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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...

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Aug 31, 2010

I Interview Playwrights Part 254: Sigrid Gilmer


Sigrid Gilmer

Hometown:  Pittsburg, California.

Current Town:  Pasadena, California

Q:  Tell me about your show with Cornerstone.

A:  It’s All Bueno was written for Cornerstone’s 7th Summer Institute that was stationed in Pacoima, California. The Institute is a program where theatre makers, social activist and students come, hang out, learn the Cornerstone methodology and help make a play. Based on Candide, It’s All Bueno was inspired by the two diametrically opposed ideas that I kept running into when I was gathering stories in Pacoima. On one side I would hear that Pacoima is dangerous, violent and full of poverty. On the other I would hear that Pacoima is a great place to live and filled with folks who are active in the community and participate in organizations that enriched the neighborhood. The story of the play is about a family, who has abandoned the Pacoima and because of the fears both real and imagined they have locked themselves and their two daughters behind the iron gate of their home. When their house is erroneously foreclosed the family sets off on a mad-cap adventure through Pacoima and comes to terms with the community they have forsaken. The play is a broad farce with lots of slapstick, chases and dance numbers (Yay! Ken Roht). There are dueling car washes, a gang of clowns, a street vendor with magic elotes. It was 90 minutes of goofy and silly, performed by the community members and Institute participants in the beautiful Project Youth Green community garden at Jessup Park. It was a great show and theatre making experience. The level of commitment, bravery and generosity of the community members-many who had never performed before-was amazing. In four weeks, these folks along with Institute participants and under the innovative and brilliant direction of Julliette Carrillo embraced the spirit of the play and created a beautiful show more rollicking, joyous and heart opening than I could have ever envisioned.

Q:  What else are you up to?

A:  I am beginning a new play called Frilly. Filled with Girl Group tunes, the story takes place at the turn of the 20th century and is about how a minister’s wife and daughter’s sexual awakenings leads to the invention of the ice cream sundae. I see ladies in big Sunday hats and high-necked dresses with cinched waists crooning the Chantels or the Bobbettes. It’s fresh. As in new, I am just tinkering with characters and research, which I love and fresh as in super awesome.

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 a latch key kid, so I spent the majority of my afternoons and summers home alone with the TV. When my favorite shows were over I would be so bummed that I would create extensions of the episodes I had just watched. I‘d make up new story lines and characters, embellish minor ones, give main ones different traits, take the show to a new location. I would perform these pieces-I played all the roles-for my dog Fluffy in the proscenium of arch of our living room. My favorite shows were Fame and Little House on the Prairie. Fame was the best because I would add dance numbers.

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

A:  A living wage for playwrights.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theatre with balls and brains.

Theatre that challenges assumptions about structure and storytelling.

Theatre by and about people whose stories don’t get told.

Theatre that titillates & entertains.

Theatre with a sense of history and humor.

Theatre that is socially and politically aware.

Theatre that is messy, filled with music, fearless and kicks ass.

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

A:  Write. Write. Write.

Persistence is the key.

Trust your own tastes and proclivities.

Don’t listen to anyone. No one really knows what’s going on. Especially me.

Write. Write. Write.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Brian Bauman. His plays are fearless, poetic ruthless beauties. If you are in NYC track him down!

In LA, Sibyl O’Malley is creating hysterical, intelligent and biting plays with tender centers.

In Austin, Alana Libertad Macias’ Zero Libertad! Revolutionary. Ritual. Fierce beats.

Aug 30, 2010

I Interview Playwrights Part 253: Anthony Weigh



Anthony Weigh

Hometown: Brisbane, Australia.

Current Town: New York.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: New commissions for The National Theatre, the Sydney Theatre Company, the Melbourne Theatre Company and Malthouse Theatre. Hopefully they won't all end up as one big really awful play.

Q: What was it like being in residence at the National?

A: Absolutely terrific. I was writer in residence at the NT for a year. I learnt a huge amount. Part of the position requires that you sit on the associates panel which aides and advises on repertoire etc. Wonderful to see how such a huge and important company operates from the insides.

But, the best bit was, I had my own office there for a year. Provided me the physical and psychological space to work. I will never work from home again!

Q: How would you characterise English theater?

A: Well, for a start, they spell it differently.

Secondly, English theater can tend to be preoccupied by a kind of politically topical social realism. John Osbourne casts a long shadow in England. There are exceptions to the rule, but they are rare. Churchill is NOT the norm. Quite a lot of plays set in living rooms on housing estates about two young lads smoking drugs, while one of their sisters comes of age, and another of their sisters struggles with obesity, and an uncle who's a bit of a paedo, a father trying in vain to get a job and/or come out of the closet, and a Mother who's battling the bottle and attempting to save the planet from global warming while breeding fighting dogs.

Also, the staged landscape is often benign. It's not for nothing that Pinters' plays happen in kitchens and living rooms and attics. The English natural environment is soft, toothless. There is nothing dangerous about place in England as there can be in Scotland or Russia or Canada or Australia. This is reflected in the writing. As a result you will almost always encounter a sofa in a room somewhere in an English play. One of the best English plays of the last few years was Jez Butterworths' Jerusalem and that was remarkable because he took the sofa and put it outside! Still a sofa though.

Having said all that, the English have a wonderful ear for the unsaid. Drama as a kind of dance of longing and unfulfilled hopes. The excruciating pain of the fumbled encounter. The badly handled joke. The silently cooling cup of tea placed on the kitchen table. The half remembered slight that led to the death of a child. No one does that better.

Finally, the nature of the funding structure there means that if you've written a half decent play it'll get on somewhere. That's pretty amazing.

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 told my next door neighbour that if he didn't let me kiss him he'd get pregnant. He agreed and to my knowledge has not fallen pregnant.

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

A: Attendance would guarantee you had a lot of really great sex? Would certainly boost box office.

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: Christoph Martaler, John Adams, Erik Ehn, Ontroerend Goed, Caryl Churchill, David Harrower, Bertolt Brecht, Kleist, Chekov.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: Sadly, most theatre. I'm a slut to it. Even the bad stuff.

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

A: Think about keeping that MFA thesis play in the bottom drawer.

Do not allow anyone to have input into your work until they have agreed to produce it.
A reading is not a production.

Ask yourself; "What is theatre?", then "Is this thing I've written theatre?", then "Why does this have to be performed by bodies in space to other bodies in space?"

Q: Plugs, please:

A:
http://www.faber.co.uk/work/like-fishbone/9780571269754/
http://www.faber.co.uk/work/2000-feet-away/9780571242610/

I Interview Playwrights Part 252: Maria Alexandria Beech


Maria Alexandria Beech

Hometown:  Anaco, Venezuela

Current Town:  Manhattan

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I'm writing a commissioned play for Primary Stages and Theatre Masters based on the Aspen Ideas Festival which I attended last summer. I'm also working Little Monsters which will be co-produced (with Primary) at Brandeis Theatre Company next February. Little Monsters is also part of Octoberfest at Ensemble Studio Theatre in September so I'm trying to get the play in shape for that. I'm also starting the NYU Musical Theatre Writing Program. For my day job, I'm co-authoring a case study on the film industry and writing an article about the Ford Foundation.

Q:  Tell me about the The Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group at Primary Stages and the The Hispanic Playwright's Lab at Intar.

A:  Primary Stages has been really supportive. I was asked to join the writers group as grad school ended and that was a great transition into professional theater. I've had a home to write plays, (I write best under deadline and they require ten-twelve pages a week). I've also had a chance to work with fabulous directors and actors during our spring reading series, and I cannot say enough how amazing it feels when a theater treats you with respect and professionalism. They approached actors like Frances Sternhagen, Maria Tucci, and Laila Robbins for my readings, and working with those iconic actors was a great boost for my confidence as a writer. The greatest component of the writers group is that you get feedback from your colleagues who are some of the most talented and accomplished playwrights in the American theater today. Over the years, I've been in the group with playwrights like you, Julia Jordan, Katori Hall, Cusi Cram, Neena Berber, Courtney Baron (who is a fucking amazing dramaturg), Tommy Smith, Bekah Brunstetter, David Caudle...listening to colleagues has made me a much better (and thicker-skinned!) playwright.

The Hispanic Playwright's Lab at Intar was a great experience. I wrote with Matthew Paul Olmos, Andrea Thome, Cyn Canel-Rossi, Mando Alvarado, and other talented playwrights and some of them are my best friends today. I also became invested in the community of actors and directors associated with Intar, and they feel like an extended family to me.

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 had a really lonely childhood in Venezuela. I grew up in an oil city as the kid of a mainly absent American Father and therefore despondent Venezuelan Mother, and I didn't fit in anywhere. I spent long afternoons eating green mangos in my treehouse, or wandering around the oil camps looking for friends. (I don't blame my parents for anything...they were two incredible people who tried to love each other and us...but it was a challenging situation.) There were tons of secrets at home, and nothing was ever answered. Painful as it was, it truly forced me to live in my imagination, and writing became a creative way of approaching all those secrets.

Q:  In your life as a reporter, what was it like interviewing Latin American presidents?

A:  President Serengeti of Uruguay had the longest eyebrows I had ever seen on a non-camel, and it was difficult to focus on his eyes. My interview with President Ortega of Nicaragua was surreal because his handler wouldn't let me do the interview if I didn't lend Ortega my facial powder. I kept pretending that the request wasn't on the table but every approach for the interview was met with: "only if you have powder for his face." I was visiting Venezuela and the only "powder" I had was my own Clinique, and his face ended up caked with it. It was strange to see that vanity and insecurity in a revolutionary who years earlier had dressed in camouflage. Interviewing President Carlos Andres Perez of Venezuela was like interviewing a wax figure. His answers were wooden and stale. He had just brokered talks between Palestine and Israel and I asked him about that. He was in the middle of a lengthy answer when his phone rang and he answered it. Nothing like losing a key moment in an interview. I met with President Chavez when I was at Lehman Brothers. He was shorter and more feminine than I expected. For some reason, he plays a very macho character during the hours (and hours) he spends on Venezuelan television but he has zero mojo in person. President Fidel Castro was a huge flirt. At first he was angry because I asked him about the poverty and recession in Cuba, and then he softened when I told him that I was frustrated that the US Federal Reserve had bailed out all those millionaires (longterm capital management) who had invested their money unwisely. President Toledo of Peru was tiny and perfectly lovely. I met with him when he was still a candidate, and I told him I didn't think Fujimori would ever let him win which is exactly what happened. President Menem of Argentina was running for office again so everything around us had his logo: Menem 2003, even the sugar packets that were served with our coffee. When I had to go to the bathroom, he insisted on accompanying me himself, so I was mortified to make any noise thinking he was waiting for me outside. President Fox was pragmatic saying, "I may sound like a populist but I have an election to win." Wouldn't it be refreshing if all candidates were as honest?

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Playwrights were originally called poets, and I love theater that feels like poetry. Words that are carefully chosen for their meaning, and strung together for their subtext. I love to feel that the playwright labored for just the right sentences. I love when the writing feels meticulous...Susan Lori Parks is a good example. I love work that feels real, and also that takes me on a strange journey like your pirates play or Courtney's play about heart break. I love intelligent humor, and also learning about other cultures...but it has to feel real. I think that what is incubating at the Public with the emerging writers group is VERY exciting - we need artistic diversity if we're going to survive as a culture - and I can't wait to see what comes out that project. I'm also into some musicals and experimental opera. Tod Machover and I are talking about writing an opera together, and to me, Tod is a glorious composer. Not only does he invent instruments but he envisions likely but non-existing worlds such as a future where we can download our brains into chandeliers. I also love simple writing that turns around and smacks you in the face - Matt Olmos or Andrea Thome come to mind. I love smart writers who forgo pretension like Chris Shinn. A favorite right now is Tanya Saracho in Chicago who writes these wonderful, ambitious plays sprinkled with Spanish. Last summer, I read over seven hundred scripts for two panels and a theater, so I could go on and on about the theater that excites me...your plays excite me, Adam. I'm really, really excited about the experimental theater movement in Mexico. (My essay on it for the Lark is here: http://larktheatre.blogspot.com/2009/12/december-2009-maria-alexandria-beech.html)

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

A:  This question is the reason it's taken me months to get back to you with this interview. So much to say.

- First, it's important to know that if you feel like you're a playwright, you probably are. It's an unsexy and unrewarding life for a long time...so you have to stick with your conviction that you're a playwright no matter what a million people tell you...your parents, people who give you tepid feedback...that feeling you have inside that you're a playwright is an avocado seed that takes years and years to grow into a tree. At first, you may be the only one who truly knows you're a playwright but if you stick with it, eventually you'll start to convince others because your work will get better.

- If you're thinking about grad school, go but try to get scholarships. Grad school forces you to write...and that's what you need to become a better playwright. You'll get feedback from other theater artists, and you might make friends. You'll also see your work staged and if you're fortunate enough to work with people like Anne Bogart or Kelly Stuart, you might learn a few things. If you can't go, don't worry. Public libraries and drama book shops will give you everything you need. All you really need is writing tools.

- Intern at a theater. I worked at the Cherry Lane for two years and it was a very important experience. Most theater appreciate the free labor, so just call up and offer your services.

- Take a production course. Often, playwrights are scared of numbers but it's important to know the "business" of theater. The idea that you can produce yourself will console you when there's no production on the horizon. Understanding how the "business" works gives you the option of producing smaller-scale projects that will keep you occupied and improve your work.

- Join or form a writers group. Writing with colleagues is cool as shit. Again, it forces you to write.

- Don't worry about getting an agent. A lot of people think that an agent validates them as artists but I've formed relationships with theaters (by submitting) and negotiated multi-thousand dollar contracts alone. More than once, I've been told that an agent will appear when my career is ready...and that's been my path. The deal is to become the best playwright possible so agents want you.

- If you're writing from your personal experience, you can protect your privacy. When people ask, "did that happen to you," you can say, "it's not really appropriate to ask an artist that question. I don't think Frida stood around a gallery and explained that the babies hanging from umbilical cords in her paintings were hers."

- The theater is small. I try to avoid gossip and mean-spirited conversation though venting is sometimes necessary. I've decided over time that I won't work with people who gossip a lot because gossips can ruin a reputation. I've seen it happen, and it's pretty sad when it does.

- If it's one of your first projects, understand what a director wants to do with your play. Also try to know whether he or she will listen to your input when you don't agree with their choices. I lost a wonderful friend once because I didn't understand at the start that he didn't want any input from the playwright, and that he wouldn't change important things I didn't like. Conversations are a must.

- Nurture relationships with mentors. That doesn't mean weekly meetings. It means having relationships with more experienced playwrights (and other theater professionals) who can guide you through a confusing situation when the time comes up. Sometimes, that means an email every few weeks or even months.

- I'm a naturally shy dork and I'm socially awkward around uber cool people. Since there's a hegemony of cool people in the theater right now, you may sometimes feel like an outsider. YOU'RE NOT. Just be yourself and eventually other dorks will find you. And some of the cool people may even eventually talk to you...but even if they don't, theater isn't high school. It's not a popularity contest. It's a place where people come together to create worlds and people that have never existed, and as such, our purpose is greater than liking each other.

- I remember every single compliment I've ever gotten over my work. If you like someone's work, tell them. It's a huge boost in a path rife with rejection.

- Rejection will become your best friend. Rejection letters, etc. (Don't save them.) Get used to it and also, get over it and move on to your next submission.

- Read tons and tons of plays (Drama Book Shop and public libraries let you read them without buying them) and also watch past productions at the 4th floor of the New York Public Library of Performing Arts. Don't let the people there intimidate you. When they ask what your purpose is for being there, say, "I'm writing a play and I need to watch this production for research."

- If you feel at home in the theater, you are. Take off your shoes and stay awhile. Don't wait for permission or a production. The most successful people in the theater often say they just stuck around long enough.

- Submit and submit. Join The Loop and Facebook playwrights groups that send you submission calendars. Rogelio Martinez once said, "you never know when someone out there is going to read your play and become your fan. Even if your play doesn't get produced, that person may eventually have a position of influence that allows them to re-visit your work." I've actually seen it happen.

- Have fun. Remember. This isn't an emergency room. We're not saving lives. We're storytellers, and in the best of circumstances, mirrors of what is and what could be.

Q:  Plugs:

A:
Little Monsters, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Saturday, September 25th at 4:30 pm
Little Monsters, Brandeis Theatre Company, February 17-21, 2011

I Interview Playwrights Part 251: Catherine Filloux


photo by Vandy Rattana

Catherine Filloux

Hometown: San Diego, California. (Not far from the border with Mexico.)

Current Town: New York City. (Not far from the Hudson River.)

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  An epic play about gender-based violence. It may be two parts. It involves an uber human rights attorney, Guatemala, a Native American Tribe, Haiti, an oil executive in the Hague and a boy with cerebral palsy.

Q:  You write about human rights issues. What challenges do you face when trying to stage political plays and how do you address these challenges?

A:  I have been fortunate to work with a talented director, Jean Randich, who stages my work with imagination and poetry. She helped turn a bundle of fabric that wrapped a baby in the Rwandan genocide into the scarf that Raphael Lemkin’s mother wore in the Holocaust. My director Robert McQueen created the Cambodian countryside on stage with our Khmer performers in Where Elephants Weep behind a scrim; as their silhouettes looked up, you could see the bombs falling. Director Kay Matschullat and her set designer found this amazing plastic (a shower curtain) that actor Eunice Wong danced behind in Eyes of the Heart and that became a blind woman’s memory of her lost daughter. Director David Esbjornson and actor Nike Imoru helped create my character “Water” in Hurricane Katrina, in all her terror, seduction and beauty.

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

A:  There’s a quote from the sculptor-artist Hans Arp: “C’est en écrivant qu’on devient écrevisse.” Literally translated in English it means, “It’s by writing that you become a freshwater crayfish.” But in French it would mean: “It’s by writing that you become a “writeress” (a female writer),” which happens to also mean crayfish. Okay, that’s the story from my childhood—living between languages. “Passes ton ass” means “pass your plate” in Franglish, and my siblings and I just love that. When Hans Arp spoke in German he referred to himself as "Hans", and when he spoke in French he referred to himself as "Jean". Many people believe that he was born Hans and later changed his name to Jean, but that is not the case. My name is a train wreck. Filloux (pronounced Fee-you) means a little mischievous boy. Even in France they don’t necessarily know how to say it. In English people call me Cat.

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

A:  That one stays in the dark quite a lot.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Currently Jeanne Moreau and Sami Frey. My aunt gave me an audio of Quartett by Heiner Müller. Have you ever heard them do this? And I recently saw Sami Frey perform Beckett’s Premier Amour. There are so many theatrical heroines and I’m not talking about the drug :-) If I write some then I’ve left others out. Long ago I was in the founding writer’s lab at the Women’s Project, organized by Julia Miles.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I just finished reading a new play by Joyce Van Dyke, Deported/a dream play. I found it extraordinary. It is epic, though it can be done with 7 actors. Large in scope, but the story is economically told; poetic, muscular and I find the third act to be structurally surprising and dramatic. It’s about the Armenian genocide; about Joyce’s own history, but it’s much bigger than just that. I immediately thought that her play needs to be done in Washington D.C.

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

A:  I worked with a dramaturg, Lue Douthit, at Bay Area Playwrights Festival, who helped me a lot on my play Eyes of the Heart. (Talk about a development period, I started the play in the late 80s and it was produced at NAATCO in 2004.) I found Lue to be hilarious in her comments--and she could walk and read at the same time. That would be my advice. Humor goes a long way.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  I am currently looking for a 75 foot VGA cable for this event: http://www.theatrewithoutborders.com/node/1244

Aug 29, 2010

250 Playwright Interviews alphabetically

Rob Ackerman
Liz Duffy Adams
Johnna Adams
David Adjmi
Derek Ahonen
Zakiyyah Alexander
Luis Alfaro
Lucy Alibar
Joshua Allen
Sofia Alvarez
Terence Anthony
Alice Austen
Rachel Axler
Annie Baker
Trista Baldwin
Courtney Baron
Mike Batistick 

Nikole Beckwith
Alan Berks
Brooke Berman
Susan Bernfield
Jay Bernzweig
Barton Bishop
Lee Blessing
Jonathan Blitstein
Adam Bock
Jerrod Bogard
Deron Bos
Hannah Bos
Leslie Bramm
Jami Brandli
George Brant
Tim Braun
Delaney Britt Brewer
Erin Browne
Bekah Brunstetter
Sheila Callaghan
Darren Canady
Ruben Carbajal
Ed Cardona, Jr.
Jonathan Caren
Aaron Carter
David Caudle
Clay McLeod Chapman
Christopher Chen
Andrea Ciannavei
Alexandra Collier
James Comtois
Joshua Conkel
Kara Lee Corthron
Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas
Erin Courtney
Cusi Cram
Stacy Davidowitz  
Lisa D'Amour
Heidi Darchuk
Dylan Dawson
Gabriel Jason Dean
Vincent Delaney
Emily DeVoti
Kristoffer Diaz
Jessica Dickey
Dan Dietz
Lisa Dillman
Zayd Dohrn
Bathsheba Doran
Anton Dudley
Laura Eason
Fielding Edlow
Erik Ehn
Yussef El Guindi
Libby Emmons
Christine Evans
Joshua Fardon
Kenny Finkle
Sam Forman
Kevin R. Free
Matthew Freeman
Edith Freni
Patrick Gabridge
Madeleine George
Meg Gibson
Peter Gil-Sheridan
Gina Gionfriddo
Michael Golamco
Jessica Goldberg
Daniel Goldfarb
Jacqueline Goldfinger
Christina Gorman
Craig "muMs" Grant
Katharine Clark Gray
Kirsten Greenidge
Jason Grote
Sarah Gubbins
Stephen Adly Guirgis
Jennifer Haley
Christina Ham
Sarah Hammond
Rob Handel
Jordan Harrison
Leslye Headland
Ann Marie Healy
Marielle Heller
Amy Herzog
Andrew Hinderaker
Cory Hinkle
Richard Martin Hirsch
Lucas Hnath
David Holstein
J. Holtham
Les Hunter
Sam Hunter
Chisa Hutchinson
Arlene Hutton
Laura Jacqmin
Joshua James
Julia Jarcho
Kyle Jarrow
Karla Jennings
David Johnston
Nick Jones
Julia Jordan
Rajiv Joseph
Jeremy Kareken
Greg Keller
Anna Kerrigan
Boo Killebrew
Callie Kimball
Johnny Klein 
Krista Knight
Larry Kunofsky
J. C. Lee
Young Jean Lee
Dan LeFranc
Andrea Lepcio
Steven Levenson
Michael Lew
EM Lewis
Jeff Lewonczyk
Kenneth Lin
Matthew Lopez
Stacey Luftig
Kirk Lynn
Mariah MacCarthy
Laura Lynn MacDonald
Jennifer Maisel
Martyna Majok 
Kara Manning
Ellen Margolis
Ruth Margraff
Sam Marks
Tarell Alvin McCraney
Daniel McCoy 
Ruth McKee
Carly Mensch
Molly Smith Metzler
Charlotte Miller
Winter Miller
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Rehana Mirza
Michael Mitnick
Alejandro Morales
Desi Moreno-Penson
Dominique Morisseau
Itamar Moses
Gregory Moss
Megan Mostyn-Brown
Paul Mullin
Julie Marie Myatt
Janine Nabers
Peter Sinn Nachtrieb
Brett Neveu
Qui Nguyen
Don Nigro
Dan O'Brien
Dominic Orlando
Jamie Pachino
Kristen Palmer
Tira Palmquist
Peter Parnell
Julia Pascal
Steve Patterson
Daria Polatin 
Craig Pospisil
Jessica Provenz
Michael Puzzo
Theresa Rebeck
Amber Reed
Daniel Reitz
Molly Rice
Mac Rogers
Andrew Rosendorf
Kim Rosenstock
Kate E. Ryan
Kate Moira Ryan
Trav S.D.
Sarah Sander
Tanya Saracho
Heidi Schreck
August Schulenburg
Mark Schultz
Jenny Schwartz
Emily Schwend
Jordan Seavey
Christopher Shinn
Rachel Shukert
Blair Singer
Crystal Skillman
Mat Smart
Alena Smith
Tommy Smith
Nick Starr
Deborah Stein
Jon Steinhagen
Victoria Stewart
Andrea Stolowitz
Gary Sunshine
Caridad Svich
Jeffrey Sweet
Adam Szymkowicz
Daniel Talbott
Kate Tarker 
Lucy Thurber
Dan Trujillo
Alice Tuan
Jon Tuttle
Ken Urban
Enrique Urueta
Francine Volpe
Kathryn Walat
Malachy Walsh
Kathleen Warnock
Anne Washburn
Marisa Wegrzyn
Ken Weitzman
Sharr White
Claire Willett
Samuel Brett Williams
Beau Willimon
Pia Wilson
Gary Winter
Stanton Wood
Craig Wright
Deborah Yarchun
Lauren Yee
Steve Yockey
Kelly Younger
Stefanie Zadravec
Anna Ziegler

250 Playwright Interviews

Jordan Harrison
Alexandra Collier
Jessica Goldberg
Nick Starr
Young Jean Lee
Christina Gorman
Ruth McKee
Johnny Klein
Leslie Bramm
Jennifer Maisel
Jon Steinhagen
Leslye Headland
Kate Tarker
David Holstein
Trav S.D.

Ruben Carbajal
Martyna Majok
Sam Marks
Stacy Davidowitz 
Molly Rice
Julia Pascal
Yussef El Guindi
Meg Gibson
Daniel McCoy
Amber Reed
Joshua Fardon
Dan O'Brien
Jonathan Blitstein
Dominique Morisseau
Fielding Edlow
Joshua Allen
Peter Gil-Sheridan
Tira Palmquist
Sarah Hammond
Charlotte Miller
Deborah Yarchun
Anna Kerrigan
Luis Alfaro
Jonathan Caren
Jennifer Haley
Sofia Alvarez
Kevin R. Free
Ken Weitzman
Michael Golamco
J. C. Lee
Ruth Margraff
Kirk Lynn
Tanya Saracho
Daria Polatin 
Delaney Britt Brewer
Alice Tuan
Alice Austen
Jeffrey Sweet
Dan LeFranc
Andrew Hinderaker
Brett Neveu
Christine Evans
Jon Tuttle
Nikole Beckwith
Andrea Lepcio
Gregory Moss
Hannah Bos
Steven Levenson
Molly Smith Metzler
Matthew Lopez
Lee Blessing
Joshua James
Chisa Hutchinson
Rob Ackerman
Janine Nabers
Cory Hinkle
Stefanie Zadravec
Michael Mitnick
Jordan Seavey
Andrew Rosendorf
Don Nigro
Barton Bishop
Peter Parnell
Gary Sunshine
Emily DeVoti
Kenny Finkle
Kate Moira Ryan
Sam Hunter
Johnna Adams
Katharine Clark Gray
Laura Eason
David Caudle
Jacqueline Goldfinger
Christopher Chen
Craig Pospisil
Jessica Provenz
Deron Bos
Sarah Sander
Zakiyyah Alexander
Kate E. Ryan
Susan Bernfield
Karla Jennings
Jami Brandli
Kenneth Lin
Heidi Darchuk
Kathleen Warnock
Beau Willimon
Greg Keller
Les Hunter
Anton Dudley
Aaron Carter
Jerrod Bogard
Emily Schwend
Courtney Baron
Craig "muMs" Grant
Amy Herzog
Stacey Luftig
Vincent Delaney
Kathryn Walat
Paul Mullin
Kirsten Greenidge
Derek Ahonen
Francine Volpe
Julie Marie Myatt
Lauren Yee
Richard Martin Hirsch
Ed Cardona, Jr.
Terence Anthony
Alena Smith
Gabriel Jason Dean
Sharr White
Michael Lew
Craig Wright
Laura Jacqmin
Stanton Wood
Jamie Pachino
Boo Killebrew
Daniel Reitz
Alan Berks
Erik Ehn
Krista Knight
Steve Yockey
Desi Moreno-Penson
Andrea Stolowitz
Clay McLeod Chapman
Kelly Younger
Lisa Dillman
Ellen Margolis
Claire Willett
Lucy Alibar
Nick Jones
Dylan Dawson
Pia Wilson
Theresa Rebeck
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 Interview Playwrights Part 250: Jordan Harrison


Jordan Harrison

Hometown: Bainbridge Island, WA

Current Town: Brooklyn

Q:  Tell me about Futura and your triple premiere.

A:  Futura is having a shared premiere this fall at Theatre @ Boston Court, Portland Center Stage, and National Asian American Theatre Company (NAATCO) in New York. Three different directors, three different productions – it’s weird and wonderful, and I hope it doesn’t make me crazy. The play was having a hard time finding a home – there were a few heartbreaking close calls – and suddenly three theaters all came forward the same month. So it made sense to have this kind of loose partnership.

The play begins with a 35-minute lecture about typography – then it goes somewhere very different. I liked the idea of writing a sort of thriller about fonts. And there are some stylistic things in the play that I almost never try: long, extended scenes; lots of crackling backstory. When I started working on the play, I quickly learned that I couldn’t write about typography without also writing about the extinction of the printed word. Which is happening so quickly that it’s hard to write predictive fiction about it.

Q:  What else are you up to?

A:  I’m workshopping a new play called Maple and Vine about a couple who move to a 1950s reenactionist society. A world where it’s always 1955, with all the gender and racial implications of that. It began as a project I was developing with Annie Kauffman for The Civilians, based on interviews with people who retreat from the modern world: the Amish, cloistered nuns, off-gridders, etc. And ultimately we decided to toss out the interviews – I wrote a whole new play fertilized by the ruins of the interview play. It was pretty scary to start over, but I was sort of relieved to discover that I’m better at making things up than editing. (I had always secretly wondered if I was better at editing, since I enjoy splicing things together a lot more than staring at a blank page.)

I also have a children’s musical called The Flea and the Professor at the Arden Theatre in Philly in the spring. I adapted it from Hans Christian Andersen’s final story with the composer Richard Gray. I don’t think I’ve ever had a better time writing something. There’s a giant magnifying glass and a cannibal princess and a big Carnival-type number in which the only lyric is the word “Gobble.” I’m also working on a grown-up musical called Suprema with the composer Daniel Zaitchik and the director Sam Gold. I kind of love musical theater. I was in denial for a while.

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

A:  Everyone would go to it.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  (in reverse chronological order of encountering them) Charles Ludlam, Stephen Sondheim, Janet Cardiff, Wedekind, Paula Vogel, David Greenspan, Pina Bausch, Caryl Churchill, Strindberg, Tennessee Williams, Puccini, Meredith Willson (for The Music Man), and the kid who played Riff in high school.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Big and generous and ambitious and unabashedly theatrical.

There are some wonderful writers and directors who get a lot of mileage out of understatement and dryness, but I confess that I’ll often walk out of a theater saying, “Couldn’t someone have killed someone? Or fallen in love? Or time traveled?” I like to be taken somewhere, even if there isn’t a plot per se. I like things that risk tipping into melodrama or poetry. I like a play or a performance to go a little off the rails, but to have a strong sense that the artists are taking me there on purpose.

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

A:  After I wrote my first play, someone said to me “You’ll write a great third play.” And of course that stung: “I have to write a whole second play just to get to the third one?” But my third play ended up being the play that started everything for me, and by then I was glad that the first two plays were shut away in a drawer somewhere, safe from scrutiny. So don’t get hung up on the fate of your first play, or your second play. Just write the next one. It may be a boon if it takes a little longer to be recognized.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Oh, gosh. I’m almost effortfully out of the loop. My friend Bash Doran has a beautiful play called Kin coming up at Playwrights Horizons. I haven’t read Greg Moss’s play coming to Soho Rep, but I always love his writing. Will Eno’s wonderful play Middletown is coming to the Vineyard soon. What else. The High Line. Freaks and Geeks on Youtube. Banh mì at Hanco’s. Any kind of greasy noodles from the Flushing mall.

I Interview Playwrights Part 249: Alexandra Collier




Alexandra Collier

Hometown: Melbourne, Australia

Current Town: Brooklyn, NY

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  Too many things at once, including writing a TV series with my friend Georgia Clark called On This Side (a drama set in Brooklyn about a group of late 20/early 30-somethings trying to be adults), also writing an eternal screenplay and a play that I just started working on at the Erik Ehn silent retreat that’s set in a small dusty Australian town populated by - yes, I am going to say this and destroy my attempt to rid American’s minds of an Aussie cliché - crocodiles.

Q:  Tell me about the Women's Project Playwrights Lab.

A:  It’s a 2 year lab to support playwrights. I haven’t started the lab yet but it seems like a totally kick arse, invaluable resource for female playwrights. We also get to connect with female producers and directors through those labs that run simultaneously.

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 writing stuff down is a kind of compulsion that starts pretty early on in life. As a kid, I often used to stay at my grandparents house on the weekends – and I’d spend the whole time in the backyard reading or writing and drawing in a big scrapbook, it was really my favourite thing to do. I composed some genius poetry, which I discovered recently and read to my Mum. For some reason she was laughing a lot. My grandparents bookshelves were stocked with all my Mum’s old English girls' boarding school books about playing lacrosse and having midnight feasts. Totally outdated and completely irrelevant to my life but for some reason, I devoured them. So I think writing and reading was and always will be a complete escape from reality – a daydream of being somewhere/someone else. Writers are just kids who get to keep playing out these fantasy games in their head and putting them down on paper, all the while pretending to the world that we’re adults and passing it off as a profession.

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

A:  That it’s more rigorous and more spectacular – in the same breath, so they’re one thing really.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Harold Pinter (I’m sad I never got to meet him), Caryll Churchill, Tennessee Williams, Wallace Shawn, Anne Bogart, Sam Shephard, Sarah Ruhl, Margaret Cameron (Aussie writer/director/performer) and too many others to name…

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theatre that takes stamina. Theatre that is visually stunning. Theatre that uses words economically but poetically. I remember seeing Chuck Mee’s Iphigenia 2.0 at Signature Theater a few years back and the actors were literally running up the walls and breathing in sync. At the end of the show people were standing up out of their chairs and weeping (OK, maybe that was just me). But I think that is what theatre should be – enough of all this sedentary sitting around in the living room talking. Actors should kick arse – they should be gods. And writers (myself included) and directors should work to eliminate mediocrity in our work.

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

A:  Read a lot. Write a lot. Write a lot of terrible, terrible plays. I keep re-reading these Tennessee Williams essays – and this was a guy who had great success and great failure all in one lifetime - and the fact is, he just didn’t stop writing for his whole life. Even when he was accused of being what he called “a ghost of a playwright.” He wrote and wrote and wrote – some of it was embarrassingly bad. The more you write, the better you’ll get and maybe the closer you’ll get to saying what you want to say. I need to take my own advice and go write now.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  May Adrales and I have been working on a play I wrote called Deathless – about living forever in a world that’s falling apart – that we plan to have a workshop of in the coming months at IRT (stay tuned).


www.alexandracollier.com

Aug 28, 2010

I Interview Playwrights Part 248: Jessica Goldberg


Jessica Goldberg

Hometown: Woodstock, NY.

Current Town: LA.

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I'm working on a new play with Darrell Griffin Sr. who lost his son in Iraq. Darrell, a CPA from Van Nuys, became obsessed with what happened to his son there, and decided he needed to go to Iraq to find out--together we've turned his extraordinary story into a piece of theater. I'm writing an adaptation of the book PASSING STRANGE by Martha Sandweiss for HBO, a pilot for ABC, and rewriting the film Heart of a Soldier for Universal.

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 parents used to pile the three of us kids into their beat up yellow station wagon to visit the grandparents in Connecticut. Ten minutes into the drive, we'd be beating the shit out of each other. The only way our parents could get us to calm down was to put a Leonard Cohen in the tape deck, soon we'd be singing along.

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

A:  Support, support, support.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Chekhov, Fornes, Churchill, Shepard... those are the first to jump into my head.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Character, story, language, imagination...

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

A:  Build community. If you cant get your work up, put it up yourself. And, most importantly, always be writing.

Aug 27, 2010

I Interview Playwrights Part 247: Nick Starr



Nick Starr

Hometown: Los Angeles, CA

Current Town: Brooklyn, New York

Q: Tell me about The Awesome Dance

A:  It follows for souls through four lifetimes as they try to work out mutually inflicted traumas and find harmony. I guess what I was hoping to do with this play was examine the idea of good guys and bad guys and try to turn the whole notion of victimhood on its ear. David Mamet says that we watch television in order to see good people do bad things and bad people do good things. I think this is a very intriguing claim: that in some way we have a deep desire to see the good and the bad transposed. I believe this desire - perversity? - is driven by a deep and maybe unresolvable understanding that good and bad (people, actions, ideas) are nearly impossible to distinguish from one another, at least in real time.

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

A:  I have this idea for a season of theater, the working title of which is "Off Off is On" where the best Off Off Broadway productions are staged in the biggest Broadway houses and the big Broadway musicals are crammed into tiny grungy fourth floor walk up black box theaters. What appeals to me about this idea is...well it's kind of perverse. But also, I think we're hiding a lot of the best things that happen in this city in very small, hard to find places as if we're ashamed of them. So, the world of theater is like the world of everything else: upside down. I would like to change that.

Q:  What else are you up to?

A:  I was just hired to write and perform a rap song for a viral video promoting a new e-reader. I'm also working on a movie about body switching and a play about cults.

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 standing in the backyard with my little brother Jim. I’m seven, he’s five. And I have decided to invent my own martial art. So, I ask my brother to kick me. The plan is, he will try to kick me, but I will block the kick. Then I will respond with an inspired combination of punches, kicks and eventual chokeholds that will comprise the basis for a New Era in the world of self-defense.

So, I’m in the process of asking Jim to kick me when I’m interrupted by this strange ringing, noise. I cannot figure out where this noise coming from, but it’s very loud and very high pitched. And what I realize, after a moment, is that the ringing is actually coming from within my own head.

When I asked my brother to kick me, he responded with a lightning fast exquisite roundhouse to the left side of my jaw. At the same time I experience all this, I watch it all unfold from above. It’s a classic slapstick: the bully suddenly in the shoes of his intended victim.

It’s a transcendent moment and my first moment of theatre. Not only am I the older brother, I’m the younger brother, too. More strangely, I’m the backyard and the roundhouse kick. I relive this experience every time I work on a new play. I watch the characters, and I am the characters. I think that day in the backyard truly injured my brain.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I like plays written by Checkov, Caryl Churchill, Annie Baker, Conor McPherson; directed by Les Waters, Sam Gold; staged in gyms or churches or converted gyms. I prefer humor so dry it could burst into flame at any moment; drama that makes you laugh and you don't know if you should be laughing; plays like The Weir that are so much scarier than horror movies.