I Interview Playwrights Part 22: Rachel Shukert

Rachel Shukert

Hometown: Omaha, Ne

Current Town: New York, NY

Q:  I'm sorry I didn't get to see the shows you and Nick Jones did in New York. I heard great things. Can you tell me a little about them?

A;  Thanks! They were a lot of fun, and I think we learned a lot about collaboration and the best ways to write together, which we plan to do more often. Nick and I have a really similar sense of humor and sensibility in a lot of ways, but we're also very different, and I think our strengths and weaknesses compliment each other well. The shows were part of our new theatrical venture, Terrible Baby Theater Co., a kind of inaugural project, if that doesn't sound too pretentious. The Nosemaker's Apprentice, which Nick and I wrote together, came out of this insane idea we had one night while drinking heavily and trying to come up with something to fill the slot that the Brick very kindly offered us in which to do something. Does it sound obscene, to use the word slot? I think I've been watching too much NYC Prep. Anyway. What we came up with was a sort of medieval adventure story/hagiography about the origins of plastic surgery, and through our grandiosity and kind of Monty Python slapsticky historical nonsense, I think (hope) raised some interesting questions about aesthetics, beauty, and self-image. The other show, The Colonists, was a puppet show that Nick conceived with Raj Azar. It was about bees. I didn't have anything to do with that creatively, but I loved watching it--the puppets, by Robin Frohardt and company, were gorgeous, and I'm always in awe of people who can make them come alive.

Q;  How many times have you and Nick collaborated now? How do you write together? Is one of you at the keyboard or do you pass it back and forth? What is the revision process like?

A:  We've written two plays together now, Nosemaker and another play called "The Sporting Life," a true story about a famous brothel in Chicago at the turn of the century, which we're still developing. Basically, when we write together, we come up with a sort of outline of the story--or at least, most of it, becaue obviously things change--and then pass it back and forth, scene by scene, and edit each others work. I find that you get a first draft much faster than when you write on your own, which is exciting, but then the revision process becomes more important...which can be good too--it can be really helpful to have someone to challenge you on things. But negotiating that is really the trick, I think. We learned a lot on this last project, so I'm feeling good about moving forward on future things.

Q:  When does your new book come out?

A;  As of now, they are thinking June of 2010

Q;  What are you working on next?

A:  Oh my God. A million things. I'm working on screenplay for a new production company in LA, which I can't talk too much about yet, but I'm enjoying. I'm also working on a play for Studio 42, which is a great theater company in New York. And I'm developing something else, apropos of nothing, that's an idea I've had rattling around for a while about exploring the relationships between sisters--it involves the Three Sisters (as in Chekov), and other famous sisterly combos throughout history, including the Shukert sisters: me, my sister Ariel, and a third fictional sister. I've been looking for ways in which I can kind of integrate the autobiographical prose writing I've been doing with my theater work--it seems such a shame to let these two elements be kind of disparate and not allow them to inspire each other. I think it could be really interesting.

Q:  How was that Jews and Comedy panel? Were you hilarious?

A:  What was probably most hilarious is that I later realized that my bra was showing the entire time. You're married to a non-theater person. Would you recommend that whole marrying a non-theater person as a good thing to do? Yes. But you'll have to find you own husband. Mine is busy. Seriously, it's great. But that's just me--I would hate to be married to someone who does the same thing as me, as I am competitive, insecure, and resentful, but for other people, it works out fine. I'm married to a non-theater person solely because of my own personality flaws.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  This may surprise you, but my favorite thing I saw last year was the stage version of "White Christmas," with all the Irving Berlin songs. And the Rockettes Christmas spectacular. I also like seeing school plays and community theater.

Q:  I'm not surprised. I think David Ives wrote that. What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A:  Write a lot. It's the only way you figure anything out. And make sure you get some stuff up, even if you have to do it yourself for no money. Nothing will kill the creative mind faster than the traditional development process.

Q;  Plugs and links please for your columns and books and anything else.

A;  I'm writing a new column at the brand new web newspaper, The Faster Times, which is sort of a hip answer to the HuffPo. I'm doing an unsolicited advice column, telling various belabored celebrities how to live their lives. Here's the link to the latest: http://thefastertimes.com/unsolicitedadvice/2009/07/14/not-that-you-asked-ruth-madoff-edition/ Everyone who reads this should buy my book, "Have You No Shame?" http://www.amazon.com/Have-You-No-Shame-Regrettable/dp/0345498615/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233000479&sr=8-1 I need the royalties. Also, keep an eye out for my upcoming book, The Grand Tour, next summer. It's going to change everything.

Nice review of Nerve in St. Louis

http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Echo_Theatre_Company_Continues_Season_with_Adam_Szymkowiczs_Comedy_NERVE_20090712

I winter in Minneapolis and summer in Atlanta

Okay so I'm in Hotlanta now and I'll be here for the next three months. What am I doing here? Writing for an African American sitcom on TBS. No, really. I've had two days of work so far. So far it's a lot of fun. I'll let you know how it goes.

I Interview Playwrights Part 21: Kristoffer Diaz

Kristoffer Diaz  
 
Hometown: Yonkers, NY

Current Town: Brooklyn, NY

Future Town: Minneapolis in five days.

Q; Tell me about the play you took up to the Orchard Project. What was that experience like?

A; I actually took two plays up there, both tangentially related to baseball. One was Rebecca Oaxaca Lays Down a Bunt, a three-act old-school farce about a young extreme sports star from Southern California who shoots a video of herself practicing bunting in her backyard, posts it on youtube, and inspires a bidding war between the Yankees and Red Sox for her services. It's ridiculous. I worked with Orchard Project Artistic Director Ari Edelson and their amazing apprentice acting company to do a bunch of pre-writing character research, including some Gmail chat-based improv projects that opened my eyes to the possibilites of using technology in all new ways to create pieces. The second piece was VORP: Value Over Replacement Player, a play about baseball statistics and statisticians. I realized while I was at the OP that VORP actually wanted to be a musical, so the apprentices and I wrote a ten minute, three-song musical piece in about twenty hours. Incredibly exciting, seat of your pants stuff -- and super helpful.

Q; Can you tell me a little about the thing you were just doing in Nebraska?

A: Every year, I go to Nebraska to teach at the International Thespian Festival -- a massive high school theater conference and competition. Usually, I'm there as a dramaturg on a student one-act. This year, I helped create a short performance piece written and performed by five high school actor/writers. It was a remarkable experience for me. Most of the high school theater that gets to national recognition at this festival is big and broad, usually musicals, rarely concerned with the lives of the students themselves. My kinds wrote about themselves and their issues, and it was all deep and passionate and beautiful. Looks like this is what we're going to do every year from now on.

Q: Now, you did the Ars Nova group this past year. How was that?

A: I love Ars Nova. Emily Shooltz is an amazing and tireless advocate for new playwriting voices, and she's put together a really exciting team of up-and-coming writers to share work. The other members of the group are Annie Baker, Bekah Brunstetter, Dylan Dawson, Zayd Dohrn, Tasha Gordon-Solomon, Amy Herzog, Samuel D. Hunter, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Steven Levenson, Matthew Lopez, Janine Nabers, and Samuel Brett Williams. They're uniformly strong writers with unique voices, and I'm thrilled to be a part of them (although I'm leaving the group now for my move to Minneapolis).

Q: Right, you're headed to a Jerome Fellowship in Minneapolis. Do you have plans for what you're going to work on during that long long winter? Have you bought long underwear yet?

A: I've got way too many plans for my Jerome year. It's probably not realistic. I've got a commission or two lined up, so those will probably take precedence. I'm also thinking about a one-man show/lecture that I'd write and perform myself about my complicated relationship to hip-hop music; it's kind of the play I've wanted to write all my life. In the short-term though, I plan on cooking everyday and learning to ride a bike. And of course, shopping for long underwear. And a North Face. Everyone says I need a North Face.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: I love theater that is about something -- it doesn't have to be didactic or preachy, but it has to feel like it comes from a writer who needs to get something out into the world. I love theater that interacts with an audience, not in terms of audience participation necessarily, but in terms of acknowledging their presence and energy. I love theater that avoids being about rich people sitting in a room complaining about tiny problems, or about a playwright showing off how smart and well-read he or she is.. I want to see plays that speak to young people (and in theater, under 40 is young), people of color, people who consider live performance something thrilling and exciting, not something you go to either out of responsibility or to show off how cultured you are. Exciting theater, to me, celebrates community. That's the only thing theater can do better than film and TV. If you can't create community in your work, go write for the screen.

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

A; Write things that you care deeply about. One playwright once told me that "everything you write should be as urgent as a suicide note." I believe that. Don't write for what you think the big mainstream theaters want; they'll come around to you eventually if you're doing great stuff. Learn your business -- the writing part of being a writer is actually pretty small.



Q: Any plugs for anything?

A: My show The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity is having its world premiere at Victory Gardens in Chicago in September, followed by productions in Philadelphia (InterAct) and Minneapolis (Mixed Blood). Another play, Welcome to Arroyo's, debuts in April at American Theater Company, also in Chicago.

Food For Fish in Atlanta

The director there, also the artistic director of the company talks about the play and production.

http://essentialtheatre.blogspot.com/2009/07/food-for-fish-i-wanted-to-direct-it.html

I Interview Playwrights Part 20: Jason Grote

Jason Grote  
 
Hometown: All over New Jersey (seriously)

Current Town: Brooklyn, NY

Q:  I know you have some more productions of 1001 coming up. Could you tell a little about the play, for those who don't know? Are you going to be able to go see them?

A:  Sure! It's a sort of deconstruction of the Arabian Nights stories, viewed through the lens of Edward Said's Orientalism; Scherezade's tales contain gradually-increasing anachronisms, and we get stories based on Hitchcock's Vertigo, and about Flaubert, Borges, and Alan Dershowitz. One of the stories takes place in a near-future (or alternate-universe) NY, and takes over the play; a love affair between two Americans, one Palestinian and one Jewish, when a dirty bomb attack hits NYC. The bomb also shatters narrative certainties and the alternate realities run together, and things get really crazy. It's a story about the power of narrative, for good or ill -- our reality is shaped by the theories and stories with which we view the world. So far I've only missed two 1001 productions, in Minneapolis and San Diego, and have seen all the others, though I'm no longer directly involved in rehearsals.


Q: You've been on WFMU for a while now. Can you tell me a little about your show and give a link for people who'd like to listen in?

A:  Sure! It's basically a radio play show, but we're sort of reinventing what radio plays can be in the 21st century, more out of necessity than anything else -- the old-time radio play is pretty much defunct, and we have to fill a show every week. In addition to bringing a lot of theater artists or companies onto the radio, we play a lot of stuff that could be classified as performance art, audio art, found audio, home recordings, spoken word, poetry, and ambient, hip-hop, or electronic music. There are often surprising overlaps: for example, the Velvet Underground song "The Gift" is actually a perfect radio play, and performance poet Caroline Bergvall has a following among electronic music artists. People can listen to every show at http://wfmu.org/playlists/am.

Q:  You're teaching now. Can you tell me about that? Are you teaching playwriting? I know you were teaching English courses at Fordham for the past few years.

A:  Actually Rutgers, and I'm still there. The benefits are great. At the moment I'm teaching Radio Playwriting and Advanced Playwriting in the MFA Program at Hollins University in Virginia, and it's really nice to be teaching at the graduate level. During the school year, teaching can get really exhausting -- I have a pretty heavy courseload-- but as day jobs go it's a good one. I get lots of time off, and I don't have to rely on erratic writing income to pay rent. I'm also always learning from my students. If I don't bail and go into comedy writing, I could see myself developing a curriculum a la Paula Vogel or Mac Wellman.

Q:  Can you talk a little about the development support you've had, with Soho Rep and with others? How has it shaped who you are as a theater artist?

A:  Sure -- my feeling about play development is that it's great, except when it's not. No doubt lots of big regional theaters "develop" new plays but only put revivals or hits on stage, but thankfully I haven't had to deal with a lot of this. I still think that the Soho Rep Lab was the best development venue I've ever participated in, for a variety of reasons. I think it shaped me by encouraging me to write smart, challenging work, plays that were only plays and not TV shows on stage. Many other play development venues try to shape a play into something more palatable or "commercial" or whatever, which never works, at least not for me. Interestingly, regional theaters have been much more interested in my Soho Rep plays than they have in plays they've commissioned from me -- a lot of what they assume my "voice" is was probably shaped by my presence in the Lab. I'm trying to figure out how to recapture that, to forget that I'm writing for a regional theater.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Right now I'm mostly interested in "generative" work -- work built by an ensemble or a director working with a team. I tend to think that this is the future of the art form, and feels much more alive to me than the assembly-line method of getting a script, hiring a director, etc. Though I really enjoyed David Adjmi's Stunning at LCT3 and Madeline George's Precious Little at Clubbed Thumb, and both were more traditional in their execution. But usually I like to be challenged, and I'm interested in details. Going to theater, even for free or cheap, is a pain in the ass, so I want it to be worth my time in terms of meaning. If it's only going to be entertainment, then it's got to be really, really entertaining, and frankly comedy and music deliver much more on that front. Most Broadway (and a lot of Off-Broadway) is about as entertaining as a made-for-TV-movie, and I don't want to have to leave my home, slog into Manhattan, and cram into a tiny seat next to some jerk who wants to fight me for the armrest for three hours for that, let alone pay $200 for the privilege. I want something I can't get anywhere else (which is one of the reasons I frequently enjoy musicals).

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

A:  Why do you want to write in this medium? Can it be in any other medium? If it can, it probably should be. If you've thought about it, and it has to be live, on stage, then go for it.

Q:  Plug here for 1001 in DC and elsewhere and any other plugs you might have:

A:  1001 is running at Rorschach Theater until July 3, and will probably be over by the time you read this! But you can get info about that, and the rest of the season (featuring work by Jose Rivera, Sheila Callaghan, and Qui Nguyen) at http://rorschachtheatre.org. Next up for 1001 is DePaul University in Chicago in October 2009, and Montclair State University in NJ in 2010. It's also published by Samuel French. Maria/Stuart will have a staged reading at Dog & Pony in Chicago on August 17. People can also hear The Acousmatic Theater Hour on WFMU Monday nights at 5pm at 91.1FM or anytime/anyplace at wfmu.org.