I Interview Playwrights Part 121: Laura Jacqmin

Laura  Jacqmin

Hometown: Shaker Heights, OH

Current Town: Chicago, IL

Q:  You're going to Sundance.  Congrats!  Can you talk about the play you're bringing there?

A:  Sure! The play is called "Look, we are breathing." It's about the death of a teenage boy and how the three main women in his life - his mother, his AP English teacher, and his most recent party hookup - just aren't sad about his death. I was planning to write a monologue play, but I cheated almost immediately: less than one page in, Mike (the deceased) shows up, and he continues to influence the direction of the play. I wanted to explore the death of a young person and the conflicted feelings those closest to him might have felt - particularly if this kid was pretty much a stranger to everyone. I thought I was a fully-formed person when I was a teenager, but I know better now.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  A weight-loss thriller comedy. No title yet. And DENTAL SOCIETY MIDWINTER MEETING, a hypertheatrical ensemble comedy about dentists set at the Skokie Marriott. Also, trying to chug through Chicago's endless winter - it always feels the worst in February.

Q:  What theaters or plays should I check out when in Chicago?

A:  There's no simple way to answer this question. Simply put, there are a million theater companies in Chicago and the fact that even the best rental venues are shockingly cheap means that there's way too much going on for a person to see even a small sampling. I'll be checking out Steppenwolf's Garage Rep next month (three shows by itinerant companies in the Garage space). Other exciting companies include Redmoon, Teatro Luna, The Strange Tree Group, and my home base, Chicago Dramatists.

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

A:  My sister and I loved radio when we were kids, so we would plug a microphone into the stereo and record our own radio shows on cassette tapes. We would do fake interviews with each other and pretend to be bands (I thought I was a truly excellent singer in third grade) and describe what we had done that day. I would never listen to what we recorded because I hated the sound of my own voice. Also, I liked to ask my dad to put on something by Stravinsky (usually Pulcinella or The Rite of Spring) and do "ballet" on the living room rug in a fake ballet outfit. I had no dance training, but I was absolutely convinced I was doing it right.

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

A:  Less fear. More honesty.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I like story. I can sometimes be amused by gimmickry, but unless I have some concrete story to latch onto, I get exasperated. I also really enjoy being frightened by theater, which happens very, very rarely. A friend of mine directed a program of Beckett's shorts in college, and during "Not I" I just freaked out. It was terrifying and wonderful.

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

A:  Do your work, and work hard at it. Know where you're going with a project before you begin it, or at the very least, what you want to say. And don't get bitter; it's a time-waster and it never leads anywhere.

Q:  Plugs:

A:  I'm so proud of my fellow At Play Productions company members Harrison Rivers and Colette Robert, who will also be at Sundance with me, working on Harrison's play "When Last We Flew."

I Interview Playwrights Part 120: Stanton Wood

Stanton Wood

Hometown:  Southern California

Current Town:  Brooklyn, NY

Q:  Tell me about these one person shows you wrote for library tours. What are they about and how did you come to write them? Where can I go to see them?

A:  I’ve written three shows specifically for Urban Stages on Tour, which is a program that tours small-cast plays and arts-in-education projects throughout the New York City public library system (New York Public Library, Brooklyn Public Library, and Queens Public Library). At the Pole is about the discovery of the North Pole; Gates of Equality is about Martin Luther King; The Silkie is a collaboration with director Jon Levin that uses shadow and hand puppets and live music to tell a modern Brooklyn version of the Celtic legend about the sea people – seals who can shed their skin and walk around as people. The first two are monologue plays, and The Silkie is basically a story theatre piece with two actors and a violinist. Each show is about 30-40 minutes long and has to be simple and self-composed in its theatricality. It has to be transportable on the subway or a car, and the spaces radically vary – some performances are basically in a corner of the stacks, while some libraries actually have theatres with stages, and an audience can number anywhere from 9 to 130.

I ended up writing these because of my ongoing relationship with the company. Urban Stages produced several of my plays for young audiences on their main stage. One of those plays, my adaptation of The Snow Queen, had already toured the libraries as a staged reading, so I was familiar with the program and a natural fit when they decided to commission new work. You can find dates/times/locations on the web sites of the specific library systems (Queens: http://www.queenslibrary.org

Brooklyn: http://www.brooklynpubliclibrary.org


and New York: http://www.nypl.org

I try to keep a list on my web site (http://www.stantonwood.com ), and Urban Stages also keeps a list. I’m very fond of these projects. They probably have a truer cultural impact on my community than anything else I do.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  I’m working on an adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein for director Edward Elefterion and Rabbit Hole Ensemble, where I’m a resident artist. This is my third adaptation for them – I did a version of Dracula (The Night of Nosferatu) and last summer a version of Voltaire’s Candide (Candide Americana). My goal is to have half the audience running out screaming and waving their arms in the air and the other half quietly rushing home to clone their cousin. I’m not even sure I’m kidding about that. It’s a great story, and I’m excited to put my own spin on it.

I’m also developing a play with director Matt Morrow called An Apology for the Life of Leni Reifenstahl. That’s a multimedia project that explores the life of “Hitler’s film maker” - as an artist, as a fascist propagandist, her political identity, her relationship with Hitler, her claims of art for art’s sake, and her relentless quest to define her own identity, often in contrast to reality. The woman is grotesquely fascinating, and working on this play is like staring at a really strange half-dead bug on my kitchen floor.

I’m also working on a novel, and a play for young audiences, and I have a monologue play I’m trying to put together. I also have this interactive narrative fairy tale annotation project I’ve been desperately wanting to do, and I’d also really like to do some radio drama in podcast form or as performance art.

Q:  Tell me about the Garden Project.

A:  I like to do little side projects that force me to think differently and collaborate with other types of artists, and I’d been doodling with the idea of doing a blog, but I didn’t want to do a real theatre blog because I’m too obsessive and passionate and would spend the entire day crafting complex manifestos that I would then eventually delete before posting.

So I opted for a fake blog, instead. I asked Chris Bonnell, who’s a visual artist and illustrator, if he’d be interested in collaborating, and we cooked up this project called The Unbelievably Strange Wildlife Garden(which you can access from my web site if you’re interested). With absolutely no guidance from me, Chris draws an unbelievably strange creature (quite literally), and then I take his illustration and name it and write up a description of it in a phony Wikipedia style, fictionally integrating it into history, culture, literature, art, the movies, etc. We’re not trying to fool anybody really, it’s more like documenting a completely parallel universe all our own. In addition to the blog posts, sometimes we’ll bring the blog into the “real world” through flyers and leaflets, like when we posted flyers in Park Slope asking people to help us find Gurgles, our missing pet Abyssinian Leaf Sneezer. I also came across these hilarious mid-20th Century black and white photos of the Iowa State Fair a while ago, so they became my vacation photos from a recent trip to a phony European country, which I also documented in the Garden. It’s completely silly, but what the heck. I just hope some Middle School student is not plagiarizing a homework assignment using a description of the Hump Backed Arctic Snake Dog:

Q:  What is it like creating characters in the gaming industry?

A:  It varies by game and genre, of course, and the level of involvement of the writer in the design process. Sometimes writers are brought in at the tail end to buff up the dialogue and create more interesting personalities for minor characters. At the other extreme, you’re involved in the design process, in which case you have the opportunity to make character choices that actually contribute to the gameplay and story.

Part of narrative game design is giving players meaningful choices, so that means that secondary characters you create have to respond dynamically to those decisions. It becomes more like contributing characters and dialogue to a play where you don’t have complete control over the main character, a dramatic story universe. What choices you allow the player, and how the characters respond to those choices in the context of their own goals, becomes part of the writing process.

For instance, some games feature traveling companions with whom you build relationships - as a player, over the course of the game you can make game decisions and dialogue choices that can either piss them off to the point where they abandon you, or make them fall in love with you. Crafting that dynamic universe of character, story, behavior and dialogue - that potentiality - is what’s exciting. You have a lot more control over the whole character because you deal with many more possibilities, but you have less control over how a player/audience experiences that character because they basically choose the content. It’s interesting, because theatre artists seem to be increasingly experimenting with theatrical experiences that respond dynamically to audience input in a meaningful way. We’re all going to be writing for the holodeck eventually.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I like story, and strong characters, and physicality. I like to enter a world and be transported, but I also like when the show is intensely and passionately relevant to the community. I love it when the audience is acknowledged, even if it’s not breaking the fourth wall, but where we’re included, where there’s generosity. I like to see physicality, actors using their whole body, not just their head and their hands, where a universe can be sketched with a specific gesture or bodies moving in space. I enjoy when I have to engage imaginatively with a piece - when there’s puppets, or music, or actors playing many roles, or the performance invites me to use my imagination. I love it when a show uses the whole space, when actors get on the ground or fly around in the sky. I love great writing, great insight, great ideas that haunt me after the show is over - meaningful experiences, where a writer dug deep, was brave, experimented, and where a director and actors made bold, confident choices.

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

A:  Plastics. No, but seriously: Diversify. Even successful playwrights augment their income by other kinds of writing and by teaching.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Well, Rabbit Hole Ensemble will be producing my version of Frankenstein (as yet no title) in October in Manhattan. I’m doing a workshop of my play Ramona’s Kidnapper in late May at Urban Stages, which theoretically culminates in a staged reading. Gates of Equality, At the Pole, and The Silkie are touring the New York City libraries this spring. Also, something I’m very excited about, the New York Public Library is doing a 250th anniversary celebration of Voltaire’s Candide, and they’ve asked the Candide Americana team to be involved. I’m annotating an online version of the book (Chapters 3 and 20), and director Edward Eleferion and I and the cast will be blogging. The public will be able to add content also, I believe. It’s basically designed to be a big group dialogue and celebration of a great book, and I can’t wait to see how it plays out. Part of it is live already, although perhaps not the part I’ve contributed to. But don’t let that stop you. I’m not sure, but I believe the address is http://candide.nypl.org

 

I Interview Playwrights Part 119: Jamie Pachino

Jamie Pachino

Hometown: Baltimore, Maryland

Current Town: Los Angeles

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  A television movie, a pass on a feature spec that's about to go out, and (pending rights issues): a new musical. I'll also be teaching playwrighting at University of California, Irvine again in March.

Q:  If I moved to LA tomorrow, what theaters or shows would you suggest I check out?

A:  This is a tricky question for me, as I moved to LA when I was 6 months pregnant and had another child a few years later, so I haven't seen as much theatre out here as I would like. (I'm much better versed in Chicago theatre, where I lived for 14 years). For me it tends to be individual productions that have captured my attention in LA, rather than specific companies (which tend to be somewhat fluid out here, given the industry) so my allegiance hasn't really settled anywhere.

Q:  What are the difficulties and rewards inherent in writing for TV, film as opposed to theater?

A:  I think all of the mediums right now are experiencing similar challenges, given the current economic climate. People tend to be looking for a "sure thing" and skittish about material that takes chances. Theatre-wise, there are fewer and fewer slots made available for new work, and less interest in giving those slots to writers without a "name". In addition, development opportunities are slipping away, so it's hard to form the relationships that lead an unproven writer to getting those chances in the first place. All this is especially frustrating because I think many of the plays that have come in the last 5-10 years have been astonishingly good.

On the plus side, for me theatre still offers the two best parts of writing: true collaboration, and the ability to take great flights of imagination. I honestly love nothing more than sitting in a dusty rehearsal room with actors and a director I trust, trying to get the best draft possible out of my script-- along with the opportunity to break the rules, be theatrical, and play with language in a way that simply doesn't translate to film or TV.

Film and TV wise, obviously the pay is a lot better (if you're going to live in LA with two kids, this is a big plus!). It also offers more exposure for your work, and a completely different set of skills to operate around. (Coming from a theatre background, learning the language of film and how to use it wisely has been a great learning experience, and really gratifying when I've gotten it right). I've also had a chance to dissect different genres as I've been fortunate enough to write for animation, drama, thriller, historical romance, true-to-life stories, and more-- all of which keeps me on my toes.

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

A:  I love the stories on your blog, but I don't have any aha moment or strange/delightful background story to share on this. I will tell you that while I studied to be an actress in college, both my father and my acting teacher kept telling me I was going to be a writer. Took me a few years to see the light, but they were right.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Nearly all of it excites me, but the material I'm most drawn to is bold.--Not meaning the set/stage is large-- but bold in language, theatricality, and ideas. I'm completely drawn to theatre that demands something back, that engages and enthralls, that has a big heart, and something to say, and can be entertaining and surprising along the way. (Not too much to ask, right?)

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

A:  Keep writing. Don't just finish one masterpiece and be done. A theatre may love your work-- but not have a slot for it-- and when they ask "what else have you got?" you want 3 more scripts ready to hand over. Plus, the only way you get better and find the core of your voice, is to keep writing.

In addition, relationships are incredibly important. I've been represented by two of the biggest agencies in the world, but EVERY SINGLE PRODUCTION I've ever gotten was because of a connection I had already made. Directors are the ones that walk your scripts into theatres; lit managers read everything, and if they fall in love with something but can't use it at their space, they'll send it to their lit manager friends (they also constantly move to new theatres); actors work all over and talk about scripts they're dying to do-- everybody talks. As a corollary to this: be pleasant to work with, all the time. It's hard enough to get your work up and it's a verrrrry small community. If you're a pain to work with, people will know.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  My plays WAVING GOODBYE and THE RETURN TO MORALITY can be found at Playscripts, Inc. (www.playscripts.com).

My play SPLITTING INFINITY was just named the winner of the Francesca Primus Prize.

For more: www.jamiepachino.com

I Interview Playwrights Part 118: Boo Killebrew

Boo Killebrew

Hometown:   Gulfport, Mississippi

Current Town:   Brooklyn, New York

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I just finished a script called "The Play About My Dad". Right now, I am working on revising it and getting it ready for a workshop in the Spring. I also just returned from a residency at Robert Wilson's Watermill Center with my theatre company, CollaborationTown. We began working on a new project (an ensemble created piece) about the self-help industry. I also am working with a sketch group, LaughterBirth. We are writing, filming and performing new sketches--it has been a lot of fun!

Q:  Tell me about your theater company. How did it come about?

A:  My theatre company is called CollaborationTown and we have been working together since 2003. We are a non-profit (we have a 501c3 status-yay!) and are committed to the development of new plays. One of our goals is to step outside of individual, traditional roles in order to unify different styles, opinions, emotions, backgrounds and philosophies into cohesive ensemble-driven pieces of theatre. We do a lot of ensemble created pieces, as well as more traditional "one playwright, one director" type projects. The seven founding members of CTown came together at Boston University's School of Fine Arts. We began working together there, and upon graduation, moved to New York and officially started CollaborationTown. The values that led to CollaborationTown’s founding; hard work, experimentation, and community, remain central to my identity as an artist.

Q:  You are also an actor and choreographer. How do these roles inform your playwriting and vice versa

A:  By working as a choreographer and actress, I’ve learned to write more physically and actively, as to understand theatre more completely. The whole of the theatrical process nourishes every aspect of storytelling for me. It is hard for me to focus on just one thing at one time: if I am acting, I am writing a story; if I am writing a story, I am choreographing bodies onstage; and when I am choreographing, I am investing in characters, so I am acting....it goes in circles like that for me and then becomes one big thing that I guess can be put under the description "Storyteller". Each time I invest in a creative process, I am taking all of my tools as a theatre maker and using them to explore the work as deeply as I can.

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

A:  Well, I had an imaginary family. My sister didnt have an imaginary friend, so I created a family that had two sisters, so that she would have one. I knew (and still know) exactly what they wore, what they were allergic to, what they wanted to be when they grew up. There was Katie, who was my friend; Susan, who was my sister's friend; there was Mary, their older sister who was away at college, but would come home from time to time and was always getting into trouble; and there was Baby Wanner...he was a baby boy and we always had to baby-sit him. I have no idea where the name "Wanner" came from. Basically, there was always a bit of drama happening with the imaginary family and my real family would get daily updates. So, I guess I was writing plot and characters then.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I love theatre that is fearless, whether that has to do with experimentation, humor, performances, direction, design, etc.

Two theatrical experiences that really, really excited me were "The Lily's Revenge" by Taylor Mac and "God's Ear" by Jenny Shwartz. Both those pieces just went for it and it was thrilling to witness.
I also love plays that are funny.

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

A:  I think the advice I would have to give is to find a support system of other artists. Whether that group is comprised of close friends, frequent collaborators, or is formed through a theatre; I think being a part of an artistic community is essential. I believe that continuing to hear other's work and ideas, as well as bearing witness to many creative processes, in an incomparable learning tool and a great comfort.

I would also say to write everyday. Develop it as a practice, similar to a Yoga or Zen practice and know that the actual do-ing of it is what it is all about.

Q:  Any plugs:

A:  CollaborationTown received a swing space grant the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and will be workshopping several new pieces this Spring, check out www.collaborationtown.org for details.
A short play of mine, called Date Night, is a part of a ten minute play festival this weekend at The Atlantic Theatre: Saturday February 13th at 4 PM and 8 PM, Sunday February 14th at 3 PM
Studio A @ The Atlantic Theater. 16th Between 8th and 9th Swing Space (it's free).

I Interview Playwrights Part 117: Daniel Reitz

Daniel Reitz

Hometown: Upstate New York.

Current Town: New York City.

Q: Tell me about the play you have going up at Jimmys No. 43.

A: It's a one-man piece called Afterclap -- the title refers to the unexpected fallout that happens after an affair. It's a site-specific piece, and the third site-specific play I've done in this space in collaboration with director Daniel Talbott and produced by our company, Rising Phoenix Repertory. It was written for actor Haskell King. It's about a man, a writer, who wakes up naked at 4 a.m. on the floor of a back room of a bar where he works as a bartender. Working through the fog of alcohol and pills, he hashes his way through the circumstances that's brought him to this state. He's a kind of young-man Krapp, and the play is about, among other things, the question of culpability -- when are we directly and indirectly responsible for the things that happen to others, what is it about our nature and behavior that sets off an irrevocable chain of events? How much do we even want to prevent these things from happening, if it means denying ourselves what we want? And is the torture we feel later worth it?

Q: What else are you working on?

A: A screenplay, a couple still-to-be finished plays. Things one should never discuss in depth when they're still be worked on.

Q: I actually don't think I've asked anyone yet about New Dramatists. Can you talk a little about what they do and what it's like to be a playwright in residence there?

A: New Dramatists is a true haven, a safe house in a lousy world for playwrights. Apparently, playwrights whine too much, or so I read recently somewhere, so I'll skip the "lousy world for playwrights" stuff, as any playwright knows exactly what I'm talking about, anyway. But the existence of New Dramatists is a buffer against the abuse, the disinterest, the dismissiveness of producers, agents, all kinds of professionals for whom the interests and desires of playwrights are not a first priority. New Dramatists is a community of very talented, disparate, driven writers who come together to share, inspire, share booze and food, and occasionally get into fights. It's a place where you can do readings and workshops anytime you want, under any circumstances you choose; a place where you can live if you need or want to (temporarily); where you sometimes even get paid to develop your work and where you can work with whomever you choose, not who's chosen for you. And it's a building full of the most loving, caring staff any organization could ever claim to have. I'm not a hyperbolic person; when I say these people are loving, I mean it.

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

A: That's a good, hard question. So much stems from childhood, right? I honestly can't think of any one thing that's not too personal or intimate. Your entire childhood informs you -- where you grew up, who your parents were, what economic background you came from. Sexuality. All that.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: Theatre that's not banal, not like tv or the movies, that's not written by committee or feels like it has, that's honest and takes real risks without being concerned with being "perfect," "finished," or "polished." Theatre where the writer, the actors and the director are fearless, but fearless along with possessing technique and intelligence. Theatre that employs wry, sharp, non-clichéd language. That jolts us and makes us feel acutely aware of being alive in this world, even if that's a deeply discomforting feeling, because theatre isn't necessarily supposed to make you feel pleased with yourself or happy to be alive. We don't ask that or expect that from the visual arts, from literature, from music. We often look to those art forms to elevate us, to tell us something. Why do we continually demand less from theatre?

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

A: Read and copy who you love, and eventually you will see what draws you to that person and what you have in common, and you will find your own voice -- slowly -- and then you will write for yourself. Always steal from the best, certainly from those who are better and smarter and have lived longer than you. Don't be disheartened by the lousy world that playwrights have to live in, because it is lousy -- unless you're lucky. Know that saying “no” can be a positive thing, and it won't lead to the end of everything. Stand up for yourself, because more people than you realize will try to disenfranchise you, whether or not they even mean to do it. Always proceed with a healthy spleen and very good humor. And remember that with no playwrights there would be no theatre, and no theatre business.

Q: Plugs, please:

A: Afterclap. It's a 40-minute piece about a man in misery. As Beckett said, nothing's funnier than that.


Check out Daniel's interview at the Clyde Fitch Report

I Interview Playwrights Part 116: Alan Berks

Alan Berks

Hometown: Chicago, Illinois

Current Town: Minneapolis, MN

Q:  Tell me about Music Lovers coming up in March.

A:  It's a love-triangle, romantic comedy thing about two musicians and a record executive, and the Workhaus Collective is producing at the Playwrights Center in March. I get to direct it too with an incredible cast and a set that will transform the rectangle that is the theater into a bar/coffee shop/art gallery/stage. I'm very excited. Come see it.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  I started writing a novel. Seriously. (I think you and I had a conversation about novels when you were in Minnesota. Branching out.) I just felt like I wanted to deal with a wider range of subjects, more characters, bigger picture, and – as we all pretty much know – considering the economics of theater – you can't do that in theater.

Q:  Tell me about Minnesota Playlist.

A:  MinnesotaPlaylist.com is the website that my wife, Leah Cooper, and a friend, Matthew Foster, started in October of 2008 to fill the void in the Twin Cities for a more comprehensive source for information on Twin Cities performing arts. For such a large cultural scene, we thought there should be a trade publication of some kind. Also, we thought it would be fun. Sometimes, it's fun. Sometimes, it's a lot more work than we bargained for. But we're a central source for audition notices and a comprehensive performance calendar. We aggregate all the critic's reviews on the site and also provide a searchable database of talent in the Twin Cities. We also do monthly issues on various topics in the performing arts and get artists and arts journalists to write thought-provoking, or how-to, or memoir essays over the course of the month. . . What does it say that I can write more about this publication than I can about the show I'm so excited to be doing in March? It frightens me a little.

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

A:  I would actually fire every Artistic Director at every non-profit regional theater across the country, whether they were thought to be doing a good job or not, and replace them with someone fifteen years younger who has been running a completely independent but successful small theater in the same town.

Why the hell not? People keep talking about theater dying; maybe it's because theater leaders have bad taste, or are too set in their ways, or too isolated, or something. Seems to me we should do something more dramatic than have another conference about how we can improve our social networking marketing. Let's change something real and dramatic, something about the content that gets produced. In a way, I don't care what one thing it is as long as it's big.

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

A:  This is a great question. I think that if this were the question on grant applications that I was asked – instead of the describe-your-vision-as-an-artist question (Answer: depends on the time of day. . . ) – I might get more grants. . . And yet, now that I sit down to write about it, I go blank. . .

Here's one: The first script I ever wrote was a three-part sketch for the variety show in my high school. It was a parody of old-fashioned noir films, working on which I met the guy who would quickly become my best friend. Then, on opening night, I stepped out on stage in a trench-coat with a bubble gum cigarette dangling from my mouth and a fedora on my head and before I even opened my mouth to speak I heard a girl in the front row say, "He's cute." Then I started the monologue, and everyone started laughing, and kept laughing at all the right places. . . I think theater people are sometimes idealists because sometimes life in the theater is ideal.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I like anything that is done well in any style on any subject though generally I enjoy active stories about adult people who actually do stuff in the world more than I like miniscule psychological analysis about people overwhelmed by their lives or archetypal abstraction that aren't about people at all. I like both language and very physical styles of theater. I like dance a lot these days. I like when theater makers remember that the theater is three-dimensional, that actors have bodies, and people – even in script-based plays - communicate with more than their tongues, teeth, and the location of their feet in relation to the fourth wall.

I get excited by plays where the playwright thinks that people other than him or herself are dumb, by plays that substitute clever for compassionate, or think that compassion is actually discovering that other people actually exist and they suffer. But that's a negative kind of excitement.

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

A:  I'd like to say, don't do it, but that's clearly not going to stop anyone really. Instead, I'd say that you shouldn't expect to make a living at it, and you should see that as allowing you the freedom to make the kind of theater you really like rather than the kind of theater that other people tell you is supposedly more commercially viable. No one, even the big regional theaters, is making commercially viable theater, so fuck 'em. There's always a bunch of serious or committed other theater artists to collaborate with. Find them and do what you want. . . Unless you're into musical theater. Then I don't know what you should do. Your theater is apparently commercially viable.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Looks like a play I wrote a few years back called "Almost Exactly Like Us" will be produced by an off-off Broadway theater company called Theater of the Expendable. I wrote it for a theater company in the Twin Cities called Gremlin Theater, and it came in wild and woolly and just barely in time for opening, so I'm happy that I'll get another chance to see it done. I actually became pretty proud of it in the end. (That's a plug for Gremlin Theater too.)

A bunch of Workhaus playwrights are doing a show at the Humana Festival this year with Dominique Serrand, formerly of Theatre de la Jeune Lune. I'm happy to plug them. They're friends.

Send us topic suggestions for MinnesotaPlaylist.com. That's also a plug.

if you're in Minnesota for the Fringe Festival in August, I'll probably be doing an ensemble-created, site-specific piece called "Ringtone." Come check that out.

I Interview Playwrights Part 115: Erik Ehn

Photo Credit Kagami 

Erik Ehn

Hometown: Dallas

Current Town: Providence

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  15 play cycle on the history of 20th century America through the lens of genocide. Soulographie.

Q:  Can you talk a little about "Arts in the One World"?

A:  Fifth iteration. Follow up to rat. Building an ensemble/conversation around art for social change in international community. Draft (draft!) agenda attached.

Draft Agenda 12/30/09
ARTS IN THE ONE WORLD 2010

Home: Composing the Rooted Local in the Rapid Global Environment

How the arts and social services compose, consider, and translate community

We are looking at how the sense of home – the ways it is defined and enacted – is useful as a political and esthetic argument for fidelity, trust, immanence, the safe store of memory and the reconstitution of identity. (As against? in dialogue with? industry and the nation-state.)

AOW is an annual gathering; this is our fifth convening. We pull together students, faculty, practitioners and activists across disciplines, from immediate and international communities, framing presentations and conversations open to the school and the general public. We explore various ways artistic, political, and historical purposes intersect (through reconciliation, the recovery of historical memory, and advocacy for justice).

Our partner in hosting the conference is the Interdisciplinary Genocide Study Center (Rwanda) – where the Tutsi Genocide is researched, testimony is gathered, negationism is resisted, and social space for survivors is afforded.

Wednesday, March 17
2-5 Keynote presentation: Chinua Achebe in Conversation (R+R)
5-6 Conference introductions: History and overview
6-7:30 Dinner
7:30 Performance

Thursday, March 18 – Rwanda/Uganda: The Current Scene
8-8:30 Coffee
8:30-9 Reflections and Forecasts
9-10:30 IGSC Report
10:30-11 Break
11-12:30 IGSC Session 2
12:30-2 Lunch
2-4 Keynote Speakers: Hope Azeda, Carole Karemera
4-4:30 Break
4:30-6 Panel: Arts, service initiatives: Africa/Africa-US
4:30-6 Film: Jen Marlowe – Rebuilding Hope
6-7:30 Dinner
7:30-10 Performances, Presentations:
Jill Pribylova: Okulamba Dance Company
Colleen Wagner: The Monument
Film: Abigail Disney – Pray the Devil Back to Hell

Friday, March 19 – Palestine, Israel, The Mid-East: Conversations
8-8:30 Coffee
8:30-9 Reflections and Forecasts
9-12:30 Workshop: BoxWhatBox (Part A)
9-12:30 Panel: Becoming a Diasporic Cluster
12:30-1:30 Lunch
1:30-3:30 Presentations, with Q+A:
A: Lisa Schelssinger, Ed Mast, Laura Zam: from Collaterally Damaged
B: Guitta Tahmassebi: Operation Blackout, Michael Devine: Divided Territories: Making Theatre in Kosovo, Joanna Sherman, Michael McGuigan: Bond Street projects
C: Story Circle, facilitated by Devorah Neumark
3:30-4 Break
4-5:30 Conversation:
Rula Awwad-Rafferty, Neery E. Melkonian, Dorit Cypis: on Zochrot and the Nakba, incl. Norma Musih: on the town of Sumeil
5:30-7:30 Dinner
7:30-10 Performances:
Michael Anthony Reyes Benavides, Luis Rosa: Crime Against Humanity
Lauren Weedman: Bust (tent.)

Saturday, March 20: Opening out
[All day: Film Festival – shown on a rolling basis throughout the day.]
8-8:30 Coffee
8:30-9 Reflections and Forecasts – Yesterday, today
9-12:30 Performance Workshops:
Elaine Avila, Kate Weiss
Michael Devine – BoxWhatBox (Part B)
9-10:30 Concurrent Roundtables:
Systems (Theaters, Collectives, Social Initiatives)
Groups A and B
Special Topics:
A: Actions for the Individual Artist
B: Art and Personal Identity/Healing
C: Art and the Living Archive
10:30-11 Break
11-12:30 Concurrent Roundtables:
Systems (Theaters, Collectives, Social Initiatives)
Groups A and B
Special Topics:
A: Students and Activism
B: Cultural Diplomacy
12:30-2 Lunch
2-4 Concurrent Roundtables:
The Local and International in Continuum
Groups A, B, C, D
Performance/Conversation:
The Generations Project
4-4:30 Break
4:30-6:30 Concurrent Panels:
A: Art and Peacebuilding
B: The Visual Arts
Presentation:  Lili Bernard: Ceiba De Cuba
6:30-8 COMMUNAL DINNER
8-10 Performances:
Hector Aristizabal
Sandeep Bagwati: Transience
Paula Cizmar, Carol Mack: Seven, and Cklara Moradian: Tamam
Laura Zam: Collaterally Damaged

Sunday, March 21
8-8:30 Coffee
8:30-9 Reflections and Forecast
9-10:30 Panel: Storytelling Now
10:30-11 Break
11-1 Panel: Home and Homelessness
1-2:30 Lunch, Review, and Planning

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

A:  I was seven, I was fat. I dove into a life preserver at a public pool, got stuck. Drowning, upside down - pulled out and the only way to get the preserver off was to take my shorts off in plain view. Art!

Q:  You are now the head of the playwriting program at Brown.  What are your plans for the playwrights who will be studying there?

A:  Have them write a lot. Write with an awareness of the whole U, the town, the region, etc. - To accept responsiblity as community organizers. To advocate for joy, even the joy of outrage.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  The kind that happens. What Abdoh was; community theater, anything that involves terrified people doing terrible things, or delighted people infecting the unsuspecting with delight. So, I guess, contagion.

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

A:  Get sleep, watch nutrition, stay strong and stay in trouble otherwise. Writing is a license to intrude, anywhere.

Q:  Any plugs?:

A:  Arts in the One World. Come on by!

http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Theatre_Speech_Dance/about/oneworld.html

Resources for playwrights

Places in New York to go read new plays by contemporary playwrights. 

The New Dramatists Library:

http://newdramatists.org/Library_Hours.htm

The Drama Book Shop:

http://www.dramabookshop.com/NASApp/store/IndexJsp

New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

http://www.nypl.org/locations/lpa

(You can also watch films here of plays and musicals from the recent and not so recent past, though I think you may have to reserve them ahead of time.)

I Interview Playwrights Part 114: Krista Knight

Krista Knight

Hometown: Portola Valley, CA

Current Town: La Jolla, CA

Q: What are you working on now?

A: We are about to start rehearsals for my play PHANTOM BAND in March (for the Baldwin New Play Festival here at UCSD) and there’s lots afoot with casting and designer meetings and the like. I’m starting something new so I won’t prematurely metabolize that play before we get into the rehearsal room. I’m alternating between a silent opera about a house painter obsessed with the family of a house he used to paint, and a play called SALAMANDER LEVIATHAN about a farmer named Salamander Leviathan who is being successively bled by the town schoolteacher in 19th century Wisconsin. I’m going to hear both tomorrow so I’m hoping one will float to the surface and make itself apparent as a play worth pursuit.

Q: You're getting an MFA at UCSD right now. What's that program like?

A: I love it. Naomi Iizuka (who runs the Playwriting program) is freaking fantastic. I really can’t say enough about how much she’s done for my writing and the way I approach theater. She makes me scared and excited and totally over-enthused about writing and play-making in discussion. Scared in a good way. In a – UH OH we’re going to create something and who the hell knows what it’s going to look like and if it’s going to escape and raze townships or bring people to a greater understanding of humanity– kind of way. I sweat a lot in workshop. Mostly I am grateful to be here.

The program itself is an exciting intersection of the theatrical arts – there are graduate designers, directors, actors, stage managers, choreographers, scholars, and playwrights all working in conjunction. In my second year I’ve taken greater advantage of the opportunities for interdisciplinarity. I took a sound design/telematics class in the fall, and I wrote new text for a production of LOVES LABORS LOST hybridized with a fictional Darwinian study of Sexual Selection. I also wrote the new text for an Enron-esque adaptation of Machiavelli’s play LA MANDRAGOLA.

San Diego sometimes drives me crazy. There is a gallery in La Jolla that only has sculptures of whales. Expensive glass whales. I think the door handles of the gallery are whale tales.

BUT the natural landscape here is beautiful and my German nanobiologist friend is teaching me how to surf. Also having The La Jolla Playhouse across the street is an asset. Their literary manager Gabriel Greene is dramaturging my Baldwin Play and we get tickets to some great theater.

Q: You were the fellow at P73 a few years back. How was that?

A: Despite the possibility of sounding entirely over-enthused, I loved that too. I think it’s the best career thing that’s ever happened to me. Asher and Liz took a risk on me. I proposed to write something about Intelligent Design and Evolution and came back with that piece about swarming teenagers and a molting grandmother I think they were like WHAT? But it worked out. It was such a rare and beautiful thing to have these intelligent, nurturing artistic advocates so soon out of undergrad. I would spend afternoons working on the play in their office in Brooklyn. They connected me with brilliant collaborators. That year is very special to me.

Q: You also were the impetus for P73 starting their writing group, Interstate 73. Can you tell me about that?

A: Sure! I had just moved to New York the year before and I thought it might be a good way of building an artistic community. When I first got the P73 Fellowship, Asher made a speech about making the fellowship what you wanted it to be—and they really facilitated that. I love responding to other writers and being part of a greater dialogue than what’s happening in my head and on my page.

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

A: Oh dear. Let’s see. When I was in kindergarten, or pre-kindergarten, and I would get hungry sitting at my tiny desk in class, I would reach my arms out as wide as they would go and pretend I had a large sandwich or slice of cake. I would munch this victual from side to side, recessing my hands closer and closer towards my face as the imaginary sandwich or cake was consumed. My classmates thought I was very strange. I don’t know what this explains though other than I have a vivid imagination and I am hungry.

I also don’t know anyone who could beat me at tag.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: I like theater that kicks ass. I like theater where you get all tingly and know that SOMETHING is HAPPENING. I like theater that has something naked in it—and something raw, because I think that is hard for me.

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

A: Call me, we’ll get coffee and talk shop. And I really feel like it’s an art of attrition. If you want to do it, and you love to do it, and you keep doing it, you’ll be able to do it.

Q: Any plugs?

A: If you’re in San Diego, you should see my play PHANTOM BAND April 14-24th. If you’re in LA you should see Ronald McCants’ play THE PEACOCK MEN at Company of Angels Feb 5th-March 7th. If you’re in NY you should see Lauren Yee’s play CHING CHONG CHINAMAN at Pan Asian Rep March 19th-April 11th. Go UCSD Playwrights!!

I Interview Playwrights Part 113: Steve Yockey

Steve Yockey

Hometown: Atlanta, GA

Current Town: San Francisco, CA

Q:  Tell me about Large Animal Games.

A:  It’s an irreverent little play that looks at the version of ourselves we present vs. the truths that our actions betray. And big game hunting. It opened last November in a co-world premiere between Dad’s Garage in Atlanta, GA and Impact Theatre in Berkeley, CA. Both companies enjoy taking risks and sometimes, maybe, let me get away with a bit of murder. It’s the closest thing to a true comedy that I’ve ever written. And people laughed, so that’s encouraging.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  A three-hander revenge play for Jasson Minadakis at Marin called The Thrush & The Woodpecker. Also, a commission for South Coast Rep that fuses a Japanese-American woman’s affair with Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. They might not believe I’m working on it, but I really am. Cross my heart.

Q:  Tell me about Out of Hand Theatre.

A:  OOH is an amazing company of artists deeply committed to creating theatrical events and new works that provoke and involve an audience. Never passive. Always thoughtful. Very physical. I worked collaboratively with OOH on the touring self-help seminar send-up HELP! and a commedia-inspired look at the coalescing roles of corporations, government and the media, Cartoon. The worst part of being a roaming company member is missing the intensive collaborative work. The best part is missing the chunk of regular boot camp rehearsals called “physical hell.”

Q:  You're also Playwright in Residence at Marin right now. What is it like to have a theatrical home or two?

A:  I’m at Marin on a residency through the National New Play Network. It’s a fantastic program where playwrights are integrated into the artistic staff of a theatre for one season. Whoever invented the concept of the “residency” is tops in my book. It does feel like the Bay Area has become a new kind of artistic home, especially being so close to San Francisco’s Encore Theatre where producer Lisa Steindler loudly champions my work. Back in Atlanta, theatres like Dad’s Garage and Actor’s Express continue to be the places willing to take big chances on launching my new work.

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

A:  When I was in the sixth grade, I wrote this melodramatic poem where the main character felt so alone that he stole a bunch of fireworks, watched them burn and then shot himself. All very serious. The next day, I was summoned to the guidance counselor’s office to find my English teacher comforting my anxious Father and my Mother on the verge of tears. I refused to apologize.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Primarily, anything that’s ambitious in form, storytelling or theatricality. Anything that’s rough and raw on an audience because it knows that they can take it. Anything that’s written with a confident voice so I can trust, even if I disagree or dislike something, that I’m in good hands. Also, I’m a sucker for well-done chamber musicals.

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

A:  Write as many plays as you can. Write until your head is empty and then fill it up and write again. The more you exercise those muscles, the further you can push yourself and your ideas. This is purely my experience, but I’d also say stay true to the artistic relationships you find inspiring and exciting. A big piece of unlocking the kind of resources necessary in getting your plays up will be inevitably be fueled by these sustained artistic commitments.

Q;  Plugs, please:

A:  Artistic Director Kate Warner is directing a public reading of afterlife at New Rep in Boston on Feb 8. Heavier than... opens at Insurgo Theatre Movement in Las Vegas on March 19. And in early March, a group of NYU grad actors is tackling a twisted, over-the-top one act called Wolves as a part of their Free Play festival with Kerry Whigham at the helm. That one should be fun.

I Interview Playwrights Part 112: Desi Moreno-Penson

Desi Moreno-Penson

Hometown: New York City

Current Town: New York City!!!! Why live anywhere else?

Q:  Tell me about this one person show you're writing.  How did this come about?

A:  It was so weird and beautifully sudden, like so many things in this business...my friend, Jose Yenque is a very talented Latino actor who's been featured in a lot of wonderful films and television shows like, TRAFFIC, THE X-FILES, NIP/TUCK, HEROES, SIX FEET UNDER, among others...we've known each other since the mid-90s when we were both just starting out as actors and we performed in quite a few showcases together here in the city.

Anyway, he was approached by a children's theatre organization out in Los Angeles called Enrichment Works about playing the role of well-known baseball player Roberto Clemente. Enrichment Works specializes in creating one-person shows for kids that are based on the lives of famous, historical figures. Jose really liked the idea of playing such a beloved Latino figure, but there was one snag...the piece hadn't been written yet. When they asked Jose if he knew of any Latino/a playwrights who might be interested in the project, he immediately gave them my name and contact info. The next day, the artistic director for Enrichment Works, Abby Tetenbaum, contacted me by phone...we had a nice, long chat, and that was pretty much it...thanks to the generous referral of my friend, I suddenly had a lovely commission on my hands!

I've been working on the piece since last summer and am now busy with the rewrites on the first draft. Once it's done, and if Jose’s not busy with a film or television show, he will go into rehearsals with a director and then it will be ready to tour...primarily in middle schools and libraries in and around Los Angeles and the Glen Valley region. I'll admit, since I'm not a huge fan of one-person shows, this has been a difficult process for me as a writer, but a great learning experience nonetheless.

Q:  What else are you working on? 

A:  It’s been a great year; my short play, Spirit Sex was produced as part of the 2009 Going to the River Festival at Ensemble Studio Theatre and the same piece has been selected for the next annual short plays anthology published by Smith and Kraus, THE BEST 10-MINUTE PLAYS OF 2010. Then in October, my play, Ghost Light was produced at 59E59 Theatre for a limited run, directed by Jose Zayas. Currently, I've started work on a new play, The Gift Shop of Touch and Roses, and as part of my New Year's resolutions, I'm being much tougher on myself as far as imposing deadlines. So, I'm hoping to be done with the first draft of the play by the end of May. In addition, I am writing two other short plays, as well as trying to turn another play, Screwing Rachel into a fun musical, and another, Devil Land into a novel. Also, I won the BRIO (Bronx Recognizes Its Own) Fellowship for Live Performance this past year sponsored by the Bronx Council on the Arts and as part of my final requirement for the very generous grant I received, I will be performing my two monologues, A Latina Prepares and Don’t Knock It Till You Try It at the Bruckner Bar and Grill in the Bronx on Wednesday, February 3rd at 7pm. You can check out the BCA website for all the info, http://www.bronxarts.org/ . I’ve never been there before, but I hear that there’s a lovely performance space in the back AND an art gallery…plus, I hear that the grub in this place is pretty darn good -- I guess we’ll see!

Q:  What kind of theater excites you? 

A:  I like theatre that is neither pretentious nor elitist, but is immediate, visceral, and deals with the darker issues of the human experience…anger, jealousy, greed, fear, lust, etc. I love stories that will borrow from myths and legends, the supernatural and the paranormal, urban legends…when all’s said and done, I just want an interesting story that features interesting, three-dimensional characters. And I’d prefer that they be in some sort of trouble -- big, big trouble.

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

A:  This is a difficult one for me…I started out as an actor and then went back to grad school and became a playwright, so I’ve really only been writing for about ten years now. In other words, I still feel like I’m actively working towards finding my ‘voice’ as a writer. I think the best and most practical way to answer this question would be to work hard towards finding your ‘thing’ as a playwright and then, just go for it. According to Jason Zinoman’s review of Ghost Light in the New York Times, he wrote, “The playwright Desi Moreno-Penson belongs to a new generation of theater artists reared on a diet of vampires, zombies and charming serial killers. Call this movement the Theater of Blood.”  Now, I personally LOVED being called out like that (I thought it was cool)…but at the same time, it was weird for me, too, since it wasn’t exactly what I had in mind when I started as a playwright…but so what? If my ‘process’ appears to be moving me into creepier dramatic territory, I’m not going to fight it. In fact, as a writer, I’m genuinely curious and very excited to see where it takes me. Fact is, I’m a huge horror film buff and I LOVE a good scary story!

Q:  Plugs please: 

A:  I’ve just recently seen Sexual Healing by Jonathan Leaf over at the Mint Theatre and I enjoyed it very much, and I’m now very much looking forward to seeing Teaser Cow by Clay McLeod Chapman.

I Interview Playwrights Part 111: Andrea Stolowitz

Andrea Stolowitz

Hometown: NYC

Current Town: Portland

Q:  Tell me about Memory Water that's up now in the Fertile Ground Festival.

A:  Memory Water started out when the director Samantha asked me to do an adaptation of the folk tale La Llorona. After doing much research I decided in my version to tie her story to the historical figure of Cortes' translator Malinalli. Samantha was already working with Chisao Hata for the piece and the idea was to tell a new story with text, movement and image.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  About to start a new play--not sure about exact story yet but I intend to start working in earnest in Feb. when I go to Port Townsend. I have another play (TALES OF DOOMED LOVE) being included in a theater festival there at Key City Public theater and will go for a few extra days and treat it like a writing retreat. Then I have another week at Soapstone Residency to work some more.

Q:  You are a Dramatists Guild Rep.  What does that mean and what do your duties entail?

A:  It means that I (and Steve Patterson my co-rep) try to provide guild services, support, and outreach to dramatists in Oregon. This basically means maintaining a list serve, creating a community, and answering legal questions. My personal campaign is to help playwrights, directors and other collaborators understand their rights and responsibilities. I am particularly interested in helping directors understand what is legal in terms of deconstructing text. Too many directors play "fast and loose" with a text without understanding the very real legal implications they face.

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

A:  When I was 16 (in 1989) I decided to do a volunteer environmental work camp in Siberia. The wall had just come down, I had taken a few years of high school Russian, and there I was in Siberia.

I am always on a quest "to know".

Q:   What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I like Ann Bogart's (Siti company's) work a lot. I like how the visual and other theatrical elements tell the story along with the text.

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

A:  Write,  seek out professionals you admire and work with and learn from them, and find your tribe.

Q:   Plugs, please.

A:
Playwrights West
http://www.playwrightswest.org/

I Interview Playwrights Part 110: Clay McLeod Chapman

Clay McLeod Chapman

Hometown: Richmond, Virginia

Current Town: Brooklyn, New York

Q: Tell me about your play Teaser Cow that's up right now. How did this come about?

A: teaser cow came about as a commissioned work from the company One Year Lease. They split their year between New York and the mountains of Greece, which isn't such a bad way to live -- and they invited me to craft a script around their acting ensemble, picking a myth that tickled my fancy and catering it to their crew. I'd been reading Fast Food Nation at the time, total fluke -- only to start thinking about the Minotaur as a possible starting point for the project. The two elements just adhered themselves together in my head until I couldn't separate them. Chalk it up to fortuitous timing, but reading through Schlosser's book was all it took. It was fun drawing parallels between ancient Greece and our modern day beef industry... And surprisingly simple.

Q: What else are you working on?

A: 2009 was the year of saying yes to everything. Anything that came my way, I took it. Writer-for-hire gigs, commissioned gigs, you name it. From there, it's up to me to try and find myself in these projects. See if there's a way to subtly instill my own sense of storytelling into work where I'm not the genesis-point. I've been juggling a bunch of different projects, either my own or others -- and it's been a blast so far. Challenging, but fun. I've been writing the book for a new musical with soft rocker Bruce Hornsby, so my mom's really happy with that one. We've been developing it for a few years now and we're finally moving onto the regional theatre phase, hoping to bring it back to New York in 2011. Fingers crossed. I've been developing this one-man musical with this band called the Venn Diagrams, titled JULIAN. We just got a residency at Dixon Place, which has been a great help furthering it along. Dixon Place is downright amazing. I've also been on the creative team for this mondo-crazy project called The Ride -- which is essentially is us taking a fleet of tour buses here in New York and renovating them into these theatres on wheels. Literally -- a theatre on wheels. Basically, it's going to be a musical that takes place on a tour bus through Manhattan, with all the action taking place on the streets. Crazy.

Q: Can you talk a little about the Pumpkin Pie Show, what it is and how it came to be?

A: The Pumpkin Pie Show is my baby. It's my protective blanket, it's my stamp collection. Whenever someone asks what's it about, I always tell people it's a rigorous storytelling session -- which makes it kind of sound like a bunch of ol' bubbas sitting on the front porch spinning yarns, but it's really an opportunity for me and my friends to connect with an audience on a level that a lot of fourth-wall theatre doesn't allow us to do. When I'm performing in something, I want to really see the whites of the audiences eyes. I want to achieve a level of intimacy and personal connectivity that the fourth wall tends to shut down. So the Pumpkin Pie Show is a series of short stories that I've written, all within the first person narrative -- handed over to a group of actors, namely me and my best friend (and amazing performer) Hanna Cheek. Rather than disregard the audience, we go through these stories as if they were direct-address monologues, performing a set-list of however many pieces each night based on a certain theme or whatnot. It's more like going to a rock concert, in my mind -- where the band interacts with the audience as they go through their set-list of songs. Bands, some bands, the bands I like, don't shirk off the audience. They tend to play to the audience, which was always something I wished theatre did more of -- so that's what we try to do with the Pumpkin Pie Show. Every year we have a new one, complete with new stories. We've been performing for over ten years now and I really hope I can keep doing it until the day I die. It's a super-small endeavor, where we're performing to thirty or fifty people a night. That intimacy is something we've grown dependent on. That's the value of the show. This isn't Broadway bound because the performance is contingent upon a personal connection between the audience and the performer. All we need is that link and the evening feels like something special. Something singular in its experience. Theatrical snow-flakes, you know?

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

A: My mother always told me this story about myself when I was about two. I was just learning to walk, saddled up into one of those walker-stroller thingies. It's like a plastic donut on wheels with a diaper harnessed directly in the center. You slip your kid in and the diaper holds them up enough that their feet are just touching the floor, allowing them to walk along on their own while they're being wheeled around by this protective barrier. Or so I've been told. Well -- when I was two, we lived in this house where the door to our basement was situated inside our kitchen. Mom's doing the dishes while I'm strolling around in my walker. She's got her back to me, doing her thing while I'm doing mine. Somehow, the door to the basement was open. Just a crack. I'm rolling around -- only to make a bee-line for the basement door. My walker pushes up against it, opening it up even further -- and I take a header down fifteen or twenty wooden steps, taking the tumble while I'm still straddling this plastic doughnut. I land, walker included, on the concrete floor of our basement. Fractured my skull. My mom turns, hear's me screaming -- runs down the steps, finds me bleeding all along the basement floor. She panics. Must've gone crazy in that moment. She scoops me up with her hands, cradling my body in one hand and my head in the other -- and rushes out the door. She runs straight out into the street, screaming her head off. The first car the drives by stops and mom gets right in and demands they take her and me to the hospital. Turns out there's nothing to be done in regards to setting bone, considering it was my skull. I think I had to wear some kind of radar-dish like a dog wears whenever they're not allowed to nibble on themselves, just to keep me from scratching at my own fractured skull. The story would've ended there had it not been for the fact that when I was five -- I fractured my head all over again. This time at the county fair. Mom took me -- and here I am, running through the crowd, all fives years of myself going nutty because we're at the fair having fun. I'm not looking where I'm going, only to get clothes-lined by this young couple holding hands. I totally try to red-rover them, their linked-hands hooking me in the chin and sending me over backwards. I landed on a tent spike. The tent spike cracks open my skull. Again -- mom freaks. We're off to the hospital. Same story. And now -- now there's this ridge along the back slope of my skull. You can totally take your finger and run it down the length of my head and feel the indentation there. It's probably about three inches long and a half-inch wide. No lie.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: I might sound like a bit of a broken record here, but I really do get into theatre that makes me feel valuable as an audience member. When I go see a show, I want to believe I'm not watching a movie or a television show. I want to be engaged in such a way that I know in my heart this experience will never be replicated ever again. No matter how many times the actors performer the exact same text, this given performance, our performance, will never ever be duplicated -- and that's because the audience changes. That gives value to them. I don't like it when theatre disregards what's beyond the fourth wall. It's not that I need actors jumping into my lap or anything, but I just want to feel like we're all regarding the sacred-qualities to theatre, which is two disparate elements (the audience and the performers) coming together in this one particular instance and forging a dynamic between each other, communicating with each other in very subtle ways. So, when I leave the theatre, I as an audience member feel special because I now know that this experience I had in the theatre will never ever be conjured up again -- at least not in the same way -- because tomorrow night it'll be a different group of audience members who will bring something altogether different than what I did.

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

A: Produce your own work. Do as much of the behind-the-scenes stuff yourself. Make it a labor of love more than anything else. The best way, I believe, to get your work out there is to just do it yourself.

Q: Plugs, please:

A:

The Pumpkin Pie Show! www.pumpkinpieshow.com

Teaser Cow! www.oneyearlease.org

Julian! http://dixonplace.org/html/artistinresidence.html

Bruce Hornsby! http://www.playbill.com/news/article/136184-Bruce-Hornsby-Musical-Will-Premiere-in-Virginia-in-January-2011

I Interview Playwrights Part 109: Kelly Younger

Kelly Younger

Hometown: Los Angeles, CA

Current Town: Los Angeles, CA

Q:  You adapted a novel for the stage.  Can you tell me about the project and what that was like?  What are the special challenges associated with adaptation?   

A:  Irish Repertory Theatre in NY commissioned me to adapt the novel Banished Children of Eve by Peter Quinn.  It's a massive Civil War novel set in the Lower East Side of NY where Irish-American and African-American tensions erupted in the bloody Draft Riots.  Like most historical novels, there are loads of characters (some fictional and some real), multiple locations, and lengthy-backstories.  To be honest, when I was flying out for the meeting and reading it on the plane, I kept thinking, "There's just no way I can adapt this!  It's a great novel but I can’t pinpoint a single dramatic line to connect all the different stories."  So about a half-hour before my meeting I was having a coffee near the theatre and starting to panic about what I was going to tell them.  Then it hit me. There are two characters -- an Irish man and an African-American woman -- who are both actors in a shoddy production of Uncle Tom's Cabin.  He is a minstrel actor and she is a mulatto actress who lightens her skin with stage make-up.  In other words, he plays in black face and she plays in white face.  They are lovers.  That's when I figured out it is essentially a Romeo and Juliet story with two warring families (in this case, newly arrived Irish and newly emancipated African-Americans) all living on top of one another in the Bowery district and violently competing for the bottom rung on the social ladder.  I decided to set the play in the theatre where these actors perform and live.  

And of course while all hell is breaking loose on the streets of NY, they need to decide who they really are once the make-up comes off.  Well, Irish Rep loved the idea and set me to work immediately.  

As far as special challenges go, the one that I found most difficult was balancing what was faithful to the novel and what was necessary for the play.  Audiences who are familiar with the book will recognize a scene here and there, but I had to take characters who never once cross paths in the novel and put them on stage together, and even in complicated relationships with one another.  So there was a certain amount of guilt.  I kept hearing a little voice saying, “But that’s not what happens in the book!”  Luckily, the novelist Peter Quinn has been enormously encouraging and generous.  In fact, he came to the workshop reading last summer, pulled me aside and said, "A novel can be very forgiving.  You can hide your mistakes.  But in a play, you can't hide.  These characters are now yours as well as mine, so do whatever you need to make it a play."  Talk about generous.  It also helped that we had incredibly talented actors like Tracie Thoms, David Wilson Barnes, Fred Applegate and Michelle Hurst, as well as an incredibly smart dramaturg in Kara Manning.  Ciaran O’Reilly, who just directed “Emperor Jones,” will direct the production later this fall.  He’s been an amazing guide since the very beginning of the commission.         

Q:  Can you tell me about Rorschach?  

A:   A little while back there was an article in the LA Times about the Rorschach inkblot test.  What caught my eye was the beautiful color plate of one of the inkblots.  And below it was this photograph of a guy from the 1920s named Hermann Rorschach.  It never occurred to me that there was an actual guy named Rorschach (other than Watchmen comics, ha!).  I asked myself, who is this guy who one day decided to paint some smudges and ask someone what they thought they saw in it?  I started to do a little research.  Turns out Hermann Rorschach was this brilliant Swiss psychologist who worked with schizophrenics.  When he was a kid, he loved playing this old parlor game called klecks where you would look at inkblots and talk about what you saw.  He decided to play it with his patients, and based on his experiences, wrote his entire dissertation on the experiment.  I started to nerd out on this stuff, and found a beat-up old copy of his book on eBay.  Long story short, Rorschach was sure this book would be a major contribution to the field of psychology, but instead, he ended up in the laughing stock.  No one took him or his test seriously, and before he could even defend himself, he died suddenly.  When I learned this fact, I felt totally heartbroken.  Here was a young guy who desperately wanted to be taken seriously as a scientist, but instead, was really an artist.  He just didn’t know it.  So I started writing about a character from the present who is obsessed with Rorschach from the past.  It’s a six-character play with both time-periods on stage at the same time.  It’s been described so far as funny, romantic, and moving, and even a little in the style of a Tom Stoppard play.  We just had a fancy backers reading of Rorschach here in LA with Jason Ritter in the lead.  There’s an amazing director attached (Cameron Watson) and my manager is handling all the details, so hopefully we’ll have an announcement soon. 

Q:  What else are you working on now? 

A:   New Repertory Theatre in Boston is developing my full-length play Tender.  They contacted me last fall to be part of their New Voices series and asked if I had a new play for them.  I said, “Sure.”  Then realized I had to write a new play in about four weeks!  After writing Banished Children of Eve (eight characters) and Rorschach (six) I really wanted to write a drama for a small cast in a single set that took place only in the present.  So, Tender is about a working mom realtor and her stay-at-home husband who are on the verge of foreclosure.  They’ve got to reappraise their assets, including her aging truck driver father and his new motorhome.  He’s spent his life driving what’s called a “yard goat” (a semi that moves trailers back and forth in the same warehouse yard, never leaving or going out on the open road).  Now that he’s too old to work, he blows his savings on a motorhome and wants to drive across country.  But when his daughter and son-in-law have to take away his keys, the shit hits the fan and they’ve got to learn that love is not some kind of loan that can be repaid.  I think it’s a play about the debt we owe our parents, the interest we charge our children, and the price of forgiveness.  I’m really interested in the idea of foreclosure, not just on something like a house or a car, but on a person, especially a family member.  I’m also being “groomed” (which makes me sound like a poodle) for television by CAA and going on meetings for some one-hour tv pilots I’ve written.  Even though I was born and raised in Los Angeles, “the industry” is a whole other world.

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

A:   I am a third generation Los Angelino.  In fact, I have a great great aunt who was married to a Sepulveda.  I’m also a distant relative of the outlaw Younger Brothers who rode with their cousins Frank and Jessie James.  This ancestry only means I sometimes feel entitled to run red lights on Sepulveda Boulevard, or on occasion, I have the urge to rob a bank.  Let me assure I have done neither.  I do, however, have a deep interest in Los Angeles history, the myth of California and the American West, etc.  My family has always been blue collar Irish-Catholic.  My dad is a truck driver and, unlike the character in my new play, really a tender guy.  He has a speech impediment.  I never knew this until grade school when I started going to friends’ houses and hearing their dads talk.  I just thought all dads spoke like mine.  Like most Irish homes, language was very important.  Often witty and lyrical, also sarcastic and dangerous, but important nonetheless.  It’s just that in my home, language was also very difficult.  Hard to get out.  My dad literally had to choose certain words over others because some would come out, others would not, especially when they were most needed.  I think growing up in this environment taught me three things.   First, to choose words carefully because they are these physical things that sometimes get stuck in your throat.  It also taught me to listen.  I’d have to wait and hear what word was struggling to get out.  Finally, it taught me empathy.  For me, there’s nothing harder than watching someone trying to say a word, unable to get it out, then seeing them choose a different word that is not actually what they wanted to say.  I guess that’s why I tend to write characters who struggle to say what they mean with the words they want to use.  But I also hope they show enormous courage and perseverance to do so. 

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?  

A:   Well, clearly language based plays.  I lived and studied in Dublin for about three years, so my education is rooted in writers like Synge and O’Casey and Wilde (as well as the local characters I met in pubs).  I can appreciate "physical theatre" and really progressive performance art and mixed media, etc. but really I’m a Friel, Miller, Wilder, Kushner, Guare kind of guy.  I want good story-telling.  I want to be entertained and moved and provoked to think and well as feel.  Wit by Margaret Edson is a beautiful play.  I’d love to have dinner with Lynn Nottage.  I think Rajiv Joseph is about the coolest guy I know, and Mike Vukadinovich is going to be a household name soon.  And I’m probably most jealous of having not written Three Days of Rain by Richard Greenberg.  I have moments when I wish I could write like Martin McDonagh, Sarah Kane, or Matt Pelfrey, but truth be told, if I had a time-machine I’d just go back and get drunk with Eugene O’Neill.     

Q:  What shows or theaters would you suggest I check out if I came to LA tomorrow?   

A:  As a playwright, I would suggest getting to know the LA branch of E.S.T. (I’m in their playwrights unit), the Road Theatre, the Echo Theatre, Theatre Tribe, and the Blank Theatre.  They’re all very supportive of new work.  I personally love seeing plays at the Furious Theatre and the Black Dahlia.  Both small venues, but always thrilling, smart and ambitious.  There’s also high quality work at larger stages like the Geffen, the Center Theatre Group’s Kirk Douglas Theatre, A Noise Within, and the Theatre at Boston Court.  I’m most proud, however, of having started the LA Stage Alliance Ovation Fellows program to get students and recent alumni connected to LA performing arts (www.lastageblog.com/ovation-fellows).  So if you’ve just graduated and are moving to LA, consider applying for a fellowship.

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

A:  Don’t do talk-backs after a staged reading. The director wants a Q&A after a performance? That’s different because the play has been through rehearsals, rewrites, and is now in production. (Even then, try to avoid. Eric Bogosian says "Q&As are so popular in the regional theatres [because] everyone wants to know what the play is 'about.' It's a great way of avoiding what a play is.") But seriously, a talk-back after a reading? Refuse. Artistic Directors and Literary Managers will try and convince you it is good for the playwright, but really, they are trying to appease their audiences. Nothing can be more damaging to a new play (or an emerging playwright) than a well-meaning stranger offering ways to fix your work. A play is not written by committee. Also, do not let a director talk you into blocking a staged reading. Keep the actors seated. If they get up and move around, they become too self-conscious and the reading becomes about the acting and directing (not the play). It also raises audiences’ expectations in an unnecessary way. So, have the reading, keep the actors on their asses, then pour the wine.

Q:  Plugs please:  

A:  If you’re in Boston on March 1, New Repertory Theatre will produce the first staged reading of Tender.  Irish Repertory Theatre will produce Banished Children of Eve off-Broadway this Fall, but the exact dates are not being announced yet.  And I have some new publications, so visit www.KellyYounger.com.