The Twitch
by Margot Connolly
Script Development
Facilitated by The Interstitial
Playwright - Margot Connolly
Theatremaker & Former competitive Gymnast and Coach - Soomi Kim
Dramaturg - Morgan Grambo
****
April 2025
Facilitated by The Interstitial
Playwright - Margot Connolly
Theatremaker & Former competitive Gymnast and Coach - Soomi Kim
Dramaturg - Morgan Grambo
****
April 2025
The Twitch by Margot Connolly
At an elite gymnastics gym, a group of teenage girls on their path to the Olympics come down with a mysterious ailment. All of a sudden, they're twitching - shoulders spasming, jerking heads, flailing arms. It starts to spread - first one girl, then another, then another. The girls are suffering from conversion disorder - a psychological phenomenon in which bodies convert stress into physicalized symptoms. As the pressure from parents, coaches, team doctors, and themselves continues to rise, they have to figure out how to handle the stress they are under - or see the lives they want evaporate before they even begin.
At an elite gymnastics gym, a group of teenage girls on their path to the Olympics come down with a mysterious ailment. All of a sudden, they're twitching - shoulders spasming, jerking heads, flailing arms. It starts to spread - first one girl, then another, then another. The girls are suffering from conversion disorder - a psychological phenomenon in which bodies convert stress into physicalized symptoms. As the pressure from parents, coaches, team doctors, and themselves continues to rise, they have to figure out how to handle the stress they are under - or see the lives they want evaporate before they even begin.
Margot Connolly is a playwright and librettist originally from Pleasantville, NY. Her plays include Belfast Kind (Winner, JPP's Jewish Playwriting Contest, Patty Abramson Prize Finalist), Quiz Out (Princess Grace Finalist, 2019 Kilroy’s Honorable Mention), The Twitch (Princess Grace Finalist), and Tough (Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival Finalist). Her work has been produced and developed through Hope Repertory Theatre, The Jungle, Repertory St. Louis, Primary Stages, Williamstown Theatre Festival, the Playwrights Center, the Jewish Plays Project, and The Juilliard School, among others. She's currently under commission from the Juilliard School and the Big Bridge Theatre Consortium, and is a past recipient of an EST/Sloan commission for her play Hello, World. She's a Playwrights Center Affiliated Writer and has been a finalist for the Jerome Fellowship, the Emerald Prize, and the Princess Grace Award. She received her BA from Bennington College, her MFA from the University of Iowa’s Playwrights Workshop, and is a recent graduate of the Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights’ Program at Juilliard. writemargotwrite.com/
Soomi Kim (she/her) is a NYC based actor, deviser, theatre maker and movement artist. Kim’s recent full-length dance theater piece, Body Through Which the Dream Flows (performed at New Ohio Theatre's Ice Factory 2022 and The Tank 2022), was Soomi’s first foray as a co-director (with Meghan Finn) and showcased six young competitive female gymnasts who were formerly coached by Kim.
A former competitive gymnast and coach, Soomi is the founder of GymKim Choreo LLC whose main service is floor routine choreography for competitive gymnasts and Creative Dance Workshop for Gymnasts. She has choreographed hundreds of routines for gyms in NYC and throughout the region. gymkimchoreo.com
A former competitive gymnast and coach, Soomi is the founder of GymKim Choreo LLC whose main service is floor routine choreography for competitive gymnasts and Creative Dance Workshop for Gymnasts. She has choreographed hundreds of routines for gyms in NYC and throughout the region. gymkimchoreo.com