Adam Szymkowicz's Blog, page 107

I Interview Playwrights Part 354: Michael Lluberes

Michael Lluberes



Hometown: Okemos, Michigan.



Current Town: New York, NY



Q: Tell me about The Boy in the Bathroom.



"The Boy in the Bathroom" is a three person musical I wrote with composer Joe Maloney. Here's the blurb about it: "David lives in his bathroom. He never comes out. His mother feeds him thin, flat food she can slide under the door. He has everything he needs. David has obsessive-compulsive disorder and he's not going anywhere... until he meets Julie... and discovers that there might be something - or someone – on the other side of the door that will make it worth opening..."



I'm very proud of the work Joe and I have done on it. Hopefully it's funny and sad and weird. It's a very different kind of musical – the subject matter – the size – it's intimate and personal. We wanted to create a really tiny world that would hopefully have a larger resonance. I think the piece surprises people. It feels much more like a play than a musical.



We originally did it at The New York Musical Theatre Festival and since then the show has received a lot of wonderful development opportunities. It's now in a production at The Chance Theater in Orange County, CA through May 22nd.



Q: What else are you working on?



A:  I've been commissioned by No Rules Theatre Company in D.C. to adapt and direct a new version of Peter Pan. This is going to be a very dark and dangerous new take. I think J.M. Barrie wrote such a beautiful story about the pain of growing up. I'm reading a lot right now about his life and it's opening a lot of windows. A wonderful imagination often emerges from dark places in childhood. I want the play to be both a child's dream and nightmare. I want to create a fun and scary theatrical playground. I want the play to be thrilling battle between childhood and adulthood. It's going to be all about imagination. I'm very excited about it.



I just received a New Artist Initiative grant from the National Endowment for the Arts for a residency this summer at The Hambidge Center. Hambidge is a beautiful artist's retreat in the mountains of North Georgia. I plan on using the time there to work on Peter Pan.



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



A:  You'll have to buy me a drink first.



I don't know about a specific story, but for as far back as I can remember I was always making theatre. When I was little, I would put on plays with my toys in the bathtub. I used to force my sister and the neighbor kids to put on shows in the backyard with me. My mother sewed red curtains and we put up a little make shift stage in a corner of my basement. I used to do plays on a trampoline in the round. I wore a red cape for a year when I was seven.



Later in high school I would put on rebel productions with a group of my friends. We would steal huge boulders from the City Park and orange fencing from construction sites for our sets. In one play I made a boy dress up in a Dorothy dress and a girl actually throw up in a bucket. I directed plays by Brecht and Ionesco while the other kids were doing "Damn Yankees". I wore a beret. I was that kid. Today I still feel like I'm just a little kid making plays.



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



A:  One thing: I want theatres and producers to take more chances on new untested plays and artists.



Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?



Shakespeare, Stephen Sondheim, Orson Welles, Charles Laughton, Peter Brook, Zero Mostel, Tennessee Williams, Simon Callow, Bill Finn, Edward Albee, Albert Cullum, Tony Kushner, Kaufman and Hart, Marian Seldes, The Muppets, The Group Theatre. My teachers: Gerald Freedman, Lewis J. Stadlen, Marty Rader. I devour biographies of theatrical giants of the past, the greats who broke through something and created a huge change – a new way of thinking or feeling about theatre.



Also, my friends are my theatrical heroes. Some of them are working for pennies and cheeseburgers and are creating really amazing work all over the country.



Q: What kind of theater excites you?



A:  I'm excited by anything that I haven't seen before. I'm excited by plays and musicals that change the form, that do something different and new. I want theatre to surprise me. Most of the time I sit in the theatre and I feel like I know what the person on stage is going to say or sing next or where they're going to move. I love being surprised. I like crazy theatrical plays that are also deeply personal and heartfelt. I'm excited when I see a story about people who don't normally get plays written about them. I love things that make you laugh and cry at the same time. I'm excited by the combination of contradictory things, the juxtaposition of things in theatre. The big and the small, the highbrow and the lowbrow, the pretty and the ugly, the extraordinary and the mundane, the dirty and the sparkly, the hilarious and the heartbreaking, the old and the new smashed together in one play.



I actually think we're living in a really exciting time for new musical theatre right now – there's a whole crop of original small musicals out there. I'm truly inspired by the writers and composers in our generation who are trying to do something new and exciting with the form. You're not necessarily going to see them on Broadway - the "American Musical" is still a fairly conservative art form – but it's also a comparatively young art form and my hope is that it turns into something as diverse and exciting as independent film is. There's room in musical theatre for all kinds of different subject matter, characters, music and storytelling. I'm really excited to see what happens next.



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



A:  Be yourself. Write the play or musical that you want to see.



Be theatrical. Don't put something on stage that you could see on TV.



There's a lot of rejection. People will either get your play or they won't – but you only need one person to get it.



Be personal. When you're young and just starting out there's no reason to not where your heart on your sleeve. Make your plays personal.



Put your play up yourself. Just do it. Plays are meant to be seen and performed - not read.



Also, and I have to remind myself of this all the time: We are writing plays for people to see. We are telling stories. We are trying to make people less afraid, or more hopeful, or challenge them, or make them think, or entertain them. We're not creating theatre for ourselves in a box, we are communicating with people.



Q: Plugs, please:



A:  My website:

www.MichaelLluberes.com



The Boy in the Bathroom at The Chance Theater in Orange County, CA

through May 22nd.

www.chancetheater.com

Reading at Primary Stages May 23 at 3pm

Where You Can't Follow

by Adam Szymkowicz

Directed by Lucie Tiberghien

Starring Michael Cerveris, Heidi Schreck, Bahvesh Patel, Jessica Love



Matt's doctor tells him he doesn't have long to live. He realizes he's

never been in love before, so he leaves home, flies to Paris and tries

to find love before it's too late.





All Readings will be held at Primary Stages, Studio A307 West 38th Street, Suite 1510New York, NY 10018

All readings are free and open to the public. Reservations are

requested and can be made by emailing readings@primarystages.org or by

calling 212-840-9705.



http://www.theatermania.com/new-york/news/05-2011/works-by-bekah-brunstetter-janine-nabers-adam-szym_36906.html

I Interview Playwrights Part 353: Kathleen Akerley

Kathleen Akerley 



Hometown:  I was born in Swindon, England but did the bulk of my growing up in Silver Spring, Maryland.



Current Town:  Cheverly, Maryland



Q:  What are you working on now? 



A:  Two weeks ago I finished the draft of a full length play called Something Past In Front of the Light for production in August.  We're going to get together to read it later this month so I can have some edits ready for first rehearsal:  so despite the fact that I have a short play (Law & Ordure) due days ago and despite the fact that there is nothing more to be done with the first one until I hear the read, I keep using my writing time to go into the draft of the first one and just look at it when I really need to be getting more of the second one out of my head and onto the paper.  And I have something due in about 60 hours for the playwriting collective I'm in, unless I want to skip the challenge which I don't, and all of that's in my head too.  So I'm not working on anything right now while working on three things, which tends to encourage a lot of staring out the window.



Q:  How would you characterize DC theater? 



A:  Overcrowded.  Filled with many very driven, artistic and lovely people who must be counting on Adam Smith, or possibly even Darwin, to sort it all out, and who randomly sample from capitalist or socialist philosophies as suits them in any given moment to avoid being naturally de-selected (economically, of course:  it is a lion-free environment).  Generally, though, they're also folks who can be counted on to have interesting and open-minded conversations and to support each other's work.



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 checked in with my family on this one because that's often both illuminating and objective:  my brother sent back a huge tally of stories about me being confrontational with cops (I had never added them up!) as well as other authority figures, my father sent back one choice from the same list.  Perhaps the connection is tenuous, but:  I am impatient with unexamined assertions, bland generalizations, resting on simplified views, both in human interactions and in plays, and I get hornet-mad at people who abuse their authority, whether it's legal authority or the authority you have over someone's time and experience when you get them into your theater.



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



A:  I would get people to stop using the little money we have on encouraging the audience perception that theater is only valid when it's recently upgraded and shiny.  Since I will certainly fail in that initiative, I will then try to get people to stop writing monologue plays with wholly self-aware protagonists.  This second failure will drive me out of theater and I will have to live out my days giving massages in Thailand.



Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?



A:  Harold Pinter for so many reasons, but mostly for writing and living the line 'Don't let them tell you what to do.'



Q:  What kind of theater excites you? 



A:  I saw a production of Trojan Women at La Ma Ma about six years ago in which an actor slid on her back, head first, down a sharply raked wall from about twenty feet up.  She controlled the descent with a kind of alternating-shoulder oscillation, her hair was long and flowed out below her, her dress was blue and the fabric light -- the total effect of seeing someone who'd just been thrown into the sea was stunning.  Every time I direct a play now I tell the actors that every scene has to have its blue dress moment or else we didn't find the point of the scene.  I'm excited by theater that doesn't explain itself, does use a lot of muscle, doesn't rest on its points or over-simplify, and knows that absurdism/magical realism (my favorites) doesn't mean conceptually self-indulgent or undisciplined.



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



A:  1.  No one reminds anyone of a shared past in full sentences, no one states the theme of the play.  Let the audience meet you with their thinking, let them leave with questions.  2.  The longer a monologue, the more it should reveal something about the speaker that s/he doesn't know s/he's saying.  3.  Everything you think is interesting:  you can figure out later, in the editing stage, if it's relevant.  Is my view!



Q:  Plugs, please: 



A:  If you're in DC in August or early September, come on by the Callan Theatre and see my play about the Devil collaborating on his biopic with a documentary filmmaker (www.longacrelea.org).  If you're in DC later in September or October, come see Law & Ordure, which is one of five plays in the Hope Operas, a new-works project established two years ago to support local charities.

I Interview Playwrights Part 352: Sonya Sobieski

Sonya Sobieski



Hometown: Maplewood, New Jersey (by way of Cincinnati , Ohio )



Current Town : New York Fucking City



Q:  What are you working on now?



A:  I just finished a new full-length play, the first since Commedia dell Smartass, which was produced by New Georges in 2005, just before my daughter was born. The daughter part kind of explains the hiatus. I've been writing a lot of one-act musicals in the last five years, as the form seems well-served by short spurts of energy. Some of those have coalesced and expanded into The Unfortunate Squirrel, a feel-good musical about the emptiness of modern life, which will have two public readings this month!



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 think it was around seventh grade, and a classmate I didn't know very well asked, "Hey, are you the girl who makes the funny faces?" And my response was to give her a look, like, "Who, me?" I didn't even realize that I was making a face—and essentially answering her question—until I'd done it. Recently I find myself writing characters who don't speak, yet they're always incredibly emotive and interesting. I spent many many years in childhood and young adulthood not knowing the right thing to say, and yet I was desperate to connect with others. It was a constant struggle. Playwriting is probably a way to resolve that—to use all those years of listening in order to create something that cannot be completed without other people.



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



A:  People would care. And I don't mean non-theatre people. I mean theatre people. I wish we'd care more about what our peers and our potential peers were doing. I wish we weren't slaves to The New York Times.



Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?



A:  Mac Wellman, even though he'd be surprised to hear it. Artaud, because he advocated that theatre be big, emotional, and messy. Dan Rothenberg of Pig Iron is a current favorite. Lynn Nottage, because she has the seemingly miraculous ability to write plays that are both hard-hitting and uplifting, and she has a kickass sense of humor.



Q:  Any other influences?



A:  Woody Allen, romantic comedies, desire for the supernatural to be true.



Q:  What kind of theater excites you?



A:  Sleep No More, My Last Play, Confidence Man, Hell House. Ambitious, unusual, site-specific pieces that are experiences, not just literature. The po-mo comic-book/sci-fi/martial-arts mashups of Vampire Cowboys. I mean, I also like a good "play play" like Good People or Kin. Kin felt like a comforting, warm bath. Perfect. But not exciting. Well, the bear scene was exciting. The rest was lovely.

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



A:  Don't spend more than two years working in a literary department. If you have profitable skills, consider taking a money job right out of college, make a bundle, and then you can do whatever you want starting in your late twenties, which is plenty young enough. But if you choose to go the internship/day-job route, that's fine, too. Just write A LOT and don't listen to critics, external or internal. Have fun and meet people. Be nice to everyone.



Q:  Plugs, please:



A:  Readings of The Unfortunate Squirrel on Friday May 20 @ 8:30PM (Tada!, 15 W. 28th St. ) and Wednesday May 25 @ 4PM (Ripley-Grier Studios, 520 Eighth Ave. ) Lots of fun and singing. For info and reservations, http://flyingcarpettheatre.com/current-productions/the-unfortunate-squirrel/ I work free-lance as a playwriting mentor, helping individuals develop their scripts and ideas and write at their full potential. Says one of my clients/students: "You get the eye of a literary manager, with the heart of a fellow writer." Register through NYU http://www.scps.nyu.edu/course-detail/X32.9608/20111/playwriting-tutorial-working-with-a-dramaturg or contact me directly at sonyasobieski at yahoo.

I Interview Playwrights Part 351: Gwydion Suilebhan

Gwydion Suilebhan



Hometown:   Baltimore, MD. When I was born, it was the seventh-largest city in the country. Throughout most of my childhood, it never fell below about more than a couple of slots. It's 21st now, which is a whole different ball game, but it's still just a tiny bit ahead of my current home town: Washington, DC. What's my point? My point is that just saying "Baltimore was my hometown" might not convey what it meant to have lived there when I lived there. My family lived in the suburbs, mostly, but it felt like we were hovering on the edge of something Huge and Historic and Important all the time… and I doubt those are words that many people associate with Charm City any more (to my great sadness).



Q:  What are you working on now?



A:  I'm working on a commission for Theater J—a new play that I'd rather not discuss in specifics lest I ruin the mojo. (They're doing a reading in February 2012.) I will say this: it feels like the most important story I've worked on for quite some time. It feels like the stakes are high. I love the feeling.



Q:  So how many playwrights are there in DC?



A:  Well, it just so happens I know the answer to that. At last count, there are about 180 playwrights living and writing in the DC metropolitan area. When all is said and done, I believe we'll get to 200. If you accept the commonly-cited figure that there are 10,000 playwrights in the United States, that gives us 2% of the total right here. Given that "right here" includes only .4% or .5% or so of the country's population (I've included playwrights living in the suburbs in my count), I'd say we're doing pretty darn well.



How do I know all this? Because not long ago, I posted a list of the playwrights I knew on my blog, then asked others to circulate the list and send me names. In two days the list had grown by more than 100 names. It still keeps growing, in fact. I get another name or two every day.



My original goals were to change the perception that DC isn't a playwright-friendly town and to re-orient a few local artistic directors to the notion that we have an immense diversity of stories being told in our own city, which means there's no need to continually import them all from New York and points west. Now I'm starting to think that there are other possibilities worth exploring, from making an email list to getting everybody together to figure out what our shared pain points and opportunities are to just plain hanging out and getting to know each other. Being a playwright can be lonely, after all, and it's only a rather annoying and false sense of competition that keeps us from learning from and supporting one another. I'd like to be able to do whatever I can to help build community.



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've known I was going to be a writer, in one genre or another, since I was about 14 years old… so I need to look even earlier in my life for a story. The first thing that occurs to me isn't a specific story but the many hours I spent playing with Lego blocks with my best friend David. We would build enormous castles and outrageous vehicles of one sort or another, create characters—idealized adult versions of ourselves, essentially, with different names—and improvise hours-long adventures. At some level, that's what I've been doing ever since.



But the story that I think explains who I am as a writer happened in Hebrew School. Although I wouldn't have said it this way at the time, I was struggling with the fact that I just didn't believe in God, even at 11 years old. Everyone around me was acting as if they just accepted the fact of God's existence, and I felt like a sham because I couldn't. I was worried that everyone would figure out I was only pretending.



And then one day my teacher was telling class about the Jewish holiday of Purim, and all of a sudden I realized: this is a story she's telling! It's really just a story, like every other story I'd ever read. The Hardy Boys, A Wrinkle in Time, The Phantom Tollbooth… and the Old Testament. I could think of them all the same way. I could believe in them in the same way, which is to say that I could suspend my disbelief while the story was being told, then happily re-establish it as soon as the last word was spoken. I didn't have to be credulous to play along.



At the same time, I also began to realize that some stories were more powerful than others. Some could clearly inspire people to do both tremendous and wretched things, and some could give voice to both beautiful and terrible ideas. I wanted to fight on the side of the good guys, which to my mind were (and still are) those who don't deify stories, who reinvigorate the world's mind with new narratives, who keep us fresh and alive and connected both reality AND possibility, who keep us moving forward.



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



A:  That I only get to change one thing.



But if I couldn't change THAT, the first thing I'd do is provide clearer means by which playwrights can connect with, listen to, and learn from audiences. I believe we're woefully estranged from the people for whom we ostensibly make stories. We're taught not to listen to them, and we only want to talk to them through our work. We alienate ourselves; we write the stories that make us happy, rather than the stories that the members of our communities (however we define them) need and want. We don't think about theater as service. We're self-centered. And naturally, as a result, people tend to think of us as withdrawn and superior and elitist, which is a real shame. We're really not so bad.



Once we crack that nut, the rest of the revolution will, I hope, proceed accordingly.



Q:  What kind of theater excites you?



A:  I like my theater raw, which is to say that I want it to be as different as possible from television and film. Less emphasis on effects and spectacle and more emphasis on honest storytelling. I like my sets and costumes minimal; I'd rather invite audiences to participate in the creation of the work through the imaginative process of filling in the details. I'm also interested in plays that engage science in meaningful and creative ways; not science fiction, mind you—or not only science fiction—but real science, which is strange and wonderful and exciting all on its own.



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



A:  Become an auto-didact. No one is ever going to teach you the way you need to be taught. Read widely, be curious, don't be so quick to learn (or follow) the rules, and question very deeply whether tens of thousands of dollars for a graduate degree is a fair deal.



Beyond that: develop a second career you can rely on for economic stability and health insurance. Get really good at something: so good you can earn enough money to live on by doing it about 20-30 hours a week. Love whatever it is, too; don't resent it for what it isn't. And let it inspire you. Let it keep you part of the general population of the world. Because you are, whether you like it or not.



Q:  Plugs, please:



A:  My play LET X is opening for a short run in Chicago this July. I have a reading of BUGGY & TYLER (a new full-length version of a one-act that ran earlier this year) here in DC in September. Beyond that, REALS will also be returning to DC in early 2012.

350 Playwright Interviews (alphabetical)

Rob Ackerman

Liz Duffy Adams

Johnna Adams

Tony Adams 

David Adjmi

Keith Josef Adkins   

Derek Ahonen

Zakiyyah Alexander

Luis Alfaro

Lucy Alibar

Joshua Allen

Mando Alvarado 

Sofia Alvarez 

Christina Anderson  

Terence Anthony

Alice Austen 

Elaine Avila   

Rachel Axler

Jenny Lyn Bader

Bianca Bagatourian   

Annie Baker

Trista Baldwin

Jennifer Barclay 

Courtney Baron

Abi Basch 

Mike Batistick 

Brian Bauman

Chad Beckim

Nikole Beckwith 

Maria Alexandria Beech

Kari Bentley-Quinn 

Alan Berks

Brooke Berman

Susan Bernfield

Jay Bernzweig

Barton Bishop

Martin Blank  

Lee Blessing

Jonathan Blitstein

Adam Bock

Jerrod Bogard

Emily Bohannon

Rachel Bonds

Margot Bordelon

Deron Bos

Hannah Bos

Leslie Bramm

Jami Brandli

George Brant

Tim Braun

Delaney Britt Brewer

Jessica Brickman  

Erin Browne

Bekah Brunstetter

Sheila Callaghan

Darren Canady

Ruben Carbajal

Ed Cardona, Jr.

Jonathan Caren

Aaron Carter

James Carter 

David Caudle

Eugenie Chan 

Clay McLeod Chapman

Christopher Chen

Jason Chimonides  

Andrea Ciannavei

Eliza Clark

Alexis Clements  

Alexandra Collier

James Comtois

Joshua Conkel

Kara Lee Corthron

Kia Corthron  

Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas

Erin Courtney

Cusi Cram

Lisa D'Amour

Heidi Darchuk

Stacy Davidowitz

Philip Dawkins

Dylan Dawson

Gabriel Jason Dean

Vincent Delaney

Emily DeVoti

Kristoffer Diaz

Jessica Dickey

Dan Dietz

Lisa Dillman

Zayd Dohrn

Bathsheba Doran

Anton Dudley

Laura Eason

Fielding Edlow

Erik Ehn

Yussef El Guindi

Libby Emmons

Christine Evans 

Jennifer Fawcett 

Joshua Fardon

Catherine Filloux   

Kenny Finkle

Stephanie Fleischmann

Kate Fodor 

Sam Forman 

Darcy Fowler  

Kevin R. Free

Matthew Freeman

Edith Freni

Patrick Gabridge 

Anne Garcia-Romero

Gary Garrison 

Madeleine George

Meg Gibson

Sigrid Gilmer 

Peter Gil-Sheridan

Gina Gionfriddo

Michael Golamco

Jessica Goldberg

Daniel Goldfarb

Jacqueline Goldfinger

Jeff Goode

Christina Gorman

Craig "muMs" Grant

Katharine Clark Gray

Elana Greenfield   

Kirsten Greenidge

Jason Grote

Sarah Gubbins

Stephen Adly Guirgis

Lauren Gunderson 

Jennifer Haley

Ashlin Halfnight   

Christina Ham

Sarah Hammond

Rob Handel

Jordan Harrison

Leslye Headland

Ann Marie Healy

Julie Hebert 

Marielle Heller

Amy Herzog

Andrew Hinderaker

Cory Hinkle

Richard Martin Hirsch

Lucas Hnath

David Holstein

J. Holtham

Miranda Huba  

Quiara Alegria Hudes 

Les Hunter

Sam Hunter

Chisa Hutchinson

Arlene Hutton

Laura Jacqmin

Joshua James

Julia Jarcho

Kyle Jarrow

Rachel Jendrzejewski   

Karla Jennings

David Johnston

Nick Jones

Julia Jordan

Rajiv Joseph

Aditi Brennan Kapil

Lila Rose Kaplan  

Jeremy Kareken 

Lally Katz

Lynne Kaufman

Daniel Keene 

Karinne Keithley 

Greg Keller

Sibyl Kempson 

Anna Kerrigan

Kait Kerrigan

Boo Killebrew

Callie Kimball

Johnny Klein 

Krista Knight

John Kolvenbach 

Andrea Kuchlewska

Larry Kunofsky

Eric Lane 

Deborah Zoe Laufer 

J. C. Lee

Young Jean Lee

Dan LeFranc

Andrea Lepcio

Victor Lesniewski 

Steven Levenson

Barry Levey

Mark Harvey Levine  

Michael Lew

EM Lewis

Sean Christopher Lewis

Jeff Lewonczyk

Kenneth Lin

David J. Loehr 

Matthew Lopez

Stacey Luftig

Kirk Lynn

Mariah MacCarthy

Heather Lynn MacDonald 

Laura Lynn MacDonald

Maya Macdonald

Cheri Magid

Jennifer Maisel

Martyna Majok  

Karen Malpede   

Kara Manning

Mona Mansour

Israela Margalit 

Ellen Margolis

Ruth Margraff

Sam Marks

Katie May

Oliver Mayer  

Tarell Alvin McCraney

Daniel McCoy 

Ruth McKee

Gabe McKinley 

James McManus

Charlotte Meehan

Carly Mensch

Molly Smith Metzler

Charlotte Miller 

Jane Miller  

Winter Miller

Lin-Manuel Miranda

Yusef Miller 

Rehana Mirza

Michael Mitnick

Anna Moench

Honor Molloy  

Alejandro Morales

Desi Moreno-Penson

Dominique Morisseau

Itamar Moses

Gregory Moss

Megan Mostyn-Brown

Paul Mullin

Julie Marie Myatt

Janine Nabers

Peter Sinn Nachtrieb

Brett Neveu

Qui Nguyen

Don Nigro

Dan O'Brien

Matthew Paul Olmos 

Dominic Orlando

Rich Orloff

Marisela Treviño Orta

Jamie Pachino

Kristen Palmer

Tira Palmquist

A. Rey Pamatmat

Kyoung H. Park

Peter Parnell

Julia Pascal

Steve Patterson

Daniel Pearle 

christopher oscar peña

Brian Polak 

Daria Polatin

John Pollono 

Chana Porter

Craig Pospisil

Jessica Provenz

Michael Puzzo

Brian Quirk 

Adam Rapp

David West Read 

Theresa Rebeck

Amber Reed

Daniel Reitz

Molly Rice

Mac Rogers

Elaine Romero

Lynn Rosen

Andrew Rosendorf

Kim Rosenstock

Kate E. Ryan

Kate Moira Ryan

Trav S.D.

Sarah Sander

Tanya Saracho

Heidi Schreck

August Schulenburg

Mark Schultz

Jenny Schwartz

Emily Schwend

Jordan Seavey

Christopher Shinn

Rachel Shukert

Jen Silverman

David Simpatico 

Blair Singer

Crystal Skillman

Mat Smart

Alena Smith

Tommy Smith

Ben Snyder

Lisa Soland

Peggy Stafford 

Saviana Stanescu

Nick Starr

Deborah Stein

Jon Steinhagen

Victoria Stewart

Andrea Stolowitz

Lydia Stryk  

Gary Sunshine

Caridad Svich

Jeffrey Sweet

Adam Szymkowicz

Daniel Talbott

Kate Tarker 

Roland Tec 

Lucy Thurber

Paul Thureen

Josh Tobiessen

Catherine Trieschmann 

Dan Trujillo

Alice Tuan

Jon Tuttle

Ken Urban

Enrique Urueta

Francine Volpe

Kathryn Walat

Michael I. Walker 

Malachy Walsh

Kathleen Warnock

Anne Washburn

Marisa Wegrzyn

Anthony Weigh   

Ken Weitzman

Sharr White

Claire Willett

Samuel Brett Williams

Beau Willimon

Pia Wilson

Gary Winter

Stanton Wood

Craig Wright

Deborah Yarchun

Lauren Yee

Steve Yockey

Kelly Younger

Stefanie Zadravec

Anna Ziegler

350 Playwright Interviews

Jane Miller

Eric Lane

David West Read

Katie May

John Pollono

Mona Mansour

Miranda Huba 

Lydia Stryk

Rachel Jendrzejewski 

Karen Malpede 

Darcy Fowler

Daniel Pearle

Heather Lynn MacDonald 

Gabe McKinley

Keith Josef Adkins 

Brian Quirk

Israela Margalit

Kia Corthron

Christina Anderson

Jenny Lyn Bader

Catherine Trieschmann

Oliver Mayer

Jessica Brickman

Kari Bentley-Quinn

John Kolvenbach

Daniel Keene

James Carter

Josh Tobiessen

Victor Lesniewski

Abi Basch

Matthew Paul Olmos

Stephanie Fleischmann

Chana Porter

Elana Greenfield 

Eugenie Chan

Roland Tec 

Jeff Goode

Elaine Avila 

Ashlin Halfnight 

Charlotte Meehan 

Marisela Treviño Orta

Quiara Alegria Hudes

Kait Kerrigan

Bianca Bagatourian 

Kyoung H. Park

Honor Molloy

Anna Moench 

Martin Blank

Paul Thureen

Yusef Miller

Lauren Gunderson

Jennifer Fawcett

Andrea Kuchlewska

A. Rey Pamatmat

Sean Christopher Lewis

Rachel Bonds

Lynn Rosen

Jennifer Barclay

Peggy Stafford

James McManus

Philip Dawkins

Jen Silverman

Lally Katz

Anne Garcia-Romero

Tony Adams

christopher oscar peña

Lynne Kaufman

David J. Loehr

Julie Hebert

Aditi Brennan Kapil

Elaine Romero

Alexis Clements

Lila Rose Kaplan

Barry Levey

Michael I. Walker

Maya Macdonald

Mando Alvarado

Adam Rapp

Eliza Clark

Margot Bordelon

Ben Snyder

Emily Bohannon

Cheri Magid

Jason Chimonides 

Karinne Keithley

Rich Orloff

David Simpatico

Deborah Zoe Laufer

Brian Polak

Kate Fodor

Sibyl Kempson

Gary Garrison

Saviana Stanescu

Brian Bauman

Mark Harvey Levine

Lisa Soland

Sigrid Gilmer

Anthony Weigh 

Maria Alexandria Beech

Catherine Filloux 

Jordan Harrison

Alexandra Collier

Jessica Goldberg

Nick Starr

Young Jean Lee

Christina Gorman

Ruth McKee

Johnny Klein

Leslie Bramm

Jennifer Maisel

Jon Steinhagen

Leslye Headland

Kate Tarker

David Holstein

Trav S.D.

Chad Beckim

Ruben Carbajal

Martyna Majok

Sam Marks

Stacy Davidowitz 

Molly Rice

Julia Pascal

Yussef El Guindi

Meg Gibson

Daniel McCoy

Amber Reed

Joshua Fardon

Dan O'Brien

Jonathan Blitstein

Dominique Morisseau

Fielding Edlow

Joshua Allen

Peter Gil-Sheridan

Tira Palmquist

Sarah Hammond

Charlotte Miller

Deborah Yarchun

Anna Kerrigan

Luis Alfaro

Jonathan Caren

Jennifer Haley

Sofia Alvarez

Kevin R. Free

Ken Weitzman

Michael Golamco

J. C. Lee

Ruth Margraff

Kirk Lynn

Tanya Saracho

Daria Polatin 

Delaney Britt Brewer

Alice Tuan

Alice Austen

Jeffrey Sweet

Dan LeFranc

Andrew Hinderaker

Brett Neveu

Christine Evans

Jon Tuttle

Nikole Beckwith

Andrea Lepcio

Gregory Moss

Hannah Bos

Steven Levenson

Molly Smith Metzler

Matthew Lopez

Lee Blessing

Joshua James

Chisa Hutchinson

Rob Ackerman

Janine Nabers

Cory Hinkle

Stefanie Zadravec

Michael Mitnick

Jordan Seavey

Andrew Rosendorf

Don Nigro

Barton Bishop

Peter Parnell

Gary Sunshine

Emily DeVoti

Kenny Finkle

Kate Moira Ryan

Sam Hunter

Johnna Adams

Katharine Clark Gray

Laura Eason

David Caudle

Jacqueline Goldfinger

Christopher Chen

Craig Pospisil

Jessica Provenz

Deron Bos

Sarah Sander

Zakiyyah Alexander

Kate E. Ryan

Susan Bernfield

Karla Jennings

Jami Brandli

Kenneth Lin

Heidi Darchuk

Kathleen Warnock

Beau Willimon

Greg Keller

Les Hunter

Anton Dudley

Aaron Carter

Jerrod Bogard

Emily Schwend

Courtney Baron

Craig "muMs" Grant

Amy Herzog

Stacey Luftig

Vincent Delaney

Kathryn Walat

Paul Mullin

Kirsten Greenidge

Derek Ahonen

Francine Volpe

Julie Marie Myatt

Lauren Yee

Richard Martin Hirsch

Ed Cardona, Jr.

Terence Anthony

Alena Smith

Gabriel Jason Dean

Sharr White

Michael Lew

Craig Wright

Laura Jacqmin

Stanton Wood

Jamie Pachino

Boo Killebrew

Daniel Reitz

Alan Berks

Erik Ehn

Krista Knight

Steve Yockey

Desi Moreno-Penson

Andrea Stolowitz

Clay McLeod Chapman

Kelly Younger

Lisa Dillman

Ellen Margolis

Claire Willett

Lucy Alibar

Nick Jones

Dylan Dawson

Pia Wilson

Theresa Rebeck

Me

Arlene Hutton

Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas

Lucas Hnath

Enrique Urueta

Tarell Alvin McCraney

Anne Washburn

Julia Jarcho

Lisa D'Amour

Rajiv Joseph

Carly Mensch

Marielle Heller

Larry Kunofsky

Edith Freni

Tommy Smith

Jeremy Kareken

Rob Handel

Stephen Adly Guirgis

Kara Manning

Libby Emmons

Adam Bock

Lin-Manuel Miranda

Liz Duffy Adams

Winter Miller

Jenny Schwartz

Kristen Palmer

Patrick Gabridge

Mike Batistick

Mariah MacCarthy

Jay Bernzweig

Gina Gionfriddo

Darren Canady

Alejandro Morales

Ann Marie Healy

Christopher Shinn

Sam Forman

Erin Courtney

Gary Winter

J. Holtham

Caridad Svich

Samuel Brett Williams

Trista Baldwin

Mat Smart

Bathsheba Doran

August Schulenburg

Jeff Lewonczyk

Rehana Mirza

Peter Sinn Nachtrieb

David Johnston

Dan Dietz

Mark Schultz

Lucy Thurber

George Brant

Brooke Berman

Julia Jordan

Joshua Conkel

Kyle Jarrow

Christina Ham

Rachel Axler

Laura Lynn MacDonald

Steve Patterson

Erin Browne

Annie Baker

Crystal Skillman

Blair Singer

Daniel Goldfarb

Heidi Schreck

Itamar Moses

EM Lewis

Bekah Brunstetter

Mac Rogers

Cusi Cram

Michael Puzzo

Megan Mostyn-Brown

Andrea Ciannavei

Sarah Gubbins

Kim Rosenstock

Tim Braun

Rachel Shukert

Kristoffer Diaz

Jason Grote

Dan Trujillo

Marisa Wegrzyn

Ken Urban

Callie Kimball

Deborah Stein

Qui Nguyen

Victoria Stewart

Malachy Walsh

Jessica Dickey

Kara Lee Corthron

Zayd Dohrn

Madeleine George

Sheila Callaghan

Daniel Talbott

David Adjmi

Dominic Orlando

Matthew Freeman

Anna Ziegler

James Comtois

I Interview Playwrights Part 350: Jane Miller

Jane Miller



Hometown: Manhattan, NY.



Current Town: Brooklyn, NY



Q: What are you working on now?



A:  I'm working on a production of my play Feedback with Squeaky Bicycle Productions that will go up in July. I'm excited to be working with director Laura Pestronk who I've known since high school when we did theater together. Feedback is about a woman coping with a death and a breakup who decides to get "re-branded" by a personal marketing firm. I've always been kind of fascinated by self-help gurus and the idea of how you frame yourself to the world.



I'm also preparing to go to the Last Frontier Theater Conference in Valdez, Alaska in June – so preparing myself mentally to get no darkness for two weeks!



I'm also working on a play called Seeking Participants about a retired couple who participate in an experiment where they both get fMRI's to show what their brains look like having been in a loving, long term relationship for years. Suffice to say, the play is about when our brains know things about us before our heart does.



And, I'm co-founder of Theater ++, a yearly one-act festival centering on the role of technology in people's lives. We'll be requesting submissions soon!



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



A:  I'd like more theater companies (and MFA programs!) to take chances on new(er) playwrights who aren't already well known. I see the same names over and over at theater companies. And I've learned that MFA playwriting programs seem to be equally competitive and exclusive.



Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?



A:  I love the work of John Patrick Shanley, Tina Howe, Christopher Shinn, Annie Baker and Adam Bock. Their work resonates with me.



Also, Ryan Gilliam of Downtown Art really changed my life. She has a youth theater company on East 4th street in NYC that I was a part of in high school. Most memorably, I played Obi Wan Kenobi in Star Arguments, which was Star Wars adapted for the stage. My Obi Wan costume was a beige towel cape and an umbrella as my light saber. She made a family out of us, and I'm so happy to have been a part. She's endlessly inventive, and really made me see what a theater community was.



Q:  What kind of theater excites you?



A:  Theater with lyrical language and meaning – theater that gives me the shivers, and makes me question my own life. Any play that offers illumination into the things I'm grappling with or thinking about is exciting. Also, simply - theater that makes me want to start a conversation.



If I leave the theater feeling buoyant and exuberant and want to start writing, then I consider that exciting theater. I felt that way most recently by Adam Bock's A Small Fire, and Annie Baker's Circle Mirror Transformation.



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



A:  Find time everyday to write, even if it's just twenty minutes a day. Set a timer if you have to, and just do it. If you're writing everyday, you're going to grow as a writer. It's inevitable.



And I don't think it's bad to write about the things that you're obsessed with in your own life. I wrote a whole lot of plays about female friendships, probably too many – but they were honest and from a deeper place than if I had wrote plays solely because I thought other people would be interested in them. If you're fascinated by something, other people probably are too.



Q:  Plugs, please:



I'm involved with The Pack, an artists development group, that's part of Packawallop Productions. They do incredible work and they're all really nice, fun, talented people. Being part of their monthly developmental group has helped my writing grow tremendously. Check em out, http://www.packawallop.org



Also, check out Feedback this summer, with Squeaky Bicycle Productions!

next

1. 

Reading of Fat Cat Killers at Urban Theater Movement

Directed by Julian Acosta

Featuring: Anthony Gatto, Paolo Mancini and Levi Sochet.



Tuesday May 10, 2011 at 8pm

The Underground Theatre

1314 Wilton Pl Los Angeles, CA



To RSVP a seat or for more information on the reading

please email eve.urbantheatremovement@gmail.com





2.



Reading of Where You Can't Follow at Primary Stages

Directed by Lucie Tiberghien



Monday May 23 at 3pm at Primary Stages



3.



Production of Clown Bar with Rising Phoenix Rep

Directed by Kip Fagan



Seventh Street Small Stage at Jimmy's No. 43

NYC

June 19.  7pm  (Free performance)

I Interview Playwrights Part 349: Eric Lane

Eric Lane



Hometown:  I was born in Brooklyn and raised on Long Island, about 10 minutes from Jones Beach.



Current Town:  Sunnyside, Queens



Q:  Tell me about "Ride."



A:  "Ride" was just published by Dramatists Play Service. It tells the story of three teenage girls who take a life-changing road trip. It was first inspired by a local farm stand that my partner and I would visit in Northwest N.J. We would see these kids working side-by-side who normally would never hang out together. They were forced to spend an entire day, week or summer together, talking, not talking, ignoring each other and connecting in ways they never expected.



The play was originally written as a 10-minute piece. As it was first being produced, I started to think about what happens to these girls once the 10-minute play ended. Out of that, the full-length play sprang.



The three girls in "Ride" are 18, 17 and 11 years old. I love writing characters who on the surface seem vastly different from myself. For me, sometimes those are the characters that turn out to be the most personal. Maybe it's because of that surface separation between their physical reality and my own that I'm able to pour more of myself into the characters. In the end, they often feel the most fully developed, vulnerable and real.



Q:  What else are you working on?



A:  I've started working on a new play commission for the Adirondack Theatre Festival. I began my work during a recent residency at the artist's colony Yaddo, which was incredibly helpful. I needed to let myself not know what the play will be, and Yaddo was the perfect environment to give myself that permission. Two of the characters are well-known figures so it involves a different kind of research that I've never done before. That's very exciting.



Q:  Tell me about the books you edit.



A:  With Nina Shengold, I've co-edited 12 contemporary play anthologies for Viking Penguin and Vintage Books. Our newest collection, "Shorter, Faster, Funnier: Comic Plays and Monologues," was just published. It includes work by 44 wonderful playwrights – from established and emerging writers, to playwrights who are in print for the first time.



In total, our books have sold over 350,000 copies. Drama Book Shop told us, "Your books are the most shop lifted titles in our store." That really made us laugh.



As editors, we read the submissions hoping they'll be terrific. There's a real joy in discovering wonderful work. And when a play is great, it jumps off the page from the moment you start reading it. You can feel it from the first stage direction or line of dialogue. That's incredibly exciting!



Nina and I will read up to 500 plays before deciding on plays included in the collection. As a playwright, it's incredibly helpful to read that many plays in that short a period of time. It has taught me a lot.



One of the most important lessons I've learned is not to take rejection that personally. You may have written a brilliant play, but it may not match what that publication or theater is looking for at that particular moment. They already may have chosen another play that is somewhat similar. Or they just may not like it. I'm not saying don't get pissed off when your work is rejected. But it's important to use that anger or disappointment to fuel you in finding the right place for your work.



Also, be smart about what you send in. For example, an agent submitted a full-length drama for an anthology of short comic plays. Bad idea.



And try to think of it from the point of view of the person reading your submission. If they're reading over 500 plays, your play needs to stand out in some way – its use of language, humor, depth of emotion, originality, characters, story, theatricality, skill, etc.



I feel very lucky to have edited these anthologies with Nina. And to be in a position to discover amazing playwrights and help put their work out in the world.





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



A:  My high school in Wantagh was right next to the pet cemetery where Richard Nixon's dog Checkers was buried. My friend Shari and I would occasionally cut class and hang out on Checkers' grave. One day, these wild turkeys appeared from out of the bordering woods, and Shari and I decided to chase them around the cemetery. To this day, Shari will ask me, "Did that really happen or did we both dream that?"



My first play ever produced is called "Dancing on Checkers' Grave." I decided Checkers' grave offered theatrical and emotional possibilities that a living room or kitchen just couldn't approach. I guess I try not to take anything for granted. Whether it's the setting, characters, story or language, I try to choose something that's unique and completely a reflection of the characters' world and experience.



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



A:  I'd love to see plays chosen for production based on their originality and vitality, rather than how commercial they're perceived to be.



Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?



A:  Shakespeare. Every time I see his plays, I'm amazed that someone actually wrote that. 400 years later, his work remains incredibly relevant, vital and alive. Also Chekhov, Robert Preston in "The Music Man," and anyone who continues to write plays and maintain a generosity of spirit toward other writers, artists and the world.



Q:  What kind of theater excites you?



A:  Anything theatrical. By its very nature, theater offers unique possibilities for expression, and I love works that explore that potential. Also anything that's good – dramas, comedies, musicals and works that combine comedy and drama – from Shakespeare and Chekhov to "I Love Lucy."



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



A:  Be original. If there's another playwright whose work you love, don't imitate them, but use their originality to inspire you to find your own unique voice. And most of all, hang in there.



Q:  Plugs, please:



Website:

www.ericlanewrites.com



"RIDE"

www.dramatists.com/cgi-bin/db/single.asp?key=4254



"SHORTER, FASTER, FUNNIER"

www.dramabookshop.com/book/9780307476647



"DANCING ON CHECKERS' GRAVE" and "HEART OF THE CITY"

http://www.playscripts.com/author.php3?authorid=818