Hometown: Bethel, Connecticut after a short stint in Maryland
Current Town: Queens, NY
Q: What are you working on now?
A: This past year I had a playwright residency with fellow writer Eric Holmes and curator (writer) Les Hunter at LaGuardia Performing Arts Center in Long Island City.
I wrote a new full length play entitled Surrender.
Usually you get one reading of a play, but we had three staged readings, one after the other, which gave me time to really hear and experience the play and do a few rewrites in between, especially in regards to the ending.
In November I’ll have a workshop production again at LPAC and so I’m working on more expansive revisions.
Surrender is a dystopic play that I imagine in a future/parallel world after there’s been an information sharing burst/crash and a society that evolves/devolves out of it. The characters and audience exist in a world maintained by The Administration’s Protection Policy. We follow the main character D Thomson who works as a Reporter of Loss and Recovery. She helps to track and share what we hold most dear. But she’s been doing her job too long…
Q: What else are you working on?
A: I’m connecting the dots.
I’ve been exploring intimate theater/immersive interactive experiences/moments of return. My frequent collaborator, Sarah Murphy and I are playing with a Words, Words, Words project that has had many iterations – from an interactive performance in a sculpture park in the Hamptons, to online Literary Valentines – recommending books and arranging bibliophile penpals to sending and receiving postcards to//from friends and strangers on Governors Island. GI is a fascination of mine, even more so when I learned that my great grandparents met there in 1900. I’m going to write something that plays with their story. I have his military and court martial record (he was in jail on the island). She was a servant/cook newly emigrated from Ireland.
I’m also writing 3 short narratives for videos for the new Civil Rights Museum in Atlanta.
I’m posing for a painting inspired by John Alexander White’s The Repose (on view at the MET) for my friend the painter Elizabeth Beard. We talk art, process, life while working – it’s fun to be a muse.
Soon, I’ll be helping re-imagine the Jackson Heights Trilogy with Theatre 167 and director Ari Laura Kreith for a site-specific experience for the Queens Museum of Art’s Queens International.
And there are other things cooking, some with artist Phoebe Joel…some of my own projects that I’ve kept in the crockpot simmering simmering simmering and now need to be served.
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, my family would drive down to Ft. Lauderdale to visit my grandparents. One time, after we arrived at the beach, as I was running into the water, I felt a sharp pain in my foot and leg. I had stepped on a Portuguese man o’war. I hadn’t noticed that the beach, crowded with people was also crowded with all these beautiful, blue and yet dangerous, venomous creatures. A tentacle wrapped itself up and around my leg. I was paralyzed for the rest of the day. And then I ran back out there to look at them again, a bit more cautiously and curiously and then later I researched them. They are not jellyfish even though they are similarly gelatinous. The allure and magic of bioluminescence. You think you can see through them but you can’t see everything. There’s still a mystery to figure out and/or imagine. A metaphor, at times, for the process of creating and experiencing theater.
Q: If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?
A: So much about theater is business. And business in the USA…Oh, capitalism. And lots of –isms. Money. Politics. I, like many others, more than long for equality and get angry at the consequences of greed and insecurities and...
In my little utopian mind, I think every artist should have an artistic home that is passionate about committing to artistic growth overtime. Producing at least three works at each venue, understanding some may fail. Some may fail big. And some may totally surprise and surprise in ways that redefine the word success. And the homes should rotate and there should be a transition period where the previous artist(s) and new artist(s) overlap. And for every performance there are paid and free tickets perhaps given out in lotteries. And every artist gets paid a living wage. And artists must also curate – mentor and encourage other artists. I like that Joe Papp at some point gave each space at the Public to a few different artists/directors and said curate. I think curating should be not only of people you know but also go far, outside your known and find someone(s) you are curious about.
I want to curate a space/event(s) someday. And more immediately, I’m going to stop sitting on my plays.
Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?
A: I admire the process and the masterpiece. I have a lot of heroes in theater, dance, music, art, literature, science, life…This question makes me think of Adrienne Kennedy’s People Who Led to My Plays. (Perhaps that’s been referenced in other interviews already.) I’m happy that my parents introduced me to theater as a kid, that I started experimenting with it, sometimes using a pool table as a stage at a friend’s house. Oh, the classics from the Greeks to Shakespeare to O’Neill (and more) that were introduced in middle and high school, and finally spending countless hours with everyone in the theater at Drew in undergrad. The people I encountered while working at The Public Theater under George C. Wolfe, Bonnie Metzgar and John Dias to the collaborators, peers and mentors at CalArts, to the people I’ve shared with through travels in the US and abroad and through the Women’s Project, The Playwrights Center, Theatre 167 and LPAC. So many of whom have been interviewed by you, Adam. And I can’t leave this answer without saying Kafka and Beckett.
Q: What kind of theater excites you?
A: I seek out a wide range. I’ve long been engaged by promenade style theater thanks to the Macnas theater company’s production I saw in 1996 in Galway of Rhymes from the Ancient Mariner, and many immersive productions since (I’ve directed a couple too). Theater that surprises me, that makes me react (positively) “Oh, theater can do that” either in the moment or after. It keeps me engaged, makes me gasp, puts me in a fit of laughter or wiping tears. Exposes /exchanges vulnerabilities. And later, later, it’s stuck with me, perhaps haunting and/or giving me hope…
So, I have a list. It grows. To choose two that I’ll never forget: Sarah Kane’s Blasted and Baryshnikov and Merce Cunningham dancing a duet at Lincoln Center.
I love that there’s so many ways to be/create/define theatrical – to transform a space and create an event with or without actual spoken words that’s either very real or imaginative/ parallel/perpendicular/potential to what we know in our every day lives.
Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?
A: Advice that I need, too. Here’s ten things, lists can go on forever…and I’m going to send this in, finally.
Ask questions such as “what am I curious about?” I like to write down my initial impulse for a play, story, project on an index card and post it, keep it handy. Another good question is “What is the play/story you are not writing?” And then go and write it. Make it immediate.
Trust your gut. Get underneath/inside it but don’t overthink it.
José Rivera once told me that early on he established a writing schedule that reflects a full-time job. The times I have done this, I have experienced the difference it makes. I haven’t been able to sustain it financially yet consistently. And hence, I have/had varied dayjobs, that at least have been inspirational. But…
Read, write, seek theater anywhere and everywhere.
Feed also on the other art forms. Visuals and music help me find the atmosphere and sensuous layers of a world and help lock me in as I write/create.
Travel. Capture what you experience. Use it. Live in the midst of it.
Find your people. Find a muse(s). Collaborate. Join/start/get into writing/theater groups where people know how to give you notes and deadlines and vice versa that take you to the next level and help bring your ideas onto and off the page in space, with audience.
Find mentors and be a mentor. Maintain your own voice. So you also need to isolate, have alone time and face yourself.
Collide what you think you know with what you think you don’t know. Think chemistry experiments. Discoveries are made by doing the work, opening up, making connections and through these “accidents”.
Stop getting in your own way. Focus. Persist. Make/Do. Fail/Succeed. Share again and again. Survive.
A: I'm working on a lot of different small and large projects. I co-wrote a historical drama titled “Hansberry & Baldwin” with Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj. The play is about a series of meetings Lorraine Hansberry and James Baldwin had with Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy in 1963. These meetings were an attempt to address civil rights concerns through Negro leaders and it's quite remarkable that two artists could actually be negotiating policy with an Attorney General to effect history. Rajendra approached me with the idea at the beginning of this year and we began hammering it out. Now we're getting to the final revisions and tweaks.
I've discovered that co-writing a play can be fun. The only experience I've had with that is working on musicals and an opera with composers, but it's not the same as co-writing a play.
After that I'm writing an experimental performing arts piece for a Berlin museum putting on an exhibit by artist/curator Melissa Steckbauer. A few years ago, I snuck on to the set of a “Burger King” commercial and pretended to be an actor so I could get paid as an extra. I placed on set at a table with a bunch of other artists, one of whom was Melissa, who is an erotica photographer and painter. I went to her show Bushwick and she moved away to Berlin and her career has taken off. I'm creating a feminist satirical performing arts piece that's interactive. I love the idea of doing something experimental for a museum crowd. And yes, I got paid for the Burger King commercial and was a featured extra in an ad probably running in some obscure Baltic country.
I'm revising my comedy “Defacing Michael Jackson” for its world premiere this fall at Nuyorican Poets Cafe. “Defacing” was a short play I wrote while in school that got published by Samuel French. Two years ago I decided to change the plot and expand the story into a full plot. The play was a finalist at Princess Grace and was picked up by Redshirt Entertainment, a new commercial production company. I'm the resident playwright at Redshirt this upcoming season so I'll be writing other shows as well for their ensemble of actors.
I'm also adapting the “Bhagavad Gita” to the present-day Bronx. Arjuna is a soldier returning home from Afghanistan and suffering from PTSD. The project is called “Red Mind” and it's a multimedia piece involving electronica and video. I'm working with Matt Vorzimer, an extremely talented composer/music producer.
Q: What else are you working on?
A: In January I wrote a short play called “African Americana” that premiered at Brooklyn Arts Exchange (BAX). I expanded this into a full-length satire, “Obama-ology” that I'm rewriting this summer.
Also this year I wrote an airplane drama “Freefalling” that premiered at Barrington Stage Company and filmed for Williamstown TV: http://vimeo.com/67827216.
“Freefalling” just won the Fiat Lux (Let There Be Light) from a Catholic Church parish and it's inspired me to expand this into a full-length play this summer as well.
To pay my bills I'm writing/producing web videos, which is actually very interesting. I wrote and produced a slate of funny webisodes last year for MISTER, a gay dating app. I'm doing that again this year but also writing/producing videos for LearnLiberty, a Libertarian media company. I'm a left-wing Libertarian from college day.
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 grandmother, Lynn Maddox, taught me how to write the alphabet. I learned in her yard with a broken off limb from a tree and a plot of dirt in front of the aloe plants. I started writing the alphabet, words, and then sentences. When I would finish something and it was satisfactory, I would sweep away the words with my feet and continue writing. She would take me on trips to the store and make me write a story about it afterward. She would tell me to think of details and then piece them together in a pattern. Years later, I discovered a story I wrote about taking the Metro-Dade bus with her over the bridge to go to the K-Mart in Miami Beach. When I read the story again 20 years later I was shocked. There was a sort of narrative I had created by just describing the step by step process of getting on a bus. This was 1983 and I was four years old because I'm describing 'pink islands' in the bay. I was describing Christo's arts project he did for Miami Beach that year where he covered the smaller bay islands in pink cloth. Unfortunately, the cloth wasn't biodegradable and was killing wildlife so they had to take it down. But for a four-year-old child to see these massive pink islands was incredible. And I even drew a picture to go along with the story.
Whenever I'm stuck I go back to those images: me in the front yard writing in the wet dirt with a stick and those pink islands. Writing should be as primitive and connected to the environment as writing in the earth. And it should invoke the wonder of a child staring at magical islands.
Q: If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?
A: Obviously making it more affordable and expanding the audience would give our craft a huge boost. But I think it would also enrich the lives of many people in the audience. From elementary school through high school, I saw 2 plays. That's it. “Dreamgirls” at community college and “Midsummer Nights Dream” as a school field trip to an empty theatre. Both plays were incredibly moving spectacles and invoked a sense of wonder, but that was my entire theatre experience until I went to Northwestern University. When I came home from my freshman winter break I was eager to see theatre (capital 'T') and picked up the Miami Herald and saw a play by Lee Blessings. “Black Sheep.” It sounded funny. I called up the theatre and they informed me that tickets started at $40. I couldn't afford that. I was also used to movie prices. I wanted to know if there was a student discount and they said 'no.' Before hanging up, I asked if there were available seats and the operator assured me 'oh yes, there are LOTS of open seats.'
If theatre was more affordable and had a younger audience, that would trigger a lot of changes in content and the direction of American theatre.
Aesthetically I would like to see more challenging plays that break traditional narratives. I remember reading “The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer” and discovering 'theatre of debate' where the argument itself was the focus. Then later on Augusto Boal's 'theatre of the oppressed' in Albuquerque when creating a scenario for underprivileged Mexican families involving domestic violence. These were light bulb moments.
Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?
A: Susan Booth got me to write plays at Northwestern so she's my hero. I was taking her class and unknowingly wrote a violent opening scene between a father and son that involved an inflatable red ball and a butcher knife. Professor Booth pulled me aside. She could have crushed me and told me I was 'doing it wrong,' I probably would have never tried to write a play again if discouraged in that moment. Instead the professor quietly asked me 'what writers influenced me?'' I had no idea what she was talking about and said so. She looked at me for a long beat and finally gave her judgment: I should keep writing. And I could see that she wanted to say something else but held back. She allowed me to fill in the silence. I immediately asked if she would produce this play at the Goodman Theatre. She laughed. That was the end of it and the beginning of something else.
August Wilson would be the other hero. That summer after Professor Booth's class I went to LA to be a literary intern for 2 movie companies. I lived in a UCLA frat house and went to the campus bookstore frequently. One Saturday a play jumped out from the others on the shelf: “Ma Rainey's Black Bottom.” I sat down on the ground and read the whole thing right there. I felt so strange afterward, like someone had reached inside my mind and bent a few wires around. I immediately went home and began writing an epic play about Cubans and Blacks in Miami. It was 190 pages, spanned generations, covered the South Florida landscape, and was a mess. I managed to get it down to 130 pages. But I would constantly refer to “Ma Rainey's Black Bottom” to simplify. Think like August.
Q: What kind of theater excites you?
A: Theatre that makes me uncomfortable. Theatre where the writer is trying to figure something out on stage or is fighting for their integrity, sanity, or basic humanity.
Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?
A: Hang out around as many different people and listen. Listen, listen, listen. Try to remove judgment or the 'advice voice' of what they should be doing. Listen. My teachers made me listen, transcribe conversation of strangers on the street, and find the rhythms in their voice. In my entire four years at Northwestern, I had the same work-study job: radio news. I interviewed professors over the phone, transcribed their answers, and edited it all together for AP and UPI wire stories on the radio. All I did was listen to voices. People have some pretty funny idiosyncratic quirks and rhythms when they're allowed to speak. And their speech is a window into how they think and see the world.
And read the classics as well as poetry.
Stay at the fringes. Be uncomfortable.
Be the canary in the mine for your family, your friends, or your tribe. Tell the story of their extinction.
Q: Plug?
A: I'll let you know more during the fall. This is writing time.
A: It’s about five people with varied relationships with this guy who just died. But hopefully, it’s not “that play” about the people in their 20’s and their feelings that we’ve all seen. It is about people in their 20’s, though. And feelings. It’s about a journey through grief, love, friendship and self-discovery. It’s about smart people who tell jokes instead of face reality. It’s about the way friends can become family. It’s about the idea that with great light comes great darkness and to experience one is to experience the other. But, music also plays a HUGE role in the piece and really helps drive it. Scott Klopfenstein of Reel Big Fish wrote the music for the play. (It isn’t a musical. It’s a play with music). There are these series of concerts throughout the play. Scott’s music is spectacular. The set and other production elements are awesome. Ground UP is great because they don’t sacrifice and are by no means a bare bones company. The cast is terrific. Man they’re rad. You should come just to see sweet-faced JD Taylor and his guitar. This play is immensely fun, has lots and lots o’ jokes, and I think is pretty moving. I write plays where, hopefully, you’ll laugh and cry in the same sitting. People seem to be doing both with this one.
Q: What else are you working on now?
A: I’m currently developing my play, “Rock Me Like a Hurricane.” (I’m still not sure if that title is a joke or not)
In September, I’ll be doing my September Challenge, where I write a ten-minute play for a week for a month. Then, in mid-October, there will be a brunch that showcases the readings of the plays. Last year, Matthew Klein, another playwright, joined me in the challenge. We hosted an 80-person brunch. It was awesome.
Additionally, I’m going to do another round of workshops with The Middle Voice Theater Company (Rattlestick’s Apprentice Company) for my play “Everything is Probably Going to Be Okay.” It takes place ten years apart on a porch in Durham, North Carolina. It’s about these two girls, Grace and Sam, who make a pact when they’re seventeen to have the most number of meaningful experiences possible (they stare at light to experience blindness, they read poetry under the stars, they beat each other up, they play live action Frogger on highway 85 etc.). They fall in love. Things go array. The play is framed ten years later, when Grace shows back up trying to find out what was right about the stupid stuff they did when they were kids. The problem is that she keeps sneaking off with Sam’s seventeen-year-old brother, Syke, doing the same kind of things that got the girls in trouble a decade earlier. I think it’s a really exciting piece and I’m SO excited to keep developing it.
Oh and Scott Klopfenstein and I are about to start writing a musical. Dude is a genius.
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 in the seventh grade, I had to do a Humanities project on Iran. I decided to write a piece where we staged the Iranian hostage crisis, surprise kidnapping my class with super soakers. I doubt it was historically accurate. It ended with a musical number of a parody of the Backstreet Boys’ “I Want it That Way,” (which was a hit single that time) called “Iran is That Way.” We actually figured out which direction Iran was so that the song would exist as entertainment and a teaching moment. Still having ambitions of being an actor, I played Ayatollah Khomeini. The problem was that my teacher was so excited about the project that she invited another class. Deeply committed, we took all those suckers hostage. It, by no means, worked. It was kind of sad and funny. But we had food. And the musical number. So I still count it as a success.
Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?
A: I wish I had a more interesting answer to this question. I think I more have theatrical friend crushes than heroes (although I for sure have the people whose work has changed me). A lot of the mid career writers whose work I’ve followed closely in the last few years are new heroes of mine. Sure, I love me some Tennessee Williams and Pinter and all the others my BA in theater facilitated me to read. Lynn Nottage has taken my breath away. There are others Sam Hunter, Raviv Joseph, Sarah Ruhl, Annie Baker, Madeleine George (basically Playwrights Horizons past and future seasons). Bekah Brunstetter is prolifically wonderful. Lucy Thurber has changed my life and the way I hear and revise my stuff and I love her work. Jackie Sibblies Drury. Taylor Mac makes me lose my mind in the best possible way. And so much more.
Q: What kind of theater excites you?
A: Plays where you can laugh and cry in the same sitting. Plays that make me think and feel. Plays driven by heart not concept. Plays that merge the two. Plays that are inherently theatrical. Plays that use spectacle but don’t sacrifice story in the process. Like Blackwatch. And “We Are Proud to Present…” Whoa that one shook me up. I like to be shaken up by a piece.
Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?
A: Write. Set structures where you are accountable to others with concrete deadlines. That’s why I started the September Challenge. I was homeless and jobless and knew I needed to write and everything else would figure itself out so I emailed some actor friends and said “I’m going to write a play a week and then cook you pancakes on X date and you are going to read them please?” “Rubber Ducks and Sunsets” started with a similar idea. I approached Ground UP Productions with the idea of developing a piece for their younger company members. Collaboration. Boom. Also, have coffee with anyone who might have useful experience. Ask questions. Ask advice. People are willing to help. Build a community of actors and directors who get what you’re doing. Find mentorship. Do living room readings. See as much as you can, both readings and productions. Have friends not in theater. Hang out with them. If in New York: leave New York regularly.
Q: Plugs, please:
A: Rubber Ducks and Sunsets produced by Ground UP Productions at the Gene Frankel Theater at 24 Bond Street. Info and tickets at www.groundupproductions.org We run for a limited engagement until 7/27.
Check out my website catyamcmullen.weebly.com! There will be info posted there closer to the date about The September Challenge Brunch. And other opportunities to see my work.
Support The Blog Or Support The Art
Mailing list to be invited to readings, productions, and events
A: I started DOG EAT DOG at a residency at Brooklyn Arts Exchange. I had the residency before I knew what I was going to write about, so about 2 weeks before a showing, I was flipping out because I had no idea what to write or what I wanted to say about anything. I had missed a bunch of marketing deadlines, and in a fit of guilt, I called Marya Warshaw, the Executive Director and was like, "HELPIHAVENOTHING" and she was like, find the scary place. What would you never tell you best friend? Now TELL EVERYONE. So that's DOG EAT DOG. It's a play about being fat. Because I am. It's part Neil LaBute rip, part mean afterschool special, part love story, part hungry. We don't serve snacks though, so bring your own.
Q: What else are you working on now?
A: I'm writing a play that is called TOTALLY GIRLS. My friend Kara-Lynn gave me this idea to write a traditional teenagey coming of age story that ends up with everyone in a mental institution. And they might switch bodies too. But I want 30/40 somethings to play the girls.
I'm also writing a 3 act play that will be 60 minutes where there's a family and it's 3 different thanksgivings 20 years apart. The first line of each act is "I'm HOME!" and the last line is "another thanksgiving come and gone! Another Thanksgiving come. and. gone." There's an alcoholic Dad and a Mom who may or may not be bipolar. Lots of skeletons in the closet.
Also, I'm that girl. I just started a blog. It's called DID HE JUST CALL ME FAT? and it's not the story of my trip to Europe or what I ate for breakfast. It's just little dialogues I overhear around the city. I'm also learning to tweet. It's hard, but I'm improving, I think?
Q: Tell me about your day job.
A: Currently on the hunt for a day job. Preferably one that requires me to watch reality TV, talk on the phone, google people I know, and endlessly use facebook. If anyone has any leads, please let me know.
Q: Tell me, if you will, a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person.
A: I used to watch Mrs. Doubtfire on repeat. That's all you need to know about me. I feel like it contexts EVERYTHING.
Q: If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?
A: It would all be site specifically located in my living room, free, and not boring. And it wouldn't be rude to text during it. Like, no one would take that personally.
Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?
A: I have never really done an interview where they asked this so is this might be stupid. Maybe. I'll risk it. But. Honestly, the people who inspire me most on a daily basis are my company members. They solve things I think are unsolvable. They make hard things easy. They make easy things more complex and interesting. I have made them do some of the craziest stuff. I've handed them a new scene or even act the day before a showing and they just MAKE IT HAPPEN. It's unreal. I honestly have no idea why they put up with me. I don't even bring snacks to rehearsal anymore. Adam Blodgett is always game. When others are skeptics, he's like "let's try it before we nay say." Ronan Babbitt is the epic jokester. If there's a stupidly hilarious gag, that was probably Ronan. If there's a skateboard, that's DEFINITELY Ronan. He always reminds me of what the audience wants, and he reminds me to put that first. Anna O'Donoghue is the smartest actress in the universe and possibly the most supportive person on the planet. She plays my evil women so beautifully. Tom Pecinka is so funny it hurts. And he can do anything. Just anything. If it's ridiculous, he can do it to a level beyond my wildest imaginings. Chris Geary is my rock in rehearsal. He's consistent, he's hilarious, he's easy to work with, and he taught me my favorite phrase of all time which is "deliver the pizza"...like if an actor is asking too many questions and I just need them to try it and stop asking me stuff, I say "can we just deliver the pizza and then figure it out". Amir Wachterman is the life blood of our work. He's been in almost everything I've ever directed in my life and he's my muse. If you know him, you know how funny he is. If you REALLY know him, you know how twisted he is, and if you REALLY REALLY know him, you know what a smart, hardworking, committed artist he is. Sometimes when something isn't working, I just look at him and he furrows his bald little brow and gives me all the answers. Other times he just goes out for a cigarette. Either way, he's essential. Also because he has the cigarettes. And I can't even talk about my designers. They are just...the sickest, most hilarious, most absurd people. Ryan Seelig does my lights and Chris Barlow does sound. My main goal in LIFE is to get them to laugh in rehearsal. Because they are the toughest critics. But you will never find two more talented evil geniuses in existence. And our design meetings are always less than 7 minutes. That's the shorthand. It's a beautiful thing. And when I remember that I have all these people supporting me, I'm ready to dig in and do more.
I also want to recognize some peers working in the theater right now who inspire me to go deeper and think harder. I love Leah Nanako Winkler and her work. (And her group Everywhere Theater-- formed with Lindsay Mack and Teddy Nicholas and Chase Voorhees). It's really ballsy and fresh and doesn't hold back. And it's SO funny. Hilary Bettis writes gritty, sexy, terrifying plays...she just writes one awesome play after the other. My dear friend Peter Gil-Sheridan has many plays that I adore, but his two most recent COCKFIGHT and RITU COMES HOME are so lovely and painful and full of his very specific humor. And he's got this play about Rafael Nadal that is going to blow everyone's mind when it's done. Joshua Conkel has every single one of his fingers on the pulse of everything I think about pop culture and why it's amazing and horrible. It's like he's reading the secret blog of my mind. Erin Markey BLEW MY GODDAMN MIND in May at Joe's Pub. She's a genius of epic proportions. John Early. Just. Everything he does. Why are his showgasm videos for Ars Nova so amazing? Stop it, John. STOP. And I have so many actors that give me a theater boner. I dream of a world where all plays star Michael Cyril Creighton, Becca Blackwell, Megan Hill, Geneva Carr, Eliza Bent...and on and on. This is embarrassing because some of the people on this list don't know I'm obsessed with them. But I am. Also, I left people out. Because there are SO MANY killer artists who inspire me to be better and not be lazy and rely on things that have already been done.
Q: What kind of theater excites you?
A: Theater that shows me something I've never seen. Theater that isn't pretentious. Theater that's funny. Theater that isn't about an early 19th century family losing all their money and wondering how they will recover. Yes to gender bending. Yes to gags. Yes to singing and dancing. Yes to funny things in all forms.
Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?
A: I'm going to actually turn this question into a question for writers who aren't just starting out, since I sort of am just starting to make my own work. Every time I sit down to write I feel this wave of sickness and anxiety. Like, every other time I sat down to write and was able to, it must have been some weird fluke. And this time, my mind will be broken and I won't be able to make anything work. Is that normal? Will it ever go away? The only thing that helps me is playing the same episode of Dance Moms in the background and drinking red bull. Is there a healthier alternative? (Please don't say yoga. Just...I can't...)
Q: Plugs, please:
A: Come see Morgan Gould & Friends' DOG EAT DOG! It's August 1-4 at 7pm at HERE. Like MORGAN GOULD & FRIENDS on facebook. And check out our mission statement on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGY4UDaR8Z8
If you're that type, you can also check out my blog: didhejustcallmefat.blogspot.com. Also, please watch the shows from the early 2000s KID NATION. It's on youtube. It doesn't help me, but you definitely should...it's the best reality show ever made.
Support The Blog Or Support The Art
Mailing list to be invited to readings, productions, and events
A: Inspired by the Andrea Yates* story, “Slain In the Spirit” is an expressionistic play, with dark comedic overtones. Set in the Bible belt, it tells the story of Molly, a devout young Christian who, with the birth of each child spirals into post partum psychosis. Told in reverse order, the play begins with the catastrophic drowning of her children (who are played symbolically with sacks and the voices of adult actors), traces her life back to its earliest days of childhood, courtship with her husband, Danny, births of 4 children; and reconnecting to the day of the drownings. Her psychotic inner world is portrayed by a group of actors who also double in various other colorful characters in Molly’s life. The same group is also known as the 'angel & demon chorus'; who represent Molly’s spiritual battle. The play examines the deadly combination of religious fundamentalism and psychosis.
*In the Spring of 2001, Andrea Yates, a young mother of 5 and a fundamentalist Christian woman from Texas, drowned each of her children in the bathtub of their home. A loving mother, she home schooled all of her children, but suffered repeated bouts of post-partum psychosis. She was found guilty and was currently serving several life sentences until 2005 the case was reopened and she was retried and found not guilty by reason of insanity. She was finally put in a mental institution for the criminally insane. I was drawn to the story for many reasons, some clear and some subterranean. I myself worked for 7 years as a therapist in a psychiatric hospital. I had also spent several years worshipping in a fundamentalist Pentecostal church and being a member of that community. I am sure that my own set of complex feelings about these tumultuous things in my own history pulled me toward the story.
The piece is not a biography. It is a contemplation of psychosis and of our very personal and very real yearning for God connection and the deadly effects of fundamentalism and narrow mindedness on human lives. I want to reveal the slow and methodical stealing of a woman’s spirit life, through fear-based, harsh, masochistic religious teachings, culminating in the destruction of my main character Molly and her kids. I wanted to bring to light the multitude of conflicting religious and societal signals which were operating on this character and the conflicting impulses that could drive a woman in this most extreme case to kill her own children. I also want to reveal that so many of these acts of violence against children in particular, is preventable; for example, some of the latest tabloid tragedies like Sandyhook, Connecticut.
Q: What else are you working on now?
A: I have a couple of upcoming film projects I’m focusing on. One is a film version of the short play “Motel Story” by Alexandra Gersten-Vasillaros with Director of Photography, Walter McGrady. And, I’ve been collaborating with playwright C.S. Hanson on one of her new plays.
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 am Sicilian and grew up with a blue collar background. My dad had a huge influence over my road to being a director and writer as well as my work ethic. He was a cop and a mechanic, but was also a sort of passionate, articulate, elegant man who loved other cultures and ethnicities. He had a mythic sense of right and wrong, and both my folks had enormous heart for the underdog, the disenfranchised. We had colorful characters parading in and out of our lower middle class home growing up---people from both sides of the tracks. My mom’s best friend from across the street came over every morning at 7am, in her bathrobe and slippers and started brewing the coffee that she and my mom would drink!! It was so lively and good fodder for the embryonic writer/director that was secretly growing inside me.
Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?
A: Joan Littlewood; Stanislavski; Phil Hoffman.
Q: What kind of theater excites you?
A: I loved BLACKWATCH—it seemed to reinvent the medium. I am excited by material which teeters on the edge of comedy and tragedy. I like depicting extreme worlds. My vision is to create a cauldron of peculiar, lively and desperate personalities and circumstances that I want to bring to vibrant life. I often like characters that are dark and able to set in motion horrific consequences, but who also possess theatrical and comedic elements. People who are larger than life. Writers like Tracy Letts, Rebecca Lenkowitz, Alexandra Gersten, Lucy Gough, Eve Ensler seem to embody the nature and landscape that I love to work within. I want to create theater which blends penetrating, truthful moments with gorgeous lyrical theatricality.
Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?
A: Pay attention to all the inner proddings of story or event that break your heart, excite and inspire. No idea is too little--- they are all little seedlings.
Q: Plugs, please:
A: Slain in the Spirit is playing at the Midtown International Theatre Festival, July 16th – August 3rd. www.midtownfestival.org
Support The Blog Or Support The Art
Mailing list to be invited to readings, productions, and events
Hometown: This is a weird one for me. I was born in NYC, spent my formative years there, then spent the rest of my childhood raised in London. I am a true transatlantian and I think of both cities as my 'hometown,' although neither of them are a town.
Current Town: The Big Apple, baby.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: Well, I already wrote two plays which had productions this year – Tesla, which had a sold-out run at Theatre 80 at the end of May, and my short play, Humanogram, which was produced by LoNyLa at the Innovation Warehouse in London and streamed all over the world, in June. I, also, devised a theatre piece about gender with a bunch of talented high schoolers from JKO, courtesy of the Roundabout Theatre. They performed their piece at the American Airlines theatre in May.
So, right now? I am having a rest before I play Margaret in Richard III. Yes, I am also an actress. After that, I go up to Connecticut to workshop my new play, Milk A Cow’s Tail, with a view to production next season. The cast is fantastic and I am very excited. And, I am going to write a non-fiction book. And, I have started up my food blog, again. I kept bumping into people asking me to start it up again. Who am I to say no? Experimenting with food gives my mind a break from writing plays. Like a great manure on a fallow field. I'll know I'm ready to write a play again when ideas start to bubble up from the mud. Actually, it already has.
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 know this is a cliché, but I was a very shy child. I grew up in an explosive household - lots of drinking and dysfunction - so my defense was to turn inward and not trust anyone. This made me a great observer of people and relationships.
I have a tape recording of my first ever play, which I wrote at the tender age of ten. It was set on Mount Olympus amongst the Greek Gods, but in my story, they have an interloper - Pan and his exploding, magic flute. I gathered all the friends on my street to act it out, like a radio play. I cast myself as Aphrodite (director’s prerogative).
There is a cast change half way through the recording because some friends had to go home for their dinner. I still remember the crushing disappointment. Didn't they know? The show must always go on! Sod dinner!
Q: If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?
A: The cost of producing theatre in New York. It limits risks in production. I would make space available at low cost for writers and directors to experiment in. That would be a wonderful experiment, wouldn’t it? Hear that, Bloomburg?
Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?
A: Arther Miller and Tennessee Williams. Caryl Churchill. William Shakespeare. Moliere. All writer/managers. And I am a total James Graham groupie. Kristoffer Diaz – LOVE his work. Miro Gavran. He is a Croatian playwright who has a festival dedicated entirely to his work called Gavranfest. Imagine that!
Q: What kind of theater excites you?
A: Fantastic story-telling, combined with politics and theatricality. I am a huge fan of Punch Drunk and Kneehigh. I particularly love theatre which is theatre, and not TV disguised as theatre. I loved This House by James Graham. I, also, loved Andrew Upton’s version of The White Guard a few years ago. I do have a soft spot for Gorky and the Russians. Anything Eastern European and I’m a sucker.
Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?
A: Write, write, write. Don't stop writing! And, once you have written your play, contact everyone you know who has any connection in the industry and ask if you can send them your work.
Q: Plugs, please:
A: I am winning an award! For Tesla. From the Tesla Science Foundation. Very exciting. Tesla looks like it is going to London next year. I have already been asked for copies of the script by someone in Peru and in South Africa, so there may be productions out there, too.
My food blog, for you foodies, is rootgroupie.com. It follows me as I experiment with raw and vegan food.
Oh, did I mention? - I love social media! I am excited to see how technology will impact theatre in the future, which is why it was particularly thrilling to be asked into the Timewave festival. LoNyLa are doing some very interesting work.
And keep an eye out for my book.
I was just asked to be interviewed for the Swiss-Serbian blog, Pufnica.com, for their 'English corner' section. Check it out. And I have been interviewed in the new Tesla magazine. I will be in the first edition, which was just advertised on Facebook, so that must be coming out, soon.
In August come to see Richard III for Shakespeare in the Parking Lot – voted one of the fifty things to do in theatre by New York Magazine – and FUH-REE!!! (Bring a blanket or beach chair. And a fan)
Is that shameless enough?
Support The Blog Or Support The Art
Mailing list to be invited to readings, productions, and events
A: Three plays? Three plays! ASHORE: a supernatural play about Theodosia Burr, Aaron Burr's daughter, who disappeared at sea in 1813. THE HUNDRED YEAR FLOOD: a romantic comedy about hometowns and floodplain management. And something I haven't named yet, which thus far is about pop music and women.
Q: Tell me, if you will, a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person.
A: As a child I never, ever missed an opportunity to mug, and I absolutely never missed an opportunity to push dramatic structure on a situation that had none. There are many examples of this, but the most embarrassing is: when I was in first grade, my family moved, mid-school-year, to a new house in a new school district. I was pretty convinced that this would be a great opportunity for personal triumph. I would be the new kid in town and I would make so, so, so many friends. When new friends did not immediately materialize, I was depressed--until I realized that this was yet another stop on my heroine's journey. On some spring day, I followed my father around while he did yard work, explaining all of this to him. This explanation culminated in a song that I made up on the spot, a song that was about having no friends and how I wanted friends and how I hoped some friends would find me, etc. The song needed to happen, you know? Because once a heroine has stated her wants in song, those wants pretty much show up at her door.
Anyway, eventually I made friends. But not because of the song.
Q: If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?
A: Increased diversity, support, and access, all of which I believe could get an assist from amplification. I don't mean microphones. I mean cultural amplification. I mean a change in the way theater is positioned in most peoples' lives. I mean: I think there is so much that's going on in theater right now that is really incredible. I see great shows regularly, I see other writers working hard, I see people making sacrifices, I see people opening up conversations and speaking their minds. And yet I know that most of that takes up a very small slice of the public consciousness, that theater itself takes up a very small slice of the public consciousness. A slice that gets smaller as the other mediums get more and more accessible.
I could be crazy, I could be wrong, but I think that this fix starts in schools. In teaching theater beyond the high school's production of The Music Man, beyond the three Shakespeare and one Arthur Miller play you've got to read (nb. I pretty much love The Music Man, Shakespeare, and Artie Miller). Encourage kids to act, to write, to direct. Encourage community support. Make it clear that theater is not something that ended half a decade ago. Make it clear that this is a current, exciting art. Because it is.
Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?
A: In college I was lucky enough to take a class taught by Brooke Berman. After college I was lucky enough to take a class taught by Lucy Thurber. The two of them taught me playwriting, and fearlessness. I'm still working on both things, but I can't thank them enough for putting me on the path.
Also if a writing group can be a theatrical hero, then Youngblood at Ensemble Studio Theatre gets the nod. Graeme Gillis and RJ Tolan do so much for so many people; it is actually impossible to do the amount of work that they do. Youngblood was one of the first things I got to put on my resume, and I'm incredibly grateful for the three years I got to spend in the group.
Q: What kind of theater excites you?
A: The smart stuff. The funny stuff. The stuff that is created in joy and gratitude. The stuff that stubbornly believes in goodness. The stuff that investigates the failures of humanity with an eye to the potential of humanity. It's not all cheerful, and it doesn't always have a happy ending. But nothing bums me out faster than theater that hates me as much as it hates itself.
Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?
A: Challenge yourself to see, read, hear, and experience other kinds of art. Go to national parks and historic sites. Watch a sport you've never watched. Cook something complex. Ask questions and listen to the answers. Go to your friend's reading on Wednesday night. Give yourself time.
Support The Blog Or Support The Art
Mailing list to be invited to readings, productions, and events
