I Interview Playwrights Part 56: August Schulenburg

August Schulenburg

Hometown: Barnstable, Massachusetts

Current Town: Astoria, New York

Q: Tell me about the play you have coming up, The Lesser Seductions of History. This was written for your company, right?

A: Right. The Lesser Seductions of History follows 11 characters through each of the 1960's. The idea started about a year ago. Obama was running for President and Yes We Could and I wanted to write about that; that shared sense of purpose; that hope our actions really could make the world better. I wanted to write about the intoxicating clarity of a cause; the beauty of belonging to something bigger. And I wanted to write how absolutely dangerous that is; the sacrifice that is inevitably required; the great loss that becomes less important than the greater good. So the 60's were perfect, because they epitomize that double edge; and they were distant enough that I could write about now without being crowded by the present. As I started researching and writing, I realized I didn't want to focus on the Wax Museum of the 1960's, all those icons casting their long shadows: King, Kennedy, Hair, Nixon. I wanted to write about the people who are like I am now; hopeful and afraid, bewildered and determined, certain some great change is at work but probably wrong about what it is and what to do about it. As I've spent more time with the play and the decade, I've come to feel there is some essential thing unfinished from the 60's, something that my generation, the children of the flower children, need to move forward. Something about the arc of moral justice, something about the necessity of compassion, something about history and the work of our own hands. And all the time I have to fight those bigger ideas off and make sure the play stays little and human and silly and sad and dirty and fast and interesting.

Q: Are you excited to be working with Heather Cohn on this?

A: Yes. Working with Heather on Other Bodies was an extraordinary experience. She is relentless and won't rest until every mote shines. She understands how to make complex things simple and heavy things light. She has the fire and the hunger, you know? She can hold the ugly/beauty and wrestle the sad/happy and keep the trains running on time. There are only a few people you can really make a stand with and I'm undeservedly lucky to be standing beside her. And yes, I'm in love with her, and yes, we live together, and yes, it is good. Conflict of interest? Well, I wish theatre felt a lot more like love a lot more often.

Q: Can you tell me a little bit about Flux Theater? How did it come about? Have you nailed down your core values/mission?

A: Flux was founded out of the experience of producing my play Rue. A theatre had given us a little money and great space and said we could do what we wanted, and well, things slalomed right quick after that. Adversity and bullshit beset that production in ways that still fire my blood. I felt like I'd brought people I'd respected to a dark place, but they kept moving forward, and the gratitude and love I felt (and feel) were the catalyst of Flux. Three and a half years later and nine shows in, we're just beginning to really clarify our core and aesthetic values. A few weeks ago we held our annual retreat at Little Pond, and banged out some really valuable raw material we hope to smooth over the next half year. With an Ensemble made up of so many strong wills, it would be good to get there soon.

Q: You're a very prolific playwright. What else are you working on right now?

A: A play about a physicist falling apart called Dark Matter that will also be turned into an opera. A play called Stepping about a brother and sister growing up in Harlem with the power to step into alternate worlds. How To Go, about a Hunter Thompson type who holds a contest among his loved ones to design the most spectacular way to kill himself. Angel Juice, about a female Vermont senator taken over by the soul of Napoleon, and her daughter's love affair with the witch that did it. Far Distant Classes, the prequel to my play Good Hope, about the astonishing history of Xhosa people in South Africa. Denny and Lila, a play about two con-artists whose love affair is broken by an encounter with a painting prodigy. The Sea Concerto, a play about a family that disintegrates from greed and grief after their child drowns. I also want to transform the essence, style and bones of To The Lighthouse and Mrs. Dalloway into some kind of play but I haven't started writing those yet.

Q: What is the purpose of theater?

A: Well, I guess I'll talk about the purpose of theatre by talking about the purpose of sex, because I think they're related. Sex is how we make life, and from evolutionary pressures, sex has become increasingly pleasurable for obvious reasons: if it feels this good, we'll keep doing it, and so life will endure because of the pleasures of sex. Story is to meaning as sex is to life. The brief hard lives of early Homo Sapiens were filled with knowledge essential to pass on to their children. Much of this knowledge needed to be experienced, not simply explained. Story evolved to make sure that experience endured. And the more beautiful and immediate a story was, the more likely the meaning endured. And the more likely the people telling those stories endured. So we evolved to take increasing pleasure in the beauty of stories. So much so that, much like sex, we can enjoy beautiful stories that have no connection to their original purpose of bearing knowledge. These days we can have sex and beauty without bearing babies and meaning and I think that's a good thing. (Sometimes I wonder if music isn't the most evolved form of our genetic drive towards beauty; we can enjoy music that carries no meaning whatsoever but its own beauty). Still, there is a purpose to theatre that goes beyond pure entertainment. Theatre is communal; we are social animals, more so all the time; and as such, theatre is the ideal bearer of the knowledge on how to live together. We do plays so the essential experience of what it means to be human together endures. So hark ye, all theatre artists! Make your plays sex-potent! After all, the fate of our human race lies in your hands! Yeah, I get carried away. I guess that's why you asked that.

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

A: Summers I grew up in a perfect place called Sandy Neck; miles and miles of nothing but dunes and ocean and twenty or so houses propped up against the tide; no electricity, well water, and salt in every cranny of you. My brother and sister and I playing flashlight tag, and roasting marshmallows a perfect golden brown. Well, of course, we lost it, we can't go there anymore, hard things happened. I think a certain kind of exile is good for playwrights. It teaches us longing, which is butter on toast for writing. The feeling that you can't get back to the world you were promised is good training for a life of writing plays.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: I really am crazy about all of it, even the stuff that's kind of lame. Something about bodies moving through time, space and story, I just can't get enough. But to answer your question, Tom, I read recently that the desire part of our brain is more powerful than the pleasure part, so that we are hardwired to prefer desire to fulfillment. We are always seeking. It can never be satisfied, the mind, never. So I like plays that prefer desire to fulfillment. I like plays that seek.

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

A: Be grateful. We live in an astonishing age for theatre. Many people will tell you it's otherwise, but that's because they only see what we're missing. In the past year, I have experienced plays like Sans Merci, Our Town, Ajax in Iraq, Universal Robots, Ruined, Pretty Theft, Rattlers, Lydia, and Viral; 9 extraordinary plays; many more very good plays; and work like this is happening all across our country. Whatever the world makes of your work, be grateful (as I am) to be alive at a time when so many extraordinary artists are making theatre. Don't believe me? Just keep reading these playwright interviews and go see their plays!

I Interview Playwrights Part 55: Jeff Lewonczyk

Jeff Lewonczyk

Hometown: Newington, CT

Current Town: Brooklyn, NY

Q: How did you start writing plays?

A: I think I wrote my first play in eighth grade. It was about a group of wacky characters in an insane asylum, and it turned out that (SPOILER ALERT) the guy who was about to get released was the one who planted the bomb. I had been stagestruck for a few years at that point, and I realized that writing was even more awesome than acting, since then you could take credit for ALL the jokes in the play, not just the ones that stemmed from your work onstage. In either event, there’s nothing sweeter than the sound of laughter inspired by something you made up.

Q: Tell me please about The Brick Theater and what you do there.

A: The Brick is a performance space in Brooklyn that I’ve called my creative home for the past seven or so years. It was founded by my good friends Michael Gardner and Robert Honeywell, with whom I worked many times on many different projects both before and after its founding. After a couple years of doing stuff at the space, my wife and partner Hope Cartelli (with whom I run our production company, Piper McKenzie) and I came on as Associate Directors. The role is fairly fluid – we all contribute to various decisions involving programming and vision and marketing and development and festival planning and overall strategy, and we all step in and do whatever we can whenever someone is out of commission for a show or some other kind of project. There’s a lot of floor-sweeping and heavy lifting and standing behind the box office counter being polite. The Brick focuses on new work, both from within the group of us that run the place and through co-productions with other artists and companies whose we work we love. We’re most known for our festivals, such as our yearly themed summer festival (the most recent edition of which was June’s Antidepressant Festival), the annual New York Clown Theatre Festival (a condensed version of which is running right now under the title Amuse Bouche), and the upcoming Fight Festival, which is devoted to new works showcasing stage combat.

 Q: Tell me about your show coming up in the Fringe Encore Series.

A: It’s called Willy Nilly: A Musical Exploitation of the Most Far-Out Cult Murders of the Psychedelic Era, and it’s a tasteless rock’n’roll spoof inspired by the Manson Family, written and composed by the inimitable author, impresario and performer Trav S.D. I’m in the director’s seat on this one, but Trav’s been a great collaborator, and I take as much pride in it as if I’d written it myself. It’s like Helter Skelter viewed through the filter of Laugh-In, taking the horrifying real-life events of the Tate-LaBianca murders (which took place 40 years ago last month) and turning them on their head for a satirical look at the Sixties and the media culture that allows us to be more fascinated by the homicide of a marginally talented B-movie actress than the more widespread violence wrought by our own government and way of life. But that’s all subtext – on the surface, it’s boobies, garage punk and low comedy as far as the eye can see.

Q: You knew Tom Perry (who was in the year above me in high school) when you were in high school. He was a legend in his own right in my school. What was the program you were both in?

A: We met at Center for Creative Youth (CCY), a summer arts program that took place at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT. It was the first time most of us artsy geeks had ever spent a significant amount of time away from home, which made it a kind of paradisiacal enclave in which we were spent four weeks gushing, “Good God, there are other people like me out there!” In the days before the Internet, this was the only way most of us were able to make this amazing discovery. (Of course, now we’ve all been finding each other again on Facebook, bringing it all full circle.) Tom and I were both in the writing program, which was quite possibly the most bohemian experience in my life to date – we’d all get up in the morning and spend most of the day sitting around in cafes or outdoors writing, walking around, gossiping, and talking about towering intellectual ideas we barely understood. I didn’t even smoke or drink or anything, but, boy, it was great. Tom and I have hung out a few times recently, after fifteen years out of contact, and we were able to pick up right where we left off without missing a beat – which has also been the case with the other CCY friends I’ve encountered over the past couple of years. It was a pivotal experience for all of us.

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

 A: Well, the joke version of this answer, which is also probably the most accurate one, is that when I was eight or so a reckless Rube Goldberg situation of my own devising – involving an improvised, tablecloth-based “fort” on the deck behind my house – led to a brick falling square on my head from several feet in the air. My family rushed me to the hospital and, instead of giving me stitches, the doctor had to staple my head shut with a giant medical stapler. A few weeks later, I had to go back and get it removed with a giant medical staple remover. This incident explains my fascination with complicated slapstick, my fierce love of George Herriman’s Krazy Kat, the kismet behind the theater I eventually ended up working for, and the probable (if minor) brain damage that contributes to my writing, sense of humor and general outlook.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: The kind that: • Combines an unexpected but effective confluence of elements • Strikes an artful balance between rude energy and sophisticated precision • Makes you forget the world outside of the room • Employs its own distinct style • Has a sense of humor (however subtly deployed) • Is impossible to put into a single pre-existing bucket

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

A: Don’t wait for someone to do it for you – do it yourself. You may well be as brilliant as you think you are, but the world’s probably going to need a lot of convincing. And learn how to direct – even if you discover that you’re terrible at directing your own plays, it’ll give you a greater sensitivity to every aspect of the theatrical process and to different voices and styles – all of which can only improve your writing, not to mention your eventual relationship with other directors.

 Q: Link please for the show and any other plugs:

All the info for Willy Nilly can be found at http://www.facebook.com/l/d28d2;www.pipermckenzie.com/willynilly and our blog, The Piperline, at http://www.facebook.com/l/d28d2;pipermckenzie.blogspot.com. A couple of other plugs: I’m one of the playwrights participating in the Vampire Cowboys’ Saturday Night Saloon series – http://www.facebook.com/l/d28d2;www.vampirecowboys.com/events.htm. We’re doing “season two” of a serial we performed two years ago, entitled Lady Cryptozoologist, which is a rough-and-tumble globe-trotting sci-fi adventure romance comedy featuring yetis and chupacabras and scientists carrying on in a humorous fashion. The Saloon is an incredible and unique theatrical event – with six different mixed-genre serials running over five months, it’s an amazing crucible of creative energy, and I’m thrilled and proud to be a part of it. Also, Piper McKenzie’s next show will be debuting at The Brick’s Fight Festival in December – Craven Monkey and the Mountain of Fury. It’s a Darwinian martial-arts fairy tale about an outcast monkey whose quest for revenge leads to a series of violent confrontations with Mother Nature and her grotesque minions. (Yes, I have a thing for monsters and other creatures.) It will be a primarily movement-based piece (like our 2007 show Macbeth Without Words), with storyteller voice-over, bizarre costumes, and insane animal fight choreography by another playwright you’ve profiled, Vampire Cowboys’ Qui Nguyen.

I Interview Playwrights Part 54: Rehana Mirza

Rehana Mirza

Hometown: Bridgewater, NJ

Current Town: Brooklyn, NY

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I'm part of Ma-Yi Writers Lab and we're all frantically working on our LabFest plays. My reading date is Oct 15... so yeah. That's soon. I'm also working on an E.S.T./Sloan play, which is set in Pakistan. It looks at the life of physicist Abdus Salam through the eyes of a 16 year old Pakistani-American boy who's been sent back to the homeland.

Q: You were just named South Asian Diaspora Playwright-In-Residence at the Lark. Can you tell me about that? What does that entail?

A: Yes! I'm so excited to be in residence at the Lark. I've been a big fan of the Indo-American Arts Council and the Lark for many many years now, who have joined forces to offer this residency. I suppose it involves being South Asian Diasporrific (thanks Jon Kern for dubbing that). The greatest part about it is that I get to be involved in Lark's programs, and broaden my sense of community, and work on new plays. It's a support system that I've been really lacking, and have been looking for, and I have a year to make the most of it!

Q: What do you do at New Georges?

A: I'm a TCG Future Leaders fellow with New Georges, so I suppose that means I should be bossing people around. But actually, my official title is Creative Outreach Associate. Under those auspices, I've been really doing a lot of thinking about how to reach more audiences through the work and even through the surround art that comes out of it. I've been creating little videos for their upcoming productions, that I like to think have the same feel and energy as the play itself. I'd love to see theater move more into the new age, and embrace technology more. Like if I am seeing a show at the Ohio, in the lobby I'd get to see video teasers for other shows around town. I think a lot of audience members think of theater as a one-off event, but by creating buzz through the web and video we can really bring it to the next level. I'm almost done with the fellowship, so after that, I'm on my own!

 Q: You wrote and directed a short film. What was that experience like? Do you like directing your own work?

A: Yes, my first short film that I ever wrote and directed was sorta a crazy experience. I basically shot the whole thing overnight at an Indian restaurant -- Brick Lane Curry House, which I highly recommend (on sixth street) -- that we secured the day before. So after the last customer left at midnight, we began our shoot... By eight AM we were all bleary eyed, but Debargo Sanyal, Poorna Jagannathan and Tyler Pierce (our actors) had to go to a theater rehearsal at 9 AM. It was also the coldest night of the year, and we were shooting outside once the sun came out. But there definitely is something addictive about film shoots, and I recently wrote and directed my first feature film (www.hidingdivya.com), which I luckily had more than one night to shoot! I would never ever think to direct my own plays, but for some reason I love directing my own screenplays. I think putting on the director cap gives you a lot of freedom from the text -- you can throw things out and improve upon things. And editing is the ultimate form of re-writing, but a whole lot more fun, because you're not all alone in your room trying to figure out how to make the scene pop. You've got an editor next to you, and the actors (on the screen) that you can manipulate without having them get angry with you. I'm thinking of branching out and directing other folks' scripts too, but haven't figured out what that means and entails yet.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: Theater that takes risks and that reflects the world we live in today.

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

A: It's interesting, I tried to think through all the things I was told, and see which one worked for me... things like, "produce your own work", "stay out of debt", "don't go to grad school", "go to grad school", "be nice", etc. And I think in the end, the only thing I really followed was my own instincts. So that's what I'm going with. Trust your gut. And don't waste time looking back.

Here is one of Rehana's films for New Georges. (Schreck's play)

I Interview Playwrights Part 53: Peter Sinn Nachtrieb

Peter Sinn Nachtrieb

Hometown: Mill Valley, CA

Current Town: San Francisco CA.

Q: Can you talk a little bit about Boom? What's it about? Can you run me through the production history of where it was and where it will be next? And it will be published soon by DPS, right?

A: boom is a play about a craigslist casual encounter date between a gay biologist and a female journalism student in a suspiciously well-stocked subterranean apartment right before a comet hits the planet earth. It's a play about evolution, creation myths, difficulties with management and fate versus randomness. I also like to describe as my way of reconciling having been a Theater and Biology major when I was an undergrad. I first workshopped it at Brown/Trinity Playwrights Rep in the summer of 2007 and it went on to have its world premiere at Ars Nova in 2008, with subsequent productions at Woolly Mammoth, Seattle Rep, and Cleveland Public Theatre last season. There are a bunch of productions of the show this season which I'm very thrilled about and yes it's getting published soon by DPS with a domtar turquoise cover I believe.

Q: What are you working on next?

A: I just finished a draft of a play called Bob, a commission for South Coast Rep. It's spanning an entire life from birth to death of a guy named Bob and his pursuit of greatness and his version of the American Dream. It's got about 30something speaking roles played by a cast of five and takes place all over America. I think this is me rebelling against all my plays that have taken place in a single location. It also has no cussing in it, which is sort of a big deal for me. I'm also continuing to work on my show TIC which premiered in the Bay Area last January at Encore Theatre. And I'm going to be working with the A.C.T. 2nd year MFA class to develop a new play this year. A play for twelve actors, woohew!

Q: What theaters or shows in SF would you suggest a visitor to your city check out?

A: Oh boy. I suggest a number of options (looking at the whole Bay Area here). http://www.theatrebayarea.org/ lists them all. ACT and Berkeley Rep are our biggest spots and worth a look, with Berkeley Rep having a nice streak of cranking out some contemporary hits. There are literally hundreds of smaller and medium size companies around as well doing ambitious and great work. I suggest seeing stuff at the Z Space Studio (http://www.zspace.org/), Intersection for the Arts and Campo Santo (http://www.theintersection.org/), Encore Theatre (http://www.encoretheatrecompany.org/) , Marin Theatre Company (http://marintheatre.org), Aurora Theatre (http://www.auroratheatre.org/), Shotgun Players (http://www.shotgunplayers.org/), Crowded Fire (http://www.crowdedfire.org), Killing My Lobster (http://killingmylobster.com), Cutting Ball (http://www.cuttingball.com/), and many many many others. And while you're here, you have to eat lots of the amazing food.

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

A: In sixth grade I jokingly polled my friends in my class about which seventh grader they hated the most. It was all hilarious fun until some of the seventh graders caught wind and chased me across the campus until I had to hide in a classroom. Angry and upset when i got home, I found an old piece of plywood, got myself a hammer and drove in about a hundred nails into the plywood. After starting at the wood for a time, I thought of everyone's favorite Price is Right game, Plinko. I nailed some shards of wood on either side of the plywood, tipped it up, and created my own version of the game. Only mine was called "Kill The Seventh Grader." You would let go of a large marble at the top, it would head down, bouncing off the nails, and depending what "slot" it rolled through at the bottom you either missed, slapped, dismembered or killed the seventh grader. I played the game with my friends that summer at a birthday party. I think that says something about my humor and aesthetic, right?

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: Aesthetically, I think I have very very broad taste. I guess theatre that engages me viscerally and surprises me is also the theater that excites me. I'm not a big fan of pretension but I don't mind being challenged. I think I prefer work that feels open to an audience, and not too insular. I like plays with open hearts but also enjoy the mean ones too. I definitely enjoy seeing plays born from the time we are living in. I like a rock and roll sensibility and/or playfulness and/or humor and/or imagination and/or plays that do the sneak attack and get me crying. I like investing in characters and story. I like being structurally bedazzled. I like simple or complex, so long as it feels honest. I do like plays with well thought out endings. I don't mind intermissions.

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

A: Get things on their feet. Have friends read your drafts out loud in your living room. Self produce when you're starting, but get some friends to help. Take acting classes. Design/Directing classes may be helpful too. Watch a lot of plays. Find actors and directors you like and trust and then trust them but stay in the room. Don't be afraid of cutting things. Rewrite lots of things. As important as sending your plays out is meeting the people you are sending your plays to. Do not put your eggs in one basket either by waiting for one particular theater to do your play or waiting for that one play to get produced. Keep working on the next thing. Write a lot and take comfort in knowing that the despair you feel sometimes while writing is universally felt.

Q: Any other plugs?

A: Hi Mom!

I Interview Playwrights Part 52: David Johnston

David Johnston

Hometown: Born in Lexington, KY. But I only lived there until I was a few weeks old. Then I became restless and moved to Richmond, Virginia.

Current Town: New York City

Q: Tell me about "Effie Jean," the play you have going up right now.

 A: I’ve always been a big fan of Charles Ludlam. And he wrote a children’s play called “The Enchanted Pig.” He mashed up a lot of Shakespeare’s King Lear with fairy tales and Hollywood B movies, and I’ve always thought it was hilarious. But it did make me think over the years. Just take some Chaucer or Homer or Boccaccio or Shakespeare, history, mythology – mix ‘em up – and come up with something new for kids. Rather than another goddamn adaptation of “Velveteen Rabbit.” So “Effie Jean in Tahiti” is a loose adaptation of Euripides’ “Iphigenia In Tauris” crossed with “Twelfth Night” – and Bugs Bunny, The Simpsons, Abbott and Costello, the Muppets and “Valley of the Dolls.” And songs.

Q: Based on your past work, of which I am a fan, I would not immediately think of you as someone who would write a play for children. How did this come about?

A: I get that a lot. But here’s the idea. I have great nieces and great nephews now and I realized at some point there was no show I’d ever written which would be suitable for them to see for twenty years. And this Ludlam/”Enchanted Pig” idea was always rattling around in the back of my head. I’d also done a lot of research for the adaptation of “Oresteia” a few years ago, and I loved the idea of kind of the magical happy flip side of the House of Atreus. At the core, the intersection of the Euripides Iphigenia and Twelfth Night is a magical reunion between siblings, siblings who thought the other was dead or gone forever. I did “Twelfth Night” a few times as an actor and that part always affected me. Like Scrooge’s second chance.

Q: Can you talk a little about Blue Coyote? You've worked with them a bunch. What should my readers know about them?

A: Your readers should know that Blue Coyote is composed of blood - thirsty zombies, and if your readers are talented playwrights, they should stay the hell away from my producers. I’m kidding. They’re not zombies. It’s hard for me to talk objectively about those guys. We’ve done about seven or eight projects together. They’ve produced my plays, written songs for them, directed them, acted in them, run out and bought toilet paper, made copies, moved the bench in a black out, walked the cast up the Bowery because there was no room to change at the Marquee, and bought me a round ‘cause I was broke. We’re good friends, they've taken care of me during one of the worst periods of my life, we fight, we make up, they do fantastic work, and I can’t really imagine where I would be if I had not met them.

Q: What are you working on next?

A: I was getting nowhere on some other projects a few months ago. So I said, screw it, I’ll be Suzan Lori Parks and just write a one-act every day. After about two weeks I realized every one act I’d written took place in Coney Island. So I guess that’s my next play.

 Q: Do you think Matt Freeman is a robot?

A: I know this is controversial, but I don’t think Matt Freeman is a robot. But I do believe he and I are genetically linked – brothers, actually. Matt Freeman is my genetic ‘younger’ brother – which is why I have a great need to torture him, lock him in closets, call him a queer, make him cry and tell him Mom and Dad didn’t really want him.

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

A: When I was a little kid, I told my mother I wanted to be a housewife. Then, later I told her I wanted to be an undertaker. Seriously. And Mom and Dad were great, I would come up with these things, and they would say, well let’s get some brochures and read up on it. This weird little kid, reading brochures from the local community college about mortuary science. I think I just had this idea that if I were an undertaker, I would wear pinstripe suits and have a grave expression and people would take me seriously. So I guess that explains who I am now - some sort of death-obsessed homosexual. But really I’m just gay and not particularly death-obsessed.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: The kind that doesn’t bore the crap out of me.

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

 A: Don’t sit around talking about writing. Write.

 Info for David's show here: http://www.bluecoyote.org/spotlight.htm

I Interview Playwrights Part 51: Dan Dietz

Dan Dietz

Hometown: Born in Long Beach, CA. Grew up in Marietta, GA. Came of age in Austin, TX. Austin's probably the place I really think of when I think of the word "hometown."

Current town: Tallahassee, FL. I'm teaching this year at Florida State.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: Right now I'm working on a play called CLEMENTINE IN THE LOWER NINE. It's an adaptation of Aeschylus' AGAMEMNON, set in post-Katrina New Orleans. It's not a musical, but there's blues music and songs woven through the piece. I feel like the sheer size of the destruction that storm (and our response to it) wrought upon that town, not to mention the emotional upheaval, requires an equally big theatricality. Which is how the Greeks came into it for me. I had a fantastic reading of it at Geva Theatre earlier this summer, and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens next with it.

Q: You're a playwriting professor at Florida State right now. What's that like? What plays do you have your students read?

 A: Being a playwriting professor at FSU has many fantastic things about it, foremost of which are the students. FSU Theatre majors are the most motivated, driven, and excited bunch I've ever encountered. There's no laziness, in their writing or in their relationship to their careers. The grad students are a slightly different kind of crowd, because it's a combination Screenwriting/Playwriting degree which is actually run through the Film School. Which means the grad students are more likely to have experience in screenwriting than playwriting. This can bring difficulties, but it's also great because they have so few preconceived notions of what theatre has to be. You're kind of working with a blank slate, and the impact that a powerful and fresh voice--Sarah Ruhl, Jordan Harrison--can have on them is immense.

 Q: Isn't Travis York the bomb?

A: Travis York is a powerful and fresh bomb. Seriously, he's a fantastic actor and my best drinking buddy.

Q: You're one of those UT Austin folks. What are the theaters in Austin that you love?

A: Yep, and UT Austin is one of the things Travis and I have in common. I absolutely love Salvage Vanguard Theater (which I was a part of for ten great years) and the Rude Mechs (whose work is constantly pushing me to make my own better, more innovative, more exciting). The Blue Theater puts on an incredible festival every year called FuseBox that theatre artists from across the country would do well to fly in and see every spring (unless for some reason they don't need their minds blown). Plus the community there is such that phenomenal, exciting work is always popping up in the least expected places.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: Anything that makes me care excites me. It can be straight up realism or something mindbendingly experimental, as long as it draws me in emotionally. I don't have a lot of patience for shallow commentary or mobius-strip, snake-eating-its-own-tail irony. More and more, I just want people to say something and mean it with every fiber. I think it's the bravest thing you can do.

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

 A: For playwrights just starting out, I'd say do everything you can to surround yourself with people as dedicated and determined as you are. Make that people who are even more dedicated and determined. And courageous. And talented. Find a community that wants to support your work, and support them in return with everything you've got. Don't be afraid to take a good hard look at your own work, even if your first instinct is that it sucks. And if after that good hard look you find even just one shining thing in the middle of a big mess, congratulate yourself--you've done well. Then get back to work.

on interviewing playwrights

Fifty is a lot of playwrights but if I think about it, I probably know five hundred or more. I know there are many I have not yet interviewed. I also know I might burn out or run out of questions before I get to one hundred. At the same time, I am constantly inspired by the playwright responses. There are a lot of amazing intelligent interesting people writing plays. And I feel distant from theater right now and this is my way of staying involved while I'm so far from NYC and unable to see many plays or write my own stuff. Anyway, I hope you've been enjoying them. Here's to 50 more!

next

In Asheville, NC

My play Nerve  (Production #6)

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

I Interview Playwrights Part 50: Mark Schultz

Mark Schultz

Hometown: I was born in Pomona, CA but count Upland, CA more of my hometown. They’re both like 60 miles or so inland from LA.

Current Town: New York, NY

Q: What are you working on now?

A: Finishing up a couple commissions. Am really happy with them, too! One’s loosely based on the old dying god myth (particularly Baldur), and the other is about John Dee--astronomer, mathematician, advisor to Queen Elizabeth I and a frequent converser with angels via his “shewstone.” Lots of fun!

Q: You are the man who wrote one of my favorite plays of all time: Everything Will Be Different or A Brief History of Helen of Troy (available from Dramatists Play Service) But really, the plays I've seen of yours have always impressed me and I'm very sad I missed Gingerbread House at Rattlestick. Can you tell me a little bit about that play? Am I going to hate myself forever for missing it?

A: Thanks for the good word, Adam! Gingerbread House is concerned with what I think is a very American (and certainly very Bush administration) notion that we can do whatever we want with impunity because we’re good people and somehow deserve good things. We can justify anything--all it takes is slightly redefining our terms or adjusting our worldview. The main character in the play, Stacey, really wants to be a good mom, wants to love her kids, but she finds the going a bit difficult. Her husband helps her to define responsibility to her children out of her conception of what it means to love them--she can be a better mother if she just gives up motherhood. She agrees to get rid of her kids, to sell them off. But as her life begins to become ostensibly better, more and more luxurious, her children haunt her. And she begins to realize that living in the world without going mad with grief or guilt at the knowledge of her complicity with evil involves a high degree of story-telling and self-deception. But being honest with herself about what she’s done becomes less and less of an option just as lying to herself becomes more and more difficult. Ultimately, she’s forced into the position of having to lie in order to live while being painfully conscious of the flimsiness of the lie. The one consolation of that pain, though, is that it’s the last connection she has to her children. I hope there are some subtly Senecan things going on in the play. Seneca’s major pre-occupation in his work was with the question of justice--does it exist? If it does, is it possible to have a relationship with it? If it doesn’t exist, or if I can’t be in relationship with it, what does life mean? How do I go on in the face of the endless parade of atrocities life lays at my doorstop? And how do I go on in the knowledge that, as Heiner Mueller puts it, someone somewhere is being ripped apart so that I can dwell in my shit? Writing in Nero’s Rome as he did, Seneca’s vision of the world made a lot of sense to me, writing in Bush’s America. In that sense, the question in Gingerbread House is not, “Is selling your kids to what you suspect is a sweatshop-brothel in Albania a bad idea?” It’s taken for granted that it is a bad idea. The question is, “If you sell your kids to a sweatshop-brothel in Albania, if you sell out the future, will anyone really care? Will anyone call you to account?” The answer suggested in the play is: “No. Not really.” I don’t usually think of myself as much of a pessimist, but…the play’s a bit pessimistic. More than a bit, I guess. And while I’m not completely lacking in hope, I nonetheless find myself feeling that, while the administration has changed in Washington (for the better!), the political realities of what it means to be alive in this country, in this world, at this time remain brutal, Faustian and Spenglerian. What it comes down to, I think, is that for me, hope means something like the will to love through adversity without the expectation of comfort, succor, reciprocation or relief. Anyway--I was also really conscious when writing the play that I’m afraid I’ll be a bad parent. Very afraid. My partner and I would like to adopt one day. Erich (who honestly really is my better half) would be a great dad. Me I’m not so sure of. Are you going to hate yourself for missing it? Hrmm. I don’t want you to hate yourself! But I was really proud of the production--the cast, director, designers--everyone was great! I was and am very grateful to everyone.

Q: What do you look for in a director. (You've worked with lots of good ones including one of my favorites, Evan Cabnet.)

A: I LOVE Evan Cabnet. Love him. Love him love him love him. Everyone in the world should love Evan Cabnet. That’s a plain moral imperative. The rhythm of a play is very important to me--the music of it. Someone who understands how that rhythm works from line to line, scene to scene, how that rhythm informs structure, how that structure contributes to the articulation of a particular emotional gesture and how that gesture suggests or demands a sensual movement that in turn reflects back on the fundamental rhythms of the piece in really important. That understanding is key! A sense of economy is also nice--I tend to like things a bit stripped down, stark, simple. Less is always more, I think, when it comes to production elements. Simplicity is best. I think suggestion in design and staging feels more conspiratorial, more intimate, more lovely than stating something openly. I’m not really a fan of strict realism in that regard. One of the things that I’m least fond of onstage is working plumbing--you know what I mean? To me, there is nothing particularly theatrical about working plumbing. When I see a sink onstage, the first thing I think is: will it work? And until it does, the dramatic action of the play, to me, is always about whether or not the tap will work. A sense of humor is also important. And a sense of the absurdity of life. Also, I’m very very conscious that I’m not a director. Or rather, I’m very very conscious that I’m a really bad director. The last time I tried directing something, it was pretty unwatchable. Really. Gouge-your-eyes-out bad. And it was a long time ago, thank God. I’m really am awful at it. Directors I work with need to understand that I can’t direct my way out of the proverbial paper bag. I know what good directing looks like and where good directing can take a play, but I’m just not able to provide it. Which is to say that the director should take whatever I have to say regarding staging with a huge huge huge grain of salt. A mountain of it, preferably. Literally, I try not to write too too many stage directions in part because I don’t want to infect directors with too too many of my own poisonously bad ideas regarding staging. I guess what I’m really looking for is someone with whom I can share the play. That may sound touchy-feely, but I’m happiest when I can look at something I’ve written and I can feel that’s not all mine. That it no longer belongs to me alone. That it’s more than just mine. I’m very grateful that I’ve had a lot of good luck with directors.

Q: You're a bit of a religion scholar. If I wanted to catch up with you, what books would you recommend I read?

A: I’m a very very amateur religion student. But I love studying--mythologies, comparative religion, ritual--I love that stuff! There are a couple areas, though, that I often find myself looking into for various reasons: esoteric traditions and theodicy, the problem of evil. And there are a couple figures and topics lately that’ve loomed large in my…er…studies in these areas. Jakob Boehme is one of them--17th century Lutheran mystic. He was a cobbler who had a couple visions tried his best to write them down using alchemical language and symbolism. Great stuff! He had a big impact on lots of folks from Swedenborg to Blake to Hegel. His understanding of God is really quite dramatic and seems to suggest that all things arise out of a kind of struggle in God between movement / expression / expansion and stillness / silence / contraction. The pain of this struggle is nature, the world. The friction this struggle causes creates fire, life. The struggle of life finds rest in the light of the fire. Things take a turn for the worse, however, when creatures attempt to separate the light from the fire. There’s so much to get into with Boehme that I don’t think I could do him justice here --Six Theosophical Points with an introduction by Berdyaev is really good. Another is the sophiology “controversy” in Eastern Orthodox theology. I put controversy in quotes because whether or not it’s controversial just depends on who you talk to! Anyway, it comes down to whether or not it is possible to speculate regarding the substance of God. In Trinitarian Christianity, God is One Substance in Three Persons and while much has been written about the Persons, little attention has been paid to the Substance (according to the sophiologists). But how do you talk about something that your tradition teaches you is something it is impossible to talk about? Well, Sergei Bulgakov gives it a go by positing that the Substance of God is the non-personal but personalizing Sophia. John Milbank of the University of Nottingham wrote an interesting essay called “Sophiology and Theurgy: The New Theological Horizon” which is quite lovely, and Bulgakov’s most comprehensive work is Sophia, the Wisdom of God. Both Boehme and Bulgakov deal with the Sophia figure in interesting ways, and it wouldn’t surprise me if Bulgakov was a Boehme admirer--Boehme’s Eternal Nature and Sophia imagery find some lovely parallels in Bulgakov’s distinctions between the created and uncreated Sophia. Currently, though, I’ve just finished the First Book of Enoch following a brief flirtation with Margaret Barker’s work and am re-reading Rene Girard’s great Violence and the Sacred. I’d like to re-read Robert Thurman’s translation of The Tibetan Book of the Dead, too, and I really want to find something on the Druze and on the Ismaili in general. I know next to nothing about them! Also, I wouldn’t mind a good book on the history and development of the Sarum Use. My God, I’m such a geek.

Q: You were the guy who got MCC to start their Playwrights Coalition. Can you talk a little about the Coalition, how it started, what it does, etc?

A: I wasn’t the only guy! Before graduating from Columbia, I did one of my internships at MCC and became friends with Literary Manager Stephen Willems. (I love Stephen very much--he’s become not only a great friend, but a real mentor to me and a keen critic of my work.) After the internship, I was able to stick around for a bit as an interim Assistant Literary Manager. But I had to move on and get a day job. Before I did, though, Stephen and I were talking, and he mentioned that they’d tried developing some sort of support program for playwrights in the past at MCC, but that it never quite stuck. I thought it was a great idea, so we started trying to develop something that would stick. We called it the Coalition because I’m more than a bit of a socialist and the word suggests to me both solidarity and mutuality. This was in late 2000, early 2001. By the way, I LOVE the writers in the Coalition! I’m incredibly humbled, challenged and amazed to know and work with people of such staggering talent--folks like you(!), David Adjmi, Cusi Cram, Itamar Moses, Daniel Goldfarb, Blair Singer, Crystal Skillman, Annie Baker--all of whom you’ve interviewed here! (Speaking of your interviews, they’re really fantastic! It’s such an incredibly generous thing allowing us all to get to know these artists better--it’s great!) Anyway, what we try to do in the Coalition is provide resources, an ear, a home-base. We have three major programs: the first is a public reading series which takes place in the Fall and in the Spring; the second is a series of seasonal intensives--a few writers around a table, reading each others’ works-in-progress and giving feedback; and finally the roundtable reading, a private reading with actors which is available to our writers on request. The hope is that the Coalition will be there if needed during whatever part of the process a writer may find themselves, from initial scribblings, scenes and thoughts (intensives), to a first draft and re-writes (roundtables) to knowing how a play sounds in front of an audience (public reading). In the process of doing all this, we hope to build a network/community of writers committed to mutual support.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

 A: I like theater that’s brutally honest. Really, truly brutally and/or viscerally honest. I really respond to plays that are unsentimental but emotionally gut-wrenching, that are not easily digestible, that grab me by the throat and won’t let go, that have a certain violence to them akin to Rothko’s definition of sensuality as “a lustful relationship to things that exist.” Plays that are conscious of the overwhelmingly dazzling and awful beauty of what it means to be alive and human. Plays that are not afraid to go to dark and “ugly” places.

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

A: In saying the following, I hope no one believes that I’ve somehow been able to implement all of this myself--these are more personal aspirations, stars and constellations I’ve found helpful to steer by when I can bring myself to look up and remember them! So here goes: --Be true to your experience of life and the world. Emerson says that believing what is true for ourselves is true for others is true genius--which is to say, in part, that our experience of what it is to be human is not separate from the whole of the human condition. We should be able to say, with Terence, “I am human, and consider nothing human foreign to me,” or with Tennessee Williams, “Nothing human disgusts me.” If we can be honest about who we are, how we desire, what we desire, then we will discover in ourselves so many points of connection to so many disparate aspects of what it is to be human that no matter what we write about, we will write truth, and we will write it fearlessly, unsentimentally, but compassionately. We will find in ourselves the capacity for every heaven and every hell, every act of beauty and horror of which it is possible to conceive. We will know what it is to wound and to be wounded. And we will find it impossible not to love the world and the people in it so much that we happily break, bleed and suffer for that love. -- I don’t think it’s healthy to begin writing a play with the expectation that it will be any good. What “good” means is often an external value, but the play has values of its own. You cannot judge whether or not it’s good until you know what those internal, intrinsic values are. Often, failure is the best teacher of what those values are or should be. Being afraid of failure is pointless. So fail often. (And, as Beckett says, “fail better.”) --Find at least one person who loves you enough to be devastatingly honest about your work, someone you can trust to encourage but not coddle you. --Do yourself an immense favor and read David Sylvester’s Interviews with Francis Bacon: The Brutality of Fact. It’s as close to a guidebook to the creative process that I’ve ever seen. --Finally, you can’t do better than remember this from Lorca: “Life is no dream. Watch out! Watch out! Watch out!”

I Interview Playwrights Part 49: Lucy Thurber

Lucy Thurber

Hometown: Huntington/Northampton MA

Current Town: New York City

Q: Tell me a little about the play you have going up at Rattlestick?

A: Actually it is a remounting of my play Killers and Other Family. Killers was my first reviewed production. It did not go well. I had wonderful actors but the directors interpretation of the play was a mile away from what I wrote. I was to young as a writer to communicate well or even be sure what I wanted to communicate. For years David Van Asselt the artistic director of Rattlestick has wanted to remount the play and do it right. He finally gave in to his temptation and I'm very happy about it.

Q: You just finished a run of Monster at 13P. You must be exhausted. Is it hard going from one production right into another?

A: They are both so different in terms of size. Killers is my only 4 character play where as Monstrosity was 30 people. So from a writing perspective the characters in Killers are easier to keep track of because there are only 4 of them. But at the same time, I wrote them both so it's me and more of my age old obsessions--loyalty, love, violence, sexuality, class issues, power and family. But I love being in production. It's such a relief to have other people to help make the world of the play actual and bigger than what I wrote.

Q: What are you working on next?

A: My play Dillingham City. It's another big cast with a singing chorus this time, but same old obsessions.

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

A: One day my Mom and me where walking home from the local country store. It was the end of the month and we had run through most of the money and food stamps. My mother had splurged and bought us a bottle of pickled bean salad. It was spring and sunny. I was carrying one of the food bags and dropped it, smashing the bottle of bean salad. My mother freaked, she was always scared at the end of the month and the treat she'd bought us to give a little luxury was broken on the ground. My mother yelled at me, The broken glass looked pretty in the sun with all the different colored beans. I bent down and picked one bean out of all the other beans and broken glass. It was unbelievable delicious. I was so happy to eat it and so sad I couldn't eat more.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: Daring theater. Whether it's big and theatrical or small, gentle and romantic I like theater that asks me to be human and I also sometimes just like a bit of fun, gorgeous entertainment.

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

A: Be brave. Write a lot. Make your own work.

Link to Lucy's show here: http://www.rattlestick.org/

Pretty Theft from Sam French

http://www.samuelfrench.com/store/product_info.php/products_id/8517

I Interview Playwrights Part 48: George Brant

George Brant

Hometown: Park Ridge, Illinois Current Town: Providence, RI

Q: Tell me a little about your show Elephant's Graveyard going up at Balaban Theater in Seattle.

A: Elephant’s Graveyard is the unfortunately true story of Mary, an elephant who went berserk during a parade through the middle of a small town in Tennessee in 1916. The townspeople demanded justice for her actions, which led to a very unfortunate set of circumstances. The play combines historical fact and legend, exploring the deep-seated American craving for spectacle, violence and revenge.

Q: What are you working on next?

A: Next up is Any Other Name, a very different play, one about identity theft in Victorian England. Any Other Name actually makes its debut at Premiere Stages the same day as the Balagan production of Elephant’s Graveyard – it’s quite thrilling to have two plays opening on the same night!

Q: How did you like the playwriting program at the Michener Center at UT Austin?

A: My time at the Michener Center and UT was a truly transformative experience. In my fellow students, I was surrounded by wonderful and generous playwrights, as well as poets, novelists, and screenwriters – having all that creativity and energy around me was inspirational. I was also fortunate enough to study under four very different but equally wonderful professors: Suzan Zeder, Steven Dietz, Daniel Alexander Jones, and Sherry Kramer. I miss Austin daily!

Q: You've written scripts for a clamation company. What is that like? Is it much different than writing plays?

A: A great experience. That was when I was in Chicago – I was the head writer for Bix Pix Entertainment, a claymation company. It’s very different than writing for theatre, primarily in its length. We had a few programs that made their way onto the Disney channel, and some of them were as short as 30 seconds! It was quite a challenge to tell a story and get a joke or two in there in such a short time. Another big basic difference was the visual aspect of claymation, or any kind of animation, I suppose – it was all about telling the story with as little dialogue as possible. Looking back, I think that the work probably taught me a lot about the use of rhythm in writing, which definitely is a major component of Elephant’s Graveyard.

 Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: I’d say anything that respects its audience, that engages them and doesn’t leave them out of the room. That could be as varied as keeping us guessing like Pillowman or acknowledging our shared experience of existence like Our Town. But once you get the sense that a play could exist without you there, you’ve lost me. It all happens in the audience.

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

A: Write what you want to write, what engages you, excites you. I’ve certainly found in my own work that the surest way to write a lifeless play is to write one for an imagined audience that doesn’t include you.

Links: The Balagan production of Elephant’s Graveyard: www.balagantheatre.org The Premiere Stages production of Any Other Name: www.kean.edu/premierestages/

I Interview Playwrights Part 47: Brooke Berman

photo by Jennie Livingston 

Brooke Berman

Hometown: Born in Detroit, raised in the North Shore suburbs of Chicago, re-raised in New York City, where I have lived ever since.

Current Town: Los Angeles

Q: Tell me about your book coming out. Can it be preordered?

A: The book becomes available this Spring, publication date is Summer 2010. There will absolutely be pre-ordering through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Borders.com, but probably not for a few more months. It's being published by Harmony Books at Random House. In addition, I am going to build a website, which will have links to those e-commerce sites. But if you notice, if you go to say, brookeberman.com, I have not yet built said website. (actually, brookeberman.com links you to an art gallery in texas. no joke.) The book is a memior about coming of age in New York City and trying to find one's way as an artist and person, but really, it's about the 30-odd apartments that I have lived in over the past 20 years. My fiance calls it "Eat Pray Move." And it's been a joy to write. I'd been wanting to write about The East Village in the early 90's (I arrived in 1988) for some time, trying to figure out what story to tell, whether it was a play or a movie -- and then, the book came, and my love for that time and place could be channeled effectively.

Q: What else are you working on?

A: I'm finishing a new play called CASUAL ENCOUNTERS, about people who meet through NSA sex sites. The play posits that no encounter is ever really "casual" and that the people who think you know are often the ones who wind up feeling the most like strangers, while actual strangers can provide startling insights and intimacy. And I'm working on the second draft of a movie for Steve Shainberg's company, Vox films. It's an adaptation of a beautiful Jane Hamilton novel, DISOBEDIENCE.

 Q: Can you tell me a little about your experiences writing for film or your time in LA?

A: First of all, I love LA. I live in an arts colony here, a converted PBR Brewery downtown -- something like Westbeth in New York -- in a loft. So, there's that. But also, working in film has taught me how to think about structure differently and how to write from a more ordered and linear part of my brain. It's like calling one's shots in a pool game. In playwriting, I don't call my shots - I just write. But in screenwriting, there's this sense of needing to know where you're going to end up, or at least, being able to project, for the other people involved, producers and whatnot, where you think the game will go, before you ever write a word of the script. So this has been a great education. The two divergent processes ("let the writing guide you" versus "call your shots") have a lot to say to one another -- neither presents a full picture. Anyway, once I realized I had to learn some new tricks, it became less frustrating and a whole lot more fun. And now I'm having a blast learning. I've developed a great deal of respect for what screenwriters do. They're like detectives, looking for clues, building plots; I'm more of a dream analyst, interpreting what the unconscious mind presents. I could say way more about this, because I love process, but we'd be here all day.

Q: Are you teaching now? If so, where? What do you like most about teaching writing?

A: I just taught a two-day workshop with Karen Hartman in New York City called "Pleasure and Risk". I plan to do another (with her) the next time I'm in New York for an extended period. I also teach roughly once or twice a year with Anne Garcia Romero in LA. And occasionally I do workshops through Primary Stages Theater School. At the moment, I'm immersed in finishing all three projects - book, play and movie - and have to put teaching on hold. But I'll probably teach somewhere this winter. January is always a good time for a workshop. New Years resolutions and all that. What I like most about teaching writing is the chance to engage directly in the creative process, both mine and my students. It's my favorite thing in the whole world. In class, we are explorers, astronauts, spiritual seekers looking for new terrain, new states of consciousness, excavating the imagery and sensibility of the unconscious mind and then, sharing what we find there. It's exciting! It's where everything starts.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: Well, I'll tell you what excited me last year: Becky Shaw. And Trip Cullman's revival of "Six Degrees of Separation" at the Old Globe. I also have a great love for very physical imagistic theater. Meredith Monk. The late Pina Bausch. Pippo Del Bono. And theater that deals with the transcendent/sacred and the physical as part of the same conversation. Tony Kushner's work thrills me. Irene Fornes. Caryl Churchill. I really, really wish I'd been able to see "Wig Out." I loved reading that. I love drag.

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

A: Write, write, write, write, write. And self-produce, so that you can see what your work looks like in three-dimensional space, with design and lights and sound and all that, before you start to get produced by institutional theater. Hear your work out loud, however and wherever you can. Work with actors. And have faith. Despite what everyone says, if you keep at it long enough, you do get somewhere.

I Interview Playwrights Part 46: Julia Jordan

Julia Jordan

Hometown: Mostly St. Paul Minn. But we moved around a lot. England and back.

Current Town: Just above the Bronx, Fleetwood, NY

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I'm working on two musicals. One is about the closing of the N. Orleans red light district just as we were entering WWI, with a hopefully juicy melodramatic story... One is an adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's first published story, BERNICE BOBS HER HAIR. It's set in the same time period. I'm not sure why I keep going back to the turn of the last century. It's my favorite short story ever, bar none. And I'm working on a film version of my last produced play, DARK YELLOW. The film however is called TELL ME SOMETHING I DON"T KNOW which is a vastly better title. And it has become a very different narrative.

Q: According to Wikipedia, you were a painter, CNN copywriter and actor before you started writing for the stage. How did you become a playwright?

A: I was a mediocre to bad painter, a mediocre to bad actress, and a mediocre to bad journalist. I just kept trying things. I always tell my students that it's almost more important to know where you talents do not lie. I turned to writing while in acting school at the Neighborhood Playhouse. They had us write personal monologues to perform. I just didn't feel comfortable letting my personal demons out or spilling any deep dark secrets in that venue, so I made one up. Went over gangbusters. Made my teacher cry. I enjoyed it immensely.

Q: You've also done some film and TV. Can you talk a little about what that was like?

A: Didn't love the TV writing. But that was probably more to do with the shows I worked on. I'm really enjoying this film script, but its kind of an ideal situation. The director and I are completely in tune and our producer has worked on some of my favorite films so I trust him completely. Plus, he loves theater, and he was a jeopardy contestant, so I know he's smart.

Q: How does musical book writing compare to playwriting?

A: Musical bookwriting is more concrete. You have to be crystal clear about who is doing what when and why. Music is many things but it is better at expanding a moment than progressing the plot. That said, when in the hands of certain composers and lyricists it can be done beautifully. I adore plot. I think it's the hardest thing to do well and the most delicious. Plot with music, double delicious.

Q: Why do you think there aren't as many women as men being produced on American stages?

 A: Okay so here's the deal. We can prove bias is at work. It's been proven over and over and over again in many different fields. When respondents believe work, or a resume, belongs to a male they rate it higher, are more likely to produce or hire than when they believe it to belong to a woman. Men and women both hold this bias, though possibly, I think probably for different reasons. In Emily Sands' study of theater, she only found bias by women. This doesn't mean that she found that men don't hold bias. Not finding something means little to nothing in economics. You can't prove a null hypothesis. Bias is easy to hide. Finding something however means that there is AT LEAST as much as was found. What Emily found was that the female respondents rated scripts purportedly by women as having overall lower value, but it was entirely due to their belief that others would discriminate against the work. They rated the artistic excellence the same whether they thought the script was written by a man or woman. They thought however that audiences wouldn't buy tickets, that awards committees wouldn't honor the work and that the theater would suffer financially if they produced scripts by women (and specifically scripts they thought were by women that had female protagonists) so ultimately they said that though they would like to produce them they would not. This has been entirely missed in the media... They reported women hate women. So there's bias, and then there is discouragement. Just as in all cases of discrimination, whenever the possibility of making a living is lessened you will have fewer people going in to a profession, and those already in will be more likely to leave or to stay in only part time. So fewer women become writers, fewer are able to find representation (agents know they don't make as much money) fewer are produced, fewer find work in TV and Film (the numbers in hollywood appear to be worse that theater and have taken a dip in recent years.) So for more women than men, writing becomes something on the side or is given up completely. As much as we seem to love the idea that the truly talented write no matter what, I find it hard to believe. Economics plays a huge part in everyone's lives. Only so many folks have trust funds. We need health insurance and roofs and food. And even for those who are independent of these concerns, writing plays that never get produced is obviously discouraging and... pointless. Its hard for anyone to be a playwright. But it's easier if you are male. So it's a vicious circle. The theaters are getting fewer scripts from women, and they are producing even fewer, and of the ones they do produce, they are usually off on the second stages without the degree of talent and names and money afforded mainstage work. The bar is set higher for women's work. And the proof of that is in the simple fact that though less that 20 percent of the productions are by women, around 40 percent of the most successful plays in the past ten years were by women. Basically there are two choices, women are vastly better playwrights than men OR only the best women are being produced and the men's average is being dragged down by lesser works by men. I don't think men or women are inherently more talented by virtue of their gender. There are just way too many excellent male writers out there and thru history. All this bias is largely unconscious and maybe a bit willfully misunderstood. There is comfort in stasis. And a lot less work involved. A lot fewer scripts to read. So there's my two cents and then some. I find the whole thing endlessly fascinating.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: What kind of theater do I like? I like plot. And I love a little political intrigue. And a good fight. And bad language. Martin McDonagh is a huge favorite. And a guy.

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

A: Advice... Send out your plays yourself. Move to Chicago, LA or New York. I think being present is an even bigger factor than gender in whether or not you get produced. Know what kind of theater you hate and address it in your work. When you are young, go ahead and be reactionary. It's not the time to emulate, its the time to create something new, something else.

I Interview Playwrights Part 45: Joshua Conkel

Joshua Conkel

Hometown: I'm originally from Kentucky, but my dad joined the Navy so we moved around a lot. I'll say Hansville, WA, a teensy-tiny town across the Puget Sound from Seattle. That's where we ended up and where I spent most of my formative years.

Current Town: Brooklyn, New York

Q: Tell me about your play coming up, MilkMilkLemonade. What is it about and who is the artistic team?

A: In the abstract, MilkMilkLemonade started as an experiment in memory. It's like a collage of images, ideas, and memories (many of which are completely false) from my childhood. I'm interested in they ways in which our memories are misleading or completely false. I wanted to write a play about growing up queer that takes place in a nightmare landscape that expresses how terrifying life can be for gay kids in an expressive, rather than strictly literal way It's also an exploration of how our bodies change, how they limit us or trap us, and whether or not we even have control over them. That's all pretentious gobbledy-goo though, because MilkMilkLemonade is a comedy about an effeminate little boy named Emory who lives alone on a farm with his sick grandmother. His only friend is a chicken named Linda and together they dream of auditioning for the televised talent show, Reach for the Stars. On the day that Emory's grandmother forces him to give up his favorite doll, Linda is to be "processed" and Emory has to figure out how to save her. Obviously, many things get in the way, not the least of which is Elliot, an 11-year-old pyromaniac and semi-rapist who lives down the road. It's very funny and dark and sort of melancholy. It's children's theater for grown-ups. Also, there's dancing! We have an amazing artistic Team for this one. Isaac Butler is directing. I'd read his blog, but had never worked with him. He's so warm and confident, which nicely sets off my crippling insecurities. It's also nice to work with somebody who is so much smarter than you are. I reccomend it. In the cast we have Jennifer Harder, who has become the Laura Dern to my David Lynch or the Mink Stole to my John Waters over the past five years. She plays Linda the Chicken. My good friend Nikole Beckwith, a Youngblood playwright as well as a performer with the Story Pirates, plays a "Lady in a Leotard". Jess Barbagallo, another playwright/actor, is another newbie to The Management and has worked with Ontological a lot. She plays elliot, the little boy from down the road. Andy Phelan, who is incredibly sweet and talented and was just in The Chimes by Kevin Christopher Snipes, takes the lead as Emory. It's impossible not to fall in love with Andy when you watch him work. Lastly, we have the hilarious Michael Cyril Creighton, who has his own web series called Jack in a Box and was one of the hosts of VH1's Best Night Ever. He plays Nanna. All amazing.

Q: Tell me about your company The Management. How long have you guys been around?

A: The Management started in 2004 as part of the UnConvention Festival, which was a response to the Republican National Convention that was being held in New York. I took over as Artistic Director in 2005 and we've had residency with Horse Trade Theater Group for two years now. Basically, we favor new plays that explore contemporary American life. We like plays that are unpretentious, young, and bold.

 Q: What are you working on next?

A: I'm writing a comedy sopa opera entitled Sinking Hearts. It's about Navy wives. Misty and Crystal are both housewives (played by drag queens, obviously) on Thomas Hartman High Security Submarine Base somewhere in rural Washington State. There's a malevolent force in the old woods that surround their houses and it takes Misty and Crystal on a strange journey. It's Desperate Housewives meets Twin Peaks. It's really fun to write, because I get to mess with genres, which I love. It's also fun to write for the same characters for a long time and watch them change and grow. Who knows how and when it'll be produced. What a logistical nightmare!

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

A: I was a very shy and meloncholy child. Like now, I prefered my own company to the company of others. I used to pretend I was a horse. I'd spend hours in my front yard galloping and neighing. All by myself. God knows what the neighbors thought. When I was a teenager my mom and I were having a late night heart to heart wherein a lot of family secrets were finally coming out. It was my moment. I finally had the courage to bring up a subject nobody had ever discussed out loud; why my family really left Kentucky. I was two or so. My Granny owned a beauty shop at the bottom of our apartment building and cut all of our hair. I very clearly remember her giving me a perm. Why a grown woman would give a toddler a perm, let alone a male toddler, I have no idea. I remember running out to the front of the building as the school bus carrying my brother and sister and the other big kids arrived. I was excited to show off my new do. Then Robbie, a slightly older boy who lived upstairs from me and teased me mercilessly, started making fun of it and saying that perms were for girls etc. I have no idea what happened, but I completely lost it and smashed a bottle over this poor kid's head and he fell to the ground. The last thing I remember is kids shouting and my mom and Granny running toward me from the shop. So I'm up late with my mom years later and I'm crying and finally getting this off my chest. I felt like I was a monster. Why did nobody ever bring up the fact that I killed another kid when I was little? It had tormented me for years. Well, apparently nobody ever talked about it because it never happened. All that guilt and torment for nothing. My mom looked at me like I was insane. "are you kidding?" she said. "You never had a perm." I suppose it was all a dream.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: Well, I love plays that aren't boring. Honestly, my taste runs the gamut, but I like work that is accessible (which is not to say dumbed down). I don't like feeing like I'm just pounding my head against a wall of "art", you know? Also, I like plays that are a little raw and a lot bold. I admire cheekiness. Also, aesthetics go a long, long way for me. Even a fringe show that costs nothing can have an aesthetic to it. I like style.

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

A: I'm just starting out myself and sometimes it seems to me that the answer to this question should be "have rich parents" or "go to Yale" but I'm trying not to be cynical. I think support is great. Join a writing group. Youngblood has been one of the best things that's happened to me. An artisitic home helps too, so I'd suggest starting a theater company with like minded actors, directors, writers etc. Lastly, be as critical of your own work as you can stand. That way, by the time it's produced you can advocate for it. Always fight for your work. Be your own advocate, because nobody else will. Fight, fight, fight! You can get tickets here: http://www.smarttix.com/show.aspx?showcode=MIL6 It runs Sept 10-26

I Interview Playwrights Part 44: Kyle Jarrow

photo by Lauren Worsham 

Kyle Jarrow

Hometown: Ithaca, NY

Current Town: New York, NY

Q: You're one of those people who is always working on twenty things at once. You write plays, music, musicals, you're in three or four bands and now you've started a publishing company. Tell me about this publishing company. How did this come about?

A: Several years ago, my friend Jeffrey Dinsmore (“Jeffrey” D for short) was one of the founders of an indie publishing company called Contemporary Press. They concentrated specifically on pulp fiction and crime stories — and they published quite a few books, with an impressive amount of success. Then a few years ago that company folded, and so Jeff was looking for a new project. He approached me and another friend, writer Clay McLeod Chapman, to see if we’d be interested in working with him on starting a new publishing venture. Awkward Press was the result. The idea is to focus on publishing imaginative, story-based fiction, and to do it in an affordable format with an eye toward design. Really treating books as an art object, but trying to do it without making them too expensive.

Q: What else are you up to now? You have a play or musical in the works?

A: I just got done workshopping a new musical at Williamstown that I wrote with Nathan Leigh, called THE CONSEQUENCES. We’re doing rewrites now, based on what we learned at that workshop, and hoping to do another workshop this fall and move toward a production in the spring. Meanwhile, I’m preparing to do WHISPER HOUSE, another musical (this one I wrote with Duncan Sheik) at The Old Globe Theatre in San Diego. That opens in January.

Q: How is writing a musical different than writing a straight play?

A: There are two main differences, it seems to me: One, in a musical you’re able to go more deeply into character’s thoughts and feelings. Songs allow you to have characters sing directly to the audience about what they’re feeling. In a straight play, you have to work in a more round-about way to show this kind of inner life. The second difference is that musicals tend to be a more collaborative process. Even if one person is writing book, music, and lyrics (which I’ve done on a few occasions) there’s still an arranger involved, and a music director in addition to the director. Having more people involved in the creation process can be challenging, but ultimately I think it ends up being more exciting.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: I like theater that surprises me. Far too many of the new plays I see are traditionally structured pieces about upper middle-class white people with dark secrets. There’s a place for that, absolutely, and plays like that can be amazing, but they’re hardly surprising. I like to see a wider range of subject matter and more experimentation with form. I like to be made to think about things I wouldn’t have thought about otherwise.

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

A: The theater industry is a fairly conservative industry, in my experience. Probably because of the generally geriatric age of the core audiences at many theaters. This can make it frustrating when you’re first starting out and you’re trying to make a name for yourself. The best (and most fun) way to get started is to band together with other likeminded peers — actors, directors, designers — and get your work produced. Even if it’s on a very small scale, you’ll learn things from seeing your plays produced that you’ll never learn from reading them on the page. And through these productions you’ll gradually build a name for yourself, on your own terms. You won’t be dependant solely on the whims of theater literary departments.

Q: Plugs here and links for the publishing co, your bands, anything else:

Check out my new band Super Mirage! We have a record coming out in January. http://www.supermirage.com The publishing company can be found at http://www.awkwardpress.com And my website, that has more on all the crap I do, is at http://www.landoftrust.com

I Interview Playwrights Part 43: Christina Ham

Christina Ham

Hometown: Los, Angeles, California

Current Town: Minneapolis, Minnesota

Q: What are you working on right now?:

A: Two full-lengths - "The Tiny Soldier" which is a classic ghost tale (with a twist) and "Tar's Children" which is an apocalpytic tale set in a truck stop. Q: How long have you been in Minneapolis and where did you move from?: A: I've been in Minneapolis for 4 years now. I moved here from Los Angeles, California after receiving the Jerome Fellowship.

Q: Tell me a little bit about what you do at the Playwrights' Center:

A: I am the Program Coordinator for the Many Voices Residency Fellowship Program that's funded by the Jerome Foundation. I facilitate weekly workshops for beginning and emerging playwrights that allow them to hone their craft. In addition, I am constantly looking for opportunities to network with theaters where the artists whose work is being developed at the Center could grow beyond our walls and ultimately be produced.

Q: Could you tell my audience how you got involved in writing plays for children? How many of those have you written now? What do you like about it?:

A: When I first moved to Minneapolis for the Jerome Fellowship I was commissioned by the Guthrie Theater to go into a regional high school and work with the students to develop a one-act play. I worked with a group of drama students at St. Francis High School in St. Francis, MN to develop my play "County Line" that was published by PlayScripts. That was my first opportunity to write for a children and I thoroughly enjoyed the process. So far I have written four (I wrote one while in graduate school at UCLA, the one for the Guthrie, and the two I've been commissioned to do for SteppingStone). I am in the process of preparing to write another one for SteppingStone who has commissioned me once again. What I like about writing for children is that it really frees you up to have fun on the page and really let your imagination run wild. It really asks you to use the "play" part in playwriting. In addition, it allows you to teach life lessons to kids in a way that will hopefully have an indelible impact on their lives.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?:

A: Theater that really wants to take chances. I know people throw that phrase around a lot in our line of work, but I really mean it. I don't like seeing things that have clearly been done over and over again. Theater that takes place in unusual worlds or plays with language and structure is always interesting to me. I do believe there's a place as well for the classic kitchen sink play, but that's not the kind of theater I generally gravitate towards.

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

A: Try many different types of things on the page. Keep writing and, as I always tell my residents, the advice Jose Rivera gives to playwrights -- strive to be your own genre. There's nothing worse than reading a new writer who's trying to imitate someone else. Don't be afraid to be yourself. Plugs: Cold reading of "Tar's Children" coming up at Penumbra Theatre. Production of "Henry's Freedom Box" at SteppingStone Theater in February 2010, and a production of "After Adam" at Luna Stage in Fall 2010.

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

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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