I Interview Playwrights Part 346: John Pollono

 

(photo from Small Engine Repair.  John is the guy on the right)

John Pollono

Hometown: Londonderry, New Hampshire

Current Town: Los Angeles

Q:  Tell me about Small Engine Repair.

A:  This is a 70 min one act play about three childhood friends in their thirties who reunite for a night of drinking, fighting and reminiscing. As the story goes on, you realize that there is a much deeper and darker motive for the reunion.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  I'm also working on a play called RULES OF SECONDS which takes place in Boston, MA in 1855. It's about dueling.

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

A:  Growing up in New England, I was surrounded by colorful people and natural storytellers. And the sharp and dark New England sense of humor really stuck. So I've always loved telling stories and exploring characters with a lot going on underneath. Another thing about New England is that nobody really talks openly about their feelings or deals with deep secrets. It's all subtext and it can be fascinating and frustrating. Somebody you've known for twenty years never told you he never met his real father or whatever. So being a writer, I've always enjoyed digging in and exploring truths that most people would just keep to themselves.

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

A:  Word of mouth would spread quicker and more people would go to it! Especially younger people who may not consider theater to be an exciting option for a night out.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Martin McDonagh, Kenneth Lonergan, David Mamet, Tracy Letts, Arthur Miller, Langford Wilson.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I love theater that is exciting and entertaining and really understands an audience and how to tap into the power of a live performance. I love theater that tells a story and has vivid characters that I get emotionally involved in. And I really appreciate and enjoy great, truthful, witty dialogue that flows and surprises.

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

A:  Get your play produced by any means necessary. Instead of writing play after play, get one in front of an audience. Even if it's just a reading. An audience will teach you more about writing than anyone else. Let them help you find your voice as a writer. And also take an acting class so you know how to write for actors.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Small Engine Repair at Rogue Machine Theatre... I am playing the role of Frank Romanowski... show is currently kicking ass and just extended until June 5. Go to www.roguemachinetheatre.com for tickets and showtimes.

I Interview Playwrights Part 345: Mona Mansour

Mona Mansour

Hometown: San Diego, but I try to keep that on the down-low.

Current Town: Manhattan and Brooklyn, mostly.

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I’m about to step into two projects with NYU’s graduate acting program. Mark Wing-Davey has been an advocate of mine over there (we met when he directed a reading of my play for the Public’s Emerging Writers Group). The first is a piece I’ll write for the third-year acting students, using the Joint Stock method. I know very little of their actual process, so it’s cool to hear about it from Mark, who created Mad Forest with Caryl Churchill this way. The second project is based on the lives of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya and Chechan human rights worker Natalia Estimorova. A small group of actresses have been generating material, and now Jim Calder, who is directing, has brought in me and Carson Kreitzer. The material is fascinating, but the stories, grim. The Middle East, where I’ve been creatively the last few years, feels like a fucking carnival in comparison.

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 wish I could answer something different here, because this has been played out for me—but I’d have to say the Patricia Hearst saga, as it unfolded. It had everything—a kidnapping, a bank robbery, and most importantly, a very public change of identity: the transformation of a young woman from heiress to kidnap victim to urban guerrilla. The moment the “Tania” audiotapes emerged, with Patty telling her parents they were corporate pigs, my seven-year-old jaw dropped.

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

A:  I’d up the pay scale for everyone. A friend, a really fine actor who works a ton in TV, just finished telling me he had to turn down a play—at a prestigious venue in New York!—because he has kids to support, and can’t afford to do it for the pre-tax nine-hundred bucks a week. It doesn’t make sense to me that the freelance publishing gigs I do pay more than a full-time acting gig.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  I don’t want to overthink this, so in no particular order: Caryl Churchill, Ibsen, Thornton Wilder, Chita Rivera, the founders of Second City and the Groundlings; and many of the teachers I had.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  All kinds. I like to be surprised. Moved. The last thing I went crazy for was Christopher Durang’s Why Torture Is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them, which the Public did a couple years ago. He made an exploration of extradition and torture funny! Sick, funny, and totally relevant.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Noor Theatre is a company of three excellent women—Maha Chehlaoui, Lameece Issaq, and Nancy Vitale. Their mission is to feature writers of Middle East descent. They are doing great work. Support!

I Interview Playwrights Part 344: Miranda Huba

Miranda Huba

Hometown: Ashcroft, British Columbia, Canada

Current Town: New York City

Q:  Tell me about Dirty Little Machine.

A:  Jane is first introduced to pornography at a young age when she finds a dirty novel in her parent’s house. She regards this old paperback as the single most important piece of literature in her life. In DIRTY LITTLE MACHINE, Jane decides to seek out the most degenerate, repulsive, douchebag she can find and date him- in order that she may either fulfill her deep-seated sexual fantasies OR renounce all disempowering desires and become a true feminist. DIRTY LITTLE MACHINE is an investigation of sexual relationships and intimacy in an increasingly voyeuristic culture. DIRTY LITTLE MACHINE is running May. 19th- June. 4th (Thurs-Sat) @ The Red Room, 85 East 4th St. NYC (between 2nd ave & The Bowery) Tickets available @ smarttix.com and more info @ http://www.horsetrade.info/

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  I'm working on remounting my one woman show, CANDY TASTES NICE about a girl who decides to auction off her virginity. I'm also writing a play about beauty workers, I use the term writing very loosely as I haven't actually written anything yet its just images in my head at this point.

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

A:  When I was about twelve years old my parents took me to London. One warm summer evening we went to see A Midsummer's Nights Dream at the outdoor Theatre in Regents Park. Outside the theatre all these people had blankets out and were enjoying picnics before the show. I remember being impressed with this, that going to the theatre was a really beautiful communal event. The show was wonderful and I remember being in awe of one of the faeries. Her hair was white and styled to look like a punk rocker. She had a huge amount of cleavage and big red circles had painted on her breasts. I don't know, why but I thought it was hilarious. This fairy has a very small part in the show, but I followed her journey completely and the next day bought a little book of Shakespeare monologues and memorized one of her speeches. I still have it memorized. Also near the end of the performance I remember it started raining. Really lightly though, it was absolutely perfect. I knew, after seeing that show, that I wanted to be in the theatre. This experience definitely speaks to the magical quality of my work, the notion that anything can happen. I'm not sure it speaks to the darkness or sexuality but it was an important moment in my journey as an artist.

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

A:  Ticket prices. Not that there isn't any reasonably priced and even free theatre out there, but when I ask people why they don't go to the theatre they often cite the cost. Theatre is about community and bringing people together but if only certain people get to participate it looses its impact. Governments should provide more funding to subsidize ticket prices.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Off the top of my head: Beckett, Sarah Kane, Caryl Churchill, Richard Foreman, Erik Ehn, Young Jean Lee, Elevator Repair Service, Marie Brassard, Shakespeare, Howard Barker, Mac Wellman, and all my hard working theatre friends.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theatre that is necessary. It interests me when people recognize the need to deal with a certain subject matter or tell a particular story.

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

A:  Don't worry about writing a 'good play', work on developing your own voice. Once you have found your voice as a writer you can do anything, no one can stop you.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Please come and see DIRTY LITTLE MACHINE: Running May. 19th- June. 4th (Thurs-Sat) @ The Red Room, 85 East 4th St. NYC (between 2nd ave & The Bowery) Tickets available @ smarttix.com and more info @ http://www.horsetrade.info/
 

UPCOMING

This week:  A workshop production of My Base And Scurvy Heart in NYC with Studio 42.

Then I'll be in the OC for a workshop of Hearts Like Fists at Chance May 4.

And the following week, two other readings in LA, with Moving Arts and Urban Theatre Movement.

Right now, enjoy these trailers for MBSH.

http://youtu.be/bBgycWsaZps


http://youtu.be/NLnENTHZ1gI

I Interview Playwrights Part 343: Lydia Stryk

photo by Nancy Barnicle


Lydia Stryk

Hometown:

I was born and raised in DeKalb, Illinois, 60 miles west of Chicago. I left there at seventeen.

Current Town:

Berlin, Germany.

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  On a play called Peace. It’s about a peace group. I’m telling folks that it’s about how the motivations for our politics end up being deeply personal and sometimes violent. But honestly, it’s my chance to say something about drone planes.

Q:  What is Berlin theater like?

A:  I can’t answer that so quickly. Let’s just say it’s a directors’ theatre and plays (if plays are the source, at all) are material to be cut up, rearranged, lifted from, riffed on. There are no organizations protecting the sanctity of written work or the playwrights’ role in the process. Sometimes the work is really breathtaking to watch. It’s subsided by the state. But quite often there is little humanity in it. Lots of bodily fluids flying about and shouting. I didn’t come to Berlin for the theatre.

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 lived in my own little theatre as a girl. In my room (I was lucky to have my own room). I created complex and nasty scenarios with my Barbie dolls. And acted out all kinds of scenes in front of the mirror. My little girlfriends and I played a lot of dramatic games like The Newlyweds and the Dating Game, and it’s quite possible I was responsible for staging them, though I don’t remember. At my instigation, we staged a couple plays in my garage, mainly to make money. So, I guess I can’t blame theatres for doing the same.

That probably tells you exactly nothing about who I am as a writer or a person. Because all children live in unreal make-believe worlds. Except that, for me, this kind of behavior has never ended. It is certainly borderline pathological and suggests I never grew up.

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

A:  I would wish our American theatre was open –and hungry—to tell stories about the world we live in. What we think of as ‘problem theatre’, you know. Plays about the massive problems we face as a society, a world, a planet.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  My heroes tend to be outside the theatre, progressive journalists, for example. (Right now they are Amy Goodman and Laura Flanders.) But I most loved Pinter when I was starting out. His language makes me laugh with delight. His play The Caretaker is perfection for me—deeply humane and funny and asking a huge question--about compassion, how we treat others and why. And Ibsen. He’s the greatest social dramatist who ever lived, if you ask me. The one regret I have about giving up acting is not having the chance to play Hedda Gabler.

Today, I think any playwright who tackles the big stuff with honesty is a hero. A few are famous. But there are a lot of them around. You wouldn’t know it from looking at what gets puts on, though. They come in all shapes and colors and sizes and an outsized portion are women.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  See above. I am less and less excited by theatricality. Or anything overtly clever. Or personal dramas, unless they reflect on some larger phenomenon. When I look to see what’s on, I choose plays where ‘big things’ are examined—and if they are presented with suspense—and they’re funny, to boot, that’s great. But the core has to be something serious, ie. someone has to have something they want to say about the state of the culture/society/economy/planet.

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

A:  I don’t have advice. I have a plea! Think about alternatives to what is out there in terms of reaching and creating audiences. Save the theatre from institutional death!

Q:  Plugs?

A: 

www.democracynow.org

www.grittv.org

I Interview Playwrights Part 342: Rachel Jendrzejewski

photo credit: Rafal Nowak

Rachel Jendrzejewski

Hometown:  Vincennes, Indiana

Current Town: Providence, Rhode Island

Q:  Tell me about Theater Masters National MFA Playwrights Festival.

A:  Theater Masters is a splendid non-profit organization based in Aspen that (among other things) supports emerging playwrights, especially in the transition from grad school into Next, through this annual festival. It's pretty extraordinary. In January, they flew us out to Aspen to see workshop productions of our short plays and meet all kinds of wonderful generous people; and then we went home and made revisions to our plays, if we wanted; and soon we'll reconvene in NYC for full productions of those pieces, plus meetings with folks in the field, gallivanting, festivity, etc. The whole experience has been quite a gift.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  Most immediately, I'm helping Erik Ehn throw some lunches and dinners centered on art and peace-building, aka the sixth annual Arts in the One World anti-conference (open to all: http://brown.edu/Departments/Theatre_Speech_Dance/grad/aow2011.html)! I'm also revising my most recent full-length play, MERONYMY, for a reading at Playwrights' Horizons in May, directed by the wonderful Kristin Marting. It's a highly visual piece, developed in collaboration with installation artists Megan & Murray McMillan and composer Peter Bussigel -- hence I'm trying to figure out how it might properly function as a 'reading' at all -- but I think it can! And I'm preparing to finish my MFA. Binding documents, ordering regalia, packing up to move.

Q:  Tell me about your time in Poland.

A:  oh I never know how to answer this question... it was wild and wonderful. I'd always been curious about Poland, both personally (family history) and artistically (Grotowski et al); and then a string of star alignments brought me to Wroclaw from 2008-2009, assisting the illustrious Joanna Klass on worldwide events for The Grotowski Year 2009. I worked long hours at the Grotowski Institute editing English texts, writing grant proposals, coordinating logistics for guests, producing all kinds of events; but I also collaborated on some independent performance projects at Galeria Entropia and Art Cafe Kalambur, as well as took part in some phenomenal workshops. And made some lifelong friends. And wandered. Saw buckets upon buckets of stunning art and performance. Dug into the country's history. Studied the language. People-watched. Had a glorious reunion with long-lost relatives. Did voiceover work and sold valentines to make ends meet. Danced like crazy. Bopped over to neighboring countries. Got lost on trains. Wrote, wrote, wrote.

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

A:  When I was little, I was super shy in public but made all kinds of plays, movies, and radio shows at home with my sister, Ingrid. She's six years older than me, so obviously she was always in charge. When I was 6 and she was 12, she decided we should make our own filmed version of A CHRISTMAS CAROL, casting herself as Scrooge and me as everybody else. When it came time to shoot the scene from Scrooge's past in which Belle breaks their engagement, I was so moved by the situation that I started to cry and couldn't stop. I was in kindergarten, but I remember feeling so desperately sorry for both characters that I couldn't do the scene. My mom had to intervene and we almost didn't finish the project - but eventually Ingrid made me laugh so we pushed through. Later in the film, there's a classic shot of me running through our living room with a scarf tied over my eyes, as the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, gleefully yelling "woobawoobawoobawoobawooba!" and slamming straight into a chair. So I guess this story reveals that I've forever been very empathetic and very clumsy.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Too many to list! but a smattering of highlights (who may or may not identify as theatrical): Maria Abramovic, Robert Ashley, Pina Bausch, Beckett, Brook, John Cage, Laurie Carlos, Anne Carson, Caryl Churchill, Cornerstone Theater Co, E. E. Cummings, Dah, Lisa D'Amour, Derevo, Elevator Repair Service, Erik Ehn, Thalia Field, Grotowski, Uta Hagen, Coleman Hough, Ruth Margraff, Ariane Mnouchkine, Cindy Sherman, Gertrude Stein, Robert Wilson, Teatr Zar, Zeami, Guy Zimmerman... plus of course my family!

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theater that promotes divergent thinking and compassion through an ongoing becoming of itself -- work that's ever-pushing to get at something ineffable. Intimate immensity. Process as performance and vice versa; theater as gathering and evolution. Work that is startling and weird and hysterically funny. Work that reflects the diversity and surreality of our world.

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

A:  Take time to figure out how you like to write and pursue that, without worrying over any seeming Shoulds! Find your people and make things happen, at whatever pace works for you. Be gracious to yourself. Invest in friendships outside of the theatre/arts world. Take walks and explore. Avoid debt. Exercise. Sleep.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  If you can get to Providence this weekend, come enjoy free food and good conversation at Arts in the One World! full schedule and info at http://brown.edu/Departments/Theatre_Speech_Dance/grad/aow2011.html. Otherwise, forthcoming in NYC: BACTERIA at the Theater Masters National MFA Playwrights Festival, dir. Adam Immerwahr, May 3-7, Wild Project (http://www.theatermasters.org) + a reading of MERONYMY, presented by Brown University at Playwrights' Horizons, dir. Kristin Marting, May 13, 3pm.