I Interview Playwrights Part 609: Lauren Morelli

Lauren Morelli

Hometown:
I was born in Pittsburgh, PA. I'm wearing a Pittsburgh Pirates hat as I type this, which is a little bandwagon-y of me, since they're currently in the playoffs for the first time since '92. I'm told that's really exciting.

Current Town:
I've been in LA for the last 7 years, after spending 6 years in New York.

Q:  Tell me about the Lesser show.

A:  The amazing folks from Lesser America reached out and asked if I'd be interested in writing a play for their next show, "Just Right Just Now." Their only stipulations were that it should be 10-15 minutes and be set in a basement. I was really excited about playing with how much you can accomplish in such a short amount of pages. You really can't be lazy. Somehow I ended up writing this play called "Rat & Roach," which is about a suicidal rat and a roach that falls in love with her. It's weird and hopefully a little beautiful. But mostly weird.

Q:  What is it like to write for Orange Is The New Black?

A:  It's a dream job, truly. Jenji Kohan, our creator and showrunner, has taught me so much about writing over the last two seasons. She pushes me to be better but also allows me space to be a misfit toy, which is probably the role I'm most comfortable playing. I hadn't written on a show previous to this, and couldn't fathom what it might be like to come up with story and characters with a room full of writers. It seemed so far from my own writing process, but as it turns out, it's a total joy to have six other people to bounce ideas off of and brainstorm with. When it's working well, it's like the best volleyball team you've ever seen (I said that like I've ever seen volleyball, or like that's a really common thing people watch. Maybe basketball or some sport that's actually popular?). In any case, you can lob an idea into the air and then someone else will catch it, make it better, throw it back. It's a really exhilarating process. When it's not going well it requires a lot of emotional eating and early drinking.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  I'm developing a pilot about mermaids that I'm pretty excited about.

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 a younger brother who is mentally disabled (full disclosure, I would normally just say retarded, but I'm not sure how that reads in print), and when I was 13 I accidentally cut his finger off when I slammed my bedroom door on him. It took us a long time to find the finger, because, as it turned out, it was stuck to the doorframe. The ER doctor commented that I must have slammed it really hard because he'd never seen a wooden door do such damage. They sewed it back on, thankfully. That's pretty much all you need to know about me.

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

A:  I was a dancer for a long time before I started writing, and I was often very frustrated by the lack of accessibility that I saw. I find the same thing to be true of theater in our country-- I often long for bigger audiences and broader dialogues about theater. And I don't mean that the work should be more accessible, I just mean that I would love to figure out how to make theater safer for more people to love and participate in. There's so much incredible work being done that stays in our very small theater circle, and I daydream about what it might be like to expand that bubble beyond major cities.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I get really excited when I find myself being challenged by what I'm seeing. Something that doesn't allow me to relax back in my seat and take a breath. Something that feels emotionally honest and makes me question myself and my choices for a few days afterward. Something that sticks to my ribs.

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

A:  You know, this is a ridiculous thing to say, but it's really important to write. I feel like I meet a lot of people who want to be writers or talk about writing a lot, but the most successful ones are the people who are sitting down every day and doing it. And then when they finish something, they put it aside and start again. It needs to be endless.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  The Lesser America show runs Thursday - Sunday, October 10-27th at Theater for the New City. Tickets at lesseramerica.com. And the second season of Orange Is The New Black will be out sometime in 2014, which the most ambiguous and worst plug ever.

Enter Your Email To Have New Blog Posts Sent To You

Support The Blog Or Support The Art

Mailing list to be invited to readings, productions, and events

Email:

Books by Adam

I Interview Playwrights Part 608: Rosemary Moore

Rosemary Moore

Hometowns: Jersey City NJ, Indianapolis and Washington D.C.

Current Town:  I live in Brooklyn, New York

Q:  Tell me about your upcoming show.

A:  My play SIDE STREET, directed by Ian Morgan, is running now through October 12th at THEATERLAB. Tuesday through Sunday. We are sold out but DO have a waiting list. sidestreettheplay@gmail.com

remaining shows

Tuesday, October 8th at 8pm
Wednesday, October 9th at 8pm
Thursday, October 10th at 8pm
Friday, October 11th at 8pm
Saturday, October 12th at 8pm

In the bewitched parallel universe of my play SIDE STREET, the main character, 48 year old Meg, encounters her long dead mother, Dora, very much alive and on her way into the Upper East Side apartment building where Dora now lives. During their afternoon together in her mother’s apartment, apparently frozen in time, Meg witnesses her mother’s love affair with a Navy lieutenant, which occurred many years earlier, when Meg’s father was in the Marines, fighting in World War Two. As Meg nurses her dying mother for the second time, she discovers her own mortality and her capacity for forgiveness, coming of age at last in middle age.

This production of SIDE STREET at THEATERLAB is one of simplicity and intimacy. By the light of a couple of table lamps, a 22 person audience witnesses Meg and Dora’s strange and dreamlike afternoon together, sitting close enough to touch the fading chintz slipcover on the sofa and hear the sound of the martini being prepared in the cocktail shaker.

How did my production happen?

It’s important to say that I produced SIDE STREET myself! I could have waited to get more theaters to read the play and try to get a production but after sending it around for a few years I got the itch to self produce. My director Ian Morgan who had guided draft after draft and directed all the readings was game! So here is our team!!

PRODUCERS: Rosemary Moore and Lanie Zipoy

DIRECTOR Ian Morgan

NON PROFIT SPONSOR Fractured atlas!

CROWD SOURCING for rasing the money! Indiegogo

CAST and DESIGN TEAM:
Katherine Folk-Sullivan (These Seven Sicknesses, NYC premiere by Sean Graney THE FLEA THEATER), (Office Hours World Premiere by A.R.Gurney THE FLEA THEATER)
Jan Leslie Harding (Breaking the Silence, Edinburgh Fringe 2013, Lie of the Mind, Sam Shepard, PROMENADE, The Green Bird, Broadway).
Gayton Scott (Bunty Berman Presents, Abigail’s Party, THE NEW GROUP, Gypsy, Broadway)
Richard Thieriot (RogerandTom HERE, Clybourne Park, Broadway)

The designers:
sound: Katie Down as our sound designer (recently did extraordinary work in Golden Dragon dir. Ed Iskander THE NEW OHIO)

set designer: Stephen Dobay ( Realists, HERE, David Cromer’s Our Town. Huntington and the Broad Stage)

lighting designer, Paul Toben (The Story of My Life Broadway, with Ken Billington, Electra in a One Piece The Wild Project).
Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  Since I am playwright and producer of this production of SIDE STREET, at this moment, I am not able to do anything else! But soon I will be working to complete my play, Opium Wars; the bar play which takes place during one night in the 1840's when Talon, a sailor in flight from forced labor on a ship docked in New York, time travels forward to 1980, breaking through a brick wall into Maximus, an artist bar on Duane Street in Tribeca NYC. Ivy, Kitten, Pencil, and Informer all fall in love with Talon, who is only in love with opium. How does the sailor’s near slavery and opium addiction transform these ambitious artists and buzzing art flies’ view of themselves?

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 childhood story is about something I yelled to strangers when I was about three or four years old. I passed the time at the back window of our row house in Jersey City NJ watching the neighbors in their backyards, gardening, hanging their laundry on the clotheslines or just sitting enjoying the outdoors. I would lean out the window and try to converse with them. They were not very talkative. One day I got frustrated and yelled “Hey, you old rosebushers, the cat got your tongue?”

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

A:  I wish theater tickets were not so expensive.


Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Thornton Wilder, Adrienne Kennedy, Tennessee Williams, Chekov, Harold Pinter, Maria Irene Fornes, Tony Kushner, August Wilson, Vaclav Havel.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I prefer to watch an original, interesting play with flaws, over a “well made” play with all the conventional ingredients. I like political theater when it’s done well.

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

A:  Keep an active relationship with other playwrights.

Don’t be afraid to take a break from a play.

Go to the edge.

Writing is a process and your writing might be horrible or beautiful at first but the rule is: many many drafts will be what makes your play good.

Take a class.

Teach a class.

Go to art museums.

Sit in a public place and listen and write down dialogue exactly as you hear it.

Don’t worry if a play doesn’t make sense at first.

When you are writing yet another draft of a play pick one thing to work on as a way to trick yourself into beginning this new draft.

Show your work to dozens of people. Your work will click with someone. Collect rejections proudly!

Make sure to have some sort of production early on, even if it’s one you put on. A play still on paper will only get you so far in knowledge about playwriting.

Keep a journal: just a few sentences a day. Observations…details…specifics.

Join or form a writing group.

Staged Readings of work are a great thing for listening to work and trying different types of actors for your characters. You will discover things. Have a man read a woman’s part, for instance!

You will get better at writing gradually. Don’t watch yourself. It adds up slowly…when you least expect it.

Use the buddy system. Find another writer with whom you can honestly share the joys and hardships of the writing life.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Go to my website.

Rosemarymoore.me

Enter Your Email To Have New Blog Posts Sent To You

Support The Blog Or Support The Art

Mailing list to be invited to readings, productions, and events

Email:

Books by Adam

Now Published

Available now on kindle and you can preorder for hard copies

http://originalworksonline.com/store/full-lengths/why-overhead-the/

Want the whole Adam Szymkowicz collection?  Head over to amazon.  (Includes the just published Hearts Like Fists...and many more) 

Enter Your Email To Have New Blog Posts Sent To You

Support The Blog Or Support The Art

Mailing list to be invited to readings, productions, and events

Email:

Books by Adam

I Interview Playwrights Part 607: Paul Cameron Hardy

Paul Cameron Hardy

Hometown: I spent my formative years in Wenatchee, Washington.

Current Town: Brooklyn

Q:  Tell me about feeling.

A: I wrote this play, feeling., about a woman who has her life upended by her live-in boyfriend of nine years' sudden departure from the relationship. In her shock and grief, she begins to hallucinate a friendship with long-deceased serial killer, Jeffrey Dahmer.

Q:  Tell me about Glass Bandits.

A: Glass Bandits are a group of kids who got a theater company together with the express purpose of making work that breaks from the stereotype of a fussy, outmoded form of entertainment. They want to make work that is engaging and accessible to a broad, non-traditional audience, while still making work that experienced theater-goers will find engrossing. They have been kind enough to let me work with them a couple of times, so far.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A: I've got this weird little play about solipsism that I am trying to get people interested in, and I am also working on a play about pornography.

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 five years old, my big sister walked into our garage and was shocked to see me practicing flipping people off. I would stand, casual, unassuming, then turn a rapid 180, feet barely off the ground, landing with the pop of both my feet on concrete and of my middle finger(s) from their fist(s) - a quick draw artist of sorts. I'm not sure that it is a direct metaphor, but I am probably still not much more than a little dipshit trying to be tough/cool in the garage, not as alone as he imagines.

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

A: It would be nice if it were easier to make some sort of living doing it. The continued goal of dehomogenization of both audience and 'theater makers' (w/r/t age, race, gender, et al.) is great, and should continue, and hopefully become more rapid.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: Suzan-Lori Parks, Young Jean Lee, Caryl Churchill, Wallace Shawn, Richard Maxwell, loads and loads more....

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A: I like theater that doesn't feel the need to tell me just what it is or how to feel about it.

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

A: It is silly and kind of stupid and, by my mind, you should probably spend a fair amount of time feeling like it is frivolous and you are shirking some tangibly helpful-to-humanity vocation, not to mention the wild amount of rejection you will face, so: make sure you surround yourself with people who you love and trust, and who make you excited to allow the kind of vulnerability needed to make the kind of work that will affect whatever audience you can get. Find good people and keep them close.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Look out for anything by Clare Barron, Brendan Hill, Gail Bennington, Rady & Bloom, St. Fortune Collective, Eliza Bent, Sara Farrington, Frank Boudreaux, Alex Borinsky, The Internationalists. Go watch Zoe Winters and Lauren Blumenfeld in everything they are in. Always support Clubbed Thumb, and let's all start some sort of campaign to get Heidi Schreck's Constitution play up and at a big theater so everyone can go and get their minds blown.

Also come see my play feeling. that opens October 7 at The New Ohio! www.gbtheater.com

 

Enter Your Email To Have New Blog Posts Sent To You

Support The Blog Or Support The Art

Mailing list to be invited to readings, productions, and events

Email:

Books by Adam

I Interview Playwrights Part 606: Tony Meneses

Tony Meneses

Hometown: Dallas

Current Town: Brooklyn

Q:  Tell me about Guadalupe in the Guest Room.

A:  The play is about the titular Guadalupe, a Mexican mother who just lost her daughter and now has to deal with being in this country and not really knowing the language and then also having to deal with the grief-stricken American husband her daughter left behind too.

The inspiration for this play was basically how I grew up and seeing my own parents struggle with language barriers. I was raised within an immigrant family where the kids all spoke English (including with one another) and the only Spanish in the household was solely with my parents. Eventually I started to wonder if this ever made them feel isolated or even lonely. How did it feel to not have a literal voice in the world sometimes, even with those you love? This play is ultimately an attempt to give voice to that experience.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  The piece I’m working on currently (“School Play”) is a sort of treatise on how race, gender, and sexuality is treated in theatre. (Yes, I’m writing a play about theatre). I’ve been struck for a while about the arguments we have about representation (we aren’t producing enough writers of color or women, this play has characters whose identities are nothing more than stereotype). I wanted to tackle these issues not within one isolated group but within all of them, and hopefully broaden the discourse that sometimes isn’t had laterally with each population.

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 was pretty much always a well-behaved kid, but apparently there was one night where I refused to take a bath and I kept rebelliously standing up in the tub. My mom got so frustrated with me that she grabbed onto my hair tightly and sternly told me to sit down. Without missing a beat I looked at her dead in the eye and a single tear came running down my cheek. She said she could never punish me again after that.

In short, I am one sensitive little bastard (even when I’m in the wrong…) And that sensitivity, for better or worse, really does kind of translate into how I operate and write plays.

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

A:  Oh man, I miss seeing big, ensemble casts. Like 10+ characters. Totally wish that happened more. Seeing shows now with like 6 characters, I’m like ‘oh my god, how did they do that!’

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Thornton Wilder- for his time, he was doing some truly innovative stuff, all the while preserving a sense of humanity we could all connect to. I also weep whenever I see those videos about Shakespeare programs in prisons. How can you not be moved by these men who find expression and even purpose by doing theatre? Isn’t that what this whole thing is all about?

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Ambitious plays. Plays where I really see writers take a risk with what they’re saying and how they’re saying it. I don’t think we talk about big ideas and even uneasy topics as much as we should. Also, I get very, very excited when I see a cast onstage that isn’t all white, halleloo!

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

A:  Never isolate yourself because you “have” to write. What the hell are you writing about if you deny yourself the company of people?

Q:  Plugs, please

A:  Guadalupe is part of LARK Playwrights Week next week, Thurs. Sept. 26th @7pm. It’s directed by Daniella Topol who is every kind of amazing.

Enter Your Email To Have New Blog Posts Sent To You

Support The Blog Or Support The Art

Mailing list to be invited to readings, productions, and events

Email:

Books by Adam

I Interview Playwrights Part 605: Matt Dellapina

Matt Dellapina

Hometown:  Bronx, NY

Current Town:  Brooklyn, NY

Q:  Tell me about Deacon Of The Bronx.

A:  Deacon Of The Bronx follows the return home of a beloved son, Fab. After a couple of years in the seminary - which is essentially college for those men who wish to become priests - he comes back to his old neighborhood amidst some serious confusion about what he thought was his "calling". I wanted to write the play for a couple reasons: one is that I just haven't seen too many plays in recent years about people who live in the boroughs of new york city - not people who moved there recently to open a high-end coffee roaster in the middle of a leather factory, but the folks who've called it home for more practical purposes for decades now. And strangely, the Bronx has been rather shut out of the whole recent sweep of borough gentrification. It still kind of exists as it did 20-30 years ago. For better and for worse.

I also wanted to take a look at why there'd been such a marked decline in those entering the priesthood in recent years. I'd figured that between the parallel wars we've been fighting and the dragging economic slump, more men would be jumping into spiritual community leadership. Or at least, more men would want to remove themselves from the noise of our current reality, quieting themselves and their surrounding world down. But it's been the reverse. I thought it'd be fun to look at that through the eyes of Fab, his friends and family, and see what keeps a man in the "real" world. And what can drive him from it.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  I just competed this residency with the Civilians' R&D Group - where I'm expounding on this musical about Barabbas. Barabbas was the guy who went free (via public vote) when Jesus was condemned to die. I always thought that was such an interesting historical fork-in-the-road. And Barabbas is not really explored much in the Bible - there's only a couple sentences about him. So I'm playing with a "And Then What Happened?" kind of story. With rock songs. It's been fun.

I'm also setting out on a new play about a middle-aged white teacher chauffeuring his black student to protect him from the social wars at school.

Also, in the middle of editing this very fun film project I did with Sean Christopher Lewis. We wrote this movie, shot it on the road on a shoestring budget this summer. Watching that come together has been very exciting.

And with Slant Theatre Project - a company I'm in with Wes Grantom, Adam Knight, and Mat Smart - I've got this ongoing hosting/writing thing called On This Island. It's an NYC Storytelling series, mixing fiction, personal essay, music, play, and film. We've had a standing show at Ars Nova for the last year, release it as a podcast, and have had stellar guests working outside their usual specialties. That whole thing really fills my cup.

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 younger, we couldn't really afford summer camp or anything like that, so my folks would dump me upstate where my grandparents lived for weeks at a time. And my grandparents were (and are, my grandmother Maddalena is still wonderfully alive) spectacular storytellers. They've really led the whole hero's journey - poor beginnings in the hills of northern Italy, where you'd eat things like "moon cheese" - a spot of moonlight on a kitchen table that you could dip your bread into, imagining it was cheese.

And from there, the boat over to New York where some pioneering relatives brought news of actual work. Then, washing dishes and bussing tables at midtown restaurants, sewing fabrics in the West 30s all day, saving some coins and slowly, steadily, building a life together through broken English.

I'd learn all these stories over the long Italian lunches up in the country.

But one thing really comes to mind.

It was late July and I'd been up there for some time. And I was bored and restless. I was a sporty kid with a lot of nervous energy and there's only so much catch you can play with your 55-year old grandmother. I think she had sniffed out the malaise in my my 6-year old heart. I missed my brother, who was back at home. I missed my friends. I missed my parents. So my grandmother, asked, "Hey, how about we go fishing?" I loved fishing and she knew that, so I jumped up and was like, "Yeah!"

We packed a lunch box, put on our fishing caps, got a couple of janky rods and set out.

So we started walking down this country road, cars passing occasionally and I realized that, wait, we'd never gone fishing around here. The only times we went anywhere really, was when my grandfather was up there too with a car. My grandmother could not drive. I asked, "Where do we fish around here?" And she was like, "Oh, I know a place... just a little more walking."

The weather had started to turn. As it darkened, she asked what kind of fish I liked. How we waned to cook it once we caught it. What kinds of bait I was gonna use. We started digging for worms - futilely - on the side of the road.

The sky darkened. It was clear it was gonna pour on us. But still she kept saying, "No I think the pond is somewhere up the road! Come on!" By then, I knew we wouldn't find any pond before the rain took us. And it did. It started thundering and lighting like crazy. I got scared, but my grandmother just started to laugh. It poured on us. This 6 year old kid and his 55 year old grandma on the side of a country road with a tackle box and 2 fishing rods. Just a ridiculous scene. She was laughing really hard. And I did too.

Years later, she told me that she knew there was no fishing pond around, but she felt bad for me and wanted to get me out of the house. So she mocked up a little fishing trip and, though no fishing was to be had, it was the best fishing trip I'd ever been on.

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

A: Actors should have a quote for every play they do in the city. So, if you do your first professional gig in town, you get the Equity minimum for that theater. But for your 2nd pro gig, you'd get the Equity minimum for that theater (even if it's a different one), but you'd get an extra $25 a week, say. For you 3rd pro gig, you'd get the minimum plus $50. For the 4th gig, you'd get minimum plus $75. And so on. This feels fair, establishes a sense of progress, and I don't think it would break the theater's bank. A quote system, basically. This can be done. It has to, because the meager percentage raises we get after Equity negotiations do not keep up with the soaring cost of living in this city.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes:

A:  I'd say that John Patrick Shanley was a great influence on me. The first time I read his plays was the first time I felt grabbed a work of drama. Nicky Silver too. I'd never really laughed so much from reading a play. And I always felt - and still feel - that his work is so sneakily stirring and profound. His "Pterodactyls" was a real special read. A couple others are David Greenspan, whose work seems to find a way to bend time - it's miraculous. His solo show "The Myopia" blew my mind. And John Kelly's work is always mesmerizing. Those are some.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Stuff from the gut. Stuff that feels like it could've been written in one sitting, to be honest. But on the flip side, I've always gone in for the more daring, experimental work produced by the likes of The Foundry, Richard Foreman, and the like. Just unique, unsafe, nearly freaky theatrical voices that play with form.

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

A:  Well I'm only several years into classifying as even a peripheral "playwright". But coming from it as an actor, I will say that nothing has helped my acting more than doing improv and writing plays.

Q:  Plugs:

A:  My play, Deacon Of The Bronx, is part of the 2013 Lark Playwrights' Week. Public reading is Wednesday, 9/25 @ 3pm. And listen & subscribe to Slant Theatre Project's ON THIS ISLAND podcast series on itunes - https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/on-this-island/id580211869 - recorded live at Ars Nova.

Enter Your Email To Have New Blog Posts Sent To You

Support The Blog Or Support The Art

Mailing list to be invited to readings, productions, and events

Email:

Books by Adam

I Interview Playwrights Part 604: Ayad Akhtar

Ayad Akhtar

Hometown:  Milwaukee, WI

Current Town:  NY, NY

Q:  Tell me about Disgraced.

A:  The basic story of Disgraced tracks the unraveling of a Pakistani-American corporate attorney's marriage and career as the long-guarded secret of his Muslim origins comes out at work. The body of the play is a dinner party where a group of successful New York professionals begin to talk about Islam, and Amir, under extreme stress from his work situation, begins to unloose long-stanched emotions related both to his Islamic heritage -- which he is profoundly at odds with -- but also with being Muslim in America.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  I have a new play going up in 2014 at La Jolla Playhouse and at Lincoln Center's LCT3 in New York. It's called The Who & The What, and is a partly comedic exploration of Muslim-American matrimonial mores. Also at work on a heavy rewrite of a play called The Invisible Hand. It has new productions in Seattle and Portland at the end of next summer. Have a couple of commissions I am plugging away on, as well as my next novel. I'm keeping busy.

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

A:  This is a story I've told a few times. But it's really the central one when it comes to my story as a writer. I had an amazing high school teacher who changed my life, who made me want to write. Her name was Diane Doerfler. (We called her Ms Doerfler.) She was in her late fifties at the time that I took her class, an eccentric, remarkable woman, who lived on sixty acres of land in forest-country north west of Milwaukee, with a farm-sized garden she awoke at four AM to tend every morning, usually surrounded by her ten great danes. She'd been married five times, divorced all her husbands, and carried herself with an assuredness that belied her station as a high-school teacher. Her bearing was at once regal and acute. She didn't suffer fools well. And she didn't take kindly to kids who didn't do the evening assignment. Suffice it to say, I don't recall a single incident of insubordination in her class.

Our first assignment that semester was to read Friedrich Durrenmatt's short story, "The Tunnel." It's about a man who wakes up on a train and doesn't understand how he got there, or where the train is going. He goes from car to car, asking the passengers, the conductor, the workers, but no one seems to know. Most don't care and shrug. Others point to someone else further up the chain of command for an answer. Finally, having made his way to the locomotive, the protagonist finds the driver: A madman shoveling coal maniacally into the engine. The protagonist asks him where the train is going. All the driver can do is point at the ceiling. The protagonist climbs the short ladder and peers over the perch to see: A tunnel of darkness into which the train is headed with unstoppable fury.

I hadn't the slightest idea what to make of it. When Ms Doerfler strode purposefully into class the next day, her right hand buried -- as it always was -- in her sport coat pocket and playing with a set of keys there, she asked us to explain the meaning of the story. I was confounded. I couldn't understand how anything so incoherent as the story I'd read the previous night could have a meaning. No one had an answer. And so she proceeded to explain: The train was life. And sometimes we awaken to the question of where it is headed, how it began. Unfortunately, as we look for an answer from others, they often have no interest in the question, and those who might have an interest have no answer. The most that one could do was to confront the truth -- after great effort -- and that was itself a conundrum: That life is unknown headed into a deeper unknown.

I was stunned. I remember the moment I understood what she was saying. It was like lemon juice on the surface of milk, parting the murkiness, revealing something clear underneath. It struck me then (and it still does) that giving shape in stories to the deeper questions of existence was the most remarkable thing I could imagine doing.

Ms Doerfler responded to my newfound passion with care and guidance. I spent a great deal of time around her my senior year, doing independent studies and writing essays about what she had me read. She introduced me to Thomas Mann, Robert Musil, Albert Camus, and Franz Kafka. And when I was done with those, she had me read Sartre and Rilke and Mishima and Proust. It was a baptism in world literature, a formation I still draw from everyday...

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

A:  Ticket prices!

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Eleanora Duse, Andre Gregory, Arthur Miller, Jerzy Grotowski, David Mamet, Ariane Mnouchkine, Kate Valk, Tony Kushner, Solomon Mikhoels, Ibsen, Reza Abdoh, Jean Genet, Anatoly Vasiliev, Kazuo Ohno, Cherry Jones, Bertolt Brecht.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theater that takes audience engagement seriously, which isn't to mean work that panders to the audience. It's a matter of who the primary interlocutor of the work really is. Is it dramaturgy, form, the process of storytelling? Or is it the audience? To me, this is the distinguishing line. Not that the former isn't valid. I admire so many writers whose primary interlocutor is really the form. But I find that it just doesn't excite me as much.

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

A:  Keep at it. Stay open to criticism from those you admire and trust. Work hard. Expect that it may take much much longer than you would ever imagine. Show business is about attrition more than anything else. You have to have the staying power -- which I associate with creative drive -- to keep at it.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Little, Brown and Company is bringing out an edition of Disgraced the second week of September 2013. Aasif Mandvi -- who starred in the play at Lincoln Center -- will be joining me for a reading and discussion at the Union Square Barnes and Noble on Thursday Sept 12 at 7.00 PM. Aasif is a very talented and funny guy. Should be a lot of fun. http://store-locator.barnesandnoble.com/event/81350

Enter Your Email To Have New Blog Posts Sent To You

Support The Blog Or Support The Art

Mailing list to be invited to readings, productions, and events

Email:

Books by Adam

I Interview Playwrights Part 603: Jerry Lieblich

Jerry Lieblich

Hometown: East Setauket, New York

Current Town:  Brooklyn, New York

Q:  Tell me about Eudaemonia.

A:  As somebody put it in rehearsal the other day, Eudaemonia is “Faust for hipsters.”

The play focuses on three people reaching the end of the first third of their lives, the end of the period of selfish, self-involved self-development that characterizes your mid-twenties. These people are not happy with themselves – they don't want to be who they are, but don't know exactly who (or what) they want to be.

So they each summon into their lives magical, demonic forces to bring about this desired (if misdirected) change. The play tracks how this desire for change, this desire to create a new self, in effect destroys a previous self – how making a new “I” by necessity destroys the old “I.”

But it's also funny, and bizarre, and there's a demon, and a giant egg, and music, and dancing, and Marshall Pailet has done an unbelievable job putting this nearly-impossible play on its feet.

It's going up as part of an event I created with Kevin Armento and Jaclyn Backhaus called (not just) 3 New Plays. We're producing our three plays in rep, sharing a budget, space, set, and production team. We figure that joining forces, we're more capable than any one of us alone.

Their plays, KILLERS and SHOOT THE FREAK, are gorgeous – I'm humbled to be sharing a stage with them.

We've also invited over 60 other artists to use our space for free before and after the shows. So every night there's going to be pay-what-you-can performances – we've got dancers, comedians, filmmakers, photographers, musicians, all sorts. Plus, during the day, artists and companies will get to use the theater as free rehearsal space. We've turned the Paradise Factory into a little pop-up arts ecosystem, and we think that's pretty cool.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  I'm working on a horror play about a junkyard that eats people. I'm also trying to adapt a play my grandma wrote in the 80's – she passed away several years ago, and so the though of co-writing a play with her based on this manuscript I found is pretty alluring.

I'm also making a devised piece about ghost stories with director Stefanie Abel Horowitz and our company, Tiny Little Band. It's still pretty nascent, but in essence it's an examination of belief – what does it mean to believe in ghosts? In true love? In anything? If I hold fundamentally different foundational beliefs from you, how can we ever speak the same language? And in what ways is fear just an extension of belief?

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

A:  On the first day of first grade, my teacher (a lovely white haired lady with the excellent name Mrs. Costabile), handed out a diagnostic math test.

I started answering the questions – 1+2, 3-1, etc. After about a minute, though, I stood up on my chair, crumpled up the test, threw it on the floor, and shouted “What do you think I am, some kind of idiot?”

Now I don't actually remember this happening – I've only heard about it second hand. But I think it's a pretty funny – if more than a little incriminating – origin story.

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

A:  Space has got to be more affordable. Rehearsal space, yes, but particularly performance space. It's hard to take risks in your writing if the costs of production are so high. I dream of a theater culture in which everybody is making work all the time – like Fringe, but always. We'd eliminate the cycle of “developmental purgatory,” and be able to take bigger, bolder risks with lower stakes.

This is the main thing we've been trying to combat with (not just) 3 New Plays – by teaming up, we've made it much more affordable for the three of us to produce our work. And by opening the space up as free performance and rehearsal space before and after our shows, we've given free space to over 60 artists who otherwise wouldn't have it. We're grateful to have them on board – it makes an instant community around our work. And they're grateful for the space to make and show their work. Everybody wins.

I think if we can all be a little more community minded in the ways we make our art, we can allow for a more vibrant, more diverse arts community. And when that happens, well, everybody wins.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Oh man, so many. Anne Washburn, Melissa James Gibson, Jenny Schwartz, David Greenspan, Glen Berger, Richard Foreman, Richard Maxwell, Sibyl Kempson, Kristen Kosmas, Madeline George, Annie Baker, Karen Hartman, Dan LeFranc, Jordan Harrison, Lucas Hnath, Caryl Churchill, The Debate Society, Elevator Repair Service, Rude Mechs, Mac Wellman, and of course my first playwriting teachers Deb Margolin and Donald Margulies.

I'm also always impressed by the immensity of the work being created by the artists in my cohort. The Smith + Tinker gang, The Cockpit Writers Group, the Extremely Famous Writers Group – these folks have really got it going on.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I'm turned on by theater that experiments with language and form. Jenny Schwartz and Melissa James Gibson do such incredible things with words – reading or seeing one of their plays makes you think you've never heard the English language before. Kristen Kosmas and Sibyl Kempson similarly have this way of turning words into concrete things – objects with sound, weight, and shape, rather than just reference.

I'm always a sucker for a play that takes you through an experience, rather than depicts that experience. Anne Carson once described that (in reference to poetry) as subjective mimesis, and I think that's totally right. You leave having felt something new, having experienced something new, instead of simply watching other people feel and experience things (which is the most boring sort of voyeurism, in my book). I'm thinking specifically of plays like THE INTERNATIONALIST or the ridiculously genius MR. BURNS that use form as their primary (and extraordinarily effective) means of communication.

I love plays that give me space and agency as an audience member, plays that don't do my thinking for me, but invite me to fill in the gaps. Be just a little confusing, so I've got something to do while I'm in the audience.

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

A:  Write write write. Read read read. But also do other stuff. Be a person.

Also, ask for advice! Everybody who's doing this is doing it with the help and guidance of a whole army of great mentors, heroes, and friends. And, at least in my experience, most people are more than happy to pay it forward.

For instance, me! E-mail me – j.a.lieblich@gmail.com – I'd be happy to go out for coffee and talk about this weird and impossible thing we're all trying to do.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  

 

EUDAEMONIA
by Jerry Lieblich
directed by Marshall Pailet

KILLERS
by Kevin Armento
directed by Stefanie Abel Horowitz

SHOOT THE FREAK
by Jaclyn Backhaus
directed by Andrew Neisler

All shows run Sept 8-29 at the Paradise Factory (64 E 4th St., next to LaMAMA).

Tickets and more info at www.notjust3newplays.com/tickets, or find us on facebook at facebook.com/notjust3newplays

ALSO! There are so many amazing performances happening in the space all month. Stop by any night and you'll see something super cool! I promise! For instance, on September 14th my roommate is performing a kickass cabaret of folk-rock re-imaginings of musical theater songs! How can you say no!?

 

 

Enter Your Email To Have New Blog Posts Sent To You

Support The Blog Or Support The Art

Mailing list to be invited to readings, productions, and events

Email:

Books by Adam

I Interview Playwrights Part 602: Marc Spitz

Marc Spitz

Hometown: Lawrence, New York, one of the "Five Towns" - the others are Inwood, Cedarhurst, Woodmere and Hewlett. Johnny Drama stars in a show about them on Entourage, directed by Ed Burns. They are a punchline on that show and kind of a punchline in my life. The joke was on me as a kid but as I am now middle aged, I often find myself dreaming of the pizza places and record stores of my youth. I set the new play there, part of it anyway, and give a shout out to Friendlier, a real pizza place. I was in Friendlier in Woodmere when the Challenger exploded.

Current Town: Makin' Money Manhattan (I'm making no money)

Q:  Tell me about Revenge and Guilt.

A:  It's a romance. Guy meets girl. Guy sleeps with girl. Girl steals guys watch. Guy meets girl again. Girl (not a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, mind) convinces the guy to confront his demons which is in this case, a guitar teacher who deeply scarred him in 1993. As it's very, very easy to find people from the past these days, they track the now aged guy down (think the Don Ciccio scene in Godfather 2) and mete out vengeance. She has ulterior motives of course. She is not who she seems to be. Mayhem ensues. There's a lot of sex and violence and pop references, it's kind of a throwback in that case to my older plays but I could not have written this at 28. It takes a middle aged man with a little humility to pull some of this off. It also marks the first time I'm directing one of my own plays after about a dozen produced Off Off. Again, I'm old now and if not now, when. It's so personal and there are only three actors so i figured why not? I saw a Woody Allen doc. where he said if you wrote it and surround yourself with good people then why can't you direct and that hit home.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  I am writing a story for the New York Times on punk film, the good ones and the bad ones, and I am finishing up a book on an aesthetic that some people call Twee and others call... Indie when they are trying not to offend people who are twee. It starts post War (Disney's feature films, Salinger, Seuss, Dean, Capote) and goes all the way up to New Girl. An epic. I am also working on not being suicidally depressed. That's a bit easier than writing a big book. They have pills now. The book will be out in the second half of 2014 from IT Books/Harper Collins. It's my eighth book. I released a memoir in February called Poseur: A Memoir of Downtown New York in the 90s, which took me three years to write and might have contributed to the above mentioned suicidal depression. I also wrote Revenge during this period.

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 much of it is covered in the memoir, I mentioned above but Revenge in particular stems from a real incident. You know I never wanted to be a rock critic which is how I made and still sometimes make my living. I wanted to be a rock star. But I was unlucky when it came to teachers (yes, I blame them not my utter lack of natural talent). My piano teacher would not teach me the piano riff to "Rock the Casbah" and when I went to learn the drums I was basically told that I was uncoordinated and asked if I was "good at sports?" The implication being I was an utter physical reject-o. So there's a bit of me in Cal. I've never forgotten those lessons and in moments I wonder what could have been had I a more impatient instructor (or one who was a Clash fan). It's why there's power in this play whereas some of the recent ones I've done seem more like larks. There's painful truth in it. About regret, getting older, realizing things you will never be. And coming to accept what you are, which when you scour away the anger and regret, is most of the time, not so bad at all.

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

A:   Rentals would be cheaper for young playwrights. When I began doing plays on the Lower East Side in the late 1990s, if a producer like Aaron Beall liked your play or your coat, he would give you his space and split the door with you. He would also champion you and mentor you. I think that's just about gone with this sanitized, new LES. And all the small theaters are now in Brooklyn but I am a romantic about downtown theater in Manhattan (makin no money). It's why I like the Kraine where we are now. You can smell the history there. And sometimes fish.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  I always wanted to write Burn This. Not be Lanford Wilson per se but to have written Burn This. Burn This by Marc Spitz. I've re read it recently as I've read the Forced Entries by Jim Carroll and neither are as good as I remember but when I was young and hungry they fired me up. Also Durang. Nicky Silver. Orton. Pinter. Rabe. Kushner. Albee. Shepard obviously. I once saw him at the Washington Square Park dog run walking a large black poodle. Kushner for different reasons. I love reading him and respect his ambition but I know I can never touch him. Whereas I like pretending I have a chance at the others. Hero worship at my age is bad anyway. I want to be a hero myself. You know that piece of Christopher Street in front of the Lucille Lortel with all the stars? I think they just gave Neil LaBute one. There are a lot of blank stars left. I want one of those stars. And until I get one, I am happy to let my two basset hounds pee on them. Especially on LaBute. I will say

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I am no fan of the avant garde. I like loud, ,violent, darkly funny plays. I tried to see a Robert Wilson play once and a bunch of stuff at PS 122 and I just shift and feel like I'm back in math class.

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

A:  Go to Brooklyn I guess? Or Queens. Or Staten Island. Or stay here and fight. Take back Ludlow Street, Le Miz style.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Listen to the Plugz.

Enter Your Email To Have New Blog Posts Sent To You

Support The Blog Or Support The Art

Mailing list to be invited to readings, productions, and events

Email:

Books by Adam

Now Published, Upcoming, NYTVF

My webseries, Compulsive Love got into the New York TV Festival.  The festival is Oct 21-26.  Should be fun.




Hearts Like Fists is now published by Dramatists Play Service here.  Take a look at my other published plays here.

UBU, that movement piece I wrote for Daniel Irizarry, returns to NYC, this time at Intar in Sept.

And then production 14 of Nerve opens in Akron in Sept.

Here is the original cast from the '06 production.  1 part Rockstar O'Connor, 1 part Supersexy York.

Enter Your Email To Have New Blog Posts Sent To You

Support The Blog Or Support The Art

Mailing list to be invited to readings, productions, and events

Email:

Books by Adam