300 Playwright Interviews

Lauren Gunderson
Jennifer Fawcett
Andrea Kuchlewska
A. Rey Pamatmat
Sean Christopher Lewis
Rachel Bonds
Lynn Rosen
Jennifer Barclay
Peggy Stafford
James McManus
Philip Dawkins
Jen Silverman
Lally Katz
Anne Garcia-Romero
Tony Adams
christopher oscar peña
Lynne Kaufman
David J. Loehr
Julie Hebert
Aditi Brennan Kapil
Elaine Romero
Alexis Clements
Lila Rose Kaplan
Barry Levey
Michael I. Walker

Maya Macdonald
Mando Alvarado
Adam Rapp
Eliza Clark
Margot Bordelon
Ben Snyder
Emily Bohannon
Cheri Magid
Jason Chimonides 
Karinne Keithley
Rich Orloff
David Simpatico
Deborah Zoe Laufer
Brian Polak
Kate Fodor
Sibyl Kempson
Gary Garrison
Saviana Stanescu
Brian Bauman
Mark Harvey Levine
Lisa Soland
Sigrid Gilmer
Anthony Weigh 
Maria Alexandria Beech
Catherine Filloux 
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.
Chad Beckim
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 300: Lauren Gunderson

Lauren Gunderson

Hometown: Decatur, GA (just outside Atlanta)

Current Town: San Francisco, CA

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I enjoy a little too much going on. I also love lists. So:

1) A new "revenge comedy" called EXIT, PURSUED BY A BEAR starting its rolling premiere with Synchronicity Theatre in Atlanta March 4, rolling to San Francisco's Crowded Fire Theatre in August, then to Seattle's ArtsWest in October.

2) My second commission for South Coast Rep (a true story period science lady play with a math-music obsession) called SILENT SKY directed by Anne D'Zmura - running April 1-May 1

3) My first commission from the Kennedy Center Theatre for Young Audiences (a mystery science musical with a talking dog - yeyah) called THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF DR WONDERFUL AND HER DOG directed by the awesome Sean Daniels with music by Brian Lowdermilk

4) My first commission from SF Playhouse currently called BRIGHT WHITE LIFE - a true story of non-objective artist Rudolf Bauer.

5) FIRE WORK is finalist for the Global Age Project at Aurora this winter.

6) EMILIE is opening at ArtsWest Jan 24th in Seattle

7) A super cute family Christmas musical with music/lyrics by Harry Connick Jr.

8) Other plays in their annoying infancy (one with Just Theatre that's kind of about Macbeth)

9) And the requisite TV pilot ideas, HuffPo essays, plays I should not let myself write until I finish the aforementioned ones, etc...

Q: Tell me about writing for the Huffington Post.

A: I got involved because I knew the new Arts Editor (who is an incredible painter) and she suggested I write about theatre as a member of the emergent creative community in the performing arts. So we found a complementarity - I get to write about theatre from a playwrights perspective and they get a more diverse readership.

I'm treating this blog as a markedly optimistic assignment - I want to inject more of the good news into our field, but not shy away from the tougher realities either. I'm not interested in reviewing but I am interested in connecting with the reasons we make new plays - the goals of various productions, the individual standards of the artists.

I start with more positivity, more delight, more of the reason we all started in this ridiculous field. I want to share some of that with new-to-theatre folks.

I mean I get anxious like everybody. But I fundamentally believe that there is joy and urgency in this work. So I write from that. Plus, if we don't have some cheering, it all looks completely bipolar. We go from raves to blasts; from "theatre changes the world!" to "lovely but irrelevant" to "it all sucks and we suck and everyone sucks". Theatre is better than that.

Q:  Tell me about SILENT SKY.

A:  It's a true story of this amazing (but dusted over by history) woman living at the turn of the last century when women couldn't vote, couldn't attend the best institutions, couldn't do much professionally besides teach high school. Henrietta Leavitt took a rather boring job at Harvard Observatory calculating star magnitudes and ended up culling out incredible patterns in Cepheid stars. Her work led major later astronomers (namely Edwin Hubble) to understand and unlock the universe on the grandest scale yet known.

I have a science fixation, always have. I found about about Henrietta when I was living in NYC and killing time in the basement of The Strand bookstore (where the Science sections are tucked away). I picked up George Johnsons's lovely little book called Miss Leavitt's Stars. I thought, as I often do, "A female astronomer about whom I don't know? Investigate and dramatize".

I was looking for a subject for my next South Coast Rep commission and this fit perfectly for them and for me. This is a play that combines so much of what I love and find magnetic on stage: women risking it all, the gorgeous kinds of science, catalytic moments in history, discovery, complex family, love stories.

In fact I told Mr. Johnson just a week ago that I wrote a play based in part on his book. But I added the suffragette movement and some kissing. Luckily he said that he loved the idea of Henrietta in love. So we're cool. It's going to be a beautiful production.

Q:  What about EXIT, PURSUED BY A BEAR?

A:  This is a very new kind of play for me (and VERY different from SILENT SKY) - a wild comedy that combines my Southern roots, my deep heart for women's empowerment and preventing domestic abuse, my great debt to Shakespeare, and my love of obsessive people, Jimmy Carter, best friends, and nature documentaries. And karaoke. It's a funny play about serious things. The characters in it would say its a very serious drama - but to the audiences its funny. Because its true. And ridiculous.

BEAR came about because of a lot of support and trust from some key folks - namely Amy Mueller at The Playwrights Foundation and Rachel May at Synchronicity Theatre in Atlanta. When I moved to SF Amy kick started the play - encouraging me to finish writing it, and giving me a reading. Then Rachel picked it right up and was bold enough to say "hell, let's just produce this thing". From there we got the idea to do a rolling premiere which now has 3 cities.

Q:  How did you become first Playwright in Residence at the Kavli
Institute of Theoretical Physics?

A:  I mentioned my science thing. It's been there for a while. So I worked with the folks at Kavli some years ago as most of my plays are about science, science-history, women in science, etc. I have a bunch of friends in the physics community who have done their Journalist-In-Residence program. So I thought - "heck, we need some dramatists there!". So I approached them about adding a playwriting residency. Then my life got way complicated with a ton of projects that meant that I couldn't be in Santa Barbara right away. But I knew this wonderful playwright Lila Rose Kaplan was there so I hooked them up. I'm so excited that Lila is there and that Kavli is committing to the arts. Great for theatre and science.

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

A:  The story my dad would tell you is the time I played Baby Bear in my Kindergarten production of Goldilocks... which they made us do in Spanish... before any of us knew Spanish... so we clenched our scripts like a Metro map having no clue what we were doing or saying. My mom made my little bear costume, of which I was torridly proud, and it got to my big scene with the porridge... and with one wisp of a spotlight I promptly overacted with a grand theatrical gesture and sent my script flying off the stage. Parents gasped, cast mates snorted, and I (without ever having actually attempted to do the part well or memorized) spat out the perfectly accented grammatically correct Spanish line "Someone's been eating my porridge and they ate it all up!" That's when my dad says he knew that words and theatre were my natural habitat. And that my priorities were definitely akimbo to modern America.

I also remember the moment that i realized that people still wrote plays - like new plays - like that was a thing people did with their time and - gasp - careers.

And in high school I remember when I was trying to finish my first play - PARTS THEY CALL DEEP (which I realize sounds like a porn video now, but back then... y'know...). I was at the dinner table and I was pondering how the hell do you END a PLAY? It doesn't really end unless I kill everybody, right? I don't want to kill people. Maybe one person. No wait... maybe I could... oohh! And I ran upstairs and wrote a scene that was emotionally true but realistically not - people changed and grew but not in real time or real space. It freed me to use theatre for what it was - made up. It's fiction, its magic, we're all playing along. I can do ANYTHING. And that's opened up my taste for theatre that really surprises my senses but maintains humanity.

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

A:  I will admit that I'm anxious about critics. I think a lot of us are. And not in a healthy way. In a very sad way that more often cripples new ideas than carbonates them. So I would change the relationship of playwrights/theatre artists to critics. Paula Vogel reminds us of a time when Eugene O'Neill and the major critic of the day (can't remember his name) were friends, they had dinners together, they discussed and argued and activated their ideas. The critic gave O'Neill a trunk. I saw it. It's in his house in CT. A trunk.

I would take time but I would have the kind of community wherein critics and creators can actually communicate - to talk about taste and "Theatre" and art and audience and the point of all this. It wouldn't feel so much like a gladiatorial thumbs up/down arrangement. It could help the creatives understand reviewing and reviews; and help reviewers more intimately understand the choices, competencies, and process of the particular artists. I know reviewing is NOT an easy job. But I'll go ahead and wager that writing a play, navigating the theatrical landscape to get a production, collaborating constantly on that production, and working to the very last second before opening, then releasing your idea into the world is the harder, riskier, and more time-consuming activity.

I've learned a lot from reading reviews and theatre essays - these are smart folks talking about what I love the most. One of my great friends is the theatre and culture critic Mark Blankenship - who I think re-imagines and energizes criticism. And I agree with the critics as often as I don't. So I don't want criticism to go away. I just wish it didn't feel so charged, but felt more symbiotic - we all want theatre to be its best, right?

Or maybe I'd just make all theatre shows $10, and all theatre become heavily endowed, and all theaters have playwrights in residence that are also heavily endowed (with so much health insurance that its fun to get sick), and have everyone see each others work, and everyone will be happy and supported and singing in the streets. That'd be nice.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Tennessee Williams - southern, poetic, dreamy, brilliant, broken and edgy. Bless his mess.

Paula Vogel - Her inventive and ambitious play structures, her wicked humor, her bravery in emotionally tough subjects

Tom Stoppard - his wacked out science/philosophical/historical/literary masterpieces are like Guinness - thick, rich, and filling (which I realize also sounds like a porn... oy...)

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Big ideas, true stories, true meanings, complete fiction, beautiful theatre, muscly acting, cheap magic, expensive magic, characters risking for truth, funny funny stuff, characters that are supremely human, love stories, LOVE stories, active theatricality, activist theatre, issue plays about big issues, Holy Sh*t Theatre. You can't fake making your audience feel. That excites me.

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

A:  See a lot. Read a lot. Write a lot. I think its so silly when people who want to be in theatre DON'T go see theatre. You have to go. That's the whole point. Find your family in theatre - some crazy aesthetic relatives you never knew you had, and see their work, talk about it, reach out to the writer, actors, director. Also don't only do theatre. Certainly find and grow to love the people that tell you the truth about your work - that know most of your work (your tendencies, your quirks), that tell you to stop doing what you always do, that tell you "goddamn this is your best yet," that gently say "um... this is... not great...", that are there for you.  Shout out to Steve Yockey who is this incredible writer/dramaturg/friend/teacher/genius for me. And Lucy Alibar who is my cheerleader and co-dreamer. And Suehyla El-Attar who is my curious realist, connective thinker, and constant conversationalist.

But my actual motto is: Be Nice. Do great work. Find your family. Surprise yourself.

my 2010 in review

In 2010, I had a bunch of readings at places like Working Theater, Studio 42, Flux Theater Ensemble, The Off Theater, LAByrinth, The New Group, MCC Theater, Primary Stages, Southern Rep, Chicago Dramatists, and The William Inge Center For The Arts.

I took trips to Philly, San Francisco, London, Kansas, New Orleans, rural Pennsylvania, Upstate NY, Chicago, St. Louis, and Orange County, CA.

When I wasn’t traveling, I spent the year living in CT about 3 hours outside NYC in a cottage on a lake.

I did a silent retreat with Erik Ehn, a non-silent retreat with Flux, taught playwriting in Kansas and helped re-side a house.

I wrote 4 plays, 1 screenplay and a web series and started working on a musical with a composer and a lyricist.

I had 4 productions of full lengths in 2010, one of which was professional. I know of 12 planned productions for 2011 so far. And the web series will be filmed next year too.

I did mini-interviews of 199 playwrights bringing the total up to 299.

So yeah, it looks like this year was a busy one for me.  Looks like I did more than I thought.

Happy New Year!

I Interview Playwrights Part 299: Jennifer Fawcett

Jennifer Fawcett

Hometown: Toronto… well technically a farm near a village you’ve never heard of in Eastern Ontario but let’s just say Toronto because I lived there for a decade and still miss it.

Current Town: Iowa City… cool town. Cooler than you’d think.

Q:  Tell me about Atlas of Mud.

A:  ATLAS OF MUD is the biggest play I’ve ever written - - cast size (six, plus an optional ensemble – we did it with two additional cast members) and subject-wise. It needs kick ass designers - I like to think it gives a platform for designers to kick ass. I worry that lit managers read it and can’t get past the stage directions, but we just did a production of it here in Iowa with our company. It was gorgeous. And we did it for almost no money.

I was originally commissioned by a Canadian theatre company (Union Eight Theatre) to write a play about flood mythology. Then I moved to the US and Hurricane Katrina hit. Then I graduated from grad school and Iowa was covered in floods so I got to experience the damage water can do first hand. All of this influenced the play. I developed it with this Canadian company and also at the Lark in Playwrights’ Week and with our company. It won the 2008 National Science Playwriting Award from the Kennedy Center. It’s about faith and hope in the midst of a global disaster. The second act takes place on a boat with the Bird Keepers and a stowaway child called Mud who is looking for her mother. For our production, we had a 23 foot long boat on stage that looked like it was coming out of the floor. All made out of recycled materials in stock at Riverside Theatre, where we’re Company-in-Residence this year.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  I’m writing a new solo show called 3 MAPS that Working Group will be producing this spring as part of a festival of international solo shows. And I’m writing another show for Halcyon Theatre in Chicago for their Alcyone Festival this summer.

I’m part of a team of three writers working on a play called RUST about the closing of a GM plant in Michigan. We got a Creative Fund Award from the National Performance Network and are getting ready to start touring this piece in Fall 2011.

Q:  What is it like to be Playwright in Residence at Curious Theater?

A:  It was great. The best thing about it was that it gave me a way to get to know the people at the National New Play Network theatres. I also worked in the Literary Department at Curious, so I got to see the other side of the submission pile. I loved reading all these new plays. I hated writing rejection letters.

But aside from that, the residency was great. I developed my girl scout sex farce, BONNY GIRLS there and got to work with some of the very talented Company members.

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 grew up on a goat farm. My parents were city kids, it was the early 70’s and the back to the land thing was big. They had this crazy idea and they followed through on it. It didn’t work, in the end, and it almost destroyed their marriage but they made it through (still married, 40+ years). Years later when I looked at this goat thing I’d taken for granted as a kid, I saw it for what it was: a major risk. They’ve always been really supportive of me, even though there’s nothing glamorous or even remotely stable about playwriting, and I think it is because they understand from their own experience that you have to take risks to follow your dreams. I realize that may sound corny but it isn't. That day to day push towards a goal isn't corny at all.

Side note: the first show I ever wrote was all about this. Called it GOAT SHOW. I’m still touring it. I am in negotiations with a Canadian theatre to bring the show in for a run next year. So those goats have both indirectly and directly affected me as a writer and a person.

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

A:  More new work. Not the one new play that played Off Broadway and is now being produced in eleven theatres across the country - - that's fine - theatres can do that play. It's probably a really good play. But it SHOULDN'T fill the one new work slot that they supposedly have. I go to readings of exciting, messy, new plays - I have my own readings of my exciting messy new plays - and the audiences are engaged. They have conversations after. They ask questions. And then these new plays are rarely produced because supposedly the audience won't accept new work. Even though they just did. That doesn't make any sense. Theatre is risky. No matter what theatre you do, it will always be risky. It will always be easier for the audience to stay at home and watch TV so why not go farther and really take risks? Theatre is only dying if we stop feeding it.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Robert LePage, Bertolt Brecht, Naomi Wallace, Caryl Churchill

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theatre that surprises me with sudden moments of beauty, silliness or cruelty. Theatre that appears out of nowhere - sneaks up on me and suddenly I'm watching something magical. Theatre that has a minimal set and inventive design and great language and is made by people who understand that the play happens inside the audiences' imaginations.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Available Light Theatre (www.avltheatre.com) their work needs to be seen by more than just the folks in Columbus because it is fantastic and they are a company who take true risks instead of just talking about it in their mission statement.

Working Group Theatre – the company I’ve co-founded with some other fantastic artists. We’re shaking things up in Iowa. www.workinggrouptheatre.org.

ITLP: the International Theatre and Literacy Project - - we went to Tanzania with them last year as part of a small team of artists who helped rural Tanzanian school kids create a play and then perform it for their village. My husband and I are currently talking to them about another project for this summer – same idea, different country. www.itlp.org.

Halcyon Theatre – check out their Alcyone Festival, June 9 – July 10. As I mentioned, I’ve got a play in it along with some kickass female playwrights who I’m awed to be in the same festival with… and because Tony and Jenn are true advocates of new work and fantastic people. http://www.halcyontheatre.org/alcyone11

A holiday film

Here is a short film I wrote a while back that we are just now putting online. Have a great holiday! Merry everything!



The Moment
A short film directed by Scott Ebersold
Written by Adam Szymkowicz

Featuring Susan Louise O'Connor & Jeff Biehl

"When Jane goes in to talk to her boss, in an instant of clarity, she notices something different in him that she never saw before. He sees it too in her. A new world opens up for them. Anything could be possible if they could just hold onto that moment."

Produced by Lauren Fritz, Scott Ebersold, Marc Solomon
Director of Photography Greg Emetaz
Edited by Andrew McNown
Sound and Music Design by Ryan Maeker
Art Direction by Nicholas Vaughan and Kate Rusek
Costume, Hair and Make-up Design by Kate Rusek
Script Supervisor Barry Paul Hitchcock
Craft Services and Production Assistance Jennie Crotero

Just in time for the holidays, or for the actors

I have a monologue in this.  The 6th S and K book I have participated in.  Lots of great plays in it as you can see.  Buy it here.

Monologues.

All aboard the marriage hearse / Matt Morillo --
The Amish project / Jessica Dickey --
And Sophie comes too / Meryl Cohn --
Barrio Hollywood / Elaine Romero --
Beauty on the vine / Zak Berkman --
Black Forest / Anthony Giardina --
Cartoon / Steve Yockey --
The Columbine project / Paul Storiale --
Dead man's cell phone / Sarah Ruhl --
Don't talk to the actors / Tom Dudzick --
Dusty and the big bad world / Cusi Cram --
Emilie's Voltaire / Arthur Giron --
Emotion memory / Don Nigro --
For our Mothers & fathers / Crystal Skillman --
The framer / Edward Allen Baker --
The gingerbread house / Mark Schultz --
In the daylight / Tony Glazer --
In the next room, or, the vibrator play / Sarah Ruhl --
A legacy for the mad / Don Nigro --
Lost generation / Don Nigro --
Love drunk / Romulus Linney --
Mahida's extra key to heaven / Russell Davis --
New Jerusalem / David Ives --
Next fall / Geoffrey Nauffts --
The optimist / Jason Chimonides --
Or / Liz Duffy Adams --
Pretty Theft / Adam Szymkowicz --
Pussy / Laura Jacqmin --
Rat wives / Don Nigro --
Reasons to be pretty / Neil LaBute --
Rough sketch / Shawn Nacol --
The Savannah disputation / Evan Smith --
Scab / Sheila Callaghan --
The secret life of seagulls / Henry Meyerson --
Self phone / Brendon Etter --
Slow falling bird / Christine Evans --
Soul samurai / Qui Nguyen --
Southern rapture / Eric Coble --
Taking flight / Adriana Sevann Nichols --
The third story / Charles Busch --
Trojan Barbie / Christine Evans --
The understudy / Theresa Rebeck --
Unusual acts of devotion / Terrence McNally --
What once we felt / Ann Marie Healy --
Worse things / Mona Manour --
Yoo-hoo and Hank Williams / Gregory Moss --

Scenes.
The Cherry sisters revisited / Dan O'Brien --
The good Negro / Tracey Scott Wilson --
Iphigenia / Don Nigro --
Oohrah / Bekah Brunstetter --
Or / Liz Duffy Adams --Our house /Theresa Rebeck --
Parasite drag / Mark Roberts --
Rosalie was here / Maura Campbell --
Scab / Sheila Callaghan --
The secret life of seagulls / Henry Meyerson --
Slasher / Allison Moore --
Soul Samuri / Qui Nguyen --
Southern rapture / Eric Coble --
What once we felt / Ann Marie Healy --
Why torture is wrong, and the people who love them / Christopher Durang.

I Interview Playwrights Part 298: Andrea Kuchlewska

Andrea Kuchlewska

Hometown: Malden, MA, then Arlington, MA. I went to high school in Cambridge and it feels like home.

Current Town: New York City

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I’m working on THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH, the second in my cycle of plays about Americans and language, with director Tamilla Woodard (http://www.tamilla.com/). It’s early in its development. Here’s how I describe it so far: A comedy in which the history of the English language collides with American history. Nerdy-chic linguist by day and reluctant superhero by night, Criseyde contends with Chaucer, the Oakland Ebonics controversy of the 90s, her own dead mother, and writers who claim Eskimos have a large number of words for snow.

I’m also writing HUMAN FRUITBOWL, a solo show for actress Harmony Stempel about artists’ models, which will be in the Prague Fringe in May and June 2011. I’m using all found text and it’s very satisfying to work on.

I’m stumbling forward with THALIA, a play that’s very close to home. There will be a reading in March 2011, so I’m writing toward that. Actress Lyndsay Becker and director Alice Jankell are taking the leap with 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 did the est training at age nine. The use of language in that subculture was specific and differed in important ways from the English I had been speaking up until then. It was a lot of fun for me to use language in this new way, and at the same time, sometimes what was said inside the organization didn’t make sense to me. This was a potent combination for me as a child – using language to empower myself, but also being confused at times by what I and others were saying. It forever changed the way I think and how I speak. I grew up to study linguistics and write plays about language. My play Complete is inspired by both the language of est and the scientific study of syntax and semantics.

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

A:  I’d change the economics of theater. I’d like performances to be more accessible to more people. And I’d like it to be easier for artists to make a living so they can do more work.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  David Dower for founding The Z Space Studio in San Francisco as a development home for new plays (it was my artistic home when I lived in San Francisco) and for all the work he does for new plays now.
Anne Galjour for being an early mentor of mine.
Arena Stage for putting five playwrights on salary through the American Voices New Play Institute Residencies.
Paula Vogel for saying, “I don’t believe in fixing plays. I believe we have to get out there and write flawed plays that disturb everybody, and change the atmosphere” (in a 1993 interview in American Theatre).
The Women’s Project for… actually for everything they do.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Right now I’m excited by theater that does not take place on a stage. That includes anything from actors delivering lines from the house to people performing on stilts in town squares.

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

A:  Get your work produced at whatever level you can as early as you can. Self-produce when necessary. You will learn more about playwriting from this, and people will get to know your work sooner.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  I’m a member of the 2010-2012 Women’s Project Lab (http://www.womensproject.org/labs.htm) and am so in love with the whole group I want to plug all of them. Directors: Tea Alagic, Jessi D. Hill, Sarah Rasmussen, Mia Rovegno, Nicole A. Watson. Producers: Elizabeth R. English, Manda Martin, Roberta Pereira, Stephanie Ybarra. Fellow playwrights: Alexandra Collier, Charity Henson-Ballard, Dominique Morisseau, Kristen Palmer, Melisa Tien, Stefanie Zadravec.

7 MINUTES, a short play I’m writing for actresses Barbara Spence and Lori Kee, will be produced in FAST & FAB II at The Barrow Group Theatre (http://barrowgroup.org/) in February 2011.

http://www.andreakuchlewska.com/

I Interview Playwrights Part 297: A. Rey Pamatmat

A. Rey Pamatmat

Hometown: Port Huron, MI and it's environs (mostly the environs)

Current Town: New York, NY (Jackson Heights, Queens, to be specific)

Q:  Tell me about the play you just won the Princess Grace with.

A:  EDITH CAN SHOOT THINGS AND HIT THEM is about three kids who are essentially abandoned on a remote farm and end up raising themselves, and then what happens to them when the outside, grown-up world decides that they don't like the ways they've chosen to do it. I grew up in the middle of nowhere (like NOWHERE nowhere), so the play started from a magnification of those childhood feelings of isolation. As the piece evolved, though, it became equally about the wonderful things that came out of the way I was raised. For example, I read and wrote as much as I did as a kid to entertain myself and, obviously, that's been paying off lately!

Q:  What else are you up to?

A:  EDITH is getting it's world premiere in the 2011 Humana Festival in March, and we're about to start design for that. It was also read as part of the National New Play Network Showcase in December, so hopefully Humana will be the first of several destinations for the play. Other than that, I'm doing the 2011 Anthology Project at Humana with Dan Dietz, Jennifer Haley, Allison Moore, and Marco Ramirez. We're writing about the Apocalypse! My piece is about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse sharing an apartment and fighting over Kashi. So I've got a lot of great stuff on my plate at the moment. Plus, there's a new play percolating, something noir-ish...

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

A:  As a kid, I was a fairly good Dungeon Master. That's right AD&D Dungeon Master. I now believe D&D is a gateway to playwriting. Like pot is to crystal methamphetamine.

Also, when I was 13, I used to stand in our backyard and shoot a compound hunting bow at bales of hay. I first shot a pistol when I was 8 and visiting relatives in the Philippines. Come see EDITH — Edith shoots things, too.

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

A:  The prevailing impression that plays about bi- or tri-cultural experiences are "ethnic" plays, when in reality they are truly American plays — America is still the only place where many of those plays could actually take place. And the accepted restriction that black people can't write white people and white people can't write black people. I've noticed that most of my Asian-American playwriting peers write people of all cultural backgrounds and so far no riots have erupted. Wait — that was two things. Okay, but I can make them one: I would blow up the limited ideas people have about racial/ethnic/cultural narratives in American Theatre.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Maria Irene Fornes, Tony Kushner, David Henry Hwang, August Wilson, Caryl Churchill... I could go on forever.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theatrical, imaginative stuff. We've started to overvalue "real" and "authentic" narratives and the aesthetics that will support them. I'm not saying I don't like stories like that, I just get more excited when I see the larger than life stuff that balances it out.

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

A:  Find a group of peeps and work with them. A lot. You need them more than anything else in the theatre. Not only will they support your work, but the right ones will make you a better artist, a better business person, and (more importantly) a better person person.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Go see THE WIFE by Tommy Smith before it closes.

Check out Vampire Cowboys SATURDAY NIGHT SALOON, if you've never done it before. It's a real treat.

Keep an eye on the writers who had readings at 2g's FREE RANGE. I'll be selecting a couple of them soon to develop full-length plays with 2g.

And come to the Humana Festival in March 2011 to see EDITH CAN SHOOT THINGS AND HIT THEM and THE END (the Anthology which includes my play THIS IS HOW IT ENDS).

I Interview Playwrights Part 296: Sean Christopher Lewis

Sean Christopher Lewis

Hometown: Pine Bush, NY

Current Town: Iowa City, IA

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I just directed ATLAS OF MUD by Jennifer Fawcett for Working Group Theatre, performed KILLADELPHIA at a bunch of venues (Woolly Mammoth, Cape May Stage, La Salle University, etc...), finished a commission for Interact Theatre in Philly about immigration, starting a commission for Adirondack Theatre Festival, in the middle of a commission with Davenport Theatricals, started to adapt my play MILITANT LANGUAGE into a comic book and am prepping a new solo show JUST KIDS to open at Available Light Theatre in January.

It's been busy.

Q:  Tell me about Working Group Theater.

A:  Working Group was started by myself, Jennifer Fawcett and actor Martin Andrews. We all went to the University of Iowa together but had worked as professional artists in separate cities (Me in NY, Jenn in Toronto, Martin in Cincinnati). Basically, we wanted to do a lot of plays. New Plays. That were challenging and difficult. And we wanted to tour them across the US and more... and we wanted to do it from Iowa.

When I was in Playwrights Workshop for Grad School every Monday night we would have play readings and someone would bring in a play: Jenn, Sam Hunter, Mary Hamilton, Sarah Sander and more and I'd be like- this is better than most of the plays I saw in NY or regionally in the past year. But like everyone knows- most of those plays never saw production- at best they went through the professional workshop mill. And then I went to some conferences and had a bunch of readings and I always left frustrated- it felt somewhat fake. We were all telling ourselves that this was helping the plays around us- but none of the plays ever got to their feet.

So we just said fuck it. We'll do them. And if theaters think these plays are still problem riddled or difficult we'll put it up and we'll prove that they work. And the writers we choose to work with- we'll do what we can to ensure a future life for their projects through touring and advocacy. So far the shows have gone on.

ATLAS OF MUD- our current production is huge. It was developed at the Lark, the Kennedy Center and a bunch of others but people told Jenn that the piece (which takes place in separate time periods, has multiple scenes and in our production has a 23 foot boat on stage) was undoable.

Well, we just did it. And are getting invited to bring it elsewhere.

If the system doesn't work- you make your own system.

Q:  Tell me about Killadelphia.

A:  Killadelphia is a solo piece about the inmates at Graterford Prison in Philadelphia involved with the city's Mural Arts Program. These are men who are serving life sentences for murder but are also charged with painting some of the 3000 murals that beautify the area.

It's kind of like a cross between Spalding Gray and Anna Deveare Smith using verbatim interviews from the inmates, hip hop artists and politicians coupled with my own first hand account of meeting the men and working with them over a period of time.

It's been an amazing and lucky experience to tour the play- a lot of credit to my collaborator and good friend Matt Slaybaugh at Available Light- it's played over 40 venues from colleges to theaters to prisons and detention centers. It's the only piece I've ever done that has connected with people to this degree. is till get emails and "thank yous'... a few months ago doing it at the Southwest Idaho Juvenile Detention Center near Boise was life changing.

It made me realize that I want to keep doing projects that have a community base in some way.

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

A:  To be honest I don't really remember much of my childhood. It wasn't fun. I know that.

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

I'd take away the entitlement and the arrogance. The feeling you need to be someplace specific- whether that be physically or professionally- I'd make it about the art and the connection it has, first, and let the rest fall where it may.

And I'd take heed to that myself more often.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Sam Shepard was the first time I read a play and said "holy shit that's a play."

Danny Hoch, Eric Bogosian and John Leguizamo were the first time I saw something and said "I wanna do that."

Naomi Wallace got me through Grad school.

On the business side of things I've learned everything I know and don't work a day job basically because of the hustle of the Wu Tang Clan, Atmosphere, Blueprint, Def Jux records and more. If you listen to how they talk music industry- it's really similar, I often just do what they did in a theatrical model.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I want something visceral and thought provoking. i don't want to be spoonfed- I have Judd Apatow and CBS Friday Nights for that.

I want it in my stomach and throat you know- I want to feel it well up as I watch it. I want to leave invigorated or angry or still in a hysterical fit.

I don't want it culled from NY or from the Times Reviews. I want it to go out on a limb. I want it to push the theater and the light and sound board and the actors on stage to the limit and past.

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

A:  Listen to more Wu Tang.
Start a theater even if it's in your basement.
Don't listen to anyone who says you have to go there or here to have a career- if they say that often look at what their career is (is it teacher or actor? data entry or playwright?)

Be motherfucking brave. Be honest. Even if it might make someone mad. Have your heart in the right place. Keep writing. Keep screaming.

They are out there. The ones who will scream and laugh and cry and watch- they're out there.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  People places and things you should know:

Available Light Theatre (the unheralded new work gym of the midwest), Jenn Fawcett (how epic and poetic do you want your female playwrights), Philip Dawkins (go see the HOMOSEXUALS at About Face), Matt Moses (an ill playwright and we suffered through Binghamton University together), Matt Dellapina (hire this actor, seriously, what are you doing he's in the Civilians, just leave a message with them) and there are so many more...

I Interview Playwrights Part 295: Rachel Bonds

Rachel Bonds

Hometown: Sewanee, Tennessee. It’s a little college town in the mountains.

Current Town: Brooklyn, NY. Greenpoint, specifically.

Q:  Tell me about Michael & Edie.

A:  Michael & Edie actually began as a short story about a guy who worked at a pizza joint on the West Side of Chicago and had a crush on his co-worker, who always seemed distant and sad. He made pizzas and pined away for her during the day, and at night he visited his dying sister in the hospital, sitting up next to her in a chair and reading through every book on the list of The 100 Greatest American Novels. And he would go out on the roof of the hospital and smoke cigarettes and think about the girl in the pizza place.

At some point I started experimenting with how I could make this story theatrical—I started wondering what would happen if I put the characters in real time and real space and made them talk to each other (or to themselves, in Michael’s case). And the story shifted quite a bit as I found its theatricality and delved into the possibilities therein.

It remained a story about grief, though—about living with grief and the corners and crevices of escape we create in our minds. And though the story deals with the possibility of romance between the two title characters, I was more interested in the idea of a “near miss,” in something more human and wonky—something lovely and brief between two people that passes and is gone.

Robbie Saenz de Viteri, who directs the show, and Matthew Micucci, who plays Michael, came to me over the summer and said, “Hey, remember the play we did a reading of 2 years ago? Let’s do that play.” So I dug out the script and made extensive revisions and we worked to produce it, along with our friend/co-producer John DuPre. It’s been a fantastic process, one of my favorites, and the script has made leaps and bounds through the rehearsal process, with the help of our very smart cast, who have cared for the story as their own.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  I’m working on revising a new full-length called The Noise Play, a play I’ve been working on with director Portia Krieger. We staged an excerpt of the piece at New Georges in November, and we’re aiming to further develop the script in the near future. The play explores the idea of living with fear—and centers around Ellie, who, while falling in love with Amos, finds herself haunted by The Noise, a dark creature that plagues her at night.

I’m also working on a new short play called Ghost Life, about a young man, George, who becomes deeply infatuated with a stranger visiting his town for the summer while his mother is simultaneously losing her mind. It’s a play about obsession.

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 dad always used to tell this story to describe me: When my sister and I were growing up, we lived on a street that was a circle. And my dad would walk us around this circle—and while my sister liked to walk a little bit, turn around, inspect something, turn back around, wander a bit, explore something else, etc., I liked to walk directly around the circle in a straight line, very focused, without stopping.

I relate this to the reason I like to run---it’s something about the need to push through something and get to the other side. I approach my writing in this way. It’s athletic.

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

A:  I wish producing plays was simpler. I wish productions happened more frequently. There are so many incredible writers and not nearly enough organizations to produce their plays. I’m interested in finding more ways to produce produce produce—as I think it’s the best thing we can do for our scripts.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Oooh. I have a lot of heroes, some people, some places. It’s a running list: Pig Iron, Nature Theater of Oklahoma, Tim Crouch, The Bushwick Starr, Linsay Firman, Susan Bernfield and New Georges, ERS, Ellen Lauren, Melissa James Gibson, Jenny Schwartz, Lisa D’Amour, Bill Irwin, Billy Carden, George Bernard Shaw, Wedekind, Caryl Churchill…

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I’m interested in the marriage of theatricality and simplicity. Like, if someone on-stage held up a plastic shopping bag and shone a flashlight on it and called it The Moon. I love seeing things transform like that.

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

A:  Make time to write, even if it’s just 30 minutes every day. Carve out that time. Even if it feels like a waste and not a real job and you feel guilty. It’s not a waste.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Michael & Edie runs through December 19th at Access Theater in Manhattan. We’ve just been named a NY Times Critics’ Pick---so seats are filling up fast! You can get tix through our website: www.greenpointdivision.com/michaelandedie

I Interview Playwrights Part 294: Lynn Rosen

Lynn Rosen

Hometown: Gary, Indiana

Current Town: NY, NY

Q:  Tell me about Apple Cove.

A:  Blurb time: When newlyweds Edie and Alan King move into the gated  community of Apple Cove, they trust they have found a safe haven from  the chaotic world outside. But when lush and forbidden roses start popping up in their garden, they quickly learn that nothing, not even  electric gates, can keep nature out. Especially one's own nature.

The idea of gated communities has intrigued me since I was 16. I started to see them sprout up near my town replacing swaths of beautiful trees. I always wondered exactly who or what the homeowners were keeping at bay with those gates and rules? The world? Were they trying to tame themselves somehow?

But it was also 9/11. The ensuing wars and political climate, which continue today, as well as a personal tug of war about whether to have a child in such a world, that informed Apple Cove, and helped me  clarify Edie’s journey. Edie is so scared of the world that she chooses to give up personal liberties in the name of security, and instead opts to live in a "paradise-like" community where everyone is safe, but where nature and differences are feared. In Apple Cove, we watch as Edie struggles to find and define her own paradise.

How to live in the world, not hide from it, and how to look past our fear to find beauty is a mystery to me at times. I suppose I’m grappling with that mystery via Apple Cove.

The play is very funny, but there is heartbreak as well. It's also highly theatrical. There are a lot of surprises in store and hopefully some beautiful, and carefully plotted, chaos. We have an amazing cast and design team - they're dreamy.

It’s so apt that Apple Cove found a home at Women's Project. I'm honored that the whip-smart spunksters Julie Crosby and Megan Carter chose my play because I think they have their finger on the pulse of what's exciting and relevant in theatre today. And I'm not just kissing up - they're already doing my play.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  Most immediately, I’m involved with The Germ Project at New Georges - an exciting project at a very exciting theatre company.  They've commissioned me and three other playwrights to dream up plays of great scope and adventure. My play is called Goldor & Mythyka: A Hero Is Born (Based On a Truly True Story) and is directed by Shana Gold. It's a very American tale that involves a love story, a bank heist gone awry, Dungeons & Dragons, and people struggling to empower and define themselves. Supporting the text is music, video, (it’s very 3-D) and acrobatic feats both mental and physical.

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 ages 11-14 I went to a camp in the midwest called Harand Theatre Camp. Every year I faced a disastrous malfunction.  Scarecrow in Wizard Of Oz - lost my voice and could only hit a few notes. (When I sang "If I Only Had A Brain" it sounded like "If I Brain".) Aunt Eller in Oklahoma -sang too fast but the accompanist refused to keep up with me so I finished singing and then had to churn butter for an eternity while he finished playing. Also, skirt ripped from body in a dance sequence revealing what I'm sure was big white underpants sticking out from a bunchy leotard. Rosie in Bye Bye  Birdie - shoe flew off foot into audience. Adelaide in Guys And Dolls - threw my feather boa off the stage by accident and in a moment of sweaty desperation grabbed the boa of a girl I knew wouldn't fight back. (I'm not proud of this.) And the choreographer told me I danced like I had poop in my pants. (It's hard to dance all "sexy Hot Box dancer" when you're 13.) But I finished each number and I kept going back because I loved theatre ferociously. And even when I felt humiliated and crushed I could find a way to laugh about it. (Or maybe I'm just a masochist?)

Q:  You and I have the same agent. Isn't Seth a rockstar?

A:  Seth IS a rock star! And he has very big biceps which I know from giving him hugs. I think those muscles are a result of a disciplined workout schedule that alternates between hackey-sack, juggling, and ultimate frisbee. ;)

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

A:  It would certainly be great if it were more affordable and more accessible. That's something I loved about my production of Back From The Front with The Working Theater. We had the most diverse audience (economically, ethnically) I'd ever seen and it was pretty thrilling.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  I think actors are pretty heroic. I used to act (see churning butter) and it eventually became too terrifying for me. Seeing "Noises Off" by Michael Frayne when I  was about 12 is the moment I decided theatre was for me. I left that play floating. I had never laughed so hard or seen theatre done so cleverly and creatively. I love so many playwrights, but John Guare and Tina Howe come to mind right away. Their work is epically theatrical but honest and human at the same time. Also, John and Tina are very generous people, which is as inspirational to me as their work. Tina mentored me on Apple Cove during my time at The Lark Play Development Center, (as did the wonderful Arthur Kopit via the Lark Playwrights Workshop), and my time with her was a highlight of my writing life.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  See above! I prefer a messy  exciting play over a very neat and tidy play that doesn't have any creative lift, you know? I liked to be surprised. But I learn  something from every play I see.

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

A:  Write, write, write. Have faith in your own voice, surround yourself with people whose feedback you trust and respect, and then write some more. And have a sense of humor. It’ll help when you get rejected.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Of course Apple Cove January 29 - March 6 at the  Julia Miles Theatre. Always a shout out to the Lark Play Development Center where I developed Apple Cove and where I met one of my favorite collaborators, Giovanna Sardelli. She's been working with me on Apple Cove since 2004. She’s a fantastically talented director  and has great hair. Also, Out of Time & Place - a two-volume anthology which features plays by Women's Project Lab Alumni  (2008-2010). My play Back From The Front is included as are diverse and vibrant plays by my incredibly talented co-alumni. And please check out The Germ Project show this June at 3LD. Oh and my play Nighthawks, a trilogy based on three Hopper paintings and published by Samuel French, (produced by Willow Cabin Theater Company and The Studio Theatre) is out there too.

I Interview Playwrights Part 293: Jennifer Barclay

Jennifer Barclay

Hometown: Rochester, NY

Current Town: San Diego, CA. I came here to get my MFA at UC San Diego, and my husband and I fell in love with the California life.

But my Artistic Home is still Chicago, where I lived for 10 wonderful years. It's the place that fostered my early career both as an actor and as a playwright, and I think of it as my artistic home away from home. So far, I've been fortunate to get to go back there lots for workshops and productions of my plays.

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  Two plays, a feature screenplay, and a TV pilot.

Writing in three genres at once sometimes creates a pressure-cooker in my brain (like now, when the deadlines are closing in), but for the most part I find it incredibly stimulating and healthy to have several balls in the air. I'm learning constantly about how to be a better story teller, and about all the visual and verbal tools I have at my disposal.

I started developing my play, QUARRY, while I was the Playwright in Residence at South Coast Repertory last year. It's set in Chicago against the background of northside gentrification and Cabrini Green relocation. My feature screenplay, THE RIGHT TRACK, is my first romantic comedy. TAKE TWO is my new pilot-- it's my first sitcom, and one of the most challenging things I've ever tried to write. And I've been developing a community-based play with the Old Globe about the foster system called EMANCIPATED. It's one of the most rewarding projects I've ever been a part of. I've had the chance to get to know 4 amazing young adults who went through the system, and who've been brave enough to let me interview them and share their stories on stage.

And, other than writing: my husband and I are on a quest to explore all the National Parks in California. So far we've done 7 of the 9. After that, we'll move onto other states...

Q:  How would you characterize Chicago theater?

A:  Nurturing, stimulating, and grounded. I feel it's incredibly open and welcoming to people who are hard-working and ready to collaborate and create. Part of that is the wealth of opportunities (over 200 theatre companies, constantly buzzing), and part of that is how easy it is to live there. Granted, you have to deal with the biting winters, but you don't have to work tons of hours in a day job to afford a nice apartment, time to do your art, and a pretty high quality of life. It's a place where, I've found, many theatre artists go out of their way to help others. Big theatres like Steppenwolf and Goodman not only co-produce with smaller companies, but their artistic staffs also help to make collaborative connections between emerging artists. For the most part, Chicago theatre people are game-- ready to take a risk and open up their doors, while still maintaining incredibly high standards. The theatre community is highly visible and clearly prized in the city. This, combined with its affordability, make productions accessible to a wide range of pretty diverse audiences.

Q:  Tell me about Vienna.

A:  Oh, Vienna. After graduating from Northwestern, I backpacked through Europe for 6 months on my own. Chicago veteran actor Greg Vinkler had told me about this great English speaking theatre company in Vienna, the International Theatre, and so when I was there I knocked on their door and asked if I could do a monologue for them. A few months later they had an opening in their company, so I moved there for a little while and performed the now-and-forever classic THE MOUSETRAP on weekends, and my one-woman show CLEARING HEDGES on off-nights. The company had a gorgeous apartment and a bike for me to use, and I used to go for rides down the Danube. I taught English for extra cash, learned enough German to order damn fine breads and coffees from the cafes and bakeries, saw the opera for $3, and took weekend road trips to Hungary and Italy. It was heaven.

Q:  What could a student in your playwriting class at UCSD expect?

A:  It's important to me to base a class in not only lots of reading of plays, but also in seeing as many productions as possible so that the students can constantly be reminded that it's a three-dimensional collaborative art, not just a literary one. Luckily, at UCSD, that's easy because there are several productions a week. I think it's essential to foster an atmosphere in the class which is completely supportive and collaborative; where students feel free to take risks and share their constructive feedback. I owe lots of my teaching techniques to my wonderful mentor, Naomi Iizuka.

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 5, I woke up in the middle of the night, padded downstairs, and announced to my parents that I was changing my name to Micky. When I was 7, I decided I wanted to be a boy, cut off my waist-length hair and renamed myself Chris. And when I was 9, I went up to the front of my fourth-grade class to announce that they should call me Fisher from now on. I've always felt the right and ability to reinvent myself; such an American sensibility. Now, through acting and playwriting, I get to keep trying to reinvent myself over and over again-- while still keeping my old common, feminine, given name.

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

A:  More new plays, less Shakespeare.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  The wickedly talented and generous teachers I've been so lucky to have, including David Downs, Allan Havis, Karl Gajdusek, Adele Shank and Naomi Iizuka.

My other theatrical heroes include Chekhov, Shepard, Pinter, Albee, Stoppard, Kushner, Steppenwolf, and the Donmar Warehouse.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Juicy, raw, surprising. Dark plays with a twisted sense of humor. Balls-to-the-wall acting. Stories which un-peel new meaning with each revealed layer, and leave me stewing for days or months or years after leaving the theatre.

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

A:  See lots of plays and set aside strict hours for writing. Find collaborators you love, stick with them, and organize your own readings so you can hear your work out loud. Don't get too hung up on one play; keep plunging forward. And this career requires a lot of stamina; make sure you surround yourself with people you love, and a life that inspires you.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  My play, FREEDOM, NY, will have its world premiere at Teatro Vista in Chicago May14 - June 12, directed by Joe Minoso.
http://teatrovista.com/stage/freedom-ny.html

For updates on my work and to check out my favorite fiction writer (my husband), my favorite potter (my mother) and my favorite photographer (my father), check out our family's website:
http://www.barclaystudios.com/

I Interview Playwrights Part 292: Peggy Stafford

Peggy Stafford

Hometown:  Bainbridge Island, WA

Current  Town:  Brooklyn

Q:  What are you working on now? 

A:  I’m collaborating with Madelyn Kent and Maja Milanovic on an opera set in the former Yugoslavia during the 1984 Winter Olympics and also in 2008, the year Radovan Karadzic was captured on a city bus. I’m writing a stage adaptation of Marguerite de Angeli’s The Door in the Wall for Seattle Children’s Theatre. I just finished the first draft of Jewel Casket, a play inspired by a Joseph Cornell box.  And I’m working on the book for Sunrise at Hyde Park, a musical based on the 30-year correspondence between Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok.

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

A:  In third grade we all sat at small wood desks (the kind with tops that open), in rows that faced the front of the class. Inside my desk, I kept hidden small eraser people with faces, tiny match boxes, and also some trolls with bright hair. I set up elaborate scenes for my eraser people and trolls, and as much as possible I’d open up my desk to look at them in there. I also ran into sliding glass doors three times throughout my childhood and nothing happened to me except the last time I cracked a tooth.

Q:  What kind of theatre excites you?

A:  The kind that wakes you up & is de-familiarizing. Nature Theatre of Oklahoma, Richard Maxwell, W. David Hancock, ERS, Young Jean Lee, Madelyn Kent, NTUSA, Caryl Churchill, Judith Thompson. Theatre/spectacle like Robert LePage, Dan Hurlin, Erik Ehn’s Saint Plays, Big Dance Theatre, Joseph Cornell boxes.  Funny plays by Charles Ludlam, Mac Wellman, Sibyl Kempson, Beckett. Chekhov, too, is exciting.

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

A:  See a lot of theatre. Listen to real people really talking.  It’s helpful & smart to write down things that you hear on the street or in the emergency room. Find collaborators who can interpret your plays.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Daniel Alexander Jones/Soho Rep,  Kristen Kosmas’ Twenty-Five Cent Opera of San Francisco at Barbes.

I Interview Playwrights Part 291: James McManus

James McManus

Hometown: Donora, PA

Current Town: Long Island City, NY

Q: Tell me about Cherry Smoke.

A: I wrote Cherry Smoke as my grad thesis. I literally wrote over 100 scenes for the play and then put it together like a jig saw puzzle in order to make a play. I based the story on the boys and girls I knew growing up. Our area was ravaged by poverty and many were not able to take advantage of even a primary education because of worsening family situations. But even in the ignorance, there was a beauty in both the language and the dreams. Many of them didn't make it off of those riversides whole, but I guess that I'm bold enough to think that all of those lost souls got together and want me to write their story. Cherry Smoke is enjoying its 6th production and I am keenly aware that the boys and girls I write about never got a chance to see places like Sydney or Scotland or even New York City where it has been produced...and I get an unending kick out of thinking about how these kids who could see every place that they had traveled by climbing a tree are now jet setters. I allow myself that little thunderclap of hope in the brutal world of Cherry Smoke.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  I'm working on a play about meth addicts titled Blood Potato. A screenplay that I can't contractually talk about. And I've recently started work on a musical set in the early 1900's in the world of the County Fairs of Western PA. It's my first time trying to write a musical and it's just tickling me to death.

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

A:  One day, I was eating a McRib sandwich, fries and an orange pop at the Donora McDonald's, the next day it was closed. The local paper said McDonald's left town because the townsfolk could no longer afford to eat there due to the mill closing down. I wish I was making this up.

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

A:  I would love it to not be so cost prohibitive.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  As a kid near Pittsburgh, I knew nothing of theater until someone introduced me to free tickets to Two Trains Running by August Wilson. I've always had a soft spot for Wilson since then. I love so many of my contemporaries, but would leave someone out if I named just a few. I will say that seeing a production of MUD by Maria Irene Fornes 5 or so years back changed the way I look at theater and reading SCARCITY by Lucy Thurber was like taking brave pills.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Brave theater. I think the role of the artist is to not take one fucking step back from what the truth is no matter how it looks or how it makes you feel. I like theater that makes me uncomfortable. I like theater that turns a mirror on folks who I have never seen before.

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

A:  Write all the time. Write about big things. A hundred years from now no one will give a damn about conversations you overheard about the 7 train in New York City.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  My play, Cherry Smoke, runs at The Side Project thru December 19th. thesideproject.net has all the pertinent info for tickets.

I Interview Playwrights Part 290: Philip Dawkins

Philip Dawkins

Hometown: Chicago (though, full disclosure, I was born in Phoenix, AZ. But it was never my hometown.)

Current Town: Chicago

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I just finished costuming an opera, which isn't writing, but it's story telling in a way, yeah? It's called "Boojum! Nonsense, Truth, and Lewis Carroll," and it's a co-production between my company, Chicago Opera Vanguard and Caffeine Theater. It's a really whacked out existential musical trip through the brain space of Lewis Carroll, and I'm proud to have worked on it, and happy to be finished.

Writing-wise, I'm working on a children's play for a theater in NY about death and grief. (!!!) And I just finished a first draft of a new play called FAILURE: A LOVE STORY.

In the new year, I'll be gearing up for About Face's premiere production of my play, THE HOMOSEXUALS. I just honestly couldn't be more excited about that.

Also, I'm nearing a test for my black sash in Shaolin Kung Fu, and trying my darndest to train for that.

Q:  How would you characterize Chicago theater?

A:  Blue Collar. Chicagoans take their theatre seriously. We've had a long day at work, and we're either going to put on our duck boots and Carharts to go to the bar where it's warm and we know we can count on good conversation, good whiskey, and a good fist fight; or we can put on something nice and try to find snowy parking to see a show. So, if we choose a show, it better be worth it. Which is not to say that a Chicago audience isn't cultured. No, Chicagoans know what they like, they know what's good, and if it isn't good, they're not going to give you a standing ovation on principal. They're going to stand up and say, "So that sucked. See you at the bar?" No phoning it in with Chicago Theatre.

Also, I think, Chicago theatre is accessible in a way. The cost of putting up a show here is . . . well, let's just say it's possible. And you can afford to take a big risk, do the show that maybe most people will hate but that you desperately feel needs to be seen. Why not? You won't go bankrupt. And if the people who need to see that show get to see that show, then Yahtzee! It's a success. A financial success? Maybe not. But it got done, it got seen, and no one went to the poor house.


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

A:  Growing up in Phoenix, a lot of my friends were Mexican or Native American. But, as a kid, of course, I didn't recognize any cultural distinctions. My best friend all through grade school was a Mexican American kid named Manny. We spent pretty much every recess together, and if I remember correctly, he was one of only two kids who bothered to show up to my tenth birthday party. Manny was very, very quiet, very shy, didn't say much, but a nice nice kid. We got along great.

A few years ago I was talking about Manny with my mother, and she said, "Philip, you know that Manny didn't speak English, right?"
News to me.

All this to say, I'm pretty comfortable with monologue.

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

A:  I'd like more people to go to it.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Personal mentors. I was a child actor, and I was very very lucky to be looked after by the most amazing roster of adult performers and theatrical nurturers. I dedicated my first published play to David Wo, who was sort of my theatre father. He gave me my first professional writing gig when I was sixteen, and then died later that summer. I had no idea he was even sick. He knew, and he went out of his way to give me that experience, to show me that I really could do this with my life. I don't believe in angels, but if I did ... David Wo.

And many others. A long list. I was a very, very fortunate child of the theatre.

Currently, my heroes are my students. Not all of them. Some of them are massive chores. But most of my students are, if not heroic, then inspirational to me. I think most teachers would agree with that...

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theater with a story. There' s a lot of really excellent spectacle being done all over the place. I mean, REALLY excellent. Breath taking. But if there's no story, if there are no characters journeying against all odds toward something they want, then I'm out. Spectacle without story is, in my mind, circus. There's nothing wrong the circus, but I didn't say goodbye cruel world to join the circus. I left to join the theatre.

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

A:  Write, Listen, Relax. Repeat.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  The play at About Face
http://aboutfacetheatre.com/?pg=homosexuals

The Opera at the Department of Cultural Affairs
http://www.dcatheater.org/shows/show/boojum_nonsense_truth_and_lewis_carroll/

My published kids plays
http://www.playscripts.com/author.php3?authorid=928

Cino Nights, Chicago

Here is a great article about Cino Nights.  19 playwrights asked to write a full length for the 7th street small stage at Jimmys No. 43 in nyc.  I'm doing it.  Great insight into some of the playwrights involved.  It's a lot of fun.  And it's free.  I suggest you see as many as you can.  The schedule is here.  Pretty much one a month through March 2012.

You in Chicago?  Come see my reading of Elsewhere at Chicago Dramatists at 7pm on Mon the 6th.  I will be there.