Adam Szymkowicz

Jonathan Tolins

Hometown: Roslyn, New York

Current Town: Fairfield, Connecticut

Q: Tell me about Buyer & Cellar.

A: Buyer & Cellar is a play that began as a short comic essay I submitted to the New Yorker that got rejected. A friend suggested I write it as a one-man-show and I thought that could be a good idea. The play stems from the fact that Barbra Streisand put out a book in 2010 about her house in Malibu, and in it she revealed that she built a street of shops in her basement to house her various collections and memorabilia. I thought it would be funny if someone had to work down there and "greet the customer" whenever she came down. That silly notion became the play. I did some research and studied the book and tried to make this patently absurd situation as real as possible. It was important to me to write a play, not a sketch. I wanted it to be about the relationship that forms between these two people in vastly different stations in life.

Anyway, I'm incredibly proud of the production at Rattlestick. Michael Urie is giving a remarkable performance and Stephen Brackett and the design team have done a masterful job. The production came together very quickly when another show had to be postponed. We all feel like Fate took a hand and made things happen in the right way.

Q: What else are you working on?

A: Right now I'm working on the books for a few musicals, mostly with my husband, Robert Cary. I also have notes on a new play, and am 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: I remember visiting my grandparents in Florida when I was about ten years old. There was a party in the "rec room" of their building and I somehow ended up standing on a table telling everyone a joke. I think it was a joke that I stole from Gabe Kaplan on Welcome Back, Kotter! on TV. The joke was about an old person dying – a risky choice for the assembled – but I got huge laughs. Doing one's best to delight middle-aged Jews is good training for a playwright in New York.

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

A: I usually complain about theater criticism, but right now I have a show that has gotten mostly good reviews so I'd better keep my mouth shut. I don't know one thing I would change, per se, but I wish the theater were a more welcoming place and that the economics didn't make getting a new play on so tough. Few people realize that many important non-profit theaters in New York will only consider a new play that has a star and/or brings with it enhancement money from commercial producers. That puts a heavy burden on a playwright and it limits what kind of theater the regular audience of playgoers sees.

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: It's a cliché, but Chekhov. I did props for a production of Uncle Vanya at Williamstown in 1984 and I watched the show and cried every night. Peter Shaffer's Amadeus also had a big influence on me. I loved how theatrical it was and how passionate the language was. One more pretentious mention: I love the way Ibsen forces the audience to grapple with impossible questions, leaving them no easy way to turn.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: See my previous answer. Basically, I love theater that feels like a heightened version of life. I like plays where you can feel a lively intelligence in the air, where the audience is totally engaged and waiting for the next line, the next turn of the plot, the next surprise to be revealed. I also think everything should have laughs, because life does.

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

A: Write for yourself. Buyer & Cellar looks to be the most successful play I've written and it's because I didn't write it for the marketplace. I wrote it for me, and maybe for my closest friends. People are looking for an authentic voice in the theater, for someone to tell it like it is as they see it. The more you stick to what makes you happy, the better your play will be.

Q: Plugs, please:

A: Buyer & Cellar is at the Rattlestick Playwrights Theater through May 12th. Don't miss it. (And keep an eye out for a possible transfer this summer.)

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Apr 19, 2013

Reading of my new play Tues

Come if you can!

A reading with Primary Stages

April 23 at 3pm

at 59 E 59 (59 East 59th Street, NYC)

Rare Birds

by Adam Szymkowicz

Directed by Jackson Gay

Starring Mary Bacon, Kayla Vanderbilt, Brian Hutchison, Josh Tobin, Joe O'Brien, Sarah Elizondo.

The worst mistake you can make in high school is admitting you love something. A new play about adolescent violence and your mother's new boyfriend.

RSVP readings at primarystages dot org
or Lana at 212 840 9705

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Apr 18, 2013

I Interview Playwrights Part 574: Kyle T. Wilson

Kyle T. Wilson

Hometown: Several small towns in Arkansas. My father's a retired Methodist minister, so we moved around every few years.

Current Town: Los Angeles

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I'm producing a play for the Hollywood Fringe Festival this June called THE MISS JULIE DREAM PROJECT. There are nine writers on it, myself included. Using Strindberg's A DREAM PLAY and MISS JULIE as inspirations, I gave members of my writers group (Fell Swoop Playwrights) an assignment to write a dream sequence with Miss Julie as the protagonist, and that was really our only plan. Then I took the scenes and worked on assembling them into a dream narrative. What's resulted is an actor's nightmare of sorts; an actor playing Miss Julie dreams that the character has rebelled against her, refusing to go through with the story. The actress chases Julie through the corridors of her dreams in hopes of guiding her to her fate.

I'm also working on the third play in a trilogy set in a fictional town called Bumblebee, Arkansas. The first two plays are called BUMBLEFUCK, AR and THE BUTCHER OF BUMBLEBEE. The plays span the years of 1988-1994 and follow different groups of teenagers and the complicated adults in their lives. I'm still working on the third play; it's about a straight-arrow Boy Scout. That one doesn't have a title yet but I promised my mom it won't include profanity.

And my play AFTER SCHOOL SPECIAL is a PlayLabs selection at this year's Great Plains Theatre Conference. It's about a troubled special ed teacher and her most difficult student at the end of a very hard day of school. I'm excited to be taking it to Omaha this May.

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 ride my bike from the Methodist parsonage down to Rick's Prime Time Video in Mena, Arkansas, to rent movies for the weekends. I always wanted to see the popular R-rated movies but Mom and Dad wouldn't let me, so I discovered the classics. My favorites were usually adapted from plays and musicals. I loved STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, and for a period of time I rented WEST SIDE STORY on a weekly basis until finally my parents bought it for me for Christmas. One of the things that baffled me about these movies was how they could ever make sense on stage. The first play I was ever in was HMS PINAFORE at the Ouachita Little Theatre; I was in middle school and played a sailor and was in the chorus. I remember being stunned at how all they had to do to this ordinary shoebox stage was put a simple post up in the center and extend some ropes off it to the wings and suddenly the whole thing looked exactly like a ship. As much as I loved and still love movies, it's the first time I remember understanding how a theatrical experience could inspire the imagination in ways that films never could. And I still love WEST SIDE STORY in any manifestation, but I will always prefer to see it onstage.

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

A: I'd like to see the process from page to stage actually happen for plays. And when it does, I'd like to see it it shorten, get easier, and occur with less anxiety and preciousness about the work. I have plays I started years ago that I continue to rewrite and submit in hopes of getting more development opportunities for them through conventional channels. So with Fell Swoop I'm trying to be the change I'd like to see; we finished the first draft of THE MISS JULIE DREAM PROJECT in January or February in anticipation of a June production. And things are coming along pretty well so far.

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: All the obvious playwright names. And all my friends and colleagues and former classmates who are making a go of it on a stage somewhere. And Sondheim and Laurents and Bernstein and Robbins. And Patti Smith.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: I like to be surprised. I admire work that's done with integrity and commitment. I love a clever or thoughtful approach to language. But lately I've just been impressed with folks coming together in bars and restaurants and coffee shops for readings and events; I'm pleased with the interest I see in L.A. in scrappy live performance of all kinds happening outside of the institutions. I like and see the work going on in the institutions too, but it's heartening to see people putting down their devices, gathering in small, unusual spaces and having a great time together.

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

A: There's no one right way to be successful. Just be really honest with yourself about what you want for your work and your career and set tangible goals on how to achieve those things. I'm still learning that lesson and I've been at this a while.

And don't stick around places if you don't respect the quality of the work, or the way that it's achieved. You, your work, and your creative team all deserve respect, professionalism, and basic human decency.

Oh, and have a healthy suspicion of people who are quick to give advice.

Q: Plugs, please:

A: THE MISS JULIE DREAM PROJECT at Three Clubs Cocktail Lounge at The Hollywood Fringe Festival, starting June 11. http://hff13.org/1309

AFTER SCHOOL SPECIAL PlayLabs Selection at The Great Plains Theatre Conference, Monday, May 27.
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Apr 17, 2013

Compulsive Love Season Finale!!

Episode 8 is of Compulsive Love is here! Watch it and previous episodes on Koldcast or Blip or Daily Motion or Boomtrain or Youtube or JTS.

Embedded 8:

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Apr 15, 2013

You are cordially Invited

to a reading with Primary Stages

April 23

3pm

at 59 E 59 (59 East 59th Street, NYC)

Rare Birds

by Adam Szymkowicz

Directed by Jackson Gay

The worst mistake you can make in high school is admitting you love something. A new play about adolescent violence and your mother's new boyfriend.

RSVP readings@primarystages.org or Lana at 212 840 9705

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Book Store
Books by Adam

Adam Szymkowicz

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Reading of my new play Tues

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Compulsive Love Season Finale!!

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