I Interview Playwrights Part 77: Winter Miller

Winter Miller

Hometown:
Split screen, I grew up in a small town in Western Massachusetts called Greenfield until I was 12 and then moved with my mom to a series of smallish towns in Pennsylvania. I ended up at Quaker boarding school in PA.

Current Town:
I'm currently a nomad. I couldn't decide where I wanted to live and how I wanted to live in the world so I packed up all my things, put them in my dad's attic and bought a car. Actually I bought my dad's car. He's now walking everywhere. No, he has his own car. But it was a good deal. In any case, I'm hopping from town to town and boro to boro. Since last January I've been in Silver Lake, LA, Santa Monica, CA, Greenfield, MA, Lexington, VA, Clinton Hill Brooklyn, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, a beach house in Rhode Island that I can't remember the name of, Hell's Kitchen NYC, and at the moment I'm writing this, I'm one day into Red Hook, Brooklyn. It's interesting for me, because I've always been very tied to home. As a child of divorce who moved an average of once a year throughout college, when I finally moved to New York I got an apartment and lived in it for almost ten years. So I'm going where it's least secure and reinventing my notion of home, for the moment. I bet this response is too long. Sorry. This is the unexpurgated version.


Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I'm working on a comedy. I'm working on a sort of apocalyptic dark story. These are not related and it's weird to have written two plays within a month of each other and try to revise and rewrite them both when the worlds are opposite. Normally I rarely write plays. I have so little to say that would fill a play. But the apoco one is so dark that it's kind of a relief to go to the other absurd world on occasion. The really exciting thing for me is that I'm working with a group of gay youth in NYC with a company called Theatre Askew and I'm writing a play with and for them to perform. We've had auditions and our first meeting and these youth blow my mind.


Q:  Your play In Darfur is coming up at Theatre J in DC in April. Can you tell me about that play and how it came about? That was a two-headed challenge, right? Where has it been developed?

A:  Yeah I'm super excited that we're doing In Darfur in the nation's capital. I'd like to get an Obama in. Maybe Malia or Sasha. Kidding. I mean the adult Obamas. I'm really hoping to coordinate with groups like Enough! and Genocide Intervention Network and potentially others to really try to draw in legislators to see this play. It's one thing to read a news story or an op-ed about the suffering of people in Darfur and I think it's another to know these people as human beings. But also, the play makes everyone accountable, reporters, aid workers and Darfuris, so I think it poses some compelling questions about sacrifice and betrayal and in whose name.

The play was a Two-Headed Challenge, which is a commission offered jointly by The Guthrie and The Playwrights Center in MN. My mentor, was my former boss at the New York Times, Op-Ed columnist Nick Kristof. And if I can just put some plugs in here for some completely amazing folks any writer should know: I will forever be indebted to the hugely awesome Polly Carl for the work she did with me on this script--she is truly a phenomenal dramaturg and she knows how to put a play first and everyone's ego second. Another shout out to the director who was with me throughout the development of the piece, Joanna Settle, who is an extremely smart and specific director and with whom any writer, actor is designer is fortunate to collaborate with. But in addition some really great people got behind the play and were helpful in the development of it: Michael Dixon at the Guthrie, Mandy Hackett, Liz Frankel and Oskar Eustis at the Public and Marge Betley at Geva Hibernatus. The really great thing was that everyone involved recognized that this is a topical play and that it offers a way to spread awareness about something happening that if enough people were up in arms about and contacting their elected officials, we could force the UN /Security Council to stop the genocide immediately. So it was developed at those places above and then produced really quickly as a lab by the Public. All of that was in less than a year after the play was written. I was still writing the play while we were doing it at the Public which is why we closed it from reviewers. It was a beautiful production, I admire all the people involved. Then they did a very cool thing, they did a staged reading after the run at the Delacorte in Central Park, something they pretty much reserve for their productions of Shakespeare et al. Sitting al fresco with a bright night sky, the sound of planes occasionally buzzing above, that incredible cast and crew and 1800 people in the audience I'll take to the grave. And after the play, my heroes in the anti-genocide movement, people like Samantha Power, Kristof, John Prendergast, Mia Farrow, Omer Israel and Mark Hanis all spoke about Darfur.

Darfur is in really bad shape. It's not written about that much because it's sort of assumed the public is weary of hearing about it, but it's just gotten worse and worse there as aid workers are prevented from helping by president bashir and virtually all programs related to gender based violence are banned--so there are all these rapes in the camps that go unreported and that leave women without care for very violent situations. My friend Bec Hamilton who is an excellent writer and investigator just wrote a great article about it in the New Republic. You can find it here: http://bechamilton.com/?p=1419
If you are reading this and interested in Darfur, check out Enough! and Genocide Intervention Network for how to get involved here:
http://www.enoughproject.org/
http://www.genocideintervention.net/

Q:  Can you talk about 13P? What's up next?

A:  I can talk about 13P, although much has already been said. I think it's an amazing producing model and I am grateful I was invited to join, even without a credit to my name. 13P was my first production, Josh Hecht directed my play called The Penetration Play. Josh is a fiendishly good director of new plays, it should be stated. (It may be that people frown on plays with lesbian sex and aggressive behavior because it's never been produced since. Or it's boring or terrible). But it got produced by 13P because the playwright is allowed to pick the play s/he wants to do, and in some cases, that may be our play we don't think anyone else will do. The next play is Julia Jarcho's American Treasure. Jarcho's so beyond cool that she's directing it herself and she's unafraid to name a play after a popular movie staring Nicholas Cage. There's info about it here:
http://13p.org/index.php?action=ezportal;sa=page;p=20

Q:  What is your day job?

A:  I don't have one at the moment. I was a reporter for Variety which wasn't really me and although I had a sweet gig writing freelance for the New York Times, as the economy and the financial resources of that paper (and others) have tanked, I got squeezed out. Unfortunately, the ugliest part was that there was an editor there who resorted to taking my story pitches and then re-assigning them to staffers. Which is about the sleaziest unethical thing to do to a freelancer. So I called it a day. It turns out I make a great nanny. My developmental age is probably somewhere between 4 and 7, so I have a really good time watching other people's kids. I'm serious. I'd like to go to Africa and do theater work with communities that are in the midst of conflict--I was brought to Uganda to do something of that nature and it was an amazing experience. So I'd like to go to Burundi, Congo, CAR, Somalia etc and do work there. Which will require me lining up some grants for that kind of work, so that will sort of be a day job, finding loose change in the pockets of foundations. Here's the link to the Uganda thing, it's part of an upcoming feature documentary,
http://voicesofuganda.org/

Talk about falling in love with a group of youths... these kids were amazing. We are still pen pals.

And I have fantasies about becoming a Bikram teacher. I'm all over the map. I'm really open to doing whatever for money that puts me in a position of working with people I respect and admire and I don't have specificities about what that specific field is. Generally if people offer me work I say Yes and then ask questions later.

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

A:  My parents divorced before I was two. One day, I was probably about 6 or 7 and my mom and dad were sitting at my dad's dining room table. There was a partially eaten danish on the table. I think we had all eaten already breakfast, but the danish remained on the table. I went off to play matchboxes or something in the living room, aware that my parents were still at the table, discussing me or something related to me. I found myself wanting a second helping of the danish. I occasionally looked in, to see that the danish was still sitting there. But I didn't go in and get it. I don't know why. Waiting for an invitation? I think I secretly hoped they'd come into the other room and offer me more danish? They did not. In fact, I distinctly recall that I circled around and hovered, conscious that my dad was eating the last of the danish. It was gone. Then, only then, did I walk into the dining room, right up to them and ask for more danish.

The danish represents to me wanting to be loved, wanting to be noticed. I don't even really like danish, I prefer things made of chocolate. But I wanted to let my parents know that I was in sort of an ongoing distress mode. Only I didn't know how to tell them that and really, I wanted them to know it and do something about it.

So I think I write because in some way I've always felt on the outside of things, I've always wanted to feel like I have a place at the table. It was assumed that I had nothing to say for myself and they would talk about me while I played. So I write plays hoping that people will listen to these characters and their moral dilemmas and see their mistakes and in whatever ways see some portion of themselves in these people. And I hope that by being able to have empathy for the characters, by seeing pieces of ourselves in others that there's a chance to stretch our empathic capabilities. I'm not ashamed to say that I think our culture could do with a lot more compassion and a lot more love for our neighbors, ourselves, etc. I don't think this has much to do with the danish, I was just sort of doing product placement and hoping that if I said chocolate someone would read that and send me a chocolate bar like how it works on television when Jon Stewart says he likes Krispy Kreme on air, he gets donuts galore dropped off at the office. I shudder to think what arrives at the offices of Oprah. She probably gets children and pets mailed to her. Anyway, I kind of agree with Anne Frank, or what she's credited as saying: I still believe, in spite of everything that people are really good at heart. I'm exploring that goodness and occasionally, that badness.

Q:  What is the purpose of theater?

A:  Oh I think I may have touched on that in my earlier response. I didn't read these questions all the way through. I'm terrible at reading directions. I really should work on that.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I like theater where it feels like there's a genuine discovery happening onstage. Even if the play is deeply flawed but there's just one monologue that has something so true that it breaks my heart in that moment--then that's the kind of theater I want to see. I like plays that explore the human condition. As long as it can provoke a genuine reaction in me--laughter, tears, surprise, total shock, or it illuminates a world I know nothing about, that's the kind of stuff I'm really into. One of my favorite theater experiences was/were the Checkov plays that Melissa Kievman and Brian Mertes produced at their house which is out in the country somewhere outside NYC (I'm terrible with geography). The plays would happen outdoors--they would use their actual house and everything around--the pond by the house, the trees in the yard, the upstairs window would have someone pop out to say a line and the staging would be sometimes messy and the scenic design would be phenomenal in its artistry even though it would just be household objects, and all this work, by everyone involved would be for just one performance. And in the middle of the play, after an act break would be a giant picnic. The audience would bring potluck and it would all get laid out and everyone, strangers and friends would get together and eat a giant meal. You could jump in the lake for a swim. You could hold someone's crying baby and walk out of the audience space and bobble the baby up and down til it was soothed and then return and nobody looked at you like you'd stabbed them in the eye with your program. And there was no charge, but you could donate money to whatever great cause they'd researched. It was basically ideal. You're outdoors. It's summer. It's good theater. You're being fed from a buffet. Girls are wearing loose dresses. Boys are wearing open shirts. You can sit in a chair or sit on the ground. You can kiss your date and/or hang out with old and new friends. It's everything that much of the theater I go to is not. It's the intersection of life onstage with the lives watching the stage. It's made with love, you feel it. They didn't do it this past summer but I'm hoping they see your blog and realize how much it meant to so many people and they should put their whole lives on hold just to please an unruly group of people who love what they created.

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

A:  Hmmm. Find a really good dramaturg, someone you can trust to read your work and give you honest feedback that propels you forward. I recommend Josh Hecht because he's so smart and so good at giving insight. But it's about finding the person who you connect with and who knows how to give feedback. Also, one time when I was trying to write a play that would be "commercial" enough for what I saw in the marketplace and I was not writing anything, I sent an email to one of my professors from grad school, Anne Bogart and asked if she'd have coffee with me to discuss something or other. She was like, look, you have to write the play you want to write, there's no other option. And I'm not going to sit and have coffee with you to tell you that. You know what you need to do so do it. At first I was sort of taken aback, like whoa, where's that totally nurturing director from grad school...? And then I was like, she's right, what a favor to tell me to stop talking to other people about what's not working with what I'm trying to write or my process and just write. (I call this unhelpful part of my process procrastiwriting) And to not bother writing what I think the market will bear. Those who can write what the market wants are probably able to do that at least in part because it's in fact what they want to be writing. Or they wrote what they wanted and that it was scooped up by producers came as something of a surprise. I'm totally making this up, I have no idea what I'm talking about. It's a little like asking me about how to hang a heavy picture frame on the wall, I've done it plenty of times but I'm no expert. First find the studs in the wall. I don't know, knock on the wall, they're like sixteen inches a part and sooner or later you'll find one. Use a level, when the bubble is in the middle, you're golden.

Q:  Links for upcoming workshops etc and any other plugs?

A:  plugs! :
http://hairplugsguide.com/
http://www.tradekey.com/ks-household-plug./
http://www.tribalectic.com/store/pc/browseResults.asp?drilldown=170&tier=1&IDBrand=&mt=&gauge=&piercingLocationID=
http://www.travel-images.com/electric-plugs.html
http://www.autoanything.com/ignition-systems/200A2534.aspx
http://www.fishreports.net/fishing-gear/fishing-plug.php

I Interview Playwrights Part 76: Jenny Schwartz

 

Jenny Schwartz

Hometown:

Scarborough, NY and then New York, NY

Current Town:

New York, NY

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  A play called Somewhere Fun.

A play about Fantasy Football.

I’m also collecting exchanges I have with my two year old daughter, Phoebe, who already has a zest for words, language, and stories - especially seemingly mundane ones. It’s thrilling (and hilarious) to watch her as she tries out new words and phrases every day. I’ll list a couple of things she's said that have woken me up, in a way, to the poetry and absurdity in every day speech. I’m hoping to construct something out of these exchanges.  Maybe just a scrapbook of sorts.

Phoebe:

I like grape medicine.  

You like grape medicine?  

You like it a little or a lot? 

I like it a lot sometimes.

Phoebe:

We sometimes call him Daddy.

We sometimes call him him.

Q:  Can you talk a little about your writing process?  Is it true that you start over from the beginning each time without looking at what you wrote the previous time?

A:  Yes, it’s true.  I imagine that when composers or songwriters write new songs, they aren’t able to start from the end when they sit down to work; this is true for me too.  I find it helpful to experience the entire piece in order to continue on with it and to find holes and spaces in it. For some reason, reading it over, even aloud, isn’t enough. Typing the whole thing from memory helps me get out of my head and into the world of the play and to seamlessly, unconsciously develop and expand it.  I’m also able to experience the rhythm and momentum of the piece, and writing becomes a physical act. It’s not often that I add to the end of what I’m writing because I always get caught up in the body of the text; something will need fine-tuning which will lead me on a tangent that I couldn’t anticipate. It’s also, in a way, like ironing, where you start with a small part of the fabric and you keep going back over it until you smooth out the whole thing. That said, I don’t do this ALL the time. If I’m working on a particular scene, I’ll sometimes start only that scene from the beginning, and not the entire play. As you can probably guess, I'm a voracious typer. 

Q:  How did you like Juilliard?

A:  Juilliard was great, and I’m grateful they took me and let me stick around for two years. It was a rare privilege to have Christopher Durang and Marsha Norman responding to my work.  Before Juilliard, I studied directing with Robert Woodruff and Anne Bogart at Columbia. My years at Columbia were perhaps more formative than my years at Juilliard. It was in Robert Woodruff's directing class that I tried my hand at playwriting. Robert encouraged me to keep writing, even though my first plays were five minutes long and consisted mostly of one actor saying the same thing over and over again. (I'm still drawn to repetition, but I tend to create more expansive palettes now.) I'll be forever indebted to Robert and Anne for encouraging me to experiment, to ask questions, to think outside the box. They opened doors for me I had no idea existed. 

Q:  God's Ear is being done around quite a bit.  Are there shows coming up you can tell us about?

A:  I don’t actually know what’s coming up, but I will tell you that I went to Portugal a couple of weeks ago to see a production of God’s Ear in Portuguese.  For the most part, I couldn’t follow it word-for-word or line-for-line, but right away, I was struck by the acting, which was clearly intense and impassioned.  It was a moving experience for me - to feel so completely absent and present at the same time – to view myself as a catalyst for these talented artists having a meaningful experience doing their work so well. I’ve felt similar about productions I’ve heard about around the country (I've only seen one, a wonderful production directed by Ken Rus Schmoll at Cornell University. Ken and I were classmates at Columbia and are close friends and collaborators, so I was somewhat involved in that one.) Anyway, it's been amazing and humbling to connect with strangers in this way - very unexpectedly rewarding.

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

A:  Hmmm… I was obsessed with Helen Keller and the Miracle Worker, and I used to stare up at the sun to try make myself blind; fortunately, I was not successful. I don't know if this explains who I am as a writer or an artist (I hope not), but I thought I'd mention it because Helen Keller tends to make her way into my work. What else?  I remember telling my first lie when I accidentally lost my Kindergarten class’s pet Guinea Pig.  This was eye-opening for me because I realized that in real life, you don't always have to get caught, like on the Brady Bunch, and you can have a secret inner life that no one has to know about. 

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I space out very easily, so I’d have to say I’m most excited by theatre that doesn’t bore me, which can come in any and all forms, and found anywhere. I do appreciate poetry, both visual and aural, and I like to have a good laugh. 

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

A:  *Don't type out your play over and over again. Total waste of time.

*Try to get yourself in situations where you can actually make theatre and put it in front of an audience. (I’m not talking about readings.)

*Take everyone's advice and no one's advice and don't let anyone's advice make you feel stupid or wrong because what you really want to do is find your own unique and mutable way. (Or not.) I tend to be suspicious anyone who claims to know anything, but come to think of it, I'm probably just jealous. 

*Don't sell yourself short.

Q:  Any plugs?

A:  Circle Mirror Transformation by Annie Baker.

Creature by Heidi Schreck.

You can get God's Ear here and places other fine books are sold.

I Interview Playwrights Part 75: Kristen Palmer

Kristen Palmer

Hometown:  Born in St. Louis, Missouri, but grew up in Stafford County, Virginia

Current Town:  Atlanta, temporarily.

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  A play about a family coping with a death - lots of steady, daily drinking, sudden accusations, and grasping for something under the surface to be revealed.  There are no bells or whistles really, just writing these characters during three slices of time.  It's set in the Tidewater region of Virginia, on the James River at a home I visited once.

And revising THE HEART IN YOUR CHEST, which has been a major project over the past year.  It’s a play set in a dystopian near future, populated by characters operating under one set of assumptions which is undone by their own desires and the actions of the least obviously powerful among them.  There’s a lot of action, there are fights and I’m in love with the characters.  I’ve been able to collaborate with the same director, Paul Willis, and had some excellent ensembles come together for workshops in NYC, Independence, KS and LA.  Still doing some tinkering and looking for a more in depth, on-the feet type of workshop – or for somebody to get behind it and go for it.  Which I think would be an excellent idea.

Q:  What do you think is the thread that links your plays?  What do you write about? 

A:  I've written seven full-lengths and they each feel very different to me, in subject and construction.  A few readers have said that if my name weren't on the cover they wouldn't know it was the same writer.  If I were to pull out some threads though  -  a sense of loss and longing, the way language is used obliquely - communicating as much as it covers up, and funny in a way where there aren't really any jokes.

My starting point for most plays are places, people or moments that resonate with me and I think the motor that drives me is the desire to talk back to the world.  I am a person that gets overwhelmed by reading the newspaper, wants to call up our leaders and talk to them - ask them what they are thinking - why are they doing what they're doing. -- and I want an actual human response, canned PR speak doesn’t help anyone but the salesman.  Writing plays is one of the ways I do something with this impulse and avoid getting overwhelmed by the world.  Teaching is another.

  

Q:  How was your Jerome year last year?

A:  It was amazing to be able to put writing first, to say for these 12 months my job is to write plays and be a playwright.  In the year before the Jerome I was teaching full-time in Brooklyn, I'd had my first four productions - two in NYC  - and was planning a wedding (with you) it was kind of a full year.  Then moving to Minneapolis, was a huge change of pace - a very welcome one.  (It is true that if you get enough sleep you don't really get sick).  The Playwrights' Center there is a great place and it was dreamy to have a home for a year - especially one with a photocopier and postage machine.  Plus there are lots of other playwrights based in Minneapolis - and on the Jerome year too - so it’s like an instant community.

For me the job of 'being a playwright' included working as a dramaturg, teaching writing workshops with young people, reading many, many plays and being able to travel for workshops and readings - as well as writing.  I did find that my writing output did not increase substantially with the amount of time I had available.  In my imagination I would write non-stop, all day, late into the night, but in reality I still wrote about the same amount - though I was able to put a lot more time into revisions and applications.

I also discovered that I like the extreme winter there.  It's beautiful.  Oh, and I landed a job waitressing at Nye's Polanaise Room.  If you’re ever in the Twin Cities and have occasion for a boozy lunch, desire a piano bar or a polka lounge – I highly recommend Nye’s - and sit at the bar that Phil has worked at since 1968.

 

Q:  Can you talk about being a teaching artist and how you use theater to teach?

A:  That is where I started from undergrad - devising programs to teach through drama - structuring workshops using theater games, opportunities for creating and performing, and reflecting on the experience.  The goals for workshops can vary from the general ones like collaboration and communication, to literacy, to issues such as safe sex, bullying, prejudice  - the basic idea is to engage participants with their bodies and hearts and the process is the point - not the product.  Everywhere I have lived I have found opportunities to teach this way, either in schools, with theaters or arts agencies - or making my own programs.  I did my undergrad in England where there is an established field of this type of work.  When I moved back to the states it was less obvious where or how to do this, but mostly people just used different terminology.

Basically teaching, to me, is about creating an experience and connecting with students.  Being open to the moment, working with what's in front of you and keeping people's interest are all qualities that theater demands and are the qualities that I find most important in teaching.  Supporting people to express their experience of the world and to engage with and understand the experience of others should be a goal of education - whatever the subject - and theatre as a medium offers a myriad of ways to act, reflect, question and challenge.

Q:  You're married to me.  How's that going?

A:  Very well. You are wonderful person to be married with.

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

A:  When I was in middle school I organized a haunted house with kids on my street.  You’d go in and be told the story of a girl whose mother was burned as a witch, who was plagued by visions, tormented by the townspeople and eventually hung herself.  I think I was the tour guide, my brother was bobbing for apples in blood, there were real cow brains (the idea that spaghetti would represent cow brains escaped me), heads were strung from the clothesline, we hung a life sized stuffed doll as the girl – and as the finale this older girl from another neighborhood wearing a long white dress came out of nowhere on roller skates wailing for revenge and chasing everyone screaming out of the garage.  Then we’d give them candy.

At some point parents demanded that we be shut down for terrorizing children and we were forbidden from ever making a haunted house again.  Something about the recklessness and enterprise of all the kids involved in putting it together coupled with the explosion of response when it was unveiled really got to me.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I love theatre that feels rough around the edges, virtuosic  - and that over-used word – authentic in some way.  I love plays that feature ensembles of actors and create worlds that you can witness, or step into.  I am excited when a production allows the audience in – is porous and open to interpretation and a variety of responses.  I love writing that plays with language and theatre that embraces the complexities and unknowability of human experience. 

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

A:  Follow your obsessions.  When you’re tired, rest your head.   Go see things and talk with people and when you see things and talk with people that you like or can’t get out of your head keep seeing their work and talking to them and work with them.  Love is really important. 

 

Q:  any plugs?

A:  I am reading plays and writing about them here:  www.playswithothers.blogspot.com  My goal is to make this a daily thing and use it as a way to talk about writing plays now.

and sometimes I post poems here:  quarantinedpoesy.blogspot.com  I used to do this daily, now it is far more occasional.

And go see CREATURE in NYC opens in late October and runs through November.  Written by the effervesent Heidi Schreck and produced by two great companies - New Georges & P73.

I Interview Playwrights Part 74: Patrick Gabridge

Patrick Gabridge

Hometown:  I've moved a lot.

Current Town:  Brookline, MA (Boston)

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I'm feverishly working on rewrites of Constant State of Panic, a new full-length play that will be produced by the Madcap Players in DC in January. I was just out there for a weekend-long workshop that was tremendously helpful. I'm always trying to explore different models to develop new plays, and the Madcap weekend was especially well run and thoughtful.

As soon as the rewrites are done, I'm hoping to start on a new novel, a young adult historical piece (set in the Civil War) (it does not have any vampires or werewolves). Plus, I'm part of a playwrights group, Rhombus, that meets every two weeks and we're required to bring in material to every session. So if I want to keep playing with my pals, I need to write a new play. I'm stumbling my way into a new full-length play--I'm curious to see what happens with it.

Q:  If I came to Boston tomorrow, what theater companies or shows would you suggest I check out?

A:  Boston Playwrights Theatre is one of the hotspots for exciting new work. I'm off to see a new play by Ronan Noone tomorrow night, Little Black Dress. The American Repertory Theatre is working with with Punchdrunk, a British company, on this odd site-specific treatment of Macbeth in an old school near my house. I'm pretty excited about that one--I think it's the first time they've worked in the U.S.

Company One is a young company that does some interesting new plays. And the Beau Jest company does some amazing physical theatre work that knocks me over. There's a lot happening in Boston.

Q:  Can you tell me about the playwright binge and how it came about?

A:  I'm always looking for ways to make the chore of marketing more fun (and easier) (which is why I started Market InSight for Playwrights back in the early 90s). So, I'd heard about a whole town that went on a diet together, and it worked, because there was a whole social, community aspect to it. So I thought, what if we sort of did the opposite? Rather than diet, we'll binge on sending out our plays--a play a day for 30 days. So I e-mailed playwrights that I knew on a bunch of lists and asked if they wanted to join. I think for the first one, we maybe had a dozen writers. Word got out that it was a helpful thing and more people joined. And everyone was incredibly generous about sharing information. Then an article or two got written about it, and membership jumped. As of today, we have 520 members from around the world, and we binge twice a year (and there's an associated "purge" group that writes every day for 30 days). The cool thing is that it's turned into this very active, very supportive year-round online community.

Q:  Is writing a novel anything like writing a play?

A:  Not really, though I did make a conscious effort when I started writing novels to use some of my playwriting strengths--so my first two novels (I've written three) were first person stories, so I could look at them like extended monologues. But the development of a play is so different from a novel. A novel is much, much longer. There are just so many damn words to write--my latest adult novel runs around 84,000 words. That's the equivalent of about 3-4 full-length plays. So they take a lot longer to write, which makes it even more important to have a certain level of discipline when it comes plugging away at a first draft.

For a play, the development process is so much more external and social. I do have a writer's group where I bring my fiction, but other than that I'll just have a couple other readers. For a play, getting it down on paper is just the start. I'm constantly working on material with actors in Rhombus, and then in readings, and then in production there will be more changes, and even in subsequent productions. The upside is that you keep getting chances to fix problems in a script, the downside is that the blasted thing is never done. When I have a novel published, and someone comes up to me and says, "Oh, that part didn't work for me, I wish they'd done so and so," well, I can smile and nod and think, "Oh, well." and not worry about it. But with a play, I might think, "Oh, crap, maybe I should go back and fix that."

Q:  You recently got rid of your car. How are you adjusting to life without a motorized vehicle?

A:  It's been fun. We live in the city, so we have the subway, buses, and Zipcar, which is great. We ride our bikes a lot--my kids are old enough now (9 and 14) to ride most places. We figured if we couldn't do it here, we could never do it. It gets us lots of exercise and saves us a bunch of money. What's not to like? (See how I feel at the end of the winter.)

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I like plays that don't make me fall asleep. Seriously. That's my basic criteria (and I fall asleep easily). I like plays where stuff happens on stage--it can be physical, psychological, internal/external, I don't care, but I don't want to just listen to a long conversation. I want to see or experience something interesting.

I'm involved in leading some workshops here for StageSource called Playwriting in 3D--basically panel discussions with designers, to engage them with writers in an extended conversation about how we can make our plays more fully theatrical. The last one we did was with two lighting and two sound designers. Next up is an afternoon with costume and set designers. Soon, I hope to have one where we bring in some magicians to talk to us about the principles of what makes magic work for an audience. How can playwrights and directors and producers expand our tool box? I'm not interested in seeing something on stage that could have been done on TV.

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

A:  Get your hands dirty. Start a theatre company or join up some up-and-coming group of theatre folk and learn every aspect of theatre. Act, direct, design a set, tear tickets, design programs, run lights. Produce some shows. You might not be good at all of these things, but trying them helps you to fully understand the whole theatrical package, which is what you need if you want to write something that comes life on stage (and actually is chosen by theatres). And realize that playwriting is a very slow process--when you're just starting out, you want everything to happen right now. But plays can take a long time to develop, and it takes a while to build your skillset and a body of work.

Q:  Any plugs?

A:  I have a couple short plays in Los Angeles, being done in coffee shops by Theatre Unleashed. I wish I could be there, because I get a kick out of site specific work. And on January 14, Constant State of Panic opens in DC at the H Street Playhouse. I'm excited to see how it turns out--we've got a great team for the show.

Read more from Patrick here.

I Interview Playwrights Part 73: Mike Batistick

Mike Batistick

Hometown:  Red Bank, NJ

Current Town:  Sunset Park, Brooklyn, NY

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I'm currently working on the final cut with director Nick Sandow for the film version of my play PONIES (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1462765/), for which I wrote the screenplay. Greenbox Entertainment produced it, and we shot it in the Bronx (among other places) where we built an entire OTB out of a closed Washington Mutual bank. The place looked so authentic the Morris Park Community Board got upset because they thought a betting parlor was moving into their neighborhood.

In addition to that, I've also been working on a few TV projects--including a pilot I've got in development--and putting the final touches on my latest play RECURSION. Sometime next Spring, director Arin Arbus and I will be developing my latest play GAIL with the Working Theater.

Q:  How many plays of yours were done by Studio Dante? What was it like working with them?

A:  I have had two plays produced by Studio Dante, PONIES (http://www.dramatists.com/cgi-bin/db/single.asp?key=3510) and CHICKEN (http://www.dramatists.com/cgi-bin/db/single.asp?key=3888), both of which were directed by Nick Sandow, who also directed the film version of the PONIES. Dante basically helped me achieve everything I have in my career; my first (and second) NY TIMES review, published plays (including another play, PORT AUTHORITY THROW DOWN (http://www.dramatists.com/cgi-bin/db/single.asp?key=3846), and television work. Working with Michael Imperioli and his wife Victoria was perhaps the greatest development I've had in my creative life so far. They introduced me to many of the people I work with now.

Q:  How did you like Juilliard?

A:  Marsha and Chris were crucial in my development as a writer. They taught me to write quickly and with quality, as well as continue to always work on narrative structure, which has always been one of my weaknesses.

Q:  What do you like most about the MCC Playwrights Coalition?

A:  I've been out of town a lot lately, so I haven't much time to work with Coalition as I did when I first joined, in 2002. But recently I did a playwriting intensive with Mark Schultz, Annie Baker, Blair Singer, and dramaturge Jamie Green. The intensives are by far my favorite part of the group.

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

A:  My dad was the landlord of a few buildings in Asbury Park, NJ when I was a teenager. I just remember always collecting rent, fixing those dilapidated buildings up, and trying to keep drug dealers and squatters away. I think those experiences inform a lot of the stuff I write.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Tom Bradshaw's PURITY at PS 122 was a really exciting piece, and I still think about it even though it was produced over two years ago. The play pushed the envelope and didn't try and put a nice button on its plot. I also really enjoyed Theater For a New Audience's production of OTHELLO, which Arin Arbus directed. What I was left with from that production was the claustrophobia and obsession that envelopes the main character, and how thoroughly contemporary his struggle felt to me. I really respond to shows that are dangerous and that play with style and structure, like the Elevator Repair Service's NO GREAT SOCIETY and WOMEN DREAMT HORSES by Daniel Veronese. I also like the work of the Debate Society.

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

A:  Produce your play yourself, or submit to the Fringe or Midtown Theater Festival. Don't wait for producers and big theaters to come calling; if you put it up on your own dime, it's a perfect opportunity for them to come see your work. Also never be afraid to send that 10-page sample to the big Off-Broadway theaters if you don't have agent. Literary departments will respond.

Q:  Any plugs?

A:  Well my friend Jake Hirzel's musical DIAL 'N' FOR NEGRESS just finished its run at Theater Row, so no, but you can check out the awesome music at the website, dialnfornegress.com.

I Interview Playwrights Part 72: Mariah MacCarthy

 

Mariah MacCarthy

Hometown: San Diego, CA

Current Town: Astoria, NY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Q:  Tell me about Writers Group for Minions.

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

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

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

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

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

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

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

Q:  Links for shows, please:

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

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

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

Q:  And other plugs?

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

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

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

I Interview Playwrights Part 71: Jay Bernzweig

Jay Bernzweig

Hometown: Freehold, NJ

Current Town: Los Angeles, New York

Q:  Tell me about your play, Made in Heaven going up soon at the Soho Playhouse.

A:  "Made in Heaven" is a comedy about conjoined twins who share a penis. On the night they are about to propose marriage to their girlfriend, one twin reveals that's he's gay. The twins and their girlfriend concoct a plan to make the arrangement satsfying for all of them. The plain involves a bisexual hustler, whose behavior wreaks havoc on the household and forces all four characters to rethink their notions of love, family and self-acceptance.

Q:  How did you come to write this play?

A:  For a few years I walked around with the one-line idea of conjoined twins, one gay and one straight, who share a penis. Anyone with whom I shared the idea laughed out loud. But I wasn't able to start writing until I discovered who the other two characters were and realized the play would be about the self-destructive and uncomfortable knots we'll all twist ourselves into for the sake of what looks or feels like romantic love. In 2004 I was one of the producers of an Off-Broadway musical, "Dr. Sex." There were long periods if idleness as we waited for the show to be rewritten, or waited for various creative talents to become available. I took advantage of the fact that I had a quiet, cozy office overlooking Broadway, and wrote the first draft of "Made in Heaven."

Q:  What are you working on next?

A:  A play tentatively titled "Madame Mesmer." It's a contemporary farce that deals with marriage, money and hypnosis.

Q:  You used to be a film exec. What does it feel like to be on the other side of the desk? Is it vastly different?

A:  It's way more fun ruining my own ideas that it was helping to ruin others.

Q:  Do you have any advice for young writers trying to get their screenplays made?

A:  Yes. View your career as a marathon, not a sprint. Hope for the best with every script, but understand the following: A lucky few achieve success with a single, brilliant screenplay. But many, many writers succeed as the result of eight or ten years of consistent, ever-improving work.

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

A:  I fell in love with Eugene O'Neill when I was twelve and read everything he wrote. Didn't understand at least half of what I was reading, but I was captivated by the language and the theatricality and decided I wanted to be a playwright.

Q:  What theaters or shows in LA would you recommend?

A:  The Actors' Gang, Theatre at Boston Court, "99-cent Only Show" at Bootleg Theatre, drag revue at the Plaza bar on LaBrea.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Anything fresh, original and astonishing.

Link for Jay's show:
http://www.madeinheavenbackstage.blogspot.com/

I Interview Playwrights Part 70: Gina Gionfriddo

Gina Gionfriddo

Hometown:  Washington DC

Current Town: NYC

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  It's not a go yet, but I am working with a film producer to option and then adapt a book by Joy Williams called "The Changeling"--no relation to either of 2 movies with that title.  The book is scary and sort of hallucinogenic; an alcoholic narrator is seeing stuff that may or may not be real.  The story draws a lot on fairy tales and myths.  So I have been researching myths and fairy tales--"animal groom" stories, specifically--for that project.  I'm also researching/reading for the next play I want to write which, I think, has something to do with internet pornography.

Q:  You're one of the playwrights who has written for Law and Order, that New York institution.  What was that like?

A:   It was very, very good for me in a couple of ways.  It disabused me of some romantic notions about writing.  The time pressure to getting the episodes written helped me see that showing up really is half the battle.  Inspiration and ideas spring from the action of writing, so a lot of the mooning around and planning I tend to do before I really get in the saddle and START seems like procrastination now.  Not entirely, but... I've learned to do less of it, to have the guts to sit down and write before the play in the brain feels 100% there.  And writing TV is a good paycheck.  I was hand-to-mouth for such a long time, it was a big relief not to be living in financial panic.  Also, I think that show in particular was a good adjunct to playwriting because it was so plot driven.   I never felt creatively split and I think I might have if my TV job had been, say, "Madmen" or some other show where you're crafting long-range, nuanced character arcs.

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

A:  I was a really macabre, little gothette of a child.  I was fixated on dead children.  In the village in Pennsylvania where we spent our summers, I went to the graveyard and wrote down the names and dates from all the kids' graves.  Then I went around interviewing my elderly aunts about why they had died.  And I saved all the news clippings about a boy who disappeared near my home in DC.  I had a Life Magazine about the Yorkshire Ripper that I used to read and reread obsessively.  I think I still have that, um, orientation.  My pleasure reading is true crime and my Tivo is backlogged with it.  So I think a lot of my writing has been about figuring out where that impulse comes from and what it serves for me.

Q:  How did you like Brown?

A:  Loved it.  I got paid to write for 2 years and the plays I wrote were produced.  They were shoestring, throw 'em up campus productions, but you learn stuff from productions that you just can't learn from readings.  So that was invaluable.  And Paula Vogel gave me some amazing tools that I can pull out of my back pocket when I'm stuck.  She's a purist.  She really believes that great writing will come if you push yourself beyond your safety zone.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I am never happier than when I leave a theatre feeling the stirrings of a good argument.  I like plays where the audience fractures over who the good guys are.   I used to love teaching "Oleanna" for that reason.

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

A:   Read plays.  Read a play a day.  Some of my best ideas have come from reacting to plays... wishing the writer had gone further, sometimes, or feeling an ending didn't ring true.  I'm inspired when I feel my needs and expectations aren't met and I have to go fishing in the deep Gina waters to ask why.    Also, read for structure.  There are plays I have read and re-read and mapped because they work so well.  It's good to, like, take the back of the watch off and see how the gears move.  Donald Margulies' "Dinner with Friends" is one that I really studied because it packs such a wallop and looks, on its face, so simple.

Q:  Any plugs?

A:  Not for my own work.  I've got nothing up right now!  I liked Tracy Letts' new play, "Superior Donuts," a lot, and Annie Baker's "Circle Mirror Transformation."  And I think I liked them for the same reason.  The characters are living "small" lives, by which I mean... no blood, death, war, politics.  But within "small lives" (see "Our Town") there are enormous cataclysms and I love to see writers that appreciate that and truly care.

I Interview Playwrights Part 69: Darren Canady

Darren M Canady

Hometown: Topeka, Kansas

Current Town: Brooklyn, NY (Bed-Stuy and proud of it!)

Q:  Tell me about the play you're doing with the BE company. (and link please)

A:  The play is called MUDDY THE WATER. It's about what happens when a prominent minister at a Kansas City church disappears after an arrest for cruising and solicitation in a local park. The focus of the play isn't so much the minister, but how everyone within the church community is forced to reveal their own secrets, prejudices and examine their relationships with each other and their faith.

I'm supremely lucky because this is a pilot program being offered by the BE Company that they're calling The WorkBEnch Series. It's a developmental opportunity where the script is workshopped with staging and design elements thrown in. Then, we take a break in the middle of the performance period to take in audience reaction, rework the script, rehearse and then complete the rest of the run. So far, the experience has been sort of like being a theatrical mad scientist, but the collaborations with my fantastic director (Martin Damien Wilkins) and this ridiculously amazing cast have really helped move this piece along.

http://www.thebecompany.org/home.php

Q:  While you were at Juilliard, you had a show at the Alliance. Can you tell me about the play, the program there and what it was like? Also what did you think of Atlanta? (My current town)

A:  So. The play I had up at The Alliance was called FALSE CREEDS--it's the story of how a young man discovers his family's involvement in the Tulsa Disaster of 1921. For anyone who might be in the dark about that historical event: 1920s Tulsa, Oklahoma was the home of Greenwood, one of the most prosperous black communities in America--so prosperous, in fact, that it was known as "The Black Wall Street." In June of that year, however, a white mob swept through Greenwood, burned it to the ground and murdered hundreds of residents. My play dealt with not only that one horrific day, but also how a family began to try to put their life back together.

The Alliance production came about because FALSE CREEDS won their Kendeda Graduate Play Competition while I was at New York University. The competition is aimed at playwrights who are in their final year of a graduate program--the winners are given a full production in The Alliance's season. In addition, that year The Alliance partnered with The O'Neill Playwrights Conference to offer me a residency there that summer to do some intense development of the piece ahead of the Alliance premiere.

Honestly, that entire experience was sick--I mean, just truly amazing. When Celise Kalke called me from Atlanta to tell me I had won, I was at a place in my head/life where I was seriously doubting my abilities as a writer, I really needed to hear that I was saying something worth hearing. That phone call began a year-long process of really learning what play development was like from the inside. Throughout the O'Neill and Atlanta productions I got to knock heads with some of the most gifted artists and professionals I have ever encountered. What really floored me though, was that all of these people were really earnestly working to make this play the truest representation of my vision possible. Which is not to say that everything was all bubble gum and lollipops (Drama draws drama, folks), but it was an experience that there is no substitute for.

As for Atlanta, heck, who could complain about being below the Mason-Dixon Line in the middle of February?! The Alliance was a great temporary home--they took such excellent care of this know-nothing kid from Kansas clutching his little script. What I think would surprise some people is just how vibrant the arts scene in general is in Atlanta. While I was there, I had the chance to see gospel performances, the premiere of Pearl Cleage's A SONG FOR CORETTA, artwork on loan from the Louvre, local rock bands...there is plenty going on. I'd do a show down there again in a heartbeat (y'all heard that, right?!)!

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  I'm trying to wrap my head around some new play ideas I've had recently: History colliding with science fiction and social politics. There are some musical pieces as well that I provided text for that could seriously use some rewrites (as long as play development takes, operas and musicals are a flippin' eternity). Right now though, most of my attention is on shaping MUDDY THE WATER and getting as much out of that experience as possible--multi-tasking has rarely proven to be my friend.

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

A:  When I was a kid, I remember one of my uncles was known to be quite the Ladies' Man. Despite having been in a loooooooooooooooooooooong term relationship with a very lovely woman, he would quite often bring his latest jump-off over to my parent's house, believing full well that he needn't worry about my parents revealing his indiscretions. One day, after my uncle introduced me to his latest "friend" (she said I was very charming), it became quickly apparent to all the adults that I was no fool and that I knew this cheap broad was certainly not the "Auntie" I was used to seeing my uncle with. My dad pulled him aside and said: "Hey man, look here now, don't you get angry at Darren if he starts runnin' his mouth one day and lets loose that you been bringin' all these women by here. That's your fault brotha, and then, I'd have to kick your ass myself."

Now, what I find interesting is less that my dad threatened my uncle (that was par for the course), more that he already knew my personality even at that young age. To this day, I am still nosy, messy, and occasionally itchy to instigate conflict. So instead of subjecting real people to that, I do it to my characters.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Anything with an element of surprise and some theatrical magic. A compelling story that won't let me turn away.

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

A:  I have to sort of laugh at that one--that's pretty much giving advice to myself. I guess I'd say two things I've done for myself so far that I think were truly worthwhile were 1) I got over the fear of exposing myself in my writing--whatever is the most personal tends to be the most compelling, and 2) started to surround myself with creative, diverse theatre artists whom I could respect and look to for both inspiration and support.

I Interview Playwrights Part 68: Alejandro Morales

Alejandro Morales

Hometown:  Hialeah, FL . . . which is really just a carbuncle on the butt of Miami.  It's home to the famous Hialeah Race Track, which I have never been to.

Current Town:  Brooklyn, NY . . . when I lived in Queens I always used to say New York, NY and remind everyone Queens was part of New York City.  Now that I live in Brooklyn, I am very proud of the distinction.

Q:  Can you tell me about "marea"  Coming up in Dec at Here?

A:  marea was a commission from the Public Theater from about six years ago. It's the story of a woman who is obsessed with two classic Italian films from 1960--L'Avventura and Black Sunday--because they help her understand the mystery of her mother's disappearance shortly after giving birth to her.  Our heroine is at a point in her life where a lot of things are breaking down for her--her sanity, her relationship with her girlfriend, her purpose in life--and when this mysterious woman wielding a straight razor begins to haunt her apartment she's thrown into this rabbit hole of self discovery and acceptance.

It's a very challenging play for me.  For one, because it was a commission, it was the only I play I've written where I never took the time to reconcile my personal reasons for writing the play with the demands of the play itself.  I wanted to meet my deadlines and I wrote very quickly.  Little did I know that as I wrote the first draft, I was dealing with the onset of a depression that would last for about four years.  As a result, I ended up with something that was emotionally true to what I was experiencing psychologically, but I don't know if I had the ability to craft that into a workable play until now.  This play takes a lot out of me physically.  Every time I've had a workshop of it, I got a physical malady related to it.  The characters are obsessed with seeing and the heroine is an asthmatic so I've had two bouts of pink eye and pneumonia while working on rewrites.  Drowning figures heavily in the play so I avoided swimming pretty much all summer.  It's weird.  I've taken to wearing a rosary while working on it.  I've never had that happen with a play before.

Packawallop got a grant from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council to work on a theater piece that incorporated video and multi-media and because of the influence of film on this play, we felt that it would be a good project for this grant.  What we're doing at HERE in December is the first hour of the play.  Our goal is to work on the crazier second half over the course of next year and fundraise for a full production.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  This January I had a small show at the Metropolitan Playhouse called william bell.  It's a one act response to Billy Budd by Melville.  I've been interested in Melville and the paintings of Turner for a while and the themes of man's vulnerability to nature have been on my mind.  I was very proud of william bell and I am writing a companion piece for it called the golden vanity about four men during a hurricane on Fire Island.  I'm very excited about it and curious to see what sort of evening the two plays make.  They seem to touch on ideas of materialism, self-worth and true human connection in the face of crisis--economic, natural and spiritual.

Q:  How old were you when you got into New Dramatists?  12?  Can you talk about them and who they are as a support system?

A:  I was 26, but I felt 12.  I had written two plays and got in.  I was very honored especially since I had just completed an internship there and saw what a great place it was.  However, many of the writers there at the time were older and a little further along in their careers.  I had never even had a production in New York at the time.  I felt very intimidated and I wish I had had the courage to own up to that instead of pretending to know more than I did.  In the end, however, I felt like I grew up at New Dramatists.  I cannot imagine a more appropriate place to learn to be a playwright.  One of the best lessons I learned there is that I can take a lot of responsibility for my process.  ND places a lot of emphasis on the membership defining the ways the organization works.  We were constantly asked to think about what we needed as writers and to articulate that.  I've brought that into every aspect of my work.  I think about that at my desk or at rehearsal.  I've brought it into notes sessions.  I feel like I can enter a development process or a production process and really take care of myself and my play . . . and as a result be a better collaborator.

I also think the way New Dramatists works is the gold standard for non-profit arts organizations.  I was a development intern there before I was a member, and I have brought a lot of what I learned about how ND works to Packawallop.  It's remarkable to me the amount of dedication and love the staff has for the organization and the membership and the alumni.  I know a big challenge for ND fundingwise is to quantify what they do to funders since they don't produce.  And it is an amazing thing that they are able to stay true to the original paradigm of what a non-profit is supposed to do.  They are not a corporation.  They are a service organization, a community.  I find that to be a rarity these days as non-profits are forced to think like for-profits to survive (sadly, we live in a world that doesn't understand what not-for-profit is.  If you can't make money, why bother?).  That feeling of community is something Scott and I strive for at Packawallop.  I'd love to make a living as a writer, but I also make theater for the feeling of personal satisfaction that gives.  Places like New Dramatists remind me that that satisfaction one gets from sharing with a community is just as important.

Q:  Tell me about your theater company (and film company), Packawallop Productions.  Well, actually, I know all about Packawallop but my readers may not.  How did the company come about and what have you done and what are you doing next?

A:  Packawallop was founded in 1995 by a bunch of us former NYU/Tisch folks (I was actually the only current student among the founders . . . everyone else had just graduated).  We've been through a lot of changes structurally and aesthetically since then, but we've always been a company that has been interested in exploring sexual/cultural/gender identity in stylistically elegant and sophisticated productions.  We're very focused on collaboration and community and strive to create a company of writers, directors, actors and designers who share similar values . . . as well as establishing a strong rapport with our audience.  We like to envision every event as an extended cocktail party.  The audience are very much our guests and we like to make them feel welcome (that and I think we just like cocktail parties a lot!)

Since 2002, Scott Ebersold and I have been co-helming the company.  We're sort of a two-headed monster.  I don't know where I end and Scott begins.  We have a core group--Susan Louise O'Connor, Polly Lee, Marc Solomon and Julian Stetkevych--who work with us on the running of the company.

Right now we're gearing up for Marea at HERE, we're submitting The Moment (the film we worked on with you) to festivals, we're running our brand new monthly salon The Pack for our community of artists and lastly we're planning our 2010 Lounge Series of work in progress presentations.

Q:  Isn't Susan Louise O'Connor the bomb?

A:  I worked with Susan for 3 years or so on the silent concerto.  It was an unusual project because it was my very first play (from when I was 20) and Scott and I brought it back mostly for Susan.  It ended up being a big challenge for me as a writer because sometimes the plays you write when you're 20 are hard to revisit 10 years later ... but every time I watched the show (and I think I've seen like 40 performances of it including readings and workshops), I felt immensely honored to have an actor as on the money as Susan in it.  It's interesting to watch her work because it's like seeing someone do embroidery.  She really knows how to piece together these very complex emotional moments.  I also know that when I work with Susan, I need to be very very very on top of my game.  She asks a lot of questions and is very thorough about her moment to moment work.  She's really helped me to understand character arcs and beat work in a new way working with her for all those years.

I'm actually very lucky to have three actors I like to work with a lot involved with Packawallop--Susan, Polly Lee and Julian Stetkevych (They can probably do a great SNL style satire of my work by now).  It's really helpful to have actors to write for.    There's an amazing symbiotic relationship there.  And an amazing level of trust.  These three actors have repeatedly taken crazy leaps with me and have been wonderful companions on the journey to discovering a play.

Q:  Isn't Scott Ebersold amazing?

A:  A couple years ago, when Fred Ebb of Kander and Ebb died, Scott sent me this article from The New York Times about how John Kander was dealing with the death of this longtime collaborator.  I know it sounds morbid talking about my very much alive friend and collaborator this way, but when I read that article, I knew I'd feel exactly as John Kander did if I were to ever lose Scott.

We always joke that what we have is like a marriage, but really that's exactly what it is.  We've been friends and collaborators for 17 years now.  It's the longest relationship I've had with anyone save my family.  Like all long term relationships, it has its ups and downs, but we're in it for the long haul.  He's believed in my work from the very very beginning.  I'm talking like the "18 year old read my emo poetry" beginning.  That kind of sustained and unwavering belief is invaluable.  Thinking about it now, I feel really floored by that.

I think one of the things our longstanding relationship helps us do is be very flexible while working together.  We just can pretty much tell what the other is doing and we can easily blur the lines of playwright and director as a result--he'll suggest a fix for a problematic scene that is pretty much what I've been trying to find or he'll ask me to deal with a sound cue in tech while he's working out a light cue because we're pretty much always on the same page with these things.

We did something unusual for william bell.  We decided to (with the exception of some sound design) to put together the entire production ourselves.  We came up with the idea together and then we pretty much designed the whole show.  I loved that we went to Ikea and bought the set together.   I was very proud of that production.  It was a very pure distillation of our aesthetic . . . and as simple as it was, it looked like a million bucks.

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

A:  When I was about 12, my mother took me to the doctor for a checkup.  Puberty was beginning and of course there was much discussion about my changing body.  My mother asked my doctor about how tall I would end up being.  He said I probably wouldn't grow much more.  I had hit my growth spurt already and that was that.  My mother had this incredibly crushed and disappointed look on her face.  I never understood her disappointment because there are no tall people in my family . . . but disappointed she was.  I don't know exactly what my mother was thinking and asking her doesn't help because she's great with selective memory, but she did take me to several other doctors for a 2nd opinion.  Perhaps she just wanted to make sure she did everything she can to ensure I'd be happy and free of problems, but when you're entering puberty and you get the impression you're somehow defective and not good enough just as you are, it really sticks with you.  For better or for worse, this idea of smallness has permeated me entirely.

Anyone who knows my work knows, there is not a capital letter to be found anywhere.  It's probably the only bit of youthful pretension I've held on to all these years, but I've always felt like a lowercase letter in a world of capitals and what I write, what comes out of a true and honest place in me is only made up of lowercase letters.  I want to make beautiful things from that feeling and concept of smallness and I feel like omitting capital letters from the scripts it somehow infuses the work with that idea.  I even named my blog lowercaseletter; it's something I'm very much invested in.

I've since been pushing the concept of smallness by embracing shorter forms.  william bell was the first one act I've ever written and I really liked the format.  I like the economy.  In the past, I was so eager to impress my audience I'd try to wow them with all these concepts and metaphors and literary allusions.  I think my new play and the plays coming after that will be striving towards making one simple gesture.  I'm also not interested in writing a two act play at the moment.  I'm striving for 70-90 minutes with this new one.  Short and sweet.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I recently saw a video of Mary Zimmerman's controversial production of La Sonnambula at the Met.  Zimmerman's concept was to set this opera about young lovers thwarted by the heroine's sleepwalking problem in a rehearsal studio as we were watching an opera company basically rehearsing the opera and seeing how some of the plotlines bled into their "real" lives.  Maybe this says something about why I'm not on Broadway, but this supposedly REVILED production had me in tears.  One thing I respected about it was the it's particular style of storytelling.  There were very mundane props in the production that took on a different meaning when placed alongside the music and the emotions of the characters.  A blackboard became a love letter, on opera score ripped to shreds became a breaking heart, the orchestra pit became an abyss of despair the sleepwalking heroine was about to fall into as she sang about her heartbreak on the edge of a plank hovering above the musicians.  There was always a sense of discovery going on in that production that kept me delighted and engaged.

I really like theater that does extraordinary things in a simple way.  I remember there was a time a few years ago I would see all these plays with working kitchens.  Other than Eduardo Machado's The Cook, which doesn't work without a practical kitchen . . . I didn't understand why all this work went into making a set where there was running water and a working stove.   It makes me feel like the artists involved don't want to engage me, they don't want me to use my imagination to co-create the stage picture with them.  Theater is collaborative in every sense of the word.  In performance the audience HAS to collaborate with the play to make it work.  I'm not interested in a realism that shuts me out of that collaboration.  To me it lacks the magic and poetry that I expect from the theater.  A theatrical experience becomes special when I have put a little bit of myself in it.  The story, the characters, the language become parts of me by the time the houselights come up.

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

A:  1.  Write every day.  Even if it's for ten minutes a day.  The real world will crush your creative spirit if you don't make an effort to make writing a part of your every day life.  It's got to be.  2.  Do everything you can to be produced.  Even if you have to do it yourself in your living room.  You cannot learn if your plays work via staged readings.  The most valuable lessons I have learned from my work have been from production experiences.  3.  Don't be alone.  Find other writers or theater artists.  Make a community.  I cannot stress this enough.  Theater is about getting together with other people in a room.  I think theater folk generally love to be together and there is an amazing amount of support out there.  I can't name the number of times little exchanges at parties have led to plays, or casting decisions, or workshops, or collaborations.  I think our most valuable resource in the theater are our colleagues.

Q:  Plugs please:

A:  I have a book of three of my plays out on NoPassport Press.  It's called Alejandro Morales collected plays and you can get it on Amazon or Lulu.com.  It's got expat/inferno, sebastian and an earlier version of marea.  I appear regularly with NoPassport's Hibernating Rattlesnakes at Nuyorican Poets Cafe.  Marea opens December 3 and runs four performances at HERE.  Packawallop's Lounge Series kicks off in January 2010.  More details to come.  Visit my blog at lowercaseletter.wordpress.com and visit Packawallop at www.packawallop.org.

I Interview Playwrights Part 67: Ann Marie Healy

Ann Marie Healy

Hometown:  I grew up in Minneapolis.

Current Town:  I just moved back to New York after grad school. New York--Brooklyn specifically--feels like home these days.

Q:  Tell me please about your show coming up at Lincoln Center.

A:  It's the story of a novelist trying to get her book published but it happens to be set in a futuristic world with all sorts of deception and political intrigue. The protagonist, Macy, ultimately makes a kind of "Faustian bargain" to publish her book and we see the implications of her choice ripple throughout an entire society. Also, just for kicks, there are no men in the play. (Adding a little twist on pregnancy and reproduction...)

Q:  I know you're working with Ken Rus Schmoll again on this. What do you like most about working with him?

A:  It's hard to narrow it down. Ken is a total delight in every sense of the word. He thinks very intuitively and sensitively in the moment. When a question comes up, he takes the time to search for the deepest, richest and most interesting answer possible. His eye for design and an elegant stage picture is also totally inspiring. I could go on and on...Clearly, I'm a big fan.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  I'm working on some pieces that I started at Brown and I'm in the process of finishing some early drafts of commissions. I am also working on a non-fiction book that is set to come out with Random House later in 2010.

Q:  How did you like Brown?

A:  I loved it. I came from New York where I was scrambling to make money and do my work and feeling generally burnt out. Brown was playwriting heaven after that period of my life. Paula Vogel, Bonnie Metzgar and the other people in the program were like orbs of inspiration and energy. I don't think I really slept the first few days I was in class because I had such an adrenaline rush.

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

A:  Hmmm.....Once, I climbed high up in a tree with an open umbrella, convinced that my sheer powers of belief would enable me to fly. I jumped, came crashing down immediately and hurt myself very badly. I can't remember what age I was when this happened but I suspect that I was a little too old to be doing such things. On some level, this probably says something about the act of writing and my own faith in the artistic process. Perhaps, more importantly, it is solid proof that gravity exists (just in case there were any non-believers out there....)

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I have pretty broad tastes and interests in theater but I almost always respond to tonal dissonance. If something surprises me in its tonal shifts, I am usually hooked.

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

A:  There is no one set path for playwriting and everyone makes their way differently. I think the most important thing is to choose collaborators who genuinely inspire you. The rest will take care of itself...


Link for Lincoln Center show:
http://www.lct.org/showMain.htm?id=190

Link to the About Face Production of What Once We Felt later this winter:
http://aboutfacetheatre.com/