I Interview Playwrights Part 884: Jim Knable

Jim Knable

Hometown: Sacramento, CA

Current Town: Brooklyn, NY

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I just finished a first draft of a play about Thornton Wilder’s writing of his first novel when he was nearly 30 and “stuck in the quicksand of teaching.” It shows how he discovered his voice as an artist and is also a sort of adaptation of the novel itself with characters in his life morphing into characters in the book’s episodic chapters. Meanwhile, I’m diving back into a slightly older play called The Reverend’s Daughter, about Civil War era college roommates from the North and South, based on a true story about a group of Southern students at Yale who raised a flag of secession on the college chapel spire. I’ve also got a TV pilot that I’m working on inspired by actress Amanda Quaid’s day job of teaching immigrants how to lose their accents. I continually return to other plays that I’ve written in the last ten years that haven’t received productions and/or been published yet.

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 and my second grade teacher called my name for roll the first day, I answered her by saying, “I prefer to be called Jim.” Jim wasn’t my given name, or even a legitimate nickname variation on James (no variation of “James” is in my legal name). Weirdly, Mrs. Yee, every subsequent teacher, my parents, my grandparents, all the rest of my relatives, my friends, and then, loosely speaking, the world agreed to call me Jim. I’ve heard 7 is a typical age for such attempts at name changes. Mine stuck. It was my first act of friendly defiance that explains not only why I still go by Jim to everyone except for the government, but also why I became a writer. I wrote “Jim” into my identity.

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

A:  It would be spelled “theatre” consistently. I’m not an Anglophile, but there’s something nice about how the word looks when it’s spelled that way and, in this country, it distinguishes it from the movie theater. Also, I want all my plays to be produced and to be suddenly understood by all critics.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  When I was about 5, my mom brought me along to a city college acting class she was taking. Students were taking turns standing in front of the class and “making themselves vulnerable.” One man very calmly stripped off all of his clothes. I still remember the joy with which he pulled off his socks to fling them into the audience and the applause he received for it. He has been heroic to me ever since, even though I now think that getting naked in acting class is a little obvious. As for playwrights who influence me, Sam Shepard always has and always will. I emulate him in the way his characters’ speak in constant spirals towards a painfully indefinite center. When I was much younger, I imitated Mamet’s economy, too, though I have mixed feelings about him personally. I studied Arthur Miller, Eugene O’Neill, and Tennessee Williams, and felt their structural influence though none of them ever read one of my plays and Edward Albee did. He even wrote me a nice letter about it, which I photocopied and used to get into college. I like Edward Albee’s plays. I think Three Tall Women is the best Beckett play Albee wrote—which I mean as a sincere compliment to both writers. I also like Maria Irene Fornes, Caryl Churchill, and Suzanne Lori-Parks a lot and think of them as heroes because they manage to be precise yet lyrical with their power and style, and they take exciting risks that often pay off. I think of Tony Kushner as a hero, not just for Angels in America, but because he’s a great teacher of Brecht and an astute political speaker. I love Wallace Shawn. I got to sit next to him completely by accident, watching Mandy Patinkin in Rinne Groff’s play Compulsion at the Public. It was like My Dinner with Andre at the Princess Bride Reunion about Anne Frank. I still try to engage people in conversations like Wallace Shawn after that experience. He’s a great listener. It’s all in the head-tilt. I had a dream once in which I had to list my theatrical heroes and I talked about all those people above… and Schikaneder. I woke up wondering who “Schikaneder” was. Then I remembered. Emanuel Schikaneder wrote the libretto for Mozart’s Magic Flute. Papageno? The Queen of the Night? Zu hilfe, zu hilfe! He’s an unsung hero. Strike that. He is sung. Mozart just gets all the credit. Let’s hear it for the librettist!

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I am excited by overtly theatrical adult theatre in which characters manage to be both human and godlike. I like children’s theatre that isn’t condescending. Theatre presents an opportunity to be in an utterly unique relationship with living human beings, who are enacting a rehearsed ritual that is constantly adjusting depending on the audience, but it isn’t a religious rite, or a speech, or a presentation; it is a reflection of life itself as we live it, however distorted that reflection or disjointed our lives. I like theatre that takes full advantage of this opportunity.

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

A:  Don’t get too comfortable.
Take breaks when you’re tired.
Listen to people talking as much as possible. If you don’t enjoy that, don’t write plays. If you do, try to be anywhere near as amazing as that—and I don’t necessarily mean write naturalistically, just be true to the music of human speech in its essence.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  The Reverend’s Daughter has a staged reading coming up December 15 at Judson Memorial Church for their Magic Time series, directed by Rosemary Andress. Another play of mine, which shall be named when I decide which one to do, will have a staged reading through the Writers Theatre of New Jersey in their Soundings Reading Series at Fairleigh Dickenson University in January. Master Wilder and the Cabala will have a workshop and staged reading at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign this April with Henry Wishcamper directing. I also write and sing songs. Right now the fanciest recordings of those songs are available on the albums I made with my band The Randy Bandits, which can be found on iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon, and so on. Lately, I’ve been writing and singing songs as “The Jewbadour” for Tablet Magazine’s Unorthodox Podcast and I will be featured soon on the Ecumenical “Mockingcast” this November, talking about plays and singing songs. Speaking of podcasts, check out the recording of my play The Curse of Atreus on http://www.12peerstheater.org/modern-myths-podcast. And may I also recommend my tribute to Leonard Cohen at http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/213694/to-be-leonard-cohen.


Plays by Jim


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I Interview Playwrights Part 72: Mariah MacCarthy

 

Mariah MacCarthy

Hometown: San Diego, CA

Current Town: Astoria, NY

Q:  You have a couple shows coming up.  Can you talk a little about the plays and productions?

A:  The first play I have coming up is Ampersand: A Romeo & Juliet Story, the first act of which will be performed as part of the Looking Glass Theatre's Winter Forum (December 17-20).  It's a contemporary cynical lesbian adaptation of, you guessed it, Romeo and Juliet--with music and cross-dressing.  The title characters are two midwestern girls in their early twenties whose mothers are running against each other for mayor.  My approach is pretty un-romantic - I really don't think Romeo and Juliet would have worked out as a couple had they lived, or that killing yourself over grief for your lover is particularly romantic, and this rendition reflects that attitude.  I also had elections on the brain after last year's epic race, and am simultaneously tickled and disgusted by how much we know about politicians' children--and wouldn't it be wild if, say, Chelsea Clinton and Meghan McCain were a secret couple?  As all this was swirling around in my head, director Amanda Thompson asked me if I'd like to write something for the Looking Glass's Winter Forum, and the rest is history.

Then in the spring, the awesome Rapscallion Theatre Collective is projected to produce The All-American Genderf*ck Cabaret.  This project started as my senior thesis at Skidmore College, which I co-created with a fabulous student cast; then I reworked it in June in a staged reading with a different, though also fabulous, cast.  Genderf*ck takes eight gender stereotypes and, well, fucks them.  The characters, guided by an androgynous, omnipotent MC, morph from full-on cliches to actual human beings.  There's dancing, making out, assault, heartbreak, and peanut butter banana sandwiches.  The staged reading in June was one of those magical nights you dream of as a playwright, where the house is packed and you get a standing O and it leads to a production offer.  And I'm so excited to be working with Rapscallions; I've worked with them as a director several times, and in addition to being incredibly warm and welcoming people, they're always doing fresh, beautiful work.  (Shameless plug: check out their upcoming production of Naomi Wallace's Trestle at Pope Lick Creek - it's going to be gorgeous: http://www.rapscalliontheatrecollective.com/productions/2009_trestle.html)

Q:  Tell me what it was like to intern at New Dramatists.

A:  Interning at New Dramatists was my wonderful crash course introduction to the New York theater scene that every theater artist should get when they're just starting out.  Not only are there absurdly brilliant playwrights hanging out at ND all the time, you're also being constantly inundated with new work - through stage managing the readings, seeing bucketloads of free theater, reading the plays in the library, etc.  I learned a ton, drank a lot of free wine, and met some delightful people that I'm still working with--Amanda Thompson, director of Ampersand, was a fellow intern there.  And if you intern with them, you get a reading of one of your plays, so I had an awesome reading of my play A Man of His Word there in January.  Yes, New Dramatists interns make coffee and get very familiar with the copier, but when something like PlayTime happens in the fall, you actually get really excited about making coffee and copies.  I'm serious.

Q:  You took a class with Lucy Thurber at Primary Stages.  What was that like?

A:  My class with Lucy was the beginning of a hugely important turnaround for me as a playwright.  I've always had a restless imagination, and as I've gotten older my work has become increasingly gender-political, so I waltzed into Lucy's class thinking I was rather clever.  She was the first teacher to kind of kick my ass and say, "OK, yes, you're very clever, but what's actually happening in this scene?"  She taught me that theater can't just be pretty; it has to be active.  Since then my work has changed significantly, and for the better.  (Side note: if you're in New York and haven't seen Lucy's Killers and Other Family yet, I don't know what you're waiting for.  See it before it closes this weekend.)

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

A:  When I was three, I used to pick up my uncle's cats by their tails and throw them in his pool.  I didn't mean the cats any harm - it was hot out, and I thought the cats would want to cool off, and it seemed obvious to me that cats were meant to be picked up by the tail.  This, of course, was not the case, and very quickly these cats started avoiding me, but I didn't know why.  I just loved them so much and didn't understand why they didn't want to play with me anymore.

Q:  How do you feel about dating a fellow playwright?

A:  I feel pretty great about dating Larry Kunofsky.  We're both huge fans of each other's writing, but more importantly, we're madly in love.  It's a very convenient arrangement.  It's nice to feel both inspired and inspiring.

Q:  Tell me about Writers Group for Minions.

A:  Writers Group for Minions is the brainchild of me and my former co-minion Krystal Banzon (who will be directing Genderf*ck in the spring).  We created it to give our fellow office bitches, interns, and assistants a forum where they could bring and share work.  I've always found it hard to write without some kind of structure or deadline, so WGFM is our attempt to motivate ourselves and our peers.  Feel free to email us at writersgroupforminions@gmail.com with a description of your minion experience if you'd like to join us!

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Really, even if I don't like something, I'll congratulate anything that's doing something I've never seen before.  But beyond that...Theater with visible strings.  Theater where someone totally rocks out.  Theater with longing or war or ugliness in it.  Theater that makes me go, "Oh no they didn't!"  Theater with awkward moments.  Theater that is socially aware without being self-congratulatory, or celebratory without being mindless.  Theater with guts.  From this year:  Monstrosity, That Pretty Pretty; or, The Rape Play, Red Fly/Blue Bottle, Rods and Cables, Chautauqua!, Bird House, Ruined, Expatriate, Our Town at Barrow Street...I could go on.

Probably my favorite person making art right now is Amanda Palmer, performance artist & former frontwoman of The Dresden Dolls.  Her solo album provided a lot of the inspiration for Ampersand (the title is lovingly lifted from the third track).  This year, she collaborated with a group of high schoolers in Lexington, Massachusetts to create one of the most memorable theatrical experiences I've ever seen, With the Needle that Sings in Her Heart.  It was an ensemble piece based on the Neutral Milk Hotel album, In an Aeroplane Over the Sea, in which Anne Frank uses her imagination to escape the horrors of the Holocaust - until eventually she can't anymore.  It was epic and broken and devastating and just...stunning.  And you can feel that theatricality in Amanda Palmer's music.  I wish she'd come to New York and bring her high schoolers with her.

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

A:  I consider myself to be very, very much still in the "just starting out" category, but here's what I've learned so far: people love free labor.  Give your sweat to theaters you admire, even if you already have a "job-job" - help with mass mailings, help with load-ins and strikes, be an usher, be a PA, whatever you can do (without adding too much to the debt you've likely already accrued from college).  Some people will take the free labor and run, but others will bend over backwards for you again and again.  Do it now, while you have the energy.

Also, remember that networking is often as simple as just making friends.  Your fellow intern today is tomorrow's Anne Bogart, so don't worry if you didn't get to share your poetic prowess with the big boss of your favorite theater company; your friends, your peers, are your future collaborators.  Toward that end, fill your friends' houses - karma works.  Befriend directors until you meet the ones that get your work.  And if you've just graduated college, contact your fellow alumni.  I wouldn't have gotten anywhere without the support of my more established fellow Skidmore College alums: Allison Prouty at the Women's Project, Jessica Davis-Irons at Andhow!, Yehuda Duenyas at NTUSA.  They enabled me to hit the ground running when I moved to New York, and I haven't stopped running yet.

Q:  Links for shows, please:

A:  There's no info online for Ampersand or Genderf*ck yet, but definitely check out both theaters' websites...

The Looking Glass: http://thelookingglasstheatre.homestead.com/

Rapscallion Theatre Collective: http://www.rapscalliontheatrecollective.com/ (And seriously, go see Trestle at Pope Lick Creek.  Fo'real.)

Q:  And other plugs?

A:  Check out my blog, A Rehearsal Room of One's Own: http://nicefeminist.blogspot.com/ - I love getting feedback on my ramblings, so please feel free to drop me a line there!

Again, to come to a Writers Group for Minions meeting, email writersgroupforminions@gmail.com with a description of your experience as a minion.  We'd love to have you.

Also, my friend Heidi Handelsman runs an awesome reading series called The Potluck out of her living room (and yes, it is an actual potluck) - email potluckplays@yahoo.com to sign up for updates.

I Interview Playwrights Part 682: Alex Trow

Alex Trow

Hometown: Highlands Ranch, CO

Current Town: New York, NY

Q:  Tell me about your upcoming show

A: It’s called Flamingo, and it’s about love and lust, and how you can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get… to a place where you make a choice and oof that’s hard. It’s my first full-length play, and I’m getting to act in it, so I feel prrrrrretty nervous and excited and lucky.

A:  What else are you working on now?

A:  As a writer, a few other plays with bird titles, a screenplay maybe, an immersive theatrical experience, and, someday, the blank Word document I’ve saved as “What the F Happened to Enthusiasm?(!), and What You Can Do About It!!” As an actor, this play, Flamingo.

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 16, I ran over a rabbit, and unfortunately it was badly injured but not dead, and my friend Eric got out of the car and went back and mercy killed it with a rock. I went home and cried-n-wrote an ode from the rabbit’s point of view as she died, i.e. the last things she saw and really noticed that warm summer night with all the stars up above. So: maybe I’m both a little hyper-sensitive about and willing to linger inside your everyday mercy killing?

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

A:  Off the top of my head, I would make it part of every kid’s elementary school education. Like gym class. Gym class for emotional intelligence.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  So many playwrights and actors and weirdos, but also my parents, because they were both scientists/”left-brain people” as professionals, but took my brother and me to theater from age 5 on, and go themselves all the time. They recently took an acting class at a community college to “understand” what my brother (also an actor!) and I “go through” – I saw the video of their final exam, which was a monolog presentation, and turns out they are great actors! Like not embarrassing at all, just great.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A: I think the most exciting theater is the kind where people – and even things - are really listening to each other and responding to what they hear. That is purposefully vague because my excitement horizons are actively expanding.

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

A:  Stolen science advice! Spend time, just lots of time, writing anything. I think I really believe in the Ten-Thousand Hours rule (a thing convincingly described in Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers) whereby one becomes an expert in his/her field after 10,000 hours of dedicated practice. The hard thing is that in my experience, the first many many many hours of doing anything can produce pretty bad stuff… but you have to keep going, it always gets better! Because time. I thought about it, and I probably have 600 hours or so…. Only 9400 left to go.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Please come see Sanguine Theatre’s Co.’s production of Flamingo at the IRT Theater (154 Christopher Street). Writ by me; acted in by Dylan Lamb, Ian Antal, and me; directed by Jillian Robertson; produced by Sanguine Theatre Company - September 3-14, 2014. Tickets here! (And in 9000 hours when I write lots of other stuff, I’ll notify everyone via www.alextrow.com.)

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I Interview Playwrights Part 863: Joshua Young

Joshua Young

Hometown: Columbus, Ohio

Current Town: Bronx, NY

Q:  Tell me about Who Mourns for Bob the Goon?

A:  This play is dark comedy about a PTSD therapy group where everyone thinks they're third tier comic book characters. Specifically it's about vets who have coped with their PTSD by identifying with their lesser known comic counterparts as part of an untested (and maybe unethical) version of drama therapy. The group begins to unravel when a woman is admitted who believes she's from an anime, not a comic. The premise in writing was something very personal to me; I find that we, as Americans, often fail to mourn the lives who've impacted us the most.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  I'm writing two plays. School Bus Witchhunt and Copper Pirates. School Bus Witchhunt is a story about a school's administrative board going after a white parent because her son was accused of calling a black friend on the bus the n word. Copper Pirates is about a man who hunts copper (something extraordinarily common in poor communities) whose stash was raided. The thin thread holding his life and family together falls apart because someone stole his copper. Both stories are 100% focused on poor communities in America.

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 think the older I get the more I reflect on visiting my father in prison when I was a child, and how that memory fuels my current activism as an artist. And how that memory fuels my sense of defiance.

My parents were both indigent and very young when they had me and it took some time for them to transition into being 'parents.' Longer for my father than my mother... and my father's getting in trouble with the law in my early years reflects that. I have two very clear memories of this experience. I remember when my father was in court for sentencing and my mother telling me it was important that we showed up, as the court was more lenient if they saw a sympathetic family in attendance. Crying children help. I also recall the process of visiting him in prison, and -to a child, maybe 5-7 years old- it just felt like a trip or something special to do. "Oh it's Saturday, we're gonna go visit your father."

It took many years to figure out my identity as an adult and embrace the environment I emerged from. It took many years in NYC to realize how different I was to so many people in the communities I was involved in. It saddens and scares me how out of touch people in theater are with these large swaths of America who are living in or near what we would classify third world environments. The disadvantages my folks faced in my youth, including my dad getting in trouble with the law, were dictated by where we were and are headed as a society. The lack of opportunity and even hope that is dictated to the lower class in this country... I'm trying to change that. I was lucky in that, despite the disadvantages my parents had to overcome, they were always supportive towards me... and genuinely bright people. The idea that poor folks in this country aren't bright is a mistake too many people make.

I pursued writing as an act of defiance. My folks insisted as I grew up that I fought for whatever I could cling to that brought my happiness. Their theory was that life was going to be miserable no matter what I did, so the least I could do for myself was find a path/ career/ life that could have the potential to make me happy. My not giving up my hopes and dreams as a playwright is a subtle and consistent act of defiance and protest to our society at large and an act of honoring that mentality my folks imbued in me. Going into the arts or actively finding methods of self expression, is overtly discouraged in poor communities. I think of my father being in prison, how he got there and why, how my parents dealt with their circumstances in life, how they raised me... and it really is the best little anecdote that explains who I am as a writer, a person, and an activist.

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

A:  The aesthetics, the types of stories being told, and even the way theater is made is far too controlled by the mentalities of people who have had affluent lives. The sons and daughters of the upper class, and even upper middle, and even middle class, at some point took over the theater scene, especially the downtown theater scene, and have made it an impenetrable monolith.

If I could change one thing... well I would tear it all down. I'd find an army of people from poor communities across America and jam them into every board of directors, theater company roster, and artistic role I could find. I can't do that... so instead I created my own company that is expressly aimed at supportive voices from lower economic background. It's a start.

The stories that need to be told from these communities are so important, and can be so entertaining, enlightening, and engaging... that we just have to build the infrastructure to have them heard, and more importantly, produced.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  This is a very good question. Typically I feel like playwrights talk about who influenced them and not who their heroes are. I've been influenced by Beckett, Albee, and Miller among others... but who are my heroes...? Thinking...

Spalding Gray is one of my theatrical heroes. His mother's suicide and later his own... when you look at his life and work through the lens of someone fighting so hard against a psychological disorder, but losing to it... it rouses something in me. A strength to fight on, even knowing you may lose. And I've admired the existential empathy he conveys in all his work. Watching one of his monologues has always made me feel less alone in the world.

Yukio Mishima is hero of mine. That dude just did not give. a. fuck. His politics are complicated but his acts of defiance for what he believed in were unyielding. And similar to Spalding, Mishima was validated by genuine brilliance as an artist. I look to him for a personal reminder of what it's like to have totally converged artistic life and private life, and how there is honor and positivity in that. On the other hand, he presents a cautionary tale of how converging private and artistic life too much... to an extreme and inflexible place, can lead to ruin.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Only theater that is uniquely theatrical excites me. We live in an age where there are a lot of mediums for telling a story. I have often seen plays and left asking myself, was this medium best suited for this tale. We have access to the technology to make podcasts, films, televisions shows, webseries, and so on... That's why I believe a theatrical piece should try to strive towards justifying why it belongs on a stage.

Ivo Van Hove's Scenes from a Marriage was a great example, so was Reid Farrington's Tyson Vs. Ali, other examples are Revolt, She Said, Revolt Again, SeaWife, and I could list many others. All of these very diverse stories from diverse artists shared one big thing in common, they could only exist on the stage. (*And I recognize the irony in writing that since Scenes from a Marriage was originally a motion picture, but in adapting it and using the Fefu and her Friends style story structure Van Hove and Emily Mann made something uniquely theatrical.)

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

A:  I'd say remember you'll only ever have yourself and your own ambition to trust, so fight for those things. Fight for yourself and your ambition. Fight to be a better human being. Fight to be a better artist. Fight to be a supportive artist. Fight to be collaborative. Fight for your vision. Fight for a better theater. Fight for better opportunities for marginalized artists. Fight for humility. Fight to be a better skilled playwright if your talent doesn't match your ambition. And most importantly fight for storytelling, and fight for the stories heard that deserve to be heard.

And never stop fighting, because that leads to feeling something passed you by or you missed your chance. Resentment, anger, darkness... lead to nothing good in the arts.

 

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I Interview Playwrights Part 57: Bathsheba Doran

Bash Doran

Hometown: London, England

Current Town: New York City, USA

Q: You have a children's play going up at South Coast Rep this season. Can you tell me a little bit about it and how you came to write it?

A: It's called Ben and the Magic Paintbrush and it's based on a Chinese myth about an orphan who finds a paintbrush that brings whatever it paints to life. It was a story read to me when I was very young, and I remembered it because the image of a painting developing an independent life and leaving the canvas always stayed with me for obvious reasons. In my hands it becomes a story about two little kids who find this magic paintbrush and have to escape the unbelievably evil clutches of one Mrs. Crawly who wants to trap them in a dungeon and paint gold. It was extremely liberating to write - you can be so extreme in the form - truly evil characters, truly good, disguises always work, sleeping pills make you pass out, language can be so playful - it's a totally different sort of storytelling. It taught me a lot. In particular, it was excellent to be forced to be plot driven and to be very clear about what the story is. There's lots of jokes for grown-ups in there too. I even managed to slip in a portrait of a difficult marriage (my speciality, I've decided). I wrote it because they commissioned me - after they saw my adaptation of Great Expectations for kids.

Q: Your play Parent's Evening is going up at the Flea soon. Can you tell me about that play?

A: It's a portrait of a difficult marriage...It's about a deeply narcissistic but very endearing couple the night of a parent-teacher conference. The first half is before the conference. The second half is after. Suffice to say - things do not go well at the school.

Q: What else are you working on? Lucy Smith was raving about a new play of yours. You want to tell me a little bit about that?

A: I just finished the first draft of a new play - I've been working on it for just about a year on and off - and I am also excited about it. Whenever I write a play I send bits to Lucy. From her reaction, I can pretty much tell if I am on the track I want to be on or if I need to swerve.

Q: What are the differences between American and British theater?

A: I'm not sure that there are fundamental differences - although both the British and the Americans often seem to like the idea that British theater is inherently "better." I do think that England has a 500 year old canon to congratulate itself upon. America doesn't have that - and I think that a consequence is that Americans are more obviously invested in "new writing" and "new American voices" which I find interesting - there's a certain nationalistic streak caught up in the concept of production. The British actors I have worked with are more comfortable approaching a text cerebrally, but I haven't worked there enough to make a confident generalization in that department. It was an impression I got. But generally speaking I have seen dreadful and wonderful theatre in both places and about the same amount of each in each.

Q: Like me, you studied playwriting at both Columbia and Juilliard. You want to tell me a little about your experiences there?

A: Columbia was an incredible experience for me - Eduardo Machado who taught playwriting there at the time became and still is a mentor to me. He was the first person who made me feel like I really might be able to write and he has an incredible ability to read a play and say something like "you went off on page 56, and it doesn't come back until page 86". In my experience, he's always right. I have tremendous respect for him. He's unorthodox and if you are paying eighty grand for an education (which I wasn't, I had a scholarship) then you might get frustrated, you might want specifics, it dirties the whole process really. But for me - working with him was a miracle. I also somehow got Columbia to commission me to write an adaptation of Peer Gynt for the graduating acting class of my year and Andrei Serban directed it. Someone asked me recently what the best production I've had is - and I realized that for me it was that one. And being in rehearsal with Andrei was such an education and a joy. At one point he dressed the actor playing "the boy" in a gorilla suit, watched the scene, and whispered to me "I don't know what it means, but it's primal, yes?" Right there was one of the most succinct lessons in theatre-making I've ever had. Because who cares what it means? But of course, generally people are like "but why, but why, explain." I'm not sure that truths have an explanation. Truths speak for themselves. We recognize them instinctually. That's what makes them true. And the class I took with Anne Bogart - the collaboration class - learned a huge amount. And generally speaking it was a wonderful time for me - I had just left England, I had committed to playwriting properly, and experimentation was encouraged. It was fantastic.

Juilliard was also wonderful but in a totally different way. It provided such access. Access to great actors, to readings, to people in the profession. There was an emphasis on the practical working environment I could expect to encounter. It was very important to me in that way. And it opened doors for me that Columbia just didn't. Chris and Marsha were incredibly nurturing, and supportive, and funny and wise and honest. I had a great time, I wrote a great deal. It was all much more grown up.

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

A: When I was little I got to go and see a production of Peter Pan staring Lulu and John Nettles. Someone we knew was involved and I got taken backstage afterwards which was unbelievably exciting. I looked in a drawer on the set, and I found Peter Pan's shadow. It was made of pantyhose. That impacted me greatly.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: Anything where the theatrical experience is organic - music, design, acting, direction, text. Which means, irritatingly for me as a playwright, the work I have responded to most recently is devised by companies. Gatz just blew my mind. And The War Horse, which is coming to Broadway I think, was just unbelievable. I also love things that feel truly actor driven - Steppenwolf's work for example. The play, even a great play, is the beginning. Everyone else should take it further. I also like to draw a distinction between contemporary plays, and political plays. I am a fan of the former, not the latter. With very few exceptions (The Normal Heart, being one) I can not stand theater designed to articulate outrage at political event. They lack complexity, and I have noticed that audiences tend to leave the theatre practically congratulating themselves for having attended - as though going to the theater were a political act. Going to the theater is only a political act if the play you are seeing has been banned. Susan Sontag said “So far as we feel sympathy we feel we are not accomplices to what caused the suffering. Our sympathy proclaims our innocence as well as our impotence. To that extent it can be (for all our good intentions) an impertinent – if not an inappropriate – response. To set aside the sympathy we extend to others beset by war and murderous politics for a reflection on how our privileges are located on the same map of their suffering, and may – in ways we might prefer not to imagine – be linked to their suffering, as the wealth of some may imply the destitution of others, is a task for which the painful, stirring images supply only an initial spark.” I find this to be such a brilliant and important observation that I learned it by heart to hiss at people who don't agree with me.

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

A: Flashback scenes seldom work out.

I Interview Playwrights Part 862: Elenna Stauffer

Elenna Stauffer


Hometown: Scarsdale, NY is where I grew up.

Current Town: New York, NY is where my kids are growing up.

Q:  Tell me about Hysterical.

A:  It's the story of five girls' strange and terrifying year. One by one the girls on the Bandits' cheerleading team succumb to a mysterious illness, upending the traditional pecking order and testing the girls’ relationships with each other. It was inspired by actual news stories about mass hysteria among modern American high schoolers. If there is a theme in my work so far, it is that I tend to be interested in characters who might be written off as trivial, but who are struggling and trying desperately to be heard. In this play in particular, I have tried to focus tightly on the voices of the young women who are afflicted, so there are no mothers, fathers, coaches or teachers onstage. It is just them.

In an early draft, in a class I took at Primary Stages with Stefanie Zadravec, she identified an impulse I hadn't named but was following, about how I use the girls as their own Greek chorus to tell their stories. It gave a name to what I was trying to do, and I worked harder in subsequent drafts to make sure that I followed that instinct. So throughout the play, there are moments when it gets to be too much for the girls, when they break the fourth wall to comment on what is happening to them through fully embodied cheers. It requires an awesome cast able to reveal the delicate inner lives of these fragile young women, and also capable of stomping, shouting and doing stunts and splits. I like to think it is a poignant, cheer-full look at life on the cusp of adulthood.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  I have a newish play about the corrosive effects of social media on human interaction, which needs work, and a couple of problematic older plays that I'd really like to get my hands dirty revising. One is about a group of pageant moms (and Sarah Palin makes a nice cameo), and the other is about a new moms' group and is the most naturalistic of all the plays I have written so far. I've also been given small short play assignments by a couple of theatre groups I write with (I'm on the board of a newly formed company called Mason Holdings which is having a launch this fall) so I've got the month of August, when I'm no longer allowed to revise Hysterical, when I'll need to write those.

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

A:  Well, in terms of ambition and a love of writing, it would have to be my impulse at age five to declare to anyone who would listen that I planned to be a novelist (pronounced NO!-velist). That was also when I would give impassioned introductions at imaginary conventions, jumping on my parents' bed, shouting "Ladies and Gentlemen! President Jimmy Carter!!" I'm still a fan of his, so as origin stories go, those two impulses still feel like honest seeds of the person and writer I hoped to be.

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

A:  Hm. I have to say that I'm heartened every time I see a play that changes my perception of the world and as far as diversity of voices goes, there may be some hopeful signs, but I think there's still much room for improvement. I also think that as much as I'd realized that making a career as a playwright would be no easier than making a career as an actor (in both cases, it's voiceover work that's paid my bills), I don't think I realized how difficult and isolating it can be to find community, which is so necessary (even more so!) as a writer. Coming at this after years as an actor, I have actor friends I can call on when I need to hear material read aloud, but there should be more institutional support for nascent playwrights to get to hear their scenes aloud. I've loved taking classes at Primary Stages. In addition to having excellent, working teachers, it's a place where they have opportunities for readings or just to borrow space and actors to hear things in a conference room, and without that I'm not sure how I would have developed. But classes are expensive and without that or the support of a graduate program, I'm not sure how an early career playwright gets that room to try and fail and stretch, so I think that there are barriers to entry that go beyond just programming decisions at big theaters. So I think there’s room for improvement there.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  I'm going to answer this in a more personal way- I didn't start out as a playwright. I took a playwriting seminar at Yale and then a wonderful class in graduate school with Ellen McLaughlin, but I didn't really attempt to BE a playwright until after I'd already had my first baby. And it's been a reality for me, as it is for a lot of women, that it can be very hard to have children and still have artistic and personal ambitions, and so my heroes are all the women who have demonstrated that this can be possible (or, at least that I'm not nuts to try). So my heroes are women like Stefanie Zadravec and Brooke Berman, Sarah Ruhl (whom I've never met, but who wrote a series of essays that inspire me), and your wife, Kristen Palmer, among many.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I've always said that my favorite theatre is theatre that is fun and/or beautiful (which can be a terrifying kind of beauty). I came at this from having been a musical theatre girl. In that world, there's often a right and a wrong answer to the question "Webber or Sondheim," but I honestly was very split. I've come to love Sondheim, but I will still always pick Webber at the karaoke bar.

I worked as a stage manager on a production of Angels in America when I first moved to NY after college. I had no skills and didn't get paid, but I just really, really wanted to be near that script because that play is... obviously unbelievable. Working on it was a formative experience- the cast was wonderful and I just loved that feeling of working on something meaningful with people I genuinely loved.

As a spectator, I may never have another night at the theatre that makes me want to stop time just to keep thinking about what I saw the way I did when I saw Gem of the Ocean. And going back to the previous question about heroes? August Wilson. Definitely. His plays showed worlds I knew nothing about, and made me think about the world I lived in. Wendy Wasserstein is the playwright who made me wonder if I could write plays- seeing the Heidi Chronicles in high school was eye opening because it was one of the first plays where I saw someone confronting things that felt familiar to me. Because I came at this from having been an actor, I'm very aware that it's not just the playscript that makes a successful production. There are directors, like Simon McBurney, whose work would make me drop everything to search for tickets (as a side note, having been lucky enough to find Deborah Wolfson to direct this production of Hysterical! I've seen firsthand the positive impact a director can have- she manages not only to realize what I've written, but also to see what I've TRIED to write, and to make sure that that also is revealed). As for actors, I saw an understudy, Jerome Preston Bates, step in for Keith David in Seven Guitars, and he blew me away (and made me realize how many brilliant people are just waiting for their shot in this crazy talented city!). Michael Cerveris in Tommy. Sir Ian McKellen and Geraldine McEwan. Phyllicia Rashad. Lisa Gay Hamilton. This could take all day.

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

A:  Find really generous people to be around. I remember a classmate giving me the name of her voice teacher when I was a new-to-the-city actor. It stuck out because these kinds of acts of kindness seemed rare. In this industry, there are people who will be human beings and people who treat this as a cutthroat sport.

Having defined myself for so many years as an actor, it's taken me some time to be comfortable calling myself a writer, especially in the company of obviously talented writers who have started earlier and who have had more successes. That writing class I took at Yale was a class of ten. It included Itamar Moses and Quiara Hudes. So I have good reason to feel inferior. But when I first started writing, Itamar gave me one of the most generous, thorough and thoughtful reads of an early draft (when I really, really didn't know what I was doing.) I took it out recently to see if it was salvageable and it was TERRIBLE. But he took it seriously, which allowed me to take myself seriously and to keep at this. All the teachers and writers who have similarly shared their thoughts and dramaturgical instincts with me as I worked to find my own- I'm deeply grateful for them. And, of course, one of my first giggles post grad school was being listed in the credits of your Mask play playscript as having originated the role. So when you asked me to do an interview, I'll be honest, I was really touched. So, I guess I hope that I can be as nurturing as you all have been. And my advice to playwrights, to get back to that, is that while it's true there are only so many "slots" for productions, etc. etc, and that it's true that there is a lot still to be done to achieve gender and all other parity, that doesn't mean you have to be part of the shit show. Allow yourself to be a cheerleader and supporter for other writers, because there are many, many people itching to do the same for you.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  I hope if you're reading this before August 24th that you'll come and see the NYC Fringe production of Hysterical! Tickets are available through www.fringenyc.org or you can check out our website: www.hystericalplay.com As our marketing materials say, "there may be tears; there WILL be cheers."

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I Interview Playwrights Part 463: Jacqueline E. Lawton

photo by Jason Hornick

Jacqueline E. Lawton

Hometown: Tennessee Colony, Texas

Current Town: Washington, D.C.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: Right now, I’m finishing Bend and Sway, Don’t Break, which is about the domestic slave trade and fight for freedom in D.C. in the early 19th Century. I started writing it last Spring, but it got usurped by Love Brothers Serenade and The Hampton Years.

Bend and Sway, Don’t Break follows Dr. Jesse Torrey, a Philadelphian physician and philanthropist, who was on a crusade throughout the East Coast to advocate for the establishment of free libraries and public schools. When he arrived in D.C., he learned about the attempted suicide of a slave woman who was about to be sold South apart from her husband and children. She had jumped from the third story window of Miller’s Tavern, which was a notorious slave depot located on 13th and F Streets NW. She broke both arms and injured her back, but survived. Dr. Torrey visited her and discovered two kidnapped people of color, who were also about to be sold into slavery. Torrey went to Francis Scott Key, brilliant attorney and one-hit wonder, for help.

I’m reading the handwritten transcripts of this case and the newspaper articles that capture the response of congress members, who are being forced to confront the atrocity of slavery; it’s riveting! I’m grateful to have the next two weeks to work on it.

This summer, I’ll be working on rewrites on The Hampton Years, which will receive a world premiere at Theater J next season.

Q: Tell me about The Hampton Years.

A: Absolutely! The Hampton Years is set at Hampton Institute from 1939 to 1946. The play dramatizes key events in the life of art professor Viktor Lowenfeld and his students, John Biggers and Samella Lewis. Lowenfeld turned down a teaching position at Harvard to work at Hampton (a Negro school), which was absolutely unheard of at the time! John Biggers, who started off learning how to be a plumber, went on to become an internationally acclaimed painter, sculptor, and teacher. Samella Lewis, artist and printmaker, was a transfer from the University of Iowa. She had fiery and passionate temper, which led to a contentious, but truly respectful relationship with Lowenfeld. She’s in her 80s now and still works as an artist.

Recently, I met Hazel Biggers, widow of the late John Biggers, at the opening reception of African American Art: From Harlem Renaissance to Civil Rights Era and Beyond at the American Art Museum. She’s so excited about the play! Also, Samella Lewis read the play and had this say about it, “It’s good. Girl, it brought me back. I hadn’t expected that.” How exciting is that?!

Q: Can you talk about the Locally Grown Festival and working with Theater J?

A: Okay, so back in May of 2011, Shirley Serotsky, Theater J's Director of Literary and Public Programs, contacted me about submitting a proposal for their first ever “"Locally Grown: New Plays From Our Own Garden (or Community Supported Arts)" festival. The festival premiered Renee Calarco’s The Religion Thing; included readings of new plays by Gwydion Suilebhan, Stephen Spotswood, and myself; and featured workshop presentations of new works by solo performing artists Jon Spelman and Laura Zam.

I submitted The Hampton Years, which was originally conceived in November of 2010 after a conversation with Shirley about Theater J’s interest in exploring the Black and Jewish relationship. Since The Hampton Years, explores the relationship between Jewish scholars and Black students in the segregated south during the 1940s, it was perfect match for Theater J's mission and they commissioned it as part of the festival.

Working with Theater J has been and continues to be amazing! Their Locally Grown Festival supports the work of D.C. area playwrights in a nurturing environment and allowed us to contribute our voices to an already vibrant theater season. Having this level of investment and commitment at the early stages of the writing process was so invigorating! What’s more, the entire Theater J staff is so attentive, encouraging and passionate about the work we’re presented and their continued investment in us has been thrilling! I’m over the moon with joy and excitement about the upcoming production!

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 love this question! When I was in 3rd Grade, we were given an assignment to write a short story about Halloween. At this point, I was already writing adventure stories about my stuffed animals, so this assignment was a piece of cake! What’s more, I adored my 3rd Grade teacher, Mrs. Jordan, and had the biggest little girl crush on her two daughters, who were always very nice to me. (They both had gorgeous curly red hair, which reminded of Anne of Green Gables.) I wrote a haunted house story about all of them and Mrs. Jordan loved it! She loved it so much in fact that she asked me read it aloud in class. Horror upon horrors, I felt betrayed! I begged her not to make me do it. Despite the ME you know now, 3rd Grade Me was painfully shy and terrified to speak in public. Oh, I was so scared. I resisted with every fiber of my being, but ultimately ... I did as instructed. I read the story to my class. Every now and then, I would lift my eyes up from the page, which was gripped so tightly in my shaking and sweating hands, just to see if the class was looking and listening. They were, and they seemed to enjoy it! When I finished, they applauded so loudly! It was a room full of smiles and it felt amazing! Now, you can’t keep me from the stage; all thanks to Mrs. Jordan. That experience literally changed my life.

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

A: I want to rid this great work of ours of the incendiary bigotry, racism, sexism and elitism that runs rampant and silences so many beautiful, powerful and essential voices. I want more diversity on our stages not only in gender, ethnicity, and race, but also in content, style, and voice. I want theater producers, administrators, boards, artists, donors, patrons, and audiences to stop with all the nonsense, do better and be smarter! Plain and simple.

Q: How would you describe the DC theater scene?

A: Diverse, thriving, passionate, determined, brave, generous, eager, defiant, accomplished, and outstanding!

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: Interns! They are brave souls venturing forth into the world. Also, these playwrights: Amparo Garcia Crow, John Guare, Adrienne Kennedy, Terrence MacNally, Ruth Margraff, Arthur Miller, Lynn Nottage, Harold Pinter, Jose Rivera, Sarah Ruhl, and Tennessee Williams. These playwrights cracked open my heart and changed my world view. I am not the same for having encountered their writing, vision, passion, and devotion to theater. I am grateful to them.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: Theater that is magic. That provokes and pushes boundaries. That poses difficult questions. That reflects the human condition. That shows us how awful and beautiful we can be to one another ...and that we have a choice in how we behave. That uses powerful and provocative language. That introduces us to interesting and compelling characters. That is intimate, funny, honest, scary, ugly, messy, poetic, and beautiful. Theater, that while ephemeral, remains with you forever.

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

A: Be bold, honest, and determined. See as many plays and readings as you can. Make friends with other theater artists. Talk, argue, complain, yell and cry to them about the kind of work you want to be creating, the kind that isn’t being created where you live, and then go create it. Honor and protect your writing time. Don't ever stop writing!

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  My lovely website: www.jacquelinelawton.com

August 5, 2012 from 11:30am to 1:00pm: Staging Strife and Solidarity: Black-Jewish Relations in American Drama at the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) annual conference with Kwame Kwei-Armah (Artistic Director, Centerstage), Jacqueline E. Lawton (The Hampton Years/Theater J commission), Ari Roth (Artistic Director, Theater J), and Gavin Witt (Associate Artistic Director, CenterStage), moderated by Faedra Chatard Carpenter (Assistant Professor, University of Maryland) and LaRonika Thomas (Doctoral Candidate, University of Maryland).

World Premiere of The Hampton Years at Theater J under the direction of Shirley Serotsky with performances running May 29th to June 30th, 2013.

I Interview Playwrights Part 363: Ellen McLaughlin

Ellen McLaughlin

Hometown:
I was born in Boston, MA, then spent a few years in California where my father was at Stanford, but grew up mostly in DC, where my father taught at American University.

Current Town:
Rinde and I (Rinde Eckert is my husband) have been living in Nyack, NY since 1995, it amazes me to realize. It's 18 miles up the Hudson from Manhattan and filled to the brim with theater folks.

Q:  Tell me about Ajax in Iraq.

A:  The short answer is that the piece was an outgrowth of my residence in 2008 at ART in Cambridge, MA and my collaboration with the 2009 class of graduate actors there.

I wanted to create a work that addressed the American solider's experience in Iraq at the time and ended up pairing the kind of material the class was generating (much of it about what female soldiers were encountering) with an adaptation of Sophocles' AJAX. When Gus approached me about having Flux produce it, I decided I'd update the play and make some rewrites for their production. The Flux production is somewhat revised from the original script and I'm currently working to put together a final version for publication by Playscripts Inc., which has done most of my Greek adaptations.

I enclose here a statement I wrote for a magazine interview back in 2009 that gives the full history of the piece as it was prepared for the ART production:

In the spring of 2006, the Institute at ART approached me to ask if I would write a grant proposal to TCG for the playwright in residence grant and I proposed writing something with and for the students that addressed the war in Iraq, even if it was only indirectly. It just seemed impossible not to address the war as we moved into yet another year of it and there was no end in sight. The residency was a sixteen month residency, three months of which, at a minimum, I would spend in Cambridge. I based the proposal on what I understood of Caryl Churchill's collaborations with the Joint Stock Company. I wanted to collaborate with the graduate acting students not just as actors but as fellow artists. This was partly a function of the material, which I needed their help with. I told them that it seemed to me that the current war is their war rather than my war in the sense that my generation is essentially sending their generation to war. I talked about the Vietnam War as being the war that had formed my political sensibility as this war would form theirs. Since their relationship to the war is so much more immediate than mine, I wanted to know what they had to say about it and what it meant to them and I would work with the material they generated.

I asked them to prepare a series of presentations for me and Scott Zigler, the director of the project. Over the course of several weeks, they were asked to bring in two solo pieces. The first was to be a theatrical treatment of some primary source material, research they’d done themselves, depending on what their interests were. The second was to be based on interviews they’d conducted. The pieces did not need to be about the Iraq war specifically, but they should concern war as a general subject. The research pieces ranged from theatrical presentations on Rumi, Blackwater hearings, and comfort women in the Korean War, to Civil War letters and computer war games the army uses as recruitment tools. The interviews ranged from conversations the students had their grandparents in which stories were sometimes related for the first time, to homeless Vietnam veterans interviewed on the street as well as returning soldiers, often relatives. One particularly moving interview was conducted with a sister-in-law, the wife of a Marine who was then coping with her husband being absent on his fourth tour of duty in Iraq.

During the next round of my residency, we paired the students off and asked them to collaborate with each other to make new pieces based on new research they undertook together. The pieces they brought in as a result of these collaborations ranged widely and used all kinds of theatrical techniques, video, dance and art installation. After seeing this round of presentations, we asked the group to pursue certain issues further and recombined them in larger collaborations. We also gave them the opportunity to follow their own interests and make pieces together in any combinations they found effective. We subsequently saw, among other collaborations, some large dance pieces, surprisingly complete, one of which ended in a Maori war dance, wonderfully executed by the whole company, which I later incorporated into the final play.

During the months I was away from the students, I did my own research and pursued some of my own lines of thinking, including a study of the psychological toll the war has taken on returning Iraq veterans. I hit on the idea of using Sophocles’ Ajax as a structural basis for the piece. It’s a play I’d never studied closely or attempted to adapt, but always thought a chilling analysis of a kind of military trauma.

Ultimately, I went off and wrote the play. It finally took the form of a direct response to the material the students had brought in, addressing their issues but never quoting directly from their work. It is also an adaptation of the Sophocles text, using that ancient play as a means to reflect on and augment the contemporary story.

This was one of the hardest things I've ever done as a playwright, just because there were so many different people's needs to consider and honor and because the material itself was so disturbing and thorny. But it is also, I have to say, one of the most rewarding things I've ever done and I will always be grateful to the original cast at to Scott Zigler for leading me to make something so different from anything I could have made without them.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  In August, I'll be going into rehearsals for an Off Broadway production of my play Septimus and Clarissa, which is an adaptation of Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. it was written in collaboration with Rachel Dickstein and her NY-based company, Ripe Time, and will be performed at Baruch in September.
I've also been working for several years now (with long interruptions) with the composer Peter Foley on a music/theater piece, working title Inconnu, about an incident that took place in France between the wars.

Q:  What could a playwriting student expect in your class?

A:  They can expect to be asked to write a lot. They average about seven pages a week, often more, and will ultimately write a play at the end of the semester. It's a lot of work, but I do think one has to write to write. There's just no other way to get a sense of the form than to keep taking a whack at it. I also get them to read many, many plays. I bring in a huge box of my own library of plays, over a hundred, every week, and spread them out on the table and they can pick whichever they want to read, but they read at least two a week. Another of my beliefs being that you have to read to write and it's a tricky form--the more you see the vast variety of ways it can be successfully manipulated, the better.

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 was taken to see King Lear at Arena Stage in D.C. when I was quite little, maybe ten or even younger. I had never seen anything so terrifying and beautiful, nor perhaps have I since. I don't think I'll ever get over the blinding of Gloucester--that's one of the worst things that's ever happened to me--and when Robert Proskey, who was playing him, came out for the curtain call ripping the bloody bandage from his eyes as he ran into the light, I nearly fainted with relief. But I also remember the woman who played Cordelia, the straight stalk of her body in the light, the courage of her refusal to pander to her father's insane vanity, "Nothing, my lord", the silence after that, the shock of that statement hanging in the air. I remember identifying that moment as being something I wanted to live inside of and understanding it to be at the essence of the theater: a person standing on the stage, speaking the truth. I later played the part and never took for granted the great good fortune I had in being able to do something I had known all my life I'd wanted to do.

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

A:  I'd make it free. It appalls me that the theater, which seems to me to be the most essential and probably the oldest of the performing arts, something we have been doing for each other since we've been performing at all, is now the least accessible, since it is impossible for even the people who want to see it to afford going. Theaters should be open to everyone who wants to come in the doors. Just after 9/11, I was performing down at LaMaMa in a production of The Bacchae with a theater company called Beloved Monsters--a tough and disturbing play for tough and disturbing times. We had not known, of course, when we started rehearsals just how terribly appropriate that play would be for the times we were living through when we finally performed it. It was during those hard days when the rubble was still hot and that acrid smoke was still something you smelled everywhere downtown. People were still so jumpy and tender and in need of company, particularly at night, when they'd often wander into the theater, looking for community and find themselves in the audience, almost by accident. What we found was that by the end of that ancient play, which is about the catastrophic death of a city and an incident that cannot be assimilated, cannot be made sense of but which must be mourned, the audience was weeping as one, weeping for those they never knew who had died just a few blocks south of us. It was phenomenal, such a privilege to do--one of those things I'll always be grateful for, that I had the theater to go to during those nights. It made me feel that I was part of the long heritage of human beings who'd been using the medium to try to make sense of our condition, either by attending theater or making theater down the centuries. This is a medium that should be available to everyone always, a means of comfort and a way of understanding ourselves.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  So many, so many... I was given Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? to read when I was about 12 by an amazingly perceptive school librarian. I remember sitting in the window seat of the library and reading this text in the sunlight (I can still remember the font.) I don't think I'd ever seen a play script remotely like it-- I was astonished by the freshness of the dialogue, the way it sounded like very particular people talking, the daring of the ideas, the vividness of it. I started taking it around the library, looking for friends to read it with because it needed, I knew, to be read aloud to be understood. I remember that I couldn't believe it was possible to do that, write with that kind of accuracy, humor and power. Meeting Albee in the last few years when doing Claire in A Delicate Balance (a dream part for me if ever there was one) has been one of the great thrills of my life (if a trifle terrifying.) Caryl Churchill's work has had a tremendous effect on me--seeing Top Girls at the Public when I was just out of college blew my mind, and Mad Forest at New York Theater Workshop was very important to me. There is such an originality to the theatrical imagination at work there, such intelligence and clarity of voice, it continues to inspire me. And of course there are the obvious greats--Chekhov, Williams, and so forth--if you're lucky enough to see great productions. I worked as an apprentice scene painter at Arena Stage when I was in high school in DC and helped paint the rock for Ming Cho Lee's set for Waiting for Godot and as a consequence got to see the invited dress--I'd never even read the play so it was all a revelation to me. I don't remember the director but it was a marvelous, funny and beautiful production--Max Wright playing Vladimir was heart-breaking, one of the great clowns but also (and this is so often the case) one of the great classical actors I've ever seen. I still remember my amazement at the fact of that play, that, as someone said, "nothing happens, twice," yet the whole of human existence is somehow evoked in its tragedy and absurdity. I walked out of the theater that night and thought, this is what I will give my life to.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I suppose I'm drawn to the Greeks because I love taking on the big stuff. I do find I get bored when nothing is risked. I suppose that kind of theater is just a product of people's fear of failure, which is virtually inevitable when you try to do anything worth doing. But why not take on the hardest things? There are worse things than failing--usually having to do with making nice, forgettable baubles that will never matter to anyone--what's the point of that? Why not put it all on the line? All that's at stake is the size of your soul.

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

A:  Make a mess. Go for broke. Read everything you can, see everything you can, steal from the best, figure out how they did it and do it your way. Hang with people who are inspiring to you, who do things better than you do, hang with people who can teach you stuff. And be ambitious, for god's sake. (See above.)

Q:  Plugs, please:

A: Ajax in Iraq, just a few more performances at this point. Septimus and Clarissa in the fall (Ripe Time). Thanks for the soap box.