A: I'm working on three new projects: TWO ROBERTS: a pirate-blues project, loosely based one the lives of Roberto Cofresî—a Puerto Rican pirate from the 1820s, and Robert Johnson—the Delta blues master of the 1930s, and the tale of each man selling his soul to the Devil; A new play based on Chekhov's THREE SISTERS, entitled TO DIE IN MOSCOW, more about how and why it was written than about the actual play; & lastly a re-imagining of Petronius' Satyricon of 69a.d. and Fellini's 1968 film adaptation, about the fall of 21st C. America as it relates to the fall of Rome using the politicized reggaeton/rap/hip-hop of groups like Calle 13 and the movie music of Nino Rota, entitled SATYRICOÑO.
Q: Tell me, if you will, a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person.
A: In 1963 when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, I was in kindergarten. I remember running home after it was announced over the loudspeaker that our President had been shot— to tell my father that I knew who the killer was—"Pop, it was Johnson! He took his job and now he's the President." It was my first journey into the dark waters of conspiracy theory and the human psyche. And murder.
I thought it was the end of the world. How could the most important person in the country be murdered? I thought that only happened in my neighborhood in the Tremont section of the Bronx. I am still in mourning...
Q: If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?
A: Move it from the middle of the safety zone smack into the middle of oncoming traffic—
that is, I would like theater to take more risks—be less safe.
Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?
A: Maria Irene Fornés, my mentor and the greatest living playwright.
Samuel Beckett, the world's greatest curmudgeon playwright
Robert LePage, an amazing re-imagineer of theater
Q: What kind of theater excites you?
A: Brave, inventive work that dares to make the ugly beautiful.
Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?
A: Be true to your voice, don't listen to too many people, and allow your morality to guide your business choices.
And always be present for your first production of a play and keep writing until that play opens.
Don't be lazy or passive when it comes to Art.
Q: Plugs, please:
A: I am one of the judges for Pregones LBGT Asunción Festival of New Plays in June 2013.
I'm at the Goodman Theater's Festival Latino in collaboration with the Lark's Translation Project sponsored by the 16th Street Theatre with my translation of Gibran Portela's ALASKA, July 11-15, 2013.
I'll be teaching at the ATHE Conference in Orlando, FL, August 2013.
EL GRITO DEL BRONX will be performed at Brown University, Providence, RI, directed by Ken Prestininzi, Spring 2014.
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A: On being America’s oldest most-promising playwright.....Nah. As you know, things go in cycles--some years you plant, some years you harvest. Last year (2012) I had a couple productions and readings. This year so far has just been about the writing. Recently finished two scripts which have hung around for awhile--a dark comedy about the theatre (is there any other kind?), and a drama about marriage (is there any other kind?)--and then made the mistake of opening a computer file with 26 pages of something else I started years ago and would like to complete. Also have a lot of work to do this summer on a long-aborning project for Peter Ellenstein and the Inge Center, which will keep me from fixing an even longer-aborning script that has sat idle since a reading last December. None of these are getting productions, you understand--not yet anyway--but staying busy is the 50% I can control. You have to realize that I’m very much a regional theatre writer--that’s where all my work has been done, plus I don’t live in a place with a huge theatre community, and while I’d love to talk about my play over coffee on Eighth Avenue, the airfare is prohibitive--so whatever my network is, it’s far-flung and for the most part electronically-personal. That can make it difficult to stay motivated, let alone get work on stage, and I always say I’m about 6 months away from giving it up. The fact that I’ve been saying that every 6 months since late in the Reagan administration is thanks to that small-but-choice network that keeps asking “What are you working on now?”...., Anyway, because they won’t let me off the hook, and because I keep getting ideas (damn it), I’m starting to feel like I might finally know what I’m doing, and should probably shut up and get on with it. But only for another 6 months, and then I’m out.
Q: Tell me, if you will, a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person.
A: Sometimes I want a program bio that reads, “Richard Hellesen was not born into a family of struggling yet determined artists, who did not take him to Broadway shows as a child where a chance meeting with Arthur Miller did not lead to his graduate study at Yale School of Drama not.” I was merely a small, shy, red-haired, middle-class kid living in a California suburb, with a good childhood, a state college education, who never even saw a professional play until I was in high school. The only hint of my future was a love of words--lots of them--and an inclination to pretend, which were the refuge and eventual release from my shyness, and are still about the only skills I have now that I’m a small, less-shy, grey-haired, middle-class kid living in a California suburb. That and the fact that nobody--nobody--works harder than me (nobody!) in rehearsal. Probably out of fear. OK--love and fear--there’s the story: in junior-high I was the guy that somebody would engage in conversation, while unbeknownst to me somebody else was crawling behind me. And then the first guy would push me over backwards. Writing is engaging in the conversation--which, thank God, I had teachers encouraging (to the point of producing early efforts), and I learned to love being in a room with actors and in the back of the theatre with an audience, which is the only reason to write plays. But I’m also pretty sure while I’m standing there that somebody is crawling behind me....
Q: If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?
A: I’m guessing the other 500+ people have covered many of the things I’d change, but OK. This will sound self-serving, being (as I am) in my incredibly late 30s--but since all playwrights are somewhat self-serving anyway (“produce anybody else but me!”, said no playwright ever), here goes. It’s the same thing I’d change about American popular culture in general: its tendency to overpraise the new, the young, the “hot” as the salvation of the art, at the expense of artists who are none of the above--and then repeat the process about every half-generation. Which is not at all to denigrate young talent; merely to say that if art is a lifelong journey--and I believe it is--then there are things you do not know, questions you cannot ask, abilities you haven’t yet refined, until you’ve hiked a pretty good distance up the mountain. It’s no challenge, in my opinion, to find people who want to write plays when they’re 17 or 27--they’re always there, and they’re happy to get the theatrical equivalent of pats on the head and doggy treats. The challenge is to make sure they (and I mean any writer willing to walk the walk) are still wanting and eager and able to write for the theatre when they’re 37, 47, 57--the decades when the very life that’s giving you something more and deeper to write about runs repeatedly into abundant reasons to quit. By all means, we absolutely have to nurture a younger generation of artists--that is indeed the future, and certainly why many of us teach. (OK, pay and benefits too, but I digress...or not...) And I know that professional theatre is always about who gets to play ball and who doesn’t, and who decides. But some great works only come with time, and I would regret our losing--or neglecting--the means to make them happen. (Let’s see, “The Vikings at Helgeland” or “Hedda Gabler”? Anyone? Anyone?)
Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?
A: Strangely, since I think I’m fairly conventional, I admire playwrights with a vision of their own--who kept after it, often imperfectly, regardless of the opinion of others, regardless of success or failure, over their entire lives, struggling to create what they had to create because that’s who they were. And while I know this applies to many of my contemporaries, for some reason I have a hard time thinking of them as heroes just yet, though I do love and admire them. Maybe because my degree was in theatre history, I lean toward the past--and that includes writers whose end of the theatre I might be lumped into, those who are about as far away from what I write as you can get, and in both cases people who wrote some things I don’t even like. Ibsen. Chekhov. O’Neill. Beckett. In my adult lifetime, August Wilson above all. I’ll never get closer to them than sitting at a very great remove from their feet, but they remind me of the highest aspirations in a craft that I’m swamping around in--and that’s plenty.
Q: What kind of theater excites you?
A: Funny: I don’t think in terms of being Excited! about theatre anymore--I think in terms of being moved. Which I’m sure says more about me than either theatre or excitement, and anyway I suppose being moved is a form of excitement, so.....I enjoy anything that moves me, intellectually and/or emotionally--I don’t care if it’s classical, contemporary, word-based, movement-based, drama, comedy, musical, realism, non-realism, intensely kinetic or intensely literary. Whatever, and by whomsoever made--as long as it’s truthful. Sometimes I think we get so amped up about form that we’re willing to give content a pass. I did literary management for a number of years, and the most irritating plays I read (as with any number I’ve seen produced) were the ones that were basically very slick and well-written lies--either something somebody wrote because they were trying to show how clever or cool they were, or because they had a Point to Make and were going to By-God Make It even if it meant pitching honesty in characters and action over the side. (And there’s no shortage of people in the theatre happy to abet both.) For me, given the abundance (willing! reveling in it!) of falsity in our world, I simply want to witness engrossing moments of recognizable human truth, things I knew were true but forgot until the play reminded me--and if possible to be allowed to feel genuine emotion in doing so. And that is not the property of any age, race, gender, or theatrical form--but by the same token, no age, race, gender or theatrical form is absolved of the obligation to provide it. But that’s just me.
Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?
A: Assuming you’ve exhausted all other possibilities for a healthy and happy life:
Take an acting class. Take another one.
Crew a show.
Read every play you can, and go to every production you can--they all have something to teach you, even (especially?) the bad ones.
And for every play you read, read something that isn’t a play.
Find a significant other who, when asking why you’re staring out a window, believes you when you say “I’m working.” Then reward their belief.
Live in a place with an actual theatre community. If you can’t, start one. If you can’t, be one.
And then don’t sequester yourself with nothing but artists for friends. Live in the world.
What Mom said about writing even though it was about broccoli: you won’t know if you don’t try it.
Sorry, but the real work starts with the rewrite. Might as well get there as quickly as you can.
Yes, you can stop for a muffin.
The work of others is a gift beyond measure. Learn to collaborate or go home.
That said: tell the truth as you understand it, and stick up for it.
And if you do stay for awhile: get over yourself as soon as you can. Your job, in the end, is to disappear, and leave a piece of charged life behind.
Trust the audience above all. But only in performance--never in a post-show discussion...
Don’t judge the road--of your play or your career--by the part of it you can see today; both are a long walk through all kinds of weather. Left foot, right foot, left foot, breathe.
And rejoice. You get to write!
Q: Plugs, please:
A: Nothing to plug. Just a bio. But if you want to do any of my work...!
A: I’m so proud and scared of it. I read this book about the inner workings of the Brecht Machine called Brecht & Co., by John Fuegi. Much of the book is shockingly personal stuff about Brecht, which I love finding out about. I love being reminded that adored, historical figures were gross and weird and sexual. Fuegi claims that Brecht’s female lovers were more than just contributors, but that they actually wrote some of his best plays for him, in their entirety, never getting credit or money. True or not, I saw such tragedy in this. I also related to falling in love with a charismatic theater guy, (which has happened to every woman and man in the theater. They’re the most exciting relationships, but often the most dangerous and destructive.) So I focused my playwriting on two of the women I most related to, Elisabeth “Bess” Hauptmann and Margarete Steffin. Requiem For Black Marie is about them. It’s told in seventeen quick, tense, darkly funny scenes directed skillfully by Shannon Sindelar. There’s also a musical score running under the whole play by a live band. The play exists in what I see as one of the most exciting eras for theater, the Weimar Republic in Germany, those few years before Hitler took power in 1933 and right before the Brecht team (some of them) fled to America. So there’s a sense of impending doom shrouded around the playwriting, staging and characters. The Brecht team and community made theater under threat of death, constantly searched by police. Some were executed, some died in camps, some simply disappeared. But yet, making theater was still the priority for them. It was a compulsion, as it is for us now. That’s what this play is about.
Q: What else are you working on now?
A: I’m really excited for the play I’m going to write this summer after Requiem closes, which is a Civil War play inspired by a lingering fact I learned while in Mexico: Ancient Mayan women who died in childbirth were buried with the same ceremony as Mayan warriors who died in battle. So I’m exploring this ancient parallel between death in childbirth and death in war. Key to the play’s structure is the fact that it took a letter three weeks to be delivered during the worst years of the war. This lag time in information I hope will lend itself to a distorted narrative, which I’ve never really played with. I’m going to attempt to write this using the broken and sometimes indecipherable language of real Civil War letters, fictionalized between a husband and wife. I tried writing this play a few months ago and it was really bad (I often, unknowingly, write a terrible version of a play first, realize it’s terrible, get really depressed about it, then start over months or even years later. Requiem for Black Marie was, back in 2009, a clunky, soap opera-ish, unwieldy and pretty terrible thing. I discarded like 98% of it). Hopefully going to have the Civil War play up in the fall or winter, be it self-produced or not.
Q: Tell me, if you will, a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person.
A: This might actually be one of my first memories: I was in preschool, maybe 4 or 5 years old. I must have been staring into space, deep in thought. All I remember is Karen, my preschool teacher, gently shaking my shoulder saying, “Sara, Sara, come back to us.” And I suddenly snapped out of my daydream and was back in the classroom. I remember feeling really embarrassed and bad that my teacher had caught me absorbed like that. I’ve never thought about this until just now as I write this, but that, in a nutshell, is how I am. I’ll lose myself a lot in daydreams, fantasy, romance, rehearsal, performance, writing, anything for a long stretch of time, but then I always somehow end up with a rude awakening. Thank God the theater allows for this. Personal life definitely does not.
Q: If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?
A: Probably excuses. That kind of covers all of it for me. Excuses from actors, playwrights, theaters, etc… it’s really just fear, I guess. Our time is so short! You ( I ) must stop making excuses why things can’t happen and remember: Theater artists are supposedly to be the wily ones, the ones who steal and don’t get caught, the ones brave enough to embarrass themselves, the ones who don’t take “no” for an answer ever, in any regard, about anything. I can’t believe it when theater artists play by anyone’s rules, institutionally, professionally, artistically. Or when they think there’s a science or a specific route to having a successful career in the theater or--- well, believe anything anyone tells them. I’d change people’s excuse-y attitudes. But I’m a victim of it too.
Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?
A: Firstly, my husband Reid Farrington, my ultimate theatrical hero, who, years ago, taught me to “make it work” no matter what it is, in both theater and life. Secondly, (and these I list in random order and for a wide variety of reasons): Mac Wellman, Constance Congdon, Erik Ehn, Eugene O’Neill, Antje Oegel, The Wooster Group, Samuel Beckett, Jeff Jones, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Megan Emery Gaffney, Frank Boudreaux, Erin Mallon, Alexandra Collier, Shannon Sindelar, Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov, Harold Pinter, Lisa D’Amour, David Jaffe, Michael Cadman, Marya Ursin, Rachel Jett.
Q: What kind of theater excites you?
A: If it’s rigorous, thoughtful, funny and moving and doesn’t involve audience participation, I’m excited. It doesn’t matter what kind of theater it is as long as it’s got that stuff.
Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?
A: I would say: I truly believe that making theater in the USA is privilege and not a right. Everything I do as a playwright, I “get” to do. This, I think will make you a happier artist. Something I heard once from a fellow playwright, “No one cares about your play.” Yep. So self-produce, self-promote, max out credit cards if you have to, rehearse/produce in your apartment, anything to make them care. (They still might not care, but at least they saw your play.) I would say: don’t decide to start a theater company, rather, decide to produce your play. I would say: don’t worry about being good, just strive to be good. This involves accepting your bad plays, big time. You can’t get better without failing, making terrible artistic moves and disappointing people. There’s a line from Slings and Arrows from the senior actors Frank and Cyril: “Don’t fret! You have lots of talent, you’ll have loads of success and a very long career. But at the end of it all you’ve got to have some spectacular cock-ups. Because then you’ll have stories! And then… you’ve had a life.” This line makes me tear up. Makes everything okay, makes everything worth it. I’d also say: Start a family at some point. Being an artist doesn’t exclude you from the big, cosmic parts of life. Don’t let financially stable people be the only ones allowing themselves to have kids. That’s not fair to the evolution of the human race. Finally I would say: Don’t ever be late to anything, don’t flake out, check and double check the calendar, say yes a lot, prioritize theater, see theater, spend money on theater even if you don’t have it, write from a personal place and, perhaps the most inspirational thing I heard recently from my dear agent, “Just keep doing what you do.”
Q: Plugs, please:
A: Get tickets online for my upcoming show, Requiem For Black Marie, (aka the Brecht play) which, for me, is about everything. DETAILS: June 13, 14, 15, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, all shows at 8pm, Incubator Arts Project. Tickets at incubatorarts.org. It’s written by me, directed by Shannon Sindelar and features: Megan Emery Gaffney, Erin Mallon, Caleb Hammond, Jocelyn Kuritsky, Wil Petre, Yuki Kawahisa, Natalie Mack, Tatiana Gomberg, Gavin Price, John Gasper. With set/lighting design by Cecilia R. Durbin, costume design by M. Meriwether Snipes, stage management by, R. S. Buck, video design by Reid Farrington, asst. diected by John Moriarty.
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Sunday afternoon I'm participating in Rattlestick's Theatre Jam with my short play, Sleep.
Then on Monday I have a reading for MCC Theater of Mercy, the play which was the first runner up for Yale's Horn Prize this year.
Details below.
THEATREJAM: Rattlestick Playwrights
Theater presents its fourth annual TheaterJam, a one-day festival
featuring the work of many of the company’s favorite playwrights, actors
and directors.
New works by Knud Adams, David Cale, Emily
Daly, Steve DiUbaldo, Halley Feiffer, Mira Gibson, Kathryn Hathaway,
Refiloe Lepere, Jonathan Libman, Mariah MacCarthy, Dael Orlandersmith,
José Rivera, Ren Santiago, Crystal Skillman, Adam Szymkowicz, Daniel
Talbott, Lucy Thurber, Torrey Townsend, Ken Urban, and more!
SUNDAY, JUNE 2nd, 2013 From 2PM to 10PM. At Rattlestick Playwrights Theater (224 Waverly Pl.)
FREE to the public! $10 suggested donation (cash only) includes a FREE BEER! All proceeds will benefit Rattlestick’s upcoming 2013-14 season!
Drink deep.
And long live the JAM!
1:30pm Doors open. Raffle tickets and beer on sale.
2pm Sleep by Adam Szymkowicz, directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel
Featuring: Emma Galvin, Pico Jogalla, Emily Perkins, and Marie Polizzano
2:15pm Pocketful of Favors by Emily Daly, directed by Jenna Worsham
Featuring: Lisa Jill Anderson, Brian Edelman and Elle Malan
2:30pm Old Flame by Mira Gibson, directed by Kel Haney Julie Fitzpatrick and Briana Posner, and others TBA
3pm FOREVER, written and performed by Dael Orlandersmith
3:30pm Sometime After Dinner by Daniel Talbott, directed by Sheri Barber
Featuring: Julie Kline and others TBA
4pm heading out, written and performed by Refiloe Lepere, directed by Dael Orlandersmith
4:15pm Accidents Waiting to Happen by Jonathan Libman, directed by Francisco Solorzano
Featuring: Carlo Alban, Nelson Avidon, and Audrey Esparza
4:30pm He's Enlightened by Ren Santiago, directed by Jenna Worsham
Featuring: Alexander Lambie and Lisa Purrone
5pm The Film Makers by Torrey Townsend, directed by Knud Adams.
Featuring: Neil D'Astolfo, Alex Herrald, and Laura Lassy
5:15pm Under the Water Tower by Steve DiUbaldo, directed by Jenna Worsham
Featuring: George West Carruth, Mikaela Feely-Lehmann, Brian Miskell, and Ren Santiago
5:30pm Dinner break.
6pm The Venting Room, written and directed by Kathryn Hathaway
Featuring: Emma Hathaway and Kathryn Hathaway
6:30pm “The Dolphins” from Deep in a Dream of You and “Where?” from The History of Kisses, written and performed by David Cale
6:45pm A piece by Crystal Skillman. Cast and director TBA.
7pm But Enough About Me by David Parr, directed by Dael Orlandersmith Featuring: Patrice Bell
7:30pm Edgar and Patrick by Ken Urban, directed by Jaclyn Biskup
Featuring: Andy Phelan and Gayton Scott
8pm A piece by Lucy Thurber. Cast and director TBA.
8:15pm The Avenging of Kruppcake by Mariah MacCarthy, directed by Christina Roussos
Featuring: Chet Siegel and Miranda Wilson
8:30pm The Highwayman, written and directed by Knud Adams
Music by Kate Hamilton and Nick Lerangis; Lyrics by Alfred Noyes
Featuring: Kate Hamilton and Nick Lerangis
9pm Another Word for Beauty written and directed by José Rivera
Featuring: Carlo Alban, Veracity Butcher, Danielle Davenport, and Vaishnavi Sharma
9:30pm Frank Amends by Halley Feiffer, directed by Brian Roff
Featuring: Robert Sella and Matt Stadelmann
MERCY:
MCC Theater in New York presents Mercy as part of Playlabs. Ethan McSweeney directs. Starring Susan Louise O'Connor, Greg Keller, Patch Darragh and TBA.
June 3
7pm
Lucille Lortel Theatre (121 Christopher Street).
The series is offered free of charge, but reservations are recommended. Reservations can be made by visiting www.mcctheater.org.
synopsis of Mercy:
Orville is grieving the vehicular manslaughter of his beloved
wife. When by chance he faces the driver who killed her, he begins an
agonizing conflict between revenge and forgiveness.
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Hometown: Falls Church, Virginia, a Washington, DC suburb.
Current Town: Summit, NJ, after living in NYC for 24 years.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I just finished a working draft of a new two-character comedy I'll be developing via a week's workshop at the Adirondack Theatre Festival in July. It's called The Bailey's Crossroads Opportunity School, and set in December 1959. A couple is teaching their first night school class on household finance as various calamities ensue. It's a challenge, not only because stylistically the material is almost all presentational, addressed to unseen students. But atypical of my work, it's gentle in tone, with a marriage at its center that has issues but isn't the usual proto-feminist Doll's House model, i.e. a husband threatened by a wife's intellect or prowess. I wanted to write about happy (enough) people, and like most period pieces I tackle, the script uses another era as a prism to look at some origins of current phenomena. The wife, the focus, is a kind of driven, entirely self-educated Suze Orman/Martha Stewart before her time, and for a change the husband is the supportive man behind the woman rather than the reverse.
Q: Tell me, if you will, a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person.
A: Though I'd like to conjure up an anecdote with humor and suspense, a specific snapshot is more defining. A vivid one, with me seemingly the observer. When I was maybe 8, my father took me to the barbershop on a spring Saturday for a pre-Easter trim. Waiting my turn in the crowd, I watched a mentally handicapped teenager there with his dad. The young man seemed to be getting his first adult haircut, the back of his neck coated with thick shaving cream, the barber suddenly brandishing a traditional straight razor. The boy gripped the armrests and froze. I remember how the hyper-protective father tried hard not to be excessively vigilant or instruct the barber. Of course he couldn't resist, and fretted visibly that his son might be terrified to feel the cold, sharp blade. He couldn't stop himself from reaching out, grabbing his son's hand. Yet within seconds, the boy demonstrated the opposite of the father's fear: rather than wince, still holding his dad's hand tightly, he blushed with pride; his whole face lit up. I couldn't stop watching what was a turning point, an overdue rite of passage exacerbated by the father's anxiety that his son couldn't handle a new experience. Yet it ended up a personal triumph for both men. On the sidelines, I was flooded with a powerful sense of heightened perception, but also an ineffable sadness, maybe for the first time hit with the knowledge that growing up would be about detaching, finding my own way some day. When I got home, I burst into tears, and sobbing, hid under my bed until my mother coaxed me out to learn what had so upset me. All through Easter the next day, a favorite holiday, I was unable to explain to baffled parents why a positive ritual observed between total strangers had so shaken me. If memory serves, I finally said "because they looked like poor people." Perhaps a quantifiable chasm between haves and have-nots seemed more tears-inspiring than an acute awareness of a subtle shift in a family dynamic. A couple of decades later, I smugly recalled this incident as a yardstick of my emotional IQ, empathetic antennae revealed at an early age. Look how I picked up all those vibes in other people! Now, I know better. The playwright in me is ultimately not interested in the unknown father and son. The story is the boy who had to hide under his bed. In my writing (and indeed my life) I've repeatedly, though at times unconsciously, explored that impulse -- what it means to be overwhelmed by unbidden emotion, sometimes burdened by it, and then to retreat from the weight of feelings. It's probably not only what I write but also why I write.
Q: If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?
A: I wish we practitioners would give up some of our cynicism about the audience. We parse material for its expected commercial vs. artistic appeal, pitched to "tourists" vs. these odd Others, learned aficionados who will "get" scripts because they're more savvy. In truth, many plays attract a diverse demographic. (Full disclosure: I recall a bus emptying on 45th Street, and after rudely assuming that that its riders were Lion King bound, watched them march eagerly into Other Desert Cities.) I was taught early on that "the audience is always right." I'm not sure I completely agree with that adage, but I have learned it's never always wrong. We too readily judge its members, and their supposedly homogeneous taste in a given venue. In the end they're entitled consumers. They want to embrace what they buy, whether on TDF the night before or a premium seat purchased months ahead. And we playwrights who've been through years of script development and weathered countless talkbacks can grow defensive. Yet we must never see those we seek to entertain as the enemy. I've made theater friends angry, but I say, if you don't trust and like the audience, don't try to write, act, design or direct for them.
Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?
A: Two writers spring to mind who have zero in common, never discussed in the same paragraph: William Inge and David Hare. Inge because he's a singular post-war American voice, a man unafraid to find drama in circumstances I once heard described as "the quotidian awfulness of things." He could draw powerful, loving portraits of people overwhelmed by that awfulness. A kitchen sink naturalist, he's usually maligned these days (though a brilliant director of the moment, David Cromer, made a persuasive case for deconstructing Inge's world in Chicago); yet I always feel his influence. And David Hare just inspires awe. He's fearless, scarily prolific, and writes about sociopolitical issues without sacrificing character and storytelling or reverting to agitprop, in plays operatic and epic in shape and scope. I remember seeing Plenty, stunned by the troubled woman's journey without initially understanding some of the stops along the way. His work nails the tangibles of history yet is filled with mystery about human responses to them. And the Stuff Happens production at the Public was to me a masterful staging of an under appreciated play, one that I hope is revived periodically over the next century to remind us what the hell happened in the early days of this decade.
Q: What kind of theater excites you?
A: Wildly different types, as my choosing Inge and Hare might suggest.
Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?
A: Don't be afraid to dig deeply into your own experiences, to excavate them fully. Not so much to write autobiographically, but to learn exactly how you respond to things. A Virginia Woolf quote comes to mind: “If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.”
Q: Plugs, please
A: June 6 - 15, Dolor, Flush Ink, Asphalt Jungle Shorts IX, Waterloo, Ontario June 12 - 23, Deflating, Stageworks/Hudson Play-by-Play, Hudson, NY June 13 - 23, Stalking Pollyanna, Theatre Artists Studio Summer Shorts, Phoenix, AZ June 20 - 22, The D Word, Theatre Madness, NYC July 28-29, The Bailey's Crossroads Opportunity School, Workshop, Adirondack Theatre Festival, Glens Falls, NY
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Current Town: I've moved around a lot, but I consider Dallas, TX my home base currently.
Q: Tell me about Dinosaur and Robot Stop a Train:
A: I have lately become really interested in old-school Theatre of the Absurd. You know, from the 1950s, with all those post-WWII playwrights like Beckett and Ionesco. They have been on my radar for years, but at the beginning of this year I had kind of a confluence happen. I finally sat down and read Martin Esslin's book. I also started reading some of Ionesco's book Notes and Counternotes (man, Ionesco originally did not dig theatre at all). I also saw a production of THE CHAIRS for the first time.
My good friend and colleague, and great local actor, Jeff Swearingen, performs in a longform improv duo with me. We've been kicking around ideas for a while to do some sort of two-hander together. These things all came together and I sat down over a two-week period and wrote DINOSAUR AND ROBOT STOP A TRAIN. It is my sort of contemporary take on Theatre of the Absurd with broad comedy, a bit of vaudeville, weird situations, that tinge of the tragic and most of all a flat-out dismissal of realism.
I use a dinosaur from the past and a robot from the future to explore the nature and wonder of purpose. It fits in nicely with the rest of my work, which always kind of touches on misfit characters who are totally out of place.
Q: Tell me about your comics.
A: Oh, thanks for asking about that. I used to draw comics when I was a kid. I wanted to grow up and make comics like Charles Schultz or Gary Larson, having them appear in newspapers through a syndicate. But I got into theatre in high school and the drawing sort of fizzled out. Besides a handful of comic strips published while I was in college, I let it totally fall by the wayside. Then in 2010, after reading a bunch of webcomics, I realized I could just self-publish on the internet. So, I launched a series called DONNIE ROCKET TOASTER-FACE. It is about a sort of Every Man character who, inexplicably, has a toaster for a face and rocket pack on his back.
I was doing a comic a week for the first year, but it has slowed to about one a month. I also recently began an experiment I'm calling an improvised comic. I sit down and just draw directly on the paper without any pencil roughs and without knowing where the story is going. It has been pretty fun so far. I think, indirectly, they have both helped my playwriting.
Q: What else are you working on now?
A: I'm ramping up for DINOSAUR AND ROBOT STOP A TRAIN. I'm producing it myself with my company Audacity Theatre Lab. I've also started writing a new solo show I hope to perform at fringe festivals next year. It is about this guy with anger issues who is haunted by a mysterious, eternal goldfish. I'm super excited about it.
I've also just started really trying to get my stuff out into world lately. I've been writing for years, but I'm just starting to dip my toe into things like fellowships, residencies, publication and all those other business things playwrights do in this country to get their work out there and part of the national conversation. I'm attending the TCG National Conference this year for the first time. It is here in Dallas and I'm excited about 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: This is a surprisingly difficult question. I can't remember stuff for crap. Oh hey, I was a birthday party clown when I was in my early teens. I called myself Frump. I only did a few parties and then some shows at the public library, but looking back on it, it combined a bunch of things I use all the time now... creating original material, producing the show myself, taking into consideration the playing space and audience, even performing solo.
Q: If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?
A: I'd like to see a lot more self-initiation. More creative rather than strictly interpretive artists. I had lunch with an actress friend a few years ago. She was pretty experienced and was talking about going on a slew of unsuccessful auditions. I asked her what she wanted as an actor and she said "to get jobs." I asked her if she considered herself an artist. She did. Then I asked what she wanted to say as an artist. She stared at me. What I meant was artists are people who express themselves in the world and as an actor she did this by choosing what roles she played, what themes and stories she championed. It was the first time she thought about her acting in that light.
I don't think playwrights should have a monopoly as the only creative, instigating artists in the theatre. I think directors, designers, actors and so on should create first hand. By that token, I also think playwrights should take full responsibility for their work from time to time and see it through all the way from idea to completion, rather than handing it off for others to do and interpret.
Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?
A: Peter Brook. Samuel Beckett. Ruth Draper. Shakespeare. Oh, can Walt Disney count? As far as contemporaries, I really dig the works of playwright Dan Dietz and monologuist Martin Dockery. Also Mickle Maher of Chicago's Theatre Oobleck.
Q: What kind of theater excites you?
A: I dig theatre that pushes the form, but doesn't take itself too seriously. I also get excited when I see really full-throated, super-committed, leave-it-all-on-the-floor theatre that has something genuine to say.
Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?
A: I'm kind of just starting out myself. Here are a few that have proven useful to me: Keep a notebook and don't let any idea - great or not so great - get away. Instead of writing what you know, which you'll do anyway since you are you, write the kind of theatre you want to see and experience. Take responsibility for your own work and produce it yourself from time to time. Get interested in the history and theory of theatre. See more theatre than you read. See a lot. Surround yourself with kick-ass collaborators. Don't be discouraged when the realization hits that it is really hard work to create theatre from scratch.
Q: Plugs, please:
A: DINOSAUR AND ROBOT STOP A TRAIN premieres at the 2013 Festival of Independent Theatres, June 7-22. Info HERE. DONNIE ROCKET TOASTER-FACE and other comics at DribbleFunkComics.com And, my website is a good gateway to what I'm up to at any given time... www.BradMcEntire.com
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