I Interview Playwrights Part 304: Anna Moench

Anna Moench

Hometown:
Baltimore, MD. The Greatest City In America.

Current Town:
New York. A place that would look like a douchebag for claiming to be the greatest city in America on every public bench.

Q:  Tell me about your upcoming show at EST.

A:  It's called In Quietness, and it's about a former CEO who has left her job to follow her recently born-again husband to a Southern Baptist seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. She's the type of person who doesn't know how to fold a sheet, so she enrolls in the seminary's Homemaking B.A. program. The play explores the difficulties of fitting oneself into a box, whether that box be gender, religion, profession, or social expectations, and why, given how difficult it is, we all try so hard to do it. The production is a part of Youngblood's Unfiltered series, which is an annual assortment of studio productions of full lengths by Youngblood writers.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  I'm also a member of the 2010 Emerging Writers Group at The Public, where I'm working on a play called Hunger. The play takes place in rural China, and it explores what the landscape of life is like out there right now, and how that is as much shaped by the country's tremendous upheaval during the past century as it is by its hopes for the next one. The plot revolves around minghun, a traditional burial practice in which bereaved parents will buy the corpse of a girl to bury with their dead son in a joint wedding/funeral ceremony to ensure that he is not lonely in the afterlife. The living are played by puppets, and their puppeteers become their souls in the afterlife once they die. I've been working on this piece, the research or writing false starts, for over two years now. It has been an exercise in perseverance. But the writing is finally moving now, which feels great.

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

A:  Once as a kid I came downstairs for breakfast and found my mom cutting my dad's hand open with a razor blade over some paper towels on the kitchen table. Apparently some lead shot that had been lodged in there for years after an old hunting accident. That morning it had been bothering him, so he asked her to cut him open and get it out. Doctors, man. In retrospect it seems strange that an 8 year old would be not at all disturbed by this. I think I had cereal and watched. As a writer I think that interest carries over...I like the visceral clockwork that keeps us breathing and swallowing and shitting so that we can think our lofty or stupid thoughts. One of my plays, GORMANZEE, stages the strangulation and evisceration of a shaved gorilla (puppet) and a nearly naked human (actor) while a chimpanzee (actor) fear grins and runs around screaming, fruitlessly searching for escape. My company produced it at The Flea last summer and I assumed it would be a real thigh slapper. But judging from the appalled silence on a few nights, some audiences were traumatized. Especially the little kids who came thinking it would be a puppet show. Yikes. I do feel a little bad about that. But I still think it's the funniest thing I've ever written.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theater is like a drug, isn't it? The more I consume, the more I need from it. Story used to be what moved me, and I still love (and to some extent need) a good story, but now I'm hooked on visuals, particularly the use of puppets and objects. Force me to see life in a dead thing, force me to love that dead thing, force me to mourn the death of a thing that never lived, and you are forcing me to be conscious of the act of being human. Also, I like solving puzzles. I like ambiguity without vagueness. I really like laughing, I like hilarious characters that show me a good time. I like elegant transitions and messy interactions. I like shocking shifts in visual perspective. I like seeing something that expands how I see everything.

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

A:  1. If you live in a place that has a theater scene, then it is my opinion that you should see plays and read other stuff. Scripts are blueprints for plays, and although I know I'm supposed to like reading them, I just don't. Maybe that's bad advice, but so far I don't think I've been screwed by it. I think my time is better spent reading outdated manuals on how to be a secretary in 1963, advice columns, fundamentalist blogs, recipes for fertilizers, the Wikipedia pages for massacres I never knew happened, poetry, the Bible, the dictionary, obituaries, the epic origin stories written on organic food packaging, and the sentence on the side of the Domino's sugar box (seriously, check it out, it's weird). Get a news site to email you all the articles about some random country every day for a year. Become an armchair expert on something. It will probably start to show in your writing. Or even better, you may end up at some horrible party where some insufferable person is talking out of their ass about North Korea or whatever and you can be like "SHAZAM! I know everything there is to know about North Korea, fool!" That has never happened to me, but I haven't given up hope.

2. Try to get enough fresh air.

3. Read all the other advice from the other playwright interviews on Adam's blog. They have all already said all the stuff that first came to mind when I started answering this question.

4. Read Anne Lamott's "Bird By Bird." It will make you laugh and feel better about everything.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  The other shows in Unfiltered are fantastic!
-Sweet Forgotten Flavor by Patrick Link (running now, don't miss it!) is set in this beautifully timeless, placeless, sideways fairy tale-ish world that quietly and brilliantly elevates the conflicts at work among its characters. Really wonderful.

-The Sluts of Sutton Drive by Joshua Conkel is yet another winner from an incredibly talented writer. It's dark, twisted, and hilarious. Jaded suburban moms drink cleaning products to deal with the bleakness of their existence.

The first Sunday of every month is Youngblood's Brunch series, which is brunch+new short plays around a theme+drinking. Don't miss it!

Upcoming

Production of Nerve in Anaheim, CA  Jan 28-Feb 27 
(9th production of the play, 10th-12th coming soon)

http://www.chancetheater.com/

Production of Deflowering Waldo in Rochester, NY Feb 4-13 
(5th production of the play)

http://www.staszpruitt.com/

Reading of Save as part of How Soon Is Now with Packawallop in NYC  Jan 31

Benefiting the Trevor Project

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=53914824269&ref=ts#!/event.php?eid=185706811459427

Reading of Elsewhere in West Virginia Feb 9

http://www.gvtheatre.org/

Reading of Temporary Everything, Croton On Hudson, NY  Feb 11

http://www.hudsonstage.com/

Reading of Hearts Like Fists, Boston, MA Feb (TBA)

http://www.hollandproductions.org/

I Interview Playwrights Part 303: Martin Blank

Martin Blank

Hometown: Bethesda, Maryland

Current Town: Bethesda, Maryland

Q:  Tell me about Avenue of The Americas.

A:  I find as a playwright that A always leads to C. Avenue of the Americas was the first play I ever wrote. It is a story about a woman who escapes a mental institution to write television advertisements that become dangerously successful. Avenue of the Americas has been produced, but not in New York City. One of my other plays, The Law of Return, had a reading at ArtEffects Theatre Company in New York City. They told me the night before the reading they had extra time in the space and asked, "Is there anything else you want to hear too?" God love them. They did readings of both plays back to back. Kristin Cantwell, an amazing actress, who gave my work to ArtEffects in the first place, and Phil Newsom, a brilliant producer and director at ArtEffects, loved Avenue of the Americas. Kristin and Phil are producing it on their own Off Broadway at The Tank Theater. For me, as always, A leads to C. 

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  A new comedy, No Rest for the Wicked. It's a dark, comic spin on Rip van Winkle. It's getting a reading at the Kennedy Center in September.

Q:  How would you characterize the DC theater scene?

A:  Exciting. Very. A vibrant Fringe festival giving birth to lots of young companies doing great work, including many new plays. Plenty of "old school" shops putting on new plays too: Woolly Mammoth, Arena Stage, and so on. An awful lot of seasoned as well as talented new theater people. The theater scene in DC has never been better.  

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

A:  Like a lot of us, when I was four I put on shows in my living room. They were magic shows. I wrote and produced them. I got all the neighborhood kids to perform them. Siblings and parents would come. We charged one dollar for admission. Even at age four, I knew to pay artists.

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

A:  You can fill a library with what I don't know about theater. Or life. I do know that a lot of folks in our business are in hard times now. Still, anyone reading this is a creative person. My wish is that people in our business think creatively about how to put on theater in a sustainable way. The tide that goes out comes back. I want American theater to be bullish again.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Actors. Brave, gifted, folks.   

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Anytime I see a play, no matter the style, budget, whatever, where an audience has been moved in some way and, based on that experience, will likely go see more theater.

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

A:  Take one good acting class. Read all the time-plays, anything and everything. Take the two plays you love most and physically type them. It will save you years. (Paddy Chayefsky did this, it worked out okay for him.) See as many plays as you can. Every day, whatever happens, try to see the glass as half full. And the last thing should be obvious.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Production of Avenue of the Americas January 21 to February 6 at The Tank Theater in New York City. Reading in Washington, D.C., of No Rest for the Wicked at the Kennedy Center in early September. And Adam,  you're a terrific and busy playwright. Thanks for doing these!

I Interview Playwrights Part 302: Paul Thureen

Paul Thureen

Hometown: Grew up on a farm 10 miles north of East Grand Forks, MN

Current Town: Greenpoint, Brooklyn

Q:  Tell me about your upcoming remount of Buddy Cop 2.

A:  Buddy Cop 2 is our play about Cops, Christmas and Racquetball that we premiered in May at the Ontological-Hysteric Incubator. We’re bringing it back for a quick run for PS122’s COIL festival. We’ll be at the Atlantic Theater Stage 2. It’s a super fun, dark, sad, strange play.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  Well, we have the very beginnings of three new plays so after Buddy Cop 2 we’ll hop back into development mode.

Also, Buddy Cop 2 is coming out from Samuel French in just a few weeks and we’re happy to report that Manbites Dog Theater in Durham, NC will be doing the first licensed production in June. It’s the first time someone ELSE has done one of our shows . . . which is totally exciting and bizarre because we’ve always written for ourselves as performers.

Q:  How do you and Hannah write together? What's your process?

A:  Once we’ve found the little thing that’s our main core starting point, we spend a period of time collecting things; research, images, objects (very important), songs . . . and that transitions into generating a big mass of text sort of riffing on these early ideas and inspirations. At this point Oliver (our director and the other third of The Debate Society) and Hannah and I are really focused on creating the world of the play which is sort of the most important thing to us; the flavor and feel of the place and its mythology.

From our feeling of what that world is and the writing we’ve done, we start to shape the story and characters. We’ll do in-rehearsal work with Oliver, then Hannah and I write and bring stuff back in, repeat repeat repeat. Hannah and I will give each other little writting assignments and when we read, we’ve usually ended up magically filling in the gaps of what was missing in the other’s writing.

It definitely starts out as a very intuitive process. As we get closer to production, then we look back at what we have, how it’s (hopefully) kind of instinctively lined up and then at that point do a little bit more shaping and building from a more intellectual/dramaturgical perspective.

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

A:  Well I guess this is more of an origin story than a single event, but my mom was a Norwegian professor and writer and my dad a farmer and I think it kind of makes sense that that made me. My mom was always SUPER creative and viewed that world with very childlike eyes for an adult . . . she still does actually. So dragons would be leaping out at us from the ditch when we’d be riding in the car and things like that. She also read to me and my sister a lot and had us do “hot pen” writing exercises from a young age. And then my dad was more quiet, super hard working, but also with a sort of dry, pragmatic Midwestern sense of humor. On the farm you just have a lot of time alone, inventing things, climbing on (dangerous) farm machinery, creating your own little word outside. I just reread your interview you did with Hannah . . . and she talked about setting up little dioramas in her mom’s antique shop window . . . so it strikes me we grew up in very similar ways in very different places. And I think that sense of play still really flavors our work . . . even when we’re making something very adult or sad or dark.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  I studied for 3 months in Moscow and those guys are just such committed artists; doing what they do even in the worst of times and working so hard with much fewer resources . . . and still there’s this super commitment to playfulness and excessive creativity. There’s always a point where Oliver’s staging, and we’ve written something crazy and impossible that has to happen on stage and we can’t figure out how to make it happen and we joke, “Um, we’ll just use real magic”. And I think the Russians believe in that. So . . . “Russians” is the answer I guess.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Sometimes I see plays and think, “That was good . . . but would have been better as an episode of This American Life (or Law and Order. Or a book. Or a tone poem.) and there’s nothing really wrong with that . . . but I get so excited when I see something stunning or delicate or that really rocks me that could only happen in theater.

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

A:  “Turn on your nerves” as they’d tell us in Russia so you’re absorbing things that are interesting or make you feel a certain way in the world. Be open to finding inspiration in anything. Look places no one else looks. And be super honest and critical with yourself: Is this REALLY what I want to make, or is this something just in the style of what I think I SHOULD make. Work hard. And then . . . try to get out of the way of yourself and trust your intuition.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Buddy Cop 2 at Atlantic Stage 2, January 8th-13th (go to thedebatesociety.org for the details)!

I Interview Playwrights Part 301: Yusef Miller

Yusef Miller

Hometown: Houston, Texas

Current Town: New York, NY

Q: 

What are you working on now?

A: 1) Writing a new play.

2) This week, I begin rehearsals for my ten-minute dark comedy, called Breakfast. Synopsis: ..eggs and muthufuckin' bacon will not be the start of glen's morning. his wife, harriet, has pop tarts on the menu, the shit they've overlooked for 19 years...

Q: How can we support your work?

A: By attending my ten-minute dark comedy, called Breakfast. Building on a sold-out inaugural year in 2010, The Fire This Time Festival continues its mission of supporting playwrights of African-descent and exploring challenging new directions for 21st century theater.
All Season Two festival events will be held at Horse Trade Theater Group’s Red Room (85 East 4th Street between 2nd Ave and Bowery).
Join us for an evening of ten-minute plays:
• The Scorpion and the Fox by Jesse Cameron Alick
• The Eternal Return by Christine Jean Chambers
• Exodus by Camille Darby
• The Bitter Seraph of Sugar Hill by Marcus Gardley
• Breakfast by Yusef Miller
• Third Grade by Dominique Morisseau
Showtimes
• Thu - 01/20   7:00 PM
• Fri - 01/21     7:00 PM
• Sat - 01/22     7:00 PM
• Sun - 01/23   2:00 PM
• Thu - 01 27    7:00 PM
• Fri -  01/28    7:00 PM
• Sat - 01/29     7:00 PM
• Sun – 01/30   2:00 PM
Tickets ($15) are available by calling Smarttix at 212-868-4444 or online at www.horseTRADE.info (on "The Fire This Time Festival Panel on the left)


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 an Artist-born child who retained narratives of the unrequited dreams of a family, a community, a race. Initially, it was important for me to run for my own story, or at the least, to wait out the storm. Poetry became my first expression of my existence. It validated my purpose in the storm; and in articulating it, validated the people and the stories. I write plays from within the storm. I’m still validating. I’m experimenting with different styles and forms of validating.

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

A: I wouldn’t touch the mainstream theatre community. I wouldn’t know where to begin, other than total reformation. What I would do is slip a pill into the drinks of every Black Playwright, Black Producer, and Black Audience Member. This pill would have several effects. 1) it would identify our “oneness with each other.” 2) it would identify our “oneness with God.” 3) it would create within us courage and wisdom, unprecedented. 4) it would recreate in us a LIFE OR DEATH resolve. 5) it would advance how we contract our creativity. 


Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: I endeavor to be my own hero. I owe it to me and my experience.



Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: Allegories. 



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

A: The origins of your art is YOU. Be courageous, for all of us.

300 Playwright Interviews (alphabetically)

Rob Ackerman
Liz Duffy Adams
Johnna Adams
Tony Adams 
David Adjmi
Derek Ahonen
Zakiyyah Alexander
Luis Alfaro
Lucy Alibar
Joshua Allen
Mando Alvarado 
Sofia Alvarez
Terence Anthony
Alice Austen
Rachel Axler
Annie Baker
Trista Baldwin
Jennifer Barclay 
Courtney Baron
Mike Batistick 
Brian Bauman
Chad Beckim
Nikole Beckwith 
Maria Alexandria Beech 
Alan Berks
Brooke Berman
Susan Bernfield
Jay Bernzweig
Barton Bishop
Lee Blessing
Jonathan Blitstein
Adam Bock
Jerrod Bogard
Emily Bohannon
Rachel Bonds
Margot Bordelon
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
Jason Chimonides  
Andrea Ciannavei
Eliza Clark
Alexis Clements  
Alexandra Collier
James Comtois
Joshua Conkel
Kara Lee Corthron
Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas
Erin Courtney
Cusi Cram
Lisa D'Amour
Heidi Darchuk
Stacy Davidowitz
Philip Dawkins
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 
Jennifer Fawcett 
Joshua Fardon
Catherine Filloux   
Kenny Finkle
Kate Fodor 
Sam Forman
Kevin R. Free
Matthew Freeman
Edith Freni
Patrick Gabridge 
Anne Garcia-Romero
Gary Garrison 
Madeleine George
Meg Gibson
Sigrid Gilmer 
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
Lauren Gunderson 
Jennifer Haley
Christina Ham
Sarah Hammond
Rob Handel
Jordan Harrison
Leslye Headland
Ann Marie Healy
Julie Hebert 
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
Aditi Brennan Kapil
Lila Rose Kaplan  
Jeremy Kareken 
Lally Katz
Lynne Kaufman
Karinne Keithley 
Greg Keller
Sibyl Kempson 
Anna Kerrigan
Boo Killebrew
Callie Kimball
Johnny Klein 
Krista Knight
Andrea Kuchlewska
Larry Kunofsky
Deborah Zoe Laufer 
J. C. Lee
Young Jean Lee
Dan LeFranc
Andrea Lepcio
Steven Levenson
Barry Levey
Mark Harvey Levine  
Michael Lew
EM Lewis
Sean Christopher Lewis
Jeff Lewonczyk
Kenneth Lin
David J. Loehr 
Matthew Lopez
Stacey Luftig
Kirk Lynn
Mariah MacCarthy
Laura Lynn MacDonald
Maya Macdonald
Cheri Magid
Jennifer Maisel
Martyna Majok 
Kara Manning
Ellen Margolis
Ruth Margraff
Sam Marks
Tarell Alvin McCraney
Daniel McCoy 
Ruth McKee
James McManus
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
Rich Orloff 
Jamie Pachino
Kristen Palmer
Tira Palmquist
A. Rey Pamatmat 
Peter Parnell
Julia Pascal
Steve Patterson
christopher oscar peña
Brian Polak 
Daria Polatin 
Craig Pospisil
Jessica Provenz
Michael Puzzo
Adam Rapp  
Theresa Rebeck
Amber Reed
Daniel Reitz
Molly Rice
Mac Rogers
Elaine Romero
Lynn Rosen
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
Jen Silverman
David Simpatico 
Blair Singer
Crystal Skillman
Mat Smart
Alena Smith
Tommy Smith
Ben Snyder
Lisa Soland
Peggy Stafford 
Saviana Stanescu
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
Michael I. Walker 
Malachy Walsh
Kathleen Warnock
Anne Washburn
Marisa Wegrzyn
Anthony Weigh   
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

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.