Playwright Interview
Get to know...
Trev Turnbow,
author of
THIS CANDLE SMELLS LIKE GWYNETH PALTROW'S VAGINA
Name: Trev Turnbow
Pronouns: They/Them
Trev is a non-binary writer/performer hailing from the great state of Texas. After a year of doing weird devised/immersive theater in Texas, they are thrilled to be in NYC. Their play SALOMÉ was the recipient of the 2024 National Undergraduate Playwriting Award from the Kennedy Center which connected Trev to the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, where they spent last summer in the Literary Department assisting for their summer season. They graduated from Boston University with a dual-degree in Theater Arts & International Relations with honors where they focused on International Security Studies.
They recently had a play reading of their absurdist, techno-drama THEY’RE TRYING TO KILL YOU at Outcry Theater in Dallas, and are currently developing an adaptation of Dostoyevsky’s ‘Crime and Punishment’. They love Russian Literature, Existentialist Philosophy, Lana Del Rey and the Real Housewives in equal measure.
Q&A With
Trev Turnbow
We asked Trev a few questions about their show—THIS CANDLE SMELLS LIKE GWYNETH PALTROW'S VAGINA—their work as a writer, and their history. Check out the show + meet our amazing cast at our fourth annual First Flight Festival, opening Thursday June 25!
Q: Can you share a quick teaser line for your show? What's it about?
A: Successful actress & CEO of Goop, Gwyneth Paltrow, leads a group of willing participants through a guided meditation in order to achieve their energetic climax.
Q: Where are you from?
A: Dallas, TX!
Q: When did you start writing?
A: Middle School: sad, gay poetry.
Q: Is there one thing or theme that keeps coming up in your work?
A: I find a lot of my work is experiments in possibilities for survival amidst the vast contradictions that comprise modernity. Consumerism and the climate crisis, profound loneliness and hyper connectivity through technology, personal freedom & expression and the project of living ~in a society, facticity and transcendence. Since there are not solutions I expect to be writing for a long time.
Q: What writing do you like to read or watch? Any particular influences on your work, or recommendations for other emerging artists?
A: Read: Tolstoy. And watch Real Housewives.
Q: What was the first play you ever saw, or best play that you’ve ever seen?
A: I think it was Wicked at Dallas Summer Musicals with my mother and grandad, we had a light lunch in his pristine dining room and then I was changed For Good.
Q: What are you working on now? Anything coming up?
A: This summer I'll be out in Connecticut at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center as a Literary Assistant, but often collaborating with my wonderful friend Kim who runs Fisheye Theater Co. and the directors of my heart Larsen Nichols & Julian X, check them out, we'll be getting up to some fun stuff soon.
Q: Anything we should have asked but didn’t?
A: I don't blame Gwyneth Paltrow but dammit if she isn't emblematic of the absurdity of 'wellness'. I apologize for reducing her humanity into a symbol of something larger than her, but I think she'll be fine.
On that note I share the epigraph of the play.
"I am who I am. I can't pretend to be
somebody who makes $25,000 a year ."
—Gwyneth Paltrow