I Interview Playwrights Part 32: EM Lewis

EM Lewis

Hometown: Monitor, Oregon

Current Town: Santa Monica, California

Q: You've had quite a bit going on the last couple of years. Basically, you're on fire! Can you give us a recap of the honors and awards and productions and talk a little about the plays that received these awards and productions?

A: Things have been going well. I'm feeling very lucky right now! "Song of Extinction" is my newest full-length play -- about a musically gifted boy named Max who is falling off the edge of the world, and his biology teacher, Khim Phan, who reaches out to Max only to find himself overwhelmed by ghosts from his own past. The play received readings and development opportunities at a variety of theaters, including the Atlantic, NYU's hotINK International Festival of New Plays, the Blank's Living Room Series, the Ashland New Plays Festival, HotCity Theater's Greenhouse Festival and University of Oregon's EcoDrama Festival. "Song of Extinction" had its world premiere here in Los Angeles in the fall, produced by my home theater company, Moving Arts, at [Inside] the Ford, as part of the Los Angeles County Arts Commission's Winter Partnership Program. We won LA Weekly Awards in two categories -- Production of the Year and Leading Male Performance (for Darrell Kunitomi, who played biology teacher Khim Phan). I won the 2009 Ted Schmitt Award for the world premiere of an outstanding new play from the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle as well. And then the play went on to win several national awards -- most importantly, the 2009 Harold and Mimi Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award, which is administered by the American Theater Critics Association. The play will be published by Samuel French this fall. "Heads" -- about four civilian westerners who are taken hostage during the early days of the war in Iraq -- was first produced at the Blank Theater. It won a place on the Los Angeles Times' top ten "Best of 2007" list, and I also won the 2008 Francesca Primus Prize for an emerging female theater artist from the American Theater Critics Association for the play. There has been a lot of interest in "Heads" this year -- a reading at Emerging Artists Theater in New York, a production in Halcyon Theater's Alcyone Festival in Chicago, and a month long production in Denver coming up in October, produced by And Toto Too Theater Company. Other projects over the last year or so have included writing for Moving Arts' "The Car Plays" event (plays in cars!), mentoring for the Young Playwrights Festival at the Blank Theater, and founding and producing the War Plays Project -- a year-long investigation of the theater community's response to the War in Iraq. And writing short plays here and there. Lots of fun stuff!

Q: What do you have coming up next?

A: September 30 - October 29, 2009: "Heads" at "And Toto Too" Theater -- Denver, CO www.andtototoo.org October 26, 2009: "Song of Extinction" reading at the Ashland New Plays Festival Ashland, OR October 2009: An evening of my one-acts at Moving Arts -- Los Angeles, CA www.movingarts.org

Q: What sort of development have you had for these plays?

A: I was lucky enough, early on, to take a class and then join a workshop led by Los Angeles playwright Lee Wochner through Moving Arts called "Words That Speak." Both "Heads" and "Song of Extinction" were developed there -- and I have appreciated Lee's help, advice and support from the moment I met him. He's been a wonderful mentor, and the people I met in his workshop have become both friends and valued colleagues. After I finish a play, I send it out. And send it out. And send it out. There are so many wonderful opportunities out there -- theaters and festivals that are looking for new plays to sink their teeth into. I've had readings or workshops at dozens of places since I started writing plays, which was about nine years ago now. I've particularly enjoyed the Blank Theater's Living Room Series -- they do a staged reading of a new play every Monday night throughout the year in their space in Hollywood. I loved NYU's hotINK International Festival of New Plays, which both "Heads" and "Song of Extinction" were part of. My reading of "Song of Extinction" at the Atlantic in New York was a tremendous experience. I loved the Ashland New Plays Festival, the HotCity Greenhouse Festival, Coe College's New Works for the Stage residency and U of O's EcoDrama Festival. Both the Last Frontier Theater Conference and the Great Plains Theater Conference were wonderful opportunities to meet other playwrights and talk about craft.

Q: Do you have anything new in the works now?

A: Always! I'm researching a history play, and working on a new full-length called "The Year I Don't Remember." I also have two plays that I have drafts of and am trying to get into shape -- "Catch" (my baseball play) and "Reading to Vegetables" (a medical mystery/morality play).

Q: If I came to the west coast tomorrow, what theaters or shows would you tell me to check out?

A: I'm always particularly interested in the places that are doing new work: my home theater company, Moving Arts; Furious Theater Company in Pasadena; the Road Theater Company in North Hollywood; the Rubicon in Ventura. That's a place to start, anyway! The Los Angeles theater community has so much going on.

Q: How would you fill in this blank? The job of a playwright is to ______

A: The job of a playwright is to tell a great story for the stage. Don't be boring. Do be as bold and true as you can bear to be. Put everything inside you into your plays -- all that terrifies and confounds and delights you -- without being self-indulgent. No one wants to hear you whine. Be theatrical -- there are things, magical, wonderful things, that you can do in the theater that you can't do anywhere else. And remember that actions speak louder than words. What are these people doing? What are they trying to do? These are the things I try to remind myself about when I write.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: Fearless. Theater should be fearless. Immediate. Entertaining. Pertinent. Fearless. I want to see plays that shake my foundations and help me see more clearly.

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

 A: Write, write, write. And send your plays out. You learn by doing -- writing, getting your plays produced, and listening to the honest reactions of a real live audience -- then doing it all again. And again! It's a whole lot of work, and sometimes it breaks your heart, and when it all goes right it's absolutely glorious.

 Links please for all the upcoming shows and any other plugs:

My website: www.dramatistsguildweb.com/members/emlewis And Toto Too Theater (Denver, CO): www.andtototoo.org Moving Arts (Los Angeles, CA): www.movingarts.org

I Interview Playwrights Part 31: Bekah Brunstetter

Bekah Brunstetter

Hometown: Winston-Salem, NC

Current Town: Brooklyn (Williamsburg)

Q: Tell me about the play you have going up at the Atlantic. How did you come to write this play? Who is the artistic team? What sort of development process did it go through?

A: I wrote the first draft of the play when I went home this time last year to send my little brothers off to Iraq. It was great to see how reverently they were treated that weekend, with so much respect, all of the 'Oohrah!'s' from the old vets at the Church. I wanted to write something about what it is emotionally, not politically, to be or love a soldier. This is my second attempt at a play about the military - having three soldier brothers, I've always felt called upon to shine a new theatrical light on the Service - but in the past I've pretty much mucked it up with metaphor. Hopefully I got it right this time. The play had a reading at Ars Nova which was infinitely helpful, Leigh Silverman directed. A producer from a small company in London was at the reading, and approached me about putting it up at the Finborough, which happened in April. I got to go see it, which was again infinitely helpful - wrote a new draft after for readings at the Roundabout, and then finally at the Atlantic. It's been really nice because the development process has moved pretty quickly, but I've been able to fix inbetween! The incredible Evan Cabnet is directing - we met in play group at ars nova, and he's been with the play since the Roundabout Reading.

 Q: You were the playwright in residence at Ars Nova this past year. What was that like?

A: Ummm, rad. I really like them a lot so it's cool to feel even more a part of the family. I get sent as a 'scout' to see things (which is great, makes me see more stuff, stuff I wouldn't normally see) as well as read submissions. The residency also comes with a commission to write a new play for their space - which was pretty terrifying at first. I literally had no ideas. I was brain dead. When someone you respect says hey, I like what do you do, now do it for me! Of course at first you totally choke, which definitely happened to me! I finally started working on 'Be a Good Little Widow' for them which I'm really excited about!

Q: What else are you working on?

A: In addition to Widow, I'm working on Cutie and Bear (a commission for the Roundabout Underground) as well as a new play for Naked Angels. I'm a part of the writing staff for Naked Angels Naked Radio which is pretty much the funnest thing ever invented. Ever. I write monologues for actors (Bekah's homemade monologues) which is the best sort of mind-exercise, and am finishing up 2 screenplays for 2 small production companys in LA, which is extremely daunting, because I am very bad at screenwriting but desperately trying to get better!

Q: How did you come to start writing plays?

A: I wrote (very bad) poetry and stories starting when I was very little, and always identified myself as a writer. I started doing theater in high school to sorta break out of my shell - then decided to study theater, with a minor in fiction and poetry writing, at UNC Chapel Hill. I pretty quickly realized that I sucked at acting, and it dawned on me that I should write a play! I was hooked from the get go. It made me feel special, it challenged me, it was social but solitary. It's pretty much my favorite thing in the whole world.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: Plays that are poetic, visual, hilarious, AND grounded in a really good story. Stuff that invites you in rather than distances you. Stuff with people who can really sing and it breaks your heart. Plays about people trying to be Good.

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

A: 1. Write. You have to write or you won't get anywhere. Try your best not to second-guess yourself or let your demons take over. Try not to compare yourself too much to others. JUST WRITE! 2. Do. Don't sit around waiting for the theaters to come to you, do it yourself! 3. Submit. A lot. Don't be intimidated - just email it , pop it in the mail, then forget it ever happened. Worse things worse, you get a polite rejection letter or email. Fortunately, if they don't like it, they do not come to your house and spit on you!

Link for Bekah's show: http://broadwayworld.com/article/Mamet_Shepard_and_Brunstetter_Works_Set_For_Atlantic_Theaters_20092010_Season_20090624

I Interview Playwrights Part 30: Mac Rogers

Mac Rogers

Hometown: Greensboro, North Carolina

Current Town: Brooklyn, NY

Q: Tell me a little about your play Viral that's going up soon. Who is the artistic team. Have you all worked together before?

A: Viral is about three people - a sister, a brother, and the sister's boyfriend - who share both a shitty apartment and a strange fetish: they are sexually and emotionally obsessed with watching footage of people dying. They're very specific about it; they like quiet, nonviolent - ideally consensual - video of passage from life to death. They put out a vague website looking for someone suicidal who might be willing to kill themselves on camera for them, and one day, a mysterious woman named Meredith responds. The play follows the four days she lives with them up to the morning when they shoot the video, and explores how hard it is for strangers in close quarters not to start caring about each other. It's a play with a gruesome hook, but it's also a little sweet in a way. Viral is produced by Gideon Productions, the theater company I co-founded nearly a decade ago with Jordana Williams and Sean Williams. Gideon has either produced or co-produced most of my plays. Jordana, with whom I have worked as a director five times in the past, is at the helm. Three of the actors - Matthew Trumbull, Kent Meister, and Jonathan Pereira - are new to me (and razor-sharp, I might add). Becky Comtois, li'l sis of your former interviewee James, is playing a role I wrote specifically for her (as me and my fiance are kind of Becky-groupies). Amy Lynn Stewart is an actor Jordana and I knew in college, but have not seen in the years since until she showed up to audition. By remarkable coincidence, she last appeared in a play of mine fourteen years ago - also playing a character named Meredith. (I don't use that name in every play.)

Q: Besides as a playwright I know you as the star and titular character in James Comtois' Nervous Boy. What was that experience like?

A: The Adventures of Nervous-Boy was without question the coolest acting experience of my life. The script is this beautiful tone-poem to self-hatred and self-destruction, the Nosedive production team gave it an amazing look and soundscape, I got to work with wonderful actors, and I got to be on stage the whole time and play a dynamite arc while everyone else in the cast brought the set to me. To this day, every once in a while I miss playing Nervous-Boy. I actually haven't been able to act in a while, which is a bummer, but it's hard to complain when the writing's going nicely.

Q: How long have you been doing theater in New York? How did you start? What led you to become a playwright and start your own theater company?

A: I've been in New York about eleven years now. Like many people, I spent most of that first year in my apartment watching TV, but then a lot of the people I did plays with in college started moving here, and we sort of huddled together for theatrical warmth, doing shows various places downtown. Many of those people have left New York or theater or both, but they helped a scaredy-cat like me ease into it. My personal Great Leap Forward was when I got involved at Manhattantheatresource. There's a great core group there, and nearly everyone passes through there at some point, so I started meeting and working with a number of different groups through that hub. (Manhattantheatresource made Universal Robots happen, which was pretty key for me.) I've been a playwright since I was very young. I liked writing stories and I liked acting in children's theater plays, and the two sort of merged. Even as a little kid, I felt like I wasn't seeing the plays I dreamed of seeing, and figured no one would write them but me. Nowadays I see like two good plays a week, but there's still certain things I dream of that I know will only exist if I write them. So I do. I formed a theater company partly at Sean's more-or-less nonstop urging, but partly also because that's what I knew. I went to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which is no conservatory by any means. But they did give us undergrads this black box in the basement and let us mostly do what we wanted there. It was completely DIY, and I grew to like it that way. DIY's way harder in NYC - it costs a lot more, for one thing, and you have to have a job too - but it comes more naturally to me than sending out scripts and waiting to see what happened.

Q: You were one of the first theater bloggers. When did you start? How has theater blogging changed since its inception?

A: At the beginning, it seemed like the whole world of theater blogging was Laura Axelrod, Isaac Butler, Dan Trujillo, and George Hunka - and all in New York. (That's probably not how it actually was, but how it seemed.) Laura moved on to other interests, George went sporadic, I went even more sporadic, and Dan stopped altogether (blogging, not writing), but Isaac has gone on to be one of the most prominent voices in what's now the theatrosphere, which stretches all over the world and which has diversified fascinatingly. Guys like Travis Bedard and DevilVet focus on process, Colin Mitchell and Alison Croggan review, you interview, Nick Keenan sometimes writes about relevant creative technologies, Scott Walters is pursuing an ongoing mission, Playgoer's more journalistic, and Leonard Jacobs looks to be running a one-stop shop. The hard part is that theater blogging is the weirdest and most contradictory genre of blogging there is. It's a publicly and internationally available exchange of ideas over events that can only be experienced locally. Isaac can host a debate on Watchmen on his blog, but not on the awesome and actually kind of important Dan Trujillo play he just directed, 'cause only local people can even see and experience the Trujillo play. We can't know what Travis or Alison or Don Hall would have thought. They could all read the script, maybe, but not share the event. It's hard to write in a mass media platform about a local, site-specific event. People are still figuring out how to share what they do. I hardly write anymore. I have a demanding day-job and errands to run every night, and then if I have any writing energy left, I horde it for playwriting. This makes me a little sad. I wish I blogged more. I liked it. I hated the fights, though, the flame-wars. I never have the stamina to stand up to some of the people who really enjoy them.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: I really like stories I can sink my teeth into. I'm pretty basic: I want to meet a character, get to know them, and worry about them when they get into trouble. I like stories that don't rely on making the characters stupid, or poor communicators. It's an important truth that smart, articulate people - even artists! - get into all sorts of personal and political messes, and we need to look into that. I like plays that take characters for who they are and don't judge or aggrandize them. I like plays that find strange humor in shocking situations. I particularly like genre storytelling - horror, science fiction, fantasy, suspense, noir, mystery. I would like more writers to be telling these stories on the stage, using the tools of the stage. We need audiences to associate going to the theater with having the kind of good time they associate with other media, just translated into our unique terms and techniques. MOST IMPORTANT - I like plays with discipline. I like to feel the inexorable forward movement toward something. When I feel a play drift off course, it really bugs me.

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

A: Write the sort of plays you would actually set aside an evening to go see even if none of your friends were in them. Don't pretend to like things you don't like just because they seem cultured or deep or something. Be honest about what stories you enjoy, and write your own version, your way. Self-produce when you're young, as often as you can. You learn the deepest and most nuanced lessons from watching your plays fail in front of live audiences. Also, self-producing gets harder as you age. Work on plays in some other capacity - acting, desiging, crewing, something. Learn the physical realities. Fall in love with the basic tools of live theater - human bodies, light, language, maybe music and dance - so that you're writing for the live event, not putting TV shows on stage. Write short plays. You must do this. Learning to write short plays makes your longer plays so much better. Do those 24-hour/48-hour play exercises. Get involved in short-play events. There's no better way to learn discipline. Forge relationships with theater artists you trust and who trust you. Especially, ESPECIALLY directors. Dig in for the long haul. Seriously. Seriously, playwrights-just-starting-out. Don't be like, "I'm different." Dig in. Enjoy the stuff you get to do during the long haul.

Link for Mac's show: viraltheplay.com

I Interview Playwrights Part 29: Cusi Cram

Cusi Cram

Hometown: Manhattan

Current Town: Sixty blocks south of where I grew up. Big move.

 Q: Please tell me about your show Lifetime Burning that's going up at Primary Stages. What's it about? Who is the artistic team?

A: It's mostly about the odd phenomenon of the fake memoir that seems kinda epidemic at the moment. It's also about how we tell stories and what goes in to making them and how fact and fiction collide. And there are some warring sisters. And a handsome guy. And a very, very nice coffee table, which kind of the fifth character in the play. I dreamed of having the coffee table. And now I get to have it in my play. Magical. Pam Mackinnon is directing the play. She is a delight and very talented. And calm. She bikes a lot. I would like to be more calm. I might take up biking to aid in the calmness. The actors are: Jennifer Westfeldt, Christina Kirk, Raul Castillo, and Isabel, Keating. They are gloriously talented and as beautiful as the aforementioned coffee table. Chris Stone is the set designer. David Weiner is the lighting designer. Daniel Baker is the sound designer. Theresa Squire is the costume designer. I think the design is pretty amazing on this show. I wish I could live in the apartment in the play. And own all the ladies shoes. Also, There is a lot of cocktail drinking in the play. I've never written something where so much liquid is consumed. It requires a lot of measuring and monitoring. We have a crew of stage management ninjas. They astound me as much as the actors and designers and Pam.

Q: I first met you when I was interning at MCC and you were part of the playwrights coalition. I also know that you work with LAByrinth. How has development been for you with them and other theaters?

A: I think both LAB and MCC and also the Writers Group at Primary Stages have helped me grow as a writer in leaps and bounds. It was the good and supportive kind of development. I feel at one time or another all of those groups have forced me to write plays and have reading of my plays in front of people. And given me constructive feedback. I really need deadlines and people showing up in rooms to see my plays to help me write. I can't write without a deadline. So, I am grateful for that. LAByrinth has been real creative home for me in the last five years. I just adore the company of actors and the ethos of the company. It feels like a wonderful, unruly family. I am so inspired by the risks people take in the company as actors, writers, directors---how everyone is always stretching themselves and trying something new. I find that artistic exploration very moving and it continues to refuel me creatively. I hope I was nice to you when you were an intern. I feel very old because I can't remember meeting you there. I hope I am not blocking out a horrendous incident.

Q: No, you were very sweet. Were you a model at 13 or is that some other Cusi Cram that google turned up? If that was you, what was that like? If it wasn't you, what's it like to have someone with the same name out there who is/was a model?

A: Yes indeed that is me. I modeled and was on a One Life to Live in my teens. It was strange but paid for a chunk of Brown. So, I am grateful for its strangeness. I would not like it all if someone else had the same name as me. Sometimes, I feel like what I got is a wacky name.

Q: Do you write for the kid's show Arthur? How is that for a day job?

A: I do. It is a fabulous gig. And I am grateful for it every day. Well not every day but most. It's really fun now 'cause the show has been on for so long, the writers can write about whatever jazzes them. I did an adaptation of (kinda) of One Hundred Years of Solitude. That sort of thing. Another writer did a takeoff of King Lear and someone did a kids version of Waiting for Godot. It's also taught me a lot about story telling and how to do it in a more efficient way. I still feel very lucky that someone pays me to write.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: I guess, I like to laugh and be moved. And be provoked---to have my mind bent out of shape a little. I want to be surprised too, not just by the plot but something beautiful and unexpected. I just saw Arianne Mnouchkine's company's latest piece: Les Ephemeres. That did all of those things for me. It was both absurd and moving. I think I strive for that in my work. It's a tricky business. I also like watching people's work evolve and take off. That happens a lot for in the context of LAByrinth. There are so many writers in the company that excite me and feel very vital, to name a few: Melissa Ross, Megan Mostyn Brown, David Anzuelo, Florencia Lozano, and Michael Puzzo (he has a play coming up--Lyric is Waiting that I am psyched to see) And I also am a big fan of Stephen Guirgis. I am sure I am forgetting some people. There are more. It's late and I have my first preview tomorrow. I also recently really liked Stunning by David Adjmi. I loved that it s straddled a lot of theatrical worlds. Shifts in tone excite me.

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

A: Write. A lot. Produce yourself, if no one will. Find like minded theaters souls and stick to them like glue. And write. Some more. Send things out in envelopes. Strange things come back when you least expect it.

A: Also, I would like to throw my hat in to the ring for the Seth Glewen fan club. He is also my agent. I wish an Oscar size Seth could live by my pencil cup on my desk.

Cusi's Show:http://www.primarystages.org/ http://www.primarystages.org/special-ticketing Primary Stages Interview

Food For Fish in Atlanta

Photos from some of the 7 previous productions here and here.

I Interview Playwrights Part 28: Michael Puzzo

Michael Puzzo

Hometown: Old Bridge, New Jersey

Current Town: East Village, NYC

Q: Tell me about this play you have going up.

A: It’s called Lyric is Waiting and we open at Irish Rep on July 30th. Of all my plays this is the one that has always been my not so secret favorite. Mostly because it is so mysteriously odd to me, that it even exists at all. Being a member of LAByrinth Theater Co. I have been lucky enough to be able to have all my plays presented up at our Summer Intensive. I have always found that the safety and support you get from the folks in LAB, gives me more artistic balls than I would ever be able to muster on my own. So about five years ago I decided to take a risk and try something that really scared me. Up until that point I had just written comedies. And just like all those hackneyed sad clown clichés I was always more interested in what I thought was the super serious subtext in my plays then making people laugh. I mean I still to this day can’t tell if Woody Allen’s Interiors sucks or not, but I sure as Hell understand it need to exist. So I set out to write about a very painful codependent relationship I had been in and tried to tell the story in a serious and true way that would not feel like pretentious bullshit. Dunno if I succeeded or not, but people seem to dig it………

Q: Now, you're not in this show, are you? I know you primarily as an actor. (you've been in three readings of two of my plays.) Have you been in your plays? When you're not in it do you wish you were and vice-versa?

A: No, I don’t act in my any of my plays. I mean I feel like there is plenty of me up there already I don’t need to be in the damn thing too. I learn so much about the play from just watching the actors. I would never trade that part of the experience for some bullshit chance for me to show the world how good I am at crying or playing a serial killer or whatever. I have always felt like becoming a playwright was a weirdly natural progression for me. I mean at some point even The Monkees started playing their own instruments and writing songs, right? But I will say, that as soon as I finish rehearsals for one of my plays I always immediately start jonesing to be on stage. With each play I have finished I feel like my acting improves and with each acting gig my writing gets bumped up a notch. But recently I have broken the No Puzzo in his own plays rule. I have been working on an autobiographical solo piece called Guaranteed Second Base that I perform myself. And I have found the writing and acting of it, is so so different than anything I have ever attempted before that I am really digging exploring the possibilities of it.

 Q: You and I have the same agent. Don't you love Seth?

A: I am in the processes of having a statue of Seth built in my backyard

Q: How did you get hooked up with LAByrinth Theater? How long have you been hanging around them?

A: I have been in LAByrinth for 12 years now but I have been loitering on the periphery since they began. In the early nineties my roommate was Elisabeth Canavan who I knew from Jersey. She joined LAB at the very beginning and so I would check out the plays and go to their epic parties. I am not ashamed to admit that the parties were what drew me to them at first. Cuz anyone who has ever hung with the LAB folks, know they can really throw down. So after I finished my two year acting program with Maggie Flanigan, Liz got me and audition for the LAB and I got in. I must point out, that LAB no longer holds auditions, and I have always secretly felt it was because they never wanted someone like me to get in under the wire again. A few summer intensives into my membership Stephen Guirgis suggested I might try writing a play or something and so I did, they put it on and that was that. So much like so many LAB actor/playwrights, I had a new hat!

Q: Tell me a childhood story that is either funny or sad that will explain who you are as a person and how you go through the world.

A: When I was a kid my Dad wanted to be a tough guy. So he was always encouraging me to get into fights play and play contact sports, neither of which I had even the remotest interest in and it drove my Dad bananas. I was forced to play almost everything, and sucked equally and profoundly at all of them. Then I discovered soccer and realized that I could at least fake it. Cuz let’s face it, if you keep running and running at some point you will at least bang into the ball. So I’m eleven and I’m on the second worst teams in the league. The team was filled with the kinda kids who would get their head stuck in the desk or who wore retainers that looked like medieval torture devices. . Jesus, I was the second best player on the team, that’s how bad we were. But what kept us outta last place was Mark Eckert, who was not only our best player, but maybe the best player in the whole league. Now Mark Eckert can best be described as a wiry little bully prick. He was one of those kids who always had a sun burn, and I don’t know why, but kids who always have a sun burn are always so fucking mean, mean, mean. And the target of his harassment was always me. And in a way I brought it on myself, see at that time my idol like every other geeky bookworm was The Amazing Spider-Man. So everything I owned celebrated this. Spider-Man pajamas, belt buckle, socks and of course the focus of Mark Eckert’s constant ridicule my 8,000 Spider-Man tee shirts. Which I wore in rotation to every single practice, despite the fact that this punk would inevitably call me Spider Fag. Which made no sense to me cause I didn’t wanna fuck Spider-Man, I wanted to be Spider-Man! Yet I continued to wear the shirts, until one day I decided to wear two. So I show up to practice rocking the jewel in my collection a classic John Romita, web spinning pose. And on schedule Mark hits me with a barrage of Gaylord, Gaywad and Queer-baits. And so I say “What you don’t like this shirt, well maybe you’ll like this one better!?“ and by this time all the retainered misfits have surrounded us, waiting to see what I’ll do. So I take off my shirt and underneath it I have on a plain white Hanes, that I have taken a red magic marker and written the words : I HATE MARK ECKERT! Now I am fully aware that this is neither clever or original. But it did have the desired effect cuz for the first time every asthmatic, lazy eyed kid became the laugher and not the laughee. And it was deafening, all the sunburn drained out Mark’s smug face. And he began to wail, Tears flying off his face like a lawn sprinkler. And then something amazing happened. He just up and ran away. And we never saw him ever again. Now I pinpoint that as the moment that I became me. Wits over fists. And admittedly it wasn’t all that witty, Like I had finally manned up on my own terms. But that was it. No more, henceforth I will always use my powers for good like a Samurai, like Spider-Man. Now of course the coach and my Father were not too happy, we lost our only good player and we immediately sucked. But I did not have to hit anybody….and hey now I was the number one player on the last place team….which was some sort of distinction, at least in Jersey.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: A couple of years ago I read this article about some indie music star (Sufjan Stevens, I think) and he was asked what kind of music he dug and he said “Friend Rock” meaning that he was into going out and listening to his buddies bands. And so, I guess I like whatever the friend rock equivalent for theater is. And not just because you usually can get comps or because you have to go see it anyway. I get such a visceral thrill from watching my friends practice their art that I just don’t get anywhere else. It always reminds me how fucking lucky I am to be able to get to do this, and so I get inspired. For example last night at the intensive I saw a new play by both Stephen Adly Guirgis and John Patrick Shanley and my first inclination was to go back to my room and write, write, write. I am also looking forward to Cusi Cram’s new play A Lifetime Burning, which is going up in a couple of days. I saw it last summer and it rocks. But my most important theatrical moment happened when I was just starting out. I will never forget seeing John Malkovitch in Burn This, back in 88’. It was a Monday night and I had money from my first real New York City acting job to burn. I went in, knowing nothing about the play or the actor and came out realizing that I knew nothing about the thing I wanted to do with my life. Thank God, Burn This was the only show available on that Monday, or I might be like a Game Show Host today.

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

A: Grab some actors and have what you have written read out loud as soon as you can. What good is writing a recipe if nobody ever bakes the cake? And do it in front of an audience if you can. It doesn’t matter if it’s your girlfriend and her Grandmother or three strangers in the back of a Kentucky Fried Chicken, but it needs to be somebody. Shanley told me once “the audience is a genius” and he’s right, they will tell you everything you need to know. Oh, take an acting class….a good one. You will be surprised how your feelings about actors change when you find out that as much work goes into crafting a character as does crafting a script.

 Link for Michael's show: http://kefproductions.com/current.html

Herbie in DC

Photos by Michael Paolantonio

I Interview Playwrights Part 27: Megan Mostyn-Brown

Megan Mostyn-Brown

Hometown: Shoreview, MN

Current Town: New York City

Q: What are you working on now? A: Rewrites, rewrites, rewrites. I have a play called Other People's Problems that I worked on at the 24/7 retreat. It had a reading in the city this past spring and I am currently doing rewrites on it as the director I've been working with and I want to do a week long workshop of the play in the fall. I also have a TV pilot I've been working on.

Q: I know you said you were heading to LA soon for a month or so to check out the TV/Film scene. How long have you been planning to do this? Do you think you might just start living there?

A: Oh sweet, sweet LA. Yeah, this past winter I was feeling the urge to really shake up my life so I'm taking the plunge, quitting my day job and heading west in the fall for three weeks to take meetings and try to sell my pilot. I have wanted to write for TV for awhile and have a tiny bit of experience as I developed and pitched a show at one of the cable networks a few years ago (it never got picked up). I'm not the biggest fan of LA, in part because I'm not really a palm tree and sunshine kinda gal and in part because I have driven once in the last twelve years. I wouldn't live in LA just to live there but I could learn to be a big fan of LA-LA land if I had a job doing what I love. I'm a little- well alotta freaked about my new plan but I figure sometimes it's good to take a chance. So cross your fingers kids that I get a writing job because momma doesn't have a plan B.

Q: Tell me about your day job and how you got into it.

 A: I have two day jobs. I nanny a few days a week and I also write copy for Elle Magazine's website. I started nannying because aside from writing my only other marketable skill is taking care of children. The job at Elle I got through a friend. I had written fashion copy for a now defunct website called Girlshop. After Girlshop closed a friend knew someone who was hiring at Elle. She read my stuff and hired me without ever meeting me. When she did finally meet me at a party a few months later she was a little in shock that I was the person who was writing quizzes like "Is your Hair In or Out" and ninety tips for spring. Although I don't look the part I secretly have a deep love of fashion and totally know how to describe the cut and fabric of a piece of clothing because my mom made all our clothes until I was twelve. It's a super silly job, but I do have to say it teaches you how to write quickly without being precious because the turnover for a piece is usually twenty-four hours. And really, who can be precious when writing about how to get "fall hair with flair"?

Q: How did you get hooked up with LAByrinth? Did you start as an actor with them or as a writer?

A: A friend saw "In Arabia We'd All Be Kings" and thought I would dig what they were doing. So I applied for an internship in 2001 and got it. I was still an actor at the time but my first day as an intern one of the company members, Sal Inzerillo, was in the office and asked me if I wrote. For some reason I lied and said yes. He told me to bring him ten pages by the next day and he would read them. Sal upon first meeting can seem a little intimidating (he is very tall) and I am a total overachiever who can't resist a challenge so I went home and wrote a monologue and brought it to him. He liked it and passed it on to Melissa Ross, another company member, and the two of them guided me into making it a play. It eventually made it's way to the LAB summer intensive and that's pretty much how I became a playwright. A few years later I became a member. LAB has pretty much been my "grad school" for playwriting since I've never actually been to school for it. It's weird though, to think about the fact that my whole career started because of a lie...but I guess you have to start somewhere.

Q: You and I have the same agent. Don't you love Seth?

A: I adore him. I also adore his suits.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: I like theater you can't shake after it's over. That could mean a play thats dialogue you keep quoting because it was super clever or funny or a play thats emotional life and characters hit you with such a ton of bricks you keep thinking about it for weeks after. If they have both, like Tracy Letts and Stephen Adly Guirgis's stuff, it's like the ultimate jackpot for me. I also get really excited about plays that break the mold of traditional play structure and take you on a wild ride like Sheila Callaghan's "That Pretty, Pretty".

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

A: Hmmmm...I guess my top three would be: 1. Don't be afraid to show your work. 2. Cultivate a group of 2-3 people who understand you as a writer and who you can trust to give you unbiased feedback about your work. 3. Be okay with the fact that sometimes you have to fall out of love with a play and put it in a drawer for a year before you can fix it.

Q: Any plugs you'd like to plug?

A: Go see Michael Puzzo's "Lyric is Waiting" and Cusi Cram's "A Lifetime Burning". I think they both open the first week of August. They are both funny, sad, wonderful, beautiful plays that I am so excited are getting productions.

I Interview Playwrights Part 26: Andrea Ciannavei

Andrea Ciannavei

Hometown: Walpole, Massachusetts

Current Town: New York City (Harlem), NY

Q: I loved the play of yours I just saw read at the Labyrinth Summer Intensive. Can you talk a little about it for those who weren't there to see it? The first part (or act) seemed very Chekhovian to me in the entrances and exits and the subtle way relationships were introduced and the second act seemed very modern American in a fierce everything comes out kind of way. I love that.

A: Sure - The Hard Sell is a play about 7 women on the day of a wedding that goes horribly wrong. It focuses on the bride and her relationship to her family and closest friends. The play explores competition between women and the need to hide themselves in order to control how they are perceived by both themselves and others. The first act takes place hours before the wedding is scheduled to happen and then the second picks up that night.

Q: What are you working on next?

A: A few things - I started writing a small play called HOW JACKIE WILSON SAVED MY LIFE and I need to do a rewrite on my last play 7 CAPTIVA ROAD. I also am working on two pitches for TV scripts which is at once exciting and terrifying. After that I don't know. I'd like to write something about Enron and two screenplays one about Maria Callas and the other about the making of Elizabeth Taylor's Cleopatra.

Q: How was Juilliard?

A: Juilliard was bananas. Great and difficult. It just occurred to me that I went through some growing pains over the course of the year. It was great to take time off from survival work and focus on my writing - that was the plan in any case but what ended up happening was that I started to grapple with some internal issues I have in relation to writing. i.e., not feeling good enough, afraid to write what I had to write, competition, self-negation, fear, procrastination, wanting to reap the benefits without having to work, wanting to compare myself to others - that kind of stuff. I want to say that I wasted a lot of time - but I don't think that's true - I brought work in throughout the year and I left the first year feeling less like a fraud - that I actually do have something worthwhile to contribute to theater. it also was a great opportunity - I didn't get caught in my bullshit for too long whenever it came up which was frequently - I did my best to work through it - and for me that translated into going into the room every week, being present for the other writers there and being of service to them as much as possible by supporting them, listening to their work - engaging them in it and like that. I'm going into my second year - so I'm interested to see how this year will be different.

Q: How long have you been affiliated with LAByrinth? How did you get hooked up with them? What was it like to be their Lit Mgr?

A: I've been with LAB since 2001. I started off as an intern. basically the way I stumbled upon them was that I was playing April White in Savage in Limbo at HERE and I was dropping postcards off at various theaters and I walked into CenterStage NY dropped off some cards on the table and say a postcard for Jesus Hopped the A Train for $12 during it's original run. I saw it was being directed by Phil and I knew his work as actor and felt like a $12 show directed by this guy was insane pricewise. I went and felt distinctly that I had finally found my theater company because no matter what anyone says there is an absence of cynicism in the actors there and I wanted to be around that. So - I offered my services, I can be a pretty organized gal, and I'm good with computers - so that's how it started and then my relationship with them blossomed from there. Being a lit manager was actually a great education for me in seeing what works and doesn't work for me in a play. It also showed me some do's and don'ts in how to interact with theater companies as well as writers. I also had to start looking for playwrights and developing relationships with them on behalf of the company. The task I had when they asked me to be the lit manager was to set up a system that involved the company members as much as possible in reading submitted plays and giving them room in the process to choose which plays were considered to develop at the annual Summer Intensive. That was a fair process to me because the sensibilities of LAB are as varied as its membership - which is why it's so hard to pin LAB down on any one aesthetic which to me is refreshing and great - so the plays we chose to look at in a development setting really ran the gamut. I learned a lot about what my tastes are and how to put them aside when reading something that doesn't necessarily appeal to me and be able to speak about it intelligently and see it for its worth. I started learning how not to judge, if that makes sense. I also learned how to meet new people (writers) and be less of a freak about it.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: Oh boy. Well. I have a hard time answering this question for myself so the best way I can describe it is that the kind of theater that creates its own weather pattern on stage is the kind that most excites me - I couldn't care less what kind of packaging it comes in - structure or style. I like the kind of theater that feels and is communal, celebratory and painful. I'm trying to think of which plays I've seen that really lit a fire in my belly. August Osage & Jesus Hopped the A Train did that for me. I damn near had a heart attack when I saw Fiona Shaw play Medea on Broadway. Top Dog Underdog. I also have to saw I thought De La Guarda that was a revelation. Vanessa Redgrave in Long Days' was amazing too.....I would have to say that I'm kind of game for anything.

Q: Who are some of your favorite writers?

A: Fassbinder, Genet, Ionesco, Tennessee Williams, Chekhov, Brecht (he pisses me off though).

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

A: These are things I have learned and am learning that are helpful to me -

1. Find a director/dramaturg who knows/understands you INTIMATELY and has the ability to pull things out of you to take your play where it wants to go.

2. Find actors who inspire you and let them bring their ideas to the table. Steal what they do and use it in your play if it opens your eyes to something you've never thought of.

3. Hold on to the core of where your play is coming from but don't be too precious about your lines and words and that kind of thing.

4. Submit plays to stuff and then forget about it - keep going.

5. Don't get hung up on one play for too long, keep writing, especially when you feel like you suck and you're going to give up because that's just your fear trying to keep you from getting to something really good.

6. The miracle is 5 minutes away.

7. Anyone who rips you a new one without giving any kind of useful feedback is to be ignored unilaterally.

7b. Do not place your self-worth and validity as a writer on any person, place, thing or institution. The world and its people are often wrong.

8. The word re-write means "write the play again".

9 And finally - be honest, be real, write how the world and its people are - not how you think they should be, put something of yours on the line.

Q: Any plugs you'd like to plug?

A: Go see Scott Hudson's Sweet Storm co-produced by LAB and Alchemy Theater at Theater Row Studios running through August - and see Lucy Thurber's play at rattlestick in August too.

I Interview Playwrights Part 25: Sarah Gubbins

Sarah Gubbins

Hometown: LaGrange, IL

Current Town: Chicago, IL

Q: Tell me a little about your play Fair Use. When is it going up? What sort of development process did it go through?

A: The play is about lawyers trying an intellectual property case, but there’s also a love triangle, with a lesbian at the apex. I’ve spent a significant amount of time with lawyers. There are tons in my family: my dad, my uncle, both grandfathers, and my great-grandfather was a Judge. I also used to work in a law office part-time for many years. Actor’s Express is producing it this fall. The lovely Freddie Ashley’s directing it. I started writing the play before going to grad school and got a grant to workshop it at the Next Theatre. I tinkered with it while I was in grad school after it won a playwriting award on campus. Then it was a Finalist in the Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition, that’s a national competition for graduate students in their final year of school and it’s administered by the Alliance Theater in Atlanta. Freddie directed a reading of the play at the Alliance. Ed Sobel, who was at the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago at the time, asked me if I wanted to have it developed in First Look last summer. That’s when the play really got cooking.

Q: You went grad school at Northwestern. Was it for playwriting? Who runs that program? How was that experience?

A: The Northwestern program is a screen and stage program so you write screenplays, television pilots and specs, and plays. The program is headed by a Dave Tolchinsky, who is a screenwriter, and Rebecca Gilman heads the playwriting curriculum-- although the philosophy of the program doesn’t segregate screenwriters to one corner and playwrights to another. I was glad to go back to grad school. It was a chance to focus solely on my writing. I had never done that before. Rebecca is such a sane, intelligent, and insightful human being who has a deep love and respect for the Chicago theater scene--it was pretty fantastic to have her engaged in my writing for a couple of years.

 Q: What theaters in Chicago should I check out?

A: You won’t be at a loss for things to see. Store-fronts and mid-size theaters to check out are: Timeline, Red Orchid, the Building Stage, the Side Project, Silk Road, The Gift and Strawdog. There’s a ton of companies that produce in various venues, so try and track them down: Theater Oobleck, The Hypocrites, 500 Clown, Dog & Pony, About Face, Colloboraction, Rivendell, and Theater Seven. But the best place to catch a play in the summer is Chicago Park District building, Theater on the Lake. The theater sits right on the shores of Lake Michigan in a T.B. sanitarium from the 20s. Crazy but true. Every week a different play is performed by various theater companies, most of them re-mounts from the past season.

Q: What theaters in Chicago have you worked with and how did you get involved with them?

A: Well, before I started writing plays I worked as a dramaturg and in that capacity I’ve collaborated with many different theater companies like Steppenwolf, Court, Northlight, and the Goodman. As a playwright I’ve worked at Steppenwolf, Collaboraction, Chicago Dramatists, Rivendell and About Face. As I was writing Fair Use both Ed Sobel and Martha Lavey, over at Steppenwolf, read early drafts of the play and were very encouraging. I met Bonnie Metzgar when she took over as AD at About Face and she’s been reading various plays (and fragments) informally over the last year. I’m excited to be part of their XYZ Festival this fall. Rivendell Theater is going to be developing a new play of mine at the end of this month. It’s called In Loco Parentis. Another legal term. But no lawyers in this one.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: I like a juicy Moral Dilemma. And some Spectacle. I also like Athleticism –push-ups are my favorite. Or couch hurdling, especially if the hurdler is Amy Morton in August Osage County. But mainly, theater that asks a lot of the actors and audience. I loved Elevator Repair Service’s Gatz. Did you see Ariane Mnouchkine’s Les Éphémères? I don’t know French, but I sat through all seven hours in Paris a few years ago. Unbelieveable. It’s at Lincoln Center.

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

A: Yeah, check back with me in about ten years. But I will say, I was taught by Benedictine monks and their credo is ‘Work and Pray.’ I can to get behind that. Not the bended knee kind of praying. More the walking the dog and catching a band at Scuba’s sort of praying. The chilling out and being in the world kind of prayer. I will say too, I don’t know how you write for the theater if you don’t see a lot of theater. You want me to quantify a lot? At least two plays a week. Oh, and have a kick ass playlist on your iPod, ‘cause some days you need an anthem to show up for work.

 Link for show at Actor's Express. http://www.actorsexpress.com/cgibin/MySQLdb?VIEW=/plays/viewone.txt&myplay=128

I Interview Playwrights Part 24: Kim Rosenstock

Kimberly Rosenstock

Hometown: Baldwin, Long Island  

Current Town: New Haven, Connecticut  

Q: Tell me a little about the play you're bringing to the JAW festival.

A:  99 Ways To Fuck a Swan is a play that I started writing last summer. Paula Vogel had just taken over the playwriting program at Yale and her first order of business was to assign all of the playwrights one of her famous playwriting “bakeoffs” over the summer before the school year began. For those who don’t know, in a bakeoff you get 48 hours to write on an assigned topic and you can’t edit or delete as you go along. The topic for the bakeoff was Leda and The Swan. The ingredients we had to work into the play were: The Leda myth. A feather. Glass. Wind. The sky. An appliance. Entrapment. Two: sexes, races and/or ethnicities, species. So I just began writing and 2 days later, I had these strange 96 pages of writing involving a cast of thousands. Or twenty-four. But it felt like thousands. So then when the end of August rolled around, I panicked because I knew the only thing I’d written over the summer was my swan-fucking play. And I had a production slot for school coming up in the fall. The first thing I remember thinking was: I cannnot invite my family to come see a play called 99 Ways To Fuck a Swan. But then, before I knew it, there were pieces of lavender paper taped up in a charming old Yale building with the words “99 Ways To Fuck a Swan: Rehearsal In Progress.” I ended up having this incredibly eye-opening and productive workshop with an awesome director (and classmate) named Jesse Jou and some unbelievably brilliant and fearless actors. It was the first time I watched a play of mine really take shape collaboratively. It was a totally magical experience. So that’s the birth story of the play. What the play is about is a little trickier. It jumps around time from Ancient Greece to Renaissance Italy to Victorian England to Modern Manhattan. It looks at what it means to be disgusting and damaged. What it means to be beautiful and healed. It also looks at a lot of sexual perversions. There’s this book Psychopathia Sexualis—an amazing book written in the 19th Century by an Austrian-German psychiatrist, Richard von Krafft Ebing chronicling all of these cases of sexual perversion in this totally detached, clinical manner. And this book is just filled with cases of the craziest stuff you’ve ever read. Like, the case of a man who must drink out of his lover’s shoes in order to be aroused. Ok, that’s one of the tamer ones. Oh yeah, the play is also about therapy. Wow, I’m very bad at succinctly talking about this play. I did not tell you a little at all! (Brevity fail.)  

Q: How's Yale been going? Do you still have another year left or are you done?
A:  Great! I’ve still got another year left. I’m in the class of 2010. I really didn’t know what to expect when I came here. I definitely didn’t have too many expectations. I was just looking for the time and a good place to write. I wanted to get out of New York for a few years too. I just needed some space to figure out what being a writer felt like. So far I’ve definitely gotten everything out of this experience that I initially hoped I would. The bonus has been all of the people. This school is populated with all of these designers, stage managers, actors, directors, dramaturgs, theater managers, technical directors…so many people from all over the country and world who I get to work alongside. And I’ve got these ridiculously talented and cool fellow playwrights who I get to sit in a room with and get feedback from once a week. And sometimes we get free sandwiches or doughnuts. It’s like heaven.  

Q; Have you had productions at Yale?
A:  Yes, we get a production of sorts every year. The first two years there’s a tiny budget and no designers. But for four weeks we rehearse with actors, a stage manager, a dramaturg and a director culminating in four public performances. Third year we get a somewhat less tiny budget and we get to work with designers. Having a production every year was a big part of why I wanted to go to Yale. I knew I wouldn’t really learn about my writing without being in the rehearsal room, and without seeing my plays performed.  

Q: Primarily I know you as the person who was running the Ars Nova Play Group but I knew you were also very much a playwright. The only play of yours I got to see, however, was the very funny fringe show you did that starred Liz Meriwether and Kristen Schaal. Tell me a little, if you will, about some of the other plays you've been working on.
A: Oh hey, I forgot you saw Stanley Hammer! That was in 2005. Back in the day. That play was the first “real” play I wrote. And by “real” I mean that it wasn’t some kind of inside joke or exercise. In the five years between college and graduate school I only wrote two plays. While being Associate Producer of a theater as awesome as Ars Nova was a dream job on the one hand, I also came to realize that because I was so passionate about my work there, I would almost certainly never find time to write plays unless I stepped away from it. It was a really hard decision because in a perfect world I would love to be a producer of new work and also a productive, working playwright at the same time. But I haven’t found any kind of balance there yet. This summer I’m attempting to do both things for the first time as Artistic Director of the Yale Summer Cabaret (www.summercabaret.org). I’m producing a season of shows and I’m also co-writing one of them--an indie rock musical called Fly-By-Night. I have another play I’m working on called Tigers Be Still. It’s about a girl who just got her MFA in art therapy and can barely get a job as a substitute art teacher in a local high school where she has all kinds of connections. This play is hilarious(ly depressing)! I’ve also just gotten really obsessed with the soap opera of the Greeks in general. I’m working on a play about Paris. And I’ve also been working on this adaptation of Iphigenia called Iphamemnon where one actress plays both Iphigenia and Agamemnon. And I’m also working on this Hamlet-inspired play about a guy who’s haunted by all of the Hamlets past. It’s called Every Other Hamlet In The Universe.  

Q: What kind of theater excites you?
A:  Anything that I don’t fall asleep during is good. That’s pretty much the litmus test for me in general. But exciting? Anything that makes me feel hopeful. Anything that makes me re-realize that I’m connected to the world and the people around me—that I am not alone. Anything that leaves me with an image or a character or a thought or a line that I can’t stop thinking about. Anything pretty, funny, strange, scary, grotesque, witty, musical, surprising, sad. Anything that makes me feel something.  

Q: What advice would you give to a playwright just starting out?
A:  Well from one playwright just starting out to another, don’t give up on writing before you’ve given yourself a fair shot. These things take time and space. Also, see as much as you can manage. Read as much as you can get your hands on. Listen to as much as you can stand. And travel as much as you can afford to. Also, don’t be ashamed of watching abnormal amounts of television. This isn’t advice for playwrights. It’s for anyone. People who say they don’t own a television are either lying or crazy.

Q:  Link please to your presentation in Oregon.

A:  http://www.pcs.org/jaw-2009-selections-and-schedule/

I Interview Playwrights Part 23: Tim Braun

Timothy Braun

Hometown: I usually consider my hometown the one I’m living in at the time. So…

Current Town: Austin, TX

Q:  Tell me about the plays you have going up this coming season.
A:  I have three shows I’m excited about. The Story of Jacob Murakami, or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Realized Sacred Cows Make The Finest Cheeseburgers; The Coney Island Mermaid Parade, or My View From The Gershwin Hotel; and Lucy, The Rodeo Queen of Luling, or In The City On The Edge Of Forever in Austin, TX. All of these plays will be done in a stripped-down fashion, no real set, only a few props, few lights, ect. We’re going to use blogs, online journals, and social networks to push the plays. Each night the show will be free to the public, and each night will feature donations to a non-profit like Austin Script Works and Austin Arts Alliance. I’m also trying to get non-profits outside of the arts like the Matthew Shepard Foundation, and The Women’s Storybook Project. This project targets the children of incarcerated women and puts books into both the hands of the kids and the mothers to continue a connection. The mothers incarcerated are anything but criminals. They have made a few mistakes, like writing bad checks, and are only in jail for a year, or so. In a more conventional vein, I am hoping to workshop The Marvelous Misadventures of the Memphis Boys, or The Story of Two Brothers and a Brother in Atlanta. This was originally an adaptation of Three Sisters, but has just exploded into something else. A great deal of fun to write.  


Q:  I know you've said Austin is a great theater town. What should I check out if I'm there?
A:  It depends on what time of year you are here. If you are here in the spring, you must hit the Fusebox Festival, an international festival that has featured groups like Witness Relocation, The Debate Society, and many others. On any given night you can hit The Off-Center, Hyde Park Theater, The Blue Theater, The Zack Scott, The Vortex, or Salvage Vanguard and see something good. The theater companies I really like are Rubber Rep, The Rude Mechanicals, and Loaded Gun Theory. The folks at Loaded Gun Theory have all their ducks in row. Great people. However, if you came to visit in March I would take you to the rodeo. The rodeo is theater in its own right. With the sheep-herding contest you pay for your whole seat, but you only use the edge. Of course, if you were here in March I would take you to SXSW as well.  

Q: How did you end up in Austin? I know there is a largish playwriting community there because of the playwright program at UT Austin but how did you, who got your Masters at Columbia, end up living in Austin? Do you love it? Does your girlfriend love it?
A:  It was part of my plan. Sort of. Before I was living in New York I was getting an MA at the University of New Mexico and spent a summer in Ireland with Mac Wellman and the director David Levine. They were pushing me towards NYC. I applied to MFA schools and ended up at Columbia. My plan when I was accepted to Columbia was to hang in NYC for about ten years, make my connections, then move back west. Now, to sidetrack for a moment, I met my fiancé at Columbia. She is from Houston and wanted to move closer to her family. One day I was talking with Lisa D’Amour about Austin at HERE Arts Center. Her comment was, “You gotta move to Austin.” At this time my fiancé was working at American Ballet Theater and was not happy. She missed her family; had a hard time with NYC winters, and the people at ABT were often difficult. One night she was upset after work, and I just had it. I called everyone I knew in Austin and put the moving back west part of my plan in action. Austin, to me, is the Paris or Berlin of the red states. We have a major writer community here not because of UT’s Michener School of Writing, but because many red state artistic folk come here. I mentioned Rubber Rep. Those guys are from Kansas. We have tons of artists from Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Nebraska, just to name a few places. Austin is really known as a musician’s town. Iron and Wine live here. So does Smog (Bill Callahan). This is a great town for cinema. Richard Linklater lives here. A Scanner Darkly was filmed in my neighborhood. Robert Rodriguez lives and shoots here. The show Friday Night Lights is shot here. The Onion’s AV Club has a few writers here, like Sean O’Neal. This is a great town for food. The best New York style pizza I’ve ever had is here (a place called Homeslice). Was that enough name-dropping? The point is, Austin is happening. In Austin people do things because they want to do those things much in the way I image Berlin in the 20’s, or the West Village in the 60’s was like. When I was in New York, I felt if though many of my friends would do things less because they wanted to, and more because they could propel their career in someway. I should also mention Austin has its downsides. It is 106 degrees today with a choking humidity. To beat the heat some raccoons have invaded my attic, which is driving my dog crazy. But, yes, my fiancé loves it here, and so do I.  

Q:  You have done many, many residencies. Which would you recommend for those writers who need to get away?
A:  You need to understand the environment will color the writing, so I pick that carefully. I like being around visual artists. Being a lit guy, they open my eyes to things I haven’t seen. MacDowell was a good place for me, and one I often pimp. I just got back from the Santa Fe Art Institute, which was fantastic. I had just the right amount of isolation and community to get work done. I really push the Anderson Center in Minnesota. They know what they are doing, and pick the artists very carefully.  

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?
A:  It is much easier to write about what I don’t like. I know what I’m “not” better than I know what I like. I can’t stand straight-up-forth-wall-realism. Why do that jazz on stage when television does it so much better. I come to New York about once a year and do my best to catch what Target Margin is doing. Recently, in Austin, I saw Loaded Gun Theory do a Max Langert farce. That was really fun theatre.  

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?
A:  Get a dog. When you have a good day, when the writing goes well, and you get grants, and the reviews are good, the dog doesn’t care. The dog wants to go outside, smell things, poop, play with you, lick you, eat some peanut butter, and snuggle in bed with you, because you are the dog’s best friend. When you have a bad day, when you know the play you are writing is bad, is never gonna get produced, get rejection letters, or, my personal favorite in this economy-get a phone call from your grant people informing that they can’t give you the money you were awarded because times are rough, the dog doesn’t care. The dog wants to go outside, smell things, poop, play with you, lick you, eat some peanut butter, and snuggle in bed with you, because you are the dog’s best friend. A dog keeps you grounded. My dog’s birthday is coming up and I’m considering writing a children’s play in which my dog invites the raccoons down from the attic to have some cake, something of truce.  

Q:  You are among other things a teacher and essay writer/journalist. Where would you send me (online) to read the best of Braun?
A:  Start with an essay called “Thanksgiving With The Blonde in The Brown Jacket http://www.mrbellersneighborhood.com/story.php?storyid=1988 A lot of people like this short play, which is also being published in an A Train anthology. http://quayjournal.org/1_1/mirrorball.htm I wrote a play for my bathtub. You can grab that here. http://euphonyjournal.com/current/ However, I think my best play is one of the plays I mentioned before, The Story of Jacob Murakami, or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Realized Sacred Cows Make The Finest Cheeseburgers. I wrote that at the Anderson Center in Minnesota. You can get that on my website. http://www.timothybraun.com/plays.html You can follow Timothy Braun on his blog Federal Prisoner 30664, twitter, and facebook.

I Interview Playwrights Part 22: Rachel Shukert

Rachel Shukert

Hometown: Omaha, Ne

Current Town: New York, NY

Q:  I'm sorry I didn't get to see the shows you and Nick Jones did in New York. I heard great things. Can you tell me a little about them?

A;  Thanks! They were a lot of fun, and I think we learned a lot about collaboration and the best ways to write together, which we plan to do more often. Nick and I have a really similar sense of humor and sensibility in a lot of ways, but we're also very different, and I think our strengths and weaknesses compliment each other well. The shows were part of our new theatrical venture, Terrible Baby Theater Co., a kind of inaugural project, if that doesn't sound too pretentious. The Nosemaker's Apprentice, which Nick and I wrote together, came out of this insane idea we had one night while drinking heavily and trying to come up with something to fill the slot that the Brick very kindly offered us in which to do something. Does it sound obscene, to use the word slot? I think I've been watching too much NYC Prep. Anyway. What we came up with was a sort of medieval adventure story/hagiography about the origins of plastic surgery, and through our grandiosity and kind of Monty Python slapsticky historical nonsense, I think (hope) raised some interesting questions about aesthetics, beauty, and self-image. The other show, The Colonists, was a puppet show that Nick conceived with Raj Azar. It was about bees. I didn't have anything to do with that creatively, but I loved watching it--the puppets, by Robin Frohardt and company, were gorgeous, and I'm always in awe of people who can make them come alive.

Q;  How many times have you and Nick collaborated now? How do you write together? Is one of you at the keyboard or do you pass it back and forth? What is the revision process like?

A:  We've written two plays together now, Nosemaker and another play called "The Sporting Life," a true story about a famous brothel in Chicago at the turn of the century, which we're still developing. Basically, when we write together, we come up with a sort of outline of the story--or at least, most of it, becaue obviously things change--and then pass it back and forth, scene by scene, and edit each others work. I find that you get a first draft much faster than when you write on your own, which is exciting, but then the revision process becomes more important...which can be good too--it can be really helpful to have someone to challenge you on things. But negotiating that is really the trick, I think. We learned a lot on this last project, so I'm feeling good about moving forward on future things.

Q:  When does your new book come out?

A;  As of now, they are thinking June of 2010

Q;  What are you working on next?

A:  Oh my God. A million things. I'm working on screenplay for a new production company in LA, which I can't talk too much about yet, but I'm enjoying. I'm also working on a play for Studio 42, which is a great theater company in New York. And I'm developing something else, apropos of nothing, that's an idea I've had rattling around for a while about exploring the relationships between sisters--it involves the Three Sisters (as in Chekov), and other famous sisterly combos throughout history, including the Shukert sisters: me, my sister Ariel, and a third fictional sister. I've been looking for ways in which I can kind of integrate the autobiographical prose writing I've been doing with my theater work--it seems such a shame to let these two elements be kind of disparate and not allow them to inspire each other. I think it could be really interesting.

Q:  How was that Jews and Comedy panel? Were you hilarious?

A:  What was probably most hilarious is that I later realized that my bra was showing the entire time. You're married to a non-theater person. Would you recommend that whole marrying a non-theater person as a good thing to do? Yes. But you'll have to find you own husband. Mine is busy. Seriously, it's great. But that's just me--I would hate to be married to someone who does the same thing as me, as I am competitive, insecure, and resentful, but for other people, it works out fine. I'm married to a non-theater person solely because of my own personality flaws.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  This may surprise you, but my favorite thing I saw last year was the stage version of "White Christmas," with all the Irving Berlin songs. And the Rockettes Christmas spectacular. I also like seeing school plays and community theater.

Q:  I'm not surprised. I think David Ives wrote that. What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A:  Write a lot. It's the only way you figure anything out. And make sure you get some stuff up, even if you have to do it yourself for no money. Nothing will kill the creative mind faster than the traditional development process.

Q;  Plugs and links please for your columns and books and anything else.

A;  I'm writing a new column at the brand new web newspaper, The Faster Times, which is sort of a hip answer to the HuffPo. I'm doing an unsolicited advice column, telling various belabored celebrities how to live their lives. Here's the link to the latest: http://thefastertimes.com/unsolicitedadvice/2009/07/14/not-that-you-asked-ruth-madoff-edition/ Everyone who reads this should buy my book, "Have You No Shame?" http://www.amazon.com/Have-You-No-Shame-Regrettable/dp/0345498615/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233000479&sr=8-1 I need the royalties. Also, keep an eye out for my upcoming book, The Grand Tour, next summer. It's going to change everything.

Nice review of Nerve in St. Louis

http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Echo_Theatre_Company_Continues_Season_with_Adam_Szymkowiczs_Comedy_NERVE_20090712

I winter in Minneapolis and summer in Atlanta

Okay so I'm in Hotlanta now and I'll be here for the next three months. What am I doing here? Writing for an African American sitcom on TBS. No, really. I've had two days of work so far. So far it's a lot of fun. I'll let you know how it goes.

I Interview Playwrights Part 21: Kristoffer Diaz

Kristoffer Diaz  
 
Hometown: Yonkers, NY

Current Town: Brooklyn, NY

Future Town: Minneapolis in five days.

Q; Tell me about the play you took up to the Orchard Project. What was that experience like?

A; I actually took two plays up there, both tangentially related to baseball. One was Rebecca Oaxaca Lays Down a Bunt, a three-act old-school farce about a young extreme sports star from Southern California who shoots a video of herself practicing bunting in her backyard, posts it on youtube, and inspires a bidding war between the Yankees and Red Sox for her services. It's ridiculous. I worked with Orchard Project Artistic Director Ari Edelson and their amazing apprentice acting company to do a bunch of pre-writing character research, including some Gmail chat-based improv projects that opened my eyes to the possibilites of using technology in all new ways to create pieces. The second piece was VORP: Value Over Replacement Player, a play about baseball statistics and statisticians. I realized while I was at the OP that VORP actually wanted to be a musical, so the apprentices and I wrote a ten minute, three-song musical piece in about twenty hours. Incredibly exciting, seat of your pants stuff -- and super helpful.

Q; Can you tell me a little about the thing you were just doing in Nebraska?

A: Every year, I go to Nebraska to teach at the International Thespian Festival -- a massive high school theater conference and competition. Usually, I'm there as a dramaturg on a student one-act. This year, I helped create a short performance piece written and performed by five high school actor/writers. It was a remarkable experience for me. Most of the high school theater that gets to national recognition at this festival is big and broad, usually musicals, rarely concerned with the lives of the students themselves. My kinds wrote about themselves and their issues, and it was all deep and passionate and beautiful. Looks like this is what we're going to do every year from now on.

Q: Now, you did the Ars Nova group this past year. How was that?

A: I love Ars Nova. Emily Shooltz is an amazing and tireless advocate for new playwriting voices, and she's put together a really exciting team of up-and-coming writers to share work. The other members of the group are Annie Baker, Bekah Brunstetter, Dylan Dawson, Zayd Dohrn, Tasha Gordon-Solomon, Amy Herzog, Samuel D. Hunter, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Steven Levenson, Matthew Lopez, Janine Nabers, and Samuel Brett Williams. They're uniformly strong writers with unique voices, and I'm thrilled to be a part of them (although I'm leaving the group now for my move to Minneapolis).

Q: Right, you're headed to a Jerome Fellowship in Minneapolis. Do you have plans for what you're going to work on during that long long winter? Have you bought long underwear yet?

A: I've got way too many plans for my Jerome year. It's probably not realistic. I've got a commission or two lined up, so those will probably take precedence. I'm also thinking about a one-man show/lecture that I'd write and perform myself about my complicated relationship to hip-hop music; it's kind of the play I've wanted to write all my life. In the short-term though, I plan on cooking everyday and learning to ride a bike. And of course, shopping for long underwear. And a North Face. Everyone says I need a North Face.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: I love theater that is about something -- it doesn't have to be didactic or preachy, but it has to feel like it comes from a writer who needs to get something out into the world. I love theater that interacts with an audience, not in terms of audience participation necessarily, but in terms of acknowledging their presence and energy. I love theater that avoids being about rich people sitting in a room complaining about tiny problems, or about a playwright showing off how smart and well-read he or she is.. I want to see plays that speak to young people (and in theater, under 40 is young), people of color, people who consider live performance something thrilling and exciting, not something you go to either out of responsibility or to show off how cultured you are. Exciting theater, to me, celebrates community. That's the only thing theater can do better than film and TV. If you can't create community in your work, go write for the screen.

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

A; Write things that you care deeply about. One playwright once told me that "everything you write should be as urgent as a suicide note." I believe that. Don't write for what you think the big mainstream theaters want; they'll come around to you eventually if you're doing great stuff. Learn your business -- the writing part of being a writer is actually pretty small.



Q: Any plugs for anything?

A: My show The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity is having its world premiere at Victory Gardens in Chicago in September, followed by productions in Philadelphia (InterAct) and Minneapolis (Mixed Blood). Another play, Welcome to Arroyo's, debuts in April at American Theater Company, also in Chicago.