I Interview Playwrights Part 843: Jason Tseng

Jason Tseng

Hometown: Potomac, MD

Current Town: Long Island City, NY

Q:  Tell me about Rizing.

A:  Rizing is set many years after the zombie apocalypse in Shelter, the last living city on Earth. Infected family members, friends, and lovers have been rehabilitated thanks to a daily regimen of drugs and therapy, but the uninfected that have brought them back do not trust them. Now the drugs are starting to wear off, and Shelter’s two-tiered society is poised on the verge of all-out war. Characters on both sides must choose between rebuilding the world as it was and creating a new one by force.

I've been describing it as "The Walking Dead meets Octavia Butler," specifically because I love the way that Octavia Butler puts a whole new spin on bedrocks of the genre. That's what I'm trying to do with Rizing. Take a new approach to zombies, mainly by making zombies protagonists of the story. In most zombie stories, the first thing the characters have to do is to deny the humanity of the zombies. From the moment of infection, they become monsters worthy of violence. I thought that this is often the same thing that happens to people of color with law enforcement, Muslims and refugees with the Homeland Security, or Gay people during the AIDS crisis. I wanted to explore the humanity of the zombie experience, and how much it might resonate with experience of oppressed communities around the world.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  I have a queer Asian rom com that I've been working on called AirBnB. It's inspired by my experience dealing with my partner's coming out to his family. The story is about a gay Asian couple decide to rent an apartment on AirBnB as a cover when one of their parents makes an impromptu visit. It's more than a little melodramatic (two different love triangles!) but it has a heart of gold. It's also a little bit of an homage to The Wedding Banquet but for the 21st century.

I've also been doing research for another play that I've been prepping for. It's like Downton Abbey but set in colonial Hong Kong during the early 1900s. It deals with colonialism, nationalism, identity, and (surprise!) queer love. It's a super fascinating time period, especially because there has been hardly any media set in that specific time period. Most stuff I can find in Hong Kong is set in the 1980s during the economic boom, and during 1997 for the handover between the British and the People's Republic.

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 old AOL Instant Messenger screen name was kweenbtchgddess1. I got that nickname while serving as dance captain of my show choir. I was that kid in high school.

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

A:  Just like Bernie wants to break up the Big Banks. I'd break up the Big Theaters. And it's not that they're too big to fail (because they fail all the time)... it's that the way that way assets are distributed in the theater reinforces the exclusionary/racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic/ableist/etc theater-making system that we have today. When the gatekeepers are all old rich white dudes, no wonder the rest of us get shut out. I wrote a whole piece on that back during the whole LA 99 Seat Plan controversy.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  If you asked me this 10 years ago, I would say Tony Kushner, David Henry Hwang, and Matthew Bourne. But nowadays my heroes are decidedly less famous... and I'm too bashful to namecheck them here... but I'll simply quote June Jordan's famous line, "We are the ones we have been waiting for."

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theater that isn't afraid of bodies. I love physical theater, dance theater, movement theater, however you like to call it. I started out in dance, so I really resonate with theatre making that really relishes in that ephemeral experience of bodies in motion. I'm also a sucker for a good costume drama. I know that those two things seem worlds apart... but I did say that I liked Matthew Bourne...

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

A:  I mean... I'm just starting out... so it feels a little strange to give advice. But if I could give myself advice eight years ago when I was toying with the idea of writing plays: Don't wait. Don't wait for gatekeepers. Don't wait for someone to discover you. Don't wait for the perfect idea. Just go and do! Even if it's grabbing ten minutes at a time on the subway, just start writing. I walked away from playwriting for close to five years shortly after first trying it out because I didn't see a place for my voice in what was being produced. It felt like such an impossibility that anyone would notice me that investing time in writing plays just felt like a bad investment. But when I started writing stories just for me... without any expectation that anyone would see them other than the audiences in my imagination, that was when I started writing shit that people actually liked.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Come see my show! Rizing is produced by Flux Theatre Ensemble and runs at the Access Theatre Wednesdays-Sundays through June 4th. Tickets at www.fluxtheatre.org/rizing

You can find more info at JasonTseng.com. I post my drawings and stuff at tsengsational.tumblr.com, and I have a monthly column where I talk and cartoon about the arts, politics, and stuff at The Clyde Fitch Report.

I also run two podcasts: I produce Play x Play-- the best plays you've never heard of-- (www.playxplay.org). We take unpublished plays and release them as radio dramas for free in a serialized format. I also run a podcast with my friend Anthony called Queer and Present Danger which is a queer nerd pop culture podcast and is available on iTunes.

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I Interview Playwrights Part 842: Jason Gray Platt

Photo by Michele Crowe.

Jason Gray Platt

Hometown: Phoenix, AZ

Current Town: Brooklyn, NY

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  -An immersive children's show about neurology, birds, and jungle gyms as part of the LabWorks program at New Victory theater in New York City.


-A preposterously long play about the first performance of theater in the American Colonies that I'll be researching at the Folger Library in Washington D.C. on a fellowship this fall.


-A new large-scale immersive work with my theater company Woodshed Collective that is so interesting we don't even know what it is yet but it definitely will be once it has been.


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 wrote my first play, in high school, out of unrequited love.
(For a human.)
She was an actress, I wrote fiction, she wanted to something to work on, and she said, in jest, "Why don't you write me a play?"
"I'll do anything you want," I whispered to her shadow as it rounded the corner.
(In this memory I look and act vaguely like Gollum)
The play was very bad, but the process of writing it was very good.
"Good" being an understatement - it was more like having an awareness that the poured concrete foundation of my life, which I had been waiting for seventeen years to set, had finally done just that, and I could at last begin to build on it.
But I suppose that scenario could describe all of my plays.
Since every act of creation is an act of desire.
Willing into being that which is not, but (for whatever as-yet-undiagnosed reason) which the artist believes should be.
Like an unrequited relationship.
(Oh and that first play? It didn't make a bit of difference)

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

A:  Funding models.
It all comes back to funding models.
Will that change in this country any time soon?
Nah.
But dream big.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Ooooo "heroes" makes me uncomfortable.
Inspirations?
Let's do inspirations.
Caryl Churchill, Martin Crimp, Suzan-Lori Parks, Robert Wilson, Tony Kushner, Samuel Beckett, Edward Bond, Brecht, Young Jean Lee, Paula Vogel, Richard Maxwell, Ivo van Hove, Elizabeth LeCompte, Ariane Mnouchkine, Thomas Bernhard, Joe Orton, Enda Walsh, Chuck Mee, Pina Bausch, Anne Bogart, &c.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Big gestures.
The big gesture takes many forms. Textual, chronological, choreographic, experiential, design-ical, to name a few.
Go big or go home.
Then just go home.
Because by now the play is over and you look weird sitting in a dark theater by yourself.

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

A:  Meet, love, and work with your peers.
Who are also just starting out.
Naturally when you're young you want to work with people who have established themselves, with "names," as it were. People generally older than you.
But A: Those people are working with their own people (their peers),
And B: In time those people will retire/die/transmigrate/sublimate/what-have-you and be replaced by you and your peers.The people I met just out of college are now -- [REDACTED] years later -- established and working, and because we have worked together for so long we have strong collaborative relationships in place.

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I Interview Playwrights Part 841: Padraic Lillis

Padraic Lillis

Hometown: Fairport, NY

Current Town: Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, NY

Q:  Tell me about Hope You Get To Eleven or ...

A:  The full title is: Hope You Get To Eleven or What are we going to do about Sally? It's a solo show on the topic of suicide. It's a two part title because the first part addresses the individual considering suicide and the second part focuses on friends and family of people that are struggling. This past fall I was a guest artist at a university where a student that was charming, bright, witty, and warm, a person that no one could say a negative word about, committed suicide. It was a shock to everyone. 105 people die from suicide each day in the United States and that rate is rising. One reason is because we don't talk about it. That's what inspired me to create this solo show. It is an honest, intimate, slightly humorous sharing of my experiences in the hopes of opening up the conversation on the topic of suicide. I'm nervous about performing it because it's very honest and vulnerable. Also, I don't usually act. I primarily direct and write. However, it is an important conversation and if I'm going to ask others to talk about it - I should start with myself. When I shared on social media that I was performing the play to benefit the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and why, some of 'Sally's' classmates and her family reached out with appreciation that the play was happening. Hearing from each of them reminds me that it is not just my story...it's a lot of people's story - and with that comes a sense of responsibility that forces me to be honest and thorough in the process of creating and sharing the play.

Q:  What else are you working on right now?

A:  I'm writing my first t.v. pilot. I hope something comes of it. It is about the first female to play professional baseball. I'm loving the process of learning t.v. structure and writing the script. It's a challenge to confront my own habits and shortcomings, as well as being able to look at the barriers that reside in society to fully addressing gendering inequality. It seems like it should be a no brainer - but we all have too much invested in a system that already exists. I made it about baseball for a lot of reasons, it's America's past time, etc...but the primary reason is that I love baseball and it's fun to write 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'm not sure I can explain who I am as a writer or a person in one story. However, the story that came to mind is that when my brother and I were around ten and twelve years old, we would come home from our Little League games and act them out for our mom. Each story would start with, "You should've seen me." - set up is key, make the story feel important. I learned that from my brother. He's two years older than me. He's bigger than I am and in my mind, and his, he was a great athlete. I would let him tell his story first. So I could learn structure of how to frame the story and what needed to be in there. Also, if I went first there wouldn't be nearly as many spectacular moments as in his story. One night when he was talking about an amazing defensive play he made, with all the enthusiasm in the world, he starts, "the ball was hit, like a shot, it goes flying up the middle, I dove -", extending his right arm as far as he can, "and just as it's going past the infield, I caught it." From the kitchen table, I quietly interjected, "That must've hurt like a bitch." He stopped mid story and asked, "Why?" I pointed out that his glove was on his other hand. My mother laughed, and so did he. Those recaps were formative in my beliefs of story telling - what really happened is not necessarily good theater and it's the details that ground the audience in the world of the play.

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

A:  The perception of exclusivity.

Theater is for everyone. That statement is true for our audiences as well as those who desire to make it. We need to make sure everyone feels welcome and is invited to participate. The theater is where we go to feel less alone in the world. To hear our stories and to feel seen and heard by others. And to learn about our neighbors.

A lot of amazing things are happening right now in the theater. We are having exciting conversations through incredible plays by artists such as Stephen Adly Guirgis, Suzan Lori Parks, Lin Manuel Miranda, Tony Kushner, Annie Baker, Rajiv Joseph, Lynn Nottage, Lucas Hnath, Anne Washburn, and many more. It feels as vibrant a time in the theater as any with a lot of different voices being shared.

Most of those playwrights were creating vibrant work well before they were invited into the well established institutions that are presenting their work for audiences today. Their plays were being produced on almost no budget - and the ticket price was a lot lower. I mention this because money isn't the barrier for participating in the theater. Theater's perceived value to the individual is the barrier.

I want the theater's value to be recognized by everyone but more importantly I want everyone to feel that their value is recognized in the theater.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Peter Brook for a couple of reasons. The Empty Space was the first important theater book I ever read and then the more I learned about his work - I appreciated his commitment to the art form and authenticity and exploration.

Arthur Miller. I was fortunate enough to be in a production of Death of a Salesman in high school. I have to say that statement always sounds absurd until it's followed by the fact that Philip Seymour Hoffman played Willy Loman. He was as brilliant then as he was twenty eight years later on Broadway. That play opened my eyes to everything I wanted theater to be. It is personal, it's about family, it's about fathers and sons - and it's about the humanity of us all trying to live up to mythology that is almost impossible to achieve. I want to write political plays like Brecht but I when I sit down to write - what comes out are family and personal dramas. Arthur Miller shows that the personal is political. 

After that my heroes are everyone who get up every day and try to do a little bit more than they thought they were capable of doing yesterday. That's what inspires me. That's what keeps me going.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I have a visceral reaction to smart, funny, vibrant, emotional theater that engages me on many levels; and opens me up to worlds and perspectives that may be different than my own. Hamilton is a prime example of this. Also, I get excited by theater where I can feel that the artists involved are fully investing and sharing themselves in the work.

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

A:  Write for yourself. Write as if no one is every going to see it. Write your truth. And challenge yourself to learn something about yourself and the people you are writing about.

When you finish a draft - get the best group of actors you know together to read your play. Hear it out loud - listen to their thoughts, trust your gut. Rewrite. When it feels important and you have to share it. Get it put up somewhere. Anywhere. Your voice is important. Share it with us.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  I am preparing to direct two shows:
The Pink Hulk written and performed by Valerie David. It is a solo show about a two time cancer survivor finding her inner super hero. It is also part of the Planet Connections Theatre Festivity.http://pinkhulkplay.com

In the Event of My Death by Lindsay Joy, produced by Stable Cable Lab Co. at IRT in August. I'm very proud of this show because it is the first play that was developed by The Farm Theater's College Collaboration Project. Also, coincidentally it confronts the issue of suicide - so I'm to proud to be able to continue the conversation throughout the summer. www.thefarmtheater.org

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I Interview Playwrights Part 840: Eric Reyes Loo

Eric Reyes Loo

Hometown: Downey, California

Current Town: Los Angeles, California

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I have a fully-staged reading of a play called After and Before – about a disillusioned man who leaves the priesthood – at The Blank’s Living Room Series tonight. I specify “fully-staged” because it scares the hell out of me. But I’m excited. It happens in reverse chronology and has a mystery at the center of it. Two things I haven’t done before. And I’ve been working on a new play about the year I took to take care of my dad as he was dying. It’s super dirty and sexual. Chalk Rep’s doing a workshop of that this summer. And they just asked me to join their Artistic Circle as a company member, so I’m excited about having a home base.

On the TV side, I’m doing that writer thing of writing a ton of spec pilots. I have two scripts in the queue that have full outlines that I’m ready to start writing as soon as there’s room in the schedule. And I’m writing the season finale episode of the show I’m writing on called Guidance for Awesomeness TV, which is due in four days. I got to write two episodes this season and it has been incredible. Another scary experience. But I’m five times the writer I was a few months ago.

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 seven or eight, I asked my parents if I could take jazz dance at the YMCA. They said no because they we were too poor. Then they signed up my younger brother for soccer the following year and bought him new shoes, a soccer ball, and paid for his registration fee. I understood that I was going to have to do this art thing on my own. Now my family gets it – kind of – but it taught me that if I was going to live a creative life it was all on me and it would take some sacrifice. Ultimately, I’m thankful for the way things turned out. I teach now. And when I see someone with a spark, I try to start a fire within them.

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

A:  The positive, proactive answer is that I wouldn’t change a thing. There are things about theatre that I don’t like and my work is sometimes a reaction to those things. So it fuels me. The institution exists so that one can rebel against it. It also makes me think about how I am a part of the machinery and how I distinguish myself from it. It pushes me to put things out there that I’m not seeing. Yet, it gives me comfort to know that my work absolutely exists in a theatrical tradition. Even the avant-garde is part of a tradition. Not that my work is avant-garde in any way.

But the other answer is that I wish theatre was more inclusive than exclusive. I have the same philosophy about religion. I wish it included more traditions, beliefs, methodologies and people than it left out. Theatre of all shapes, sizes, and shades. The truth is: theatre IS a bunch of different things. But the institutional theatre is often singular.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Erik Ehn was my very first playwriting professor. I sat in that class as a college sophomore – the youngest person in my class – and said to myself within the first ten minutes, “I’m a playwright.” He’s a sorcerer, that guy. And he speaks in tongues. For some oddball reason, I speak that language. It became instantly clear in that moment, that destiny had brought me to his classroom. I had decided not to go to UC Berkeley and to go to a small Jesuit liberal arts college – Santa Clara University – instead. I didn’t know until two years in that he was the reason I was supposed to be at Santa Clara. I had no idea who he was when I got there. And I had him all to myself – I did two independent studies with him after that.

As far as other theatre people I admire: Sarah Kane, Edward Albee, Tony Kushner, Twyla Tharp, Pina Bausch, Fosse, Sondheim.

And the people who are my peers, some of whom I know: Cory Hinkle, David Myers, Carrie Barrett, Jordan Harrison, Noah Haidle, Sigrid Gilmer, Jennie Webb, Annie Baker, and Qui Nguyen.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Bold, theatrical plays with an urgency and a reason for being. And plays that are actually funny. Like Annie Hall or Master of None or Bridesmaids funny. I want a diet of nothing but that. I aspire to both of those things.

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

A:  Advice I’ve been given: “Know Your Business” (Bethenny Frankel), “Keep Your Eyes on Your Own Paper” (Elizabeth Gregory Wilder) and “Everything is Writing” (Erik Ehn).

From me: Find a community. It’s not the same thing as networking – although that is also important.

I’ve been embraced by Jen Haley and the Playwrights Union. That has led to some of my closest friendships. For years I was living in LA and talking to other aspiring writers. Lovely people. But they’re not playwrights – geeky, needy, sensitive, funny, know-it-alls, intellectual, well-read, and sexy. And now I’ve been asked to join a company – all of whom have cute butts I’d willingly kiss in gratitude. I’ve long admired Chalk Rep and now I’m being brought into the fold. You need people who unconditionally support you and want you to do better and who will give you helpful, non-prescriptive notes. Because when and if you work in TV or film, you’ll be getting all sorts of pitches for things you should do from people who aren’t there to nurture your soul. It’s a different relationship.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Theatres in LA I’ve worked at and love: Rogue Machine, Moving Arts, The Blank and Chalk Rep. Ruth McKee’s production of In Case of Emergency, which runs in various locations around Los Angeles June 3rd-July 3rd (www.chalkrep.com).

The Playwrights Union: Get to know these writers if you don’t know them already (www.playwrightsunion.com).

Our show, Guidance, premieres this fall on the Verizon Go90 app. And I hear it’s running in its full ten 30-minute episode format internationally. Hopefully, it will get to run in the half-hour format in the States as well. Say a prayer.

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I Interview Playwrights Part 839: Jan Rosenberg

Jan Rosenberg

Hometown: Manhattan

Current Town: Manhattan

Q:  Tell me about your upcoming play reading with Barefoot.

A:  'What's Wrong With You' is a cautionary tale about growing up in a world that's getting less and less empathetic. I mean, I see babies in strollers using iPads and elementary school kids that know what Instagram is but can't make eye contact. I wonder what it's like to come out of the womb dependent on technology.

My play is the culmination of my recurring nightmares. Or daymares, really. I wrote the first scene after witnessing something incredibly disturbing on a subway car. A teenage girl was by herself and clearly either intoxicated or about to be sick. It was pretty obvious. Everyone (myself included) seemed to be playing this game where we were waiting for someone else to approach her. Because this is New York-no one wants to get involved in other people's shit. At some point she pitched forward and hit her head-she got off by herself at the next stop. No one said anything. I found myself questioning everyone, thinking: what's wrong with you all? But then, I didn't do anything either, so what's wrong with me?

My sweet spot is dark comedy. I love finding humor in tragedy. And call me sadistic, but I like to be scared. I think there are certain things in this play that will be uncomfortable to watch. That's the kind of theater that excites me. We have an incredible cast of young folks, many of whom I've been in awe of for years of watching their work. Working with Shira-Lee Shalit as my director has been fantastic. I first met her through LAByrinth Theater Company when I was 21 (I'm 27 now). I'm so excited to be developing this piece with her.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  'What's Wrong With You' is in talks for a film adaptation, which is really exciting. I also just completed a TV pilot called 'Treat Yourself'. It's a dark comedy in the vein of Orange Is The New Black and revolves around the lives of women in an Eating Disorder Treatment Facility. And so many plays in the works. I have writer's brain. It won't let me sleep.

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 Dad let my brother and I rent all the Stephen King Movies when I was 9.

When I was 11, I discovered the best book I had ever read (at that time). I was up 'til 3AM finishing it. I could hardly wait to tell my 6th-grade English teacher about it. I thought I'd discovered gold. She was so excited to see how enthusiastic I was. When I told her the title, she made a face and was like 'Oh...wow.' It was Flowers In The Attic.

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

A:  Ticket prices. Just kidding...sort of. My wish is for theater to continue to push the boundaries of what an audience might expect or feel comfortable with. As is life, theater/art is not a neat, contained thing. It's chaotic and messy. Sometimes it's unattractive. And uncomfortable. There are times where I feel like in order to see something that's really gritty and challenging, I need to climb down a sewer in order to find it. I only do that sometimes, though.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Deceased: Samuel Beckett.

Alive and kicking: Edward Albee, Adam Rapp, Jose Rivera, Rajiv Joseph, Martin McDonagh, Jenny Schwartz, Halley Feiffer, Lucas Hnath, Aaron Mark, Stephen Adly Guirgis, Jonathan Larson, Lin Manuel Miranda, Stephen Sondheim, Tyrone from Hand To God and the dog who played Sandy in the most recent Annie revival.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Anything that's unpredictable, uncomfortable, weird, hilarious, disturbing... I'm a horror buff. Horror movies don't scare me. I love when a play scares me. Last year Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins's Gloria, Aaron Mark's Empanada Loca and Mac Rogers's The Honeycomb Trilogy fulfilled everything I love about playwriting.

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

A:  Go outside the classroom. Read everything. See everything. Don't try to mimic other writers. No one really has any idea what they're doing, so don't worry too much.

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I Interview Playwrights Part 838: Matt Opatrny

photo by Alan Roche

Matt Opatrny

Hometown: I grew up in Shelton, CT.

Current Town: New York City is home now, and so is a tiny mountain village in Italy, Anversa degli Abruzzi.

Q:  Tell me about Body: Anatomies of Being.

A:  Blessed Unrest (blessedunrest.org) is the ensemble I co-founded in 1999 and we have built this play collaboratively over the last two years. The text is just one player in this piece and by no means has the text led the process. We started with bodies in a room under Jessica Burr’s brilliant guidance, those bodies started moving, stories emerged, and I wrote them down. It was wonderful and intense and terrifying and the resulting production is perhaps the play I am most proud of having been a part of.

One of the many through lines of the piece is based on the life and work of Francis Cunningham, a painter of nudes. I spent a lot of time with Francis, and my text is infused with his words and ideas, as well as those of the performers. It’s a wild and wonderful piece of physical theatre that people are going nuts for. We close May 21. All the info is at blessedunrest.org.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  I’m working on releasing “Body” from my brain so I can focus on three other things I’ve got brewing. It’s not going well!

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

A:  American theatre needs a violent separation from capitalism. The capitalist model values doing more with less as quickly as possible and charging the highest price you can for it. This model leads to theatre done badly, with underpaid artists and overpriced tickets, and an audience base that is wealthy and bored. We also need to recognize that Broadway is its own animal, and when playwrights have Broadway and/or Hollywood as their goal, it is at the peril of art. That’s two things, sorry. I will refrain from adding a dozen more changes I’d like to see!

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Arthur Miller, Complicite, Anne Bogart and SITI, Michael Jackson, Michael Jordan, Suzan-Lori Parks, Bill T. Jones, Pina Bausch, Keith Cobb and “American Moor”, Marian Seldes, Idris Goodwin, Prince, Ivo Van Hove, Jessica Burr, Tom Stoppard, and mostly my daughter Evelyn.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  The work of those in the previous question, and Body: Anatomies of Being. I mean it. The work the cast is doing every night is the boldest, most open, and most complicated thing I’ve seen in years, maybe ever.

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

A:  Find collaborators you trust, and that scare the crap out of you. Most importantly, a director who has vision and will challenge you. Then listen. Then make plays that you could never make on your own in front of a computer. Make plays that are much bigger than you are, and smarter, and more eloquent. And question the age, race, and gender of every single character you write, because you are the product of a flawed culture.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Body: Anatomies of Being! Closes May 21 in New York. blessedunrest.org

But don’t take my word for it, this is what one of the critics said:

“Once in a blue moon comes a piece of theatre so impactful you wonder if you won’t be talking about it for years to come. A piece of theatre so unique and bold, it makes you exclaim, ‘Wait. Theatre can do this?’ Blessed Unrest’s Body: Anatomies of Being is such a show. Daring in its intimacy, performed with mesmerizing vulnerability, Body is a truly exceptional piece of theatre.

“If you choose one play to see this year, go see this show.”

~ Rachel Kerry, New York Theatre Review

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I Interview Playwrights Part 837: Andrew Rincón

Andrew Rincón

Hometown:  Fort Myers, FL.

Current Town:  New York City.

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I’m juggling between three main projects right now. I’m in a new writer’s group called Wright Club with the Amoralists theatre company and a staged reading/workshop of a new one act of mine will go up with them at the end of May. It’s called I Wanna Fuck like Romeo and Juliet. Cupid and Saint Valentine make a wager on a newly minted relationship between two men. The play is dealing with monogamy, love, fetish and a bit of everything in between. I’m adapting another one act, Inheritance (Blood Memory) into a full length. And I’m finally making the long awaited dive into comic books, working with an incredible illustrator, Micah Milner, on creating a new web-comic series.

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

A:  In a conversation with my brother recently we were discussing some silly family drama, and he said to me “in this family, you have to speak to three different generations to get the full story”. I think that is a perfect statement that shows where I pull from as a writer. I grew up with some incredible stories from my entire family, stories that bleed down from my grandmother, to my mother, to me. When I was a kid, one of my favorite things to do was to dive into my Mother’s photo albums. Starting with the most recent albums filled with my brother and I, I would follow the memories down into the black and white of my mother’s childhood in Cali, Colombia when my grandmother was a young woman herself. I’d get lost in my head with all of that. When I look at what I write now, I feel like I see my whole family stomping their way through the words.

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

A:  Without a doubt, the deficit of opportunities for queer artists, people of color, women, and anyone that doesn’t fit that straight-white male majority.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Tony Kushner, Lucy Thurber, Stephen Adly Guirgis. Taylor Mac. Luis Alfaro’s play Electricdad and Quiara Hudes’s play 26 Miles changed my outlook on theatre completely. They showed me that anyone can take their culture, their singular experience, and put it in their work. Those were also some of the first plays I read that talked about Latinidad is such a way that resonating with me for years after.

I also adore Stefanie Zadravec. Not only is her work brilliant, poetic, and theatrical (it’s like the woman is directly channeling Tennessee Williams’s), but she is and was, one of the most encouraging teachers I have ever had the pleasure to work with. I recommend her workshops and classes to everyone I know.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Messy. The magical. The truly theatrical.

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

A:  I feel like I am still very much at the cusp of my career, so this one is a bit difficult. See all the shows you can (if someone ever offers you a free ticket, take it). Read books like Steal like an Artist. Read plays, plays, plays and see how your favorites do what they do.

Also, trust yourself. I know I constantly fall into a trap of writing 10 pages, then asking 10 people to read it and give me the most explicit feedback (and then invariably becoming overwhelmed by all the different opinions). Just write. Finish the draft. Take some time away. Get laid. Give it to a mentor, or one person you trust. Then tackle that draft again. Breathe. You can do this. You’re better than you think you are.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  I Wanna Fuck like Romeo and Juliet goes up with another piece, LoveHack by the incredible Sander Gusinow on May 25th at The Medicine Show Theatre. It's the 5th Wright Night Event with the Amoralists Theatre Company.

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I Interview Playwrights Part 836: Sander Gusinow

Sander Gusinow

Hometown:
I come from Eugene, Oregon. Which is more-or-less a hippie retirement community. We've also had some Bigfoot sightings, but I don't mean to brag.

Current Town:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMX1sc3eOTE

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  Right now I'm rehearsing a play called 'Lovehack,' it's about a couple who discover they fell in love as part of a research experiment.

Q:  How did you get the idea for that?

A:  I took psychotropic drugs for most of my childhood, so I've always been really into the neurology of why we do the things we do. I read about a psychologist names Arthur Aron who showed that love can be created between two strangers if they talk about themselves why maintaining eye-contact. So many people of our generation have this mantra that 'Love is the Answer' and I'm always like, 'No, love is a chemical reaction that can be both manufactured and extinguished.' That's not to say love isn't real, wonderful, and extraordinarily powerful (easily the most powerful emotion of them all), but the idea that we're all going to just wake up one day and 'love' one another, from a chemical standpoint, is pretty ridiculous. The brain can't produce enough Oxytocin to love more than 6-12 people... Without the help of drugs, anyway.

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 little brother is one of the most badass people I know. He's a former cage-fighter and Krav Maga expert, but when he was younger he would sometimes play with Barbie and Ken dolls. There was this one set he really loved because they were wearing wet-suits and he was always fascinated with scuba-diving. (Did I mention he's also a scuba-diver?) Anyway, one day these girls started to tease him for it, saying Barbie was for girls. Being the stalwart older sibling that I was I came to his defense. I got into a physical fight with the girls (I was bigger, sure, but there were two of them!) and I got in major trouble and they didn't because apparently girls were allowed to hit boys but not the other way around. It was like, BAM. A crash-course in gender norms packed into an hour and a half. I'm a diehard feminist now, and it all started that rainy afternoon.

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

A:  Man... This is going to be unpopular, but I wish there wasn't such a stigma against writing plays that could be seen as 'cinematic.' We often conflate 'realism' with 'boring' but boring writing has nothing to do with the style of the play. My soon-to-be wife isn't in the theater industry, and when I take her to see new work, she usually leaves feeling like the play was either inaccessible or trying to make her feel stupid. I know everyone thinks they need to alienate their audience because they read Brecht in college, but we're so alienated when we walk into the theater already... I want to see emotion onstage. I want you to make me give a damn. It's hard to make people give a damn in 2016.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  That would certainly be a long list of Brits and Jews. Deborah Zoe Laufer, Terry Johnson, Wendy Wasserstein, Joe Orton, Richard Greenberg, Martin McDonaugh I could hero-vomit all over this question.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Any time I actually have to think about a play, I'm excited. I like theatre that tells the truth, regardless of how scary or upsetting (or uplifting!) that truth may be. Plays that seep into my brain, and affect my daily life, when I leave the theater an ever-so-slightly different person because of what I saw.... Those are the kind of plays I live for. If I can do that to just one person then my entire writing career has been worth it. Or at least that's what I tell myself when I get rejection letters.

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

A:  It's more important to be yourself than to be original. Lots of early-career writers (myself included) want so badly to be "fresh" that they totally entomb what makes their voices special. Also, don't write a play with Fairies. It shames us all.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Always! Come see our 'Wright Club showcase on May 25th! Medicine Show Theater! 7:30! you can see 'Lovehack' as well as a play by my esteemed colleague Andrew Rincón!

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I Interview Playwrights Part 835: Emily Schmitt

Emily Schmitt

Hometown: Cincinnati, OH

Current Town: New York, specifically Bay Ridge, Brooklyn

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  Several things, but what I'm most excited about is a play called "Under Further Review," which is very loosely based on something that happened when I was in college. A young woman committed suicide after accusing a football player of sexual assault. This lead to an investigation into the university's sexual assault policy and a great deal of turmoil on campus. My play is about a former star athlete who must confront his alma mater after his daughter's rape on campus. In doing do, he faces some disturbing truths about himself and the institution he most loves. The play is currently being developed with the help of The CRY HAVOC Company.

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 fifth grade, I had a gym teacher I really detested. Looking back, I'm not sure if I detested him, or if it was just the humiliation of gym class that made me feel a great injustice was being done in my life. Either way, I decided that he needed to be fired. I had some legitimate reasons, such as the way he talked down to the girls in the class and one uncomfortable moment when he shouted into the dressing room. My best (only) friend, Katie, and I decided to write a petition to get him fired. We walked around at recess asking the girls in our class to sign it. All but one put their signature on that piece of paper, which Katie then slid under the door to the principle's office one fateful Wednesday evening.

The next day was probably the most traumatic of my educational experience. Everyone who signed the petition was rounded up into a classroom, where this gym teacher was openly weeping on a stool facing the students. The parish priest, an even higher position than the principal, informed us that we had committed the Cardinal Sin of slander and, if we did not ask for forgiveness, were going to Hell. (I cannot make this stuff up.) We were then asked, one my one, to apologize to this weeping adult man and explain to him what had possessed us to do such a thing to him. Naturally, most of the fifth grade girls were terrified and pointed their fingers at Katie and I. We, apparently, had threatened to beat them up if they didn't sign. We had lied to them and said the form was about Girl Scouts. We had even forged signatures. One by one, my classmates were dismissed as their false claims of my misdeeds were accepted. Finally, the only ones left in the room were myself, the priest, this gym teacher, and Katie. I still remember the moment I looked down and realized we were holding hands.

That pretty much sums up my feelings about justice, faith, and friendship.

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

A:  I find the theatrical community to be pretty philosophically homogeneous, which is dangerous if we really want to connect with our audiences. I once had a director tell me to stop writing about Catholicism because its not relevant in modern society. I think he spent too much time around theater folk.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Arthur Miller is my guiding light. Death of a Salesman may very well be a perfect play. I have yet to find a flaw in it.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I actually just stood up and spent about ten minutes pacing my apartment trying to think of something to say other than "Hamilton is the greatest!" I wish I had some cool, edgy, thing that no one's heard of. But that would be dishonest. Hamilton is by far the most exciting thing I've seen in the past year, and here is why: it's a true epic. Plays stopped wanting to be epic for a little while and just got really small. We wanted to write very small plays about middle-class couples having difficult break-up conversations in their living rooms. I'm not sure why that happened. Shakespeare wrote about kings. I'm not saying every play needs to be about powerful people or great historical events, but the emotions should be that big. And the stakes should be that high. (See why I love Arthur Miller....)

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

A:  If you're writing a play to make a statement or to teach your audience something, take a step back. You are not morally or intellectually superior to your audience. Start with with a question and try to scare yourself a little.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  My play "Whatchamacallit: A Play About Jesus" is running for one more weekend at the Secret Theater. People say it's pretty funny.
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