Adam Szymkowicz: Search results for i interview playwrights

Marisela Treviño Orta

Hometown:
Lockhart, Texas. The BBQ capital of the state, thank you very much.

Current Town:
San Francisco, California.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: Several things, all in various stages of development. I often think it’s like plate spinning (there’s a visual for you). Late last year I finished up rewrites on my play Woman on Fire, a re-telling of Sophocles’ Antigone set along the U.S./Mexico border. I’m now in the process of sending it out (so cross your fingers).

This year I decided to create a work plan for myself to keep all my projects moving and so far it’s working. At the moment I’m in the middle of rewrites for my play Heart Shaped Nebula.

Heart Shaped Nebula is a play very close to me. I say that because there’s so much I love in that play: science, astronomy, Greek mythology and half of it takes place in the Texas town I lived in before I moved to California.

Later this year I’m going to shift gears to work on a series of “grimm” Latino fairy tales.

Q: You were a poet for many years, how did you transition to playwriting?

A: I fell into theatre while working on my MFA in Poetry at USF. I joined El Teatro Jornalero! (Day Laborer’s Theatre) as their Resident Poet. ETJ! was comprised of Latino immigrants and they focused on developing social justice plays.

I started hanging out at their rehearsals because I found their physical exercises inspiring and my poetry muse need to be fed. I wrote poetry, took pictures and ended up becoming a sort of Girl Friday for the theatre. Meaning, I designed programs for their play, then started recording their performances and even once ran a rehearsal.

After a year of watching them develop and write a play, I got curious about playwriting. Luck would have it that just as playwriting was beginning to pique my interest, playwright Christine Evans came to USF. Christine came to teach an introduction to playwriting course and collaborate with ETJ!. I took Christine’s class and with her encouragement submitted my first play, Braided Sorrow, to the Bay Area Playwrights Festival. That was in 2005. After participating in the festival I started to think of myself as a poet and a playwright. But some time around 2006 I began to work almost exclusively on plays.

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’s two stories actually. They’re different sides of the same coin.

In one I’m a first grader telling my parents the kids at school can’t pronounce my name. “What do they call you?” my mother asks. I reply, “Marcy,” like the Peanuts character. It’s a lie. I want to fit in and that’s the name I wish they’d call me. My mother questions me further and I feel that something is not right. That my desire to fit in, to nonchalantly take on a new name, is somehow a wrong to my parents and to myself.

The second story is a woman, an acquaintance of my parents, who asks them, “Why doesn’t she speak Spanish?” Still a child I internalize this, I interpret the question as “Why has she chosen not to speak Spanish?” I feel inadequate.

As a third generation Mexican American I spent my adolescence coming to terms with how I straddle two cultures, how I exist in a liminal zone between the two. I came to understand the power of names, of language. My experience isn’t unique. I grew up with scores of friends in school and college who shared the same cultural experience and awareness.

As a writer I’ve used poetry and plays to continue my exploration of cultural identity. I ventured into playwriting specifically to write about social justice issues that affect the Latino community. Since then my work has evolved. Now the plays I’m working on explore other interest areas (science, mythology, folklore), but one thing remains the same about my plays.

Actually it’s two things.

Almost all my characters are Latino and the majority are women. I think we all write ourselves into our plays, consciously and unconsciously. For example, you could say my characters have “less-than-common names” (Soraya, Miqueo, Yolot, Septimo, Dalila, Lalo), like me. I’m very intentional about character names. I guess it’s a way of honoring my own.

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: My first theatre hero was Christine Evans. Taking her class is what got me excited about theatre and the possibility of playwriting.

I also take great inspiration from Christine’s work as a playwright. Her work is visually striking, poetic and often political—all things I strive for in my own work. Other playwrights whose work I greatly admire include: Sarah Kane, Jose Rivera, Marcus Gardley, Julie Herbert, Bertolt Brecht, Suzan-Lori Parks, Octavio Solis, Federico Garcia Lorca and Euripides.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: As a poet and as a playwright I’m very image-driven. Therefore I’m excited by theatre that takes into account the entire sensory experience that theatre is. I especially love theatre that doesn’t reign in its imagination, but rather lets it run loose on the stage.

And I love the idea of the emotional world of the play impacting the physical world. I wouldn’t call it Magical Realism, but rather moments of magic and wonder.

There’s something spectacular about live theatre. When you’re watching television or a movie you know they’re using CGI or editing to create moments of magic, but in theatre it happens right before your eyes. In a time when we’re all very desensitized to the world around us, it’s those theatrical moments that tap into my own child-like sense of wonder. I think that’s an amazing gift.

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

A: I think you blogged about this subject once and reading that post was really helpful to me, especially your first point: it can take 10 years for your career to start moving. That was like lifting a weight off my shoulders.

As for my own advice, I recommend developing a yearly work plan. Give yourself monthly goals, year-long goals and then map out the work you want to accomplish each month. And don’t forget to give yourself deadlines for those goals. I’m finding it very useful for keeping myself on track. Like many artists, I have a full-time job, so carving out time for writing is a challenge and I’m finding that the work plan is helping me move all my projects forward and I have a better sense of the overall big picture of my work. My work plan includes both writing goals and lists out all the places I want to send my plays, i.e. festivals, theatres.

Q: Plugs, please:

A: I definitely want to give a shout out to theatre here in the Bay Area. We have such a varied and exciting scene with theatres of all size from large regional stages to scrappy companies that are barely a few years old. Some of the theatres I frequent include: Crowded Fire, The Cutting Ball Theater, Impact Theatre, Magic Theatre, Marin Theatre Company, Shotgun Players, and Sleepwalkers Theatre.

Also I have to say there are some wonderful organizations that support playwrights here in the Bay Area, including: Playwrights Foundation (where I’m one of several Resident Playwrights ); Playground (which has a writers pool of 36 playwrights); and Theatre Bay Area.

Lastly, I want to plug the playwright community out here. I’ve always found my fellow playwrights to be very supportive and open. For the past few years I’ve been co-hosting the Bay Area Playwrights Pub Night with playwright Tim Bauer.

A few years ago we came to the realization that despite the best intentions we never had the wherewithal after a show to go get drinks and catch up. So we decided to dedicate an evening to just hanging out. And we thought inviting all the playwrights we know would be a great way to keep tabs on one another’s work. Now the pub night happens about 3 to 4 times a year and we rotate through the city—each pub night in a different pub in a different neighborhood. Our first pub night for the year will be February 26th at Valley Tavern in Noe Valley. If you’re reading this and you’re in the Bay Area, come on out, the invite is open to all playwrights and theatre peeps.

Aug 30, 2010

I Interview Playwrights Part 252: Maria Alexandria Beech

Maria Alexandria Beech

Hometown: Anaco, Venezuela

Current Town: Manhattan

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I'm writing a commissioned play for Primary Stages and Theatre Masters based on the Aspen Ideas Festival which I attended last summer. I'm also working Little Monsters which will be co-produced (with Primary) at Brandeis Theatre Company next February. Little Monsters is also part of Octoberfest at Ensemble Studio Theatre in September so I'm trying to get the play in shape for that. I'm also starting the NYU Musical Theatre Writing Program. For my day job, I'm co-authoring a case study on the film industry and writing an article about the Ford Foundation.

Q: Tell me about the The Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group at Primary Stages and the The Hispanic Playwright's Lab at Intar.

A: Primary Stages has been really supportive. I was asked to join the writers group as grad school ended and that was a great transition into professional theater. I've had a home to write plays, (I write best under deadline and they require ten-twelve pages a week). I've also had a chance to work with fabulous directors and actors during our spring reading series, and I cannot say enough how amazing it feels when a theater treats you with respect and professionalism. They approached actors like Frances Sternhagen, Maria Tucci, and Laila Robbins for my readings, and working with those iconic actors was a great boost for my confidence as a writer. The greatest component of the writers group is that you get feedback from your colleagues who are some of the most talented and accomplished playwrights in the American theater today. Over the years, I've been in the group with playwrights like you, Julia Jordan, Katori Hall, Cusi Cram, Neena Berber, Courtney Baron (who is a fucking amazing dramaturg), Tommy Smith, Bekah Brunstetter, David Caudle...listening to colleagues has made me a much better (and thicker-skinned!) playwright.

The Hispanic Playwright's Lab at Intar was a great experience. I wrote with Matthew Paul Olmos, Andrea Thome, Cyn Canel-Rossi, Mando Alvarado, and other talented playwrights and some of them are my best friends today. I also became invested in the community of actors and directors associated with Intar, and they feel like an extended family to me.

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 really lonely childhood in Venezuela. I grew up in an oil city as the kid of a mainly absent American Father and therefore despondent Venezuelan Mother, and I didn't fit in anywhere. I spent long afternoons eating green mangos in my treehouse, or wandering around the oil camps looking for friends. (I don't blame my parents for anything...they were two incredible people who tried to love each other and us...but it was a challenging situation.) There were tons of secrets at home, and nothing was ever answered. Painful as it was, it truly forced me to live in my imagination, and writing became a creative way of approaching all those secrets.

Q: In your life as a reporter, what was it like interviewing Latin American presidents?

A: President Serengeti of Uruguay had the longest eyebrows I had ever seen on a non-camel, and it was difficult to focus on his eyes. My interview with President Ortega of Nicaragua was surreal because his handler wouldn't let me do the interview if I didn't lend Ortega my facial powder. I kept pretending that the request wasn't on the table but every approach for the interview was met with: "only if you have powder for his face." I was visiting Venezuela and the only "powder" I had was my own Clinique, and his face ended up caked with it. It was strange to see that vanity and insecurity in a revolutionary who years earlier had dressed in camouflage. Interviewing President Carlos Andres Perez of Venezuela was like interviewing a wax figure. His answers were wooden and stale. He had just brokered talks between Palestine and Israel and I asked him about that. He was in the middle of a lengthy answer when his phone rang and he answered it. Nothing like losing a key moment in an interview. I met with President Chavez when I was at Lehman Brothers. He was shorter and more feminine than I expected. For some reason, he plays a very macho character during the hours (and hours) he spends on Venezuelan television but he has zero mojo in person. President Fidel Castro was a huge flirt. At first he was angry because I asked him about the poverty and recession in Cuba, and then he softened when I told him that I was frustrated that the US Federal Reserve had bailed out all those millionaires (longterm capital management) who had invested their money unwisely. President Toledo of Peru was tiny and perfectly lovely. I met with him when he was still a candidate, and I told him I didn't think Fujimori would ever let him win which is exactly what happened. President Menem of Argentina was running for office again so everything around us had his logo: Menem 2003, even the sugar packets that were served with our coffee. When I had to go to the bathroom, he insisted on accompanying me himself, so I was mortified to make any noise thinking he was waiting for me outside. President Fox was pragmatic saying, "I may sound like a populist but I have an election to win." Wouldn't it be refreshing if all candidates were as honest?

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: Playwrights were originally called poets, and I love theater that feels like poetry. Words that are carefully chosen for their meaning, and strung together for their subtext. I love to feel that the playwright labored for just the right sentences. I love when the writing feels meticulous...Susan Lori Parks is a good example. I love work that feels real, and also that takes me on a strange journey like your pirates play or Courtney's play about heart break. I love intelligent humor, and also learning about other cultures...but it has to feel real. I think that what is incubating at the Public with the emerging writers group is VERY exciting - we need artistic diversity if we're going to survive as a culture - and I can't wait to see what comes out that project. I'm also into some musicals and experimental opera. Tod Machover and I are talking about writing an opera together, and to me, Tod is a glorious composer. Not only does he invent instruments but he envisions likely but non-existing worlds such as a future where we can download our brains into chandeliers. I also love simple writing that turns around and smacks you in the face - Matt Olmos or Andrea Thome come to mind. I love smart writers who forgo pretension like Chris Shinn. A favorite right now is Tanya Saracho in Chicago who writes these wonderful, ambitious plays sprinkled with Spanish. Last summer, I read over seven hundred scripts for two panels and a theater, so I could go on and on about the theater that excites me...your plays excite me, Adam. I'm really, really excited about the experimental theater movement in Mexico. (My essay on it for the Lark is here: http://larktheatre.blogspot.com/2009/12/december-2009-maria-alexandria-beech.html)

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

A: This question is the reason it's taken me months to get back to you with this interview. So much to say.

- First, it's important to know that if you feel like you're a playwright, you probably are. It's an unsexy and unrewarding life for a long time...so you have to stick with your conviction that you're a playwright no matter what a million people tell you...your parents, people who give you tepid feedback...that feeling you have inside that you're a playwright is an avocado seed that takes years and years to grow into a tree. At first, you may be the only one who truly knows you're a playwright but if you stick with it, eventually you'll start to convince others because your work will get better.

- If you're thinking about grad school, go but try to get scholarships. Grad school forces you to write...and that's what you need to become a better playwright. You'll get feedback from other theater artists, and you might make friends. You'll also see your work staged and if you're fortunate enough to work with people like Anne Bogart or Kelly Stuart, you might learn a few things. If you can't go, don't worry. Public libraries and drama book shops will give you everything you need. All you really need is writing tools.

- Intern at a theater. I worked at the Cherry Lane for two years and it was a very important experience. Most theater appreciate the free labor, so just call up and offer your services.

- Take a production course. Often, playwrights are scared of numbers but it's important to know the "business" of theater. The idea that you can produce yourself will console you when there's no production on the horizon. Understanding how the "business" works gives you the option of producing smaller-scale projects that will keep you occupied and improve your work.

- Join or form a writers group. Writing with colleagues is cool as shit. Again, it forces you to write.

- Don't worry about getting an agent. A lot of people think that an agent validates them as artists but I've formed relationships with theaters (by submitting) and negotiated multi-thousand dollar contracts alone. More than once, I've been told that an agent will appear when my career is ready...and that's been my path. The deal is to become the best playwright possible so agents want you.

- If you're writing from your personal experience, you can protect your privacy. When people ask, "did that happen to you," you can say, "it's not really appropriate to ask an artist that question. I don't think Frida stood around a gallery and explained that the babies hanging from umbilical cords in her paintings were hers."

- The theater is small. I try to avoid gossip and mean-spirited conversation though venting is sometimes necessary. I've decided over time that I won't work with people who gossip a lot because gossips can ruin a reputation. I've seen it happen, and it's pretty sad when it does.

- If it's one of your first projects, understand what a director wants to do with your play. Also try to know whether he or she will listen to your input when you don't agree with their choices. I lost a wonderful friend once because I didn't understand at the start that he didn't want any input from the playwright, and that he wouldn't change important things I didn't like. Conversations are a must.

- Nurture relationships with mentors. That doesn't mean weekly meetings. It means having relationships with more experienced playwrights (and other theater professionals) who can guide you through a confusing situation when the time comes up. Sometimes, that means an email every few weeks or even months.

- I'm a naturally shy dork and I'm socially awkward around uber cool people. Since there's a hegemony of cool people in the theater right now, you may sometimes feel like an outsider. YOU'RE NOT. Just be yourself and eventually other dorks will find you. And some of the cool people may even eventually talk to you...but even if they don't, theater isn't high school. It's not a popularity contest. It's a place where people come together to create worlds and people that have never existed, and as such, our purpose is greater than liking each other.

- I remember every single compliment I've ever gotten over my work. If you like someone's work, tell them. It's a huge boost in a path rife with rejection.

- Rejection will become your best friend. Rejection letters, etc. (Don't save them.) Get used to it and also, get over it and move on to your next submission.

- Read tons and tons of plays (Drama Book Shop and public libraries let you read them without buying them) and also watch past productions at the 4th floor of the New York Public Library of Performing Arts. Don't let the people there intimidate you. When they ask what your purpose is for being there, say, "I'm writing a play and I need to watch this production for research."

- If you feel at home in the theater, you are. Take off your shoes and stay awhile. Don't wait for permission or a production. The most successful people in the theater often say they just stuck around long enough.

- Submit and submit. Join The Loop and Facebook playwrights groups that send you submission calendars. Rogelio Martinez once said, "you never know when someone out there is going to read your play and become your fan. Even if your play doesn't get produced, that person may eventually have a position of influence that allows them to re-visit your work." I've actually seen it happen.

- Have fun. Remember. This isn't an emergency room. We're not saving lives. We're storytellers, and in the best of circumstances, mirrors of what is and what could be.

Q: Plugs:

A:
Little Monsters, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Saturday, September 25th at 4:30 pm
Little Monsters, Brandeis Theatre Company, February 17-21, 2011

May 11, 2013

I Interview Playwrights Part 580: Kimber Lee

Kimber Lee

Hometowns: Pyungtaek, South Korea; Nampa, Idaho; Seattle, Washington

Current Town: Brooklyn, NY

Q: What are you working on now?

A: Playwriting: Getting ready for the Lark Playwrights Workshop reading of my play brownsville song (b-side for tray), working on new pages for another new play that I'll take into our last Playwrights Workshop meeting this coming Monday, and doing some prep for upcoming workshops of the Brownsville play this summer at the Seven Devils Playwrights Conference and Bay Area Playwrights Festival.

Boxing: Trying to re-tool my jab and right cross. Learning to fight in the pocket and go to the body. Footwork.

Other: Catering gigs, when I can get them. Ongoing assessment of my internet habits - addiction or useful engine of engagement?

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

A: Jeez, I dunno. I was a weird kid, but I guess I am learning that a lot of people feel/have felt that way; maybe they just figure out how to hide it better than I did. Was I weirder than the average kid? Who can say. I do know that I was the only Asian American kid in my neighborhood, at my school, in my parents' church - in the whole town, basically. I guess that'll do something to ya, to be the only one of something, and I wonder how much of my ability to absorb an environment is a direct result of being the only Asian person in a small Idaho town. Actually, this is a lie. There were occasionally other Asians. There was a Japanese exchange student in my high school for our junior and senior years. But for the most part, walking into any situation, I was the only one. And I kept thinking I could blend in by feathering my hair and wearing blue eyeshadow and watching Hee-Haw. Live and learn - Hee-Haw is not the key to racial integration. I know this now.

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

A: I wish we had multilateral (multi-operational?) channels of access, rather than the fairly vertical paths we all currently traverse - for both theatre-makers and audience members. For theatre-makers, I wish the "system" could recognize and embrace a much broader recognition of what theatre can be. For audience members, I wish ticket cost was not prohibitive, and also that there were artistic community-organizers who could lead meaningful cross-community engagement in the work - not just by inviting the "Asian audience" to the one "Asian play" in the season, but by creating an ongoing relationship across an entire season of plays. I wish theatre could stop insisting on silos of "identity" in the way they select, produce, and package work for marketing, and instead engage in the complications and contradictions that exist in everyone's experience.

Have I said too much? This is more than one thing. So. If one thing? That fear would cease to be a significant motivator for any artist, administrator, or audience member.

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: Anyone who has been knocked flatsplat and then gets back up and keeps going.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: You know, I don't have a genre or form or type. Anything with guts. Moments that hold me in the palm of their sweaty hand, tickle me, then punch me in the face. Bravery. Fuck-expectations-this-is-who-I-am writing. Willingness to risk being thought of as uncool. Ambition riding hell-for-leather toward the edge of current ability.

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

A: Aigooahhh...I am just starting out myself. And I find that my writing time consists largely of me telling myself "It's okay. You can do this. Go ahead. Okay, maybe eat some boneless pork and jujubes first, then go ahead." And then I flail around. One bit of sanity I could offer is a quote from Melissa James Gibson, "Be kind to your impulses." That has helped me immeasurably, cuz I don't know about you, but for some reason, my tendency is to jump all over my impulses and bludgeon them to death with rancid dead fish thoughts like "YOU CAN'T WRITE THAT IT'S STUPID AND EVERYONE WILL KNOW THAT YOU ARE A MORON IN PLAYWRIGHT'S CLOTHING." Not helpful.

Being kind to impulses doesn't have to mean you end up using all of them, but the practice of kindness can make a sort of slip-n'-slide from your soul to your typing fingers, and once the flow is going, that's the sweet spot. You can sort it out later.

Q: Plugs, please:

A: My pal, the great Chisa Hutchinson has a play at the Wild Project May 4-18th, 2013 called ALONDRA WAS HERE - get there if you can! I am going tomorrow and I am so excited! Go here for tickets: http://www.thewildproject.com/performances/index.shtml

The other Lark Playwrights Workshop Fellows have readings coming up too:
PING PONG by Rogelio Martinez
DEAD AND BREATHING by Chisa Hutchinson
SKELETON CREW by Dominique Morisseau
All free but ya gotta reserve a spot there's a link on this page: http://www.larktheatre.org/playwrights-workshop-2013/

brownsville song (b-side for tray)
@ Lark Play Development Center Playwrights Workshop reading on Tuesday May 14th 7:30pm
@ Seven Devils Playwrights Conference, June 2013 - if you're in Idaho (heh), check out the free reading
@ Bay Area Playwrights Festival, July 2013 - if you're in the Bay area, the BAPF website has info about reading time/dates.

-------
Book Store
Books by Adam

Dec 15, 2020

I Interview Playwrights Part 1097: Nicole Cox

Nicole Cox

Hometown: I was born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska, but I grew up into myself in Chicago.

Current Town: Washington, DC

Q: Tell me about Abomination.

A: Abomination is the story of Yitzi, Dov, and Naftali, closeted, queer yeshiva graduates, who find each other in an internet chat room in the 90s, grow into a little family, build an organization, and ultimately work with the Southern Poverty Law Center to successfully take down a conversion therapy organization that spent decades abusing queer kids, and taking advantage of their families, in Orthodox Jewish communities on the east coast. It’s a play about old and new identities, forging your own path, finding your people, and belonging.

Based on the true story of the trial of Ferguson v. JONAH, it’s also a play about wielding the power of language and engaging in sound arguments. It’s about establishing legal precedent and using laws to protect the most vulnerable among us.

The decision was announced June 25, 2015. The next morning, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Obergefell v. Hodges and ruled in favor of marriage equality. Ferguson v. JONAH was national news for about five minutes before it got brushed aside – for the best reason – but I wrote the play because the story shouldn’t get lost in the sweep of history.

Q: What else are you working on now?

A: As always, a few things at once!

I’m revising a new play about a GenXer stuck in a job she hates, at a surreal, uber-corporate wellness call center, who’s doing everything she can to get fired, but her cynicism and disregard for corporate jargon somehow improve her performance, so she keeps getting promoted.

My friend, Jennie Berman Eng (“I Interview Playwrights, part 410”), and I are writing a musical about the women who work in and frequent a neighborhood bra shoppe.

And my friend, Sharai Bohannon, and I are writing a TV show together about an AOC-type newcomer to a university campus, who becomes a lightning rod because of her antiracism efforts.

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

A: I’m sure this isn’t a unique story to writers or creative types, but, one morning, in 7th grade, in 1989, I was walking to music class with one of my closest girlfriends. Right before we got to the classroom door, she turned to me and said, “Oh my god. Why are you always hanging on me?” She threw open the door and bolted to her desk, as if to leave me in the dust. I was stunned.

By lunchtime, everyone I thought was my friend was no longer my friend. It was gross and suburban and just so, so painful.

The next day, a girl I was sort of friendly with, who wore Metallica t-shirts and purple bras, told me my old friends were b*tches, and asked me if I wanted to sit with her and her friends. They were a mismatched bunch. She bought a 6-pack of mini powdered sugar doughnuts and ate it for lunch. I pulled out my sandwich, carrots, and apple. I gave her my apple. She gave me a doughnut. We’ve been friends for 30 years.

I never belonged with the people I was raised to think I should belong to. I always belonged to the mismatched bunch.

Even in grad school, I confided to a dear professor, “I don’t think I fit in here, and I’m among writers!” Perceptive and succinct, as always, he said, “That’s what’ll keep you writing.”

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

A: That it was subsidized the way corn and soybeans are. I wish it was cheap, plentiful, and widely available. I wish it was part of federal, state, and local budgets. If we’ve learned anything during quarantine, it’s that storytelling is a necessary commodity, whose value grows with interest, for both public entities and private citizens. It feeds us, sustains us, and keeps us healthy. We shouldn’t need massive private donations to make theater accessible.

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: Paula Vogel, Lynn Nottage, Anna Deveare Smith, Wendy Wasserstein, Christopher Durang, José Rivera.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: First, the kind I can’t write - wild, loaded spectacle. The kind Black playwrights like Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins, Robert O’Hara, Jeremy O. Harris, and Aleshea Harris are writing right now. I’m also insane for quieter, subtle, intimate plays like those from Annie Baker and Dan O’Brien.

And second, I mean, didn’t we all just get to fall in love with Radha Blank? It’s so exciting to be around when she and Women of Color like Rachel Lynett and Inda Craig-Galván (who I recently learned about and immediately fell in love with) are writing and getting produced.

I know my stories. I want stories from women playwrights who show me characters and give me language outside of my experience.

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

A: Well, I see myself as a playwright just starting out, and I have a lot of hangups about calling myself any type of writer, so I’ll share what I try to tell myself: You don’t need anyone’s permission. Just write the story you want to write. You’re not in competition with anyone. And, finally - this is the most important - pick up whatever Jacqueline Goldfinger puts down.

Q: Plugs, please:

A: I finally made a hat (website)! Please search for me online and click around on the site. I need traffic. nicoledyancox.com

And if you’re reading this in time, Theater J, in Washington DC, is producing a reading of Abomination on Zoom Thursday, December 17, the last night of Chanukah. José Carrasquillo is directing a wonderful cast. If you can’t make it to the live broadcast, it’ll be available to stream on demand from December 18-20.

And also, I really want to make a quick plug for the Welders 3.0, the DC playwrights collective who, like so many others, got totally cheated this year. This is the first year that the collective is 100% POC, and it just sucks that this generation has to figure out how to survive the shuttered world. I know they’re looking ahead to When The World Opens Back Up, so please, if you feel like giving around this time of year, please please be a pal and an advocate and an accomplice, and donate to the Welders here.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Support The Blog
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mailing list to be invited to Adam's events

Email:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Adam's Patreon

Adam's New Play Exchange Profile (Plays to Read)

Books by Adam (Amazon)

May 29, 2019

I Interview Playwrights Part 1041: Bryan Stubbles

Bryan Stubbles

Hometown: Layton, Utah

Current Town: Montgomery, West Virginia

Q: What are you working on now?

A: A one act comedy about West Virginians in LA going through “slaw dog withdrawal.” West Virginians put a form of cole slaw and chili on their hot dogs and call it a slaw dog. It’s delicious but not very common in LA, obviously.

I want to thank Beach Vickers and Tory Casey of the Montgomery Shakespeare Company for inviting me out here for a residency.

And I have to post twice per week on my blog, Unknown Playwrights.

Q: Tell me about Unknown Playwrights.

A: The blog features playwrights not named “Shakespeare.” We try to profile both living and dead playwrights whose work may not be so well-known. Usually I’ll do an analysis of a couple plays and a biographical sketch. For living playwrights, we have an interview much like your blog. I’m big on translation and need to include more of them in the blog. I’ve translated Spanish, Portuguese and Korean-language playwrights and hopefully soon will profile an Indonesian playwright, among others.

Also, every Monday we have “Monologue Monday” where I find videos online of people performing a different monologue. People can see different takes on the piece of writing. In fact we have two of yours up. Sometimes the videos can number into the dozens.

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

A: I’m not sure if high school counts as childhood, but this explains a lot: When I was in my first high school play back in Utah, they’d always have their Mormon-style prayer before performances. Not being Mormon and also believing in separation of church and state, I never took part.

After the production, one of the other cast members asked me why I wasn’t at the cast party.

“What party?” I asked.

They’d had a cast party and didn’t even invite me.

A couple of years ago I tried to objectively determine what themes are hardwired into my plays and I noticed that the protagonist is often an outsider and I’m certain that goes back to my formative years in Utah where kids would tell me my family worshipped Satan (we didn’t - maybe we should have?), among other things. People can be very, very, very cruel (also reflected in my plays).

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

A: American theater needs to take more risks, be more inclusive, make itself accessible and not be so self-important. Wait, that’s four things. Sorry. American theater should not be the self-satisfied sedate behemoth it currently is, but should instead be a wonderful, hungry, innovative and dynamic monster.

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: Angelina Weld Grimké. Kwee Tek Hoay. Matthew Weaver. Alexa Derman. Catherine Weingarten. Ryan Bultrowicz. Yolanda Mendiveles. Georgia Bowen Buchert. Lope de Vega. Dhianita Kusuma Pertiwi.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: Horror plays. The world needs way more horror plays. It’s a genre that should inherently fit theatre (as it did with Grand Guignol) but there barely seems to be any horror plays around.

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

A: Not just write every day, but also submit every day or at least on a regular basis. Empathize with and be kind to your fellow playwrights. We’re all in the same boat.

Q: Plugs, please:

A: Blog: Unknown Playwrights

Production: I Was a Teenage Fireworks Smuggler will run in Jackson, WY from June 5-8.

Translation publication: Night Market for Brojo by Dhianita Kusuma Pertiwi

Mailing list to be invited to Adam's events

Email:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Adam's Patreon

Adam's New Play Exchange Profile (Plays to Read)

Books by Adam (Amazon)

Jun 16, 2009

I Interview Playwrights Part 10: Kara Lee Corthron

photo by Joanna Eldredge Morrissey

Kara Lee Corthron

Hometown: Cumberland, Maryland

Current Town: New York, NY

Q: You’re coming to Minneapolis to work on a play with Penumbra next month. Tell me about this play.

A: The play is called Julius by Design and if I were to consider all my plays my children, Julius would be the well-meaning, but difficult child that the school system desperately wants to put on meds. Its themes are about as universal as it gets: death, grief, forgiveness and letting go. At its center is an older couple—Jo and Laurel—whose son was murdered seven years before the play begins. Tired of their monotonous life of denial and shaky attempts to heal, Jo initiates contact with her son’s murderer and this leads to some craziness as you might imagine. The play is still early in its life cycle, but I’ve received such strange and disparate feedback on it so far, I’d put it away for a while, unsure of what I could do to make this child happy. So I was pretty surprised when Penumbra invited me out to work on it this summer. I’m really psyched and hoping this experience gives me some clues to crack the Julius code.

Q: You wrote for NBC’s Kings this past season. What was that experience like?
A: Kings was great, insane, enlightening, terrifying, and good. And probably a host of other adjectives I can’t think of right now. I joined the writing staff in September and by that point, the first four episodes had already been shot so I kind of jumped onto an already speeding train. And I had no prior TV experience at all. The immediate challenge I came up against was endurance. The seemingly simple act of sitting around a table everyday for eight and a half to nine hours brainstorming story points is not so simple. Imagine forcing your brain to do intense physical training after months of allowing it to just lounge around your skull eating chips. That’s the closest metaphor I can come up with to describe it. But after a few weeks, I adjusted. The hardest part by far was dealing with the intensity of life on set. And talk about endurance! One night, I got home around 2AM and was so tired I literally thought I was going blind. My longest continuous day on set was about sixteen and a half hours. This was hard for me; I’m a lazy person by nature. But despite the hours, stress, and sucker-punch to my brain, I’m really glad I had the opportunity to write for such a unique show and in a small amount of time—about five months—I learned WAY more than I ever imagined I would when I signed my contract. I was also really, really lucky that my first TV job was with an incredibly cool and wise writing staff.

Q: You were also the Princess Grace fellow at New Dramatists this past year. How did you participate in that community?

A: The people that work at New Dramatists are some of the sweetest, smartest people around. Everyone there has been so supportive, even of the TV gig, which didn’t leave a lot of time for me to hang out at ND. But during the year, I was able to attend a few readings, the Christmas party, both all-writers meetings and just last week, I had my Princess Grace play read there with a phenomenal cast and director. So even though it’s an abbreviated version of the seven-year residency (and sadly, my time with them is just about over), I feel like I had a nice taste of the amazing benefits available to their playwrights.

Q: You were one of the few playwrights to have studied for 3 years at Juilliard. How helpful was that?
A: Well, it was great to get an extra, pressure-free year just to play. And it was a joy to have additional access to Juilliard’s most precious resource: Mr. Joe Kraemer. I’m not sure I’d say it was necessary, as I’d had two full, productive years at the time of my graduation. But because the master class is run like a seminar, a large portion of the knowledge we gain there comes from reading plays by fellow playwrights and discussing them critically. I got to be a part of that process for sixteen playwrights (seventeen if I include myself) and that’s a lot of plays. For that aspect alone, I’m really grateful that I stayed that extra year. It’s funny you ask this question because I was just thinking about Juilliard. Chris and I recently exchanged some emails after I saw Why Torture is Wrong . . . and I just ran into Marsha at a Dramatists Guild event. They got me feeling all nostalgic for our Wednesday afternoons.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: When I go to the theatre, I love to be smacked out of my normal life and confronted with something I would never have thought/felt/imagined otherwise. I adore surprises! I like theatre that is bold. I like theatre that makes me laugh so hard it hurts. I like theatre that scares the shit out of me. I like to see honest, uncomfortable sexual tension. I like to see honesty of ANY kind. My favorite kind of play—regardless of the style, length, or subject matter—insists upon itself; it won’t let me dismiss it or forget about it the moment I hit the street for a drink and some gossip after the show. Nope! It forces me to make lasting space for it in my consciousness. Every time I go to a play, despite what I may have heard going in, I want to leave with the play still sitting on my shoulder, whispering in my ear. Maybe shouting. I don’t always experience this. But sometimes I do.

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

A: Uh well I don’t know if I’d label it “advice,” because it’s not that deep and I could probably use more advice than I can give, but all I’d say is write, write, write, and when you’re tired, keep going. The amount of time and effort we put into our actual work is probably the only thing we really have control over in this exciting, but often frustrating career. So take full advantage of your power and write like you’re addicted . . . even if you’re not.

Jun 2, 2011

I Interview Playwrights Part 359: Alessandro King

Alessandro King

Hometown: New York City

Current Town: New York City

Q: Tell me about the play you have coming up with Trustus.

A: Swing ’39 is an imagined story about a group of girls from 1939 Harlem who win a competition to meet the King of Swing, Benny Goodman. The play is about the relationships that spring up between the Italian Harlem residents and the members of the Goodman organization, including one girl who becomes romantically involved with Benny himself.

I’d characterize the play as a character-driven ensemble piece, initially inspired by the works of Chekhov and Terence Rattigan, two greats I was reading a lot of when I wrote the first draft three years ago.

Swing ‘39 was originally done at Sarah Lawrence College, a production in which I actually played Benny. This August you can catch it at the Trustus Theatre in Columbia, South Carolina. It’s part of the Trustus Playwrights Festival, one of the oldest play festivals in the country. I am extremely honored and excited about this wonderful opportunity.

Q: What else are you working on?

A: I’ve been developing my new play, Tabor, at INTAR, where I’m a member of The Pound, the new emerging artists lab there. I will most likely have a reading up some time this summer.

I’m rewriting a one-act of mine, North Island, that I hope to pair with another short piece with similar themes. And I am in the middle of research for my long-term major project, a play about Al Smith, my favorite New York figure.

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 used to collect Carl Barks comic books, and I started before I could even read. I used to cut them up and make collages out of them. I still have my big journal with each page devoted to a different character – Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge, Gladstone Gander. Each page is filled not just with pictures of the featured character, but images that represent what the character is “about.” So the Donald page, for example, also has pictures of bad stuff happening to Gladstone, his arch-nemesis.

I think this shows that even before I could comprehend narrative and plot, I had a very strong interest in character. I understood that personalities were being expressed and contrasted, and that each character had an ineffable yet specific essence.

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

A: I think there are playwrights on this blog who are more eloquent when it comes to this question. But I will say that the affordability of ticket prices gets my vote for the top dilemma. If we could magically remedy that, I think many of the other problems would be helped.

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: I am who I am thanks to a crack team of teachers and professors: Bill Williams and Michael Gilbert of Trinity School, and Stuart Spencer, Amlin Gray and Christine Farrell of Sarah Lawrence College.

My favorite playwrights are Shakespeare, Chekhov, Terence Rattigan, Lanford Wilson and Kenneth Lonergan. They love their characters. Lonergan and Annie Baker are the two contemporary writers on my must-see list.

I read Simon Gray’s Quartermaine’s Terms a year ago and it is my new favorite play. It makes me smile just to think of it.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: I like to leave the theater thinking about the characters. If I leave thinking about the writer or the director – how capable they are, how smart they are – that’s good, but it’s better if I don’t realize they’re there at all. As a writer I try to be invisible.

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

A: Well I am definitely just starting out myself, so I feel a little bashful about this one. But I will say this: I got the Trustus production by submitting to everything I was eligible for in the Dramatists Sourcebook. And I have a file cabinet with dozens of rejection letters. So, if at first…

Q: Plugs, please:

A: Swing ’39 goes into previews at Trustus on August 10th, with an opening night of August 12th:

http://www.trustus.org/show.php?show_id=6

Come down before the fifteenth and we’ll grab a drink!

My zany improv show, Listen, Kid!, currently plays at the Magnet Theater in New York:

http://magnettheater.com/viewshow.php?showid=36829

If you have children, you simply must take them to a Monster Literature show:

http://www.monsterliterature.com/

And if you’re planning on visiting the Williamstown Theatre Festival this summer, you’d be crazy to miss the reading of Sarah Hammond’s beautiful House on Stilts on July 8th.

Thanks for checking out my interview! If you’d like to read one of my plays, shoot me an e-mail at AlessandroMKing at gmail dot com.

Jun 19, 2009

I Interview Playwrights Part 13: Victoria Stewart

Victoria Stewart

Hometown: Beverly, MA

Current Town: Minneapolis, MN

Q: You just had a show up at The Playwright's Center that Workhaus produced. Can you tell me a little about that?
A: Workhaus Collective is a collective of playwrights that produce our own work. The play, "800 Words: The Transmigration of Philip K. Dick" is an older play, I wrote it back in 2002. It had a nice production in Seattle in 2007 but since the Workhaus playwrights just choose which play to produce, I really wanted to see this play up with Luverne Siefert playing the lead and with Jeremy Wilhelm directing. (Jeremy directed a great version of the play in grad school and we had always talked about doing it again.) The play is about Philip K. Dick, the science fiction writer who wrote the stories that became the movies "Blade Runner" and "Minority Report." In 1974, he had visions of God that obsessed him for the rest of his life. It's a trippy play with transformations, non-linear storytelling and puppets. What's nice about Workhaus is that you really have control over the production so no one's trying to make the play something it ain't (which is helpful with such a strange piece.)

Q: How did you become interested in writing about Phillip K Dick?
A: My brother owns a science fiction/fantasy bookstore so I always grew up with sf around the house but I didn't get into PKD until my 20s. A friend suggested I read Lawrence Sutin's "Divine Invasions," a biography about PKD, just because it was a good read. I got obsessed at that point but this was about 5 years before I started writing plays. So I just read a bunch of his books because they were great. Near the end of grad school, I just plunged in, thinking nothing would come of it. Most of my plays are very realistic and linear so here I was tryin' to be experimental and shit. (All my years stage-managing for avant-garde directors at the American Repertory Theatre served me well.)

Q: What are you working on next?

A: I just finished a new play called "Rich Girl" which is a modern-day adaptation of "Washington Square/The Heiress." It's about women and their relationship with money. I developed it at the Tennessee Repertory Theater which was a great experience.

Q: Tell me about Workhaus. Basically you're a playwright run theater not unlike 13p in New York. How do you decide whose show goes up next? How does it work?

A: Workhaus is completely modeled after 13P. The playwrights serve as artistic directors during their show. The playwrights end up doing more technical stuff and house-management, etc. than 13P does because we can't afford a tech crew! So during tech, you'll see one of us hanging lights; during the shows, we're the ones house-managing. Because of this, we've realized that the playwrights have to be Minneapolis-based because we really need boots on the ground to produce everyone else's shows. How we choose which shows go up is a little haphazard. We have a core group of producer/playwrights and then we have a few satellite playwrights. We have a three show season and we only have 10 members, so people cycle through more than once with preference going to the main producers. We tried to plan two or three seasons in advance last year and all that planning went out the window very quickly. So now we're planning a year at a time. At this point, we're in residence at the Playwrights Center which means we use their theater and rehearsal space which is so helpful.

Q: Like me, you are married to a playwright. Would you like to comment on the challenges or benefits of a wright union?
A: I'm pro-wright union. It's great, right? The benefits are having a spouse who really understands your challenges ("What? Another rejection letter????") and having a brilliant in-house dramaturg at your beck and call ("Honey, wake up and read my scene!"). The challenge is getting frustrated when one person gets something the other wants. But luckily, you're also really happy for the other person and as long as you keep in mind that what's good for one person is actually good for the unit you've become, it evens out.

Q: You and I have the same agent. Isn't Seth great?

A: LURVE him. Cory and I do have a pet name for him but I won't write it down....

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: Good theater. That may sound obnoxious but there are so many different kinds of great theater out there. On one hand, I love bold, visual, experimental work but I'm also happy as a clam when I see Arthur Miller done well. I like work that's emotional, that makes me lean forward, that's intellectual but not abstract. Also, because I'm an ex-techie, I get very distracted by bad production (and sometimes by great production) so I'm thrilled when I am completely drawn into something, whatever form it takes.

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

A: Just keep trying. Get yourself out there. Find people you trust to read and hear your work. Have faith in yourself.

Adam Szymkowicz

Featured Post

1100 Playwright Interviews

Sep 17, 2009

the playwright interviews so far

Jan 28, 2011

I Interview Playwrights Part 310: Marisela Treviño Orta