A:"The Christmas Present" is a seasonal comedy about a man who checks himself into a hotel and hires a prostitute for Christmas. The three characters are the man, the prostitute, and the prostitute he was hoping for, so it alternates between fantasy and reality. It's been done a few times in the UK and this is the third time it's been done in the US, it feels super Englishy here.
Q: What else are you working on now?
A: A play called "The Life You Wish For", which has a twenty-five year intermission We meet some ambitious twenty-somethings in the first act, then see what they become in their late forties. One of them starts out as a comedy hypnotist and ends up as a motivational speaker, hence the title.
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 remember going to see "A Midsummer Night's Dream" as a field trip when I was maybe thirteen. The actor playing Puck climbed a scaffolding spider's web to spy on the lovers. A light socket hung down from the grid and he playfully batted it. In class the next day, the teacher brought up the moment, saying that the actor was pretending it was a vine or something. I knew he was wrong, the actor was reminding us that we were in a theatre. And that was good.
Q: If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?
A: Your spelling of it.
Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?
A: Beckett and Pinter.
Q: What kind of theater excites you?
A: I love spectacle, you go to see a play, not just listen to it.
Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?
A: When writing your brilliant play, remember to write brilliant parts. In small scale theatre, plays get done because actors want to be in them.
A: The play was first commissioned in the early 2000s by Woolly Mammoth Theater Company and the New Play Network. Possum Carcass is a “cover” of The Seagull. I’ve always been a huge Chekov fan, and I wanted to see what I could learn by compressing the play to six characters and relocating it to New York City. Ultimately the goal was to write a play that let a theater audience see The Seagull in a new way and a non-theater audience to enjoy a this dark-comedy without being alienated by the distant time and location in which it is set. In the ten years since I first wrote the play, it’s been read or work-shopped at Woolly Mammoth (DC), Clubbed Thumb (NY), University of Maryland, Kitchen Dog Theater (Dallas), Knitting Factory (NY), and Annex Theatre (Seattle).
Q: What else are you working on now? I hear you have retired from playwriting. What is that like and how has it changed your perspective?
A: These days my main creative project is my band. I started playing music and writing plays at about the same time, but I’ve always been much more passionate about music than theater. Playing music allows me to write, direct, and perform in a much more nimble creative unit than a traditional play production, and it allows for more concrete documents of the work (recordings and videos). In my experience, music draws a much more varied audience than theater. I was disappointed by how few working class or non-theater artists seemed to attend plays in New York.
Since moving to Seattle in 2007, I’ve been able see a lot of strange and provocative performance work at On the Boards, who host wide variety of national and international artists. I’ve worked as a sound designer, musician, dramaturg, and performer in some short works at OtB, but that is about the extent of my theater work these days. As far as writing goes, I’ve been focusing on short fiction, comic strips, and screenplays.
Q: Tell me, if you will, a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a artist or as a person.
A: My very first memory is of a music class my mother brought me to when I was five. The class was in the form of a puppet show about classical music. Apparently I was transfixed.
Q: If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?
A: The audience.
Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?
A: “Heroes” is strong word. But I’ve been most inspired by Chekov, Brecht, Sam Shepard, Paula Vogel, Mac Wellman, and Ruth Margraff.
Q: What kind of theater excites you?
A: I’m more excited by broken narratives and performance art than conventional theater productions these days. Last year I got see Kristen Kosmas’ “There There” at OtB and it was amazing. OtB is bringing Richard Maxwell this season, and I’m excited to see some of his work again.
Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?
A: #1 Be born into a wealthy family. Use that privilege to pay for housing, food, and health insurance.
#2 Go to an obscenely expensive private east coast college. Use that network to find collaborators and funders for your work.
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