In September, I took my two-year-old daughter to a classic diner—one where salt and pepper shakers doubled as maracas, scoops of felt ice cream came topped with crocheted whipped cream, and foam playroom tiles formed the checkered floor we sat upon. The diner’s circular counter was, in fact, a theater in the round, and the increasingly harried waitress catering to the tiny tough customers was local theater maker Jill Rogati, founder of the North Shore company Soap and Rope. That this was no ordinary production was clear from the moment we walked into the black box at Cambridge’s Arrow Street Arts and saw a changing table ready and waiting in an aisle.
Rogati’s one-woman show Whipped Up! is designed to entertain audiences ages zero to two and their caregivers alike. Over the production’s half-hour running time, a loose plot unspools: It’s Dottie’s first day at the diner, and there are orders to take and serve, frantic phone calls with the boss who’s out sick, a crowd-pleasing finale. But Rogati has a background in devised theater, and much of the action is shaped by the tots who become her improv partners. One toddler who immediately wandered behind the counter earned an “Oh, are you applying for the job too?” and a paper cap to wear. Another repeatedly smacked a shiny call bell and summoned Dottie, who rushed over again and again with a breathless “How can I help you?”
Whipped Up! was born of Rogati’s own sense of isolation in her early days of parenthood, and she’s aimed to create a space where the unpredictability, exuberance, and sudden squalls of emotion of the very young are explicitly welcomed—and, in fact, essential to the art. Since premiering in the summer of 2022 in the black box theater at Gordon College, where Rogati teaches in the theater department, the production has played at a range of local venues, from libraries to the Boston Center for the Arts, and last year even traveled to the Edinburgh Fringe. I caught Whipped Up! on September 15 during ArrowFest in Cambridge, and though there aren’t any upcoming performances scheduled for New England currently, Rogati has more plans for the show. I spoke with her to learn about the project’s origins and find out what’s next.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Jacqueline Houton: I understand the show was inspired by your experience trying to break out of the isolation that often comes with parenting an infant. Can you take me back to that time and tell me about how the concept came to be?
Jill Rogati: So my background is in physical theater and devised theater. I hadn’t done a lot with children’s theater specifically. But then I became a mom. I did not have a graceful, joyful transition into motherhood that I think a lot of moms imagine or hope will be the case—or at least feel like they need to present. “No, this is great! I just love spending time with my new baby at home all day every day.”
I went into motherhood thinking, “I’m going to be that mom who has no problem nursing in public.” Whenever I’m in a cafe and I see a mom or dad stressed out because their kiddo is crying or just being loud, like a screecher, and they’re kind of embarrassed and trying to hush their kid, I always wish I could say, “No, don’t worry about it. Nobody cares. It’s fine!” So I thought, “I’m going to be that parent who doesn’t mind.” And of course then you are the parent and you’re in a cafe trying to just be out in the world and your kid starts to cry or whatever. And it’s amazing how strong that impulse is: “Oh no. Did that person look at me? Is that person annoyed? I feel like this baby is so loud. I just am not relaxed here. I feel like I’m a nuisance. I feel like my baby is a nuisance.”
So, as much as I tried to make myself do those things, I found it was hard for me to totally relax in those spaces. And I sense from other parents that I’ve met that they’ve had similar experiences. But there was one space—the Baby and Me showings at Cinema Salem. It’s a small independent movie theater in the city of Salem, and on Monday mornings, one of their theaters would screen whatever film was playing for caregivers and young children. They would keep the lights on a bit so that you could see what you’re doing if you needed to fill a bottle with formula or whatever. They had a changing table in the movie theater. They turned the sound down a little so it wasn’t quite so loud. But the movies weren’t for kids. They were just normal films that adults would want to see.
Once a week, I had a thing where I could go out and my kid could cry and nurse and do whatever it wanted. Nobody cares if their kid starts to cry a little, because everybody will probably do that at some point during the movie. But what was most important to me was that it was engaging my adult brain. Bless drum circles, but there’s a limit to how many drum circles you can go to. So, all that to say, me having my theater background, and then having that outlet as a clear need, I was like, “Can I combine these things and create a space for that?”
JH: Had you seen any productions in the past that felt like models for this kind of approach?
JR: When I was in grad school, years before I even was considering having children, I saw a show at the Edinburgh Fringe festival. I was an adult; all the people who recommended the show said it was the best thing they’d seen that year at the Fringe. And it was a play for young children. It was called White. I think Catherine Wheels Theatre Company staged it. It was the most charming, lovely, moving, simple, and yet completely engaging play with these two men who lived in a world that was all white. It was all textured, so there were sheepskins and little white birdhouses and tents. And it was kind of a clowning duo routine where they woke up every morning and took care of their little world. Then they would go outside and have a little bit of magic where they would act as if eggs dropped out of the sky, and they would catch them in these little aprons. And then one day color is introduced—so one of the eggs that drops out of the sky is red. There isn’t a lot of language involved. It was simple yet so moving to adults as well.
A friend and I saw it together and were like, “Oh, there’s got to be more theater like this. This is just wonderful.” So I think that always was in the back of my mind: What a wonderful thing to have something simple enough for a very young audience to be completely engaged with it and yet also layered enough for adults to be completely engaged as well.
JH: The production design for the retro diner set is so fun and thoughtful. There are no choking hazards, everything is safe and clean, but it’s all contributing to the world-building and begging to be played with. Can you tell me about the thinking behind the props and set?
JR: I also have a background in prop making, so I really love getting to indulge completely in that. I wanted to have it be an interactive show, so I was trying to think “What’s something where there would be lots of props that babies can hold and engage with?” When I landed on the idea of a diner, there were endless ideas. Salt and pepper shakers, napkins, spoons—they just came so quickly. And then I had a lot of fun searching for a great dish and a great napkin holder and old-timey straw dispensers.
In the beginning I invited friends with kids and said, “I’m going to do this show for you, and you’re going to think about your most paranoid parent friend and say, ‘This would stress them out, so change that prop.’” My main goal is for parents and caregivers to relax so that they can then enjoy elements of the show as well.
JH: What was it like bringing the show to the Edinburgh Fringe?
JR: Oh my gosh, wonderful. Edinburgh Fringe is a really special place for me. I’ve been there a few times as an audience member, and then I did one other show there with a group of grad colleagues, when I was doing my grad program in London. We had developed a little show and brought it there right after we graduated. And I just loved it. I just love the atmosphere.
A show like mine is a hard one to rehearse because I need babies. I can’t practice without babies, and I only know so many friends. So my first run of it a couple summers ago, my only practice was once or twice, and then I just had to open and do a whole run. And then I did it again for a run, and each time I did it, I was learning as I went. But then to go to the Fringe and do it every single day for a full audience was invaluable. And I was able to have colleagues of mine from grad school, who I was just so lonely for, come and watch and give feedback, which was a dream. I didn’t have quite as much of a plot structure until Edinburgh. They were able to help figure out that I should call my manager three times in the show to make it a nice progression for the plot. They helped me figure out more bits for the sake of the adult audience to make it funny and not be so focused on the babies. I was really hyper-focused on the kiddos, and they said, “If you want adults to enjoy this, you just have to have a few more bits. You have to perform a little more out to them, make it clear that they’re invited in.” So all that stuff was just so valuable.
JH: What’s next for the show?
JR: The main hope for Edinburgh was to license the show and hopefully get it picked up for touring, which I did, so that’s really exciting. There’s a London theater that’s going to do a twelve-week tour of it starting in January. And then I will perform it for Canadian children’s festivals in Vancouver and Surrey in May.
My other thought about what to do next here in the States is to try to incorporate an older generation as well. I’m hoping to see if there are senior living facilities that would host the show. Whenever grandparents and great-grandparents have come to the show, they just love it. And anytime I bring my kiddo to my grandmother’s senior living facility, everybody just flocks to him. So the hope is to have three or four generations, to have babies, caregivers, and grandparents, great-grandparents, all enjoying something together, which I feel is something that is so absent from our culture right now.
JH: You have a background in collaborative theater. What’s it like collaborating with babies and toddlers?
JR: It’s a really funny dynamic. I love the humor that comes out of adults behaving like children or children behaving like adults or putting a child in an adult setting. Swapping those two around is so funny to me. So I just loved the idea of a child who has no clue how to behave in a restaurant being the customer and having the waiter be the one who’s not good at serving. They’re the new one; they’re the one who’s like, “Oh no, I must be doing something wrong.” All these babies, a.k.a full-grown adults who are eating at this restaurant, they know what they’re doing. They’re high status, they’ve been here before, they’re regulars. If one kiddo comes in and isn’t comfortable in the space right away—some come in and are kind of overwhelmed with everything—my response will immediately be like, “Oh gosh, I did something wrong. Oh no! It’s because I’m new and you’re used to seeing Rachel, but she retired. I’m sorry!” So the trick for me is to justify all of their behaviors, which is so fun.
I hope that as the show grows, I can have other people in the role. But because improvisation is an element, it will always have to be a performer who is very comfortable responding to things live in the moment. Especially when it’s crowded, when it’s a full house, it’s complete and utter chaos. And babies often do not want to share—they’ll take the ice cream from the person next to them, which is hysterical. To think of a customer just reaching over and taking somebody else’s order, that’s amazing.
It turns into a very different show when the babies are all very well behaved, which happens. I’ll get eight very quiet, polite babies who just sit in their own space, play with their own things, smile. And it’s hard! I have to generate chaos on my own. And at times, I struggle and have to adjust the build of the show because it turns into more of an adorable show as opposed to a funny show. At least it’ll never be a bad one. It’ll always end up being adorable at least.
