I Interview Playwrights Part 159: Jessica Provenz

 
Jessica Provenz

Hometown: Merrick, NY

Current Town: NYC and Princeton, NJ (my husband and I have yet to move in together)

Q: Didn't you recently have a short film screened? Can you tell me about that?

A: I wanted to *make* something. Last year, I wrote a screenplay and a pilot, but I wanted the words to go from my computer screen to the big screen - not in 1 year or 2 or 10 - but now! So I wrote the short NOTHING HAPPENED, a comedy about the one conversation girlfriends should never have... I co-produced it with Jessica Henson and Sarah Louise Lilley, and we wore a ton of hats from fundraising to hiring the team to learning about color correction and editing and sound mixing. After the movie was locked, we applied to festivals (which is like applying to college - equally as lengthy, competitive and expensive). We premiered at Cinequest in San Jose, played in LA, and have a half-dozen festivals coming up this summer.

The big difference between seeing your play performed vs. your movie is that the movie is fixed. There's no question of whether a moment will work or if the pace will be right; you press "play" and go on the same ride every time. I also learned the importance of telling a story with visuals. I initially set the film in a cafe (that's my theatre background at work for you), but director Julia Kots's first request was for a more visually stimulating location like an art gallery, which I turned into an erotic art gallery. Third, I caught the bug. I'm writing/directing a feature for our next indy venture. We hope to apply everything we learned on the short tenfold.

Q: What else are you working on?

A: I'm writing the book for a musical, MATCHBOOK, for The Araca Group. Dan Lipton and David Rossmer are writing lyrics/music. It's based on a book by Samantha Daniels about her life as a divorce lawyer turned matchmaker. It's sexy and romantic and fun, a "Sex and the City" for the stage. A musical is a whole new ballgame for me, so I'm grateful that Marsha Norman spent so many hours at Juilliard talking to us about writing musicals and things like "how to lead into a song."

I'm also writing a feature called ONE NIGHT IN BERGDORFS for Alicia Keys' company, Big Pita Lil Pita, and a pilot, TOWN & COUNTRY - about the fact that I live in Manhattan and my husband lives in Princeton (which seems to fascinate a lot of people). And this week, I wrote my favorite three words ever: "End of Play" on TRUE ART, a new work about the underbelly of the art 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: When I was 11, my parents shipped me off to Stagedoor Manor for 9 weeks. I remember 2 things: unlimited grape soda and directing. I got to direct a one-act in a competition called "Festival." I selected William Inge's "The Rainy Afternoon," and I loved every second of it - casting, creating the set, the costumes. I'd spend hours in my bunkbed moving my shoes around, pretending I was blocking the actors. At Stagedoor, they gave out replica Oscars on "Award's Night", and I won the award for Best Director; I was so excited, I slept with it for a week. I was this awkward, 4'5" kid with glasses, braces, oversized sweaters, and a perm?! I was average in school, terrible in sports, the worst in my tap class - but when I directed this play, I knew I'd found my home.



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

A: I would love the possibility of a livable wage in playwriting. I don't have to earn it, I just want to know it's out there somewhere.



Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: I love being blown away emotionally. Often a line or a moment will sucker-punch me, and I'll turn into a sobbing mess. I have some of my most honest moments watching theatre, because it can articulate what is so often left unsaid. I found the Off Broadway production of "Our Town" profound - I bought tickets for everyone I know. I love the emotion of plays by Wendy Wasserstein, Lee Blessing, A.R. Gurney, and musicals like "A Chorus Line" and "The Fantasticks."


Also love playwrights that perfect the twists-and-turns like Neil LaBute and Craig Wright. For a great laugh, I'll take Alan Ayckbourn any day.

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

A: Save money when you have it (I'm still grappling with this).

Be tenacious. Don't give up. A "no" is rarely firm. With grad school. With agents. With theaters. Send your material, and if there's any interest at all, send reinforcements - have someone make a call on your behalf - preferably someone they know and respect, or forward some press on the play, or about the source material, anything to keep you and your play in the reader's vision.

Finally, surround yourself with people who believe in you even more than you do. Whether it's parents, friends, a partner, or a mentor, having people who can remind you that you are on the right path is huge.

Q: Plugs, please:

A: NOTHING HAPPENED will screen in June at Berkshire International, New Jersey International, and New Fest in Manhattan with more festivals following in July and August. For details, go to our Facebook page. My play BETTER THAN CHOCOLATE will be workshopped by the Berkshire Playwrights Lab this summer. Details at www.berkshireplaywrightslab.org

John Logan was my first playwriting professor at Northwestern. His play RED is thrilling

I Interview Playwrights Part 158: Deron Bos

Deron Bos

Hometown: Stafford, VA

Current Town: Culver City, CA

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I just finished a very crude first draft of a new play titled The City She Wants Me. My blurb for it currently reads like this: "Durn wants to become a Lego superstar, Jack has been called by God, Faye is proposing to rebuild 1930's L.A. in an unmarked warehouse, and Claudia Turnkey is going to die ... soon." I have two other ideas kicking around and I want to start them in between revising City.

Q:  You recently moved to LA from New York. How are you finding the change? Should everyone in New York move to LA?

A:  Well, my reasons for moving to LA were mostly family driven -- my wife is a SoCal native, her family is here, and our two boys are surely benefiting from that close proximity to her family. (As are their parents.) And we were all ready to move away from the NY winters. But it was really important for me to stay in a city with a cultural/arts/entertainment scene and the mythology of L.A. has fascinated me for the past ten years. I also have ambitions of writing for TV, but my focus at the moment is mostly on raising my two young sons and I'm finding if I can find the time to write something in the midst of that it's going to be a play for the STAGE.

A few months after moving here I was lucky enough to become one of the founding members of The Playwrights Union, "a network of Los Angeles theater artists writing for stage, theater, and film." Jennifer Hayley, who I knew from my Seattle days, founded it and it's a great roster of talented and experienced playwrights who call L.A. their home. I thought I would have to search and be here for a while to find a supportive artistic community like this one and then it just fell into my lap. It's nice when things happen like that, because you know ... often they don't.

Ha! I can't help but think that last question is to support your own campaign to move to L.A., Adam. Personally, I do miss NYC, Brooklyn, and the theater community there. However, this is now my third city since college and I do love how much overlap happens with the communities you make in each city.

Q:  What was your experience like studying playwriting at Brooklyn College under Mac Wellman?

A:  Overall, I thought it was a great experience because:

1) The tuition is dirt cheap for a graduate program if you're a New York resident.

2) It's in Brooklyn.

3) Mac is incredibly well read, darkly hilarious, and a gifted teacher.

4) I made some great friends.

5) I wrote a play a semester.

There were times when I questioned if I was in the right place because my writing seemed traditional compared to many of my classmates, but then I learned: A) My writing is much weirder than I originally thought. B) I'm much happier being the square in the midst of experimentation that I am being the revolutionary amongst squares. I think it speaks well of the program too that its recent graduates have produced both highly regarded theater both uptown and downtown.

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

A:  It was Revolutionary War day in kindergarten and my mom borrowed a felt George Washington costume from my best friend and neighbor Greg Froio's mom so I could get all dressed up. When I arrived to class I discovered that the only other kids who were dressed up were a few girls in Betsy Ross hats. I loved costumes as a kid, but because I was a shy kid, I loved the kind with a substantial mask. George Washington offered no such shelter. I burst into tears and wouldn't stop crying. I remember my teacher (who was missing one hand) scolding me in the bathroom and saying, "Stop crying! Do you want to be a crybaby?! No one likes a crybaby!" I stopped crying.

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

A:  I think every LORT A house in the country should be required to hire a resident playwright and give them a modest but livable salary for at least three years. I'm sure that there are managing directors across the country preparing an email right now to tell me how naive this proposal is, but until that time it sounds like the right move to me. It would be a shot at creating some true regional theater.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Fred Franklin (my high school drama teacher), Marshall W. Mason, and the Mighty Twelve Company Members of Printer's Devil Theatre during the 97-2000 era.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  The thrilling, the original, and the heart felt. I find that I want to see something that has LIFE to it and that comes in a lot of different shapes and genres. And it's impossible to do, but so satisfying when it happens.

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

A:  I'm an advice junkie and especially a sucker for writing advice. Reading Anne Lamott's essay "Shitty First Drafts" was a revelation for me and it's something I reread often for courage and comfort. This advice from the author of my favorite cheerleading movie, Bring It On has given me a lot of fuel over the years. Recently, I found this essay from Merlin Mann on the danger of advice speaks to my many of my writing challenges. And of course, the wealth of advice given by the 150+ interviewees of this project has been fantastic, it's its own course on playwriting. So, following Mann's lead I would say indulge in some advice, but then get down to the task at hand: write. (I'm continually telling myself this very instruction.)

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  My new play, The City She Wants Me, will have its first public reading on May 8 at 6:30 pm as part of the Playwrights Union's first public event, The Playwrights Union Reading Festival. There's a weekend of great work from our playwrights and it's free so if you're in LA please come out and check it out!

My director (and good friend) for that reading, Paul Willis directed an exceptional production of my friend Sheila Callaghan's play, Lascivious Something for the excellent theater L.A. theatre company, Circle X. It closes May 1st.

Finally I was very excited to hear that Clubbed Thumb in NYC will produce my friend Kate E. Ryan’s play Dot this June as part of their Summerworks festival. I read Dot right before I left NYC and was knocked out by how hilarious and original it is -- it was my favorite script I read that year.

I Interview Playwrights Part 157: Sarah Sander

 

Sarah Sander

Hometown:  Kansas City, Kansas

Current Town:  Sarasota, Florida

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  A couple different things. I’m doing rewrites on a play called Channel 3 which tells the story of a 16 year old girl who is visiting her estranged uncle in LA after her mother’s suicide. The girl, Adelaide, uses television as a refuge and as a means to filter her own experience. The narration is intercut with commercials, ideally fracturing what is “real” and what is scripted.

I’m also in the beginning stages of a full-length tentatively titled Copier Jam. It’s a play set in a corporate office where corn begins to grow out of the floor tiles, the copier spits out raw meat, and one of the characters turns into a chicken.

Q:  What's it like to be the NNPN Playwright in Residence at Florida Studio Theatre?
 

A:  It’s an incredible post. The fellowship is 10 months long and I have ample time to work on my own plays while also reading for the lit office, teaching with FST’s Write-A-Play program, and house managing. I came to playwriting relatively late and the opportunity to participate in the “business side” of the arts has proved tremendously enlightening. Witnessing the number of beautiful, original authentic plays our lit department rejects simply because they do not fit into our season makes the numerous “Dear Playwright” letters I receive much easier to swallow.

I’d also like to add that NNPN is a brilliant, BRILLIANT organization. In addition to the Playwright-in-Residence Program they also have the Continued Life of New Plays Fund where three theatres mount the same new play and share “world-premier” status. Essentially it’s a group of theatres who rally together to support and encourage new work. They also throw great parties.

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 used to bite other children.

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

A:  Money.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?
 

A:  Albee, Churchill and Pinter: brutally elegant all.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  It depends on my mood. For the most part I want theatre that challenges, provokes and inspires me to think above and beyond my own petty concerns. Other times, I’m happy to be coddled.

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

A:  Follow your instincts. Embrace failure. Enjoy the ride.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:   P73 is putting up Sam Hunter's Jack's Precious Moment beginning May 21 at 59E59. If it's anything like Sam's other work, it'll be gorgeous and revelatory and barbed. Also, Andrew Rosendorf's Cane is opening Florida Stage's new space on October 27th. It's gutting. It's worth the journey.

I Interview Playwrights Part 156: Zakiyyah Alexander

Zakiyyah Alexander

Hometown: Brooklyn, NY

Current Town: NY, NY

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  All new stuff which is both exciting and nerve wracking. I've got 2 plays that I'm working on. 'The Itch' is a satire that deals with the idea of exploiting your race to be successful in America. 'The day after tomorrow' involves a couple who adopt and bring 2 children from an area that has had a natural disaster. There are probably 2 or 3 other projects on the back burner, including a musical that Matt Schatz and Lucas Papelias will be collaborators on. This is very much a writing year after a few years of production, workshops, etc. This pretty much means writing until my hands hurt on a regular basis.

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 17 I won the Young Playwrights Inc. contest, and my play was to receive a production at the Public Theater. This was a huge turning moment, and the first time I thought of playwriting as a career. I had grown up as an actor, but this was my first time on the other side of the stage. We held equity auditions, and I had my first design model presented to me - it was actually going to rain on the stage! I contemplated taking a semester off from college in order to prepare, but then got word that due to some budgeting issues the production was off. This was devastating at the time, but it really gave me an introduction into what the theater world was like. It taught me to be prepared for any outcome. In some ways my naivete began to dissolve right then and there. That moment was an education in itself.

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

A:  There are many things I would change if I could including the cost of tickets and who actually comes to see theater - one day look around and notice just who's in the room, or rather who's not in the room. But, the most tangible (and simplest) thing I would change is diversity in casting and the way the world is conceived. When a play takes place in an urban setting (and is clearly not about race) but everyone on the stage is white, I don't believe this is an accurate perception of today. There is a sense that a neutral world and story is also a white story. There is definitely a time and place for color specific casting, but at times it would be nice to think outside of that narrow box. It would be nice to see people of color in stories that are not about race, but stories that are simply about people. Produced stories that include people of color are often about race as opposed to plays that are just about people. In my opinion the responsibility of diversifying theater should not rest solely in the hands of playwrights of color, but on the theater community as a whole. What you produce is your vision of the world, and in 2010, I hope the vision can begin to expand.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Not sure if I have heroes, but there are writers who inspire me based on their structure, themes, and content. Sam Shepard, Susan Lori Parks, Brecht, and Adrienne Kennedy are writers who for constantly excite me in terms of form and style. There is something accessible and dangerous about their work that keeps me going back for more. They also remind me about the kind of writing that is about more than the well-made play or 'kitchen-sink' drama. Writers like Lynn Nottage, Naomi Izuka, and Naomi Wallace also inspire me, and not just for their work, but their stamina - they remind me that a female playwright's career does not always come so quickly. These women have been creating brilliant work for years, but it took a long time for them to get the recognition they deserve. These are writers who I'd love to see get produced on a more frequent basis in NYC.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Honestly, I'm bored by theater a lot, most of the time, in fact. I feel like the work that gets produced is often small, contained, annoyingly ironic and could just as easily be made into a film or television show. I'm interested in work with a strong sense of theatricality. I'm looking for theater that raises questions and is about something bigger than the audience in the room. I like for theater to be bold and loud and to push buttons and to evoke visceral reactions from the audience. I would rather be angry than bored.

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

A:  Find yourself a community, whether that is a professional one, or a group of friends who are supportive. If you don't have one, create one. Having a home base is crucial, especially since so much of a writers work takes place alone on a computer. Apply to every possible opportunity, and don't worry if you get it or not. The most important thing is to get your work out there and you never know who is reading your submission. See as much theater as possible, the theater world is impossibly small, so know what's going on. Keep writing; I have found that writing is a muscle that atrophies without constant use. You also can't expect for this profession to validate you - so keep your ego in check when you can; and, although that can be scary there is also something very liberating about it. And, remember, if you hate what's being produced, or feel like no one is taking a chance on your work - produce your work yourself.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  This summer you can catch 'The Etymology of Bird' which is being produced as part of Summerstage. It's the first time I will have a production in a park. And most importantly, it's free!

I Interview Playwrights Part 155: Kate E. Ryan

Kate E. Ryan

Hometown: Bow, NH

Current Town: Brooklyn, NY

Q: Tell me about the play you have coming up at Soho Rep.

A: It's called SCIENCE IS CLOSE, and it continues the story of a woman named Dot Cruthers, who's the main character in my play DOT. SCIENCE IS CLOSE is sort of the sequel to DOT, but I want the two plays to work independently.


Dot is a crankly elderly woman and DOT looks at her life in a Florida retirement community. It's inspired by the Golden Girls a little bit, and has songs composed by Mike Iveson.

In SCIENCE IS CLOSE we see Dot again a few years later -- when she's in her mid-80s, living in a new city. A mysterious man tries to get her to sign up for cryogenics. So, Dot has to evaluate whether she wants more life on this planet, or whether the end should just be the end.


Coincidentally, Clubbed Thumb is producing DOT in June this year, directed by Anne Kauffman. Mia Rovegno -- the director of the SCIENCE IS CLOSE reading -- is working on the DOT production, too, and some of the DOT actors will perform their characters in the reading, so a bunch of people are kind of swimming between these two plays right now, and I feel fortunate to be working with such amazing collaborators on them both.

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 grew up on a dead-end street in a small town. There were lots of kids on our street, and I was one of the youngest. Some of the older kids had a cache of costumes and liked to organize backyard theater/dance performances which we called "gymnastic shows." I think we called them that because our heroine at the time was Nadia Comaneci. We'd make up invitations and put them in all the mailboxes.

One year, in the middle of a gymnastics show for which we had practiced for weeks and weeks, a swarm of bees invaded the backyard and all the kids went beserk, running into the "audience" (parents in lawn chairs), screaming. Just about everyone got stung. It was truly exciting: scary, unexpected, and memorable.

Now, every year, Machiqq (the Brooklyn-based writing group of which I am a member... a.k.a The Ladies Auxiliary Playwriting Team) and Joyce Cho (fellow Brooklyn-based playwriting and performance group) put together a backyard theater event called Cho-chiqq at the house of my Park Slope neighbors, Erin Courtney and Scott Adkins. (See plug below.) So far no bees, but it's still exciting.

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

A:  When I was young and had just arrived in New York, an older artist friend gave me some vague-sounding advice: do something, don't just sit around. It's proven to be useful -- get involved with something, anything, even if it feels only tangentially related to what you ultimately want to do. If you really are one of those people afflicted with the theater disease (unable to stop doing theater), you will never stray far from your artistic work. But waiting for the perfect opportunity is just a waste of time. Making good theater requires all sorts of knowledge and experience, so live your life and pursue all your interests.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  SCIENCE IS CLOSE reading at Soho Rep, Monday May 3rd at 7:00 pm. FREE. http://sohorep.org/lab.html

(Also, check out Matthew Korahais' reading on April 26th and Janine Nabers' reading on May 10th. And, if you're interested in applying to next year's Writer/Director Lab, see the online application on the website. Deadline is May 14th. )

DOT, produced by Clubbed Thumb, opening June 6th at the Ohio Theater. www.clubbedthumb.org

(And check out the other two plays in Clubbed Thumb's Summerworks this year: FIVE GENOCIDES by Sam Hunter and THE SMALL by Anne Washburn.)

Come to the 'Pataphysics Benefit at Dixon Place on Monday, May 10th at 8:00 PM. 'Pataphysics is a series of playwriting workshops with master teachers like Erik Ehn, Paula Vogel, Mac Wellman. They're produced at cost through The Flea Theater: http://www.theflea.org/page.php?page_type=2&page_id=10

AND, finally, come to Cho-Chiqq Backyard BBQ Theater in the daytime on Saturday, June 6th... 

I Interview Playwrights Part 154: Susan Bernfield

Susan Bernfield

Hometown: Palo Alto, CA

Current Town: New York City

Q:  Tell me please about your play now being performed in Philly.

STRETCH (a fantasia) imagines Rose Mary Woods, President Nixon’s loyal secretary, observing the presidential election of 2004 from a nursing home in Alliance, Ohio. Talking to the people she meets there and having some very strange dreams. I started writing it in 2006, when that election seemed very fresh, and now I have to remind everybody that that election was decided by Ohio! It was, and Woods did die in Ohio two days after George Bush’s second inauguration, and that’s the coincidence – well, that and she struck me as such a great character – that inspired the play. I developed it through New Georges with director Emma Griffin and composer Rachel Peters, and it was in the Ice Factory Festival at the Ohio in 2007, and then New Georges produced it at The Living Theater in 2008. It’s exciting and amazing to me that it’s gotten to have another life in this second and totally new production at People’s Light & Theater, directed by Daniella Topol.

I’ve loved the time I’ve spent at People’s Light and everyone there has been wonderful, especially the terrific cast led by Alda Cortese (who’s also the literary manager, and pulled my play out of the pile!). To go and get to just be the playwright has been… wow, that’s very rare, and I've felt so welcome and lucky. And Daniella is a longtime collaborator and friend, we worked literally for years developing my solo musical TINY FEATS OF COWARDICE (also with music by Rachel Peters!) and she’s directed a lot for New Georges. We had a lot of fun, especially exploring the second production thing together – it was a first for both of us. I learned a lot from being at a bigger and far-away theater, it was interesting and helpful to revisit the play, and it's a beautiful production. The play is in part about political cycles, and we’ve been through several now since I wrote it, so it’s a nice surprise that people think the play's held up. The audience has been really responsive, which is nice. And they come to the theater in cars! Which feels very very weird to me.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  I have a new play, BIG HUNGRY WORLD, which I’ve been working on a while and am excited about, and it’s about time for me to get on the stick and develop that further. It’s about Internet billionaires and movie people and global philanthropy. Have some ideas that haven't gotten much past the idea stage.... and am trying to figure out ways and places to perform TINY FEATS again. New Georges has been keeping me pretty busy – more below in “plugs”!

Q:  You are the Artistic Director of New Georges. Tell me please about your  theater.  Has helming a theater affected the way you write?

A:  Well, I wouldn’t be a playwright, I think, if I hadn’t started the theater. I was an actor, and the theater emerged kind of organically from not being able to find any plays to be in, then realizing that to find those plays we’d have to produce new work. After producing for a while and meeting playwrights I realized hey, I’m a lot like these people I’m reading and meeting, and I have stuff to say, and I should be writing too.  It didn’t come out of nowhere, I’d written a lot and obsessively when I was really young, but gave it up by middle school for acting cause that just seemed, uh, cooler I guess, more social, and I always focused on writing in other capacities. So I had a slow start, but it’s hard to get mad at the theater company for stealing all my writing time, cause without it I don’t know if I’d be doing very much at all. My career has really been very serendipitous.

And yeah, being a producer -- and a producer of plays that tend to be very theatrical and design-heavy -- has definitely influenced my writing. I think about design elements a lot while I write, well, not think about them, consciously, now they just appear, as clearly as dialogue elements do, and they’ll shape the play. I surprise myself in how I’ve started to think visually, and about how sound will punctuate a moment, how lighting will give shape to a scene, where things should be on the stage, and it’s definitely shifted how structure finds itself in my mind. All that's mademy writing more active, more stage-worthy, I think. But y'know, most of my plays aren’t New Georges plays. STRETCH was, and I was glad it came out that way, and that’s why we produced it, but I'm not sure BIG HUNGRY WORLD is, for example. Maybe it’s on the cusp! New Georges just has a very specific aesthetic, plus as a producer I’m more interested in things I CAN’T do, things that amaze me and that challenge me as a producer, which is a different kind of challenge. For years people asked me why I didn’t produce my own plays, and really that was why. As an artistic director I’m not interested in my own aesthetic! Ha! Great idea!

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 fear I tell this a lot, but... like most of the moms I knew in the 70s, my mom went back to school. She got a masters in counseling psychology to become a career counselor, and she had this book called Values Clarification. In it there were a bunch of exercises designed to, duh, help you clarify your values. And for some reason she liked to work on this with me and my brothers, it was her homework but she got bored and turned it into a game, I guess. Which we LOVED, maybe just cause it meant she was paying attention to us! We’d beg her, please, please can’t we play Values Clarification, please?? Which is a little weird. But basically she would read us a very short story with some sort of dilemma in it, and there would be a choice of answers about what the characters should do – none of them the WRONG answer, this was about values after all, but oh, we always knew which one SHE thought was right! My parents were very values-driven people even before all this, and I think I am too. They’d made real choices, in direct opposition to their parents, and as a result their values were very different from their parents’, and they were always very very clear about how and why. And I think I tend to see conflict, obstacles, misunderstandings as resulting from a difference in values, both in life and in my work, that's usually the filter. When they’re strong in my characters, when they’re malleable, when they’re overly stated or pretentious... And I think my theater company has survived for, oh my god, 18 years because our values are also well articulated, they’re truly the foundation, we’re always on the lookout for people who share or complement those values, and as a result we tend to have a happy time. Of course it's also pretty hard to be an art-maker if you’re shaky on this subject. I mean, if you see your own value in the context of money…. well, it’s gonna be a problem!

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Frankly I find heroic any and everybody who still wants to do this goddamn impossible thing. And Joe Papp.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Good question, I want to be excited! It’s happened more than usual lately, and that’s encouraging. I kinda like BIG excitement, an experience, an event, especially lately. I want magic, whether quiet or loud, I’m looking for combustion. I want to be surprised, to see something I've never seen before, whether it's a production element or a point of view or… something that I don’t know what it is yet, since I’m looking for that surprise! I'm partial to spectacle. I don’t mind messy. I want to go inside, be included in the experience (though confess I stop short at audience participation!). I like to see things that are irreverent, that mix it up, that have serious concern for the wider world but find ways to talk about it that don't take it too seriously. But really all kinds of things have the potential to excite me, and when something I think isn’t gonna be my thing surprises me into loving it, well, that’s always awesome.

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

A:  Find your own route. Take your time. Look for communities with which you have an aesthetic rapport. Find the right places, that is, for you, without worrying whether they’re “the best” based on some outside criteria. Meet directors and other collaborators who you can learn from and who will learn from you, so you can push each other and each others’ work forward into the world. Keep your collaborators, be consistent with them, so you have people who can get inside your work with you, so “the play” isn’t a thing on paper you hold close but is always in the process of becoming a living, three-dimensional thing. Learn to separate the good from the unnecessary when it comes to advice, especially dramaturgical advice; interpret it before you apply it, and listen just to the people you really really trust; more importantly, learn how to learn who those people are.


Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  STRETCH (a fantasia) runs through Sunday at People’s Light in Malvern, PA.

New Georges is associate producer of THE DIARY OF A TEENAGE GIRL by Marielle Heller, based on the graphic novel by Phoebe Gloeckner, directed by Sarah Cameron Sunde and Rachel Eckerling, which is enjoying an extended run (thru May 1!) at 3LD Art & Technology Center downtown.

And our primary spring show, MILK by Emily DeVoti, directed by Jessica Bauman, starts performances Monday April 26 at HERE! Whew! That enough?