I Interview Playwrights Part 630: Chris Van Strander

Chris Van Strander

Hometown:  West Catasauqua, PA

Current Town:  New York City, NY

Q:  Tell me about Edison's Elephant.

A:  Edison’s Elephant is a play, co-written by David Koteles and myself, about the January 4th, 1903 public execution (by electrocution) of Topsy, a former circus elephant, on Coney Island. The electrocution was engineered by Thomas Edison, and filmed by his Edison Studios. The play examines this event from several viewpoints: that of Edison himself; Whitey, Topsy’s keeper; and various spectators (including a young boy). The play moves around in time, detailing the events leading up to the electrocution, as well as its future ramifications.

David and I had chatted about the Topsy story over brunch last summer (he thought there was a play in it). Soon after, David asked if I had anything to pitch to Metropolitan Playhouse for their Gilded Stage Festival. I said no, and asked him if he was pitching anything; he said no. So I suggested we collaborate. We decided to write about Topsy. I staked out the portions of the story which I most connected with, and David did the same. We eventually wedded our material into Edison’s Elephant.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  This summer I’m going to Minneapolis to workshop Retrospective, a play about the art world. In it, a curator dismantles the shack of a reclusive outsider artist, then reassembles it for display inside her museum.

I’m also working on another play I can’t talk about. It’s called The Revenger’s Tragedy.

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

A:  The Swiss Family Robinson was a story from my childhood which deeply affected me. This section in particular explains a lot about who I am as a writer and as a person:

“The ship had sailed for the purpose of supplying a young colony, she had therefore on board every conceivable article we could desire in our present situation; our only difficulty, indeed, was to make a wise selection. A large quantity of powder and shot we first secured, and as Fritz considered that we could not have too many weapons, we added three excellent guns, and a whole armful of swords, daggers, and knives. We remembered that knives and forks were necessary, we therefore laid in a large stock of them, and kitchen utensils of all sorts. Exploring the captain's cabin, we discovered a service of silver plate and a cellaret of good old wine; we then went over the stores, and supplied ourselves with potted meats, portable soups, Westphalian hams, sausages, a bag of maize and wheat, and a quantity of other seeds and vegetables. I then added a barrel of sulphur for matches, and as much cordage as I could find. All this—with nails, tools, and agricultural implements—completed our cargo, and sank our boat so low that I should have been obliged to lighten her had not the sea been calm.”

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

A:  It would pay its artists a living wage.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Playwrights I admire and learn from include: Caryl Churchill, Chuck Mee, Irene Fornes, Mac Wellman, Jeff Jones, August Wilson, Naomi Wallace, Franz Xavier Kroetz, William Shakespeare, Edward Bond, Eric Overmyer, W. David Hancock, Witkacy, Thornton Wilder, and Samuel Beckett.

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

A:  Cut.

Don’t write what you know. Expand what you know.

Be the most ruthless critic of your own work.

Submit everywhere—but never before the play’s ready.

Great actors are gold; hang tight to them: I’ve been waiting to write a role for a certain actor in Edison’s Elephant for 15 years.

Be a genuinely nice person—not false-nice, party-nice. If you talk shit about someone/their play behind their back, it WILL get back to them. Then they’ll know you’re just a big fake.

Others’ advice which has helped me:

Jose Rivera’s Assumption 6: “Each line of dialogue is like a piece of DNA, potentially containing the entire play and its thesis.”

Fornes: “The presence of the Author violates the life of the Character. Your characters need autonomy; let them do and say what they wish. Manipulate them ONLY once they have life.”

Fornes again: “The meandering, ‘useless’ place has great value. It’s better to explore too much than to be too rigid.”

Wellman: “Avoid at all costs the horrible Swamp of the Already Known.”

Lynn Nottage: “Don't waste your time; get to the real thing. Sure, what's ‘real?’ Still, try to get to it.”

Bill Withers: “On your way to wonderful, you're gonna hafta pass through all right.”

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  

 

EDISON’S ELEPHANT by Chris Van Strander & David Koteles
Directed by: David Elliott
Performances: January 16th-25th, as part of Metropolitan Playhouse's Gilded Stage Festival
Tickets: http://metropolitanplayhouse.org/edisonselephanttickets

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I Interview Playwrights Part 629: Christian Durso

Christian Durso

Hometown:  Los Angeles, CA

Current Town:  At this moment I don't even know... Los Angeles I think?


Q: Tell me about SHINER.

A: SHINER is a grunge rock teen love story within a suicide pact. It's set in 1994 and these two outcast kids meet and start to bond over their crappy home lives and grunge rock and Nirvana and the release that the music gives them that young people so desperately need. Then one spirals faster into the negative side effects of that subculture and the other begins to pull out of the suicide pact. Then Kurt Cobain beats them to the punch.

I'd always wanted to write a play about Kurt Cobain. He was my first idol that I'd found outside of my parents' guidance. Nevermind was the first tape I ever purchased. When I first listened to that album the world just opened up for me. I was also going through puberty and trying to figure out who I was IN that world. Then my idol goes and blows his brains out. And I was like, "okay, so is that what we're all doing here?"

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I'm writing a six part mini series for HBO Asia that chronicles the rise and fall of two prominent families in Singapore between World War II and present 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: I played soccer for nine years and I was not good at the sport. In nine years I think I only scored two goals. It wasn't until all my soccer friends made the high school Varsity team and I didn't that I really understood the athletic discrepancy between myself and the others. I went on to the drama club instead. Looking back, I often wish I'd been in some theatre or art camp rather than at soccer practice, but I think it was helpful to do something for so long because I liked it and not because I got any recognition for it.

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

A: Ticket prices. It's prohibitively expensive to cultivate new audiences. Broadway is already out of control. But even the retail ticket price of an off-off house can be north of fifty bucks. It's hard to get new audiences to come out for that when they can stay home, turn on Netflix for ten bucks a month and watch TV shows that some of America's best playwrights are writing for anyway.

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: All of the dead guys, of course: Shakespeare, Chekhov, Tennessee Williams, Eugene O'Neill. I also adore Tracy Letts, Adam Rapp, Sarah Ruhl. They've all made me cry in dark theatres or in my room reading their work. So has Leslye Headland, Dan LeFranc, Halley Feiffer, Rajiv Joseph.

The whole early 90's grunge movement in Seattle, too. Seriously. Those bands made music the way I think theatre artists should make theatre. They were just nuts for it and no one was thinking about their career. They rehearsed in basements and played shows in parking lots when they couldn't book even tiny venues. It was all about the music. They were theatrical, they literally lit stages on fire (not exactly pyrotechnics either, closer to arson). The kind of energy in that movement changed rock and roll forever. The bands from that era are definitely among my theatrical heroes.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: Theatre that really goes to the end of the line and then a little further. I love it when I can't believe I'm witnessing what I'm witnessing. Bold actions make strong characters. "She's not about to... no... no!" Those kinds of moments really turn me on. Unlike film or tv where we are kind of desensitized to action, it really carries in the theatre.

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

A: First of all, advice isn't worth much. Everyone has their own backgrounds, resources, ways of working, tastes, their own luck and timing. And full disclosure, I still feel like I'm just starting out myself. But I think it is worth mentioning that you're better off writing about that really ugly secret inside of you that you're so sure no one is going to want to see on stage. You already know what that subject or topic or event is. You've thought about it a thousand times and probably experienced shame or regret whenever it comes up. And that thing that pulls at you in those moments...? ...that's your voice. Tame that motherfucker and trap it on the page. Let it scream on that blank white paper. Because whatever it is, your secret is far more universal that you probably think. Dress it in solid dramatic action and a bit of structure and you'll connect people into feeling less alone with their own secrets.

Also: The Pandora Ambient station is bad ass writing music.

Q: Plugs, please:

A: FaultLine is doing a run of SHINER at San Francisco's new Piano Fight theater in April 2014 to mark the 20 year anniversary of Cobain's death.

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I Interview Playwrights Part 628: Louise Munson

Louise Munson

Hometown: Princeton, NJ

Current Town: Los Angeles, CA

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I'm just starting to work on a new full-length that's inspired by a one-act I wrote that went up last June called Montana. I wrote the one-act for three amazing actresses: Melissa Stephens, Katie Lowes, and Amy Rosoff. The play is about three women in their early 30's and their last night, their graduation night from an MFA program, in the middle of nowhere. They're about to go their separate ways for forever, and it's about storytelling, the complications and joys of female friendships and being really smart at certain things while having no clue how to do certain adult things that, unfortunately, are necessary to learn in order to grow up.

I'm also writing a lot of notes (procrastinating) for a rewrite I'm gathering up the strength to do for my play called Luigi, which will have its premiere with L.A.'s Inkwell Theatre Co. in July. It sounds like a long time away, but a lot of the play is in Italian, and I just got back from visiting my family there, so I feel like I should do it before I forget everything they said and more importantly how they said it. They're all great storytellers, and just being around them is exciting as a writer. I'm pretty sure they're the reason I'm so attracted to being around actors, because, well, every single one is a performer in their own way.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Chekhov. I spent two years at Bennington just reading and rereading his stories and plays. I had these long reading lists with all these gaps in my education, and instead of filling those gaps, I would just keep going back to him. I don't think I'm wrong, either. I read his stuff anytime I'm feeling petty or small; he's the best bullshit detector I know of. Also, actors. I love great actors, I think it's good for a playwright to fall in love with actors. The actors I write for make me a million times better. They're the reason I can be so hard on my work and not be precious about it. I cut, rewrite mercilessly because I know if my work is not as good as they are, it's not as fun for them or for me. And there's nothing more fun or joyful than being in a rehearsal room where the writer, director and actors are working at their best.

But my real heroes are writers, always have been, only most of them are not playwrights. There's Deborah Eisenberg, Grace Paley (her short stories are an amazing study in dialogue), Tillie Olsen, Louis C.K., Joan Didion, John Cage, Salinger, George Saunders (as a writer and human being), Nabokov, Beckett, Pirandello, Calvino, Woody Allen, Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Bishop. That's a lot, and there's more, but finding those writers that tug on something inside of you are the best mentors you can have. I remember when I was little my brother told me that the best mentors are dead, so I better start reading. I always think of that. The best thing you can do is get permission to write from your heroes, permission to get out of your own way, and then give that permission to others as well as you can with your own work.

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

A:  I wish I had better advice than just keep writing, keep doing it, keep getting better and truer and closer to your own voice. Good work does get noticed, I've seen it happen to others and experienced it myself, and it takes a long time to make good work, so be okay with that, push hard but be patient. Try to get produced, and if necessary produce your stuff yourself. You'll be exhausted and broke but you'll learn more sitting in the back of an actual audience watching your words than you will any other way. Try your best to put blinders on and find the joy in making stuff and find people you love to create with and be loyal to them while widening your circle at the same time. Be kind, while learning to protect your work (this can sometimes be a difficult balance, but it's worth the effort to try to get it right). After a production or project is done, give yourself the space and time to be alone with yourself and your work, even if the work means daydreaming.

Trust your imagination and protect it from your impatience. Also, this seems obvious but READ! Read everything--fiction, poetry, non-fiction, plays--that you're even remotely curious about, you have no idea how it might influence your work or hit you in a certain way that may end up influencing your work in that magical, unexpected way that can make a piece of work sing. I have to remind myself of this stuff everyday, I think it's part of the deal no matter where you are on the road. Avoid people who just say, "Wow that's really hard," or whatever. I've seen people become totally discouraged because of the people they choose to surround themselves with. Try to be selective and generous at once. Life is hard, might as well find something worthwhile that's bigger than you and devote yourself to it. In short: No matter what, keep going.

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My 2013 In Review

What a year! The biggest thing that happened is that we had a son. What an amazing tiring emotional journey we have begun. You know what I'm talking about, parents.

We also moved to CT.  Right now, my wife is working as the Artistic Director of a youth theater while I'm taking care of our kid all day and whenever I can doing things like reading scripts and writing articles and short films for money.

I had 7 productions of my plays this year, including Clown Bar (Critic's Pick New York Times) and the remount of UBU (Critics' Pick Time Out NY.)  It also marks the first time one of my plays has been done at a high school which got me actually incredibly excited, much more than I thought possible.

Clown Bar photo by Ahron Foster

Hearts Like Fists and The Why Overhead are now published.  And Clown Bar will be published soon too.

This year I wrote 3 plays, 3/4 of a screenplay and an hour long pilot, mostly before the kid came along.  My writing group at Primary Stages has kept me sane and I'm lucky to have family help babysitting one day a week so that I can attend.  Still working on some TV projects and play projects, web series, musical. 

I started creating single pane comics using toys in my house.  I call it Toys in My House Comics.  It's a way I can still be creative while I'm trapped under a sleeping baby and don't have the mind space or time to write a scene.  There are over 100 of them up so far.  Here is one from this morning.

My web series Compulsive Love came out and was in some festivals.  That led to some paid writing of short films.  Also I will be teaching a class in web series writing this spring at ESPA.

The playwright interviews continue.  Got up to 627 which means there were 85 interviews this year.

Did a brief retreat with writing group up in Bennington.  That was fun.  What else?  Some weddings.  One in Whistler Canada and one in Brooklyn.   Visiting family in VA.  A reading in Las Vegas.  Readings with Amoralists and at MCC Theater and Primary Stages in New York.

Whew.  Happy New Year Everyone!

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Toys In My House Comics

So I started this new endeavor.

Below are some highlights but the rest are here and also on Instagram.

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I Interview Playwrights Part 627: Evelina Fernandez

Evelina Fernandez

Hometown: East Los Angeles, CA

Current Town: Downtown Los Angeles, CA

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I’m working on a couple of things. I have a completion commission at Center Theater Group (CTG) to further develop my play “Hope: Part II of A Mexican Trilogy.” “A Mexican Trilogy” (LA Drama Critic’s Circle Award 2012) follows the story of a Mexican family in the U.S. over a span of a hundred years and was produced at the Los Angeles Theatre Center in 2011 (Hope: Part I) and 2012 (Faith: Part II and Charity: Part III). I’m also working on a new (ish) play, “Premeditation” for our theater ensemble, the Latino Theater Company, where I’m the resident playwright. “Premeditation” is a one-act I wrote a while back that I’m expanding into a full-length play. But, it’s not as easy as I expected it would be… We need a show for the Spring Season so I worked on it over the summer and I am finishing it up now. I also have a TCG Fox Fellowship to archive and articulate our work (Latino Theater Company) as an ensemble. And I’m preparing “A Mexican Trilogy” and “Dementia” to be published by Samuel French.

Q: Tell me about the Los Angeles Theatre Center.

A: We are the operators of the Los Angeles Theatre Center (LATC). We (Latino Theater Company) have a 20-year lease with the city to operate and provide programming that reflects the rich diversity of Los Angeles. So, we are a theater company and we do produce our own plays. But, we also produce plays by other playwrights and companies. We have two seasons; Fall: Face of the World; and Spring: East of Broadway. We usually produce eight to ten shows a year, mostly new plays by people of color. At the LATC diversity is not the exception, but the rule. The building is an old bank building in the Historic Core of Downtown. It’s an eight-story building with 4 theaters that range from 500 seats down to a 99-seat black box. We also have a dance/performance studio and a gallery space. DTLA is experiencing a renaissance. We have lots of new folks moving into lofts, new restaurants, bars, nightclubs. The historic core is an interesting mix of the new downtowners and the old. We are one block away from skid row. So, you have a master chef restaurant on one block and skid row folks one block away. I suppose there’s a certain amount of gentrification going on, but as someone who lives downtown, it’s an improvement. I know it’s probably not PC to say that, but it’s much better for our theater. Now, if we could only get more white people to come watch stories about people of color, lgbt, etc., it would be even cooler.

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

A: Well, I was born in East LA but lived the first nine years of my life in Phoenix, Arizona; the youngest of five. My parents had a pretty miserable marriage, which is what happens when you marry at 15 and 18 years old. They are both first generation Mexican-Americans born in Arizona. Raising us they spoke to us in English and to each other in Spanish. I suppose they wanted us to be more American than they are. When my parents divorced, we moved back to East LA to live with my grandparents, who came to the U.S. from Mexico during the revolution of 1910. So, the characters I write are Mexican-Americans and all of my plays take place in the U.S. They are bilingual and bicultural, like me. I was born in East LA, but unlike the way it is portrayed on stage and in film, it is a working class neighborhood with good, hardworking people. There are not drive by shootings everyday and there are not drug dealers on every corner. I look for the beauty in my people and write their stories.

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

A: One thing? Wow, that’s difficult. I’m assuming you mean the American Theater. In that case, I would make it accessible to all people to participate either as artists or as audience members, which is not the case right now. In general, I think our American theater needs an overhaul. Regional theaters are working from a model that is no longer sustainable. The world is changing faster than we ever imagined it could and the American Theater must change to ensure its future. We need more people of color, more women, more anything but white males running our theaters!

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: Luis Valdez, the founder of El Teatro Campesino. He began Chicano theater in the fields supporting the United Farmworkers Union and made it all the way to Broadway with “Zoot Suit.” Another hero is Dr. Jorge Huerta who was the first Ph.D. Scholar to document the history of Chicano theater in the U.S. They are both mentors to me. My other heroes are the members of our ensemble, the Latino Theater Company, for their passion and commitment to the theater: Jose Luis Valenzuela (Artistic Director) and Sal Lopez, Lucy Rodriguez, Geoffrey Rivas and the late Lupe Ontiveros. Especially Lupe for her never-ending love of the theater despite all of the obstacles. We’ve been together for 28 years, longer than most marriages…

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: Cosmopolitical theater that pushes the boundaries politically and aesthetically. Theater that is forward thinking and not cynical or self-absorbed. Theater that matters.

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

A: If you are just starting out, I would say you should venture outward rather than inward. The more life-experience you have the more complete you become as a human being and a playwright. On the other hand, don’t look so far away that you don’t recognize yourself, your true self, your authentic self in your work any longer. Drama is human nature, plain and simple.

Q: Plugs, please:

A: The LATC Spring Season 2014 and the Latino Theater Encuentro (Encounter) in Fall of 2014. “Premeditation,” Spring of 2014 (the one act I’ve adapted to a full-length) at the LATC.

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I Interview Playwrights Part 626: Peter Papadopoulos

Peter Papadopoulos

Hometown: Newington, CT

Current Town: San Francisco, CA

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I’m working on a number of different types of things right now including the final play in my Love Gone Wrong at the End of the World Trilogy. I’m also finishing up what I hope will be an innovative online/offline acting book that is specifically about acting in modern, heightened plays. I am first releasing a shorter version online in January and then I will begin to look for a print publisher as well for a more in-depth version that I have been working on. Hopefully my Love Trilogy play will be out in the spring if I like it well enough. I’ve held or killed my last several plays so there is no telling with me. I am not a fast writer anyways even though I am out of that school that produces a lot of content. I typically write several hundred pages that are a sort of a mash of things and then I start prowling around and asking myself, is there an important story in here that is entertaining enough to me that I feel excited to spend another few months with it? If not I just treat it as practice and move on.

Q:  Tell me about Mojo.

A:  Mojo theatre is "magical powers” theatre. What are those powers? Expressionism, symbolism, sound, film, audience interaction, internet, thematic food service, program design, opera, lighting, pre-show acts, costume, cell phones, dance, improv, live music—every art form and every available mode of expression, harnessed in whatever way best tells the story of the piece being undertaken by the company. It is essentially heightened modern theatre grounded in old-school theatre principles, where storytelling takes precedence over any uniformity of style or tone.

And the story of the piece makes up the center. So far we usually use a verbal concept statement to define this story. This statement then becomes the center of gravity that all these magical elements swirl around, and not only the designers, but the actors are expected to fully participate in this. Do you have an idea about how a dramatic entrance through the audience will help tell the central story? Great, let’s see it! And now this new entrance gives the lighting designer a new idea she wants to try with a new lighting special? Great, let’s try it again with the light! And then someone has another idea and off we go, building a multi-ringed universe outward in layer after layer of thematic storytelling.

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, every Christmas someone tells this story about me so “it must mean something.” When I was I was about 9 or 10 years old we were decorating the family Christmas tree on a snowy winter night and I was sort of tossing the tinsel onto the tree in a way that I thought was artful, doing it in a way that it landed kind of randomly and all together created a sort of frozen waterflow look. I was told repeatedly by the adults that I needed to put the tinsel on more neatly like everyone else was doing until finally I got so frustrated by this ongoing “repression” that I stormed off into the basement, dug around until I found a rusty, old hacksaw and made my way out into the snowy woods. After a lot of stumbling around in the dark and an exceptionally long struggle in the bitter cold, I finally returned, triumphant, with a scrawny little Charlie Brown Christmas tree of my own. And I set it up in my bedroom and decorated it with a few ornaments—and of course I put the tinsel on the right way—the artisan way. All the kids gathered around in astonishment and my mother excitedly took pictures. Everyone laughs so hard when they tell this story. I guess it epitomizes me as a person for them, one part gentle artist, one part stubborn old man, one part zealot. That’s probably somewhat accurate.

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

A:  I am going to surprise myself and say that theatre is right where it needs to be. Like the human race I think it is poised at the leading edge of a time of enormous transformation. We just need to stay very aware and tuned in.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Funny you should ask about heroes, the name of the acting book I am finishing right now is “Theatre is for Heroes.” Because theatre is for heroes. Writing, staging, and performing in plays is for people who press on tirelessly and persistently in the face of overwhelming odds—and these plays we stage are about characters who do the same, it is the stuff of theatre. Sometimes to simply complete a difficult play or get that play to its feet against overwhelming and constant setbacks can take a staggering amount of courage and effort and grace. Quite a lot of my teachers from the past are and were these kinds of heroes, both my undergrad teachers at Trinity College and also my grad teachers at Trinity Repertory. I watched them make a life that was based on bravery and persistence, both on off stage.

As for some well-known artistic heroes, Robert Edmond Jones’ The Dramatic Imagination has always been a huge influence on me. I’ve read that book so many times. I find it incredibly moving and inspiring. I am also a big fan of Charles Mee and not only his plays, but the entire imaginative sensibility he brings to the theatre through his writing and his personal presence and attitude. My love trilogy is a response to Mee’s love trilogy—First Love, Big Love, True Love. Jose Rivera has also had a large influence on my sense of theatre, especially from the perspective of playwright--what is possible theatrically when you strike out boldly into new territory as a writer.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theatre that takes you on an epic journey and literally changes your whole being in the process. Changes everyone in the room as they are watching together. And you can feel it happening, feel yourselves changing, all together. The transcendent energy in the room is palpable and you are all traveling together. And to make that possible, to take an audience on that journey requires an intense commitment to both power and skill by the playwright and producing theatre. To enable the level of not only storytelling, but trust, that this audience wants to go on the journey with you.

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

A:  First learn all the playwriting rules—down cold—they matter. Then break all of them. In a series of writing experiments is fun. For example, start by learning standard play format. Then try writing a performance piece in a different format. Standard play format is a clear and strong format for writing western plays. On the other hand, like in all cases there may be some truth to its opposite: “standard play format produces standard plays.” The opposite of every traditional rule can also be a very powerful and magical rule, and sometimes just a very ridiculous one.

Never make the audience sit through a full-length play whose central conflict could be resolved in three therapy sessions or less.

Don’t give up on your own vision for theatre.

Don’t rely on blind submissions to get produced. I used to think of this as the ultimate in validation—somebody I don’t even know wants to produce my play! Now this idea seems funny to me. Find people who understand and are excited by the vision of your plays and stage them together. Or stage them yourself. I have seen a lot of wonderful self-produced works lately, including a number of them hosted at hosted recently at Mojo.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Come check out what we are doing at Mojo Theatre, mojotheatre.com, and a number of my plays and other projects can be found at the new site I am building right now at peterpop.com.

 

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I Interview Playwrights Part 625: Allyson Currin

Allyson Currin

Hometown: I was born in a tee-tiny town called Laurinburg, NC, but I grew up in Chapel Hill and Winston-Salem, NC.

Current Town: Proud resident of Washington, DC for 23 years!

Q:  Tell me about the Welders.

A:  The Welders are, first and foremost, a collective of playwrights, plus one Executive and Creative Director. Over the next three years, we will collaboratively produce world premieres written by each of the founding playwrights. Then, at the end of that time, we will pass the entire organization (from the tax-exempt status to the money in the bank) to another group of five playwrights. It's an elegant mission that directly serves DC talent, and gives playwrights true agency in one of the most challenging professions in the arts. We are providing an alternative, playwright-driven platform for new play development (as opposed to waiting around for the phone to ring) and working WITH and FOR one another.

Q:  Tell me about The Redneck Holy Grail.

A:  THE REDNECK HOLY GRAIL is a play about finding meaning, about the importance of heritage and home and individual voice. But it's also very funny - an Alice-down-the-rabbit-hole journey through a bizarre urban landscape, as the central character Diana tries to figure out the rules of a chaotic and surreal world. It has elements of magical realism, fairy tale characters, Oz, Tim Burton...all mashed up in a hero's journey for a "sacred" grail that Diana doesn't even believe in.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  I am working on a lot! Here's the laundry list: a new play commissioned by Cincinnati Playhouse, a new musical (with collaborator Matt Conner) commissioned by Signature Theatre, a comedy called THE RETURN TO LATIN that was commissioned by Theatre J's Locally Grown Initiative that the J is continuing to workshop, and a new play commissioned by GWU. I also am writing a new play called THE SOONER CHILD, which is being developed by 1st Draft at Charter Theatre. Those are the main ones. Plus re-writes of REDNECK!

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

A:  Writing was my first creative expression, and I have literally been writing since I could spell. (But I didn't write a single play until my mid-twenties! I was an actor, and had no interest in anything "behind the scenes") I started writing stories and novels as a child to "fix" sad endings of my favorite books - so that Rhett would end up with Scarlett, for instance.

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

A:  Wow. Hard question. Theatre is the toughest job you'll ever love, as they say... I suppose I should say that opportunities for playwrights are far too rare, but that's why we started The Welders, to combat that issue and to inspire others to do so too! I guess the thing I find the most frustrating about professional theatre is the under-representation of women. But it's more than women not being visible in theatre - it's the frustrating fact that the numbers on this issue haven't really budged over decades. At all. My women friends from the 60's and 70's express how alarmed they are that here we are in the 20-teens still talking about the same lack of opportunity. I wish I knew what to do about that. All you can do is keep making noise, I guess. Keep taking the steering wheel yourself.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  I started my fascination with acting via my fascination with old movies. When I was a little girl (like, 6 or 7...) my heroes were classic screen gods and goddesses. I was obsessed with Humphrey Bogart, and remember, as a very young child, having a profound sadness that I would never get to meet him. I adored Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, Bette Davis...as I got older I transferred some of that adoration onto theatre geniuses like Shakespeare, Chekhov, Meyerhold, Grotowski, Stoppard... Now, however, my heroes are definitely the amazing theatre people in DC I get to work with. If I started listing names, I'd never stop. But there is a certain brand of actor in DC that is smart, brilliantly talented, plain-speaking, uber-professional, ego-less, inspired and very much about the work. Those are my heroes. You know who you are... (Smile)

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theatre that surprises me. No one in theatre ever sets out to bore anyone, of course, but I do wish theatre people would make sure they know WHY they are telling a story onstage. Not asking that results in theatre that doesn't know how to be surprising.

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

A:  Be sure you want to do it. It's a tough, tough field, and I say that as both an actor and a director as well as a playwright. Playwriting is definitely the toughest of the three. But if you KNOW you must do it, then find your people. Find your community. Surround yourself with people who believe in you, but will tell you the truth (like, "This play isn't good enough to be shared yet.") And be willing to work your butt off. Stir in a little humility and unshakable belief in your work, and you'll make it work!

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Come see THE REDNECK HOLY GRAIL, directed by Sonya Robbins, at The Atlas, March 19-April 5, 2014! And check us out at www.thewelders.org!

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I Interview Playwrights Part 624: Eric Rudnick

Eric Rudnick

Hometown: Born in Washington D.C. Raised in Massapequa, NY.

Current Town: Los Angeles, CA

Q:  Tell me about Day Trader.

A:  Day Trader is a story about how far people will go to get what they think they have coming. The Los Angeles we depict is a shadowy world, the opposite side of glamour. And the morality tale that plays out has the highest stakes of anything I’ve ever written.

The director of the play is Steven Williford, and he has had an unwavering enthusiasm for the play since he read it about two years ago. We’ve been describing the tone of the piece as Comic Noir. There are laugh out loud moments, as well as reveals and twists that we’re working on to have that ripple-through-the-audience affect that can only be achieved in the theatre.

The play was a finalist at HotCity Theatre’s Greenhouse New Play Festival in St. Louis. I will always be indebted to everyone there, because they helped me make a huge leap forward with the play, and with my continuing development as a playwright. Director Carter Lewis and Dramaturg Liz Engelman brought out the goodness and helped me to sharpen every aspect of the script. And getting to know the other finalists, David L. Williams and Gwydion Suilebhan, was a fantastic part of the experience.

The next “big lucky thing” to happen was when I went to see Gary Lennon’s play, A Family Thing, here in town. He asked me what was going on with Day Trader. I said “Nothing!” He suggested two places he thought might be receptive to it. One of those was The Bootleg Theater, and when Alicia Adams and Jessica Hanna said yes, I was completely over the moon. I am co-producing the show, and it’s the best kind of work – being involved in everything from when I first started writing the play to working with the actors and designers, to brainstorming with our PR and Social Media teams. It’s a great space, a sprawling former bra factory that has just the right feel for the play. And The Bootleg has a great reputation for putting on all kinds of amazing shows: Plays, Musicals, Dance, Performance Art, Bands, Comedy, Ladies Arm Wrestling, and the monthly battle between writers called Write Club.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  I’m in the middle of a piece about women working in a government-funded lab. Their budget gets cut, and then one of them invents something that could possibly change the world. It addresses the ethical questions about who truly owns an idea. I’m writing the stage play and the screenplay simultaneously. I’ll know in a little while whether or not that’s a good idea.

I also have a few TV pilots that are making the rounds. One of them was a Second Rounder at the Austin Film Festival this year. I went to some great panels and interview sessions there, and most of the TV show runners said that they read plays and look for playwrights when they are hiring. Good to hear, right?

I’m also looking forward to making more episodes of the web series I created, “The Edge Of Allegiance.” We have a few episodes and some teasers on the internet now. It started out as a stage play. It’s a show about Mount Rushmore getting its own TV news show. It could also be called “Four Actors In Old-Timey Makeup Crammed Into A Rock.”

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 elementary school, we were given an assignment to write the rest of a story, the first sentence of which was assigned by the teacher. Every kid got the same opening sentence, which went something like: “This is your Captain speaking, the ship is going to explode in five minutes…” So I wrote down that sentence and under it I drew a picture of a cruise ship exploding, with little stick figure people flying off in every direction. In the middle of the explosion I wrote, in very colorful magic markers, one word: BOOM! And I thought it was pretty good, because it is definitely one of the most exciting things that I could think of happening after that sentence. But I was also a little worried that the teacher really wanted us to write some kind of essay, and that it would look like I was not following the unspoken rules of the homework. This concern proved to be misplaced, because it turned out to be one of the ten or so assignments that the teacher stapled to the bulletin board. This taught me two valuable lessons: Don’t stop yourself when you’ve got an idea that excites you, and your work can look pretty cool when someone has the courage to put it where other people can see it.

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

A:  I’d love to see more playwrights producing their own work. Unlike so many other types of writing, the theatre is a place where a script is not automatically assumed to need notes, or to need other writers to come in and make it better. So it would be great if writers took the sovereignty that the theatre provides and helped their collaborators to create the type of play that they themselves want to show to the world. It’s very satisfying to have some skin in the game, and to collaborate with other theatre artists in a way that is not just about the text, but how the play is ultimately presented for an audience.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Tom Stoppard, Edward Albee, Tennessee Williams, Larry Kramer. Mark Rylance. David and Amy Sedaris, as The Talent Family, did some of the funniest, most devastatingly satirical plays in New York in the mid-90s. If a company is looking for a breakout kind of season, I recommend doing all of those Talent Family plays. There are about five or six of them. Defiant Theatre in Chicago blew my head off with “Action Movie: The Play” – a crazily inventive show that I still reference fourteen years later. Then there are people who have made a huge difference for me as an artistic person. I’ve been to the Edinburgh Festival twice, once as an actor in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” I’m in love with everyone who works to put that on every year. When I was living in Manhattan, my mom and I used to meet for Wednesday matinees on Broadway, and we would alternate who got to pick the show each time. So she was a big influence - getting me to see amazing shows, a lot of them musicals that we would talk about afterwards. My dad also took me to see a lot of things when I was growing up – plays, opera, jazz – that were really eye-opening and helped me understand different kinds of creativity. Richard Pinter of The Neighborhood Playhouse taught me how to act, and at the same time really taught me how to write because of the way he teaches an approach to the text. Liz Engelman was the first Dramaturg I ever got to work with, and she inspired me to look at a play as an ever-evolving puzzle, as opposed to a fixed thing that you just add to or take away from. Larry Fineberg and Gary Lennon are friends who I admire - two great writers who have had success in other mediums, but who keep coming back and creating new, interesting work for the theatre. Also Gwydion Suilebhan does a tremendous amount for the community of playwrights across the country. And Roger Guenveur Smith and Anna Deavere Smith, who in my dream production would just take turns reading aloud from the menu at Jerry’s Deli.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  There are so many things I enjoy seeing onstage, and the common thread is that it gets to me on a gut level. I feel it, experience it emotionally, whether it delights me or terrifies me or depresses me. If when the lights come up, I turn to the person next to me and just say “Wow” or sit there in silence, rather than saying, “Where do you want to go eat?” – that means it’s been a good night at the theatre.

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

A:  Go to plays! I know this sounds obvious, but I meet a fair amount of playwrights who don’t go to the theatre on a regular basis. Read plays. Go to museums, ballgames, concerts – take in all kinds of culture, and watch how you and the people around you interact with what’s out there. Be a patron of culture, and support the people and places you appreciate, whether that means following someone on twitter or leaving a thoughtful review on Goldstar. Also, work quickly and efficiently - if you can manage having two projects at the same time, you’ll seldom stop writing, because what’s giving you trouble in one story is probably not an issue, and may even be compelling, in the world of your other story. Pick a few people who you respect as writers or directors and ask them for feedback. Try not to be defensive when they’re kind enough to take the time to give it. Don’t take yourself too seriously, but do take your work to heart. Enjoy the collaboration with everyone you get a chance to work with – they are giving their time, talent, and good will to your imagination.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  My play Day Trader opens at The Bootleg Theater in Los Angeles on January 11, 2013 for five weeks. We have an amazing group of people working on this, including a stellar cast featuring Danton Stone, Brighid Fleming, Tim Meinelschmidt, and Sarah Ries. You can see the other project that I collaborated on with director Steven Williford, The Edge Of Allegiance, on FunnyorDie.com.

 

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