AE: When you turned the play into a movie, why did you decide to keep the same talking-to-the-audience technique in the film that you used in the play?
LH: Without that, you don't have Real Girls and you don't have Girl Play. The story is basically a naked admission about two people and who they are and how they feel, which is what is special about it.
RG: We filmed the whole play in the theater first, and we had toyed with the idea of having an audience there. But then it occurred to us that if we had an audience in the theatre when we were performing for the shoot, it might undermine the experience of the film audience. We wouldn't want somebody in there having their reactions before the people watching the movie could have their own reactions, so we decided to make the camera the audience--which would ultimately make the film-goer the audience.

AE: Anything about the audience response to the film surprised you?
RG: I think the most surprising thing is we heard stories of people who have either broken up from seeing the film, or who had gotten together from seeing the film. We think that happens because we are so much about exposing the truth of the situation, and specifically our own situation, that it tends to make people look at their own lives and face the truth about them.
LH: That actually happened during the play as well, though. We heard of someone who was a friend of the producer's proposing to his girlfriend after seeing the play. That was really cool.

AE: The movie is opening in a theater in New York this weekend. Is it going to be expanding into other theaters, or is Wolfe going to release it directly to video after its debut in New York?
RG: It's starting in New York, and depending on how it does there, they will expand to other cities and there will definitely be a DVD release after the theatrical release.

AE: Is that kind of nerve-racking, knowing that whether the movie plays in more theaters depends on how it does this weekend?
RG: In some ways it is, but we are so amazed at what has happened already. We are so grateful and thrilled with the way that the film came out and the response that we have gotten so far. We are now like, whatever happens we are just completely thrilled.

Girl Play opens at the Roxie Cinema in San Francisco on May 13th;
More on the movie at the official Girl Play site