I Interview Playwrights Part 497: David Auburn

David Auburn

Hometown: Really, three of them, since we moved a lot: Columbus, Ohio; Jonesboro, Arkansas; Little Rock, Arkansas

Current Town: New York City

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  A production of Anna Christie I'm directing later in the year; some material that might or might not become a new play; a screenplay for Warner Brothers of the novel "A Discovery of Witches."

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 don't have a good answer to this one. I'm not sure where the impulse to write for the theater comes from, and I guess a bit reluctant to examine it very closely.

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

A:  I teach playwrighting to NY public high school students. They want to write plays, they're passionate to try it. But they haven't seen very many. It's difficult to afford, difficult to manage. Some have never seen a straight play in a theater. In New York City! My fantasy would be that any public school student in this city could walk up to any play and buy a ticket for the same price as a movie.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Chekhov. The Romanian playwright and diarist Mihail Sebastian. George S. Kaufman, the ultimate pro and utility player. Samson Raphaelson. Harold Clurman. Viola Spolin. Odets. Quintero. Some contemporaries I've worked with, learned from and admire: Harris Yulin, John Lithgow, Dan Sullivan.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Very exciting always to see new plays by young American playwrights. We're in a strong period for new plays right now, I think.

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

A:  Don't sit around mailing plays to strangers. Produce yourself. Get together with friends and put on shows. Don't worry if you don't have an agent. Join the Dramatists Guild.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  My most recent play, "The Columnist," now out in paperback.

I Interview Playwrights Part 496: Jean-Claude van Itallie

Jean-Claude van Itallie

Hometown: I was born in Brussels, Belgium, raised in Great Neck, New York

Current Town: I live simultaneously in two places: Greenwich Village, NYC and Shantigar in Rowe, Massachusetts.

Q: Tell me about Confessions and Conversation.

A: “Confessions and Conversation,” the one person show (I call it “an intimate evening”) I’m doing at La MaMa’s Ellen Stewart Theater Sept 20-23, 2012, is a kind of Mad Hatter tea party. I’ll offer tea from mint in my garden in Massachusetts.

The show is in part a homage to my friend/mentor, the great late Ellen Stewart.

I’ll also reveal all about my own exciting theatre and promiscuous gay sex life in the wild and seminal 60's off-off-Broadway birth time.

A little singin’ and dancin’ too, cause, hey, why not?

Q: What else are you working on?

A: I’m finishing my memoirs – called “War, Sex, and Dreams.”

I’m co-writing the libretto of an opera about the wild Tibetan hermit yogi, Milarepa, of a thousand years ago – “Mila, Great Sorcerer.”

I’m finishing writing an e-book – “Galaxy of Living Alone, a Guide to Delightful Living with Cool Games to Play.”

I’m setting up an advice website – “Write to Leonardo”

I’m editing Part I of a Regency Romance I wrote – “To Be a Duchess”

Q: Tell me about the Playwright's Workbook.

A: When I started teaching play writing, there were no texts about it, or techniques, as there are for acting. I had to slowly invent my own, often using performance techniques but applying them to writing.

In the 80's, as I was teaching play writing at Princeton, I received a postcard from a publisher: “Would you use a play writing text if we published one?” I answered, “Yes, if I wrote it.” The result is “Playwright’s Workbook.”

Q: Tell me about The Shantigar Foundation.

A: I live most of the time on a beautiful old farm in the hills of Western Massachusetts. I’ve known it since I was a kid.

The Open Theater came up there in the 60's to improvise and make plays. My Tibetan Buddhist teacher, Chogyam, Trungpa, did a year’s retreat up there, named it “Shantigar,” or "Peaceful Home." The beauty of the woods and fields nourishes both creativity and meditation, which, in my mind, are closely related. So I’ve turned the farm into “Shantigar Foundation for theater, meditation, and healing.”

In a super fast world, we all, especially artists, need intimate contact with nature to breathe, remember ourselves, create. Shantigar provides that. (Shantigar.org)

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 almost four, the Nazis invaded Brussels where I lived with my Belgian Jewish family. Most of the family survived; we got to America without my seeing a Nazi. But fear was stamped indelibly into my nervous system.

By contrast, Great Neck, New York, where I grew up, in the late 40's and 50's, was a kind of Doris Day facade of pretty azalea hedges with no death or suffering visible (as in the current TV show “Madmen”).

I’ve remained mesmerized always by the contrast between the public mask and what lies underneath, hyper- aware of the lies of politicians, preachers, corporations...

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

A: I wish theater were not money-driven like the rest of society. I wish theater never gave pat answers in order to please.

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: Some theatrical heroes: Ellen Stewart, Peter Brook, Oscar Wilde, Noel Coward, Harold Pinter, Stella Adler, Jerzy Grotowski, The Earl of Oxford, Voltaire, Anton Chekhov, Euripedes.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: I’m passionate about theater of sacred intent – entertaining, funny, musical theater asking, in authentic new ways, the age-old unanswerable questions – Where are we going? What am I here for? Who am I?

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

A: I’d tell a playwright just starting out to study acting, to act – not to conceive of himself/herself as merely a walking mind. Writing is not only an intellectual act. Truth, drama, humor and music have their rhythmic source in the body.

Q: Plugs, please:

A: Please come see my one man show, “Confessions and Conversations,” at La MaMa, Sept 20-23, 2012. (LaMama.org)

Please take the “Continuum of Performance” workshop I am giving with the amazing Emilie Conrad – at LaMama, NYC: Nov 6-8, 2012 Open to everyone. (Shantigar.org).

Please check out Shantigar.org – come up and see me some time.

Please look out for my upcoming advice website: “Write to Leonardo.”

I Interview Playwrights Part 495: Tom Matthew Wolfe

Tom Matthew Wolfe

Hometown:  Hillside, New Jersey

Current Town:  New York City

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I’m working on a new full-length play called THIS IS HOW WE EMERGE. It’s about a mid-career artist who loses an exhibition opportunity to his girlfriend and tries to alter/undermine her plans for it. It was inspired by the Narcissus/Echo myth, but the story doesn’t play out the same way. It’s also about living with day jobs, temp jobs, debts, delusions, loneliness, paternalism, ageism, mortality, grief, and the fear of having no impact—an entire life in obscurity. It’s a little wilder than my other work, more comedic and tense: there are death masks and bad punk songs, sharp reversals, and a protracted discomfort within scenes. I’m excited about it. I can’t wait to hear it at my playwrights group.

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 grew up with a lot of cats. One of them – named Bruce – loved to hang out on the front porch. He scared my friends even though he was quite friendly. He had long black fur and yellow eyes, big fangs that looked like something on a pit viper when he yawned. He liked to sit tall and motionless on the bookcase or spread his body across it so that his paws dangled off the edge. Sometimes he stood up on his hind legs when he was down on the floor and I reached out to pet him. One night I stepped out on the porch. It was dark: the overhead light was broken. I spotted Bruce standing up near the screen door, so I reached down to scratch the back of his neck. The fur was so stiff. I froze—my hand, my whole body. I heard a long, angry hiss. It sounded nothing like Bruce or any cat anywhere. I ran inside. My father was seated on the couch with his bare feet on a coffee table, eating jalapeño cheese. My sister was on a matching love seat. They were watching television.

“I think I just pet a possum,” I said.

They immediately laughed at me. My sister called me an idiot.

“Get the hell outta here,” my father said.

“The fur was all stiff. ”

“You sure it wasn’t the cat?”

“It made this … sound.”

“Alright,” he said, “let’s see your possum.”

So my father stood up and put on his moccasins, got his mag-light and 9mm handgun from a shelf above the bar in the hallway. He was a police officer in Hillside, a lieutenant at the time. There was always a gun in the house, small boxes of bullets. He stuck a clip in the gun (a distinctive sound, no comparisons), stepped out on to the porch and shut the door. After a few minutes of quiet, there was a gunshot. He came back inside, removed the clip, put his gun and mag-light back in the spot above the bar.

“Tommy, do me a favor and clean that up tomorrow, will ya?”

“Uh . . . okay.”

My mother found out about the incident and asked my father to perform cleanup instead. They fought about this, but he gave in and agreed, told me not to worry about it. Next morning, on my way out the door to school, I saw a possum on its back near my weight bench with a bullet wound in its chest, blood all over the floorboards.

I have no idea how this story explains who I am as a person or writer. But it feels like such a part of me. And I miss my father. So there you go.

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

A:  I wish it were more affordable and diverse, in general.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Chekhov, Fornés, Pinter, Albee, Beckett, Tennessee Williams, Paula Vogel, Tony Kushner, Sam Shepard, Lanford Wilson, August Wilson, John Patrick Shanley, Christopher Plummer, Meryl Streep, Jane Hoffman, Heidi Schreck, Marylouise Burke, Young Jean Lee, Marshall W. Mason, David Adjmi, Kia Corthron, Curt Dempster, Jerry Wayne Roberts, Erma Duricko. I saw a production of A DOLL’S HOUSE by Mabou Mines a few years back and thought it was genius. So I’ll add Mabou Mines. Also, Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Civilians. My wife, Kara Lee Corthron, is such a brilliant writer; her discipline is a guide for me. Karen Hartman is an extraordinary playwright and teacher. There are so many people I’ve worked with personally that deserve to be mentioned. So many amazing actors have taken their time to just to read my stuff, and for no money. Those are my heroes. Also, I like Shakespeare.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I like a lot of different theatre, so long as it’s well crafted and full of life. I love the lyrical naturalism of Lanford Wilson and the way Young Jean Lee experiments with form to puncture the membrane between audience and actors. I like family plays and political theatre. I like vulnerability, humor, fun, a distinct point of view, surprise. I love subverted expectations. I’m interested in a theatre in which humor and great pain are not exclusive to one another. I like when characters have real problems. I’m fascinated by our delusions (I’ve had my share). I love plays that make me uncomfortable, or make me talk for hours—or weeks—after curtain. I love theatre that makes me question my own behavior. I love plays that don’t bore me.

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

A:  Advice is tough for me to give. I feel like I’m a perpetual student. But I do have my own code as a developing writer. Here it is. Build your craft. Write often. Surprise yourself. Don’t judge a scene while writing it. There’s time for that during revisions. Take classes and/or join a playwrights group. My playwrights group ‘Wright On! is so important to me. It keeps me working and sane. When a teacher asks you to try an exercise, just give into that. Don’t question it. What is there to lose in trying something new? Be kind.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Ach. Unfortunately, I have nothing going on right now, except a private reading of my newest play. But Kara will have two productions this Fall (ALICEGRACEANON, produced by New Georges at The Irondale Center in Brooklyn; HOLLY DOWN IN HEAVEN at Forum Theatre in Washington D.C.). Go check ‘em out!

I Interview Playwrights Part 494: Halley Feiffer

photo by Seth Kushner

Halley Feiffer

Hometown: NYC -- Upper West Side, Manhattan

Current Town: NYC -- Park Slope, Brooklyn

Q:  Tell me about Dear Darkness at the New Ohio.

A:  It's an evening of short plays by awesome writers with sick twisted imaginations; all the plays center on spooky-Halloween-y themes. The guidelines are very broad -- basically anything repulsive or macabre and hopefully something involving a famous monster of some sort. It's an incredible line-up of writers that includes John Patrick Shanley, Bekah Brunsetter, Michael Puzzo, and Adam Szymkowicz (that name sounds so familiar...) and I'm so honored to be included and show people how disgusting and vile my mind is, which most people really know anyway, but I feel like I want pretty much everyone to know that and the more the merrier, you know?

My play is called FRANKENSTEIN'S AMENDS, and it's about the fateful night when Frankenstein returns, after a long and very painful separation, to the home of the doctor who created him, with the intention of making his formal Ninth Step Amends as part of his recovery program in Alcoholics Anonymous.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  I'm working on a play I wrote that will kick off the LAByrinth Theatre Company's Barn Series next weekend (Sept. 14-15), directed by Trip Cullman -- the play is called I'M GONNA PRAY FOR YOU SO HARD and it's also disgusting and vile, but in a different way (namely there are no monsters). I'm also working on a short play I wrote called I DIDN'T WANT A MASTODON that will be featured in the upcoming Barrow Group evening of short plays, performed by their Core Artists Ensemble. Also I am working on webseries I am making with my friend Adam Green called DON'T YOU WISH YOU WERE US; we're shooting the first episode in a few weeks, which we're very excited about. Also I have a TV series I'm currently shopping around with a friend. And I'm trying to write a new play, and a screenplay which is proving really hard.

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

A:  A few years ago I said to my mom: "Hey, Mom -- remember that amazing house we went to when I was really little, and I think it was in Florida or something, 'cause I remember it being really tropical-feeling? And there was this crazy amazing pool, with like fake rocks and a CAVE that like lit up crazy weird colors like purple and green? And then there was a crazy bathroom with walls of GLASS that were all covered in like tropical FOLIAGE? I think visiting that house and swimming in that cave-y pool and going to that bathroom -- I think that is my fondest childhood memory. What was that place???" And my mom was like, "Um, I think you're talking about the grotto at the Playboy Mansion." My dad used to draw cartoons for PLAYBOY and apparently Hef invited us over and we just swam in the grotten when I was, like, 4. Hef never showed up; he just let us swim. I feel like this memory is a pretty good example of my warped values (my attraction to and often obsession with glittery objects that are terrible for me), the power of memory to distort facts and twist them into a fantasy-reality, and the vastly inappropriate situations I often find myself in, which are all things I try to explore in my writing.

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

A:  Well it would cost way less. Way more people would go from way more diverse backgrounds. Nobody would give a shit about reviews. Oh wait that's three things. I think nobody caring about reviews is the most important thing to me. So that one.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  I have so many. My favorite dead ones are Chekhov, Ibsen, Strindberg, Tennesse Williams, August Wilson -- such great storytellers and such masters of combining humor and tragedy to make situations that are, because of that delicate tincture, even funnier and sadder. Living heroes are Annie Baker, Stephen Adly Girugis, Kenneth Lonergan, John Guare, Adam Rapp, Bruce Norris -- for the same reasons.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I love theatre that keeps me absolutely on the edge of my seat because I don't know if I should be laughing or crying. I love theatre that shows me characters who are at once infuriating or even loathsome and also totally loveable and relateable. I love theatre that surprises me often and takes turns that feel at once shocking and inevitable, and leaves me feeling utterly flabbergasted and satiated.

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

A:  Don't be afraid to share your work with people; I was so scared of showing my work for so long -- it felt so private and vulnerable. Someone told me, "Dude, just email your plays to people," and I started doing that -- just taking the action and letting go of the result -- and the more and more I did it the less I thought about it, and now I never think about the vulernability of sharing my work, really, because I'm used to it and I have so much more confidence as a result of taking these at-first extremely uncomfortable actions. Also, write in your own voice and write about things that interest you because people can tell if you're pretending to be something you're not or writing about something that doens't really turn you on.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  I co-wrote, produced and act in an upcoming feature film called HE'S WAY MORE FAMOUS THAN YOU, directed by Michael Urie. Here is a link to its IMDB page: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2076216/

Also here is a link to the info about my play in the upcoming LAByrinth Barn Series: http://labtheater.org/2012/09/barn-series-spotlight-halley-feiffer/

I don't have a link to the Barrow Group Evening but their Facebook page is: http://www.facebook.com/coreartistensemble

Also please follow me on Twitter I really want to eventually have more followers than Gaga: @halleyfeiffer

Also come see DEAR DARKNESS! Here is a link to its Indiegogo page: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/203689

Also I'm available for hanging out and friendship and birthday parties.

I Interview Playwrights Part 493: Marie Jones

Marie Jones

Hometown: Belfast

Current town: Belfast

Q:  Tell me about Fly Me to the Moon

A:  Fly Me to the Moon is a play about two community care workers. The two women travel around the community caring for old people who need assistance. They arrive one day to do their usual routine of care of David Magee who is 84. Only this day will not be like any other day. Davy will breathe his last and they are faced with a dilemma. Do they inform the authorities or take advantage of the situation. Their actions spiral out of control and leave them in a desperate situation.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  I am working on the Film Script of ‘Stones In His Pockets’ This was a play that has been performed all over the world including Broadway and the West End.

Q:  Tell me about your experience at Charabanc Theatre Company.

A:  Charabanc was a life changing and empowering situation. Five women started a company to create better roles for women. I never knew that I would end up as the Playwright. It was not by design it was a need.

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 a child I used to go with my Mother when she visited her many sisters. I would sit and listen to them tell stories and laugh and wish and dream and cry. They were all natural story tellers. That is what playwrighting is, being able to tell a good story that people can relate to

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

A:  I cant think that there would be any thing I would change about the theatre…it is an ongoing changing thing…its live .

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: My theatrical heroes are the men and women who are totally passionate about it. Especially the people who live in small rural towns in Ireland and have devoted their lives to bringing theatre to their communities and inspiring and encouraging young people who might not ever had the opportunity to see it as a career.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Good theatre excites me…no particular style. If I can sit for two hours and not think about what I have to do in the morning or what I have to get in the shop on the way home then it works for me.

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

A:  My advice would be, only do it if you have a story you want everybody to hear and you can hear it in your head…word for word.

Q:  Plugs, please!

A:  Fly Me to the Moon runs at 59E59 Theaters from September 5 – September 30. It’s part of 1st Irish.

I Interview Playwrights Part 492: Ivan Dimitrov

photo by Ivailo Petrov

Ivan Dimitrov

Hometown: Sofia

Current Town: Sofia

Q: Tell me about The Eyes of Others.

A: The main characters are two men that are going everyday on the same square during their lunch breaks. There they are watched by an anonymous Voyeur. They are kind of white collars, but not exactly.

It’s somehow absurdist work, but still very contemporary. I really like the Theater of the Absurd and I believe this was one of the reasons for writing it. Two months ago I found on my computer one of the first drafts of the beginning of the play with notes about the thoughts I had. It was something completely different from the final draft. I like the idea to believe in your characters and leave them to lead you through the play.

Q: What else are you working on now?

A: My last play “The Alien” won the contest for Bulgarian play of the Absurd in Blagoevgrad. I have to make more revisions, before the production and Angela Rodel already agreed to translate it into English. I have some ideas for a new plays. I was thinking that maybe during my stay I will write the first draft of the next one, but I simply don’t have the time. My second novel is also waiting. It’s ready and I’m waiting for an answer from one publishing house. If they like it, I have to make some revisions, but in general it is ready.

Q: How would you describe the Bulgarian theater scene?

A: It’s completely different, I mean the system itself. We have repertory theaters which, I realize now, is totally different way of working. There are many good productions, and more that are not so good, but this is the natural order of things. I of course, have favorite directors. As a theater I like the work of Sfumato Theatre, that is small but not in matter of spirit and art.

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

A: The “star system” for me is not so important. Even in Bulgaria a lot of people are going to a production only to see the star from some TV Series. But actually the theater is something organic. I don’t believe there are “big” or “small” parts.

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: In matter of “theatrical” actors, they are in Sofia, I’ve only seen American actors in movies. As for playwrights: Chekhov, Pinter, the Absurdists, Maeterlinck, Strindberg, Albee, and many more. These authors were the first that came in my mind. In matter of theatrical directors, I mean with productions that I’ve seen, they are once again in Bulgaria. I also admire theatrical gurus like Grotowski, Peter Brook… In Bulgaria, excuse me for the repetition, the biggest hero is Sfumato Theater, who is showing to the Bulgarian audience a “different” theater.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: I will escape easily with the answer: well-made theater. That is something that can’t be explained and is different for everybody, depending on their conception of theater. It can happen the theater that is well-made for me, and speaks to me, can’t do the same with other people.

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

A: I’ve always believed there is only one formula and that is: to write. Don’t be scared that the things won’t work, write down your ideas on the blank page. Dive in the world of the play. You can learn it only in the process. Reading plays and watching productions also can help, but the first thing is to write. It is very funny, because I just had the first production in the National Radio in Bulgaria… The radio-play is called “Workshop” and the action happens during playwriting workshop, and there is obviously this character, who teaches the others and he is repeating this a lot, that the only way is writing.

I Interview Playwrights Part 491: Gordon Dahlquist

Gordon Dahlquist

Hometown: Portland, Oregon

Current Town: NYC

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  Right now I'm working on a couple of novels, a short sci-fi piece for younger readers and a much longer story for adults that (I think) will have a whole play inside of it. My play Tea Party was just part of the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, and so while I think it's pretty much finished it still feels very much alive in my head.

Q:  How does writing novels compare to writing plays?

A:  They're really different, but obviously the skills of one kind of writing overlap into another. I learned how to write by writing plays, so elements of my novels are obviously theatrical: there's a lot of dialogue, and the physical circumstances are crucial to working out what happens in a given scene (and the fact that I think in terms of scenes at all). Of course, there are huge differences, in terms of both language and scale. It's really hard in our theatre to tell stories of a certain size or scope - I'm speaking broadly, but very few people have the patience now for a new work as long as a classic four or five act play, much less a story that would last 10 hours. In terms of language, playwrights - at least writers working in a traditional mode where there are consistent characters and a real-world setting - internalize the play's world and reveal it through dialogue. In most cases, the words playwrights use are determined by the character speaking: if there are three or four words that might work in a moment, the writer knows the one this character is most likely to choose. In a novel, not only does the dialogue no longer bear this narrative burden, the narrative vocabulary that takes its place is liberated from that character's range. What gets described and why and to what degree is entirely up for grabs in a way a playwright never has to deal with. It's a lot like suddenly having about two dozen more crayons to color with - which isn't to say you have to use them, but the process of consideration is transformed.

Also, novels are pretty enticing for a playwright because you don't have to wait for the work of other people for the thing to be finished. At one time or another I think most everyone in the theatre feels the constraint of its collaborative process. Having collaborators can be lovely, but sometimes it's nice to be your own boss.

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

A:  As a kid I lived for several years on the shore of Puget Sound, near a protected area of beach sand that would be flooded by the rising tide, but without the impact of waves. This allowed me to construct very elaborate sand castles that would perish in reliably slow motion: the water would rise to the top of the walls, lapping away, until with a dam-busting rush the sand would give and everything in between this wall and the next (and there were always things in between - villages, monuments, churches, rooted in false security) would be swept away. The whole process would take hours. And the next day, when the tide was out, the beach would be flattened, empty and smooth as a page.

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

A:  I would wish for theatre to be more important to our culture. Right now it feels fairly marginal, and with a very few exceptions the most prominent work isn't so interesting. This isn't news to anyone, and a lot of the theatre world is scrambling to address this gap, especially amongst younger people, and clearly it's a complicated issue: the long development process that most plays go through to reach the stage of major theatres makes it very harder to find work that's timely and immediate; ticket prices are generally ridiculous compared to other forms of entertainment; the corporate sponsors of theatre are rich people and banks and airlines - we might as well be ballet or opera, etc. I do believe that what theatre offers as a medium is really important in an ever more technology-defined world (and a more tech-dependent culture), and clearly there are a lot of smart people doing things to address these issues - Todd London, David Dower, and Polly Carl come foremost to mind, though they're definitely swimming against the tide.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Harold Pinter and Samuel Becket, for sure. When I think of people working now, I don't know that any particular names come to mind. There's a lot of great writing happening now - I wish it was more prominent, and I wish playwrights had more of a role in theatre as a whole. I think it's a great thing that Kwame Kwei-Armah is running Center Stage. I would love Tony Kushner to run the Public for a few years instead of writing screenplays. That he isn't is no judgement on him, of course - I doubt anyone's asked if he's free - but we'd have a more compelling theatre if that kind of thing was on the table.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I like theatre that makes me ask questions of myself instead of playing to what I already know. I like sophisticated and adventurous narrative structures. I like plays where the writer has been rigorous about what they've made - whether it's a play about relationship or politics or a historical circumstance. I feel like I've seen enough whimsy and indulgence - or maybe it's just that I can't bear a theatre of lowered stakes in these times.

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

A:  Very little, except to write plays that are theatrical, that push and celebrate the form, that embrace the artifice and the hand-made. I disagree with trying to accommodate theatre to more popular styles - whether that means television-friendly dramaturgy or twitter-friendly areas of seating - because those styles will always be better realized elsewhere. Aside from that, I think that most successful playwrights gather a gang of people around them, actors and directors, and other writers with whom they kick around the world. These people will make your work stronger. They'll save your life.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Marie Antoinette by David Adjmi, at ART and Yale Rep. It's a fantastic play. I'd also love to recommend Smarty Girl: Dublin Savage, a new novel by Honor Molloy, which is simply superb. For myself, my novel The Chemickal Marriage comes out in the US this September on Zola, a new digital bookseller (www.zolabooks.com ) that's out to save us all from Amazon.

I Interview Playwrights Part 490: Evan Linder

Evan Linder

Hometown: Memphis, TN

Current Town: Chicago, IL

I'm a playwright and actor as well as a founding member of The New Colony in Chicago where I serve as Associate Artistic Director.

Q:  What are you working on now? 

A:  I'm currently in NYC for the week with my company The New Colony. "5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche", a comedy I cowrote that premiered in Chicago last summer, is playing at the Living Theater for NYCFringe. I have been busy running around handing out postcards, loading the set in and out each night and having a blast with my fellow company members. If you see someone pushing a dolly full of styrofoam quiches up and down Clinton Street this week, that's me. Say hi!

I am also almost finished with the first draft of "The Bear Suit of Happiness", a drama I am writing for The New Colony that will be premiering in February 2013. It tells the story of four American soldiers in WWII who are assigned to perform in a drag revue for the men in their camp. The four actors began workshopping their characters this past February and we will be holding our first public reading for the piece in September.

I also perform and am gearing up for rehearsals to begin on "Down and Derby" a new play by Aaron Weissman about a roller derby team in Ohio. I play Tasty, the salsa-selling home announcer for the Misfit Mavericks of Larkin City. It's a ferocious cast of actors and I can't wait to jump into the rehearsal room with them when I get back to Chicago.

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 9 or 10, I made a movie with my older sister Carrie and our two cousins Jennifer and Jessica. They were in town for Easter and we stayed up all night making it so we could show our parents. We had been working on it for hours and we kept hearing our parents yell from downstairs that it was getting too late and that we needed to wrap it up. So I would run downstairs and explain that this was going to be the best thing they had ever seen in their lives, but we needed them to be patient. I think it was after 1 am when we finally got around to screening the movie for them. Even though the movie was 10 minutes of odd British accents and fart jokes, I had never seen our parents laugh harder at anything in my life. They were probably a little drunk by that point since we had taken all night to finish, but still. I think that was possibly when the bug to do theater hit me the hardest, and I started auditioning for plays pretty shortly after that. The experience also solidified the kind of writer I would eventually become. I'm best working collaboratively and even better if I am under a strict deadline. If my dad still yelled at me from the bottom of the stairs to hurry up, I would get so much more writing done.

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

A:  I wish theaters would work harder to engage their audiences before a show begins, and I wish audiences would be willing to be taught a new way to prepare to watch a show. You're about to communally share the experience of a lot of hard work by a lot of artists. Meet the people around you, grab some drinks at the bar, get excited that you are about to experience something that will never be exactly recreated ever again. Don't just sit there and read your program. In fact, don't even have programs! Post some photos and bios up on the lobby wall and make your programs online-only. There have been so many times that I walk into a theater excited about what I am going to see, only to be sitting in a quiet room hearing rustling pages and watching people check their watches fifteen minutes later. The experience of the show should start when you enter the front door of the theater, not when the lights go up.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  I'm working with them. Cheesy, but true. The New Colony is a group of actors, writers and designers who have spent the last four years creating original plays and musicals written from within our ensemble. They constantly amaze me with their dedication, ideas and willingness to make complete asses out of themselves. Every time the inspiration well runs dry, I look at what this group of people have dedicated their lives to doing: braving the Chicago winters while juggling families, relationships and day jobs just so we can all spend our evenings in a rehearsal room trying to tell interesting stories. You can learn more about those weirdos here: http://thenewcolony.org/company/company

On a more general note, I think "heroic" is a great way to describe the Chicago Theater Community as a whole. The New Colony exists in Chicago because there is an audience for what we do there, and that audience is there because of all the giants who are around us and who came before us. I think almost every successful theater company in Chicago is only successful because they set out to do something completely different than what everyone else was doing. I truly believe originality is not only encouraged in Chicago, but welcomed. I'm so proud that we are a part of that community.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  New work. I rarely go and see a show that I have seen done somewhere else. Obviously, there are exceptions, but for the most part I want to see new stories and hear fresh voices.

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

A:  Oh lord. One playwright's process can be completely stifling to another, so watch who you take advice from. That's my best advice.

My collaborator and sounding board on "The Bear Suit of Happiness" is the director of the show Sean Kelly. Sean is often the first person to read my pages after I have written them. He has a great note that he cribbed from Margaret Wise Brown's editor: "NGEFY". It stands for "Not Good Enough For You". I love that note. So I guess my next piece of advice is to find someone who you love and trust who can tell you "NGEFY". Sometimes you need to hear that.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  "5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche" has three more performances at The Living Theater this week: Wednesday the 15th at 10:30pm, Thursday the 16th at 4pm and Friday the 17th at 7:30. You can get tickets here: http://www.fringenyc.org/basic_page.php?ltr=num#5Lesbi

Check out The New Colony at www.thenewcolony.org or like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/thenewcolony