Featured Post

1100 Playwright Interviews

1100 Playwright Interviews A Sean Abley Rob Ackerman E.E. Adams Johnna Adams Liz Duffy Adams Tony Adams David Adjmi Keith Josef Adkins Nicc...

Stageplays.com

Jun 29, 2010

I Interview Playwrights Part 203: Kirk Lynn


photo by Rino Pizzi

Kirk Lynn

Hometown: San Antonio, TX.

Current Town: Austin, TX.

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  Focus. Patience. Prayer. Magic. Honesty. Sobriety. Being a good husband. Being a good friend. Reducing the amount of time between my mistakes and my apologies. Calmness. Anger management. Time management. Reading. Staying ignorant.

HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH is a commission I’m working on with my friend and longtime collaborator, Melanie Joseph at the Foundry Theatre. It’s intended to be a performance constructed entirely of questions. What is money? How did I get into so much debt in my 20s? I’m just about to have my first child and I want to ask what I should teach her about money and value and addiction. Melanie is wondering about retirement savings, the global economy and, in general, how much is enough.

THE ANIMALS is a more traditionally narrative play about a middle-aged couple deciding to live like wild animals within the confines of their home. This means living without electric lights or alarm clocks, going to bed when they’re tired, waking up when they’re hungry, and attacking one another whenever they’re overcome with sexual desire. I think it’s pretty funny and really sad. I want it to feel like Uncle Vanya feels to me: wild, unworkable, holy and true.

I’VE NEVER BEEN SO HAPPY is a western operetta I’ve been making with my company, the Rude Mechs, for several years. Peter Stopschinski composed the music and wrote some of the lyrics, Lana Lesley and Thomas Graves are co-directing the piece. We just met a new animator, Miwa Matreyek, thru CTG in LA and it’s nice working with someone new. It’s nice to get to know someone. It gives us all a chance to be new to one another. We’re all going to see the A-TEAM tonight at the Alamo and afterwards we’re going two-stepping at the Broken Spoke. Join us, if you get this in time.

THE WRESTLING PATIENT is getting a new draft this summer. It is a play I was commissioned to make a few years ago about the life of Etty Hillesum and I still haven’t got it right.

THE METHOD GUN has to go back into rehearsal because we can’t have an open flame on stage on the East Coast tour this next year because of the fire caused by that rock band, Great White, in 2003 at that nightclub in Rhode Island.

Q:  How do you and Rude Mechanicals work together?

A:  The artistic directors are just about to go on retreat. Madge Darlington, Thomas Graves, Lana Lesley, Sarah Richardson, Shawn Sides and me. We do it at least once every year. We talk a lot. And usually we swim and play ping pong. We discuss what we’re in love with, what we’re reading, what we’re looking at, the plays and performances we’ve seen, the music we’re dancing to these days. We also talk about what we want to do, what skills we want to learn, who we want to talk to, where we want to travel.

We try to find common areas of interest and then it’s simply a matter of creating a container for all those interests and desires. Ideally the container is a great evening of performance that people will pay money to see.

I think it’s important to say that we don’t vote. We work by consensus. We either agree or we don’t. In that way you could say that there’s never any compromise. There’s an awful lot of love and patience in a group of fairly bizarre and strong personalities.

Each performance is created in an entirely different manner. It’s beautiful. I honestly believe we’ll be making theatre together when we are 90 years old. I pray for that. I pray they do, too.

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

A:  I used to go to the barbershop with my dad on Saturdays and spend the first part of the day watching cartoons in his little booth while he cut people’s hair. When the good cartoons were over my dad would give me a little job, sweeping or picking up trash from the back lot for a dollar. When I thought I was finished I would come get my dad and he would inspect my work. I almost never passed the first inspection. Not because my dad is especially tough, but because I was (and am) really impatient to get my dollar. Usually I would work just a little longer and then my dad would relent and I would take my dollar down to Winn’s, which was a five and dime, and I would buy something to play with for the rest of the day. I remember once buying a pad of paper and a pencil so that I could be a private eye and keep track of clues. For lunch we would go down to the Royal Pharmacy. Everyone there knew my dad which I thought was really cool. Then we would work a little more, my dad cutting hair and me looking for clues. At the end of the day my dad would sweep up and I would hold the dustpan and then we would go home. Typing it up now it sounds to me like I grew up in the 50s in the middle of the 80s in a small town in the middle of San Antonio, TX.

Q:  If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?

A:  I am casting a magical spell over all true theatres to protect them from experts. The moment an expert enters a theatre, or the moment someone becomes an expert while inside a theatre, he or she will be transported to a classroom, or a lecture hall, or a marketing firm, or anywhere in the world where an expert is truly needed or desired. This magical spell will ensure that only novices, beginners, children, wild animals, lunatics, lovers, penitents, addicts, hobbyists and deeply dedicated artists can be in the theatre. The mystery is in exile in the presence of an expert. It’s only in the presence of a student that the mystery can reveal itself. I may never get to be in a textbook, but as long as I get to stand beside my best friends in presence of the great mysteries once or twice a year for as long as we can manage, I’ll be happy. I think people try to sound like they really know what they’re doing because they’re scared or embarrassed or desirous of more acclaim. That’s why I do it. But those times when I really manage to place myself in pursuit of what I don’t know, what I don’t have, what I’ve failed to accomplish or understand, what I need, what I can’t live without, what I’m dying for the lack of—those are the times when I’ve really been true to the infinite possibilities of live performance. I wish all experts would disappear from my life. Just casting this spell is probably enough to qualify myself for removal from the mystery for a good long time. I’ll have to earn my way back by disagreeing with myself, being embarrassed, ambivalent, regretting that I ever said anything.

I don’t know that I would change anything about the theatre.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Young Jean Lee, Annie Baker, Peggy Shaw and Lois Weaver, Anton Chekhov, David Greenspan, Melissa Kievman and Brian Mertes, Terry Galloway, Dayna Hanson, Gaelen Hanson, Deborah Hay, Paul Lazar, Dario Fo and Franca Rame, Bruce Nauman, Jo Brainard, Jay De Feo, and Richard Huelsenbeck. That’s who came to mind.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I learned a lot from a Double Dagger show I saw last year in Austin. At very same moment the band let this wild punk rock get loose from their instruments, the lead singer rushed forward and started touching the faces of the crowd really tenderly and sweetly. At the end of the night they sang this great song, “Vivre Sans Temps Mort,” which ends with the lines, “There’s no way we’re going to die tonight. If we shout loud enough they can’t turn out the light.” It felt like the leader singer was casting a spell of protection over the audience and I’m still alive, so maybe it worked? It was one of the best pieces of performance I’ve ever seen. I’d like to make a piece with them someday.

I generally love dance theatre. 33 Fainting Spells (back when they were together) and Big Dance always. I love bobrauschenbergamerica. Rubber Repertory did a show in Austin called THE CASKET OF PASSING FANCY in which 500 offers were made to the audience and when you heard an offer you liked you raised your hand and they performed it for you, or with you—everything from being buried alive, to spending the night in a flop house, to an act of true love and devotion.

I like new work. For me, the canon is just a history of the avant garde. Everyone is always trying something new.

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

A:  Keep starting out. Don’t become an expert. We need what you know. We’ve barely begun to explore the theatre. We know almost nothing about it. Produce your own work. Craft is essential, but don’t confuse it with art. Risk complete failure and embarrassment. You have nothing to lose.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:

MARY-ARRCHIE THEATRE CO PRESENTS
CHERRYWOOD: The Modern Comparable by Kirk Lynn
Directed by David Cromer
JUNE 24 until AUGUST 8, 2010

BURN LAKE by Carrie Fountain
Available from Penguin Books
Winner of the National Poetry Series

Jun 27, 2010

The Moment I Knew

A great new blog from Andrea Ciannavei in which she asks theater artists to


Describe the moment you knew you were meant to work in theater.

She asked me first.  You can read it here:

http://themomentiknew.tumblr.com/

I Interview Playwrights Part 202: Tanya Saracho




Tanya Saracho

Hometown:

This is a tough one. In my heart; in my tongue; and when it comes to those memory clips in my head (which are now starting to skip because I play them so much) my hometown is Los Mochis, Sinaloa in the Northwest of Mexico. Los Mochis means land of the terrestrial turtles. I don’t remember seeing many turtles in Mochis but I’ve always imagined turtles when I think of that place…(ok, my eyes just started watering which is telling me I need to go home and see my grandparents who are not doing so well. I am having the silliest reaction answering this notion of “home.”) When I am in Mexico, I claim my Sinaloense identiy, even though I left there very young. (The Sinaloense Spanish/Dialecto (indigenous) mix is still in my tongue so I claim it. Words like “huachapori,” (pot sticker) “bitachi” (wasp), “tatahuila” (to go around in circles/dizzy) and plebe (kid)) So, Los Mochis is my hometown.

But my home would maybe be the border town of McAllen, TX, my gateway to the United States and everything that entailed: Pop culture, otherness, English, Mexican-Americans who didn’t speak Spanish, the Border Patrol, twizzlers (yuck), Garbage Pail Kids, Ralph Macchio (my first obsession)… My mother still lives there, so that is home. Home is where my mother is. Home is where we gather for Christmas. Home is where we perform our old and new rituals as the clock turns on the New Year. That’s home. And I don’t go back enough. I’m a bad daughter. (Ok, here come the tears again. Why is this first, seemingly simple question so hard for me to answer right now?)

Enough of “home.”

Current Town:

Chicity. Mycity.

Studs’ city.

Capone’s city.

Cisnero’s Mango Street City.

The Jungle, that city.

The 1968 Democratic convention city.

The city of iconic truants like Ferris and the Cooley High kids.

Michael Jordan city.

Oprah city /strike that/ Oprah land.

Second City city.

Kanye’s and Common’s city.

Lupe Fiasco’s city.

Chicity. Mycity.

I have never lived longer anywhere in the world than I have lived in Chicago, Illinois. Same apartment I moved into the weekend I moved to Chicago 12 years ago. Roscoe Village Represent! (Ok, if you know anything about Roscoe Village, you will know why that is the silliest thing to say.)

Q:  Tell me about your play coming up at the Goodman.

A:  It’s called “El Nogalar” a play inspired –you know, loosely based on— Chejov’s “The Cherry Orchard.” I’ve taken most of the dudes away (we had to keep that one guy who buys the orchard, but trust me, I tried to get rid of him too) and I focus on the women of the Cherry Orchard, which have stayed with me since I first encountered the play. So it’s a five person version…ah, version sounds too much like an adaptation, no…it’s a five person interpretation? I don’t know…I don’t want to commit to these terms. It’s a five person cast, four females, one male. It takes place in the northern Mexican state of Nuevo Leon in a finca called Los Nogales which contains a nogalar or pecan orchard….grove. Pecan grove. I’m not good about talking about my plays. Sorry.

It touches on what’s going on in that northern state in relation to the United States. You know, narcotrafico, loss of land, of culture, shifting identities. Maybe that’s just wishful thinking and it doesn’t deal with all that yet (I’m still in the middle of rewrites) but that’s what I want it to deal with. Oh, and ex-pats. And class. Big time. How could I forget “class,” that’s what attracted me to Chekov in the first place!

This play was a Teatro Vista commission, the first for the company so I better get it right. I adore this company, they have not only watched me grow as an artist but they have had a big part in that growth and I have written “El Nogalar” thinking of some of the actresses in this awesome group. Kris Diaz and I are resident playwrights at Vista and I think you’re going to see some cool stuff coming from us, with this ensemble in mind. Oh, and the Goodman production is a collaboration between the two companies. Kind of a dream situation if you ask me.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  Well, instead of answering these questions I’m SUPPOSED to be working on my Steppenwolf commission which is due in days. I can’t talk about it, not because I’m being coy or trying to seem mysterious, I just mean I am incapable of talking about it because I have no idea what I’m doing. Don’t mistake that for me NOT knowing what I’m doing. I just can’t describe it at this point. I’m just swimming in a vat of lips and assholes right now and I can’t seem to start making a cylinder shape.

Ok, that hotdog analogy was the worst analogy I have ever come up with. (I don’t even eat meat!) I don’t even know how we ended up there but I’m going to go with it, because I that’s obviously how I’m feeling.

Ok. So there’s the vat of flesh I’m currently swimming in and this project in the horizon with Aboutface Theater titled “The Good Private,” about Albert Cashier (could we Wikipedia him on here so you see the photos? He’s my obsession!) who was a transgendered civil war soldier who served the northern army for 2 years and was even a POW who escaped and continued to live his life as an upstanding citizen of central Illinois society until his death. Cashier was born Jennie Hodges, a poor Irish immigrant to America. I’m obsessed with Cashier right now. I’m a little scared because I’ve never done a historical drama before, but hey, before Mango Street I’d never adapted a musical version of the biggest American Latino classic either, so I guess I’ll learn as I go once again, you now?

(And what do these two projects have to do with Latinidad? Nothing! That’s why am I SOOO SCARED of them. But I kept saying I didn’t just want to be viewed as a LATINA playwright, didn’t I? Well, there you go. Now I gotta put out and shut up.)

Q:  Who are your favorite Chicago artists and teatristas?

A:  Right now for me the people make the institutions so I’ll answer you initial question this way.

Well, right now I am in awe of the talented writers who make up the No Name Ladies’ Playwriting Group Laura: Jacqmin, Dana Fromby, Sarah Gubbins, Marisa Wegrzyn and Emily Schwartz, this group is going to be written about as definitive of Chicago Theater. You’ll see.

Oh, I was just at TCG and I attended a panel of Chicago playwrights: Tracy Letts, Rebecca Gilman and Lydia Diamond (not alphabetical order, just the order they were seated) and it blew my mind. Not just their collective resumes or their aesthetic but just for how fiercely they rock Chicago and the Chicago vibe. And of course, come on, their work is genius.

My girls Nambi Kelley and J. Nicole Brooks; they’re important voices in this city. Actors make the best playwrights sometimes. Just a theory.

Josh Rollis, Andrew Hinderaker: hotness.

The one whose trail of crumbs I’m trying to follow, Brett Nevue (ok, I know he’s got a 902something zip code right now, but he’ll forever remain a 606 to me)

Ok, so I’m being totally playwrightcentric right now.

Sean Graney is not just a brilliant director but dude can write too. (see, still with the playwrights…)

Lady Kimberly Senior. She’s gravy.

Mr. Derrick Sanders.

Ann Filmer is building an empire. You’ll watch, she’s going to take over. She’s got that combination that is so seldom seen in the theater, amazing artistry coupled with business savvy.

Mica Cole, she will run Chicago Theater one day, just you wait.

Tony Adams, another good business man who is a terrific artist and thinker. I mean, this dude is a thinker. In fact, this is a whole ‘nother category, the “thinker-artist” joining Adams you got the whole 2am crew- Nick Keenan, Dan Granata and all those guys making noise on Twitter. Throwing big ideas out for the world to catch at 2am.

Oh, and to expand on the definition of theater into performance, Chris Piatt and his Paper Machete Saturdays. Oooh, that’s the hotness. Is there a smarter brain in this city? I’m in love with that brain.

And of course there’s the actors, Cliff Chamberlain, Jon Hill and James Vincent Meredith are a trio of favorites. I could go on and on about that triumvirate. Oh, and the majestic Alana Arenas. Fierce. Phillip James Brannon is takin’ over the city. Usman Ally and Desmond Borges, you want those two dudes in your play, they got the midas touch! Oooh, you know who we have to watch out for? Christina Nieves. Mark my words. I think she’s going to cross barriers. Oh, my god Karen Aldridge; royalty. The “Sandras” Delgado and Marquez who are beyond gifted, I could write for them all day long.

Ok, this list has gotten a little crazy. But I got love for my city and if you would catch me on another day, I might have a slightly different list bubble up. I love Chicago artists. That’s all I got to say.

Q:  If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?

A:  Oh, come on, this is such a huge question. This is a monolith of a question. I’m not a thinker like that, I can’t answer this Goliath question.

Access.

Opportunity for those on the margins.

Multiple voices and perspectives.

Hybridity.

Respect for our complex identities.

We are no longer a singular nation. (Shoot, we’ve never been that nation, we just got spoon fed the notion) We don’t have that black and white, Ed Sullivan show point of view anymore so why does so much of our theater reflect that antiquated singular voice? And why is it so male? This is not me griping or just quoting Rebeck to quote Rebeck. Seriously. Why is it so male, even when it’s female?

But again. I’m not a thinker so…

Oh, wait! Yes. I know what’s missing in the American Theater!

Nudity. Not enough nudity!

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Mr. Farr, my high school drama teacher. A kind of abusive tyrant monarch who gave me the thick skin I wear around today. Dude was a jerk, but he gave me my work ethic. He was violently murdered a couple of years ago and I wish I would have gotten a chance to say “thanks.”

Caroline Eves. She gave me courage. Maria Irene Fornes, my first real playwriting teacher; changed my life. Luis Alfaro, he made me actually think I could do this whole theatre-making thing. Martha Lavey, have you seen her in action? Fierce. I’ve seen her in a conference room. Fierce fierce fierce.

That’s on the micro.

On the macro: Milcha Sanchez-Scott, Sabina Berman, Cherrie Moraga, Caryl Churchill, Jose Rivera, Migdalia Cruz, Tony Kushner, Moises Kaufman, Anna Deveare Smith, Nilo Cruz, Danny Hoch, Lynn Nottage, the luminous Terrell Mccraney, Tennessee Williams, and Chekov. Each one formative in his/her own way part of my make up.

Oh, and big and little brothers I look up to: Kris Diaz and Jorge Ignacio Cortinas

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I love when I leave the theater shaking. When the lights come up and you realize that you are somehow dented by the experience, changed. I watched “Angels in America” at a formative time, both episodes on the same day, and it left me dented. I was trembling like a leaf. I’m sure I didn’t understand what I was watching but it reconfigured me and that part I still understand. “I Am My Own Wife” left me a hot mess too. Injured. So did “Ruined.” It left me a little…well, ruined. Those are all views from the margins, but told in a visceral, real sort of way. Folks on the perimeter, looking in; I like that kind of theater. Show me what’s off center. And devastate me. I can take it.

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

A:  If you build it, they will come. Just put it up, however you have to. If it’s worth seeing, they will come. Oh, and create a supportive community for yourself, a network, a fertile ground encased in safety made up of colleagues and friends whom you trust. And when the “big voices” start coming at you like missiles, go back to your community, to your circle, your cipher and listen to them. They will have or back.

Q:  Plugs, please:



A:
Reading of “El Nogalar” at the Goodman Latino Theater Festival, July 17th at 2pm http://www.goodmantheatre.org/season/10latinofest.aspx

And two readings of “Mala Hierba” (I’ve never been this excited about a play I’ve written!) in Chicago and NYC, August 2010. I’ll tell you a little bit more about those when they send out the press release.

“El Nogalar” at the Goodman Theatre in coproduction with Teatro Vista, directed by Cecilie Keenan, Spring of 2010

Jun 25, 2010

I Interview Playwrights Part 201: Daria Polatin


Daria Polatin

Hometown: Brookline, Massachusetts

Current Town: Brooklyn and Los Angeles

Q:  Tell me about the play you have coming up at Cape Cod Theater Project.

A:  GUIDANCE is a play about a new high school guidance counselor who becomes obsessed with helping his students. He also gets involved with one of the parents, the ‘no child left behind’-like politics at the school, and has an Advil addiction. The play is a comedy on the surface, but is also about people struggling with loss and diving into relationships to distract themselves, rather than deal with what’s really going on underneath.

Q:  What else are you up to?

A:  I’m working on a play about my dad’s life growing up in Egypt called THE LUXOR EXPRESS, and developing some TV ideas.

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 in fifth grade I was in a play written in German about the phases of the moon. Being tall, I played the full moon. We were performing the piece in front of my whole elementary school. At one point I forgot my lines, and it being a play in German—and me being ten—I didn’t know how to improvise. Since I didn’t think the rest of the school would notice or even know what I had been saying, I quietly moved off stage, and told two classmates—who were playing clouds—to go on and do their scene. They refused. They made me go back out on stage, and the German teacher mouthed my lines to me. I think that experience made me want to be able to create what I want to say.

Q:  If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?

A:  More developmental support—both artistic and financial—for early career plays and playwrights. The gap between writing a draft of a play to a production is so huge and challenging to bridge, that I believe there really needs to be more ferries to help playwrights across. A lot of developmental support has dried up in the last few years, and it’s really sad to see. I think re-investing in artistic development would help create better and more exciting work for theater now and in the future.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I’m a junkie for good story…

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

A:  Just keep writing and rewriting. It’s easy to think and talk about writing, but the only way to get better at it is to practice. Also, have your actor-friends read stuff out loud—it will really help hear what’s on the page—what’s coming through and what might be missing. I also read my plays out loud to myself, just to make sure the words feel right when spoken. I usually do this before anyone else hears or reads the play.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  If you’re near Cape Cod, come check out GUIDANCE. (http://www.capecodtheatreproject.org/) We’ve got a great cast together, and the ever-talented Mark Brokaw is directing.

Jun 22, 2010

200 playwright interviews


I Interview Playwrights Part 200: Delaney Britt Brewer



Delaney Britt Brewer

Hometown:  I don’t really have one. I moved around a lot as a kid. But, now one set of folks lives in Fayetteville, NC and the other re-located to Birmingham, AL.

Current Town:  New York City.

Q:  Tell me about Wolves:

A:  Wolves is a project I’ve been working on and adding to for the past three years. It started with a one act I wrote when I was at home for Christmas and tipsy off of some deadly mixture of Diet Coke and Godiva liquor – basically any old thing I could scrounge in the house. I wrote the whole short play in about two sittings. It’s the story of a couple that hits a mythically large wolf on the side of a highway with their car on New Years Eve. Time jumps back and forth between the accident and a New Years Eve party the couple attended earlier in the evening. The spring after I wrote it, it was staged for the Sam French One Act play festival and I really liked it but couldn’t figure out how to give it a life beyond the one act form. Then I had an idea to extend it by writing another complimentary piece that would be a kind of variation on a theme – different characters but the setting and time would be the same as in the act before. And, the character and image of the Wolf would be present in both. I worked on that piece during my fellowship with the Dramatist Guild. Recently I’ve added a third section that’s a monologue from the perspective of the Wolf that will be played by a kid. The whole piece is going to be up at 59e59 this August for three weeks and I’m really excited to have the chance to work on it and see it up on its feet in its entirety.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  I just finished a draft of a play I started in a workshop I took with Jon Robin Baitz this past Spring. I gave myself the challenge of having a play with a lot of characters but only one setting. The play is about a group of friends from college whose re-union weekend upstate takes a dark turn due to a massive snow storm and an over population of deer. I’ve purposely given all of the characters the names of actors whom I’d want to play the parts so that I can keep their voices clear in my mind. But moreover, they’re actors that I would want to develop this play with over a period of time, who really understand my voice and tone and I love their work as well. Also, recently I got an awesome gig writing a short play for teenagers who are in the Stella Adler acting program this summer, which I’m doing with you Adam and a bunch of other really fantastic writers. We had a meet and greet with the actors a few weeks ago and they’re so impressive. They’re all way more keen and grown up and savvy than I was when I was a teenager. I think I was spending time kicking cans to other cans and singing Pearl Jam songs to my hand when I was 17. I have an ongoing project, as well, with my two friends and collaborators John Peery and Candace Thompson whom I’ve known since I was in college. It’s a video project that we all write, develop and perform in called OtherPeeps (otherpeeps.com). It’s a low-fi, home-spun story about three degenerate room mates who live in a haunted place. So, far there’s been a vortex in our shower, a yoga cult on the roof, Scientologists, a claymation hoagie, Imelda Marcos, a man that’s also a lamb named ManLamb, dinosaur intestines, a re-imagined scene from the movie Misery, and other adventures. And, I play a little boy named Cricket and there’s real hair glued to my face. We just got a grant from the Experimental TV Center, so we might take this show on the road. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for 6 Flags.

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

A:  I think my parents really supported my weird fascinations and obsessions while I was growing up. They ranged from the musical Annie, to the British royal family, to Lamborghinis (I had a big book on them), and the biggest one was the Rocky movie series. I was fanatical about the movies, especially Rocky 4 wherein Rocky single handedly breaks through the iron curtain with his fists. For Halloween my mom went to painstaking lengths to humor my Rocky fetish and made me a costume in tact with gloves, shiny boxing shorts, and a sweat shirt that read “Lil’ Rocky”. Thanks Mom.

Q:  If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?

A:  You know, I always feel like theater works best, and this might sound really hokey, when it’s not a commodity. It’s really an ill fit for an art form that’s basically a captured moment. It’s hard to wrap a bow around that. I think that theater works when it’s a communal experience, like church or a rally or a meal. I went to a dinner at my friends’ house last night and I didn’t hesitate going over there because the meal didn’t have a sophisticated marketing strategy, or Julia Roberts wasn’t going to be at the table eating corn as promised, or one person at the New York Times didn’t like the fish or thought the charcoal was disappointing. I wish there was a lot more funding that freed up theaters from capitalist constraints and allowed plays to be a little messier and braver and not stuck in development purgatory. I really believe that the only way to see if a play works or doesn’t is to see it up on its feet.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Honestly, I love Angels in America. I think it’s epically emotional and made a statement that humans can survive a disease that no one thought you could survive at the time it was written and produced. Also, I love and try to read and see and learn from Caryl Churchill, Mac Wellman, Tennessee Williams, Young Jean Lee, David Adjmi, Chekov, Sarah Kane, and many, many more. Oh and I heart Amy Sedaris. I want to eat her cupcakes one day.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I like seeing different kinds of theater than what I tend to write and do. I saw one of the most amazing pieces of theater ever last summer at PS122 by this writer/performer named Marie Brassard called Jimmy. The story was simple and beautiful and spectacular and her performance was one of the most riveting I’ve ever seen – it stuck with me. I try to see and appreciate as many different forms of live performance as possible, from kitchen sink dramas to Radiohole. ‘Cus it’s all theater.

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

A:  Work and Live. Seriously. In the end, what is most important is the work you do and finding people who want to work with you and believe in what you’re doing. And, live. Go to neighborhood slip n’ slide parties. Have a cocktail. Or, a mocktail. Eat ribs. Or, tempeh that looks like ribs and uses the same BBQ sauce. And, most certainly shake your booty. Don’t get too caught up in the schmooze factor. It’s necessary, but in the end not necessarily. Because, if all you’re focused on is who’s who and what got what review and who’s being produced – then your work sort of turns into a case of “The Emperor Has No Clothes”. Or, worse. He has no pants. He’s a weird pant-less dude talking at you at a party and he’s mildly aroused, but by something someone is saying four conversations down.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  -Go see Wolves this August, from the 4th to the 21st: http://kidswithguns.com/

-Watch OtherPeeps: otherpeeps.com

-Go see Gormanzee and Other Stories at the Flea July 7th- 25th. Anna Moench is an effin’ genius and can ride a bike better than Lance Armstrong.

-See Shells Returns! At the Joe’s Pub on July 13th. A cabaret act performed by Roslyn Hart and created by her and Nick Chase. It’s some savagely funny stuff. -Watch Michael Cyril Creighton’s online show Jack in the Box: http://www.youtube.com/user/MCCreighton . It’s hilarious.

Jun 20, 2010

I Interview Playwrights Part 199: Alice Tuan



Alice Tuan

Hometown: Los Angeles, CA

Current Town: Valencia, CA

Q:  What are you working on now? 

A:  COCKS CROW is a play I wrote the first draft of in Shanghai...Americans trying to do business in China but not understanding how Chinese business 'practices' work...shrinking superpower entitlement.

Q:  What was Shanghai like? 

A:  Infinitely interesting...a great place from which to think about the 21st century. It made me realize what I love about the U.S., namely psychic freedom and the possibility of self-determination.

Q:  You're the Head of Writing for Performance at Cal Arts. Can you tell me about that?

A:  The Writing for Performance program at Cal Arts is for innovative creator minds who are interested in collaborating with different and interdisciplinary artist minds and forging new kinds of performance...what might be the theater of the 21st century? Cal Arts is the place to explore...

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 grandfather, who was a Lt. General in Chiang Kai-Shek's Nationalist army, lived with us in his later years. I woke to the sound of beeping one morning...beep beep beep, endlessly...and found my grandpaps bent over the microwave, pressing numbers, trying to warm his tea. He could not find the start button, and my screamed explanation to the 93-year-old man sparked a moment of the past trying to start 'fire by buttons' in the modern world. This literally was the first scene I ever wrote. I think playwriting was a way to try and fuse contradictions, old/new, east/west, male/female power which has led me to a synthesis point in which my drama thinking stems from, always striving for that point above the original plane of conception.

Q:  If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be? 

A:  The set paradigm which keeps new voices and rhythms of the internet mind from being seen on stage.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you? 

A:  Seeing new populations and sensibilities enacted, ones that articulate the new complexities of 21st century behavior, even if it is a classic re-imagined (like Cromer's Our Town)...or avant garde frag/satire with emotional payoff (Austin's Rude Mechs, The Method Gun).

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

A:  Go to the edges of your mind to find your voice, but have the knowledge and flex of understanding how the market works.

Q:  Plugs, please: 

A:   Rima Anosa's Myopia (race satire through consumer lens and absurdist events), Candrice Jones' Crackbaby (non-TV movie treatment of exacerbated social issue critting the Public school system of the United States of America with a crack dialect stemmed from Gertrude Steinesque riff) + above mentioned, Cromer and Rude Mechs.

Jun 19, 2010

I Interview Playwrights Part 198: Alice Austen




Alice Austen

Hometown: I moved around as a kid and spent a lot of time in the Bay Area and the Northern California coast. I went to high school in Pleasant Hill, Oregon, a rural community near Eugene -which happened to be where Ken Kesey, the Merry Pranksters, Jerry Garcia and a lot of the Dead lived. So my first writing teacher was actually Ken Kesey.

Current Town: I’m a Chicago playwright. I live in Milwaukee.

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I took a couple years off from playwriting to write a novel that’s generating a lot of excitement. I have four plays in circulation, three are new. There’s a production of DESTRUCTION OF CURVES coming up this fall – a reverse chronology play about four people trapped on a train after a bomb goes off. HER ONLY FAULT, a play about Emilie du Chatelet and Voltaire, has been championed by my SHANGHAI LOW THEATRICALS partner, the inimitable Steve Pickering. BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS – about fathers, sons and war - recently had a staged reading at Route 66 with a superb Stef Tovar in the lead role. And this spring I wrote a ruthless little two-hander called PLAZA HOTEL BALLROOM about media and the collapse of civilization that I’m working on with the talented director Robin Witt.

Q:  You graduated from Harvard Law, and you were the first American to receive a fellowship to the Court of Human Rights at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. You lived in France, Belgium and Prague where you worked as a translator, writer and international attorney. I have to ask. Why playwriting?

A:  It was a complete accident. I did creative writing at Harvard and wrote fiction. And then later, I was living in Brussels and commuting to Prague. I had a lot of down time in the Frankfurt airport between connections. My friend and colleague, the Irish actor Brian Hartnett, talked me into writing a play where he and another friend could throw things at each other and shout. I did and the play was produced. It was kind of thrilling because I was working for another playwright – Vaclav Havel - at the time.

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

A:  I was the second fastest runner in the fourth grade. The fastest was my best friend Jimmy Salvador. We had played football at recess and we were all sweaty and muddy and tired. The bell rang. I remember looking up the slope of the playground and seeing a police officer standing on the edge of the grass with the principal and our teacher. Everything was very still for a second. Then Jimmy took off. The cop started chasing him and we were all shouting at Jimmy to run faster. But really, there was no way the cop was gonna catch Jimmy. And he didn’t. I never saw Jimmy again. The next day our teacher told us that he and his family were illegal – like that was news. And later still I found out that Jimmy's whole family had disappeared. From this I learned that nothing is permanent and things are never as they seem, you can’t trust the people in charge to understand or protect your best interests and it’s important- always - to be the fastest runner.

Q:  If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?

A:  The seats are sometimes extremely uncomfortable.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Work that’s truthful and genuinely audacious – NEXT’s recent production of WAR WITH THE NEWTS comes to mind.

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

A:  Theatre is collaborative – find the people you can work with and mentors who will guide you. I’ve had mentors over the years who have challenged and helped me and I’ll always be grateful to them, from the philosopher/writer Robert Grudin, the poet Michael Blumenthal to Chicago Dramatists Artistic Director Russ Tutterow. After that, follow Michel Houellebecq's advice, Dig into the subjects no one wants to hear about. Truth is scandalous. But without it, there's nothing of value.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  This year, SHANGHAI LOW THEATRICALS acquired the theatric adaptation rights to Alastair Reynolds DIAMOND DOGS -stay tuned.

http://shanghailow.typepad.com/home/alice-austen.html

http://www.chicagodramatists.org/catalogue/pwdetail.html?command=search&db=%2Fdatabases%2Fpwdb.db&eqpwiddatarq=9032&titlesort=1&titlesdir=as

Jun 18, 2010

I Interview Playwrights Part 197: Jeffrey Sweet


Photo: Jeff in green sweater surrounded by New York cast of BLUFF.

Jeffrey Sweet

Hometown: Chicago

Current Town: New York

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I’m fiddling with re-writes on a play about Lyndon Johnson and how his greatest political accomplishment was accomplished by one of his greatest personal betrayals. It’s called TEXAS BOOT. And I’m researching and writing notes for a play set in Provincetown about two people who can’t be married but can’t not be.

Q:  Tell me about Victory Gardens.

A:  I had the good luck to stumble into Victory Gardens on a recommendation. I wrote a book about the origins of Second City called SOMETHING WONDERFUL RIGHT AWAY. It came out in 1978. I was visiting Chicago to plug the book when one of the producers at Second City, Joyce Sloane, noticed that it said on the cover that I’m a playwright. She said she was on the board of a small theatre and would I like an introduction to the artistic director? I said yes. She got on the phone and said, “I’m sending over a young writer. Be nice to him.” I got on the 22 bus and arrived at Victory Gardens’s then home, a couple of blocks north of the Cubs ballpark. I met Dennis Zacek, the artistic director, and gave him a copy of my play PORCH. He promised to read it.

In the meantime, in NY, I’d become involved with an off-off-Broadway company devoted to opera called the Encompass. For reasons I can’t fathom, they asked me to be a literary manager. Well, I knew little about opera, but I’d always wanted to see a production of Marc Blitzstein’s REGINA, based on Lillian Hellman’s THE LITTLE FOXES. They took my advice (it turned out to be a big hit for them). During rehearsal, I realized that the set for the porch in REGINA could do double duty for my play. The artistic director said I could put it up as long as it didn’t cost her anything. So I got a cast and a director and we rehearsed in the loft of one of the actors. We put the show on as a dark-night project at the Encompass, the first-string critic of the NY TIMES (who turned out to be a fan of SOMETHING WONDERFUL RIGHT AWAY) came and gave it something close to a rave. Not long after, Dennis called to say he’d like to do a reading. With a little chutzpah I said, “Hey, it just got a good review out of the TIMES. It’s cheap. Why don’t you just put it on?” And he did. And it was a surprise hit. That was 1979 and I’ve been working with Dennis and Victory Gardens ever since.

I think we’ve done 14 shows together. A lot of different kinds. On one end, there are BLUFF and WITH AND WITHOUT, which are contemporary comedies with a little darkness. On the other end, there are pieces like THE ACTION AGAINST SOL SCHUMANN, FLYOVERS and BERLIN ‘45, which are more dramatic and pretty specifically about people coping with social or political forces. I tend to alternate between working with Dennis and Sandy Shinner. I don’t know how Dennis decides which plays he’s going to direct and which plays he’s going to assign to Sandy, but I have happy working relationships with both of them. Sandy has twice directed sensational New York productions of plays that were first done in Chicago – BLUFF, which she’d directed in Chicago with Tim Grimm and Jon Cryer but was even better in New York (largely because we changed the set and the space made a lot of difference) and FLYOVERS. FLYOVERS was complicated because Dennis directed a pretty perfect production in Chicago with William Petersen, Amy Morton, Marc Vann and Linda Reiter (Gary Cole and Teddi Siddall replaced Billy and Amy later in the run). Dennis was supposed to direct it in New York, but something very serious came up and Sandy found herself in the awkward position of having to sub for him here. Her production was substantially different, but then it would have had to have been given that the cast was so different – Richard Kind, Michele Pawk, Kevin Geer and Donna Bullock. And it was pretty close to perfect, too. So I’m always delighted to work with either of them.

Knowing that I have a theatre-home is hugely helpful. It’s not just that I know my stuff is probably going to be done there, it’s also that there are people associated with the place I look forward to working with again and again. There isn’t a formal acting company there, but Dennis and Sandy and I certainly have strong relationships with particular people, and sometimes I’ll write something with the idea of getting together again with favorite players. I will always want to work with Tim Grimm and Gary Houston, for instance. And Linda Reiter, Melissa Carlson and Kristine Thatcher are special to me. I could name many other actors I’ve enjoyed working with, but these are people who have done multiple projects of mine.

Q:  What other Chicago theaters would you recommend?

A:  The Chicago theatre movement happened largely because Paul Sills pioneered improvisational theatre there. In order to understand Chicago theatre – including many Chicago playwrights – you need to visit the key improv-based theatres: Second City, iO (yes, that’s a real name) and the Annoyance Theatre. There's a direct relationship between improvisational theory and playwriting theory.

The theatres that won Tony Awards in Chicago – Victory Gardens, the Goodman, Steppenwolf and Chicago Shakespeare – all deserve them and deserve visits. You also can’t go wrong at the Writers Theatre, the Eclipse, American Blues Theatre and Shattered Globe. You’re not terribly likely to break in as a writer at any of these places though. There are other, scrappy theatres with smaller budgets that are constantly popping up in storefronts and back rooms. Some of these outfits are actually looking for new plays and new writers. Another tip: non-Equity theatre in Chicago is taken very seriously, so don’t be put up off from going to or submitting to a theatre just because the company may not be Equity. The long-running, critically-lauded off-Broadway revival of OUR TOWN started as a non-Equity project.

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

A:  I’m told that when I was a toddler someone asked me what I wanted for my birthday. I replied, “A typewriter.” This wasn’t quite the Davy Crockett hat they had expected as the answer. Why did I want a typewriter? “To write my dissertation.” Of course, I had no idea what a dissertation was, but my dad was working on his, and that probably meant that it was a fine thing to work on. My dad dreamed of being a writer, but he couldn’t see how to support a family while trying to be the 1950's answer to Ernest Hemingway, so he wrote public relations for universities instead and put food on the table. I always felt that my choosing a writing career in some way was me picking up and fulfilling his unrealized desire. I never risked embarrassing him by asking him that question directly, but I knew he was a steady ally and I loved him dearly. He was trained as a historian, and I don’t think it’s an accident that I’ve written so many plays that have touched on historical or political subjects. He brought me up with stories about the past and how they related to the present, and a couple of times was able to feed me some research on projects I was working on. My mother? She was a professional violinist, and my enthusiasm for music was probably fed by that. It’s not surprising that with this background I’ve written some musicals.

Q;  If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?

A:  To provide real residencies for playwrights. We’re always treated as guest artists rather than having real homes in the companies – our own desks in the building, our own health plans, responsibilities outside of work on our own stuff. I find it particularly upsetting that more literary managers make livings in the theatre (and are covered by insurance through their theatre employment) than playwrights.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Plays and productions that collaborate with the imagination of the audience. The audience is there as a partner; it mostly doesn’t need a lot of elaborate sets and technical tricks. This partially draws from my enthusiasm for Second City, which is based on actors working with little more than a stage and some chairs. I also love good musicals, though these days they only pop up once every couple of years.

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

A:  Don’t be passive. Don’t wait for permission from someone else to be a playwright. Start off writing stuff easy to produce for younger actors so that if it's good there's no reason for someone not to produce it. Court talented directors on the way up; directors generate more productions for writers than agents do. Take acting classes, especially improvisation, so you know how a scene works from the player's perspective. Understand that only half the playwright’s job is facing a blank page. The other half is social. Theatre is a social profession, and if you want to be a part of it you have to be an active part of the community. People tend to want to work with people they know. Volunteer to help small theatre companies and learn how they work. Visit the O’Neill Center in the summer and grab lunch in their dining hall; you'll meet very cool people. Attend readings and begin making lists of actors and directors you want to work with, and don’t be shy about approaching them and inviting them out for coffee. Learn how to produce yourself if necessary. Be useful to other writers. Don’t put off joining the Dramatists Guild; you want to be a member before you need their help.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Books: THE VALUE OF NAMES AND OTHER PLAYS (anthology from Northwestern University Press), SOMETHING WONDERFUL RIGHT AWAY (oral history of Second City from Limelight Editions), THE DRAMATIST’S TOOLKIT and SOLVING YOUR SCRIPT (texts on playwriting from Heinemann). Available to consult and run workshops through Facebook. Teach in New York through HB Studios (http://www.hbstudio.org/), the Magnet Theatre (http://www.magnettheater.com/), and Artistic New Directions (http://www.artisticnewdirections.org/retreats.html). Also, FLYOVERS (with William Petersen and Amy Morton) has just been released on CD.