Brynne Frauenhoffer has a thing for dramatic workplaces. The Chicago-based playwright has set previous plays in a vape shop and a Pizza Hut.
Frauenhoffer’s new play, “Pro-Am,” produced by First Floor Theatre and premiering at The Den Theater in Wicker Park through June 15, is another workplace drama. But this time, the co-workers at the heart of her story are a group of sex workers renting rooms in a shared house in Miami.
Sex work — emphasis on the “work” part — is a closely examined topic in American culture right now. Advocacy around the country has called attention to exploitation in the adult film industry. Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s hush money trial features testimony from adult-film star Stormy Daniels, raising questions in the national media about how we view sex work in contemporary society.
In an interview, Frauenhoffer explains why she decided to center sex work in her new drama and what it is about workplaces that makes them fit for the stage.
Q. Can you tell me a little bit about your new play?
A. “Pro-Am” is an accidental period piece. I started writing it in 2017, although the idea originally happened after seeing a documentary about the adult entertainment industry in Miami about the women who go there looking to get a start in that kind of a career.
Q. What was the documentary?
A. The documentary was “Hot Girls Wanted.” I just happened to watch it on Netflix and was fascinated with the amateur porn industry. How people would get started in Miami specifically, where it was just girls who’ve never done that kind of work before. A lot of them. And these agencies would just give them a plane ticket to fly them out to Miami from all over the country, and they would just get started.
Q. How does “Pro-Am” explore these stories?
A. I think the play explores their different relationships to this kind of job and also how people outside of the industry perceive performers — vs. what the day-to-day of that life is actually like. And how those performers exist in such a specific career. It’s a job play. So, it’s almost like a workplace dramedy. It’s about how they navigate this job and how they interact with a world that has assumptions about this job that may or may not match their experience of it.
Q. What draws you to tell stories about workplaces?
A. Specifically, I just love the inside baseball of how co-workers talk to each other about their work and gossip about each other, their customers and their bosses. Those relationships are so juicy and specific.
Q. But this play is about the adult film industry. It feels different than a workplace drama set in a pizza joint. People can relate to working in a restaurant, but how will you get them to relate to working in the porn industry?
A. I get what you mean; there’s a difference. But there are so many assumptions about what working in porn could be like. I think about the ways I used to hear people talk about a variety of sex work, including stripping, like, ‘Oh, it’s like such easy money,’ and like, ‘Wow, I wish I could do that, just be hot and people give you cash.’ There’s so many different judgments and also assumptions that it’s straightforward and that it’s not labor. ...
I was just really motivated to get into how much work there is in it, the ambition that it requires and the administrative side of it. The way people can be innovative and the way that you have to balance time. Often, you’re doing some scenes of porn where it’s like, you go on set, you shoot for a number of hours and then someone else edits and produces and distributes that content. But also, most of these models are also doing cam work, or they’re stripping or they’re even doing club appearances. You’re never just doing one thing. It’s a hustle all the time. I relate to it as someone who works in the arts. I have had two different part-time jobs while trying to write plays, and assisting directors and auditioning to act. I don’t know many people these days just have one source of income.
