350 Playwright Interviews

Jane Miller
Eric Lane
David West Read
Katie May
John Pollono
Mona Mansour
Miranda Huba 
Lydia Stryk
Rachel Jendrzejewski 
Karen Malpede 
Darcy Fowler
Daniel Pearle
Heather Lynn MacDonald 
Gabe McKinley
Keith Josef Adkins 
Brian Quirk
Israela Margalit
Kia Corthron
Christina Anderson
Jenny Lyn Bader
Catherine Trieschmann
Oliver Mayer
Jessica Brickman
Kari Bentley-Quinn
John Kolvenbach
Daniel Keene
James Carter
Josh Tobiessen
Victor Lesniewski
Abi Basch
Matthew Paul Olmos
Stephanie Fleischmann
Chana Porter
Elana Greenfield 
Eugenie Chan
Roland Tec 
Jeff Goode
Elaine Avila 
Ashlin Halfnight 
Charlotte Meehan 
Marisela Treviño Orta
Quiara Alegria Hudes
Kait Kerrigan
Bianca Bagatourian 
Kyoung H. Park
Honor Molloy
Anna Moench 
Martin Blank
Paul Thureen
Yusef Miller
Lauren Gunderson
Jennifer Fawcett
Andrea Kuchlewska
A. Rey Pamatmat
Sean Christopher Lewis
Rachel Bonds
Lynn Rosen
Jennifer Barclay
Peggy Stafford
James McManus
Philip Dawkins
Jen Silverman
Lally Katz
Anne Garcia-Romero
Tony Adams
christopher oscar peña
Lynne Kaufman
David J. Loehr
Julie Hebert
Aditi Brennan Kapil
Elaine Romero
Alexis Clements
Lila Rose Kaplan
Barry Levey
Michael I. Walker

Maya Macdonald
Mando Alvarado
Adam Rapp
Eliza Clark
Margot Bordelon
Ben Snyder
Emily Bohannon
Cheri Magid
Jason Chimonides 
Karinne Keithley
Rich Orloff
David Simpatico
Deborah Zoe Laufer
Brian Polak
Kate Fodor
Sibyl Kempson
Gary Garrison
Saviana Stanescu
Brian Bauman
Mark Harvey Levine
Lisa Soland
Sigrid Gilmer
Anthony Weigh 
Maria Alexandria Beech
Catherine Filloux 
Jordan Harrison
Alexandra Collier
Jessica Goldberg
Nick Starr
Young Jean Lee
Christina Gorman
Ruth McKee
Johnny Klein
Leslie Bramm
Jennifer Maisel
Jon Steinhagen
Leslye Headland
Kate Tarker
David Holstein
Trav S.D.
Chad Beckim
Ruben Carbajal
Martyna Majok
Sam Marks
Stacy Davidowitz 
Molly Rice
Julia Pascal
Yussef El Guindi
Meg Gibson
Daniel McCoy
Amber Reed
Joshua Fardon
Dan O'Brien
Jonathan Blitstein
Dominique Morisseau
Fielding Edlow
Joshua Allen
Peter Gil-Sheridan
Tira Palmquist
Sarah Hammond
Charlotte Miller
Deborah Yarchun
Anna Kerrigan
Luis Alfaro
Jonathan Caren
Jennifer Haley
Sofia Alvarez
Kevin R. Free
Ken Weitzman
Michael Golamco
J. C. Lee
Ruth Margraff
Kirk Lynn
Tanya Saracho
Daria Polatin 
Delaney Britt Brewer
Alice Tuan
Alice Austen
Jeffrey Sweet
Dan LeFranc
Andrew Hinderaker
Brett Neveu
Christine Evans
Jon Tuttle
Nikole Beckwith
Andrea Lepcio
Gregory Moss
Hannah Bos
Steven Levenson
Molly Smith Metzler
Matthew Lopez
Lee Blessing
Joshua James
Chisa Hutchinson
Rob Ackerman
Janine Nabers
Cory Hinkle
Stefanie Zadravec
Michael Mitnick
Jordan Seavey
Andrew Rosendorf
Don Nigro
Barton Bishop
Peter Parnell
Gary Sunshine
Emily DeVoti
Kenny Finkle
Kate Moira Ryan
Sam Hunter
Johnna Adams
Katharine Clark Gray
Laura Eason
David Caudle
Jacqueline Goldfinger
Christopher Chen
Craig Pospisil
Jessica Provenz
Deron Bos
Sarah Sander
Zakiyyah Alexander
Kate E. Ryan
Susan Bernfield
Karla Jennings
Jami Brandli
Kenneth Lin
Heidi Darchuk
Kathleen Warnock
Beau Willimon
Greg Keller
Les Hunter
Anton Dudley
Aaron Carter
Jerrod Bogard
Emily Schwend
Courtney Baron
Craig "muMs" Grant
Amy Herzog
Stacey Luftig
Vincent Delaney
Kathryn Walat
Paul Mullin
Kirsten Greenidge
Derek Ahonen
Francine Volpe
Julie Marie Myatt
Lauren Yee
Richard Martin Hirsch
Ed Cardona, Jr.
Terence Anthony
Alena Smith
Gabriel Jason Dean
Sharr White
Michael Lew
Craig Wright
Laura Jacqmin
Stanton Wood
Jamie Pachino
Boo Killebrew
Daniel Reitz
Alan Berks
Erik Ehn
Krista Knight
Steve Yockey
Desi Moreno-Penson
Andrea Stolowitz
Clay McLeod Chapman
Kelly Younger
Lisa Dillman
Ellen Margolis
Claire Willett
Lucy Alibar
Nick Jones
Dylan Dawson
Pia Wilson
Theresa Rebeck
Me
Arlene Hutton
Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas
Lucas Hnath
Enrique Urueta
Tarell Alvin McCraney
Anne Washburn
Julia Jarcho
Lisa D'Amour
Rajiv Joseph
Carly Mensch
Marielle Heller
Larry Kunofsky
Edith Freni
Tommy Smith
Jeremy Kareken
Rob Handel
Stephen Adly Guirgis
Kara Manning
Libby Emmons
Adam Bock
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Liz Duffy Adams
Winter Miller
Jenny Schwartz
Kristen Palmer
Patrick Gabridge
Mike Batistick
Mariah MacCarthy
Jay Bernzweig
Gina Gionfriddo
Darren Canady
Alejandro Morales
Ann Marie Healy
Christopher Shinn
Sam Forman
Erin Courtney
Gary Winter
J. Holtham
Caridad Svich
Samuel Brett Williams
Trista Baldwin
Mat Smart
Bathsheba Doran
August Schulenburg
Jeff Lewonczyk
Rehana Mirza
Peter Sinn Nachtrieb
David Johnston
Dan Dietz
Mark Schultz
Lucy Thurber
George Brant
Brooke Berman
Julia Jordan
Joshua Conkel
Kyle Jarrow
Christina Ham
Rachel Axler
Laura Lynn MacDonald
Steve Patterson
Erin Browne
Annie Baker
Crystal Skillman
Blair Singer
Daniel Goldfarb
Heidi Schreck
Itamar Moses
EM Lewis
Bekah Brunstetter
Mac Rogers
Cusi Cram
Michael Puzzo
Megan Mostyn-Brown
Andrea Ciannavei
Sarah Gubbins
Kim Rosenstock
Tim Braun
Rachel Shukert
Kristoffer Diaz
Jason Grote
Dan Trujillo
Marisa Wegrzyn
Ken Urban
Callie Kimball
Deborah Stein
Qui Nguyen
Victoria Stewart
Malachy Walsh
Jessica Dickey
Kara Lee Corthron
Zayd Dohrn
Madeleine George
Sheila Callaghan
Daniel Talbott
David Adjmi
Dominic Orlando
Matthew Freeman
Anna Ziegler
James Comtois

I Interview Playwrights Part 350: Jane Miller

Jane Miller

Hometown: Manhattan, NY.

Current Town: Brooklyn, NY

Q: What are you working on now?

A:  I’m working on a production of my play Feedback with Squeaky Bicycle Productions that will go up in July. I’m excited to be working with director Laura Pestronk who I’ve known since high school when we did theater together. Feedback is about a woman coping with a death and a breakup who decides to get “re-branded” by a personal marketing firm. I’ve always been kind of fascinated by self-help gurus and the idea of how you frame yourself to the world.

I’m also preparing to go to the Last Frontier Theater Conference in Valdez, Alaska in June – so preparing myself mentally to get no darkness for two weeks!

I’m also working on a play called Seeking Participants about a retired couple who participate in an experiment where they both get fMRI’s to show what their brains look like having been in a loving, long term relationship for years. Suffice to say, the play is about when our brains know things about us before our heart does.

And, I’m co-founder of Theater ++, a yearly one-act festival centering on the role of technology in people’s lives. We’ll be requesting submissions soon!

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

A:  I’d like more theater companies (and MFA programs!) to take chances on new(er) playwrights who aren’t already well known. I see the same names over and over at theater companies. And I’ve learned that MFA playwriting programs seem to be equally competitive and exclusive.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  I love the work of John Patrick Shanley, Tina Howe, Christopher Shinn, Annie Baker and Adam Bock. Their work resonates with me.

Also, Ryan Gilliam of Downtown Art really changed my life. She has a youth theater company on East 4th street in NYC that I was a part of in high school. Most memorably, I played Obi Wan Kenobi in Star Arguments, which was Star Wars adapted for the stage. My Obi Wan costume was a beige towel cape and an umbrella as my light saber. She made a family out of us, and I’m so happy to have been a part. She’s endlessly inventive, and really made me see what a theater community was.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theater with lyrical language and meaning – theater that gives me the shivers, and makes me question my own life. Any play that offers illumination into the things I’m grappling with or thinking about is exciting. Also, simply - theater that makes me want to start a conversation.

If I leave the theater feeling buoyant and exuberant and want to start writing, then I consider that exciting theater. I felt that way most recently by Adam Bock’s A Small Fire, and Annie Baker’s Circle Mirror Transformation.

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

A:  Find time everyday to write, even if it’s just twenty minutes a day. Set a timer if you have to, and just do it. If you’re writing everyday, you’re going to grow as a writer. It’s inevitable.

And I don’t think it’s bad to write about the things that you’re obsessed with in your own life. I wrote a whole lot of plays about female friendships, probably too many – but they were honest and from a deeper place than if I had wrote plays solely because I thought other people would be interested in them. If you’re fascinated by something, other people probably are too.

Q:  Plugs, please:

I’m involved with The Pack, an artists development group, that’s part of Packawallop Productions. They do incredible work and they’re all really nice, fun, talented people. Being part of their monthly developmental group has helped my writing grow tremendously. Check em out, http://www.packawallop.org

Also, check out Feedback this summer, with Squeaky Bicycle Productions!

next

1. 
Reading of Fat Cat Killers at Urban Theater Movement
Directed by Julian Acosta
Featuring: Anthony Gatto, Paolo Mancini and Levi Sochet.

Tuesday May 10, 2011 at 8pm
The Underground Theatre
1314 Wilton Pl Los Angeles, CA

To RSVP a seat or for more information on the reading
please email eve.urbantheatremovement@gmail.com


2.

Reading of Where You Can't Follow at Primary Stages
Directed by Lucie Tiberghien

Monday May 23 at 3pm at Primary Stages

3.

Production of Clown Bar with Rising Phoenix Rep
Directed by Kip Fagan

Seventh Street Small Stage at Jimmy’s No. 43
NYC
June 19.  7pm  (Free performance)

I Interview Playwrights Part 349: Eric Lane

Eric Lane

Hometown:  I was born in Brooklyn and raised on Long Island, about 10 minutes from Jones Beach.

Current Town:  Sunnyside, Queens

Q:  Tell me about “Ride.”

A:  “Ride” was just published by Dramatists Play Service. It tells the story of three teenage girls who take a life-changing road trip. It was first inspired by a local farm stand that my partner and I would visit in Northwest N.J. We would see these kids working side-by-side who normally would never hang out together. They were forced to spend an entire day, week or summer together, talking, not talking, ignoring each other and connecting in ways they never expected.

The play was originally written as a 10-minute piece. As it was first being produced, I started to think about what happens to these girls once the 10-minute play ended. Out of that, the full-length play sprang.

The three girls in “Ride” are 18, 17 and 11 years old. I love writing characters who on the surface seem vastly different from myself. For me, sometimes those are the characters that turn out to be the most personal. Maybe it’s because of that surface separation between their physical reality and my own that I’m able to pour more of myself into the characters. In the end, they often feel the most fully developed, vulnerable and real.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  I’ve started working on a new play commission for the Adirondack Theatre Festival. I began my work during a recent residency at the artist’s colony Yaddo, which was incredibly helpful. I needed to let myself not know what the play will be, and Yaddo was the perfect environment to give myself that permission. Two of the characters are well-known figures so it involves a different kind of research that I’ve never done before. That’s very exciting.

Q:  Tell me about the books you edit.

A:  With Nina Shengold, I’ve co-edited 12 contemporary play anthologies for Viking Penguin and Vintage Books. Our newest collection, “Shorter, Faster, Funnier: Comic Plays and Monologues,” was just published. It includes work by 44 wonderful playwrights – from established and emerging writers, to playwrights who are in print for the first time.

In total, our books have sold over 350,000 copies. Drama Book Shop told us, “Your books are the most shop lifted titles in our store.” That really made us laugh.

As editors, we read the submissions hoping they'll be terrific. There’s a real joy in discovering wonderful work. And when a play is great, it jumps off the page from the moment you start reading it. You can feel it from the first stage direction or line of dialogue. That’s incredibly exciting!

Nina and I will read up to 500 plays before deciding on plays included in the collection. As a playwright, it’s incredibly helpful to read that many plays in that short a period of time. It has taught me a lot.

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned is not to take rejection that personally. You may have written a brilliant play, but it may not match what that publication or theater is looking for at that particular moment. They already may have chosen another play that is somewhat similar. Or they just may not like it. I’m not saying don’t get pissed off when your work is rejected. But it’s important to use that anger or disappointment to fuel you in finding the right place for your work.

Also, be smart about what you send in. For example, an agent submitted a full-length drama for an anthology of short comic plays. Bad idea.

And try to think of it from the point of view of the person reading your submission. If they’re reading over 500 plays, your play needs to stand out in some way – its use of language, humor, depth of emotion, originality, characters, story, theatricality, skill, etc.

I feel very lucky to have edited these anthologies with Nina. And to be in a position to discover amazing playwrights and help put their work out 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:  My high school in Wantagh was right next to the pet cemetery where Richard Nixon’s dog Checkers was buried. My friend Shari and I would occasionally cut class and hang out on Checkers’ grave. One day, these wild turkeys appeared from out of the bordering woods, and Shari and I decided to chase them around the cemetery. To this day, Shari will ask me, “Did that really happen or did we both dream that?”

My first play ever produced is called “Dancing on Checkers’ Grave.” I decided Checkers’ grave offered theatrical and emotional possibilities that a living room or kitchen just couldn’t approach. I guess I try not to take anything for granted. Whether it’s the setting, characters, story or language, I try to choose something that’s unique and completely a reflection of the characters’ world and experience.

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

A:  I’d love to see plays chosen for production based on their originality and vitality, rather than how commercial they’re perceived to be.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Shakespeare. Every time I see his plays, I’m amazed that someone actually wrote that. 400 years later, his work remains incredibly relevant, vital and alive. Also Chekhov, Robert Preston in “The Music Man,” and anyone who continues to write plays and maintain a generosity of spirit toward other writers, artists and the world.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Anything theatrical. By its very nature, theater offers unique possibilities for expression, and I love works that explore that potential. Also anything that’s good – dramas, comedies, musicals and works that combine comedy and drama – from Shakespeare and Chekhov to “I Love Lucy.”

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

A:  Be original. If there’s another playwright whose work you love, don’t imitate them, but use their originality to inspire you to find your own unique voice. And most of all, hang in there.

Q:  Plugs, please:

Website:
www.ericlanewrites.com

“RIDE”
www.dramatists.com/cgi-bin/db/single.asp?key=4254

“SHORTER, FASTER, FUNNIER”
www.dramabookshop.com/book/9780307476647

“DANCING ON CHECKERS’ GRAVE” and “HEART OF THE CITY”
http://www.playscripts.com/author.php3?authorid=818

I Interview Playwrights Part 348: David West Read

David West Read

Hometown:  Markham, Ontario, Canada

Current Town:  New York, New York

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I’m working on a commission for the Roundabout about the “golden age” of children’s television performers. The play delves into the private life of one such icon, who’s trying to make his comeback in the face of Barney and Dora the Explorer while dealing with some personal issues. It marks the first time I’ve written for puppets.

I’m also developing a commissioned screenplay called THE ROCKETTE, which is inspired by my grandmother, who spent many years performing jazz and tap with an all-seniors’ dance troupe. It’s kind of like Little Miss Sunshine, except the little girl is 76-years-old.

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

A:  For the most part, Canadians watch American TV, but when I was growing up, I was deeply inspired by the Canadian programming for kids (which explains the play I’m writing). I watched shows like Polka Dot Door, Mr. Dressup, Under the Umbrella Tree, Fred Penner’s Place and Today’s Special. This makes it sounds like I was a TV junkie, but I think I just experienced and remembered TV much more vividly then, whereas now, I tend to forget everything I experience as soon as it’s over.

I was extremely shy, and rarely spoke in public, but I used to like to imitate what I’d seen on TV around the house. I think my playwriting is an extension of that; I’m still just imitating things that inspire me.

My ability to regurgitate what I’d learned on television almost got me in trouble when I was about 4-years-old. I was on the elevator at the doctor’s office, with my mom, when a black man stepped onto the all-white car. Being a big fan of Sesame Street, I started singing “One of These Things is Not Like the Others.” Fortunately, the man had a sense of humor. I don’t think I could get away with that now.

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

A:  It seemed like a lot of people were vomiting onstage last year. I don’t know if that’s factual or not, but I seem to remember seeing three plays in a week, all of which featured someone puking. I think we could do with less of that.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  I wouldn’t be writing plays if not for the encouragement of my teachers at Juilliard and NYU – especially Marsha Norman, Christopher Durang, and Daniel Goldfarb. They’re my heroes because I know how much I hate reading other people’s work, and they do it all the time, with such generosity and care.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I like big-hearted plays. I like the idea that the playwright might be sitting in the back, crying his or her eyes out, even if the audience is bored to tears. I like to think that it really means something to the person writing it, and that that “something” isn’t praise, or recognition, or money. Also, when the turtle started walking in Arcadia, I basically freaked out. I also really liked the chickens in Jerusalem. So, I guess I should add “moving animals” to the list.

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

A:  I think it’s more important to be a nice and respectful person. More important than being really persistent, or schmoozy, or a great networker. I might just be telling myself this because I’m shy and terrified of mingling, but I think it’s true.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  The Dream of the Burning Boy is in its last weeks at the Roundabout Underground, and will close on May 15th. I am incredibly proud of this production, and it’s well worth $20 to see Reed Birney’s incredible performance.

I Interview Playwrights Part 347: Katie May

Katie May

Hometown(s): Casper, Wyoming and Boise, Idaho

Current Town: San Francisco, California

Q:  Tell me about your commission from SF Playground.

A:  This is tough to answer right now. For six months of every season Playground releases a topic to its writers pool of 36 playwrights, everyone has four and a half days to write and submit a ten minute play based on the topic, and once a month Playground gives staged readings to the six “best” plays from that month. At the end of the season there is a Best of Playground Festival featuring productions of six of the strongest plays that were read in the previous six months, as well as staged readings of full length commissions awarded at the end of the previous season. This year they are commissioning three full length plays (to be read in next year’s festival) and each commissioned playwright has proposed three plays that he/she would like to write. Because the commissions are read together as part of a festival, the commissioning process is a little like building a season. So, currently Playground is in the process of figuring out which plays will fit together thematically with out too much overlap. I’m in a holding pattern right now, waiting to see which one they want, which has been an interesting experience unto itself. My plays tend to have long gestation periods. I usually have two or three ideas on the back burner and eventually one will bubble to the surface demanding to be written. Right now I’m keeping all three of them boiling. It’s making me feel a little schizophrenic with all these characters’ voices so consciously on my mind, but I like it. I’ve never had so many plays so ready to go at the same time before. I’m hoping it will make for a productive year.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  I have a ten minute play, Rapunzel’s Etymology of Zero, in the Best of Playground Festival this year. I’m in rehearsals for that right now. It’s a math based fairy tale about how Rapunzel is in fact a genius mathematician locked away in her tower. She originates the concept of zero as an actual number—that nothingness is something. It is overtly, unapologetically feminist, but funny too. What’s funnier than math and feminism?

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 a small town in the middle of Wyoming. It’s the least populated state in the country. I am strangely proud of that. I spent my childhood hunting horned toads, and going hiking on Sundays because my parents (who both came from different, but fiercely religious backgrounds) shunned church in favor of being outdoors. I still have to explain to people that we didn’t ride horses to school (though I can ride a horse), and how hunting funds more conservation efforts than just about anything else (yes I’ve been hunting). Even though I am a giant liberal, which I in turn defend to my family and to everyone else where I grew up. The weird dichotomy of going into the liberal arts after growing up in the two most conservative states in the country, vs. my pride in having grown up there, vs. the interesting mythology projected upon those places, informs a lot of what I do. I guess that’s more of a setting than a story.

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

A:  Big west coast regional theater companies would invest in, develop, and champion west coast writers and the western aesthetic. I feel a lot of pressure to go East to get produced in order to be taken seriously out here.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Tony Kushner, because I have a background in fiction and he does everything with language that my playwriting professors tried to get me to stop doing. Sarah Ruhl, for her use of stage space, the way her plays move in time, and for giving us a great example what theater can do that film can’t. Lee Blessing for being a structural genius and by all accounts a great teacher. Bill Irwin, Suzan Lori Parks, John Patrick Shanley, Marsha Norman, Caryl Churchill.  I’m also a big fan of other types of performance outside of theater. I’m hugely inspired by stand-up comedians Bill Hicks and Demetri Martin. Also, the late Tom Proehl who co-founded Signature Theatre Company, among many other giant contributions to theater, but mostly because he was a fantastic human being.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  There’s a scene in Jurassic Park (the book) where the dinosaur with the poison spit, spits in a guy’s face and then slices him across the belly. He runs away into the jungle with his hand pressed against his stomach trying to keep his organs from falling out. I like plays that eviscerate me like that. The last scene of David Mamet’s Oleanna does it, so does Topdog Underdog by Suzan Lori Parks. Those are two plays where you get up, and you stumble out of the theater holding your guts in your hands.

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

A:  I’m pretty much the definition of just starting out, so really I have no idea. Find a theater community, put down roots, talk to everyone. I’m more qualified to give advice from the bottom up, which is this: Treat students and the interns like the professionals they will someday become, learn their names, listen to their input. We’re talented, we know how to use social media, and we are incredibly loyal to anyone who made us feel valued on the way up.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Best of Playground Festival runs May 5th to 29th at Thick House in San Francisco. www.playground-sf.org. It’s really a fantastic company that is doing more than just about anyone to commission and develop new work, as well as to invest in their playwriting community.

I Interview Playwrights Part 346: John Pollono

 

(photo from Small Engine Repair.  John is the guy on the right)

John Pollono

Hometown: Londonderry, New Hampshire

Current Town: Los Angeles

Q:  Tell me about Small Engine Repair.

A:  This is a 70 min one act play about three childhood friends in their thirties who reunite for a night of drinking, fighting and reminiscing. As the story goes on, you realize that there is a much deeper and darker motive for the reunion.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  I'm also working on a play called RULES OF SECONDS which takes place in Boston, MA in 1855. It's about dueling.

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

A:  Growing up in New England, I was surrounded by colorful people and natural storytellers. And the sharp and dark New England sense of humor really stuck. So I've always loved telling stories and exploring characters with a lot going on underneath. Another thing about New England is that nobody really talks openly about their feelings or deals with deep secrets. It's all subtext and it can be fascinating and frustrating. Somebody you've known for twenty years never told you he never met his real father or whatever. So being a writer, I've always enjoyed digging in and exploring truths that most people would just keep to themselves.

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

A:  Word of mouth would spread quicker and more people would go to it! Especially younger people who may not consider theater to be an exciting option for a night out.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Martin McDonagh, Kenneth Lonergan, David Mamet, Tracy Letts, Arthur Miller, Langford Wilson.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I love theater that is exciting and entertaining and really understands an audience and how to tap into the power of a live performance. I love theater that tells a story and has vivid characters that I get emotionally involved in. And I really appreciate and enjoy great, truthful, witty dialogue that flows and surprises.

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

A:  Get your play produced by any means necessary. Instead of writing play after play, get one in front of an audience. Even if it's just a reading. An audience will teach you more about writing than anyone else. Let them help you find your voice as a writer. And also take an acting class so you know how to write for actors.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Small Engine Repair at Rogue Machine Theatre... I am playing the role of Frank Romanowski... show is currently kicking ass and just extended until June 5. Go to www.roguemachinetheatre.com for tickets and showtimes.

I Interview Playwrights Part 345: Mona Mansour

Mona Mansour

Hometown: San Diego, but I try to keep that on the down-low.

Current Town: Manhattan and Brooklyn, mostly.

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I’m about to step into two projects with NYU’s graduate acting program. Mark Wing-Davey has been an advocate of mine over there (we met when he directed a reading of my play for the Public’s Emerging Writers Group). The first is a piece I’ll write for the third-year acting students, using the Joint Stock method. I know very little of their actual process, so it’s cool to hear about it from Mark, who created Mad Forest with Caryl Churchill this way. The second project is based on the lives of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya and Chechan human rights worker Natalia Estimorova. A small group of actresses have been generating material, and now Jim Calder, who is directing, has brought in me and Carson Kreitzer. The material is fascinating, but the stories, grim. The Middle East, where I’ve been creatively the last few years, feels like a fucking carnival in comparison.

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 wish I could answer something different here, because this has been played out for me—but I’d have to say the Patricia Hearst saga, as it unfolded. It had everything—a kidnapping, a bank robbery, and most importantly, a very public change of identity: the transformation of a young woman from heiress to kidnap victim to urban guerrilla. The moment the “Tania” audiotapes emerged, with Patty telling her parents they were corporate pigs, my seven-year-old jaw dropped.

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

A:  I’d up the pay scale for everyone. A friend, a really fine actor who works a ton in TV, just finished telling me he had to turn down a play—at a prestigious venue in New York!—because he has kids to support, and can’t afford to do it for the pre-tax nine-hundred bucks a week. It doesn’t make sense to me that the freelance publishing gigs I do pay more than a full-time acting gig.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  I don’t want to overthink this, so in no particular order: Caryl Churchill, Ibsen, Thornton Wilder, Chita Rivera, the founders of Second City and the Groundlings; and many of the teachers I had.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  All kinds. I like to be surprised. Moved. The last thing I went crazy for was Christopher Durang’s Why Torture Is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them, which the Public did a couple years ago. He made an exploration of extradition and torture funny! Sick, funny, and totally relevant.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Noor Theatre is a company of three excellent women—Maha Chehlaoui, Lameece Issaq, and Nancy Vitale. Their mission is to feature writers of Middle East descent. They are doing great work. Support!

I Interview Playwrights Part 344: Miranda Huba

Miranda Huba

Hometown: Ashcroft, British Columbia, Canada

Current Town: New York City

Q:  Tell me about Dirty Little Machine.

A:  Jane is first introduced to pornography at a young age when she finds a dirty novel in her parent’s house. She regards this old paperback as the single most important piece of literature in her life. In DIRTY LITTLE MACHINE, Jane decides to seek out the most degenerate, repulsive, douchebag she can find and date him- in order that she may either fulfill her deep-seated sexual fantasies OR renounce all disempowering desires and become a true feminist. DIRTY LITTLE MACHINE is an investigation of sexual relationships and intimacy in an increasingly voyeuristic culture. DIRTY LITTLE MACHINE is running May. 19th- June. 4th (Thurs-Sat) @ The Red Room, 85 East 4th St. NYC (between 2nd ave & The Bowery) Tickets available @ smarttix.com and more info @ http://www.horsetrade.info/

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  I'm working on remounting my one woman show, CANDY TASTES NICE about a girl who decides to auction off her virginity. I'm also writing a play about beauty workers, I use the term writing very loosely as I haven't actually written anything yet its just images in my head at this point.

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 about twelve years old my parents took me to London. One warm summer evening we went to see A Midsummer's Nights Dream at the outdoor Theatre in Regents Park. Outside the theatre all these people had blankets out and were enjoying picnics before the show. I remember being impressed with this, that going to the theatre was a really beautiful communal event. The show was wonderful and I remember being in awe of one of the faeries. Her hair was white and styled to look like a punk rocker. She had a huge amount of cleavage and big red circles had painted on her breasts. I don't know, why but I thought it was hilarious. This fairy has a very small part in the show, but I followed her journey completely and the next day bought a little book of Shakespeare monologues and memorized one of her speeches. I still have it memorized. Also near the end of the performance I remember it started raining. Really lightly though, it was absolutely perfect. I knew, after seeing that show, that I wanted to be in the theatre. This experience definitely speaks to the magical quality of my work, the notion that anything can happen. I'm not sure it speaks to the darkness or sexuality but it was an important moment in my journey as an artist.

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

A:  Ticket prices. Not that there isn't any reasonably priced and even free theatre out there, but when I ask people why they don't go to the theatre they often cite the cost. Theatre is about community and bringing people together but if only certain people get to participate it looses its impact. Governments should provide more funding to subsidize ticket prices.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Off the top of my head: Beckett, Sarah Kane, Caryl Churchill, Richard Foreman, Erik Ehn, Young Jean Lee, Elevator Repair Service, Marie Brassard, Shakespeare, Howard Barker, Mac Wellman, and all my hard working theatre friends.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theatre that is necessary. It interests me when people recognize the need to deal with a certain subject matter or tell a particular story.

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

A:  Don't worry about writing a 'good play', work on developing your own voice. Once you have found your voice as a writer you can do anything, no one can stop you.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Please come and see DIRTY LITTLE MACHINE: Running May. 19th- June. 4th (Thurs-Sat) @ The Red Room, 85 East 4th St. NYC (between 2nd ave & The Bowery) Tickets available @ smarttix.com and more info @ http://www.horsetrade.info/
 

UPCOMING

This week:  A workshop production of My Base And Scurvy Heart in NYC with Studio 42.

Then I'll be in the OC for a workshop of Hearts Like Fists at Chance May 4.

And the following week, two other readings in LA, with Moving Arts and Urban Theatre Movement.

Right now, enjoy these trailers for MBSH.

http://youtu.be/bBgycWsaZps


http://youtu.be/NLnENTHZ1gI

I Interview Playwrights Part 343: Lydia Stryk

photo by Nancy Barnicle


Lydia Stryk

Hometown:

I was born and raised in DeKalb, Illinois, 60 miles west of Chicago. I left there at seventeen.

Current Town:

Berlin, Germany.

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  On a play called Peace. It’s about a peace group. I’m telling folks that it’s about how the motivations for our politics end up being deeply personal and sometimes violent. But honestly, it’s my chance to say something about drone planes.

Q:  What is Berlin theater like?

A:  I can’t answer that so quickly. Let’s just say it’s a directors’ theatre and plays (if plays are the source, at all) are material to be cut up, rearranged, lifted from, riffed on. There are no organizations protecting the sanctity of written work or the playwrights’ role in the process. Sometimes the work is really breathtaking to watch. It’s subsided by the state. But quite often there is little humanity in it. Lots of bodily fluids flying about and shouting. I didn’t come to Berlin for the theatre.

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 lived in my own little theatre as a girl. In my room (I was lucky to have my own room). I created complex and nasty scenarios with my Barbie dolls. And acted out all kinds of scenes in front of the mirror. My little girlfriends and I played a lot of dramatic games like The Newlyweds and the Dating Game, and it’s quite possible I was responsible for staging them, though I don’t remember. At my instigation, we staged a couple plays in my garage, mainly to make money. So, I guess I can’t blame theatres for doing the same.

That probably tells you exactly nothing about who I am as a writer or a person. Because all children live in unreal make-believe worlds. Except that, for me, this kind of behavior has never ended. It is certainly borderline pathological and suggests I never grew up.

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

A:  I would wish our American theatre was open –and hungry—to tell stories about the world we live in. What we think of as ‘problem theatre’, you know. Plays about the massive problems we face as a society, a world, a planet.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  My heroes tend to be outside the theatre, progressive journalists, for example. (Right now they are Amy Goodman and Laura Flanders.) But I most loved Pinter when I was starting out. His language makes me laugh with delight. His play The Caretaker is perfection for me—deeply humane and funny and asking a huge question--about compassion, how we treat others and why. And Ibsen. He’s the greatest social dramatist who ever lived, if you ask me. The one regret I have about giving up acting is not having the chance to play Hedda Gabler.

Today, I think any playwright who tackles the big stuff with honesty is a hero. A few are famous. But there are a lot of them around. You wouldn’t know it from looking at what gets puts on, though. They come in all shapes and colors and sizes and an outsized portion are women.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  See above. I am less and less excited by theatricality. Or anything overtly clever. Or personal dramas, unless they reflect on some larger phenomenon. When I look to see what’s on, I choose plays where ‘big things’ are examined—and if they are presented with suspense—and they’re funny, to boot, that’s great. But the core has to be something serious, ie. someone has to have something they want to say about the state of the culture/society/economy/planet.

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

A:  I don’t have advice. I have a plea! Think about alternatives to what is out there in terms of reaching and creating audiences. Save the theatre from institutional death!

Q:  Plugs?

A: 

www.democracynow.org

www.grittv.org

I Interview Playwrights Part 342: Rachel Jendrzejewski

photo credit: Rafal Nowak

Rachel Jendrzejewski

Hometown:  Vincennes, Indiana

Current Town: Providence, Rhode Island

Q:  Tell me about Theater Masters National MFA Playwrights Festival.

A:  Theater Masters is a splendid non-profit organization based in Aspen that (among other things) supports emerging playwrights, especially in the transition from grad school into Next, through this annual festival. It's pretty extraordinary. In January, they flew us out to Aspen to see workshop productions of our short plays and meet all kinds of wonderful generous people; and then we went home and made revisions to our plays, if we wanted; and soon we'll reconvene in NYC for full productions of those pieces, plus meetings with folks in the field, gallivanting, festivity, etc. The whole experience has been quite a gift.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  Most immediately, I'm helping Erik Ehn throw some lunches and dinners centered on art and peace-building, aka the sixth annual Arts in the One World anti-conference (open to all: http://brown.edu/Departments/Theatre_Speech_Dance/grad/aow2011.html)! I'm also revising my most recent full-length play, MERONYMY, for a reading at Playwrights' Horizons in May, directed by the wonderful Kristin Marting. It's a highly visual piece, developed in collaboration with installation artists Megan & Murray McMillan and composer Peter Bussigel -- hence I'm trying to figure out how it might properly function as a 'reading' at all -- but I think it can! And I'm preparing to finish my MFA. Binding documents, ordering regalia, packing up to move.

Q:  Tell me about your time in Poland.

A:  oh I never know how to answer this question... it was wild and wonderful. I'd always been curious about Poland, both personally (family history) and artistically (Grotowski et al); and then a string of star alignments brought me to Wroclaw from 2008-2009, assisting the illustrious Joanna Klass on worldwide events for The Grotowski Year 2009. I worked long hours at the Grotowski Institute editing English texts, writing grant proposals, coordinating logistics for guests, producing all kinds of events; but I also collaborated on some independent performance projects at Galeria Entropia and Art Cafe Kalambur, as well as took part in some phenomenal workshops. And made some lifelong friends. And wandered. Saw buckets upon buckets of stunning art and performance. Dug into the country's history. Studied the language. People-watched. Had a glorious reunion with long-lost relatives. Did voiceover work and sold valentines to make ends meet. Danced like crazy. Bopped over to neighboring countries. Got lost on trains. Wrote, wrote, wrote.

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 little, I was super shy in public but made all kinds of plays, movies, and radio shows at home with my sister, Ingrid. She's six years older than me, so obviously she was always in charge. When I was 6 and she was 12, she decided we should make our own filmed version of A CHRISTMAS CAROL, casting herself as Scrooge and me as everybody else. When it came time to shoot the scene from Scrooge's past in which Belle breaks their engagement, I was so moved by the situation that I started to cry and couldn't stop. I was in kindergarten, but I remember feeling so desperately sorry for both characters that I couldn't do the scene. My mom had to intervene and we almost didn't finish the project - but eventually Ingrid made me laugh so we pushed through. Later in the film, there's a classic shot of me running through our living room with a scarf tied over my eyes, as the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, gleefully yelling "woobawoobawoobawoobawooba!" and slamming straight into a chair. So I guess this story reveals that I've forever been very empathetic and very clumsy.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Too many to list! but a smattering of highlights (who may or may not identify as theatrical): Maria Abramovic, Robert Ashley, Pina Bausch, Beckett, Brook, John Cage, Laurie Carlos, Anne Carson, Caryl Churchill, Cornerstone Theater Co, E. E. Cummings, Dah, Lisa D'Amour, Derevo, Elevator Repair Service, Erik Ehn, Thalia Field, Grotowski, Uta Hagen, Coleman Hough, Ruth Margraff, Ariane Mnouchkine, Cindy Sherman, Gertrude Stein, Robert Wilson, Teatr Zar, Zeami, Guy Zimmerman... plus of course my family!

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theater that promotes divergent thinking and compassion through an ongoing becoming of itself -- work that's ever-pushing to get at something ineffable. Intimate immensity. Process as performance and vice versa; theater as gathering and evolution. Work that is startling and weird and hysterically funny. Work that reflects the diversity and surreality of our world.

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

A:  Take time to figure out how you like to write and pursue that, without worrying over any seeming Shoulds! Find your people and make things happen, at whatever pace works for you. Be gracious to yourself. Invest in friendships outside of the theatre/arts world. Take walks and explore. Avoid debt. Exercise. Sleep.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  If you can get to Providence this weekend, come enjoy free food and good conversation at Arts in the One World! full schedule and info at http://brown.edu/Departments/Theatre_Speech_Dance/grad/aow2011.html. Otherwise, forthcoming in NYC: BACTERIA at the Theater Masters National MFA Playwrights Festival, dir. Adam Immerwahr, May 3-7, Wild Project (http://www.theatermasters.org) + a reading of MERONYMY, presented by Brown University at Playwrights' Horizons, dir. Kristin Marting, May 13, 3pm.

I Interview Playwrights Part 341: Karen Malpede

Karen Malpede

Hometown: Evanston, Il.

Current Town: Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, New York. I say it this way because Clinton Hill is the best, best, best of all neighborhoods I’ve ever lived in.

Q: Tell me about the book Acts of War and your play Prophecy.

A: Prophecy is a play I wrote in response to America’s never-ending wars. It’s a family drama and a political drama. It’s a play that straddles realism and something older, more classical. My plays sit on a nexus between the now and then, looking forward, hopefully, into the what might be. They are hopeful in the same sense that knowledge is hopeful, that feeling is hopeful, that tragedy is hopeful. Now that the play is published in Acts of War: Iraq & Afghanistan in Seven Plays, people can read it for themselves.

I edited Acts of War because all the good plays about the wars were being damned by critics, or being found “too risky” (artistic directors said that to me) to produce. The plays that really look at the cost of these wars on the soldiers that fight them, the Iraqis and Afghans who die in them, the democracy that has yet to pay for them and is being driven so deeply into debt because of them. The book, like my play Prophecy, is an effort to guard against the deadening effect of not knowing and the moral torpor, the intellectual emptiness, the artistic vacuity of not knowing, not thinking, not wanting to experience the truth of what it means to be at war. The book contains seven smart, strong, ethical, exciting, and moving plays. Risky plays. Plays that are beautifully written and carefully constructed. Plays that matter. At least to me.

I wrote the introduction to the book because I wanted to talk about the strategies these playwrights have used when they set about to bring beauty out of the ugliness of our current wars. I wanted to discuss for others the aesthetics of plays that dare to tell the truth about war and its effects on combatants and noncombatants, alike. I link the plays in the book back to Greek tragedy because it happens that theater was created as a way for the Greeks to deal with combat trauma. Theater, war and democracy are intimately connected. The Greek democracy destroyed itself through imperial adventures. This is a cautionary tale. These modern plays address our modern traumas which are as ancient as war.

Q: What else are you working on?

A: My new play Another Life is not nice. It’s a surreal look at our complicity in the torture program, the economic collapse, the generally growing meanness of the last ten years since the attacks on the twin towers. It begins on the September 11, 2001. I was in New York and I worked with victims and survivors and I’ve written about that work. It’s a fact that most people in New York did not want to go to war. We were convinced that war was not the answer. We protested against bombing Afghanistan and invading Iraq.

Another Life has heroes. It was terrifying to write. It’s based on lots of research, interviews with lawyers who are defending detainees and torture victims and transcripts of interviews with torture victims themselves. I wrote it because I feel we need to know. We need to confront our own complicity, and also honor the best in us: those whistle blowers, like Bradley Manning, those lawyers, those doctors who take a stand against torture, who treat and respect the victims of the rather obscenely named “war on terror.”

Like all my plays, implicit in Another Life is the sense that there is another way. We didn’t need to plunge into violence and greed just because we were attacked. We might have answered with justice. We might have held trials. We might have believed in democracy. We didn’t need to “go shopping” as our then President Bush advised while he was intent upon launching an illegal invasion of a country, Iraq, that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. We didn’t need to spend ourselves into recession

So Another Life is a wacky, wild look at how our fear and our sorrow got hi-jacked and turned into revenge, greed, and small-mindedness, from which the nation is suffering now.

Another Life will premiere in Kosovo this June as part of an exchange program between my theater, Theater Three Collaborative, and the National Theater of Kosovo, funded by Theater Communications Group and the Mellon Foundation, as part of their On the Road initiative to encourage international exchange.

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

A: If there was one thing I would change about the theater it would be money. Theater doesn’t work well in capitalism; neither do health care, or education, for that matter. Theater is not a business; it is a labor intensive luxurious necessity. It is the one place where we can come together in community and breathe together with living actors while they live through in front of us what we are living through in our hopes, dreams, nightmares and desires. Theater means seeing place. And catharsis means clarity of sight.

So, the theater should be subsidized. It should be the right of citizens of a democracy to have a theater funded from tax money. It costs a million dollars to drop one laser-guided missile on the people of Afghanistan or Libya. A million dollars could fund theater for a year in a town or neighborhood. There was once a Federal Theater in this country from 1935-’39. Everyone should know the history of Federal Theater and read Hallie Flanagan’s book Arena.

Commercialism erodes the theater and erodes the audience. We are being made more stupid. We are being made more afraid. We are becoming less.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: If I don’t feel more alive at the end of a play than I felt at its beginning, it’s a failure. There is nothing quite as thrilling as a beautiful play with wonderfully committed actors. I want to be given life blood in the theater; I want to be startled awake—I mean spiritually awake. I want to feel more than I felt before.

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 a child I walked into a pasture full of horses and colts who were grazing and playing in the late afternoon. I totally disrupted their harmony; they became angry, afraid, disconnected. But I knew one of the horses and I climbed onto his back. I sat completely silent and I watched as the trusting community reformed around me. I was no longer an alien. I was one of them. The late afternoon light was golden. The sound of the pasture was pure like a lute. There was nothing to fear. There was nothing do but be. Later, I walked into the farmhouse, and I remember looking at the people gathered for dinner as if they were aliens. They didn’t know about where I’d come from. They didn’t understand. There was a world of wonder, of harmony, simplicity and grace just outside the door. I suppose all children have an experience like this; that’s why so many children’s books are about secret worlds, passageways, doors, rabbit holes, hidden gardens. All children who are lucky enough to be able to find a patch of peace. All children lucky enough to be able to spend time in nature. This is why peace and nature, both so imperiled, so wounded, so undervalued and mistreated, are so important. Our imaginations live there. The theater opens the door into worlds we didn’t know existed. It lets us in. It takes us in. The theater lets us be with the mystery. When we leave we feel blessed, like initiates into a sacred trust.

Q: Plugs Please:

A: Another Life will be part of a four-play “9/11 Play Series” this September 8,9,10 at the Gerald Lynch Theater at John Jay College in Manhattan. It will run for three weeks in March 2012 at the Irondale Ensemble Theater in my neighborhood Clinton Hill/Fort Greene Brooklyn.

We’re raising money for these productions, now. Go to our website www.theaterthreecollaborative.org for information. We are about to launch a funding campaign on United States Artists website.

Join us Monday, April 25, 5:30-7pm at the Drama Book Shop 250 West 40th St., NY, NY as we Celebrate the Publication of Acts of War Iraq & Afghanistan in Seven Plays

edited by Karen Malpede, Michael Messina, Bob Shuman

Foreword by Chris Hedges Introduction by Karen Malpede

Guantanamo by Victoria Brittain & Gillian Slovo
American Tet by Lydia Stryk
The Vertical Hour by David Hare
Prophecy by Karen Malpede
9 Circles by Bill Cain
No Such Cold Thing by Naomi Wallace
A Canopy of Stars by Simon Stephens

A reading from the 7 plays begins promptly at 5:40 With:

George Bartenieff
Kathleen Chalfant
Brendan Donaldson
Najla Said
Loren Sharpe

Wine, snacks & best of all, books