I Interview Playwrights Part 26: Andrea Ciannavei

Andrea Ciannavei

Hometown: Walpole, Massachusetts

Current Town: New York City (Harlem), NY

Q: I loved the play of yours I just saw read at the Labyrinth Summer Intensive. Can you talk a little about it for those who weren't there to see it? The first part (or act) seemed very Chekhovian to me in the entrances and exits and the subtle way relationships were introduced and the second act seemed very modern American in a fierce everything comes out kind of way. I love that.

A: Sure - The Hard Sell is a play about 7 women on the day of a wedding that goes horribly wrong. It focuses on the bride and her relationship to her family and closest friends. The play explores competition between women and the need to hide themselves in order to control how they are perceived by both themselves and others. The first act takes place hours before the wedding is scheduled to happen and then the second picks up that night.

Q: What are you working on next?

A: A few things - I started writing a small play called HOW JACKIE WILSON SAVED MY LIFE and I need to do a rewrite on my last play 7 CAPTIVA ROAD. I also am working on two pitches for TV scripts which is at once exciting and terrifying. After that I don't know. I'd like to write something about Enron and two screenplays one about Maria Callas and the other about the making of Elizabeth Taylor's Cleopatra.

Q: How was Juilliard?

A: Juilliard was bananas. Great and difficult. It just occurred to me that I went through some growing pains over the course of the year. It was great to take time off from survival work and focus on my writing - that was the plan in any case but what ended up happening was that I started to grapple with some internal issues I have in relation to writing. i.e., not feeling good enough, afraid to write what I had to write, competition, self-negation, fear, procrastination, wanting to reap the benefits without having to work, wanting to compare myself to others - that kind of stuff. I want to say that I wasted a lot of time - but I don't think that's true - I brought work in throughout the year and I left the first year feeling less like a fraud - that I actually do have something worthwhile to contribute to theater. it also was a great opportunity - I didn't get caught in my bullshit for too long whenever it came up which was frequently - I did my best to work through it - and for me that translated into going into the room every week, being present for the other writers there and being of service to them as much as possible by supporting them, listening to their work - engaging them in it and like that. I'm going into my second year - so I'm interested to see how this year will be different.

Q: How long have you been affiliated with LAByrinth? How did you get hooked up with them? What was it like to be their Lit Mgr?

A: I've been with LAB since 2001. I started off as an intern. basically the way I stumbled upon them was that I was playing April White in Savage in Limbo at HERE and I was dropping postcards off at various theaters and I walked into CenterStage NY dropped off some cards on the table and say a postcard for Jesus Hopped the A Train for $12 during it's original run. I saw it was being directed by Phil and I knew his work as actor and felt like a $12 show directed by this guy was insane pricewise. I went and felt distinctly that I had finally found my theater company because no matter what anyone says there is an absence of cynicism in the actors there and I wanted to be around that. So - I offered my services, I can be a pretty organized gal, and I'm good with computers - so that's how it started and then my relationship with them blossomed from there. Being a lit manager was actually a great education for me in seeing what works and doesn't work for me in a play. It also showed me some do's and don'ts in how to interact with theater companies as well as writers. I also had to start looking for playwrights and developing relationships with them on behalf of the company. The task I had when they asked me to be the lit manager was to set up a system that involved the company members as much as possible in reading submitted plays and giving them room in the process to choose which plays were considered to develop at the annual Summer Intensive. That was a fair process to me because the sensibilities of LAB are as varied as its membership - which is why it's so hard to pin LAB down on any one aesthetic which to me is refreshing and great - so the plays we chose to look at in a development setting really ran the gamut. I learned a lot about what my tastes are and how to put them aside when reading something that doesn't necessarily appeal to me and be able to speak about it intelligently and see it for its worth. I started learning how not to judge, if that makes sense. I also learned how to meet new people (writers) and be less of a freak about it.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: Oh boy. Well. I have a hard time answering this question for myself so the best way I can describe it is that the kind of theater that creates its own weather pattern on stage is the kind that most excites me - I couldn't care less what kind of packaging it comes in - structure or style. I like the kind of theater that feels and is communal, celebratory and painful. I'm trying to think of which plays I've seen that really lit a fire in my belly. August Osage & Jesus Hopped the A Train did that for me. I damn near had a heart attack when I saw Fiona Shaw play Medea on Broadway. Top Dog Underdog. I also have to saw I thought De La Guarda that was a revelation. Vanessa Redgrave in Long Days' was amazing too.....I would have to say that I'm kind of game for anything.

Q: Who are some of your favorite writers?

A: Fassbinder, Genet, Ionesco, Tennessee Williams, Chekhov, Brecht (he pisses me off though).

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

A: These are things I have learned and am learning that are helpful to me -

1. Find a director/dramaturg who knows/understands you INTIMATELY and has the ability to pull things out of you to take your play where it wants to go.

2. Find actors who inspire you and let them bring their ideas to the table. Steal what they do and use it in your play if it opens your eyes to something you've never thought of.

3. Hold on to the core of where your play is coming from but don't be too precious about your lines and words and that kind of thing.

4. Submit plays to stuff and then forget about it - keep going.

5. Don't get hung up on one play for too long, keep writing, especially when you feel like you suck and you're going to give up because that's just your fear trying to keep you from getting to something really good.

6. The miracle is 5 minutes away.

7. Anyone who rips you a new one without giving any kind of useful feedback is to be ignored unilaterally.

7b. Do not place your self-worth and validity as a writer on any person, place, thing or institution. The world and its people are often wrong.

8. The word re-write means "write the play again".

9 And finally - be honest, be real, write how the world and its people are - not how you think they should be, put something of yours on the line.

Q: Any plugs you'd like to plug?

A: Go see Scott Hudson's Sweet Storm co-produced by LAB and Alchemy Theater at Theater Row Studios running through August - and see Lucy Thurber's play at rattlestick in August too.

I Interview Playwrights Part 25: Sarah Gubbins

Sarah Gubbins

Hometown: LaGrange, IL

Current Town: Chicago, IL

Q: Tell me a little about your play Fair Use. When is it going up? What sort of development process did it go through?

A: The play is about lawyers trying an intellectual property case, but there’s also a love triangle, with a lesbian at the apex. I’ve spent a significant amount of time with lawyers. There are tons in my family: my dad, my uncle, both grandfathers, and my great-grandfather was a Judge. I also used to work in a law office part-time for many years. Actor’s Express is producing it this fall. The lovely Freddie Ashley’s directing it. I started writing the play before going to grad school and got a grant to workshop it at the Next Theatre. I tinkered with it while I was in grad school after it won a playwriting award on campus. Then it was a Finalist in the Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition, that’s a national competition for graduate students in their final year of school and it’s administered by the Alliance Theater in Atlanta. Freddie directed a reading of the play at the Alliance. Ed Sobel, who was at the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago at the time, asked me if I wanted to have it developed in First Look last summer. That’s when the play really got cooking.

Q: You went grad school at Northwestern. Was it for playwriting? Who runs that program? How was that experience?

A: The Northwestern program is a screen and stage program so you write screenplays, television pilots and specs, and plays. The program is headed by a Dave Tolchinsky, who is a screenwriter, and Rebecca Gilman heads the playwriting curriculum-- although the philosophy of the program doesn’t segregate screenwriters to one corner and playwrights to another. I was glad to go back to grad school. It was a chance to focus solely on my writing. I had never done that before. Rebecca is such a sane, intelligent, and insightful human being who has a deep love and respect for the Chicago theater scene--it was pretty fantastic to have her engaged in my writing for a couple of years.

 Q: What theaters in Chicago should I check out?

A: You won’t be at a loss for things to see. Store-fronts and mid-size theaters to check out are: Timeline, Red Orchid, the Building Stage, the Side Project, Silk Road, The Gift and Strawdog. There’s a ton of companies that produce in various venues, so try and track them down: Theater Oobleck, The Hypocrites, 500 Clown, Dog & Pony, About Face, Colloboraction, Rivendell, and Theater Seven. But the best place to catch a play in the summer is Chicago Park District building, Theater on the Lake. The theater sits right on the shores of Lake Michigan in a T.B. sanitarium from the 20s. Crazy but true. Every week a different play is performed by various theater companies, most of them re-mounts from the past season.

Q: What theaters in Chicago have you worked with and how did you get involved with them?

A: Well, before I started writing plays I worked as a dramaturg and in that capacity I’ve collaborated with many different theater companies like Steppenwolf, Court, Northlight, and the Goodman. As a playwright I’ve worked at Steppenwolf, Collaboraction, Chicago Dramatists, Rivendell and About Face. As I was writing Fair Use both Ed Sobel and Martha Lavey, over at Steppenwolf, read early drafts of the play and were very encouraging. I met Bonnie Metzgar when she took over as AD at About Face and she’s been reading various plays (and fragments) informally over the last year. I’m excited to be part of their XYZ Festival this fall. Rivendell Theater is going to be developing a new play of mine at the end of this month. It’s called In Loco Parentis. Another legal term. But no lawyers in this one.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: I like a juicy Moral Dilemma. And some Spectacle. I also like Athleticism –push-ups are my favorite. Or couch hurdling, especially if the hurdler is Amy Morton in August Osage County. But mainly, theater that asks a lot of the actors and audience. I loved Elevator Repair Service’s Gatz. Did you see Ariane Mnouchkine’s Les Éphémères? I don’t know French, but I sat through all seven hours in Paris a few years ago. Unbelieveable. It’s at Lincoln Center.

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

A: Yeah, check back with me in about ten years. But I will say, I was taught by Benedictine monks and their credo is ‘Work and Pray.’ I can to get behind that. Not the bended knee kind of praying. More the walking the dog and catching a band at Scuba’s sort of praying. The chilling out and being in the world kind of prayer. I will say too, I don’t know how you write for the theater if you don’t see a lot of theater. You want me to quantify a lot? At least two plays a week. Oh, and have a kick ass playlist on your iPod, ‘cause some days you need an anthem to show up for work.

 Link for show at Actor's Express. http://www.actorsexpress.com/cgibin/MySQLdb?VIEW=/plays/viewone.txt&myplay=128

I Interview Playwrights Part 24: Kim Rosenstock

Kimberly Rosenstock

Hometown: Baldwin, Long Island  

Current Town: New Haven, Connecticut  

Q: Tell me a little about the play you're bringing to the JAW festival.

A:  99 Ways To Fuck a Swan is a play that I started writing last summer. Paula Vogel had just taken over the playwriting program at Yale and her first order of business was to assign all of the playwrights one of her famous playwriting “bakeoffs” over the summer before the school year began. For those who don’t know, in a bakeoff you get 48 hours to write on an assigned topic and you can’t edit or delete as you go along. The topic for the bakeoff was Leda and The Swan. The ingredients we had to work into the play were: The Leda myth. A feather. Glass. Wind. The sky. An appliance. Entrapment. Two: sexes, races and/or ethnicities, species. So I just began writing and 2 days later, I had these strange 96 pages of writing involving a cast of thousands. Or twenty-four. But it felt like thousands. So then when the end of August rolled around, I panicked because I knew the only thing I’d written over the summer was my swan-fucking play. And I had a production slot for school coming up in the fall. The first thing I remember thinking was: I cannnot invite my family to come see a play called 99 Ways To Fuck a Swan. But then, before I knew it, there were pieces of lavender paper taped up in a charming old Yale building with the words “99 Ways To Fuck a Swan: Rehearsal In Progress.” I ended up having this incredibly eye-opening and productive workshop with an awesome director (and classmate) named Jesse Jou and some unbelievably brilliant and fearless actors. It was the first time I watched a play of mine really take shape collaboratively. It was a totally magical experience. So that’s the birth story of the play. What the play is about is a little trickier. It jumps around time from Ancient Greece to Renaissance Italy to Victorian England to Modern Manhattan. It looks at what it means to be disgusting and damaged. What it means to be beautiful and healed. It also looks at a lot of sexual perversions. There’s this book Psychopathia Sexualis—an amazing book written in the 19th Century by an Austrian-German psychiatrist, Richard von Krafft Ebing chronicling all of these cases of sexual perversion in this totally detached, clinical manner. And this book is just filled with cases of the craziest stuff you’ve ever read. Like, the case of a man who must drink out of his lover’s shoes in order to be aroused. Ok, that’s one of the tamer ones. Oh yeah, the play is also about therapy. Wow, I’m very bad at succinctly talking about this play. I did not tell you a little at all! (Brevity fail.)  

Q: How's Yale been going? Do you still have another year left or are you done?
A:  Great! I’ve still got another year left. I’m in the class of 2010. I really didn’t know what to expect when I came here. I definitely didn’t have too many expectations. I was just looking for the time and a good place to write. I wanted to get out of New York for a few years too. I just needed some space to figure out what being a writer felt like. So far I’ve definitely gotten everything out of this experience that I initially hoped I would. The bonus has been all of the people. This school is populated with all of these designers, stage managers, actors, directors, dramaturgs, theater managers, technical directors…so many people from all over the country and world who I get to work alongside. And I’ve got these ridiculously talented and cool fellow playwrights who I get to sit in a room with and get feedback from once a week. And sometimes we get free sandwiches or doughnuts. It’s like heaven.  

Q; Have you had productions at Yale?
A:  Yes, we get a production of sorts every year. The first two years there’s a tiny budget and no designers. But for four weeks we rehearse with actors, a stage manager, a dramaturg and a director culminating in four public performances. Third year we get a somewhat less tiny budget and we get to work with designers. Having a production every year was a big part of why I wanted to go to Yale. I knew I wouldn’t really learn about my writing without being in the rehearsal room, and without seeing my plays performed.  

Q: Primarily I know you as the person who was running the Ars Nova Play Group but I knew you were also very much a playwright. The only play of yours I got to see, however, was the very funny fringe show you did that starred Liz Meriwether and Kristen Schaal. Tell me a little, if you will, about some of the other plays you've been working on.
A: Oh hey, I forgot you saw Stanley Hammer! That was in 2005. Back in the day. That play was the first “real” play I wrote. And by “real” I mean that it wasn’t some kind of inside joke or exercise. In the five years between college and graduate school I only wrote two plays. While being Associate Producer of a theater as awesome as Ars Nova was a dream job on the one hand, I also came to realize that because I was so passionate about my work there, I would almost certainly never find time to write plays unless I stepped away from it. It was a really hard decision because in a perfect world I would love to be a producer of new work and also a productive, working playwright at the same time. But I haven’t found any kind of balance there yet. This summer I’m attempting to do both things for the first time as Artistic Director of the Yale Summer Cabaret (www.summercabaret.org). I’m producing a season of shows and I’m also co-writing one of them--an indie rock musical called Fly-By-Night. I have another play I’m working on called Tigers Be Still. It’s about a girl who just got her MFA in art therapy and can barely get a job as a substitute art teacher in a local high school where she has all kinds of connections. This play is hilarious(ly depressing)! I’ve also just gotten really obsessed with the soap opera of the Greeks in general. I’m working on a play about Paris. And I’ve also been working on this adaptation of Iphigenia called Iphamemnon where one actress plays both Iphigenia and Agamemnon. And I’m also working on this Hamlet-inspired play about a guy who’s haunted by all of the Hamlets past. It’s called Every Other Hamlet In The Universe.  

Q: What kind of theater excites you?
A:  Anything that I don’t fall asleep during is good. That’s pretty much the litmus test for me in general. But exciting? Anything that makes me feel hopeful. Anything that makes me re-realize that I’m connected to the world and the people around me—that I am not alone. Anything that leaves me with an image or a character or a thought or a line that I can’t stop thinking about. Anything pretty, funny, strange, scary, grotesque, witty, musical, surprising, sad. Anything that makes me feel something.  

Q: What advice would you give to a playwright just starting out?
A:  Well from one playwright just starting out to another, don’t give up on writing before you’ve given yourself a fair shot. These things take time and space. Also, see as much as you can manage. Read as much as you can get your hands on. Listen to as much as you can stand. And travel as much as you can afford to. Also, don’t be ashamed of watching abnormal amounts of television. This isn’t advice for playwrights. It’s for anyone. People who say they don’t own a television are either lying or crazy.

Q:  Link please to your presentation in Oregon.

A:  http://www.pcs.org/jaw-2009-selections-and-schedule/

I Interview Playwrights Part 23: Tim Braun

Timothy Braun

Hometown: I usually consider my hometown the one I’m living in at the time. So…

Current Town: Austin, TX

Q:  Tell me about the plays you have going up this coming season.
A:  I have three shows I’m excited about. The Story of Jacob Murakami, or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Realized Sacred Cows Make The Finest Cheeseburgers; The Coney Island Mermaid Parade, or My View From The Gershwin Hotel; and Lucy, The Rodeo Queen of Luling, or In The City On The Edge Of Forever in Austin, TX. All of these plays will be done in a stripped-down fashion, no real set, only a few props, few lights, ect. We’re going to use blogs, online journals, and social networks to push the plays. Each night the show will be free to the public, and each night will feature donations to a non-profit like Austin Script Works and Austin Arts Alliance. I’m also trying to get non-profits outside of the arts like the Matthew Shepard Foundation, and The Women’s Storybook Project. This project targets the children of incarcerated women and puts books into both the hands of the kids and the mothers to continue a connection. The mothers incarcerated are anything but criminals. They have made a few mistakes, like writing bad checks, and are only in jail for a year, or so. In a more conventional vein, I am hoping to workshop The Marvelous Misadventures of the Memphis Boys, or The Story of Two Brothers and a Brother in Atlanta. This was originally an adaptation of Three Sisters, but has just exploded into something else. A great deal of fun to write.  


Q:  I know you've said Austin is a great theater town. What should I check out if I'm there?
A:  It depends on what time of year you are here. If you are here in the spring, you must hit the Fusebox Festival, an international festival that has featured groups like Witness Relocation, The Debate Society, and many others. On any given night you can hit The Off-Center, Hyde Park Theater, The Blue Theater, The Zack Scott, The Vortex, or Salvage Vanguard and see something good. The theater companies I really like are Rubber Rep, The Rude Mechanicals, and Loaded Gun Theory. The folks at Loaded Gun Theory have all their ducks in row. Great people. However, if you came to visit in March I would take you to the rodeo. The rodeo is theater in its own right. With the sheep-herding contest you pay for your whole seat, but you only use the edge. Of course, if you were here in March I would take you to SXSW as well.  

Q: How did you end up in Austin? I know there is a largish playwriting community there because of the playwright program at UT Austin but how did you, who got your Masters at Columbia, end up living in Austin? Do you love it? Does your girlfriend love it?
A:  It was part of my plan. Sort of. Before I was living in New York I was getting an MA at the University of New Mexico and spent a summer in Ireland with Mac Wellman and the director David Levine. They were pushing me towards NYC. I applied to MFA schools and ended up at Columbia. My plan when I was accepted to Columbia was to hang in NYC for about ten years, make my connections, then move back west. Now, to sidetrack for a moment, I met my fiancé at Columbia. She is from Houston and wanted to move closer to her family. One day I was talking with Lisa D’Amour about Austin at HERE Arts Center. Her comment was, “You gotta move to Austin.” At this time my fiancé was working at American Ballet Theater and was not happy. She missed her family; had a hard time with NYC winters, and the people at ABT were often difficult. One night she was upset after work, and I just had it. I called everyone I knew in Austin and put the moving back west part of my plan in action. Austin, to me, is the Paris or Berlin of the red states. We have a major writer community here not because of UT’s Michener School of Writing, but because many red state artistic folk come here. I mentioned Rubber Rep. Those guys are from Kansas. We have tons of artists from Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Nebraska, just to name a few places. Austin is really known as a musician’s town. Iron and Wine live here. So does Smog (Bill Callahan). This is a great town for cinema. Richard Linklater lives here. A Scanner Darkly was filmed in my neighborhood. Robert Rodriguez lives and shoots here. The show Friday Night Lights is shot here. The Onion’s AV Club has a few writers here, like Sean O’Neal. This is a great town for food. The best New York style pizza I’ve ever had is here (a place called Homeslice). Was that enough name-dropping? The point is, Austin is happening. In Austin people do things because they want to do those things much in the way I image Berlin in the 20’s, or the West Village in the 60’s was like. When I was in New York, I felt if though many of my friends would do things less because they wanted to, and more because they could propel their career in someway. I should also mention Austin has its downsides. It is 106 degrees today with a choking humidity. To beat the heat some raccoons have invaded my attic, which is driving my dog crazy. But, yes, my fiancé loves it here, and so do I.  

Q:  You have done many, many residencies. Which would you recommend for those writers who need to get away?
A:  You need to understand the environment will color the writing, so I pick that carefully. I like being around visual artists. Being a lit guy, they open my eyes to things I haven’t seen. MacDowell was a good place for me, and one I often pimp. I just got back from the Santa Fe Art Institute, which was fantastic. I had just the right amount of isolation and community to get work done. I really push the Anderson Center in Minnesota. They know what they are doing, and pick the artists very carefully.  

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?
A:  It is much easier to write about what I don’t like. I know what I’m “not” better than I know what I like. I can’t stand straight-up-forth-wall-realism. Why do that jazz on stage when television does it so much better. I come to New York about once a year and do my best to catch what Target Margin is doing. Recently, in Austin, I saw Loaded Gun Theory do a Max Langert farce. That was really fun theatre.  

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?
A:  Get a dog. When you have a good day, when the writing goes well, and you get grants, and the reviews are good, the dog doesn’t care. The dog wants to go outside, smell things, poop, play with you, lick you, eat some peanut butter, and snuggle in bed with you, because you are the dog’s best friend. When you have a bad day, when you know the play you are writing is bad, is never gonna get produced, get rejection letters, or, my personal favorite in this economy-get a phone call from your grant people informing that they can’t give you the money you were awarded because times are rough, the dog doesn’t care. The dog wants to go outside, smell things, poop, play with you, lick you, eat some peanut butter, and snuggle in bed with you, because you are the dog’s best friend. A dog keeps you grounded. My dog’s birthday is coming up and I’m considering writing a children’s play in which my dog invites the raccoons down from the attic to have some cake, something of truce.  

Q:  You are among other things a teacher and essay writer/journalist. Where would you send me (online) to read the best of Braun?
A:  Start with an essay called “Thanksgiving With The Blonde in The Brown Jacket http://www.mrbellersneighborhood.com/story.php?storyid=1988 A lot of people like this short play, which is also being published in an A Train anthology. http://quayjournal.org/1_1/mirrorball.htm I wrote a play for my bathtub. You can grab that here. http://euphonyjournal.com/current/ However, I think my best play is one of the plays I mentioned before, The Story of Jacob Murakami, or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Realized Sacred Cows Make The Finest Cheeseburgers. I wrote that at the Anderson Center in Minnesota. You can get that on my website. http://www.timothybraun.com/plays.html You can follow Timothy Braun on his blog Federal Prisoner 30664, twitter, and facebook.

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