Adam Szymkowicz's Blog, page 122
August 6, 2010
I Interview Playwrights Part 234: Ruben Carbajal
Ruben Carbajal
Hometown: Racine, Wisconsin
Current Town: Jersey City, NJ
Q: Tell me about Subdivision.
A: It's a play I developed with the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab and director Laramie Dennis. A decade after the first draft, it is at last being produced by Chicago's Gorilla Tango Theater starting August 4th. It's about a single mother and her two young sons who invent and converse with imaginary versions of their absent, hard-drinking Father. When he finally does show up, all hell breaks lo...
Essays on Nerve
Four playwrights write essays on my play Nerve.
Gus Schulenburg, whose came up with this project, writes, "I feel like this kind of deep reading is missing from our discourse, and when it does occur, it's usually lavished on dead people. I want us to talk meaningfully about plays that are being written now."
They started with Nerve, a play written in 2003/04, my thesis play at Columbia for my MFA. It was workshopped in 2005 and produced in NYC by Packawallop in 2006. The 8th and 9th produ...
I Interview Playwrights Part 233: Martyna Majok
Martyna Majok
Hometown: Bytom, Poland and later, Kearny, (North) NJ and Chicago, IL
Current Town: New Haven, CT
Q: Tell me about Mouse in a Jar.
A: Mouse in a Jar is my curiosity about our defense and protection of the things and people that harm us. And the notion of saving someone – what lives a little deeper under the surface of that desire. In its marketing, the LIDA Project in Denver called it subterranean punk – a horror story about underground life forms, Stockholm Syndrome and the gra...
August 5, 2010
I Interview Playwrights Part 232: Sam Marks
Sam Marks
Hometown: Manhattan, NYC
Current Town: Brooklyn NYC
Q: Tell me about the Old Masters going up at Steppenwolf's First Look Repertory of New Work.
A: I'm really excited about Old Masters at Steppenwolf. I'm very lucky to be working with the director, Daniel Aukin. I'm really looking forward seeing the other plays in the series. And, most importantly I'm thrilled and honored that Steppenwolf—a theater that I have long admired and followed-- is producing the play as part of First Look. ...
August 4, 2010
I Interview Playwrights Part 231: Stacy Davidowitz
Stacy Davidowitz
Hometown: Merrick, Long Island, NY
Current Town: Morningside Heights, NYC
Q: Tell me about PINK!:
A: PINK! is the story of five 12-year old girls and the interpersonal relationships that bind them. It plays out in real-time over the course of an hour and a half while they are alone in their bunk at sleep-away camp. A dark, dark comedy, PINK! presents 12 year-old girls in a way you've probably never seen them-- as themselves, unsupervised and unleashed. Take note: animal...
I Interview Playwrights Part 230: Molly Rice
Molly Rice
Hometown: Born in Houston, TX, but Austin is home.
Current Town: New York City
Q: Tell me about the Saints Tour and Futurity the Musical.
A: SAINTS TOUR means a lot to me. I wrote the play in 2009 for Ray Rizzo's live arts exchange MOTHERLODGE (a great festival, www.motherlodge.com), to take place in Louisville, KY. The play was a bus tour, led by a "Tour Guide" character who uncovers the secret saints of a local area. I wrote it using Google Maps Street View, never having been t...
August 3, 2010
I Interview Playwrights Part 229: Julia Pascal
photograph by Habie Schwarz
Julia Pascal
Hometown: I was born and brought up in Manchester and Blackpool in the north of England but at 14 I moved to London where I have lived ever since.
Current Town: London
Q: Tell me about Dybbuk.
A:
The Dybbuk.
History
PASCAL THEATRE COMPANY's innovative take on THE DYBBUK was supported by the British Council on a tour to Poland in l993. (Tim Butchard was the British Council supporting Officer), It went to Bialystok and Radom and was extremely well-receive...
August 2, 2010
I Interview Playwrights Part 228: Yussef El Guindi
Yussef El Guindi
Hometowns: Cairo and London
Current Town: Seattle
Q: Tell me about the play you're working on at the Bay Area Playwrights Festival:
A: It's called THREE WOLVES AND A LAMB. A comedy about the Palestinian and Israeli imbroglio/ conflict. The subject matter just screamed comedy to me. So I just followed those initial screams and ended up with this play. We'll see if I've managed to morph it all into laughter or not. It's a prickly subject that lends itself to the extremes of bot...
August 1, 2010
I Interview Playwrights Part 227: Meg Gibson
Meg Gibson
Hometown, Current Town:
Born in Bridgeton, New Jersey-really South Jersey as we say, down by the Delaware Bay and the reason why they call it the Garden State. I ran around in the asparagus and tomato fields until I was eight. My father is third generation inventor so there was always a lot of creativity going on.
I do remember the parents going to NYC to see plays and how wildly excited they were by what they'd seen. When I was old enough to be taken to the city it was like being in ...
July 31, 2010
I Interview Playwrights Part 226: Daniel McCoy
Daniel McCoy
Hometown: Portland, OR.
Current town: Brooklyn, NY.
Q: Tell me about your upcoming Fringe show.
A: My play Group will be world-premiering in the Fringe Festival at the Kraine Theater. Nutshell: it's a comedy about a therapy group in purgatory populated by those who have died suddenly, gruesomely, and unexpectedly, and are having a rough time making the transition into the great beyond. Guilt, fear and anger are just a few things holding them back and these dead people gots to...
