I Interview Playwrights Part 519: Chelsea M. Marcantel

Chelsea M. Marcantel

Hometown: Jennings, Louisiana

Current Town: Abingdon, VA (by way of Chicago)

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I'm editing one of my very first plays, A Place to Land, which is getting produced in a new draft at the beginning of 2013 by Acadiana Repertory Theatre. I'm also completely overhauling a recent play called Even Longer and Farther Away, which has had readings at the Dramatists Guild in NYC and at the Barter Theatre in Virginia, but the newest draft is an utterly different beast. I've just barely begun writing a one-person show about the war on women, specifically focusing on how it affects women in different generations within the same family. That play doesn't have a title quite yet.

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 started writing stories as a child because I was a big reader, but sometimes I didn't appreciate the way stories ended and felt I could improve upon them. I remember specifically feeling extremely distraught at the ending of Carousel, and knowing in my heart it was my duty to "fix" it, so I did, on paper. I think I've carried a version of that same idea with me into adulthood -- some of the most honest work I've ever done are fictionalized rehashings of actual conversations and confrontations from my life. The second time around, I get to say everything I want to. I get to dictate a different ending for momentous events. As a writer, I get to live twice, and I think that's part of what people mean when they say that writing is therapeutic. I take a childish delight in crafting happier or more interesting dialogue and endings for everyone involved, real or fictional.

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

A: I wish that theatre could be honestly regarded as community service, and the people who make theatre could be compensated accordingly. I feel like theatre for young audiences is very often seen as life-enriching, but for some reason theatre for adults is viewed as a luxury. Bill English of San Francisco’s SF Playhouse says that "theater is like a gym for empathy. It’s where we can go to build up the muscles of compassion, to practice listening and understanding and engaging with people that are not just like ourselves." I believe in the truth of that statement, and as the world gets flatter and more diverse and more conflicted, I wish that audiences and governments and even some theatre-makers could acknowledge the magnitude of the function that theatre plays in society.

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: Anne Bogart, Sarah Ruhl, Tom Stoppard, Young Jean Lee, Samuel Beckett... oh, the list goes on and on.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: I like theatre that focuses outward -- it starts in a relationship that then explodes and turns us outward to a greater view of our surroundings and our world, but everything is still seen through the lens of a handful of people. I love non-realistic, physical, and non-linear theatre that manages to retain a strong, rooted heart. And I'm a total sucker for endurance theatre -- give me a six-hour, eight-hour, ten-hour play or cycle and I'm in heaven.

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

A: See theatre, especially at theatres you'd like to work with. I'm always amazed when I meet a playwright who can't tell me the last show they saw, or which theatres in town they'd like to work with. You can't stare at your computer for weeks on end and never venture out to see what work is being made. I recommend seeing shows on opening night, especially at small theatres, because the director of the play and the artistic director of the company are usually in attendance, and you can tell them what you thought of their work and begin to build personal connections.

Q: Plugs, please.

A: I just wrapped up a play called "Independence Day" that was part of the Hobo Robo 5 Festival in Chicago. Now I'm focused on getting my playwrighting students at Virginia Intermont College through their final exam readings! Check out www.chelseamarcantel.com for information on upcoming productions.

I Interview Playwrights Part 518: Adam Hahn

Adam Hahn

Hometown: Burlington, IA

Current Town: Los Angeles

Q: Tell me about Kong.

A: KONG: A Goddamn Thirty-Foot Gorilla started as a project in a class on adaptation in the Hollins Playwright's Lab, taught by Jeff Goode. I told Jeff that I was considering adapting King Kong, but I had convinced myself it was impossible. He pushed me to try it anyway.

My first resistance and attraction to the idea came from the physical impossibility of the staging: I knew Ann and Kong would need to interact with each other. I knew I would want a gorilla fighting a dinosaur--preferably on a small stage, with the audience just a few feet away.

My script evolved through a lot of riffing on the source material: I connected to a couple of characters with monologues several years after Kong's death. I twisted conversations from the original to springboard farcical scenes about gender and power. I got to the racial subtext by talking about Noble Johnson, one of the biggest African American actors of the era.

I ended up with something that is part commentary, part parody, part history lesson, part sincere re-telling of the greatest ape/human love story of all time. It's also a playground for designers and a ride for the audience. It's a show that takes people a lot of places in a very short period of time.

For the premiere production by SkyPilot Theatre in Los Angeles, I was able to get a team (many people, but I want to mention director Jaime Robledo and scenic and prop designer Tifanie McQueen) who could stage the impossible, along with actors who could perform it.

Q: What else are you working on now?

A: I'm at the early stages on a project I'm calling The Mermaid Wars. I'm conceiving this more as a collection than an individual play: Some monologues and scenes should stand on their own, sections that could be serialized, and other scenes that could be added or removed for different theatres. I want to create an experience that's different in every production, with audiences getting a complete evening of theatre but not every piece of the puzzle.

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 went through elementary school right after D.A.R.E became popular. This is an anti-drug program that most American children in public schools go through, despite decades of research finding no discernible benefit. In fact, there is evidence that students who go through D.A.R.E actually become more likely to use drugs.

In the fifth grade, a police officer came to our school every couple of weeks to teach us the difference between stimulants and depressants, give us a list of ways to say no, or show movies about teenagers getting high and living to regret it.

Our last assignment before the "graduation" ceremony where we would be issued our D.A.R.E t-shirts was an essay on what we had learned from the program. I wrote a page or two stating that the program had been a waste of my time: by the age of ten I had already decided not to do drugs, and I didn't need to have my school day interrupted to have that decision reinforced.
The police officer read my essay and thanked me for being honest.

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: Fortunately, a lot of people I've been able to know and spend some time working with or being instructed by.

Jeff Goode. I encountered his play The Eight: Reindeer Monologues in high school, and that did a lot to inform my thinking about what a play could be. He's become a friend, a mentor, a guide as I wrote KONG, and my MFA thesis advisor.

As much as any individual, the institution of No Shame Theatre. This was started at the University of Iowa in 1986 by Todd Ristau (now program director of the Hollins Playwright's Lab), Jeff Goode, and other unruly theatre students as an anything-goes late-night venue for short new pieces of theatre. Anything is acceptable, within three basic rules: original works only, every piece must end within five minutes, and no piece can break the theatre/audience/performers/law. Every show is assembled by accepting the first fifteen writers standing in line: no selection committee, no censorship, little technical support, and sometimes very little rehearsal. Not every piece is good. In fact, some pieces are terrible, but five minutes later something completely different has taken their place. Every show I've seen has included some piece that made the evening worth it, and the best shows include a couple of bad pieces, a couple of interesting pieces that don't quite succeed, several good pieces, and a few minutes of transcendent theatre. By the time I started going to No Shame in 1999, there were a handful of active chapters scattered across the country. I've participated in No Shame in at least five states. I can't name all of the people who have won my respect by taking the freedoms of this venue and running with them. My heroes are the people who experimented, expanded their skill sets, or worked their way toward perfection in whatever form they pursuing. There are a few monologues, songs, thirty-second comedy sketches, juggling acts, or creative pieces of staging that will probably inform my writing for the rest of my life.

And some of the improv performers/teachers at iO West (formerly Improv Olympic West) in Los Angeles. Again, there are way too many individuals to mention. You can sit in this theatre any night of the week, and you'll see something amazing, at least for a few minutes. Craig Cackowski and Shulie Cowen are just two of my heroes, for their work on stage and in the classroom.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: I'm excited by theatre that isn't afraid of being more than one thing. I like shifting between comedy and drama.

I'm excited by small spaces and the innovations that come with small budgets.

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

A: Don't limit your definitions of "play" or "theatre." There's no hard line that separates what we do from sketch comedy, stand-up, ballet, rock concerts, professional wresting, magic shows, theme park design, or kindergarten teaching. Pretending that playwriting is something else will only limit your toolkit and imagination. You can learn as much about theatre watching a church service or children's storytime as you can watching a play.

Q: Plugs, please:

A: SkyPilot Theatre, which is presenting KONG: A Goddamn Thirty-Foot Gorilla through November 25th. This is one of the few companies in Los Angeles that devotes itself completely to new works, developed by a group of resident playwrights.
http://skypilottheatre.com/

The Hollins Playwrights Lab in Roanoke, VA. A low-residency MFA program, where students from around the country come together for six weeks of classes every summer. Like the program Facebook page for more information, as well as updates on student and alumni productions.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hollins-Playwrights-Lab/127852567252421

I Interview Playwrights Part 517: Devon de Mayo

Devon de Mayo

Hometown: Tustin, California

Current Town: Chicago, Illinois

Q:  What are you working on now?

A: Guerra: A Clown Play - a show that I developed with Seth Bockley and La Piara (a clown troupe based in Mexico City). We have spent the last year between Chicago and Mexico City creating the show and are now polishing it and taking it to a few international festivals.

Everything Is Illuminated - I'm directing an adaptation of the novel at Next Theatre in February 2013.

Dog & Pony Theatre Co. - The company that I co-founded with Krissy Vanderwarker. We're currently working on four projects in various stages of development, the ones that I'm entrenched with are a re-envisioned re-mount of As Told by the Vivian Girls, a devised piece about outsider artist Henry Darger that we created in 2008; a new play about the relationship between Richard Wagner and Ludwig II; and a piece about the Dill Pickle Society, a bohemian hang out that existed in 1920's Chicago.

Q:  Tell me about the process by which you devise something.

A:  It's really good for me to spell this out as I'm trying to solidify my process after a number of years of trial and error. The process is different with each project, partly because each piece I've devised has been so different, partly because the collaborative team varied on each project, and also the process shifts as I learn what works and what does not. Generally, I like to spend a year researching the topic of the show. This research time is usually spent passing books and other sources around with my collaborators. I have co-directed all of my devised work, and co-written it as well. So, it's never a process that is not immediately shared.

After or during the research phase, I generally create a map of the show. I'm a visual learner, so this is often more for me than anyone else involved in the show, but it tracks the main events of the play and charts the journey. For "Vivian Girls" this map was our script. Each character had different color that tracked their journey and the major plot points were indicated by specific Darger paintings. Ever since that show, I've been creating maps for each show I work on - sometimes for others to see, sometimes just for me to have a touchstone for the piece at home.

Then, there is a workshop phase. This has taken various forms over the years - sometimes it's weekend workshops with script pages being shared with actors and then, writing/developing sessions without actors in between workshops. Sometimes, its ensemble building and movement exploration with no text in the room for a weeks at a time. Sometimes its an extension of the rehearsal process with found text, everyone writing and movement work all being shared. Most recently, we worked on The Whole World is Watching, a play with music, and realized that the music was too hard to play around with in workshops, it's such a technical skill to find harmonies and set rhythms, so we put that off for the first week of rehearsals and just spent workshops on story development. Generally, during workshops actors are not cast in roles. They know that they'll be in the show, but for workshops everyone plays every part. Side note: I stole this from the Royal Shakespeare Company's development of Nicholas Nickleby. They asked actors to sign on to the project, not a specific part, and that way the play was #1 in the room and everyone was working in service of that during workshops. I thought it was a great idea. And it's worked really well, especially to help the ensemble's bond. No matter what, the workshops are all of us exploring the subject matter and story together. I try to include designers in all workshops. Also, workshops are active dramaturgy time. Everyone is doing research assignments and sharing with the group what they've learned by leading exercises that relate to the dramaturgy.

Then, the rehearsal process follows. This has been as long as four months and as short as four weeks. During this time, we try to lock in the scenes and text. Lately, I have been interested in building the script as we work as a separate document from the devising process. So, we end up with both a production and a script. They may be slightly different from one another, but that way we have a record of what we've created, regardless of the specific production restraints we faced, and lock in any language that is non-negotiable.

Most recently, I have also made a priority of more rehearsal time after a couple previews. So, we preview for a weekend, then head back to the rehearsal room for a week and keep re-working before more previews. Often, the audience adds a whole new understanding to the devised work, and this time is important to refine and shift based on audience reactions.

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 15, I applied to be a foreign exchange student. I left on my 16th birthday to Italy because I was convinced that the world must be bigger than Tustin, California. When I arrived, I was told that my host family could come and pick me up in Rome, but I insisted on taking the train alone to Perugia (their hometown), and meeting them there. I transferred trains on my own, using my week-old, broken Italian to get myself to the right place. I arrived at the train station in Perugia and disembarked, so proud that I had gotten from California to Perugia on my own. I sat for two hours waiting for my host family. They didn't come. They didn't come. I tried to use my Italian to find out if I was in the right place, and yes, it was Perugia. Finally, I broke down and called California. My parents were out of town, so I called my best friend's parents from across the street. I was now in tears. I was lost in a foreign country. I'd never traveled out of North America, and now I could not find who I was supposed to meet. My friend's dad calmly asked me, "Have you asked if there is more than one train station in Perugia?" This was the answer. I found out that there two stations, was able to call the other station, they paged my worried host family who had thought that they had lost their new American child. They came and found me, and we were able to laugh off our collective panic in how we met. I guess, this typifies me in a few ways. First, I needed to travel and live outside of the US at 16, and I still need it today. I needed push myself past what was comfortable and try to do things on my own. I can be fiercely independent sometimes. But also, I need collaborators. I don't problem solve on my own, I need to collaborate with people I admire and trust. I rely on them. And sometimes, I fail. I learn a lot from taking big risks and occasionally failing.

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

A:  The rate at which we innovate. I think we're too slow to push the form. Our audience is dwindling, and we don't fight hard enough to push the form and reach a new audience.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Caryl Churchill, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Harold Pinter, Ian Rickson, Wendy Wasserstein, Sheila Callaghan.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theatre where the audience relationship with the play is part of the experience - for instance, Punchdrunk, Shunt Collective, the National Theatre of Scotland, Pig Iron, The Hypocrites, Frantic Assembly, Kneehigh. Also, theatre that includes movement as a vocabulary with which to tell stories.

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

A:  Don't be afraid to write protagonists who aren't a version of yourself. Develop your own method to create new work, there's no right way to do it.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Go see - The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Heart by the National Theatre of Scotland touring around the country, Failure: A Love Story by Philip Dawkins at Victory Gardens in Chicago, Guerra: A Clown Play at the Tricklock Festival in Albuquerque, New Mexico in January.

I Interview Playwrights Part 516: J. Julian Christopher

J. Julian Christopher

Hometown: I was born and raised in Levittown, Long Island. Actually the first full-length play I wrote was about my experiences living in Levittown. It is an interesting place. I still go back there often, not by choice really. My sister bought the house we grew up in. It's very odd to go back. It feels like a lifetime ago. Levittown is not necessarily a place I associate with positive memories. My family was great, but outside of the house within the rest of the community I was always an outsider. Qué sera, sera... right?

Current Town: Currently I reside in Briarwood, Queens New York... but I seem to have lived a nomadic existence for the past decade (13 moves in 10 years) so... who knows?

Q:  What are you working on now?
A:  Right now I'm working on two new plays, one revision on an older play and a pilot. I'm definitely A.D.D. when it comes to writing. If I get stuck, I need to move on to something else or I'll obsess which is never good for anyone!!!

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 relates to what I began to touch on about living in white, suburban, Levittown Long Island. I grew up as a “white boy." As a child, I never really had the understanding of what it meant to be Dominican and Puerto Rican. As my parents, sister and I could “pass” for white, my parents kept the “white” façade up and even furthered it by never teaching their children Spanish. I understand why they took these actions, to keep me from experiencing the prejudice they had experienced during their childhood. But I wasn’t white. My name made that apparent to people. But neither was I Latino. This “Americanization” alienated me from my Latino roots as well as distanced me from White America. I was in the middle somewhere -- stuck between the Latino I am and the Latino I was supposed to be. The disassociation I felt towards my heritage continued throughout my adult life extending far into my career. Casting directors and agents saw my name (Christopher Julian Jiménez) and automatically assumed I could speak Spanish. Upon discovering that I could not, they did not know where to place me. And I didn’t know where to place myself. I felt divorced from the name Jiménez, but I wasn’t quite ready to give it up completely. I changed my name professionally to J. Julian Christopher, placing my last name first. That way, for me, it was the most prominent, but I didn’t have to answer the questions that have plagued me most of my life: What are you? How could you not speak Spanish? Aren’t you ashamed that you can’t speak Spanish? Do you eat tacos?

These identity issues manifest itself all over my writing. I'm constantly writing about identity.

Q:  How does your directing inform your playwriting and vice-versa?

A:  I sort of fell into directing. I was actually an actor for many years before writing or directing so actually my experience as an actor informs my writing tremendously. My first drafts tend to be double of what anyone actually gets to read. I come at writing from an acting standpoint so I end up writing everything down, every thought and feeling a character may have. I find that writing out the subtext helps me discover what the character really needs to keep private. I have had drafts where there was a four-page monologue that ended up becoming one word, "No."

Directing has come mostly from a dramaturgical need. When I'm directing anything, I'm trying to make sure the story is clear. Many times an actor and playwright can lose sight of that because they are too attached and precious about the words. Directing has informed how I approach a script and has given me a great revising eye towards my own plays. I do not like to direct my own work though. I thrive on collaboration and I need that give and take. Recently during the workshop of my play Animals Commit Suicide at terraNova Collective, José Zayas would challenge me to re-examine the script and get to the heart of the story. Since working with him I cut about 24 pages. The play in its current state wouldn't exist without him and I now can't see it any other way. A good director challenges me and I appreciate that.

Q:  Tell me about Bulk.

A:  BULK-The Series is a webseries created by myself and a dear friend of mine, D.R. Knott. D.R. and I went to high school together. She went to Columbia for film, and we had been looking for a way to collaborate. We wanted to write about under-represented communities and I automatically thought, “Why don’t we do something in regards to the Gay Bear Community?” A Gay Bear, according to the always reliable *ahem* Wikipedia is, "an LGBT slang term for men that are commonly, but not always, overweight and often having hairy bodies and facial hair. It is a subculture in the gay and bisexual male communities and to an emerging subset of LGBT communities with events, codes, and a culture-specific identity." These types of gay male characters are not the norm in mainstream media so we thought that creating a story within the backdrop of the bear community would be an interesting perspective for a webseries. It also doesn't hurt that I'm a member of the Gay Bear Community. We got together, wrote the characters, and created a series from it. You can see the first season at www.bulktheseries.com.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  I would say Clifford Odets, Paddy Chayefsky, and Federico García Lorca are my theatrical heroes. The beauty of their language, the power of their message and the brilliance in structure... I just marvel at the craftsmanship without it ever feeling like a craft. Their work feels like life, so effortless. I am in awe every time I read or see one of their plays. I'll never forget reading Chayefsky's THE LATENT HETEROSEXUAL... changed my life.

I also would be completely ridiculous not to mention Martha Graham, José Limón, and Merce Cunningham. It's a toss-up between playwrights and choreographers for me. Well... they are one and the same, really. The body doesn't lie so when I can't intellectually get to the truth of a scene and I need a way to unlock it... I dance it. Works every time.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: I'm excited when I see theater that challenges the way I think. I'm excited then I see theater that makes me angry. I'm excited when I see theater that takes risks. No further explanation necessary.

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

A:  Honestly, sometimes it feels like I'm just starting out and could use advice myself. I've been writing plays since 2008 and from what I have learned thus far is to write everyday. Even if you think it's crap. It's really hard to write and not judge the writing as you go. I'm still learning that. Sometimes you just have to get whatever is in your head, out. Maybe it will be good. Maybe it won't. Maybe there will be a moment that is excellent and will take you to place you never thought you'd go. But I try to write at least an hour everyday.

Also get your work out there and submit it. It's the only way to make it happen, because no one is certainly going to seek your play out when they don't know it exists. Send it out. You have nothing to lose.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  I just completed a workshop of my play Animals Commit Suicide with terraNova Collective, directed by José Zayas as part of the Fall Groundbreakers Series. In Animals Commit Suicide, Chance Stevens has a high-end job, classic good looks, and the attention of anyone he wants in the NYC gay scene. Yet something is missing in his life that he cannot live without. He embarks on a dangerous journey of self-discovery only to find the very best and the very worst of a new community of which he so desperately wants to be a part.

Locusts Have No King will appear in the November installment of Salvaged Space Reading Series at Personal Space Theatrics (PST) . In Locusts, four closeted gay men get together for a dinner party and, over the course of the evening, all hell breaks loose…literally.

Nico was a Fashion Model will be workshopped with Variations Theatre Group at The Chain Theater in Long Island City this winter. Set on closing night of the NYC punk club CBGB's, Nico Was A Fashion Model is an intimate look at race relations from a suburban teenage perspective.

I Interview Playwrights Part 515: Aaron Bushkowsky

Aaron Bushkowsky

Hometown: Edmonton, Alberta

Current Town: Vancouver, BC

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  A new black comedy, Play With Monsters.

Q:  How would you characterize Canadian theater?

A:  Canadian theatre is in vital need of more funding but thematically, things are exploding all over the place!

Q:  Tell me about Solo Collective.

A:  Solo Collective is one of Vancouver's most recognized Indie theatre companies that produces consistently entertaining and evocative comedies. The company -- now in its 13th year -- has been recognized with 30 Jessie Richardson Theatre nominations and has received a number of awards for acting and writing in particular.

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 grew up as the second oldest kid in a family of five. My father was a prairie Baptist preacher who moved from rural community to rural community preaching hell and brimstone. I've been an agnostic since I was 14 and my family has never recovered; they all still go to church... I go to theatre.

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

A:  I would eliminate plays that have no relevance on our immediate lives... particularly old, dusty plays from several hundred years ago written by privileged, rich old white dudes.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  I love Mamet and Stoppard... but my relatives could be fairly theatrical, particularly around Christmas when the egg nog started pouring.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I'm into the surreal black comedies ... and anything that is outside the box with a clear narrative. I also love theatre where things go wrong and end up being funnier and better than intended.

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

A:  Sit on your hats...it's gonna get dangerous soon! And advice from my film mentor Norman Jewison, there are five things you need to make it in theatre or film and number five is talent. In order they are “Persistence, Who You Know, Timing, Blind Ass Luck, and Talent.”

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Play With Monsters plays at Vancouver's Granville Island Performance Works from Nov. 9-18, 8 p.m. Don't miss it, there's Zombies and Ninjas in it!

I Interview Playwrights Part 514: Brian Golden

Brian Golden

Hometown: Davenport, Iowa

Current Town: Chicago, Illinois

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I'm working on JOHNNY, a new play about missing children inspired by a famous case from Iowa in the 1980s, which will World Premiere at Theatre Seven of Chicago in June, as well as on curating a series of short plays about great Chicago women from the last 100 years to mark the 100th anniversary of women's suffrage in Illinois. That's called UNWILLING AND HOSTILE INSTRUMENTS and will go up in late summer 2013.

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

A: Wouldn't life be easier to understand if there were one specific moment you could point to dramaturgically and say: here is why! But I don't think there is. As ridiculous as it might sound, I think that being a hugely passionate Iowa State Cyclones fan growing up in enemy territory (right near the University of Iowa) really shaped a lot of my personality. My team was also bad, so bad, and I'd just get made fun of constantly for all of grade school and junior high for being a State fan. I think it built a real empathy for the underdog, not just in sports, but in the way I look at the world, and maybe some of the characters I enjoy reading and writing about on stage. I admire people who stand strong against the conventional social order and who fight to change it. My biggest enemies are people who have power and use it recklessly, to hurt someone else, or keep them down. I remember one time when I was maybe 11 sobbing after Iowa State lost to Iowa in football for what was probably the 10th year in a row and my Mom sat me down to say "you know, you don't have to cheer for Iowa State, it is a choice." And I remember feeling like "no, it is not a choice. This is who I am." So I think there was an identity really crystallizing in terms of being comfortable bucking the status quo.

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

A: Wow, I don't know. I think theatre's power is really as an engine for local storytelling. Doesn't mean there shouldn't ever be any plays produced in Chicago that are set in London, but I wish that more work was really local - about the city, region or even city block where the work is being shared. I think that as the world shrinks, and TV news and movies can take us global so quickly and easily, the power of theatre will always be to tell a story really relevant to the 100 people in the room that night. In Chicago we have a nice culture of Chicago-based storytelling, and Theatre Seven (the company where I am the Artistic Director) is a part of that. But I wish that in Davenport, Iowa, Omaha, Nebraska, Santa Fe, Tupelo, everywhere - that we could commune over more stories told about local history, people and problems. I think that if an alien race were learning about America from its plays, it would make some interesting observations, among them that 80% of the American population lives in Manhattan.

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: Too many to name, truly way too many to name. Chicago is a city full of hard-working, ass-kicking, new work making, next generation theatre makers. I admire anyone willing to start something new and say "I have a vision for the future of this form," but I also admire the people who have gone before, like the folks who made Steppenwolf, Goodman, Victory Gardens, Black Ensemble, Lookingglass who have helped theatre carve out a place in the conversation in our city. I truly admire arts administrators, who get an awful name among playwrights and artists. But someone who can run the business end of an arts organization that truly serves a mission and a population is someone who is really special. I'll always have on my list of heroes Andrea, Anna, Carter, Bill, Jeffrey and all my professors at Washington University. I guess my personal heroes are anyone who has ever entered a collaboration with me and given me their trust - whether that was as a director or producer and believing in my work, or as an actor and saying the first line and trusting the play would carry them through. 100% selfishly, those are my personal heroes. I hope I haven't let them down.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: Theatre that matters. It doesn't have to 'change the world,' but don't waste my time. Make it count. I'd rather see a flawed play that matters than a perfect play that makes me wonder why it exists.

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

A: Write. Be persistent. Seek advocates, not attention. If they tell you to submit the play a certain way on their website, believe them. If they tell you they like your work, hold them to it. Have a good website so they can find you. Don't overcommit. If you can figure out how to get productions, please email me.

Q: Plugs, please:

A: Directing Professional World Premiere of Carter W. Lewis' AMERICAN STORM at Theatre Seven of Chicago, opening November 16th. (www.theatreseven.org)
Directing Staged Reading Fouad Teymour's THE NIGHT JESUS JOINED THE REVOLUTION at Silk Road Rising in early December. (www.silkroadrising.org)
Writing World Premiere of JOHNNY for Theatre Seven in June. (www.theatreseven.org)
And recently published in THE CHICAGO LANDMARK PROJECT, along with short plays about Chicago by Brooke Berman, J. Nicole Brooks, Aaron Carter, Lonnie Carter, Laura Jacqmin, Jamil Khoury, Rob Koon, Brett Neveu, Yolanda Nieves, Marisa Wegrzyn and the Red Orchid Youth Ensemble, available on Amazon.com here: (http://www.amazon.com/The-Chicago-Landmark-Project-Premiere/dp/1463573936/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1351026336&sr=8-2&keywords=the+chicago+landmark+project)

I Interview Playwrights Part 513: Greg Romero

Greg Romero

Hometown: Greenwell Springs, Louisiana.

Current Town: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I am cleaning up the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia.

I love this river and want to create a performance project about it. But I want to learn the river more completely so I can best know how to express it. So I am asking the river to speak to me and hoping an appropriate return gift is to pick up the trash and litter and debris along its banks and in its waters. I have made the commitment to clean-up the river for 50 – 60 hours from now (mid-October) through the end of 2012. I have already gone out several times and loved every minute of it. I wish I could work for the river every day.

If a performance project results from this work, I will be thrilled. If not, I still will be thrilled, and for reasons I probably haven’t imagined yet (maybe it is a performance project already?).

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

A:  First-- I have three sisters, one of which is my twin. That explains me a little bit.

Also, several years ago I wrote to my mother, telling her I was looking closely at my name—that I was trying to discover things about it, trying to decide if it was best keep it, or if I should work to take on a new one.

This is her reply:

On Monday, July 27, 2009 4:52 PM, Nancy Mouton wrote:

Dear Greg,

A few weeks before you were born - and I didn’t know then what sex each baby was - your dad and I couldn’t come up with two girls names, nor two boys names, so we went with Melanie Claire, and Gregory John. Each name was different enough so that neither of you would have to follow in the shadows of the other.

We decided that when you were born, if you were girls, then we’d pick another girl name, and vice versa. I remember researching name meanings so that I wouldn’t call you both something that meant something awful. Also, having two older sisters I wanted each of you to have a unique name, not unusual, but not commonly used. I had a lot of down time while waiting for you, so I read a lot. I don’t really remember all the meanings from different languages, but I knew you needed a strong name.

And yes, you were not breathing when you were born.

They revived you then and they revived you again in the isolette. You actually died twice. Remember, I was there. Right before you were born, feet first I might add, the doctor and nurse worked hard to turn you so you could be born naturally. No such luck, so out you came breached and bruised. I remember telling you how I watched the clock for more than three minutes. My elbows were bruised because I was in shock while waiting and I shook so hard I rattled the gurney. I knew they were about to give up on you. Too much time had passed and chances for a healthy infant were almost none.

Greg, be prepared for what follows, as I never told you this. I am just remembering this now. It’s like I just went back in time. I stared at the clock, then the nurse, then the doctor’s face while he held you cradled face down in his arms - the doctor and I caught eyes and I held his eyes with mine and silently begged him not to give up on you. Minutes passed. Finally, like a miracle, your tiny cat’s cry sounded and I knew you were alive. The nurse cried out, “He’s breathing!”

How could I have forgotten that moment?

I can truly say that time stood still in that room. Since you and Melanie were 7 ½ weeks premature, Melanie’s cries were so soft and kitten like. Not like a full term baby’s cry. Maybe she couldn’t communicate loud enough with you through her cries. You just couldn’t hear her that’s all.

Whatever you decide about your name, know that your given name bonded with your soul long before you took your first breath. You are who you are. Use your name.

Have to close, my heart threads are raveling.

Love now and always, Mom.

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

A:  More animals.

Q:  From Greg’s 6 year-old nephew, Brody: What would it be like if people spoke in numbers?

A:  It would be awesome!

I wonder if it would make us better listeners. Would we learn more just by how things sounded?

I bet it would make our voices more expressive.

Also—it would be really fun to talk to someone who spoke another language, if we were speaking in numbers.

Also—I think it might make us funnier.

I think we should try it. Five three three four five six. Nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine. One.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Wolves, Richard Foreman, wales, Jerzy Grotowski, Pina Bausch, August Wilson, trees, Tennessee Williams, Zeami, elephants, Erik Ehn, Suzan-Lori Parks, Sam Shepard, oceans, Samuel Beckett, children, dreams, bison, and stars.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Fewer words and more action (and again, more animals). Impossible things happening. Images I’ve never imagined. Music in it. Rituals and rites of passage. Movement. Gift-exchanges. Discovering things deeply human and personal. When there is food and drink. Theater that cares, profoundly, about the people participating in it; theater whose creators have taken the time to ask,

“why would people come to this?”

Q:  From Greg’s 6 year-old nephew, Brody: Are there really negative numbers?

A:  Uncle Greg: Yes.

Brody: So that means they don't like people, right?

Uncle Greg: Good question! I really don’t know. Maybe negative numbers only know how to speak in words. Maybe if they’re so negative they should do something fun (like dance like a bear). Maybe we should ask them? What do you think?

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  I just closed a production of my all-ages play, Of Plastic Things and Butterfly Wings, in the 2012 Philly Fringe Festival. The wonderful producing company (who also commissioned the work), Little Fish Theatre, is now touring this production to Philly/New Jersey-area schools in partnership with Fernbrook Farms Education Center.

Of Plastic Things and Butterfly Wings also opena in Phoenix on December 1st, running through December 16th, produced by the good folks at Space 55.

I am also looking for homes for two of my collaborations with electronic music composer Mike Vernusky—Radio Ghosts and The Babel Project—hoping to continue their lives.

Lastly, the work on the Schuylkill River Project is ongoing.

I Interview Playwrights Part 512: Luis Enrique Gutiérrez Ortiz Monasterio

 
Translated from Spanish by Maria Alexandria Beech

Luis Enrique Gutiérrez Ortiz Monasterio

Hometown: Guadalajara, Jalisco.

Current town: Xalapa, Veracruz.

Q:  Tell me about "I Hate Fucking Mexicans" at the Flea.

A:  In formal terms, it’s a departure from my body of work because it’s not a study on the structure of character which comprises most of my plays. When Ana [Graham] asked me for a play for New York, we chose this one because of its potential to establish a dialogue with american culture, instead of the obvious option of sending a more conventional play as a calling card. In Mexico, this play has evoked extreme reactions. Either they like it a lot or they hate it, and they say I’m an idiot and that I shouldn’t write again. I don’t want audiences to say my plays are pretty; if that were the case, I’d rather knit acrylic sweaters. What I care about is making the audience uneasy in their seats. If that means I feel vilified in the process, well, what a pussy. For me, the theater is a political act, not about immediate politics, but of the other kind, of a courageous man, who is the actor embracing the words of a coward, who is the playwright, in order to confront his community, which is the audience. I don’t think there’s a more political act than this one.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  This year, ironically, I’ve written a lot. In March, I started undergoing tests for a [kidney] transplant and my wife left me for a fucker. So I had to re-think the plan and I gave away my dogs who were my adoration. Bottom line, I was left alone like a Mennonite at a street corner. And it was for the better because I’ve been able get a lot of work done in bed. I finished the first part of a trilogy in collaboration with Ana Lucía Ramírez; I wrote the first five chapters of a theatrical police series, and I finished the first draft of my book on the theory of character.

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 decided to become a writer at the age of eight. Back then, they were preparing me to be a Marist [Catholic] priest and I wrote poems to the Virgin Mary. Since I’m the child of two sociopaths, I would hide in my closet with a reading lamp and I would read a lot, above all, nineteenth century poetry and novels about pirates. The first narrator I envied, to the point of wanting to write like him, was Joseph Conrad. I arrived at drama late; I was thirty years old when I started writing it formally. What I really wanted to be was a novelist, like Conrad, but no one liked my novels. For years now, I’ve hardly read anything. I only write.

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

A:  I don’t understand the question. In my thirteen years as a playwright, I put forth two different models for writing theater which in my country and other places are constantly imitated. First, I developed a model in which everything begins from nothing, and that entails hiring the least number of actors and using minimum set design and props. The other model is related with the language of comics to achieve the opposite: developing a play with the most plots, characters, and transitions possible in an hour and a half. The idea is to create a novel that can be staged. I’m very ignorant about the theater which makes me certain that I didn’t invent either one really. Someone must have done it before. But in my arrogance, I’d prefer to think that I’m a genius who achieved twice what no one had achieved even once.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Aeschylus, Aeschylus, and Aeschylus

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I don’t really go to theater. I have problems socializing and sitting in a fist of strangers and laughing at what they laugh at and crying with them. It’s not a big problem but I’d rather not do it.

*After the Mexican artists community raised $20,000 of the $30,000 Legom needs for a kidney transplant in Mexico, a group of artists in the United States launched a campaign to raise the remaining $10,000. So far, $4,366 has been raised. To donate, go here: www.indiegogo.com/legomproject.

Entrevisto a Dramaturgos: Luis Enrique Gutiérrez Ortiz Monasterio

Luis Enrique Gutiérrez Ortiz Monasterio

Adonde nacistes?

Guadalajara, Jalisco.

Adonde vives ahora?

Xalapa, Veracruz.

Háblame sobre "I Hate Fucking Mexicans."
En términos formales es una obra fuera de corpus, pues no hace un estudio formal sobre la estructura del personaje como casi todas mis obras. Cuando Ana me pidió una obra para NY preferimos esta por lo que tiene para establecer un diálogo con ustedes, contra la opción obvia de mandar una obra representativa como business card. Es una obra que acá en México siempre ha desatado reacciones encontradas, o gusta mucho o la odian y dicen que soy un pelmazo y que no debería volver a escribir. No me interesa que el público diga de mis obras que son bonitas, de ser así tejería suéteres de acrilán, lo que me interesa es mover al espectador de su asiento, si eso implica que se sienta mancillado, pues qué marica. Para mí el teatro es un hecho político, no de la inmediatez política, sino de la otra, la de un hombre valiente, que es el actor, que asume las palabras de un cobarde, que es el dramaturgo, para confrontar a su comunidad, que es el público. No creo que se puedan nombrar actos más políticos que este.

En que estas trabajando ahora?

Este año, paradójicamente, he escrito mucho. En marzo estaba iniciando los estudios para el transplante y me dejó mi esposa por un pendejazo, así que tuve que reordenar el plan y regalé a todos mis perros, que eran mi adoración. El caso es que me quedé más solo que un menón en el semáforo. Y fue para bien, porque desde la cama he podido trabajar ampliamente. Terminé la primera parte de una trilogía en colaboración con Ana Lucía Ramírez, escribí los primeros cinco capítulos de una serie teatral policiaca y terminé el primer borrador de mi libro sobre teoría del personaje.

Cuéntame una historia de tu niñez que explica quien eres como escritor o como persona.

Yo decidí a los ocho años ser escritor. Entonces ya me preparaban para ser hermano marista y le escribía poemas a la Virgen María. Como soy hijo de dos sicópatas, me escondía en mi armario con una lámpara para leer, y leía mucho, sobre todo poemas decimonónicos y novelas de piratas. El primer narrador a quien envidié, al grado de querer escribir como él fue a Joseph Conrad. Al drama llegué tarde, a los treinta años fue cuando comencé a escribirlo con intenciones formales. Realmente yo lo que quise fue ser novelista, como Conrad, pero mis novelas no le gustaban a nadie. Desde hace años ya casi no leo, solo escribo.

Si pudieras cambiar algo del teatro, que seria?


No entiendo la pregunta. En estos trece años como dramaturgo ya propuse dos modelos diferentes de escribir para el teatro que en mi país y otras partes me imitan por todos lados. Primero desarrollé un modelo donde todo parte de la nada y se presenta el mínimo de actores y elementos escenotécnicos. El otro es un modelo que tiene mucha relación con el lenguaje del cómic para lograr todo lo contrario: desarrollar una obra con el máximo de situaciones, personajes y cortes diacrónicos en hora y media, la idea es llegar a la novela en la escena. Soy muy ignorante del teatro, por lo que estoy seguro que ninguno de los dos los inventé realmente, que antes alguien debió hacerlo, pero en mi arrogancia prefiero creer que soy un genio que logró dos veces lo que prácticamente nadie ha hecho ni una vez.

Quienes son o fueron tus héroes teatrales?

Esquilo, Esquilo y Esquilo.

Que tipo de teatro te emociona?
Realmente yo no veo teatro. Tengo problemas para socializar y sentarme entre un puño de desconocidos y reírme de lo que ellos se ríen y llorar con ellos. No son problemas fuertes, solo prefiero no hacerlo.

*Después que la comunidad de artistas Mexicanos recaudo $20,000 de los $30,000 que Legom necesita para un transplante de riñón en México, un grupo de artistas en Estados Unidos lanzo una campana para recaudar los restantes $10,000. Hasta ahora, $4,366 han sido donados. Para donar, por favor visite: www.indiegogo.com/legomproject.

I Interview Playwrights Part 511: Colman Domingo

Colman Domingo

Hometown: Philadelphia, PA

Current Town: New York City

Q:  Tell me about Wild With Happy.

A:  Wild With Happy is a zany, crazy, out of it's mind new play that I both wrote and am acting in which is currently having it's world premiere production at the Public Theatre. It's about a forty-something year old man named Gil, played by yours truly, who loses his mother and the drama, hilarity and insanity that ensues. I've been calling it a "dark comedy about death and Disney World."

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  Well, at the moment, I don't have a free moment between the hats I wear as actor and playwright at Wild With Happy, but I am really excited to say I'm in Steven Spielberg's upcoming film Lincoln - which I have seen and is spectacular as well as Lee Daniel's film The Butler, which will come out next year.

Q:  How does your acting work inform your playwriting and vice versa?

A:  Well, I feel that they really go hand in hand. I've always considered myself an actor's playwright. I am very sensitive to what is happening on stage, both when I am on and when I'm off. Making sure I am sensitive to how particular bits as well as the piece as a whole land on the tongue and then tweaking to make the piece sound and feel very clear.

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

A:  Ticket prices! To make sure theatre is available for everyone regardless of your economic situation.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Geoffrey Holder, George Wolfe, David Belasco, Uta Hagen, The Lunts!

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theatre that slaps you in the face, makes you think, inspires you and shatters you to your core.

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

A:  Follow your own voice - learn to be a storyteller based on what excites YOU about theatricality.

I Interview Playwrights Part 510: Lucy Gillespie

Lucy Gillespie

Hometown: London, England

Current Town: New York, New York

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  Graduate School at NYU, mainly, but therein I have just started a play about rhetoric and faith. It will take place in the lobby of the Liberal Jewish Synagogue, where my parents used to send my siblings and I on Saturday mornings so they could fight in peace. It will feature some kind of horrific event, perpetrated by young congregants in the basement, and justified by (drum roll) rhetoric and faith. This is all conjecture, though; I haven't gotten far.

In preparation for Graduate School at NYU, however, I had a summer of spring cleaning. I finished a brand new play, A Responsible Adult, about a love triangle between a Kylie, a married tutor in her mid-twenties, Anya, her 15 year-old student, and Malachi, a 40 year-old musician. It's also the families we build for ourselves in New York. The girl is a prodigal cellist and the dude is a jazz musician, so in my head there will be extensive sequences of improvised jazz. That I did not write.

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

A:  Oh man. I was a nightmarish child. Here's one example:

I was the most popular kid (and only girl) in my Hebrew school class of awkward misfits. We all loved our teacher, John Haggard, who was funny and brought in great exercises that, like, made learning about Jewish identity fun! He also always brought in a box of Cadbury's Roses and at the break, he would open the box, lift it high above his head and tip it up so that brightly colored chocolates would tumble out onto the table. If I missed the frenzy, he would save me the orange and strawberry creams. The following September, we had a new teacher who I shall call Deborah. We hated Deborah. Deborah was strict and by the book. The class became less about games and discussions and more about learning Hebrew. She gave out homework and quizzes, she had a high-pitched, whiny voice, and she never, ever brought in Cadbury's Roses for us - or even Quality Street. She had to go. One day I just flipped. She was in the middle of some kind of complex, abstract, probably highly intelligent thought when I stood up and announced that we would continue the class under the table. I crawled under the table and one by one, the boys (my minions) joined me. First, Deborah laughed. Then she started to scold. Then she started to beg. Then she started to cry. Then she crawled under the table and, crouched like a hamster, finished the lesson. We never saw her again.

It frightens me - and I think about this a lot - that this is fundamentally who I am.

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

A:  Audience participation. There should be more of it.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Shakespeare, Stoppard, Churchill, Knee-High, PunchDrunk. Mac Wellman's Chrestomathy completely rewired the way I think about theater. And I drop everything when TJ Jagodowski and Dave Pasquesi come to town.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Stuff that really commits to itself? When it patiently and organically unfolds - as opposed to rushing to define itself as one thing or another, or conform to some kind of structural or narrative formula (which always makes the play seem overdeveloped). Can you tell that I'm in grad school? I love anything that's smart but also gut-wrenching...

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

A:  Self-produce! You will not regret it. Figuring out how to ask people for money is about the best skill you can learn...

Q: Plugs, please:

A: OUTFOXED - about an American study abroad student who gets caught up in a SEX DRUGS VIOLENCE scandal in Italy, and must be bailed out by her mother - is being produced by FullStop Collective, November 30th - December 16th at the Access Theater.

Also: THE ATWATER CAMPAIGN - about the rise and fall of spin-doctor sonofabitch, Lee Atwater, with original blues music - is being produced as part of terraNOVA Collective's Groundworks Reading Series, Sunday December 9th at 3pm.

Also: YOUNGBLOOD Brunches! If you've never been, they are the BEST and the MOST FUN. And I might even get around to writing one this year!

I Interview Playwrights Part 509: Randall Colburn

Randall Colburn

Hometown: Mt. Clemens, MI

Current Town: Chicago, IL

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  Currently writing a play about Christian youth at an Acquire the Fire-type festival, which is on commission from Writers' Theatre. Also adapting one of my plays into a TV pilot, which has been an intense, but satisfying experience. Other productions in the works, but unannounced as of yet.

Lately, I've also been dabbling in Chicago’s storytelling scene. I'm not really an actor, but writing and performing first-person pieces analyzing current events through the filter of my own experience is scratching an artistic itch for me.

Q:  Tell me about B-Rated.

A:  Ha. Well, I’m giant fan of bad movies, horror movies, and bad horror movies. The show began in college, when my friend Tim Marklevitz and I would babble on about stupid movies in the film department’s editing bay. We, along with several other friends, were working on shows that aired on the campus TV station and would be up into the wee hours editing. Somebody always had a video camera, and that’s where these videos began.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5Y9KF6N-RU

Once Tim moved to LA, he decided to spruce up the format a bit. We changed the title to B-Rated, amped up the production values, and started scripting our material, wherein I’d use all the bullshit I learned in grad school to dissect movies like Evil Bong and Shark Attack 3: Megalodan. Unfortunately, since Tim and I live across the country from each other, we were only able to film new episodes when we were in the same time zone, and it’s been a long time since that’s happened. It’s too bad because with the release of every new episode we’d garner good press and increased interest; I wonder where it could’ve gone if we were able to crank ‘em out regularly.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BN7dM297MrA

The best thing to come out of B-Rated was the chance to appear in Best Worst Movie, a popular documentary about Troll 2, which some consider the worst movie ever made. The makers of the film, who were also the stars of Troll 2, caught wind of our series and asked us to host a Chicago screening of the movie at the Music Box. Tim and I had to pinch ourselves at Ann Sather the following morning, when our bad movie heroes bought us eggs and expressed honest interest in our endeavors. Then they interviewed us for the documentary, and we ended up prominently featured as talking heads. Bragging rights for life.

Q:  How would you characterize the Chicago theater scene?

A:  Chicago is a city of ingenuity. Chicago is a place to experiment. Chicago is a place to self-produce. Chicago is a place where a couple hundred bucks can produce that show. Chicago is a place to indulge artistic whims. Chicago is a place where houses are typically a quarter full. Chicago is a one-critic town. Chicago is a place to begin, a place to reside, a place to die. Chicago is a place people often leave. Chicago is a place people are afraid to leave. Chicago feels like home. Chicago is a place where brilliant works of art extinguish like flashbulbs in the bowels of a Pilsen warehouse. Chicago is a place where enthusiasm often trumps talent. Chicago is a place where you work for free. Chicago is a place where you discover your aesthetic. Chicago is a place where people embrace poverty and PBR.

Chicago is focused on companies. So many companies. A new company every day. Chicago is a place where anyone can produce. And that’s important. And that’s why Chicago produces hard workers, passionate artists. Chicago theater is a weary beast with sad eyes, coated in a glistening sheathe of sweat.

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 had a giant collection of action figures, mainly from the WWF, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Star Trek, and films such as Jurassic Park and Aliens. I was really into WWF, so I’d make them all converge in the ring, to the point where I’d basically created my own federation rife with humans, dinosaurs, and monsters alike. Since the storylines and rivalries I’d create we’re so intricate I’d say this, in some ways, led to my passion for ensemble storytelling. When, in fifth grade, I decided to write my first novel, I orchestrated its action with these same action figures over several months, fine-tuning each moment with the utmost care and concentration. It was building the world I liked, creating a world. When I finally wrote the novel, a 125-page rip-off of Jurassic Park called Death in the Making, it consisted of about 20 main characters spread across seven or eight different plot threads. I love exploring the nooks and crannies, the quiet moments in-between the loud ones; that, I think, is where the heart of a piece lies. Though the action figures have long since disappeared in dust, I try to build worlds in a similar way, by fine-tuning every small moment, every throwaway phrase.

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

A:  Things that need to stop:

* Ghosts onstage only one person can see

* Plays about rich white people learning how to be a little less awful

* Plays that should be movies

* Saying theater is dead

* Speaking in simultaneity for no discernible reason

* Gimmicks.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Spalding Grey. Chekhov. Jeremy Menekseoglu. Stuart Carden.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theater that’s uncomfortably, almost unbearably, honest. Vulnerability. Ambiguity. Theater that pushes buttons without resorting to sensationalism or gimmicks. Theater that experiments with genre—show me an affecting horror or sci-fi play and I’m smitten.

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

A:  Make your own opportunities. If nobody will produce your play, produce it yourself. Don’t be afraid to fail. Also, never write a scene you don’t want to write.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  DON’T GIVE THAT BEAST A NAME with the Chicago Mammals. It’s a show I co-wrote with Bob Fisher, who’s a damn genius. Appalachian gothic comedy/drama/horror with music. Info here: http://chicagomammals.blogspot.com/

I Interview Playwrights Part 508: Bilal Dardai

 

Bilal Dardai

Hometown: Downers Grove, IL

Current Town: Chicago, IL

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  Currently performing in The Neo-Futurists' production of 44 Plays for 44 Presidents and working on a first draft of a play called The Abacus for Stage Left Theatre, both in Chicago.

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

A:  Around my house we had, I would guess, over a dozen separate decks of playing cards, most of them incomplete, many of them souvenirs from gift shops at vacation spots. My favorite game was to take all of these decks and build sprawling card-labyrinths out of them on the living room floor, including a roof, and place tiny plastic figurines into different parts of the structure. I'd then stand a few feet away and toss marbles at it, causing it to collapse in sections, occasionally discovering a figurine among the rubble. I always made up a small story for each character in the maze--what they were doing in the maze when they met their untimely end--as well as a reason that I was bombarding the maze in the first place.

I did this for other games as well...I invented a highly complicated scenario of gangland warfare in a city setting to spice up Parcheesi, including rational justifications for many of its otherwise unexplained rules, such as the reason a pawn couldn't leave its starting point without a die roll of six. Generally speaking, I'm unsatisfied when I don't have a "why" for a situation in front of me, and I'll dig as deep as I can to find one...but In the absence of that explanation, I make one up.

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

A: I occasionally feel like there's just too much preciousness about what is and is not considered "theater" and it leads to a distasteful negativity about the art form. That is, a few people decide what is and is not legitimately theater and then wring their hands when they see work that fails to meet these standards. As far as I'm concerned an act of theater is an act of one person telling another person a story, live and in real time. It's still theater if that story doesn't make it to Broadway, or if the storyteller didn't get their MFA from Yale. It's still theater even if you don't like the story. Theater cannot die until there are less than two people alive in the world, so I'm tired of hearing that the art form is on its way out. Certain versions may be fading away, but theater itself is robust.

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: I feel like I learn at least a little something from every theater artist I encounter, but if I had to name a a few names from whom I learned a lot--Lanford Wilson for his experiments in narrative (such as The Rimers of Eldritch and Balm in Gilead); Harold Pinter for showing me the power of words unwritten and unspoken; Aaron Sorkin for making me understand how you can discuss very large things by applying principles of rhythm and music. Among artists I know, I'm deeply grateful for the work of Mickle Maher and my Neo-Futurist colleague John Pierson--the former for the ways he has combined heart and head in his writing, the latter for a performance art aesthetic that consistently seeks out personal risks and occasionally traffics in elliptical storytelling but which celebrates and invites the audience into whatever notions are being explored.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: Theater that finds ways to make me think about the world a little differently than I did before. Escapism and pure fiction are fine with me, but I really love stories that give me something new to consider. I've heard some people say that they go to the theater to see people who are just like them. I want to see people I don't know that well and hear stories I don't often hear.

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

A: Remember that above all else the form is collaborative, so be open to the ideas of other artists, who have the advantage of living outside of your own head. I know that you poured your blood into the script and you want it exactly the way you envisioned it, but when you find those actors, directors, and designers who completely understand your voice and ideas, they will do to your work what you are not capable of doing alone. If you're unwilling to let anybody else add their voice to the production, you should be writing novels.

Q: Plugs, please:

A: 44 Plays for 44 Presidents runs through November 10 at The Neo-Futurarium in Chicago. I also regularly write and perform in the company's late night show Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind, which runs 50 weeks a year on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.

I Interview Playwrights Part 507: Will Goldberg

Will Goldberg

Hometown: Boston, MA

Current Town: Chicago, IL

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  My current project is called Home Before Dark, and it's about a fifteen-year-old boy, Sean, who's in a sexual relationship with a man in his early thirties. Over the course of the play, Sean starts to come to terms with the true nature of the relationship and whether he can escape.

I originally conceived of the play as an experience that would take place in the "real world," not a theater space, and unfold in real time over a period of several weeks. The audience members would receive text messages or emails that Sean and the man sent to each other to arrange meetings around Chicago, and then observe/eavesdrop on those meetings as they happened. (There would be very small audience groups, and several opportunities to see each scene.) I was interested in dropping audience members inside Sean's situation to show how these crimes happen all around us without our knowledge, and that they're often nothing like the way we imagine them. Because the logistics are so tricky, I've since reworked it into a more traditional format, but I'm still working to keep it intimate and difficult. (I also hope to return it to the original format one day.)

I'm also applying to graduate schools this winter, which is a hilarious and terrifying undertaking. Even if I'm not accepted anywhere, having to articulate my goals and explain my work so many times has already been enormously valuable. I'd still prefer to get in somewhere, though, don't get me wrong.

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 a kid, I went to the same overnight camp for several years. We had a few dozen numbered cabins, but there was no Cabin 19. The counselors told us that there was no Cabin 19 because it was the founder's birthdate, but that never seemed like a good explanation, and so camp myths sprang up about where Cabin 19 had gone. I first heard the general story at age eight. It went something like this:

Cabin 19 had been one of the girls' cabins, and housed a camper with red eyes "a really long time ago." (This was also supposed to explain why some years were missing from the collection of all-camp photos dating back to the 1930s. When her eyes showed up red even in black-and-white photos, the camp staff had orchestrated a coverup.) One night, she had burned down Cabin 19 with her cabinmates inside, and the camp hadn't rebuilt it.

Two or three years later, I got the chance to tell the story to several kids in my cabin who hadn't heard it before, and decided to punch it up a bit. It got away from me pretty quickly. The girl from Cabin 19 had showed up the first day of camp with a dirty backpack and a few changes of clothes. Nobody had seen who dropped her off. She was mean to her cabinmates and they were mean in return, spreading rumors that she was a "devil child" and that was why her eyes were red. (To an eleven-year-old, the red eyes were way too awesome to leave out.)

The night she finally snapped, the girl from Cabin 19 set the fire by flicking her thumb like a lighter, because of course she was a devil child, and when the cabin was in flames, she ran inside to die with everybody else. For years afterward, Cabin 19 would reappear at different places around camp -- behind the dining hall, in the middle of the lake -- and burn down again, which apparently I thought was really eerie. And of course it hadn't happened for several years, so we were due.

My retelling scared the shit out of my cabinmates and sparked a jittery debate about which of us were in the most flammable parts of the cabin. Were the kids in the wooden bunks worse off than the kids in the metal ones? Could we knock the screens out of the windows if we needed to escape? We made a bunch of frantic plans, but finally everybody calmed down enough to go to bed. Everybody except me.

I knew that I'd made up most of the story, but it was hard to remember that in the dark. It took several tense hours to fall asleep, and I was jittery for a few nights afterward.

At camp a few years later, I overheard an older kid telling a new camper the story of the girl from Cabin 19, and my additions were in there, which made it all worth it.

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

A:  It would be wonderful to have widespread opportunities to be an "assistant playwright" the way my director friends were able to be assistant directors, like the idea Len and Zak Berkman discuss in this interview.

If I could change two things, I'd really like to stop seeing productions using modern technology (Twitter etc.) just because it's modern. I went to a show once where the audience was encouraged to tweet things to the fictional workplace where the story was set, and then the tweets were on a screen behind the actors. What a douchey thing to do to your actors, encouraging people to not pay attention to them in favor of an idea that added absolutely nothing. There are a ton of fascinating things to do in theater with social networking and other technology, but we should be using them to underscore themes and enhance story, not detract from people's hard work with bells and whistles.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Archibald MacLeish's play J.B. knocked me on my ass when I was sixteen. I had to read it for English class and couldn't get enough of it -- I had to read it out loud to myself, over and over. J.B. was probably the play that did the most for my understanding of rhythm and sound and their enormous power.

When I was at the National Theater Institute in 2006, we went to see Sarah Ruhl's Eurydice at Yale Repertory Theatre, and it was like nothing I had ever seen. There's a lot to love about it, obviously, but one part in particular made my hair stand up: when the dad finishes writing a letter and sticks it to the wall, and you see that the "bathroom tiles" behind him are actually dozens and dozens of letters he's written. I was completely floored by the way that moment did so many things: the way it changed my understanding of a set I had taken at face value, what it says about the metaphysics of the play's world, and the emotional implications for the character who has written so many letters.

And he's not a theatrical hero, but the novelist Kazuo Ishiguro has been a huge influence on me for several years. My favorite book of his is Never Let Me Go, but all his work has such masterful subtlety. Little is said, but the facts pile up around you very softly, and at some point you realize what you've been looking at the whole time. Your subconscious brain does so much work. I've got a long way to go before I'm anywhere close, but it's a good horizon to head toward.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Recently, I've gotten interested in the kind of theater that exploits the shit out of the fact that the audience is physically in the same place as the story. So much of our entertainment is created so far away from us in time and space, and theater's immediacy and concreteness are huge assets for us. When I'm working on my next project, I'm hoping to explore that stuff especially as it relates to non-sight, non-sound senses. What story needs odors to be told? There's a good one out there.

Q:  Anything else?

A:  I'm a little embarrassed that I've used so many adjectives in this. Just pretend they're not there.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  I don't have any work currently in production, but I blog at williamgoldberg.blogspot.com. (Now that I've given out the link, I'll have to update more.)

I Interview Playwrights Part 506: Robert Plowman

Robert Plowman

Hometown: Halifax, Canada

Current Town: Toronto, Canada

Q: What are you working on now?

A: Right now I’m writing a solo show called My Sex Rays Will Cover The Earth. It’s inspired by the story of a man named Wilhelm Reich, who was a disciple of Freud’s in Austria in the 1920s and seemed destined to be a major figure in the development of psychoanalysis. But Reich’s research became more and more unorthodox as he focused on the orgasm as the defining diagnostic feature of a person’s psychological health. In time, Reich discovered what he believed to be the fundamental energy of the cosmos — something he called Orgone energy — which passes through all of creation, and is manifest in the healthy person through orgasm. By contrast, Reich argued, blockages of Orgone energy result in cancer and disease. It’s a classic mad scientist story that unfolded in mid-century America. There is the Utopian dream, and there are the fools! the fools! who stand in the scientist’s way. In this case, the fools were the Food and Drug Administration who jailed Reich in the early ’50s for fraud. And eight tons of the man’s books, journal articles and private papers were burned at Reich’s own expense in a New York state incinerator. That he survived Nazi-occupied Europe only to be subjected to this massive book burning in the U.S. of A. is particularly heartbreaking. Even if the man’s science was entirely gobbledygook. It’s like Brecht’s Galileo, if Galileo was wrong. This will be my thesis play in my graduate program, the Playwright’s Lab at Hollins University.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  This winter I’ll write the final draft of The Muse Factory, my beatnik play. It takes unpardonable liberties with the lives of Burroughs, Ginsberg, Kerouac, et al. to tell a story that could best be described as: red-hot smut. Pure filth. The Muse Factory looks at the true nature of obscenity and the notion of “dirty words”.

Also, I’m writing The Mnemonist for Lohifi Productions, a Canadian company whose work is based in found-object puppetry and performance in non-traditional theatre spaces. The Mnemonist is a Canadian Cold War spy story, set in that hotbed of espionage, Ottawa. The play is Hitchcock by way of Kafka, and is concerned with the question of identity in a world where everyone is a foreigner, an immigrant, a person in search of a home.

Q: How would you characterize the Canadian theater scene?

A: The answer I usually give when people ask me about Canadian theatre is that we’re pitched between the British and the American traditions: where the British tends to be more concerned with ideas and the American with the emotional journey of the individual. That’s a huge generalization, of course, but playwriting in Canada is very young and for a long time Canadian theatre was entirely in the shadow of the US and the UK. Before 1968 there was scarcely any history of Canadian theatres producing original Canadian plays; looked at another way, this means that most Canadian playwrights who’ve ever produced are still alive. I think there’s something hopeful in this.

For a long time I thought the most exciting theatre being made in this country was coming from devising companies. And I’ve spent a lot of time collaborating with ensembles that usually work without a writer and seeing what happens when, y’know, I put my proverbial chocolate in their peanut butter, and vise versa. As a playwright I keep looking for a home: a theatre or theatres where, if only for a little while, I can belong; where I’ll find co-conspirators for my mad plans — to offset the long, lonely, boozy hours of staring at the computer screen by myself.

So the real answer to the question about Canadian theatre? I’m living in Toronto and enjoy living here, but I still struggle to find a place in this country where my work makes sense, to find the people I want to work with. This was part of what sent me back to grad school at the Playwright’s Lab in Virginia. And I think it’s a lifelong challenge: finding the people you want to live your creative life with.

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 high school I went to a national debating tournament in St. John’s, Newfoundland. Among the cultural activities planned for the young debaters was being bused to a lonely outcropping of cliff surrounded by fog and being told, Now you are standing on the eastern-most point of North America. I couldn’t see anything at all. Next, we were bused to a high school, seated in those standard high school desks under standard fluorescent lighting and told we were going to see a lecture. A rumpled man started writing on the board in chalk, lecturing us about science. As it seemed to me the whole purpose of being at this tournament was not to be in school, well, this was all far too school-like. I fell asleep. And when I woke up the lecture on science was something else entirely. It wasn’t a lecture, I realized, but a play. And though I’d slept too long to have any sense of what was happening in front of me I was totally entranced. I still have no idea who that performer was, but he blew my mind. And I think that’s still what I look for in theatre: that moment when everything you think you know turns inside out in front of you.

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: Chekhov. Barker. Churchill. Stoppard. Webster. The Wooster Group. Anne Bogart. The Nature Theatre of Oklahoma. Greg Moss. 13P. Number 11 Theatre, which no longer exists but made the most amazing play I’ve ever seen. All my teachers, especially, most recently, Carl Hancock Rux, who’s my thesis advisor and knocks my socks off. 53rd State Press.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: Theatre that is fearless.

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

A: I’d say, see all the theatre you can. Read all the novels you can, and newspapers and books of poetry too. Go to the art gallery every chance you get. See live music. Forget what theatre is supposed to be and then start writing. Diane Arbus said, “A photograph is a secret about a secret; the more it tells you, the less you know.” Someone once asked Allen Ginsberg how you get to be a prophet; his reply was, Tell your secrets. Write photographs and concerts and paintings and poems. Tell your secrets. Keep writing.

Q: Plugs, please:

A: On November 3, I’m contributing a 10-minute play to the Red-Eye 24-Hour Play Festival, which is happening coast to coast with a host theatre in each time zone: at The Spot, Arroyo Grande CA; University of Great Falls Theatre, Great Falls MO; the Lincoln Loft, Chicago IL; and the Hamner Theatre, Crozet VA. The festival was started by one of my friends in the Playwright’s Lab and, at least for this first year, it exclusively features writers from my MFA program. I’m excited for it to showcase the crazy diversity of playwrights coming out of my school. Go team!

On November 18, there’ll be a staged reading of my play A Girl Called Nothing in the Discovery Reading Series, in Roanoke VA. The play is my adaptation of Congreve’s Way of the World: set in the 1980s, it’s one half Wall Street, one half Repo Man.

And in February 2013, my play The Matador is going up at Mill Mountain Theatre, in Roanoke. It’s a love triangle that takes place in the bullfighting ring — a darkly silly comedy, full of song and dance, inspired by the untranslatable Spanish word duende.

robertplowman.com

I Interview Playwrights Part 505: Emily Dendinger

Emily Dendinger

Hometown: Purcellville, VA

Current Town: Iowa City, IA

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  A couple of things. First, I'm working on a new play about an amateur photographer named Charles Cushman who was the first person to photograph in color many beautiful American landmarks. I'm also revising a play I wrote for my fall Workshop called POCKETFUL OF SAND, which tells the story of an old man who pulls bodies from the ocean and sell their souls, and his relationship with a young girl who want to be his apprentice.

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 grew up with two younger sisters and spent a lot of time playing dress up in old bridesmaids dresses in our basement, remounting elaborate productions of musicals we checked out from the library. Looking back, those games of make believe taught me how to see the world as it ought to be, to consider anything possible, and that all good stories include drama, humor, beauty, music and a touch of absurdity.

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

A:  We are leaving women behind. When only one female playwright makes TCG's Top 11 Most-Produced Playwrights 2012-13 season, something is wrong. When season after season is announced and there is a shocking lack of female voices and directors, something is wrong. The fact that this is something we still need to address in 2012 deeply disturbs me. I'm not sure where the problem is because I'm in an MFA program composed almost entirely of some of the strongest, bravest female writers I've met so I know the problem isn't women can't write. I'm not sure where the issue is, but this is a conversation that needs to be happening right now.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Tom Stoppard, Chekhov, Naomi Wallace, Caryl Churchill, Aaron Sorkin, Steven Moffat, and my fellow Iowa playwrights.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theatre that takes my breath away and surprises me. Theatre that uncovers hope in the world, that reminds us people are inherently good and have an endless capacity to love. Theatre with large, ensemble casts.

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

A:  Write. Read everything. See as much theatre as you possibly can. Believe you have something worth saying, and don't let the committee in your head get you down.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  CHAMPAGNE GODS at the University of Iowa (Dec 8-10)