging playwrights, I thought, I just am at this time in my life. Just keep going and forget time, and there's no deadline for accomplishing some of yout goals and your dreams. Just stay intentional.

You do heavy work. How do you take care of yourself?

It’s my default setting. And I think sometimes that I'm too heavy for the world. I'm too heavy for relationships. 

I take care of myself by taking care of my, my being. I eat well and intentionally. I am active and I meditate. I meditate just throughout the day, as I'm engaging, as I'm walking, as I'm writing, I'm just being very thoughtful. I reflect in the evenings about interactions that I have during the day. And, you know, I have a couple of communities that I'm a member of that we talk through things and we support and encourage one another. I've just tried to practice empathy and in relationships that are kind of strained, I try to make it a point of always offering expressions of love and and and healing.