I Interview Playwrights Part 101: Theresa Rebeck

Theresa Rebeck

Hometown: Cincinnati, Ohio

Current Town: Brooklyn, NY

Q: Can you tell me a little about The Understudy now at Roundabout?

A: It's a backstage comedy about an understudy rehearsal for an undiscovered Kafka play which is running on Broadway, starring two action stars. It was a complete fluke that our play ended up running in New York at the same time Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman did A Steady Rain. We thought that was pretty funny. Anyway we are running now until January 17. The play stars Mark Paul Gosselaar as Jake, the movie star, Justin Kirk as the understudy, and Julie White plays the stage manager.

Q: What else are you working on?

A: I'm working on a new play for The Magic Theater in San Francisco. It's based on a one act I wrote in 1992. I'm also working on commissions for Denver Center Theater and Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park.

Q: You have also written TV, films and novels. What sort of mental adjustment has to be made to move from one medium to another? Which come(s) most naturally?

A: Well, it is easiest for me to write plays. I like every aspect of working on them, the first draft, the characters talking in my head, taking it all apart again for later drafts, readings and rehearsals. On the other hand I HATE the politics of New York theater and it's really taken a toll on my interior life. I like writing novels because it takes so much more time and it's a much less brutal world, politically. My editor and publisher, Shaye Areheart at Random House is extremely rigorous with me but so kind and supportive--which finally I feel like writers need. And then there's television, which can be brutal as well. But I like how fast television is, and right now I'm working with collaborators who are wonderful.

Q: The life of a writer has ups and downs. Do you have any advice on how one navigates that?

A:  I actually have written a whole book about this, Free Fire Zone. So for my full answer to this question you should go read that book. The thumbnail answer is that Show Business truly can and will drive you crazy and so you have three choices: 1. Quit; 2. Stay in it and be driven crazy; or 3. Stay in it and figure out how to be happy and sane in spite of the horrors. For me that means a lot of things like going to the gym, taking yoga classes, meditation, reading the Tao Te Ching, going to the movies. Trying not to care that other people are more famous and successful than me. You just have to work on it every day: Don't get driven crazy by Show Business.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I like theater that tells a story, that has great acting, that has beautiful language and at least a few really good laughs. I want to be emotionally moved and intellectually provoked. I want to see something that opens my spirit and moves me to empathy.

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A:  I think that young playwrights should spend more of their time working on the basics of playwriting--scene work, dialogue, character, action. I think they should try to hear the rhythms of language in their own idiom. I think that they shouldn't worry so much about being "unconventional." A friend of mine recently confessed that younger writers are being taught, in some programs, that anything "conventional" is not cool. I think that's catastrophic thinking. Too many young writers spend so much time trying to be post modern that they don't finally write about anything at all.

Q:  Plugs please:

A:  I have a new novel coming out in May, Twelve Rooms With a View. Also I want to reiterate that I think Free Fire Zone really is a good read for anyone in this crazy business. I tell a lot of funny stories about horrible things that have happened to me, and there's also lots of useful information in it, like what the difference is between a studio and a network, or how to talk to movie stars. You can get them both on Amazon, or Barnes and Noble.com.

requests, please

Who are the playwrights you would most like to see interviewed that I have not yet interviewed?  I can't do everyone, and not everyone may necessarily want to do it but I am interested to hear who you want to hear from.

my 2009 in review

In ’09 I had a total of eight productions of six different full length plays.  I was able to attend six of them.  Four of the productions were from published plays.   I also had another play published in ’09 and managed to get my first TV job.

For the first half of 2009 I was still living in Minneapolis looking for 12 dollar an hour temp work, riding my bike everywhere so I didn’t have to pay two dollars for the bus. I was also in New York twice for extended periods because of two shows I had that went up.  We left MN at the end of June and I was in CT for about two weeks and then I headed to Atlanta to work on that TV show and was there for about five months working extremely long hours and getting paid two to three times more than I ever made as an administrative assistant in New York. Now I’m in a cottage on a lake in Connecticut.  It’s been kind of a crazy year.

Oh, and I interviewed 100 playwrights, many of whom are friends of mine.  What else?  I wrote a couple new plays and five or so episodes of that show.   Kristen and I bought a car.  Again, I have the feeling like I didn’t do enough this year.  I’m impatient at how long it takes to do everything.  I have a lot to write and don’t know when I will get to it. 

Anyway, Happy New Year.  I don’t know what is next for any of us but I hope for an adventure.

Stop Whatever You're Doing

and read this book!!

Are you a playwright or an artistic director?  Thinking of starting a theater company?  Thinking about going to grad school for playwriting?  Read this first.

It's depressing, surprising, astounding and a must-read.

(full disclosure:  I was one of the 30 playwrights interviewed for it in a round table a little while back.)

100 Playwright Interviews

Me
Arlene Hutton
Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas
Lucas Hnath
Enrique Urueta
Tarell Alvin McCraney
Anne Washburn 
Julia Jarcho
Lisa D'Amour
Rajiv Joseph
Carly Mensch
Marielle Heller
Larry Kunofsky
Edith Freni
Tommy Smith
Jeremy Kareken
Rob Handel
Stephen Adly Guirgis
Kara Manning
Libby Emmons
Adam Bock
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Liz Duffy Adams
Winter Miller
Jenny Schwartz
Kristen Palmer
Patrick Gabridge
Mike Batistick
Mariah MacCarthy
Jay Bernzweig
Gina Gionfriddo
Darren Canady
Alejandro Morales
Ann Marie Healy
Christopher Shinn
Sam Forman
Erin Courtney
Gary Winter
J. Holtham
Caridad Svich
Samuel Brett Williams
Trista Baldwin
Mat Smart
Bathsheba Doran
August Schulenburg
Jeff Lewonczyk
Rehana Mirza
Peter Sinn Nachtrieb
David Johnston
Dan Dietz
Mark Schultz
Lucy Thurber
George Brant
Brooke Berman
Julia Jordan
Joshua Conkel
Kyle Jarrow
Christina Ham
Rachel Axler
Laura Lynn MacDonald
Steve Patterson
Erin Browne
Annie Baker
Crystal Skillman
Blair Singer
Daniel Goldfarb
Heidi Schreck
Itamar Moses
EM Lewis
Bekah Brunstetter
Mac Rogers
Cusi Cram
Michael Puzzo
Megan Mostyn-Brown
Andrea Ciannavei
Sarah Gubbins
Kim Rosenstock
Tim Braun
Rachel Shukert
Kristoffer Diaz
Jason Grote
Dan Trujillo
Marisa Wegrzyn
Ken Urban
Callie Kimball
Deborah Stein
Qui Nguyen
Victoria Stewart
Malachy Walsh
Jessica Dickey
Kara Lee Corthron
Zayd Dohrn
Madeleine George
Sheila Callaghan
Daniel Talbott
David Adjmi
Dominic Orlando
Matthew Freeman
Anna Ziegler
James Comtois

I have a ten min play in this

This year, Smith and Kraus has combined its two annual ten-minute play books into this one volume, divided into three sections: Plays for Two Actors, Plays for Three or Four Actors, and Plays for Five or Six Actors. Now, you can get the best ten-minute plays produced during the 2008 2009 theatrical season all in one book!

In this volume you will find fifty-one ten-minute plays. All have been produced successfully. Some have even won awards. These plays are written in a wide variety of styles. Some are realistic, some are not. Some are comic (laughs); some are dramatic (no laughs).

There are a few plays in this book by playwrights who are pretty well established (Don Nigro, Jacquelyn Reingold, and Eduardo Machado are three examples); but most are by terrific new writers you never heard of, playwrights destined without a doubt to become far better known when their full-length work gets produced by major theaters. And you read their work first here!


Plays for Two Actors

Plays for One Man and One Woman
All Good Cretins Go to Heaven, Kathleen Warnock
The Can Can, Kelly Younger
Deja Vu All Over Again, Robin Rice Lichtig
Feeding Time at the Human House, David Wiener
Life Coming Up, Sharyn Rothstein
Novices, Monica Raymond
The Pain in the Poetry, Glen Alterman
Quarks, William Borden
Road Kill, William Crosby Wells
A Short History of Weather, Jonathan Yukich
Super versus Bacara Resort and Spa, Stephanie Hutchinson
The Transfiguration of Linda, S. W. Senek
Valentine s Play, Jenny Lyn Bader
A Very Very Short Play, Jacquelyn Reingold
Whistling in the Dark, Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro
Plays for Two Men
Crossing the Border, Eduardo Machado
Crows over Wheatfield (or The Nuance of the Leap), Gregory Hischak
Fragment of a Paper Airplane, Carlos Murillo
Marilyn Gets Ice Cream, Don Nigro
Plays for Two Women
Counting Rita, Patrick Gabridge
Critical Care, Bara Swain
The Grand Scheme, Jack Neary
Plays for Any Combination of Men and Women
A Figment, Ron Weaver
Tech Support, Henry Meyerson
What s the Meta?, Andrew Biss

Plays for Three or Four Actors
Plays for One Man and Two Women
The Chocolate Affair, Stephanie Allison Walker
Life Is Just a Bowl of Cellos, Ann L. Gibbs
More Precious Than Diamonds, Stephanie Hutchinson
Stuffed Grape Leaves, Damon Chua
Plays for Two Men and One Woman
After Godot, George Freek
Daddy Took My Debt Away, Bekah Brunstetter
Enter the Naked Woman, Brendon Etter
Poor Shem, Gregory Hischak
Transpiration, Vincent Delaney
Reverse Evolution, Brian Polak
Plays for Two Men and Two Women
Beautiful Noises, Scott C. Sickles
Cate Blanchett Wants to Be My Friend on Facebook, Alex Broun
Letters from Quebec to Providence in the Rain, Don Nigro
Snow, Adam Szymkowicz
Stick and Move, Greg Lam
Theft, Jerrod Bogard
Yin Yang, Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro
Play for Three Men and One Woman
A Gravedigger s Tale, Mark Borkowski
Play for Four Women
Parkersburg, Laura Jacqmin

Plays for Five or Six Actors
(Various Combinations)
The Blues Street Jazz Club Rehearses, William Borden
Cabman, William Orem
An Epic Story of Love and Sex in Ten Minutes: Chapter One, Richard Vet
Good Girl, Julia Brownell
Open House, Michael J. Grady
The Real Story, Neil Olson

Get it here.

nytheater podcasts

The podcast Matt Freeman and I did about Pretty Theft was the most downloaded nytheatercast of '09.

See the rest here:

http://www.facebook.com/notes/martin-denton/nytheatre-readers-and-listeners-choice-2009/213196562402

Listen to the podcast Matt and I did here:

http://www.nytheatrecast.com/episode.php?t=282

Playwright Interview Part 100: James Comtois Interviews Me

James Comtois was the first playwright I interviewed for this series so I thought it would be fun if he interviewed me for #100.  (Many people suggested I be interviewed for #100.  I resisted out of modesty and then realized I wasn't modest.  So here you go.)

Adam Szymkowicz 

Hometown:  Colchester, CT

Q:  What originally got you into writing plays? 

A:  I was an actor for years and then in college when I started writing, I started writing plays. I got addicted to theater but found acting scary and unsatisfying, so writing for theater seemed like a good idea.  It still does, sometimes.  I don’t feel the urge to act except when I see an actor not doing something as well as I know I could.  That happens less these days.  Most actors are better than me.

Q:  You’re also a graduate of Columbia and Juilliard.  Have you noticed an effect, positive or negative, on having post-graduate degrees with your writing and/or career? 

A:  Yes. 

Negative includes 88 thou or so of debilitating debt from Columbia.  Positive includes that I wrote a lot of plays during my years in grad school.  In addition, Juilliard has definitely helped me a great deal careerwise, although I'm still not yet where I want to be.

Q:  You spent the last five months writing for a television show.  Can you tell us a little bit about the show, what writing for it has been like and what writing for television has been like for you in general? 

A:  I signed a three page confidentiality agreement so I’m not sure what I can actually say about the show.  What I can tell you probably, without getting in trouble, is that on an average network show, you write 22 episodes over 9 months.  On a cable show (like HBO or Showtime) they write 12 or 13 episodes over 5 months.  On the show I was writing for, we wrote 46 episodes in 5 months.  We were taping three shows a week and once we started taping there was no break.  It was exhausting.

Q:  Although there are some self-evident differences, what are the biggest differences you’ve found with writing for television versus writing for the stage? 

A:  Keep in mind, I only wrote for this one atypical show.  But... it’s sort of like writing in a different but similar language.  The expectations are different.  What is considered good is different. It has also made me appreciate what can be done with 6 minds working on something as opposed to one mind.  At the same time that the voice can be diluted, other things get sharper.  It’s why some sitcoms are so funny.  In theory, you’re using the funniest joke that the room can come up with.

Q:    I’ve been making a living writing for various trade newspapers, so on one hand, I’ve been making a living as a writer, but on the other, my day job writing is so different from my playwriting I see no connection.  Do you find there’s a link between writing for television and writing for the stage, or do you find the two jobs to be completely disparate (as Andrew O’Heir once said, like “comparing apples to hyenas”)? 

A:  They’re different.  In this case, this show is vastly different from what I normally write if for no other reason than I’m a white kid from small town Connecticut and it’s about African Americans in Atlanta.  But there are other reasons too.  The 30 min format (24 min really)  is vastly different.  The structure is different.  You have to think about what your act break is and how to end each scene.  A scene is this many pages generally and there are this many of them.  It’s more like being a mechanic in some ways.  There is a lot of problem solving.  Some of the things I know how to do from playwriting are useless in the writing room and some of them are very helpful.

Q:   You’ve been pretty tenacious about getting your plays produced regionally.  You had five plays of yours staged around the country in 2009 alone (that’s not including the staged readings or having two plays published this year).  Although you covered this a bit in the comments section of one of your blog entries, can you give a little more detail about how you go about getting your work staged so frequently? 

A:  In 2009, I had 8 full length plays produced and one play published.  At this point, I don’t send out as many plays as I used to.  I do still email theaters sometimes to promote my published plays but I’m not sure how much that helps.  My agent is sending out my new plays.  I need to start doing more of that myself.  I’ve been working 12-15 hour days the past 5 months so a lot of things I would submit to normally got by me this year. 

But advice-wise, playwrights need to get their stuff out there and up on a stage.  Do whatever you have to to get your plays out there.  Send to as many places as you can.  Give your plays to directors and actors you like.  If it's not working, put the play up yourself and repeat.  And repeat.

Q:  Although you have relationships with different companies, you don’t have your own theatre company.  What are the pros and cons of being a “free agent,” so to speak? 

A:  I don’t like being a free agent.  It means I have to work harder to get people to put my plays up.  I have to show them to more people. I do have some great relationships but yeah, I wish I had my own theater.  On the other hand, I would probably be working a lot harder if I were producing my own plays.  Ideally, some theater would adopt me and produce every new play I write, preferably an off Broadway or large regional theater.

Q:   I’ll now go to one question you’ve asked all of your interview subjects: what type of theatre excites you? 

A:  I want to have a good time.  I want to laugh, I want to be engaged, I want to care.  I like plays about things.  I like crazy off the wall experiments and I like naturalism too.   Most importantly, I like a narrative.  If you’re not telling me a story, I get bored and I hate your play.  I dont' want to hate your play.  I want you to show me somethign new.  I get excited by something I haven’t seen before.

Q:    Let’s do another one of your old standards: what advice do you have for a playwright just starting out?

A:  I wrote a long post about that once.  You can find it here:

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/01/advice-for-playwrights-starting-out.html

Q:   Finally, whatcha got in store for us in 2010?  New plays you’re working on?  New productions?  You’ve got beans, Adam.  Spill ‘em. 

A:  I have a couple readings coming up in January and 2 or 3 productions that I know of in March.  I have a couple films I want to write, a pilot or two I’m working on and a whole list of plays I plan to write.  Oh, and a couple novels I’ve been working on.  I just have to figure out when I can do all the things I want to do.

Advice

Gary Winter pointed me to this:  Advice to Young Composers

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/05/the-score-advice-to-young-composers/

I Interview Playwrights Part 99: Arlene Hutton

Arlene Hutton

Hometown: Gosh, I never know how to answer that question! Although I was born in Bogalusa, Louisiana, I lived the first few years of my life in Mississippi. We moved to Florida when I was eight. But my parents always called Kentucky “home.” I’m the daughter of hillbillies. There’s a lot of material there.

Current Town: New York City

Q: Tell me about your recent readings at The Barrow Group and Ensemble Studio Theatre.

A: I like writing for specific actors. I wrote RUNNING some years ago, for Seth Barrish and Lee Brock, and put it away to work on other pieces, completely forgetting about it. Actor David Arrow reminded me of it and he did a wonderful reading for me at The Players which led me to more revisions. The first public reading was at The Barrow Group with Seth and Lee, on the day of the New York City Marathon, and we’re now discussing how to develop it further. VACUUM was begun in the Catskills a year ago, at a ‘pataphysics retreat with Erik Ehn, written for Polly Adams for Octoberfest at EST and we did a workshop at HERE. It’s quite different from anything I’ve ever written, so who knows what will happen with it.
For years I developed my work at New Dramatists and 78th Street Theatre Lab. Now that I’m an alumna, or “Old Dramatist,” and things have changed at 78th Street Theatre Lab, due to real estate and economics, I’m happy to have other sandboxes to play in, happy to be developing work at HERE, EST and The Barrow Group.

Q: What else are you working on?


A: I have a commission beginning in the spring of 2010, but I can’t talk about it yet.

Q: You and Craig Pospisil wrote a play together over email.


A: Yes, we did!

Q: Can you describe how that worked?


A: For years Craig and I have talked about working together, but we’ve always been too busy. In the late summer of 2008 I e-mailed him, saying “let’s write a play together on-line.” I would e-mail him a line of dialogue and he’d e-mail back. We started with nothing planned, just lines of dialogue, sort of like an e-mailed “T. J. & Dave.” I played two of the characters and he played two others. We had met years ago in an improv workshop and we’ve worked together many times on TheATrainPlays, so this was like improvising. We were having a good time, e-mailing back and forth. And then one day he wrote and said, hey, do you know what? We have forty pages. Let’s read it. We did and kept going. It’s called OUT OF THE FRYING PAN. It’s wonderfully silly, partly because of Craigs’ terrific sense of humor and partly because we would try to trick each other at times, or set up challenges to be fixed. Once I took both my characters out of the room so he had to continue on his own for a while. Craig is one of the smartest and funniest people I know, so it’s been like playing tennis with someone better than you and seeing your own game improve.

Q: Have you heard it out loud?


A: Yes! After we finally wrote “end of play” we had a reading with some wonderful actors, including Stephanie D’Abruzzo (AVENUE Q), Ryan Duncan (SHREK), Dennis Holland (DRIFT) and Margot Avery (NICKEL AND DIMED).

Q: What is the revision process going to be like?


A: We haven’t figured that out yet! We’ve both been busy, but we hope to get back to it.

Q: You are probably best known for THE NIBROC TRILOGY. Can you talk a little about those plays?


A: Well, first of all, I never set out to write a trilogy, but I loved the characters so much that I wanted to keep spending time with them. LAST TRAIN TO NIBROC started as a one-act, just the scene on the train, written for Alexandra Geis. I wrote two more scenes and produced the full-length myself for the second New York Fringe Festival, directed by Michael Montel. That production moved to the 78th Street Theatre Lab, traveled to Edinburgh and then ran Off-Broadway. SEE ROCK CITY was written years later, at the Australian National Playwright’s Conference because I needed to write something there and I knew the characters well. There were two extra actresses available in my time slot, so I wrote them in as the mothers. That play was chosen for development at the New Harmony Project. I wrote a proposal for the third play so I could go back there again as a writer-in-residence. Each play in the TRILOGY was written in less than two weeks and then revised and workshopped over a period of time, at New Harmony, at Orlando Playfest, at the Actor’s Coop. Director Eric Nightengale has been an important part of the process and we co-produced the TRILOGY at 78th Street in 2007. Several theatres around the country have presented the entire cycle, including B Street in Sacramento and Echo Theatre in Dallas. LAST TRAIN TO NIBROC has had, what, close to two hundred productions around the country maybe, most recently at The Kitchen and Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. I’m not kidding myself, though. Its popularity probably has a lot to do with the economy. The play is two characters and a bench. Only a solo show would be less expensive.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?


A: Anything with purpose and authenticity. It can be BLACK WATCH from Scotland or an elementary school doing FIDDLER ON THE ROOF.


I like physical theatre – especially the sort of work I see from international companies at the Edinburgh Fringe, at BAM, at the Lincoln Center summer festival or at St. Anne’s Warehouse. Although some of my own pieces can almost be (and have been) presented as radio plays, what I especially seek out are strong visual works.

Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?


A: Well, I personally “started out” after working for years on and off stage, so I had a lot of experience in the theatre before I began writing my first play. So here’s what I say to young playwrights when I teach at colleges and conferences: Learn to do everything – act, direct, make costumes, build sets – and do it for other people’s plays. Work with the best people you can find, those that both support you and challenge you to be your best. See as many plays as you can see. See readings of plays (they’re usually free!) Read every play you can. Don’t be afraid to produce or co-produce your plays yourself. Take the Commercial Theatre Institute’s weekend intensive on producing and learn everything you can about the business. Keep applying to New Dramatists and the MacDowell Colony and the New Harmony Project and all those wonderful places that serve writers and give you community. Join the Dramatists’ Guild.

I Interview Playwrights Part 98: Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas

photo by Marlene Ramirez-Cancio

Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas

Hometown: Miami, FL.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I'm getting my play BLIND MOUTH SINGING ready for a production in Havana. A talented Mexican writer by the name of Rodrigo Vargas handled the translation into Spanish. Even translating the title was hard. We came up with CANTO DEL POZO NEGRO. This is the first time that a Cuban theater company is producing a play by a Cuban-American playwright and I'm very pleased. I see the production as part of the ongoing process of strengthening ties and relaxing tensions between Cubans who live on the island and Cubans who live outside the island. The fact that we're able to do this today owes a lot to the bridge building work done by Cuban-American artists as varied as Ana Mendieta, Dolores Prida and Achy Obejas. I'm walking in their footsteps.

Q:  Do you find there are different challenges when writing fiction than writing plays? Which comes easier to you?

A:  Both genres are exacting for a writer. With fiction, well, getting it out into the world is less work of  course. Sometimes it feels great not to have to explain a text to, I don't know, yet another designer. But other times I feel very lucky to be able to get a text out of my head and into an actor's body. It feels less lonely. Sometimes I think that's the biggest advantage that writing plays has over writing novels, the playwright gets to hangout with actors. But ultimately I believe genre chooses the material, not the other way around. This is maybe why adaptations always make me a little sad. When I sit down to write, a mood or tone establishes itself and that almost always seems to insist on its ideal genre. Interiority, reflection, the confessional impulse -- all of that seems best suited to the page. Playfulness, affection, ghosts, history -- to me that seems better suited for the stage. It depends on the material. Interestingly though I've never had a question about where a particular text belongs. That always seems obvious. The text insists on the genre it needs. The rest of it, the differences in process between publishing and staging, those are just the lucky consequences.

Q:  Can you talk about what it's like to be a NYTW Creative Resident Fellow?
A:  I don't know of a theater that supports artists more than NYTW. The folks over there really seem to take seriously the idea that we should run our organizations in an artist-centric way. Every decision they make -- scheduling, design choices, casting, choosing collaborators -- it's all driven by artistic needs. There is an openness, an accessibility to that theater that you feel the minute you walk in. Also a kind of restless curiosity about the theatrical form and also the world. New York would be
infinitely impoverished without them. I've benefitted handsomely from their generosity, they supported me and my work during a two year residency. So many of my favorite theater artists in New York are people I've met at NYTW. I could go on.

Q:  Tell me a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person.
A:  María Irene Fornés once asked me if I played with dolls when I was a child. When I told her I, in fact, had not, she looked at me with wonder and asked, Then how did you ever learn how to write plays? I remember this incident fondly because it speaks volumes about Irene's wondrous, idiosyncratic methods but also because it confirms my general allergy to trying to understand art by examining the childhood of the artist who created it. If you really want to pursue this line of inquiry I'd be happy to send you my father's mailing address (he's serving time in a federal penitentiary in Indiana and likes to get mail). And let me know what theories he comes up with, I'm curious.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?
A:  The surprising kind.

Q:  Is it true you make your playwriting students read books on architecture or visual art before they even start talking about theater?

A:  It's true. Those terrible books on how scripts should be written have done such a successful job of shrinking the vocabulary of our theater. There is a certain kind of well educated, middle class student who comes to theater with all of this baggage, all of these rules. Conflict, psychology, the moral of the story, the most reductive ideals about symbolism. Stuff they learned by watching the Sundance channel or listening to too many post-show talk backs. But what I also find is that those same young people have this other vocabulary around mood, environment, spatial relationships, a more visceral relationship to art that they've experienced when listening to music, walking through great buildings, falling in love or even traveling. And so part of what I try to do is get young people to see that all those other ways they have of describing experience or thinking about art, all those more mysterious and idiosyncratic insights they don't think apply to theater, well they apply.

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A:  Remember that you aren't competing against anyone, that's the beauty of art. If you like competition try Wall Street. Be fearless. See everything. Try everything. Stay up late. Kiss people. Of both genders. Commit an act of civil disobedience in defense of a cause you care about. Make as many friends outside of the theater scene as you can. Live the kind of life that gives you something to write about -- even if that means you spend your twenties living dangerously and fully and with no time to write.

Q:  Any plugs?

A:  This has been a exciting season in New York. Standouts for me include Liz Duffy Adams's play OR, at the Women's Project (lots of cross dressing and a three-way), Tarell Alvin McCraney's trilogy at the Public (the world just seems bigger when you walk out of that theater) and Sarah Ruhl's IN THE NEXT ROOM, OR THE VIBRATOR PLAY (a play that makes you very happy you have a body). I'm looking forward to Packawallop's production of Alejandro Morales's MAREA. What a bold writer he is. Also Katie Pearl and Lisa D'Amour's collaboration this December at PS 122. Those two are visionaries and New York is lucky to be hosting their piece.

I Interview Playwrights Part 97: Lucas Hnath

Lucas Hnath

Hometown:  Orlando, Florida.

Current Town:  New York, NY.

Q:  What are you working on now?

A: Working on a couple of things right now. I’m currently finishing up work on a commission from Ensemble Studio Theatre and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The play is called Isaac’s Eye. It’s about Isaac Newton and the day he decided to figure out what light was made of by sticking a needle into his eye. It’s a comedy.

The Actors Theatre of Louisville is producing my ten-minute play, " The Courtship of Anna Nicole Smith." It’s about one of J. Howard Marshall’s many attempts to convince Anna Nicole to marry him.

There are also a couple of other plays and screenplays I’m finishing up or rewriting. Probably the most interesting of those is a play called sake tasting with a seance to follow. The play was first produced a little over a year ago. It’s an attempt to re-imagine an 18th century Chikamatsu love suicide play called, “Love Suicides at the Women’s Temple.” Instead of just adapting the original, we ("we" = Jyana Browne, Andrew Grusetskie, Kristine Kuroiwa, and myself) stage an open rehearsal of the Chikamatsu play, and at a certain point the actors begin channeling the dead Japanese youngsters depicted in the original story. From that point on, you’re watching a seance, complete with some pretty trippy magic tricks. I was really happy with the first “experimental run” of the play, and now I’m reworking it to make it tighter and scarier. Once I’m done and once we can reassemble the original creative team, we’ll probably do it again.

Q:  Can you talk about the play you were working on when we were in the 24 SEVEN workshop together?

A:  Odile’s Ordeal  – it might be my favorite play. I basically set out to write a re-imagining of Cocteau’s play, “Orphee,” as though it were written by Gertrude Stein and cast with the trio of hipsters from Godard’s Band of Outsiders. On top of all of that, the play is written to entirely be lip-synced. And it's a comedy.

When I brought the play to 24Seven, it was just a bunch of moments and scraps of dialogue. During those weeks in the lab, I was able to turn it into a decent working draft. And then after that, director Linsay Firman came in and gave me a lot of feedback that helped take it to the next level. Now the next step is to find a theatre where we can workshop the play, experiment with the play's technical aspects, and tweak those aspects to further enhance the dramatic content of the play.

Q:  You went to NYU for grad school, didn't you? How did you like that? Their program is not in playwriting or in screenwriting but in both. Did you feel pulled in one direction or another at the time?

A:  I loved NYU. I did both my B.F.A. and M.F.A in the Department of Dramatic Writing.
I do think that the program is what you make of it. There aren’t many opportunities to get your full-length plays produced by the school. Instead, you need to go out into the world and make it happen yourself.

That said, all of us who were at NYU got amazing story training. Teachers like Paul Selig and Martin Epstein would help you figure out why you're writing and your aesthetic. And then a screenwriting teacher like Mark Dickerman would put you through storytelling boot camp. So I never felt pulled in one direction or another. Rather, I felt like the two sides of the department complimented each other.

It’s also kind of amazing when I think back on who my classmates were over the course of those years – folks like Edith Freni, Ethan Youngerman, Jason Grote, Annie Baker, Liz Flahive, Itamar Moses, Anne Washburn, Rinne Groff, Gary Winter, Madeleine George, Jim Knable, etc. And I think if you look at the work of those writers, you'll notice a great balance between solid story-telling and theatrical invention.
Q:  When you write screenplays, do you have to get in a different mindset than when you write plays?

A:  Only until very recently my screenplays were all action thrillers. Very little dialogue. A lot of violence and gore. And in a weird way, to me, this feels more like writing a play than it would were I writing an indie drama walk-and-talk. When I write a play, I’m first and foremost thinking about the theatrical environment and how characters interact with it, and I find that’s what you have to think about when you write an action sequence.

On the other hand, typically my screenwriting experience has involved a lot of collaboration with and input from a producer, so that makes the writing experience very different. I find myself thinking a lot more about how the screenplay will interact with the movie marketplace.

Also, my dialogue writing skills were harder to transfer to the screen. When I write a play I’m generally letting the language get really awkward. It’s as though I’m pretending that I don’t speak English very well. That doesn’t translate so well to screenplays. That said, I think I’ve finally figured out a way to take what I do with theatrical dialogue and translate it to the screen. We'll see...

Q:  Tell me a story from your childhood that describes who you are as a writer or as a person.

A:  Which story to tell... I grew up in Orlando, Florida in a Buckminster Fuller geodesic dome house. We had no neighbors. We were surrounded by orange groves and there was a gun range across the street. The setting of my childhood was pretty surreal, and I think it informs a lot of my work.

On top of that, for much of my childhood my family attended an evangelical mega-church. The sanctuary where the kids' church service was held was bigger than most Broadway houses. When I was 8 or 9, I became interested in becoming a preacher and I was also really into magic. I started writing sermons that featured stage illusions – we'd called them “object lessons.” They began letting me perform these sermons, so I became something of a "minor celebrity" at the church and people would come to me to pray for them when they were sick or had problems, etc.

And then one day, someone, I forget who, had claimed that I prayed for her and that her disease (it was something really serious like cancer) went away. So after that, there was a stretch of time where more people were coming to me to be healed. It was a pretty strange experience, because I had no idea what I had done in the first place and now I was being asked to reproduce something I didn’t understand. And I wondered: What if the “power” went away? What if I also had the power to harm? There was something kind of terrifying about it.

 Most of my plays have a moment like that: A character is forced to deal with something they’ve done or created over which they have very little control, but it's something they must control or else the consequences will be dire.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  What I like to see and what I aspire to are plays that can generate contradictory emotional responses in the audience. Specifically, I like it when a play has a moment that makes the audience member feel repulsed (ewww), affectionate (awww), and then laugh all at once. I genuinely believe those types of moments are good for the brain. In the world of modern theatre, I think people like Richard Foreman, Jeffrey M. Jones, Marie Irene Fornes, Suzan-Lori Parks, and David Greenspan are great at crafting those types of moments.

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A:  Three things:

1. Find a director. Collaborating with a director can give you new tools for your theatrical bag of tricks. And directors can also be useful in getting your work introduced to producers and theatre companies.

2. Direct your own work. Every playwright should try this at least once. There’s a weird prejudice against playwrights directing their own work and I think it’s really dangerous. Playwrights are expected to just write the text and not to think about how the play works on stage? That’s ridiculous. I think that crafting your play's theatricality is as important as writing the text and building the narrative. Directing helps you develop your theatrical sensibility.

3. Study the brain. Seriously. At the end of the day, the receptacle for a play is the collective audience brain; therefore, it’s really important to understand how the brain works. I try to read as much as I can on neurology. On my stack of books-to-read I always have stuff on everything from video game design, magic theory, theme park design – anything that will help me understand how people engage with visual and aural stimuli. When all is said and done, a playwright is just using a series of old carny tricks to manipulate audience brains.

Q:  Any Plugs?

A:  Sure. “The Courtship of Anne Nicole Smith” will happen at the Actor’s Theatre of Louisville, starting January 13. www.actorstheatre.org

And I’d also like to plug the 24Seven Lab and the awesomeness of its founders, Sarah Hayon, Edith Freni, Sharon Freedman. Playwrights should definitely check out their website and join their mailing list. And people with big checkbooks should support them. www.24sevenlab.com

I Interview Playwrights Part 96: Enrique Urueta

Enrique Urueta

Hometown:  Born in Radford, VA; raised in Halifax County, VA; my hometown of Clover is now an unincorporated township, so South Boston, VA is the closest approximation to hometown.

Current Town: San Francisco

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  At the moment I'm preparing for two upcoming productions. My play Learn To Be Latina will premiere with Impact Theatre in Berkeley in February 2010  (read about it here: http://www.impacttheatre.com/season/0910/ltbl.php) and then in June  Forever Never Comes
goes up with Crowded Fire here in San Francisco  (see http://www.crowdedfire.org/inDevelopment.html#FNC). Rewrites, rewrites, rewrites! When I need a break from those, I go back to work on First Person Singular, my first non-theatrical text. It's a collection of prose poems about a man who returns to San Francisco to figure out how and why his relationship failed and discovers along the way that sometimes things fall apart for all the right reasons.

Q:  What theater companies or shows should I check out when in SF?

A:  There is a lot of great work being done in the Bay Area.  Berkeley Rep and The Magic are great, of course, but there are lots of smaller gems that do truly outstanding work. I'm a huge fan of Crowded Fire Theater Company, Cuttingball Theater, Encore Theater Company, Campo Santo, Impact Theatre, Shotgun Players, and Killing My Lobster. The Jewish Theater of San Francisco, Z Space Studios, Aurora Theatre Company, and SF Playhouse are pretty wonderful, too. The performance series at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts never fails to deliver something exciting.

Q:  Tell me a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a person or as a writer.

A:  After a battery of intelligence tests when I was in second grade,  my parents were encouraged to place me in a school that had a gifted program. Thus began the daily 20+mile commute to Halifax County Elementary School. I didn't know anyone at all there and I was a shy, awkward kid, so making friends didn't come easily. A boy in my class invited me over for his birthday sleepover and I remember looking forward to it and the possibility of new friends. The whole thing turned out to be a disaster. There were all these expectations to play basketball and football, neither of which I was good at. To make matters worse, I brought my Gizmo toy (remember? From Gremlins?) to play/sleep with, which TOTALLY sent them over the edge. The sleepover turned into this seemingly endless taunting session where I got pushed around and called names like sissy and fag. One of them jokingly said "Are you sure you're not a girl?" and everyone began to laugh. Three things became clear at this moment: 1) There was an expectation of behavior that defined "boy" and by default (through non-fulfillment of those expectations) defined "girl"  2) that "girl" was somehow less than "boy" and 3) by not fulfilling expectations of being a boy, I would be called a fag.  Of course I didn't have that language for it at the time--I wasn't rocking out the queer and feminist theory at the time-- but that's the best translation of that awareness in retrospect. It was a profound moment of realization that there were predefined roles expected of people and that these roles had rules. I've been fascinated with gender and the social expectations of gendered behavior ever since, which is something I keep exploring in my writing.

Q:  What is it like to grow up in rural Virginia as a Latino/radical queer socialist?

A:  Look at you with the Facebook reference! ;-)

It's funny, because I don't think I grew up any of those things, but rather grew into those identities. In terms of class, I have an odd history of being both of privilege and then suddenly being extremely poor. That sudden shift also marked the transition between elementary school and junior high. I went from being comfortably middle-class to being on the free/reduced lunch program. It's an awkward age in which change is palpable. It reverberates throughout my senses to this day.  The suddenness of that class shift burns that awkwardness into memory.

I grew up in an area where race was defined in terms of white and black. Looking back, it's fascinating to see how I navigated myself socially as a function of being in this seemingly undefined space. The school cafeterias were always the most self-segregated spaces along lines of race and class, and I was able to sit at either a black table or a white table without it being a question. At the time, there wasn't a large number of latinos in the area. That combined with the fact that my sisters and I spoke perfect English allowed for an amount of privilege. Ostensibly, we weren't white but the fact that we weren't black meant that we were afforded privileges of whiteness. Aside from migrant workers coming in for the summer, there wasn't a large latino presence. There was my family, which is Colombian, a Puerto Rican family, a Chicano family, and a Cuban family, and I don't recall our families ever really interacting. What I do recall is going to Colombia for the first time in 9th grade for six weeks and coming back with this realization of a cultural heritage that was incidental at best up until that point, as well as an awareness of myself as "other."

I knew that I liked guys from the age of 4, but I didn't come out to anyone until my senior year, and even then it was only to a small group of friends who all turned out to be queer anyway. It wasn't until attending The College of William and Mary (*shudder*) that I faced direct homophobia. I decided to be completely out from day one, and pretty soon I had a knife in my door. That sort of set the tone of what was to come:  slashed tires, bottles thrown at my head at frat parties (thankfully drunk people have bad aim), things being thrown at my car windshield while I was driving, being harassed by total closet cases (one of whom now lives in SF and cruised me at Gold's Gym earlier this year before I gave him a reminder of our history) and being told by campus administration that if I wasn't "so loud about it" that things like that wouldn't happen. That coupled with the overt racism I faced, both from students and faculty, made me seek out something that could help me explain what the hell was going on, why I felt like I didn't seem to fit anywhere. That search led me to taking a couple of writing workshops with Lois Weaver (of Split Britches Theater Company) who was in residence for a semester, and those workshops gave me a space to honestly and openly explore issues of race, class, gender, and sexuality. Those workshops left me wanting to read more about feminism, queerness, and race, so I began to take more classes that allowed me to learn more and ultimately give me the pieces of the puzzle that explained why my experience of the world was so different from everyone else around me. If anything is to blame, it's theatre. Theatre introduced me to feminism, which introduced me to queer theory, Marxism, and critical race theory. I went to college an apolitical aspiring paleontologist and left imagining myself to be the bastard child of Che Guevara and Oscar Wilde with Gloria Anzaldua as my spiritual grandmother. Wouldn't that be a fabulous lineage?

Q:  Why are you looking at me like that?

A:  Cuz I see you, Adam. Shakin' that ass. Shakin' that ass.

Q:  What is the purpose of theater?

A:  I believe theatre is a powerful space for people to gather together and collectively witness stories that make us laugh or cry or in some way move us, provoke us to think. It is a space for us to gather and see that through all our differences there is the possibility of connection. We see this through our identification with character, with story, and with each other as audience members as we bear witness together to the events that unfold on stage. Aesthetics is politics and nowhere is this more powerfully felt than in the liveness of theatre. Theatre historically has been a tool that shapes and reinforces ideologies about race, gender, class, power, and the state. As artists we can create a theatre that reinforces the social norms that keep us divided or we can use the same tools to critique the structures that shape us and bring us to a shared recognition of our common humanity so that we can move forward. I choose the latter.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  The kind of theatre that most excites me has a depth of character, richness of story, a necessity for existence, and an awareness of itself as theatre by actively interrogating the formal, linguistic, and temporal/spacial constraints of live narrative. Euripides, Shakespeare, Ibsen, Strindberg, Brecht, Beckett, Chekhov, Ionesco, Miller, Williams, Albee, Pinter, Sam Shepard, Michel Tremblay, Enrique Buenaventura, Adrienne Kennedy, Maria Irene Fornes, Caryl Churchill, Sarah Kane, Suzan-Lori Parks, John Guare, Tony Kushner, Jose Rivera, Reza Abdoh.  Each of them did/do this in their own way, and I continually go back to their plays for inspiration when I'm feeling stuck. There are so many playwrights writing today whose work I'm excited by:  Sheila Callaghan, Christine Evans, Liz Duffy Adams, Juliana Francis-Kelly, Mickey Birnbaum, Octavio Solis, Migdalia Cruz, Nilo Cruz, Naomi Iizuka, Christina Anderson, Robert O'Hara, Daniel Alexander Jones, Cassandra Medley, Kristen Greenidge, David Adjmi, Heidi Schreck, C. Denby Swanson, Victor Lodato, Jenny Schwartz, Luis Alfaro, Jorge Ignacio Cortinas, Alejandro Morales, Ricardo Bracho, Evelina Fernandez, Marisela Trevino Orta, Jason Grote, Betty Shamieh, Yusef El Guindi, Abi Basch, Krista Knight, Christopher Chen, Adam Bock, Quiara Hudes, Sarah Ruhl, Carl Hancock Rux, Thomas Bradshaw, Tarell McCraney, Marcus Gardley, Eisa Davis, Zakiyyah Alexander, Sarah Hammond, Young Jean Lee, Anne Washburn, Melissa James Gibson, Paloma Pedrero, Elaine Romero, Carlos Murillo, Brad Fraser, Judith Thompson, Caridad Svich, Sung Rno, Crystal Skillman, Lucy Thurber, Ken Prestininzi, Lauren Yee, Sherry Kramer, Eugenie Chan, Peter Nachtrieb, Deborah Stein, Kristoffer Diaz, Jordan Harrison, Kia and Kara Corthron, Mark Ravenhill, Phillip Ridley, Alice Tuan, Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig, Steve Yockey, Andrea Kuchlewska, and Karen Zacarias, just to name a few. And of course you, Adam. ;-)

Q:  What advice do you have for a playwright just starting out?

A:  There's over two thousand years of theatrical history---take the time and familiarize yourself with the breadth of it (experimental theatre began with Euripedes). Read lots of plays. Go see lots of plays. Identify what it is you like/don't like and why. Try to arrive at a definition of your aesthetic, but allow it room to breathe and shift. Find the theatres that match your aesthetic and develop relationships with them (a good start is by seeing their productions). Practice transcribing real conversations, study linguistics, and bury yourself in poetry. Listen to music. Language is more than words, it is rhythm, melody. It has consonance and dissonance. Be fully aware of the potential (and limits) of language. Draw. Paint. Take pictures. Look at art, really look at images and composition. You create the play world on the page, and how you write the play can affect the visual translation. Don't be afraid to think imagistically, but don't direct on the page. Watch tv and film, but be aware of how theatre is different. Be nerdy about something. Anything. Be generous of spirit, of knowledge, of self. There's little money to be made in theatre, so why turn this into a competitive sport? Be happy for your friends' successes. Their success can lead to your own. Take time off before gradschool. An MFA for the sake of an MFA is not a reason to get an MFA, and it most certainly is not worth going massively into debt. Write what you know. Write what you don't know. Write from your heart. Write from your gut. Try not to write from your head. Write what you want to see, not what you think they want to see. Write about what most matters to you. Write. Write. Write. Push yourself beyond your comfort zone. Try something new in each play. Be ambitious. Don't be afraid to ask difficult questions or travel difficult terrain. Don't be afraid to fail big! Give audiences credit--they're smarter than theatres would have you believe. Not everyone is going to like your work. Not everyone should like your work. If you're not pissing someone off with your writing, you're doing something wrong. Learn all the rules of playwriting--and then fucking break them all. Above all else, have fun. Otherwise why bother?

Q:  Any plugs?

A:  I've got a big year ahead! Learn To Be Latina in February with Impact Theatre and Forever Never Comes in June  with Crowded Fire. Visit their websites and sign up for their e-mail list.

http://www.impacttheatre.com

http://www.crowdedfire.org

If you want to be on my e-mail list, drop me a line at enriqueuruetaplays at gmail.com. Hope to see you in the audience!
 

I Interview Playwrights Part 95: Tarell Alvin McCraney

Tarell Alvin McCraney

Hometown:  Liberty City Miami, Florida

Current Town:  Clapham, London, UK

Q:  Can you tell me about your Brother/Sister Plays Part 1 and 2 which were just extended at the Public?

A:  Sure the brother/sister plays are a cycle of plays that were born out of a great need for me as an actor to reconnect to audiences. They also served as ways for actors of color to work on pieces that were new and invigorated with traditions of the old. Part 1 is In the Red and Brown Water, a piece based on the African Story of OYA/OBA and Lorca's Yerma. PART 2 is a double Bill of Brothers Size which is the first play written in the cycle and Marcus, Or the Secret of Sweet, the most current play. Brother Size is a story about the bond and bounds of Brotherhood and Marcus is a coming out story set on the eve of a tremendous storm. Does any of that make sense? Sometimes trying to distill all of the work down into a few sentences seems like making more mayhem.  

 

Q:  What else are you working on?

 

A:  Currently I am directing a YPS, Young Person Shakespeare, version of Hamlet, for the RSC, Royal Shakespeare Company. We will tour to schools in London playing the show. I'm also under commission here at the RSC for a new piece and will be returning to Chicago in a week to start rehearsals with Tina Landau for the Brother/Sister plays at Steppenwolf. I am sitting in Fivebucks now clutching a  cup of Soy Chi Latte hoping it will get me through the adventure. Wish me luck.

 

Q:  You went to grad school at Yale.  How was that?

A:  YALE WAS/IS AWESOME. The friends I made, the community I will always be involved with,
the love from the faculty, the inspiration from seeing some of the best minds at work. You can't beat that ... It makes it almost a lil' easier to pay back those student loans. 

 

Q:  What is it like being playwright in residence at the Royal Shakespeare Company?  What does that entail?

 

A:  Being International Playwright in Residence is awesome! Mostly because there have only been about two others so  the job has quirks and edges to it that expand or contract for the artists. I got to start an edit of Antony and Cleopatra that was really radical. Don't know if the company will do it. But it was awesome to see just where you could push the language. Also now I am directing something for the Company, which I totally didn't expect and I love working on it. I get excited and nervous and scared. They are testing me all the time. I love it.

 

Q:  You've won a heap of awards and for a playwright you're still at the beginning of your career.  I'm not sure what my question is.  I guess, how does it make you feel?

A:  I hope this doesn't sound bad... but my journey as an artist hasn't just begun. I've been doing theater for ... all my life. And I've been working hard at it and trying new things and continuing to do so. For me the awards are sign posts... saying we see you... keep walking working going. Sometimes the sign posts stop coming, I look closer at the road and figure out which way to go. And that's okay because there was a time when there were no sign posts and very few paths. I had to make my own.

 

Q:  Can you tell me a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person?

A:  One day when I was a kid in the projects my dad had gotten me a new bike. My mom lived near the drug hole, where drugs were sold, and we were told not to play too much over there. But I new the drug dealers and they knew me. My dad said he would teach me to ride the bike on the weekend while I was over his house. But I wanted to learn now. Right now. So I took the bike down stairs almost killing myself. And tried to ride it in the street. All of a sudden one of the Dealers on the corner was behind me and telling me to balance and to stay up and he would follow me. I began riding, and pedaling thinking he was behind me the whole time but he had let go a while back. I looked back and he was blocks away. I was half down the street.

The next weekend when my father decided to teach me to ride a bike I pretended and fell a lot so he wouldn't know I had already, learned. When he went in the house I taught myself to ride with no hands and how to stand up.

 

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

 

A:  All kinds. Too vague? Really all kinds.

 

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

 

A:  Write the one you are most afraid of... its got all the freedom in it! 

 

Q:  Plugs please:

A:  (Assuming Professional Voice Over Speak)
The Public Theater at 425 Lafayette, Astor and Lafayette has performances of The Brothers/Sister Play from Now until Dec 20th. Check us out.  http://www.publictheater.org/

I Interview Playwrights Part 94: Anne Washburn

Anne Washburn

Hometown:  Berkeley CA.

Current Town:  Brooklyn NY.

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I just finished/am still tweaking a play I started by accident at an Erik Ehn silent retreat this summer.  It's set in Berkeley in 1981, and is about a Sci Fi writer.  I'm also working on an extremely long play about Nero and a play for the Civilians about people telling Simpsons stories. 

Q:  13P is on play 9.  What happens when you finish number 13?  Will you start over or will your 501c3 self destruct?

A:  We implode.  We felt that if we continued we'd become an institution and that all our native strength lay in not being one.  Also, in an odd way, 13P is not so much about the specific playwrights involved as it is about the gesture of producing; if we went over again or brought in a new batch it would change the tenor of the thing. 
 
Q:  The Internationalist is one of my favorite plays of all time.  I saw it three times:  The first show in NYC, the one in CT and the Vineyard.  Are there any productions coming up that you know of or if not where can people buy it and read it?

A:  You rock, Adam.  People can get it from Playscripts, or there's a different edition which is available online through Amazon, or it's also  in the April 2007 American Theater. 

Q:  Tell me a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person.

A:  I have a lot of vivid earthquake memories...

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Right now I'm most interested in theater which is supersaturated, or deceptively simple.

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A:  Write the play you think no one but you will like. 

Q:  Any plugs?

A:  I have an translation/adaptation (really a translation with liberties) of Euripides' great lunatic play ORESTES which is going up at the Folger in DC in February and will move to Two River in New Jersey in March.

Some shows coming up which I'm really interested to see:  THIS by Melissa Gibson at Playwrights, the next 13P show: AMERICAN TREASURE by Julia Jarco, LAST CARGO CULT by Mike Daisey at the Public, CRIME AND EMERGENCY by Sibyl Kempson at Here, AUNT LEAF by Barb Wiechmann at Here, David Greenspan's THE MYOPIA at The Foundry, Young Jean Lee's KING LEAR at Soho Rep, TERRIBLE THINGS by Lisa D'Amour and Katie Pearl at PS122.

my new website

www.adamszymkowicz.com

I Interview Playwrights Part 93: Julia Jarcho

Julia Jarcho       (photo by Joe Buglewicz)

Hometown: NYC.

Current Town: NYC and San Francisco.

Q:  Tell me about your play 13P is putting up.

A:  It opens in a week, so I may have lost my ability to talk about it with any coherence at all... but It's about wanting to know the truth. There's a History Detective, and a girl who's been wronged, and they're trying to figure it all out. All of it. It's kind of inspired by the National Treasure movies. I'm interested in the way that even the shiniest fantasies of American identity are haunted by an awareness of national crimes. But I'm also interested in the way that unmasking those crimes becomes a fantasy, a point of investment itself. A question for me in making this play is, how would I insert myself into this discourse? What could I possibly have to say about history? And what does it mean to know history the same way you know a movie? Stuff like that. It's a two-person play, and the persons are Aaron Landsman and Jenny Seastone-Stern. They're both extraordinary performers with, I've always thought, really fascinating kinds of presence. And they're a joy to work with. We have a crack team of designers as well. And an amazing production staff. I've always loved 13P because the other playwrights are so cool, but this is the first time I've gotten to see the whole apparatus in motion, and I feel really lucky.

Q:  You worked on this play at the Bay Area Playwrights Festival. What was that experience like?

A:  "A very supportive environment"-- but it really was. I've been a resident playwright at the Playwrights Foundation (that's who runs the Festival) for a little while, so the whole experience was pretty comfortable for me. It was a good way to get to know the script better, identify some of the challenges a production would involve, etc. And I think anytime an organization puts its resources at your disposal and presents your work, it's helpful just as a vote of confidence. Those can be hard to come by. The actors I worked with out there were really lovely too. As were the other writers.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  I'm working now on a piece about Las Vegas, where I went this summer on a kind of pseudo-honeymoon. But it's not really about Las Vegas. Hmm. It's about a kid who processes everything through a lens of popular culture. A really smart kid. I'm pretty sure Guitar Hero will be involved. Then also, the back of my mind has been harping on D.H. Lawrence lately. A pretty low-level involvement to date, but we'll see.

Q:  How did you come to have plays in Paris and Berlin? Were you there to see them? What was that like?

A:  I lived in Berlin for a year or so and I had a fellowship to work on a new piece there. I did a very small workshop-type production of one piece in a children's puppet theater-- it wasn't a puppet piece or a children's piece, but I was in love with the setup in this place-- they had done a version of "Where the Wild Things Are," you know, before it was cool-- anyway, while I was there I became friends with a choreographer and performance artist named Ami Garmon, who's American but has been living in Berlin and Paris for a long time, and I did two pieces with her, one in a Berlin festival and one in a Paris festival. I performed in all three of those pieces. Basically my approach to making theater at that point was that I wanted to be doing it as much as possible, that just making the pieces was an end in itself and rather than try really hard to get other people to put on my plays I would put them on myself with my friends. That possibility is still something I love about theater.

Q:  Tell me a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person.

A:  Hmm. I've been reading a bunch of Freud lately, so I'm a little scared to answer this question. But I will tell you that apparently my first word was "more."

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I like it when theater is restive. You know, challenging and challenged and quick and mercurial. If you already know something, then don't put it in a play. I think I really appreciate specificity-- but maybe that's one of those things like "good writing" that's just a catchall. I'm trying to answer the question in a way that won't rule out any particular type of theater, because there aren't any categories I'd dismiss out of hand. For instance, my plays tend not to have real characters, and it tends not to be totally settled in them what has happened or hasn't happened, and people tend not to talk the way people talk in real life. But I can enjoy all of those things in plays I see. I think it's safe to say that strangeness is a big part of the payoff for me. Give me something weird. In whatever way. I think, actually, to be honest, that for me to really like a piece it has to make me feel that the people who made it are not quite at home in the world. That something is amiss. But this can be a really joyful experience.

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights starting out?

A:  I wish I knew! I guess something along the lines of, get your pieces up. Don't assume that someone else has to decide to do them-- you can do them yourself. And then you can totally decide that you'd rather have someone else do them-- but at least try. A production at whatever level teaches you a million times more than all the workshopping and feedback in the world. I think.

Q:  Plug your show:

A:  Opening this Saturday!
13P presents...
American Treasure
Written and directed by Julia Jarcho
Starring Aaron Landsman and Jenny Seastone Stern
Sets: Jason Simms
Costumes: Colleen Werthmann
Lights: Ben Kato
Sound: Asa Wember
One night, a Real History Detective meets a gumptious young vagabond with a harrowing past. Together, they'll follow a paper trail of blood and tears that goes all the way back to this nation's beginning. Or somewhere else.
November 21 - December 12
The Paradise Factory
64 East 4th Street (between Bowery and 2nd Ave.)
November 21 - 22, 27 - 29, December 2 - 3, 5 - 6, 9 - 10, and 12 at 8:30PM; December 4 and 11 at 7:30PM and 10:00PM

tickets @ www.americantreasuretheplay.com

I Interview Playwrights Part 92: Lisa D'Amour

Lisa D'Amour

Hometown:  New Orleans

Current town:  New Orleans and Brooklyn

 

Q:  Can you tell me a little about Terrible Things going up at PS122?  Is this the amazing thing I saw in Minneapolis with the marshmallows and wrestling?

A:  Yes, that's it!  It's a true dance theater piece - we are working with the fabulous Emily Johnson of the choreography, and she also dances in the show (www.catalystdance.com).  We like to say that the show is about all the Terrible Things that Katie Pearl has done, but that's not quite true.  It's really about how when you do something terrible, or something terrible is done to you, you often have this slightly out of body experience where you are, for a moment, acutely aware of the narrative of your life, and how quickly it can change....and sometimes that narrative feels completely SIGNIFICANT and INSIGNIFICANT all at once.  In the show, we refer to certain theories of quantum physics to explore this phenomenon - especially the Many Worlds Interpretation, which posits that every outcome of every possible situation actually happens, each in its own parallel world.  But here we are stuck in this macro / micro dilemma -- we have these big bodies, that must obey the laws of classical physics....and even though we know a lot about the micro...a world which seems to operate according to a more fluid set of laws...we are stuck here in the macro, next to the boyfriend we've fallen out of love with and his irritating half-blind dog.  This makes the piece sound super depressing but its not -- it is trippy and funny and ultimately, I think, hopeful about the world and theater --- the place where we can, for a moment, inhabit other bodies and places and times...

 

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  I just finished a play called DETROIT, which a friend of mine recently described as "The Cataract but on Crystal Meth".  There is no crystal meth in the play but there are two couples living side by side, similar to my play The Cataract.  I also just did a little showing of a project called Dufu, Mississip, this funny little musical I am dreaming up with my husband, Brendan Connelly (of Theater of a Two-Headed Calf).  It's the 8th century Chinese poems of Dufu, adapted to a Mississippi landscape.  We showed a glimpse of it at the Catch series at the Bushwick Starr, with Dave Malloy on Ukelele (sp?) and Brendan on washtub bass.

 

Q:  Can you tell me a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person. 

A:  Two: 

One:  My first play was staged in my backyard on a big hill when we were living in West Virginia.  It was a passion play, and it moved from the bottom of the hill to the top.   I made Missy Zimmerman play Jesus because her hair was long.  We crucified her in our vegetable garden.

Two:  We took a bunch or long road trips when I was little because we were in West Virginia and trying to get my super homesick mom back to New Orleans.  To entertain myself, I would make my brother's do little skits on tape recorders.  (I vaguely remember me as a reporter and Todd as the Big Bad Wolf?)  We'd also spend lots of time trying to get my Dad to say a curse word in the front seat and capture it on tape.

 

Q:  I've worked with your younger brother Todd a couple times now and am crazy about him although have learned not to go out drinking with him.  Can you talk a little about Stanley and what it was like to work with him on that?

A:  True dat, partying with Todd.  Even worse:  partying with Todd and Brendan.  And add Brendan's mom Donna into the picture and you are really in trouble.

Working on Stanley was a fabulous experience.  When I moved to New York, I wanted to make a piece for Todd that showed off his physical abilities -- he is an extraordinary, and extraordinarily precise, mover.  We started working on this idea of a guy who thinks he is Stanley Kowalski, escaped from the play, long before Katrina....we were in mid-development when the storm happened and we felt like it had to be addressed...we were from New Orleans and the character that inspired the piece was from New Orleans.  Todd was totally committed to the process and of course, the product.  He's amazing isn't he?  We really can't wait to work together again....I've got some ideas brewing...

 

Q:  Can you talk at all about being in New Orleans after the flood?

A:  Well first I need to remind you that the Saints are 8-0!!!  The city is going totally crazy.  It is amazing how that team is channelling so much energy into the city right now!  I never really watched football again but now I catch every game, wearing my damn fleur de lis shirt.  It sounds like a small dumb thing, a football team, but it is huge in terms of the morale of a city that is trying to remain vibrant.

The city doing great now, with HUGE reminders of the many people who were basically not allowed to come back because they are poor.  This is a travesty.

But many people are back, and the DIY spirit of rebuilding has created a really beautiful thing.  It was crazy, that whole year after the storm. Nobody was getting their subsidy money on time (if at all) and people were just making it happen.  Not everyone could handle (or should have handled) the stress of the zaniness.  Not enough schools for a long time, spotty services like hospitals and grocery stores.   Almost all of that is resolved now (still some gaping holes in things like mental health services) and there's just a lot of energy...and new blood too.  The N.O. theater scene is hopping in part because of like three new companies that have started since the storm....kids who moved there after college and settled down.

If you meant, like, what was it like to be there in the weeks / months after the storm...that is a different story.  I was in and out (unlike my parents and extended family, who were just THERE).  But when I was there it was a completely surreal landscape.  I remember the party we had at my brother Chris' house in the Broadmoor / Uptown area....he was one of the first people back in his neighborhood (he has 6 feet of water in his house).  And someone called the cops on us because we were too loud and we were like WHOO HOOO!  There are people in the neighborhood to complain!!!  It was exciting...

 

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A:  1.  Find your group of at least four playwrights who are going to be your support network.  Read each other's drafts, listen to each other's success and sob stories.  

2.  Finish what you start.  You will be tempted to leave it halfway done.  This is what leads you to not being a playwright anymore.  Finish it.

3.  Don't worry about making money writing plays.    Do things for free.

4.  Don't waste too much time or money blindly sending plays out to theaters that don't know you.  Meet directors and have them pass your plays on to people.   Intern at theaters and sneak your plays in.  Produce your own plays and invite as many professionals as you can to them -- even if they are out of town and can't come, they'll be happy to know about you.

 

Q:  plugs please:

A:  Are you a bookworm?  Come to our benefit with Katie's famous librarian action figure mom on Saturday November 17 at the gorgeous Packer Institute:

http://pearldamour.com/?page_id=470

And then the show, opening December 4!

http://pearldamour.com/?page_id=43

Also Todd  (my brother) is in a show at the Ontological:

http://www.ontological.com/INCUBATOR/pl11509.html

I Interview Playwrights Part 91: Rajiv Joseph

Rajiv Joseph

Hometown: Cleveland, Ohio

Current Town: Brooklyn, NY

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I tend to work on a few things at once. I’m working on one play about sports book gambling, another one about gangsters in New Delhi, and then a couple other plays that, at this point, are too soft and unformed to describe in any coherent way.

Q: You are one of the writers who won the Whiting award this year. Congrats! Can you tell me about that?

A: A huge honor, and totally crazy. I actually had never even heard of the award before, and I got a call telling me I’d won it. I thought it was some friends messing with me. Basically someone nominates you for it, and you don’t even know it until you win. It’s an incredible award that will literally buy me more time to write.

Q: Can you tell me about your play Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo?

A: It started out as a 10 minute play that I wrote at NYU and that nobody really liked, so it sat in my desk drawer for 2 years. Then I brought it to the Lark Playwrights Workshop and spent the next 3 years developing it through the Lark, which got it to a point where Center Theatre Group in LA wanted to to do it at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. They’re now going to remount it at the Mark Taper Forum in April.

The play takes place in Bahdad during the war. But it also takes place in a ghost world that is wedged into that reality. The ghost of a Bengal tiger roams the streets looking for God, a dead Marine haunts his best friend, and the ghost of Uday Hussein torments his former gardener. So it’s a ghost story, and a war story, and a story about translation and topiary and gold-plated weapons and lepers. I had the great fortune to have Moisés Kaufman direct the play. And we had this genius, brilliant cast.

Q: You and I have the same agent. Isn't Seth great!

A: Seth is the LeBron James of agents. He’s got a wicked handle, he sees the court like no one else, he will kill you from downtown, or he will post up and overpower you inside. Sometimes I have nightmares about him. He is that awesome.

Q: Tell me a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person.

A: I liked to play in the mud.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: I guess I want a play to take me into a dream state. I’m excited by any theatre that does that, and that doesn’t wake me until the end.

Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A: I struggle when I try to write what I think a “play” is supposed to be. So my advice is, just write what you think would be cool. And go easy on the stage directions.

I Interview Playwrights Part 90: Carly Mensch

Carly Mensch

Hometown:  Harrison, New York.

Current Town:  NYC, Hell's Kitchen.

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I just finished two new plays. The first, Oblivion, is about moral relativism Or rather, how we teach ourselves single-entendre principles in a morally relative universe. The play starts with a lie - a high school teenager lies to her parents - and quickly expands into larger questions of belief and guidance (where we go to for answers to big questions). The play is also about Pauline Kael, former New Yorker film critic, and how young artists can worship older artists almost religiously. It's also quite simply about a family. How this one lie pokes a crack in the life of a seemingly put-together liberal family. In general, I'm obsessed with questions of generational differences. How one generation is different from the last, how certain sensibilities and world-views get passed down or replaced, how parents teach their children and vice versa.

The second play I wrote with a specific space in mind - Ars Nova. For those who don't know Ars Nova, it's a sort of old-school vaudeville cabaret theater. Red velvet curtains, bar in the back, very intimate. I wanted to write a two-person play that used the performative aspect of the space and I came up with the idea of historical reenactments, turning the theater into a sort of museum. I'm deeply amused and intrigued by historical reenactments - this idea that if you put on a costume and talk in a hokey accent that history becomes present-tense. I based the museum on one of my favorite museums in New York - the Lower East Side Tenement Museum - so I could explore issues of immigration and personal reinvention. There's also a love story and a bunch of philosophical smack-downs about why we study history and how our generation is culturally bankrupt. I won't say any more.

Q:  You're going to head to LA soon to write for Weeds. Are you excited? What kind of car are you going to buy? What are you scared of and what are you looking forward to about LA?

A:  Yeah, they hired a scrappy kid to write for a sexy drug-dealing mom, go figure. I'm very excited. I really like the show and the questions they're investigating - moral gray areas, modern parenting, what's up with the whole Mexican drug scene. I'm also really excited about writing as part of a team, getting to see how other people think through plot and character. I don't have a car yet. I don't even know how one procures a car - I should probably look into that. In terms of what I'm afraid of, I'm scared of losing theater. The theater community is so geographically specific - once you leave New York, it just sort of disappears, or rather, you disappear from it.

In general though, I think TV is up to really good things right now. A lot of shows are taking on socially relevant stories in artful and deeply entertaining ways. Most importantly, they're finding their audiences. Theater can learn a lot from TV instead of just carping about its seductive qualities. I think we owe it to ourselves as storytellers to figure out where our audiences are going and why and to reevaluate what's specifically theatrical, what absolutely positively has to be on a stage and not anywhere else. Everyone says that, but still people keep writing psychological dramas that would be better off on a screen.

David Foster Wallace wrote an amazing essay about TV called "E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction." I urge everyone to check it out.

Q:  You worked in the lit offices of Playwrights Horizons for quite a while. How did that inform your playwriting?

A:  Working in a lit office, you realize literary managers aren't evil gate-keepers hellbent on quashing the hopes and dreams of aspiring playwrights via form letters. They're smart, thoughtful, caring people who spend countless hours reading scripts and doling out free dramaturgical advice. I found it very encouraging to learn that when a play gets read by a theater, it really gets read. A human being takes the time to grapple with it and figure out what the playwright is trying to accomplish. Not only, but working at a theater you learn that rejection isn't personal. A lot goes into curating a season; it's not simply "we like this play, we like this play, we don't like this..." which is often how the process appears from the other side.

At the same time, the job arms you with a descriptive vocabulary that can be detrimental to the creative side of your brain. You get very good at slotting plays into categories ("a talky, schematic issue play" "a self-consciously, meta-theatrical slim satire"). I found myself censuring myself before even trying out an idea. So it's an amazingly gratifying job and a great place to learn how to read a play, but as a playwright, you can't spend too much time in that position.

Q:  Can you tell me what it was like to have a play in Humana? Had you been to Humana prior to that or was it your first time there?

A:  Every playwright should go to Humana. Apply a million times until you get in. It's such a nurturing and empowering place to do theater; they treat writers like rockstars. I went there at 24 with my first play - I had never had a production before, never been to the festival - and they put my play on the mainstage in a 600-seat theater with a balcony. Sean Daniels, the director, turned our rehearsal space into a sort of kiddie romper room of experimentation; I ended up rewriting the ending about ten times. The script was definitely flawed, but the production made up for it in heart I think.

There's also something to be said for theater festivals. The energy, the variety, the drinking. It reminds you that your play isn't the only play that exists, that it's part of a larger thing called Theater. I saw the Civilians' show, Beautiful City, maybe five times. I saw Gina Gionfriddo's show twice.

Q:  Tell me a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person.

A:  For most of my childhood I was convinced I never actually went to sleep. That I was the only person on the planet who didn't partake in this basic human activity. One day my parents showed me a picture of myself sleeping in the backseat of our car. It was pretty enlightening.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I'm really into theater collectives right now. Experimental companies taking on big, messy ideas with singular visions. Elevator Repair Service. The T.E.A.M. The National Theater of the United States of America. The Civilians. I just saw Sleep No More by the British theater company Punchdrunk, which was an experience. I'm convinced that the future success of theater lies in groups of people, not individuals. They're able to circumvent the slog of the development process and create theater on their own terms. They're also coming up with the some of the most gutsy and powerful material right now, not to mention work that is visually arresting and super fun to watch.

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A:  Be ambitious - aim high, overshoot, mess up, try again. Theater needs bold storytellers right now. We need thoughtful people taking on big questions. With every bad play that gets produced, theater dies a little. We become a little more irrelevant. So be hard on yourself. Write every play like it's your last. If you're writing about five loafers on a couch, throw it out. Look outside yourself. Ask questions. Write the conversations you want to be having with society at large. Think visually, not just about words on a page. Think about the audience. Entertain them, respect them, challenge them. Don't write a play you know has already been written. Read a million books. Go on crazy adventures. Take strange jobs. Fall in love with older writers and then try to write better than them. Fall in love with theater and then write a play that redefines what theater is.

Q:  Any plugs?

A:  Rent a car this winter and go see Elevator Repair's Gatz at A.R.T. - see the marathon six hour version, don't split it up. I saw Gatz last year in Troy, New York and it was the single-most thrilling piece of theater I have ever seen.

I Interview Playwrights Part 89: Marielle Heller

Marielle Heller

Hometown: Alameda, CA which is in the East Bay Area.

Current Town: New York

Q:  Tell me about your upcoming show, Diary of a Teenage Girl. 

A:  The Diary of a Teenage Girl is a play that I have adapted from the graphic novel by Phoebe Gloeckner.  It's the story of a fifteen year old girl who is growing up in the 70s in San Francisco who is sleeping with her mother's boyfriend.  That's the short answer.  Really to me, it's the most honest coming of age story of a young girl I have ever come across.  It pulls no punches.  It's a look into the mind of a really precocious, really curious teenager, who is exploring her sexuality, and learning about herself through sleeping with her mother's boyfriend.  It's not a black and white story of pedophilia, nor is it a lolita story.  It's looking at a really complicated situation purely from the persective of the fifteen year old girl- through her fifteen year old lens, only further complicated by the time and place in which she lives.  And surprisingly, it's really funny.

Q:  How did you come to adapt this graphic novel?

A:  Well I read the book, which my sister gave me for Christmas, I closed the cover and immediately called the publisher and just babbled something about wanting to make this into a play.  I didn't really know what I was talking about.  And after many months of correspondence with the publisher and eventually Phoebe, who seemed pretty on board, I got patched through to her agents who promptly shut me down.  I got no after no.  It didn't look like this was going to go any further, but one day I realized I wasn't willing to give up on this.  I had never known so surely that I wanted to work on a project before, so I just called the publisher back and told her I wasn't going to take no, I didn't think she had taken me seriously, and I wanted a chance to show her what I wanted to do with the book.  I ended up doing a pretty extensive presentation for her, and eventually got the theatrical rights to the book.  That process took about 10 months.  And from there, I had to actually start writing!

Q:  Is this your first play? What challenges did you find in adapting someone else's work? 

A:  This is my first play, and the project which has gotten me into writing in a real way.  It's been immensely challenging to adapt this book which I so revered (I understand now why people say it's easier to adapt a bad book than a great one).  I felt such loyalty to Phoebe's work, but I had to get over that eventually.  It just wasn't serving the play.  And since then she and I have had great conversations about what adaptation means.  She essentially had to adapt her personal diaries in order to write this novel- condense characters, fudge dates and timelines, etc., and she was the one who actually pointed out to me that I went through a similar process with writing the play.  It's like the story has gone through two major meat grinders and has come out the other side... and it's been especially exciting to see that she still recognizes her story in the play.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  I've gotten into writing screenplays.  It's been amazing because Diary kind of came along and swept me up into this new world, and opened up a whole different path to me that I hadn't really considered before.  I have started writing with a partner, Cailin Goldberg-Meehan.  We have one completed screenplay, which is about two nerdy fifteen year old girls (I clearly am working out some long buried issues from my childhood) who are overacheivers, and have never really socialized, who try to turn their social status around in one day, and make out with the boys of their dreams, and everything goes terribly wrong.  It's a funny teen comedy about girls. And we're working on a number of other scripts.  It's been really wonderful. 

Q:  You're an accomplished actor. How has your acting experience informed your playwriting or vice versa? 

A:  I think that everyone who works in the theater is constantly studying story.  And whether it's conscious or not, we are all aware deep down how story functions, and what drives it.  I realized I knew a lot more than I expected about what works and what doesn't, especially about how things sound coming out of actors' mouths, and how dialogue flows and beats need to build.  It was easy for me to imagine myself in the play and consider that I would be the one feeling the pain if the play dragged.  But I feel like really I'm just learning about this whole new craft of writing, and it's a journey that's got a similar timeline to acting: you're never done!  And since writing, I'm sure my perspective as an actor has shifted.  How could it not?  It's probably just made me way more of a wise ass (just kidding... I hope).

Q:  If you will, please tell me a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person. 

A:  When I was 12 years old my family went fishing at a trout farm and I fell in.  I remember seeing all of the fish swim away from me in all directions, and feeling them slime up next to me.  I emerged soaking wet and so embarrassed.  My dad, who had recently seen Dancing with Wolves, called me Swims with Trout all summer.  Maybe I've never recovered.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Just when I think I know what type of theater person I am, it changes.  I love theater that tells stories we haven't heard before, that is somewhere really honest and vulnerable even to the point of painful awkwardness.  I love just seeing people really try and really put themselves out there.  I guess the only theater I don't like is lazy theater (you know who you are). 

Q:  What advice do you have for an actor just starting out? 

A:  Start writing, or composing or something. It will only help.  It's so difficult to be an artist who has to wait for other people to tell you when you can create.  Find ways to make your own projects, whether by writing them or whatever.  Just don't only spend your time auditioning because it will crush you. 

Q:  What advice do you have for a playwright just starting out? 

A:  God I have no idea.  Just watch yourself with feedback, monitor it if you can.  Notice when you aren't open enough to it, and when you're too open to it, and constantly check yourself on it.  It's such a fine balance, and can affect everything. 

Q:  Plugs please:

A:  Diary is going to be coming to New York in March to 3LD co-produced by New Georges.  Check out our website: www.Diarytheplay.com and come and see the show!

Below is perhaps the best play trailer I've ever seen.  --Adam




www.thediaryofateenagegirl.com

I Interview Playwrights Part 88: Larry Kunofsky

Larry Kunofsky

Hometown: Far Rockaway, NY

Current Town: New York City. All other East Coast Creative Types are in Brooklyn.

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  My latest play, "Social Work (a nightmare)" is a dark, DARK comedy about a social worker named Brenda who works at Bellevue, and this guy she meets on the Internet, Donovan, a romantic narcissist - they meet, hook up, and turn each other's lives into hell. They both kind of medicate themselves through this relationship (don't try this at home), and this changes how Brenda deals with her co-workers and patients, and it leads Donovan, who was never good at paying his bills on time to begin with, to go into debt, get evicted, go crazy, and enter the terrible system that Brenda knows all too well about from work. The play touches upon issues of race, class, sexuality, how love is a kind of madness, anti-depressant medication, and the health care system. I'm casting this play as we speak/write. I need to get back on the DIY self-producing-playwright horse.

Q:  Can you describe the pilot you just wrote?

A:  WILL WORK FOR FOOD is a half-hour comedy set at the Big Apple Crunchy Granola Food Collective. You know the big food co-op in Brooklyn? The famous one? The good one? Crunchy Granola is not that food co-op. Crunchy Granola is the F-Troop, or the Island of Lost Toys, of food co-ops. Magda and Dan, former lovers, share co-manager status at Crunchy Granola. She's the smart one, but he's the one who gets promoted to Manager by the trust fund kid who subsidizes the co-op. Comedy, romantic tension, left-wing smugness, junk food fetishes, Brooklyn-envy, and the spillage of quinoa ensue.

Q:  Can you talk a little bit about your Old Testament cycle?  How many plays are in it?  How many have you written so far?  What prompted you to take on this ambitious project?

A:  My ongoing work-in-progress is called THE GENESIS TAPESTRIES, which is a cycle of plays that riffs on the Book of Genesis. And I think "riff" is the operative word here, since I'm not trying to adapt the Bible. These are original plays based on my own (perhaps idiosyncratic) associations with the source material. These aren't religious plays, nor are they anti-religious plays. These are secular plays that deal with the present absence or the absent presence of God in our lives.

I've written three plays in the cycle so far. One was an Adam & Eve story set in the Great Depression. Another was a Cain & Abel play about a director who murders a playwright as they try to put on a play about the creation of the world. The other one was about Abraham's attempted sacrifice of Isaac, the themes of which bring up a lot of emotion for a lot of people. There will be at least ten plays altogether. I try to stagger out this project between every other play I work on, so I have no idea when I'll finish it. I don't mean to sound all August Wilson-y, but this project could be how I spend the rest of my life.

Obviously, I'm a little bit obsessed with the Old Testament. It's so trippy, dark, strange - oozing with Bad Love. The love that's in the Bible is often SUCH bad love. Really crazy love. Overwhelming, addictive, treacherous love. Everyone in Genesis seems to love either the wrong person, or love the right person in the wrong way. And no one feels that they themselves are loved enough or at all well. And it just seems so arbitrary! Here's a book about the creation of the world, and yet so much in the world is chaos. This one is loved because he's hairy, that one's loved because he's smooth. God loves you more than he loves me, so come over here a second while I introduce this rock to your face, and on and on like a Blues song. And the primary example of Bad Love in all of this is... God. Jealous love. Wrathful love. Mixed-message-sending love. Bi-Polar, bitchy, my-way-or-the-highway love. It's a little intense. The themes of the plays in this cycle are still taking root and growing, but this Bad Love business has a lot to do with it.

So, in answer to your question: No.

I guess I can't really talk a little about this project. I had to say a lot. Sorry.

Q:  How many plays have you written?

A:  Uhmmmm.... I don't want to tell you my Magic Number because it makes me look crazy.

I've only had a few of my plays produced, including, most recently, "A Guy Adrift In The Universe," and "What To Do When You Hate All Your Friends - an anti-social comedy." When people find out how many plays I've written and how few I've had produced, they kind of look at me funny. You know how in Annie Hall, when her fancy family looks at Woody Allen, and he can tell that they're seeing a Hasid with red beard and peyes and everything? It's kind of like that. Except it's not about being a Hasid. Anyway, I've written a lot of plays.

Part of the challenge of writing a new play for me has always been to write something that seems unstageable. Making the impossible possible is what excites me most about theatre. And perhaps that's why my play that requires dozens of live cats onstage, and my play for forty-five actors remain unproduced.

Q:  Tell me a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person.

A:  One day in fourth grade, I fell on my head after being tackled to the ground (by accident and without malice), and received a pretty serious concussion. I had to wait in the doctor's examining room in my underwear, which that day happened to be Green Lantern Underoos.

One major effect of the concussion was extreme disorientation. The other major effect was that I thought I was The Green Lantern.

I didn't realize I was in a doctor's office, I just knew that I wasn't at my grandmother's house, and assumed that someone was holding my grandmother hostage. I saw myself in the mirror, wearing my Green Lantern Underoos, and I thought, oh, this is my uniform. For I Am The Green Lantern. And I ran out into the waiting room, screaming "Bring my grandmother unto me! For I am The Green Lantern!" And then women and children screamed and ran away from the weird kid in the green underwear.

The amazing thing about believing that you're The Green Lantern while in the throes of a serious concussion is that you remember what it felt like to be The Green Lantern for the rest of your life. Vividly. As if it had been real. I remember looking in the mirror and seeing The Green Lantern. I can feel what it was like to wield my Power Ring, even though no such Power Ring existed. I WAS The Green Lantern!

Writing for the theatre, or performing in theatre, or even watching theatre when it's especially good, is a lot like being The Green Lantern. It is so not real, and yet the realest, most vivid experience you will ever have.

Q:  You are a voracious reader and also a bit of a film geek.  Who are your favorite filmmakers and novelists?  Who are the underrated novelists and filmmakers I don't know but should know?

A:  I'm on a Don Carpenter kick now, trying to read all his books now that I just found out who he is. Hard Rain Falling, just reissued, appears on the surface to be a crime novel, but on a deeper level resembles something that Camus would have written, had Camus been American and not been killed in a car crash. It deals with prison life and being marginalized, but the characters' triumph over despair is more energizing and oddly life-affirming for me than a thousand musicals. I found a rare Don Carpenter interview somewhere online in which he talks about decreasing his vocabulary in training for what was then his next novel. His intention was to leave his language unadorned and unmasked so that the reader would get the emotional meat completely raw. Me For That! I so admire writers like Don DeLillo and Lorrie Moore, whose every sentence has jewels in it, but this other sensibility speaks to what I try to do as a playwright - giving it to you naked.

My status as a major Film Geek is on the wane. You'll still find me at Film Forum, particularly for older, black & white films, but I spend a lot more time reading comic books. When I see movies these days, I think about how comics sound better in my head as I read them than movies do as I watch them. The colors suit my eyes in comics more than the colors in most films do. (It makes me want to leave more room in my plays, to allow the audience more opportunity to be the creators.)  The Graphic Novel, as a form, is now where Film was in this country back in the Seventies. I think everybody should go back to calling them Comic Books, but that could just be my thing.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  The kind that breaks you into tiny pieces, but also gives you the hope and desire to pick up the pieces and put yourself back together again.

Some examples of this are "Everything Will Be Different" by Mark Schultz and "Now That's What I Call A Storm" by Ann Marie Healy and "Scarcity" by Lucy Thurber.

Also, plays that suck your brain out with a straw and then give you back enough of your brain to realize that your old brain wasn't working anyway, and that you need to fix your brain. The reigning champion and true master of this kind of work is Wallace Shawn. He should be a verb. As in, "OMG, that play just Wally-ed me!"

Oh! - Here's something else from my weird childhood: I used to have this recurring dream that my uncle chained up my house to his truck and drove away while the house kept breaking into bits. I was always in the house in the dream, really scared, but also laughing at the craziness of it. That's kind of what I look for when I see a play now.

Q:  Are you doing Critical Mass?  Can you explain what that is for those who may not know?

A:  I'm planning on riding along this month, even though it'll probably be too cold for rational people. Critical Mass is a monthly ride/rally (not just in New York, but in lots of major cities) in which bike riders take over the city. In NYC, the ride always starts at Union Square and then takes a different route every time, encompassing the whole of Manhattan and ending up in another borough. I've been on the ride as we've commandeered the Westside Highway, the Brooklyn Bridge (seriously: the whole bridge - nothing but people on bikes!), and Central Park. It is SO MUCH FUN, and you see the city and think of its people in new ways. One of my favorite sensations is to look around after the ride has ended and see only its remnants, when there's a kind of twilight between the dwindling of bikes and the reemergence of regular traffic, as if it were all just a dream. And then I go home and take a long, hot bath.

Critical Mass is so connected with how I think of myself as a playwright and general-dude-around-town in New York City. I've been wondering how to write about it for years. I'll get back to you when I figure out how to get all those bikes onstage.

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A:  Beckett, when asked why he wrote for the theatre, once said: I Write For The Theatre Because I Hate The Theatre. I thought that was so Bad Ass and Hard Core when I first read it, but seriously: don't be like that. Only do this kind of work for the love of the work itself. Every positive drive that you have for working in the theatre that extends beyond yourself - love, passion, the desire to connect - is the engine. It's also the vehicle. It's also the path. It's also the journey. And it will be the destination.

And another thing, if you don't have a natural inclination towards humility, Fake It 'Til You Make It. Something will genuinely humble you along the way, anyway, so practice humility until you get it right.

Q:  Any plugs?

A:  I'm co-writing - with fellow playwright and dazzling bon vivant Marie Giorda - another TV pilot called "Dylan & Dylan" (think Freaks & Geeks meets Richard Linklater's Slacker). Marie and I are hoping to go out to LA and sell ourselves together. I want Marie to know that there's no one I'd rather write about Jews and Christians growing up in Austin in 1988 with than her. Also, Blair Singer has inspired me to pursue TV work, so kudos and/or blame goes to him.

The upcoming NY stage production I'm most excited about is of a new play called The All-American Genderf*ck Cabaret by Mariah MacCarthy. Look for this play. Seriously. It's going to matter to a lot of people. If you heard it from me first, thank me later.

The best script I've read recently is The Heart In Your Chest, by Kristen Palmer. This play is like an Edward Hopper painting from the future. Any really cool NY downtown theatre company would be so much cooler if they produced this play. Szymkowicz, my respect for you increased exponentially when you married her.

I have, in my day, co-founded two theatre companies, both of which fell apart. This makes me feel like one of those guys who likes being married, but keeps getting divorced. And so my deep and abiding respect goes out to playwrights who have helped run and maintain independent theatre companies devoted, on the one hand, to their own work, and on the other, to the work of a larger community. The two NY-based people/ companies that come to mind are August Schulenberg/Flux Theatre Ensemble and James Comtois/Nosedive Productions. So if I have any true powers of plug, let my plugs help fuel their fire.

A last, quick plug to anyone who has read this whole interview. I went on and on about stuff, right? I don't get interviewed a lot, so I got hyper-stimulated. To those who read it all: You're Terrific.

I Interview Playwrights Part 87: Edith Freni

Edith Freni

Hometown: New York, NY

Current Town: New York, NY, despite numerous desperate attempts to escape over the last year.

Q:  Can you tell me about your show Bottoms Up! at EST?

A:  Sure thing. Bottoms Up! started as a ten minute play that I wrote for a Youngblood Sunday Brunch back in ‘05. The short version was about an unhappy married couple stuck in a lifeboat after their cruise ship sinks. Florencia Lozano and Grant Shaud were in that first incarnation of the play and they made me totally fall in love with the characters so with some prodding from my director, Mark Armstrong, I expanded the short into a full length. The full length takes place on a cruise ship and shows how the couple ends up on that dingy. Kip (Grant’s character) is hoping that a romantic cruise will help reignite the passion in his marriage but his wife, Dee (Flo’s character) is just not having it. She’s on the cruise to get a tan and drink pina coladas and is in total denial that there’s anything wrong with their relationship. Then they meet this older couple, Phil and Loraine, who want to help them out and craziness ensues. It’s the closest I think I’ll ever get to writing a “sex farce.” The play is supposed to be funny so hopefully people will laugh on Sunday.

Q:  What else are you working on?
 

A:  I’m working on a newish draft of my play Total Power Exchange in prep for a reading at New York Theatre Workshop on November 23^rd. I’ve been developing that play for seemingly ever with Victor Maog. It’s about sex slavery and the internet and all sorts of other ghastly things. I’ve also been writing a lot of short fiction lately and I’m busy at work on a TV pilot, which is something new for me. I’m very excited about that.

Q:  Can you talk about 24 Seven Lab and what you do?

A:  Absolutely! The 24Seven Lab is a developmental workshop that I co-run with Sharon Freedman and Sarah Hayon. We’ve been in business since 2004 and we just started our tenth workshop round, which we think is very cool. We try to hold two workshop rounds per year and we bring in four playwrights per round to work on VERY new pieces. A lot of the time, playwrights will come to us with an idea and say, “I don’t know if this is anything but I’d like to give it a shot.” We meet every week for three hours with the writers and a small group of actors and two dramaturges. We’ve been very fortunate to work with some exceptional playwrights like you(!), Zayd Dohrn, Annie Baker, Lucy Thurber, Tom Diggs, Lucas Hnath, Sam Marks and the list goes on and on and on. The fellows this session are Chad Beckim, Melissa Ross, Sam Hunter and Jessica Kahler. We’re starting the grant writing process right now, which is daunting but exciting and we’re expanding our programming constantly. Last year we held our first ever 5-day writing retreat and we’re doing it again this spring. Our website is severely in need of updating but people can feel free to check us out at www.24sevenlab.com.

Q:  I'd love to hear about your boxing.  What do you like about it?  How has it changed you?

A:  For full disclosure, I should mention that I’ve been out of the gym for a little over a year now. I miss boxing all the time and all of my amazing team mates who are still out there kicking ass and taking names. I boxed for about six years with Lee Shabaka’s Team Freeform Women’s Boxing Club. If you’re in the know when it comes to the New York (and national) amateur boxing scene, you know Lee and his girls. I started training with Lee for fitness and it took a while for me to decide I wanted to compete but ultimately, it felt like a natural progression—you start on the bag, then you spar, then you compete. Although most folks are happy to stop with the sparring! I’m naturally pretty competitive and strong of mind and body, but it’s easy to feel tough and invincible when you’re just training—things change when the fight is a reality and you’re standing in that box staring down some chick who’s sole intention is to beat you senseless. I was always really good with the physical stuff, always a very technical fighter but at the end of the day, I wasn’t really out for blood and if you’re not out for blood, you don’t win fights. That’s not to say I didn’t win my share of fights, but I’m not a natural-born killer and ultimately, I didn’t want to get hit anymore. But I am so glad to have had the experience and I will always be proud of what I accomplished. Boxing definitely made me tougher, stronger, and more of a “finisher.” For now though, I’m happy with my regular Bikram yoga practice and have been enjoying the benefits of Bikram Yoga NYC’s workstudy program since last spring.

Q:  Tell me a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person.
 

A:  Oh wow. I’m writing all of this sitting at a desk in my childhood bedroom, which my mom is in the process of converting into her office and I’m listening to all the sounds of the neighborhood and realizing that all of my work has probably been informed (to some extent) from growing up on the first floor of a pre-war building on the Upper West Side. I’ve always written and I’ve always wanted to be involved with theatre. It’s just been “it” for me since I was little little. I guess--going off on that a bit--that I will never forget this travelling Shakespeare troupe that used to do shows in the Westside Community Garden on 88^th Street and how they came through once when I was like three or four and did some bizarre Shakespeare mash-up, which included one of their actors stabbing himself repeatedly in the chest with a plunger. I just thought that was the best thing I’d ever seen. Sorta the dictionary definition of “theatricality.”

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?
 

A:  Hmm…refer to previous question! It’s going to sound lame but I like theatre to be not boring. I’m not really into anything that is “subtly beautiful” or “quietly disconcerting.” The last play I saw that made me sit up and think, “Damn, that’s interesting” was Thomas Bradshaw’s “The Bereaved.” And it wasn’t just cuz PCP produced it! When you see a lot of theatre and read a lot of plays and have written a lot of plays and have taught playwriting and have gone to millions of readings and sat through trillions of workshops, at the end of the day you’re just like, “please don’t put me to sleep.”

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A:  Always be writing. That’s the obvious one. Get jobs that are not theatre-related. Even if you’re one of the lucky few who doesn’t have to work, you should still work. Every experience is an experience to draw on when you write. Also, be cool. Be the kind of person that other people want to work with. There’s a time and place for ego and it’s generally when you’re accepting your Tony, Pulitzer or Oscar. All other times, be humble but don’t be a push-over. Stay true to your voice and vision and don’t let anyone railroad you into make cuts or changes you don’t think serve your play. Oh, and make friends with directors who get you and your work—they will serve you well and be a shoulder to cry on when you’re feeling down about your new play that no theatre will touch.

Q:  Plug for Bottoms Up and any other plugs:
 

A:  Please come see my reading of Bottom’s Up! this Sunday November 8th at EST. 549 West 52^nd Street, 2^nd Floor. It features an all-star cast including Grant Shaud, Florencia Lozano, Peter O’Connor, Erin Darke and Polly Adams and is directed by the awesome Mark Armstrong. For reservations: 212. 247.4982

Also, if you want to learn more about The 24Seven Lab, please email us at literary@24sevenlab.com or check out our weird little website at www.24sevenlab.com. If anyone wants to give us money, they can and should visit our donations page on Fractured Atlas: https://www.fracturedatlas.org/site/contribute/donate/354

I Interview Playwrights Part 86: Tommy Smith

Tommy Smith

Hometown:  Seattle, WA

Current Town:  New York, NY

Q:  You're one of those playwrights that bridges the gap between midtown and downtown theater. Where do you think your sensibilities lie?

A:  I like writing plays, about all kinds of subjects and sometimes the people in them do more aggressive things, and those are the ones that make it downtown.  The midtown ones are the relationship dramas and ones concerning history.  But its nice to have the availability to play at different venues.  Its good to learn how different audiences of different types listen to a play.  And sometimes you're just sad and you have to write a play to bring everyone down to your level. It's harder  to produce those ones, though, because who wants to go out in New York and get infected by someone's fictional sadness?  (About 35 people a night, it turns out.)

Q:  Tell me a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person.

A:  My dad lit a bonfire in the backyard one day.  This was when you could do stuff like that, just burn things in the back yard.  Bonfires were pretty common.  And I think he was throwing some random things on the fire, and it was getting dark, and he threw this one big can on the fire but didn't realize it was filled with gasoline, or maybe he did, but there was this big explosion -- I was standing up the hill from it and it shook me, the sudden shock of a ball of fire rocketing up into the air, and I can remember my mom screaming at my dad because she thought there was shrapnel from the explosion but he was okay.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I like stuff that makes you realize you're *there*.  Richard Foreman's "Idiot Savant" and Taylor Mac's "The Lily's Revenge" are two shows that I've seen recently that really pull you into their worlds.  I'm a fan of the Beckett, of course, and Pinter.  I was going to rattle off all the theatre that I *don't* like, but someone else out there probably likes musical theater or political dramas so I won't say anything.  Against my better judgment (and monetary status) I find myself drawn towards weirder material, confusing narratives, plays that don't work.  I love watching plays or films that fail because you learn more from them.  And there will always be *one* thing that you end up taking/stealing from the experience.

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A:  You might as well keep writing what you like because the pay scale is going to stay the same.  You know that weird feeling you get when you know you're writing something that you don't want to write?  Listen to that.  And writing a play is a really easy way to tell everyone your secrets disguised as characters talking, so take advantage of that too.  Also, everyone likes songs, so be sure to put a lot of those in your plays.  Try not to write with stage directions and see where that gets you.

Q:  Any plugs?

A:  Well I have a couple things coming up.  My short play STRIP is being presented at Sticky (the plays-in-a-bar thing) on Nov. 13 at the Bowery Poetry Club @ 8:00p, starring Beth Hoyt and directed by Kip Fagan.  I'm co-creating and directing DUTCH A/V with Reggie Watts for IRT Theater, Nov. 27-Dec. 2 @ 8:00p.  I'm working on my play THE WIFE at Lark Theatre with May Adrales and we're presenting a workshop Dec. 10 & 11 @ 7:00p.  And if you're in Seattle at the end of January, I'm workshopping my play SEXTET with Washington Ensemble Theater, directed by Roger Bennington. I have all this and other stuff (including full texts of my plays) at http://smithsmith.wordpress.com/.

Have you seen this yet?

Sorry to interrupt your playwriting interviews but you should check this out if you haven't yet.   Greg Mosher on the perilous state of arts organizations.


Gregory Mosher at CafeArts from CUarts on Vimeo.

I Interview Playwrights Part 85: Jeremy Kareken

Jeremy Kareken

Hometown:  Rochester, NY - Brighton, but I went to Penfield schools.  Needlessly complicated, but there it is.

 

Current Town: New York, NY - in the leafy neighborhood of Sunnyside Gardens, Queens 

 

Q:  What are you working on now?

 

A:  Finishing up two work-for-hire pieces - one a musical about the funeral of the most foul man who ever lived (or died), and a 3-d Monster Movie my friend Producer Norman Twain hooked me up with. 

 

Q:  Tell me please a little bit about your two headed challenge play.

A:  It's sort of based on a true story, so I'll start with that.  My collaborator was asked by one of his third year undergraduates if she could pursue a rather strange final project - that she inseminate one of her own eggs with chimp sperm and carry that creature to term, in her own womb.  It started at this little group lecture that EST/Sloan gave as a way to inspire playwrights about science.  And Lee Silver, the scientist and professor in question, told this story (among others).  Afterward I screamed at him "THAT'S YOUR PLAY."  And we became fast friends.  We proposed to Sloan the very play that won the Guthrie competition, and the late, missed Curt Demptster kind of flipped for it.  The people who didn't flip for it were the Sloanies.  One of the people close to the situation told me that the Sloan scientists were actually offended and that our play was anti-science.  Well, then I knew we had something, so I sent it for other grants, first and greatest among them was the Guthrie/Playwrights Center Two-Headed Challenge grant, which offered 10k for a team consisting of a playwright and a non-theater person.  Lee and I applied and won with this Oleanna-esque play about identity as a sex and as a species.   

 

Q:  What was your time at the Inge Center like?  My wife was there this past year and she had a great time.

A:  I loved it.  Peter Ellenstein is one of the most supportive people in the business, and the community really enjoys our presence.  It's a part of America theater people rarely see - the Red part.  I was actually in something of a free speech controversy there, where the Principal of the high school was miffed that I had a blog and that I used some frank language on that blog.  I was careful while I was there to not mention the blog to my high school class for just such a reason but another teacher had to go and open his/her big fat mo--- oh, it was a lot of fun, actually.  I learned I enjoyed being on the front page of a daily paper making obnoxious comments.   I was there with Carson Becker, from Chicago originally, and I'm so glad I met her - she's one of the people who make me feel better just thinking about her.  I hope she reads this; it's been forever.

 

Q:  You are Republican.  What's that about?  The reason I've always thought there weren't many Republican playwrights is that as a playwright our job is to see the world through other people's eyes and sympathize with them and in my opinion the defining characteristic of a Republican is the inability to do that.  Would you care to comment?

A:  Adam, you make me laugh.  So you can sympathize with all people except the nearly 50% who vote Republican?  I'm a big "get out of my life" kind of guy when it comes to the government, so I guess that makes me more libertarian than Republican, but I don't own a gun or a bong, so I feel out of place at those cocktail parties.  Some people think it's because I'm just a contrarian, and since I live in NYC there are more liberals for me to argue with.  I suppose there's some truth to that.

It's not an easy time to be a Republican, I know, but I certainly don't see the Democratic Party offering better ideas at the moment.  They seem marginally worse - continuing the same freedom-bashing as the Bush administration while spending an extra 10 *trillion* dollars.  No, I'm not really what one would call "pro-life" but sure I think the state has some say in life-or-death definitions, if not decisions.  And I'm certainly pro-gay-marriage since I value marriage - so why shouldn't everyone benefit from it?  To me the best institutions are the small ones, and I can think of no better institution than the buddy system.  Sure, it's as flawed as people are, but it's certainly better than being alone.  And there's no intelligent reason for denying those benefits to committed gay couples.

Sure, our party has its problems with morons that think that, say, a ghost invented all of mankind 6,000 years ago, but liberals have this moronic ideal that all men and women ARE equal, not that they're created equally under the law.  And what we're learning about genetics and evolution is proving that this just isn't so - that men and women are different, that people have different intelligences, different susceptibilities to disease, different values of human life.  And to me any dogmatic person can't imagine that people would think differently from they, liberal or conservative.  

 

Q:  Can you talk about your day job?  Is it fun?

A:  I have a few day jobs, one of which thank God is writing.  The others are a lot of fun - I teach writing at NYU and I'm the entire research team for Inside the Actors Studio.  The third day job is the toughest and most rewarding - being a dad.  As the artist in the family I'm the primary caregiver for the kids, so that means I'm making the breakfast and dinner and getting the kids and the wife off to work and school, respectively.   

 

Q:  Tell me a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person.

A:  Ooh.  Toughy.  I remember my parents yelling at me about something, when I was about four, and I screamed back "check your calendar!" They were kind of taken aback and asked why? "It's be kind to childrens' day!" They laughed and the trouble was over.  It was my first improv.  And my first acting gig. And my first writing gig.  And it got me off the hook.  The soft, funny answer turneth away wrath.

Then there was this other time - my father, an attorney, was furious at me (hm. trend.) and he demanded I write him a letter of apology.  I gave him one that explained my side of the story, and he sent it back corrected with red marks and I couldn't leave my room until I did it right.  I learned that I could honestly write fiction, the fiction that I was contrite, and I learned that I would never be censored again.  

 

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  The kind that plays with the form of theater - How I Learned to Drive was a spectacular way to tell a story, taking advantage of how suggestible an audience can be.  What a thrill ride. And I have a special fondness for Ayckbourn and Stoppard.  They lull you into this middle-class sense of comfort only to rip the rug out from under you.  Dinner with Friends did that... polite and sweet and then - wham!  Chekhov does that well, too.  But I guess that's not very experimental - oh, I just love good shit.

I'll tell you what doesn't excite me - I'm sick of seeing TV After-School-Special theater - you see it on Broadway lately.  Yes, great, you're a minority - or you've been abused - or you're a disabused hippy -  and you've finally made it, or you finally got the respect you deserve, or you got killed by a cold, soulless society, but jeez, isn't there a way to tell the story that's not this vanilla upper-middle class naturalistic scene after naturalistic scene and exclamation of theme at the end?

The internet is changing the way we think.  Biology is changing the way we're BORN.  And we're stuck doing Free to be You and Me and calling it "powerful."  I shouldn't be seeing pledge drives or commercials in the darkness when the scenery is being changed.  And it's especially ironic when I see such amazing TV these days, done by playwrights.  I watch the Wire, and Hung and Friday Night Lights and wonder why and how these giant corporations are taking these chances on amazing playwrights and producers in NY keep producing the Royal Family. 

 

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A:  Prepare to be starting out for 25 years.  You never stop just starting out.  And prepare to have homework for the rest of your lives.  

 

Q:  Plug for your two headed play and any other plugs?

A:  Yes!  This coming July the great literary director (and the great director) Michael Bigelow Dixon is directing The Sweet Sweet Motherhood (the two-headed challenge play) at Here! It stars this amazing new actress who did the piece in Minneapolis, and I think I have a pretty amazing dude as the other actor.

I Interview Playwrights Part 84: Rob Handel

Rob Handel

Hometown: Poughkeepsie.

Current Town: Pittsburgh.

Q:  You're the head of the Dramatic Writing MFA program at Carnegie Mellon. I want to start out by asking you to plug your program. What can you tell me about it? How is it different from other programs? How long have you been teaching there? How do you approach teaching playwriting?

A:  I’ve been in this position since August 24, 2009. I was charged with recreating the program, which has been intense. I honestly believe the program is ideally positioned to be a juggernaut. First, we’re part of the CMU School of Drama, the oldest degree-granting theatre school in the country. My program is centered on constant collaboration with the astonishingly successful directing and design graduate programs, and the intensely competitive undergraduate acting conservatory. (It feels like you’re simultaneously in Fame, Slings and Arrows, and Wonder Boys.) The MFA writers work with these collaborators in multiple weekly classes as well as the New Works Series.

Second, the faculty is full of working professionals in all disciplines, not a bunch of dusty academics. It’s also in the midst of an infusion of new blood right now, including Marianne Weems, who recently came on as head of the grad directing program.

Third, Carnegie Mellon is an amazing place. We’re surrounded by the CMU computer animation people, the CMU robot people, the CMU digital privacy people, the CMU geoengineering-to-combat-climate-change people... These people are changing the world. It creates pressure to make really good plays.

Having devoted the past seven years to 13P, I’m interested in nurturing leadership. I’m teaching a class called “Envisioning a Theatre,” in which students examine revolutionary movements in theatre; write manifestos of their own; and build a plan for starting a theater company.

Q:  What are you working on now? You have a play in the works?

A:  I’ve been working on a big play called A Maze. (It used to be called Infinite Space, and before that it was called Captivity Narrative.) It’s about a girl recreating her identity after eight years held captive in a suburban basement, a band recovering from addiction and a hit song, and an outsider artist writing a 15,000-page comic book. I’m also working on James Boswell and Elvis Presley. (Those are two different plays. At present.)

Q:  Tell me a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person.

A:  My parents took me to the 1976 revival of My Fair Lady. The houses along Wimpole Street were painted on a scrim, so at the beginning of every scene in Henry Higgins’s study, you would first see the street, then the study would be lit so you could see Henry and Eliza inside, through the scrim. Then, before the dialogue began, the curtain would be pulled off, all the way across the width of the St. James Theatre stage, with this prolonged, mechanical shower-curtain sound. I was fascinated by the scrim because it created an illusion (The street vanishes! Here’s the indoors!) and then immediately punctured it (It’s a curtain! WHSSSKK!). This phenomenon has never ceased to draw me back to the theatre. It’s not about tricking the audience, but rather inviting us to play along.

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A:  You really can’t take a step without an MFA from Carnegie Mellon. Other than that:

Send Your Plays Out. Everywhere. All The Time. I’m constantly frustrated when writers tell me they didn’t bother to take advantage of a submission opportunity because only famous writers get produced there, or only boring writers get produced there, or blah blah blah. You must remember that these places all have script readers. Who are script readers? Surly interns. Who are surly interns? Young theatre people. LIKE YOU. Who will love your scripts? PEOPLE LIKE YOU. In the early 90’s, after moving from Chicago back to the East Coast, I got a call from a former reader for a company that had turned down my play. She had kept the script for years, and her boyfriend had been using it for an audition monologue. She had now joined the Lincoln Center Director’s Lab, which was producing projects in a festival at HERE that year. It ended up becoming one of my first NYC credits.

Also, produce your own work. For advice on that, see the “Try This At Home” page at 13p.org.

Q: Anything else we should know about you?

A: My last name is pronounced han-DELL. But I never correct people.

Q:  Any plugs?

A:  13P’s production of Julia Jarcho’s American Treasure starts November 21. In The Next Room. What Once We Felt. The Lily’s Revenge. Creature.

I Interview Playwrights Part 83: Stephen Adly Guirgis

Stephen Adly Guirgis

Hometown: NYC

Current Town: NYC

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I’m living in Adam Rapp land -- where it’s possible to do 85 million things and do them all really fucking well -- except I’m not Adam, so I’m more or less fully expecting my whole world to come crashing down any minute now. But I’m trying. I got a new play for LAByrinth that’s in second draft. Another new play that’s big and crazy that’s at about page 40. A screenplay draft of a boxing film that needs to get turned in to the producers pretty much yesterday. A new play that I’m directing for InViolet Rep called Kiss Me on the Mouth by Melanie Maras that goes into tech this week. I’m one of the new artistic directors of LAByrinth, so I’m helping to run my theater company. I’m also taking care of my dad. And maybe pitching a pilot. And I’m acting in a short film. And trying to get in shape and maybe quit smoking. And I’m rehabbing my back which is a major undertaking that I should be taking more seriously. And I teach sometimes. And I’m learning how to produce. And I have another new play I wanna get started on. Now, if I was Adam Rapp, I could do all that in a weekend plus front a rock and roll band, write a novel, get drunk, end poverty, and make love with my girlfriend. But I got no girlfriend. And I got about 8 brain cells left. I ought to have my head examined. Again. But these are all luxury problems. Other than hanging out on a beach for the rest of my life smoking weed and maybe learning to surf, there’s nothing else I’d rather be doing. So I guess -- shut up and do it. I admire Adam a great deal, not just for his talent, but for his willingness to give himself to it. There’s a great quote from Shaw in the lobby of New York Theater Workshop. And there are certain artists working today who really seem to embody that quote. There are many. Adam is one of them. Phil Hoffman is another. Tony Kushner. They do the work. 
        

Q:  You are now one of the three Artistic Directors of LAByrinth.  There aren't many playwrights who are also ADs.  How are you liking it so far?  What are the main challenges?

A:  Yeah. I’m one of the new AD’s at LAByrinth along with Mimi O’Donnell and Yul Vazquez. It’s one of those jobs where you really got no idea how much of yourself has to go into it until you actually start doing it. It’s endless, totally challenging, and very time consuming if you wanna try and do it really well. The LAByrinth is a family, and it’s my family -- so I definitely feel the pressure to wanna serve it as well as I possibly can.  It’s funny, we’re just getting started, and I already and often feel overwhelmed by the scope of the task and the amount of personal responsibility that it entails -- but then I think about Barack Obama and my brain just explodes! Running a non-profit theater company in NYC is like a joke compared to the tremendous, mind blowing, epic, and relentlessly complex and multi-facted responsibilities and pressures that our President is entrusted to manage 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. The man came into office resembling a young Sidney Poitier, and I’m pretty sure if he serves 8 years he’s gonna leave looking like Redd Foxx. I admire him so much for even getting out of bed in the morning... I don’t know how it will go trying to be the best writer I can be while also trying to be a capable artistic director. I think it helps to have heroes and models and to aim high. As a writer, Tennessee Williams is a hero to me. I’ll never be Tennessee Williams, but I can aspire to that thing in his work that is sublime and that serves to move and inspire me. As Artistic directors, John Ortiz and Phil Hoffman served our company in ways most company members don’t even know about. They were tremendous and selfless leaders. The Group Theater is an obvious and lofty theatrical model to aspire to. The Public Theater. The Donmar Warehouse. The old Circle Rep. LAByrinth is a kind of constantly evolving entity made up of a family of multi-disciplinary artists. I see the job of Mimi, Yul, and myself as being one of sustaining and maintaining the company’s foundation while also acting as facilitators in the growth and nurturing of new voices, new audiences, and new work. Thankfully, we don’t have to do it alone. We have a 115 members and a great board and audience base to lean on. We’ll need all the help we can get.    

Q:  Can you tell me a little about how you got started with LAByrinth?  Did you write beforehand or did you join as an actor and start writing while there?

A:  I went to college with John Ortiz and Liza Colon-Zayas. I wrote a little, but not seriously. I was an actor and still am. After college, John formed LAB and asked me to audition. I’m not sure I passed the audition, but I think John talked them into it. At some point, John encouraged me to write something. I wrote a little one act that David Zayas and Dave Anzuelo acted in that was directed by Charles Goforth and produced by LAB in any evening of one-acts down on Franklin street. I guess it went well, so guys like John and Dave Deblinger and Charles and Paul Calderon kinda pushed me to keep writing, so I did. Phil Hoffman acted in an early play of mine and we got close. Eventually, Phil directed a play of mine, and Mike Batistick wrote an article about us in Time Out magazine, and a lot of people came to see it. After that, I was more or less branded a writer. The process of accepting that I was a writer continues to be ongoing, daunting -- and I’m embarrassed to say -- sometimes painful.. Acting is a tremendously difficult thing to do really well, but I find the pursuit and the practice to be thrilling. When I’m acting, I know who I am and I’m okay with it. Writing is more difficult, less thrilling, and way lonelier. And in order for me to write, I find I have to engage in behavior that matches up pretty exactly with the symptoms of major depression. And when that’s happening, I don’t think my brain can tell the difference. And that sucks a lot sometimes. The upside of writing is that it is a tremendous outlet for a barrage of feelings, emotions, struggles, and inner debate, and, when it is rendered well, it can be a worthy form of service and occasionally even a source of fleeting moments of satisfaction and joy... I think my take on the whole writing thing is probably intrinsically tied to my early childhood as a first born son and to my religious upbringing as a Catholic. Jesus Christ and John the Baptist are pretty much the coolest guys in the New Testament: a pair of relentlessly selfless idealists -- one of whom got beheaded, the other merely nailed to a cross to save all of mankind. Tough acts to follow. Not much room for improvement. But spacious accommodation for shame and guilt. Somewhere in my journey, I became aware that I was given some aptitude for writing, so I felt and feel an obligation to use it as well as I can until it goes away. And I always fail. Or think I fail. I know this sounds retarded. Someday I’ll learn the distinction between humility and humiliation. I’m guilty and innocent of both. But perhaps this is a subject of real interest only to me... and a qualified professional. Next question, please.
      
Q:  I know you're in the middle of a whole slew of readings right now at the Public.  You want to plug that?

A:  Why, yes! Barn Series and Live Nude plays at the Public Theater thru November 5th. Free! Www.labtheater.org


Q:  Tell me, if you will, a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person.

A:  My mother always told me she didn’t care if I grew up to be a garbage man or the President -- as long as I was a loving and decent person. I found her words to be genuine and beautifully well intentioned -- but who knew that being a loving and decent person would take so much work!

Another time, I had to go to my survival job and I didn’t want to go, and I was having real trouble forcing myself into going, so I called my mom because I knew she would be able to talk sense into me and get me to go in to work. I told her what was going on, she paused, and then said; “Honey, quit that damn job and follow your star”. So I did. And I have never worked a straight job since.
    
Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I favor tremendous heart over tremendous skill -- though it’s preferable to have both. True heart, true risk, and true commitment reduces me to tears, and inspires the hell out of me when I see it on a stage. I think that to do anything well, it should cost you something. It’s like that James Brown song; “Paid the Cost to be the Boss”. Great actors, great writers, great artists -- the great ones -- one way or the other, they paid the cost to be the boss. And maybe they don’t get to be boss for a life time, but on that night, or that one show, or when they wrote that play, they were the boss. On any given night in NYC, there are actors and playwrights paying the cost to be boss. There are too many examples to cite, and plenty we don’t even know of cuz we weren’t there. And it’s easy to tell who paid the cost from who’s out there trying to ride for free -- or at a discount. Or who’s pretending to pay the cost. When we go to the theater we are always paying full price because we, as audience, are giving away two hours of our lives that we are never, ever, going to get back. So when we are engaged in our work as practitioners, then what cost is the fair one to pay other than the full one? Straight play, comedy, “experimental”, musical, tragedy, puppet show, farce -- it’s all the same thing. Try to do it great. Pay the cost. It’s important. And the world will thank you. 

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A:  Work begets work.... Put it up in your living room if you have to... Schedule actors and a reading, and then write some scenes or the play. If you know they’re showing up no matter what, then you’ll feel like an idiot if you got nothing for them to read... You can be as fucked up, self-doubting, self-hating, and self-deprecating as you want, BUT IF THERE’S NOT SOMETHING inside of you that honestly believes in yourself as a writer -- however small that something may be -- if it not there, then, it’s gonna be tough -- and maybe tougher for your audience than it is for you....What else?... Sit down. Stay down. If you do those two things, something will happen.... Lastly, Believe. Because why the fuck not?
  
Q:  Any other plugs?

A:  LAByrinth’s 18 Appeal. Donate 18 bucks to LAB. Please.
Www.labtheater.org

LAByrinth’s Annual Benefit. Celebrity Charades. 12/7/09. Www.labtheater.org

Kiss Me On the Mouth
by Melanie Angelina Maras
Directed by Stephen Adly Guirgis
Performances: Nov 5th - Nov 21st
InViolet Rep @ Center Stage NY
48 West 21st St, 4th Floor
or call (212)-352-3101

I got a new play I’m working on, and it may have a couple of public readings in December during Play Time at New Dramatists.

New Dramatists
424 west 44th
(212) 757 6960

I Interview Playwrights Part 82: Kara Manning

Kara Manning

Hometown: Philadelphia, PA and a spell in Milwaukee, WI

Current Town: New York, NY

Q: Tell me about the readings at MCC and the Rattlestick.

A: Earlier this month, I had a reading of Killing Swans at Rattlestick as part of the literary department's October series. Denis Butkus, Daniel Talbott and Julie Kline have been incredibly supportive and I'm very grateful. I've been ferociously working on rewrites of the play. It had a workshop in June via one of LAByrinth Theater's intensive retreats at Bard College, and it was a great gift to take the play to its next step at Rattlestick. It's the most challenging, vexing thing I've written thus far, given its political genesis: Tony Blair's incomprehensible trust of George W. Bush and their relationship. My tendency is to write character-driven plays that roll around in the mud of betrayals, disdain and disappointments. Carnage of the heart. It's a tricky balance, this political/personal pas de deux, which I'm still trying to untangle with this piece. Ethan McSweeny, whose work I deeply admire, directed - his inventive production of Jason Grote's 1001 utterly blew my mind several years ago. The cast was comprised of fiercely gifted actors who constantly inspire me: Martha Plimpton, Samantha Soule, Peter Gerety, Adam Rothenberg and Brennan Brown. It was truly the most terrifying and rewarding reading I've ever had. And I finally know what in the hell to do with the play. I think.

Coming up on November 9th as part of MCC Theater's Playlabs at Baruch College, there is a reading of my extremely new play Sleeping Rough which the fabulous Wendy McClellan is directing. It's the first that I've worked actively with a structured monologue form along with dialogue, yet I didn't want a monolithic slab across a page. So I've structured them so they almost resemble lyrics; brisk, elongated, active. There was a workshop of the play's first 20 minutes last November at Hampstead Theatre which was dreamy. London feels like home. Last fall I spent nearly a month there thanks to dear friends who lent me their flat. My intense love for the city, the chance to be a flâneur again, traipsing down Cork Street or the Fulham Road, began to inform the character of Joanna. I arrived in the U.K. just two days after Barack Obama won the presidential election so it was surreal to experience the aftermath through British eyes. At the same time, they were marking the 90th anniversary of Armistice Day and I was deeply moved by the coverage of that event as well as the media's more focused attention on British Armed Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Q: Don't you love Ethan McSweeny?

A: Yes, he's terrific. Ethan is the first director I've ever worked with who, at our first meeting, immediately spoke of a play in terms of production and what he needed to do to stage it. As if we were headed into rehearsals for production, not simply a reading. He pointed out potentially problematic staging issues, as he envisioned it, and kicked the play out of my head and onto its feet. He's rigorous and tough in the best possible way. And I wrote far more strongly because of it and will continue to do so. It sounds a little daft, but I do believe that sometimes plays ask for a certain directorial temperament. Some desire nurturing, others need a swift boot in the ass. And I've been blessed to collaborate with an array of excellent directors like Wendy McClellan, Daniella Topol, Hal Brooks, Josh Hecht, Pia Furtado, Donya Washington, Lotte Wakeham and many others.

Q: Can you talk about your day job? Does it contribute to or get in the way of your playwriting?

A: Oh, how long did it take me to get this questionnaire back to you? Ages. Yes, the demands of my day jobs are a continuing source of anxiety where my playwriting is concerned. I have so little time and it kills me. I'm lucky to have jobs I like at companies I admire, especially in this dismal economic climate. This summer I became a web editor/on air interviewer at WFUV/The Alternate Side and it's uplifting to work with such a terrific group of people. My background has mostly been in the music "industry" - Rolling Stone, MTV, a trio of radio stations. Plus I'm the literary manager of the Irish Rep - a superb theatre with a unique identity - which enables me to champion playwrights and actors. I have an array of other jobs, ranging from talent booking to freelance writing. But it's an exhausting schedule and I'm juggling a lot. So I'm determined that my weekends are devoted to writing, though I never have a quiet stretch of time to let a play stew and chatter in my head. The writing of a play doesn't only take place at the MacBook, but in those walkabouts you take, your discoveries, the scribbling you do in your head. The space between the words. I wish I could spend a day at MoMA.

Q: What else are you working on?

A: After I finish rewrites on Killing Swans and Sleeping Rough, I have a TV spec script to complete. And a new play to begin which feels too embryonic to discuss.

Q: Tell me a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a person or as a writer

A: My parents used to listen to the cast album of Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris quite a lot, so by the time I was five, I'd memorized the bleakest, most politically outraged and romantically fucked-up lyrics - all written by a brilliant, likely alcoholic, Belgian chainsmoker. I believe I learned the word "fuck" from the song "Timid Frieda." I've no idea where my infatuation with the U.K. began. Perhaps with The Beatles or seeing "To Sir with Love" or reruns of "The Avengers" on television, but it's always been, oddly, my spiritual home and hopefully, one day, my real home. When I was in third grade, my mother was called into a school conference because I insisted on spelling words as if I were some Mancunian urchin - "colour," "grey," "theatre," "favourite" - and I'd vigorously argue when my teacher would mark them as misspellings. On the plus side of third grade, I vividly remember the confluence of music and writing for me. We were asked in an art class to write or draw whatever came to mind whilst listening to Aaron Copland's "Billy the Kid Suite." To this day, that first impression of freely galloping across a page with a pen, unrestricted, still lingers ... as does the importance of music in the conjuring of those words. All of my plays are born within a particular piece of music - e.g. Mind the Gap is Underworld's Second Toughest in the Infants and dubnobasswithmyheadman and afterdark is Miles Davis. I can't write without music.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: I decided to quit my job at Rolling Stone and study with Anne Bogart at Columbia University when I saw the SITI Company's The Medium at NYTW. It was a watershed moment for me. Her direction, writing and insights continue to invigorate me daily. She's been a mentor and my most inspiring teacher. I'm most attracted to the darker, more menacing, emotionally brutal and often political palette of writers like Harold Pinter, Caryl Churchill, Enda Walsh, Martin McDonagh, Samuel Beckett, Tony Kushner, Bug-era Tracy Letts and friends Mark Schultz, Gary Duggan and Stella Feehily. The richly-drawn, flawed, luscious characters conceived by Tennessee Williams, AIan Ayckbourn, Sharman MacDonald and David Hare and friends like Stephen Belber, Kara Lee Corthron, Roy Williams, Laura Wade, Courtney Baron, Gary Sunshine, Neal Bell, Rebecca Cohen, Stephen Guirgis and Brooke Berman. I'm forgetting dozens of other fabulous people and apologize. I relish watching gifted ensembles at work on good scripts, like the recent Broadway run of the Old Vic's brilliant production of Ayckbourn's The Norman Conquests, Annie Baker's Circle Mirror Transformation or Lucy Thurber's Killers And Other Family.

Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A: Avoid journalism as a day job choice. Winter Miller will back me up on this! While it seems to make sense, you're a writer writing, it's draining. It guts you creatively. And the job market is grim. Find a gig that might inspire an angle of your writing that can serve as a catalyst ... or you can forget about at 6p.

Don't be afraid to survive in an unconventional way. Travel as much as you can. Study acting. Actors will teach you about your own writing in ways you've never imagined, but in turn, it's essential to understand their process. Learn what it takes to stand in front of others and do a scene or improvisation, the way words that are not your own feel they tumble from your mouth. Learn to move. Harold Pinter and Shakespeare were actors. That should be reason enough to take a scene study class.

Rewriting is as important as the writing of the first draft. Rip apart and reevaluate. I wasn't pleased with Columbia's playwriting department for many reasons, but I did learn the valuable adage "kill your darlings" from Romulus Linney, who left in my second year. You know that line that you love to death because it's so clever - but it never quite works in the scene? Cut it.

Q: info for reading, please:

A: The reading of Sleeping Rough will be on Monday, November 9th at 7p as part of MCC Theater's Playlabs series at Baruch College, 25th Street between Third and Lex.

http://www.mcctheater.org/literary/playlabs.html

Q: Any other plugs?

A: The Irish Rep's production of O'Neill's Emperor Jones - Ciarán O'Reilly bravely took on a very difficult, controversial play with a sterling cast. I'm very excited about the SITI Company's production of Antigone at Dance Theatre Workshop next week. I've not seen it yet, but I know Liz Duffy Adams Or, at Women's Project, directed by Wendy McClellan, will make me very happy. As well as the spring WP production of Sheila Callaghan's terrific Lascivious Something. Very curious see MCC Theater's import of Alexi Kaye Campbell's The Pride which goes into previews in late January. And the Druid's production of Enda Walsh's New Electric Ballroom which I did a reading of at the Irish Rep back in 2006. If you don't know Enda's writing you must; Disco Pigs at the Traverse in 1997 and the Irish Rep's Bedbound in 2003 were two of the best productions I've ever seen. His manipulation of language is violent, visceral and masterful. He reminds me to try harder.

I Interview Playwrights Part 81: Libby Emmons

Libby Emmons

Hometown:
Grew up in the Boston suburbs, NYC summers and winter breaks, and Philadelphia, PA.

Current Town:
Brooklyn, NY

Q:  You just won the Clubbed Thumb Biennial Commission. Congrats! Please tell me a little about the play you're writing for it.

A:  It's to be a play called Zeropia about Marta, an urban planner, and her trusty assistant Amy. They decide to plant a zero-emissions, zero-carbon footprint utopic eco-town. Alot of things can go wrong with that scenario, and I'm sure they will. Hopefully it will also be funny. Mostly I'm having fun with the research so far.

Q:  What else have you been working on?

A:  I'm working on a short film project with collaborator and friend Jacquetta Szathmari called Malcolm & Margerie, starring David Marcus, Dame Cuchifrita, Jody Christopherson and Greg Zenon. Also working on a play for that I'd like Blue Box to produce, working title Ashling & Enora, and of course Sticky.

Q:  Can you talk a little about Sticky?

A:  Sticky is just about the most fun I've ever had in theater. It's 10 minute bar plays, staged in bars, and music. People seem to really like it too, from artists to audience, so that's pretty gratifying. When David Marcus, husband and collaborator, and I started the project with Dave Scholnick at Bar Noir in Philly in 2000, it was for the sole purpose of doing theater frequently, inexpensively, and with the people we liked to work with, like Amanda Schoonover and Jeremy Chacon. It's still mostly about that, but now there's a hell of alot more people, and we don't have to rehearse in our apartment. Sticky would not exist if it weren't for the artists who keep wanting to do it.

Q:  How did you like MFAing it at good old Columbia?

A:  I liked grad school. I probably wouldn't have gone to Columbia if it hadn't been for the encouragement of Eduardo Machado, who was great to study with. I liked having time off from working full time to write full time, and learned alot. At Columbia I was also able to take courses in producing and management, so that was useful. And I liked my classmates quite a bit.

Q:  Tell me a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person.

A:  In middle school my dad and step-mom decided I wasn't allowed to write anymore. They had their reasons, and I spent alot of time in my fantasies instead of in my actual life, but among these reasons was that an idle mind is the devil's playground. After that I spent alot of time feeling like a rebel, writing short stories and poems in secret, and when I walked home after dark from my friend's house across the street I always thought the devil was chasing me.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Lately I'm really into theater of immersion, which Sticky is, and which I find really engaging. As an audience member, I'm tired of sitting in my chair and keeping quiet.

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A:  Write what you want to see, produce your own work, submit everywhere, create and seek out the community of artists you want to work with.

Q:  Any plugs?

A:  Sticky. November 13th & 20th, Bowery Poetry Club, 7 pm. Also live webcast of same at www.bowerypoetry.com. And Stage Blood Is Not Enough, which I have a little play in and is otherwise terrific as well, produced by Junta Juliel and RKP, 2 nights only at The Duplex, October 22 & 29, 9:30 pm

I Interview Playwrights Part 80: Adam Bock

Adam Bock

Hometown:  Montreal

Current Town:  NYC

Q:  Can you tell me about your play The Flowers now running at About Face?

A:  Here's the marketing blurb (I find it  VERY hard to write the synopsis of a play) - "The gay couple that runs The Flowers acting company is as star-crossed s the forty year old actors they have playing Romeo and Juliet. For one of them, the world has become too small. The other can't imagine another life." and on and on.

Q:  You've worked with Trip Cullman a few times now.  How did that collaboration come about and what do you like most about him?

A:  Trip and I were introduced before I moved from San Francisco to NYC, but really met properly in the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, where I wrote The Thugs. He and I weren't paired up - but I remember thinking - ooooh I want to work with him. We did a bunch of readings and then finally got to do our first play together at Second Stage Uptown - Swimming in the Shallows.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  I'm working on a musical with Todd Almond - based on Shirley Jackson novel - We Have Always Lived in the Castle. I am writing a new play.

Q:  The Receptionist was just done in LA with Megan Mullally?  How was that?

A:  It's still going - it extended. I love that production - the directing and the acting is excellent and truthful.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I just saw Lip Sync by Robert Lepage at BAM - stunning. I love anything by Caryl Churchill. I am very excited to see Bruce Norris' new play and to see Annie Baker's play. I love Anne Washburn's work, and Young Jean Lee's, and am jazzed to see what Adam Rapp comes up with next. I love Kroetz. I am excited always to see Trip's work, and Anne Kauffman's and Ken Russ Schmoll's and Daniel Aukin's directing.

Q:   What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A:  Get it put up. Anywhere at first. As often as possible. I keep learning by doing basically. And stay cool. It is more fun to work with people who are generous than geniuses.

Get yourself some Bock over here.

I Interview Playwrights Part 79: Lin-Manuel Miranda

Lin-Manuel Miranda

Hometown: New Yooooooooork (sung a la Alicia Keys in "Empire State of Mind.")

Current Town: Same.

Q:  In the Heights is on tour now.  Was it a tough decision to decide not to be in the touring cast?  What is the schedule of the tour?

A:  It wasn't a tough decision. I left the stage in February 2008, and as much I go and check in with Heights on Broadway, I really enjoy having my nights back. What has been really exciting is getting back into a rehearsal room with a new batch of actors and putting the show up again. Rehearsals, Band rehearsals, tech, discovering things in the room--these are my favorite parts of the process. The tour starts in Tampa next week and zigzags across the US for a year. There's a schedule on intheheightsthemusical.com.  

 

Q:  I remember seeing an early staged reading of In The Heights that had a different plot.  Can you talk at all about how the show was developed from what you created in undergrad to what it is now?

A:  It had a lot of different plots! Its first incarnation was an 80-minute, one-act musical that I wrote sophomore year at Wesleyan University. Seeing that original production is like seeing the Simpsons shorts, back when The Simpsons were a part of the Tracy Ullman show. Homer and Bart weren't defined yet, but there was something there, know what I mean? Our original plot still featured a love story between Nina and Benny, Usnavi and Vanessa were there, and Nina's parents figured prominently as well. And the mix of latin music and hip-hop was there, but much more rudimentary. Then I sat on it for two years and finished college. I met Tommy Kail the week after I graduated. He'd heard the CD and read the script, and had all these ideas. And for the next few years, we took those characters, and that mix of musical styles, and tried to figure out the most compelling and musical story to tell with them.

 

Q:  You went to Wesleyan which is 20 min from where I grew up.  Is that a good theater school?  How did you like it?

A:Wesleyan is a great school if you KIND OF know what you want to do with your life. I knew I loved theater, and I knew I loved film, and Wesleyan has great resources in both departments, enough so that you can say, "Spending my time here is going to be really important for me." I was so hyper-aware of the steep price tag my parents were paying, that I knew I wanted to leave college with more than a diploma under my arm. So I wrote A LOT. I wrote two full length musicals and two one acts, and assorted other songs. 

 

Q:  What else are you working on now?

 

A:  I'm going halvsies on a musical adaptation of Bring It On, that will be a touring musical. I'm splitting songwriting duties with Tom Kitt and Amanda Green, which has been really fun. I'm also writing a score for an animated film for dreamworks, and co-producing the Heights movie adaptation.

Q:  Can you tell me a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person.

A:  My mom did a good job with me. She saw me making up songs and writing stories and making flip books from a very young age, and realized that I was always filtering the world, in some way. And she keyed into that tendency to get me to do things I didn't want to do. If it was a chore, or a crappy job, or even something tragic, she would say, "Just think of the story you're going to get out of this. You could write a song about it." And it gave me perspective, at a very young age. Even in my earliest memories, I remember thinking of my brain as this tape recorder. I have a really distinct memory of staring into the mirror at age 7, being really short, and saying, "MEMORIZE this, cuz it's all going to change."

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Well, anything really. I was a theater major, so I feel like there's something to be learned from any theater experience, whether it's amazing or dreadful. To me, musicals at their best can transport you outside of yourself. Those moments are few and far between: The act one ending of Dreamgirls, "To Life," in Fiddler. But they're so good, they're worth striving towards.

 

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights, book writers or lyricists just starting out?

A:  Write write write. No one can hire you based on your potential, or what you WANT or INTEND to do. You have to have something to point at or hand in, and say, this is an example of my work. You'd be amazed at how many insanely talented people I know, from high school and college and beyond, that simply didn't do the work to develop the talents they had. Sometimes it's lack of interest, sometimes it's fear of failing, but they just procrastinate their way towards a different life. You can't do anything if you don't show up. WRITE.

Q:  Any plugs?

A:  I'm going to plug Tom Kitt's Next To Normal, because I think it's an amazing score. I hardly ever see anything more than once, and I've seen it three times. I can count on one hand the number of new musicals I've gone back to see more than once. A Light In The Piazza, Hedwig And The Angry Inch Off-Broadway, Tick, Tick Boom . . . yeah, that's it. So go see Next To Normal. And In The Heights too, if you haven't seen it yet.

I Interview Playwrights Part 78: Liz Duffy Adams

Liz Duffy Adams

Hometown:
Various small towns in northeastern Massachusetts. Went to high school in Ipswich.

Current Town:
East Village, New York, NY

Q:  You have a show coming up about Aphra Behn. Can you tell me a bit about the play and the upcoming production. How did you come to write about her?

A:  A few years ago I read her collected works and biography and I found her fascinating. She seems to have had a genius for reinventing the world around her instead of adapting herself to it. I thought it would be fun to write about her. But I didn’t want to write a straightforward bio-play/period piece and I didn’t see my way in yet so it was on my backburner for years.

Eventually two things occurred to me. One was the setting. I always start with a sense of landscape (this is one of my few plays that takes place indoors). Between the plague, the Great Fire, and the war with the Dutch, London in the late 1660s was a desperately ravaged place. Almost post-apocalyptic. That is the sort of setting that works for me. The other thing was that the Restoration period was humming with a kind of aesthetic/ideology that reminded me of the late 1960s, at least within a certain bohemian/artistic/aristocratic subculture: a back-to-the-garden pastoral lyricism, a post-repression explosion of freedom and radical new ideas about how to live and love, a golden-age utopianism, all reflected in art and fashion. I’m attracted to a cyclical view of history, and this resonance made me able to see the play.

It’s very different from the rest of my work, except that it turns out to be, like all my work, about how to reinvent civilization in an emergency.

In the end after all those years of mulling I wrote it startlingly quickly (for me) in about two weeks, mostly during a New Dramatists Playtime workshop, less than two years ago. Women’s Project is premiering it, with Wendy McClellan directing and a gorgeous cast: Maggie Siff, Andy Paris and Kelly Hutchinson.

Q:  You're working on a commission for the Children's Theater in Minneapolis. I was there and was very impressed with them and with their shows. Can you talk about what you're writing for them?

A:  Sure, it’s far enough along to talk about. It’s called The Buccaneer, and it’s a musical about a Victorian-era girl who runs away and is captured by a totalitarian pirate king, whose entire crew is made up of kidnapped children and teenagers. Our heroine after many obstacles outwits and defeats him, and becomes the new captain of the pirate ship, now under a democratic rather than despotic system. The wonderful music is by playwright/composer Ellen Maddow and is inspired by sea shanties and world music. It’s being aimed at their 2010/2011 season, I believe. And I agree — CTC is impressive; a beautiful facility and a great mission of real theater for kids. They urged me at every step to go as dark and tough as the story wanted.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  I’ve got a new play just started that I can’t talk about yet. I’ve started a music/text project with west coast composer David Rhodes called 5 Places, still in its early stages. I’ve got a alt-rock post-apocalyptic musical (with composer John Hodian) for which I’m seeking a production, called The Listener of Junk City, adapted from my play The Listener. And I’m working on a spec TV pilot — Wendy McClellan and I have developed and written a treatment — a virtual-life sci-fi drama about a librarian/cyber-warrior.

Q:  A lot of your work has been done in San Francisco. What is the theater scene like there?

A:  In my experience, there’s a wealth of small theaters doing new work there; it’s a fantastic place for new plays. I’ve worked with a handful — Crowded Fire, Shotgun, Cutting Ball — and there are many more. And Playwrights Foundation is tremendously supportive of local and visiting playwrights. I love the Bay Area, I’ve had nothing but wonderful experiences there. The audiences are marvelously smart, receptive and un-jaded.

Q:  Tell me a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a person or as a writer.

A:  Early in first grade, the teacher handed out sheets of paper with arithmetic problems on them. It was 2 + blank = 4, that sort of thing. Only instead of blanks or underscores, there were shapes. Triangles, circles, squares. I’d never seen a math problem before. I had no idea what was being asked of me. So I got out my crayons and colored in the shapes. I did some stripes and dots as well. I was quite pleased with it.

When the teacher collected my sheet it was instantly clear to me from her face how far off I’d been, and it was also quickly clear that every other kid in the room had known what to do. That sort of thing happened all the time — I was always wondering how did they know? I felt like sort of a failure at the time but later I saw that there are worse things that making up your own game when you don’t know the rules. And I think that says something about my work: structure with surprises.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Surprising, expansive theater. I’m not aesthetically ideological anymore — mostly I just want to feel alive in a theater — I want to be woken up and amazed. Isn’t that the whole point?

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A:  This is just my opinion obviously and probably bad advice but don’t worry about a career.  Put the work first and when the work deserves good things, good things will come. Work with your friends, work obsessively, self-produce in odd cheap spaces, take risks in your art and your life, be reckless, be arrogant. Know you’ve got to write a lot of bad stuff first (or messy, anyway, which has of course its own virtue) so have a ball doing that. Most of all do not let ANYONE tell you how to write your play. Make your own mistakes and learn from them — it’s so boring to make other people’s mistakes and all you learn from that is to not do that.

Q:  Plug for your play and any other plugs:

A:  Or, previews start October 29th at the Julia Miles Theater on W.55th St: http://www.womensproject.org/on_our_stage.htm

And the wonderful MOXIE Theater in San Diego is currently reviving their 2005 production of my play Dog Act: http://www.moxietheatre.com/node/2

I Interview Playwrights Part 77: Winter Miller

Winter Miller

Hometown:
Split screen, I grew up in a small town in Western Massachusetts called Greenfield until I was 12 and then moved with my mom to a series of smallish towns in Pennsylvania. I ended up at Quaker boarding school in PA.

Current Town:
I'm currently a nomad. I couldn't decide where I wanted to live and how I wanted to live in the world so I packed up all my things, put them in my dad's attic and bought a car. Actually I bought my dad's car. He's now walking everywhere. No, he has his own car. But it was a good deal. In any case, I'm hopping from town to town and boro to boro. Since last January I've been in Silver Lake, LA, Santa Monica, CA, Greenfield, MA, Lexington, VA, Clinton Hill Brooklyn, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, a beach house in Rhode Island that I can't remember the name of, Hell's Kitchen NYC, and at the moment I'm writing this, I'm one day into Red Hook, Brooklyn. It's interesting for me, because I've always been very tied to home. As a child of divorce who moved an average of once a year throughout college, when I finally moved to New York I got an apartment and lived in it for almost ten years. So I'm going where it's least secure and reinventing my notion of home, for the moment. I bet this response is too long. Sorry. This is the unexpurgated version.


Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I'm working on a comedy. I'm working on a sort of apocalyptic dark story. These are not related and it's weird to have written two plays within a month of each other and try to revise and rewrite them both when the worlds are opposite. Normally I rarely write plays. I have so little to say that would fill a play. But the apoco one is so dark that it's kind of a relief to go to the other absurd world on occasion. The really exciting thing for me is that I'm working with a group of gay youth in NYC with a company called Theatre Askew and I'm writing a play with and for them to perform. We've had auditions and our first meeting and these youth blow my mind.


Q:  Your play In Darfur is coming up at Theatre J in DC in April. Can you tell me about that play and how it came about? That was a two-headed challenge, right? Where has it been developed?

A:  Yeah I'm super excited that we're doing In Darfur in the nation's capital. I'd like to get an Obama in. Maybe Malia or Sasha. Kidding. I mean the adult Obamas. I'm really hoping to coordinate with groups like Enough! and Genocide Intervention Network and potentially others to really try to draw in legislators to see this play. It's one thing to read a news story or an op-ed about the suffering of people in Darfur and I think it's another to know these people as human beings. But also, the play makes everyone accountable, reporters, aid workers and Darfuris, so I think it poses some compelling questions about sacrifice and betrayal and in whose name.

The play was a Two-Headed Challenge, which is a commission offered jointly by The Guthrie and The Playwrights Center in MN. My mentor, was my former boss at the New York Times, Op-Ed columnist Nick Kristof. And if I can just put some plugs in here for some completely amazing folks any writer should know: I will forever be indebted to the hugely awesome Polly Carl for the work she did with me on this script--she is truly a phenomenal dramaturg and she knows how to put a play first and everyone's ego second. Another shout out to the director who was with me throughout the development of the piece, Joanna Settle, who is an extremely smart and specific director and with whom any writer, actor is designer is fortunate to collaborate with. But in addition some really great people got behind the play and were helpful in the development of it: Michael Dixon at the Guthrie, Mandy Hackett, Liz Frankel and Oskar Eustis at the Public and Marge Betley at Geva Hibernatus. The really great thing was that everyone involved recognized that this is a topical play and that it offers a way to spread awareness about something happening that if enough people were up in arms about and contacting their elected officials, we could force the UN /Security Council to stop the genocide immediately. So it was developed at those places above and then produced really quickly as a lab by the Public. All of that was in less than a year after the play was written. I was still writing the play while we were doing it at the Public which is why we closed it from reviewers. It was a beautiful production, I admire all the people involved. Then they did a very cool thing, they did a staged reading after the run at the Delacorte in Central Park, something they pretty much reserve for their productions of Shakespeare et al. Sitting al fresco with a bright night sky, the sound of planes occasionally buzzing above, that incredible cast and crew and 1800 people in the audience I'll take to the grave. And after the play, my heroes in the anti-genocide movement, people like Samantha Power, Kristof, John Prendergast, Mia Farrow, Omer Israel and Mark Hanis all spoke about Darfur.

Darfur is in really bad shape. It's not written about that much because it's sort of assumed the public is weary of hearing about it, but it's just gotten worse and worse there as aid workers are prevented from helping by president bashir and virtually all programs related to gender based violence are banned--so there are all these rapes in the camps that go unreported and that leave women without care for very violent situations. My friend Bec Hamilton who is an excellent writer and investigator just wrote a great article about it in the New Republic. You can find it here: http://bechamilton.com/?p=1419
If you are reading this and interested in Darfur, check out Enough! and Genocide Intervention Network for how to get involved here:
http://www.enoughproject.org/
http://www.genocideintervention.net/

Q:  Can you talk about 13P? What's up next?

A:  I can talk about 13P, although much has already been said. I think it's an amazing producing model and I am grateful I was invited to join, even without a credit to my name. 13P was my first production, Josh Hecht directed my play called The Penetration Play. Josh is a fiendishly good director of new plays, it should be stated. (It may be that people frown on plays with lesbian sex and aggressive behavior because it's never been produced since. Or it's boring or terrible). But it got produced by 13P because the playwright is allowed to pick the play s/he wants to do, and in some cases, that may be our play we don't think anyone else will do. The next play is Julia Jarcho's American Treasure. Jarcho's so beyond cool that she's directing it herself and she's unafraid to name a play after a popular movie staring Nicholas Cage. There's info about it here:
http://13p.org/index.php?action=ezportal;sa=page;p=20

Q:  What is your day job?

A:  I don't have one at the moment. I was a reporter for Variety which wasn't really me and although I had a sweet gig writing freelance for the New York Times, as the economy and the financial resources of that paper (and others) have tanked, I got squeezed out. Unfortunately, the ugliest part was that there was an editor there who resorted to taking my story pitches and then re-assigning them to staffers. Which is about the sleaziest unethical thing to do to a freelancer. So I called it a day. It turns out I make a great nanny. My developmental age is probably somewhere between 4 and 7, so I have a really good time watching other people's kids. I'm serious. I'd like to go to Africa and do theater work with communities that are in the midst of conflict--I was brought to Uganda to do something of that nature and it was an amazing experience. So I'd like to go to Burundi, Congo, CAR, Somalia etc and do work there. Which will require me lining up some grants for that kind of work, so that will sort of be a day job, finding loose change in the pockets of foundations. Here's the link to the Uganda thing, it's part of an upcoming feature documentary,
http://voicesofuganda.org/

Talk about falling in love with a group of youths... these kids were amazing. We are still pen pals.

And I have fantasies about becoming a Bikram teacher. I'm all over the map. I'm really open to doing whatever for money that puts me in a position of working with people I respect and admire and I don't have specificities about what that specific field is. Generally if people offer me work I say Yes and then ask questions later.

Q:  Tell me a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person.

A:  My parents divorced before I was two. One day, I was probably about 6 or 7 and my mom and dad were sitting at my dad's dining room table. There was a partially eaten danish on the table. I think we had all eaten already breakfast, but the danish remained on the table. I went off to play matchboxes or something in the living room, aware that my parents were still at the table, discussing me or something related to me. I found myself wanting a second helping of the danish. I occasionally looked in, to see that the danish was still sitting there. But I didn't go in and get it. I don't know why. Waiting for an invitation? I think I secretly hoped they'd come into the other room and offer me more danish? They did not. In fact, I distinctly recall that I circled around and hovered, conscious that my dad was eating the last of the danish. It was gone. Then, only then, did I walk into the dining room, right up to them and ask for more danish.

The danish represents to me wanting to be loved, wanting to be noticed. I don't even really like danish, I prefer things made of chocolate. But I wanted to let my parents know that I was in sort of an ongoing distress mode. Only I didn't know how to tell them that and really, I wanted them to know it and do something about it.

So I think I write because in some way I've always felt on the outside of things, I've always wanted to feel like I have a place at the table. It was assumed that I had nothing to say for myself and they would talk about me while I played. So I write plays hoping that people will listen to these characters and their moral dilemmas and see their mistakes and in whatever ways see some portion of themselves in these people. And I hope that by being able to have empathy for the characters, by seeing pieces of ourselves in others that there's a chance to stretch our empathic capabilities. I'm not ashamed to say that I think our culture could do with a lot more compassion and a lot more love for our neighbors, ourselves, etc. I don't think this has much to do with the danish, I was just sort of doing product placement and hoping that if I said chocolate someone would read that and send me a chocolate bar like how it works on television when Jon Stewart says he likes Krispy Kreme on air, he gets donuts galore dropped off at the office. I shudder to think what arrives at the offices of Oprah. She probably gets children and pets mailed to her. Anyway, I kind of agree with Anne Frank, or what she's credited as saying: I still believe, in spite of everything that people are really good at heart. I'm exploring that goodness and occasionally, that badness.

Q:  What is the purpose of theater?

A:  Oh I think I may have touched on that in my earlier response. I didn't read these questions all the way through. I'm terrible at reading directions. I really should work on that.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I like theater where it feels like there's a genuine discovery happening onstage. Even if the play is deeply flawed but there's just one monologue that has something so true that it breaks my heart in that moment--then that's the kind of theater I want to see. I like plays that explore the human condition. As long as it can provoke a genuine reaction in me--laughter, tears, surprise, total shock, or it illuminates a world I know nothing about, that's the kind of stuff I'm really into. One of my favorite theater experiences was/were the Checkov plays that Melissa Kievman and Brian Mertes produced at their house which is out in the country somewhere outside NYC (I'm terrible with geography). The plays would happen outdoors--they would use their actual house and everything around--the pond by the house, the trees in the yard, the upstairs window would have someone pop out to say a line and the staging would be sometimes messy and the scenic design would be phenomenal in its artistry even though it would just be household objects, and all this work, by everyone involved would be for just one performance. And in the middle of the play, after an act break would be a giant picnic. The audience would bring potluck and it would all get laid out and everyone, strangers and friends would get together and eat a giant meal. You could jump in the lake for a swim. You could hold someone's crying baby and walk out of the audience space and bobble the baby up and down til it was soothed and then return and nobody looked at you like you'd stabbed them in the eye with your program. And there was no charge, but you could donate money to whatever great cause they'd researched. It was basically ideal. You're outdoors. It's summer. It's good theater. You're being fed from a buffet. Girls are wearing loose dresses. Boys are wearing open shirts. You can sit in a chair or sit on the ground. You can kiss your date and/or hang out with old and new friends. It's everything that much of the theater I go to is not. It's the intersection of life onstage with the lives watching the stage. It's made with love, you feel it. They didn't do it this past summer but I'm hoping they see your blog and realize how much it meant to so many people and they should put their whole lives on hold just to please an unruly group of people who love what they created.

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A:  Hmmm. Find a really good dramaturg, someone you can trust to read your work and give you honest feedback that propels you forward. I recommend Josh Hecht because he's so smart and so good at giving insight. But it's about finding the person who you connect with and who knows how to give feedback. Also, one time when I was trying to write a play that would be "commercial" enough for what I saw in the marketplace and I was not writing anything, I sent an email to one of my professors from grad school, Anne Bogart and asked if she'd have coffee with me to discuss something or other. She was like, look, you have to write the play you want to write, there's no other option. And I'm not going to sit and have coffee with you to tell you that. You know what you need to do so do it. At first I was sort of taken aback, like whoa, where's that totally nurturing director from grad school...? And then I was like, she's right, what a favor to tell me to stop talking to other people about what's not working with what I'm trying to write or my process and just write. (I call this unhelpful part of my process procrastiwriting) And to not bother writing what I think the market will bear. Those who can write what the market wants are probably able to do that at least in part because it's in fact what they want to be writing. Or they wrote what they wanted and that it was scooped up by producers came as something of a surprise. I'm totally making this up, I have no idea what I'm talking about. It's a little like asking me about how to hang a heavy picture frame on the wall, I've done it plenty of times but I'm no expert. First find the studs in the wall. I don't know, knock on the wall, they're like sixteen inches a part and sooner or later you'll find one. Use a level, when the bubble is in the middle, you're golden.

Q:  Links for upcoming workshops etc and any other plugs?

A:  plugs! :
http://hairplugsguide.com/
http://www.tradekey.com/ks-household-plug./
http://www.tribalectic.com/store/pc/browseResults.asp?drilldown=170&tier=1&IDBrand=&mt=&gauge=&piercingLocationID=
http://www.travel-images.com/electric-plugs.html
http://www.autoanything.com/ignition-systems/200A2534.aspx
http://www.fishreports.net/fishing-gear/fishing-plug.php

I Interview Playwrights Part 76: Jenny Schwartz

 

Jenny Schwartz

Hometown:

Scarborough, NY and then New York, NY

Current Town:

New York, NY

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  A play called Somewhere Fun.

A play about Fantasy Football.

I’m also collecting exchanges I have with my two year old daughter, Phoebe, who already has a zest for words, language, and stories - especially seemingly mundane ones. It’s thrilling (and hilarious) to watch her as she tries out new words and phrases every day. I’ll list a couple of things she's said that have woken me up, in a way, to the poetry and absurdity in every day speech. I’m hoping to construct something out of these exchanges.  Maybe just a scrapbook of sorts.

Phoebe:

I like grape medicine.  

You like grape medicine?  

You like it a little or a lot? 

I like it a lot sometimes.

Phoebe:

We sometimes call him Daddy.

We sometimes call him him.

Q:  Can you talk a little about your writing process?  Is it true that you start over from the beginning each time without looking at what you wrote the previous time?

A:  Yes, it’s true.  I imagine that when composers or songwriters write new songs, they aren’t able to start from the end when they sit down to work; this is true for me too.  I find it helpful to experience the entire piece in order to continue on with it and to find holes and spaces in it. For some reason, reading it over, even aloud, isn’t enough. Typing the whole thing from memory helps me get out of my head and into the world of the play and to seamlessly, unconsciously develop and expand it.  I’m also able to experience the rhythm and momentum of the piece, and writing becomes a physical act. It’s not often that I add to the end of what I’m writing because I always get caught up in the body of the text; something will need fine-tuning which will lead me on a tangent that I couldn’t anticipate. It’s also, in a way, like ironing, where you start with a small part of the fabric and you keep going back over it until you smooth out the whole thing. That said, I don’t do this ALL the time. If I’m working on a particular scene, I’ll sometimes start only that scene from the beginning, and not the entire play. As you can probably guess, I'm a voracious typer. 

Q:  How did you like Juilliard?

A:  Juilliard was great, and I’m grateful they took me and let me stick around for two years. It was a rare privilege to have Christopher Durang and Marsha Norman responding to my work.  Before Juilliard, I studied directing with Robert Woodruff and Anne Bogart at Columbia. My years at Columbia were perhaps more formative than my years at Juilliard. It was in Robert Woodruff's directing class that I tried my hand at playwriting. Robert encouraged me to keep writing, even though my first plays were five minutes long and consisted mostly of one actor saying the same thing over and over again. (I'm still drawn to repetition, but I tend to create more expansive palettes now.) I'll be forever indebted to Robert and Anne for encouraging me to experiment, to ask questions, to think outside the box. They opened doors for me I had no idea existed. 

Q:  God's Ear is being done around quite a bit.  Are there shows coming up you can tell us about?

A:  I don’t actually know what’s coming up, but I will tell you that I went to Portugal a couple of weeks ago to see a production of God’s Ear in Portuguese.  For the most part, I couldn’t follow it word-for-word or line-for-line, but right away, I was struck by the acting, which was clearly intense and impassioned.  It was a moving experience for me - to feel so completely absent and present at the same time – to view myself as a catalyst for these talented artists having a meaningful experience doing their work so well. I’ve felt similar about productions I’ve heard about around the country (I've only seen one, a wonderful production directed by Ken Rus Schmoll at Cornell University. Ken and I were classmates at Columbia and are close friends and collaborators, so I was somewhat involved in that one.) Anyway, it's been amazing and humbling to connect with strangers in this way - very unexpectedly rewarding.

Q:  Tell me, if you will, a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person.

A:  Hmmm… I was obsessed with Helen Keller and the Miracle Worker, and I used to stare up at the sun to try make myself blind; fortunately, I was not successful. I don't know if this explains who I am as a writer or an artist (I hope not), but I thought I'd mention it because Helen Keller tends to make her way into my work. What else?  I remember telling my first lie when I accidentally lost my Kindergarten class’s pet Guinea Pig.  This was eye-opening for me because I realized that in real life, you don't always have to get caught, like on the Brady Bunch, and you can have a secret inner life that no one has to know about. 

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I space out very easily, so I’d have to say I’m most excited by theatre that doesn’t bore me, which can come in any and all forms, and found anywhere. I do appreciate poetry, both visual and aural, and I like to have a good laugh. 

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A:  *Don't type out your play over and over again. Total waste of time.

*Try to get yourself in situations where you can actually make theatre and put it in front of an audience. (I’m not talking about readings.)

*Take everyone's advice and no one's advice and don't let anyone's advice make you feel stupid or wrong because what you really want to do is find your own unique and mutable way. (Or not.) I tend to be suspicious anyone who claims to know anything, but come to think of it, I'm probably just jealous. 

*Don't sell yourself short.

Q:  Any plugs?

A:  Circle Mirror Transformation by Annie Baker.

Creature by Heidi Schreck.

You can get God's Ear here and places other fine books are sold.

I Interview Playwrights Part 75: Kristen Palmer

Kristen Palmer

Hometown:  Born in St. Louis, Missouri, but grew up in Stafford County, Virginia

Current Town:  Atlanta, temporarily.

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  A play about a family coping with a death - lots of steady, daily drinking, sudden accusations, and grasping for something under the surface to be revealed.  There are no bells or whistles really, just writing these characters during three slices of time.  It's set in the Tidewater region of Virginia, on the James River at a home I visited once.

And revising THE HEART IN YOUR CHEST, which has been a major project over the past year.  It’s a play set in a dystopian near future, populated by characters operating under one set of assumptions which is undone by their own desires and the actions of the least obviously powerful among them.  There’s a lot of action, there are fights and I’m in love with the characters.  I’ve been able to collaborate with the same director, Paul Willis, and had some excellent ensembles come together for workshops in NYC, Independence, KS and LA.  Still doing some tinkering and looking for a more in depth, on-the feet type of workshop – or for somebody to get behind it and go for it.  Which I think would be an excellent idea.

Q:  What do you think is the thread that links your plays?  What do you write about? 

A:  I've written seven full-lengths and they each feel very different to me, in subject and construction.  A few readers have said that if my name weren't on the cover they wouldn't know it was the same writer.  If I were to pull out some threads though  -  a sense of loss and longing, the way language is used obliquely - communicating as much as it covers up, and funny in a way where there aren't really any jokes.

My starting point for most plays are places, people or moments that resonate with me and I think the motor that drives me is the desire to talk back to the world.  I am a person that gets overwhelmed by reading the newspaper, wants to call up our leaders and talk to them - ask them what they are thinking - why are they doing what they're doing. -- and I want an actual human response, canned PR speak doesn’t help anyone but the salesman.  Writing plays is one of the ways I do something with this impulse and avoid getting overwhelmed by the world.  Teaching is another.

  

Q:  How was your Jerome year last year?

A:  It was amazing to be able to put writing first, to say for these 12 months my job is to write plays and be a playwright.  In the year before the Jerome I was teaching full-time in Brooklyn, I'd had my first four productions - two in NYC  - and was planning a wedding (with you) it was kind of a full year.  Then moving to Minneapolis, was a huge change of pace - a very welcome one.  (It is true that if you get enough sleep you don't really get sick).  The Playwrights' Center there is a great place and it was dreamy to have a home for a year - especially one with a photocopier and postage machine.  Plus there are lots of other playwrights based in Minneapolis - and on the Jerome year too - so it’s like an instant community.

For me the job of 'being a playwright' included working as a dramaturg, teaching writing workshops with young people, reading many, many plays and being able to travel for workshops and readings - as well as writing.  I did find that my writing output did not increase substantially with the amount of time I had available.  In my imagination I would write non-stop, all day, late into the night, but in reality I still wrote about the same amount - though I was able to put a lot more time into revisions and applications.

I also discovered that I like the extreme winter there.  It's beautiful.  Oh, and I landed a job waitressing at Nye's Polanaise Room.  If you’re ever in the Twin Cities and have occasion for a boozy lunch, desire a piano bar or a polka lounge – I highly recommend Nye’s - and sit at the bar that Phil has worked at since 1968.

 

Q:  Can you talk about being a teaching artist and how you use theater to teach?

A:  That is where I started from undergrad - devising programs to teach through drama - structuring workshops using theater games, opportunities for creating and performing, and reflecting on the experience.  The goals for workshops can vary from the general ones like collaboration and communication, to literacy, to issues such as safe sex, bullying, prejudice  - the basic idea is to engage participants with their bodies and hearts and the process is the point - not the product.  Everywhere I have lived I have found opportunities to teach this way, either in schools, with theaters or arts agencies - or making my own programs.  I did my undergrad in England where there is an established field of this type of work.  When I moved back to the states it was less obvious where or how to do this, but mostly people just used different terminology.

Basically teaching, to me, is about creating an experience and connecting with students.  Being open to the moment, working with what's in front of you and keeping people's interest are all qualities that theater demands and are the qualities that I find most important in teaching.  Supporting people to express their experience of the world and to engage with and understand the experience of others should be a goal of education - whatever the subject - and theatre as a medium offers a myriad of ways to act, reflect, question and challenge.

Q:  You're married to me.  How's that going?

A:  Very well. You are wonderful person to be married with.

Q:  Tell me a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a person or as a writer.

A:  When I was in middle school I organized a haunted house with kids on my street.  You’d go in and be told the story of a girl whose mother was burned as a witch, who was plagued by visions, tormented by the townspeople and eventually hung herself.  I think I was the tour guide, my brother was bobbing for apples in blood, there were real cow brains (the idea that spaghetti would represent cow brains escaped me), heads were strung from the clothesline, we hung a life sized stuffed doll as the girl – and as the finale this older girl from another neighborhood wearing a long white dress came out of nowhere on roller skates wailing for revenge and chasing everyone screaming out of the garage.  Then we’d give them candy.

At some point parents demanded that we be shut down for terrorizing children and we were forbidden from ever making a haunted house again.  Something about the recklessness and enterprise of all the kids involved in putting it together coupled with the explosion of response when it was unveiled really got to me.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I love theatre that feels rough around the edges, virtuosic  - and that over-used word – authentic in some way.  I love plays that feature ensembles of actors and create worlds that you can witness, or step into.  I am excited when a production allows the audience in – is porous and open to interpretation and a variety of responses.  I love writing that plays with language and theatre that embraces the complexities and unknowability of human experience. 

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A:  Follow your obsessions.  When you’re tired, rest your head.   Go see things and talk with people and when you see things and talk with people that you like or can’t get out of your head keep seeing their work and talking to them and work with them.  Love is really important. 

 

Q:  any plugs?

A:  I am reading plays and writing about them here:  www.playswithothers.blogspot.com  My goal is to make this a daily thing and use it as a way to talk about writing plays now.

and sometimes I post poems here:  quarantinedpoesy.blogspot.com  I used to do this daily, now it is far more occasional.

And go see CREATURE in NYC opens in late October and runs through November.  Written by the effervesent Heidi Schreck and produced by two great companies - New Georges & P73.

I Interview Playwrights Part 74: Patrick Gabridge

Patrick Gabridge

Hometown:  I've moved a lot.

Current Town:  Brookline, MA (Boston)

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I'm feverishly working on rewrites of Constant State of Panic, a new full-length play that will be produced by the Madcap Players in DC in January. I was just out there for a weekend-long workshop that was tremendously helpful. I'm always trying to explore different models to develop new plays, and the Madcap weekend was especially well run and thoughtful.

As soon as the rewrites are done, I'm hoping to start on a new novel, a young adult historical piece (set in the Civil War) (it does not have any vampires or werewolves). Plus, I'm part of a playwrights group, Rhombus, that meets every two weeks and we're required to bring in material to every session. So if I want to keep playing with my pals, I need to write a new play. I'm stumbling my way into a new full-length play--I'm curious to see what happens with it.

Q:  If I came to Boston tomorrow, what theater companies or shows would you suggest I check out?

A:  Boston Playwrights Theatre is one of the hotspots for exciting new work. I'm off to see a new play by Ronan Noone tomorrow night, Little Black Dress. The American Repertory Theatre is working with with Punchdrunk, a British company, on this odd site-specific treatment of Macbeth in an old school near my house. I'm pretty excited about that one--I think it's the first time they've worked in the U.S.

Company One is a young company that does some interesting new plays. And the Beau Jest company does some amazing physical theatre work that knocks me over. There's a lot happening in Boston.

Q:  Can you tell me about the playwright binge and how it came about?

A:  I'm always looking for ways to make the chore of marketing more fun (and easier) (which is why I started Market InSight for Playwrights back in the early 90s). So, I'd heard about a whole town that went on a diet together, and it worked, because there was a whole social, community aspect to it. So I thought, what if we sort of did the opposite? Rather than diet, we'll binge on sending out our plays--a play a day for 30 days. So I e-mailed playwrights that I knew on a bunch of lists and asked if they wanted to join. I think for the first one, we maybe had a dozen writers. Word got out that it was a helpful thing and more people joined. And everyone was incredibly generous about sharing information. Then an article or two got written about it, and membership jumped. As of today, we have 520 members from around the world, and we binge twice a year (and there's an associated "purge" group that writes every day for 30 days). The cool thing is that it's turned into this very active, very supportive year-round online community.

Q:  Is writing a novel anything like writing a play?

A:  Not really, though I did make a conscious effort when I started writing novels to use some of my playwriting strengths--so my first two novels (I've written three) were first person stories, so I could look at them like extended monologues. But the development of a play is so different from a novel. A novel is much, much longer. There are just so many damn words to write--my latest adult novel runs around 84,000 words. That's the equivalent of about 3-4 full-length plays. So they take a lot longer to write, which makes it even more important to have a certain level of discipline when it comes plugging away at a first draft.

For a play, the development process is so much more external and social. I do have a writer's group where I bring my fiction, but other than that I'll just have a couple other readers. For a play, getting it down on paper is just the start. I'm constantly working on material with actors in Rhombus, and then in readings, and then in production there will be more changes, and even in subsequent productions. The upside is that you keep getting chances to fix problems in a script, the downside is that the blasted thing is never done. When I have a novel published, and someone comes up to me and says, "Oh, that part didn't work for me, I wish they'd done so and so," well, I can smile and nod and think, "Oh, well." and not worry about it. But with a play, I might think, "Oh, crap, maybe I should go back and fix that."

Q:  You recently got rid of your car. How are you adjusting to life without a motorized vehicle?

A:  It's been fun. We live in the city, so we have the subway, buses, and Zipcar, which is great. We ride our bikes a lot--my kids are old enough now (9 and 14) to ride most places. We figured if we couldn't do it here, we could never do it. It gets us lots of exercise and saves us a bunch of money. What's not to like? (See how I feel at the end of the winter.)

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I like plays that don't make me fall asleep. Seriously. That's my basic criteria (and I fall asleep easily). I like plays where stuff happens on stage--it can be physical, psychological, internal/external, I don't care, but I don't want to just listen to a long conversation. I want to see or experience something interesting.

I'm involved in leading some workshops here for StageSource called Playwriting in 3D--basically panel discussions with designers, to engage them with writers in an extended conversation about how we can make our plays more fully theatrical. The last one we did was with two lighting and two sound designers. Next up is an afternoon with costume and set designers. Soon, I hope to have one where we bring in some magicians to talk to us about the principles of what makes magic work for an audience. How can playwrights and directors and producers expand our tool box? I'm not interested in seeing something on stage that could have been done on TV.

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A:  Get your hands dirty. Start a theatre company or join up some up-and-coming group of theatre folk and learn every aspect of theatre. Act, direct, design a set, tear tickets, design programs, run lights. Produce some shows. You might not be good at all of these things, but trying them helps you to fully understand the whole theatrical package, which is what you need if you want to write something that comes life on stage (and actually is chosen by theatres). And realize that playwriting is a very slow process--when you're just starting out, you want everything to happen right now. But plays can take a long time to develop, and it takes a while to build your skillset and a body of work.

Q:  Any plugs?

A:  I have a couple short plays in Los Angeles, being done in coffee shops by Theatre Unleashed. I wish I could be there, because I get a kick out of site specific work. And on January 14, Constant State of Panic opens in DC at the H Street Playhouse. I'm excited to see how it turns out--we've got a great team for the show.

Read more from Patrick here.

I Interview Playwrights Part 73: Mike Batistick

Mike Batistick

Hometown:  Red Bank, NJ

Current Town:  Sunset Park, Brooklyn, NY

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I'm currently working on the final cut with director Nick Sandow for the film version of my play PONIES (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1462765/), for which I wrote the screenplay. Greenbox Entertainment produced it, and we shot it in the Bronx (among other places) where we built an entire OTB out of a closed Washington Mutual bank. The place looked so authentic the Morris Park Community Board got upset because they thought a betting parlor was moving into their neighborhood.

In addition to that, I've also been working on a few TV projects--including a pilot I've got in development--and putting the final touches on my latest play RECURSION. Sometime next Spring, director Arin Arbus and I will be developing my latest play GAIL with the Working Theater.

Q:  How many plays of yours were done by Studio Dante? What was it like working with them?

A:  I have had two plays produced by Studio Dante, PONIES (http://www.dramatists.com/cgi-bin/db/single.asp?key=3510) and CHICKEN (http://www.dramatists.com/cgi-bin/db/single.asp?key=3888), both of which were directed by Nick Sandow, who also directed the film version of the PONIES. Dante basically helped me achieve everything I have in my career; my first (and second) NY TIMES review, published plays (including another play, PORT AUTHORITY THROW DOWN (http://www.dramatists.com/cgi-bin/db/single.asp?key=3846), and television work. Working with Michael Imperioli and his wife Victoria was perhaps the greatest development I've had in my creative life so far. They introduced me to many of the people I work with now.

Q:  How did you like Juilliard?

A:  Marsha and Chris were crucial in my development as a writer. They taught me to write quickly and with quality, as well as continue to always work on narrative structure, which has always been one of my weaknesses.

Q:  What do you like most about the MCC Playwrights Coalition?

A:  I've been out of town a lot lately, so I haven't much time to work with Coalition as I did when I first joined, in 2002. But recently I did a playwriting intensive with Mark Schultz, Annie Baker, Blair Singer, and dramaturge Jamie Green. The intensives are by far my favorite part of the group.

Q:  Tell me a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person.

A:  My dad was the landlord of a few buildings in Asbury Park, NJ when I was a teenager. I just remember always collecting rent, fixing those dilapidated buildings up, and trying to keep drug dealers and squatters away. I think those experiences inform a lot of the stuff I write.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Tom Bradshaw's PURITY at PS 122 was a really exciting piece, and I still think about it even though it was produced over two years ago. The play pushed the envelope and didn't try and put a nice button on its plot. I also really enjoyed Theater For a New Audience's production of OTHELLO, which Arin Arbus directed. What I was left with from that production was the claustrophobia and obsession that envelopes the main character, and how thoroughly contemporary his struggle felt to me. I really respond to shows that are dangerous and that play with style and structure, like the Elevator Repair Service's NO GREAT SOCIETY and WOMEN DREAMT HORSES by Daniel Veronese. I also like the work of the Debate Society.

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A:  Produce your play yourself, or submit to the Fringe or Midtown Theater Festival. Don't wait for producers and big theaters to come calling; if you put it up on your own dime, it's a perfect opportunity for them to come see your work. Also never be afraid to send that 10-page sample to the big Off-Broadway theaters if you don't have agent. Literary departments will respond.

Q:  Any plugs?

A:  Well my friend Jake Hirzel's musical DIAL 'N' FOR NEGRESS just finished its run at Theater Row, so no, but you can check out the awesome music at the website, dialnfornegress.com.

I Interview Playwrights Part 72: Mariah MacCarthy

 

Mariah MacCarthy

Hometown: San Diego, CA

Current Town: Astoria, NY

Q:  You have a couple shows coming up.  Can you talk a little about the plays and productions?

A:  The first play I have coming up is Ampersand: A Romeo & Juliet Story, the first act of which will be performed as part of the Looking Glass Theatre's Winter Forum (December 17-20).  It's a contemporary cynical lesbian adaptation of, you guessed it, Romeo and Juliet--with music and cross-dressing.  The title characters are two midwestern girls in their early twenties whose mothers are running against each other for mayor.  My approach is pretty un-romantic - I really don't think Romeo and Juliet would have worked out as a couple had they lived, or that killing yourself over grief for your lover is particularly romantic, and this rendition reflects that attitude.  I also had elections on the brain after last year's epic race, and am simultaneously tickled and disgusted by how much we know about politicians' children--and wouldn't it be wild if, say, Chelsea Clinton and Meghan McCain were a secret couple?  As all this was swirling around in my head, director Amanda Thompson asked me if I'd like to write something for the Looking Glass's Winter Forum, and the rest is history.

Then in the spring, the awesome Rapscallion Theatre Collective is projected to produce The All-American Genderf*ck Cabaret.  This project started as my senior thesis at Skidmore College, which I co-created with a fabulous student cast; then I reworked it in June in a staged reading with a different, though also fabulous, cast.  Genderf*ck takes eight gender stereotypes and, well, fucks them.  The characters, guided by an androgynous, omnipotent MC, morph from full-on cliches to actual human beings.  There's dancing, making out, assault, heartbreak, and peanut butter banana sandwiches.  The staged reading in June was one of those magical nights you dream of as a playwright, where the house is packed and you get a standing O and it leads to a production offer.  And I'm so excited to be working with Rapscallions; I've worked with them as a director several times, and in addition to being incredibly warm and welcoming people, they're always doing fresh, beautiful work.  (Shameless plug: check out their upcoming production of Naomi Wallace's Trestle at Pope Lick Creek - it's going to be gorgeous: http://www.rapscalliontheatrecollective.com/productions/2009_trestle.html)

Q:  Tell me what it was like to intern at New Dramatists.

A:  Interning at New Dramatists was my wonderful crash course introduction to the New York theater scene that every theater artist should get when they're just starting out.  Not only are there absurdly brilliant playwrights hanging out at ND all the time, you're also being constantly inundated with new work - through stage managing the readings, seeing bucketloads of free theater, reading the plays in the library, etc.  I learned a ton, drank a lot of free wine, and met some delightful people that I'm still working with--Amanda Thompson, director of Ampersand, was a fellow intern there.  And if you intern with them, you get a reading of one of your plays, so I had an awesome reading of my play A Man of His Word there in January.  Yes, New Dramatists interns make coffee and get very familiar with the copier, but when something like PlayTime happens in the fall, you actually get really excited about making coffee and copies.  I'm serious.

Q:  You took a class with Lucy Thurber at Primary Stages.  What was that like?

A:  My class with Lucy was the beginning of a hugely important turnaround for me as a playwright.  I've always had a restless imagination, and as I've gotten older my work has become increasingly gender-political, so I waltzed into Lucy's class thinking I was rather clever.  She was the first teacher to kind of kick my ass and say, "OK, yes, you're very clever, but what's actually happening in this scene?"  She taught me that theater can't just be pretty; it has to be active.  Since then my work has changed significantly, and for the better.  (Side note: if you're in New York and haven't seen Lucy's Killers and Other Family yet, I don't know what you're waiting for.  See it before it closes this weekend.)

Q:  Tell me a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a person or writer.

A:  When I was three, I used to pick up my uncle's cats by their tails and throw them in his pool.  I didn't mean the cats any harm - it was hot out, and I thought the cats would want to cool off, and it seemed obvious to me that cats were meant to be picked up by the tail.  This, of course, was not the case, and very quickly these cats started avoiding me, but I didn't know why.  I just loved them so much and didn't understand why they didn't want to play with me anymore.

Q:  How do you feel about dating a fellow playwright?

A:  I feel pretty great about dating Larry Kunofsky.  We're both huge fans of each other's writing, but more importantly, we're madly in love.  It's a very convenient arrangement.  It's nice to feel both inspired and inspiring.

Q:  Tell me about Writers Group for Minions.

A:  Writers Group for Minions is the brainchild of me and my former co-minion Krystal Banzon (who will be directing Genderf*ck in the spring).  We created it to give our fellow office bitches, interns, and assistants a forum where they could bring and share work.  I've always found it hard to write without some kind of structure or deadline, so WGFM is our attempt to motivate ourselves and our peers.  Feel free to email us at writersgroupforminions@gmail.com with a description of your minion experience if you'd like to join us!

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Really, even if I don't like something, I'll congratulate anything that's doing something I've never seen before.  But beyond that...Theater with visible strings.  Theater where someone totally rocks out.  Theater with longing or war or ugliness in it.  Theater that makes me go, "Oh no they didn't!"  Theater with awkward moments.  Theater that is socially aware without being self-congratulatory, or celebratory without being mindless.  Theater with guts.  From this year:  Monstrosity, That Pretty Pretty; or, The Rape Play, Red Fly/Blue Bottle, Rods and Cables, Chautauqua!, Bird House, Ruined, Expatriate, Our Town at Barrow Street...I could go on.

Probably my favorite person making art right now is Amanda Palmer, performance artist & former frontwoman of The Dresden Dolls.  Her solo album provided a lot of the inspiration for Ampersand (the title is lovingly lifted from the third track).  This year, she collaborated with a group of high schoolers in Lexington, Massachusetts to create one of the most memorable theatrical experiences I've ever seen, With the Needle that Sings in Her Heart.  It was an ensemble piece based on the Neutral Milk Hotel album, In an Aeroplane Over the Sea, in which Anne Frank uses her imagination to escape the horrors of the Holocaust - until eventually she can't anymore.  It was epic and broken and devastating and just...stunning.  And you can feel that theatricality in Amanda Palmer's music.  I wish she'd come to New York and bring her high schoolers with her.

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A:  I consider myself to be very, very much still in the "just starting out" category, but here's what I've learned so far: people love free labor.  Give your sweat to theaters you admire, even if you already have a "job-job" - help with mass mailings, help with load-ins and strikes, be an usher, be a PA, whatever you can do (without adding too much to the debt you've likely already accrued from college).  Some people will take the free labor and run, but others will bend over backwards for you again and again.  Do it now, while you have the energy.

Also, remember that networking is often as simple as just making friends.  Your fellow intern today is tomorrow's Anne Bogart, so don't worry if you didn't get to share your poetic prowess with the big boss of your favorite theater company; your friends, your peers, are your future collaborators.  Toward that end, fill your friends' houses - karma works.  Befriend directors until you meet the ones that get your work.  And if you've just graduated college, contact your fellow alumni.  I wouldn't have gotten anywhere without the support of my more established fellow Skidmore College alums: Allison Prouty at the Women's Project, Jessica Davis-Irons at Andhow!, Yehuda Duenyas at NTUSA.  They enabled me to hit the ground running when I moved to New York, and I haven't stopped running yet.

Q:  Links for shows, please:

A:  There's no info online for Ampersand or Genderf*ck yet, but definitely check out both theaters' websites...

The Looking Glass: http://thelookingglasstheatre.homestead.com/

Rapscallion Theatre Collective: http://www.rapscalliontheatrecollective.com/ (And seriously, go see Trestle at Pope Lick Creek.  Fo'real.)

Q:  And other plugs?

A:  Check out my blog, A Rehearsal Room of One's Own: http://nicefeminist.blogspot.com/ - I love getting feedback on my ramblings, so please feel free to drop me a line there!

Again, to come to a Writers Group for Minions meeting, email writersgroupforminions@gmail.com with a description of your experience as a minion.  We'd love to have you.

Also, my friend Heidi Handelsman runs an awesome reading series called The Potluck out of her living room (and yes, it is an actual potluck) - email potluckplays@yahoo.com to sign up for updates.

I Interview Playwrights Part 71: Jay Bernzweig

Jay Bernzweig

Hometown: Freehold, NJ

Current Town: Los Angeles, New York

Q:  Tell me about your play, Made in Heaven going up soon at the Soho Playhouse.

A:  "Made in Heaven" is a comedy about conjoined twins who share a penis. On the night they are about to propose marriage to their girlfriend, one twin reveals that's he's gay. The twins and their girlfriend concoct a plan to make the arrangement satsfying for all of them. The plain involves a bisexual hustler, whose behavior wreaks havoc on the household and forces all four characters to rethink their notions of love, family and self-acceptance.

Q:  How did you come to write this play?

A:  For a few years I walked around with the one-line idea of conjoined twins, one gay and one straight, who share a penis. Anyone with whom I shared the idea laughed out loud. But I wasn't able to start writing until I discovered who the other two characters were and realized the play would be about the self-destructive and uncomfortable knots we'll all twist ourselves into for the sake of what looks or feels like romantic love. In 2004 I was one of the producers of an Off-Broadway musical, "Dr. Sex." There were long periods if idleness as we waited for the show to be rewritten, or waited for various creative talents to become available. I took advantage of the fact that I had a quiet, cozy office overlooking Broadway, and wrote the first draft of "Made in Heaven."

Q:  What are you working on next?

A:  A play tentatively titled "Madame Mesmer." It's a contemporary farce that deals with marriage, money and hypnosis.

Q:  You used to be a film exec. What does it feel like to be on the other side of the desk? Is it vastly different?

A:  It's way more fun ruining my own ideas that it was helping to ruin others.

Q:  Do you have any advice for young writers trying to get their screenplays made?

A:  Yes. View your career as a marathon, not a sprint. Hope for the best with every script, but understand the following: A lucky few achieve success with a single, brilliant screenplay. But many, many writers succeed as the result of eight or ten years of consistent, ever-improving work.

Q:  Tell me, if you will, a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a person or as a writer.

A:  I fell in love with Eugene O'Neill when I was twelve and read everything he wrote. Didn't understand at least half of what I was reading, but I was captivated by the language and the theatricality and decided I wanted to be a playwright.

Q:  What theaters or shows in LA would you recommend?

A:  The Actors' Gang, Theatre at Boston Court, "99-cent Only Show" at Bootleg Theatre, drag revue at the Plaza bar on LaBrea.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Anything fresh, original and astonishing.

Link for Jay's show:
http://www.madeinheavenbackstage.blogspot.com/

I Interview Playwrights Part 70: Gina Gionfriddo

Gina Gionfriddo

Hometown:  Washington DC

Current Town: NYC

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  It's not a go yet, but I am working with a film producer to option and then adapt a book by Joy Williams called "The Changeling"--no relation to either of 2 movies with that title.  The book is scary and sort of hallucinogenic; an alcoholic narrator is seeing stuff that may or may not be real.  The story draws a lot on fairy tales and myths.  So I have been researching myths and fairy tales--"animal groom" stories, specifically--for that project.  I'm also researching/reading for the next play I want to write which, I think, has something to do with internet pornography.

Q:  You're one of the playwrights who has written for Law and Order, that New York institution.  What was that like?

A:   It was very, very good for me in a couple of ways.  It disabused me of some romantic notions about writing.  The time pressure to getting the episodes written helped me see that showing up really is half the battle.  Inspiration and ideas spring from the action of writing, so a lot of the mooning around and planning I tend to do before I really get in the saddle and START seems like procrastination now.  Not entirely, but... I've learned to do less of it, to have the guts to sit down and write before the play in the brain feels 100% there.  And writing TV is a good paycheck.  I was hand-to-mouth for such a long time, it was a big relief not to be living in financial panic.  Also, I think that show in particular was a good adjunct to playwriting because it was so plot driven.   I never felt creatively split and I think I might have if my TV job had been, say, "Madmen" or some other show where you're crafting long-range, nuanced character arcs.

Q:  Tell me a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a person or as a writer.

A:  I was a really macabre, little gothette of a child.  I was fixated on dead children.  In the village in Pennsylvania where we spent our summers, I went to the graveyard and wrote down the names and dates from all the kids' graves.  Then I went around interviewing my elderly aunts about why they had died.  And I saved all the news clippings about a boy who disappeared near my home in DC.  I had a Life Magazine about the Yorkshire Ripper that I used to read and reread obsessively.  I think I still have that, um, orientation.  My pleasure reading is true crime and my Tivo is backlogged with it.  So I think a lot of my writing has been about figuring out where that impulse comes from and what it serves for me.

Q:  How did you like Brown?

A:  Loved it.  I got paid to write for 2 years and the plays I wrote were produced.  They were shoestring, throw 'em up campus productions, but you learn stuff from productions that you just can't learn from readings.  So that was invaluable.  And Paula Vogel gave me some amazing tools that I can pull out of my back pocket when I'm stuck.  She's a purist.  She really believes that great writing will come if you push yourself beyond your safety zone.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I am never happier than when I leave a theatre feeling the stirrings of a good argument.  I like plays where the audience fractures over who the good guys are.   I used to love teaching "Oleanna" for that reason.

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A:   Read plays.  Read a play a day.  Some of my best ideas have come from reacting to plays... wishing the writer had gone further, sometimes, or feeling an ending didn't ring true.  I'm inspired when I feel my needs and expectations aren't met and I have to go fishing in the deep Gina waters to ask why.    Also, read for structure.  There are plays I have read and re-read and mapped because they work so well.  It's good to, like, take the back of the watch off and see how the gears move.  Donald Margulies' "Dinner with Friends" is one that I really studied because it packs such a wallop and looks, on its face, so simple.

Q:  Any plugs?

A:  Not for my own work.  I've got nothing up right now!  I liked Tracy Letts' new play, "Superior Donuts," a lot, and Annie Baker's "Circle Mirror Transformation."  And I think I liked them for the same reason.  The characters are living "small" lives, by which I mean... no blood, death, war, politics.  But within "small lives" (see "Our Town") there are enormous cataclysms and I love to see writers that appreciate that and truly care.

I Interview Playwrights Part 69: Darren Canady

Darren M Canady

Hometown: Topeka, Kansas

Current Town: Brooklyn, NY (Bed-Stuy and proud of it!)

Q:  Tell me about the play you're doing with the BE company. (and link please)

A:  The play is called MUDDY THE WATER. It's about what happens when a prominent minister at a Kansas City church disappears after an arrest for cruising and solicitation in a local park. The focus of the play isn't so much the minister, but how everyone within the church community is forced to reveal their own secrets, prejudices and examine their relationships with each other and their faith.

I'm supremely lucky because this is a pilot program being offered by the BE Company that they're calling The WorkBEnch Series. It's a developmental opportunity where the script is workshopped with staging and design elements thrown in. Then, we take a break in the middle of the performance period to take in audience reaction, rework the script, rehearse and then complete the rest of the run. So far, the experience has been sort of like being a theatrical mad scientist, but the collaborations with my fantastic director (Martin Damien Wilkins) and this ridiculously amazing cast have really helped move this piece along.

http://www.thebecompany.org/home.php

Q:  While you were at Juilliard, you had a show at the Alliance. Can you tell me about the play, the program there and what it was like? Also what did you think of Atlanta? (My current town)

A:  So. The play I had up at The Alliance was called FALSE CREEDS--it's the story of how a young man discovers his family's involvement in the Tulsa Disaster of 1921. For anyone who might be in the dark about that historical event: 1920s Tulsa, Oklahoma was the home of Greenwood, one of the most prosperous black communities in America--so prosperous, in fact, that it was known as "The Black Wall Street." In June of that year, however, a white mob swept through Greenwood, burned it to the ground and murdered hundreds of residents. My play dealt with not only that one horrific day, but also how a family began to try to put their life back together.

The Alliance production came about because FALSE CREEDS won their Kendeda Graduate Play Competition while I was at New York University. The competition is aimed at playwrights who are in their final year of a graduate program--the winners are given a full production in The Alliance's season. In addition, that year The Alliance partnered with The O'Neill Playwrights Conference to offer me a residency there that summer to do some intense development of the piece ahead of the Alliance premiere.

Honestly, that entire experience was sick--I mean, just truly amazing. When Celise Kalke called me from Atlanta to tell me I had won, I was at a place in my head/life where I was seriously doubting my abilities as a writer, I really needed to hear that I was saying something worth hearing. That phone call began a year-long process of really learning what play development was like from the inside. Throughout the O'Neill and Atlanta productions I got to knock heads with some of the most gifted artists and professionals I have ever encountered. What really floored me though, was that all of these people were really earnestly working to make this play the truest representation of my vision possible. Which is not to say that everything was all bubble gum and lollipops (Drama draws drama, folks), but it was an experience that there is no substitute for.

As for Atlanta, heck, who could complain about being below the Mason-Dixon Line in the middle of February?! The Alliance was a great temporary home--they took such excellent care of this know-nothing kid from Kansas clutching his little script. What I think would surprise some people is just how vibrant the arts scene in general is in Atlanta. While I was there, I had the chance to see gospel performances, the premiere of Pearl Cleage's A SONG FOR CORETTA, artwork on loan from the Louvre, local rock bands...there is plenty going on. I'd do a show down there again in a heartbeat (y'all heard that, right?!)!

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  I'm trying to wrap my head around some new play ideas I've had recently: History colliding with science fiction and social politics. There are some musical pieces as well that I provided text for that could seriously use some rewrites (as long as play development takes, operas and musicals are a flippin' eternity). Right now though, most of my attention is on shaping MUDDY THE WATER and getting as much out of that experience as possible--multi-tasking has rarely proven to be my friend.

Q:  Tell me a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a person or a writer.

A:  When I was a kid, I remember one of my uncles was known to be quite the Ladies' Man. Despite having been in a loooooooooooooooooooooong term relationship with a very lovely woman, he would quite often bring his latest jump-off over to my parent's house, believing full well that he needn't worry about my parents revealing his indiscretions. One day, after my uncle introduced me to his latest "friend" (she said I was very charming), it became quickly apparent to all the adults that I was no fool and that I knew this cheap broad was certainly not the "Auntie" I was used to seeing my uncle with. My dad pulled him aside and said: "Hey man, look here now, don't you get angry at Darren if he starts runnin' his mouth one day and lets loose that you been bringin' all these women by here. That's your fault brotha, and then, I'd have to kick your ass myself."

Now, what I find interesting is less that my dad threatened my uncle (that was par for the course), more that he already knew my personality even at that young age. To this day, I am still nosy, messy, and occasionally itchy to instigate conflict. So instead of subjecting real people to that, I do it to my characters.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Anything with an element of surprise and some theatrical magic. A compelling story that won't let me turn away.

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A:  I have to sort of laugh at that one--that's pretty much giving advice to myself. I guess I'd say two things I've done for myself so far that I think were truly worthwhile were 1) I got over the fear of exposing myself in my writing--whatever is the most personal tends to be the most compelling, and 2) started to surround myself with creative, diverse theatre artists whom I could respect and look to for both inspiration and support.

I Interview Playwrights Part 68: Alejandro Morales

Alejandro Morales

Hometown:  Hialeah, FL . . . which is really just a carbuncle on the butt of Miami.  It's home to the famous Hialeah Race Track, which I have never been to.

Current Town:  Brooklyn, NY . . . when I lived in Queens I always used to say New York, NY and remind everyone Queens was part of New York City.  Now that I live in Brooklyn, I am very proud of the distinction.

Q:  Can you tell me about "marea"  Coming up in Dec at Here?

A:  marea was a commission from the Public Theater from about six years ago. It's the story of a woman who is obsessed with two classic Italian films from 1960--L'Avventura and Black Sunday--because they help her understand the mystery of her mother's disappearance shortly after giving birth to her.  Our heroine is at a point in her life where a lot of things are breaking down for her--her sanity, her relationship with her girlfriend, her purpose in life--and when this mysterious woman wielding a straight razor begins to haunt her apartment she's thrown into this rabbit hole of self discovery and acceptance.

It's a very challenging play for me.  For one, because it was a commission, it was the only I play I've written where I never took the time to reconcile my personal reasons for writing the play with the demands of the play itself.  I wanted to meet my deadlines and I wrote very quickly.  Little did I know that as I wrote the first draft, I was dealing with the onset of a depression that would last for about four years.  As a result, I ended up with something that was emotionally true to what I was experiencing psychologically, but I don't know if I had the ability to craft that into a workable play until now.  This play takes a lot out of me physically.  Every time I've had a workshop of it, I got a physical malady related to it.  The characters are obsessed with seeing and the heroine is an asthmatic so I've had two bouts of pink eye and pneumonia while working on rewrites.  Drowning figures heavily in the play so I avoided swimming pretty much all summer.  It's weird.  I've taken to wearing a rosary while working on it.  I've never had that happen with a play before.

Packawallop got a grant from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council to work on a theater piece that incorporated video and multi-media and because of the influence of film on this play, we felt that it would be a good project for this grant.  What we're doing at HERE in December is the first hour of the play.  Our goal is to work on the crazier second half over the course of next year and fundraise for a full production.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  This January I had a small show at the Metropolitan Playhouse called william bell.  It's a one act response to Billy Budd by Melville.  I've been interested in Melville and the paintings of Turner for a while and the themes of man's vulnerability to nature have been on my mind.  I was very proud of william bell and I am writing a companion piece for it called the golden vanity about four men during a hurricane on Fire Island.  I'm very excited about it and curious to see what sort of evening the two plays make.  They seem to touch on ideas of materialism, self-worth and true human connection in the face of crisis--economic, natural and spiritual.

Q:  How old were you when you got into New Dramatists?  12?  Can you talk about them and who they are as a support system?

A:  I was 26, but I felt 12.  I had written two plays and got in.  I was very honored especially since I had just completed an internship there and saw what a great place it was.  However, many of the writers there at the time were older and a little further along in their careers.  I had never even had a production in New York at the time.  I felt very intimidated and I wish I had had the courage to own up to that instead of pretending to know more than I did.  In the end, however, I felt like I grew up at New Dramatists.  I cannot imagine a more appropriate place to learn to be a playwright.  One of the best lessons I learned there is that I can take a lot of responsibility for my process.  ND places a lot of emphasis on the membership defining the ways the organization works.  We were constantly asked to think about what we needed as writers and to articulate that.  I've brought that into every aspect of my work.  I think about that at my desk or at rehearsal.  I've brought it into notes sessions.  I feel like I can enter a development process or a production process and really take care of myself and my play . . . and as a result be a better collaborator.

I also think the way New Dramatists works is the gold standard for non-profit arts organizations.  I was a development intern there before I was a member, and I have brought a lot of what I learned about how ND works to Packawallop.  It's remarkable to me the amount of dedication and love the staff has for the organization and the membership and the alumni.  I know a big challenge for ND fundingwise is to quantify what they do to funders since they don't produce.  And it is an amazing thing that they are able to stay true to the original paradigm of what a non-profit is supposed to do.  They are not a corporation.  They are a service organization, a community.  I find that to be a rarity these days as non-profits are forced to think like for-profits to survive (sadly, we live in a world that doesn't understand what not-for-profit is.  If you can't make money, why bother?).  That feeling of community is something Scott and I strive for at Packawallop.  I'd love to make a living as a writer, but I also make theater for the feeling of personal satisfaction that gives.  Places like New Dramatists remind me that that satisfaction one gets from sharing with a community is just as important.

Q:  Tell me about your theater company (and film company), Packawallop Productions.  Well, actually, I know all about Packawallop but my readers may not.  How did the company come about and what have you done and what are you doing next?

A:  Packawallop was founded in 1995 by a bunch of us former NYU/Tisch folks (I was actually the only current student among the founders . . . everyone else had just graduated).  We've been through a lot of changes structurally and aesthetically since then, but we've always been a company that has been interested in exploring sexual/cultural/gender identity in stylistically elegant and sophisticated productions.  We're very focused on collaboration and community and strive to create a company of writers, directors, actors and designers who share similar values . . . as well as establishing a strong rapport with our audience.  We like to envision every event as an extended cocktail party.  The audience are very much our guests and we like to make them feel welcome (that and I think we just like cocktail parties a lot!)

Since 2002, Scott Ebersold and I have been co-helming the company.  We're sort of a two-headed monster.  I don't know where I end and Scott begins.  We have a core group--Susan Louise O'Connor, Polly Lee, Marc Solomon and Julian Stetkevych--who work with us on the running of the company.

Right now we're gearing up for Marea at HERE, we're submitting The Moment (the film we worked on with you) to festivals, we're running our brand new monthly salon The Pack for our community of artists and lastly we're planning our 2010 Lounge Series of work in progress presentations.

Q:  Isn't Susan Louise O'Connor the bomb?

A:  I worked with Susan for 3 years or so on the silent concerto.  It was an unusual project because it was my very first play (from when I was 20) and Scott and I brought it back mostly for Susan.  It ended up being a big challenge for me as a writer because sometimes the plays you write when you're 20 are hard to revisit 10 years later ... but every time I watched the show (and I think I've seen like 40 performances of it including readings and workshops), I felt immensely honored to have an actor as on the money as Susan in it.  It's interesting to watch her work because it's like seeing someone do embroidery.  She really knows how to piece together these very complex emotional moments.  I also know that when I work with Susan, I need to be very very very on top of my game.  She asks a lot of questions and is very thorough about her moment to moment work.  She's really helped me to understand character arcs and beat work in a new way working with her for all those years.

I'm actually very lucky to have three actors I like to work with a lot involved with Packawallop--Susan, Polly Lee and Julian Stetkevych (They can probably do a great SNL style satire of my work by now).  It's really helpful to have actors to write for.    There's an amazing symbiotic relationship there.  And an amazing level of trust.  These three actors have repeatedly taken crazy leaps with me and have been wonderful companions on the journey to discovering a play.

Q:  Isn't Scott Ebersold amazing?

A:  A couple years ago, when Fred Ebb of Kander and Ebb died, Scott sent me this article from The New York Times about how John Kander was dealing with the death of this longtime collaborator.  I know it sounds morbid talking about my very much alive friend and collaborator this way, but when I read that article, I knew I'd feel exactly as John Kander did if I were to ever lose Scott.

We always joke that what we have is like a marriage, but really that's exactly what it is.  We've been friends and collaborators for 17 years now.  It's the longest relationship I've had with anyone save my family.  Like all long term relationships, it has its ups and downs, but we're in it for the long haul.  He's believed in my work from the very very beginning.  I'm talking like the "18 year old read my emo poetry" beginning.  That kind of sustained and unwavering belief is invaluable.  Thinking about it now, I feel really floored by that.

I think one of the things our longstanding relationship helps us do is be very flexible while working together.  We just can pretty much tell what the other is doing and we can easily blur the lines of playwright and director as a result--he'll suggest a fix for a problematic scene that is pretty much what I've been trying to find or he'll ask me to deal with a sound cue in tech while he's working out a light cue because we're pretty much always on the same page with these things.

We did something unusual for william bell.  We decided to (with the exception of some sound design) to put together the entire production ourselves.  We came up with the idea together and then we pretty much designed the whole show.  I loved that we went to Ikea and bought the set together.   I was very proud of that production.  It was a very pure distillation of our aesthetic . . . and as simple as it was, it looked like a million bucks.

Q:  Tell me a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a person or as a writer.

A:  When I was about 12, my mother took me to the doctor for a checkup.  Puberty was beginning and of course there was much discussion about my changing body.  My mother asked my doctor about how tall I would end up being.  He said I probably wouldn't grow much more.  I had hit my growth spurt already and that was that.  My mother had this incredibly crushed and disappointed look on her face.  I never understood her disappointment because there are no tall people in my family . . . but disappointed she was.  I don't know exactly what my mother was thinking and asking her doesn't help because she's great with selective memory, but she did take me to several other doctors for a 2nd opinion.  Perhaps she just wanted to make sure she did everything she can to ensure I'd be happy and free of problems, but when you're entering puberty and you get the impression you're somehow defective and not good enough just as you are, it really sticks with you.  For better or for worse, this idea of smallness has permeated me entirely.

Anyone who knows my work knows, there is not a capital letter to be found anywhere.  It's probably the only bit of youthful pretension I've held on to all these years, but I've always felt like a lowercase letter in a world of capitals and what I write, what comes out of a true and honest place in me is only made up of lowercase letters.  I want to make beautiful things from that feeling and concept of smallness and I feel like omitting capital letters from the scripts it somehow infuses the work with that idea.  I even named my blog lowercaseletter; it's something I'm very much invested in.

I've since been pushing the concept of smallness by embracing shorter forms.  william bell was the first one act I've ever written and I really liked the format.  I like the economy.  In the past, I was so eager to impress my audience I'd try to wow them with all these concepts and metaphors and literary allusions.  I think my new play and the plays coming after that will be striving towards making one simple gesture.  I'm also not interested in writing a two act play at the moment.  I'm striving for 70-90 minutes with this new one.  Short and sweet.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I recently saw a video of Mary Zimmerman's controversial production of La Sonnambula at the Met.  Zimmerman's concept was to set this opera about young lovers thwarted by the heroine's sleepwalking problem in a rehearsal studio as we were watching an opera company basically rehearsing the opera and seeing how some of the plotlines bled into their "real" lives.  Maybe this says something about why I'm not on Broadway, but this supposedly REVILED production had me in tears.  One thing I respected about it was the it's particular style of storytelling.  There were very mundane props in the production that took on a different meaning when placed alongside the music and the emotions of the characters.  A blackboard became a love letter, on opera score ripped to shreds became a breaking heart, the orchestra pit became an abyss of despair the sleepwalking heroine was about to fall into as she sang about her heartbreak on the edge of a plank hovering above the musicians.  There was always a sense of discovery going on in that production that kept me delighted and engaged.

I really like theater that does extraordinary things in a simple way.  I remember there was a time a few years ago I would see all these plays with working kitchens.  Other than Eduardo Machado's The Cook, which doesn't work without a practical kitchen . . . I didn't understand why all this work went into making a set where there was running water and a working stove.   It makes me feel like the artists involved don't want to engage me, they don't want me to use my imagination to co-create the stage picture with them.  Theater is collaborative in every sense of the word.  In performance the audience HAS to collaborate with the play to make it work.  I'm not interested in a realism that shuts me out of that collaboration.  To me it lacks the magic and poetry that I expect from the theater.  A theatrical experience becomes special when I have put a little bit of myself in it.  The story, the characters, the language become parts of me by the time the houselights come up.

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A:  1.  Write every day.  Even if it's for ten minutes a day.  The real world will crush your creative spirit if you don't make an effort to make writing a part of your every day life.  It's got to be.  2.  Do everything you can to be produced.  Even if you have to do it yourself in your living room.  You cannot learn if your plays work via staged readings.  The most valuable lessons I have learned from my work have been from production experiences.  3.  Don't be alone.  Find other writers or theater artists.  Make a community.  I cannot stress this enough.  Theater is about getting together with other people in a room.  I think theater folk generally love to be together and there is an amazing amount of support out there.  I can't name the number of times little exchanges at parties have led to plays, or casting decisions, or workshops, or collaborations.  I think our most valuable resource in the theater are our colleagues.

Q:  Plugs please:

A:  I have a book of three of my plays out on NoPassport Press.  It's called Alejandro Morales collected plays and you can get it on Amazon or Lulu.com.  It's got expat/inferno, sebastian and an earlier version of marea.  I appear regularly with NoPassport's Hibernating Rattlesnakes at Nuyorican Poets Cafe.  Marea opens December 3 and runs four performances at HERE.  Packawallop's Lounge Series kicks off in January 2010.  More details to come.  Visit my blog at lowercaseletter.wordpress.com and visit Packawallop at www.packawallop.org.

I Interview Playwrights Part 67: Ann Marie Healy

Ann Marie Healy

Hometown:  I grew up in Minneapolis.

Current Town:  I just moved back to New York after grad school. New York--Brooklyn specifically--feels like home these days.

Q:  Tell me please about your show coming up at Lincoln Center.

A:  It's the story of a novelist trying to get her book published but it happens to be set in a futuristic world with all sorts of deception and political intrigue. The protagonist, Macy, ultimately makes a kind of "Faustian bargain" to publish her book and we see the implications of her choice ripple throughout an entire society. Also, just for kicks, there are no men in the play. (Adding a little twist on pregnancy and reproduction...)

Q:  I know you're working with Ken Rus Schmoll again on this. What do you like most about working with him?

A:  It's hard to narrow it down. Ken is a total delight in every sense of the word. He thinks very intuitively and sensitively in the moment. When a question comes up, he takes the time to search for the deepest, richest and most interesting answer possible. His eye for design and an elegant stage picture is also totally inspiring. I could go on and on...Clearly, I'm a big fan.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  I'm working on some pieces that I started at Brown and I'm in the process of finishing some early drafts of commissions. I am also working on a non-fiction book that is set to come out with Random House later in 2010.

Q:  How did you like Brown?

A:  I loved it. I came from New York where I was scrambling to make money and do my work and feeling generally burnt out. Brown was playwriting heaven after that period of my life. Paula Vogel, Bonnie Metzgar and the other people in the program were like orbs of inspiration and energy. I don't think I really slept the first few days I was in class because I had such an adrenaline rush.

Q:  Tell me a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a person or a writer.

A:  Hmmm.....Once, I climbed high up in a tree with an open umbrella, convinced that my sheer powers of belief would enable me to fly. I jumped, came crashing down immediately and hurt myself very badly. I can't remember what age I was when this happened but I suspect that I was a little too old to be doing such things. On some level, this probably says something about the act of writing and my own faith in the artistic process. Perhaps, more importantly, it is solid proof that gravity exists (just in case there were any non-believers out there....)

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I have pretty broad tastes and interests in theater but I almost always respond to tonal dissonance. If something surprises me in its tonal shifts, I am usually hooked.

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A:  There is no one set path for playwriting and everyone makes their way differently. I think the most important thing is to choose collaborators who genuinely inspire you. The rest will take care of itself...


Link for Lincoln Center show:
http://www.lct.org/showMain.htm?id=190

Link to the About Face Production of What Once We Felt later this winter:
http://aboutfacetheatre.com/

I Interview Playwrights Part 66: Christopher Shinn

Christopher Shinn

Hometown: Wethersfield, CT

Current Town: New York, NY

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I'm writing a new play.  Experience has taught me that the more I talk about what I'm writing, the less I write, so I'll have to leave it at that!

Q:  What are your classes like at the New School?

A:  I teach two classes -- a class for first-year writers, and a thesis supervision class for 3rd year, graduating writers.  The third-year class is easier to describe: because the student plays are going into full production, I see my role as a kind of producer-slash-dramaturg, giving the kinds of notes, feedback, and guidance that I got when my first plays were being produced at theatres like Playwrights Horizons and the Royal Court.  I feel like the students should have an experience that mirrors what they'll be going through in the real world -- and that's something very different than the teacher-student dynamic.  I don't completely take off my teacher's hat, but I'm very aggressive in making suggestions and passing judgment on what works or doesn't work in the play.  I also encourage the students to be aggressive with me: if they disagree with a note of mine, tell me why.  I explain that they're free to ignore my notes but not free to fail to engage with me about them -- producers will demand no less.  In short, I don't want them to interact with me as a student, but as an autonomous playwright putting his or her work up on the stage in collaboration with a producer whose opinions may overlap as well as diverge from theirs. 

The first-year class is challenging.  Every year I agonize about it.  In short, I don't want the students to have a little Chris Shinn in their heads while they write, saying, "This monologue is too long" or "Disguise the exposition more!" or "What is the protagonist's objective?" etc.  (I've also found that almost all rules have been broken in great plays, so what's the point of generalizing?)  Instead, I want to open up a process inside the writer that is primarily his or her own.  The rest of their lives will be spent looking at something they've written and trying to figure out, "What is going on in this play? Is it good? How can I make it better?"  The things I do in class are meant to help them answer these questions themselves. 

For example: when students bring in writing exercises, I try to get them to look at their own texts to discover what they are trying to explore and where they go awry -- let the critique come from within the work itself, not from my playwright-superego terrorizing it from without.  The evidence is in the text: what someone says, when someone changes the subject, when another character interrupts, when someone moves from speaking to action, etc.  What do these things tell us?  Is a character changing the subject because she feels frightened of continuing?  Or is the text itself changing the subject because the playwright is frightened of continuing?  Or is it both and if so, what are the implications of that?  The self-critique emerges in the tensions among these possibilities, always hewing closely to the text itself.  I suppose this method owes something to deconstruction, but the aim is for a better reconstruction.  "Look at what the text is doing" is different than "I think the text should do this" -- less arbitrary, less authoritarian, more supportive of the writer's unique subjectivity.  Fostering the student's relationship to their own work in this way hopefully will allow them to eventually overcome the universal temptation to appeal to an external "authority" (real or canonical) in order to feel secure about what their work is communicating and its value.  The text becomes its own authority, something we can always return to in the midst of our pain, doubt, and confusion about our work.  I could boil my method down to this: "Part of you knows what you are trying to represent in your play and part of you doesn't, and the evidence for this is in the text itself.  The only way to better understand your text and find a more successful representation is by referring again and again to it, rather than by applying external concepts and ideas to it."  Of course we all have these ideas and concepts -- there is no pure text existing outside of them -- but I remain constantly amazed by what opens up when the text itself is examined, in as far as this is possible, on its own terms and in relation to itself.  As intellectual as this might sound, it's actually about the primitive emotional impulses that guide us in our writing, a further opening up to that part of ourselves and the traces it leaves on the page.  Boiled down to its essence: "Dreaming while awake."

There's a lot besides that that we do in class, but I have to maintain a little mystery for the benefit of current and future students!

Q:  Many of your plays have been done in London before being done in the US. Are there big differences between American and English theater? What do you like most about opening in London?

A:   It's cheaper to produce plays in London, so theatre tickets don't cost as much -- that means younger and happier audiences.  Also, more government funding means theatres can take more risks in their programming -- especially in producing writers in their 20s.  The lack of a subscription culture also makes for more enthusiastic audiences, since they deliberately picked your play to go see.  Also, the short preview period, though it has its anxiety-provoking aspects, also gives tremendous excitement and momentum to a new play -- a handful of previews and the critics are there, as opposed to the 3 or 4 week system we have here, which gives too much power to audiences in shaping the final product.  So all these are big differences.  That said, at the end of the day, I've had extraordinary experiences with productions and audiences both in the US and in the UK.  The power of doing creative work is still strong enough -- for the most part -- to transcend some of the unfortunate economic realities and limitations of our theatre system here. 

Q:  Tell me, if you will, a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person. 

A:  When I was a kid, my mom would play tennis at a tennis center in my town.  The tennis center had a small daycare center where the kids would go while their moms played tennis and, afterward, sat and had coffee together.  One day a black boy around my age -- four or five -- was in the daycare.  I had literally never seen a black person before (except on TV) and I was very curious about him.  He had a huge afro and I couldn't stop staring at it, it was so strange and exotic to me, fascinating.  I thought about asking the boy if I could touch it, but I was too scared to do this -- I felt it was taboo.  I thought I might just reach out and brush my hand against his afro so quickly that he wouldn't notice.  So I did -- and he noticed.  Immediately he recoiled -- scowled and refused to play with me anymore.  I felt tremendous shame and confusion since I had felt only a positive feeling of curiosity and longing for him.  Why did he reject me?  When I later told my mother about what had happened, she tried to explain to me why it was rude to reach out and touch someone's hair without their permission.  I remember having a sad and strange feeling that there were things in the world that not only I didn't know about, but that I couldn't know about -- couldn't ever understand, couldn't ever "touch."  For whatever reason this idea to me was very traumatic, and I think writing became a way not only of representing my own experiences, but also attempting to represent the experiences of others outside of myself.  I still think I am largely writing about otherness and difference -- especially the otherness within oneself (what we don't consciously know about ourselves) and the otherness of the world and its traumatizing refusal to support our narcissism. 

Q:  What is the purpose of theater? 

A:  The purpose of theatre is to create a space inside the audience member in which they can safely submit to another's subjectivity and, in that process of submission, grapple with and enlarge their understanding of themselves and others in an active way. 

Q:  What kind of theater excites you? 

A:  I like plays that try to represent the deepest layers of human experience.  Any genre can do that -- or fail to!

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out? 

A:  Work hard! 

Q:  Any plugs? 

A:  There are so many great writers out there that the list would be too long, so let me limit plugs to plays I've seen in production that I'd encourage people to seek out if they happened to miss them in performance.  Keith Bunin's The Busy World Is Hushed, Jessica Goldberg's Get What You Need, Bekah Brunstetter's Oohrah!, AR Gurney's Indian Blood, Jez Butterworth's The Night Heron, John Belluso's "The Rules of Charity," and Itamar Moses's "The Four of Us" are all extraordinary plays.  This list could be longer, but I have to stop somewhere! 

More on Chris:

http://www.christophershinn.com

I Interview Playwrights Part 65: Sam Forman

Sam Forman

Hometown: Brookline, Massachusetts

Current Town: New York City

Q:  Tell me about your musical F#@KING UP EVERYTHING coming up in the NYMF.

A:  The show's composer / lyricist, Eric Davis (who has been in a bunch of rock bands in the city for many years) had written a first draft of the book for the show as well -- but since Eric comes from a rock background and not so much a theatre background, he wanted a playwright to come onboard with the project and help him restructure the story. I got set up with Eric by our mutual friend -- the lovely and talented director Evan Cabnet -- and also the good folks over at Ars Nova -- and now we've been working together on the show for the last year and we're excited for people to see what we've come up with. It's a hard rocking, heartfelt comedy about young people in Wiliamsburg Brooklyn falling in and out of love with each other. We were shooting for a tone kind of like Say Anything and Pretty In Pink...but it's set in contemporary times and it's got a catchy indie-rock score. Like in most of my plays, this one features a neurotic / self deprecating Jewish protagonist, a gorgeous and amazing girl who he thinks is totally out of his league and a narcissistic, classically handsome Waspy male friend who deliberately attempts to destroy the main character's life...but this one has a much more upbeat conclusion than some of the my other stuff.

Q:  You wrote the book for this but you often write lyrics as well. How is writing a straight play different than writing the book or the songs to a musical? Is it a completely different thing?

A:  I think it really does feel different, yeah. The book for a musical actually has a lot more in common with writing a screenplay or a tv script than it does with writing a straight play. With straight plays -- particularly when I'm writing the first draft -- I feel like I have much more freedom to take the story in whatever direction I choose. My scenes are longer, there are more tangents, I don't really have to adhere to any kind of outline -- the whole thing just feels generally more indulgent and looser structurally. When I'm hired to write a book for a musical I think of myself more as a technician who is basically trying to quickly get from Point A to Point B in as truthful and funny a way as I possibly can. Book writing so far in my experience has mostly been about structure: Making sure to get to the next song every few pages, writing some laugh lines and getting in all the exposition and background stuff that the composer has left out. I think writing a straight play can be much more personal and much more about expressing your own thoughts and feelings about the world we live in. But they're both rewarding in different ways. Writing song lyrics (at least the kinds of lyrics that I usually write -- which are rhyming and often have to scan perfectly to instrumental music that has already been written by the composer) is a whole other thing as well. It can often take me twelve hours to write the lyrics for a three minute song...but once I get to the end, I don't usually go back and change much. I might make a couple little tweaks and change a word here and there...but usually the song that ends up in the show is pretty similar to the first draft -- because with lyrics, you're basically doing twenty drafts each time you sit down to write a song. I'll usually use up ten pages of a legal pad crossing out lines before I come up with the right one.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  I wrote the lyrics for a show called Season Preview that I've been developing with Alex Timbers, Sean Cunningham and Eli Bolin -- it's about an insane, theatre loving, Finnish billionaire who decides to buy every Broadway theatre and produce every show as well. We get to see little snippets from all his bizarre ideas (Blinded By Love: The Tragedy of Gay Oedipus, The Who's Miracle Worker, Hello Dalai!, Hindenberg: The Musical, etc) We're doing a reading on October 16th at 3pm at Ars Nova. I'm also writing the lyrics for a musical adaptation of Rob Ackerman's terrific play Volleygirls, which is about a high school girl's volleyball team in Ohio.

Q:  You studied theater at Northwestern for undergrad. How was that? Who else was there while you were there?

A:  I really loved Northwestern -- maybe not the actual classes so much, although some of them were totally interesting -- but the general theatre culture there is very strong and it seems to attract some very talented, unique people. I guess we just had a really good time is what I'm trying to say. And I still work often with a bunch of actors, writers and directors that I met there -- Austin Lysy, Armando Riesco, Billy Eichner, Eli Bolin and Jamie Salka to name a few -- and I think we share a shorthand from having grown up together that makes the process of creating theatre so much easier. When I send one of my plays to Austin Lysy for example -- he just knows exactly how it should sound...and when he does a reading, it's exactly how I meant it to be. You can only really find that kind of connection I think with someone you've known for a long time.

Q:  You and Beau Willimon cowrote a pilot which you sold to AMC a few years back. Can you talk about how that came about and developed and what that process was like?

A:  I got the meeting with AMC through my agent Chris Till (who is now also Beau's agent) It was before they had done Mad Men, actually it was before they had done any original programming at all. And they told me over lunch that they wanted to develop a "period spy drama" --- so I contacted Beau, because he was the only person I knew at the time who I was sure would definitely have an idea for a period spy drama. And he came up with the basic premise of our pilot, HICKORY HILL, which is about a black factory worker in the North during the Civil War who is sent down to South Carolina to pose as a slave (and butler to the "Karl Rove of the Confederacy") and become a spy for the Union Army. We sold the premise to AMC and worked on the script for a year with the development people there and ultimately they decided not to shoot the pilot (mostly because they realized it was just too expensive)...but we got paid well for our time, we got in the WGA and it opened a lot of doors for both of us.

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A:  I think the most important thing is just finding a way to hear your stuff out loud in front of some kind of audience -- even if it's just about getting your friends together and reading the play around a
table. Apply to a writers group or start your own. I've been in Youngblood at the Ensemble Studio Theatre and Play Group at Ars Nova and many of the people I met there have become my best friends and most valued colleagues over the years. Encourage each other and find a community of people that inspire you. Even if you're doing readings in your living room -- just keep creating stuff -- because it doesn't ultimately matter where you do it. You just have to keep doing it.

Q:  What kind of theatre excites you?

I'm a big cheerleader for my friends and I like to talk about their work and encourage people to seek it out: Annie Baker's new play Circle Mirror Transformation is fantastic...she also wrote one that I think is incredibly good called Nocturama and it's very confusing to me why it hasn't been produced yet. There was a reading of it a while ago at Playwrights Horizons that was one of the best things I've seen in years -- and this was just a reading. I just read Beau Willimon's new play Spirit Control the other day and I thought it was really excellent and totally different from anything I had read of his in the past. Anna Kerrigan's new play Paradigm From California is really superb, chilling and stayed with me for weeks after reading it. I think Amy Herzog and Carly Mensch are also going to be putting up smart, funny, moving plays for the next fifty years or so. Also Liz Meriwether's play Oliver is wonderful and I think it's being up this spring at this great company StageFarm. Some of the slightly older folks who I was inspired by when I first moved here -- Adam Rapp, Christopher Shinn, Lucy Thurber, Melissa James Gibson, Stephen Belber, Julia Jordan, Adam Guettel and Jason Robert Brown -- are still writing terrific plays and musicals and I'm excited to see what they've got coming up this season. Also that Adam Szymkowicz fella is pretty great too.

I Interview Playwrights Part 64: Erin Courtney

Photo by Peter Bellamy   (Check out his upcoming book of photographs of playwrights!)

Erin Courtney

Hometown: Hermosa Beach, California

Current Town: Brooklyn, NY

Q: Tell me about what you're presenting at the Prelude festival.

A: I am presenting a reading of a new play called A MAP OF VIRTUE. Ken Rus Schmoll is directing. A Map of Virtue is a symmetrical play in which a bird statue guides us through a story of coincidence, tragedy and friendship. Part interview, part comedy, part strange middle of the night horror, a group of friends encounter evil and dissect their own responses to it. We have a great cast - Maria Striar, Matthew Dellapina, Birgit Huppoch, Matt Maher, Benton Greene, Matt Korahais and Normandy Sherwood.

Q: What else are you working on?

A: I will have a ten minute play in the Fall at the Flea Theater. The collection of short plays is called THE GREAT RECESSION. My piece is called "severed" and I am a big fan of all the other writers in the project - Thomas Bradshaw, Sheila Callaghan. Will Eno, Itamar Moses and Adam Rapp.

Ken Rus Schmoll and I are looking for a producer or a space to do a run of Black Cat Lost, which is a sort of an "entertainment" about mourning.

Q: Like me, you're married to another playwright. (The wonderful Scott Adkins) Would you suggest playwrights marry playwrights?

A: All playwrights should marry playwrights, but if you can't find a suitable playwright to marry then you should marry a very patient, generous and creative soul who appreciates your need to compulsively go see theater and write at odd hours and spend many hours at rehearsals.

Q: Can you tell me about teaching at Brooklyn College?

A: Teaching at Brooklyn College is something I am extremely grateful for. The genius of Mac Wellman continues to inspire me every day. He is a great mentor as a teacher and a playwright. Also, Mac chooses amazing grad students who are incredibly smart and courageous in their quest for finding new ways to make theater. So, it's a great job because I am continually learning and I never, ever take for granted that there is only way one to think about and make theater. It is an astounding community of artists.

Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A: Write, Dream, Write down your dream when you wake up, go see great and bad and good theater, be nice to other playwrights and actors and directors, listen to good ideas, let yourself fall in love with your own plays, support your friends.

Link to Prelude: www.prelude.nyc.org

I Interview Playwrights Part 63: Gary Winter

(It's the photo he gave me)

Gary Winter

Hometown: Sheepshead Bay NY (Home Town of Vince Lombardi)

Current Town: Clinton Hill, NY

Q: What are you working on now?

A: My aunt was an aerospace engineer through the Mid-1950’s through the early 90’s, so this piece has started out to be about a woman working in the aerospace industry (in L.A.) in the 50’s, but we’ll see what it turns out to be. When you read about the early days of rocket science it’s kind of incredible to find out how seat-of-the-pants the experimentation was. Like, in order to test fuel mixtures these guys would literally go out to the desert, light a rocket’s fuse then dive behind sandbags. I don’t think the play is going to be about that, but the research is fascinating.

Q: Can you talk about the Pataphysics workshops? I've done three: with Paula Vogel, Lee Breuer and Chuck Mee and I learned a ton each time. Can you talk about what they are and who is up next?

A: Anne Washburn founded Pataphysics in 2001 and the Flea has hosted and supported the program, which is run at cost. The goal is to give theater artists an opportunity to sit down with master playwrights whom they ordinarily wouldn’t have access to. I’d say the main thing for me has been to understand the intellectual groundwork of playwrights whose work I had known (like Mac Wellman), or was just getting to know (like Jeff Jones or Erik Ehn). So understanding their ideas, literary and philosophical influences, and the rigor and curiosity with which they approach playwriting has been an eye-opening, expansive and joyful education. It also helps to hear how people talk about their work, and realize that’s something we need to get good at. I suck at it but that’s no excuse.

Jeff Jones teaches a workshop about “building assemblies” at the end of November.

Q: Can you describe the Erich Ehn Pataphysics retreat you were just on?

A: It’s a silent playwriting retreat in the Catskills. One thing about being silent for three straight days is that your mind and body take on a whole new rhythm; that is, you have the time and space to sustain the writing by finding a steady rhythm, which of course is difficult to do in our day-to-day lives. Because I remained focused inwardly without having to think about social niceties or anything like that, I was surprised how much stamina I had. Erik meets with us as a group about 3 times a day and does physical as well as writing exercises, and then talks about what we might process for the next writing period.

Q: For years you were the Lit Mgr at the Flea. How was that? What did you learn from that experience?

A: Lit Manager at the Flea: A fabulous ten years. When I interned at the Flea I was just completing NYU, and the Artistic Director, Jim Simpson, said he wanted a playwright as Lit Manager (a volunteer position). Naturally I was terrified but excited to be part of a really cool theater. Also I didn’t have a theater background, so I was really keen to learn the nuts and bolts of how theater is made. I kind of love process, and being able to sit in on rehearsals and production and design meetings has been invaluable. I’ve met people who have become colleagues and friends-not to mention getting to know an army of talented actors who’ve come through the Flea.

Once you’re in the mix of things-getting to know writers and their work-I think the best thing you can do is be in a position to put that person on the theater’s radar. (and I’m only referring to my experiences at the Flea; I’m sure lit manager’s jobs and influence vary widely). I’d be nuts to think the Flea should produce every play I’m in love with, and that’s the way it should be. But you can call attention to writers, and at least by providing access (ie-readings) you might be able to get other theaters interested in the writer. Of course it’s exciting when all the pieces fall into place. When Joe Goodrich sent me SMOKE and MIRRORS, I loved the play, we did a reading and the Flea produced it. Score! At the same time I didn’t understand Alice Tuan’s AJAX, but Jim did and it became one of our most successful shows. That was sort of a humbling experience, and I realized I will be dead wrong at times, and I won’t always “get” a play by reading it. Also talking to the writer about his/her work is often necessary, particularly if you feel there’s something drawing you in, but you’re still not clear about the writer’s intentions. I had a few such conversations with Tom Bradshaw a few years ago because I didn’t understand why he started one narrative thread and seemed to drop it midway through. His answers were really concise and it’s helped me appreciate what he’s up to ever since.

Q: Tell me a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a person or as a writer.

A: My uncle was a fishing boat captain, so we went fishing a ton and I spent a lot of time staring at the horizon, daydreaming, and what else is writing but daydreaming?

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: I love stumbling upon plays like you might a new and strange kind of animal. Then I’m like, oh wow, I didn’t know you could do this in theater. In recent years that’s happened with TR Warszawa’s KRUM (at BAM). It was 2:45 of talk and un-flashy but fabulous staging, totally engaging. Irene Fornes MUD (the production she directed at Intar in the mid-90’s) was also like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I didn’t really understand it, but fortunately Irene was teaching at NYU at the time, so the class had a good discussion with her about the play. One thing she said, which I’ll never forget, is that when people tell her they didn’t understand MUD but they had a powerful experience, she responds that it is this “experience” that’s important.

Other performances were Mac Wellman’s FNU LNU at SOHO Rep (I’m still singing the song from that show: “Why the Q in Q-tip”), Susan-Lori Parks’ AMERICAN PLAY and VENUS (The Public), and Len Jenkin’s DARK RIDE (SOHO Rep). I think it’s as much about where I am in life, as anything else that defines what I’ve responded to. I would also add that I admire plays that find an elegant image or gesture that ripples with meaning, such as Ionesco’s RHINOCEROS or Frish’s FIREBUGS, both about fascism of course. I thought Susan-Lori’s AMERICAN PLAY did that wonderfully.

Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A: No secret: Have a fucked up childhood and call me in the morning.

Q: Any plugs?

A: It would be a conflict of interest to plug my play COOLER at the Chocolate Factory in April, or Julia Jarcho’s (13P #9) play AMERICAN TREASURE at the Paradise Theater in November, so I’ll recuse myself from plugging them. But I would like to plug Heidi Schreck’s CREATURE in October and Emily Devoti’s MILK next spring.

I Interview Playwrights Part 62: J. Holtham

J. Holtham

Hometown: Leonia, NJ*

Current Town: New York, NY

Q: Tell me about the play you're having read at EST.

A: Household Name is a big, old-fashioned comedy. For a long while now, I’ve been fascinated by the work of Philip Barry (The Philadelphia Story, and especially Holiday) and I wanted to write a comedy like that. Lots of characters, something about class friction and manners, but with a modern sheen to it. Around the same time, I became similarly fascinated with Martha Stewart. I know, I know. But it’s not like a “Martha Stewart” play. It’s really about her daughter and what it’s like to have a mother who has re-invented herself. I thought it was interesting that Martha Stewart and Hillary Clinton are neighbors in Westchester County and somehow it just came to me. I finished a two-act draft of it last year, but it was missing something. So this version will be three-acts, with a new love interest. And more jokes and slapstick.

Q:  This is a gigantic reading series. Can you tell me about it and how it came about?

A:  Octoberfest is actually one of my favorite events of the theatrical year. It’s been a staple of EST’s season for more than 20 years (I believe). Basically, for one month, the theatre throws open its doors and lets the membership run roughshod over the staff. There are nearly 100 projects, on two stages for three or four weeks, all member-generated and not curated at all, just scheduled. If you’re a member of EST and get your form in on time, you’ve got a slot, two performances for whatever you want to do. I’ve always used it as a challenge, a deadline to hit. Most of my plays have been finished specifically for an Octoberfest reading.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  I’m still in the midst of a big writing jag. I’ve written about it a bit at my blog, http://jholtham.blogspot.com, though the summer slipped away from me. I’m trying to write four new plays this year. I’ve finished two and really want to finish two more by the end of the year. The next play in the hopper, which I’ve started, but gotten stuck on, is called Anarchists: A Comedy. It’s about a widowed suburban woman who invites a bunch of radicals into her home ahead of a G20-type meeting. Then hilarity ensues. I’m determined to finish it this November, once the Octoberfest dust settles.

Q:  You've been affiliated with EST for a while. Can you talk about how they have supported you (or you them)?

A:  EST has been my artistic home basically as long as I’ve been in New York. It was the first place I worked, the first place that said to me, “We like you, we like your work, here are the keys, do what you want.” They took chances on me, coming to New York from a less than first tier college (SUNY New Paltz in the house! Go Hawks!), and treated me like a full-fledged artist. Youngblood, their emerging playwrights program, was the first place I was in the company of other writers and felt like I belonged. Most of everything I’ve learned about professional theatre, good or bad, I learned there.
They also took a chance on me, even though I was a playwright, as an administrator. Those jobs usually go to directors, but working with the EST/Sloan Project for five years and running Youngblood for two years gave me insights into the development process and the inner workings of a theatre that more people, and especially more playwrights, should get. While it was sometimes frustrating, regularly exhausting and more than occasionally utterly insane, it was never boring and almost always fun.

Q:  Are you still working in the lit office at NY Stage and Film? What's that like?

A:  I worked for New York Stage and Film for two great summers on the Vassar campus. If EST was the crucible where I was molded as a young theatre professional, SAF was where they dunk you in the cold water and you toughen up or shatter. The work was incredibly intense in a short period of time (the whole season there is about eight weeks) and just plain staggering. But the most amazing things happened there. It slides under the radar, I think, overshadowed by places like the O’Neill as a developmental program and Williamstown as a producing theatre, but it does both things exceptionally well. I watched plays come in, get taken apart and then put back together. The basic philosophy of SAF is so much about the needs of the project that they really put the artists in the driver’s seat and allow them all kinds of latitude. One project we brought up when I was there was a big musical. The creators got together a few days before the cast came up and realized they needed to take the story in a different direction. Now, we’d spent a month casting this thing, brought all of these high-wattage Broadway people up to Poughkeepsie, set up this whole workshop that was being sold to the public as a big deal, but when the creators said we need a couple of days, we sent everyone away, let the writers hole up in a studio with a piano and do what they needed to do. There aren’t a lot of places that take those kind of chance.

Q:  Tell me a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a person or as a writer.

A:  When I think about my childhood and how I got started on the path of writing, I think about this old Buck Rogers comic book I had. It came out around the time of the old series with Gil Gerard and Erin Gray (one of my first crushes, natch). One Saturday, I was left to my own devices in my dad’s apartment, with only the comic book to amuse me. I’d read it a million times and loved it, but I wanted more from it. So I took my safety scissors and cut out the pictures I liked from the comic book (the fanboy inside of me dies a little bit at the desecration). My dad had this big old Persian rug, and I arranged the pictures on the design on the rug, in a new order, telling a different story. I like to think that way about writing. We all know the old saw: there are only seven stories in the world. We’re all taking bits and pieces of things we love and re-arranging them in some new fashion.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I’m a structure junkie. Really, I’m a sucker for it. You give me a gun in the first act and then some clever way for it go off in the third and I’m happy. It doesn’t all need to wrap up in a tight little bow, but if the ending feels inevitable and shocking at the same time, that’s the holy grail for me. I’m also a sucker for a good joke, well told. I like “actors” plays: a good speech or two, some physical comedy, a well-earned “aw” moment, a good fight, and a lot of drinking. That’s the recipe for a good play, if you ask me.

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A:  Two things:
1) Write, a lot, while you still have the energy. Don’t worry about making it perfect. Get it down, get it done and, most importantly, get it up. Find like-minded souls and do shows, productions of first drafts, if you can.
2) Do things other than theatre. It’s really easy, especially now that there are so many undergrad and grad training programs, to do nothing but theatre for most of your adult life. Resist that temptation. Take dull day jobs. Cultivate hobbies and weird friends. Collect stories from outside of our little world. And then bring those stories to the stage. We need more real life in our make-believe.

Q:  Link please for your reading at EST:

A:   http://www.ensemblestudiotheatre.org/schedule_by_date.html
PS- I actually forgot! I’m doing a new one-act play as part of Octoberfest After Dark, a mini-festival within the festival put together by Lynn Rosen. It’ll be boozy and fun!

Any other plugs?
Check out my blog! I like it when people read and comment!
http://jholtham.blogspot.com

*Technically, I was born in Brooklyn. I moved to Leonia when I was ten, and my parents have long since moved out, but it still feels like my hometown.

J. on playscripts.  http://www.playscripts.com/author.php3?authorid=76

I Interview Playwrights Part 61: Caridad Svich

photo credit: Ann Marie Poyo

Caridad Svich

Hometown:  Philadelphia, PA

Current Towns:  New York City and Los Angeles

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  new play commission from NYU's Graduate Acting Program and Mark Wing-Davey (Chair) entitled RIFT. The piece goes up Dec 2-6, 2009 at Tisch Shubert Theatre directed by Seret Scott. Performances are open to the public and tix will be sold on smarttix.com RIFT is an epic story about lives torn by war and its aftermath, by abuse and damage, profit and trade, and the intimate search for beauty and grace. Gender, border, and culturally crossed, RIFT explores the fate of the human animal in a dislocated world and asks the question: how can a body that is torn find a way to heal itself and transform, and thus resist the tyranny of power? It's a violent, erotic, dream-like fable.


Q:  Can you tell me a little about No Passport?

A:  NoPassport is a Pan-American theatre/performance/media alliance and press, which I founded in 2003. The alliance is devoted to action, advocacy and change toward the fostering of cross-cultural diversity and difference in the arts with an emphasis on the embrace of the hemispheric spirit in US Latina/o and Latin-American theatre-making. NoPassport exists a virtual and live forum for the exchange of work and dreams, a live network between theatres and the academy, and a mobile band of playwrights, directors, actors, producers and musicians. The mentoring of younger artists is also a key component of NOPE's (as we playfully call ourselves) mission. NoPassport Press is a division of NoPassport that aims to bring new, challenging playscripts, translations, essays and theatre criticism to the field. Among the works we've published so far: collections from John Jesurun, Amparo Garcia-Crow, Anne Garcia-Romero, Matthew Maguire, Oliver Mayer, Alejandro Morales, single edition text of Antigone Project by Lynn Nottage, Karen Hartman, Tanya Barfield, Chiori Miyagawa and myself. The texts are published print-on-demand and are available from amazon.com and the like. For queries: NoPassportPress@aol.com

Q:  Can you tell me about your translating work? What sort of challenges are inherent in translating someone else's work?

A:  I've translated nearly all of Federico Garcia Lorca's plays and some of his poems as well as works by Julio Cortazar, Calderon de la Barca, Lope de Vega, Maria Zayas Sotomayor and contemporary plays from Mexico, Cuba, and Spain. I've also adapted for US English a Serbian play entitled Huddersfield. Translation is a parallel career and a huge part of my creative life. There are many, many challenges to the art and craft of translation, chief among them the kind of intense cross-cultural work involved linguistically and theatrically. Translations are also temporal acts. You translate it for the audience of today, but who knows how the audience of 50 years from now will respond? It's always a gamble and each decision about word choice is fraught with myriad possibilities. Ultimately you are as respectful and as in the moment with the work as you can be, but it's really a neverending process, if you let it be!


Q:  You also are a frequent editor of books and journals. How did you get drawn to this type of work?

A:  I've edited Divine Fire: Eight Contemporary Plays Inspired by the Greeks (BackStage Books) and Trans-Global Readings: Crossing Theatrical Boundaries (Manchester University Press). I've co-edited Out of the Fringe: Contemporary Latina/o Theatre and Performance (TCG), Theatre in Crisis? (Manchester University Press), Conducting a Life: Reflections on the Theatre of Maria Irene Fornes (Smith & Kraus), and Popular Forms for a Radical Theatre (special issue of Contemporary Theatre Review, Routledge, UK). I'm contributing editor of the international journal TheatreForum, associate editor of Contemporary Theatre Review, and founding editor of NoPassport Press. Right now I'm in midst of editing the collection Out of Silence for Manchester University Press, which should be in print late 2010, if all goes well. I was drawn to this type of work because it allows me to sustain a different kind of creative conversation with scholars and practitioners; it also allows me to advocate for the works of emerging scholars and the publication of not as well represented voices for theatre and performance in a very pro-active way. I love words in print and I love critical exchange, and my work as editor really lets me move between the arts and the academy in a manner that is spiritually rewarding. It also is the kind of work that really makes me focus on the layout of text, how pages are marked and makes me think about language and form in a way that I find vital and challenging.


Q:  Can you tell me a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person?

A:  Hmmm...well, my mom has saved all the tracings I used to do as a child. I loved books and stories so much that I'd actually the illustrations (of children's books) onto paper and then invent my new stories to these illustrations and write them down! Even when I was five years old, I was re-making texts!

Q:  Many of your plays have songs in them. Chuck Mee said, and I hope I'm getting it right, that if you don't have a song in the first half hour of a play, you can't have a songs in that play. In other words you should let the audience know early on that there will be music in the play or otherwise it will be jarring. I recently ignored this when writing a play, perhaps to my own detriment. Do you have any rules self-imposed or otherwise about how you put songs into your plays?

A:  I love songs, and how they can function in a text - as commentary, window into an emotional moment, setting a scene, etc. I love the human voice lifted in time and space. When I write I always leave the possibility of song open in the work. If a song appears, I let it. If it doesn't, then I know it's going to be the kind of play and play-world that doesn't allow for that kind of 'lift.' Sometimes I start with song forms in mind when I write. Alchemy of Desire/Dead-Man's Blues began as a play where I wanted to work with the blues form. Fugitive Pieces and Thrush both began with my interest in folk songs and alt-country. 12 Ophelias began in part with my love of bluegrass and the high lonesome sound. Iphigenia...a rave fable began with my interest in techno, trance and house music and sampling. Lulu Ascending deals in part with cabaret and torch song genre. Prodigal Kiss was written with the Cuban bolero a and guaguanco in mind. The Booth Variations was written in part to work with the symphonic form. There are so many ways to work with songs in the theatre, esp in plays with songs. In The House of the Spirits, I knew pretty early on that songs connected to ceremony would be part of the play (wedding, harvest time) but also lullabies the women in the play sing to their children. In terms of rules, I think letting the audience know early on that there will be live music or at very least live vocalization is important, even if it's through the sound-scape of the play. But I've sometimes broken the earlier is better rule, and decided to surprise the audience with a song late in the play. Ultimately I think what's important is the songs feel organic to the overall vocabulary of the play you're making!

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Work that surprises me, that re-awakens me to form and/or content, that challenges expectations of all kinds. My taste is pretty eclectic and egalitarian. I don't privilege uptown over downtown or vice versa. I hate categories. For me, witnessing a piece of theatre/live performance is about deep human engagement - whether it be intellectual, emotional, spiritual or all three. I'm always looking for work that will make me see things differently.

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out.

A:  Write, write, and write, and then rewrite, and rewrite. Plays are strange beasts. Writing for the theatre is a humbling profession. The work is always being tested and judged. Every night. Don't settle. Stay true to your vision. But also listen, deeply, to the world around you and to what the people you trust have to say. Be open to the beauty of an invitation to make work.

Q:  Any plugs?

A:  The House of the Spirits, based on the novel by Isabel Allende, continues at Main Street Theater in Houston, Texas until October 11, 2009 (www.mainstreettheater.com); it also continues in open run repertory in its Spanish-language version at Repertorio Espanol/Spanish Repertory in New York City under Jose Zayas' direction through the 2009-2010 season (www.repertorio.org). 12 Ophelias (a play with broken songs) continues at Trap Door Theatre in Chicago, Illinois until October 31st, 2009(www.trapdoortheatre.com). My new play Rift runs December 2-9, 2009 at Tisch School of the Arts Grad Acting, 5th Floor. (www.smarttix.com) The next NoPassport theatre conference is February 26-27, 2010 at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and related venues. Save the dates! In print: "American Playwrights on Language and War in Iraq: A NoPassport (theatre alliance) Virtual Roundtable" with David Adjmi, Christine Evans, Charlotte Meehan, Lisa Schlesinger, Christopher Shinn, and Naomi Wallace, Moderated by Caridad Svich in Theater Vol. 39, No. 3, published by Yale School of Drama/Yale Repertory Theatre.

I Interview Playwrights Part 60: Samuel Brett Williams

Samuel Brett Williams

Hometown:
I was born and raised in Hot Springs, Arkansas. At eighteen, I moved to Arkadelphia, Arkansas, and lived there until I moved to the New York City area just over four years ago at the age of twenty-three.

Current Location:
Hoboken, New Jersey

Q: Tell me about this reading you have coming up at Ars Nova. What's the play about?

A: I’ve wanted to write about corporations and fraternities for a while, but I couldn't find a story to support either topic. Then, I was in Italy last summer -- literally on the steps of the Coliseum, wishing it was run more like a corporate enterprise. No joke, I was in a long line with my uncle (who is from Sicily) and I was thinking a corporation would make the process a little more efficient. They would have specific windows for tours and specific windows for walk-throughs. They would have some process that moved us along a little faster -- I mean, Disney World kind of sucks, but they do keep the lines moving! Anyhow, long story long, once I could take the corporate side -- argue for and against big business -- then I knew I could start. I didn't want the play to be a one dimensional diatribe against Wall Street -- we have blogs for that. That's part of the reason I set it in a Frat House. I see those places as kind of breeding grounds for the big swinging dicks, or vaginas, on Wall Street. I read somewhere that every CEO from the financial district who was fired during the whole meltdown was a former Frat Boy. Also, there is something exciting and disgusting about fraternities -- two prerequisites I always need to write!

Q: Isn't Ars Nova great!?

A: Right out of grad school I went to the O'Neill with my play THE WOODPECKER. That was the first time I felt the theatre community saying, "Welcome." Emily Shooltz was my dramaturg there and when I saw the application for Play Group online, I knew I wanted to be involved. I have been overwhelmed with how nurturing and supportive they have been. They in a sense have welcomed me into New York theatre.

Q: Can you talk a little about your Playwright in Residence status in New Jersey last year?

A: The National New Play Network is amazing. Every young playwright should find a way to get involved. In 2007-2008 they gave me a residency at Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey -- that coupled with some other money from writing allowed me to live off of theatre for a year or two, which was not something I thought I was going to be able to do right out of grad school. The NNPN also sent me to the Kennedy Center to workshop my play THE REVIVAL (which Project Y will produce in the city this summer, hopefully at 59e59). And, I'm currently just finishing a commission they gave me to adapt the New Testament book of Revelation into a play.

Q: Can you talk a little about the Helen Merrill Award you won last year?

A: I was in rehearsals for THE WOODPECKER -- more specifically I was at a bar across the street from Cherry Lane -- when I received a call from a woman, who began explaining the Helen Merrill Award to me. I thought she was asking for money, so I almost hung up, but then she got to the point where I was getting twenty thousand dollars. I will never receive a call like that again. I cried. I mean, three years earlier I was working in a bookstore in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. I could only work thirty-nine and a half hours a week, because they didn't want to give me benefits. I bet I didn't make twenty grand that entire year. I went to the Algonquin where Chris Durang talked about my writing and gave me an award. I guarantee I will never have a happier moment in my life.

Q: You write a lot about where you grew up. I'm someone who can never really write about a place. Places just don't stick with me in the way they stick with some people. Can you describe what it is about that place that keeps you writing about it?

A: I write a lot about where I'm from, because I'm still trying to figure a lot of things out. I went to a Methodist Church, I was enrolled in a Southern Baptist school from kindergarten to my senior year, then I went to a Southern Baptist University for undergrad. My family is VERY religious. I remember going Soul Saving with my friends after basketball practice just because it was the thing to do at the time. I wouldn't trade my childhood for anything -- it made me who I am -- but, I am still trying to understand it, and that certainly comes out in my writing.

Q: Tell me a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a person or as a writer.

A: When I was in junior high I first started writing, really writing, and it confused me. I didn't know where the words were coming from or why I was doing it. The work wasn't any good, but it was honest and violent and pretty disturbing for a twelve year old. I would hide my notebooks under my bed, like they were pornography, because I was scared I was going to hell for what I was doing.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: I love pointed irreverence, like McDonagh or Mamet.

I love the experience of Fornes.

And my king of kings is Kushner. I love, absolutely love, to experience the power of his mind. Sometimes I just pick up his plays and sit inside them, if that makes any sense.

Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A: I don't buy into the whole magical aspect of writing. Like anything truly rewarding, it's hard work. You can not control whether other people will like what you have written or not. You can only control the words (in LA you can't even control that). Do it every day, and do it well -- respect the integrity of the story, and do not write just to get produced. Admit that if you don't know what your play is about, you might not have anything to say.

Q: Details about your reading with Ars Nova, please:

October 5 at 7pm. The brilliant Sam Gold will be directing. Come and have a beer with us!

I Interview Playwrights Part 59: Trista Baldwin

Trista Baldwin

Hometown: Seattle, WA & Brooklyn, NY

Current Town: Minneapolis, MN

Q:  Tell me about your play DOE 2.0 that you presented at the Playwrights Center. How did this collaboration come about?

A:  DOE was in the 2006 Tokyo International Festival through an artist exchange between Japan and the U.S. My play was translated into Japanese and the director for the project was Shirotama Hitsujiya, who is known for creating her performance work with her company Yubiwa Hotel. I arrived in Tokyo a week before the Festival presentation and Shirotama had been rehearsing already. When I arrived she had basically 'written' a new beginning and ending for my play. I had heard that Japanese directors take some liberties with scripts,  so I expected there could be some interesting choices, but these new scenes did change the meaning of the script. I wasn't mad, I was provoked. I wondered how the translation itself may have altered the meaning. How were these Japanese artists interpreting my script in a language I don't speak? Shirotama's bold epilogue and prologue allowed me to find out how she was interpreting my play. I absolutely loved this process, and I really connected with Shirotama. She and I work with similar questions about life and death, sexuality and female experience.

Many Japanese in the audience of DOE told me that they did not feel that it was a foreign play. They felt like it could have been Japanese. I was really intrigued by this, especially by the implications of a shared female experience, across cultures that seem very different, especially in gender and sexual expression.

I went back the U.S. hankering to work with Shirotama again, and desiring to explore what might be "Japanese" about my work. I've never felt Japanese. But this experience made me wonder about cutural intersections.

In 2008 she was in New York on a fellowship and that allowed us to develop the idea of creating a NEW piece together, based on the existing piece, written by me. We're springing off the play we connected on, collaborating with both Japanese and American actors, who perform on stage at the same time in a kind of parallel life - there is an American Jan and a Japanese Jan, speaking English and Japanese, with the shared language being physical. DOE 2.0 is the working title for this collaboration, which we are developing over three years, between our countries.

Q:  How long have you been working on this show?

A:  We've been collaborating on the outline of this new DOE for a little less than a year. We'll be working in the room together for just two weeks., with a bi-lingual cast, beginning work on this new script together.

Q:  You are one of those people who went to Minneapolis for a Jerome and stayed. It's such a beautiful city. How did it lure you in?

A:  Money. Crickets. Really, it's been the fellowship and grants that have kept me here, and now I have a lovely teaching position. I've also had a child here, and this is a good place to have one of those, a good place to take your kid to the park after a writing session in a cafe. I kind of feel like the place kidnapped me. I don't necessarily feel like it is home here, but there is a good life here. I've never imagined myself in this part of the world - I'm a coastal person - but there are lakes, there are crickets, trees, co-ops, tattoos, great coffee shops, bike trails like you wouldn't believe, a strong community of writers and theatre artists...and a means to make a living as a playwright.

Q:  The first thing I saw in MN was a play of yours. Later that year, I saw a much different play of yours. Both wonderful but very different kinds of plays. What is the common thread that you see in your work? What makes a play a Trista Baldwin play?

A:  I'm interested in different means to tell different stories, with form following content and all that, so I do write different kinds of plays. Though... I think I'm doing that thing where I'm telling the same story, in different bodies from different angles. The story that I'm telling has to do with loss of innocence; with the place where innocence meets experience. By innocence I mean authentic self. I suppose I'm obsessed with corruption of authentic self.

Formally, the majority of my work might fall into the category of surrealism. I used to think I wrote some American version of absurdism, (if I have to put labels on it) but as I teach more literature, it seems to me I'm some kind of textual surrealist; the simple and recognizable suddenly bends, transforms into something heightened, spiritual. The place where our world meets the Other world…where base humanity meets the humane. The place where there is a terrible, beautiful ache for more. That’s the place that I write from, and that’s what I hope a “Trista Baldwin play” is.

Q:  What are you working on next?

A:  DOE 2.0 will continue in Tokyo in December, and then in New York in the summer. I’m also reworking American Sexy and I've started on a piece called The Surrogate, which pays tribute to Amiri Baraka’s Dutchman, one of my favorite plays.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theatre that scares the piss out of me. Like seeing a Van Gogh painting in the flesh - that scares the piss out of me. Anything where I can feel the great need of the creator behind the creation.

And sweat. I get excited by sweat. I like to see physical endurance as well as a fighting spirit in the script. Skill and exertion, that excites me.

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A:  Well. First thing: if you don’t need to be a playwright, for goodness sakes don’t do it. It’s a ridiculous thing to do. But if it’s something you need to do then say what you need to say and keep saying it, saying it, saying it. America is very “short term gain.” But playwriting is like a very long distance race. It’s not speed but endurance. Many others in the race will get tired and they will stop and they won’t be a playwright. If you keep going, you will.

And as you’re doing that, you should also produce your own work, or let friends produce it; find a way to get your scripts moving in front of an audience, don’t let them rot in your drawer, and keep writing through rehearsal and after opening night. That’s my ten cents.

I Interview Playwrights Part 58: Mat Smart

Mat Smart

Hometown: Naperville, Illinois. Southwest suburb of Chicago. Where I developed an incurable disease called being a Cubs fan.

Current Town: Minneapolis.

Q: You just had a reading at Ars Nova. Tell me about this new play.

A: It's called A BED THE SIZE OF PORTUGAL. It's one of the craziest full-length plays I've written -- full of impossible stage directions and natural disasters. It's about newlyweds who are beautiful and in love, but she snores so bad he can't sleep and he's losing his mind.

Q: You're in Minneapolis for another year for a Jerome Fellowship. What projects are you planning for the long winter?

A: I just finished my first two-person play, so I think I'm going to try writing a ten-actor historical piece about a short-lived glass manufacturing company in Iowa City in 1880. I'm also going to read a few of the books that I've been meaning to read, and then burn them for warmth. It's a different kind of cold here.

Q: You went to grad school at UCSD. How was that?

A: I loved it. UCSD only has one or two playwrights per year and does a full production of each writer each of the three years -- then brings in ten theatre professionals from around the country to the see the work each year. It's the perfect way to get three polished scripts and get introduced to the "real" world. The other departments are fantastic -- great actors, directors, designers, stage managers -- and they all work on your show each spring. On top of that, the weather is perfect. And the kettle corn at Petco Park is the best in the major leagues.

Q: Why do you like sports so much?

A: I like that in a three-hour baseball game only one or two split-second events determine who wins and who loses. I like watching Carlos Zambrano pitch against Prince Fielder and know that I'm watching two of the best in the world try to beat each other. I like not knowing what's going to happen. I like that any at bat or any game could, technically, last forever.

Q: What is it like to date a dramaturg?

A: It's hot. H-O-T. A great dramaturg can save you time and help you become a better writer. A great girlfriend can make everyday feel like a gift. Sarah Slight is both a great dramaturg and a great girlfriend and so that makes me very, very lucky.

Q: Tell me a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a person or as a writer.

A: My dad worked for thirty-five years at Fermilab -- a particle physics lab outside Chicago. When I was a kid, I used to go into work with him on Saturdays. I'd see these big machines that were smashing atoms and trying to figure out if the universe was going to keep expanding, stop, or collapse back in on itself... I think it got me interested in big questions.

Q: What is the purpose of theater?

A: To ask big questions in visceral, dramatic, visual, funny and weird ways.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: The kind that makes people yell, gasp, cry, sigh, laugh -- things that any Cubs game at Wrigley does.

Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A: Don't use courier font. Don't keep rewriting your first play over and over. Drink coffee in the mornings, Red Bull at night and don't sleep until you get it out.

Q: Any plugs?

A: Look out for my play THE FOLLY OF CROWDS in NYC at Slant Theatre Project in November. And also THE 13th OF PARIS at Seattle Public Theatre and The Warehouse Theatre in Greenville, South Carolina in the spring.

I Interview Playwrights Part 57: Bathsheba Doran

Bash Doran

Hometown: London, England

Current Town: New York City, USA

Q: You have a children's play going up at South Coast Rep this season. Can you tell me a little bit about it and how you came to write it?

A: It's called Ben and the Magic Paintbrush and it's based on a Chinese myth about an orphan who finds a paintbrush that brings whatever it paints to life. It was a story read to me when I was very young, and I remembered it because the image of a painting developing an independent life and leaving the canvas always stayed with me for obvious reasons. In my hands it becomes a story about two little kids who find this magic paintbrush and have to escape the unbelievably evil clutches of one Mrs. Crawly who wants to trap them in a dungeon and paint gold. It was extremely liberating to write - you can be so extreme in the form - truly evil characters, truly good, disguises always work, sleeping pills make you pass out, language can be so playful - it's a totally different sort of storytelling. It taught me a lot. In particular, it was excellent to be forced to be plot driven and to be very clear about what the story is. There's lots of jokes for grown-ups in there too. I even managed to slip in a portrait of a difficult marriage (my speciality, I've decided). I wrote it because they commissioned me - after they saw my adaptation of Great Expectations for kids.

Q: Your play Parent's Evening is going up at the Flea soon. Can you tell me about that play?

A: It's a portrait of a difficult marriage...It's about a deeply narcissistic but very endearing couple the night of a parent-teacher conference. The first half is before the conference. The second half is after. Suffice to say - things do not go well at the school.

Q: What else are you working on? Lucy Smith was raving about a new play of yours. You want to tell me a little bit about that?

A: I just finished the first draft of a new play - I've been working on it for just about a year on and off - and I am also excited about it. Whenever I write a play I send bits to Lucy. From her reaction, I can pretty much tell if I am on the track I want to be on or if I need to swerve.

Q: What are the differences between American and British theater?

A: I'm not sure that there are fundamental differences - although both the British and the Americans often seem to like the idea that British theater is inherently "better." I do think that England has a 500 year old canon to congratulate itself upon. America doesn't have that - and I think that a consequence is that Americans are more obviously invested in "new writing" and "new American voices" which I find interesting - there's a certain nationalistic streak caught up in the concept of production. The British actors I have worked with are more comfortable approaching a text cerebrally, but I haven't worked there enough to make a confident generalization in that department. It was an impression I got. But generally speaking I have seen dreadful and wonderful theatre in both places and about the same amount of each in each.

Q: Like me, you studied playwriting at both Columbia and Juilliard. You want to tell me a little about your experiences there?

A: Columbia was an incredible experience for me - Eduardo Machado who taught playwriting there at the time became and still is a mentor to me. He was the first person who made me feel like I really might be able to write and he has an incredible ability to read a play and say something like "you went off on page 56, and it doesn't come back until page 86". In my experience, he's always right. I have tremendous respect for him. He's unorthodox and if you are paying eighty grand for an education (which I wasn't, I had a scholarship) then you might get frustrated, you might want specifics, it dirties the whole process really. But for me - working with him was a miracle. I also somehow got Columbia to commission me to write an adaptation of Peer Gynt for the graduating acting class of my year and Andrei Serban directed it. Someone asked me recently what the best production I've had is - and I realized that for me it was that one. And being in rehearsal with Andrei was such an education and a joy. At one point he dressed the actor playing "the boy" in a gorilla suit, watched the scene, and whispered to me "I don't know what it means, but it's primal, yes?" Right there was one of the most succinct lessons in theatre-making I've ever had. Because who cares what it means? But of course, generally people are like "but why, but why, explain." I'm not sure that truths have an explanation. Truths speak for themselves. We recognize them instinctually. That's what makes them true. And the class I took with Anne Bogart - the collaboration class - learned a huge amount. And generally speaking it was a wonderful time for me - I had just left England, I had committed to playwriting properly, and experimentation was encouraged. It was fantastic.

Juilliard was also wonderful but in a totally different way. It provided such access. Access to great actors, to readings, to people in the profession. There was an emphasis on the practical working environment I could expect to encounter. It was very important to me in that way. And it opened doors for me that Columbia just didn't. Chris and Marsha were incredibly nurturing, and supportive, and funny and wise and honest. I had a great time, I wrote a great deal. It was all much more grown up.

Q: Tell me a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a person or as a writer.

A: When I was little I got to go and see a production of Peter Pan staring Lulu and John Nettles. Someone we knew was involved and I got taken backstage afterwards which was unbelievably exciting. I looked in a drawer on the set, and I found Peter Pan's shadow. It was made of pantyhose. That impacted me greatly.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: Anything where the theatrical experience is organic - music, design, acting, direction, text. Which means, irritatingly for me as a playwright, the work I have responded to most recently is devised by companies. Gatz just blew my mind. And The War Horse, which is coming to Broadway I think, was just unbelievable. I also love things that feel truly actor driven - Steppenwolf's work for example. The play, even a great play, is the beginning. Everyone else should take it further. I also like to draw a distinction between contemporary plays, and political plays. I am a fan of the former, not the latter. With very few exceptions (The Normal Heart, being one) I can not stand theater designed to articulate outrage at political event. They lack complexity, and I have noticed that audiences tend to leave the theatre practically congratulating themselves for having attended - as though going to the theater were a political act. Going to the theater is only a political act if the play you are seeing has been banned. Susan Sontag said “So far as we feel sympathy we feel we are not accomplices to what caused the suffering. Our sympathy proclaims our innocence as well as our impotence. To that extent it can be (for all our good intentions) an impertinent – if not an inappropriate – response. To set aside the sympathy we extend to others beset by war and murderous politics for a reflection on how our privileges are located on the same map of their suffering, and may – in ways we might prefer not to imagine – be linked to their suffering, as the wealth of some may imply the destitution of others, is a task for which the painful, stirring images supply only an initial spark.” I find this to be such a brilliant and important observation that I learned it by heart to hiss at people who don't agree with me.

Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A: Flashback scenes seldom work out.

Nice Review of NERVE in NC

Here

Pretty Theft now available

at Sam French

the playwright interviews so far

hey are so far. I'll get them over on the blogroll eventually, but for now, I hope this satisfies the requests of professors and playwrights.

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/06/jame-comtois-interview-one.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/06/i-interview-playwrights-part-2-anna.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/06/i-interview-playwrights-part-3-matthew.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/06/i-interview-playwrights-part-4-dominic.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/06/i-interview-playwrights-part-5-david.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/06/i-interview-playwrights-part-6-daniel.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/06/i-interview-playwrights-part-7-sheila.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/06/i-interview-playwrights-part-8.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/06/i-interview-playwrights-part-9-zayd.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/06/i-interview-playwrights-part-10-kara.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/06/i-interview-playwrights-part-11-jessica.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/06/i-interview-playwrights-part-12-malachy.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/06/i-interview-playwrights-part-13.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/06/i-interview-playwrights-part-14-qui.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/06/i-interview-playwrights-part-15-deborah.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/06/i-interview-playwrights-part-16-callie.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/06/i-interview-playwrights-part-17-ken.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/06/hometown-wilmette-il-current-town.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/06/i-interview-playwrights-part-19-dan.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/07/i-interview-playwrights-part-20-jason.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/07/i-interview-playwrights-part-21.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/07/i-interview-playwrights-part-22-rachel.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/07/i-interview-playwrights-part-23-tim.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/07/i-interview-playwrights-part-24-kim.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/07/i-interview-playwrights-part-25-sarah.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/07/i-interview-playwrights-part-26-andrea.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/07/i-interview-playwrights-part-27-megan.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/07/i-interview-playwrights-part-28-michael.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/07/i-interview-playwrights-part-29-cusi.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/08/i-interview-playwrights-part-30-mac.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/08/i-interview-playwrights-part-31-bekah.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/08/i-interview-playwrights-part-32-em.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/08/i-interview-playwrights-part-33-itamar.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/08/i-interview-playwrights-part-34-heidi.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/08/i-interview-playwrights-part-35-daniel.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/08/i-interview-playwrights-part-36-blair.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/08/i-interview-playwrights-part-37-crystal.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/08/i-interview-playwrights-part-38-annie.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/08/i-interview-playwrights-part-39-erin.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/08/i-interview-playwrights-part-40-steve.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/08/i-interview-playwrights-part-41-laura.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/08/i-interview-playwrights-part-42-rachel.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/08/i-interview-playwrights-part-43.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/08/i-interview-playwrights-part-44-kyle.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/08/i-interview-playwrights-part-45-joshua.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/08/i-interview-playwrights-part-46-julia.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/09/i-interview-playwrights-part-47-brooke.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/09/i-interview-playwrights-part-48-george.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/09/i-interview-playwrights-part-49-lucy.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/09/i-interview-playwrights-part-50-mark.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/09/i-interview-playwrights-part-51-dan.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/09/i-interview-playwrights-part-52-david.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/09/i-interview-playwrights-part-53-peter.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/09/i-interview-playwrights-part-54-rehana.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/09/i-interview-playwrights-part-55-jeff.html

http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/09/i-interview-playwrights-part-56-august.html

I Interview Playwrights Part 56: August Schulenburg

August Schulenburg

Hometown: Barnstable, Massachusetts

Current Town: Astoria, New York

Q: Tell me about the play you have coming up, The Lesser Seductions of History. This was written for your company, right?

A: Right. The Lesser Seductions of History follows 11 characters through each of the 1960's. The idea started about a year ago. Obama was running for President and Yes We Could and I wanted to write about that; that shared sense of purpose; that hope our actions really could make the world better. I wanted to write about the intoxicating clarity of a cause; the beauty of belonging to something bigger.

And I wanted to write how absolutely dangerous that is; the sacrifice that is inevitably