I Interview Playwrights Part 42: Rachel Axler

Rachel Axler

Hometown: New York

Current Town: Los Angeles

Q: What are you working on now?

A: Right now, I'm writing for a sitcom, which doesn't afford me a ton of time to do playwriting. But my play, Smudge, will be produced at The Women's Project in January, which is tremendously exciting. And I do have the beginnings of two new plays...one's a farce and one is kind of about an atheist's late-life potential conversion. Other than that, I write a lot of useless cartoony things on index cards.

Q: How long did you write for the Daily Show? What was that like?

A: I wrote for the show from May of 2005 through the conventions this past September, so that's...math years & something months. Figuringggg... it... ouuuttt... Okay, about 3 and a third years. Actually, almost exactly that, to the day. Is this answer too specific? Have you stopped caring? I find this very interesting. The job was amazing, and I adored it. Not only did I get to work with some of the brightest, quickest, funniest people I've ever met, but I was in the enviable position (especially, I think, for television) of truly, truly believing in the quality of our output. A lot of people ask why I left -- like, how anyone could ever leave a job like that? My background is in theatre and playwriting, and I started to feel a strong desire to combine joke-writing with writing for characters and working with story again. So while I certainly wasn't looking to leave, when the opportunity came along to be on the original writing staff of a new sitcom, I was excited to try my hand at it.

Q: You write for Parks and Rec now, right? What's that like?

A: I do! It's fun, and very different -- far more collaborative than it was at The Daily Show. We actually have a writers' room here, in which the bulk of our day is spent, and although we're all in front of computer screens all day (that part's the same), the joke/dialogue pitching process is primarily out loud, rather than turning in a written packet of work. So while I used to think of something, work it out on paper, craft the sentence, make it as funny and concise as possible, etc...I don't have the luxury of doing that, now. I'm working on censoring my thoughts less, and just spitting out the raw joke idea -- recognizing that the editorial process is split among numerous brains, rather than taking place in mine alone.

 Q: I just started writing for TV about a month ago. It's so tiring. How do you find time to work on your own stuff?

A: I don't. I wrote a bit during our last hiatus, which was several months ago. Annnnd now I'm pretty much waiting for the next one, to finish drafts of these new plays. But here's where I got lucky: In New York, I had a wonderful writing group, and we'd get together to read each other's work every few weeks. (I also had The Lark for a year, which was how I got SMUDGE finished.) When I arrived here last September, I was contacted by this amazing chick named Jennifer Haley, who was starting an LA-based group called The Playwrights Union (http://www.playwrightsunion.com/). We've met numerous times, now, to read each other's work out loud, and it's definitely kept me somewhat moored to the world of playwriting, even when I can't submerge myself fully. ...What's up, boat metaphors!

Q: What theaters or shows would you recommend for someone who just moved to LA?

A: Have you heard the expression, "Aaaaaaauuuugh?" If there were theatre in my office or my apartment, I'd be able to recommend it. As is, I don't get out enough. Oh, but several friends of mine (and fellow UCSD MFA alums) have started a theatre company called Chalk Rep (http://www.chalkrep.com/), which does site-specific work -- new and classical plays. You should check them out. And I've seen readings at The Black Dahlia Theatre (http://www.thedahlia.com/), which I think always chooses good new scripts -- and they're doing my friend Ruth McKee's wonderful new play, STRAY, this fall. But if anyone's reading this who lives in LA and wants to recommend theatre or shows to me, please do! I...probably won't be able to go. But I want to know about it.

 Q: Tell me a story about your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person. A: I used to fill out credit card and college applications, with all fake/pun information, for fun. Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: Stuff with music. Stuff without fixed walls. Funny stuff, but with real emotion.

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

A: I'm still just starting out, too. But for people, say, writing a play for the first time: Find a playwright you love. Copy his/her style. Never show this play to anyone, but learn from it. Let it mature/grow/evolve into something that's yours.

Q: Tell me about Smudge, the play you having coming up this season.

A: I'm so, so, so excited about it. It's a play that began, in seedling-idea form, during my last quarter of grad school. For a long time, I had a draft with ten excellent pages, followed by about 50 pages of dreck. Then I scrapped everything but those ten pages, added a third character, and turned what was initially an argument about what constitutes a life into a play. I workshopped pieces of it at The Lark, then had my first readings of it through The Playwrights Foundation in San Francisco, where I discovered that people really responded to it. It was at The O'Neill two summers ago, which was an absolutely amazing experience. And now it's going to have its first full production at The Women's Project. It's about a young couple having their first child, and learning to be parents. It's also sort of about what might happen if a mother hated her first child. It's sort of about developing a relationship with something you've created. I hope it comes off funny, and a little creepy, and a little sweet, and a little sad. And it should have, if all goes well, some uber-cool lighting and sound. Go see it!!

Philly Premiere of Nerve in April

http://news.yahoo.com/s/playbill/20090824/en_playbill/132168

3

Three posts from Stephen Adly Guirgis at the Ojai Playwrights Conference

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2009/08/stephen-adly-guirgus-at-ojai-playwrights-conference-.html#more

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2009/08/stephen-adly-guirgis-works-with-the-interns-at-ojai-playwrights-conference.html

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2009/08/steven-adly-guirgis-the-communion-of-plays.html

I Interview Playwrights Part 41: Laura Lynn MacDonald

Laura Lynn MacDonald

Hometown: Orland Park, Illinois

Current Town: Milwaukee, Wisconsin - via Chicago and New York City.

Q: Tell me about your adaptation of Peer Gynt playing in Central Park.

A: Christopher Carter Sanderson, the Founding Artistic Director of Gorilla Rep asked if I’d write a new adaptation/translation of Ibsen’s epic play. Neither of us was interested in creating a direct translation (or a four hour production!) Instead, I was given the freedom to fly with my own writing as I followed the adventures of Peer Gynt as laid out in the original text. What we’ve created is a two hour production with nine actors playing fifty-six roles and two brave souls playing Peer. The production is underscored with some inspired songs and sound effects by Andre-Phillipe Mistier. The Great Boyg, an ominous force that intercepts Peer’s life, sounds like an echo from the underworld. The characters in the play are enhanced by imaginative masks and costume pieces by Mikaela Holmes and Benjamin Heller. There’s a fabulous pig and a three-headed troll. And like all Gorilla Rep shows, this one will keep the actors and the audience moving from scene to scene around Summit Rock in Central Park.

Q: You were one of the founding members of Gorilla Rep. How did the theater come about?

A: Sanderson had been creating theatre in public spaces in New York City since 1989. In 1992 he decided to form his own company out of a group of actors he’d cast in a production of UBU IS KING! (performed in Grand Central Station) and two board members. I was one of the band of actors wielding a large phallus at Grand Central Station. It was powerful and fantastic. We were all very serious about our artistic intentions in those first company meetings. I have some great photographs of all of us reading over the first contract at Jy Murphy’s apartment. There was a feeling in the air that we were making something memorable that afternoon. Gorilla Rep has grown and refined since that time, but the mission remains the same: “...to provide the highest quality productions of classical dramatic material with the flavor of contemporary immediacy to people where they are FOR FREE.”

Q: What's the theater scene like in Milwaukee? If I came to town tomorrow, what shows or theaters would you suggest I check out?

A: Milwaukee has a significant arts and theatre scene for its size. It’s such a beautiful, accessible city. Several artists have moved here for work and stayed here to live. Right now, I’d recommend The Chamber Theatre’s production of Mark Brown’s AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS, with a phenomenal scenic design by Keith Pitts. Milwaukee Rep will soon be producing THE GOVERNMENT INSPECTOR, Jeffrey Hatcher’s adaptation of Gogol’s play, which is sure to be a hoot. One of my favorite theatres to recommend is Next Act - a wonderful intimate theatre that does consistently lovely work. They will open their season with MARY’S WEDDING by Stephen Massicotte. Another gem is Renaissance Theatreworks, our only company founded and run by women. Milwaukee sadly lost The Milwaukee Shakespeare Company to the economic downturn. Hopefully, she will rise again.

Q: Tell me about working in the literary department at Milwaukee Rep.

A: Joe Hanreddy, the Artistic Director, introduced me to Kristin Crouch, The Rep’s Literary Director. I assisted her throughout last season by reading new play submissions, writing production articles and doing dramaturgical research. Beyond reading so many wonderful (and not so wonderful) scripts, the most fun for me was sitting in on first rehearsals where the vision for the production is shared with the creative team. The Rep allowed me to meet directors and designers I admired and watch them work. I was given a commission to write their educational touring show, then later, I taught playwriting workshops in Milwaukee area schools. It was a tremendous opportunity to get a glimpse of what it takes to put on a 14-show season.

Q: You’re also a dramaturg. What do you like most about dramaturgy?

A: I love collaborating. I also love storytelling. Dramaturgy for me is taking off my playwriting hat and discovering how I might best serve the script or production at hand. It’s collaborating to tell the story the playwright or director wants to tell. Sometimes it’s creative or critical feedback, sometimes it’s editing, researching, or writing marketing material for shows. It’s all part of the experience - from what you see when you enter the lobby, to what you hear during the show. Every project I’ve worked on has been different. And often, especially in the creation of a new script, we’re all surprised at the outcome.

Q: What kind of theatre excites you?

A: I like plays that mine language. I like plays that make me laugh during the sad parts. I want to watch people (or other-worldly creatures) struggle for meaning - struggle for love - maybe reach for God. And I’d rather be terrified in my mind than see long bloody knives. So many plays and playwrights inspire me. Some favorites are Chekhov, Euripides, Shakespeare, August Wilson, Stoppard, Rajiv Josef, Nilo Cruz, Sarah Ruhl, Naomi Iizuka, Anna Deavere Smith, Arthur Miller and Mary Zimmerman’s adaptations.

Q: You started off as an actress in NYC, then you took a long break, finding your way back to the theatre over ten years later. What was that journey?

A: In 1995 my mother was injured in a car crash that subsequently changed the trajectory of my life. I was just thrown in another direction. Eventually, I expressed myself creatively through bodywork. I was a certified massage therapist, Spa Manager and National Trainer for Elizabeth Arden Salons and Spas. I loved the travel and teaching for the first time. Several years passed before I got the performing bug again. I’d moved to Milwaukee and was cast in a few plays and commercials. I got married and had a baby, ... then another baby... One sunny January day I thought I was going to combust if I didn’t do something, write something, express something - so, I wrote a screenplay. Over the next year it turned into WELCOME TO FREEDOM, this intricate love story about two gay teenagers - one shipping off to Iraq. I just lived and hid inside that story and it fed me when I really needed to be fed. Since then I haven’t stopped writing dramatic stories - either films or plays.

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

A: I’ll just tell you what I’m trying to do. Having kids, I try to write as often as I can. I do a lot of my writing long hand, so there are pads of paper everywhere, especially the car. I don’t know why my characters like to talk to me while I’m driving, but they do. I get out of my own back yard. I go to classes, workshops, free talks by so-in-so who wrote this-n-that. I often see 1-2 shows a week. I try to go to previews or performances with talk-backs whenever I can because there’s a chance to learn more about the show or say “hi” to the director. If there’s an opportunity to volunteer at a theatre I’d love to work with, I try to be there. If there’s a benefit, I try to go. I’m a member of several organizations (The Dramatist Guild, Chicago Dramatists, The Playwrights’ Center) and writing groups that have allowed me to meet some fantastic colleagues. I read books about history. What I do know, I teach - and the classroom gives huge returns to me. I try new genres. I push my boundaries because I don’t want to keep writing over the same territory or writing in the same form. I improvise. I just sit down and start banging it out. And if I’m in a writing groove, I let everyone know I have to disappear for a while.

Links for Laura Lynn’s show: www.gorillarep.org , www.lauralynnmacdonald.com

5 Questions with Leonard Jacobs: http://www.clydefitchreport.com/?p=3684

I Interview Playwrights Part 40: Steve Patterson

Steve Patterson

Hometown: Spokane, Washington.

Current Town: Portland, Oregon.

Q: What are you working on right now?

A: Of late, I’ve been playing with twisting “genres.” Last year, I wrote “Bluer Than Midnight,” which took film noir conventions into the afterlife (and the Mississippi Delta blues country), and I’m currently revising “The Rewrite Man,” which overlays the spy genre with sort of Phillip K. Dick questions about paranoia and reality. Good times.

 Q: Everyone says that Portland is the greatest place to live in the world. Is this true? How long have you been there?

A: I’ve been here since 1989. Christ, that’s 20 years, isn’t it? Doesn’t seem that long. When I left the Northwest for New York in 1982, Portland seemed like this kind of weird, dark, alcoholic town; when I came back at the end of the decade, it had transformed into a sparkly boho paradise. Currently, we’re really suffering from the recession—unemployment’s quite high—but, if you’ve got work, it’s pleasant. Everything’s moderate: temperatures, prices, traffic, crime. It’s very easy to get around. Gardens bloom from March to November. We’re rotten with parks, coffee shops, book stores, and indie bands. And the library system’s one of the best in the country. Plus, as you might have heard, it rains a bit here, which is conducive to staying inside and writing.

Q: What is the theater scene like in Portland. If I moved there tomorrow what theaters or shows would you recommend I check out?

A: It’s really quite remarkable. Although we have only two Equity houses—Portland Center Stage and Artists Repertory Theatre—we have some 100 theatre companies. Not all of them produce consistently, most produce now and then, but that’s still pretty amazing for a mid-sized city. Right now, Third Rail Theatre’s probably the most universally respected house in town, but Vertigo Theatre, Miracle Theatre Company, and defunkt theatre all have consistently interesting seasons. Portland Playhouse is a new company making waves, doing some new plays. FUSE also does new plays, and the terrific Portland Theatre Works specializes in readings and development of new work. There’s also a…hmm. For now, let’s just say there’s a new theatre company in development, and, once it launches, it may be very important to Portland’s new play scene. Portland Center Stage’s JAW Festival is still kind of the Big Kahuna of new play development in town and pulls in some pretty major names from around the country. I was fortunate enough to have a play featured there in 2006 (“Lost Wavelengths”), and the experience was just way too much fun.

Q: I loved your post about learning the guitar over the last year. ( http://splattworks.blogspot.com/2009/08/365-days-of-being-experienced.html ) I especially was interested in the part about the learning curve. Can you talk a little about the learning curve as it relates to playwriting for you?

A: Playing barre chords is almost as hard as plotting. I’d already put in a good ten years writing fiction and journalism before I kind of fell backward into writing plays; so it didn’t seem too hard at first. It was only after I began to learn more about it that I found out how difficult it is to do well. I guess there’s a loose analogy there in that I played piano and organ as a kid, then gave it up, and guitar put music back in my hands. But guitar, frankly, has seemed hard from the beginning, and, like playwriting, every time you think you’ve achieved a certain mastery, you find there’s so many more steps to climb. They’re both terrifically fun…but not every time you sit down to write or play.

Q: Besides being a playwright, you are also a photographer. Are there similarities for you between these two kinds of art or are they wholly different kinds of creation?

A: No matter how quickly you write—and I’ve been known to write quickly when it’s hot—playwriting is a slow process, with the story revealing itself at its own pace, whereas photography occurs in the moment. You’re there, you see it, you own it. (Unless you’re shooting a studio still life or building images in Photoshop.) I do think many good pictures have their own narrative, though. It may be elliptic, compressed, and a little mysterious, but there’s a story there. And just as you learn where to start and end a scene on stage, you have to know how much (or how little) to show in a photograph. I spent a couple years shooting theatre rehearsals in black and white because the results reminded me of movie stills and seemed to tell their own stories independently of the plays being rehearsed. Henri Cartier-Bresson told short stories as well as Raymond Carver.

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

A: I grew up in the rural Pacific Northwest, had chickens, ducks, horses—all that. And I was an only child, so I spent a lot of time alone with my imagination. One time, I was busy spreading hay in the horse stalls, and I looked up to see my uncle curiously watching me. Apparently, I’d been lost in some internal narrative and unconsciously doing all the characters’ voices aloud. My uncle thought I was talking to someone. When he realized I was alone, he kind of lowered his chin and asked: “And who did you think you were talking to?” At the time, I was mortified, but it seems funny and natural now.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: Dark, twisted weird stuff that plays inside your head as well as on stage. Stories and images that haunt. Plays willing to take chances, trash the narrative, or thwart your expectations to find a deeper truth. As much as I admire the genius of “King Lear” and “Death of a Salesman,” I probably consider “Waiting for Godot” the closest thing there is to a perfect play…and nothing happens. On purpose. Of course, I also appreciate good acting, directing, and designing. I’ve been fortunate enough to work with some very talented people, and I’ve come to appreciate how terribly difficult their work can be. One of the sad facts about working in theatre long enough is that you end up going to a play, buy your ticket, get settled in your chair…and then look up to check out the lighting rig before you open your program.

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

A: Besides the obvious—read plays and go to the theatre—I’d say listen for the character’s voice. Just like actual people, characters all have their own idiosyncratic way of speaking that reflects their thought patterns, upbringing, geography. If you can channel that, you can often find a story just by asking: why does this person talk this way? And if your characters all sound the same, you need to get to know them better. That and if you find a theatre in your town that does work you like, hang out after the show, introduce yourself, see if they need help—theatres always need more help. Even if you end up distributing posters or doing box office, it introduces you to some interesting people you might end up collaborating with. Finally, have a Plan B for paying the bills.

Update: You can get one of Steve's plays here.

I Interview Playwrights Part 39: Erin Browne

Erin Browne

Hometown: Southern California and Michigan- including but not limited to San Diego, El Centro, Palm Springs, Indio, and Dearborn

Current Town: Brooklyn, NY

Q: Tell me about your radio play and the award you just won with it.

A: It's actually a play I wrote as a stage play called Trying in a flurry of about 3 days. My family had just been staying at my apartment for Christmas and after they left I had 3 quiet alone days before going back to work. I just started writing and didn't stop until the play was almost done. I was remembering this girl I knew when I was 7 years old, who had a belt buckle scar on her forehead and wondered what had happened to her after my mom and I moved out of town. I was hoping she'd found happiness, support, and love. Part of moving so much as a kid meant that I knew a lot of people and was part of their lives for a short period of time, so I can make up any future I want for them. This was pre-Facebook and email. I could probably find them now if I thought they had computers. This is a play about a girl with scars she doesn’t really want to talk about and family, whatever that happens to mean. Anyway, after writing it - I worked through it scene by scene with some amazing actors and directors at Flux Sundays (with Flux Theater Ensemble) who really illuminated the humor and innocence of the play and made me excited about it. http://fluxtheatreensemble.blogspot.com/2008/02/trying-by-erin-browne.html After that there was a reading in Actor/Producer Jody Christopherson’s living room with a small group – then a more public reading at the Saltbox Theatre in Katonah. http://saltboxtheatre.org/ Basically, on a whim – I submitted it to the BBC Worldservice Radio Play Contest as is. My “A Meth Play” had been a finalist last time around – and so figured it was worth a try. I was really, really shocked when “Trying” won because to me it feels so small and specific. http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/specialreports/radioplay_2008.shtml I guess I don’t really think I know what a radio play is since we don’t have radio drama here in the same way they do in the UK. But I’m excited to see what it is and learn more about it. I’ve gotten notes from the producer that suggested nods and smiles might be changed to something more verbal – so I’ve been working on that. It will be taped in mid-October with an airdate sometime in November.

Q: And then after the taping, there's going to be a reading coming up too of that play, right, in nyc?

A: There’s going to be a reading of the play, in it’s original stage version, Monday Sept 28th at the East 13th Street Theatre with the hopes of a production sometime in February of next year. Jody Christopherson has been working really hard to make it happen and I’m getting pretty excited about the chance to see it eventually on its feet. It will be my first produced full-length play.

Q: Have you written many radio plays? Do you find them easier or harder than normal plays?

A: I guess I’ve never technically written a radio play before. I’ve written a few plays that could work on radio maybe (although it’s still hard for me to imagine how the setting and action plays out without any real examples but I’ll soon find out). I do think I write plays that have a lot of low-key overheard type conversations that reference physical action without needing it to tell a story. I love to listening to people, mimicking their dialect and cadences– I think that’s pretty typical playwright stuff -so it doesn’t take much to cross over into radio.

 Q: What are you working on next?

A: Mmmm good question, I’m at a point where I’m not quite sure. I’m headed to the Flux Retreat at Little Pond with something that’s currently called Crimes that builds off my experiences in my day job (I’m working on the A&E series The First 48, on the update show called After the First 48) and tangentially on the Strindberg play There Are Crimes and Crimes which I love. But I’m at a beginning point where I’m not sure if it’s going to take flight or go anywhere or be worth anyone’s time. I’m also hoping to organize a reading of a really dense play called Return that I finished a draft of a while back.

Q: You're a couple years out of a Columbia MFA. How was that for you? Was Eduardo still there when you were there? I'm still in a great deal of debt from that program.

A: I forgot that you went there too! Eduardo was still there when I was there. Hmmm, Eduardo. I can’t say that we really connected as teacher/student but that’s okay because I connected with other teachers and collaborators and friends – and I still think grad school was one of the most valuable experiences in my life. Just like not every play is for everyone – every teacher is not for everyone. I think it’s really important to know that when you’re studying the arts anywhere, that not every teacher’s word is gospel. Yeah, debt is really lame. I feel like I escaped a bigger portion of that because I was working full time while going to school – plus a fellowship job my 2nd year – and then turned in my thesis early and graduated early to avoid some 3rd year costs. But I also think about what I missed being sleep deprived and delirious through the whole thing… I guess the point for me is that if you want to go to grad school or undergrad or any kind of school and you don’t think you have the money – you can do it – there are always ways. Which is kind of another theme in Trying. Debt is lame but sometimes it’s worth it. It was worth it for me, I hope it was worth it for you.

 Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: A lot of different kinds of theater, and it changes all the time. I like abstraction when it works because I don’t write like that anymore. I like theater that pushes boundaries and mixes media. I love plays mixed with dance – which was exciting to me about Pretty Theft. I really dig dance and it’s ability to be enormous and emotive and beautiful and epic. I like smart theater for children and teens. I like theater for adults that uses the magical and stretches logic in the same way those plays do. Pretty much the roster of Under the Radar at the Public makes it one of my favorite times of year. I absolutely always see any show I can directed by Anne Bogart or Robert Wilson. I’m totally obsessed with Brecht and Ibsen (especially Brand and Peer Gynt). I’m excited to see the remounting of Killers and Other Family by Lucy Thurber at the Rattlestick this Fall.

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

A: Write, write, write. Don’t worry if something’s good – just finish it. Find a group of friends who will read your stuff back to you without judgment (you’ll probably judge yourself enough). Find directors you connect with and adventurous actors who will take risks with you.

Q: Any other plugs?

 A: I have a non-theater related plug. I’ve been volunteering at an Ali Forney Center apartment for the last half year www.aliforneycenter.org And it really makes my Wednesdays something I look forward to every week. I want to plug volunteering and donating to theater and non-theater related charities if you can because I know they are really hurting right now. NY Cares is a great way to be involved when you’re a busy New Yorker trying to work a day job and be artistic and have a life. And keep your eyes on Flux Theater Ensemble because I don’t know about your experience but in my experience is they are really the most awesomest awesome group of people.

I Interview Playwrights Part 38: Annie Baker

Annie Baker

Hometown: Amherst, Massachusetts

Current Town: Brooklyn, NY

Q: You have two Off Broadway shows going up this coming season. Very exciting! Can you tell me a little about the plays and who is involved? I heard one of these at Ars Nova, didn't I?

A: So my play CIRCLE MIRROR TRANSFORMATION (which we did read in the Ars Nova Play Group) is going up at Playwrights Horizons this October, and my play THE ALIENS is going up at the Rattlestick in the spring. Both plays will be directed by the mad genius Sam Gold. CIRCLE MIRROR TRANSFORMATION is about five people doing Creative Drama exercises in a windowless room in Vermont, and my cast is incredible: Didi O’Connell, Reed Birney, Heidi Schreck, Peter Friedman, and Tracee Chimo. I wanted all of these people to be in the play very badly, and so far none of them have dropped out, thank god. THE ALIENS is about three dudes who are sitting outside a coffee shop in, big surprise, Vermont. It’s the first time I’ve ever written music into my play—two of the characters break into song every once in a while. I’ve always been interested in writing a naturalistic play with music, because where I grew up dudes sitting outside coffee shops really did just break into song every once in a while. The music in THE ALIENS is by Michael Chernus and Patch Darragh, who are allowing me to use these wonderful trippy songs they wrote ten years ago when they were out-of-work actors living in Greenpoint. Both plays are also explorations of my two long-time obsessions: silence and stillness. During one scene in CIRCLE MIRROR TRANSFORMATION the stage is completely empty for like thirty seconds. THE ALIENS is only 71 pages long, but I’m hoping it’ll be like a two-hour play after we put the pauses in.

Q: What are you working on next?

A: I’m just starting work on two new plays. I haven’t totally figured them out yet, but in one the audience will be forced to hear a middle-aged man recite the same poem over and over again. The other takes place in a bed and breakfast in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and the audience will be forced to hear the elderly woman who runs the bed and breakfast tell the same boring story over and over again. I guess my third long-time obsession is repetition.
 
Q: Who are your heroes?

A: Chekhov. Chekhov. Chekhov. Chekhov.

Q: How did you come to start writing plays?

A: I started writing plays, sort of, in fifth grade, because of this weird perverse game my friends and I would play after school. It was called The Jewish Game. We all must have been super-confused about our Jewish identities, because the game involved simultaneously running away from the Pharaoh, hiding in the basement while Cossacks rode through town, and screaming and weeping while Nazis separated us into two lines. I grew up in a small town, so there were lots of barns and trees to crouch behind and lots of berries to ration while we were fleeing our various oppressors. I played Rifka, the slutty 17-year-old daughter who was always running off into the forest to make out with her burly bearded woodcutter boyfriend, Schmuel. So I would spend hours writing these passionate romantic scenes for Rifka and Schmuel. Then I would go stand by myself in the middle of a meadow and whisper both parts to myself while my best friend Molly, who played my Papa, would yell “RIFKA! RIFKA! GET BACK HERE! NIGHT IS FALLING!” from the edge of the forest.

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

A: See above.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: I’m reading this amazing book by Susan Howe about Emily Dickinson, who also grew up in Amherst, and at one point Howe says that Dickinson “audaciously invented a new grammar grounded in humiliation and hesitation.” And I think that describes the kind of theater that excites me. I really loved Nature Theater of Oklahoma’s NO DICE. I really loved Richard Maxwell’s THE END OF REALITY. I really loved Young Jean Lee's PULLMAN, WA. I really loved Caryl Churchill’s A NUMBER. And I really love seeing Chekhov performed. For years Brian Mertes and Melissa Kievman staged a Chekhov play at their house every summer and it was consistently some of the best theater I’ve ever seen. A million times better than those horrible, horrible, stodgy, expensive British productions of Chekhov.

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

A: Oh boy. It’s rough. Don’t give up. Don’t love everything you write, be hard on yourself, but don’t become so crippled by self-hatred that you can’t finish a draft. Apply to everything—every writers group in New York, every developmental festival in the country. If you’re interested in grad school and you like weird plays, go study with Mac Wellman at Brooklyn College. He is one of the smartest and most generous people on the planet. And maybe this is me being a curmudgeon, but I think way too many New York theater people just see plays and watch movies and TV and don't read novels or poetry or philosophy or try to learn about history. A lot of young playwrights are weirdly anti-intellectual. That pisses me off, man. And I think you can see that reflected in all of the boring paint-by-numbers theater out there. So I guess I also recommend reading lots of books that have nothing to do with theater/film/TV (which is not to say that I think plays should be written for an audience full of intellectuals; quite the opposite. That kind of play makes me want to die).

Next

My play Nerve in Asheville, NC

http://www.ncstage.org/pages/on-stage/catalyst-series.php

I Interview Playwrights Part 37: Crystal Skillman

Crystal Skillman

Hometown: Born in San Diego but mostly grew up in Wappingers Falls, Upstate NY

Current Town: Brooklyn!

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I’m currently writing my new play Hack which will debut in the Vampire Cowboy's Saloon Series kicking off Sept. 12th. It's about how three hackers, who all work on the same I.T. team, are forced to pull an all nighter at their big shot company to fight a virus but things get personal when they discover it must have been planted by one of them. I actually just started writing it at the Voice & Vision Theater’s Envision retreat up at Bard this summer. It asks what's more important in these troubled economic times - keeping your job, friends or challenging the system and ultimately climaxes into a kinda showdown of the Good, the Bad and the Geek. When I was asked to be a part of the Saloon Series with the other amazing writers (Dustin Chinn, James Comtois, Brent Cox, Jeff Lewonczyk, Mac Rogers) I thought this idea would be a perfect “serialized play” as the work is shown "episodically" one Saturday a month at Battle Ranch from September to January. It’ll be directed by John Hurley who I’m excited to work with. Also the recent workshops of The Sleeping World (Rattlestick, Side Project in Chicago, MCC Theatre Playwrights Coalition), which is about four playwrights who come together to read their dead friend’s play, have been incredible. I’m on the verge of finishing the next draft that is really exciting.

Q: Can you talk about your musical? What's going on with that?

 A: That’s Andy, about a boy who wants to play Annie, is a musical that I'm working on book/lyrics for with the creative team (Kevin Carter, Bobby Cronin). It's a terrific piece that was conceived by Bobby who brought us together. We've all learned a lot working on the piece over the years and something recently just clicked - there's something about where we all are now creatively that is resulting in some of the best work we've ever done in our development of it this summer. Whole new opening and direction that’s rocking my world. Kevin Carter’s kick booty score blows me away. Like Daniel Goldfarb just expressed in your interview with him – seeing a song or a musical moment come to life that you were a part of is really thrilling. It’s some of the hardest work you’ll ever do because ultimately you’re working hard to create something to exist effortless on all three levels – book, lyrics & music – yikes! - but it can reach people emotionally in a whole new way. And what I’ve always loved about this musical is how it's so unpredictable and fun but asks tough questions about the times we live in. It also features a chain smoking Mary Martin dressed as Peter Pan – and what is there not to like about that? I'm happy to say it'll be directed by Clayton Phillips in a workshop at the York Oct. 6th at 3 PM. It’ll feature a slew of awesome talent including Beth Leavel and Lauren Kennedy.

 Q: You've worked with Rising Phoenix a bunch. Can you talk about the plays you did at Jimmy's No. 43 and your collaboration with Daniel?

 A: If you've met Daniel Talbott, you know he's awesome. If you haven't, then you'll meet him at some point and think - oh, he's awesome! I was lucky to work with Daniel, Artistic Director of Rising Phoenix Rep, as he directed my "ghost story" plays The Telling Trilogy a few years ago which were done at Jimmy's No. 43 by the company. It was an amazingly fruitful collaboration. We’re really proud of the work we did, and of the great actors work on it - for those who haven't checked it out - it's published in Plays & Playwrights 2008, along with two other plays produced by Rising Phoenix Rep (by Daniel Talbott & Daniel Rietz). We also became really close friends over many chai lattes, and various NYC adventures while chatting about plays. This year Daniel directed my two new plays Nobody and Birthday for Rising Phoenix Rep which was a huge step for me artistically. The given circumstances for Birthday – why Leila & Kyle needed to stay in that room – the outside world they were trying to escape - was so clear to me through our process that it really created a believable 45 minutes where two strangers changed each other's lives. It captured a personal truth that was new for me in how it unfolded in the room - a real turning point that I dove back into all my plays with. Rising Phoenix and my work with Daniel is a major part of that artistically for me and it has been really cool.

Q: What's it like to be married to a comic book writer?

A: Super-tastic and full of sound effects like super-tastic! Seriously. How could it not be crazy good fun? Putting my wife-hat aside, Fred is one of the best writers I’ve ever known – his comics, screenplays and short stories continue to be a great influence (now more than ever as I’m working on DougToons, a webtoon online). And it’s the best to hear when a director or playwright friend of mine loves X-Men Noir, Hercules or Action Philosophers as much as I do.

Q: What's your day job now?

A: Part of the reason that Hack, the new play, is so timely for me is that I just found out that I’m going to be laid off from a dayjob I’ve had for about three years as a receptionist in an architectural firm (where I've pretty much written everything from Telling Trilogy to Sleeping World to Birthday). But it’s time. The past year has been a great step for me and almost all my work has been commissioned or paid for. So I’ll be putting my efforts towards writing for a living and developing opportunities for that.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: 1. Theatre that has a personal, unique story told in an original way. 2. That has real truth. 3. That has beer. A play that lets you drink booze while watching is awesome.

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

A: Each new play is another step on your journey. It may get produced tomorrow or in five years. Who knows? Yikes! Write it, and develop it, but also at the same time move on. The answer always seems to be in the next play. And keep sharing your work – that’s how you find the right folks to work with!

 Q: Any plugs?

A: Join me at the Vampire Cowboys Saloon Series – where there’s beer)! (http://www.vampirecowboys.com/index2.htm). And if you like musicals or want to check out That's Andy, play hooky or get canned like I did and come on down to the York Theatre (http://www.yorktheatre.org/) on Oct. 6th at 3 PM.

I Interview Playwrights Part 36: Blair Singer

Blair Singer

Hometown: Woodland Hills, California.

Current Town: Brooklyn, NY (like every other playwright you've interviewed.)

Q: Tell me about your play Matthew Modine Saves the Alpacas which is going up at the Geffen. How did this come about?

A:  I met Matthew while I was working on the TV show "Weeds". I was a big fan of his work prior to meeting him and an even bigger fan after I'd met him. He's not only a brilliant actor but he's a terrific human being. He's kind, he's honest, and he's generous. When I left to come back home to New York, Matthew and I vowed to work with each other on a play. Six months later, I pitched him the basic idea of MMSTA, he loved it, and we were off.

 Q: A friend of mine recently took your TV class. He said you were a great teacher. Can you talk a little about how you set up your class?

A: I focus on the business of making television. I assume that everyone who takes the class can write. I would rather focus on how good writers can break into television and how to become aware of yourself as a commodity to be sold to the marketplace. Pretty much, the class is me talking a lot. I talk about my experiences in TV, good and bad, I share my very strong opinions, and spend the rest of the time begging them to take everything I say with a huge grain of salt.

 Q: What TV shows did you write for?

A: Weeds, Monk, and Book of Daniel.

 Q: What are you working on next?

A: You got a job for me, Adam? I'd love to live in Atlanta and have a free maid! I'm very fortunate to have found Mark Armstrong and the Production Company, an excellent off-off Broadway theater company. I've been named their playwright-in-residence and have written a play for the company called MEG'S NEW FRIEND that Mark will direct at Manhattan Theatre Source in November and December.

Q: Who are your heroes?

A: I am in awe of playwrights. EVERY playwright. I began as an actor and I am always amazed at the unique worlds that playwrights construct. Herb Gardner once said, not to me, but to someone, "How do you ask a kamikaze pilot if his work is going well?" Playwrights are kamikaze pilots, trying to find targets that doesn't exist. How can you not find the lifetime pursuit of an ever-moving target heroic?

Q: You are, like me, married to another playwright. Would you recommend marrying a playwright?

A: I would recommend marrying my wife. She's really spectacular. Everyone should get the chance to be married to my wife at least once.

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

A: Marry my wife. That, and put the name of a famous actor in the title of your next play. Matthew Modine is mine but I think Judd Nelson is looking to do some theater.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: I love watching great acting-- that's why I go to the theater-- so any play that offers actors the ability to stretch themselves excites me. I also like anything written about farm animals. Link for Blair's show: http://www.geffenplayhouse.com/180

I Interview Playwrights Part 35: Daniel Goldfarb

Daniel Goldfarb

Hometown: Toronto, Ontario Canada

Current Town: New York City

Q: Tell me about your play The Retributionists going up at Playwrights Horizons. Who is your artistic team? What is the show about?

A:  We are at the end of our second week of rehearsal and it has been very intense and exciting. I am in awe of the cast and the creative team. Leigh Silverman is directing and it has been the best collaboration. I think she's amazing. Our young, sexy, charismatic Jews are Adam Driver, Margarita Levieva, Cristin Milioti and Adam Rothenberg. Lusia Strus, Rebecca Henderson and Hamilton Clancy play the Germans. And we have an all Tony award winning design team. Derek McLane is doing the set, Susan Hilferty the costumes, Peter Kaczorowski is doing the lights, Jill BC DuBoff the sound. My friend Tom Kitt has written a beautiful original score. Playwrights Horizons desribes the play like this: Spring 1946. The plan was simple: a German for every Jew. Its execution would be swift, clean, its impact undeniable. In this daring new romantic thriller inspired by actual events, a band of young Jewish freedom fighters attempts to avenge a society’s wrongs – if they can keep from tearing each other apart in the process.

Q: How long have you been teaching at NYU?

A: Amazingly, I am about to start my 11th year teaching at NYU.

Q: Are you also working on a musical, tv pilots and screeenplays while writing new plays and raising a family? How do you find the time?

A: The busier I am, the more productive I am. And as I get a little older, the scope of my voice and my dreams have broadened. I love working on musicals - I find the collaborative aspect of it thrilling. And there's nothing like being in a room with talent and hearing a song come to life. It has also been very satisfying to work a little bit in film and television. It's great to stretch those muscles. Having a family gives me perspective and forces me to spend less time on myself, which is so easy and so dangerous for artists. I have actually been more productive since my daughter was born. And fatherhood has been the most rewarding and joyful experience of my life.

Q: Marsha Norman talks about us all having areas of expertise--that there is something specific that each of us writes about really well. What do you think that thing is for you?

A: I am a big believer in 'write what you know'/'write what you're confused about'. My plays tend to focus on various aspects of Jewish identity. Hopefully, in being very specific and personal, the work can find a universal truth.

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

A: provoke, question, entertain, challenge.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: Good theatre. It can be anything, anywhere. But I love good acting and great storytelling. Not so interested in too many bells and whistles and concepts.

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

A: Finish what you start. Don't underestimate the accomplishment of getting out a draft. See as much as you can. Be a fan.

Link for the PH show: www.playwrightshorizons.org

I Interview Playwrights Part 34: Heidi Schreck

Heidi Schreck

Hometown: Wenatchee, WA

Current Town: New York City

 
Q: Tell me a little about this play you have coming up. What is it about, who is doing it and what is the artistic team?

A: My play is called Creature and it's loosely based on a 15th century autobiography called The Book of Margery Kempe. It's about a woman who desperately wants to become a saint even though she's totally unsuited to this vocation. Margery is vain, selfish, carnal, gluttonous, a loud weeper, materialistic, jealous, prideful - well, utterly human, really, and the book is a hilarious and kind of heart-wrenching account of her campaign to remake herself. I have great fondness for people who attempt things they can't possibly succeed at, and I fell in love with her and now I have this play. A weird play set in 1401 featuring demons and talking hazelnuts and saints - and rife with historical inaccuracies. New Georges and Page 73 are co-producing Creature which is a dream since I'm a huge fan of both these companies. The brilliant Leigh Silverman is directing and we have a terrific design team: Rachel Hauck is designing the set, Matt Frey, lights, Theresa Squire, costumes and Katie Down is composing music. At our first meeting Leigh made the designers read the play out loud and they were pretty good.

Q: You spent the last year as the P73 Playwriting Fellow. What was that experience like?

A: I'm in the middle of my fellowship right now and it's fantastic to feel so supported. I traveled to Moscow in May to research my new play There Are No More Big Secrets and this week I'm directing a workshop of it myself. P73 has given me great actors, a beautiful rehearsal space, a stage manager, a dramaturg and an assistant director. A whole staff! Also, Asher and Liz are great about helping me organize a writing/development schedule and giving helpful feedback. I'm so spoiled right now. I don't know how I'm going to go back to my regular life.

Q: You are also an Obie winning actor. How does your acting inform your playwriting and vice-versa?

 A: Well, obviously I identify with the actors when I'm working as a playwright and I want to give them interesting things to do onstage. I could never write a character who just brings in the samovar, I would feel too guilty. And when I'm working on a new play as an actor, I feel a tremendous responsibility to the playwright, to do right by their play. Actually, I've had to learn to turn the volume down on that feeling because it can be paralyzing. Sometimes the best way to look out for someone's play is to really look out for yourself, your role. Actors and playwrights have a unique relationship and I'm lucky I get to experience it from both sides. When you're a playwright and an actor shows up and gives life to your play that's a remarkable achievement in human communication. It's better than ESP. And as an actor, when a playwright gives you a great role to inhabit, well, you've seen All About Eve? When Karen asks Eve, "You'd do all that just for a part in a play?" I'm not as evil as Eve, but I totally get her answer, "I'd do much, much more for a part that good."

 
Q: In the nineties, you were a member of the infamous theater company in Seattle, Printers Devil. What was that experience like and what sort of theater foundation did it give you?

A: Infamous? Yikes. We were a small company, so in addition to acting and writing, I got to direct, work at fundraisers, find props, sew curtains, even run the sound board, which they asked me to please never do again. I learned about every aspect of making a play. Also I met great playwrights - Sheila Callaghan, Naomi Iizuka, Anne Washburn, Chay Yew, Erin Cressida Wilson, Dan Dietz. Melissa Gibson and her husband Matt Frey stayed at the apartment I shared with your wife, Adam. And now Matt is designing the lights for Creature. So many of those relationships have come back around in wonderful ways.

Q: Who are your heroes?

A: I have too many, so I'm just going to name one playwright: Maria Irene Fornes. In my twenties, all of my plays were - well I called them homages to Fornes, but really they were blatantly imitative. Also, my mom. She directed me in my first play when I was 7 years old - I was Hermia in A Midsummer Nights Dream. She made me fall in love with theater.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: Good theater? I'm an omnivore. ERS's Gatz is still one of the best things I've ever seen and I also cried all the way through Next to Normal. Tony Kushner, Paula Vogel, Mac Wellman, Caryl Churchill, Chuck Mee, and Craig Lucas have all influenced me tremendously and are the people who first made me excited about playwright. I also love Lev Dodin, Robert Woodruff, the musical Annie, puppet theater, Anne Reinking, and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, which is where I saw my first play (Macbeth). Plus, I'm a huge fan of so many of my peers, the list is too long. The only stuff I don't like is theater that's predictable, cynical, shoddy, pretentious. Actually, sometimes I like pretentious. Also, I'm in constant peril of making theater I would hate myself.

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

A: Invite friends over to your apartment and make them read your plays out loud. And see as much of your peers' work as you can. By which I mean to say: Find your people.

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

A: Whew. This is the toughest question. I did everything wrong, but I'm pretty happy, so: Skip grad school, move to NYC when you're past a "marketable" age, don't get a headshot until you're 30?

What I did right - and what I recommend to younger actors - is to seek out playwrights and directors you admire and find a way to work with them. My relationships with directors Brooke O'Harra (Two-Headed Calf) and Ken Rus Schmoll (who just won the Obie for Telephone) have been immensely gratifying and provide a sense of artistic continuity in my life as an actor.

Also, when we were living in Seattle my now husband, director Kip Fagan, had a copy of David Adjmi's play Strange Attractors lying on his bed. I picked it up and after reading the first three pages knew that I had to be in it. So, I called Adam Greenfield, who was working at the Empty Space then, and got myself an audition. I'm making it sound more All About Eve than it was. I didn't try to seduce Adam, it was just a phone call. It turned out to be one of the most exciting roles I've ever played.

Q: Link please for your show:

A: http://www.p73.org/programs/productions/creature/

http://www.newgeorges.org/ce.html

Q: Any other plugs?

A: I'll be acting in Annie Baker's terrific new play Circle Mirror Transformation at Playwrights Horizons in the fall. I was working on it yesterday and I'm really jealous of Annie. Her writing is stunningly precise and nuanced, she's able to conjure the private suffering of her characters through these hilarious, often tiny public moments that make you laugh and also feel deeply uncomfortable. .Okay I'm not telling you any more because Circle Mirror Transformation starts previews on September 24 and you should just come see it..

http://www.playwrightshorizons.org/current_season.asp

Next

in Portland, OR

Sept 21

a reading of Food For Fish

http://www.theatrevertigo.org/

I Interview Playwrights Part 33: Itamar Moses

Itamar Moses

Hometown: Berkeley, California, right there in the San Francisco Motherfucking Bay.

Current Town: Brooklyn, NY.

Q: What are you working on right now?

A: A few things. I'm working on a play called COMPLETENESS about love and computer science that I keep returning to, every once in a while, for the last few years, and have struggled with. But I think I've cracked it now and am working on a draft that I might finally want to go to the next step with, a reading, or whatever. I also spent the last two years or so working on my first two musicals, and both of them are now at the point where they're ready to be up on their feet, at least in the workshop phase. One is an original piece about Reality TV and the other is an adaptation of the Jonathan Lethem novel FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, and I'm pretty excited about both.

 Q: You are, I would estimate, one of the 2 or 3 playwrights around my age who are actually making a living writing plays. How do you do it?

A: You call this living? No but seriously. The literal, boring answer to your question is that, between royalties from production, advances for publication, and commissions for new work, you can cobble together enough bits and pieces to live. Personally, I haven't had, like, a big commercial transfer that I made a killing on, so it's always been that way for me: piecemeal income. Some years there's lots of pieces some years there's not so many. A big part of that was that I was very fortune to form relationships, early on, with some of the large regional theatres, like Portland Center Stage, and the Old Globe, where the royalties are really quite good. If you get produced somewhere like Milwaukee Rep or ACT Seattle, places like that, you really only need one or two of those a year to get by. I should mention that I'm also relatively frugal as a person and that I don't have any kids. Another way of reading your question, of course, is, well, okay, so then how do you cobble together enough of those bits and pieces? How do you form those relationships? And I don't think there's any one answer to that. Everyone seems to have their own path. And whatever answers I might have I'll save for your question further down about what advice I'd give to young playwrights. Anyway, in a sense, I'm the least qualified person to explain why things happened for me the way that they did.

Q: Tell me a story about your childhood that is funny or sad and explains who you are as a person or writer.

A: My mom likes to tell this one. One time when I was little, really little, little enough to still be riding in a car seat, I was in the back of the car, and my mom was driving and my seatbelt wasn't on. And my mom said, "Put your seatbelt on." And I said, "No." And my mom said, "Put your seatbelt on." And I said, "No." And my mom said, "Put your seatbelt on." And I said, "Make me." So my mom pulled the car over and reached into the back seat and put the seatbelt on for me. And I screamed and cried and protested, apparently, and my mom said, "What? You told me to make you, so I made you." And I said, "I meant with words." I think that about sums it up.

Q: Do you have any sort of writing routines or rituals?

A: Yeah. I try to do a few hours first thing every morning before I do anything else so that it's out of the way before anything else I might do that day intrudes. This works well when I'm really in the grip of something and can be excruciating when nothing has grabbed me but I think it's important to show up every day. Then maybe I'll work some more, sporadically, for the rest of the day. How much depends on the momentum I've got built up. I take a lot of breaks. Like the one I'm taking right now to answer these questions.

Q: How do you deal with the pressures that come with productions and the reviews that follow?

A: The pressures of production are all, for me, internal. The benchmark is: did I do everything that I possibly could, as honestly and diligently as I could, to make this into something I believe in? If the answer to that question is yes, then I tend to feel okay, no matter what the reviews say, and if the answer is no, I am filled with shame and self-recrimination, likewise irrespective of reviews. "Doing everything" by the way does not always, or even often, mean imposing my own will. It has more to do with listening to the piece as it comes to life, listening carefully enough to discern what it wants and needs, from everyone working on it, and to obey that, even when it is in conflict with what I thought I was making. Doing that takes up so much internal space that there isn't really any room left to worry about "the pressures that come with production." In fact, I'm not even sure exactly what you mean by that. As for reviews: I haven't found anything that works particularly well for dealing with them. Reading them, not reading them, reading only the ones I hear are good, it's all pretty much the same. I always feel really vulnerable to what they say or what I hear they say third hand in spite of, or maybe because of, how tossed off and thoughtless and uninformed they also often are. But a really engaged review that really gets what you did and why can be invigorating and make you feel less alone. So maybe it's time to redefine "something that works for dealing with them." Because if by "works" what we mean is a method whereby we are protected you from having any feelings about the reviews then it's possible we'll always fail. So maybe a better approach is to accept that you're going to have those feelings, that you can't just think them away, and just feel them. Or, to put it in terms of THE WIRE: "The game is the game. Always." If nothing else, this frees you up to apply your energy towards writing the next play, which is where it belongs, instead of towards mentally defending the last one, which serves nothing and nobody.

 Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: Any one that has comfortable seats.

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

A: Oh lots. The most important thing is the work, to put the work first, to be your own fiercest critics and your own staunchest defender. Be honest with yourself about the work, about when it's not done, about when you need to lean more and try more and take your time. And then don't take no for an answer when you've got something you believe in. There are so many groups to join and places to have readings and email interviews to give that it's possible to kick up a lot of dust and feel like you're "in the mix" and then look around and realize that you haven't done any actual work for two years. Avoid this. All that other stuff, all the institutions, all the grants, the parties, especially the parties, all the trappings that have sprung up AROUND writing for the theatre are actually unnecessary for doing the most important part of your job, which is to sit the fuck down and get it done. In fact, a lot of the rest of it just gets in the way a lot of the time if you let it. All you have is the last thing you wrote. That, and the next thing you're going to write. And now to contradict everything I've just said to say that you also need everybody else because this business in collaborative and there are all kinds of decisions that are out of your control but that you want to go in your favor and there are a few ways to make that more likely: Knock on a lot of doors. Begin to treat rejection as totally neutral and anything shy of rejection as enormous encouragement. Remember that your collaborators, actors, directors, designers, have careers that are interdependent with yours, not in competition with yours, and that those people are often even better conduits for your scripts than your official agent. I got my first few productions because actors or other theatre professionals handed plays of mine directly to the artistic directors who had worked with them and trusted their judgment which meant that my work actually got read instead of languishing for a year in a literary office. Oh, yeah, avoid literary offices whenever you can. Even if the two layers of interns pass your script along to the literary manager, and even if the literary manager loves your script, the artistic director will thus be predisposed to dislike it because ad's want to discover plays on their own. Once you have relationships, maintain them. Work with people you genuinely like so that you can do this without feeling fake. Don't fixate on one particular opportunity or institution or goal as some sort of threshold beyond which is only joy because the struggle will be over and everything will be easy from then on. No such threshold exists. The struggle, the struggle to write each play, IS the joy. I mean, right?

Q: Any plugs you would like to plug?

A: That foreign vampire movie LET THE RIGHT ONE IN is really good. Everybody should rent it.

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