I Interview Playwrights Part 643: Sarah DeLappe

Sarah DeLappe

Hometown: Reno, Nevada

Current Town: Brooklyn, New York

Q:  Tell me about your upcoming Amoralists reading.

A:  Well it’s this play called PARABOLA. It’s a triptych spanning the history of Western popular culture as we know it. We follow one woman, one man, and one inanimate object on this gonzo journey through reincarnations, metamorphoses, gender roles, that sort of thing. I don’t want to give too much away but there will be brain freezes.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  A couple of secret plays. One is about an Alaskan radio station. It’s called THE PIONEERS. Another one is actually about secrets. Top Secrets. It’s called NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. Oh and also a young adult novel about an opossum. Because that’s what the youth is clamoring for, you know?

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

A:  I have a twin sister. We both used to lucid dream. I thought it was just how everyone dreamed: with total and complete control. And I distinctly remember sitting with my sister in the back of our Subaru and having this philosophical debate about how to wake up. Since that was always a struggle, and frankly, sorta terrifying. We decided the solution could only be to fall asleep within the dream.

That night, I ended up in our local supermarket. I wanted to test our theory. So I lay down in the middle of the cereal aisle, right by the eggs, and closed my eyes. All of these shoppers came up to me and asked what I was doing. I tried to explain but they told me I was crazy, this wasn’t a dream, and who did I think I was lying down next to the eggs. And I swear to god I can picture all of these sneakers and grocery cart wheels moving around me. It took forever. But I was patient. I woke up.

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

A:  The price of tickets. My god. It’s no wonder the audience is all gray hair.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  There are so many. Caryl Churchill, Thorton Wilder, Wallace Shawn, Spading Gray, Suzan Lori-Parks. And, you know, Chekhov. Shakespeare. And all of my teachers: Paula Vogel, Amy Herzog, Donald Margulies, Deb Margolin, Marc Robinson. And really anyone who persists in writing plays.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theater that's not a sitcom with curtains. Theater that acknowledges and plays with time. Theater that’s got a real voice, iridescent and surprising. Cause that’s all plays are, really: people speaking. I want to hear words in a way that forces me to listen.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Amoralfest! Seven readings by seven writers over the next two weekends. Come on out.

PARABOLA
Written by Sarah DeLappe
Directed by Stefanie Abel Horowitz
Featuring Penny Bittone, Judy Merrick and Haley Sullivan
Sunday March 16 at 4 pm
Walkerspace at 46 Walker St

RSVP here: http://www.theamoralists.com/amoralfest2014

And here’s the whole bunch:

Saturday, 3/8

4:00 pm: FAT CAT KILLERS
Written by Adam Szymkowicz
Directed by Jay Stull
Featuring Wade Dunham, Matthew Pilieci & Mark Roberts

After getting laid off, Michael and Steve decide to kidnap the CEO of the company that gave them the boot.

Sunday, 3/9

8:00 pm: THE LUCKY LADIES
Written by Dominic Finocchiaro
Directed by Jeremy Duncan Pape
Featuring Jennifer Fouche, Janette Johnston, Kat Murphy & Vanessa Vaché

Cindy, Dina, and Gina are contestants on America's longest-running and most beloved reality television dating show. However, when the camera crew stops showing up and their Prince Charming is suddenly nowhere to be found, the girls are forced to ask themselves: how long am I willing to wait for love? And just what am I willing to lose?

Monday, 3/10

2:00 pm: NYLON
Written by Sofia Alvarez
Directed by Jess Chayes
Featuring Luke Forbes, Elena McGhee, Nick Lawson, Anna Stromberg & Kelley Swindall

An estranged couple, Anna and Matthew, meet for the first time in four years. Throughout the evening, their joint history is dredged to the surface in a way that threatens to damage their individual futures as well as those of everyone around them.

8:00 pm: TRIPLE BEAM WET DREAM
Written by Ian Daniel
Directed by Mia Rovegno
Featuring Byron Anthony, Danielle Davenport, Matthew-Lee Erlbach, Nick Lawson, Cassandra Paras, Matthew Pilieci & Jordan Tisdale

Speed freaks. Hustlers. Star-fuckers. Down-and-outs. Everyone at the Jack in the Box on Sunset Boulevard is looking for a way out. A drug-dealing street shaman named Candy is convinced that she’s got the fix that will set them free. But, what price are these Hollywood outcasts willing to pay to get their hands on the ultimate high? A play of hallucinations, booty grinds, and cheesy fries in the dark underbelly of the City of Angels.

Sunday, 3/16

4:00 pm: PARABOLA
Written by Sarah DeLappe
Directed by Stefanie Abel Horowitz
Featuring Penny Bittone, Judy Merrick & Haley Sullivan

Leta uncovers a conspiracy in the Coliseum. Dolly hitchhikes across the USA. Mediatrix fulfills a man-child's every bawdy and bodily need. Follow one woman, one man, and one inanimate object on a gonzo journey (in three parts) through gender roles and popular culture.

8:00 pm: DEATH FOR SYDNEY BLACK
Written by Leah Nanako Winkler
Directed by Kip Fagan

Three women are trapped in a narrative that degrades them. A dark comedy about six teenage girls navigating the treacherous landscape of Northeast Valley High. When the new girl, Nancy, comes to town she must channel her entire self-worth into overthrowing the most popular girl at school: Sydney Black. As she takes this journey, led by her quirky Asian sidekick Jen, she discovers both the overt and covert girl-on-girl violence perpetrated throughout the school.

Monday, 3/17

8:00 pm: BETWEEN THE SANDBAR AND THE SHORE
Written by Brian Otaño
Directed by Jay Stull
Featuring Byron Anthony, Reuben Barsky, Kim Gambino, Sarah Lemp, Emma Meltzer, Cassandra Paras, Jim Rees, Will Sarratt & Dale Soules

1981.

Jack and Linda return home to Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn after a disastrous turn living as punks on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. They find unlikely friends in Oscar and Gertie, their new neighbors. Life on the grid is sweet— the two couples botch renovations, burn dinner, play records, light bottle rockets, dub video cassettes, drink Budweiser, sneak joints on their back porches and raise their kids as best as they can. Some years later, a tragedy strikes on Dooley Street that forces the two young families to face down the pull of their addictions, the ghosts that plague their love nests and in the end, the fatal lengths two mothers will go to for the sake of protecting their young.

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I Interview Playwrights Part 642: Renee Philippi

 
Renee Philippi

Hometown: Flint, Michigan

Current Town: New York, NY

Q:  Tell me about Alone in Triptych.

A:  Alone in Triptych was written as a reaction to the Ohio kidnappings and the acts that Ariel Castro committed against the three young women. It is not a retelling of that story. More, it is about when terror befalls the innocent and is a subtle quandary of abuse. The three characters in Alone in Triptych are each struggling to have a relationship. Remi with his friend’s 12-year old daughter; he has kidnapped her so that she can live her life alone free of other people. Lori is trying desperately to make her relationship with her abusive husband work. Leeann’s relationship seems ideal, until she discovers that her partner has raped a teen-age girl.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  Extraordinary Extremities, which was seen last June at Here and titled at that time Geppetto, will open Off-Broadway at Soho Playhouse Friday, April 4th. Extraordinary Extremities was inspired by a NPR story on Hugh Herr; the biomedical engineer whose legs were amputated after a climbing accident and who now designs technologically advanced artificial limbs. Geppetto (the puppeteer and puppet-maker) has recently lost his wife and performing partner, the other half of the Mythic Puppet Theater, a company dedicated to adapting classic Greek myth. The play centers around Geppetto attempting to perform, solo for the first time, the couple’s signature piece based on the grand love story of Perseus, who slays a sea monster to save his beloved Andromeda. Extraordinary Extremities is a tale of resilience, adaptation and ingenuity. I am the writer and director of the Extraordinary Extremities.

We are also working on Grey Green Canals and will preview the show fall 2014. Grey Green Canals is about water and women: each being a metaphor for the other: flowing, connecting, giving life.

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 Grandparents lived next door to my Mother. As a child and even as a teenager, I spent most afternoon with my Grandmother, listening to her tell stories: from the rattle snake in the linen closet to standing in the ocean bleeding, with her first menstruation, believing she would die.

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

A:  I would change accessibility. I feel sometimes that America is a land of cultural deprivation. People lack access to diverse well-done theatre.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Ingmar Bergman, Peter Brook, William Kentridge, Thomas Mann, Pina Bausch and on and on….

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Poetic, visual, mythic – Ingmar Bergman wrote in his autobiography Laterna Magica, in describing what he did while his Father preached: "I devoted my interest to the church’s mysterious world of low arches, thick walls, the smell of eternity, the colored sunlight quivering above the strangest vegetation of medieval paintings and carved figures on ceilings and walls. There was everything that one’s imagination could desire — angels, saints, dragons, prophets, devils, humans." That kind of theatre!

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

A:  I would advise: Believe in yourself! Be the student! Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite!

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Don’t miss Concrete Temple Theatre’s Alone in Triptych: “Emotional, vivid and hauntingly lyrical, this exploration of isolation and connection promises to be an evening of intense, intimate revelations.”

Thursday, March 13th - Sunday, March 30th at HERE. For tickets: http://here.org/shows/detail/1405

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Reading of Fat Cat Killers

The Amoralists is doing a reading of my play Fat Cat Killers Sat March 8 at 4pm

Walkerspace
46 Walker Street, NY, NY 10013

https://amoralfest2014.eventbrite.com/

Directed by Jay Stull and starring Wade Dunham, Matt Pilieci and Mark Roberts.

This play has had readings at Working Theater, MCC Theater, New Group Theater, LAByrinth summer retreat and Firework Theater and was produced in Philadelphia by Flashpoint Theater.

 What?  You missed all those?  Come see this one.  

It's about a couple of guys who get laid off who plot to kidnap the CEO of the company who let them go.  It's comedic.

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I Interview Playwrights Part 641: Erin Mallon

Erin Mallon

Hometown: Warminster, PA (“right outside of Philly”)

Current Town: Brooklyn

Q:  Tell me about Branched.

A:  I’ve been calling BRANCHED a “cringe comedy.” InViolet Theater is producing it right now at HERE Arts Center and Robert Ross Parker of Vampire Cowboys directed the hell out of it. Tons of laughs and a whole lotta ick. Womb sounds, nipple acting, a freaky newborn who may or may not be human… we’re having a grand ol’ time. One of our reviewers just called the writing “unapologetic,” which excites me, because I grew up a very good Catholic girl who apologized a lot, so it’s good to know I’m working that out of my system.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  I am acting in two projects with Buran Theater Company: MAGIC BULLETS (Incubator May ’14) and MAMMOTH, a piece about love and mammoth tusks in the Siberian tundra. I’ve also been working on a solo show with the remarkable Mac Wellman and director Elena Araoz called HORROCKS (AND TOUTATIS TOO). We had a great run with Sleeping Weazel in Boston and are looking for the right NYC home for it now. I play a “Strange and Tall Young Girl” whose asteroid explodes after her forbidden love affair with a toucan. But… it’s actually not about that at all of course.

I’m working on reviving/revamping The Brooklyn Generator, a project I created and helmed for several years. Initially, we devoted one weekend a month to writing and performing ten-minute plays sparked from a theme. It was a great model, but ran its course. Now, my playwright pal Bixby Elliot and I are brainstorming ways to retool The Generator to inspire and support full-length plays. I’m also incredibly jazzed when I see actors, particularly the female kind, writing and producing as well, so I’m in the process of developing a Mastermind Group for self-generating actresses.

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 older brother and I had these Pound Puppies when we were little. His guy was named Chip, mine was named Jupe. These pups had remarkable daily adventures. They even started their own radio show (i.e. a series of crinkly cassette tapes filled with our saucy dog voices). One day, Jupe went missing. We were devastated, but we kept on doing the “Chip and Jupe” show in spite of his absence. We imagined Jupe was on some wild globe trotting adventure and would return when he was able. Then, whaddaya know, several months later my mom and I were at a neighborhood garage sale (our Saturday morning ritual) and lying on a sheet with a $.05 tag on his head was Jupe! He was missing an eye and had been attacked by some child’s heartless pen scribbles. I purchased him, brought him home, washed away his pen scars and reunited him with Chip. Jupe told us an epic tale of how he’d been kidnapped and tortured by a horrible family. When said horrible family went on a trip to Disneyworld and took him on the flight, he spotted his escape. Jupe jumped out of the plane, knocked his eye out on impact and had been awaiting our rescue on that lawn ever since.

I’m a big believer in “as if” thinking. Act as if the things you want are inevitable. Keep working and carry on as if they’ll come true any moment. With enough belief and steady steps they eventually do.

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

A:  One thing I find unfortunate is when I see playwrights dogging each other because they don’t like the work someone else is doing. There’s a sort of “how dare they” outrage because they would have done it differently. Of course you would. You’re an entirely different human being. Why should someone write plays the way you do? I was at a show the other night, and my body was having all sorts of “I need to get the hell out of here” reactions, that’s how much the play was not working for me. But then, I looked around and the whole audience seemed to be entranced. Their faces were completely lit up with joy. There was a standing ovation at the end and I was sitting there completely flabbergasted as to why I wasn’t feeling the same. That was actually a very inspiring night at the theater. It wasn’t for me, but I’d see it again and again to watch its effect on the audience.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  I’m continually psyched by the work New Georges and Clubbed Thumb are doing. EST and the Youngblood playwrights make me giddy. The Great Plains Theater Conference is an absolute gift. Vampire Cowboys make theater-going feel like attending a badass rock concert. The kids and staff at The 52nd Street Project have taught me more about what theater can achieve than possibly anyone, and I think what the NY Neo-Futurists are doing with Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind every week is a wonder. I’m also a huge fan of all women and men everywhere who are raising children and theater careers simultaneously.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I like theater that embraces theatricality. I don’t need experiences that look and sound exactly like my everyday life. I've got that covered. When I go to the theater I want it to take me on a friggin ride and drop me somewhere I’ve never been before by the end. I want it to bounce. I want to see actors who are alive and breathing and grooving. I crave work that’s highly stylized, muscular and precise, and I’m also pumped up by theater that’s quick and dirty and put on its feet “before it’s ready.”

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

A:  My life really started opening up once I gave myself permission to fall in love with theater as a whole. By all means, give your full heart and focus to what you do best, but if you’re an actor with a hankering to write? Write. If you’re a playwright and are juiced by the possibility of directing? Direct. This week I’m crafting glittery lightning bolts out of cardboard boxes for a short play I wrote and I feel absurdly energized by this. I’m also realizing more and more the value of remembering what gave you pleasure as a child. There tend to be helpful clues in there for how to sustain your happiness as an adult.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  BRANCHED
Written by Erin Mallon
Directed by Robert Ross Parker
Presented by InViolet Theater
Open now and runs until March 8th
@ HERE Arts Center – 145 Sixth Avenue
http://inviolettheater.com/

SHOTZ TO THE FUTURE
March 3rd at 7pm and 8:30pm
@ The Celebration of Whimsy – 21A Clinton St.
This is Amios’ monthly “theatrical pressure cooker.” My new short play “Stoned” is one of six short plays being presented.
http://www.amiosnyc.org/

NEAR VICKSBURG
Written and directed by Sara Farrington
March 6-16th @ Incubator Arts Project
My dear friend Sara Farrington’s beautiful show is not to be missed.
www.ladyfarrington.com

MAGIC BULLETS
Buran Theatre
Written by Adam Burnett
Directed by Adam Burnett and Justin Knudsen
May 2nd – May 11th @ Incubator Arts Project
www.burantheatre.com


I’m online at www.erinmallon.net, FB at http://on.fb.me/1bW8Acv and Twitter at @ErinMallon.

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I Interview Playwrights Part 640: David Lawson

David Lawson

Hometown:  Annandale, Virginia

Current Town:  New York City. Specifically: Astoria, Queens.

Q:  Tell me about Spermicide.

A:  Spermicide is a multi-character solo show about despicable, depraved and strange men in America circa right now. In terms of the content of the show: There’s a street catcaller character that voices his interior monologue (“Damn girl! I sincerely believe that telling you this on 6th Avenue at 9AM while you’re heading to work is the kinda praise that will make for an amazing start to your day.”) There’s a Starbucks employee who feels his “religious freedom” has been violated because he is fired for sharing his Jennifer Lawrence/Pokemon mashup sex fantasy in the break room. There’s a Brony. There’s a guy doing “showtime!” on the subway…except it’s musical theatre. Yvonne Hartung is directing the show. It’ll be a fun, strange, dirty time.

Most notable about the development of Spermicide is that I’ve been working on the show by performing at “character slams” at UCBeast and the People’s Improv Theatre. Those venues have these open mic nights that are for character monologues as opposed to stand-up or storytelling. I thought they presented a great way to develop a multi-character solo performance.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  A new solo show I wrote called Insomnia in Space. I’m working with director Lillian Meredith on it. We’re calling it “an immersive, solo-performance piece contrasting the vastness of the universe with the minutiae of everyday life.” I’ve been an insomniac since I was thirteen and the thing that has always helped me finally sleep or calmed me down on sleepless nights has been meditating on thoughts of outer space. I’m also working on a play called The Algeria Alternative, about a woman who works at an office facilitating data from drone strikes and how she decides to leak information that’s detrimental to the company. I have been bringing in pages to The Propulsion Lab, the playwriting group of the Queens arts collective Mission to dit(MARS). Director Leta Tremblay will be directing a reading of that one soon.

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

A:  For most of elementary school I was a loudmouth, hyperactive, disruptive little shit. It often went to darker places than just being “class clown.” In 3rd grade after I had learned about the word “FUCK” I decided to write it down in huge letters on a piece of paper and show it off to the class. I got suspended from school. In 4thgrade I forged a kids report card (sloppily, might I add) to be all Fs with stuff like “This kid is totally pointless. His parents should just quit.” I got suspended again. I spent half of my elementary school experience in “time out.”

Then two things happened that changed me. First: I saw The Truman Show when I was twelve. I had a huge epiphany. Because Jim Carrey…the ultimate loudmouth hyperactive disruptive little shit…had brought some nuance into what he did. The connection was clear to me: If the hyperactive kid behaves, they can do something truly great. Like give a compelling performance in a great movie. Second: My sixth grade teacher named Brett Heflin made a deal with me. If I could behave during class, I could put on a little two minute show every morning before class. It worked like a charm. I behaved because I so badly wanted to write and perform that show every morning. Those two things were the first of many, many times art made me change the way I lived my life.

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

A:  Picking one is so tough. So I’ll spitball a few for you. I wish companies would budget things so 25% of the entire run of every production was “pay what you can.” I wish Lincoln Center would work out a revenue stream with all the unions and turn that amazing archive of professionally filmed theatre into a online, streaming “Netflix for theatre.” I wish theatres would adopt the “never be dark” ethos. Because we have these huge expensive theatres that sit completely empty way too often. Why not fill those spaces? 6PM shows. 10PMshows. Midnight shows. Year round. Every night. Even if they’re simple, super low tech productions. I’d love to see a major theatre have a fundraising campaign to pay every artist that comes through the building a living wage instead of just funding construction for the building.

Most personally for me: My favorite parts of being a teenager were 3PM to 6PM in my high school’s theatre. Those hours planted the bug in me to go out to places where I’d learn about folks like August Wilson, Tony Kushner, Anne Bogart, Bertolt Brecht and so much other stuff I would have never discovered if I didn’t have that bug planted. The more money and resources we have towards arts education in public schools, the more bugs we are going to plant.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  The kind that makes me laugh really hard at things that are painful, true, dark, terrible and dirty. The kind I walk out of thinking "Wow, I never thought of it THAT WAY." The kind that makes me feel the feelings I get when I'm heartbroken, depressed and frustrated and thus, I believe, leaves me better equipped to deal with those same emotions when they arise in real life situations.

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

A:  Go out. Go out to shows and readings, Q&As and all sorts of other theatre events. Money’s an issue? You can find plenty of stuff for free or cheaper than a movie ticket. If that fails you can probably volunteer as an usher and see something for free. So do it. And when you’re there say hi to people. Strike up conversations. Ask older, more successful artists “What were you doing when you were my age?” I’ve always learned a lot asking that question. If you see someone who once created something that blew your socks off, tell them.

Find a way to fund your work and stage it. Someone told me when I was 21 I would always need “at least $20,000 dollars.” That’s a load of bullshit. You can find a way to put your work up on a budget of a hundred or fifty or zero dollars. Even if you don’t do it at a "theatre theatre" and it’s only a single performance or two or three performances. Do it. Because the only way you’re going to learn to write for the stage is by having your plays actually existing in time and space.

Understand that an experience you hate in the moment could pay massive positive dividends down the line. Understand that those folks you read about in some New York Times profile? Ya know what, sometimes even they have to check coats or sling drinks or lift boxes.

Most importantly have good friends. Good friends to work with. Good friends for mutual emotional support. Good friends to laugh, drink, run around, scream and shoot the shit with. Good friends that you trust to tell you what they honestly think of your work. Those “flaming arrows” they throw at your work are gonna hurt like hell sometimes…but they will help you get better. Love the success of your friends in the same way baseball players celebrate together at home plate when one of their teammates hits a walk off home run…despite the fact that they themselves didn’t hit it.

Be kind. Be patient. Keep creating.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A: Spermicide goes up on March 14th and 15th at the Brooklyn LaunchPad in a double bill with a multi-character solo show by Melissa Gordon called Fresh. My solo show VCR Love is published through Original Works Publishing and my plays Gloves for Guns, Thanks for Traveling and Turning Atomic Tricks are published on Indie Theater Now. I'm online at www.dtlawson.com and I'm @dtlawson on Twitter. Say hello would ya?

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Chasing the Audience

Some numbers:

Pageviews on this blog according to blogger : 746,987 (although blogger started recording this in 2007 and I started this blog in 2005.)

Number of viewers who see a TV episode that has my name on it each time it’s on TV: 1-2 million. (And there are 5 or 6 episodes that I wrote, or which have my name on them. I don’t feel a lot of ownership over them but I probably have a joke or two in 20 or 30 episodes. They are syndicated so it’s hard to say how often they’re on TV. They are also on DVDs.)

Number of people who have seen my web series Compulsive Love: Last time I checked, adding up all the platforms, it’s over 500k.

Number of people who saw or read a play of mine last year: 2500, maybe. (Probably less than 20K over the course of my 15 year playwriting career so far.

I guess the question is, is the point the number of people who see something or their level of engagement? The TV show doesn’t really have much to do with who I think I am artistically. I imagine a lot of people who saw my web series forgot about it soon after, although I’d like to think that’s not the case. I know when I have a play up a lot more people send me messages and talk about it. But something like 20k people in Pakistan saw my web series. How else would I ever be able to reach those people if not through the internet? But did it change them or affect them in any way? I don’t know. Is that even my goal as a storyteller anymore? Is it enough if they laughed? Did they laugh? Or did they stumble upon it while looking for porn and shut it off when it was clear there was no nudity? (I am using Pakistan as an example but I am not suggesting Pakistanis are necessarily looking for porn videos)

The point is, except for impassioned reviews and fan emails, most of the time as an artist, I have no idea what the effect is on my audience. People tell me they like the playwright interviews and I know people are coming to the site to read them. That has little to do with me artistically, but I’m proud to provide a platform for people to read about and talk about theater. Theater is important. Isn’t it? I’m rambling. There is a 5 month baby on my lap asleep and I’m trying to figure out what I’m putting out into the world and why. It’s a question I ask myself a lot but I’m talking in circles and maybe have been for years. Never mind how commerce fits into it all. That's a whole bigger conversation.

Look, I just want to make some cool stuff before I die. I want to make some lives just a little better, to make you think or laugh or break your heart. And I guess I’ll keep trying to figure out ways to do that because I seem to be wired to only be happy when I’m making things. End of rant.

 

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I Interview Playwrights Part 639: David Stallings

David Stallings

Hometown: Galveston, Tx.

Current Town: NYC

Q:  Tell me about Dark Water.

A:  When the Deepwater Horizon oil spill happened in April of 2010, fellow MTWorks Co-founders Antonio Minino and Cristina Alicea told me to write a play about it. Being from the Gulf Coast, it was certainly a topic that haunted and enraged me. But I had no desire to write about BP, the frustrating cover ups surrounding the spill, or the shady chemical clean up that ensued. Several months later however, when dolphins began to have mass miscarriages at sea and shrimp were being born with no eyes (yes this is happening in the Gulf), I decided to write about the animals. Dark Water follows the animals and their journey through the oil spill, using different forms of poetry and song for each species. Rehearsals are inspiring. We are all so excited--the entire team. And director Heather Cohn is truly doing a remarkable job. She assembled the most positive team of actors I have ever had the pleasure of working with.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  I am also working on a new play, The Baby Monitor. This was originally a twenty minute play I wrote for Original Binding Productions evening of One Acts. It is now growing into a Full Length Play. The Baby Monitor is about a gay couple raising a child. The child is taken from them when a relative falsely accuses them of inappropriate behavior.

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

A:  I remember being on a beach in Galveston, Tx. I was about twelve at the time. It was dawn. And the beach was covered with baby eels that had washed ashore. They were snapping and writhing on the sand, dying. I was with several adults who were equally disturbed at the sight. We knew the eels would die if they did not make it back in the water. So the group of us grabbed some sticks and tried to get the eels to snap on them and toss them back. We got some in the water, but the waves would just wash them back to shore. It was hopeless. I remember crying about that and wishing there was something I could do.

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

A:  I think the US needs a National Theater again that employs theater artist and is not merely commercial based.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Shakespeare, Hallie Flanagan, Moliere, Tennessee Williams, and Harold Clurman for the start of what is a long list.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I am excited by theater that challenges our cultural and social perspectives. Also, I want theater to be theatrical. I love magic, emotion, and poetry. I love plays with big casts and big ideas, new ideas.

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

A:  Break the rules. Don't listen to producers who want to limit your creativity, cast size, length, number of locations, etc. Let's create a new American Theater!

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Dark Water runs March 14th - 29th! Advance tickets are $18 ($15 Students/$12 Seniors) and are available online or by calling 866-811-4111. Tickets may also be purchased in-person at the theater ½ hour prior to performance.
Running Time: 110 min. One intermission. The Theater at the 14th Street Y is located on 344 East 14th Street (at 1st Avenue)

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I Interview Playwrights Part 638: Dipika Guha

Dipika Guha

Hometown: I don’t really have one. Although I’ve lived in several places that have pieces of my heart-Calcutta, London and New Haven to name three.

Current Town: New York

Q:  Tell me about Blown Youth.

A:  Blown Youth is the result of a commission from the ever amazing New Georges and the New Plays initiative at Barnard College. The commission was a result of director Alice Reagan’s vision for Barnard to be a real home for playwrights to develop new plays and the appetite New Georges have for adventurous, theatrical plays. I’ve had the opportunity to nurture Blown Youth with Alice who is a wonderful director and the super undergrads at Barnard. And of course the support of New Georges who are such a beacon of hope for new plays that go out on a limb in a generally risk averse theatrical culture.

The play is a response to Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It was borne out of my desire to challenge to the notion that Hamlet (the character) is the embodiment of human consciousness when he is, in fact, a man. Where Hamlet’s madness smacks of genius, would a woman in his shoes be seen as just as stunningly witty and seductive-or just a pain in the ass hysteric? Trying to write the play with this question in mind was like staring at the sun. I was at my wits end trying to write this play when I threw in Irene Fornes’ Fefu and her Friends into the mix and the play blossomed into a story tracking the lives of seven women in the decade after they leave college. We enter through the eyes of one in particular, Celia, a struggling actress intent on playing a great role. Fornes describes women as ‘live wires’ and says ‘if women should recognize each other-the world will be blown apart’. I was interested in what this meant-and whether it was good or bad and how as women we might be able to live in the world without electrocuting each other!

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  A new play called I Enter the Valley about the life of a legendary poet who at the end of his life has writer’s block. It was inspired by the life of Pablo Neruda. I read his memoir and it fuelled an age old love/hate relationship I have with the Casanova character (I have a Don Juan type in almost all of my plays!). This idea of your past being like a foreign country is also central to the play. That as you get older, you look back and who you were at different points of your life starts to seem utterly foreign to you. It’s an oddly Chekhovian play. Lots of coming and going and feeling very strongly about things! We’re doing a reading of it at The Women’s Project in March.

And a piece called Architecture of Becoming also at The Women’s Project with four wonderful playwrights-Lauren Yee, Vick Grise, Sarah Gancher and Kara Corthron. It’s a piece about the impulse to create in characters who don’t necessarily call themselves artists, a present day response to orientalism and the struggle to tell your story in a way that’s authentic to you. We thought ‘becoming’ was a much nicer word than ‘process’ which, in an intensely collaborative venture like this, is the only thing we are perhaps qualified to talk about.

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 painfully shy child displaced from Calcutta to East London, no one at my kindergarten had heard my voice. Then they put me on stage in a production of Chicken Licken. I distinctly remember one dress rehearsal (I was maybe four or five) when I stood in my costume and opened my mouth. I remember the eyes of the teachers turning wide. It turned out I’d taken everybody’s lines! I was quite sure that on stage I was invisible (which maybe I was in an oversized animal costume) I liked that feeling a lot. I also liked taking everybody’s lines.

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

A:  Longer rehearsal periods, more breaking bread and drinking with audiences, cheaper tickets, cheaper rent, state subsidized theatre, new forms, new forms, new forms!!!!

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Irene Fornes, Friedrich Durrenmatt, Tennessee Williams, Beckett, Caryl Churchill, Chekhov, Harold Pinter, Sarah Ruhl, Doug Wright, Diana Son, my eternal classmates Christina Anderson and Meg Miroshnik and my uber-hero, Paula Vogel.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I’ll answer this question in two ways: first of all not to cop out, I am still incredibly excited by Robert Wilson, Robert Lepage and that kind of epic, heightened, visually arresting storytelling where things that don’t normally touch, touch. I’m also excited by the re-invention of language through simplicity (where the ordinary turns extraordinary) and where alchemy or the logic of metamorphosis is at play.

I also see theatricality as a mode of being. We sometimes encounter it when we go to the theatre but it’s bigger than that. India, where I grew up, is a tremendously theatrical place. I think this is in part because there’s an awareness of the sacred in the everyday. I think that when you notice this quality about life and you engage in the desire to create ritual however big or small, you are a part of a kind of theatricality. The quality of your attention meeting the everyday can create an elemental force. Theatricality as a mode is accessible because it’s part of our lives-you don’t need to be at the theatre to touch this chord.

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

A:  That longing is everything. You don’t need to have written a play to know that you want to write one. Your yearning is all you need-it sets your course.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:
Blown Youth at Barnard directed by the wonderful Alice Reagan:
http://barnard.edu/events/blown-youth
Come see Architecture of Becoming at Women’s Project
http://wptheater.org/show/the-architecture-of-becoming/
And a part of a play called Mechanics of Love at Ladies Night at INTAR in a few weeks
https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/932049
Meg Miroshnik’s play The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls at Yale Rep

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I Interview Playwrights Part 637: Nandita Shenoy

Nandita Shenoy

Hometown: Buffalo, NY

Current Town: New York, NY

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I've got a workshop of my latest full-length play, "Washer/Dryer" coming up, and so I'm taking another look at that. I've also been working on a commission from Ma-Yi Theatre and the Flea, adapting a play from the Yuan period of Chinese history into a modern one-act.

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

A:  I'm the oldest child of Indian immigrants, so when I was growing up, my parents were kind of figuring out the culture along with me. For instance, when I was about 3 or 4, my mom noticed that in October, everyone put pumpkins out on their porches, so she put one out on ours. She didn't know how to carve one, so she drew a face on the pumpkin so that it would look like the other ones. And I really liked the pumpkin. So one day, she heard me yelling "My pumpkin, my pumpkin!" and looked out the front window to see me running down the sidewalk after a big kid who apparently had taken our pumpkin off of our porch. She said she started to worry because I was a tiny little Indian girl chasing after this big American boy. I have no recollection of this incident, but a few minutes later, my mom told me that she saw me coming back with the pumpkin in my arms. She says that this is when she knew that I would always take care of myself, because I was able to get my pumpkin back. As an adult, my version of getting my pumpkin back is pretty much putting anyone who crosses me into my plays, although I did hit the teenage boy who tried to take my iPhone on the L train once to recover my "electronic pumpkin." I haven't put him in a play. Yet.

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

A:  Just one? Fine. The ethnic make-up of the industry from the actors on stage to the creative teams to the producers. We need more diversity.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  13P because they made it happen.

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

A:  Write short plays first so that you get the satisfaction of finishing one under your belt.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  The workshop of "Washer/Dryer" is coming soon! Public readings will be held on February 25th and 26th at 7:30pm at the Ma-Yi Writers Room, 260 West 35th Street, 2nd floor. Admission is free. "Washer/Dryer" shares an evening with newlyweds Sonya and Michael as they negotiate their living situation with some strange obstacles. It asks the age-old New York question - can love conquer Manhattan real estate? There is also a figurative pumpkin in this play.

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