Adam Szymkowicz's Blog, page 25
September 10, 2017
I Interview Playwrights Part 988: November Christine
November Christine
Hometown: That's a tough one. I was a military brat, born in Germany. We moved every two years til I was about 12. Most of my family now lives in Greenville, NC.
Current Town: Los Angeles, CA
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I'm writing and producing a musical theatre audiobook series called LEGACY. It's a historical fiction based on the life of Martin Luther. Think Hamilton meets A Christmas Carol. To my knowledge, it's the first original musical to be produced as an audiobook.
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 very young I had a fear of dandelions. It was the white seedlings, the way they'd fly off like a swarm of gnats. I remember picking one and carefully bringing it to my mom. "Blow it," I said. "I won't run this time." She blew it, and I ran away as fast as my little legs could carry me. I didn't succeed at facing my fear. Not that time. But I had tried. Anyway, I overcame it eventually. Still can't stand swarms though.
Q: If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?
A: More women, people of color, LGBT, and differently abled people at the producer/investor level. We can write our stories all we want, but we need representatives from marginalized communities at the decision making level, or these stories will never see the light of day.
Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?
A: I really love Mamet's work. I'm also inspired by Danai Jekesai Gurira's journey from being a television actress to a powerful female voice on the Broadway stage.
Q: What kind of theater excites you?
A: I love theatre that makes me uncomfortable; theatre that makes me question what I already believe to be true.
Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?
A: Don't worry about being good. You're just starting. So probably you're not good. The point is to always be writing. That's how you become a good writer.
Q: When not writing on a computer, what's your go-to paper and writing utensil? When on computer, what's your font?
A: I'll write on anything except napkins--only because I'll forget and throw the napkin out as trash later. I don't like pencils. I prefer lightly scratching out mistakes rather than erasing because 90% of the time I decide the mistake was the right choice after all. There's a life lesson in there somewhere.
Q: Plugs, please:
A: My Facebook Page:
https://m.facebook.com/NovemberChristineOfficial
You can get Episodes 1 & 2 of the LEGACY series on Audible, Amazon, or iTunes.
https://www.amazon.com/Revelation-Legacy-Musical-Indictment-Episode/dp/B01NH5ATJ9
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B073X7FKDW
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September 9, 2017
Jack and Jill Plays - Part 24 - Futility
About Jack and Jill Plays:
This is a new thing I'm doing. Posting a short play every day as long as I can. This does not mean that I wrote this play today but I might have. (My life is not always my own what with work and a 4 year old running around so maybe I wrote it today or maybe it was stockpiled in preparation for the days I can't get in writing.) My goal is to do at least 100 of these or maybe more but probably 45 or 50 is the length of a full length play so even that would be good. 100 would be better. 300? amazing. 500? Does anyone want 500 of these plays? Anyway, the goal is consecutive days.
The normal things about plays apply-- don't produce or reproduce this play without my permission. I wrote it so I own it. Etc.
Futility
by Adam Szymkowicz
(JILL studying on a book or laptop. JACK enters, throws something on the floor.)
JACK
I mean, what's the point?
JILL
I bet there is one.
JACK
But it's all this this and then that that and then what exactly, right?
JILL
Yeah.
JACK
Right?
JILL
I know.
JACK
Why do I keep doing it?
JILL
Yeah.
JACK
Why?
JILL
I have a solution.
JACK
No.
JILL
It'll solve this.
JACK
No.
JILL
You don't even know what I'm going to say. I could have all the answers to all your questions. You don't know. You don't let me talk.
JACK
Okay, fine. What are you going to say?
JILL
I could do brain surgery on you.
JACK
See. No.
JILL
You would never feel this way again.
JACK
Never? No. No. Definitely not, no.
JILL
I could do it.
JACK
Stop thinking about it.
JILL
I can't.
JACK
Futility doesn't end just because I'm not aware of it.
JILL
Doesn't it? It might. I think it might.
(JILL takes out a top. She spins it. JACK takes out a top he spins it. They watch their tops spin.)
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I Interview Playwrights Part 987: Ken Munch
Ken Munch
Hometown: Brooklyn, NY
Current Town: Brooklyn, NY
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I've just finished a first draft of a new play, which is a revitalization of an earlier failed play, previously known as "Explosion at the Happiness Factory," which was given a great reading at EST back in 2010--a reading that helped expose how bad the whole thing was. I left it alone after that, thoroughly discouraged. Now, I think I have finally cracked it, and am hoping to continue developing this over the next few months.
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 young, I used to create my own version of TV Guide, and fill it with all imaginary programs. For each show, I would write a synopsis in the style of TV Guide. Movies, talk shows, sitcoms--I invented a world of alternate TV programming. I think in its own crazy way this definitely helped me start to take apart and examine the storytelling process.
Q: If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?
A: It should be more affordable, and less precious. We should look at it as a laboratory, where great things can be discovered, though it can get messy and might even blow us all up, and not as a glass case in Tiffany's window, where we only display the most polished and worked-over jewels for everyone to "ooh" and "ahh" over. Let's make it easier for playwrights to see their work up on stage--any kind of stage, anywhere--rather than develop pieces incessantly in the hopes of making them more accessible or critic-proof.
Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?
A: So, so many.
Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, Edward Albee, David Mamet, Sam Shepard, John Guare. David Rabe, Caryl Churchill, August Wilson, Jez Butterworth, Stephen Adly Guirgis, Annie Baker, etc, etc.
The list is endless--basically anyone who even tries to write a play is a hero in my book.
Q: What kind of theater excites you?
A: I hook into dialogue probably more than anything else, when I see (or read) a play. I love it when it sings, when it has muscularity and a driving rhythm, when it throws proper grammar and syntax to the wind in order to chart the music of a character's desire. Beyond that, I love moral ambiguity, when the author loves the villain as much as the hero, or in fact can't tell you who exactly is the hero and who's the villain.
Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?
A: Write all you can, whenever you can, and get your work seen and/or heard any way you can. Don't have any preconceived notions about what your work should be like, or where your work should or should not be done. Seek out all opportunities, gather collaborators around you. There are actors, directors, and designers who are also starting out when you are. Gather together and build something yourselves.
Q: When not writing on a computer, what's your go-to paper and writing utensil? When on computer, what's your font?
A: I have long been obsessed with notebooks and pens, and am only now weaning myself off this powerful habit, which has resulted in boxes and boxes filled with blank notebooks--more than I'll ever be able to use. Moleskines, Paperblanks, Bindewerk (great German notebooks just now being imported here), and everything in between--I've used them all.
On computer, I use Final Draft software, and love their "Courier Final Draft" font--looks exactly like a typewritten page. In my fantasy life, I am the last playwright still using a manual typewriter.
Q: Plugs, please:
A: I am part of a great organization, Rough and Ready Productions, which has a monthly night of readings of new work. Plays, screenplays, songs, monologues--whatever you're working on at the moment, you can put it up before a friendly, encouraging audience. Our next night of readings is on Monday, September 11 at Alchemical Theatre Lab, 104 West 14th street, NYC. I urge anyone to submit material for future evenings to: idemandanaudience@gmail.com
and like the Rough and Ready Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/iamroughandready/
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September 8, 2017
Jack And Jill Plays - Part 23 - A Small Cough
About Jack and Jill Plays:
This is a new thing I'm doing. Posting a short play every day as long as I can. This does not mean that I wrote this play today but I might have. (My life is not always my own what with work and a 4 year old running around so maybe I wrote it today or maybe it was stockpiled in preparation for the days I can't get in writing.) My goal is to do at least 100 of these or maybe more but probably 45 or 50 is the length of a full length play so even that would be good. 100 would be better. 300? amazing. 500? Does anyone want 500 of these plays? Anyway, the goal is consecutive days.
The normal things about plays apply-- don't produce or reproduce this play without my permission. I wrote it so I own it. Etc.
A Small Cough
by Adam Szymkowicz
(JACK has a coughing fit. It goes on for a while and then it stops.)
JILL
You should get that looked at.
JACK
Yeah.
JILL
Really.
JACK
I know.
JILL
You won't though, will you?
JACK
I might.
JILL
Don't you want to feel better? Don't you want to be better?
JACK
Kind of.
JILL
Right?
JACK
Kind of.
JILL
Yeah.
(JACK coughs but not as much as before.)
JACK
I think I'm getting better.
JILL
I don't want to worry about you and me both.
JACK
Don't worry about anything.
JILL
I won't.
JACK
Good. What are we fighting about?
JILL
We're not fighting.
JACK
Then let's have sex.
JILL
Okay.
(They look at each other. They don't move.)
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I Interview Playwrights Part 986: Jody Christopherson
Jody Christopherson
Hometown: Omaha, NE
Current Town: New York, NY
Q: Tell me about Greencard Wedding:
A: Greencard Wedding (www.greencardwedding.com) is the first generative work I made, meaning that I had to write it myself for myself and my partner to perform. I had a band that had a member who lost his visa, which was really heartbreaking. So, I created a work that I thought would allow us to make a case for getting an artist visa; a love letter to our band and collaboration that used our music and was also very personal (and a live Skype call at the time). The whole thing ended up being bittersweet and not working out, though the show was touring quite a bit.
So I developed it into a play that is based on that experience, which (thanks to our incredible booking agent and sound/projections designer Martha Goode) I tour and perform with Ryan McCurdy. It’s essentially a scripted rock concert, with scenes that play out on stage as well as through films, (which we made on Skype, using Skype recorder). There are 9 songs we play, act with each other live on stage and as well as with the films (Morgan Zipf-Meister and David Anzuelo also appear in the films), so there are moments we have where we’re acting with a pre-recorded scene partner. It’s interesting because the film can’t change, you know exactly what response you’ll get from your on screen partner in those scenes, but from night to night our live responses can vary slightly. So it never feels locked, even though in a way it is, sort of in the way that long distance relationships can sometimes feel, I guess.
The show is interactive in many ways, we talk directly with the audience, do quite a few Irish toasts with them, teach them some Gaelic and serve wedding cake. It’s a bit like being at a concert and also seeing the personal story behind the scenes.
Q: Tell me about AMP:
A: AMP ( https://www.goodeproductionsnyc.com/amp ) is a unit of electricity, an abbreviation for A Modern Prometheus (a nod to the original title of Frankenstein) and the title of my new solo horror play about scientist Luigi Galvani's discovery of animal electricity in 1790 and how it informed the creation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein as well as the development of electroshock therapy in the 1950's.
In AMP, Mary Shelley begins the process of writing Frankenstein on stage. Mary's monologues are interwoven with film interviews of a woman who auditions for the Boston Symphony during their first historic "blind auditions" and is committed to an asylum where she undergoes electroshock therapy to cure her of her ambitions.
Part of the text in this show is taken directly from the writings of Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, William Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft, Luigi Galvani and medical journals. Many of these people are voiced by actors in the show through ghostly voice overs Martha Goode is creating (Ryan McCurdy as Percy Shelley, Jason O’Connell as William Godwin, Chloe Dirksen as Mary Wollstonecraft, Jonathan West as Lord Byron and Finn Kilgore as a doctor in the asylum).
Some of the projections in AMP are photographs from abandoned asylums in NY and MA that I shot. It was different way to research a project. I wanted to feel terror, and understand more about the history of these places, what that meant for the people who had lived and died there. When you go to those places, in a way you are at their mercy. There’s a lot to prepare for, precautions to take and you never know what you will find. It may be uneventful or it may be charged. Emma Went, who directs AMP, and I went together and were lucky enough to connect with Ashlynn Rickord at the Public Health Museum in Tewksbury, MA, who has been a tremendous resource. Visiting Tewksbury, MA also gave us a context in which to create a location for the films in the show.
Here’s a sound play piece The Tank commissioned about the process: https://soundcloud.com/jody-christopherson/left-a-sound-play-by-jody-christopherson
Q: Tell me about the Female Playwright Project:
A: I like to work in many mediums; make theater/visual art hybrids. I work as a professional photographer (www.pfaphotonyc.com). Necessary Exposure: The Female Playwright Project is a portrait and sound installation I created, which seeks to bring visibility to playwrights who identify as female. There have been three very different installations so far, which have run for between 4 to 6 weeks in Dixon Place’s gallery and on iTunes. I have photographed 46 playwrights for the installation to date.
The first round of Necessary Exposure portraits used mixed media, a photograph and repurposed frame covered in materials from the playwrights work. This installation didn’t include audio recordings of plays but we did do a reading of an excerpt of each playwright’s work. The second installation was where sound was added; the portraits were more traditional and accompanied by excerpts of plays in the form of podcasts (designed by Natalie Johnsonius Neubert). We started doing a sight deprivation event to emphasize the absence of seeing the plays performed and allow a space for people to dream on producing them. Audience members come into the gallery, view the portraits, and then go into a dark theater, where they sit and listen to the sound designed excerpts in near darkness. The third installation happened right after Trump was elected. Those portraits are conceptual; the playwrights and I designed scenarios that speak to what it is to be making work at this time in history. Things like Leah Nanako Winkler turning her body into a protest sign and flashing Trump Tower on the coldest day of the year started to happen. Those podcasts were recorded and designed by Martha Goode and we also did a sight deprivation event.
All these portraits can be viewed and podcasts can be listened to anywhere in the world in the online gallery: https://thefemaleplaywrightproject.com/
Q: What else are you working on now?
A: Ryan McCurdy and I have written music for the Climate Change Theatre Action, produced by The Arctic Cycle, which is a series of free performances in 41 countries in support of the United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP meetings). https://www.thearcticcycle.org/ccta-2017
I have a role in the film “Uniform” by Jeffrey James Keyes, directed by Ellie Foumbi and Michael Niederman, with Laura Gomez and London Peith. Laura and I play a couple whose 6 year old son is sent home from school for wearing a dress.
I’m also trying to bike more than I ride the subway or take cabs. Sometimes I succeed and sometimes I don’t.
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 I’m still having it. We did a lot of hiking, camping and building things, fishing, telling stories and singing songs around fires. I was rarely treated like a little girl, or in a gender specific way. I don’t think that this was intentional; we were just busy working and playing in the dirt. I think growing up that way I felt comfortable in the world. Nature was an exciting unknown, an element that I got to collaborate with that often required creative solutions and more than one trade or method or skill.
Q: If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?
A: We would have more contact with our audiences. They would be more like guests in our home.
Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?
A: There are so many. Ruth Maleczech, Joe Stackell, Clove Galilee all have a special place in my heart.
Q: What kind of theater excites you?
A: Theatre that risks something personal against all odds and voices an essential truth, speaks to the political moment, connects with something outside of itself.
Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?
A: Do it yourself but ask for help and thank those people like crazy. Ask more questions than there can be answers to satisfy. Everything is research. Try to listen objectively. Do what you can to spark your process everyday. Even small things count.
Q: Plugs, please:
A: Greencard Wedding is playing at HERE Arts Center Nov 29th- Dec 20th http://here.org/shows/detail/1946/
AMP is the recipient of a New York Society Library Grant and is going to be performing there Oct 29th and 3pm, and also playing at HERE Arts Center Dec 3rd- Dec 19th
https://www.nysoclib.org/events/amp-new-play-jody-christopherson
http://here.org/shows/detail/1947/
Uniform is screening in the Reeling 35 Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival September 23rd in Chicago: http://reelingfilmfestival.org/2017/films/uniform/
The Climate Change Theater Action is happening Oct- Nov 2017 and is free to take part in- https://www.thearcticcycle.org/ccta-2017
If you want to stay in touch/ get invites to upcoming events my mailing list is: https://tinyletter.com/JodyChristopherson
And my website is: http://jodychristopherson.wixsite.com/jodychristopherson
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September 7, 2017
Jack And Jill Plays - Part 22 - To See
About Jack and Jill Plays:
This is a new thing I'm doing. Posting a short play every day as long as I can. This does not mean that I wrote this play today but I might have. (My life is not always my own what with work and a 4 year old running around so maybe I wrote it today or maybe it was stockpiled in preparation for the days I can't get in writing.) My goal is to do at least 100 of these or maybe more but probably 45 or 50 is the length of a full length play so even that would be good. 100 would be better. 300? amazing. 500? Does anyone want 500 of these plays? Anyway, the goal is consecutive days.
The normal things about plays apply-- don't produce or reproduce this play without my permission. I wrote it so I own it. Etc.
To See
by Adam Szymkowicz
(JILL and HAROLD. HAROLD is crying, in kind of a whimpery way.)
JILL
It's not that I don't love you, because I do in a way.
HAROLD
I don't believe you.
JILL
It's just that we're wrong for each other, Harold.
HAROLD
But maybe we're just a different kind of right.
JILL
No, I'm pretty sure we're not. I mean really do you see you and me together in the long run?
HAROLD
Yes.
JILL
You're just saying that. You have your boats and I have my ideas and we don't even speak the same language.
HAROLD
I could learn your language.
JILL
But you won't. The thing about me is that I want to be with someone who likes me.
HAROLD
I like you.
JILL
Don't interrupt. I want to be with someone who likes me for the things about myself that I like too. Or the things they like that I didn't even know. Like am I funny? Maybe someone who thinks I'm really funny. And someone who loves the color of my hair. Like that. When I talk, you don't understand me. I say things and your mind drifts and I know you're not really smart enough to get me. And I'm pretty sure there are great things about me but if I stay with you, I will never know because I will see myself the way you see me. I will get stuck there. Because you're kind of overbearing in your world view. And I think you don't really see me. Or you do but in a blurry way. You're looking somewhere else and you see me out of the corner of your eye and so you have a general idea but you never really see me because you can't stop putting things on top of me that aren't really me.
HAROLD
But I love you.
JILL
No. I don't know what you love but it's not me.
HAROLD
I think it's you.
JILL
No. I think you want to be in love and I'm here. Go get on your boat and sail off and just be with you for a while. And then figure out how to lose yourself so you're not so oppressive to others. Be buddhist or something.
HAROLD
I'm not going to do that.
JILL
Okay. Well, I'm leaving. You do what you do
(JILL exits. HAROLD sobs.)
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I Interview Playwrights Part 985: Naveen Bahar Choudhury
Naveen Bahar Choudhury
Hometown: Born in Washington, D.C. and raised ten miles away in the Maryland suburbs
Current Town: New York, NY
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I’m working on the first draft of a new play that is partly a subversive retelling of the Abraham and Isaac story, and partly about a family celebrating the Muslim holiday which commemorates this story, Eid al-Adha (which is Arabic for “Feast of the Sacrifice”). I’m also working on rewrites for several plays, including a play commissioned by the Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Project that I’ve been working on for a looong time, and a few other plays that are in varying states of disrepair. I made up a rule that I wouldn’t start any new plays this year until I finished rewriting all of my old ones. I didn’t follow the rule. I just kept having ideas.
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 really little, I was crazy shy – whatever picture you have in your mind right now of a shy little kid, I was way shier than that. I basically refused to speak unless it was a life-or-death (or pee-in-the-pants) situation. I remember at least one person asked my mom if I was mute (I wasn’t). As soon as I could read the Dr. Seuss books, I started writing simple rhyming poems and stories to give to my parents as a way to communicate my feelings, or things that were too scary to say out loud (everything was too scary to say out loud). My parents were very encouraging of my writing – mostly because they valued the arts and creativity – but also because it was probably the only way they could get some insight into what was going on with their weird little kid! As an adult, I’m no longer shy, but I do still see storytelling as a way to talk about things that we can’t talk about in everyday life.
Q: If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?
A: More (like a LOT more) productions of plays by living playwrights, playwrights of color, and women playwrights – preferably all three! And really more plays from all communities whose voices are routinely ignored and/or oppressed: LGBTQ writers, differently-abled writers, and many more. I love Shakespeare, Chekhov, and Tennessee Williams as much as anyone; but if you want to get an age diverse and race diverse and otherwise diverse audience, you must produce plays that are directly relevant to this moment, and directly relevant to the audience you are trying to attract. And everyone should want to attract a diverse audience – that is the only way theatre will survive.
Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?
A: Dael Orlandersmith, Stephen Adly Guirgis, David Henry Hwang, Kristoffer Diaz, Suzan-Lori Parks, Diana Son, Lynn Nottage, Caryl Churchill, Tony Kushner, Craig Wright, Gina Gionfriddo, August Wilson, Paula Vogel, Rajiv Joseph, Heather Raffo, Quiara Alegría Hudes, Tennessee Williams, Chekhov, María Irene Fornés, Theresa Rebeck, Qui Nguyen, Itamar Moses, Oscar Wilde, Anna Deavere Smith, Lisa Kron, Lloyd Suh, Ionesco... Gaaaah, so many more people!!!! This question is bananas. I could keep naming people all day.
Q: What kind of theater excites you?
A: The kind that makes me remember that a play can be about anything... plays that can’t be easily adapted into some other form, because they are specifically theatrical in some way or another... Plays that make me think, “oh, I’ve never seen it done this way before.”
Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?
A: Try to write the play that only you can write. Don’t worry about things like networking or submitting your work to a million places until after you’ve written something and rewritten it and heard a group of talented actors read it for you, so that you can rewrite it again after that... until it starts to sound like you. In other words, don’t put the cart before the horse. Put finding your voice ahead of the horse. In fact, don’t even get horses involved; Equus has already been written. Am I doing this analogy right?
Q: When not writing on a computer, what's your go-to paper and writing utensil? What other devices do you use?
A: I like legal pads for when I’m writing quick and dirty; Moleskines for slower writing – like if I’m writing in a meadow. Ballpoint pens, always. I often write on the train (because I’m almost always on a train... In fact, I’m writing this very sentence on a train!), and most of my train writing is with the Notes app on my iPhone. I use the voice memo app a lot as well, when I get ideas while I’m walking, which is a lot. (It’s kind of a long walk to the train).
Q: Who is the adorable dog in your photo?
A: That would be Chester, the Drama Book Shop dog.
Q: What’s coming up? And where can we learn more about you?
A: I will have readings of the things I’m writing and rewriting this fall! With the Ma-Yi Theatre Writers Lab and elsewhere. Stay tuned. Learn more about me here: http://ma-yitheatre.org/labbies/naveen-bahar-choudhury/
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September 6, 2017
Jack and Jill Plays - Part 21 - Harold
About Jack and Jill Plays:
This is a new thing I'm doing. Posting a short play every day as long as I can. This does not mean that I wrote this play today but I might have. (My life is not always my own what with work and a 4 year old running around so maybe I wrote it today or maybe it was stockpiled in preparation for the days I can't get in writing.) My goal is to do at least 100 of these or maybe more but probably 45 or 50 is the length of a full length play so even that would be good. 100 would be better. 300? amazing. 500? Does anyone want 500 of these plays? Anyway, the goal is consecutive days.
The normal things about plays apply-- don't produce or reproduce this play without my permission. I wrote it so I own it. Etc.
HAROLD
by Adam Szymkowicz
(JACK and JILL enter, exhausted and filthy. JACK collapses.)
JACK
I don't have anything left in me.
JILL
There's always something more.
JACK
Totally, right, except now. I'm done. Finished. Bury me here.
JILL
What shall I write on your tombstone?
JACK
Write: "I just couldn't do it any more."
JILL
Or I could just put, "Wuss."
JACK
Okay. Or that.
JILL
You're really done?
JACK
Yeah.
JILL
That's it?
JACK
That's it. I have failed at everything that could matter. The long day is done. The candle is out. The sun has set. The mayflies are all dead. Corn chips don't taste good any more. Music sounds dumb.
JILL
Maybe let's get to the house and you can lie down.
JACK
I can't make it. Go on without me. Remember my name. Whisper it to the wind.
JILL
I should have married Harold.
(JACK stands.)
JACK
I will continue and persevere. I will go inside. I will make you food. If you never ever say that name again.
JILL
What, Harold?
JACK
NEVER AGAIN!!
JILL
Okay.
(Exit JACK and JILL)
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I Interview Playwrights Part 984: Robert Schenkkan
Robert Schenkkan
Hometown: Born in Chapel Hill, NC but raised in Austin, Texas.
Current Town: Live in NYC.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: Writing a movie for Redford to direct about the Manhattan Project, a movie for Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Amazon about the Klan in South Carolina, and another movie for Imagine. I have a new play, HANUSSEN, several commissions I owe, and of course, I continue to follow/manage the rollout of BUILDING THE WALL. Over the next six weeks I will visit productions in Austin, Miami, Vienna, and Tucson.
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 in Austin, Texas and every summer my parents used to drive us (me and my three brothers) to West Palm Beach, FL where we would stay with our grandparents. Hard to keep four boys quiet for long and our favorite entertainment would be when our father would make up a story. These epic serials could go on hours from one improbable adventure to another. Storytelling in its purest form. When I describe what I do now, I simply say, “I’m a story teller.”
Q: If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?
A: Tickets would be cheap so everybody could attend regularly.
Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?
A: Miller. Becket. Shepard and O’Neill.
Q: What kind of theater excites you?
A: Theater that both moves and surprises me.
Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?
A: It’s a marathon, not a sprint.
Q: When not writing on a computer, what's your go-to paper and writing utensil? When on computer, what's your font?
A: I use yellow legal pads and Uniball Vision Elite black pens. I work on computer with Times New Roman font.
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September 5, 2017
I Interview Playwrights Part 983: Jonathan Spector
Jonathan Spector
Hometown: Annandale, VA
Current Town: Oakland, CA
Q: What are you working on now?
A: Too many things at once, which I find immiserating. I’m much happier just working on one thing at a time, but the fates conspire against me. I’m workshopping my play EUREKA DAY, about an outbreak of Measles at a progressive private school in Berkeley. It’s sort of a play about how we find consensus with people when can’t agree on the facts. I’m trying to complete a draft of a new piece that I started in Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor about decision science and happiness called THIS MUCH I KNOW. And I have a super-rough new piece, SIESTA KEY which’ll have a reading in Crowded Fire’s Matchbox Series in November and needs a big rewrite first.
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 moved around a lot as a kid and went to five different elementary schools. I was constantly in the position of having to figure out who these new people were and how the rules worked. That combination of curiosity and alienation is usually my entry point into exploring some aspect of the world I don’t understand.
Q: If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?
A: I know everyone says money, but still: money. Both to lower the cost of seeing it and the to pay artists what they need.
Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?
A: All the people whose work blew me away and opened my mind to what theatre could be when I lived in New York in my early 20s: Melissa James Gibson, Anne Washburn, Chuck Mee, Jason Grote, Sheila Callaghan, MacWellman, Les Waters, Daniel Aukin in his run at Soho Rep (Sarah Benson’s run has also been breathtaking). Back when I thought I wanted to be a director, I assisted Steve Cosson on a couple of the early Civilians shows, and that idea of treating a piece of theater of as an investigation made a big impact.
Then there’s a whole bunch of the writers I first encountered when I was the Literary Manager of the Bay Area Playwrights Festival: Annie Baker, Sam Hunter, Marcus Gardley, Jackie Sibblies Drury, Julia Jarcho. And the greats across the pond: Beckett, Caryl Churchill, Martin Crimp, David Greig, Complicite, Peter Brook.
Q: What kind of theater excites you?
A: Theater that assumes a deep intelligence on the part of its audience. Theater that is strange and surprising and uncomfortable.
Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?
A: Read a lot and see a lot. Put up your own work however you can.
Find your people. If you see something that excites you, try to find a way to get involved in any capacity with those people or that company. Just about everyone welcomes free labor.
Turn off the internet. When there are a million other voices swirling around in your head, it’s hard to hear your own.
Q: When not writing on a computer, what's your go-to paper and writing utensil? When on computer, what's your font?
A: My handwriting has become progressively more illegible even to me, so while I occasionally scrawl notes on any available surface with any available instrument, the real writing happens on a computer. Garamond is my font.
Q: Plugs, please:
A: Other people’s plays in the Bay: Chris Chen’s A Tale of Autumn at Crowded Fire, Madeleine George’s The Watson Intelligence at Shotgun Players, Marcus Gardley’s Black Odyssey at Cal Shakes and (though this is a long way off, I'm extremely excited about it) Dipika Guha’s In Braunau at San Francisco Playhouse.
My stuff: I have two shows opening next year– Eureka Day at Aurora Theater Company (April 13-May 13), and Good. Better. Best. Bested. at Custom Made Theater (June 14 - July 7).
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