I Interview Playwrights Part 771: John Patrick Bray

 
John Patrick Bray

Hometown: I grew up in Highland, New York, but I spent most of my time in the used record stores and bookshops of New Paltz.

Current Town: I’m in Athens, Georgia. I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Theatre and Film Studies at the University of Georgia.

Q:  Tell me about the Appalachian Festival of Plays and Playwrights.

A:  The AFPP is the developmental wing for the Barter Theatre, which has been developing and producing new work since 1933. The theatre was created by actor Robert Porterfield, who decided to create a theatre that accepted produce as the price of admission (ergo, “Barter”), which was a wonderful way to bring the community in to see live shows during the Depression-era.

The AFPP is headed by Nicholas Piper. Eight plays will be presented as readings between August 20 and August 23rd, but the festival itself runs during the entirety of August. There will be a brief talk-back-session following each reading. My play, FRIENDLY’S FIRE, will be read on Thursday, August 20th at 4PM, following (since we do indeed live in a small world) a play by George Pate, who was a doctoral student of mine at UGA and co-director of the Athens Playwrights’ Workshop, a noncurricular activity at UGA. I’m including a link here for the details for each play:

http://bartertheatre.com/shows-and-tickets.php#afpp

I also hear Charles Vess has some work at the museum nearby, which I will definitely check out while in town.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  Right now, I’m writing an essay and a book chapter. The essay deals with new play pedagogy, and the book chapter looks at the screen portrayal of Marc Blitzstein in Tim Robbins’s Cradle Will Rock. I finished writing a new play, Christmas in the Airwaves, which was commissioned by the Lyric Arts Main Street Theatre in Anoka, MN. I’m also curating a night of student one-act plays as part of the UGA Theatre’s Studio Season, which runs the end of March – beginning of April. I might be heading down to Lafayette, Louisiana (I lived in Lafayette for a couple of years) to work on a new play with Keith Dorwick, who has been my writing partner on a number of projects. Finally, my twin brother and I are in the process of finishing our indie film Liner Notes, based on my stage play. It will be a busy semester, but a welcome one.

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 two:

When I was six years old, we were renting a house in Rutherford, New Jersey. I was glued to MTV. David Byrne was my hero. The choreography for the Talking Heads video “Once in a Lifetime” mesmerized me. I had to perform it and perfect it. I did this on our front lawn in broad daylight for everyone to see. I had a process. My parents were mortified.

That same year, I was attending Sylvan School (Elementary). My friend Michael had an action figure in the likeness of Lon Chaney from the silent film, The Phantom of the Opera. I promised him two dollars the next day if I could have the figure. He kept the cape. That was fine. I forgot about the money, so the next day when he asked me for it, I was surprised. I had fifty cents in my pockets for the bake sale the 5th graders were hosting. I asked him if the fifty cents would do, and he said “yes,” but only because it meant more cookies and donuts. I have spent a lifetime making up for the lost cookies and donuts that day, however, I still have the action figure. His feet were torn off by one of the dogs we had growing up. But I glued them back on to the best of my ability. He no longer stands, but I swear, in the places on his face and hands where he still has paint, he glows.

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

A:  I think the biggest change we need to see is not in the theatre itself, but how the U.S. views the role of the arts. I know lots of folks would say "but...but I love the arts! Movies! Television! I have a print in my room! I have favorite records!" And while that is true, the trouble with arts is in order to have arts, you need artists. Artists are the price a society pays for its arts. In the U.S., there are many who feel creating art is a waste of time, despite their love of the finished product. "Oh, I would be a painter, if I had time." "Oh, I would be a writer, if I had the time." Or, that artists are in constant need of ideas "I have a great idea for a story, you write it." "I have a great idea for a song, you create it." Because I've grown up in a culture that does not love artists, indeed, is embarrassed of artists, I have grown inured to companies that mirror popular culture (ie, “I’m doing you a favor – I’m producing your play!”) To be fair, I’ve encountered less of this mentality as I’ve gotten older and found great people to work with (after spending some time self-producing in festivals), but I am worried by the tone of the conversation in which artists in a given practice argue amongst themselves vis-à-vis who has it worse. I do worry that we (artists) are taking it out on each other when the problem is much larger than us. The U.S. has a terrible culture for arts creation, though many are trying to make it better. I’m painting with a broad brush for the sake of brevity, but I do feel that if the U.S. culture didn’t seek to cut arts in the classroom (Band was just cut from Atlanta public schools!) and if we destigmatized the arts as an adult profession, we would be less prone to either belittle or attack other folks who serve a different function within our world. So, there’s what I’d change: our entire hegemonic ideology! Or, I’d buy everyone a beer. Because I think we could all use a Cold One.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  The usual suspects, along with my teachers at Highland Central Schools, Dutchess Community College, SUNY New Paltz, The Actors Studio Drama School at The New School (I graduated in 2003), and Louisiana State University. One of my heroes is Jeff Baker, the Technical Director at Dutchess Community College. When I was a student, I remember how faculty or guest directors would pressure him to build The Greatest Set Ever in The Shortest Amount of Time. Jeff would reply, “you can have it fast, you can have it good, you can have it cheap; pick two.” I loved that. It taught me so much about producing. Of course, years later I returned as a teacher and had the pleasure of hearing him say it to me. Fast, Good, Cheap. Pick two.

Two of my other theatrical heroes (that I know personally) are Neal Bell, who has taught me more than anyone else that I am a writer. I was a student of his at the Actors Studio Drama School (he now teaches at Duke). He remains my mentor and friend. Leslie A. Wade, also a playwright (though better known as a scholar) is another personal hero. His writing is sensitive, rich, and poignant. He was my dissertation director at LSU (he now teaches at the University of Arkansas Fayetteville), and I could not have imagined a better match. It is my dream to one day have the three of us in a room together.

My first big hero that I have yet to meet is Tom Waits. Although I did do shows in Grammar School (I was a Minute Man at Lexington in fourth grade), it was really listening to Tom Waits’s performance of his soundtrack for The Black Rider that made me realize this is what I want to do with my life. Here we are over twenty-two years later. So far, so good!

I’m an amateur audiophile (I get this from my Dad). Most of my plays have a score in my head. There’s something about a great song. It resonates within, and if you close your eyes, you can hear it inside you. Like a tiny tuning fork. That’s more or less where I write from, the elusive noise within. Music gets me there.

Theatre scholars are my heroes, too. I love that I get to live in a world where we talk about the philosophy of performance, and the philosophy of creating performance. Someone once said that when we sit together in a theatre, we are living together, we are dying together. The ephemeral nature of live performance (and life in general) resonates with me, and it’s wonderful to be in conversation with folks who agree (if only on that point!).
 

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I love theatre that surprises me. I love theatre that nourishes me. I love the language-based writers: Len Jenkin, Charles Mee, Maria Irene Fornes. They are incredibly brave with words and imagery. I’m dying to see something by 1927, a multi-media theatre company. Look up their advertisements for The Animals and Children Took to the Streets. It’s incredible! I adore the work of Robert Wilson, Conor McPherson, Carson Kreitzer, Tom Stoppard (particularly Rock’N’Roll), Sarah Ruhl; and the incredible Geek Theatre movement that started downtown and has now spread across the country. I’m also really excited to work with students. When you’re an academic, you get a first row seat to where theatre is heading. George Pate, Angela Hall, Caity Johnson, Tifany Lee, IB Hopkins, Weldon Pless, William N. Dunlap, Molly Pease; the list goes on. I also love playwrights’ collectives. 13P set the bar high for the rest of us who self-produce. I’m hoping to get to DC to check out some of the work of The Welders.

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

A:  Surprise yourself. Write bad plays. Imagine the worst thing that could happen in your script, and make it so! This has helped me out of a few jams. Keep a dream journal. Make mistakes, get messy. Find a community. Build trust. Build relationships, not because these relationships will lead to development and production opportunities, but because writing is a human act. So, be involved with humans. Avoid people who will tell you how to turn your creativity into money, especially if they charge a fee. Work for free on indie plays and movies; this is how previous generations got their start. Be available. If someone is down, listen to them. You need not respond. If you’re down, find someone who will listen (and who need not respond). Don’t measure yourself by the success of others. Celebrate their victories, truly and honestly. You can make the world a better place by being a part of a local community. You can make the theatre stronger by being a good witness, by leading by example. If you get married, everyone will give you advice; ignore their advice. Fall in love. Hang in there. Keep on keeping on.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  FRIENDLY’S FIRE at the Appalachian Festival of Plays and Playwrights, Barter Theatre, 127 West Main Street • Abingdon, VA 24210, August 20th at 4PM. Free!

CHRISTMAS IN THE AIR WAVES, Lyric Arts Main Street Theatre, 420 East Main Street • Anoka, MN 55303, November 20-Dec. 20, TKTS: http://www.lyricarts.org/on-stage/christmas-in-the-airwaves/

NEW PLAY FESTIVAL, UGA Theatre Studio Season, Cellar Theatre, Fine Arts Building (255 Baldwin St.), Athens, GA, 30602, March 23-April 2.TKTS: http://www.drama.uga.edu/event/1285/new-play-festival

I have a playwriting textbook, Inciting Incidents: Creating Your Own Theatre from Page to Performance. It can be purchased here: http://www.amazon.com/Inciting-Incidents-Creating-Theatre-Performance/dp/1465265880/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1439301745&sr=8-1&keywords=Inciting+Incidents+creating

Also, keep an eye on Rising Sun Performance Company in NYC, where I serve as resident writer and literary manager. We have some great things in the horizon: www.risingsunnyc.com

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I Interview Playwrights Part 770: Amy Staats

Amy Staats

Hometown:  Hard to say. I was born in Boston, and moved to Charleston, South Carolina when I was two. When my parents split up a year later, my mother became a news reporter and moved to Green Bay Wisconsin and then to Sacramento California for local television jobs. My sister and I spent the school months with my mother, and summers in Charleston with our Dad.

Current Town:  Brooklyn. Williamsburg. We've been there forever. It's like being on the inside of someone's mouth when they're getting veneers.

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  Right this very instant I'm getting ready to go into the final rounds of the Sam French Festival with my short play Throws of Love for the Samuel French Festival, directed by the amazing Jess Hayes and starring Cathy Curtin (OITNB), Kara Dudley, Katie Lawson, and Bindu Bansinath. I'm also finishing up a first draft of play about Van Halen that I'm taking up to SPACE at Ryder Farm to work on with Margot Bordelon and Megan Hill in September. I couldn't be more thrilled about both of these projects. I am really lucky to be working with all of these incredibly talented people.

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 think the fact that that my sister and I moved around a lot and went to six different elementary schools made made me very aware of subtle social differences. Picking up social cues was essential for survival as a chronic new kid, so I got good at figuring out how to pass as "normal" for short periods of time. Also, my parents splitting up before I had command of language provided the kind of profound heartbreak needed to really get an artist going. Another great thing about my childhood is that my mothers side is full of strong characters who talk over one another which taught me that your characters don't actually need to always listen to each other which I think is important. Another great thing is that my fathers parents were these really stoic people from West Virginia, and my fathers father was from a family of doctors and had a small hospital in West Virginia called Staats Hospital which fell into a state of financial disrepair in the eighties and had to be sold. All the cousins and my sister and I called him Charles Charles, because he was the second Charles in what would become and long line of Charles's. My Dad was also named Charles, or "Ched" and later "Chuck" when he dropped out of medical school and became an artist. Charles Charles had a waxed mustache that was inspired by seeing a Chinese gentleman when he was a doctor in World War Two. Charles Charles also though he was a genius, and gave himself permission to operate on his own family. He was very into new gadgets and would buy the first make of new things, for instance, there would suddenly be a large wooden Norwegian ski machine in my grandparents living room when we came to visit. He was extremely strict and scary and would give us long lectures about the proper way to roast marshmallows so my cousins, my sister and I called him "Marshmellow Snob" behind his back. He was also an early health food enthusiast, and drank hot water and ate raw oats for breakfast. This did not help his flatulence problem which accented his lectures and we didn't dare laugh at. Of course Charles Charles started to lose his mind in his early seventies, which he tried to diagnose himself with mixed results. Without a doubt I was blessed with a family full of characters and I think this is helpful for anybody trying to do anything really and provided me with a love of the ridiculous.

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

A:  I would reincarnate Jackie O so she could entice the government into giving more funding for the arts so artists stand a better chance of getting paid. Also, I think this fascination with doing plays with a crazy little amount of rehearsal time is getting a bit dodgy. Actors are getting ulcers, and I think the joy of doing something impossible sometimes clouds the fact that the play could have been better with a teeny bit more time. That being said, I know that theater companies are doing the best they can with very small budgets. I don't mean those guys and gals. I mean the people who secretly get off on chaos. You know who you are.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Right now Donald Trump is killing it.

My heroes are those crazy people who are making theater happen despite everything. The Management, Morgan Gould & Friends, Maria Striar, Susan Bernfield, The Debate Society, all those guys at Rattlestick, the Lesser America peeps, The Tuesdays @9 peeps, Graeme Gillis and RJ Tolan for maintaining their outstanding heads of hair and whoever got the thing going where theatre's support other productions in their emails.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I like a variety of different theater. I like realism mixed with the ridiculous, I like subtle relationship plays and I like a crazy experimental plays. I like drama with a scoop of comedy and vice versa. I actually like most types of plays if they are done well. I think the thing that makes something exciting for me is the spirit in which it was created. I'm not a fan of sloppy. The only time sloppy woks for me is if there is so much joie de vivre that you figure what the hell.

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

A:   My advice for playwrights starting out is that they shouldn't come to me for advice. My journey as a playwright has been totally upside down. I started writing plays over ten years ago by accident, got a production, then freaked out and stopped. I stated back up a few years ago. So far it's been fun. I mean, sometimes, it's just hard, making a beginning, middle and end is no joke. But seriously, I started out as a ballet dancer, moved to NYC at eighteen to dance, started acting in new plays, then wrote a play. I didn't go to college. So I'm constantly trying to educate myself. Don't do this. No matter how smart you think you are. Learning about the Greeks on your own is no fun. With all that in mind my advice don't try to write a good play, instead try to write a story that makes sense on some sort of level be it abstract or literal.

Q:  Upcoming:

A:  My full length play Hands has been selected for The Claque's reading series on Oct 13th. I'm looking forward to that. As an actor, I'm getting ready to shoot Morgan Gould's web series, so look for that on the inter webs. Also as an actor, I'm looking forwarded to remounting Megan Hill's hilarious and heartbreaking Jazzercise Play, directed by the great Margot Bordelon sometime this year.

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I Interview Playwrights Part 769: Matthew B. Zrebski

Matthew B. Zrebski

Hometown:  Austin, TX

Current Town:  Portland, OR

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I am currently in the initial drafting process for a play, titled Chrysalis. It was commissioned by the Young Professionals Program (YP) at Oregon Children’s Theatre and will premiere in April of 2016. The piece has eight teen characters. It also requires me to compose original music for mostly a cappella singing. I am exploring themes of generational change through a modern myth - the transformation of humans in ways that can either be a result of enlightenment or a dangerous and threatening morphing into savagery. Focus groups have been conducted with various teens to help in highlighting issues that matter to them.

Q:  Can you tell me about Playwrights West?

A:  Playwrights West came out of PlayGroup, a collective of playwrights assembled by the incredible Mead Hunter when he was Literary Director at Portland Center Stage. In 2009, we decided to move into a production model for our company, not unlike 13P - where one writer would receive a full production of their choosing approximately once a year. The first show was in 2012 (Patrick Wohlmut’s Continuum). And it has continued each year with Licking Batteries by Ellen Margolis in 2013, The Sweatermakers by Andrew Wardenaar in 2014, and the upcoming Dear Galileo by Claire Willett in 2015. Membership has changed a lot over the years, but we typically have 8 to 10 members at any given time.

In 2012, we launched our education program called Teen West. Initially this has been a collaboration with Wilson High School Drama, where each year, a Playwrights West member pens a play specifically for teen performers, where every character must be a teenager. The idea is to go from page to stage to publication so as to build richer teen centric works. I serve as the Education Director for Playwrights West and run this program each season, serving as the director/dramaturg for the plays. In year one (2013), we had a festival of one acts called The Warning Label: Water Down by Debbie Lamedman, Arm by Matthew B. Zrebski, and Verge Warnings by Karin Magaldi. Year two (2014) saw the premiere of The Waves by Patrick Wohlmut. And in year three (2015), Ellen Margolis’s Prime was produced and was also featured in The Fertile Ground Festival.

Q:  Can you tell me about Promising Playwrights?

A:  I am currently the Resident Teaching Artist at Portland Center Stage and since 2004, I have been teaching the Visions and Voices program for the organization. We go into six area public high schools during the school year and teach six-week playwriting residencies to drama students. Most years, we teach between 150 and 180 writers. In the spring, 22 are chosen to have their work presented in staged readings at PCS. And from those 22, 6 are chosen as “Promising Playwrights” to participate in JAW: A Playwrights Festival in the summer. This is a commissioning program where the writers pen new, 5 to 8 minute duet plays under my mentorship. In less than two weeks, the pieces are written, developed, and then presented as staged readings during the kick-off to the festival. The playwrights are paid for their work and treated as emerging professionals. It’s an incredible opportunity and many have gone on to pursue playwriting careers.

Q:  What is the Portland theater scene like?

A:  Since moving here in 1997, the scene has gradually and steadily expanded. I would now call Portland a vibrant theatre town, especially given our modest population. There are numerous organizations of varying sizes, many with a large regional presence like Portland Center Stage, Artists Repertory Theatre, Oregon Children’s Theatre, Portland Playhouse, Third Rail Repertory Theatre, Milagro, and Profile Theatre. And then there are extraordinary smaller companies that take incredible risks on new work, devised work, and innovative adaptations. Theatre Vertigo, Post5, defunkt theatre, and Shaking the Tree are just a few. In the winter, Fertile Ground has become an explosive fringe festival where new work is front and center. And then, of course, there is JAW at PCS which serves to anchor our focus on new plays.

What excites me about the future of our scene is we have more and more theatres able to offer AEA contracts. I firmly believe that a town that can support union talent is a town where theatre will thrive. I am also happy to see more and more artists coming here to treat Portland as a destination city, rather than a springboard town. In the past, many came here to build a resume and then move onto bigger markets. Though that certainly still happens, more and more are arriving to call Portland home and are able to sustain a level of creative satisfaction here.

I do desperately wish to see much more cultural diversity (this area is so very Caucasian) - but I’m thrilled that in terms of style, there is a lot of variety.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I want my theatre expressly “theatrical”. And by that, I guess I mean that I believe theatre begs an audience to engage their imaginations in ways that film and television do not. I am a huge lover of cinema and TV - but those art forms happen to you. Theatre happens with you. When I buy a ticket, I am contracting with the artists to play make believe - to suspend disbelief and fill in the world with my own creativity. In this way, I steer away from literal representations and naturalism. I love work that defies genre, challenges ideas and has a muscular thrust of theatrical magic - a full bodied use of stage language. I also love the feeling that I’m being invited to consider something in a new way…or for the first time. That “something” can be political. It can be stylistic. It can be structural. It can be spiritual. But truth be told, I have little interest in sitting and watching another family in a living room work out their issues. I think film and television do this better. I crave a theatre experience that breaks the boundaries of the three-dimensional world I walk around in each day.

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

A:  One: Don’t become a playwright, become a theatre artist who writes plays. Study it all. Know how to tape out a set. Know how to change a lamp. Know how to approach a monologue as an actor. Know how to stage a difficult scene.

Two: Always consider, “What am I asking the audience to consider when the curtain call is over?” Great art asks questions.

Three: Schedule your writing time like it’s critical. Because it is. Yes, your writing time is as important as that wedding you must attend, or going to the “day job”. It must be at the same level or it will get pushed aside.

Four: Write plays you would be first in line at the box office for. You can only predict yourself as an audience - no one else.

Q:  Plugs please

A:  I already mentioned Chrysalis which opens next April. But as a general shout out, I’ll mention that one of my most successful productions has been my musical, Ablaze: an a cappella musical thriller. I wrote the book, music, and lyrics and also directed the premiere. It won several major awards in 2013. The original cast album is unique in that it was produced to give the listener the entire aural experience of sitting in the audience. Every word of the piece has been recorded along with the brilliant sound design by Em Gustason. Producer Brandon Woods did a marvelous job, and I’m so thankful for Woodsway Entertainment for releasing the album. Future productions and publication are now pending. My hope is more and more will come to know this work in the next few years.

The website is at: http://www.ablaze-the-musical.com
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I Interview Playwrights Part 768: Ellen Struve

Ellen Struve

Hometown: Omaha, NE

Current Town: Strangely enough, Omaha, NE. We were transferred there from Chicago for my husband’s job about ten years ago. I had been writing, but only secretly and sporadically in Chicago. There was something really powerful in returning to the place where I grew up and reconnecting with my original impulses.

Q:  Tell me about your play at PlayPenn.

A:  It has a crazy long title with intentional misspelling. PRINCE MAX’S TREWLY AWFUL TRIP TO THE DESOLAT INTERIOR. It’s pretty wild and uses a lot of anachronisms. The lead roles are played by women. Sometimes animals address the audience. It is about a real expedition up the Missouri River in the 1830’s. This German prince and amateur naturalist/anthropologist hired a Swiss watercolorist, Karl Bodmer, to document his trip up the Missouri River during the last few years of autonomy for the tribes of the northern plains. Bodmer’s watercolors become these influential documents of the American West. The prince’s journal… not so much. The trip was a lot more difficult than they imagined. The play winds up being about then, but also about now—about our relationship to each other and our environment and our history. But funny, too.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  I’m halfway through a play about immigration in Central Nebraska. While working for the Nebraska Arts Council, I became fascinated by the demographic shift in the kind of small town my dad grew up in. Also, working for a government agency made me question the idea of citizenship in a new way.

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

A:  One August when I was little, maybe 5, the neighbor kids threw a backyard circus. Basically, it consisted of gymnastics, imaginary tightrope walking and some admittedly mediocre baton work courtesy my older sister. I was younger than the rest of the kids and had to fight for my spot. I wanted to be a tiger. I wore this wool felt tiger costume from a couple Halloweens past and came up with a lion tamer act. I nearly passed out from heat exhaustion while roaring, jumping through a hula hoop and doing somersaults in the 95 degree heat and Nebraska humidity. I started writing when I was six.

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

A:  Number one is affordability, but we all know that has to change.

I’d also like to see more live music in theatres, not just musicals. In plays, but also for pre-show. Why not an opening band? If you have money to renovate a lobby, you have money to buy an actual piano—you can keep it in your schmancy lobby. Maybe pay someone to play it every once in a while. It will be live. It will remind people that they are alive. And isn’t that why we come to the theatre in the first place? I think we need all the help we can get in that regard.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  The actors, directors and artists in my community who create theatre because they must. Omaha theatre survives on a mountain of generosity provided by its practitioners. I admire generous writers too. Ruhl, Wallace, Wilder, Odets, Gilman, Alfaro and Guirgis and the ever amazing Sibyl Kempson to name a few.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theatre that costs something. Not money, but a piece of the creators’ souls. I want to be able to feel some of the effort put into a play. I enjoy a buffet of styles and voices, but there has to be something there that feels a little expensive, a little revealing, for it to mean something to me.

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

A:  Get knocked down. Cry two tears. Get back up. Say, “I’ll show them.”

And don’t be afraid of moving back home. It might turn out great.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Playwrights, submit your amazing plays to Great Plains Theatre Conference so that I can meet you in person and submit your plays to PlayPenn so that you can have three solid weeks to live in your play.

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I Interview Playwrights Part 767: Sara Israel

cross-posted to Samuel French's  Blog
 
Sara Israel

Hometown:  Delmar, NY

Current Town:  Los Angeles, CA

Q:  Tell me about your OOB play.

A:  I have a series of six related short plays called “The Sense Plays.” My OOB play, “Tastes Like Teen Spirit!”, is one of them. The plays are designed to fit together as one production using eight actors, but also written to be pulled apart and produced independently of one another. Beyond each of them tackling a sense, my goal was for each to take on a complicated but universally felt aspect of what challenges us as we walk through the world. In “Tastes Like Teen Spirit!” a 19 year-old female intern is punched in the mouth by an older, female bigwig at a marketing consulting firm, because the Powers That Be want to know what the teenager’s blood tastes like to her. Why? Because teenage girls “matter” now in the world of consumerism in a way that has far exceeded their “worth” in times past. Yay? It’s a complicated and funny business to suddenly matter.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  I have a new play and new screenplay fairly far along in the hopper. I also direct things that I myself do not write—and I especially love helping talented playwrights shepherd new work.

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 second grade, our elementary school had a Latin American Fair. The fifth graders organized the game booths. One “game” was to guess the population of Latin America. I was pressured by cool fifth graders to “play,” and nervously and arbitrarily wrote down a number. They looked at me strangely after I did. I felt immediate shame for somehow not writing down a cool enough number. But no. Instead, it turns out I was less than 100 people off the official census population of Latin America—even though to this day I wouldn’t be able to tell you what geographically qualifies as that region per the World Census. I won a dime-store goldfish. My parents were pissed that the school would give a 7 year-old a goldfish without getting parental permission. I named her (him?) Glitter, and she (he?) lived more than two years just to spite them.

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

A:  Greater access to a greater range of theater experiences for everyone on stage, behind stage, and in the audience, in every which way that “access” entails. (That’s not asking too much, is it?)

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Oh, I could give such a long list, but instead I’ll focus on Wendy Wasserstein, because her play “Isn’t It Romantic?,” which I read in a summer playwriting class between 9th and 10th grade, was freakin’ revelatory for me at the time. My dad, who is awesome, jumped on board with my fandom. At the end of that same summer, he bought me an anthology of her work. For me, Wasserstein is a theatrical hero because she intuitively understood some universal truths about the lives of women, then dared to take those truths and create real and specific female characters to journey through them—stories and characters and conflicts and joys and heartaches and humor that moved through and reflected the decades of her own life as a woman, as a writer, and as a creature of the theater. When she passed away—well, I’ve never been sadder at the death of someone I never personally knew. And thinking about it now, I still feel the loss of what she won’t write—what truths she won’t be able to uniquely tell—about women in their 60s, 70s, and 80s.

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

A:  Seek out, surround yourself with, and always value talented, thoughtful, collaborative, and supportive people, not just in the theater world but also in life. (The latter can be just as important to your writing.)

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  www.SaraIsrael.com. Also, I’ve said this before on other platforms but I’ll keep saying it, I “plug” encouraging everyone experiencing art—be it theater or otherwise—outside our individual box. Whether you’re a creator or an audience member, there are so many ways we can inspire ourselves that we just could never be able to anticipate.

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