I Interview Playwrights Part 571: Katherine DiSavino

Katy DiSavino

Hometown:  Lancaster, PA – although my mother always told me I should tell everyone I’m a “child of the world.” This makes me sound a little crazy, but at least people don’t ask me if I’m Amish when I tell them this. They just back away slowly.

Current Town:  Brooklyn, NY

Q:  Tell me about Things My Mother Taught Me.

A:  It’s a romantic comedy about a young, unmarried couple moving into their first apartment together. One of the producers of the premiere called it a modern “Barefoot in the Park” which I found really fitting and flattering. It takes a generational look at relationships, the expectations we all have, and the lessons we learned from the people who raised us (even if we didn’t realize they were teaching us anything). And besides all the touchy-feely stuff there’s furniture stuck in doors, stolen property, a delightful superintendent and two very drunk dads at one point. It’s a piece that’s close to my heart because it’s about me, my boyfriend and our families. It’s my love poem to him (and to all of them) and I was so excruciatingly nervous the first time they all saw it because, obviously, a lot of humor comes from these unflattering moments the characters find themselves in – but they all loved it and are still talking to me, and as far as I know I haven’t been written out of any wills!

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  My partner and I are working on a new holiday comedy called “Seasonal Allergies” – it’s premiering at The Rainbow Dinner Theatre in November 2013. It’s all about the holidays, relationships, and what happens when a friend in need overstays his welcome during this joyous (and extremely stressful) time of year. I’d tell you more, but we’re honestly just diving into the piece. I’m pretty sure there won’t be any live animals or car chases or anything like that, but it’s really too early to tell.

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

A:  My parents own and run a theatre in Pennsylvania, so I quite literally grew up in the theatre. Some of my earliest memories involve sneaking into the ladies dressing room in the middle of a show (when all of the women were on stage) and just raiding their makeup kits like a pill addict set loose in a pharmacy. They’d come back after curtain call and I’d be wearing their clothes, and teasing my hair and my face would look like a cross between Bobo the Clown and Renee, your local hooker with a heart of gold. As I got older, I started finding ways to make secret hide-away spots behind the sets. Any play that required a staircase was, like, a god-send. I’d pull every spare blanket and pillow I could find from our props storage and pack it into the space underneath the stairs and would spend the entire show just hiding in there, listening to the actors clomp around me, and the audience laugh, and thinking that I was the luckiest kid in the world. And you know – looking back? I still think I was. A weird kid, but a really lucky one.

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

A:  I’m almost afraid to broach this because I don’t want to sound as if I’m speaking as an authority of any kind, but in my personal experience, I’ve come across a number of people who look down on comedies and comedy writers. I’ve gotten the sense that many people think that comedy is easy to perform, easy to write – a lesser art, if you will. I grew up around comedies. My parents run a theatre that only produces comedies. I’ve spent many of my formative years watching my father and mother get into fights because he stepped on her punch-line, or she didn’t give the right cadence on the set-up.

I especially feel that farces get the shortest end of this stick because it’s so easy to be distracted by the physical comedy and the rapid fire pace – but, structurally, farces are actually some of the most complex theatrical pieces around. There’s the timing, there’s the sheer physical requirements to pull off a farce and there’s a level of acting required – because, let’s face it – a farce is ridiculous. But the characters in a farce need to believe – they need to think that whatever is happening to them is life and death – because that’s where the humor comes from. In BOEING-BOEING, Bernard has managed to have three flight attendant fiancés for years that never knew about each other, until one day they all show up at his apartment and he has to keep them separated. This sound ludicrous, but Bernard (bless his heart) LOVES them, and they CANNOT find out about each other because it would be HORRIBLE – and the more Bernard sells his desire that these three women never cross paths, the funnier all of the antics surrounding stopping that inevitable moment becomes.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that making a room full of strangers laugh at the same thing is not easy. Think of how different people’s senses of humor can be. Rousing an audience to laugh out loud requires an understanding of the commonalities we all share as humans, and utilizing that to get to your joke. If there’s one thing I could change about theater, it would be this perception that comedy is easy. I think Charlie Chaplin said it best, “Anyone can make them cry. It takes a genius to make them laugh.”

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  I’ll stick to playwrights here because if I start naming actors we’ll be here for days, so to start: Neil Simon. Oh my goodness I love Neil Simon. I think if I ever had the chance to meet him in person I’d fall over myself. The way he approaches comedy – that sadness and bitterness that runs underneath “Barefoot” and “The Odd Couple” – it’s something audiences from any generation can relate to. We all get that. And of course Sarah Ruhl is a hero of mine – it’s so easy to say you fall in love with someone’s writing – their dialogue or characters for example – but I fell in love with her stage directions and the way she approaches her vision of a play and communicates that to her readers. Her readers, mind you – not her audience – they don’t see those beautiful words on the page – they feel them through the performance. Amy Herzog would be another one, and Ray Cooney – and Billy Van Zandt and Jane Milmore (that’s the side of me that worships farces). And my parents, who introduced me to all of these writers (in text form, not in person. They aren’t thatcool).

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  This is so corny – honestly? All theatre excites me. Sitting in an audience, waiting for a play to begin, knowing that what’s going to happen will unfold LIVE right before your eyes? That sense of the unknown – of the potential. Incredible. Theatre that KEEPS me excited tends to surprise me over and over again – comedies, dramas, musicals – the genre never matters. I don’t need to be punched in the gut, or laughing so hard I’m in the aisles – I just love when I don’t know what’s around the next bend.

Specific pieces of theatre that have recently excited me in NYC? HANDS ON A HARDBODY, HEARTS LIKE FISTS, EL AMOR EN LOS TIEMPOS DE COLERA and (these are from a while ago but I STILL obsess over them) THE BEREAVED, TIGERS BE STILL and SHE KILLS MONSTERS. Just to name a few!

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

A:  Write. Write an hour every day. Does your day job make you tired? Tough. Drink an espresso on your way home from work and write for an hour before dinner. Or after dinner. Or when you wake up in the morning. Or on your lunch break. It’s not a punishment – it’s a favor. It’s a gift that you’re giving yourself – time to be alone with your characters and to tune out the world and just write.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  You can check out the Facebook page for my first play, NANA’S NAUGHTY KNICKERS here: http://www.facebook.com/nanasknickers, and if you’re ever in Pennsylvania, you should totally see a show at my Mom and Dad’s theatre, Rainbow Dinner Theatre (the only all-comedy dinner theatre in the US!): http://rainbowdinnertheatre.com/

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I Interview Playwrights Part 570: William S. Yellow Robe, Jr.

William S. Yellow Robe, Jr.

Hometown:  I was born and raised on the Fort Peck Indian reservation located in northeastern Montana. The reservation is often referred to as Assiniboine and Sioux. I’m enrolled as a member of the Assiniboine Tribe. We were the last to sign the Fort Peck Treaty. People will often say how they have never heard of my Tribe, which is fine, because we’ve probably never heard of you. I lived in a small township called Wolf Point. It has a duality of how it was named. I actually mention it in the first play I wrote called, “Sneaky”.

Current Town:  Presently, I live in the home town of the great playwright, Eugene O’Neill, New London, CT. It is a small city. Small in populations but facing the problems of a big city.

Q:  Tell me about Wood Bones.

A:  “Wood Bones” is not your typical haunted house story. In fact, it isn’t about a haunted house. It is about a form of energy that humans have created over the years inhabiting this one space. It is sort of what is left behind. This energy starts to manifest and becomes conscience. Sort of similar to like a  computer become self-aware of itself, a form of artificial intelligence but in this instance an organic intelligence is created. The problem in writing the play was to present a collection of characters that didn’t judge themselves, or the audience would be able to be quick to judge. It is a multi-cultural cast because like America, we are diverse. It is the Native American Tribal communities that bear the weight of these various communities, as does the house energy/spirit character, 121, does in the play.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  I’m working on doing a series of rewrites on several one act plays and some poetry. I’ve been wanting to do a collection of poems in an e-book form. I hope to have it done soon. I’ve also just published a short fiction story, Miracle of 12-12-12, that appears in anthology dedicated to the late Native Scholar, Vine Deloria, Jr.

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

A:  My late mother was what people refer to as an ‘elder’. She spoke with fluency the language of our people, practiced the culture, and nurtured the community and environment, but she would never claim the title, or status of being an ‘elder’. She was very humble. I don’t claim any title. I follow her ways in that I try to be a good listener and observer, as she was. This has been a gift to my skills as a playwright. There are so many people to thank in influencing my development. There are so many relatives and friends that made contributions, what an honor it is to say that to recognize them.

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

A;  The biggest issue at the present time is acknowledging American Theater is an art form of privilege. The resources are still limited to a certain group, or groups of people. When is the last time you were in a major city and pointed to the theater that hosts the Native American Theater company? When was the last Broadway play written by a Native American produced? When was the last time you saw a Tony Award being presented to a Native American. In a local reality, when was the last time you saw a Native Tribal play, written by a Native Tribal person, featuring a Native Tribal cast produced? There aren’t that many. In another reality, how many non-Native Tribal people have taken from Native American cultures, spiritualities, and used these exploited elements in their plays, or productions? There are one or three productions a year being done by Native Tribal people themselves and to those folks I am very proud of them and admire their efforts. They give me a strong sense of hope for a better future for all of us.

The other element being introduced and rearing its face in a lot of large theater companies is an element borrowed by the Hollywood cousin. They are now determining what is Native, what a Native looks like, what a Native play should be like, what themes are found in Native plays, all this without any experience working or being involved with a Native community. In other words they have brought the “Poses With Hair” make believe Indian onto the American Stage which is a dangerous precedent.

I don’t speak for all Native Tribal theater artists. These are my observations and there is room for disagreement. The major factor and final one is; communities. You have to acknowledge and respect the communities which are the catalyst for this wonderful work and yes, it is American, not ethnic or minority. Native Tribal theater is Indigenous, we are not ethnic. American Theaters must begin to respect and develop better relationships with the communities that make up their environment.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  My influences have been diverse. I think the first professional play I saw was a production of O’Neill’s “Moon for the Misbegotten”. It was done by the Montana Repertory Theater. August Wilson’s work has made a major impact on my life. David Henry Hwang’s “FOB and Other Plays”, Philip K.G.s’, “Yankee Dawg You Die,” Jose Rivera’s “The Promise,” Hanay Geiogamah’s “49” and other plays. So many incredible playwrights and plays and theater artists like Lou Bellamy, Hanay Geiogamah, Roberta Uno, the late John Kaufman, Bruce Miller.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Original works are always exciting. New voices means new perceptions. Theater is a means to see the heart of a community. New plays and productions allow people to see something fresh and new.

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

A:  For any new playwright just staring out I think the most important step is to start developing a community. A play, unlike published poetry or other forms of literature, needs a community to survive. Start making friends with actors, directors, technical directors, stage managers, literary people. You play will start to help in creating that community.

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Episode 7 of Compulsive Love

Episode 7 of Compulsive Love is here!  Watch it and previous episodes on Koldcast or Blip or Daily Motion or Boomtrain or Youtube or JTS.

Embedded #7

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I Interview Playwrights Part 569: Myra Slotnick

Myra Slotnick

Hometown: Winthrop, MA.

Current Town: Provincetown, MA.

Q:  Tell me about The Weight of Water.

A:  The story takes place nine days after Hurricane Katrina, in the destroyed home of a woman by the name of Pearl Haynes, where two rescue workers try to remove her from the only home she has ever known for over forty years. As they come to realize, however, Pearl is the real force to be reckoned with here, and it just might end up being these two lost souls in need of rescuing. I wrote The Weight of Water as a very human impulse, to the visceral response that I had in seeing, witnessing, a class of people marginalizedand disregarded...or rather, discarded. I thought to myself, "this is the year 2005! What is happening here?! Why doesn't anybody go and help those poor people! They are dying!...dying. I could not reconcile what I saw happening, so I needed to express this in the only way I knew how. As it turns out, the characters had a thing or two to say about the story-line and tone of the play and, based on their many inadequacies, it is even pretty funny in places. Katrina is the backdrop of this play, but the story is quite character-driven, quite personal.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A: If I tell you, I'll have to kill you:) I tend not to talk about my current works in progress, as I feel it diffuses the creative energy around it. I will say that it is set in Provincetown, in 1953.

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 was a very antisocial child who would rather hang out and play with a pack of wild neighborhood dogs, than humans.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  It would be impossible, living in Provincetown, to not feel beholden to, or influenced by, Eugene O'Neill and Tennessee Williams. Arthur Miller, also. But the truth of heroes, to me, lies in the actor. Nothing inspires me more than great acting and, I could not tell you how this is done, exactly...only that when I experience someone great, I know it...I am transported, I am changed...I now understand something that I, previously, did not. And change is what great theatre is all about.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  This is going to be a boring answer, but I love all kinds of theatre....musicals, plays, short one-acts, readings, improv. classics...you name it. If it is written well and executed well, there is almost no experience that theatre will allow that is not inspiring in some way.

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

A:  READ. Read lots of plays and books on the subject, also novels, poetry, anything you can get your hands on that inspires you. Write every day at the same time of day, no matter if it is even an hour, ...after a while, your subconscious will yearn for it and be ready. And pray. Pray that your characters tell you something that you don't already know. And let them write the play.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  I prefer the three-pronged.


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I Interview Playwrights Part 568: Clare Barron

Clare Barron

Hometown: Wenatchee, WA

Current Town: Brooklyn, NY

Q:  Tell me about your Summerworks show.

A:  BABY SCREAMS MIRACLE is a play about a freak windstorm that blows down all the trees in a small town in eastern Washington state. I started writing the play for Clubbed Thumb’s Biennial Commission contest. We were supposed to incorporate all these different ingredients into a 10-page sample. I can’t remember everything but some of the ingredients that inspired this play were: the PBS documentary “Unforgettable Elephants,” Joan Baez’s “Tears of Rage,” the character of the Matriarch, a man in uniform, and body parts that don’t work right. I also wanted to write a play about religious people who use prayer to deal with their emotional/existential/relationship problems, so there’s a bunch of prayer in there too. I’m so excited to have Portia Krieger directing! And Maria Striar and Clubbed Thumb are gifts from God.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  I’m acting in a piece about Mars and Russian cosmonauts and video games spearheaded by the awesome Ben Vershbow. I just got back from Beirut where I was working on an Arabic-English production of Maria Irene Fornes’ MUD with a theater company called Masrah Ensemble, and we’re looking for new homes for the production outside of Lebanon. Sometime between June 2nd and June 22nd I’ll be frantically writing a new full-length play and having a Bloodworks reading for Youngblood. I have no idea what it’ll be about but I think it might involve ballet…

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

A:  It was the last day of 7th grade, and a group of girls and I wanted to hold a mud wrestling competition to celebrate. We didn’t have any mud so we each whipped up a big batch of chocolate pudding and carted it over to Jennifer’s house in tupperwares and dumped it in this little kiddie swimming pool. I forgot my swimming suit and so I had to borrow one of Jennifer’s. Jennifer was athletic and golden brown and wore bikinis that were much higher cut than my sad, floral tankini so my pubic hair was tufting out all over the place. Everyone wrestled. It was super fun and I kept falling down and it was hot and the pudding was beginning to stink. A car circled past Jennifer’s yard once. Then it circled again and stopped. The man inside rolled down the window. "What is that?" he asked. I sauntered over to the car – covered head-to-toe in brown goo and so, so proud – and told him it was pudding. He looked at me and then he reached his arm out the car window and said, "Come closer. I wanna touch it." There was a moment and then we were all screaming and shrieking and the whole pack of 12 girls was sprinting down the middle of the road covered in brown goo. I remember pushing my way to the front of the pack and my legs felt so strong and the asphalt was so hot against the bottom of my feet and I was filled with total terror and total glee. Running away from Pudding Man was one of the shining moments of my adolescence. I don’t think I’d ever felt that powerful.

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

A:  More neighborhood and community theater! I think it’d be cool if neighborhoods and small towns did plays by local writers. I also think it’d be cool if people did theater just for fun like when kids put on shows for the neighbors but with grown-ups.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  I’ve learned a ton from Deb Margolin, David Herskovits, and Annie Baker. I think they’re three of the most singular, daring and smart theater makers out there.

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

A:  Here’s some advice that’s helped me: write whatever you want, write from desire and don’t be afraid of writing stupid. Love yourself and show love to everyone else. Support other artists. Find people and read your work out loud. Find people you love to work with – this is the most important and meaningful thing.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A: Come to Summerworks! clubbedthumb.org

BABY SCREAMS MIRACLE
by Clare Barron
directed by Portia Krieger
May 24 - June 2

PHOEBE IN WINTER
by Jen Silverman
directed by Mike Donahue
June 7 - 16

LA BREA
by Gregory S. Moss
directed by Adam Greenfield
June 20 - 29

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Come to the Youngblood Brunch this Sunday! And come to Bloodworks this May & June! ensemblestudiotheatre.org
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And this Thursday I’ll be reading scenes from Syrian playwright Mohammad Al Attar’s recent play COULD YOU PLEASE LOOK INTO THE CAMERA? as part of Masrah Ensemble’s Doomed By Hope Theatre Series. It’s at The Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies at NYU at 5PM. masrahensemble.org

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Episode 6 of Compulsive Love

Episode 6 of Compulsive Love is here!  Watch it and previous episodes on Koldcast or Blip or Daily Motion or Boomtrain or Youtube or JTS.

Embedded #6:

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I Interview Playwrights Part 567: Jona Tarlin

Jona Tarlin

Hometown: Palo Alto, CA

Current Town: New York City

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  A play called Black Dicks. It’s about a 15-year-old girl, Erin, who finds her dad’s very large collection of interracial cuckolding porn. She corners her neighbor, Vivienne, after ballet practice to get a second opinion on whether her father is racist. Vivienne suggests she create a fake boyfriend named Dante who plays on the basketball team and see what her father says.

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 5th grade my teacher asked a group of student volunteers to help write a play about the Revolutionary War. I don’t remember if we divvied up scenes from an outline or we just wrote whatever but I wrote a scene about a sewing circle gossiping while blood from the war splashed against the window behind them.

I have always had twisted sense of humor and a love of stage blood.

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

A:  Beyond lowering tickets prices and livable wages for artists, I would say no more plays that hinge on a large secret coming out. I think it’s lazy storytelling and ultimately much less satisfying than building solid characters that deal with circumstances in the present with the audience.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  My first hero was Michael Litfin who directed and wrote most of the productions at the Palo Alto Children’s Theater. He cast me in my first play and was my introduction to theater. He showed me that playwrights were living breathing people and not just names on scripts.

The playwrights who are heroic to me are Tony Kushner, Edward Albee, Eric Overmyer, Gina Gianfriddo, Robert O’Hara, Sam Hunter, Annie Baker, and The Debate Society.

My writing is also influenced by the work of William Gibson, Penn and Teller, John Darnielle, Woody Allen, Quentin Tarantino, Paul Verhoeven, Bill Waterson, Jim Henson, Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I am excited by anything dark and funny with a distinct voice. Plays with rich characters struggling with extreme situations in a realistic fashion. Plays where a character can behave horribly and I will still love them.

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

A:  Celebrate when you finish a draft. You accomplished a huge, awesome thing and it’s easy to lose sight of that. After you celebrate, take some time away so the play is fresh again when you’re ready to start rewriting.

Work with the smartest actors you can. They’re gonna fight for their characters and force you to think about your play differently.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  I have a reading of my play In Antarctica, Where It Is Very Warm coming up in May with Blowout Theater Company. You can find out more information about that and any of my other plays at jonatarlin.wordpress.com

 
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I Interview Playwrights Part 566: Jill Campbell

Jill Campbell

Hometown: Massapequa, NY

Current Town: Stuvesant Town, New York, NY

Q:  Tell me about your play at LaMaMa.

A:  It's about a mid career conceptual artist who is nominated for this huge grant, but there's a catch - she must create a new work in order to collect. When she's out celebrating with her best friend, ex-boyfriend and mentor, instead of being happy for her, they all seem to want a piece of her success which prompts her to question what success really means to her and to others. As she begins to work on her piece, these “friends” invade her process until she is totally stifled. She gets over this by a decision to put each of them in her work, turning the tables and flipping the play in on itself.

We're creating the actual art onstage with some cool designers and a video artist. I always imagined this as a collaborative piece and left a lot of room for my collaborators and director George Ferencz's magic. There's also an intense scene at MoMA that might get me banned from there and a hipster boy toy who creates beer bong video art. Nothing about this play is safe, so it is making me really nervous but hopefully in a good way.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  I've been collaborating on a play called r u nobody 2 ? with playwrights Marya Cohn, Andrea Lepcio and Kim Merrill and directors Allyn Chandler and Elysa Marden for our theatre company, NewShoe. It's about teenage bullying. We workshopped it in the "room" at New Georges last year and after about 3 years of intense collaboration it's ready for production.

I'm also collaborating on a play with a scientist about Crystallography called Bernal's Picasso, and I'm editing a documentary I filmed in London about my playwriting mentor Bernard Kops.

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

A:  Everyone seems to make fun of Long Island, but Massapequa was a very theatrical place to grow up in. Gambino was on one side of the canal and Jerry Seinfeld's family was on the other, so as you were daydreaming about the scary mob shit going down behind the marble facades, Jerry's dad would drive by in an antique car (which I think he collected.) These sightings were the bees knees, because his dad was one of those warm hearted men who loved kids and life and got a kick out of us standing on the corner gawking at him in his eccentric car. Plus I came from a theatrical family, everyone sang show tunes and played piano and loved Streisand, and my favorite activity when I was a kid was to play "house," which I forced my friends to play with me. I was obsessed with rearranging furniture and dreaming up scenes where I was the bad teenager about to runaway. And then there was the beach club where everyone gossiped and they put on The King and I one summer; I was cast in the chorus and had the most exquisite costume, but I got an ear infection on opening night, and my mother sent me home, alone, screaming my head off (I was like 7). I cried and cried alone in my room not because I was scared, but because I was missing the party. My revenge came when I was 11, and I put on a striptease for some neighborhood boys while standing on a Cadillac in one of their garages, until someones dad caught us. Then there was Boces Performing Arts High School which saved me from some bullies at my high school which led to my BFA and theatre, theatre, theatre, until I got so sick of it all that I quit at 25 to become a New Jersey housewife. That lasted for 6 years until I wrote my first play Superbia ... and 15 years later I'm having my NYC debut at La MaMa, so it was all worth it!

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

A:  I would make it less conservative. We've seemed to make this crazy ass flip with TV where Tony Soprano is allowed to shove a woman against a wall in a bar and screw her from behind, but if we try to put that on stage (in a non-exploitative way) it's vulgar. It seems like some people are too afraid to offend their audiences or subscribers, which I think is an insult to the intelligence of those subscribers and audiences who would probably be open to being challenged by cutting edge theatre. I know there are lots of theaters that do do this, but I wish even more would. If what you're doing is authentic, people will want to see it. Which is why so much on HBO is so hot. Can we bring that back to the theatre?

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Ibsen, Caryl Churchill, Sarah Kane, Shepard, Rapp, Guirgis, Shanley and Young Jean Lee.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Challenging, funny, intellectual,risk-taking work that lingers in my mind long after I've left the theater.

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

A:  When you think you're done, you're actually just beginning.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  www.chemistryoflove.net , May 2-19 at La MaMa also check out my website www.seagullink.com.




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Artistic Director Interviews

Peter Ellenstein
Hal Brooks
Chad Rabinovitz
Jim Simpson
Marty Stanberry
Russ Tutterow
Andrew Leynse
Mimi O'Donnell
Marc Masterson

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I Interview Artistic Directors Part 9: Peter Ellenstein

Peter Ellenstein

Hometown: Los Angeles, CA

Current Town: Independence, KS

Q:  Tell me about The William Inge Center For The Arts.

A:  The Inge Center was Founded in 1982, but had two previous, but similar, names. It sits on the Independence Community College campus in the small rural SE Kansas town of Independence. It was founded by Margaret Goheen, a close friend of William Inge’s with the intention of honoring some of America’s Great playwrights. Over the past 32 years nearly every major American Playwright has visited, from Arthur Miller and August Wilson to Neil Simon and Wendy Wasserstein. Since 2002 we have been hosting long-term playwright residencies in William Inge’s boyhood home (setting for “Picnic” and “Dark at the Top of the Stairs”). We’ve helped develop over 50 new plays and through the playwriting classes and at local rural high schools and at the college and through the 24-Hour Plays that we do each year, we’ve helped birth hundreds of short plays as well. In the summer of 2014 we’ll be helping, with many of the towns other organizations, create ASTRA, a unique multi-arts festival which will feature four plays in Rep, music events, visual arts, literary and everything in-between.

Q:  How do you choose playwrights for the programs?

A:  I’ve chosen them from recommendations, chance meetings, longstanding relationships and open submissions. We choose the playwright, not the play. The playwright chooses their own project and we help them, as best we can, with the resources we have, to take the next step in that project.


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

A:  My father was an actor, director and artistic director. My older brother is also an actor, director and artistic director. Sitting around my dinner table every night were theatre and film artists of all shapes and sizes: discussing, arguing, tearing apart and putting back together again every piece of theatre or film or TV that was recently seen. By the time I was 16 I had the equivalent of a PhD in theatre. And then I started doing it, which was where my real education began.

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

A:  I would have much longer rehearsal times, so that we could have a better chance to make real art, rather than just “getting it up”.

Q:  If you could change one thing about The Inge Center, what would it be?

A:  I wish we had the funding to host several more playwrights per year.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Good theatre. I am excited by all kinds of theatre when it is done exceptionally well. And bored to death by all types of theatre when it is done badly. I don’t particularly care for theatre that is hopeless or only points out problems that are obvious without shining new light on them. I want theatre to make me feel more alive in some way, not deadened or depressed.

Q:  What plays or playwrights are you excited about right now?

A:  Well, There are countless playwrights that excite me. At the moment we’re casting this year’s Otis Guernsey New Voices award-winner, Sam Hunter’s new play for a reading at the Inge Festival. I’m very excited about his work, as I see a distinct connection between his writing and Inge. Very few playwrights deal with empathy and forgiveness and both Inge and Sam do. I’m also always an advocate for my good friend Richard Hellesen’s work. I’ve directed him a lot, and I always learn new things. But There really are a great many wonderful playwrights out there these days.

Q:  What do you aspire to in your work?

A:  Having a real effect in some way with whatever I do. Either helping people become more sensitive or increasing their knowledge or allowing introspection or maybe just detoxing through laughter. I don’t care much for mindless entertainment that is just past-time. I strive to make the experience holy in some way, so that people feel that they’ve grown or changed or enhanced their life for having sat in the dark for a couple of hours.

Q:  What advice do you have for theater artists wishing to work at the Inge Center?

A:  Bring your own fresh produce.


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Episode 5 of Compulsive Love!!

5th episode of my web series Compulsive Love is here!  Watch it and previous episodes on Koldcast or Blip or Daily Motion or Boomtrain or Youtube or JTS.

Embedded #5:



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I Interview Playwrights Part 565: Kirsten Vangsness

Kirsten Vangsness

Hometown: Porterville & Pasadena CA

Current Town: Los Angeles, CA

Q: Congrats on the LA Weekly nomination. Tell me about the show you were nominated for.

A: I was Nom. for best play of the year for the play I wrote, Potential Space.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: Right now, I am finishing up the season of CM (where I play Garcia, and I also help write her lines), and I working on a one person show I am doing at the Hollywood Fringe Festival and also rewrites on Potential Space which I will be re-mounting in the fall.

Q: How would you characterize the LA theater scene?

A: The L.A. theatre scene is a vibrant, quirky, wonderland. It's almost like a magical city within the city that you have to KNOW about to know it's there, folks sometimes think L.A. is a vat of TV Shows and people wanting on TMZ, but in reality there is this vibrant world of creatives making new content for the stage. Theatre is where the conversation starts, we are the great birth-er of dreams and ideas and often no credit goes to it. I am so honored to be part of it.

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 lisp that made it impossible to understand me sometimes and dyslexic so at school I had speech therapy for years and a reading class, it consisted of me having to talk endlessly to the speech pathologist and have her correct me and write letters and read things and learn the way other people saw things (the right way). I loved telling her stories, I loved to see her look pleased and I loved the paradigm shift my brain would make when I could understand how a word looked and was spelled the correct way-- that are so many ways that things look different to different people. I feel good when I can bend words and see people smile or understand a thing because of how I chose to say it.

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

A: MORE ATTENDANCE.

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: Scott McKinley. Helen Mirren. Teresa Rebeck. Eddie Izzard. The entire company of Theatre of NOTE.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: I love a play cocktail of funny, absurd, & sexy with a good dash of high stakes.

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

A: WRITE. Just write. And Delight yourself, write what your soul longs to know and read and play in.

Q: Plugs, please:

A: Starring in Kill Me, Deadly the movie opening later this year written by Bill Robens

Mess written by me, at Theatre of NOTE during the fringe festival (don't have dates yet)

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I Interview Playwrights Part 564: Madhuri Shekar

Madhuri Shekar

Hometown: San Jose, CA and Chennai, India

Current Town: Los Angeles, CA

Q: Tell me about your upcoming show at the Alliance.

A: My play 'In Love and Warcraft' has won the 2014 Kendeda Graduate Playwriting competition and will be produced at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, February 2014. Not only am I thrilled about the award, this will also be my first professional production.

The play was developed in a workshop production at USC last April, directed by Chris Fields. It's about a gamer girl, Evie, who also plays love doctor by using strategies from World of Warcraft to help other people fix their relationships. For her own life, she's content with a so-so relationship with her online boyfriend until she falls for someone IRL (in real life). In order to keep him around, she's forced to venture out of her comfort zone and explore the terrifying world of real life intimacy, and all the complications of a non-virtual relationship.

Q: What else are you working on?

A: It's the last semester of my MFA at USC, and I'm working on my thesis play- 'A Nice Indian Boy'. When Naveen, a thirty-something gay man, falls in love and wants to get married to his unconventional boyfriend, it's an uphill struggle to get what he truly wants- all the trappings of a fairytale romance, along with the complete support and approval of his family. In most Indian marriages, even the heterosexual ones, you can't have both.

We'll have a staged reading of the play at the end of May, directed by Robert Egan.

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

A: My dad used to act on stage, and loved performing. He never got a chance to do it professionally, but when we lived in the Bay Area, he and his friends would produce Tamil plays, usually comedies, and he would act in them.

Once when I was three, he was acting in a play called "Ayya Amma Ammamma". I was sitting in the front row with my mom, who had my one-year-old brother on her lap. Enthralled by the show- and before she could do anything- I lept off my chair, ran up on to the stage in the middle of the performance, and hugged my dad's leg, refusing to let go. The best part was that my dad stayed in character and improvised lines until one of the other actors appeared from backstage to pry me off of him.

I think I knew then that I was meant for the stage, but maybe not as an actor.

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

A: I grew up in Chennai, India, and my first real exposure to theatre was working with my college dramatics club and (at the time) amateur English language theatre companies. The theatre scene in India has continued to expand, despite almost no public aid or support from the government. There are many downsides to that for sure, but I am always so inspired by how these theatre companies (such as Evam, who I love working with) manage to produce their shows, raise money from affiliated commercial services, make the sort of theatre they're passionate about, and still remain financially solvent. Sure, most theatre artists can't quit their day jobs yet, but they have a hunger and passion about making theatre that attracts young people in droves. Just from what I've seen, I'd guess most audiences at an English play in India are in their 20s and 30s. I was at the wonderful Prithvi theatre in Mumbai last year, and everyone hanging out in the coffee shop after the show was around my age.
I don't see that here, and although the environments are so vastly different, I think American theatre companies could learn from how theatre is made around the world, and how it's becoming so much more relevant to the younger rising middle class (with disposable income!) than it is in the U.S.

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: Anyone who makes a living doing theatre is my hero.

Mahesh Dattani's work opened my eyes to how not all English plays had to be about Brits or Americans, that the English language could capture the rhythms of the Indian vernacular, and that yes, I could be a playwright too.

My professors and mentors at USC have had the biggest influence on my writing. Velina Hasu Houston, Luis Alfaro, Oliver Mayer and Paula Cizmar inspire me year after year with their passion and their work ethic.

My classmates Megan Kelly and Zury Ruiz never stop surprising me with their writing. It's such a gift to have been in class with them these past three years. I love them too much to admit publicly, so let's just say I'm excited to see where we go after graduation.

And, of course, my Dad, who has promised to act in one of my plays when he retires.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: If your play tells a strong and honest story, with compassion for the characters, and lets me laugh along the way, I will be your devoted fan forever. So much of the theatre I see is full of cleverness, and dialogue that doesn't ever sound like real people talking. I don't want to see that, I just want to see something sincere and true.

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

A: My MFA at USC is one of the best things that's ever happened to me. I was very lucky to be at the right place at the right time (and with the right people!), but the training I received here has been invaluable. Not all MFAs are financially out of reach (USC gives its writers a generous fellowship), so I think if you're open to experimenting and learning and failing in a safe space for a few years, it's worth it.

And whenever you're feeling stuck, read this blog.

Q: Plugs, please:

A: If you're in LA, come check out the USC New Works festivals in April and May, showcasing the new and original plays of the MFA playwrights.

For tickets and timings- http://sait.usc.edu/spectrum/events.asp

2nd years-
Morning View by Jesse Shao, April 12-14
Tales from Tent City by Brian James Polak, April 19-21
My Dear Hussein by Nahal Navidar, April 26-28

3rd years-
And All The Trees Shall Clap Their Hands by Megan Kelly, May 28 & May 31
¡What a Piece of Work is Man! by Zury Ruiz, May 29 and June 1
A Nice Indian Boy by Madhuri Shekar, May 30 and June 1

Follow the news (and our updates about our last semester at USC) at our blog- mfawriters2013.wordpress.com

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I Interview Playwrights Part 563: MJ Kaufman

MJ Kaufman

Hometown: Portland, OR

Current Town: New Haven, CT

Q:  Tell me about the play you're bringing to New Harmony.

A:  Sagittarius Ponderosa tells the story of a 29 year old transboy moving home to the woods for family reasons and falling in love. And it has puppets. I started writing it a few months ago. I had been feeling frustrated that most queer narratives are coming out stories and most trans narratives are transition stories. Why are the most prominent narratives organized around arriving at a more stable identity? I wanted trans narratives that would focus on fluidity, highlighting the way many of us are different genders in different spaces. I wanted art that would acknowledge constant change as an intrinsic part of being a person.

Around the same time my teacher Sarah Ruhl introduced me to what she calls Ovidean plot form. Here’s how I’d describe it: A plot form in which identities are in a constant state of change and worlds are in a constant state of change so that human beings can be multiple genders at once, or become a beast and then a tree as a result of falling in love or being heart-broken or struggling to struggling to escape from someone. Basically all things and characters are able to morph and change throughout and the resolution of conflict does not depend on arriving at a more stable identity. As soon as I understood it it I fell in love with it. It sounds more true to my life than any coming out story. I started working with it first to examine a landscape of gender fluidity but found the form led me to a more ecological fluidity, the way that things are constantly changing and being recycled in nature. This ultimately led me to a sort of spiritual fluidity: the way that love and souls are recycled.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  A play about a family that goes on a family history tour to connect with their roots but ends up realizing they have no idea who they are. It's actually part of a series of plays about 10 generations of one family haunted by the same ghost. And also another play about gay people.

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

A:  When I was a kid my friends and I used to get my brother dressed up as a girl for fun. We were really good at it. His name was Henry so naturally his drag name was Henrietta. Once he decided to go to a party at my aunt's house as Henrietta. He really committed to the role and party guests were all totally charmed by the new little girl in our family. For weeks afterwards people we met at the party would ask us in complete sincerity, where's Henrietta?

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

A:  Artists would control the means of production.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Paula Vogel, Sarah Ruhl, Naomi Wallace, Suzan-Lori Parks, Caryl Churchill, Cherrie Moraga, Taylor Mac, Peggy Shaw, Adrienne Kennedy, Bertolt Brecht, Thornton Wilder, Hallie Flanagan, Morgan Jenness, Polly Carl...I could go on and on...

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theater that surprises me into feeling something new. Weird, scary worlds that are strangely familiar. Theater with puppets, projection, music or movement, installations, ensemble theater, theater that moves through a large space or building. Stories about my queer and trans community. Ghost stories.

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

A:  Make sure you get to hear and see your work as much as possible. Theater doesn't happen on the page and you won't know what a play is until you get it up on its feet. Get actors to read your early drafts. Produce your own work. Don't give in to the cycle of readings, readings and more readings- fight to get your work produced. Take risks. Write what you love and really have to write, not what you think other people will want to produce.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Carlotta Festival of new plays! Find out more here: http://drama.yale.edu/onstage/festival/carlotta-festival-new-plays


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