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1100 Playwright Interviews

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Feb 4, 2022

I Interview Playwrights Part 1109: Talene Monahon



Talene Monahon

Hometown:  Belmont, MA.

Current Town:  Brooklyn, NY.

Q:  Tell me about Jane Anger:

A:  I call it a Jacobean feminist revenge farce. I wrote it early on in the pandemic when everything was fully shut down and I had returned home to Massachusetts to nanny my sister’s children. I think the play is very much the product of full-on pandemic brain—both in that it is literally set during a plague outbreak and in that it is generally insane. At the time, I was reading Jacobean revenge tragedies and watching a lot of Monty Python. I became strangely interested in merging the genres and centering women a little more than is usually done in either. I don’t want to give too much away. The play is about some real people and also some people I’ve made up. There’s a lot of true history in there and also a flagrant disregard for historical fact. There’s a bit about a sticky pudding that is truly disgusting.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  I have a play called The Good John Proctor about the girls from The Crucible that is in development and will be presented as part of Bedlam Theater Company’s Spring Reading Series. I’m also working on a piece that traces the Armenian American community’s relationship to whiteness over the course of the twentieth century, starting right after the genocide and leading up the Kardashians.

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 child, I made up a ghost story about a slaughtered cat who haunted the electrical shack a little way down the street. I told this story to my friends in an attempt to be spooky and interesting. Unfortunately, as the weeks went on, I grew to believe the story that I had fabricated from my brain. I became very frightened of the electrical shack and worried that the bloody cat ghost would snatch me as I walked past it. I dealt with this fear for years. I guess this set me up for a life in the theater because I love to believe my own lies.

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


A:  Accessibility, baby! There are a lot of things that need to change in order to make theater more accessible—both to artists and audiences.  Maybe I should have gone big and said capitalism.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?


A:
Annie Baker.
Jackie Sibblies Drury.
Anna Deavere Smith.
Liza Birkenmeier.
Michael Friedman.
Anton Chekhov!

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?


A:  I love plays that are rousing and mysterious. I like feeling like the audience I’m a part of has become a cute little cult. I’m very happy watching theater that doesn’t have an easy explanation—like, how did she sing that high note? Or, what was that weird noise? Or, what was the playwright’s overall message? We have no idea! I love to see it.

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


A:  Find smart collaborators whom you trust and then embrace it when they have the better idea. My work has always grown stronger through collaboration.

Q:  Plugs, please:


A:  The Lamentable Comedie of Jane Anger, That Cunning Woman. And Also of Willy Shakefpeare and his Peasant Companion Francis, Yes and Also of Anne Hathaway (also a Woman) Who Tried Very Hard starts performances February 21st at the New Ohio. Tickets and more info here:

https://www.janeangerplay.com/jane-anger

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Jan 14, 2022

I Interview Playwrights Part 1108: Dave Osmundsen



Dave Osmundsen

Hometown: Pompton Plains, NJ

Current Town: Pompton Plains, NJ (by way of Sarasota, FL and Tempe, AZ)

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I’m working on a few projects (including prepping for the world premiere of my play Light Switch), but one work-in-progress I’m particularly excited about is an adaptation of Autism awareness advocate Michael John Carley’s article The Brat in Your Classroom. The article depicts his tumultuous years at a private school called Moses Brown, and how he emotionally processes those years in the wake of receiving an Autism diagnosis in his mid-thirties. It’s still in early stages, but I’m really excited for people to (eventually) see it!

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

A:  In my backyard, I would stand between two trees and pretend I was on a stage. Or I would make myself a minimalist set with a few chairs on the backyard patio (my “second stage,” if you will). Armed with two sticks (which I would bang together to make percussive sounds), I would sing made-up lyrics to musical theatre melodies I knew. I would act out musicals with plots that fused derivatizations of other musicals with my own contributions—a musical that was vaguely about a gay rights activist with a score lifted directly from Evita, an Into the Woods-style musical featuring an assortment of Bible characters (and a Devil Giant who embarked on a murderous spree in Act Two), a Wicked-like story about a gay teenager whose jealous emotions literally overtake him, to name a few. I would never get through a whole show, but rather repeat my favorite musical moments and/or songs. There was no audience because there didn’t need to be one. I was my own audience. Just when I was getting lost in the music and the stories, my sister would scream from her bedroom window “DAVID STOP SINGING.” And I would stop. Then I would tap the two sticks together, quietly, gently, and ease myself back into the musical world I had created for myself.

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

A:  Just one thing??? Aside from the usual wishes that it was cheaper and more accessible, I would change the perception of neurodivergent artists. There seems to be some astonishment and bewilderment that neurodivergent artists can tell their own stories from their own perspectives. Why is this? Why can’t there be an assumption of competence? Why does autism specifically (since that is my neurodivergence) have to be portrayed solely as “Inspirational”? Why can’t it be treated with complexity and nuance? Why does it always have to be the neurotypical playwrights who tell neurodivergent stories? Why is Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, a play that doesn’t even mention the word “autism,” the most famous example of neurodivergent theatre? I would change all that.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Amy Herzog, for her ability to take messy situations and add beauty and clarity to them.

David Lindsay-Abaire, for his sharp observations about humanity, even in the most absurd of his plays.

Mickey Rowe, for fearlessly working and living as an autistic artist.

Paula Vogel, whose generosity in mentoring young artists is legion.

Larry Kramer, whose activism inspires me to be more politically aware and active in my work and life.

Patti LuPone, for never bullshitting.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theatre that complicates. Theatre that is tight. Theatre that is grand. Theatre that expands. Theatre that runs. Theatre that fucks. Theatre that caresses. Theatre that leaves you shooketh. Theatre that moves you to make your life, or someone else’s life, or the world’s life better. Theatre that makes you laugh in hysterics in the midst of devastating heartbreak. Theatre that is a well-executed well-made play. Theatre that splatters on the living room wall. Theatre that is messy and elegant at once. Theatre that, for its brief duration, lives.

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

A:  If you’re a fan of an artist and you find yourself in the same space as them, thank them for their work.

If an artistic director or literary manager or fellow artist you’ve reached out to never replies, that says more about them than it does about you.

Find your people. Whether they be playwrights, designers, actors, administrators, what have you, find the people who get your work and want to see it succeed.

That being said, no one will be a better advocate for your work than you. So if you wrote a play, and you believe in what it’s saying, don’t be afraid to put it out there.

This quote comes to mind: “Those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.”

Q:  Plugs, please:


A:  My play Light Switch will be receiving its world premiere from Spectrum Theatre Ensemble in Providence, Rhode Island this coming April. Watch this site for more info: https://www.stensemble.org/

The Gift of BS will receive a virtual reading during the Clay & Water Playwrights Retreat the weekend of February 24—27. Watch this site for more info: http://www.clamourtheatre.org/events/2022-2/clay-and-water-2022/

The Dummy Class will receive a workshop reading with Purple Crayon’s PLAYground Festival of Fresh Works the weekend of April 30—May 1.

If you’re interested in learning more about Light Switch and neurodivergent theatre, I’ve developed a course through theatre.university: https://www.theatre.university/courses/neurodivergent-theatre-light-switch/

 Read some Actually Neurodivergent playwrights! A few playwright/play recommendations you can find on the New Play Exchange are Hayley St. James (For Leonora or Companions), Schereeya Reed (End of the Line), and Scott Sickles (Seaside Tragedies)
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Jan 10, 2022

I Interview Playwrights Part 1107: Sharon Yablon





Sharon Yablon

Hometown: Los Angeles

Current Town: Los Angeles

Q: Tell me about “A Garden of Terrible Blooms.”

A:  “A Garden of Terrible Blooms” started out as a collaboration with my neighbor, who is a very talented sound designer and musician. We had worked together before, with him providing live music to my plays. I have been at this awhile and realized I had many short ones, all set in different parts of L.A., which is a very spread out city, and that most take place at night, or night that is encroaching. With the anxiety of the pandemic, and my own onset of middle age, I started to imagine a sort of metaphysical or supernatural radio where, if you were experiencing insomnia and tuned in in the middle of the night, you might hear these voices seeking to talk to you. I also love sound, and music, and the actors’ spoken words, and wanted to whittle the experience down to just the hearing sense and explore what that would be like.

Q: What else are you working on now?

A:  I have a longer play set in the San Fernando Valley that I am in the process of finishing and hope to produce, and more to continue working on after that.

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

A:  I would love for more people to be exposed to it.

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Some favorite playwrights include Wallace Shawn, David Mamet, Edward Albee, Harold Pinter. My favorite play is A Delicate Balance, and there are many underappreciated ones that I love, such as Come Back to the Five and Dime Jimmy Dean by Ed Graczyk and What Happened Was by Tom Noonan. I would love to see Mark Rylance perform. I also enjoy the work of Caryl Churchill, Annie Baker, Sheila Callaghan, Greek Tragedies and, of course, Shakespeare, but not really the comedies. There are many musicals that I love as well.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Language that has some poetry or rhythm and that is specific to the theater and not film/television. Hearing a writer’s unique voice. Work that has some mystery, or what I call “terror” onstage. I love silence and pauses onstage too. Noh Theater is wonderful.

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

A:  Don’t worry about ‘writing what you know.’ We know more than we think, although it may need to be mined from the unconscious. Try directing your own work. Don’t focus too much on plot, it will come, and there are all kinds of plots and structures that one can do onstage. It’s okay to not know where you’re going right away, it will come. Not every play has to be about social justice, or what the cultural norm is. Learn to cut and be relentless about trimming the ‘fat’ from your work so the good stuff will pop. If something you’re writing doesn’t excite you, you may not be connected to it, so don’t force it; it’s okay to not finish everything. Enjoy the process, don’t worry too much about the outcome (fame, productions) because most of us will not get this. That said, if producing entities aren’t responding to your work, put it up yourself! Find your people (they are out there!), which includes actors who are excited to be in your work, and a writer’s group that can critique and whose works you admire, so it keeps you on your toes with your own writing. Plays absolutely must have an audience, and I’m not talking about readings, but productions.

Q: Plugs, please:

A:You can listen to “A Garden of Terrible Blooms for free” at www.terribleblooms.net, or where you get your podcasts. The first ten plays are already available, and the newest one, “Dear Marie,” will be released on Valentines Day. 


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Dec 30, 2021

My 2021 Year In Review



Hi Everybody!  Here is our Christmas Card.



Hope you're well.  We are still pandemic-ing.  Although our son is back at in person school and that is a relief.  I have also been back in person (as much as I ever was) at my day job which means 2 days a week in New York.  And working from my shed-office the rest of the time.

I had a breakthrough case of covid a few months back after being fully vaxxed and was mostly just really tired for a couple of days.  Luckily, I managed to not pass it on to my family somehow.  (Masked and living in the basement)

Writingwise, I finished writing my second YA novel, and wrote half of a Middle Grade novel, wrote 60 one-minute monologues, finished a forty-minute play called 100 Things I Never Told You that I'd started at the beginning of the pandemic, wrote a 20-minute film for some Juilliard students and wrote one full length play.

When I look at that, it's actually a lot of writing, even if I feel like I didn't do all that much.

I did only 10 interviews this year, partially because I think people just aren't into being interviewed right now and partially because it was hard for me.

I read a lot of books this year and quite a few plays but I didn't count them so I don't know how many.

One milestone I hit this year was having a play done 100 times -- a one act that was published in 2015 had its one hundredth production this year.  

Also up until this year, the most productions I've had from a full length has been 11 in a single year.  Kodachrome had 14 this year which is kind of amazing during a pandemic.  Most of them are at schools who are still doing work right now.

I had 32 productions this year, not as many as 47 in '19 but more than last year's 20.

These 32 were-- 2 of The Parking Lot, 1 of The Book Store, 1 The Wooden Heart, 14 Kodachrome, 1 Elsewhere (which hadn't been done in 10 years), 6 Marian Or the True Tale of Robin Hood, 5 Clown Bar, 1 Nerve, 1 Hearts Like Fists.

My night of one acts, 7 Ways To Say I Love You had 1 production.



I also had some fancy readings including Such Small Hands at Northlight and a zoom workshop of Hearts Like Planets with Chance Theater.

BPPI published my play The Parking Lot and Sam French/Concord put out a teen version of Marian.  Playscripts is going to publish a couple more-- The Book Store is now able to be read on its site.

I know of 17 or so planned productions for 2022 including the premiere (finally) of Clown Bar 2.  This is a lot considering we're still in the thick of it.  And again, it's mostly schools.  I don't know when more of the small theaters who have been my mainstay will be back and I know some of them won't.

I don't mean to end on a bleak note.  I just want to acknowledge that my momentum on a life in the theater has taken a huge hit and I know some people were hit a lot harder.  The pipeline has never been more clogged up so even sending plays out right now seems more pointless than usual.  And there is a big question about when or if the normal level of theater producing will return.  Especially for small theaters without spaces or small theaters who lost their spaces.

So it takes a lot more hope than normal to keep writing.  And I want to acknowledge that.

Love to you and yours.  Here are my previous years in review.

2020 
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007

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Nov 8, 2021

I Interview Playwrights Part 1106: Wi-Moto Nyoka




Wi-Moto Nyoka

Hometown: Portland, OR

Current Town: Philly!!!

Q: Tell me about Eden in the Sciene In Theater Festival.

A: Eden, a sci-fi play, is the story of a scientist, a doctor, and a patient who experience the transformative joy and terror of a real miracle.

When Eden lapses into an unexplained coma Dr. Luna Del Cielo starts having strange nightwalks. Trusting in new found friend and colleague Sonia Preko, the two women stumble into what they think is a scientific discovery but ends up being so much more.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  In June of 2022 I plan to complete my first coming-of-age sci-fi novella “Never Eat Alone”. Based on a real, but short lived, NYC school policy enforcing teachers to eat with their students, the novella is told from the perspective of high school student Tara Santos and her relationship with Izel, her replica. It is a piece that explores self-love, grief, and getting good at disaster through uncanny methods.

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

How about a fairy tale instead.........

    Kiki stared at her reflection in the water bucket outside her hut, focusing her eyes on the slits under her breasts. They were subtle lines in her dark brown skin and almost imperceptible, but she could feel the power that rested underneath them. She knew what it meant. She was one of them, the Azinza. Tears stung Kiki’s eyes and she struggled to breathe, already feeling the effects of her change. She would soon have to go to water and abandon her family, her village, and the person she was.
    What will I tell my mother?
    Her mother, her whole family in fact, hated the Azinza and considered them to be abominations. If they were to find out that they had one in their midsts they would be devastated and the news would bring shame to her family. They may even be cast out of the village and forced to live in exile. She would have to say her goodbyes quietly, and disappear without explanation. She felt horrible thinking about the pain she would cause by vanishing but it would be worse if they knew the truth.
    She tip-toed back to her hut and stopped to gaze at her sleeping family. Her brothers lay on their backs with round bellies rising and falling peacefully. She smiled and kissed them on their foreheads before looking over to her parents, both snoring softly. She thought about all the laughter and love, safety and warmth they had provided and bit down on her lip to keep from sobbing. She decided not to touch them at all for fear that her anguish would wake them up and force her to explain herself. She slipped out into the moonlit night and began her pilgrimage to the ocean.
    Once at the beach she stepped mournfully up to the tide and stared out at the thin gold line of the horizon. Dawn was approaching and she was running out of time.
    “Kiki?” her mother’s voice said, softly, from behind her.
    She jumped in surprise and then froze.
    What will I tell my mother?
    Her mother held a stern look on her face as she stepped, slowly, towards her. She reached out and cupped her face in her hands, kissed her forehead and then held her. They stayed this way and said nothing as the sky turned a pink yellow from the rising sun.
    “Every new moon I will come here and sing so that Oshun will protect you. Every new moon I will sing and hope to see your face,” pledged her mother.
    Kiki gripped her mother in a fierce embrace and trembled with fear, sadness, and tears. She felt the heat of a new day on her back and her body began to ache and pull her towards the water. Her time was up.
    She slipped off her clothes and walked, naked, into the rush of the waves. The steady heartbeat of the ocean wrapped around her and she barely noticed when her feet ceased to be. She felt the steady thrum of the water pull away from her skin as she rose to the surface to look back at the shore one last time. Her mother stood on the beach, arm outstretched, lonely and strong like a lighthouse.
    Though Kiki was never seen again by anyone in her village, every new moon her mother would sing and a great bounty would wash ashore with fish, shells, oysters, and pearls. For a few brief moments before the sun would take its place in the sky, before the moon would rest until its return, mother and daughter would look at each other from across the waves. A lighthouse and an Azinza; arms outstretched in welcome and goodbye.

The above short piece was published in Last Girls Club, a feminist horror zine.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theater that responds to its time and breaks rules. I'm excited about theater that is investigating theatrical traditions outside of the Western cannon and inventing new ones.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Check out season 2 of Black Women Are Scary, the radio-dramatic podcast that celebrates and produces short horror stories by BIPOC authors.
Read the terrifying tales of Terror Unleashed: Vol 2 published by Skywatcher Press.


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Oct 25, 2021

I Interview Playwrights Part 1105: Francisco Mendoza





Francisco Mendoza

Hometown: Mendoza, Argentina

Current Town: Brooklyn, New York

Q:  What are you working on now? 

A:  A couple of things! I’m taking a second pass at a TV pilot, a dramedy about the modern advertising world and the experience of being in the U.S. on a visa. In a couple of weeks, I’m taking a trip with a friend to write a movie about an artistic director who’s getting pushed out of her theater company. And my play Machine Learning just finished a run at Two River Theater’s Crossing Borders festivals, so I’m taking a couple of meetings for possible productions.

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

A:  I was a big adventure junkie as a kid; I read soooo many pulpy books about jungle explorers and ancient civilizations. I remember one day playing in the yard and looking up seeing a branch of a neighbor’s tree poking out from our wall, and behind it, the Andes (which can be seen from anywhere in Mendoza). I got this deep longing, almost a sadness—and mind you, I’m 6 or 7 at this time—because there was a whole world out there that I wouldn’t be able to see if I stayed in my yard.

Then at 12, my family relocated to Brazil, and at 25, I moved to the U.S. At this point, I’ve lived in four different cities and traveled to four continents. I’m not exploring jungles or discovering ancient civilizations, but there’s definitely a bit of the explorer still in me...

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

A:  Something that really annoys me is how much people can change their mind about my work based on what other people have said. The same script someone read a year ago and had no reactions to is now somehow better because it won an award? That makes no sense to me. I wish more people in literary/artistic positions trusted their own taste and made decisions based on the kind of work they want to program, not what’s “hot.” It’s like people are afraid to make a call either way for fear of making a mistake—this is art, there’s no way to turn it into math. Risk will always be a part of the equation, so stop being so afraid of it! There’s maybe three or four plays in the entire 2021-22 season that I actually wanna watch; the rest was programmed without any risk.

Q:  Who are playwrights or plays you’re excited about right now? 

A:  Francisca Da Silveira; she’s a fellow at The Playwrights Realm, where I work, and her play non-for-profit is a hilarious takedown of that sector. I can’t wait to see it at a SummerWorks-like festival. Charlie O’Leary’s The Allies is a play that has really stayed with me, an exploration of what gay shame means after coming out of the closet—it’s funny and cruel in equal measure. Asiimwe Deborah Kawe’s Appointment With gOD, which The Realm showcased in its Beyond The Realm Festival; I’ve never seen anyone capture the feeling of applying for a U.S. visa with such accuracy or poetry.

This season I can’t wait to see Eric John Meyer’s Antelope Party (Dutch Kills at the Wild Project), Eliana Pipes’ DREAM HOU$E (The Alliance/Long Wharf/Center Stage), and John J. Caswell’s Man Cave (Page 73). I’ve seen/read them already and they are some of the most exciting theater going on right now.

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

A:  I’d say learning to navigate asking for help but not depending on it. For the first few years, you are your own agent, publicist, lawyer, cheerleader. People in our industry are notoriously overwhelmed and mostly weary of new people, so don’t sit on the couch waiting for someone to fight your battles; go out there and give it your best. But you won’t get too far alone! I wouldn’t be anywhere without a few key champions who decided to take a chance on me. So make sure to ask for at least a sit-down, a coffee, some specific advice—the worst thing that happens is someone says no.

Q:  Plugs, please: 

A:  Sign up for my newsletter! I send biweekly recommendations of things I love (as well as the odd short story), and I do include anything of mine that’s going up or has been published. Or you can follow me on Twitter if you wanna keep your inbox empty. 




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