Adam Szymkowicz's Blog, page 124
July 24, 2010
I Interview Playwrights Part 219: Joshua Allen
Joshua Allen
Hometown: Chicago, IL
Current Town: New York, NY
Q: What are you working on now?
A: My two current projects couldn't be more different. I'm revising a play I wrote called THE LAST PAIR OF EARLIES, which is inspired by the Great Migration of black Southerners that took place in the '20s, '30s, and '40s. Also, I'm working on a more contemporary play that's loosely inspired by an obscure Henry James novel entitled "The Other House."
Q: Tell me about your experience working on a...
July 23, 2010
I Interview Playwrights Part 218: Peter Gil-Sheridan
Peter Gil-Sheridan
Hometown: Rahway, New Jersey
Current Town: Brooklyn, New York (Sunset Park)
Q: Tell me please about What May Fall and the Fordham Alumni Company.
A: What May Fall is a play I wrote on commission for the Guthrie's BFA Actor's Showcase. It is loosely based on my experience of seeing a maintenance worker fall to his death at the IDS Tower in Minneapolis. I was living there while I was on a Jerome and I was doing a temp job to make some extra money. I was so so homesick and th...
July 22, 2010
I Interview Playwrights Part 217: Tira Palmquist
Tira Palmquist
Hometown: It's difficult to say that I have a hometown. I was born in Albert Lea, MN, but my family moved to Le Center, MN. (a very tiny town) when I was an infant. Since my father was a Lutheran minister, we moved fairly frequently (from Minnesota to Wisconsin, and from Wisconsin to Iowa). The short, non-specific, answer for where "home" is, then, is the Midwest.
Current Town: Irvine, CA. (And that's another story.)
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I've got a couple projects ...
July 21, 2010
I Interview Playwrights Part 216: Sarah Hammond
Sarah Hammond
Hometown: Columbia, SC
Current town: Brooklyn, NY.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: An original musical with Adam Gwon called String about the three Fates from Greek mythology - a trio of women who spin, measure, and cut the threads of our lives, transplanted to a modern metropolis. Adam and I met in the Dramatists Guild Fellows in 2006. He was just starting his show Ordinary Days and I was working on my play House on Stilts. We loved each others' quirky characters. It took abou...
July 20, 2010
I Interview Playwrights Part 215: Charlotte Miller
Charlotte Miller
Hometown: Dallas, TX
Current Town: Brooklyn, NY
Q: Tell me about the play you're working on at PlayPenn.
A: I'm working on a play called Raising Jo. I started writing it about 2 and a half years ago. It's about love and family and what it means to really really really be a grown up. It centers around a young couple and their unplanned pregnancy. The baby doesn't figure into the play that heavily except that it forces the adults to come together and act like adults. It follows ...
July 19, 2010
I Interview Playwrights Part 214: Deborah Yarchun
Deborah Yarchun
Hometown: Austin, TX.
Current Town: Harlem, NYC until July 28th then Iowa City.
Q: Tell me please about Next Year in Jerusalem.
A: Next Year in Jerusalem is an intimate two-hander that actually works far better in an immersive space like a café or bar than on a stage. We've been describing it on our facebook page as "A site-specific, anti-romantic one-act play in three cerebral battles." It's basically about two young people building up walls between each other while simultaneo...
July 18, 2010
I Interview Playwrights Part 213: Anna Kerrigan
photo by Amy Wadsworth
Anna Kerrigan
Hometown: I was born in San Francisco but moved to Los Angeles when I was one.
Current Town: New York City
Q: Tell me about The Talls.
A: The Talls is a play about the Clarkes, an extremely tall family living in the Oakland Hills in 1970. Just as the family patriarch, Mr. Clarke, launches his campaign for City Comptroller, the family receives news that Mrs. Clarke's best friend has been severely injured in an automobile accident. Isabelle, the eldest sister,...
July 17, 2010
I Interview Playwrights Part 212: Luis Alfaro
Luis Alfaro
Hometown: Pico/Union, Downtown Los Angeles, California
Current Town: Little Ethiopia, Los Angeles, California
Q: What are you working on now?
A: A pageant play about Pentecostalism in California and a commission for Hartford Stage about the Puerto Rican and Ethiopian communities. I am dramaturging a lot these days for a group of emerging playwrights and directing for a young theatre company, East L.A. Repertory and an older one, Company of Angels. I am working on a presentation abou...
July 16, 2010
I Interview Playwrights Part 211: Jonathan Caren
Jonathan Caren
Hometown: Los Angeles
Current Town: New York
Q: Tell me about Three.
A: It's a play about a couple having a baby, dealing with fears of the unknown, and a spiritual healer who tries to right their ship. I just read it at The Partial Comfort Retreat and it's being done at the PTP/NYC AFTER DARK SERIES at the Atlantic Theater's 2nd Stage Tuesday July 20th at 10:30PM, directed by Kate Pines. I've never had a baby, but I've certainly been afraid of birthing things, like plays ...
July 13, 2010
I Interview Playwrights Part 210: Jennifer Haley
Jennifer Haley
Hometown: San Antonio, TX
Current Town: Los Angeles, CA
Q: Tell me about Breadcrumbs coming up at CATF.
A: Breadcrumbs opened this past weekend at the Contemporary American Theatre Festival, which is a gem of an event that came to my attention only a couple of years ago. The Festival, under the leadership of Artistic Director, Ed Herendeen, produces five new plays every summer in a beautiful, civil-war era town in West Virginia, just outside of Washington DC. Over twenty year...
