I Interview Playwrights Part 400: Julia Brownell

Julia Brownell

Hometown:  Ridgewood, NJ. In terms of theater, basically this means I was a 35 minute bus trip away from Port Authority. I'd take the bus in with my friends or my brother, eat at the Olive Garden, and see a Broadway show.

Current Town:  Los Angeles, CA and Hoboken, NJ. For the last two years, I've lived in LA for 7 or 8 months of the year and then shuttled back to Hoboken for the rest of the time. I've lived in sublets in Los Angeles; all my stuff - my clothes, my bed, my cat, my husband - are on the East Coast. It's not ideal.

Q:  What are you working on now:

A:  My play All-American is in previews at the Duke Theater on 42nd Street. It's an LCT3 play, produced by Lincoln Center. It's a play about sports - a retired professional football player, his high school quarterback daughter, her twin brother, and their mom. I'm excited about it because I think these are characters we don't see onstage so often. It's directed by Evan Cabnet, who is a fantastic director and brilliant with new plays, and has an amazing cast. The LCT3 program is amazing, too, because all tickets are only $20, so I don't feel bad asking my friends to come!

Q:  What was it like writing for Hung?

A:  Writing for television is intense; the pace is fast and the hours are very long. I have always really enjoyed sleeping, so it was a bit of an adjustment. But ultimately it's very exciting, and I love going to work everyday and seeing eight other writers. I find playwriting and screenwriting pretty lonely. Before I worked in TV I had a day job and I loved it because of the social interaction part. It's pretty great to come in and have other people doing what I'm doing, feeling what I'm feeling, to collaborate with, to commiserate with, and most of all, to learn from. Our showrunners started out as playwrights in New York so we have a lot of playwrights on the show; it's a pretty cool environment.

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 played sports, particularly soccer and basketball, and almost every day after school when I didn't have practice I'd go outside and kick the soccer ball against the side of our house or shoot hoops and write stories, plays, movies, whatever in my head. I'd stay out there for hours, just kicking the ball and making up characters and dialogue. When I was maybe twelve or thirteen, I wrote an entire musical in my head. Never wrote it down, never performed it, but I still know a bunch of the songs. (Note: it's not good at all. It's pretty bad.) Now, as an adult, I run 8 miles or so every morning before I sit down to write. That's when I think through everything; when I finally sit down to write the words just come out - I've already planned it out. I really can't write without running beforehand.

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

A:  I'd give regional theaters more credit. Living in (or just outside) New York I've sometimes felt like there's a bias against anything not produced in New York (with the exception of maybe Chicago). I've spent a lot of time at several regional theatres - Hartford Stage, Trinity Rep, the Alliance - and the work they do is as exciting or more exciting than what happens in New York. Plus, the community support they get is tremendous. At the Alliance I really felt like the community had a real stake in the theater they did; in a sense, they were rooting for it. I love the fact that I can be in New York and have ten different options of exciting stuff to see, but I also wish that regional theaters got a bit more prestige, a bit more recognition.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  My first theatrical hero was Edward Albee - I read Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf the summer before my freshman year of college and I remember thinking, I didn't know a play could could jump off the page like this. It's one of those plays where I remember exactly where I was when I read it and how I felt. After that, Chris Durang, because I didn't know you could make characters talked the way his characters talked.

Connie Congdon taught me playwriting in college and made me believe I could do it. She also taught me to think theatrically in a way I hadn't before. We spent a lot of time just sitting around her office, shooting the shit and making each other laugh. I admired her career - all of a sudden being a playwright seemed feasible. It was a career and a life. After college, as I interned at Hartford Stage and then The Public Theater and then went to NYU for grad school, they flooded in - not just writers but directors and actors and designers and administrators, etc. There's a lot of pretty fantastic and talented people in this world. Jeremy B. Cohen of Hartford Stage (and now the Producing Artistic Director of the Minneapolis Playwright's Center) was an early mentor for me - he's just so passionate about new plays and developing playwrights. I was very lucky to meet him when I was 22.

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

A:  I learned this in grad school - I can't remember who said it - and I've found it tremendously important to remember as I try to navigate my career: only writing is writing. Researching your play is not writing. Taking meetings with production companies in LA is not writing. Sending out your work to a festival or contest and writing a cover letter is not writing. Pitching a movie is not writing. To be a writer you have to write. Yes, you have to advocate for yourself and put yourself out there, but I strongly believe that the work is in the writing and the rest will eventually fall into place.

Also in grad school, Janet Neipris told us about peaks and valleys. She would make a hand motion when she did it. Everybody's career takes a different course - peaks and valleys - so there's no use comparing yourself to other people. Your career will be your career, and nobody has the same journey. It's really important to me to not get caught up worrying about who's had what production where and who sold what screenplay or whatever. I just try to get passionate and excited about my own stuff, and other people's stuff that I like, and not get too caught up in the small world pettiness of it all.

Oh yeah, and know who you trust to look at your work. Have one or two or three people whose notes you believe in to look at your writing, and take everyone else's advice with a grain of salt. Listen to notes, but be particular about the notes you take.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Come see All-American at the Duke on 42nd Street - it runs through November 19. We have Monday night shows! http://www.lct.org/showMain.htm?id=206

My husband's a founding member of a theater company, Fault Line Theater, which is running a fantastic production of Aristophanes' "The Frogs" at 4th Street Theater which also runs through November 19. This company makes classical theater so fun and so accessible. http://www.faultlinetheatre.com/

Also watch season 3 of "Hung" at 10 pm on HBO on Sundays.

I Interview Playwrights Part 399: David Anzuelo

David Anzuelo

Home town: El Paso, Texas

Current Town: NYC, NY

Q: What are you working on now

A: A new play called US/UK about a twink American hustler in London in 1989. I'm also working on re-writes for a workshop presentation of a personal-myth piece called Estrellita/Luminaria.

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 kid, I was a huge comic book fanatic, horror movie buff and greek mythology geek. I'd spend hours pouring over back issues of silver age super-hero comic books; memorizing trivia. Every weekend I'd go to the movies w/ my Pop or watch cable monster movies and then re-inact the plots with my Star Wars and Micro-naut action figures. By the time I was 11, I'd read everything in the public library on Greek and Roman mythology and had a decent knowledge of Minoan and Spartan culture. All of this was fed and encouraged by my Parents who were ecstatic that they had a son who loved to read.

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

A: If I could, the one thing I'd change about theater over all, is the price of tickets. Broadway is ridiculously over-priced and even off-broadway is too much for many folks. I love the theater companies who have a "pay what you can" night.

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: My theater heroes are: Euripides; Aeschylus; Sophocles; Jean Genet; Joe Orton; Tennessee Williams; Tony Kushner; Luis Valdez and El Teatro Campesino; Peter Sellars; Grotowski; Ping Chong; Lee Nagrin; Stephen Adly Guirgus, Lucy Thurber; Kazuo Ohno; Min Tanaka and Pina Bausch. Although many will say the last three listed are choreographers more than theater artists. But I feel that they were really doing theater.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A:  The kind of theater that excites me is one that is at once ancient and contemporary at the same time. I love theater that is visceral and physical and doesn't get too cerebral. I want theater that will provoke thought; enlighten people to new ideas and worlds and will leave an emotional imprint that lasts. I want sex and love and music and struggle. That's the kind of theater that excites me.

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


A:  What advice do I have to fledgling playwrights? At the onset of a new piece write freely. Write what turns YOU on. Write it exactly as you see it in your mind. Don't worry about what people will think. It may be the only chance you have to see it live in any physical form.

And work with collaborators who have a rock&roll warrior philosophy. By that I mean, that they will work with you as a team; that they are disciplined athlete-artists and have intrepid spirits during the creation of the new work, but will be emotional dare-devils during performances and kick the work to a level even you didn't expect.

Q:  Plugs, Please.

A: Right now Carlo Alban's INTRINGULIS is still running at Intar...I directed. And Thomas Bradshaw's BURNING is in pre-views at The New Group for which I'm the fight-director. Talk about intrepid artists! See these guy's work!

I Interview Playwrights Part 398: David Wiener

David Wiener

Hometown: Irvine, California

Current Town: Hoboken, New Jersey

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  Right now, I'm working on a new play about the relationship between loneliness and political violence in America. And I sold a TV pilot recently, so I should probably get cracking on that.

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 nineteen, I saw Robert Stevens perform as King Lear at Stratford on Avon. It was a luminous production and a truly magnificent performance. Stevens was pitiable and potent all at once. Anyway, the play ended and the house went dark for about six seconds. And during that six seconds the audience was completely, absolutely, silent. I felt electrified and shaken just knowing that somewhere in that darkness, a thousand other humans were simultaneously processing the sheer beauty and power of what we had all just communally witnessed. Then, the lights came on and, as if a single organism, everyone stood. I've never recovered from that. I suppose I've spent the past 15 years of my life chasing those six seconds in the dark.

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

A:  Theater, is perfect. It's a dynamic art form that, I think more than any other, has the capacity to engender empathy. It's not a one-way transmission like film or TV or visual art. Theater is a communication-- an ephemeral conversation between play and audience, performer and play. I think the live communal dynamic is magnificent. And we're lucky to have it.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  I think anyone who endeavors to do this lonely, unyielding, difficult thing is heroic in some sense.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A;  I love good storytelling. And I gravitate towards theater in which the story proceeds from emotional causality rather than the explication of plot. In my own writing, I try to focus on the emotional needs of my characters and allow them to dictate what happens next. Perhaps that sounds a little odd, but I’ve found that, somehow, if I can relax enough to simply feel and listen without editing, then these emotional needs lead my characters to action. I should say that, even with a lot of practice, it's very difficult to achieve that level of relaxation. But it does occur. And when it does, I experience a mode of writing in which I'm transcribing rather than composing. In other words, I'm not ahead of the action. I am, or rather, my characters are, just reacting on the basis of their emotional needs. The result is a story in which mystery and revelation coexist. And what they say and do becomes surprising-- Even to me. Especially to me. In spite of my otherwise practical, rational, logical thinking, writing plays has made me a big believer in the power of the unconscious mind. I think relaxation allows the unconscious to confront those aspects of ourselves about which we are unresolved. And at the point of that confrontation, creativity occurs.

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

A:  1. Ask for help. No one ever does this alone. The theater is full of generous, experienced, artists who embrace the responsibility of helping the next generation of artists to grow and find their own voices-- these people are the true care-takers of our art form. Personally, I've been fortunate to have had many remarkable mentors throughout my career. I owe a lot to writers like David Henry Hwang, Lisa Kron, Frank Pugliese, Theresa Rebeck and Arthur Kopit, to name only a few.

2. Seek out forums where you can engage with your colleagues about your work. There are a multitude of groups, fellowships, theaters, colonies, etc. that bring writers together around the development process. Some involve directors and actors as well. Each has it's own energy and method. Find the ones that work for you and go. And work. And listen. Personally I’ve benefitted tremendously from working at the Soho Rep Writer Director Lab, The Lark Fellowship, The Ojai Playwrights’ Conference, and New Dramatists.

3. Finally, relax, be patient, and remove the word “Deserve” from your vocabulary.

Q:  Plugs, please:


A:  My play, CASSIOPEIA is being presented at Boston Court in LA at their PLAY/Ground festival December 10th-12th.
My new play, GOLIATH, is having its first reading at New Dramatists November 14th.

Of Great Import

Have you seen this yet?


http://sadplaywright.com/

How about this?

http://charlesisherwoodsyogurtshop.tumblr.com/

Both are good times.

I Interview Playwrights Part 397: M.Z. Ribalow

Meir Ribalow

Hometown: New York City.

Current Town: New York City.

Q:  Tell me about Peanuts and Crackerjacks.

A:  It’s a novel (my first to be published) about a young pitching coach for a major league team in Buffalo who discovers that baseball, his great true love, has changed in ways that reflect our constantly evolving society. Tradition clashes with modernity both on and off the baseball diamond in hilarious, ironic and unexpected ways. I’m obviously honored that Pulitzer Prize Laureate N. Scott Momaday wrote that “Ribalow has written a book that truly belongs among the monuments of baseball literature. It is full of learning and lore, wit and wisdom.” Can’t ask for more appreciation than that, can you?

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  A new play, a new novel, a new poetry collection (my first one, Chasing Ghosts, was just published), and a non-fiction book about how films reflect our values. And Plays from New River 2, the second in our annual series of published new plays that emerge from New River Dramatists. I’m Series Editor.

Q:  What was it like reading scripts at the Public for Joe Papp?

A:  Fascinating, but it’s worth noting that Joe asked me to start a Literary Department; there hadn’t been one at The Public. So I wasn’t just reading scripts, I was creating a mechanism for evaluating around a thousand plays a year that were submitted to us, making sure that every single play was read fairly and at least twice before deciding on its disposition. Gave me not only a phenomenal education on how to read plays, but enormous empathy for people pouring so much energy and dedication into writing them. At that point in my life, I was mostly directing, and writing, as I always had, fiction and poetry. I didn’t start writing plays until my last year working at The NY Shakespeare Festival.

Q:  Tell me about New River.

A:  Mark Woods and I started New River Dramatists because we both had the same dream: to create a haven for gifted playwrights where they would be encouraged to write the best work of which they were capable. The creative partnership has worked out well, because Mark wanted to build it and I wanted to establish the process and run the room. Mark found this paradise in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina: in the woods, on the river, beautiful cabins, fantastic food, and we pay writers to come down and work with actors, writing whatever they want. We don’t care what each writer writes, because we don’t produce, so we’re not looking for plays to present; we’re looking for talent to nurture. We see our mision as doing what we can to raise the level of storytelling. The results have been pretty impressive: since we began a dozen years ago, we’ve developed nearly 400 new plays and screenplays, almost half have been produced or optioned all over the world, and our writers have won all sorts of major awards. So it’s nice to be validated. But this is a labor of love and, we both feel, of necessity. We badly need better stories to tell and by which to live. Anyway, it went so well artistically that it seemed natural to add New River Fiction and New River Poetry to our public presentations in NYC (at The Players) and elsewhere. So now we present evenings of all three genres, put all three on our New River Radio Show on Art International Radio (AIR) online (the URL is http://urls.artonair.org/newriver) and I’m now editing not only the Plays from New River series but also publications of Currents: New River Fiction (2012), and Capturing Chaos: New River Poetry.

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

A:  I yearn for a theatre based more on true artistic excellence and less on trendy mediocrity and perceived commerciality.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Shakespeare, Pinter, Chekhov, Ibsen, Moliere, Tennessee Williams, Eugene O’Neill, Joe Papp, Jose Ferrer.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  An original voice on a timeless subject. I prefer ambitious (not to be confused with pretentious) theatre, and I’d rather read a flawed play that no one else but that writer would have written than a beautifully done play that’s just a variation of something I’ve seen a hundred times.

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

A:  If you are writing out of love and passion and a deep need to write, don’t let anyone discourage you. They can’t keep you from writing, so keep doing it. Remember, you’re not writing for the Madding Crowd; you’re writing for yourself, God and The Unknown Friend.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Please listen to our radio show (http://urls.artonair.org/newriver). We’re proud of the work, and it’s free 24/7.

Check out New River at www.newriverdramatists.org.

New River Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/New-River-Dramatists/165603406784387

New River Twitter:
Twitter, New River Dramatists (@Newriverdrama)!

Meir Ribalow Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1658394507

Information on Peanuts and Crackerjacks (a novel):
http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/book-2.php?id=978-0-7864-6598-9

Information on Chasing Ghosts (poetry):
http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/book-2.php?id=978-0-7864-6598-9

I Interview Playwrights Part 396: Neena Beber

Neena Beber

Hometown:
Miami, Florida. Still Home.

Current Town:
New York City. Current can’t ever really replace Home, though it  has been a long slog of time.

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  Trying to finish a bunch of plays I started a while back. I have a very  poor sense of time which is why I need theatre to contain it for me. 

Q:  How has your TV writing affected your playwriting, if it has? 

A:  When I first started writing for TV, my writing for theatre got a little  stranger. I didn't want to write anything that resembled the TV writing at all. That meant no naturalistic dialogue, no banter, no jokey jokes, no straightforward narrative. I wanted there to be at least one metaphorical thread in my theatre work, even better three  or four or five. I wanted sideways sprawl and characters who neither learn nor grow. I became really interested in the space of the theatre, the live event, the meta-reality of theatre itself -- what it means to be in a room with people, real people, crossing in time and space with you.

Now I think TV and film have helped me really think about craft and story and economy and precision, and theatre has helped me see that you don’t need to be afraid to bring your voice and your singular oddness and peculiar humor to the screen big or small. I am not at this point concerned with one being too this and the other being too that.

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 mom decided it would be fun for us to learn a new word a day.  This was before those word-a-day calendars. She was a real wordsmith, an ace at Scrabble and an amazing, charming storyteller. She really understood people and what made them tick. She had this ability to turn the ordinary stuff of life into something magical. Nothing was lost on her. And she appreciated language, words. So I remember sitting on our back porch getting our words. The first word was procrastination. See, I took piano lessons but would only practice when we were heading out the door. When the recital came, I had no idea what I was doing. I made up a tune on the spot. I was winging it, and I thought I pulled it off because no one said anything; of course, no one knew what to say! It was both comical and  dreadful at the same time. Comical and dreadful is a heady combination. I think at some level even then, I knew I was just banging keys. I really was planning to figure it out later -- and not just later, but after, which some might say is really too late.

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

A:  No second guessing from anyone about anything.


Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?


A:  Growing up my theatrical hero was Mad Guy Mogi, my great uncle, a silent film actor, magician, lion tamer, shrunken head seller, lentil soup eater, professional worrier, eccentric dancer, kosher-keeper.  The few times I met him, he was wearing a top hat, a cape, and a giant, gnarled monster hand that he would transform to a normal hand before your very eyes, as he reached to shake yours. He was my hero, or really my meta-hero, because my mom was my hero who conveyed who he was to me, valued who he was, celebrated him in all his eccentricities.

Of course I also have my long list of names, people who come to me when I need them most. Some of them are ghosts sitting on my shoulder; too many of them are ghosts for me now. They taught me.  They teach me. They raise the bar.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I think it is always exciting to have people performing live in a room using their time and energy to delight us. It’s like we’re all kings and queens. I love the attempt at communication that I may not completely understand, not yet anyway. I want to walk a mile in your shoes even if they don’t fit.

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

A:  Start your own thing and go forth fearlessly. Remind older playwrights why.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  I prefer to go bald.