I Interview Playwrights Part 466: Daniel Akiyama

Daniel Akiyama
 
Hometown: Honolulu, Hawai‘i

Current Town: Honolulu, Hawai‘i

Q:  Tell me about A Cage of Fireflies.

A:  A CAGE OF FIREFLIES is about three sisters of the kibei generation -- sent as children to be raised in Okinawa, then returned to Hawai‘i as young women to live and work. The play is set in the year 2000, when the sisters are quite elderly, in a small Honolulu apartment where two of the sisters live and the third visits. A disagreement over a kimono collection forces them to confront the dreams and regrets they’ve carried with them since childhood, the long-hidden hopes and resentments that unite and divide them.

This is my first full-length play. I started writing it because I wanted to understand certain relationships and incidents from my own family’s history -- I suspect a lot of beginning writers do that. I slogged through a first draft in a playwriting class in 2006. Since then, it’s had so many revisions that it bears almost no resemblance to anything that happened in real life, and I’m fine with that.

A CAGE OF FIREFLIES will be developed in July 2012 at the Sundance Institute Theatre Lab and will have its world premiere at Kumu Kahua Theatre in Honolulu, in January 2013.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  Right now I’m trying to devote most of my time to A CAGE OF FIREFLIES, getting ready for Sundance and Kumu Kahua. I have an idea for a second play, but it’s in such an embryonic stage that I don’t feel like talking about it.

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 love this question, but I just can’t seem to think of a story with that eureka! moment. Instead, here is a family tradition that’s been part of my life for as long as I can recall.

Every Thanksgiving my family and I fly to the town of Hilo, on the Big Island of Hawai‘i, where my grandmother lives. Thanksgiving morning after everyone arrives, we all pile into cars and drive to Saddle Road, a narrow strip of pavement that snakes through miles of uninhabited ‘ōhi‘a forests between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, the largest mountains in the Hawaiian islands. We spend the day picking flowers and plants along the roadside -- ‘ōhi‘a lehua, false staghorn ferns, club moss, pūkiawe -- being careful to only take tiny cuttings from each plant, and only the plants near the path. Then we go back to my grandmother’s house and get ready for Thanksgiving dinner. The adults take the rest of the weekend to make wreaths out of the cuttings, which we bring back with us to Honolulu to give to friends and neighbors as early Christmas gifts.

I’m not sure why I wanted to share that with you. And I’m not sure what, if anything, it says about me as a person or a writer. Something about family, maybe? About continuity? About tradition?

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  A few names come to mind: Stephen Sondheim, Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl, August Wilson, Bernard-Marie Koltès, Lee Cataluna. Actually, I have a hard time answering this. “Hero” is a strange word, and the writers I really admire are those whose work -- the larger body of work as much as the individual pieces -- I find meaningful, whose career and style continue to fascinate me over time, whose attitude towards writing and the theatre resonates with me. There are a lot of writers whose plays I like or even love, whose careers have heroic episodes or a heroic trajectory, but whom I don’t consider my “heroes.”

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theatre in general excites me. I like plays that have a lot of clarity and thought, plays that are built on a solid foundation and assume their audience is smart and aware. I tune out when there’s a lot of shouting, or when I feel like I’m being talked down to.

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

A:  Well, I’m just starting out myself. As I said, A CAGE OF FIREFLIES is my first big play, and I still have a ways to go before I’m done, so I’m not in a position to offer advice. However, I can tell you what seems to be working for me so far.

Here’s one great thing: I found the right director. Phyllis S.K. Look has been helping me shape and re-shape the play for over a year. She directed the play’s first workshop and public reading in Honolulu in 2011, she’ll be directing the workshop at our 2012 Sundance residency, and she’s going to stage the world premiere in 2013. It’s exciting and stimulating to work with Phyllis, a director whose ideas are rich and vivid and incredibly detailed, but who is always committed to the integrity of the play itself. I know the production will be in good hands.

Q: Plugs, please:

A:  A CAGE OF FIREFLIES was a finalist for the Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference and will be workshopped at the Sundance Institute Theatre Lab, under the direction of Phyllis S.K. Look and the dramaturgy of Mame Hunt. It will have its world premiere at Kumu Kahua Theatre in Honolulu, Hawai‘i, on January 24, 2013, again directed by Phyllis S.K. Look.

I Interview Playwrights Part 465: Caitlin Saylor Stephens

Caitlin Saylor Stephens

Hometown: Baltimore/NYC

Current Town: Brooklyn, NY

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I’ve been doing rewrites for the second play in a trilogy called WHEN WE WENT ELECTRONIC. It’s about these two seemingly vapid American Apparel models named Brittney and Bethany who just had the shit beat outta them. The play is their multiple attempts to remember what happened the night before when they were attacked. Because they are so stupid, they mix things up quite a bit. So even though something very violent and tragic happened to them, their trial and error attempts to retrieve their memory are pretty funny. They also sing and dance which adds to the theatricality of the piece and lightens things up a little. I like that the scope of the play is funny and sexy and also incredibly heartbreaking. I think those ingredients made me want to write it. I also identify a great deal with the characters and what they are going through. When the stakes are high, not remembering something that happened is a terrible feeling. It changes your relationship with what is real and what isn’t. I always like to put my characters in a position where they are trying to solve an impossible puzzle based on a question I have in my own life. I know I’ve missed a step in the formula if it isn’t somewhat humiliating or answerless. Somehow, juicing the personal gives me the freedom to crank the style volume, create a distorted world, and look for some answers.

I also just spent time at Orchard Project beginning the third play in the trilogy. It’s called OUR FUTURE WILL HOLD. I’m still figuring out what it is, but I’ve known all along there’s gonna be a search party and a corpse-fucking scene! I’m pretty excited about it! I also want to include a live kitten in the piece. There aren’t enough live kittens in theatre and I’d really like to pioneer that trend. I know, I know, good luck finding a director for that one.

Q:  Why is everyone always hitting on you?

A:  My guess is booze. Either that or it’s because I don’t feel I have the right to deny a messy moment. I tend to luxuriate in the moments when things go horribly wrong. I call these moments “whoopsie” moments. My life is pretty much composed of one “whoopsie” moment after another. Like, “whoopsie” my boob just fell out of my shirt at an office meeting, or “whoopsie” where do I get my bagel and coffee in this strange neighborhood at 7:30 am on a Wednesday?, or “whoopsie” the guy I met at the wedding and had such a good time with was actually on leave from prison. WHOOPSIE. There. I’ve given away my secret of secrets.

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 was raised by writers and artists so my world has always orbited around desire perpetuated conflict. I have this one very potent memory from my childhood that has definitely influenced how I resolve conflict in my plays.

My father had this gorgeous garden when I was a kid. Fresh everything. And every kind of blossoming anything you can imagine. Bleeding hearts. Dogwood. Snapdragons. The most stunning palate of color and hybrids your imagination can see.

My parents went through a very dramatic breakup when I was 10. I remember seeing my father destroying one of the flowerbeds with a shovel one day after a fight. Just weed-whacking the shit out of this beautiful rainbow. Because he was sad or angry or something. He might have just been shoveling aggressively, you know, really planting the shit outta those peonies. But how it looked to me was scary and extreme. I see things in extremes.

This moment creeps in when my characters are on the brink of resolution. And suddenly after something horrible happens they see flowers. Like in I LOVE DEAD THINGS after MOTHER is brutally ambushed and bleeding all over the floor, DAUGHTER sees cherry blossoms and she finally understands her conflict and resigns from her battle of always wanting to keep the love alive. Or in ELECTRONIC, when BRITTANY finally remembers what happened to her the night before, she gives a long speech about how she was murdered. As she describes the attack she is bombarded by “thousands of pollen-filled memories.”

I think seeing the apocalypse of flowerbeds gave most of my plays a heartbeat of beautiful sadness.

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

A:  Theatre needs more fucking. Seriously. It’s fun to watch and it’s fun to do. If fucking actually drove the theatre, people would be less concerned with the point of view crevasse and more propelled by desire. People would make choices based on what the world is craving and fantasizing about. Things would be less about gender, race, politics, and agenda and more about having a good ol’ time. Everything would be about the poetry and suffering that comes from desire. Unified. We’d be unified. Even if for just one night. An orgy of love-making, creativity, and support that ain’t got nothing to do with what boxes you check or don’t check on all of those mind-numbing applications. It would be about the art. The language. The rhythm. The physicality. The mysterious apartment and the foreign mattress. The role-playing. The did we really do that last night? Did we? The anything can happen, let’s fall in love, oh my god, oh my god! I love you. Yes. We all made this bed. And now we’re all gonna sleep in it. Together. More fucking in theatre. I’m starting a campaign. Join me.

I also think we have this tendency to forget that theater isn’t real. You are on a stage and therefore you are not experiencing something as it would happen in real life. There’s an audience! There’s a light that might fall on your head! There are sound cues and costume changes. Theater artists shouldn’t be trained anymore for real. They should be trained for presence, discovery, collaboration, and theatricality. They should be trained to be hybrids.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  I love people who invert the expected and give the audience an emotionally immersive experience. My heroes are: Taylor Mac, Cindy Sherman, Lisa Kron, Kate Valk, Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet, Mueller, and every one of my friends.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I am always exited by theater that has a personal artery that’s been struck by both style and character.

Stunning by David Adjmi, God’s Ear by Jenny Schwartz, Faust by Punchdrunk, Emperor Jones by The Wooster Group, The Amoralists, Young Jean Lee, Robert Schenkkan, The TEAM, Maly Theatre Company, John Kelly, anything Taylor Mac. These are to me, the pinnacle of theatrical excitement.

Also, theatre that really uses design and bridges the gap between the art world and the entertainment world is truly exciting to me. I love designers. They have a gigantic technical toolbox that gets my ticker ticking. They know how to use text to immerse and audience in a unique world. Costumes. Glitter. Fake eyelashes. Blood. Projections. Dancing. Music. Awesome lighting from unpredictable sources. Wigs. These things are always fun.

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

A:  If you want people to feel like they are a part of something, give them an experience. To give an experience, model your play on systems or processes that don’t involve arcs. Plays are much prettier when they look like constellations.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Voice and breath with Scott Miller.

La Colombe brews the most bangin’ coffee.

Lookout for BoomBoom my duo/collaboration with Lacy Warner.

Come to the July Amoralab with The Amoralists and see pages from WHEN WE WENT ELECTRONIC.
http://www.theamoralists.com/

Also, I’m single.

I Interview Playwrights Part 464: Greg Paul

Greg Paul

Hometown: Quincy, IL

Current Town: Brooklyn, NY

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  It's a comedy called "Stand Up For Bastards". The jumping off point was Ralph and Montgomery from the movie "Fame" trying to make it after high school, but it has mutated into something else entirely. I'm having fun writing it.

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 father gave me his toy train set once. I quickly found that the fun part was making the train reach top speed then watching it careen off the track when it hit a curve. Before long, I figured how to unhook the transformer that powered the track, and I discovered that if you plugged it in and touched the bare ends of the wires together you would get these very gratifying sparks. And then, you could steal your sister's Barbie doll, pop its head off, turn off the lights and make sparks over her reclining plastic body. And when you did this you would say "Life! Life! Give my creation life!" But you would have to whisper it, otherwise your Mom might burst in to see if you were playing with yourself. Eventually, your sister would show up and get mad at what you did to Barbie.

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

A:  I guess I wish that more people would take a chance and get involved with it. To me, theatre has always been less about the entertainment and more about the experience of doing it. In any capacity. I'm addicted to the sense of belonging that theatre creates in those whose get involved. It changes people in ways that are both subtle and profound. It creates a temporary autonomous zone, where rules of space and time are broken, bent, reshaped. Where people try on new personas. Where technicians operate heroic intensity and purpose. I love it. I only wish everyone would have a chance to truly taste it.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  I have a fondness of Arthur Miller. I really love how he will take an issue and have the guts to say "This is wrong! Look at this!" all while telling a really absorbing story. I also have to say that Robert Wilson blew my mind during my college days. I did a paper on him and it really expanded my notions of theatrical possibility. Also Christopher Bayes! He is so freakin' funny! Making funny freaks of us all! More beauty! More funny!

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I like theatre that catches me by surprise. I feel like much of theatre right now is disappointingly consistent in it's socio-political content, so when I see something that violates the current conventions, that's always cool. I like theatre that has guts. I probably like that most of all. Whether it's funny or serious, courageous theatre is always something that I hope to see. And make.

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

A:  Write and write what you enjoy. But even when you don't enjoy it, keep writing. Tell your internal critic to shut up. Share your work when you are ready to (not before), and share it first with people you trust. Then get it out there!

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  I have some things in submission currently and a project on the horizon, but nothing plug-worthy yet. Soon! Stay tuned!

I Interview Playwrights Part 463: Jacqueline E. Lawton

photo by Jason Hornick

Jacqueline E. Lawton

Hometown: Tennessee Colony, Texas

Current Town: Washington, D.C.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: Right now, I’m finishing Bend and Sway, Don’t Break, which is about the domestic slave trade and fight for freedom in D.C. in the early 19th Century. I started writing it last Spring, but it got usurped by Love Brothers Serenade and The Hampton Years.

Bend and Sway, Don’t Break follows Dr. Jesse Torrey, a Philadelphian physician and philanthropist, who was on a crusade throughout the East Coast to advocate for the establishment of free libraries and public schools. When he arrived in D.C., he learned about the attempted suicide of a slave woman who was about to be sold South apart from her husband and children. She had jumped from the third story window of Miller’s Tavern, which was a notorious slave depot located on 13th and F Streets NW. She broke both arms and injured her back, but survived. Dr. Torrey visited her and discovered two kidnapped people of color, who were also about to be sold into slavery. Torrey went to Francis Scott Key, brilliant attorney and one-hit wonder, for help.

I’m reading the handwritten transcripts of this case and the newspaper articles that capture the response of congress members, who are being forced to confront the atrocity of slavery; it’s riveting! I’m grateful to have the next two weeks to work on it.

This summer, I’ll be working on rewrites on The Hampton Years, which will receive a world premiere at Theater J next season.

Q: Tell me about The Hampton Years.

A: Absolutely! The Hampton Years is set at Hampton Institute from 1939 to 1946. The play dramatizes key events in the life of art professor Viktor Lowenfeld and his students, John Biggers and Samella Lewis. Lowenfeld turned down a teaching position at Harvard to work at Hampton (a Negro school), which was absolutely unheard of at the time! John Biggers, who started off learning how to be a plumber, went on to become an internationally acclaimed painter, sculptor, and teacher. Samella Lewis, artist and printmaker, was a transfer from the University of Iowa. She had fiery and passionate temper, which led to a contentious, but truly respectful relationship with Lowenfeld. She’s in her 80s now and still works as an artist.

Recently, I met Hazel Biggers, widow of the late John Biggers, at the opening reception of African American Art: From Harlem Renaissance to Civil Rights Era and Beyond at the American Art Museum. She’s so excited about the play! Also, Samella Lewis read the play and had this say about it, “It’s good. Girl, it brought me back. I hadn’t expected that.” How exciting is that?!

Q: Can you talk about the Locally Grown Festival and working with Theater J?

A: Okay, so back in May of 2011, Shirley Serotsky, Theater J's Director of Literary and Public Programs, contacted me about submitting a proposal for their first ever “"Locally Grown: New Plays From Our Own Garden (or Community Supported Arts)" festival. The festival premiered Renee Calarco’s The Religion Thing; included readings of new plays by Gwydion Suilebhan, Stephen Spotswood, and myself; and featured workshop presentations of new works by solo performing artists Jon Spelman and Laura Zam.

I submitted The Hampton Years, which was originally conceived in November of 2010 after a conversation with Shirley about Theater J’s interest in exploring the Black and Jewish relationship. Since The Hampton Years, explores the relationship between Jewish scholars and Black students in the segregated south during the 1940s, it was perfect match for Theater J's mission and they commissioned it as part of the festival.

Working with Theater J has been and continues to be amazing! Their Locally Grown Festival supports the work of D.C. area playwrights in a nurturing environment and allowed us to contribute our voices to an already vibrant theater season. Having this level of investment and commitment at the early stages of the writing process was so invigorating! What’s more, the entire Theater J staff is so attentive, encouraging and passionate about the work we’re presented and their continued investment in us has been thrilling! I’m over the moon with joy and excitement about the upcoming production!

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 love this question! When I was in 3rd Grade, we were given an assignment to write a short story about Halloween. At this point, I was already writing adventure stories about my stuffed animals, so this assignment was a piece of cake! What’s more, I adored my 3rd Grade teacher, Mrs. Jordan, and had the biggest little girl crush on her two daughters, who were always very nice to me. (They both had gorgeous curly red hair, which reminded of Anne of Green Gables.) I wrote a haunted house story about all of them and Mrs. Jordan loved it! She loved it so much in fact that she asked me read it aloud in class. Horror upon horrors, I felt betrayed! I begged her not to make me do it. Despite the ME you know now, 3rd Grade Me was painfully shy and terrified to speak in public. Oh, I was so scared. I resisted with every fiber of my being, but ultimately ... I did as instructed. I read the story to my class. Every now and then, I would lift my eyes up from the page, which was gripped so tightly in my shaking and sweating hands, just to see if the class was looking and listening. They were, and they seemed to enjoy it! When I finished, they applauded so loudly! It was a room full of smiles and it felt amazing! Now, you can’t keep me from the stage; all thanks to Mrs. Jordan. That experience literally changed my life.

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

A: I want to rid this great work of ours of the incendiary bigotry, racism, sexism and elitism that runs rampant and silences so many beautiful, powerful and essential voices. I want more diversity on our stages not only in gender, ethnicity, and race, but also in content, style, and voice. I want theater producers, administrators, boards, artists, donors, patrons, and audiences to stop with all the nonsense, do better and be smarter! Plain and simple.

Q: How would you describe the DC theater scene?

A: Diverse, thriving, passionate, determined, brave, generous, eager, defiant, accomplished, and outstanding!

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: Interns! They are brave souls venturing forth into the world. Also, these playwrights: Amparo Garcia Crow, John Guare, Adrienne Kennedy, Terrence MacNally, Ruth Margraff, Arthur Miller, Lynn Nottage, Harold Pinter, Jose Rivera, Sarah Ruhl, and Tennessee Williams. These playwrights cracked open my heart and changed my world view. I am not the same for having encountered their writing, vision, passion, and devotion to theater. I am grateful to them.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: Theater that is magic. That provokes and pushes boundaries. That poses difficult questions. That reflects the human condition. That shows us how awful and beautiful we can be to one another ...and that we have a choice in how we behave. That uses powerful and provocative language. That introduces us to interesting and compelling characters. That is intimate, funny, honest, scary, ugly, messy, poetic, and beautiful. Theater, that while ephemeral, remains with you forever.

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

A: Be bold, honest, and determined. See as many plays and readings as you can. Make friends with other theater artists. Talk, argue, complain, yell and cry to them about the kind of work you want to be creating, the kind that isn’t being created where you live, and then go create it. Honor and protect your writing time. Don't ever stop writing!

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  My lovely website: www.jacquelinelawton.com

August 5, 2012 from 11:30am to 1:00pm: Staging Strife and Solidarity: Black-Jewish Relations in American Drama at the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) annual conference with Kwame Kwei-Armah (Artistic Director, Centerstage), Jacqueline E. Lawton (The Hampton Years/Theater J commission), Ari Roth (Artistic Director, Theater J), and Gavin Witt (Associate Artistic Director, CenterStage), moderated by Faedra Chatard Carpenter (Assistant Professor, University of Maryland) and LaRonika Thomas (Doctoral Candidate, University of Maryland).

World Premiere of The Hampton Years at Theater J under the direction of Shirley Serotsky with performances running May 29th to June 30th, 2013.

I Interview Playwrights Part 462: Nastaran Ahmadi

Nastaran Ahmadi

Hometown:  Nashville, TN

Current Town:  Brooklyn, NY

Q:  What are you bringing to the Orchard Project?

A:  I hope to finish a draft of Rocket Song, which is inspired by Patti Smith's book "Just Kids". The play is about a singer/songwriter duo and incorporates a lot of original songs and music, which is not familiar territory for me, so the writing of this piece has been an exciting venture into the unkown.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  I'm working on a couple of plays, both in very nascent stages, that I'm writing under working titles The Bet and Brothers. The first is very loosely inspired by Chekhov's short story of the same name, and the second is about a pair of Iranian brothers who are living in England circa 1950 and the Iranian-American woman who tries to write a play about them in America circa now. I'll work on one of these scripts in the Fall of 2012 when I'm in residence at Oregon Shakespeare Festival's Black Swan Lab. And, I started writing my first feature length screenplay recently, which is proving to be a thrilling ride. I also just finished writing fifteen pages of what I'm pretty sure is the beginning of a web series called "Under Appreciated".

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 seven years old (or perhaps five, or six), I became aware of a thing called Christmas wherein children receive toys for no apparant reason by one Santa Clause on a day in late December. We had no such day at my house, so I set about to correct this injustice. I called in the cavalry in the form of my best friend, Courtney, who came over to tell my parents that there should be a tall green tree in the middle of the living room, and they should buy toys and wrap them up and place them underneath said tree in the middle of the night while my sister and I were asleep. And the next morning, we would all wake up, go to the tree, note the presents and thank Santa Clause for the bounty that my parents had supplied. Courtney instructed us not to acknowledge that my parents were the real givers of these delights, for that would "mess the whole thing up". So, we went to wherever you go to buy a big plastic green tree (the same tree we would re-use for this event for the next ten years) and brought it home. Courtney came over to help us decorate, which seemed more like a chore than a delightful family event. And there it was, in the middle of the living room, Christmas. I patted myself on the back for a job well done, and went off with Courtney to eat pixie sticks and watch Jem and the Holograms, or Knight Rider, or both. I can't remember what I got for that first year of Christmas, but I remember the pride I felt for having ushered America gently into our fray without dismantling the household my parents had worked hard to build. I think that explains a bit about who I am as a writer and as a person. I like to bring people new perspectives, new lenses with which to see the world, but I won't ask you to toss the ones you already have.

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

A:  Does anyone answer this question with anything other than something having to do with money? I'd make it less expensive to produce plays. I'd make more opportunities for production for all the plays that are developed into a state where production is the next logical step and then get forgotten because there are a fifty plays vying for three or four emerging writer production slots. Being in production is the way a writer hones her craft; it's how she learns how her craft is different from another writer's; it's how she completes the journey of her authority over her voice and her story, and it's also how she learns to let go of the play. And I'm actually a firm believer in developing a play, as long as it's being developed towards production. If I could change the fact that so many playwrights find their plays lingering in post-development purgatory, I would.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Polly Carl is my most recent theatrical hero. She wrote this, and in writing that she put her finger on why I feel so underrepresented in the world that supposedly embraces me and my voice. She also put her finger on why it's so difficult to get established institutions to shake off their pre-conceived notions of what journeys their audiences are willing to take. I read her post and felt like the conversation I'd been waiting for us all to have had finally begun. Other heroes include, but are not at all limited to: Edward Albee, Anton Chekhov, Caryl Churchill, John Guare, Naomi Iizuka, Sarah Kane, Lisa Kron, Simon McBurney, Lynn Nottage, Lisa Peterson, Harold Pinter, Wallace Shawn, Sam Shepard, and on, and on, and on.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I'm excited by theater that shifts my heart from whatever position it's in to a new one, while simultaneously taking me on an intellectual journey through a world that vibrates with all the realness of the one where I live, but presents a new paradigm for living that I've never thought to invent before. That kind of story can take the shape of a monologue play on a bare stage, or it can be an athletic event - if you make it bold and specific and scary and funny and thrilling and enervating and brave, then I'm all in.

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

A:  Write. Keep writing. Write more. Every play is a building stone, and you are making a castle. Read. Read plays. Read novels. Read poetry. Read the news. Apply to things. Apply to things repeatedly.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Watch out for a workshop of Rocket Song in the Fall of 2012!

I Interview Playwrights Part 461: Max Posner

photo by Kate Owen

Max Posner

Hometown: Denver, Colorado

Current Town: Brooklyn, New York

Q:  Tell me about the play you'll work on with P73.

A:  The play is called SNORE & OTHER SORTS OF BREATHING. It's a play about a large group of young people, and it takes place at each of their birthday parties over one year. All of them are pursuing "the common good" professionally - working for non-profits, NGO's, immigration law firms. They're breaking up with each other and visiting foreign countries and are very blessed to be very educated. This play is about the difficulty of evolving, together, as an organism of friends, trying to keep relationships the same and do everything "right", whatever that means.

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 was 11 and followed my sister into her "Creative Dramatics" class. I gathered a grain of courage and went onstage to improvise a scene. Boldly, I decided I was going to be a Pickpocket. The girl I was onstage with was wearing an unusually long T-Shirt. Down to her ankles. In order to "pick" her "pocket", I would need to pull her shirt up. I did. The teacher gasped. Then, the squawking and blushing and insta-gossip of our pubescent peers. I urinated in my cargo pants. My face was very hot. I sat in the men's room alone, legs soaked. It was a terrible, thrilling feeling. I had to go back into that room, I had to tell them I peed myself, perhaps I would say I was sorry, or perhaps I would shout that I wasn't sorry. Those gut feelings: humiliation, agony, and hope - these are the things I'm most interested in.

I took things very seriously as a child, which meant I was laughed at quite often by my own family. I wore shoes that were way too big because they felt right. I would trip down the stairs. I wanted to go to clown college. I've always been interested in accidents, and therefore theatre.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Samuel Beckett, Wallace Shawn, Maria Irene Fornes. My mentors and teachers: Erik Ehn, Lisa D'Amour, Bonnie Metzgar, Paula Vogel, Greg Moss.

Adrienne Rich, Frank O'Hara. I read poetry, and I think it really informs how I think about plays, because it makes room for multiple meanings. The same poem completely transforms depending on where and when and how it hits you.

Also, this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmO_0tIGo-4

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theatre that isn't sure what it's imitating, that asks us to learn how to watch it.

I like plays where people don't fully understand each other or themselves. I like plays that really do express the giant sadnesses and wishes and loves of their writers and collaborators. Plays that don't stare too directly into what they are About, because there is a certain mystery or a certain chase we're leaning into. Plays where conflict exists within characters, as much as it exists between them.

I also like to Laugh - to laugh when laughter might be inappropriate, to laugh in multiple directions, as a reflex and a celebration, because something is funny and happening on the body-level.

Q:  Plugs:

A:  There's gonna be a reading of my play THE THING ABOUT AIR TRAVEL at Williamstown Theatre Festival on August 10th, directed by Kerry Whigham.

And stay tuned for more Page 73 presentations in the fall!