Adam Szymkowicz

Jan 11, 2017

I Interview Playwrights Part 903: Natalie Margolin

Natalie Margolin

Hometown: Los Angeles, CA

Current Town: New York, NY

Q: Tell me about Tutus:

A: Tutus is a play about a girl who poops in her tutu during her first ballet recital. It explores how we process experiences; reminding us how important it is to laugh when things feel tragic, and questioning what happens when there's no room for laughter anymore.

Q: What else are you working on now?:

A: I just finished a production of my first play, The Power of Punctuation, this summer at the Davenport theatre and now my focus is on Tutus and learning how to cook chicken.

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 second grade I was given an assignment to write a picture book. I was eight years old. My classmates wrote stories about their moms and dads, soccer, princesses, and pets. I, however wrote a picture book titled "The Real Fake Story of Bill Clinton." At the second grade presentation of these picture books another parent looked at my father and said, "well, she is different."

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

A: I would change the price of tickets! I want theatre to be accessible! I want to get young people in the seats!

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?:

A: Bernadette Peters, Martin McDonagh, Steven Sondheim, Robert Askins, August Wilson, Wendy Wasserstein, my college professor and mentor Wendy Macleod and my high school teachers Ted Walch and Michelle Spears.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?:

A: A wide range of theatre excites me! I think overall what I react most to is honesty. I love theatre that feels rooted in truth. I love theatre that is funny and heartbreaking. Because life is funny and heartbreaking! I'm a strong believer that comedy and drama should not be mutually exclusive. I love walking out of the theatre still carrying the story I just saw with me, it can feel like such a precious gift.

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

A: What a kind question! My biggest piece of advice is to trust your instincts and the stories you want to tell. It's important to both be in tune with the world around you and to take the time to be alone, developing and finding your voice. Write 20 minutes every day! (I honestly don't do that but I really want to start doing that.)

Q: Plugs, please

A: I'm so thrilled to be working with the insightful director, Alyssa White, and an incredible cast on this reading! The cast includes Matt Walker, Sarah Sanders, Julia Greer, Sarah White, Peter Falls, Taylor Harlow, and Raffaello Perfetto. Please come to Theatrelab on Wednesday the 18th at 7pm or Sunday the 22nd at 2pm! http://www.blackcoffeeproductions.org/

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Jan 10, 2017

OPENS JAN 28 in NEW YORK CITY

Adam Szymkowicz’s play is a gender-bending, patriarchy-smashing, hilarious new take on the classic tale. Robin Hood is (and has always been) Maid Marian in disguise, and leads a motley group of Merry Men (few of whom are actually men) against the greedy Prince John. As the poor get poorer and the rich get richer, who will stand for the vulnerable if not Robin? What is the cost of revealing your true self in a time of troubles? Modern concerns and romantic entanglements clash on the battlefield and on the ramparts of Nottingham Castle. A play about selfishness and selflessness and love deferred and the fight. Always the fight. The fight must go on. Learn more here: http://www.fluxtheatre.org/marian/

Tickets now live

Jan 28- Feb 11

http://www.fluxtheatre.org/open-book-marian/

Do you wish to read the play? If you're on NPX, you can read it here for free.

https://newplayexchange.org/plays/78056/marian-or-true-tale-robin-hood

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Jan 9, 2017

I Interview Playwrights Part 902: Patrick Flynn

Patrick Flynn

Hometown: Wilmington, Delaware

Current Town: Bethesda, Maryland. But I've also lived in Washington, DC, Alexandria, VA, Silver Spring, MD, Los Angeles, CA, and North Wales, PA.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: Right now I've got a commission with Flying V Theatre called Sheila & Moby. It had its first reading at the Flying V Awesome-a-Thon fundraiser in December and that went very well.

My play Anatomy of an Infidelity from 2016's Page-to-Stage Festival at the Kennedy Center was received very well as was my Capitol Fringe show Giant Box of Porn. The problem is, as always, breaking the cycle of: having a reading, the audience/actors loving it, and then nothing. Obviously, commissions don't usually suffer that fate but there's so much great theatre here in DC, I'm really struggling with what do with these scripts once we've had readings and/or workshops.

It occurred to me recently this is probably why so many people form their own theatre companies. But I have less than no interest in doing that. So: ONWARD!

Q: Tell me about the Original Cast Podcast.

A: I had two or three podcasts while I lived in L.A. but never found one I really liked. Once Erin Teachman had me on his DC theatre podcast Exit the Stage Door, I started to think about having a podcast of my own again.

The idea came simply because I was shocked to discover no one else was doing it. Original cast albums are this uniquely theatrical artifact and they have their own life independent of the shows they are attached to. My theory was that every theatre person had one cast album that really lit their world on fire when they were young. And it seems I was right.

The show debuted in March 2016 and has been growing very steadily since. It's had some good luck. Robbie Rozelle became a fan early on and tweets about the podcast a lot. And, just recently, I was fortunate enough to catch Daisy Eagan between performances of The Secret Garden at Shakespeare Theatre her in town which obviously got some downloads.

I did the first live episode at the Flying V Awesome-a-Thon and really am looking forward to doing more.

It's a lot of work because I edit the 2-hour interview down to 45-55(ish) minutes for release and add songs clips and such but I love doing it. It's a lot of fun.

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 is going to sound cheesy but it's 100% true.

When I was a kid, I did a lot of theatre at the Wilmington Drama League. Every summer they host the Jeff Walker One-Act Festival for young directors. Tech in those days was an all-day affair. Most people are in more than one show so we would just come and hang out all day.

My friend John Bromels told me I should watch the tech of a show he was in. As I sat in the house I saw this guy about my age running from the stage to the house and back again. I found he was not only acting in the play but directing and had written it as well. That was Keith Powell who would later go on to play Toofer in 30 Rock.

It had never occurred to me before that someone my age could write a play. I just didn't know you were allowed. I met Keith and we became friends and later collaborated on a lot of web content.
I wrote my first two one-acts that fall and just never stopped.

footnote - you can learn about Jeff on my blog here which could also be an answer to this question: http://www.unknownpenguin.com/2015/04/someone-elses-story-2/

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

A: The cost. I'm sure there's a reason tickets are so expensive but it is inaccessible to so many because of the cost. It really pisses me off that seeing live theatre is not something you can just do on a whim. I don't know what the answer to the problem is but if I had a magical theatre wand, that is how I would wield it.

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: Bob Fosse is my theatrical idol in a lot of ways. I find him fascinating, brilliant, and frustrating.
David Ives, Yasmina Reza, and Stephen Sondheim are probably my three biggest heroes from a writing standpoint. More than anything I admire their efficiency of language. They create and present clean, clear, & crisp characters using as few words as possible.

Ives's All in the Timing is a book every theatre kid my age had and it has really stuck with me.
Reza's Art is a play I'm constantly chasing.
And Sondheim is Sondheim.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: That's a really hard question to answer. I guess the answer is: anything alive. Anything that people are doing for the love of it. Anything where the energy from the stage is infectious. Anything where everyone left it all on the boards. That's what excites me.

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

A: Don't be precious with your gift. The more you write, the better you get. So don't be afraid to throw away pages and pages of a script to make it better. And listen to everyone's notes. You want the best idea in the room, no matter who suggested it.

And cut Scene 1.

Q: Plugs, please:

A: I'm doing Play-in-a-Day here in Bethesda on February 18, writing and directing a 10-minute play in 24-hours representing team Adventure Theatre MTC. http://www.bethesda.org/bethesda/play-day
I'll have something at Page-to-Stage at the Kennedy Center but I can't really announce that yet (possibly because I haven't written it yet).

And listen to The Original Cast on iTunes. I'm really proud of it and I think all music theatre fans will love it. https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-original-cast/id1093807015?mt=2

And you find all about me at http://www.unknownpenguin.com/about, on twitter at https://twitter.com/unknownpenguin, and at the New Play Network at https://newplayexchange.org/users/1099/patrick-flynn.

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Jan 4, 2017

History of a Play: Pretty Theft

Pretty Theft

I wrote it in 2004/2005. It was the first play I wrote after my grad school thesis play (Nerve) at Columbia. I took a class with Chuck Mee at the Flea and we were supposed to write plays about Joseph Cornell and steal each others' dialogue to create our plays. He ended up using some of the class' work in his Cornell play including some of my wife's writing. I used the class more as an inspiration. I didn't steal any dialogue but I took images from the class. Cornell was obsessed with ballerinas and created what are known as Cornell Boxes. Boxes and ballerinas both found their way into my play. And I took the name Allegra from an Allegra Kent quote Heidi Schreck brought in and I took the name Joe from Cornell and probably a lot from my wife Kristen Palmer.

I applied to Juilliard with the play and got in. (I think it was the 3rd or 4th time I applied) The summer after my first year at Juilliard, the play was done in the DC fringe. I was sending it out a lot and I must have sent it to that small company. It was the first year of the DC fringe. It was in the Canadian Embassy I think and the seats were really far apart which made for a really odd but overall positive experience. There were readings. Evan Cabnet directed one at Ars Nova. Daniella Topol directed one. I was working for Judy Boals and she helped me set up a reading. And then we did a workshop at Juilliard that Moritz von Stuelpnagel directed and Anna O'Donoghue was in. And then the play had a small production in Seattle.

And then a production in New York with Flux Theatre Ensemble in '09 which had a good Times review so I was able to get it published. It was the first show I did with Flux. They also did Hearts Like Fists and are about to premiere Marian later this month. All three plays with Flux had the terrific Marnie Shulenburg in them.

There have been 7 productions since the Sam French publication at schools and small theaters and there are two more planned. The small but bigger-than-I'd-had-before advance I got for that play still hasn't been paid back but I think maybe with these next two productions it might be.

One more thing. When I meet a high school or college age actress who has heard of me, it is almost always because of this play. Many times a young actress has gushed to me about this play ... which makes me happy it still resonates . . . and . . . I've written 30something plays since then.

At the moment, the play is selling at the rate of about 2 a day. Which is A LOT more than my other plays like Clown Bar or Hearts Like Fists that both get done much more frequently.

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I Interview Playwrights Part 901: Robert Wray

Robert Wray

Hometown: Norfolk, VA

Current Town: Charlottesville, VA

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I'm currently turning a short play I was commissioned to write on the theme of slavery (for a theatre festival in Moscow) into a full-length piece. As I'm not qualified to expound on historical slavery per se, I decided to approach the subject by twisting it into the world of BDSM. It's called SAVAGE VARIATIONS and is, in essence, a story of a woman trying to transcend both desolation and desire. That said, she's less a character than a mosaic of various roles, emotions, ideas, dreams, possibilities. As it's structure is episodic and the mise-en-scene porous--there are no stage directions--it's been challenging to complete. i.e., miles to go.

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

A: When I was in third grade, I went to a Catholic school where I considered myself a poet-preacher of sorts. I'd write religious poems and sermons, and would even sneak other kids behind a nun's house to teach them my version of the Book of Revelation, (which appealed to me at that early age for reasons God only knows.)

While I got kicked out of the school for doing this, the impulse to both interpret and make up stories and share them with the world has never left.

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

A: Mostly, I'd try to make it less polite, and more affordable.

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: I have a whole bagful of theatrical heroes--from Shakespeare to Chekhov to Sarah Kane--but the one I've been inspired by the longest is Samuel Beckett. Visceral, funny, philosophically complex, structurally/linguistically brave, Poetic with a capital P: Not since the Bard himself has a playwright so captured--to use Beckett's own words--"how it is on this bitch of an earth."

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: Theatre that pushes the proverbial envelope, that genuinely transports, that charts its own course and takes us to, as Shakespeare phrased it, "unpathed waters, undreamed shores."

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

A: If it's your dream to be a playwright, hold on tight to that dream and never give it up. Also, make sure you love the art in yourself, and not yourself in the art.

Q: Plugs, please:

A: Right now I'm semi-set to have my play Bullet for Unaccompanied Heart--about a blues guitarist who gets taken hostage by the ghost of his former lover--produced at the DC Fringe Festival in July.

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Dec 30, 2016

My 2016 In Review

Hi,

Since '07 I've been doing this yearly wrap up on my blog basically about my writing and sometimes other things I've done in the year. Here we go!

I wrote 2 3/4 full length plays in 2016 and a night of short plays. I had a full length and short play commission.

I had 21 productions this year of my full length plays. (Down from 29 last year) Productions this year included 8 Hearts Like Fists, 6 Clown Bar, 1 Pretty Theft, 1 Nerve, 3 Adventures of Super Margaret and workshop productions of Rare Birds and Kodachrome. Five of these productions were at high schools. Nine were at colleges or universities.

Of these productions, only one came about through some previous relationship. The rest were found through word of mouth or because of publications. One came about from the New Play Exchange!

There were also 6 productions of my night of short plays 7 Ways To Say I Love You and a bunch of productions of other short plays.

photo by Joy Tomasko

This year I taught TV writing at NYU and Playwriting at Primary Stages' ESPA.

I continue to work as Literary Manager at The Juilliard School, supporting the playwriting program there.

This year I went to San Marcos, TX, Orange County, CA, Washington DC, and Nazareth PA to work on my plays and also went to Seattle, WA to see my wife's play at ACT.

So far there are 14 or so productions of my full length plays planned for 2017 and two or so planned for 2018. Some of them (those with dates set) are listed here. New York will see two premieres, one after another-- Marian in Jan/Feb (directed by Kelly O'Donnell) will be produced by Flux Theater who did Pretty Theft and Hearts Like Fists. Rare Birds in March/April (Directed by Scott Ebersold who directed the first Nerve) will be produced by Red Fern. And 3, maybe 4 other premieres coming up.

The playwright interviews continue. The first 900 are here. I did 93 interviews this year. So I guess in a year or two, I can get to 1000. And maybe I stop then.

Hope you have a Happy New Year!

My previous year in reviews, in case you are interested:

2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007

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Upcoming Productions

PRODUCTIONS

Marian or The True Tale of Robin Hood
Production #1 of Marian
Flux Theater Ensemble
The New Ohio, NYC
(This play was commissioned by Flux as part of Flux Forward)
January 28-February 11, 2017.

Rare Birds
Production #1 of Rare Birds
Red Fern Theater
14th Street Theater, NYC
March 23-April 9, 2017

Clown Bar
Production #20 of Clown Bar
Oklahoma City University
Oklahoma City, OK
Opens March 2, 2017.

Production #21 of Clown Bar
The Duluth Playhouse
Duluth, MN
Opens March 30, 2017.

Production #22 of Clown Bar
University of Kentucky
Lexington, KY
Opens March 31, 2017.

Production #23 of Clown Bar
Corn Productions
Chicago, IL
Opens May 12, 2017.

Hearts Like Fists
Production #32 of Hearts Like Fists
Naugatuck Valley Community College
Waterbury, CT
Opens April 6, 2107

Production #33 of Hearts Like Fists
Keizer Homegrown Theater
Keizer, OR
Opens May 4, 2017

7 Ways to Say I Love You (a night of short plays)

Production #8 of 7 Ways To Say I Love You
Shoreham- Wading River High School
Shoreham, NY
Opens January 1, 2017

Production #9 of 7 Ways To Say I Love You
Ohio State University
Columbus, OH
Opens Feb 8, 2017

Production #10 of 7 Ways To Say I Love You
The Art Club
Sierra Vista, AZ
Opens Feb 10, 2017.

The Adventures of Super Margaret
Production #5 of Super Margaret
United Activities Unlimited
Staten Island, NY

Opens March 1, 2017

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Adam Szymkowicz

Featured Post

1100 Playwright Interviews

Jan 11, 2017

I Interview Playwrights Part 903: Natalie Margolin

Jan 10, 2017

OPENS JAN 28 in NEW YORK CITY

Jan 9, 2017

I Interview Playwrights Part 902: Patrick Flynn

Jan 4, 2017

History of a Play: Pretty Theft

I Interview Playwrights Part 901: Robert Wray

Dec 30, 2016

My 2016 In Review

Upcoming Productions

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