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1100 Playwright Interviews

1100 Playwright Interviews A Sean Abley Rob Ackerman E.E. Adams Johnna Adams Liz Duffy Adams Tony Adams David Adjmi Keith Josef Adkins Nicc...

Oct 21, 2018

I Interview Playwrights Part 1008: Daryl Lisa Fazio





Daryl Lisa Fazio

Hometown: Starkville, Mississippi 

Current Town: Atlanta, Georgia

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  Two projects. One is LADY OF THE HOUSE, a play for one actor (the audience is the other character; this isn’t a monologue or memoir play—it unfolds in real time, and the audience is critical in that unfolding, not because they have dialogue or duties, but because they are present in the room). It’ll have a developmental workshop at Actor’s Express in the spring. It’s set in the future. It’s mysterious and theatrical and funny. It’s about revolution. But mostly it’s about life and death and female rage and empathy and the transcending power of art. Just, you know, the easy, everyday stuff. It’s my soul response—rather than a political one—to what’s going on the country at the moment. Not in a didactic way, but more of a visceral one. Geez, that sounds pretentious.

And the other play is SAFETY NET—it’s what I’m working on in my residency at the Alliance Theatre this year. It features three women in small-town Alabama coping with the opioid crisis. The main character is a fire chief and first responder. The others are her mother, who is in chronic pain, and a friend from her childhood, who is in recovery from heroin. I’m a strong believer in putting-ourselves-in-someone-else’s-shoes as a way to fix, well, pretty much everything. So this play sets out to educate in some ways, but mostly to create empathy for people struggling with addiction.

In both cases, I’m working on the plays as an actor as well.

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

A:  Lordy, I don’t think I’ve got one tidy little story. It’s such a piling on of little moments I’m STILL recognizing. But it’s all about the south. It’s all about being a woman in a place where family and femininity are paramount. Where high expectations come from within because they’re not really coming from without. And I’m talking about the cultural landscape, not my home. Both my parents were college professors (big formative factor for me as writer/human), and they made sure I knew there weren’t any limits.

So my plays all feature strong women bucking systems while also trying to find connection. Using humor where maybe it’s not considered appropriate (I mean, as far as I’m concerned, it’s ALWAYS appropriate). Being “non-feminine,” whatever the hell that means. Not necessarily having traditional relationships or female family roles. But making their OWN families and roles in ways that are truthful to who they are.

Also, many of my plays are set in the south because I’m still trying to figure out what that place is. The wondrous things about it, and also the things that made me run away from there as soon as I graduated high school. Its bull-headed conservatism and lyrical language and kindness and passive-aggression and air thick with religion and heat and beauty and song and food and complicated-as-hell race relations. Its literary ghosts. Its real ones. And how the world outside of the Deep South thinks they understand what they never can.

Notice that, though I ran away at 18, in my 30s, I came back. And I ain’t left since.

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

A:  To have it be more inclusive of “the masses.” Theatre has such a capacity to change hearts and minds. To introduce complicated ideas in a way that makes us not shut down but actually run out and want to learn more. To show us all how similar we are, rather than different. But audiences are a tiny percentage of the make-up of the country. The world. I wish we could tell our stories to EVERYONE.

I know plenty of theatres are working with their own ideas on how to make that happen—lowering prices, creating community engagement, trying to use hip marketing platforms and throw theme nights and events.

How do we make theatre not feel like this separate, exclusive thing, though? I don’t think it’s with gimmicks. I think we have to do even better at telling stories that show ALL people we SEE them and VALUE them. And to have more people in the plays AND the audience who look like them.

And also, you know, we need to prove to them that theatre’s funny and wild and accessible and relevant and inclusive and different from both Netflix AND old-timey Shakespeare.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you? 

A:  The THEATRICAL kind. That’s number one. Take advantage of the medium, the space, the magic, the immediacy.

But AWESOME STORYTELLING also excites me, and that can be in a living room.

Ultimately, though, I just feel like a piece in the theatre should ONLY be able to happen in the theatre.

Magical realism has gained popularity in recent years, and when that’s done well, that is f**king life-changing. I saw the theatricalized version of Brief Encounter at St. Ann’s Warehouse back in 2010, and here we are going along rather naturalistically, a man and a woman meet, and there’s a connection and attraction. And then THE MAN SUDDENLY IS LIFTED OFF THE GROUND AND FLIES INTO THE AIR as a physical expression of his soul. Honestly, it changed so many things for me as a writer, that moment.

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

A:  

* There are no shortcuts for hard work. If you don’t love spending time with yourself and words, find something else to do. Because Lawd knows you aren’t going to get rich from it. And there will be a lot more heartache and disappointment along the way than there will be success and fulfillment. But if you can fulfilled simply from solving a tough moment in a script, and there’s no one but the cat to celebrate with you in that instant, and you still feel a rush and giddy sense of artistic growth and accomplishment, this is the life for you. If you can’t NOT write plays, this is the life for you.

* I have made playwriting my side hustle. My main hustle is graphic design for professional theatre. That’s how I’ve made 90% of my contacts and how I got three of my plays produced and how I pull all this off without an agent. I feel having playwriting as my side gig also keeps me from hating it when it’s hard or punishing or I get a bad review. Because I can take a psychic break from it.

* TAKE BREAKS.

* SEE THEATRE OF ALL KINDS.

* MAKE FRIENDS WITH ACTORS AND HAVE THEM OVER FOR TACOS AND TO READ YOUR DRAFTS ALOUD.

* BUILD RELATIONSHIPS with theatres. Get to know their missions, their audiences, their successes and failures, their tendencies, their artistic staff (even if that’s not personally, but just in terms of who they are and where they’re coming from). Then choose places you feel like you and your work could thrive. Then write plays with those places in mind.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Public reading of LADY OF THE HOUSE is in April. That’s all that’s officially on the docket at the moment. Expecting at least one production in the 2019-2020 season. God, those dates just made me feel the weight of the end of the world. Or is it the beginning?
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Oct 17, 2018

I Interview Playwrights Part 1007: Marilynn Barner Anselmi



Marilynn Barner Anselmi 

Hometown: I grew up in Holt, Michigan 

Current Town: Rocky Mount, NC 

Q:  What are you working on now? 

A:  My newest full length script, Seven Bridges Road— based on the true stories of the murders/disappearances of ten black women and the killing of a leading white woman in a small, southern city. 

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

A:  Every summer, my family visited my dad’s childhood home in rural, western Tennessee. There his many kin gathered in the evenings and, after dinner, the women told the most fascinating, boisterous tales us kids weren’t allowed to hear. I discovered if I scooted under the huge dining room table early enough, I could stay, knees hugged close to my chest, silently eavesdropping on their outrageous tales and thundering laughter. It was there I learned the music of dialect, the flavor of accent, the entrancing magic of story telling.

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

A:  Accessibility, definitely. 

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes? 

A:  So many: Margaret Edson, Henrik Ibsen, August Wilson, Doug Wright, Lorrainne Hansberry, Lynn Nottage, Tony Kushner, Marsha Norman, Paula Vogel, Edward Albee, etc. 

Q:  What kind of theater excites you? 

A:  Theater that makes me forget I’m watching a play. Theatre I wish I’d written. 

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

A:  How do you plan to support yourself while you chase this demon? 

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  American Bard Theater is the rare, essential theater that truly supports new playwriting. Though many companies claim to offer that opportunity, look closely at the work they produce. Most of it comes from playwrights with extensive writing backgrounds and the requisite MFA. Does this mean writers from smaller areas, with less formal training have nothing worthy to say? ABT has the artistic courage and vision to offer this type of (almost nonexistent) production opportunity.  

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Oct 16, 2018

I Interview Playwrights Part 1006: Ming Peiffer




Ming Peiffer

Hometown: Columbus, Ohio

Current Town: New York City

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  Currently in previews of my play USUAL GIRLS at Roundabout Underground. Also writing a play about Toxic Masculinity and the black market organ trade, and a musical about Charles Darwin and women's role in science. Additionally, in TV/Film I am creating an original series at F/X inspired by my play USUAL GIRLS, adapting the graphic novel The Divine into a series for AMC, and adapting the book Chemistry by Weike Wang into a film for Amazon.

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 my 3rd grade English class at my public school in Ohio we learned how to do Descriptive Writing. We learned to use adjectives and had an assignment to write a descriptive story that we then read aloud to the parents who were all invited on the last day of class. All my classmates wrote about rainbows and puppies and I wrote a detailed account, moment by moment, of the day my Dad left us. I wrote about the way his back looked disappearing into the rain. The time that was flashing red on the alarm clock. My mom kicking down the door of the bathroom my Dad had locked himself in, screaming at him to "get out!". The way the cab pulled away into the sheets of rain. As I read it aloud all the parents began to cry. They all came up to hug me afterwards and neither of my parents were even there.

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

A:  More diversity. In every sense of the word. Not just racial diversity, or gender diversity, et cetera, but diversity in form and content. I want messier plays. I want more daring plays. I'm sick of the easy "issue plays" that don't actually challenge the status quo and create the false belief that we are educating ourselves when we are actually deluding ourselves. I want to see more plays coming from the demographic they are portraying. Why are we programming plays about women by men when we haven't even had the opportunity to hear women describe their experiences of being female? Same goes for race, sexuality, disability, et cetera. What stories are we championing and from what perspective? I want authenticity.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Sarah Kane.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  From the above answer you can probably surmise that I like In-Yer-Face theatre. And you'd be correct. I wish we had more plays going up like the ones I saw at Ontological Hysteric (R.I.P.) or PS 122 (R.I.P.) when I first moved to New York. I remember being at a play where a guy handed out vials of his own semen, or a play where the first row was showered in fake blood. And I don't think things like that are happening anymore in the theatre. Or if they are? Please tell me where and I'll be there in the front row getting soaked in blood.

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

A:  Try writing a play on your own before taking a class. I'm an autodidact and I think trying to create for myself before following a rubric was essential to cultivating a singular voice.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  My play USUAL GIRLS is currently in previews at Roundabout Underground and opens November 5! Come see it!

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Oct 15, 2018

I Interview Playwrights Part 1005: Robert Siegel


Robert Siegel

Hometown: NYC—The Bronx

Current Town: Raleigh, North Carolina

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  A play about the attack on public education in the South. The play focuses on three marriages.

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 saw Peter Shaffer’s Royal Hunt of the Sun as a teenager. Got hooked.

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

A:  The price of tickets.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Ibsen, Miller, Albee, David Hare, Paula Vogel, Donald Margulies

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Any play that transports me to its world and resonates for me after.

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

A:  If you love it; do it.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Fairview. Plus, opening at FringeNYC on October 12th is my newest play "Stranger Than A Rhino," a contemporary reimagining of Ionesco's Rhinoceros with themes of race, culture and xenophobia.

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Oct 12, 2018

I Interview Playwrights Part 1004: Jahna Ferron-Smith



Jahna Ferron-Smith

Hometown:  "West Philadelphia, born and raised!" (...until the age of five, and then) Springfield Township, PA

Current Town: Brooklyn, NY!

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  Currently working on a couple pieces! One I'm particularly stoked about right now explores running as a recreational/therapeutic activity for Black women and the cultural stigmas surrounding participating in said activity. I'm also working on a play about the youth congregation at a Unitarian Universalist church navigating a chaperoned (but still co-ed! WHOO!) sleepover during the incredibly comprehensive sexual education portion of their Bridging Ceremony. And then there's another play I'm having an equally fantastic time writing, about a woman who slowly turns into a coyote and then eats her boyfriend. They're all comedies!

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 always loved entertaining people or making people laugh. When (...or, rather, 'since') I was was young, I would devise some sort of bit--be it a song or enacting something I'd just seen on TV--and I would perform it for my family. They would clap and cheer and I would soak it in and keep singing...and singing...and singing. An oft heard phrase during these performances would be my mother gently to passionately encouraging me to "bring it on home!" after I had continued hamming it up through several rounds of my family members' pleading and desperate applause. Fast forward many lengthy episodic re-enactments of Xena: The Warrior Princess later: I studied acting for undergrad and tried my first playwriting course--primarily because to fill a credit. Not only was the professor amazing (huge shout out to Lydia R. Diamond!), but after my first reading, the response from my peers was way more enthusiastic than that of any I'd received after a performance. At the time, having my pages read aloud was the most creatively vulnerable I'd ever let myself be, for which I'd received the most encouraging and empowering response. I was hooked. In a lot of ways, I'm still that little girl obliviously belting Desiree's "You Gotta Be" for any and all who might enjoy it/those who time and again continue to listen.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theatre that invites my active attention in experiencing it. I'm most excited by theatre that feels to me to be the most authentic expression of that playwright's voice at that point--that's what I think makes it come alive for me, regardless of whether or not I "like" that particular piece. I'm excited by theatre where I can feel the playwright/theatre maker's process, but I can't necessarily see it--if that makes any sense. Recently, the plays that have been engaging this perspective tend toward non-linear plot structures--I personally like having to piece it all together, to me that most closely resembles my thought process during moments of self-reflection. Rather than attributing my connection with a piece to an specially salient line, I love walking away from a theatrical event thinking, "that whole experience--that's exactly how I feel!"

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

A:  The secret to writing really is that you actually have to write in order for the thing to be written. When you're writing and you get to a point where the subject matters feels tender enough that you want to stop--honor that...and/also, in my experience, when I've decided to include that one super emotionally raw bit in the "finished product", it's been the part of the piece that people resonated with most and helped that bit feel considerably less raw. Each play--no matter the "success" of the last--is an opportunity to start again at square one. It's a marathon, not a sprint--when you have difficulty remembering that on your own, surround yourself with (or seek to!) a community who will remind you every single time.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  My first full-length world premiere--Karaoke at The Golden Sun Convention Center--is happening at the end of October! Directed by Molly Clifford as a part of Two Headed Rep's fifth rep, Karaoke explores the questions '"am I happy?" "what is 'happy'?" and '"how did I learn that?" during a mandatory, intra-company karaoke hour, organized amidst a yet-finalized merger between both companies! Running Oct. 22 - 27, Karaoke is a boozy, office-supply-laden, existential dread-ridden hoot-and-a-half! For tickets and more information, visit https://www.twoheadedrep.com/

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Oct 11, 2018

I Interview Playwrights Part 1003: Lily Houghton




Lily Houghton

Hometown: Manhattan, New York City

Current Town: Brooklyn, New York City (I know... what a big move!)

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I'm super scattered right now... but the main thing I am working on is a second draft of a commission from Seattle Rep! Oh also I wrote a short play about two girls putting together an Ikea mattress the other day. So I guess that too?

But the main thing I'm working on is making sure everyone votes on November 6th! It's also my birthday, so you gotta!

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

A:  This one is a weird one because I spent most of my childhood in rehearsal rooms, which I'm sure shaped me as a writer in many ways, but the moment that comes to mind actually has nothing to do with that at all. 

When I was in fifth grade I had a paralyzing fear of people being mad at me. I had just been diagnosed with OCD, though I had no clue what that meant, all I knew is that I was on a horrible quest to make sure everyone in my classroom liked me. One day it got so bad that I interrupted class by going around to individual students and bluntly asking them if they were mad at me. If any one of them would say yes I would immediately fake sick and insist on going to the school's nurse, who was now a friend of mine. Instead of sending me to my favorite nurse like usual, my parents were called and asked to pick me up. I remember the teacher telling my mother that "I made up stories in my head." For the life of me I can't remember my mother's reaction, but I do know it was the first time I ever considered writing the stories in my head down.

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

A:  My dad used to tell me his dream theater audience would be whoever was in a subway car at any given time. I carry this dream on.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  I just tried to make a list but here is the thing... I was really lucky enough to grow up in the rooms with some incredible writers. I think it would be foolish of me to not acknowledge every single one of them. So I would say my theatrical heroes are all the Signature Theatre Company writers, actors, directors, employees, and interns that all helped raise me.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Sorry I don't mean to be sappy but... any play that after I walk out I immediately think "wow, I wish my dad could have seen this."

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

A:  Oh man, I feel so unqualified for this but here are some things that have saved me: always sit in the back row of the audience so you can hide, write down things in your IPhone notes (or actual notebook I guess) everyday, spy on people in the subway, know that opening nights are really weird and it's okay to feel really out of place, coffee, sometimes surrounding yourself with people who have nothing to do with theater at all (maybe don't date actors?), and living with a eighteen year old cat.

Q:  Plugs, please: 

A:  I'm working on a scripted podcast right now that should be out this year, it's gonna be badass! Also come to Serials at the Flea Theater every month and check out all the fun things we do at EST!

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