I Interview Playwrights Part 871: Niccolo Aeed

Niccolo Aeed

Hometown: New York City

Current Town: Still New York, I haven't managed to escape yet.

Q:  Tell me about Room 4.

A:  It's a weird one. Basically, four black actors keep auditioning for the same drug dealer role over and over until they realize they're stuck in a time loop. It's unpredictable, strange, and very funny.

Marina initially had the idea of several black actors in a waiting room wondering if a fourth was going to come or if he had booked a part in The Lion King. That those were the two options for these actors -- you were in The Lion King or you were going to try to book this bit crime TV show part. I'm not exactly sure where the time loop idea came from, but lately our writing has been more heightened and absurd. We've been writing more about ghosts and twilight-zone-type twists, and I think we were interested in doing something bizarre. At first maybe the time loop seemed interesting as a metaphor -- there's something about race in America that feels repetitive and cyclical, like we've had these conversations before but still done nothing about them. Then after that I think we were interested in seeing what it would be like to actually live in a time loop.

Marina and I are also generally thinking about what kind of stories we tell. Probably most people in theater or entertainment are, but it often feels like you're telling someone else's story. Maybe this is an inevitable part of writing or acting or directing, but the story you're hired to work on can feel untrue or at worst downright offensive. So we're definitely interested in artists' relationship to the thing they are performing, how it effects them or changes them or messes with their heads.

Q:  Tell me about your 6 month residency at the PIT.

A:  Marina and I started mostly doing sketch comedy. Our sketches were usually pretty short and not necessarily connected to each other. But in the past couple of years we've been interested in creating longer narratives, longer comedic plays. At the same time I think the People's Improv Theater was also having some success with more narrative shows, rather than the usual sketch and improv. So it came together at a great moment. The residency really allowed us to work on longer more complex stories while also applying the quick turn around of comedy. Though we had a little head start on the writing, by midway through the residency we really were writing a play a month. It was exhausting but it was a blast.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  We're very excited to continue to develop a number of the plays that we workshopped during our residency, so over this year and next we'll hopefully bring a few back. In addition, we'll of course be releasing new sketches online and we're developing a web series about an online dating site, and the people who are begging the site's customer service to solve all their relationship problems.

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 can't really think of a specific story. Sometimes when I think of where my humor comes from, I think it lands somewhere between Calvin and Hobbes, the Boondocks and The Far Side. I had all those comic strip collections and I never stopped reading them through middle school. Those three comic strips may have influenced my humor the most.

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

A:  It would pay me more money. I probably should say more diversity, but really I just want that money. Though come to think of it I probably can't get hired till there's more diversity, so maybe it's like a tie, more diversity and theater paying me more money.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  So many! The first theater company I remember loving when I was in high school was The Classical Theater of Harlem. It was the first theater company whose work made me realize what powerful things you could do with live theater. I still watch and love all the plays they make. In college I learned about Pig Iron Theater Company and I think the way they create work physically always seems magical to me. I'm in awe of the actors when I watch them. Once I saw a Shakespeare play they did, and a kid was in the audience -- he must've been younger than 10 years old. During intermission his dad asked him if he wanted to explain the plot to him, and the kid said no he was enjoying it as it is. Which is really incredible. That you can make shakespeare accessible and funny even for young kids who can't understand the language.

Recently as a playwright I've been in love with the plays Dominique Morisseau has been writing and I was blown away by Radha Black's Seed, which was partially written in this hip hop verse and it was so lyrical and flowing and incredible. Both of their work is just so powerful to watch and just makes me want to be a better writer.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I really like immersive theater, I know sometimes people get exhausted by it, but I always love it. Basically I love it when watching a play you feel like you could have only experienced this story in this way, with these actors in this exact moment.

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

A:  First write and find people to write with, I could never have written a word without Marina. Then find a stage that will allow you to put something up. The PIT has really been a blessing for us, it has allowed us to try some really fun things. Find actors who are game to help you develop new work. With the residency and this play we've worked with such talented people and having those actors develop characters with us has been so helpful to our writing.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  If you haven't seen our work before, check out our videos here:

http://www.marinaandnicco.com/ videos/

They're really good. You'll like them a lot!

Or check out our murder mystery radio show we wrote last year

http://www.marinaandnicco.com/ murder/

Or you can find it on iTunes or Stitcher. 


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I Interview Playwrights Part 870: Lucy Teitler

Lucy Teitler

Current Town:  Brooklyn

Q:  Tell me about your play Engagements, which just had an extended run at Second Stage Uptown.

A:  Engagements is a play about miscommunications and misreads, about the ways in which we all lie to ourselves – it kind of makes this big psychological claim that we lie to each other because we lie to ourselves, that denial is at the root of most bad behavior. It centers on a lovable destructive hurricane of mixed emotions and self-sabotage, Lauren, who adores her best friend, Allison, and thinks Allison is much too good for her boyfriend, Mark. Lauren’s also full of anguish and anxiety about the fact that she’s reached the age when everyone around her is getting married – the play takes place at a seemingly endless series of engagement parties – even though she herself doesn’t want to settle down and get married. So Lauren’s dealing with a lot of dark, serious, big issues, but she's not a person who's comfortable being vulnerable, so she insists on trivializing everything all the time '-- "it's not a big deal!" -- so she tries her hardest to make the play look like a light comedy, a romantic comedy, a Victorian tale of good people vs. bad people -- anything but an actual examination of herself! Because she just can't face what her story is actually about. The play plays along with Lauren and her denial, up to a point, when it won’t anymore, because Lauren can’t anymore. At that point, it stops being the comedy that Lauren wants it to be, and it becomes something else.

So ultimately, Engagements is about how we all think we’re in charge of the story that we’re in – and we all think that the story begins when our role in it begins – but we’re not in control.

Lauren is a PhD student in English, and one of the other characters, who becomes an observer and theorist about Lauren’s situation, is a PhD student in Comparative Literature, so the play calls out these ideas about storytelling in a playful way. The characters analyze literary characters for a living, but fail to correctly analyze themselves or each other in real time, in their own lives. The characters are readers of literature, and the audience is put in the position of being the reader of the literature that the characters are in – and, I may imply, the members of the audience must also be fools on their own stage, especially if they’re lying to themselves about their lives and their motivations. It was all inspired by my own recognition, when I was in graduate school, that I was writing about stories from this position of power, as a reader and a scholar, as an educated person, but that didn’t stop me from being a delusional fool in my own life a lot of the time, flapping around blind in the midst of other people’s illegible, buried motivations. And in a lot of ways that was a really dark feeling, and there’s a lot of twisted darkness in the play. But there’s also an acceptance, and that’s where some of the comedy comes from.... Some of the other comedy comes from the absurd situations into which Lauren's mistakes lead her.

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

A:  This is obvious, but I wish that theater tickets were cheaper, which would then make for a more diverse, younger audience. To be fair, there are a lot of efforts in this direction. Usually, if you’re organized and plan ahead, you can see a lot of things Off-Broadway for relatively cheap, but I guess – it’s been my experience, working in theater and also television and film, that people making theater think the most about the audience, about what kind of an experience they’ll have, about how it will uplift and edify and challenge and seduce them. Everyone making art thinks about these things, of course, but I think it’s just the nature of the immediacy of theater that you think about it just a little bit more – because you’re actually in a room with an audience while you’re in previews. And so because of that, because I’ve witnessed, experienced and participated in that contrast, between the sometimes inward-looking project of film and television, and the often outward-looking project of theater, it bugs me that theater can’t reach more people! That all said, theater is inherently not as accessible as other cultural objects, because you have to be there in the theater in order to see it, there is no recorded version and if there is, it’s not as good. And that’s something I love about theater, and would never have otherwise. It’s a tension. As in so many things in life, what you love creates the feeling that frustrates you. Theater has the power it does because of its limitations – you have to be in the room.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  So many. My ur-texts are very classical. Shakespeare was major, which is so boring, but the truth. Measure for Measure and the other problem plays will keep me creatively agitated and generating work my whole life, I’m sure. I think if I had to choose one person whose work made me want to be a playwright, specifically, it would be Harold Pinter. I took a great course on Modern Drama my freshman year of college (at Williams) and read Betrayal at just the right moment. In Pinter and in Shakespeare, I worship the flexibility of words; each one means so many different things. That’s heroic to me, and uniquely theatrical – not just that words can mean so many things, but that eventually, in different productions, they will mean different things, and the words on the page contain both the potential and the kinetic energy of those expressions. What is happening on stage when Isabella has to marry Angelo at the end of Measure for Measure?? Shakespeare is full of these tantalizing Fermat’s Last Theorems, for every director to have to resolve on his or her own, only to be left unresolved again, for another director. The words allow for that; they are a universe.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I'm excited by theater that engages the audience to do imaginative work. A great example of that is the recent Men on Boats, which was originally a Clubbed Thumb production, but which I saw at Playwrights Horizon. Jaclyn Backhaus and Will Davis did an incredible job. That was a giant, overarching brilliant concept, executed with gorgeous attention to detail. And the audience’s imagination was engaged the entire time, both by having to visualize the Western vistas and action sequences that the play was alluding to, and by constantly integrating the experience of seeing female actors and being told that they were male characters. So beautiful and thrilling. A real active adventure for the audience.

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

A:  Make work about things that bother and preoccupy you – problems you can’t resolve – and try to let go of ego as much as possible. Understand that for a while, your work may not be as good as your taste, and your job is to work to fill that gap. Believe people when they tell you areas where you can improve; you won’t lose yourself, you’ll just discover more areas where you can go – and also find your boundaries. Develop a practice. Find some way to turn your creative chaos into controlled chaos, so it won’t wear you out.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Watch my episode of the USA series Mr Robot! It plays tonight! (August 30th)

I’m also proud to be a collaborator on Marie C’s amazing web series, My Life in Sourdough. We’re currently in pre-production on season 3, which will be shot mostly in Paris. An episode I wrote for season two is nominated for an award from Saveur Magazine! Vote for us!

I’m also in post-production on a documentary/ art criticism/ sketch comedy fantasia that I made with the inimitable Cecilia Corrigan. She and I – together with cameraman Carlos Rigua – posed as broadcast journalists at the Frieze art fair in New York and shot a segment. We were legitimately there as journalists, and used our real press passes and real names, and our video discusses the actual art, so there was a lot of fourth-wall breaking. It’s like Spinal Tap meets E entertainment television, in the art world. It's not done, so it's not online yet, but follow me on Twitter if you’re interested, as I’ll surely be posting about that soon enough. @lucyteitler

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I Interview Playwrights Part 869: Marina Tempelsman

Marina Tempelsman

Hometown: New York City

Current Town: New York City

Q:  Tell me about Room 4.

A:  Room 4 is a comedy about four black actors caught in a time loop as they audition for the same Drug Dealer #2 role over and over again. My writing partner Niccolo Aeed and I co-wrote it, and he's also directing it. We're describing it as Waiting for Godot meets A Chorus Line meets Groundhog’s Day meets the real-life-experience-of-virtually-every-black-actor-in- America.

The play stemmed from an initial scene, in which a roomful of black actors awaiting an audition try to remember how many of their peers are in The Lion King -- which, until recently, seemed to be the only show in New York that reliably showcased people of color. As Nicco and I continued to write scenes around this -- some grounded, some not -- we realized what we were really working towards was the surreal repetitiveness of life as a not-white-male in theater.

There's been a lot of attention paid recently to the way in which actors of color are pigeonholed. How, in spite of having tremendous talent and potential, these actors are forced into stereotypical, token roles -- if they're "lucky" enough to be cast at all. In Room 4, the actors realize that the metaphor they've been trapped in throughout their creative careers has suddenly become a nightmarish reality -- and they'll do whatever they can to escape.

But it's also funny! The eight-person cast features some of the absolute best comedic actors we've worked with. They're an incredible ensemble.

Of the six plays we wrote and produced during our six-month playwriting residency at The PIT, this was the one that we were most excited to revisit, revise, and expand. And I'm so happy we got the extended run.

Q:  Tell me about your 6 month residency at the PIT.

A:  The residency involved writing and producing a full one-hour play each month for six months. Nicco describes it as our own self-imposed playwriting grad school, and I think that sums it up.

Nicco and I have a comedy-writing background, and in the comedy world putting on monthly shows is fairly standard practice. So in this residency, we tried to take the quick turnaround of sketch comedy and merge it with the depth and rigor you see from live theater.

Our smallest cast was two people, and our largest was 14 people. At any given point we were in three different phases of production for three different plays. It was a total whirlwind, but we just loved it and had so much fun.

Despite its being a bit of a high-wire act, we learned so much from taking that many plays from concept to production in such a short time span. There's no better theater education that just putting up shows and learning from that process, and we learned so much about writing, narrative, and production. And we worked with such incredibly talented people.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  We're also working on a treatment for a web series and a handful of pilots. And we're reworking a few of the other plays from our residency as well.

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 was taking the school bus to a friend's house for a playdate and we got caught in traffic. The busdriver kind of rolled his eyes and said "Ugh, we'll NEVER get home." And I started BAWLING. I 100% believed it to be true, and I was immediately living in the world where my life was just me in a traffic jam forever and ever and ever. Quick and total immersion in a (sometimes terrifying) alternate universe is a trend that tends to pop up in my writing. What if this twist, a seemingly innocuous moment, became the basis of reality?

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  David Lindsay-Abaire. I love the worlds he creates. They are so deeply grounded, even when they go to the most absurd and fantastical places. They have so much love and heart and care in them, and I'm so much more drawn to that than cynicism. I also love that he writes such fantastic female characters.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I love plays that really use the space they're staged in interesting ways, without just being a gimmick. Plays where you leave and think, you REALLY had to see it live.

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

A;  Find people whose work you admire and collaborate. Be scrappy. Embrace the scrappiness, love the scrappiness, and know that being scrappy is your key to being your most creative and free. Remember that every single moment is a learning process, especially when it comes to collaboration, and focusing on what you're learning in a given moment is far more productive than trying to figure out who to blame when the lack of control makes you panic. If you want control, write prose instead. If you want to broaden your horizons and learn an extraordinary amount from brilliant and wise people, then really embrace the collaboration.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A;  Room 4 begins its theatrical run at The PIT on September 6th at 8pm, and it runs through October 7th. Get your tickets here -- it's only $10 and runs 55 minutes!
www.thepit-nyc.com/room4

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Reading Monday

READING

Mercy

Directed by Markus Potter

Starring Zack Robidas, Dan Grimaldi, Sarah Kate Jackson, and Erik Heger

New Jersey Rep
Monday August 29, 7pm
179 Broadway, Long Branch, New Jersey 07740

No reservations. First come, first serve. Doors open at 6:30

When Orville’s pregnant wife is hit by a drunk driver, the doctors can only save the baby. Deep in grief, Orville tries to piece his life back together as a single father until he happens to see the drunk driver on the street one day. He befriends him under an assumed name and buys a gun, and Orville begins an agonizing conflict between revenge and forgiveness.

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Study Playwriting With Me

I'm teaching a playwriting class at ESPA this fall and it's online so you can take it no matter where you are.

http://primarystages.org/espa/online-classroom/online-first-draft

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I Interview Playwrights Part 868: Peter Lefcourt

Peter Lefcourt

Hometown: New York City

Current Town: Santa Monica, Ca

Q: Tell me about Drama Queens from Hell

A:  It’s always difficult for a writer to trace the original spark that set off the process of writing a play. In the case of “Drama Queens From Hell,” it may have been a combination of wanting to write something about competition among actors and about the growing tendency to demand diversity in casting, a response to the “Oscars So White” meme. As usual, the script took off in its own direction, resulting in a play that could be labeled, oxymoronically, “a noir comedy.” The breakthrough, in this instance, was the idea of using a remake of the Billy Wilder classic, “Sunset Boulevard,” as the plot device upon which to hang the themes. The story of remaking the film winds up being thematically akin to the story of the film itself – older, cast-aside actresses vying with one another to play Norma Desmond. Just how that happened, I have no idea.

Q: What else are you working on now?

A:  I am in the middle of a new play, tentatively entitled, “Nine Hours.” The play is set in July, 1969, on the eve of the Apollo 11 moon landing, and follows Ted Kennedy’s actions during the nine hours that elapsed between his driving the car, with Mary Jo Kopechne inside, off the bridge on Chappaquiddick Island and his reporting the accident to the police. The conceit of the play is the visit of Ted Kennedy’s two dead brothers – Bobby and Jack –to help him do damage control. In the process we see the agonizing choices confronting the senator, as well as the dynamics of the Kennedy family, and the political zeitgeist of the time.

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

A:  I would want the theater to be more financially viable, so that playwrights, directors and actors could make a decent living devoting their time to it. Almost every other developed country in the world – as well as some underdeveloped ones – subsidizes theater as an art form that elevates peoples’ consciousness. In this country, it is largely an activity indulged in by artists as an act of philanthropy.

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Early on, I liked Ionesco and Pirandello – for their cogent use of the absurd. These days I admire Alan Ayckbourn, for his unique comic voice: Tom Stoppard, for his all-around brilliance, and, for similar reasons, Donald Margulies, Christopher Durang and Terrence McNally.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theater that I am still thinking about days and weeks after I’ve left the theater. Sometimes for years, maybe decades. I can still remember vividly the first time I saw Mamet’s “American Buffalo” off Broadway (1977), with John Savage and Robert Duvall.

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

A:  Get a good day job.

Q:  Plugs, please.

A:  “Drama Queens From Hell” opens August 20th at the Odyssey Theatre and plays for six weekends, through 9/25. Details at: https://www.plays411.net/newsite/show/play_info.asp?show_id=4453 or 323 960-7787

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