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1100 Playwright Interviews

1100 Playwright Interviews A Sean Abley Rob Ackerman E.E. Adams Johnna Adams Liz Duffy Adams Tony Adams David Adjmi Keith Josef Adkins Nicc...

Mar 12, 2011

I Interview Playwrights Part 324: James Carter


James Carter

Hometown: Canton, IL

Current Town: Brooklyn, NY

Q:  Tell me about Feeder.

A:  “Feeder: A Love Story” reveals Jesse & Noel, who meet online, fall in love and get married. They share in a lifestyle called feederism. Typically, one partner feeds and assists the other partner in gaining weight. It’s sexually stimulating for both, and it’s a fringe subculture struggling to obtain acceptance. The play is about communication, acceptance, media, and of course, love.

The play is a transmedia storytelling experience told on multiple platforms – stage, blogs and Twitter. The audience can visit http://www.jessennoel.blogspot.com before the show (or after) to find out more about the characters.

It’s a leap of faith to depart from a traditional play format, but so far it seems to be working. People from feederism blogs, groups of transmedia storytellers, and theatergoers are all attending the show, which means we’re expanding terraNOVA Collective’s (http://www.terranovacollective.org) audience base and web traffic.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  I’m researching for a play about memes, or memetics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme). It’s a time consuming process asking questions like: What is creativity? Do we drive it, or does it drive us? Is there free will? Light stuff.

Transmedia storytelling will certainly be an aspect of it, but I’m not sure in what fashion, yet. The stage play/experience is at the center, and then I’ll build the other media elements once the story is firm.

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

A:  In high school, I wrote poetry, plays, and short stories. Once, I created this teenage wet dream fantasy playboy short story featuring all my friends as characters. More like bizzaro versions of my friends. It was episodic, and I even illustrated a few comic panels. It was dirty, uninhibited and extreme. I wrote a new chapter every day, and I read it to my friends at lunch. We all sat around howling at the sophomoric silliness, and my friends couldn’t wait for the next chapter the following day. It was the first time I entertained with my writing.

My parents found the notebook containing the story, and they were mortified. I grew up in a very conservative household, and I didn’t do anything “bad” – no drinking, no drugs, and no breaking curfew. I created the story to act out all the badness I wanted to be. The shame I had when my parents confronted me about the story was intense. I understood why they were so angry, but I didn’t understand what was wrong with what I wrote.

Something cracked open in me that day – people aren’t always going to like what I write. They might be offended, they might be angered, but there are others who will wait eagerly for the next chapter. Those are the people for whom I write.

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

A:  Every artist, administrator, and laborer would be paid what they’re worth.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  I have tons of theatre makers I admire: Athol Fugard, Diane Paulus, Jordan Roth, Danny Hoch, Lily Tomlin, and Scott Morfee.

However, the true theatrical heroes of the world are people like my mother, Ilene Carter, who taught high school theatre for years. All teachers who work to instill love of the arts and cultivate the next generation of artists are my heroes. We need to make arts education a priority.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  If I laugh, cry, re-think my morals or want to dance, I’m over the moon. The audience should be involved with the process. If the audience is on stage with the performers, awesome. If the audience can interact with characters before and after the theatrical experience, stellar. Theatre has roots in religious rites, yet now it is spectacle for tourists and star-gazers. Theatre should be communal. The cult of personality dominates theatre, and we need to return to an experiential congregation where theatre makers move, challenge and delight the audience.

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

A:  It’s a fickle business, and you’ll rarely make a living as a playwright. Think seriously about this. If you want to make money, don’t write plays. My parents told me this when I was young. I didn’t believe them. They were right. Write plays because you love it.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  “Feeder: A Love Story” runs 3/7-3/26/11 at HERE
Begin the story: http://jessennoel.blogspot.com
Tickets: http://here.org/shows/detail/453/

terraNOVA Collective: http://www.terranovacollective.org

Website: http://www.onemuse.com

Blog: http://one-muse.blogspot.com/

Mar 11, 2011

I Interview Playwrights Part 323: Josh Tobiessen



Josh Tobiessen

Hometown:  Schenectady, NY

Current Town:  Brooklyn, NY

Q:  Tell me about your show at Alliance.

A:  ‘Spoon Lake Blues’ is a comedy about two brothers living in a small lake town in the mountains, two white guys, who start robbing their wealthy summer neighbors to try to save the house that they grew up in. One of the brothers falls in love with the daughter of an African American family that they’ve robbed and tries to start up a relationship with her and things get a little wacky from there.

I started writing this play a few years ago when I was living alone in a cabin in the woods for a few months. The town that I was living in had a mix of locals and summer residents and I found the differences between these two groups really interesting. This was also the summer of Obama’s presidential run and the collapse of the economy so all these things affected what I was writing. Including the fact that the plumbing in the cabin started backing up.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  I’m working on a large cast comedy called ‘Crashing the Party’, which is about a family business that’s going belly up. As the family tries to throw a birthday party for the father, he’s trying to escape the country before the cops show up. I was really interested in exploring our country’s financial collapse in a way that didn’t let anyone off the hook. All kinds of chaos ensues but I think it has a lot of heart too. I’m doing my best to channel the zany vibe of the Kaufman and Hart comedies while keeping the subject matter current.

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

A:  Once when I was kid my family and a friend’s family went on a camping trip together somewhere in the Adirondacks. Near our campsite my friend and I found an entrance to a Gnome house. We were smart enough to know that this hole in the ground was a Gnome residence because I had recently read the book “Gnomes” by Wil Nuygen, which had pages of helpful illustrations about how Gnomes lived. So my friend and I spent the day making a crude barn for the Gnomes out of sticks from the forest and covered the roof with fern leaves. Then, to secure our position as leading Gnome benefactors we collected a small pile of acorns and left them as a gift outside the entrance to their humble residence. The next morning the pile of acorns had disappeared (obviously removed to their underground food pantry) and the Gnomes had left for us two tiny wooden swords to show their appreciation for out generosity. We were absolutely thrilled. We played with those swords all morning until my friend got a little over zealous and tried to cut through one of the ropes holding up the rain tarp. The sword broke. He was crushed. Fortunately (and this was how cool my dad was) my dad was able to quickly whittle a pretty good approximation of a Gnome sword to replace the real one that my friend had broke. It was actually amazing how closely it resembled an actual Gnome sword. But still, it was just a replica, and I had the real thing.

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

A:  All playwrights would get a six-figure salary and a unicorn.

There are a ton of things that people talk about changing in theater but I don’t know how many of them are realistic. Playwrights don’t get enough money because there are so many playwrights out there dying for a production (in a neighborhood full of middle school kids you can’t make much money mowing lawns). The normal rules of capitalism don’t apply because we do something that not enough people care about. Most professional theater in this country happens thanks to a small number of generous individuals who pay a lot of their own money to make it happen. I guess if I were going to change one thing about theater it would be that I would convince our benefactors to focus more on supporting the art rather than the architecture of theater. We get these massive architectural spaces with people’s names on them, but if they are just filled with dusty old plays then what are we really contributing to our nation’s theatrical future? Maybe we keep the old theater space but you get to put your name on a decent size play commission? Or a new play festival. Or a residency. This is happening in a few places, but I think that theater companies need to continue getting creative when someone comes to them with a big check.

That felt more like half of a thing I would change so here’s something else. I think we need figure out how to make theater cool for more people. This is hard because theatre people aren’t used to being cool except around other theatre people. You hear complaints (maybe once or twice from me) that no one wants to leave their homes anymore what with computers and televisions, but they leave their homes for music concerts and sporting events. Why? Because they like being in a crowd but also they have a pretty good idea that they’re going to like what they see. I think that theatres need to do a better job of branding themselves and creating a distinct aesthetic vision rather then trying to keep everyone happy. You go and buy the new Radiohead album (imagine for a second that you’re a Radiohead fan) if you liked what they’ve done before and you trust that their next album is also going run in a similar aesthetic vein. This isn’t saying that theatres need to do the same thing over and over again, and it isn’t saying that audiences need to go to the same theatre all the time. But audiences need a theatre that they can trust, that they can become fans of, that they can confidently tell their friends about, and that produces plays that they can’t wait to see. Theaters need to generate that kind of deserved loyalty from a core group of passionate audience members and stop worrying about making everyone sort of happy some of the time. Passionate audience members will attract new audience members with their passion, which is what we all want. Some places are already good at doing this and they’re usually the theatres that people get really excited about.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Stage managers.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I need to be surprised somehow, which sometimes means swinging on cables over an audience (I’m sorry haters, but there were some very exciting moments in Spider-man) and sometimes means making me laugh out loud. But it’s not all death defiance and punch lines, plays can also be intellectually or philosophically surprising (as long as they don’t beat me over the head with their superior world view). If I’m watching a play and I know where it’s going, or if I don’t care where it’s going, then I just feel bad for all those people in the audience who paid full price for tickets. An exciting play keeps me on my toes and activates me as an audience member.

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

A:  Every playwright has taken a completely different route to get where they are today so stop comparing yourself to other writers. Just keep writing, keep making meaningful connections with directors and people who produce plays, and try to write plays that aren’t boring.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A: 
Spoon Lake Blues at the Alliance Theatre, Atlanta. Previews start April 1st. Davis McCallum is directing, we have a great cast and it’s going to be a fun show.

Mar 6, 2011

I Interview Playwrights Part 322: Victor Lesniewski

 
Photo credit: Joshua Bright for The New York Times


Victor Lesniewski

Hometown: Torrington, CT

Current Town: Brooklyn, NY

Q:  Tell me about Where Bison Run.

A:  I wanted to write a play exploring the political situation in Belarus. We really only hear about it in our media when there's an election (like in December of 2010) and then it's only in the news cycle a couple of days and everyone here forgets all about it again, for years until the next election. Plus all we get is coverage skewed toward those protesting the restrictions on their civil liberties. Not that this is all bad. The more coverage on a global scale for them the better. But these protestors are a small part of the country's population and this kind of coverage does seem to be lacking in a deeper analysis of what the population as a whole is experiencing in that country. Calling a thinly veiled dictatorship out for what it is is fine, but we must also accept that those people in power are very good at what they do and that the average Belarusian is not veiwing his/her life through the same lense we are. The majority of Belarusians support their government because they've seen improvements in their standard of living compared to what came before. Not even assuming that we have any right to do so, but asking the question anyway, how do we approach a whole country of people who see their lives as improving over time and attempt to convince them that they are actually lacking in certain key civil liberties that may lead to an even better livelihood? Not only this, but when taking into consideration an area of the world where the land itself has been trampled upon by such a variety of people and nations over various extended periods of time, how do we expect one nation to unify itself and prosper? And how could this happen without an extremely strong organized government force? I am in no way defending the crimes committed against the civil liberties of the citizens of Belarus, but simply asking, if we are going to look on with what we feel is justified horror for a couple of days every few years, don't we owe it to ourselves to investigate the real issues at hand in the country everday on a more social, economic, and cultural level? Isn't their more to be gained by trying to understand the country's people than by simply disavowing the country as a whole due to its government?

And if all that sounds really boring, well, the play is also about hockey. I'm a big hockey fan and the sport is huge in Belarus, so it seemed like a natural way in to exploring the politics from a more personal level.

The play just had a reading at Ars Nova which was really tremendous. The cast's wealth of talent was completely unreal. I know Adam and many others out there know this already, but Ars Nova is such a great place to work. In addition to featuring powers that be who are really intelligent and great with new work, the community overall is fantastic. The shows that go up there are in such a wide range of styles. They embrace new and exciting work no matter what it looks like and that really helps build relationships among artists/musicians/performers from all walks of life.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  I have another play that had a public reading a few months ago. It's called Cloven Tongues. It's set in a small town in upstate New York and deals with an immigrant woman with an unknown past who gets picked up at the Canadian border for running drugs. A priest and a social worker take her in and try to figure out how best to help her. Like Bison it has a certain global element to it where American characters come into contact with someone from a culture they may not completely understand. In the end though, this play is also about those American characters and for what reasons we in this country sometimes go about trying to help others.

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'm not sure if high school can be considered childhood. I know when I was in high school, I certainly didn't consider it so, but... In high school I was lucky enough to go on a class theatrical outing and see Long Wharf's production of David Rabe's A Question of Mercy. This was when Doug Hughes was there. The production was brilliant and the play really struck a chord with me. It was such a political play yet it was completely personal and heart wrenching. It examined and considered very big questions without lecturing. It was truly powerful and inspiring. At that point I thought, if theatre can do that, that's what I want to do.

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

A:  Creating more opportunities for playwrights to have their work produced on a professional (not just do-it-yourself) level. There is so much creative talent in NYC when you look at all of the directors and actors both working and not working. I think the city could support even more theatres, productions, etc on a very high level. Of course all this comes back around to the ability to actually produce at that level. So I suppose a variety of things would have to change, we'd be talking about growing younger audiences, finding production dollars, etc. I have an infinite amount of respect for those people who are already taking up these tasks on a day to day basis. Theatre administrators and staffs (not just in NYC, but across the country) have dedicated their lives and livelihoods to fighting a very difficult war and they are truly heroic.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Gorky, Chekhov, Havel, Pirandello.
Rabe, Shinn, Baitz, Sorkin.
Beckett, Artaud, the Italian Futurists.
Dostoevsky, Calvino, Faulkner.
Etc.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  New plays. Plays that deal directly with where we are right now as people, or as a culture, or as a world. Plays that deal with our humanity on a global scale.

And given the subject matter of Bison I'd be remiss not to add my admiration for the Belarus Free Theater. They make a kind of political theatre that I don't know I would approach myself, but that is very powerful, poignant, and very necessary given the current circumstances under which they operate. With members who have been arrested, beaten, and chased underground (and I'm sure that's only part of the story), it is simply amazing what these people have sacrificed in the name of art and freedom.

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

A:  Go see new plays. Successful artistic communities have always thrived when contemporary artists are in conversation with one another through their work.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  My girlfriend just happens to be the incredibly gifted playwright Janine Nabers. Her play Annie Bosh Is Missing is going to Sundance this spring. So keep an eye out for that one when it gets back to NYC and anything else with her name on it. For more info on Janine, check out Part 180 of this blog. Yes, that's right, I just plugged the blog from inside the blog...

Mar 4, 2011

I Interview Playwrights Part 321: Abi Basch


Abi Basch

Hometown: New York City

Current Town: San Francisco (by way of Austin, Minneapolis and Berlin)

Q:  What are you working on now?
A:  Arctic Circles, a new play I am developing with my company (Kinderdeutsch Projekts). We recently got a grant from the Creative Work Fund for its 2012 premiere with Climate Theater, so now everything is about the geographic challenges of gathering the international lot of us for rehearsals, planning and production. This summer we will meet at Odin Theater in Holstebro, Denmark to do a development workshop with the magical Else Marie Laukvik. The first draft is done and I am hammering away at draft two with my dramaturg/genius Duca Knezevic. Then the very brilliant Paula Matthusen, electroacoustic composer/installation artist, will take over and transform the piece into some uncanny, frosty landscape in time for the summer workshop. I am hugely excited to start working with the group of collaborating artists, which includes German scholar extraordinaire Caroline Weist and my very bizarre and beloved actors from Kinderdeutsch Projekts Molly Shaiken, Thorsten Bihegue and Stefanie Fiedler. Did I butter my collaborators with enough compliments? I don't think so. They really are incredible.

I've also been doing dance dramaturgy, most recently for a piece by Tiit Helimets for the Estonian Ballet premiering this October. And I'm starting to write screenplays -- short form to warm up, now heading into a feature length. I sucked it up and bought Final Draft and let me tell you the part of the program that makes your computer read your plays back in crazy robot voices is well worth the investment.

Q:  Tell me about kInDeRdEuTsCh pRoJeKtS. How do you create work together?
A:  I write the scripts (either from scratch or in response to actor explorations) then cut the hell out of them to make room for movement. Then we all get together for lengthy processes to uncover the unique (dark, deranged, comical) movement, visual and sound worlds of the play. I rewrite the scripts in response, we carve out the worlds' specifics in response, and then we premiere. Then we tour.

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 father used to blast 8-tracks of South Pacific on family roadtrips and sing along at full volume. This is probably the origin of my love for theater. How this became experimental physical theater is a mystery of my brain and its dark sense of humor. It could have to do with my profound wish to dance and sing in the face of atrocity - actually that sums up my aesthetic pretty well.

Q:  If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?
A:  I wouldn't. It is the perfect experience of being most alive in a room of strangers, especially in the 21st c. However, if I could change one thing about theater in the US, I would make tickets affordable and find a way to get younger, more diverse spectators in the seats. Oh and I would bring back the Federal Theatre Project. And while I'm at it, let's revivify Ethel Merman.

Q: Who are your theatrical heroes?

A:  Russian revolutionaries (Meyerhold, Mayakovsky, Bulgakov), German contemporaries (Jelinek, Pollesch, Stemann, Schlingensief), Theater Laboratory visionaries (Grotowski, Barba, their child companies Dah and ZID), hoofers and female impersonators of the vaudeville circuit, Mae West, Charles Ludlam, Eva Le Gallienne, Mary Martin as Peter Pan, Mei Lanfang and Chinese Opera performers in general, Inuit derision song poets, San Francisco Ballet dancers, new play development organizations that spoiled me (Young Playwrights Inc, The Playwrights' Center, Playwrights Foundation), my teachers and mentors (Sherry Kramer, Alice Tuan, Jill Dolan, Daniel Alexander Jones, Honor Molloy, Suzan Zeder, Paula Vogel, Chuck Mee), my colleagues (too many to mention, but to start Trista Baldwin, Jordan Harrison, Kirk Lynn, Steve Moore, Dan Basila, Carlos Trevino, Peter Nachtrieb) and my collaborators (see question one).

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Anything with a clear aesthetic and bodies moving through space. Most of the work being made right now in Berlin.

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?
A:  Travel. See as much work as you can internationally to experience what is possible. And find your people, work with them as much as you are physically able, make each other better artists.

Q:  Plugs, please:
A:  
My website: www.abibasch.com
Kinderdeutsch Projekts: www.kinderdeutsch.org
Our collaborators, colleagues, mentors: http://www.kinderdeutsch.org/links.htm
Voices Underwater plays in D.C. through April: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/02/AR2011030207490.html

Feb 25, 2011

I Interview Playwrights Part 320: Matthew Paul Olmos


Matthew Paul Olmos

Hometown: Los Angeles

Current Town: Brooklyn

Q:  Tell me about your upcoming show at Mabou Mines.

A:  This is my 2nd year in the Mabou Mines/Suite Resident Artist Program, in which the first year focuses on exploration and in the second focuses on bringing a piece to production level.

It is a piece entitled The Nature of Captivity, based on The Dog Catcher Riots, about a family that gets run off from their home, and then the play turns itself around and we look at the people who ran the family off. It’s a little socialist and a little animal rights, but it’s pretty fucked up and funny too. I dunno how to describe it. But I’m ridiculously indebted to the team in the room, and who have worked with me in the past, it’s such a great example of the many together elevating a piece to place it could never have gotten to on its own.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  For the first time, I’m returning to the world of an older piece. Not a sequel, but almost a companion piece to i put the fear of méxico in’em; it takes place some years after the current drug wars in México. The play originated after I read a letter printed in the Los Angeles Times from a Tijuana resident addressed to her government. In the letter she painted the picture of what life had become since these wars had grown wild, and at the end of the letter, she asked the very simple question, “How do you expect us to stay here?”

And I began to wonder what if the cities and towns in México gave way to ghost’towns. What if dust settled the country over? What if the entire of México became nothing more than a fossil of the people who used to live there? What happens when a government can no longer protect its citizens? And what’s sorta ironic, is that after I began the mental notes for this one, it actually began to happen sorta in some places in México, so it’ll be interesting to see how the situation and the play turn out.

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

A:  In 2nd grade, at Arroyo Vista Elementary, a new student named Roland started mid’year. And I remember very distinctly his first day at recess; he stepped out into the yard and tried to join a group of us in the playground area. He was accompanied by another boy, Brian, who I think sat next to him in class and thus they’d already started a friendship. In any case, this group I was with included the cool kids of the school. And on this particular day, one of the cooler boys stopped short, turned to Roland and said, “What do you think you’re doing?” To which Roland and Brian just stood; froze. The cool boy went further, “You can’t come with us.” And very quickly Brian led Roland away from us, retreating to the opposite side of the playground. There was laughter, heckles. And as my group ran off into the imagination of the playground, I remember standing back. My friend asked what I was doing, I gave some excuse, like I had to do something or had other plans. Really, a 2nd grader with other plans.

So instead, I walked over to where Roland and Brian were sitting on the bottom part of a slide. Brian looked up, “Did they kick you out too?” I lied and told them that they had. I didn’t want them to feel bad.

I don’t remember what happened the next day, but I remember I spent at least that one recess with Roland and Brian, pretending to be an outcast like they had. It is my earliest memory of feeling something was not right. That certain people were treating others unfairly. And that I never wanted to be on the wrong side of that. (Believe me, I’ve been on the wrong side of that many, many times since then, but like to think I learned it was wrong, in that 2nd grade recess, even if I’ve failed to be as smart in life as I was that day over twenty-five years ago).

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

A:  I have this daydream that theatre allows itself to be more fucked up. For all the invigorating pieces I see, it is still a very safe art’form, at least in this country. While I wish it that we could take politics and social issues to the streets and make people pay attention. I don’t think it’s possible. People who are not into theatre have their view of it and that will never change. No matter what we put onstage. Even with certain artists trying to change that, I daydream it that we could just…be drastic.

I’m talkin’ rival’fuckin theatre companies, like Partial Comfort kicking the shit out of Soho Rep, not like artistically, but like in the streets. I wanna see HERE Arts throw a burning brick into a press performance by The Civilians, and then see, from out of nowhere, The Public Theater seek retaliation. I want the general public to read about playwrights Sam Hunter and Carla Ching getting into a fistfight in the Crime Section of the Post. I want them to know that there is blood and guts going on in what we do. We want theatre to be dangerous again? We might haffta start from the outside in on that one. (disclaimer: Matthew is a fan of all those mentioned)

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  What inspires me daily is everyone who just does the work. An actor or actress who shows up at first read through and have clearly already gone over the script multiple times and have educated questions about the piece. A director who doesn’t dance around or on top of what is or isn’t working, but rather challenges and isn’t afraid of being challenged. Producers who nevermind what they’ve been told to mind and follow their hearts. Writers who don’t just put their own neuroses or personal ticks onstage because it is enjoyable for them, and nevermind the rest of us who have to sit through something neither relevant, nor even very interesting.

There are so many beautiful talents out there doing everything their gifts allow to create great theatre. Even if it is an individual performance in a shit play; or a silent and confident direction on an over’produced classic. Even if that relevant play doesn’t work at all. People who give a shit about this what they do; both in their work and their choices. These are the people who inspire me to get off my ass and try harder every day. Who make me want to try past my serious self-doubt and harshly critical side. I am inspired by artists and theatre folk out bring it, in every sense of the catch phrase.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  What I find myself floundering in aspiration to is theatre that asks something both of its participants and audiences. While I too am irritated at theatre that doesn’t “let me in,” I am perhaps more offended by theatre that has very little to even let me in to. Alright, so yes, in the moment, perhaps I am screaming inside my head “Please End!” to some experimental or pretentious piece that hasn’t bothered clueing me in on whatever it is its doing. I am guilty of being on both sides of this scenario.

However, I just cannot muster the respect for a piece that asks nothing of me, that is content for me to just sit there and suck air.

Writers like Thomas Bradshaw, Young Jean Lee, Tommy Smith, they are not (or don’t seem to me) to be after audiences that wish to just sit back and enjoy the evening’s entertainment, they seem to be asking something more of their audiences. To think and question what is in front of them. To discuss after the lights have come up. To dismiss their work even. But under no circumstances are you to sit back for ninety minutes, then leave the theatre and shrug your shoulders. There are certain theatre companies, large and small, who seem happy enough putting up what-they-call-theatre which poses nothing to the audience other than they pay for a ticket, sit and be amused, before exiting as quietly as they first came in. With no change in them, nor the performers. In fact, the entire evening has been closer to pressing pause than anything else.

And thus theatre becomes irrelevant.

So for me, what theatre excites me and I wish I could accomplish is that what wishes to hold a dialogue with their audience, one that is equally participatory. Whether artists who can accomplish this succeed or fail, I don’t give a shit; I will continue to show up, to buy my ticket as soon as they go on’sale because I am eager to be in their audience, to be challenged.

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

A:  Something I’m beginning to learn the long way is to not only embrace questioning, but be willing to make changes afterwards.

It is very easy, sometimes, to come up with a pretty good first or second draft of a play; you have many moments that work, there is an overall arc to the piece. All in all you think to yourself, “this is decent.” And in many ways you are happy with it. And in your own arrogant way, you think to yourself, “It’s already better than half the shit out there.”

And hopefully, if you are doing your job, you’ll work through the script with a director, actors, etc., and listen to them when they ask you questions, challenge what you’ve written, and communicate to you what they are getting from the piece. You’ll create an environment that aims not only to give you feedback, but asks every person in the room to ask really deep questions about what it is you’re doing with this play and what it means in the world around us.

And then there’s the playwright back in their bedroom, or barstool, with all these notes. And you begin to read over your script again, and some of the changes you have been thinking over…they just seem so big. And you become afraid to mess with the parts of the script that already work. So you begin to just only tinker. Or clean up certain scenes. You begin to question how well a reading went, and theorize that is why certain parts didn’t work. Perhaps you’ve already rented a space, or scheduled a public reading, and you think to yourself that with this one talented actress or this one skilled actor, the script will fly regardless.

I find that, often, writers are too afraid to turn everything they’ve written onto its head and address the true problems inside it. We don’t want to damage the sections of the piece that already work. So we try this patch’job, or pretend the missing pieces will not be missed. Or we think that the story we are telling doesn’t need to go any further. That this one aspect of whatever topic we’re writing about is enough. We let certain blames fall onto the characters onstage, as opposed to digging deeper and presenting a play that discusses why those characters are flawed to begin with. We let our script run along the surface because we are too scared and too lazy to try to write something much more complex and difficult.

It is our job both as writers and as people to always question, but not to stop there. Rather to dig into ourselves for answers, and when we find them, to have the courage to completely disassemble something we’ve worked so hard on. To not settle for something good, but try for something that scares the shit out of you instead.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  The Nature of Captivity runs March 3rd through 7th at the ToRoNaDa space in Performance Space 122 at 7:30pm. It is directed by Victor Maog and features Keith Eric Chappelle, Sarah Nina Hayon, Chantel Cherisse Lucier, and Juan Francisco Villa; plus set design/costumes by Deb O.; sound design by Daniel Kluger; lighting design by James Clotfelter; movement/choreography by Jenny Golonka; stage managed by Neal Kowalsky; and produced by Brandi Bravo. To RSVP: rap@maboumines.org
For more information: www.maboumines.org or www.matthewpaulolmos.com.

Keep an eye out for a world-premiere of i put the fear of méxico in’em in the spring of 2012, though I can’t officially announce yet.

Feb 22, 2011

I Interview Playwrights Part 319: Stephanie Fleischmann


Stephanie Fleischmann

Hometown: London, England (til I was 7….)

Current Town: Columbiaville, NY, a tiny spot on the map, north of Hudson, NY, in the Hudson River Valley; & NYC.

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I’m putting the finishing touches on The Secret Lives of Coats, a coatcheck musical with music by my Red Fly/Blue Bottle collaborator Christina Campanella—we’ve been developing it with director Hayley Finn, with much good support from The Playwrights Center, Whitman College, and more recently, New Georges, and the Anna Sosenko Assist Trust and a faculty development grant from Skidmore, where I teach. It’s about three coatcheck girls, their longing to escape the box beyond their coatcheck booths; it’s about the things we lose in the holes in the pockets of our coats. It’s funny and fun, whimsical, charming, surprising, mysterious, even. We’re doing a second NYC reading on Monday, February 28th at Chelsea Studios.

I’m just about to start a new short play, which I will interpolate into my larger piece, WHAT THE MOON SAW, a compendium of plays inspired by Hans Christian Andersen and set in post 9/11 NYC. Son of Semele Ensemble will premiere it in LA in September, in commemoration of the 10-year anniversary of 9-11. Matt McCray, the director, has asked me to set the new play in LA, and so I am collecting experiences re what it felt like to be in LA that day.

I’m beginning to push around pieces of the next longer work, tentatively entitled The Adventures of the Mousey Woman. It’s about invisibility and overcoming our deepest fears: of taking action, of being seen and not seen. And, in the same vein as Secret Lives, it’s also a whole lot playful and plenty silly, which is what I seem to be needing right now, lyrical and over-the-top, and, unlike much of what I write, eminently produce-able—all that’s needed is an empty space, 4 performers and one musician!

I am deep into a novel entitled The Trash Picker. I have always written fiction as well as plays, a habit that informs my playwriting, which is layered, and can be epic, kaleidoscopic, microscopic, and at times has been labeled, well, novelistic.

With director/collaborator Mallory Catlett, I’m in the very beginning phases of development for our next Latitude 14 project (a company I co-founded with Mallory, Christina Campanella, and Peter Norrman, when RED FLY got its legs, or I should say wings), which is an architectural intervention/historical/multimedia exploration of the Hudson Opera House, New York state’s oldest surviving theater.

And I am mulling over how to write about my father, who passed away last June, and lived a jam-packed and visionary life that may well have changed the course of classical music in the 20th century.

If this all sounds like a lot, it’s not. The writing comes in fits and starts, in jagged bursts, interspersed with the business (read: busy-ness) of living and being a writer in the 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:  First, there is the music. I grew up with music. My Dad ran the LA Philharmonic, and there was always music. That sort of says it all. But here are a few other childhood tales.

I was four. I have this dim but deeply etched memory of a party at my preschool in London, where we lived until I was seven. The performance: The shadow of a newspaper folded up and snipped at with a scissors, and then pulled on and pulled as before my eyes behind its screen it grew into a tree. Magic.

I was still four. I was taken to see Peter Pan. Neverland and flying children. We lived in Bayswater. Kensington Gardens was around the corner. I would go to the park and trace the footsteps of Peter Pan and Wendy and the boys. Literally. The imaginary world and the real world overlaying each other, dovetailing, careening together.

At seven, I visited my grandparents, who lived on the other side of the world in South Africa, where I watched a chameleon shift its colors. From green to brown and back again. This was the magic of the natural world.

I was 12. We were living in L.A., an edge-of-the-world land of sunsets and surfers and smoke and mirrors. I was a fish out of water and often felt an intense need to disappear. I found my escape hatch in books and in the enveloping dark of the theater. I grew up going to plays at the Mark Taper: Luis Valdez’s Zoot Suit and the touring version of the original production of For Colored Girls are plays that planted seeds. From them I understood the power and the lyricism of what a writer could conjure. And then. I was lucky enough to witness a rehearsal of Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale, I believe it was directed by Peter Sellars. I was so mesmerized I forgot to eat lunch (a first for me!). Music and narrative and strangeness and heart and angularity. And rehearsal…. I was hooked.

All this is to say that in part because we moved from London to LA, in part because my father moved from Germany to South Africa (where he met my mother) and then to London, I am from nowhere and everywhere; I hail from an intensely specific melting pot, and yet my family has nowhere it can well and truly call home. Hence much of my writing is about dislocation, prismatic notions of home. My earliest “magical” years in England and the clash that came about when we moved to L.A., a world that on many levels felt to me incredibly mundane. I am, to this day, obsessed with the magic in ordinary, everyday things, the stories these things have to tell.

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

A:  I would make it adventurous all the time and accessible to everybody. I would make touring work internationally a bigger (budgetary & administrative) priority in an attempt to erase boundaries, cultural, aesthetic, intellectual (this happens so much more in Europe, for instance). I would raise the bar. By this I mean theater needs to push its own envelope if it is to be capable of not just holding its own but engaging in a conversation with the other art forms. I would empower writers to head theaters and encourage them to become producers. Half of the year. But most of all, I would want to rejigger the system so that theatermakers who have committed their lives to the stage can earn a living wage.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Suzan-Lori Parks. August Wilson. Ruth Maleczech. Brian Mertes. Reg Rogers. Jesse J. Perez. Anton Chekhov. Olga Neuwirth. Osvaldo Goliajov. Mac Wellman. Black-Eyed Susan. Nilo Cruz. Sound designers everywhere. Jim Findlay. Olivera Gajic. Melissa Kievman & Brian Mertes. Pina Bausch (Many years ago I was in Venice and so were they. Staying in the same hotel, no less. I watched them drink coffee and smoke cigarettes and eat together as a company. I watched them perform at the Teatro Fenice. I fell in love with these beautiful, itinerant performers whose work was their life.) Buchner. Bill Irwin. Lynn Cohen. Needcompany’s Lear. Enda Walsh. Sibyl Kempson. William Shakespeare. Kelly Copper and Pavol Liska. Arto Lindsay. Mark Ribot. Erik Ehn. Jane Houdyshell. Just about every actor I’ve ever worked with. Todd London & Emily Morse, of New Dramatists. Okay, you get the picture… I’m leaving out many, not intentionally, but because there are so many.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theater that makes me see and feel the world in a new way. Theater that is sensory and visual and lyrical and raw and subtle and in-your-face and compositionally rigorous and surprising and revelatory.

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

A:  Carve out time to write. 5 days a week. Even if it’s just half an hour a day. It’s the rhythm of writing that helps you get over the hump. First day back’s always the hardest. Read everything. See everything. Know who’s out there—actors, directors, designers, stage managers, producers. Live fully. Be in the world. Then sequester yourself. Look inside. Ask questions of yourself and your world. Don’t be too hard on yourself. Have faith in yourself, your voice. Don’t be afraid to speak up in rehearsal. Show gratitude to all those who make your vision a reality. Make rehearsal happen by mounting your own work. Know what it is to make theater on every level. Dream.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A: 
www.latitude14.org

The Secret Lives of Coats, Feb 28, 2011, http://www.thesecretlivesofcoats.wordpress.com

What the Moon Saw. Son of Semele, LA, Sept 2011

Feb 19, 2011

I Interview Playwrights Part 318: Chana Porter


Photo courtesy of David Gibbs/DARR Publicity

Chana Porter

Hometown: Columbia, Maryland

Current Town: Woodhaven, Queens, New York

Q:  Tell me about AliveWire and your upcoming show.

A:  Scott Rodrigue (my director and cofounder of AliveWire) and I met a couple of years ago at a Pataphysics benefit at The Flea. It became clear pretty fast that we were going to make beautiful work together, which is a specific kind of love and marriage. Our respective partners get it.

We’re dedicated to creating new work that’s connective, charged, and current.

Scott been a huge part of Besharet’s development. He’s the first director to understand that my writing is wholly an intuitive process-- our act of discovery is ongoing. So you have to be brave and generous and willing to change.

Besharet is an ambitious play, wrestling huge issues (love, faith, gender, sexuality, atrocity) in a intimate way. I’m interested in where the private meets the public, those intersections on shifting grounds. I started it 4 years ago, I feel like I’ve come of age writing it. At times the play has surprised me so much I’ve been truly creeped out, as in “that came out of me?”

Our cast is so powerful, our crew are such inspired artists-- I can’t believe I get to work with these people.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  Two really exciting projects that aren’t plays:

I’m collaborating with wonderful artist Delia Gable on The Ruthie Chronicles, a graphic novel in two parts. Part one will be out this summer. I’m a huge comic book fan from way back, but never realized the extant of storytelling potential. The access of comics to inner life, dreams, fantasy-- it’s intoxicating and liberating. (You don’t need more money! You can do ANYTHING.)

I’m currently in development with film director Kevan Tucker (The Unidentified), who is big-hearted and rad, for a feature length love-song to the city of Worcester, MA. We’re shooting on location this summer. I’ll be acting as well as writing, which is scary. I’m so excited to learn how to make a movie.

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’m a stutterer and have been my whole life. My communication has always been fraught. I started writing poems and songs as a very young child, dance and puppetry as I grew older-- sometimes as a way to survive presentations throughout school. If I could make a really creative, funny puppet show about the U.S. constitution, my classmates would forgive that I couldn’t speak under pressure. (Thus the monocled sock puppet “Mr. History” was born.) So I guess I began as a writer out of necessity. The funny thing-- it’s such an asset to me as a grown-up. EVERYONE has trouble communicating. My physicalized struggle made me curious about what’s hidden, unexamined. And curiosity paired with empathy is a great start to being a writer.

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

A:  Money and the ways we use it. We need new modes of creation-- so many new plays are getting developed endlessly without ever seeing production. You cannot realize your play without having it embodied. I know our biggest challenge for AliveWire is space--both performance and rehearsal. I spent about a month rehearsing a performance piece in textile warehouse in midtown, at night after the staff went home. The city is bursting with these underused spaces. So I would change our mindsets: the way we think about theatre, money and the normal channels of production.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Three very shaping experiences: My parents took me to a dinner theater production of Brigadoon in a Maryland suburb when I was around 7-- I think I had my mouth open for the entire show. At 14 I was in Our Town and I remember listening to Act III night after night, peeking into something beautiful and devastating. At Hampshire College I was in a production of Suzan-Lori Parks’ Venus. Her work is very powerful in repetition, a blossoming, an unfurling occurs. (Suzan hugged me years later when I told her I was a fan-- established artists who are warm and generous to strangers are always heroes of mine.)

Craig Lucas is a hero of mine, big time.

Yoko Ono. Erik Ehn. All of 13P. Annie Baker. Maria Irene Fornes. The movies of Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Everything by Marguerite Duras. Omigod Chekhov.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Messy compassionate curious theatre. Theatre that does many things at once, like looking at the whole world-- beauty and horror existing together, rather than undercutting each other. I dig sincerity. It’s more funny/fulfilling than detachment and irony. I dig ambition and simplicity. Honest looking. Work that expands.

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

A:  Follow joy. Meet lots of people. Make friends with the ones who delight and inspire you. Inside a great friendship, opportunities to work together present themselves organically- you can’t enforce a timeline. It’s important to work on your health and happiness as well as your craft. Eat well, exercise, be silent, listen, go dancing.

Q:  Tell me about when I saved your life.

A:  This summer I went on a silent retreat in the Catskills led by the singular Erik Ehn. On the last night, three playwrights closed their laptops on the porch in unison. Scotch appeared, silent toasts all around. Had we finished our plays at the same moment? We couldn’t ask, because we couldn’t talk. Casey ran away with her glass, returning with oars and a gleam in her eyes. An understanding emerged. Casey, the rogue Eric, his cigarettes in a plastic bag for waterproofing, you and I made our silent way to the dock in the deep dark. It was a starless night, I recall, with a true breeze coming down off the mountains. You stood chivalrous beneath the dark forest canopy, assisting Eric, Casey and I into a canoe and pushing us off into the black water. We paddled with vigor briefly, then thought in unison-- it is very dark out. How will we find out way back to our unlit dock on this starless eve? We sat silently in our still vessel. Eric smoked his waterproofed tobacco. It had been a beautiful six days. About a half an hour later we began paddling, at first in a circle. The wind had pushed us back, but how far? We argued silently, gesticulating with our paddles. We paddled on and laughed to the great Poseidon at our present calamity. I briefly considered leaping into the water and pulling our wayward vessel to the nearest patch of shoreline. We would not speak! The trip was too profound to break our reprieve from socialization prematurely. Suddenly, I opened my mouth. “Ka-kaw!” I cried, a primitive bird call meaning “Where is the dock? We’re lost!” “Ka-kaw! Ka-kaw!” you answered, meaning “It’s right here and it’s time for tea!” We paddled toward the sound of your cries, and you helped us weary seafarers on to dry land.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  AliveWire Theatrics presents Chana Porter’s Besharet March 5th-27th in Space 9 at PS122, $18 general, $15 students/seniors. Saturday March 12th is our donor night, $50 for the show and a post show soiree with open bar, delicious eats, music and revelry with cast and crew.

A reading of my new play, Leap and the Net Will Appear will be directed by Craig Lucas on March 14th, in Space 9 at PS122 at 7 p.m.

Feb 16, 2011

I Interview Playwrights Part 317: Elana Greenfield



Elana Greenfield

Born: NYC

Current Town: Highfalls

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  A couple of things—
XOTEA MOCKBA (Hotel Moscow), idiotically, a play based on a couple of events and characters in Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot, especially on the character of Nastasya Filippovna who is really amazing. And a short-story/cross-genre collection (a sort of sequel to my last book, At the Damascus Gate: Short Hallucinations) working title, WHITE CITY.

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 in two very different countries/cultures and in two different languages—with words for experiences in one language that didn’t even show up on the grid of the other-- that has affected my writing both formally and thematically. Also, when I was a child I heard of the humanist philosopher, Wilhelm Reich, who died in jail in a federal penitentiary in Pennsylvania before I was born—I heard that before he died 6 tons of his books were burnt by government order in a public incinerator in downtown NYC. I think because I was a child and this happened so close to where I lived, in the city where I was born it affected the way I felt ---seemed to me while most everyone else was acting like they were living in peacetime there was actually some kind of war going on.

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

A:  4 things: more leaps; more courage; productions constructed with care on all levels; and an affordable seat, bench, patch of ground---depending on venue—so that anyone who wants to can view the players and the play.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  -I love Billy Wilder’s early scripts— the completely’ idiotic’ and fantastic ways he plays with language—
-Oscar Wilde.
-Modern: the work of Sarah Kane, Tony Kushner, Mac Wellman, August Wilson, Charles Ludlam, Sam Shepard. I love the plays my students write—fearless, and so smart.
-I love Pascale Ferran’s films.
-I love the work of James Thierree.
-Eugene Hutz is an amazing writer/lyricist and performer.
-Would have given anything to see Peter Lorre on stage. Peter Lorre is a sort of theatrical hero of mine.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  One that leaves room for the humanity of the viewer. A theater in which the audience feels a sense of flying, of a world getting bigger, a horizon getting larger, the air getting brighter, something unexpected entering their realm, either because the performances are so true, or the language so alive and full of grace, or both.

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

A:  Read. Write what you would like to see, and stay playful and stay serious.

Feb 13, 2011

I Interview Playwrights Part 316: Eugenie Chan


Eugenie Chan

Hometown: San Francisco

Current Town: San Francisco

Q:  Tell me about your show at Cutting Ball.

A:  They're two one acts -- Two takes on the Classical tale of Ariadne, Theseus, and the Minotaur -- a love triangle of sorts. In Diadem, young Ariadne revels in love's first blush after running away with Theseus, the hero who has killed the man-eating Minotaur, her brother. In Bone to Pick, Ariadne, now reconfigured as Ria the Waitress, awaits her soldier boy in a diner at the end of a war-torn world, after millenia of abandonment. About love, war, betrayal and one woman's complicity in her country's demise.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  Madame Ho, a play inspired by the life of my great grandmother (and her mother) -- a single mother and brothel madam in turn of the century SF. Her mother was the first of our family to immigrate to the States in the 1850s.

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 wrote a play in the 5th grade about Hermes and his brother Apollo. My best friend played older brother Apollo; I was baby Hermes in diapers; our buddies were cows, and we made our teacher be the rear end of one of the cows. She graciously complied. My 6 foot tall best friend threw me around a lot -- I was a shrimp. It was a hit! Okay, I like myths of all kinds, history, and work that exceeds naturalism.

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

A:  Cheaper cheaper tickets.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  David Henry Hwang. Shakespeare. Caryl Churchill. Ntozake Shange. Lorca. The Kabuki play Benten Kozo by Kawatake Mokuami about a noble thief.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theater that is song, dance, story, poetry -- that can't be pigeonholed into a type.

Drama/Performance that pulls no punches.

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

A:  Keep on keeping on. Write to Desire.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Oy, here you go...

Bone to Pick / Diadem
by Eugenie Chan
directed by Rob Melrose
at Cutting Ball Theatre
San Francisco
January 14 - February 13, 2011 415-419-3584 http://www.cuttingball.com

Two takes on the Classical tale of Ariadne, Theseus, and the Minotaur -- a love triangle of sorts. In Diadem, young Ariadne revels in love's first blush after running away with Theseus, the hero who has killed the man-eating Minotaur, her brother. In Bone to Pick, Ariadne, now reconfigured as Ria the Waitress, awaits her soldier boy in a diner at the end of a war-torn world, after millenia of abandonment. About love, war, betrayal and one woman's complicity in her country's demise.


Courtside
Music by Jack Perla. Libretto by Eugenie Chan.
Houston Grande Opera
East + West Stories
Chinese Community Center
9800 Town Park
Houston
February 5, 2011 and TBA
http://www.hgoco.org/songofhouston/eastwest/

Three generations of Chinese Americans must find ways to reconcile the expectations between the dining room table and the basketball court, in order to live with pride in modern America, while maintaining tradition. Courtside follows Jason Ching, a hot-shot, high school basketball player who fights back when taunted on the court.

WORKSHOPS at the RISK IS THIS... The Cutting Ball New Experimental Plays Festival --
Tontlawald
By Eugenie Chan
Directed by Paige Rogers
May 13-14, 2011
http://www.cuttingball.com

Based on an ancient Estonian tale about a dark forest and an abused girl who hides there, TONTLAWALD weaves movement, a cappella singing, and storytelling together into a gorgeous spectacle for the eyes and ears. TONTLAWALD is slated to receive its fully staged World Premiere as part of the company’s 2011-2012 season.

Madame Ho
By Eugenie Chan
Directed by Rob Melrose
May 27-28, 2011
http://www.cuttingball.com


MADAME HO tells the story of a formidable woman in the Wild West, a real-life 19th century brothel hostess, single mother, Chinese immigrant, great-great grandmother, and ghost.
 

Feb 9, 2011

coming up next and right now

Nerve continues in the OC at Chance Theater until Feb 27

review   .    review   .    review

Deflowering Waldo continues in Rochester, NY until Feb 13

Reading of Temporary Everything at Hudson Stage Company Feb 11

Reading of Hearts Like Fists (Holland Productions)  in Boston Feb 17

Reading of Elsewhere at Bloomington Playwrights Project in Indiana March 16

Reading of Elsewhere at Jobsite Theater in Florida March 14

Stay tuned.  Lots more on the way.  (at least 3 more readings and possibly 10 more productions this year.)

Feb 8, 2011

I Interview Playwrights Part 315: Roland Tec


Roland Tec

Hometown/Current Town: New York City. Born here. May die here, if I’m lucky.

Q:  Tell me about The Rubber Room. How are you rehearsing? How did you and Gary Garrison write it together? What was that process?

A:  Well, as we speak, there are five separate theatre companies rehearsing the play all over town. I’ve only met one cast—just yesterday, actually, when I dropped in on rehearsal for the very first time. So I can’t really say much about the rehearsal process. I hope they’re doing a very good job but, honestly, I have no idea. And that’s what’s kind of cool about it.

By having five separate companies rehearse independently and then calling one actor in from each company for each performance, it’s really a crazy wild ride… for everyone involved. I mean, any given night could either completely falter or soar. And that danger can be intoxicating.

Personally, as a writer, I’m eager to see as many of the 25 unique casts as possible because I view it as a great learning opportunity. That’s why I’m thrilled that they’ve not only scheduled the performances on every night of the week but they’ve also scheduled a 7pm and a 9:30pm every night so that when I do go, I’ll be able to experience two wildly contrasting versions of the play within a span of just a few hours.

I have a feeling the experience is going to seriously alter me as a playwright.

Oh, you asked about our writing process. It was fascinating. What was most interesting to me (and fun!) was that neither of us had a clue when we began just exactly how we were going to do this. We just knew we wanted to try. And so, literally, we had one meeting to discuss basics of character and premise and then I wrote us an opening few pages, then emailed what I’d done to Gary. A few days later, I found in my IN-Box, 7 more pages from him. A week later I sent the ball back into his court and we were up to about page 20. We continued like this a couple more times until we both agreed it was time to meet again and agree on some basics about dramatic arc. We did that, went off and continued.

We knew we wanted the final script to come in with a running time of roughly 60 min. so that helped a lot in terms of ruling out certain plot or character tangents.

In the end, I’m pretty pleased with the extent to which we’ve been able to deliver a script that doesn’t feel schizophrenic, i.e. written by two voices. We really both had a strong handle pretty early on as to how these five characters spoke and who they were, so there was rarely a problem in terms of dialogue that felt “of the playwright” rather than “of the character.” I think the biggest challenge we faced (as is often the case) was our looming deadline. We really didn’t want to lock the script but rehearsals had to begin and we had to let go.

Gary and I both agree that when the final curtain comes down Feb. 20th, we’ll most likely give the script at least one more pass, just to satisfy the nitpickers inside both of us.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  I just completed a new play (commissioned for Resonance Ensemble.) Kennedy V. It’s a wildly ambitious full-length about Teddy Kennedy’s formative years in the Senate, 1963-69. Researching the play was so much fun. In fact, I’ve so fallen in love with the entire Kennedy family history that I have on my nightstand yet another book on the subject – one that concerned areas that were outside the scope of the play but that still fascinate me. There will be a Suspects Studio reading in March (Directed by Jeremy Dobrish) at New York Theatre Workshop and I’m very excited to see what we’ve got. I was very conscious when writing this one, to not let concerns of cast-size even enter into my head. The result? A play for 11 actors playing more than 25 characters in a two-act play told in 55 scenes. (What was I thinking?!)

But after having written two 4-character single-set plays in a row, I was long overdue for a seismic shift.

The other two things on my radar are finishing the score to Katherine Burger’s hilarious musical, Legends of Batvia and producing my next feature film, which examines the friendship between artists David Hockney and Larry Stanton as told through Super 8 footage shot by Mr. Stanton on Fire Island a decade prior to his death from AIDS in 1986.

So my plate is full… for a while, at least.

Q:  Tell me about your duties at the Dramatists Guild.

A:  I love what I do for the Guild because, in a way, I feel like my job description could read: “Kind uncle to 6,000 playwrights, composers and lyricists.” I really enjoy helping members meet and interact with each other, as well as helping them wrestle with some of the professional challenges of being a free agent. One of things I’m most proud of having created for the Guild is: Art of the Synopsis because I think by hosting these panels and workshops, the Guild has helped to demystify something that most artists find daunting: their own PR.

Mostly I just love feeling like I’m part of a larger community and because we have members all over the world and in all 50 states, I have a rare opportunity to sample the theatre scenes in various other places by talking with folks on a daily basis about the issues and challenges they’re facing.

One of the most exciting developments at the Guild is the initiation of an annual National Conference of dramatists. The first one will be held at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia this June. And everyone at the Guild is way psyched! (Readers under age 20 may want to google “way psyched.”)

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 10 or 11 my mother came out of the closet as a Holocaust survivor. Up until that time, none of her American friends knew anything more about her past than that she was “from Europe.” Actually, her way of first exploring and expressing her past was to write her memoir, Dry Tears, about her childhood in Nazi-occupied Poland where her blonde hair and blue eyes helped her survive the war by passing as a Christian.

I, of course, didn’t realize at the time, but now in looking back I’m sure that had a profound impact on me as a creative person. All my work seems to be infused with moral questions and issues of identity. I guess if I had to sum up my entire creative output—whether plays, operas or films—it has all focused on human beings wrestling with questions of who they are and how they can connect with others. Those are my obsessions.

And I’m pretty sure I have my mother to thank for that.

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

A:  I would make it more popular.

It’s emotionally draining toiling away at something that so few people in our society really care about. Why? Because, unfortunately, the more people care about a thing, the more money flows into it. Take professional sports, for instance. How many people tuned in to watch the Super Bowl yesterday? Imagine what life for a playwright might be like if we had half those numbers attending live theatre! Certainly, a new play commission would do a lot more toward putting a roof over your head and food on the table than it currently does.

And I don’t mean this merely as some flip pipe dream. I think each one of us—as members of a theatrical community—have a responsibility to do all we can to increase awareness and interest in theatre as an art form. Period. It’s as simple as that. Too many of us are so focused on our own careers that we lose sight of the big picture. If my friend’s play is a success, it helps me too. That sort of thing. I wish more of us understood that at our core.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  I know I sound like a broken record but: Edward Albee, Edward Albee and—oh, did I mention, Edward Albee?

Why? Because every time he writes a play he seems to be trying something new. He pushes himself, and—by extension—us. To look at things we otherwise might not ever consider. That’s one of the most generous things an artist can do.

Plus he takes shit from no one. That’s something I wish I could say about myself but I’m way too deferential and cloying… particularly when someone’s offering to produce my work.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theatre that makes me laugh and then shakes me to my core when I least expect it.

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

A:  I get asked this question a lot, and I always say the same thing, so, again, apologies if I sound like a broken record, because I sure feel like one.

A life in the theatre is built on collaboration and relationships. Find folks you enjoy working with and when you do, hold on for dear life and carry them to your grave. Everything is just so much easier if you don’t try to go it alone.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Well, I’d be remiss if I didn’t plug the online group blog I moderate called Extra Criticum. Both Gary Garrison and I are contributing authors, along with a bunch of other interesting sensitive souls. Come check it out and comment! We’d love to hear from y’all! Here’s the url:

http://www.extracriticum.com

Oh, and, of course, to purchase your tickets to The Rubber Room, visit: http://www.smarttix.com

First performance is this Wednesday, February 9 and the show runs absolutely every night of the week until February 20.

Feb 6, 2011

I Interview Playwrights Part 314: Jeff Goode


Jeff Goode

Hometown: Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Current Town: Hollywood, California

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I just finished my first summer as a Visiting Professor at Hollins University's graduate playwriting program in Roanoke, VA. It's a very intense program that emphasizes bringing in guest professionals to work with students. So even though it's a fairly new program, I was amazed at the level of talent and ambition in the students who decide to go there. We're going to see a lot of working playwrights coming out of that program over the next few years.

Back in L.A., I just became Playwright-in-Residence for the newly re-launched SkyPilot Theatre Company. An accomplished actors company, they recently decided to refocus their mission on developing new plays.

Naturally, I promoted myself to Playwright-in-Chief and recruited a team of ten playwrights to write the entire next season. Modeled after successful original works companies I've worked with in the past (q.v. No Shame Theatre, below) the playwrights wing will be tasked with creating a body of work that provides meaty roles for the acting company, and in return, they will have carte blanche to develop their dream projects from conception to production with the full support of a company trained to work in new plays.

Our first show as a writers company opens February 5th. REWIND is a slate of 10 new one-acts that gave the writers the chance to work with our actors and directors for the first time and explore our new space at the Victory Theatre.

After that, our first next main stage show SALOME GONE WILDE is a collaborative adaptation which employs all of our playwrights and lyricists. We just got the script and it's pretty fantastic. I will be directing with artistic director Robert William Rusch.

We've also launched a New Play Reading Series. We will be adding a dramaturgy wing in the spring. And I'm working to create a pipeline to publication, and establishing relationships with sister theatres in other cities so that developing a project with SkyPilot becomes a springboard to future productions.

For example, my new Prop 8 play THE EMANCIPATION OF ALABASTER McGILL will premiere this season at both SkyPilot and Studio Roanoke before going to publication in 2012.

Other projects include FURSONA NON GRATA, a new furry play, which will debut at a convention this spring. And XMAS 2, which is set to open in December.

Speaking of Xmas, I am writing my first full-length opera THE CHRISTMAS OGRE with composer Jonathan Price to premiere at Southern California Lyric Theater.

And speaking of opera, we just received a grant to produce Jonathan's AESOPERA (mini-operas based on Aesop's fables with libretti by, among other folks, ME!)

But enough about me. Let's talk about No Shame!

Q:  Tell me about No Shame.

A:  How did I know you were going to ask me that?

No Shame Theatre began in the back of a pickup truck in the parking lot of the Theatre Building while I was a student at the University of Iowa. Created by Todd Ristau and Stan Ruth, No Shame was originally a forum for young actors to get a chance to be onstage. Of course, that meant we mostly had to write our own material.

Basically, anyone who showed up a half hour before showtime with a piece to perform was automatically in the show that night. It was, and still is, completely uncensored and wildly eclectic and became a fantastic training ground for writers, because you didn't have any filter between yourself and the audience. There wasn't a professor or a director or a literary agent to decide which pieces would or would not work. You just had to have the guts to get up in the truck and risk falling flat on your face.

And the incredible thing is that given that opportunity, most of the writers simply learned how NOT to fall on their faces on a regular basis. And because no one was screening out the material that seemed too risky, the overall show was both extremely cutting edge AND wildly popularly. The theatrical bi-fecta: total artistic freedom and unrepentant commercial success.

The original No Shame is now in its 25th season, and has spawned branches in a few dozen of cities. Last year, we opened new No Shames in Las Vegas, Lynchburg and San Luis Obispo. (Visit www.noshame.org for links to a No Shame Theatre near you.)

Q:  What can a student studying playwriting with you expect?

A:  I think you learn writing from writing, so we do a lot of in-class exercise and writing experiments. Also, most of my own learning has been experiential, so I try to recreate situations where I learned a lot, rather than simply lecturing about things I already know that I think you should know, too.

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

A: Write!

Self-produce!

What are you waiting for?

Success breeds success. Not the other way around.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  www.jeffgoode.com

Feb 5, 2011

I Interview Playwrights Part 313: Elaine Avila


Elaine Avila

Hometown: Wherever my family is…the road….places I’ve lived and consider home: Vancouver, BC, Canada; New York, New York; Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, California…



Current Town: Albuquerque, NM



Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I recently completed a new draft of Lieutenant Nun, based on the true story of a woman conquistador. The play had a wonderful premiere, in a site specific production with a cast of twelve, directed by Amiel Gladstone of Theatre SKAM, won awards, was published…ran for two years… but I’ve turned it into a new play…with four actors. I’m excited by the intensity of the new draft.

I’ve been workshopping Jane Austen, Action Figure and Other Short Plays with the marvelous Heidi Carlsen, and some inventive, generous actors at the Women’s Project in New York, where she is in their directors’ lab. The play was recently accepted into Playwright’s Theatre Centre National Colony in Vancouver, BC where I had the pleasure of working with more inventive, generous actors and dramaturg D.D. Kugler. He is the former president of LMDA, the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas, and introduced me to structural strategies you can use in linking short works that bounce off of each other…This work has translated into Spanish (Jane Austen, figura de acción, … y otras obras cortas) and about to premiere in Panamá.

I was recently asked to speak in Nanjing, China about American Playwrights, 1970-2010. (I told them about the Canadians too…) it was a profound experience to describe my culture to students in China…to have deep, heart to heart conversations with them about Maria Irene Fornes, feminism, Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, Eileen Chang, free speech in America/Canada, Tennessee Williams, Suzan-Lori Parks, Erik Ehn, Chay Yew, Eugene O’Neill, Alice Tuan, David Henry Hwang…I am writing a short, non-fiction piece about the experience. I continue to explore my Portuguese roots—a new development over the past three years—in plays, poems, non-fiction, fiction.

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 Dad took me to see Barnum and Bailey Circus when I was three. I remember a clown giving me a feather. It was frightening, exhilarating, crossing from a magical world into my own. I later found out the clown gave me the feather because I was crying-- an elephant had been cruelly beaten by its trainer for trying to get a peanut. I also remember being scared by a devil, beating the aisles with a broom, in a theatrical presentation in my Catholic church as a young girl. Theatre crosses and creates worlds, terrifies, heals.

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

A:  We keep telling the same stories about what is wrong with the theatre. I believe in advocacy, and in busting open doors for women and people of all cultural backgrounds. But sometimes we forget that what we are doing matters, right where we are. Broadway and Off-Broadway are ultimately, just a few blocks. It is a great bummer when people think that their region, their work isn’t as important as what is happening on Broadway or television. We have nullified the power of theatre—its localness, our community, the writers that live among us-- with our thinking.

I wonder what would happen if we could realize we do matter, that the opportunities we do have are beautiful, are important.



Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?


A:  Hallie Flanagan, director of the Federal Theatre Project-- part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA)-- during the depression, who supported innovative projects and bringing them to people in America who had never seen theatre. Tim Miller, who is funny, exhilarating, compassionate…while facing political darkness (especially in the U.S.) head on. He writes/performs great pieces, inspires students across the nation, and creates homes for work (P.S. 122, Highways). Kathleen Weiss, who ran the women’s theatre festival in Canada for many years, literally launching dozens and dozens of artists, while being one of the most excellent directors in the nation. My colleagues at Tricklock Theatre Company in Albuquerque, New Mexico who band together to create amazing work, again and again. Mac Wellman—both his writing and how he enjoys helping his students realize their dreams. I believe the future of theatre belongs to those who have not yet spoken—characters, communities, writers who are getting up the courage to tell their stories—a truly heroic act. The future belongs to the audiences and producers brave enough to listen to and support these stories.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?


A:  Theatre that crosses borders, experiments, embraces the circus, has bold design, theatre with heart. I’d rather see something shooting for an exciting target (and maybe missing) than something safe and well done.

The Book of Grace by Suzan-Lori Parks opened a conduit in me that still runs tears…Maria Kitizo by Erik Ehn, Wonderland by Chay Yew, Jose Rivera, Mac Wellman, Caridad Svich, Charlottee Meehan, Christine Evans, Luis Alfaro, the grad students I work with at the University of New Mexico, the students in the LEAP Playwriting Intensive at the Arts Club Theatre…a program I founded in Canada now run by the marvelous Shawn Macdonald. Brian Bauman’s play Atta Boy in the East Village or Sigrid Gilmer’s plays at Cornerstone…Alana Libertad Macías work in Austin, Texas…my theatre community in Vancouver, BC….

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

A:  Suzan-Lori Parks once said to me, “be a great writer, why not?” It seems simple, but like a zen koan if you keep thinking about it. You realize what is in your way, that it is movable. Master trumpet player and teacher Bobby Shew says “talent is the removal of obstacles.” (I hate it when people say ‘you’ve either got it (talent) or not.” Lots of people have talent.) And Shew means the removal of all kinds of obstacles—like “I can’t afford a trumpet” or “I can’t make the time to practice” or “I live somewhere where there aren’t any gigs.”

The best thing I figured out after grad school—“give what you want to get.” Also like a zen koan.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Tricklock Theatre Company’s International Revolutions Theater Festival, Albuquerque, NM, USA. Push International Performing Arts Festival, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Erik Ehn is about to have premieres of his plays on genocide, at La Mama in New York and across the U.S. in 2012. Watch for the work of Brian Bauman, Alana Libertad Macías, Sigrid Gilmer.  Here is my website: elaineavila.com

Two of the MFA students in my program at the University of New Mexico are having New York Premieres:
WINNER, KCACTF 'QUEST FOR PEACE' NATIONAL AWARD
Riti Sachdeva's PARTS OF PARTS & STITCHES at NYC's NewBorn Festival the first Saturday in February.
http://www.mtworks.org/newborn.html
‎2011 NewBorn - Maieutic Theatre Works, MTWorks
www.mtworks.org
MTWorks' mission is to birth new plays inspired by playwrights and regions outside of New York, that question the boundaries of our society, humanity, and individuality.

Georgina Escobar's THE RUIN
UPCOMING: THE RUIN @ Manhattan Rep Theatre; Feb 23-26
http://fourthwallproductions.intuitwebsites.com/about.html

Feb 4, 2011

I Interview Playwrights Part 312: Ashlin Halfnight


Ashlin Halfnight

Born: London
Grew up: Toronto

Current Town:  New York

Q: Tell me about your shows up right now.

A:  There are three plays running right now under the umbrella title, Theater in the Dark, With Lights. Lathem Prince is an overtly sexualized adaptation of Hamlet, Laws of Motion follows 4 New York stories during the 2008 financial free-fall, and God's Waiting Room is a purgatory play, loosely inspired by Master and Margarita.

Kristjan Thor is directing all three... I'm really incredibly lucky to have such a brilliant collaborator at the helm, and the casts are filled with such amazing, talented people... generous and intelligent artists who are a privilege to have on board.

Q: What else are you working on?

A:  Well, I'm really excited about a few things - first, a holocaust survivor play that I hope to finish this spring, and second, a play that stars mostly child actors that I've been working on for about a year... and I have a film that's in negotiations up in Toronto - a road trip movie that's set partially in Northern Ontario.

Q:  Can you tell me a little bit about Electric Pear, who you are, what your mission is, how you came to be?

A:  Electric Pear was started when Melanie Sylvan and I had a good collaborative experience with God's Waiting Room the first time around - in 2005, with PL115 at the Fringe, and in Budapest. Electric Pear has been around for five years, and I'm really proud of the work we've done, both developmentally and production-wise. We try to be open, inclusive, and welcoming in our approach - to build community and foster connections between artists. In terms of material, we tend to be just outside the mainstream, accessible, but with a twist - say, an international influence, a cross-genre collaboration or influence, or just something unexpected.

Q:   Have you written at all about your career as a pro hockey player? Adam Bock has a hockey play.

A:  Actually, I have never written about my career in hockey. And I've never read or seen (or heard about) Adam's play... I'll have to look into that! I'm woefully disconnected from the theatrical hockey world! Resolution for 2011, I guess....

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

A:  As an 8th grader, I peed my pants in a downtown Toronto video arcade... and went from trying to be cool and tough to suddenly wanting my mom and dad.

I value family and friends. I try to see the humor in things. And I try to be humble, to remember that our bodies do (and will) fail us... that nobody is too cool or smart or powerful to find themselves standing in a pool of their own urine at some point or another.

Q:  What is the purpose of theater?

A:  Tough question. Does it come with a free soapbox? I think, these days, the purpose of theater is to gather people in a room to experience something first hand, together. It used to be that theater provided the primary outlet for the dissemination of dangerous ideas; it was a great stage for commentary, the avenue of rebellion - but these days, the internet, television, movies, political speeches, philosophy books, and historical documentaries all do the grunt work of changing, challenging, or educating the world in a more effective and wide-spread fashion than theater can.... it's a question of sheer numbers... the instantaneous and pervasive nature of these other media (and the fact that Actors Equity bars any of its members from appearing on the internet or in filmed versions of plays) dictates that the reach of theater is ever-lessening.

This is not to say that plays about social issues are a waste of time - they aren't - but if we're honest with ourselves, the actual reach of these plays - the actual effect - is minute compared to, well, a YouTube video of a young man testifying about something like the legitimacy of his two-mother family. And that's okay... because we shouldn't demand that kind of "coverage" from our theater...

What theater is, perhaps, is the last bastion - along with live music and dance - where people gather to go through something together. This is rare and important, in my view; it might not be an overstatement to say that it is a crucial component in the survival of compassion, communication, and accountability in our society.

Theater has already died a thousand deaths, and lived to tell about it. But with conversation, debate, storytelling, shared meals, listening, and even human touch being eradicated from the daily existence of the majority of the world's technologically enabled societies, theater stands increasingly alone, really, as one of a very few places where people are present and generous, and attentive to the details of the human experience...

Or not... but either way, I really like Shakespeare in the Park.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I like to be surprised and challenged. I don't care if it's funny, disgusting, crude, horribly sad, or whatever else... I like to be in the moment - for the duration - and then I like something to think about afterward.

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

A:  Develop a trade that pays cold hard cash. You need to eat. And you need to be free of financial anxiety in order to write. Plus, it will keep you connected to the world at large, which is pretty much essential to a playwright.

Q:  Any plugs?

A:  Come check out the shows! Time Out called our casts "a downtown supergroup of actors" and Martin Denton gave both Laws of Motion and Lathem Prince a rave review...a very wise, very compassionate, and unexpectedly and joltingly profound play.- nytheatre.com

Visit the website -
theaterinthedarkwithlights.com