I Interview Playwrights Part 1113: Isaac Byrne

Isaac Byrne

Hometown:

Oh, I grew up moving constantly. If you get count all the times I lived with extended family, I think I moved about 21 times by the time I was 18. I was born in Riverton Wyoming, but I grew up mostly in Louisiana and Texas. If I had to pick a “hometown” it would probably be Austin, Texas. Good music, easy vibes, and great breakfast tacos.

Current Town:

I live up in Holmes NY, but I’m in NYC constantly.


Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  Too many things!

I’m in the middle of directing Under the Dragon’s Tail, four short plays written by….me! It’s terrifying and exhilarating to be putting myself out there like this. I’ve been developing new plays for almost 20 years now as a director, but this step feels like skydiving into the abyss. I wrote these plays in Erika Phoebus’ playwriting class (it’s incredible!) as a series of exercises in between working on full length plays. As I worked on each of them, I started to realize I was writing about the grief, loss, and the absolute comic absurdity of the last 4 years of my life. What started as unrelated little scenes grew into these interrelated, funny, and frequently scary examinations of mental health and emotional coping mechanisms in extreme circumstances—both physically and emotionally.

I’m rewriting my first full length play, Outlaw Wedding, which was inspired by my mother’s illegal lesbian wedding in Texas eleven years ago, which had drag queens, Muslims, and some local religious and police interference. That play used to feel like a bit of a period piece, and I’m sad to say it’s starting to feel unsettlingly timely again.

I’m also finishing up the first draft of a wild fever dream comedy about a group of actors trying to rehearse Miss Julie and Doll’s House over and over again—Think a satirical 15 Minute Hamlet/Noises Off that explodes into a haunted house of misogyny, revenge, and buried ghosts.

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 7 years old, I convinced a group of would be bullies to leave me alone because “I knew karate!” I scared them off, and they left me alone. I didn’t know karate, but I had watched Karate Kid a lot. I guess I was pretty convincing. They were the tough older kids, and they harassed everyone in the neighborhood. But they left me alone after that. That was when I realized that sometimes a make believe story could save your life.

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

A:  Oh, so many things should be changed. Stop making artists jump through so many hoops just to work. Someone who writes a great artist statement, isn’t necessarily the best playwright. Look past the “best schools” and look at the actual artist. I’m so sick of classist gatekeeping. I guess that’s the main thing for me. I didn’t come from a well to do family. I didn’t go to an Ivy League school. There’s a lot of long overdue upheaval and shift today towards a more diverse group of theatre artists, and I am all for it. But I still don’t see economic class being part of that change. We need to shift how theatre gets made, and make sure it’s not just a new different looking group of trust fund kids that get to make theatre.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  I love Lanford Wilson and Marshall Mason. I got to meet both of them. 16 years ago, I stood outside of Phebe’s with Lanford and talked theatre with him for hours one night while he bummed cigarettes off of me and told stories about Cafe Cino. It was amazing. Right now, Jackie Sibblies Drury is writing on another level. Every play she writes blows my mind a little. I love Anne Washburn’s weird strange plays, they’re so deeply satisfyingly…unsatisfying. I love them.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Risky theater is what I love. When the audience starts to look around at each other with wide eyes and a real sense of danger in their body. Whether if it’s because something is emotionally dangerous or because there’s a new wild idea happening in front of us that disrupts what we think we know.

When a play feels like it’s dangerously close to careening off the rails, that’s when I fall in love with it.

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

A:  Write the thing that scares you. The scene that you write that you think will embarrass you and make everyone hate your play? That’s where the good stuff is. Write the thing that you’re scared will ruin your play. It’s where you’ll find the real heart of it. And if no one is producing your work, produce it yourself. Find a way. Don’t let other people decide your career for you.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Under the Dragon’s Tail opens at the Matthew Corozine Studio Theatre July 20th and runs till August 14th.

Snakes, mythological heroes, cosmonauts, self help, and philosophy collide and hijinks ensue!

You can find out more about it here at www.theatre4thepeople.org

Or just buy tickets here!

https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/5487859

Also take Erika Phoebus’ writing workshops!

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I Interview Playwrights Part 1110: Steve Harper

Steve Harper

Hometown:  I was born in Brooklyn, NY. And we lived there (in Fort Greene) until I was 5. I grew up on Long Island.

Current Town:  I currently live in Inglewood, CA - which is just outside of the city of Los Angeles (and in Los Angeles county). It’s where the Super Bowl was this year.

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I’m working on few things (I’m always juggling a few things). Several years ago, I collaborated on a piece (two monologues) - I wrote one - about police profiling black people. The play is called Black Lives / Blue Lives. I kept writing and now my monologue has morphed into several others (based on interviews) with police officers and black people (and black police officers). So, now there’s an entirely new piece comprised of the new monologues. The play doesn’t have a name yet. It’s fascinating to dive into this kind of intersectionality on an issue like this. I’m excited to see how it develops and how it lands on audiences. I’m also working on a new (original) piece for TV that I can’t really talk about yet. I’m developing a few other TV things that will hopefully see the light of day. And there are a few plays that are waiting in the wings, haunting me.

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 went to Catholic school as a kid - my father was Catholic and we were raised that way even though my mother was Episcopalian but never went to church. Mom was (and is) obsessed with true crime and serial killers as well as horror novels (Stephen King was her favorite). So I was always fascinated by the notion of what was lurking around the corner - things / beings / entities we could see and things we couldn’t see. I zeroed in on what I call the invisible things. And today, I write about those things (sometimes there are ghosts and spirits in my work, sometimes it’s about race or sexuality or politics or religion). At one point, maybe in 4th grade, I went through this period where I was always telling on my older brother when he did something a bit sketchy (my brother had a rebellious streak and I was a rule follower). At the time I thought I was saving his soul, though I was really just annoying him. (And he stopped hanging out with me because of it). But I think it was also me trying to be transparent - to tell the truth about what was happening. I’m still trying to do that - tell the truth about stuff - in what I write. (Hopefully the results are entertaining and not as annoying as I was in 4th grade.)

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

A:  More diverse storytelling and more opportunities! I was an actor before I was a writer, and I remember being in acting class and trying to find scenes with parts that I would actually get cast in. But we were doing all those “classics”: O’Neill, Miller, Williams, Chekov. Solid plays, but not a black person in sight. We still recycle those classics - and it makes American theater more challenging for students of color and professional actors trying to make a living. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to put out an anthology of short plays - to give those actors and artists some fresh material with diverse characters. It is much better now thanks to some amazing playwrights of color, but it’s not solved. It’s still pretty easy to find those classics recycled and new plays by white writers with few diverse roles. And, as a black playwright, there are only so many opportunities. A theater may have one person of color slot - so we all have to fight to get that one slot. And we’re fighting with the talented prominent black writers. One slot and they have to choose among Lynn Nottage, August Wilson, Dominique Morriseau and lesser known writers (like me). It’s challenging to find those opportunities.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  I think Lynn Nottage is amazing. Her plays are so visceral and moving. And they are so different. I’m a big fan of Angels In America - Tony Kushner has so much going on in his work. There are a handful of writers: Lorraine Hansberry, Katori Hall, Richard Greenberg, John Guare, Suzan-Lori Parks, Tarrell Alvin McCraney, Charles Fuller (who is a cousin on my mother’s side). I met James Baldwin when I was in college (I was in a production of his play The Amen Corner). I didn’t know that much of his work then, except that play, but read a ton of his writing later - and it floored me.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I like theater that makes me feel something. And makes me think deeply about my life. I grew up watching so many kitchen sink plays - and I dig the realism, but I want to have some magic, too. And people of color. And furniture. I’m not a fan of plays where the director takes all the furniture out and makes the actors mime things and imagine the world around them. I want to see walls!! Nothing too abstract and heady. I want to SEE the world and the people and get the resonance when they bump up against each other. I guess I enjoy seeing American homes - the ones that have people of color in them. I’m a fan of plays that feel like they’re happening in someone’s living room and you’re just eaves dropping on their joy and their agony.

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

A:  Find your peeps. Make stuff. Don’t wait for people to put on your plays. Do it yourself. The system is broken. You’ll repair it by giving yourself permission to reinvent. And be gentle with yourself and each other. Find ways to nurture yourself. Everything happens little by little and there’s only one you. And then - teach. Anything you learn is something that you can pass on.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  My new anthology: A Few Short Plays to Save the World is coming out (May 1st) published by Laughing Panda Press (and available all over). My two-monologue play: Black Lives / Blue Lives (written with Bill Mesce Jr.) is being presented by The Theater Project in New Jersey for community groups and schools. My play Urban Rabbit Chronicles will receive its world premiere at Georgia Southern University April 20th - 24th. 

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I Interview Playwrights Part 1108: Dave Osmundsen

Dave Osmundsen

Hometown: Pompton Plains, NJ

Current Town: Pompton Plains, NJ (by way of Sarasota, FL and Tempe, AZ)

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I’m working on a few projects (including prepping for the world premiere of my play Light Switch), but one work-in-progress I’m particularly excited about is an adaptation of Autism awareness advocate Michael John Carley’s article The Brat in Your Classroom. The article depicts his tumultuous years at a private school called Moses Brown, and how he emotionally processes those years in the wake of receiving an Autism diagnosis in his mid-thirties. It’s still in early stages, but I’m really excited for people to (eventually) see it!

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

A:  In my backyard, I would stand between two trees and pretend I was on a stage. Or I would make myself a minimalist set with a few chairs on the backyard patio (my “second stage,” if you will). Armed with two sticks (which I would bang together to make percussive sounds), I would sing made-up lyrics to musical theatre melodies I knew. I would act out musicals with plots that fused derivatizations of other musicals with my own contributions—a musical that was vaguely about a gay rights activist with a score lifted directly from Evita, an Into the Woods-style musical featuring an assortment of Bible characters (and a Devil Giant who embarked on a murderous spree in Act Two), a Wicked-like story about a gay teenager whose jealous emotions literally overtake him, to name a few. I would never get through a whole show, but rather repeat my favorite musical moments and/or songs. There was no audience because there didn’t need to be one. I was my own audience. Just when I was getting lost in the music and the stories, my sister would scream from her bedroom window “DAVID STOP SINGING.” And I would stop. Then I would tap the two sticks together, quietly, gently, and ease myself back into the musical world I had created for myself.

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

A:  Just one thing??? Aside from the usual wishes that it was cheaper and more accessible, I would change the perception of neurodivergent artists. There seems to be some astonishment and bewilderment that neurodivergent artists can tell their own stories from their own perspectives. Why is this? Why can’t there be an assumption of competence? Why does autism specifically (since that is my neurodivergence) have to be portrayed solely as “Inspirational”? Why can’t it be treated with complexity and nuance? Why does it always have to be the neurotypical playwrights who tell neurodivergent stories? Why is Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, a play that doesn’t even mention the word “autism,” the most famous example of neurodivergent theatre? I would change all that.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Amy Herzog, for her ability to take messy situations and add beauty and clarity to them.

David Lindsay-Abaire, for his sharp observations about humanity, even in the most absurd of his plays.

Mickey Rowe, for fearlessly working and living as an autistic artist.

Paula Vogel, whose generosity in mentoring young artists is legion.

Larry Kramer, whose activism inspires me to be more politically aware and active in my work and life.

Patti LuPone, for never bullshitting.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theatre that complicates. Theatre that is tight. Theatre that is grand. Theatre that expands. Theatre that runs. Theatre that fucks. Theatre that caresses. Theatre that leaves you shooketh. Theatre that moves you to make your life, or someone else’s life, or the world’s life better. Theatre that makes you laugh in hysterics in the midst of devastating heartbreak. Theatre that is a well-executed well-made play. Theatre that splatters on the living room wall. Theatre that is messy and elegant at once. Theatre that, for its brief duration, lives.

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

A:  If you’re a fan of an artist and you find yourself in the same space as them, thank them for their work.

If an artistic director or literary manager or fellow artist you’ve reached out to never replies, that says more about them than it does about you.

Find your people. Whether they be playwrights, designers, actors, administrators, what have you, find the people who get your work and want to see it succeed.

That being said, no one will be a better advocate for your work than you. So if you wrote a play, and you believe in what it’s saying, don’t be afraid to put it out there.

This quote comes to mind: “Those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.”

Q:  Plugs, please:


A:  My play Light Switch will be receiving its world premiere from Spectrum Theatre Ensemble in Providence, Rhode Island this coming April. Watch this site for more info: https://www.stensemble.org/

The Gift of BS will receive a virtual reading during the Clay & Water Playwrights Retreat the weekend of February 24—27. Watch this site for more info: http://www.clamourtheatre.org/events/2022-2/clay-and-water-2022/

The Dummy Class will receive a workshop reading with Purple Crayon’s PLAYground Festival of Fresh Works the weekend of April 30—May 1.

If you’re interested in learning more about Light Switch and neurodivergent theatre, I’ve developed a course through theatre.university: https://www.theatre.university/courses/neurodivergent-theatre-light-switch/

 Read some Actually Neurodivergent playwrights! A few playwright/play recommendations you can find on the New Play Exchange are Hayley St. James (For Leonora or Companions), Schereeya Reed (End of the Line), and Scott Sickles (Seaside Tragedies)

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I Interview Playwrights Part 1102: Michael Eichler

Michael Eichler

Hometown: Buffalo, NY

Current Town: San Diego, CA

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I am working on a play about four undergraduates in 1969. Interspersed throughout the story is real film footage from the era showing the Draft Lottery, Earth Day, Vietnam and Kent State. I want the entire cast and crew to be in their twenties.

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

A:  There was severe mental illness in my family. Growing up in a working class neighborhood, it was never talked about. I remember the silence. The feelings from it influence all my writing. My characters need to be found, listened to and understood.

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

A:  Make it relevant to all audiences, not just a narrow sliver of our population. We need a better cross section of participants, and we should not be leaving anybody out.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Currently, Samuel Hunter, Conor Mcpherson and Annie Baker. Going back further, August Wilson, Arthur Miller and David Mamet (only in the earlier years).

Q:  What kind of theatre excites you?

A:  A play that has dialogue and characters which seem authentic.

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

A:  Do everything you can to get your plays read and seen. Everything.

Q:  Plugs please:

A:  Two of my plays are being staged in NYC at the same time this month! REPULSING THE MONKEY at the historic White Horse Tavern in the Financial District, and THE HOUSE WHERE NOBODY LIVES a few subway stops away at the Chain Theatre. Come see both and let me know what you think! www.eichlerplays.com

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I Interview Playwrights Part 1101: Amanda Erin Miller

Amanda Erin Miller

Hometown: San Diego, CA

Current Town: Brooklyn, NY

Q:  Tell me about Smile All The Time.

A:  “Smile All The Time” is a virtual solo puppet-filled tragicomic romp in which I play an angry sixteen-year-old boy named Kevin re-enacting the events that landed him in prison for the security camera in his solitary cell: After stealing Covid-19 vaccines from politicians to inject into ICE detainees, Kevin is sent to Camp Smile Power, a teen anger-management camp. He escapes! On the road, he befriends Ajax, another camp runaway. They plot to destroy capitalism but it goes awry, thrusting them into a reckoning with criminal justice in America.

The show is inspired by work I’ve done over the past couple of years with PEN America's Prison Writing Program and The Justice Arts Coalition (though Kevin is a character I’ve performed for nine years.) Half of the proceeds from ticket sales will benefit TheCampaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth, a nonprofit organization leading efforts to ban extreme sentences for children in the United States. After virtual runs in the Providence and Minnesota Fringe Festivals this summer, I’m performing “Smile All The Time” for the Rochester Fringe Festival this September by way of YouTube Live.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  I’m attempting to put together my first stand-up comedy set. I’m also creating clown bits and writing poetry. I’m also two-thirds of the way through a novel that I hope to complete someday.

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

A:  More support for/awareness of indie theater artists!

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

A:  Write about what excites and gnaws at you. Write consistently, even if it's just a little bit at a time. Form a writer’s group where you submit work to each other and give each other feedback. Take a class as a way to build community. Make friends with actors. Find ways to get your work up on stage at festivals, small venues, bars, garages, rooftops, or living rooms. Stay inspired by continuing to expose yourself to new theater. Don’t let the gatekeepers get you down or stop you from doing the thing that drives you. You’ve got one life and, if this is your passion, keep at it and find ways to bring it to life.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Taylor Mac, Deb Margolin, Laurie Anderson, Karen Finley, Judith Malina, Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, Bill Irwin, V (Formerly Eve Ensler), Steve Wangh, Lily Tomlin, Gilda Radner, Bread and Puppet Theater, Tony Kushner, Robert Askins

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I love theater that is electric, risky, raw, and surprising; theater that keeps audiences on the edge of their seats; theater that ignites people, that wakes them from their stupors, that is interactive in some way; theater that is both hilarious and heartbreaking, over-the-top absurd, painfully honest; theater that tackles issues of the day and moves people to action; theater that feels like a sucker punch to the jugular; theater that is physical, musical, multimedia, hyper-creative, noncommercial.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Smile All The Time is happening virtually as part of the upcoming Rochester Fringe Festival!

Sun 9/19 9pm
Wed 9/22 7:30pm
Thurs 9/23 9:45pm

Runs 45 min

$5

Tix here: https://rochesterfringe.com/tickets-and-shows/smile-all-the-time

YouTube Live link with Ticket purchase 

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I Interview Playwrights Part 1097: Nicole Cox

Nicole Cox

Hometown:  I was born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska, but I grew up into myself in Chicago.

Current Town:  Washington, DC

Q:  Tell me about Abomination.

A:  Abomination is the story of Yitzi, Dov, and Naftali, closeted, queer yeshiva graduates, who find each other in an internet chat room in the 90s, grow into a little family, build an organization, and ultimately work with the Southern Poverty Law Center to successfully take down a conversion therapy organization that spent decades abusing queer kids, and taking advantage of their families, in Orthodox Jewish communities on the east coast. It’s a play about old and new identities, forging your own path, finding your people, and belonging.

Based on the true story of the trial of Ferguson v. JONAH, it’s also a play about wielding the power of language and engaging in sound arguments. It’s about establishing legal precedent and using laws to protect the most vulnerable among us.

The decision was announced June 25, 2015. The next morning, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Obergefell v. Hodges and ruled in favor of marriage equality. Ferguson v. JONAH was national news for about five minutes before it got brushed aside – for the best reason – but I wrote the play because the story shouldn’t get lost in the sweep of history.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  As always, a few things at once!

I’m revising a new play about a GenXer stuck in a job she hates, at a surreal, uber-corporate wellness call center, who’s doing everything she can to get fired, but her cynicism and disregard for corporate jargon somehow improve her performance, so she keeps getting promoted.

My friend, Jennie Berman Eng (“I Interview Playwrights, part 410”), and I are writing a musical about the women who work in and frequent a neighborhood bra shoppe.

And my friend, Sharai Bohannon, and I are writing a TV show together about an AOC-type newcomer to a university campus, who becomes a lightning rod because of her antiracism efforts.

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’m sure this isn’t a unique story to writers or creative types, but, one morning, in 7th grade, in 1989, I was walking to music class with one of my closest girlfriends. Right before we got to the classroom door, she turned to me and said, “Oh my god. Why are you always hanging on me?” She threw open the door and bolted to her desk, as if to leave me in the dust. I was stunned.

By lunchtime, everyone I thought was my friend was no longer my friend. It was gross and suburban and just so, so painful.

The next day, a girl I was sort of friendly with, who wore Metallica t-shirts and purple bras, told me my old friends were b*tches, and asked me if I wanted to sit with her and her friends. They were a mismatched bunch. She bought a 6-pack of mini powdered sugar doughnuts and ate it for lunch. I pulled out my sandwich, carrots, and apple. I gave her my apple. She gave me a doughnut. We’ve been friends for 30 years.

I never belonged with the people I was raised to think I should belong to. I always belonged to the mismatched bunch.

Even in grad school, I confided to a dear professor, “I don’t think I fit in here, and I’m among writers!” Perceptive and succinct, as always, he said, “That’s what’ll keep you writing.”

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

A:  That it was subsidized the way corn and soybeans are. I wish it was cheap, plentiful, and widely available. I wish it was part of federal, state, and local budgets. If we’ve learned anything during quarantine, it’s that storytelling is a necessary commodity, whose value grows with interest, for both public entities and private citizens. It feeds us, sustains us, and keeps us healthy. We shouldn’t need massive private donations to make theater accessible.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Paula Vogel, Lynn Nottage, Anna Deveare Smith, Wendy Wasserstein, Christopher Durang, José Rivera.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  First, the kind I can’t write - wild, loaded spectacle. The kind Black playwrights like Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins, Robert O’Hara, Jeremy O. Harris, and Aleshea Harris are writing right now. I’m also insane for quieter, subtle, intimate plays like those from Annie Baker and Dan O’Brien.

And second, I mean, didn’t we all just get to fall in love with Radha Blank? It’s so exciting to be around when she and Women of Color like Rachel Lynett and Inda Craig-Galván (who I recently learned about and immediately fell in love with) are writing and getting produced.

I know my stories. I want stories from women playwrights who show me characters and give me language outside of my experience. 

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

A:  Well, I see myself as a playwright just starting out, and I have a lot of hangups about calling myself any type of writer, so I’ll share what I try to tell myself: You don’t need anyone’s permission. Just write the story you want to write. You’re not in competition with anyone. And, finally - this is the most important - pick up whatever Jacqueline Goldfinger puts down. 

 
Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  I finally made a hat (website)! Please search for me online and click around on the site. I need traffic. nicoledyancox.com

And if you’re reading this in time, Theater J, in Washington DC, is producing a reading of Abomination on Zoom Thursday, December 17, the last night of Chanukah. José Carrasquillo is directing a wonderful cast. If you can’t make it to the live broadcast, it’ll be available to stream on demand from December 18-20.

And also, I really want to make a quick plug for the Welders 3.0, the DC playwrights collective who, like so many others, got totally cheated this year. This is the first year that the collective is 100% POC, and it just sucks that this generation has to figure out how to survive the shuttered world. I know they’re looking ahead to When The World Opens Back Up, so please, if you feel like giving around this time of year, please please be a pal and an advocate and an accomplice, and donate to the Welders here.

 

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