Adam Szymkowicz

Philip Gawthorne

Hometown: Southport, Merseyside, UK.

Current Town: Right now I’m living in London, staying in New York for my play, and will be moving to Los Angeles later this year, so I’m spending a lot of time in planes, trains and automobiles!

Q: Tell me about The Thrill Of The Chase.

A: The Thrill Of The Chase opens on February 16th at the Drilling Company Theatre in New York. It’s a world premiere and though I’ve had lots of stuff produced in London, it will be my first full-length play to be fully produced in NYC. The story is about two male friends in their late 20s, living in an obscene penthouse apartment in the city, who have a co-dependent, slightly infantilized relationship. When one of them wants to break free and marry his new girlfriend, the other bets him that he can break them up in 30 days - and if he doesn't succeed, he will give him the apartment. It's a provocative, intense drama about masculinity, status, control and sex. I think it will really divide people…they will certainly have a strong reaction to it, whether that reaction is good or bad. I was very inspired by David Rabe's Hurlyburly, one of my all-time favourite plays, and also by the work of David Mamet and Neil LaBute.

Q: What else are you working on now?

A: I have two other new plays that have had a lot of interest and that I am in talks with various Theatres about. The first is called United State, which explores US/UK political relations through the prism of a transatlantic love story. The other piece is called The Rules Of The Game, which is another spiky drama, looking at sexual politics through the theme of the rules - unspoken or literal - which control and shape our lives.

Q: How does English theater compare to American theater?

A; I’m not sure if there’s that much difference in terms of content, although I think in the US it probably helps to be a British writer and vice versa. One thing I have noticed is that actually going to the Theatre in London and the UK is much more affordable than it is New York, especially on Broadway. Obviously it’s a different funding model. I personally think Theatre should be accessible to everyone and a lot of the best London venues have great initiatives to make top-level Theatre affordable to all, which I think is really important culturally.

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

A: Like most people, I had a few scrapes in life, at school etc. Nothing too serious or anything, though I got punched and kicked a few times. But you get up and get on with it. I think that pretty much sums up the life of a writer. It’s about being able to take those punches.

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

A: I think that Theatre is a very important part of our culture, and also our educational process. I guess I’d try to make sure that kids and young people got more access to the kind of relevant contemporary theatre that they might be able to actually connect with, and which could inspire them, as well as the classics.

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: David Mamet and Neil LaBute are amongst my favourite playwrights, along with Martin McDonagh, Patrick Marber, Peter Morgan and Yasmina Reza. Kevin Spacey is a hero of mine and I think the philosophy he has adopted at the Old Vic, both in terms of artistic direction and all the various development schemes he has implemented to help the next generation of theatre practitioners, is highly commendable and incredibly inspiring. I’ve been fortunate enough to have worked with Kevin and have personally benefited from the support network created by the brilliant team at the Old Vic.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: I like theatre that doesn’t hold your hand, that challenges you, that doesn’t offer easy answers. I like provocative, dangerous, visceral stories on stage. I suspect I may get a few people walking out of The Thrill Of The Chase when it opens as some of the scenes in it are very extreme, and that’s okay if it’s not for them. It’s not about trying to shock though, that’s too easy and a little immature. For me it’s about being completely honest, even if it’s uncomfortable – that’s the duty of a dramatist.

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

A: I think the biggest thing is to keep going. Just keep writing. And make sure you finish things. An unfinished play is no use to man or beast. Don’t let yourself be crippled by self-doubt. Be true to yourself, always. I also think it’s important from a practical standpoint to develop the ability to write for other forms – whether it’s film, TV, radio, journalism or whatever. For me, working in film and television as well as the stage, has informed and helped my experience as a writer and allows me to flex different creative muscles and experiment in other challenging mediums. It keeps you sharp. It’s hard to make a living as a playwright alone, but if you can make a living as a professional writer, it shifts your mentality, and gives you a sense of confidence and self-belief, which makes you braver as a dramatist. But above all, my advice would be: take the punches and keep writing.

Q: Plugs, please:

A: My play The Thrill Of The Chase opens on February 16th at The Drilling Company Theatre in New York, produced by Mad Dog Theatre Company. It runs until March 4th. All ticket info is available on the website, www.maddogbarks.com. We have a terrific young cast and an excellent director and team behind it and I think it will be a great production. Whether it makes you laugh, cry, squirm or scream in abject horror…I guarantee that you will have a powerful reaction to it…hope you can come and join us!

Feb 2, 2012

I Interview Playwrights Part 424: Eddie Antar

Eddie Antar

Hometown: Brooklyn, New York

Current Town: New York, NY

Q: Tell me about The Navigator.

A: The Navigator is about a man that suddenly gets a gift. He begins to get the answers to every decision in his life. Is this a good thing? At first, sure. But after a while... what's life without risk? What value does victory have when there's no possibility of defeat. There was a wonderful Twilight Zone episode where this bank robber dies and goes to the afterlife. He's met there by an angel who greets him and tells him he can have anything he wants. First he asks for things like money and dames. The angel complies. Then, he says, "this is no fun. I want it to be a challenge. It should be harder." The angel complies. Finally, the bad guy says "I've had it. I can't take it anymore. I want to go to the other place." The angel looks at him and says "This is the other place".

Q: What else are you working on now?

A: I just finished my first bi-lingual play called "Papi / Flaco" about a Dominican family that lives in the northern section of Manhattan called Inwood. It's the story of a father who coaches Little League baseball and his son who plays on that team. The play explores the mores and cultures of the Latino community, specifically when it comes to the roles of men and women. My short play "Gifted Child" about a couple of divorced parents called into a teacher conference and discover that their child has healing powers, has been chosen to be in The Network One Act Festival in New York City so I'll be working on that. I will also be having a public reading of a play called "Life On Hold", which is about the game changing effects on five Jewish women from Brooklyn who re-start their weekly card game three months after 9/11.

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 kid I use to play ball against the side of our house. I would throw the ball against the wall and act out the entire baseball game. Lots of kids do this BUT! I would act out both teams (I was a Yankee fan and they were always playing the Red Sox) AND we weren’t the only one scoring runs. I would even act out visits to the pitcher’s mound and injury time outs. And, yes, every once and a while THE YANKEES WOULD LOSE! Which allowed me to act out the losing locker room interviews. Here’s the key to all of this. It had to be real. It had to be stuff that would happen. Even if it didn’t go my way. Of course I won most of these fantasy games, but it wasn’t easy.

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

A: My favorite type of theater (or any narrative art) is the type that makes you believe stuff that would never happen. When point A and point B are that far apart and you take an audience on a journey from one point to the other in a believable way... that's awesome. Many plays (movies, tv...) I see have these cool premises but don't take the time to get from point A to point B. It's not that she would never sleep with him, it's that you didn't lead us to believe that she would sleep with him.

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: David Mamet, Stephen Adly Guirgis, Sanford Meisner, Susan Lori-Parks; these guys understand the music of language. They see plays as musical. I love that.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: I'm not big on the experimental stuff. Though done well... sure. I also don't like the obvious Good Guy / Bad Guy stuff. I saw a play once that was nothing more than an indictment of Orthodox Jewish Women. I get excited by the type of theater that features struggles and big questions. Struggle is more important that conflict. Conflict is The Evil Empire wanting to destroy The Republic. Struggle is watching the head of the Evil Empire agonize over the fact that his son is part of the Republic. Shakespeare knew this. That's why you could identify with even the most evil of his characters.

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

A: Your ideas are worthy. ALL your ideas are worthy. Take the time to move your story from point A to point B. Allow yourself to be painted into a corner with your scripts. It's how your characters get out of the situation that's the good stuff. And the basics: Someone must have a dire need. Their actions and words have to stem from that dire need. There has to be an obstacle. There needs to be a resolution. The resolution need not be a clean one, but there needs to be some sort of resolution.

Q: Plugs, please:

A; My New York Innovative Theatre Award nominated play “The Navigator” will be remounted by the WorkShop Theater Company, February 9-March 3. For details and to purchase tickets visit
www.workshoptheater.org/mainstage/2012/navigator

Feb 1, 2012

I Interview Playwrights Part 423: Begonya Plaza

Begonya Plaza

Hometown: Born in Bogotá, Colombia. From the age of two have consistently traveled and lived between Northern Spain (Guernica, Barcelona), Hollywood, and New York.

Current Town: New York

Q: Tell me about Teresa's Ecstasy.

A: Teresa’s Ecstasy began when I was doing research for a screenplay I wrote about Salvador Dalí, THE PERSISTENCE OF MEMORY. In one of his biographies, he mentions the books he kept on his bedside table, and one of them was “The Autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila”. As I began to learn about Saint Teresa and her remarkable mystic life, the more I desired to live in her world. This play began as a one woman play, and Shawn Elliott was to be my director. Shawn read my first draft, and his response inspired me to turn it into a full length multi-character play. There are many aspects of my life in this play, but there are also many more aspects of my imagination and the metaphors I observe within relationships of all kinds throughout my own life journey. I’m interested in exploring the contradictions we sustain within us, and the ultimate meaning of love. The worlds I write about are those that fascinate me, intrigue me, and those which I’ve been a part of but also those I haven’t had a chance to be a part of. I’m interested in writing works that heal the spirit in some way, and speak truths with all the life force that we have inside us. I loved finding out that Saint Teresa was a spit fire, was charming, and funny, and tenacious and imperfect. She wasn’t what I had imagined, a cloustered saint, depending on the graces of god alone to work miracles, but actively and with pragmatism, pursuing what she believed to be of value, even if to others it seemed absurd and unreal.

Q: What else are you working on now?

A: I’m hopeful that the day will come when the Dalí film project gets made, so while the producing possibilities work themselves out, I’ve started to adapt the screenplay to theatre, because it’s such a vibrant piece of work and so apt for the stage, as well, and maybe will be a musical.

I’m also working on a piece titled, TALK SHOW, with Hispanic historical characters, Simon Bolivar, Eva Peron, Pasionaria, and Antonio Machin, having a round table discussion with God. I love that piece, but know that it needs a lot of work still. Right now it’s at that stage where the audience walks away, informed, and stimulated, but they need to walk away with a lot more than that, they need to walk away with an emotional impact, with a heart beat that’s changed. I have a lot of digging to do there still. The first read through a few months ago, was very helpful for my next phase of plowing.

Q: How do you approach writing a play? Is it different from how you approach a film project?

A: No. I get an idea, an image, a situation that for me, is analogous to something greater and universal. That’s when I get excited. Most of the time it’s political on an emotional scale, but not sentimental. I begin, and that is when the story starts to unfold, and in that process, I’m becoming informed, and inspired, and then I start to live in that world, and start discovering a new life. It’s all about trusting the journey that it will take me somewhere, I don’t know exactly where, and trusting that my own life will inform the work as well.

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 what ever reason my parents allowed this to happen, from a very young age, I traveled and changed directions constantly. At age two we left Colombia, where I was born to live in a small town, a symbolic town, named Guernica, where my father was born, in the northern part of Spain, in the Basque Country, Euskadi. There we lived until the age of 6 to then move to the United States, to Hollywood. At age nine I was shipped off to Bogotá, Colombia for one year to live with a sister of my mother’s and her family. At age ten I returned to Los Angeles and by age 11 was sent off to Guernica, Spain where I lived for 3 years, and would spend every summer in France with other family members. Then back to Colombia for almost a year to return to Los Angeles, where I completed high school at John Marshall High. This kind of nomadic lifestyle never stopped for me until most recently, and I think that now is when I’m fully receiving the experiential benefits. Because changing from one culture to another, from one language to another, from one society class to another, has enriched my life with a sense of compassion, and understanding. The instability has equipped me with the tools of pragmatism, a sense of independence, self-motivation, solitude, and universal perspective.

The other side of the coin is a fear of abandonment, maybe. But that’s where the compassion comes in.

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

A: It’s prices. I wish it was free. I wish it was based on quality and not on money, budgets, funding. I wish everyone has the chance to see a show, I wish teenagers learned to appreciate the arts, and the theatre, and be able to use it as a place of community and communion, as in a place of gathering to share intimate, profound thoughts and feelings, with joy, with humor, with imagination, with a sense of wonder. I truly believe that our society, and our world would be a better place with more available quality, truthful, character driven theatre.

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: Brando, Paddy Chayefsky, Vanessa Redgrave, Harry Belafonte, Sophia Loren in “Two Women” inspired me to become an actress, and Frank Sinatra inspired me to want to sing. I have so many heroes, there are so many amazing artists, I admire. Bertolt Brecht, Harold Pinter, Shakespeare, Chekhov, my teachers, the beautiful Geraldine Page, may she rest in peace, and Michael Howard, and Bill Hickey, and Eric Morris, my dear friend and mentor, John Randolph. Oh so many. Stephen Adly Guirgis, Phillip Seymour Hoffman...

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: Character driven plays, absurdist, satirical plays, simple, pure, honest plays. Plays that make a statement about the human condition.

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

A: Write because you love to write, write what you love to write about, what concerns you, moves you, intrigues you. First please yourself in that challenge, stay curious, passionate, humble, imaginative, and never do it for an end result. The pain and the pleasure is in sitting down and starting, and in that tedious, lonely process, growing as an artist.

Q: Plugs, please:

A: Teresa's Ecstasy begins performances on Sun, March 4 at the Cherry Lane in NYC! It has passion, art, sex, and gaspacho! What more could you want?

Jan 31, 2012

I Interview Playwrights Part 422: Lameece Issaq

Lameece Issaq

Hometown: Las Vegas, Nevada

Current Town: Brooklyn, NY

Q: Tell me about Food and Fadwa:

A: Well, it first started out as a sketch. It was 2004 and I was just back from the Middle East. I was jobless and crashing on my friend's futon in Astoria, watching an unhealthy amount of The Food Network. I had just participated in the New York Arab-American Comedy Festival, where I wound up meeting folks who are now my dearest friends and creative partners. One of those people was Jake Kader, who was in film school at Columbia at the time. One unproductive afternoon, I see that The Food Network is having this "Win Your Own Cooking Show Contest," and in order to be considered, you had to put yourself on video doing a cooking segment. I thought, "Yes! I am going to go for this!" I mean, who wouldn't be able to see the incredible potential in a woman who had zero culinary skills or television experience? Come ON!

So, I asked Jake to film this ridiculous segment of me making brownies with one of my friends' kids (I was pitching a kids cooking show--brilliant!), and during takes, I would improvise this odd Arab lady cooking host who was, you know, very serious and somber. We thought it might make a good sketch for the NY Arab Comedy Festival, and started meeting to brainstorm ideas and write it. Eventually the sketch morphed into something more bittersweet and substantial and started having some dramatic potential, and before we knew it, we had a one act play set in Bethlehem. We did a reading of it at NYTW as a part of a festival, and were then encouraged by Linda Chapman to expand it. Now it's three acts. That's right, folks, I said three.

The play is about a woman, Fadwa, who escapes the harsher realities of living in the West Bank through her cooking show. It's mostly about family and the different ways in which we love and express love. But there's that backdrop of occupation. The questions that most interested us were--how do people deal with that kind of daily stress, and still maintain their sense of joy, celebration, humor? What is it like being stuck in a house during a curfew situation? What happens between family members when they are forced to be together and practically live on top of each other for days on end? Hopefully, the play addresses those kinds of things. It's also a piece about being connected to home and land, and what happens when those connections are severed or changed.

Q: What else are you working on?

A: My company, Noor Theatre, is co-producing Food and Fadwa with New York Theatre Workshop, so much of my time is spent with my co-founders, Nancy Vitale and Maha Chehlaoui, fundraising for the production.

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 have a very big, funny Arab family, so I felt strongly that their weirdness and beauty ought to be documented somehow. One silly anecdote: My father is a deeply kind, deeply emotional man, subject to very unintentionally funny bouts of screaming or histrionics, which are made more hilarious by his thick accent. He can also be very intentionally funny, but as kids you seize the moments that are most mock worthy. We grew up in Vegas, in a very nice, safe neighborhood. One afternoon, our neighbors got robbed, which was unheard of in our area. Our folks sat down with us, as good parents ought to, to lecture us on the musts of front door safety. My mother said, quite reasonably, "Listen, make sure to keep all of the doors in the house locked, and if anyone knocks on the door, look through the peek-hole and ask who it is." My father responded "NO! If anybody knocks on the door, just RUN!" This struck us as incredibly funny, as images of running aimlessly up and down the stairs or in circles around the kitchen came to mind. Moments of culture clash. I remember this other time I was in 10th grade and I ditched school to go hang with my pals. I must have done it quite stupidly, because my parents found out and grounded me for two weeks. But that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was facing my father, who wasn't actually angry, but rather so saddened by my having taken an education for granted, that he just looked at me and cried. He was taken out of school and never finished high school due to war. So, you know--perspective. I'll never forget that.

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

A: More money for its artists; less expensive tickets to the theater. I am sure there are more intelligent answers like diversification in the theater and seeing more woman and people of color get produced. I am very passionate about those things. But I am also very passionate about seeing The Book of Mormon for ten dollars.

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: Oh, man. So many. For now I'll say I'm obsessed with anything Daniel Kitson does. He's a very, very special kind of storyteller. He draws these beautiful, funny, deeply flawed characters, referring to them in the third person, and connecting them to each other in the most delightful, unexpected ways. The way he uses language blows my mind. I saw him for the first time in 2006 at the Edinburgh Fringe Fest doing a show called C90, about a man dealing with his last day at work at a repository for abandoned mix tapes. He has a show right now at St. Ann's Warehouse called It's Always Right Now Until It's Later. Go see it!

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: I think it depends. Simply told stories; new ways to tell old stories; theater about subjects we rarely see. The production The Play Company did of Invasion, by Jonas Hassan Khemiri, was one of my favorites last year. It was so well done, and was able to address fear, preconceptions, and prejudice (in relation to Arabs/Muslims) with humor and creativity, and in a very theatrically exciting way. I loved it.

Q: Tell me abou the NYTW Case Study for Food and Fadwa.

A: Jim and NYTW had this idea that they would offer a course on how a play gets made, from seed to stage. The students will attend seminars on casting, marketing, and production, and speak with the artistic team--designers, director etc. And they'll attend a rehearsal, preview and opening night. I think the idea is to get behind the scenes and see what goes on. It's exciting (and nerve wracking) to be the guinea pigs! I think there's a class where Jake and I go in and talk about our process. We've been developing the play with NYTW for a number of years now--we have them to thank for how this thing grew. Them, and of course, The Food Network.

Q: Plugs, please:

A: Food and Fadwa begins previews at NYTW on May 18.

Adam Szymkowicz

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I Interview Playwrights Part 425: Philip Gawthorne

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I Interview Playwrights Part 424: Eddie Antar

Feb 1, 2012

I Interview Playwrights Part 423: Begonya Plaza

Jan 31, 2012

I Interview Playwrights Part 422: Lameece Issaq

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