A: Dominick is secretly in love with his best friend. But is the feeling mutual? Fed up with the pain of harboring this secret and plagued by his need to know the truth, Dominick decides it's time for some answers. Lucky for him, there's an app for that. ;) Tempo is a play about love and longing and friendship and lots of candy corn.
Q: Tell me, if you will, a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person.
A: When I was a kid, I would recruit my friends to have full out Pokémon battles during recess, ask to be excused from class for a bathroom break that would turn into a Harry Potter-esque exploration of our "ancient" school building to uncover it's magical secrets, and sit for hours on the phone with my best friend reviewing our plans to break into abandoned buildings in Detroit and banish the supernatural spirits inside...
I think I longed for escape and adventure. Longed to access the rainbow-colored truth beyond my black and white reality. As a theatre artist, I'm still searching for that deeper truth. I still believe that there is magic in the world and in humans. And I'm still out here recruiting folks to band together, get into creative spaces, and find ways to tap into it.
Q: If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?
A: I'd make theatre more financially accessible.
Theatre should not be an elitist art. Houses should not be filled almost exclusively by upper-class white patrons.
Quality theatre should be available to everyone because theatre serves everyone.
Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?
A: Ntozake Shange, Tarell Alvin McCraney, Lynn Nottage, Dominique Morisseau, George C. Wolfe
Q: What kind of theater excites you?
A: I am passionate about new voices (especially those of marginalized people) being represented on stage.
I am excited by art that takes risks and challenges audiences to re-think what theatre can do and be.
I love seeing elements of fantasy, horror, and sci-fi explored on stage. I geek out.
Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?
A: Write. Write write write write write. Carve out time for yourself to sit down and just write. Make that time YOUR time and do not abandon it. You have to take yourself seriously and make writing a priority. Show up for yourself. If you can wake up for work at 5am to clock in as a cog in the machine of someone else's dream, then you can wake up at 5am to make your own dreams come true.
Q: Plugs, please:
A: On June 19th at 7pm, I have a public reading of a new play of mine in Youngblood's Bloodworks series at Ensemble Studio Theatre. Come on out! It's free!
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A: Two things: a play about dildo manufacturing (fun times) and a postpartum play for new parents and their babies.
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 spend hours when we would travel to upstate New York in a creek behind a cabin we stayed in. I've always been drawn to water. I would use a stick and "un-clog" the stream- pull leaves and debris from different crooked points along the creek. I loved watching the water run, I loved how powerful it was, and I think I just wanted to help it along.
Q: If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?
A: The audiences. Which is to say, the prices. Which is to say, a lack of widespread state/community support for theater.
I wish I saw more people from different backgrounds in the audience. Writing about a middle-class or working-class background can be uncomfortable when the audience feels like it's there to consume the narrative you're sharing for their own relative "goodness" rather than engaging with the story in earnest. In other words- I would love to write more about my family and the people I care about- but not if they can't afford to come see it.
Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?
A: I think probably all the other working playwrights who labor in obscurity. Success is a natural food for hope. So those of us working without that, who have to feed our own hope from somewhere, something inside ourselves, I think that's kind of a big deal.
Q: What kind of theater excites you?
A: The kind that breaks my heart, and the kind that makes me giddy, and the kind that makes me feel nourished. Sometimes they overlap, but sometimes not.
Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?
A: Always be wary of advice for playwrights just starting out. LOL ok but actually, that, I do kind of mean that. But also: just write. Don't be precious about it. I believe that if you work hard enough, if you write something good enough, eventually, the world will take notice. Screw networking, screw resume padding, screw connections- because all the schmoozing in the world will not make a bad play better. Only work will. Make something genuinely powerful and then find people who understand what you're doing and hold on tight.
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A: Madame Lynch herself was Eliza Lynch, a 19th century woman whose fortunes took her from Irish potato famine refugee, to French courtesan, to becoming the self-proclaimed "Empress of Paraguay” in the 1850s and 60s. In the time that has passed since, she has been both revered in Paraguay for her role as a kind of “cultural founding mother” who introduced customs, music and dances that are still important, and reviled as the femme fatale who urged her lover, the dictator Francisco Solano Lopez, towards waging a war that ended with 90% of the male population of Paraguay killed. I was fascinated by the (probably specious) stories about her that were spread in the Argentine press and figure in to most biographies, that she longed to be powerful and a cultural leader in Paraguay but that she was roundly rejected by the upper class ladies of Asuncion and she exacted her revenge by devising elaborate social humiliations for them. In one case she threw a ball where attendance was compulsory and all attendees had to wear costumes that she chose, with the most humiliating costumes reserved for her chief enemies. Another concerns a pleasure cruise with these same ladies where, where, in response to a slight, she had all of the food thrown off of the boat and anchored the boat in the middle of the river for 10 hours. I was so interested in the extreme cruelty and fragility of this character, and also in the fact that, for someone who seems to have had a rough life in some ways (as a refugee, as a courtesan) she seemed to have no empathy for others.
I wrote the first draft of this play in 2011 I think, and it has been through many iterations. At one point I workshopped it with my old theater company, The National Theater of the United States of America. This final version is a collaboration between myself and my partner Craig Flanagin for our company, The Drunkard’s Wife. It is running at the New Ohio Theatre until June 15, and was developed in the Archive Residency program-- a collaboration between the New Ohio Theatre and IRT. Our show, Madame Lynch, is a spectacle with music. It takes on Lynch’s picaresque story, as well as the larger Paraguayan context. We’ve been developing the show in collaboration with the Paraguayan folkloric dance group Ballet Panambí Vera, to create a multifaceted portrait of Lynch as a way to understand the complex dynamics of cultural imperialism. The show reaches peaks of beauty and horror as it proceeds by way of live music, dance, and real and imagined scenes from her life as an adventuress, cultural doyenne, femme fatale and microfinance pioneer.
Q: What else are you working on now?
A: I am working on show that is 45 minutes of curtains opening onto other curtains.
Q: Tell me, if you will, a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person.
A: The first play I remember writing was in the second grade on those sheets of paper that had a space for pictures at the top. It was an illustrated play about marionette puppets of cats that were being operated by mice.
Q: If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?
A: I wish that theater was not so obsessed with the idea of newness. The present always flatters itself that it is improving on the past, creating things completely new. I’ve been making experimental theater in NYC for almost two decades. My work has been in fashion and out of fashion. In 2007 I had a reading of my play Certain Words in French (which I shall not name) at The Flea theater. This was a play about 12-year-old girls experimenting with sex and witchcraft at a summer camp, and bringing down a terrible punishment on their parents at the final talent show. At the time I was told by the artistic director of that theater that the play was interesting but unproducible because no one wanted to see adult actors playing 12-year-old girls. We are now in a cultural moment where people do want this. And that will also pass, probably. My point is that we are obsessed with the idea of an aesthetic of innovation as an absolute value, of pushing boundaries as an end in itself. The culture is always changing in ways that are complex, and ideas emerge-- they come to the fore as a result of larger cultural forces, individual obsessions, accidents… I think it’s more like ideas have hold of you than you have ideas. Newness in the theater is a kind of fantasy.
I have been thinking a lot about Mierle Laderman Ukeles’s “Maintenance Art Manifesto.” In it she opposes her concept of “Development Art” ( aligned with “The Death Instinct” and “Avant Garde par excellence” this kind of art is obsessed with the new and with the ways the new lays waste to the old) and “Maintenance Art” ( which is art that, among other things, tries to figure out what to do with the waste, the cultural detritus).
Development art is focused on revolution. “The sourball of every revolution,” Ukeles writes, “after the revolution, who’s going to take out the garbage on Monday morning?” A student of mine who is Chinese observed that Americans are always excited about the possibility of a revolution because they think it will work out in their favor, that they will benefit from the newness and changes. “In China,” he said, “we know that it is more complicated, that revolution can and will turn out very badly for some and in ways that are unpredictable.”
How do we value maintaining something-- a community bond, a space or using what is left over and disused to make something new? This is my interpretation of what Ukeles is asking for in her manifesto. I’m interested in theater that turns towards maintenance rather than rupture. I think this means creating and maintaining communities, the relationship between the performer and the audience. I think it means both valuing and mocking the old. I’m interested in pastiche, camp, homage and parody, as forms of maintenance. You can see it all in Madame Lynch!
Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?
A: Two of my great teachers have been Mac Wellman and Erik Ehn.
One great thing Mac once said is that “You have to create the ego that can create.” Which means that sometimes you have to imagine the persona or the entity that can generate, make decisions. Sometimes I imagine specific friends-- my longtime collaborator Jesse Hawley, or my old friend Young Jean Lee.
One great thing Erik once said was “You carry your civilization inside you” -- it’s all in there, in your brain somewhere.
Q: What kind of theater excites you?
A: What I mostly want from the theater is to be surprised. What l love is the feeling of being unable to predict where something is going, the gleeful absurdity of getting lost in a moment.
Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?
A: Do it all yourself. Learn as much as you can about how everything works and even try to do it. When you write a lobster hat into your play, someone will have to make it. Try to learn what it will take for them to make it. When I say this, I don’t mean you should temper your expectations, I mean that you should do this so that you have clearer and more nuanced ideas of what could happen on the stage. Think about the materials things are made of.
Show up. Go to people’s shows, especially small scale shows or works in progress. If you see something you like, find the artist and ask how you can help. This is how you find the people you want to make things with. If you are just starting out, and you have the luxury of time to volunteer and help out, give that time to the work you most want to see, or that is dearest to your artistic heart. If you are just starting out and you don’t have a lot of time to give, think about other ways to be generous. Write an email expressing your appreciation. Tell other people about the work.
Q: Plugs, please:
A: Uncanny Valley is our performance parlor in Williamsburg-- it’s been kind of quiet over the last year or so because we’ve been making Madame Lynch, but we’ll be having a salon or two this summer. www.uncannyvalleynyc.com for info! I am in a band with my partner Craig Flanagin-- God Is My Co-Pilot-- and we will probably be playing some shows soon.
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A: Tricycle Backflip is a short comedy about two sisters in an emergency room and the men who brought them there. It’s a relationship study with a few left turns, and it’s written for the team that’s doing it at EST: Molly Carden, Drew Lewis, Erin Roché, and director Matt Dickson. They are amazing.
Q: What else are you working on now?
A: A new draft of Polar Bear in a Fish Tank in a Mall in China, which is a murder mystery/sex farce about the contestants on a gay reality dating show. Rewrites on Mike Pence Sex Dream, which is a queer marriage play. It just had a great first production with First Floor Theater in Chicago and I’m incorporating some things I learned. Also a pilot and a very new play, but I can’t talk about them yet or they’ll die.
Q: Tell me, if you will, a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person.
A: I grew up on the campus of boarding schools (I’m a prep school faculty kid) and when I was maybe five, the school where we lived did A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The drama teacher recruited three faculty kids to play fairies. I was the smallest fairy* and I had one line. When Bottom asked for my name, I was supposed to say: Mustardseed.
The night of the show, I walked onstage in my pastel tunic and butterfly wings and I don’t remember if I was scared or just stunned, but I froze. I don’t think I’d really understood that basically everyone I knew would be there. One of the kids who used to babysit me was sitting in the front row, and I waved at her. The entire audience did a big “Aww.” I completely forgot what I was supposed to be doing. When Bottom asked for my name, I told him: Daniel.
*(foreshadowing how I would grow up to be, at 6’6”, the biggest fairy)
Q: If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?
A: I wish we’d stop pushing the idea that buying a ticket to a play is an act of civic virtue. That’s flattery. Audiences who buy that flattery expect it to continue once the play starts, which creates a whole bullshit marketplace that values theatre in terms of its ability to flatter its audience, and places the burden to flatter on artists who have better things to do. Theatre can only help you change if it’s free to defy your expectations. I like being pandered to as much as anyone, but what I want more than anything when I see a play is for someone to tell me the truth. Don’t give me plays that flatter me. Give me plays that trust me.
Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?
A: Right now, my friends and peers. It’s rough out here for playwrights starting out. It’s encouraging how much great stuff is getting traction, but a lot of beautiful work still goes underappreciated. That’s the work right now that matters most to me.
Q: What kind of theater excites you?
A: Anything with a heart, a brain, and guts.
Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?
A: Mostly passing on what others have told me, scattershot:
Take care of other artists. Think critically about your biases. Whenever you can, give the best part of your day to writing. When you can’t, write anyway. Know that the people who will champion you are usually people who’ve rejected your work at least once. Write for your friends and ancestors. Protect your right to fail. When you get notes, know that that people describing symptoms usually have something important to tell you, and people offering diagnoses usually don’t. Before the reviews come out, splurge on a beautiful pen and carry it in your pocket. Listen to criticism that comes from care. Write someone’s favorite play. Be gay; do crime. Do what you love.
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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.
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Hometown: Midtown Manhattan... as a matter of fact, I was born one block east of EST.
Current Town: 40 blocks south.
Q: Tell me about your play in the EST Marathon.
A: It's a 10-minute play called "Privilege" that that I hope is sharp, funny, and a little bit scary.
Q: What else are you working on now?
A: I write a lot of children's TV and just finished story editing a series for Netflix. I also write books with my husband, Laurence Klavan; and he and I are developing a graphic novel pitch.
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 at a slumber party when I was 11 when it dawned on me that even though I wasn't especially smart or strong or pretty, I could always draw the entire room when I told ghost stories or jokes.
Q: If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?
A: I wish there were a hundred more venues and productions of all sizes and budgets -- so getting a new play up wouldn't be such a huge deal.
Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?
A: Wow. Caryl Churchill, obviously... she's a goddess. And when I was a teenager, Edward Albee.
Q: What kind of theater excites you?
A: I love the Play Company -- they do really interesting work in translation from around the world.
Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?
A: Get used to rejection. Be nice to everyone. And make sure you find a group of playwright friends whom you like and whose work you respect.
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