I Interview Playwrights Part 485: Gina Femia

Gina Femia

Hometown: Brooklyn

Current Town: Brooklyn- currently the same house I grew up in

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I'm currently finishing up a new play that I've been developing in Crystal Skillman's class at Sam French called We Are the Gods, which I'm really jazzed about. It's definitely the biggest play I've ever worked on, with Greek gods falling from the sky and landing in a post-apocolyptic world where men have become extinct because Hera stole them from Zeus. It's just a little epic. Surprisingly, it's also a coming of age story about growing up in a hopeless time.

I'll also be participating in Write Out Front: A Playwright Happening which Micheline Auger is curating. It's an amazing event where playwrights are given time to write in the storefront of the Drama Book Shop while having their work projected on a screen behind them so people passing by can see what they're working on. It's a brilliant event; not only does it bring awareness to what a playwright needs, it will show what the playwright does. There's no escaping us!

And I'm working on my solo show, Happily Never Ever, which I'll be performing as a part of the Estrogenius festival in the fall. It's basically about a freaks show where all the "freaks" involved are fairy tale characters with both real and imagined "deformities"; for example, Rapunzel is the bearded lady while Beauty is the see-through woman.

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 in kindergarten, I always wanted to play with the legos during play-time, but the teacher would only let the boys play with them, probably because they weren't pink. I hate pink. I was really disinterested in playing house and too shy to make friends anyway, so I'd wander over to the round table in the corner that had packets of white paper stapled together and plenty of thick markers. I couldn't draw words yet, but I wrote stories anyway. I didn't let that minor detail stop me from having fun.

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

A:  I'd have people go to see theater in the same way they go see movies and I would have them be funded in the same way sports get funded. Everybody needs theater; I just wish they knew that.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  I'm definitely inspired by the now, the playwrights and theatremakers of today who will become the legends of the future and I'm fortunate that there are so many (in no order)-

Crystal Skillman, Daniel Talbott, Erik Ehn, Dael Orlandersmith, David Adjmi, Jordan Harrison, Lucy Thurber and Cassandra Medley. Susan Bernfield and New Georges. And Stephen Adley Guirgis. The game changed when I saw Jesus Hopped the A Train.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Anything that breaks the boundaries of what is possible while telling a story.

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

A:  Don't wait; just do. Write on the subway. Have a reading in your living room. Buy the $1.00 deli coffee for 3 months instead of Starbucks' and spend what you save to rent a rehearsal room for 8 hours, grab a bunch of actors and jam on your script. Cry when you're sad, smile when you're happy or else you'll go crazy. And always be sincere, sincere to other people and sincere to yourself and the stories you want to tell and the theater you want to create.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Write Out Front: A Playwright Happening will start August 13th and run through September 1st. There are 70 playwrights participating and you can find all the information as it unfolds here.

I Interview Playwrights Part 484: D.W. Gregory

D.W. Gregory

Hometown: Lititz, Pa.

Current Town: Washington, D.C.

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  Revising A Grand Design, a dark comedy inspired by the sniper shootings of a decade ago and waiting for the composer of a new musical to crank a few more songs so we can set up a workshop.

Q:  How would you characterize the D.C. theater scene?

A:  It’s grown a lot since I came down here in 1991, a lot of young talent moving into the area and new companies springing up. Dog and Pony, Flying V, Pinky Swear are some of the newest, doing exciting new work. The Capital Fringe Festival infused a real sense of energy and purpose into the scene, I think, raising the profile of Washington as a theatre town. The city is still dominated by a few large companies that rake in the bulk of the funding and are reviewed on page one of the Post’s Style section, while the rest have to fight for attention. But it does seem to me there is a gradual movement towards more opportunities for local playwrights, which I find encouraging. Theatre J, for example, has launched its Locally Grown initiative---and that’s a real boost to have a theatre of that size and caliber taking a serious look at local talent.

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

A:  Sexual abuse at the hands of my oldest brother. The disconnect between what I knew of my own experience and what certain family members insisted my experience was became a powerful influence in my life and ultimately my work. I was essentially raised to lie to myself; becoming a writer was about unwinding the lies to find a truth. It wasn't until I was able to face my experience as a child that I found my voice as a writer. And now it’s the drive behind every play I write, to wrestle with a problem or a question and make sense of it, to arrive at the truth of something. There is a lot of power in the need to conceal, to rewrite history, or remake facts to fit the stories we tell about ourselves. Finding a way to blow all that apart is great drama.

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

A:  The fact that Americans don’t believe it is worth supporting through public funding. We’re the only country in the Western world that expects the arts to compete as if they are businesses. They’re not. They never can be. They exist to nourish the soul, not to make money, and we should value that. Unfortunately, many Americans do not.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  When I started to write plays I lived in upstate New York where the local library had scant offerings, but they stocked the major writers of the 1950s. So I read Inge, Miller, and Williams, which I guess is not a bad foundation. When I got into graduate school, the world opened for me and I discovered the Greeks, I read Marlowe for the first time, I stumbled onto Caryl Churchill and Irene Fornes, and I found a delightful and overlooked contemporary playwright named Mary Gallagher, and the biggest influence of all--Bertolt Brecht. But I have eclectic tastes. I’d always loved Chekhov but never fully appreciated him until I tried to teach a course in dramatic literature and found myself face to face with a roomful of undergraduates who thought he was a bore. And it was my challenge to show them how funny The Cherry Orchard really is. Chekhov was right when he said it was a comedy.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theatre that breaks away from naturalism without surrendering story or character. Something that is structurally inventive but emotionally wrenching. Theatre that goes to the heart, that is unabashedly lacking in cynicism without being the least bit cloying. Dramas that don’t blink. Comedies that kick you in the gut while you’re not looking.

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

A:  This advice is borrowed from Ira Glass. Be prepared to suck. Learning to write well requires a long, long apprenticeship. Mastering the form takes literally years and it takes a long time to find your voice and your style.

As for me, I would say the earlier you start, the better, but no matter when you start, give yourself five years before you write anything worth showing to a theatre. Don't try to get your stuff produced right away. Join a group or hire a tutor and write crappy plays. Write a lot of them, keep a journal, develop a keen eye for human foibles and a keen ear for natural language. Don’t underestimate the power of your own story, but don’t make playwriting your avenue for revenge or personal therapy. Nobody gives a shit what happened to you as a kid. Your job is to write plays so stunning that when I come to see them, I can’t get them out of my head; so make me stop and take a deep breath and think twice about something I never doubted before. Whether I laugh or cry, make me pay attention and never, never let me off the hook. You are not writing to make me feel good, you are writing to reveal the world to me in a way I never saw it before. You can't do that unless you are willing to go there yourself and bleed along with your characters.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Coming up in October, Salvation Road, a drama about a boy whose life is turned upside down when his sister gets involved in a religious cult. Opens October 26 at New York University’s Steinhardt School, followed by a production in November at Walden Theatre in Louisville, Kentucky, and a production at Seton Hill University, Greensburg, Pa., in April 2013.

I Interview Playwrights Part 483: Samantha Macher

Samantha Macher

Hometown: Leesburg, VA

Current Town: Los Angeles, CA

Q:  Tell me about War Bride.

A:  WAR BRIDE is my newest play. It was written for and developed with the SkyPilot Theatre Company of Los Angeles where we exclusively mount world premieres of new work written (mostly) right here in town by our ten company playwrights.

Our Official Synopsis (because I can't give too much away): Controversy erupts in a small California town in 1945 when a local hero returns from World War II with his Japanese bride.

We open on August 11th and run through September 16th, Saturdays and Sundays at 8pm and 7pm (respectively) at TU Studios, 10943 Camarillo Street NORTH HOLLYWOOD, CA 91602

Tickets available at skypilottheatre.com

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  Presently, I am working on a film project with the Three Affiliated Tribes of North Dakota. Though we are unsure what form this project will take, I am helping them structure, and then writing a full-length film that will tell the story of Cpl. Nathan Good Iron, an American-Indian soldier who died fighting for the US in Afghanistan on Thanksgiving of 2006. The goal of the project is to educate non-native audiences about the military sacrifices made by a people historically oppressed by the country they fight for.

Coming up in 2012-2013 I will be traveling around opening some of my plays in Clarksville, TN at Fronkensteen Theatre Company, and in St. Louis MO, at Tesseract Theatre Company. After that, I may possibly head back east to Virginia to do some directing projects with the New Works Initiative sponsored by the Playwright's Lab at Hollins University. I may also do some directing here in LA this fall, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for that too.

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

A:  Well, I suppose I can start by saying I've always been a drama geek. Fascinated with performance and stage, I did everything I could to always be in or around it. Whether it was being in choir, or being in a ska band (briefly), I always enjoyed expressing myself through the performing arts. When I did theater though, I really enjoyed it the most. I always felt at home, and I always felt like I was doing something important.

Needless to say that when during my senior year in high school, our drama teacher decided to indefinitely postpone our fall musical for one reason or another (probably budget), I was FURIOUS. So, in my fury, I sat down and just WROTE the fucking (fifteen-minute) spring musical. Then, cast all my friends, went into rehearsal, and after pestering the powers-that-be, performed it in front of everyone.

What was beautiful about that experience that I take with me even now, is that I wasn't the only one who wound up writing a play in reaction to the loss of that performance opportunity. It was couched in a festival of three new student works that ere all written in a reaction to losing our show. That was the best part.

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

A:  Theater needs to be relevant to their audiences. If more theaters and theater-artists considered their audiences more carefully, they would be able to sustain themselves. That said, I'm not suggesting that every theater in America needs to be doing a hit Broadway musical, or needs to pack a season with light comedies for the sake of ticket sales, but if you're going to present an audience with challenging work, make it a dialogue rather than a lecture. Figure out a way to engage your audience so they're excited to support you. If you start a conversation with your audience about your work, especially new work, they're often eager to talk to you about it. Those conversations can potentially make the one-time theatergoer into a consistent, passionate audience member. That makes for happy collaborators all around.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  1. Todd Ristau, the head of the Playwright's Lab at Hollins University is probably my biggest theatrical hero. He is a champion of new work, a fantastic playwright/director/actor/producer, a networker of epic proportions and an amazing and insightful professor. I'm not sure how he finds time for sleep.

2. Lady-playwrights all over America, but specifically in Los Angeles. Less than 20% of all plays being produced in the greater LA area right now are written by female authors (www.lafpi.com). Working against those odds is tremendously challenging, and often disheartening, so I give so much credit to the women who get up every day and fight those odds.

3. Otherwise, my theatrical heroes are my genius actors, my wonderful directors, my visionary producers and designers, my completely brilliant playwright friends... basically anyone who has ever invested their time and energy into my little plays.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Anything that is not boring. That's a loose definition, but I don't really know what excites me 'til I see it.

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

A:  There's a home for every play somewhere, you just need to find the right collaborators and the right audience.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Come see my play, WAR BRIDE!

Roles for (non-twenty year old) women are far too few in American theater, and this play has two leading ladies, and a strong ensemble of female actors and dancers. We have also authentically cast both Japanese and American actors and dancers, filling a gap in the Asian acting community.

Check out our trailer... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OwAM45Db5M

...Then buy your tickets at:
www.skypilottheatre.com !

Also, I'd like to take the opportunity to plug the best playwriting program in all the world: The Playwright's Lab at Hollins University.

http://www.hollins.edu/grad/playwriting/index.html

Then, I'd like to take a second to entice you to take a stand against discrimination in the arts. Support the Los Angeles Female Playwrights Initiative.

http://lafpi.com/the-study/

Finally, I formally invite you to check out Original Works Publishing if you'd like to read my play THE ARCTIC CIRCLE *and a recipe for Swedish Pancakes
http://www.originalworksonline.com/arcticcircle.htm

Or YouthPLAYS Publishing if you need a charmingly irreverent Christmas comedy for your high school this year.
http://youthplays.com/plays/view/199/UnHoly_Nite

HLF opens tonight!

My play Hearts Like Fists opens tonight in L.A.  and runs until Sept 1.

I Interview Playwrights Part 482: Laura Maria Censabella

Laura Maria Censabella

Hometown: Born in Brooklyn, grew up in Queens, NY.

Current Town: Now live in Brooklyn.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I have an Ensemble Studio Theatre/Sloan Foundation Commission to write a science-based full length play. The science I am working with concerns the biochemistry of romantic love, which, of course is very fun to work with. And yes, there is real science behind 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 mother suffered from PTSD from growing up in Northern Italy during World War II. My grandmother did dangerous work to fight Fascism and help the partisans, and she was almost killed in front of my mother several times. In order to exorcise those demons, my mother was given shock treatment in the 1970s. The shock treatment did almost nothing for the PTSD but it did deprive my mother of language for a while. Before the treatments she spoke English and her native Italian. After them, she could only speak in basic sentences in both languages. It was a tragedy for her as she was extremely sensitive and wanted to have the words to express how she felt. She often turned to me to provide the language for her thoughts. It was a profound and scary responsibility for a 12 year old, and yet, when I did manage to capture the nuance of something she felt, her gratefulness was rewarding. I believe, without being conscious of it then, that that was the beginning of my vow to give voice to people who have no voice.

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

A: More slots for productions! All theatres have such limited seasons these days.

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: When I was a child, the only women playwrights I was exposed to were Lillian Hellman and Lorraine Hansberry. Both of them wrote such passionate, engaged plays. I didn't dream of becoming a writer then, no one in my working class neighborhood wrote so it wasn't even in the realm of possibility, but their sensibilities inform my work.

Of course, I have many more writer heroes such as Arthur Miller, Caryl Churchill, Thornton Wilder, Horton Foote, etc.

And then there is Romulus Linney. I am currently writing this from the Sewanee Writers' Conference where I presented a 15-minute tribute to Romulus. Romulus had probably the most profound influence on me because I knew him for 24 years. Our friendship began when I was just starting out and we both had productions at the Philadelphia Festival Theatre for New Plays in the same season. Through his struggles, honesty and willingness to keep working in even the smallest venues, I arrived at a new definition of what success means in this art form.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: Truthful theatre. Theatre that takes emotional risks. Theatre that is emotional. And there must be a story. I'm fine with fracturing that story, or finding innovative ways to tell that story, but to me storytelling is the greatest art, we absolutely need stories to live and that's what I come to the theatre to see.

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

A: James Baldwin said: "To be a great writer, find what you're most scared of and run straight toward it." That about says it all.

Q: Plugs, please:

A: Here are some links to my work on the web.

The first is the trailer for my short film "Last Call."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iddWgx4EwT0&feature=plcp

Here is the link to the Ensemble Studio Theatre's Playwrights Unit, which I run:

http://ensemblestudiotheatre.org/programs/playwrights-unit/

Clown Bar

My play Clown Bar which was produced last year as part of Cino Nights is now available for sale as an e-book for the low low price of $1.29.  It works with all e-readers.  You can find it here:

http://www.indietheaternow.com/Play/PlayDetail/272

Description: A clown noir play about a former clown named Happy who has returned to the seedy underground crime world to find his brother’s killer.