The thirteenth play from 13P is going to go up soon (a new play by Sarah Ruhl). Now 13P has said that after that play they will cease to exist which is both sad and kind of spectacular. They have been an amazing force in New York theater and I can only hope another group of playwrights decides to harness their own collective energy to self produce the way 13P has. I'm waiting to find out who that would be.
My question to you is, if you were creating your own band of super playwrights, who would be your 13 playwrights (or 14 or 15)?
May 11, 2012
May 9, 2012
I Interview Playwrights Part 449: Jennie Contuzzi
Jennie Contuzzi
Hometown: Belle Mead, NJ
Current Town: Astoria, NY
Q: What are you working on now?
A: A play I've been working on for nearly three years, BODY LANGUAGE, has just gone into rehearsal, so I've been spending a lot of time getting that script into the best place it can be. I'm also trying to get my head around a new play where the main character journeys to a commune to try and escape her problems, only to discover the key to healing is to face herself and her past. I actually traveled out to a Nevada commune last summer with a friend to do some research and it was really fascinating-nothing at all like what I expected.
Q: If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?
A: Writer's groups, readings, and workshops are all wonderful tools for a writer, but I don't think you can really know your play until you see it in production. Financial constraints really limit the amount of risk theater companies can take on new writers, and I know many talented people who have had reading after reading all over the country and still have not had an actual production. The reason BODY LANGUAGE is being produced right now is because The Active Theater, and especially artistic director Nathaniel Shaw, took a real risk on an unknown writer (me). I had absolutely no connection to the group until Nathaniel read a skeletal version of the play, saw something in it that he liked, and made a commitment to it. When I say skeletal, I really mean it-I think the draft he read was about 1/4 the size of what it is now. And yes, we spent a lot time developing the play, but it was always, from the first meeting, with the understanding that if I did the work, the play would be produced. It makes a huge difference, knowing someone is interested in you in that way. There are other smaller companies who have a similar focus, but I'd love for bigger theaters to embrace new writers on their main stages. It's wonderful that these large companies sponsor writers groups and create programs for new writers, but when you look at what's actually being produced, and you notice there's no overlap between the work and writers they are "developing" and the work and writers they are producing, that's a problem.
Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?
A: I'm a big fan of the unsung heroes-the stage managers, techies, production managers, rehearsal studio staff, ushers, box office staff-the people who make the entire magical process run smoothly, efficiently, and comfortably for the rest of us-and who make our audiences feel comfortable so they can more fully absorb what we're trying to say. My professors at the New School for Drama-all professional people who choose to take time from their own writing schedules to help other writers find their voices. And Stephen Adly Guirgis. Love him.
Q: What kind of theater excites you?
A: The darker the better. I love Mark Schultz's work for that reason. I like really sparse, focused work as well. How much you can say without actually having to say anything.
Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?
A: Try not to compare your successes or failures to those of other writers you know. It's ultimately just a huge waste of energy. Focus on your own work and don't let the speed with which success comes to you be a measure of your talent or the potential longevity of your career.
Q: Plugs, please:
A: Did I mention the upcoming production of my play BODY LANGUAGE? It's dark, angsty, and occasionally very funny. May 25th-June 10th at the Workshop Theater. Please visit www.theactivetheater.com for more information about the play and this up-and-coming company of artists.
May 7, 2012
I Interview Playwrights Part 448: Monet Hurst-Mendoza
Monet Hurst-Mendoza
Hometown: Pasadena, CA
Current Town: Brooklyn, NY
Q: Tell me about Veil'd.
A: Veilʼd began as my undergraduate playwriting thesis at Marymount Manhattan College. During my fall semester I was lucky enough to stumble upon an article by Naomi Wolf in which she interviews Afghani women about their burqas. Two groups emerged: 1) women thoroughly opposed to wearing burqas, and 2) women who saw the burqa as a symbol of sexuality, protection, and empowerment. I thought the latter was an interesting viewpoint that I, as an American woman, had never been exposed to. Shortly after reading this, I was visiting my niece, Elle, in California. As a toddler she was diagnosed with Pervasive Developmental Disorder - Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS), a condition on the Autism spectrum. Symptoms can include a range of complications, including difficulty socializing with others, repetitive behaviors, and heightened sensitivities to certain stimuli, etc. When Elle was very young, she had a particular aversion to being touched (that has since passed). She once told me that it felt “like fire” when I brushed against her arm; somehow this phrase always stuck with me. Every time I see my niece, I find myself looking at the world with new eyes because she sees everything so differently; everything about nature is precious to her and sheʼs always asking questions without provocation. It makes me wonder how we, as adults, lose that raw, honest instinct that we had as children. I wanted to explore these themes in Veilʼd, so I model a lot of my protagonist, Dima, after Elle and my thoughts on the article. As for the rest? Sharks, magical realism, Ebay, hipsters and fairy tales are all irrational obsessions that I have and refuse to answer for.
Since then, Veil'd has gone on receive various development opportunities from Rising Circle Theater Collective, The Kupferberg Center, |the claque|, and The Lark. It's been a very exciting process!
Q: What else are you working on now?
A: My friend, Karron Karr, and I are currently collaborating on a performance piece about online dating. We are interested in how it's changing the way we communicate, court; that it's essentially changing our culture. The piece will be multimedia, incorporating live actors, video, projection, and possibly even live feed on the internet. We are applying for a space grant for performance space some time in June, July or August. The space is a windowed storefront, so the performance will be free and accessible to everyone. If this goes well, we hope the piece will have a longer life in venues more equipped to deal with pieces dealing with technology.
Q: Tell me, if you will, a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person.
A: One of my most defining childhood moments was the day I stopped believing in Peter Pan.
I was 4, and I was sitting on the top bunk of the Ikea bunk bed set my sister, Esprit, and I shared. Esprit and I were playing and at some point, she left me to go to the bathroom. In an effort to keep me safe (or trapped), she took the ladder off the bunk bed, so that I wouldn't fall. Big mistake. She must have found something else of interest because she was gone for a lot longer than she said she would be. I wanted to get down, but I couldn't.
At the time, I was obsessed with Mary Martin in the musical version of Peter Pan -- I even had a costume my mom made for me that I would wear all the time and refuse to take off! So, I figured, "think a happy thought" and I jumped off and landed head first on a chair, splitting my head open. I ran into the kitchen, blood rushing out, and I think my dad nearly fainted. 5 stitches. I just remember crying the entire car ride, not from the pain, but from the sheer fact that Peter Pan was a liar. And ever since then, I've been trying to find alternate ways to fly.
Q: If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?
A: More women. More artists of color. More opportunities for "emerging" writers that are actually "emerging."
Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?
A: Oh gosh, there are so many. Sarah Kane, JoAnne Akalaitis, Deborah Warner, Naomi Iizuka, Young Jean Lee, Anne Bogart, Sarah Ruhl, Sheila Callaghan, Katori Hall, Paula Vogel, Lynn Nottage, Mac Wellman, Rollin Jones, Samuel Beckett, Jules Feiffer, Jean-Paul Sartre.... I could go on forever.
Q: What kind of theater excites you?
A: Variety excites me. I like seeing a-typical stories told from various perspectives. Subjects that make me want to laugh, cry, dry heave, clench my fists, and stand up & make something out of my life are always winners in my book. There are 4 specific theatrical experiences whose stories got to the core of me that I always bring up in conversation because I was so moved. They are, Crooked by Catherine Trieschmann at Women's Project, Iphigenia 2.0 by Chuck Mee at Signature Theatre, Blasted by Sarah Kane at Soho Rep, and Lear by Young Jean Lee, also at Soho Rep.
Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?
A: I myself am still starting out, but this is what has worked for me:
Find an artistic home with people who believe in your work -- friends, other artists, theatre company big wigs, anyone who is positive and loves to read/see your work. Support is so important to your well-being as an artist and a person. Theatre that you create in your living room is just as relevant and wonderful as packing a full house at Lincoln Center. See plays. Read plays. When opportunities rain, it pours; if it's been a dry season, you're not a failure. Try something new that scares you as a writer. Don't give up on yourself. Be persistent. Apply, apply, apply. Sooner or later, someone cool will read your play, love it, and ask you to be interviewed for their blog :)
Q: Plugs, please:
A: Veil'd is having a workshop with simple design elements at Queens College May 12 & 13th. It's directed by Nicole A. Watson and will be co-presented by Rising Circle Theater Collective and the Kupferberg Center for the Performing Arts. http://kupferbergcenter.org/veild.htm
I'm also co-producing the PlayRISE Summer Play Festival for Rising Circle Theater Collective at Theater Row June 6th-10th. It's a celebration for emerging writers of color who have gone through our 12-week play lab intensive, INKtank. This year we are presenting readings of plays by Matthew Paul Olmos, Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai, Susan Soon-He Stanton, and Raquel Almazan. www.risingcircle.org
I try to maintain a blog (and do podcasts!) here: www.angrypatrons.com
Apr 30, 2012
I Interview Playwrights Part 447: Marc Palmieri
Marc Palmieri
Hometown: Born in Elizabeth, New Jersey -
Current Town : Queens, New York.
Q: Tell me about the play you had a reading of at SCR.
A: The play is called THE GROUNDLING and it was inspired by the final moments ofShakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost, with which I have been obsessed since being in the play for the first time about 16 years ago. Basically, it's about a Long Island man who has never seen a play before who sees LLL and is deeply affected. He writes his own verse play and hires two New York City theatre types to help him mount it in his garage on Long Island. I hope it's about how we, as theatre people so wrapped up in surviving and sustaining a place in the theatre, might be reminded now and then of the reason we're really doing this thing: the audience.
Q: What else are you working on now?
A: My novel, WHEN I WORE FLOODS and a webseries called THE THING, which is about a group of New York theatre types who never "made it" and left the scene years ago but who come back together for one more off-off Broadway experience. This project may be the first of a sequence of midlife crises, but I'm enjoying it.
Q: If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?
A: In terms of NY theatre, I wish somehow that it appealed more to people not in the theatre. It's not the fault of theatres necessarily - but it often seems to me that much of theatre in our city is written, produced, publicized and critiqued for people in the theatre. I say that and here I am having written a play about a play...but in it there's a guy who's just discovered the power of theatre and is so moved he writes his own. I really wish more people who know nobody involved in the production - or theatre in general- could be in the seats (and I'm not talking about Broadway)...but again, there's much blame to go around for this...unless I'm just wrong.
Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?
A: Anyone who produces, buys, or even talks about my plays. Kidding, but not really. The real answer: Teachers of theatre I've had. Dr. Harold Tedford at Wake Forest University who invited me, a jock majoring in baseball, to take his theatre class. Deloss Brown of NYU, who cast me in...you guessed it...Love's Labour's Lost when I first came to New York in the '90s to be an actor. Both teachers, both people who devote their lives to spreading the word about theatre to those who may not otherwise ever find it in life, both who feel theatre is for and about everyone. I 'm lucky enough to plays at City College. I try to emulate them.
Q: What kind of theater excites you?
A: So many different kinds it's impossible to answer. I get an extra kick out of theatre that works with no budget. But really, I'm ready to be excited at any show big, small, classical, new, professional, amateur, New York, anywhere.
Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?
A: See plays. Read plays. And revise, revise, revise. Get to know actors and have readings of your play- in your apartment, in front of an audience, wherever- and realize that 3 years from first draft to opening night is pretty damn good. The Lark Theatre is a place for playwrights to meet directors. I met Shelley Butler there who directed a bang-up reading at SCR. Long live the Lark.
Q: Plugs, please:
A: My bootleg website: www.marcpalmieri.com
Apr 25, 2012
Reading at Primary Stages May 9
Come if you can.
Mercy by Adam Szymkowicz
Directed by Michelle Bossy
Wed May 9 at 3pm
Primary Stages Studios
307 West 38th Street, Suite 1510, New York, NY 10018
Reservations readings@primarystages.org
or call Taylor at 212 840 9705
Synopsis:
Apr 24, 2012
I Interview Playwrights Part 446: Adriano Shaplin
photo by Duska Radosavljevic
Adriano Shaplin
Hometown: Burlington, Vermont
Current Town: Jersey City & Philadelphia
Q: Tell me about Sophie Gets the Horns.
A: It’s about a group of young artists attending a liberal arts college in the ‘90s. Just as I was starting to work on the piece, I saw an amazing student production of The Glass Menagerie, so I was thinking about memory plays. I was also reading a lot of Sylvia Plath, mainly her diaries as well as The Bell Jar and reading a bit about her relationship with Ted Hughes. I was drawn to something in these stories, something about the way they used their pasts, and that started me writing about young artist in the 90’s, attending an elite school, and I started to want to measure the distance between then and now. The Riot Group was formed when we were all freshman at Sarah Lawrence College, and a lot of shit went down there; a lot of great shit, but also some really scary shit. Those experiences absolutely shaped who we are as individuals and who we are together. As of last month, we’ve been collaborating for 15 years, and something felt right about reaching back and telling a story inspired by our collective past. Of course, that was only the beginnings--a few pages of ideas and prompts. Soon after that, all the other artists join the project and bring their own associations and desires to the piece, and the story grows from there.
Q: Can you describe the process by which you create work with The Riot Group?
A: Yeah, it always starts with some seed of a desire to express something that isn’t easily expressed. I make some notes and sketch some voices and just basically throw some darts at the wall. I write some disembodied soliloquies and fragments of dialogue. And long, long before there is anything that resembles a script we all begin working together, the cast and director and designers, to create the show. As the writer, I usually bring in new pages, but everybody writes, everyone generates proposals, and we throw tons of shit away, and start over many times. We build the physical language of the piece alongside the text, brick by brick. Text isn’t always the mover of what’s happening. I’m really inspired by actors. Each actor is a given in the piece before anything has been worked out about their “character”. I like to tailor and shape the role for the actor and collaborate with them in creating it. We stalk the story for a long time before we find it. Every piece is a new collaboration of some kind, with new performers or designers or a director working alongside the long-standing ensemble members, so the new encounters are also always feeding the piece.
Q: What else are you working on now?
A: Well, I’m also acting in Sophie Gets the Horns, so I’m working on my choreography and memorizing lines while also finessing the script and generally getting ready to perform the piece, and rehearsing everyday. This is our first time working with Rebecca Wright, which has been incredible: she is the ultimate collaborative director, but her rehearsals are also very physically demanding. I’ll just speak for myself and say that it is kicking my ass, but I’m loving it, and can’t wait to do it again.
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 liked to draw as a child. That was what I was into. If I remembered a dream, I would draw it. I had a little army of characters I would draw and some of them were from movies or TV and some of them were from my dreams. Then I would draw pictures of these characters racing into battle with each other.
Also, I remember taking an after-school drama class when I was very young, like elementary school. And we were improvising, and I figured out that if I put a wooden block underneath my shirt and hit that part of my shirt with my fist, it would help me create the illusion that I was Frankenstein. I don’t think I actually knew who Frankenstein was—I guess I thought he was a robot or something, and wood was the closest I could come to metal—but I remember that moment, and being excited by the potential for conjuration and transformation.
Q: If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?
A: I would kill all the blurbs before they kill us. No. I don’t know. I spent a lot of my youth concerned with the state of theater in general and what I thought needed to change about it (hence the name Riot Group) but I’m not so certain about those things these days. I think it would be cool if there were more artistic directors who were actors, writers, or designers. I also think it would be great if artists could make a living wage while also letting audiences see the work for free.
Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?
A: I would say that Hulk Hogan and Meredith Monk were my theatrical heroes in terms of early influence and that today it is Vegard Vinge and Ida Muller, no question. They have shaken me to the core. I was there when their 12-hour production of John Gabriel Borkman was shut down in Berlin, and it definitely changed the way I think about what I’m doing. They are unafraid to pursue their obsessions all the way to the end. Their work is totally uncompromising, totally personal, and totally epic, all at once.
Q: What kind of theater excites you?
A: I like sacrifice and transgression. I like to be scared. I’m looking for that feeling where you float a little bit outside of your body, like when you’re just starting to go to sleep and your dream life is taking over. I want to see artists putting themselves on the line. I also like things that are mysterious. I’m excited by performers who create their own work and designers who perform. I love Sibyl Kempson’s plays and Jim Findlay’s work. I’m way into Sheila Callaghan and Young Jean Lee, and I’m obsessed with Applied Mechanics and, of course, Vegard and Ida.
Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?
A: Make friends. Form a gang. Don’t go into it alone. Identify the people around who are inspiring and find a way to work with them. Act. Work in three dimensions; don’t live on the page. Don’t write everyday
Apr 22, 2012
I Interview Playwrights Part 445: Adam Kraar
Adam Kraar
Hometown: I was born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and grew up in Brooklyn, Virginia, India, Thailand and Singapore.
Current Town: Brooklyn, New York
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I’ve just completed a new draft of THE KARPOVSKY VARIATIONS, a dark comedy about the diaspora of an American Jewish family, set mostly in airports. It was workshopped at The Playwrights’ Center, and I’m continuing to develop it with The New Group.
I’m also writing a play for Theatre Novi Most in Minneapolis, about the marriage of American dance pioneer Isadora Duncan and Russian poet Sergei Esenin. Novi Most has gotten funding to develop the piece and will present a workshop in November.
Q: Tell me, if you will, a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person.
A: I love this question, since so much of who I am as a playwright stems from my childhood. When I was about five, my mother took me to a production of THE FLOWER DRUM SONG. During one of the numbers (I realize now it was “I Enjoy Being a Girl”), this actress sat alone on stage in front of her mirror, wearing only a slip. Seeing a scantily-dressed young woman on stage was a strange and exciting experience, so I loudly blurted out, “Mommy, why is that woman taking off her clothes?” Instantly, this electrical energy surged through the room – it was the audience laughing at what I’d said! I was amazed by the way this energy had a life of its own that was bigger than the individuals sitting there. The experience hooked me on the unique power of live theatre.
Q: If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?
A: I’d wave a magic wand, and change the entrenched “second-hander” nature of many institutional theatres and play development companies. Instead of companies looking for playwrights that other companies think are hot or commercial, theatres would simply look for plays that spoke to them in some fundamental way. It would mean, of course, theatres would have to read more scripts (relying far less on gate-keepers at other institutions). But if a few more companies had the courage to trust their own gut, it would transform the American theatrical landscape.
Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?
A: Anton Chekhov, for his complex love of people and nature, and the unique way that he conjures that love in the hearts and minds of audiences. Lorraine Hansberry and Tennessee Williams I admire for similar reasons, as well as for their outsized hearts and superhuman courage. My graduate school playwriting teacher, Howard Stein, who urged his students to fight for their idiosyncrasies; and taught them to ask, “Why did I need to write this play?” The theatre designer Robert Edmond Jones, for his visionary idealism, and for reminding us that theatre is not a thing of logic, it’s a thing of emotion. Thornton Wilder, for his insight into the group mind of the audience and his brave willingness to experiment with the audience – and for writing the third act of OUR TOWN.
And: Actors, too numerous to name, who stay open to letting a role transform them in ways they know they can’t preconceive. That definitely requires heroic daring.
Q: What kind of theater excites you?
A: Any kind of theatre – from a “well-made play” to an anti-dramatic performance piece – where the audience is collectively surprised and/or moved and/or exalted, and which depends on an imaginative collaboration with the audience. (I’m also greatly excited by poetry and belly-laughs in theatre).
Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?
A: I have to defer to Horton Foote (whose writing is nothing like mine!), who told a group of young playwrights, “Find out who you are as a writer, and never let fashion sway you from that.” I’d also advise reading hundreds of plays, watching hundreds of plays – and watching audiences.
Q: Plugs, please:
A: For the latest on my work, please check out my website. My one-act plays are widely available in print, including five editions of BEST AMERICAN SHORT PLAYS.
Apr 20, 2012
I Interview Playwrights Part 444: Trish Harnetiaux
Trish Harnetiaux
Hometown: Spokane, Washington
Current Town: Brooklyn, NY
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I just finished a draft of a new play HOW TO GET INTO BUILDINGS that I wrote in the Soho Rep writer/director lab. It’s my first stab at a strange, exploded-view love story. Also, I’ve been working with the actress Nadia Bowers on a longer monologue piece that is inspired by Dario Fo’s A WOMAN ALONE… it’s loaded with shotguns and nosey neighbors, loud music and trumpets. Currently it’s called BABY. TRUMPET. BOOM. BOOM.
Q: Tell me about Steel Drum in Space.
A: Jacob A. Ware and I started Steel Drum in Space last year when we made our short film You Should Be A Better Friend. Since then, we’ve expanded the creative team to include awesome actor/director/DP/editor Tony Arkin and the result has been that we’re making these short comedy videos that depict, as we say on our site, ‘…the issues of tomorrow today with yesterday's science.’ So far we’ve tackled space cars, robot cats, and out of work astronauts with passive aggressive roommates – but really, there’s an entire galaxy of material out there and we’re releasing about one a month… The new one will be out in the next week!
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 have this memory, I must have been very tiny, of taking my parents’ camera and getting really, super close, like one inch away, from the TV screen during an episode of Miami Vice and taking this picture of Don Johnson. He was wearing a pink coat. I took great care not to get the edges of the set in the shot so I could say I was there with him, in Miami or whatever, when I took it. That we had just been hanging out. That photo never came out, and now, as a result– I despise Miami. Then, later, when I was like eight or nine it hit me. It became pretty clear that I would be an astronaut – but then, later, also president of the United States. But before all that I wanted to work in the bakery at the supermarket and hand out the free cookies to kids when they asked.
Q: If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?
A: That people would be tripping over themselves to go see shows, and that there was more funding for productions of new plays. Sorry if that’s two things.
Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?
A: Ionesco, Mac Wellman, Caryl Churchill, JM Barrie, Erik Ehn, Ada Limón, Jennifer L. Knox, Kenny Powers, Aristophanes, Salinger, Derek Jeter, Hemmingway, early Tim Burton, Beckett, Dave Eggers, Jenny Schwartz, President Barak Obama, Tina Satter, Erin Courtney, Albee, Normandy Raven Sherwood, Wes Anderson, Eric Nightengale, Jude Domski, Vaclav Havel, Charlie Kaufman, Lou Piniella, Will Eno, Darryl Strawberry, Willie Nelson, Richard Brautigan, Jacob A. Ware, Julian Dibbell, Joe Orton, my dad, Edgar Allan Poe and Shirley Jackson – to name a few.
(Confession: I just had to answer this question for something on the Soho Rep site and totally cut-and-paste. But actually I’ve added a few things that are different.)
Q: What kind of theater excites you?
A: Theatre that doesn’t take itself too seriously, is not pretentious, or precious, but transports/takes you on an adventure through language/images/emotions. Usually there is something very off kilter, leaving you slightly disoriented. The best theatre is ultimately satisfying not because it teaches anything, but rather that you feel different/think different/have some sort of unique experience/small stroke/revelation that you didn’t know was even possible. I actually like theater that pushes you to try to articulate the experience properly.
Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?
A: Surround yourself by people that you think are fucking awesome and inspirational and drive you and motivate you and push you to be not only a better person, but a better writer.
Q: Plugs, please:
A: Watch our comedy videos at steeldruminspace.com
Or/and there’s more about my plays and stuff at trishharnetiaux.com
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