Adam Szymkowicz's Blog, page 53

I Interview Playwrights Part 773: Kris Bauske

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Kris Bauske

Hometown: Born in Grand Rapids, MI and raised in Niles, MI. I consider both of them home.

Current Town: Orlando, FL

Q:  What are you working on now?
 

A:  I have a lot of irons in the fire, so please don’t be dismayed by the long list. 


Currently reviewing a contract from a British publisher interested in one of my plays, Whispers to the Moon, which is set in Monaco. Contract looks good to me, but I’m waiting on an okay from my agent before moving forward.


Making arrangements to have the illustrated book version of A Good Old Fashioned Redneck Country Christmas represented at the Frankfurt Book Fair in Frankfurt, Germany this year.
‘Redneck Christmas’ is being adapted as a movie this year with filming set to start in Vancouver in the fall. I’m in constant contact with the producer on that project, and I plan to be on set during filming. 


The film producer has a partner who primarily works with stage productions. We are discussing a Toronto production of ‘Redneck Christmas’ this season and possible touring productions for following years. There is one completed sequel, A Good Old Fashioned Redneck Country Wedding, which the stage producer is also interested in which will premiere in Saskatchewan, Canada this year, and I’m working on a third installment – A Good Old Fashioned Redneck Happy Halloween. That’s my only new writing right now.


This is my second year as Co-Chair for ICWP’s 50/50 Applause Award, and summer is our busiest time. I am responsible for the creation of the 2015 Celebration Video, so I’ve been soliciting and reviewing video clips from recipient organizations and working with our volunteer to have the video ready when we make the formal announcement in September.


My play The Nearly Final Almost Posthumous Play of the Not-Quite-Dead Sutton McAllister was in a new play festival last month at The Players Theatre in Sarasota, FL and will be one of five full-length scripts in the Tampa Bay Theatre Festival next month. I spent a week in Sarasota for the festival, and I’m producing and directing for the Tampa festival, so it’s been a busy summer.

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 about six, we lived very close to the church we attended. Some Sundays, my older sister and I would walk to Sunday school together and then come home by ourselves. One Sunday, we saw a tiny kitten near the sidewalk on our way home. My sister told me I’d better keep walking and get home, or I’d be in trouble. Then she continued on her way. I stayed and coaxed the kitten over. I spoke to the animal quietly and petted her and told her how sweet she was. Unsurprisingly, the kitten followed me (half carrying/half coaxing) all the way home. She was the best friend I had as a child. I can’t turn my back on any innocent in need of help, and I still have a deep love and respect for animals. Theirs is the only love without condition or guile. I enjoy writing characters who are that untouched by the world. It’s a breath of fresh air.

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




A:  Our community would be more generous to each other if I had the power to change the theater. I have been incredibly blessed by organizations that freely loan props and costumes; freely share their empty space; and freely help with auditions and promotion. I’ve also been on the other side where a theatre with lots of empty space still expects $1500 a night rental if you’re going to put up a show there. It seems to me we should be more supportive and encouraging to our fellow artists. I would love to see organizations with empty space hold a lottery each year to share some of it with local playwrights. Wouldn’t that be something! 


I am truly appalled by ‘theater’ people who try to make their fortunes off the most underpaid, financially strapped members of our community. Theater is a team sport. We need to approach it as such!

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes? 




A:  Kenneth Brannaugh, Tom Hiddleston, Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh, Helen Hayes, Tommy Tune, and of course the great Neil Simon. Mr. Simon and I share an agent, and he has read some of my work and shared his comments with me. I have found him to be a generous, kind-hearted man. He is my hero just for being so gracious with his time when clearly he has no need to be.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?
 

A:  I love theatre that takes me out of myself. When I can sit in a seat for 2-3 hours and wish it had been longer, I know I’m seeing real genius! I prefer theatre that lifts my spirit and makes me feel renewed and exhilarated. It doesn’t happen often any more, but I’m always tremendously grateful and uniquely inspired when it does!

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




A:  Understand that writing for theatre today requires as much talent (if not more) at promotion as it does at writing. Use social media to your benefit. Don’t have a Twitter or Tumblr account yet? Get one, and use it often. Network as much as you can, and stay apprised of what’s happening in our community. Finally, don’t get frustrated. We’ve all been turned down, turned away, and turned off. If plays are your calling, you’ll keep going anyhow. If they’re not, don’t force it. It’s a tough journey even for those who feel called. It’s misery for those trying to force a square peg into a round hole.

Q:  Plugs, please: 


A:  The illustrated book of A Good Old Fashioned Redneck Country Christmas is available on Amazon, Kindle, and Barnes & Noble. It’s a lovely family-friendly book that makes a terrific gift. The plays, both musical and comedy, are available from my wonderful friends at Samuel French. www.samuelfrench.com

 
If you’ll be near Tampa over Labor Day weekend, I’d love to see you at the Tampa Bay Theatre Festival. Tickets to The Nearly Final Almost Posthumous Play of the Not-Quite-Dead Sutton McAllister are available at www.eventbrite.com

 
If you don’t currently support the International Centre for Women Playwrights, please check out the website at www.womenplaywrights.org ICWP’s 2015 recipients for the 50/50 Award will be announced in September! 


Check out my website to keep updated on other projects, and feel free to follow me on Twitter. www.krisbauske.com and @IntlPlaywright


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I Interview Playwrights Part 772: Barbara Pease Weber

Barbara Pease Weber


Home Town: I'm a Philly girl, through and through.

Current Town: I've been spending more and more time at the South Jersey seashore. I pretty much live at the beach nowadays.

Q:  What are some of the plays that you’ve written? Where have they been performed?

A:  I've written five comedies that are published by Samuel French and have been performed across the USA, in Canada, and some as far away as Australia and South Africa. My first is an all woman comedy, Delval Divas, about four incredibly bright, successful, professional women, who find themselves co-habitating at the fictional Delaware Valley ("Delval") Federal Correctional Institution, for committing a variety of non-violent "pink" collar crimes. Most recently, Samuel French published my 6W/2M comedy, The Witch in 204 ,which is a sequel (of sorts) to my earlier comedy entitled Seniors of the Sahara, centering around Sylvie Goldberg, a sweet, respectable, retired school teacher who returns home from her grandson's wedding in Israel with an unusual souvenir - a teapot/watering can that is actually a priceless relic containing a geriatric genie with a bad back and a penchant for vodka and V8. It's a quirky and unusual love story that culminates in The Witch in 204, when Sylvie's and Eugene's (the genie's) wedding plans are foiled by their sexy, sultry, and totally wicked new neighbor (Eugene's former paramour) a/k/a, The Witch in 204, who ruins their wedding day by poisoning one of their wedding guests (thinking she was Sylvie) with a lethal "brew" of pills and booze, and who tries to hijack the groom (Eugene) who leaves town leaving Sylvie with a dire warning to "Beware of The Witch in 204". My other comedies published by Samuel French are HOGWASH!, and A Crock of Schnitzel. My newest script (not yet published but it's had several productions) entitled Foolish Fishgirls and The Pearl, is about a trio of flat broke, middle age former mermaids living at the South Jersey seashore, whose lives didn't quite have that happily ever after storybook ending they had hoped for when then rescued their handsome young sailors and swam ashore 30 years ago. Suffice to say, all that chocolate I've consumed before bedtime over the years has resulted in some pretty bizarre dreams, fueling my already wild imagination, and resulting in a heck of a lot of fun.

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I’ve got at least a half dozen script ideas twirling around in my head, all waiting for the right moment to explode onto a page (should that moment actually ever again occur) and let me run wild with those that may ultimately take some sort of shape in what resembles a play or a story in some form or fashion. One involves Christmas (no, not another family reunion story, but something very different), one involves politics (no, not about boring battles of the Ds and Rs)s, one about the perils and aftermath of a reality TV show, another about my dear old (now departed) dad and his infamous wish (known only to family members) were he lucky enough to be reincarnated, and another about something that keeps coming to me at the oddest times then, poof, like right now, that I inexplicably seem to forget. (With age comes forgetfulness!) The common thread is that they’re all comedies, which is pretty much all I write.

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

A:  I actually have a couple totally different stories, one from my early childhood and one from my late teen/young adult years. While my dream for as far back as I can remember was to be an actor, which I am as well as a playwright, I wrote my first play, using characters from the Peanuts comic strip when I was nine, in fourth grade, for some sort of an extra-curricular writing or English class that was taught by one of the fifth grade teachers, who had a reputation of being strict, scary, and sometimes downright mean! Turns out, she got a pretty bad and undeserved rap from the fifth graders. The teacher wasn't in the least strict, scary or mean, at least in my book. She read my little script, which couldn't have been more than five or six pages at most, and which was chock full of typos having been pecked by me one finger at a time on my father's clunky manual typewriter, I'll never forget - she announced to the entire class that she loved it - and she insisted that it be performed "script in hand" in front of the entire school during some sort of assembly by a cast that I got to hand pick. Never being what anyone would ever dub as shy type, I cast myself as Lucy (who, of course, had the most lines). Coincidentally, I actually got to play Lucy again about ten years later, when I was 19, in a production of You're A Good Man Charlie Brown. I continued to act on and off throughout the years, but didn't write my "next" play until I was around 40 or so, thanks to my husband who more or less cajoled me into sitting down and doing it.

Which brings me to another crazy and wonderful thing that happened when I was cast in a play when I was 18 in 1976, as was a totally cute young fellow named John, also 18, who - fast forward - now happens to be my husband of almost 34 years, and the father of our two grown daughters (ironically neither of whom are remotely interested in performing! Where did we go wrong???) I get so much material from John, directly and indirectly. The things he says, his idiosyncrasies (such as, when we go out to lunch, triple checking, then making me check, that all of the toothpicks are removed from his sandwich before he eats it) turn into to some pretty funny stuff that I've managed to incorporate into my scripts. By way of example, early in our marriage when our girls were small, John had a black velour hoodie bathrobe that I probably got for him as a Christmas gift, and he would put on the robe and somehow tuck our eldest daughter (then about 5) inside with her head popping out, and he'd carry our younger daughter in one arm, and hold a hairdryer in his other hand, and he'd put a dish towel over his head (who knows why? there is no explanation!), and the three of them would chase me around our tiny condo in Ocean City laughing and screaming, "There's a Witch in 204" (our apartment was #204 and, of course, I was "The Witch"). Back then I would have never in a million years dreamed that one day I would write, or that Samuel French would publish, The Witch in 204. The last scene of the play pretty much recreates my treasured memories of oh so many years ago because my character, Herman, disguised as a Wizard (long black robe, etc.), chases Bella (short for Jezebella) The Witch around the South Jersey apartment, pointing at her a hairdryer wrapped in a colorful dish towel which is supposed to be the lethal witch whacking weapon that will throw off enough volts to electrocute even wickedest of witches, so as to scare her off. As they say, art imitates life, crazy and wonderful as it may be.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heros?

A:  I have always loved to make people laugh and have thoroughly enjoyed portraying characters in Neil Simon's The Odd Couple (Female Version), Last of the Red Hot Lovers, The Sunshine Boys, and Ken Ludwig's Moon Over Buffalo and Lend Me a Tenor. So, I'd have to say Simon and Ludwig are probably my playwright heroes, if for no other reason, I have such fond memories of portraying their characters. I wrote my first play, Delval Divas, shortly after portraying Florence Unger in The ( Female) Odd Couple, in part because my husband would not take no for an answer and insisted that I could and should try my hand at writing, and also because I had such a great time acting in all female shows like Steel Magnolias and The Odd Couple. I've been in more than my fair share of dramas, but the most fun (and, to me, that's what this is all about, or why do it?) are my memories of the comedies and the laughter, on stage, back stage, and of course, from the audience.

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

A:  Oh, that's an easy one! Do it cause you love it. Do it cause you want to do it. Do it cause it's YOUR story and you HAVE to tell it. Don't force yourself to write every day, every week, or even every month. Do write when the spirit moves you, when you have an idea, a line, a character, a scene, and your brain will just explode into a zillion particles and pieces if you don't stop whatever it is you happen to be doing at that very moment to get it down on "virtual" paper. Be grateful, humble, and appreciative to all who read your work, perform your work, sweep up the stage after your work, pull the curtain in between your scenes, and clean bathrooms of the theaters that perform your work (and offer to help!) And, of course be humble, understanding, kind, and courteous, to those who don't. Be thoroughly and utterly amazed by all of the great playwrights of the past who wrote their masterpieces without a computer! Become involved in the many aspects of theater as an actor, director, producer, stage manager, house manager, ticket taker, usher, because every time you are involved in a production you can't help but learn something from the experience. Make as many friends along the way as you can. And, the most important thing of all, HAVE FUN!



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Playing On Air

Do you all know about this?  Podcasts of short plays followed by interviews with the playwrights.  The actors are amazing.  And the playwrights are people like Chris Durang and Beth Henley.  David Auburn, John Patrick Shanley, David Ives, Lynne Nottage, Cusi Cram, Warren Leight.  Check it out!



https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/playing-on-air/id569604769?mt=2&ign-mpt=uo%3D4



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I Interview Playwrights Part 771: John Patrick Bray

 
John Patrick Bray

Hometown: I grew up in Highland, New York, but I spent most of my time in the used record stores and bookshops of New Paltz.

Current Town: I’m in Athens, Georgia. I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Theatre and Film Studies at the University of Georgia.

Q:  Tell me about the Appalachian Festival of Plays and Playwrights.

A:  The AFPP is the developmental wing for the Barter Theatre, which has been developing and producing new work since 1933. The theatre was created by actor Robert Porterfield, who decided to create a theatre that accepted produce as the price of admission (ergo, “Barter”), which was a wonderful way to bring the community in to see live shows during the Depression-era.

The AFPP is headed by Nicholas Piper. Eight plays will be presented as readings between August 20 and August 23rd, but the festival itself runs during the entirety of August. There will be a brief talk-back-session following each reading. My play, FRIENDLY’S FIRE, will be read on Thursday, August 20th at 4PM, following (since we do indeed live in a small world) a play by George Pate, who was a doctoral student of mine at UGA and co-director of the Athens Playwrights’ Workshop, a noncurricular activity at UGA. I’m including a link here for the details for each play:

http://bartertheatre.com/shows-and-tickets.php#afpp

I also hear Charles Vess has some work at the museum nearby, which I will definitely check out while in town.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  Right now, I’m writing an essay and a book chapter. The essay deals with new play pedagogy, and the book chapter looks at the screen portrayal of Marc Blitzstein in Tim Robbins’s Cradle Will Rock. I finished writing a new play, Christmas in the Airwaves, which was commissioned by the Lyric Arts Main Street Theatre in Anoka, MN. I’m also curating a night of student one-act plays as part of the UGA Theatre’s Studio Season, which runs the end of March – beginning of April. I might be heading down to Lafayette, Louisiana (I lived in Lafayette for a couple of years) to work on a new play with Keith Dorwick, who has been my writing partner on a number of projects. Finally, my twin brother and I are in the process of finishing our indie film Liner Notes, based on my stage play. It will be a busy semester, but a welcome one.

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 have two:

When I was six years old, we were renting a house in Rutherford, New Jersey. I was glued to MTV. David Byrne was my hero. The choreography for the Talking Heads video “Once in a Lifetime” mesmerized me. I had to perform it and perfect it. I did this on our front lawn in broad daylight for everyone to see. I had a process. My parents were mortified.

That same year, I was attending Sylvan School (Elementary). My friend Michael had an action figure in the likeness of Lon Chaney from the silent film, The Phantom of the Opera. I promised him two dollars the next day if I could have the figure. He kept the cape. That was fine. I forgot about the money, so the next day when he asked me for it, I was surprised. I had fifty cents in my pockets for the bake sale the 5th graders were hosting. I asked him if the fifty cents would do, and he said “yes,” but only because it meant more cookies and donuts. I have spent a lifetime making up for the lost cookies and donuts that day, however, I still have the action figure. His feet were torn off by one of the dogs we had growing up. But I glued them back on to the best of my ability. He no longer stands, but I swear, in the places on his face and hands where he still has paint, he glows.

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

A:  I think the biggest change we need to see is not in the theatre itself, but how the U.S. views the role of the arts. I know lots of folks would say "but...but I love the arts! Movies! Television! I have a print in my room! I have favorite records!" And while that is true, the trouble with arts is in order to have arts, you need artists. Artists are the price a society pays for its arts. In the U.S., there are many who feel creating art is a waste of time, despite their love of the finished product. "Oh, I would be a painter, if I had time." "Oh, I would be a writer, if I had the time." Or, that artists are in constant need of ideas "I have a great idea for a story, you write it." "I have a great idea for a song, you create it." Because I've grown up in a culture that does not love artists, indeed, is embarrassed of artists, I have grown inured to companies that mirror popular culture (ie, “I’m doing you a favor – I’m producing your play!”) To be fair, I’ve encountered less of this mentality as I’ve gotten older and found great people to work with (after spending some time self-producing in festivals), but I am worried by the tone of the conversation in which artists in a given practice argue amongst themselves vis-à-vis who has it worse. I do worry that we (artists) are taking it out on each other when the problem is much larger than us. The U.S. has a terrible culture for arts creation, though many are trying to make it better. I’m painting with a broad brush for the sake of brevity, but I do feel that if the U.S. culture didn’t seek to cut arts in the classroom (Band was just cut from Atlanta public schools!) and if we destigmatized the arts as an adult profession, we would be less prone to either belittle or attack other folks who serve a different function within our world. So, there’s what I’d change: our entire hegemonic ideology! Or, I’d buy everyone a beer. Because I think we could all use a Cold One.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  The usual suspects, along with my teachers at Highland Central Schools, Dutchess Community College, SUNY New Paltz, The Actors Studio Drama School at The New School (I graduated in 2003), and Louisiana State University. One of my heroes is Jeff Baker, the Technical Director at Dutchess Community College. When I was a student, I remember how faculty or guest directors would pressure him to build The Greatest Set Ever in The Shortest Amount of Time. Jeff would reply, “you can have it fast, you can have it good, you can have it cheap; pick two.” I loved that. It taught me so much about producing. Of course, years later I returned as a teacher and had the pleasure of hearing him say it to me. Fast, Good, Cheap. Pick two.

Two of my other theatrical heroes (that I know personally) are Neal Bell, who has taught me more than anyone else that I am a writer. I was a student of his at the Actors Studio Drama School (he now teaches at Duke). He remains my mentor and friend. Leslie A. Wade, also a playwright (though better known as a scholar) is another personal hero. His writing is sensitive, rich, and poignant. He was my dissertation director at LSU (he now teaches at the University of Arkansas Fayetteville), and I could not have imagined a better match. It is my dream to one day have the three of us in a room together.

My first big hero that I have yet to meet is Tom Waits. Although I did do shows in Grammar School (I was a Minute Man at Lexington in fourth grade), it was really listening to Tom Waits’s performance of his soundtrack for The Black Rider that made me realize this is what I want to do with my life. Here we are over twenty-two years later. So far, so good!

I’m an amateur audiophile (I get this from my Dad). Most of my plays have a score in my head. There’s something about a great song. It resonates within, and if you close your eyes, you can hear it inside you. Like a tiny tuning fork. That’s more or less where I write from, the elusive noise within. Music gets me there.

Theatre scholars are my heroes, too. I love that I get to live in a world where we talk about the philosophy of performance, and the philosophy of creating performance. Someone once said that when we sit together in a theatre, we are living together, we are dying together. The ephemeral nature of live performance (and life in general) resonates with me, and it’s wonderful to be in conversation with folks who agree (if only on that point!).
 

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I love theatre that surprises me. I love theatre that nourishes me. I love the language-based writers: Len Jenkin, Charles Mee, Maria Irene Fornes. They are incredibly brave with words and imagery. I’m dying to see something by 1927, a multi-media theatre company. Look up their advertisements for The Animals and Children Took to the Streets. It’s incredible! I adore the work of Robert Wilson, Conor McPherson, Carson Kreitzer, Tom Stoppard (particularly Rock’N’Roll), Sarah Ruhl; and the incredible Geek Theatre movement that started downtown and has now spread across the country. I’m also really excited to work with students. When you’re an academic, you get a first row seat to where theatre is heading. George Pate, Angela Hall, Caity Johnson, Tifany Lee, IB Hopkins, Weldon Pless, William N. Dunlap, Molly Pease; the list goes on. I also love playwrights’ collectives. 13P set the bar high for the rest of us who self-produce. I’m hoping to get to DC to check out some of the work of The Welders.

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

A:  Surprise yourself. Write bad plays. Imagine the worst thing that could happen in your script, and make it so! This has helped me out of a few jams. Keep a dream journal. Make mistakes, get messy. Find a community. Build trust. Build relationships, not because these relationships will lead to development and production opportunities, but because writing is a human act. So, be involved with humans. Avoid people who will tell you how to turn your creativity into money, especially if they charge a fee. Work for free on indie plays and movies; this is how previous generations got their start. Be available. If someone is down, listen to them. You need not respond. If you’re down, find someone who will listen (and who need not respond). Don’t measure yourself by the success of others. Celebrate their victories, truly and honestly. You can make the world a better place by being a part of a local community. You can make the theatre stronger by being a good witness, by leading by example. If you get married, everyone will give you advice; ignore their advice. Fall in love. Hang in there. Keep on keeping on.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  FRIENDLY’S FIRE at the Appalachian Festival of Plays and Playwrights, Barter Theatre, 127 West Main Street • Abingdon, VA 24210, August 20th at 4PM. Free!

CHRISTMAS IN THE AIR WAVES, Lyric Arts Main Street Theatre, 420 East Main Street • Anoka, MN 55303, November 20-Dec. 20, TKTS: http://www.lyricarts.org/on-stage/christmas-in-the-airwaves/

NEW PLAY FESTIVAL, UGA Theatre Studio Season, Cellar Theatre, Fine Arts Building (255 Baldwin St.), Athens, GA, 30602, March 23-April 2.TKTS: http://www.drama.uga.edu/event/1285/new-play-festival

I have a playwriting textbook, Inciting Incidents: Creating Your Own Theatre from Page to Performance. It can be purchased here: http://www.amazon.com/Inciting-Incidents-Creating-Theatre-Performance/dp/1465265880/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1439301745&sr=8-1&keywords=Inciting+Incidents+creating

Also, keep an eye on Rising Sun Performance Company in NYC, where I serve as resident writer and literary manager. We have some great things in the horizon: www.risingsunnyc.com




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I Interview Playwrights Part 770: Amy Staats

Amy Staats

Hometown:  Hard to say. I was born in Boston, and moved to Charleston, South Carolina when I was two. When my parents split up a year later, my mother became a news reporter and moved to Green Bay Wisconsin and then to Sacramento California for local television jobs. My sister and I spent the school months with my mother, and summers in Charleston with our Dad.

Current Town:  Brooklyn. Williamsburg. We've been there forever. It's like being on the inside of someone's mouth when they're getting veneers.

Q:  What are you working on now?


A:  Right this very instant I'm getting ready to go into the final rounds of the Sam French Festival with my short play Throws of Love for the Samuel French Festival, directed by the amazing Jess Hayes and starring Cathy Curtin (OITNB), Kara Dudley, Katie Lawson, and Bindu Bansinath. I'm also finishing up a first draft of play about Van Halen that I'm taking up to SPACE at Ryder Farm to work on with Margot Bordelon and Megan Hill in September. I couldn't be more thrilled about both of these projects. I am really lucky to be working with all of these incredibly talented people.

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 the fact that that my sister and I moved around a lot and went to six different elementary schools made made me very aware of subtle social differences. Picking up social cues was essential for survival as a chronic new kid, so I got good at figuring out how to pass as "normal" for short periods of time. Also, my parents splitting up before I had command of language provided the kind of profound heartbreak needed to really get an artist going. Another great thing about my childhood is that my mothers side is full of strong characters who talk over one another which taught me that your characters don't actually need to always listen to each other which I think is important. Another great thing is that my fathers parents were these really stoic people from West Virginia, and my fathers father was from a family of doctors and had a small hospital in West Virginia called Staats Hospital which fell into a state of financial disrepair in the eighties and had to be sold. All the cousins and my sister and I called him Charles Charles, because he was the second Charles in what would become and long line of Charles's. My Dad was also named Charles, or "Ched" and later "Chuck" when he dropped out of medical school and became an artist. Charles Charles had a waxed mustache that was inspired by seeing a Chinese gentleman when he was a doctor in World War Two. Charles Charles also though he was a genius, and gave himself permission to operate on his own family. He was very into new gadgets and would buy the first make of new things, for instance, there would suddenly be a large wooden Norwegian ski machine in my grandparents living room when we came to visit. He was extremely strict and scary and would give us long lectures about the proper way to roast marshmallows so my cousins, my sister and I called him "Marshmellow Snob" behind his back. He was also an early health food enthusiast, and drank hot water and ate raw oats for breakfast. This did not help his flatulence problem which accented his lectures and we didn't dare laugh at. Of course Charles Charles started to lose his mind in his early seventies, which he tried to diagnose himself with mixed results. Without a doubt I was blessed with a family full of characters and I think this is helpful for anybody trying to do anything really and provided me with a love of the ridiculous.

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

A:  I would reincarnate Jackie O so she could entice the government into giving more funding for the arts so artists stand a better chance of getting paid. Also, I think this fascination with doing plays with a crazy little amount of rehearsal time is getting a bit dodgy. Actors are getting ulcers, and I think the joy of doing something impossible sometimes clouds the fact that the play could have been better with a teeny bit more time. That being said, I know that theater companies are doing the best they can with very small budgets. I don't mean those guys and gals. I mean the people who secretly get off on chaos. You know who you are.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Right now Donald Trump is killing it.


My heroes are those crazy people who are making theater happen despite everything. The Management, Morgan Gould & Friends, Maria Striar, Susan Bernfield, The Debate Society, all those guys at Rattlestick, the Lesser America peeps, The Tuesdays @9 peeps, Graeme Gillis and RJ Tolan for maintaining their outstanding heads of hair and whoever got the thing going where theatre's support other productions in their emails.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I like a variety of different theater. I like realism mixed with the ridiculous, I like subtle relationship plays and I like a crazy experimental plays. I like drama with a scoop of comedy and vice versa. I actually like most types of plays if they are done well. I think the thing that makes something exciting for me is the spirit in which it was created. I'm not a fan of sloppy. The only time sloppy woks for me is if there is so much joie de vivre that you figure what the hell.

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



A:   My advice for playwrights starting out is that they shouldn't come to me for advice. My journey as a playwright has been totally upside down. I started writing plays over ten years ago by accident, got a production, then freaked out and stopped. I stated back up a few years ago. So far it's been fun. I mean, sometimes, it's just hard, making a beginning, middle and end is no joke. But seriously, I started out as a ballet dancer, moved to NYC at eighteen to dance, started acting in new plays, then wrote a play. I didn't go to college. So I'm constantly trying to educate myself. Don't do this. No matter how smart you think you are. Learning about the Greeks on your own is no fun. With all that in mind my advice don't try to write a good play, instead try to write a story that makes sense on some sort of level be it abstract or literal.

Q:  Upcoming:


A:  My full length play Hands has been selected for The Claque's reading series on Oct 13th. I'm looking forward to that. As an actor, I'm getting ready to shoot Morgan Gould's web series, so look for that on the inter webs. Also as an actor, I'm looking forwarded to remounting Megan Hill's hilarious and heartbreaking Jazzercise Play, directed by the great Margot Bordelon sometime this year.



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I Interview Playwrights Part 769: Matthew B. Zrebski

Matthew B. Zrebski



Hometown:  Austin, TX



Current Town:  Portland, OR



Q:  What are you working on now?



A:  I am currently in the initial drafting process for a play, titled Chrysalis. It was commissioned by the Young Professionals Program (YP) at Oregon Children’s Theatre and will premiere in April of 2016. The piece has eight teen characters. It also requires me to compose original music for mostly a cappella singing. I am exploring themes of generational change through a modern myth - the transformation of humans in ways that can either be a result of enlightenment or a dangerous and threatening morphing into savagery. Focus groups have been conducted with various teens to help in highlighting issues that matter to them.



Q:  Can you tell me about Playwrights West?



A:  Playwrights West came out of PlayGroup, a collective of playwrights assembled by the incredible Mead Hunter when he was Literary Director at Portland Center Stage. In 2009, we decided to move into a production model for our company, not unlike 13P - where one writer would receive a full production of their choosing approximately once a year. The first show was in 2012 (Patrick Wohlmut’s Continuum). And it has continued each year with Licking Batteries by Ellen Margolis in 2013, The Sweatermakers by Andrew Wardenaar in 2014, and the upcoming Dear Galileo by Claire Willett in 2015. Membership has changed a lot over the years, but we typically have 8 to 10 members at any given time.



In 2012, we launched our education program called Teen West. Initially this has been a collaboration with Wilson High School Drama, where each year, a Playwrights West member pens a play specifically for teen performers, where every character must be a teenager. The idea is to go from page to stage to publication so as to build richer teen centric works. I serve as the Education Director for Playwrights West and run this program each season, serving as the director/dramaturg for the plays. In year one (2013), we had a festival of one acts called The Warning Label: Water Down by Debbie Lamedman, Arm by Matthew B. Zrebski, and Verge Warnings by Karin Magaldi. Year two (2014) saw the premiere of The Waves by Patrick Wohlmut. And in year three (2015), Ellen Margolis’s Prime was produced and was also featured in The Fertile Ground Festival.



Q:  Can you tell me about Promising Playwrights?



A:  I am currently the Resident Teaching Artist at Portland Center Stage and since 2004, I have been teaching the Visions and Voices program for the organization. We go into six area public high schools during the school year and teach six-week playwriting residencies to drama students. Most years, we teach between 150 and 180 writers. In the spring, 22 are chosen to have their work presented in staged readings at PCS. And from those 22, 6 are chosen as “Promising Playwrights” to participate in JAW: A Playwrights Festival in the summer. This is a commissioning program where the writers pen new, 5 to 8 minute duet plays under my mentorship. In less than two weeks, the pieces are written, developed, and then presented as staged readings during the kick-off to the festival. The playwrights are paid for their work and treated as emerging professionals. It’s an incredible opportunity and many have gone on to pursue playwriting careers.



Q:  What is the Portland theater scene like?



A:  Since moving here in 1997, the scene has gradually and steadily expanded. I would now call Portland a vibrant theatre town, especially given our modest population. There are numerous organizations of varying sizes, many with a large regional presence like Portland Center Stage, Artists Repertory Theatre, Oregon Children’s Theatre, Portland Playhouse, Third Rail Repertory Theatre, Milagro, and Profile Theatre. And then there are extraordinary smaller companies that take incredible risks on new work, devised work, and innovative adaptations. Theatre Vertigo, Post5, defunkt theatre, and Shaking the Tree are just a few. In the winter, Fertile Ground has become an explosive fringe festival where new work is front and center. And then, of course, there is JAW at PCS which serves to anchor our focus on new plays.



What excites me about the future of our scene is we have more and more theatres able to offer AEA contracts. I firmly believe that a town that can support union talent is a town where theatre will thrive. I am also happy to see more and more artists coming here to treat Portland as a destination city, rather than a springboard town. In the past, many came here to build a resume and then move onto bigger markets. Though that certainly still happens, more and more are arriving to call Portland home and are able to sustain a level of creative satisfaction here.



I do desperately wish to see much more cultural diversity (this area is so very Caucasian) - but I’m thrilled that in terms of style, there is a lot of variety.



Q:  What kind of theater excites you?



A:  I want my theatre expressly “theatrical”. And by that, I guess I mean that I believe theatre begs an audience to engage their imaginations in ways that film and television do not. I am a huge lover of cinema and TV - but those art forms happen to you. Theatre happens with you. When I buy a ticket, I am contracting with the artists to play make believe - to suspend disbelief and fill in the world with my own creativity. In this way, I steer away from literal representations and naturalism. I love work that defies genre, challenges ideas and has a muscular thrust of theatrical magic - a full bodied use of stage language. I also love the feeling that I’m being invited to consider something in a new way…or for the first time. That “something” can be political. It can be stylistic. It can be structural. It can be spiritual. But truth be told, I have little interest in sitting and watching another family in a living room work out their issues. I think film and television do this better. I crave a theatre experience that breaks the boundaries of the three-dimensional world I walk around in each day.



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



A:  One: Don’t become a playwright, become a theatre artist who writes plays. Study it all. Know how to tape out a set. Know how to change a lamp. Know how to approach a monologue as an actor. Know how to stage a difficult scene.



Two: Always consider, “What am I asking the audience to consider when the curtain call is over?” Great art asks questions.



Three: Schedule your writing time like it’s critical. Because it is. Yes, your writing time is as important as that wedding you must attend, or going to the “day job”. It must be at the same level or it will get pushed aside.



Four: Write plays you would be first in line at the box office for. You can only predict yourself as an audience - no one else.



Q:  Plugs please



A:  I already mentioned Chrysalis which opens next April. But as a general shout out, I’ll mention that one of my most successful productions has been my musical, Ablaze: an a cappella musical thriller. I wrote the book, music, and lyrics and also directed the premiere. It won several major awards in 2013. The original cast album is unique in that it was produced to give the listener the entire aural experience of sitting in the audience. Every word of the piece has been recorded along with the brilliant sound design by Em Gustason. Producer Brandon Woods did a marvelous job, and I’m so thankful for Woodsway Entertainment for releasing the album. Future productions and publication are now pending. My hope is more and more will come to know this work in the next few years.



The website is at: http://www.ablaze-the-musical.com







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I Interview Playwrights Part 768: Ellen Struve

Ellen Struve



Hometown: Omaha, NE



Current Town: Strangely enough, Omaha, NE. We were transferred there from Chicago for my husband’s job about ten years ago. I had been writing, but only secretly and sporadically in Chicago. There was something really powerful in returning to the place where I grew up and reconnecting with my original impulses.



Q:  Tell me about your play at PlayPenn.



A:  It has a crazy long title with intentional misspelling. PRINCE MAX’S TREWLY AWFUL TRIP TO THE DESOLAT INTERIOR. It’s pretty wild and uses a lot of anachronisms. The lead roles are played by women. Sometimes animals address the audience. It is about a real expedition up the Missouri River in the 1830’s. This German prince and amateur naturalist/anthropologist hired a Swiss watercolorist, Karl Bodmer, to document his trip up the Missouri River during the last few years of autonomy for the tribes of the northern plains. Bodmer’s watercolors become these influential documents of the American West. The prince’s journal… not so much. The trip was a lot more difficult than they imagined. The play winds up being about then, but also about now—about our relationship to each other and our environment and our history. But funny, too.



Q:  What else are you working on now?



A:  I’m halfway through a play about immigration in Central Nebraska. While working for the Nebraska Arts Council, I became fascinated by the demographic shift in the kind of small town my dad grew up in. Also, working for a government agency made me question the idea of citizenship in a new way.



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



A:  One August when I was little, maybe 5, the neighbor kids threw a backyard circus. Basically, it consisted of gymnastics, imaginary tightrope walking and some admittedly mediocre baton work courtesy my older sister. I was younger than the rest of the kids and had to fight for my spot. I wanted to be a tiger. I wore this wool felt tiger costume from a couple Halloweens past and came up with a lion tamer act. I nearly passed out from heat exhaustion while roaring, jumping through a hula hoop and doing somersaults in the 95 degree heat and Nebraska humidity. I started writing when I was six.



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



A:  Number one is affordability, but we all know that has to change.



I’d also like to see more live music in theatres, not just musicals. In plays, but also for pre-show. Why not an opening band? If you have money to renovate a lobby, you have money to buy an actual piano—you can keep it in your schmancy lobby. Maybe pay someone to play it every once in a while. It will be live. It will remind people that they are alive. And isn’t that why we come to the theatre in the first place? I think we need all the help we can get in that regard.



Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?



A:  The actors, directors and artists in my community who create theatre because they must. Omaha theatre survives on a mountain of generosity provided by its practitioners. I admire generous writers too. Ruhl, Wallace, Wilder, Odets, Gilman, Alfaro and Guirgis and the ever amazing Sibyl Kempson to name a few.



Q:  What kind of theater excites you?



A:  Theatre that costs something. Not money, but a piece of the creators’ souls. I want to be able to feel some of the effort put into a play. I enjoy a buffet of styles and voices, but there has to be something there that feels a little expensive, a little revealing, for it to mean something to me.



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



A:  Get knocked down. Cry two tears. Get back up. Say, “I’ll show them.”



And don’t be afraid of moving back home. It might turn out great.



Q:  Plugs, please:



A:  Playwrights, submit your amazing plays to Great Plains Theatre Conference so that I can meet you in person and submit your plays to PlayPenn so that you can have three solid weeks to live in your play.



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I Interview Playwrights Part 767: Sara Israel

cross-posted to Samuel French's  Blog

 
Sara Israel

Hometown:  Delmar, NY

Current Town:  Los Angeles, CA

Q:  Tell me about your OOB play.

A:  I have a series of six related short plays called “The Sense Plays.” My OOB play, “Tastes Like Teen Spirit!”, is one of them. The plays are designed to fit together as one production using eight actors, but also written to be pulled apart and produced independently of one another. Beyond each of them tackling a sense, my goal was for each to take on a complicated but universally felt aspect of what challenges us as we walk through the world. In “Tastes Like Teen Spirit!” a 19 year-old female intern is punched in the mouth by an older, female bigwig at a marketing consulting firm, because the Powers That Be want to know what the teenager’s blood tastes like to her. Why? Because teenage girls “matter” now in the world of consumerism in a way that has far exceeded their “worth” in times past. Yay? It’s a complicated and funny business to suddenly matter.


Q:  What else are you working on now?


A:  I have a new play and new screenplay fairly far along in the hopper. I also direct things that I myself do not write—and I especially love helping talented playwrights shepherd new 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:  When I was in second grade, our elementary school had a Latin American Fair. The fifth graders organized the game booths. One “game” was to guess the population of Latin America. I was pressured by cool fifth graders to “play,” and nervously and arbitrarily wrote down a number. They looked at me strangely after I did. I felt immediate shame for somehow not writing down a cool enough number. But no. Instead, it turns out I was less than 100 people off the official census population of Latin America—even though to this day I wouldn’t be able to tell you what geographically qualifies as that region per the World Census. I won a dime-store goldfish. My parents were pissed that the school would give a 7 year-old a goldfish without getting parental permission. I named her (him?) Glitter, and she (he?) lived more than two years just to spite them.

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


A:  Greater access to a greater range of theater experiences for everyone on stage, behind stage, and in the audience, in every which way that “access” entails. (That’s not asking too much, is it?)

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?


A:  Oh, I could give such a long list, but instead I’ll focus on Wendy Wasserstein, because her play “Isn’t It Romantic?,” which I read in a summer playwriting class between 9th and 10th grade, was freakin’ revelatory for me at the time. My dad, who is awesome, jumped on board with my fandom. At the end of that same summer, he bought me an anthology of her work. For me, Wasserstein is a theatrical hero because she intuitively understood some universal truths about the lives of women, then dared to take those truths and create real and specific female characters to journey through them—stories and characters and conflicts and joys and heartaches and humor that moved through and reflected the decades of her own life as a woman, as a writer, and as a creature of the theater. When she passed away—well, I’ve never been sadder at the death of someone I never personally knew. And thinking about it now, I still feel the loss of what she won’t write—what truths she won’t be able to uniquely tell—about women in their 60s, 70s, and 80s.

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


A:  Seek out, surround yourself with, and always value talented, thoughtful, collaborative, and supportive people, not just in the theater world but also in life. (The latter can be just as important to your writing.)

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  www.SaraIsrael.com. Also, I’ve said this before on other platforms but I’ll keep saying it, I “plug” encouraging everyone experiencing art—be it theater or otherwise—outside our individual box. Whether you’re a creator or an audience member, there are so many ways we can inspire ourselves that we just could never be able to anticipate.



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I Interview Playwrights Part 766: Jillie Mae Eddy

Jillie Mae Eddy

Hometown: Hingham, MA

Current Town: Brooklyn, NY

Q:  Tell me about The Boys Are Angry.

A:  Well, the script says that the play takes place ‘in the age of the new wild west: the internet’. I love writing about outlaws. I love the American fascination with the outlaw. AJ is the would-be outlaw of THE BOYS ARE ANGRY—he’s a blogger. In his life offline, he’s a mostly directionless trust-fund kid, but online he gets to be a kind of self-styled cowboy of the lawless frontier. AJ is, what David Futrelle would call, a New Misogynist. His ideology is a mash-up of Red Pill theory, Pick Up Artistry, Men Going Their Own Way style separatism, and talking points from the Men’s Rights Movement. So the play deals in some pretty hateful thinking. The words coming out of AJ’s mouth…This is the nastiest stuff I’ve ever put on paper. And my last play was about a pair of poisoning, stabbing, prescription-drug-dealing dog killers.

Quinn is AJ’s lifelong best friend. He’s a romantic. And the play follows what happens and what changes between them when Quinn falls in love. When he thinks he’s found ‘the one’.

I started writing THE BOYS ARE ANGRY in the wake of the Isla Vista Killings. Elliot Rodger wasn’t just a troubled kid—he was a part of a very real hate movement. The way the New Misogynists appeal to lonely, insecure young men…It’s terrifying. It terrifies me. My first idea was to make a documentary film about the real, flesh-and-blood people making the ‘Manosphere’ turn—but the play came out instead. And the play is funny! I don’t think I set out to write a comedy about twenty-first century misogyny, but…well, that’s what it is. AJ is funny. And charming. And, of course, he’s despicable, but he isn’t just one thing.

I mean, it’s a dark, dark comedy, but it’s a comedy. It’s scary and twisted and maddening—it’s fun in the way that monster movies and slasher films are fun. It even has a little original music. Two songs. ‘Never Again’ and ‘Don’t Say No’…I’ll let you take from those titles what you will.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  Right now, when I’m not working on THE BOYS ARE ANGRY, I’m working on my first solo album. I’ve been putting it off for so long because I’m always working on so many things at once, but I just couldn’t wait any longer. Whenever I get a free minute, I’m recording. We actually used songs from the album in the first two teaser trailers for THE BOYS ARE ANGRY, so if you want a preview, that’s where you’ll find it.

I’m developing a rock show called 28. It’s about the 27 Club, but it’s also about doomed love, suicide, and selling your soul to the devil. And I get to work on it with both of my favorite directors, Sam Plattus and Maridee Slater. They’re set to play the leads but the idea is to have Sam direct the first act from his character’s point of view and Maridee direct the second act from hers.

I’m in the research phase for a musical neo-western called AMERICAN WILD, OR LAY ME DOWN. It’s set in a dystopian near-future, in a United States with disappearing coastlines and an insurmountable divide between rich and poor…as I said, it’s a near-future projection. I’m borrowing a lot from The New Economy Movement, from the legends of Jesse James and Robin Hood, and from the films of John Ford, Sam Peckinpah, and Sergio Leone. The text is going to be a mix of Old Western, contemporary American, and Mexican slang. And for the songs—I want to take the country western idiom and filter it through hip hop and Latin sounds.

The show I’ve been working on for the longest—since 2012—is THE GIRL FROM BARE COVE. It’s a folk opera. Twenty-four songs. Right now it runs about ninety minutes, but when I’m done reworking the script, I think it will run about two hours. Sometimes it’s hard for me to work on it. I’m so close to it. It’s the story of a young woman trying to move on from a decade of sexual abuse, and it’s semi-autobiographical. The details aren’t all mine. It’s a sort of fairy-tale, magical realist interpretation of my experience as a survivor. We’ve done two workshops in New York—one at the Alchemical Theatre Lab and one at The Cell. I’m trying to figure out the next step. I need to get it out there.

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 growing up I used to sing duets with my older sister all the time. In the car. Around the house. Every year at her piano recitals. And whenever she wanted to sing a boy-girl duet, she made me sing the boy’s part. She had this lovely, tinkly soprano voice, and I ended up developing this low, brassy alto range—I think I sang like that until college. I had a wonderful classical voice teacher who unlocked my high soprano range. And it was strange because every play I acted in up through high school—I was always cast in a character role. I was never the leading lady. I think that was partly because I was such a weird kid, and I was always trying to make people laugh—I was the baby in my family, and making grown-ups laugh was the only way I could join the conversation. But I think it was also because of that low, brassy voice. Especially in musical theater, which is mostly what I grew up on, the low brassy voice goes with the character role. But I loved those parts! I loved making people laugh. And then I got to college, and suddenly everyone was saying: you’re the ingénue, you’re the ingénue, you’re the romantic lead. And I’m sure my voice wasn’t the only reason for that—I mean, it sounded really different to me, even my speaking voice, but I’m sure the difference wouldn’t have sounded so extreme to anyone else. But I was so…confused. I didn’t know what else had changed. I’m not…I mean, I don’t think of myself as ‘classically beautiful’. And then in grad school, they didn’t know what to do with me.

But I think my takeaway from all of that, especially as a writer—I’m not interested in two-dimensional characters. Unless it’s to make a point. All of my characters are ‘character’ roles. They’re complicated people. I don’t write ingénues. Again, unless the lack of agency and complexity is the point. And I’m especially interested in writing complicated, three-dimensional roles for women because we’ve gotten the short end of the stick for so long. When you’re being ‘typed’ as a woman, you’re either the romantic lead or the best friend. And when you get older, I guess that becomes the mother—or you’re not getting work anymore. There are so many more ‘types’ out there for men. And I was so heartbroken when nobody saw me as the character actress anymore because all of the ingénues I saw and read were so boring!

I also write a lot about gender. In every play I write, I’m looking at that sort of forced—and totally false—binary opposition. THE BOYS ARE ANGRY is all about gender roles. How we teach boys to be men. How we teach girls to be women. What’s nature, what’s learned. What happens when we don’t fit in the categories we’re stuck in. I was asked recently, in another interview, to name some of my favorite roles—and I realized, maybe for the first time, that the two roles I was most excited about…neither of them were women. Petruchio in TAMING OF THE SHREW. And Crow in THE TOOTH OF CRIME—who I got to play as this badass, gender-fluid, Bowie-esque rock star with red eyes and hollowed out cheeks. I got to be scary and deadly, and I loved it. It all came full circle—right back to singing the boy parts because my sister made me. So thanks, Leesie.

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

A:  I wish it were more accessible. And I don't just mean the subject matter. I wish it wasn't so all about New York. People can watch movies and TV almost anywhere now--all they need is a WiFi connection. So, I mean, first of all, I think the current landscape of endless adaptations and jukebox musicals is completely unsustainable. It's making commercial theater completely irrelevant. If I can stay home and watch the same story from my couch, I will. And if the music is really good, maybe I'll buy the soundtrack. But I'm not going out to the theater. The culture of risk-aversion in theater right now...it's so short-sighted. Financially and artistically. If you only looked at the musicals on Broadway right now--with the exception of HAMILTON, maybe FUN HOME, maybe a few others--you'd never guess we were in the Twenty-First century. We need to revive our regional theaters. And we need to start more. We need to bring theater into people's communities. We need to make it relevant. Make it matter. No more same old stories by the same old white men. We have to move forward already. And I think we need dedicated companies of artists making theater outside of New York. Making theater out in the world. Getting invested in their communities. Getting their communities invested in them. I think we need to change the conversation. It's not: how do we bring people back to the theater? It's: how do we bring theater back to the people?

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  When I was growing up, Julie Andrews and Judy Garland were the big two for me. ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ was the first song I ever knew by heart. When I got a little older, Madeline Kahn slid into the top three. As far as playwrights go…Sarah Ruhl. Lin-Manuel Miranda. A lot of the people who influence me as a theater-maker come from outside of the theater. Gillian Welch and David Rawlings. Sandra Cisneros. The Muppets. Maria Bamford. Hari Kondabolu. Mike Birbiglia—he walks the line a little bit. He’s a comedian, but his more recent one-man shows are incredible works of theater. His technique as a storyteller, his ability to tie together so many disparate threads—it blows my mind.

I think my biggest heroes in the theater world right now are my collaborators. The whole creative team on THE BOYS ARE ANGRY: Sam Plattus, Xander Johnson, Nate Houran, Lily Prentice. Maridee Slater, my partner in crime—who’s also producing THE BOYS ARE ANGRY for FringeNYC. I’m surrounded my so many brave and talented artists—it’s inspiring. I feel so lucky.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theater that has something to say. Something new to say. Or a new way to say something old. I love theater that's inventive. I love feeling like I've never seen this before. One of my favorite shows that I've seen in New York in the last two years--since I moved here--was Peter Petkovsek's production of THE BLIND. The audience was scattered around the playing space, seated on pillows. And the actors were all around you. But the theater was completely dark. Pitch black. So you can't see a thing, but you can hear voices coming from everywhere. And the way Peter did use light in that show--I don't know that I can explain it in any way that would do justice to what an incredible experience it was. Because it was like nothing I'd ever experienced before—and it’s still like nothing I've experienced since. That's what I want when I go to the theater. And it doesn't have to be a technical feat. It can be the playwright's ideas or way with prose. It can be an actor's performance. But I get most excited when I see something new.

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

A:  Find the people you want to work with again and again. Find your artistic family, the people who will support you unconditionally. Help each other. Grow together, take risks together—if you want to go far, go together.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  THE BOYS ARE ANGRY is going up at The New York International Fringe Festival on Friday, August 14 at 5PM; Tuesday, August 18 at 7PM; Friday, August 21 at 2:30PM; Sunday, August 23 at 3PM; and Friday, August 28 at 9:15PM. And we're performing at The Steve & Marie Sgouros Theatre, which is on the third floor of The Player's Theatre at 115 MacDougal Street in the West Village.



Tickets are available online at fringenyc.org/basic_page.php?ltr=B#TheBoy--just click on the date you want tickets for. Buy your tickets early because we have limited seating! And you can follow us on Twitter @mainelandprods or read more about the show at mainelandproductions.com/theboysareangry.


If you want to know more about any of my other upcoming projects or about my album, you can follow me on Twitter @missbogencounty or check out my website jilliemae.com.



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I Interview Playwrights Part 765: Nehprii Amenii

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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Photo by Steven
Hass </span></span></i></div>
<br />
Nehprii Amenii<br />
<br />
Hometown: Augusta, Georgia<br />
<br />
Current Town: Brooklyn, New York <br />
<br />
Q:  Tell me about the Women Playwrights International Conference. <br />
<br />
A:  The Women Playwrights International Conference is an event that happens every 3 years. Each year it’s hosted in a different country, from Switzerland, Mumbai, and Philippines. This year it was held at the University of Capetown in South Africa. Women playwrights from around the world submit scripts in hopes of begin able to share their work with an international audience. A local director and cast are assigned to work with each script. In addition to the staged readings, there are daily keynote speakers, panel discussions, writing workshops, and evening performances. This years conference, was scheduled to coincide with the Grahmstown Arts Festival, which is the largest theatre festival on the African continent, so participants were really inundated with inspiration. It was an honor to share the stage with playwrights from around the world such as Talia Pura of Canada, Fatima Uygun of Scottland, The Gurilla Girls, Herlina Syarifuding of Indonesia, Mumbii Kaigway of Kenya, and more… <br />
<br />
Q:  Tell me about your work that was selected for the conference.<br />
<br />
A:  My selected play is titled <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYpj3... for the Gods”</a> It’s a play about light and invisibility , inspired by the killings of black men by police, and other systems of authority. Food for the Gods is an experiential triptych or sort; a multi-media performance installation, where the audience physically moves through three unique spaces and emotions. It uses mixed-media and mask-puppetry to explore the process of dehumanization, positive and negative space. At the WPI conference, I was honored to work with director <a href="https://twitter.com/meganshead"&... Furniss </a> who was able to create a powerful staging of a pretty complex script. There’s a trailer here: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYpj3..." target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYpj3... </a><br />
<br />
Q:  What else are you working on now? <br />
<br />
A:  I’m working on two projects at the moment: I’m directing a piece by Scott Patterson entitled “Ebon Kojo” for the Charm City Fringe in Baltimore. He is a classically trained pianist, inspired by Sun Ra, interested in exploring ways to turn traditional piano concerts into theatrical events. He’s written a one man sci-fi musical. I think it’s gonna be pretty funky. Simultaneously, I’m “building” a solo performance of my own. I’m forever, exploring ways of merging my worlds as a writer, performer and visual artist. So, I have an exhibit opening September 17th at the Renate Albertsen-Marton Gallery, here in Brooklyn. It is very much inspired by the self portrait installations of Jee Young Lee and museum performances of Theaster Gates. The installation will stand as an independent exhibit of words and images with regularly scheduled performances. I’m excited to work again with an amazing director, <a href="http://www.martinbalmaceda.com/"... Balmaceda</a> who has grown to be one of my favorite comrades and people. (I haven’t settled on a title yet, “Analog” or “The Seed Project” I’m sure the curator will force it from me soon.) It is a personal exploration of my own identity beyond the boundaries of social classifications, race, culture and responsibility to it. <br />
<i><br />“There is a woman’s body standing solo on a hillside. She is constructed of plywood. Particle board. The stuff of speakers boxes. With black coating. <br /><br />Spheres. Amplified sound givers make up her limbs. Her belly. Her breast. Her finger tips are turntable needs. Her mind is a flat. Metal. rectangle. A circuit board. It is her that is programed. It is her that must give voice back to the people. <br /><br />But She is injured. A mess of wires hang from a gashed open voice box. And copper tips have begun to exposed themselves from her black coating. And they catch moments of the light. She could be kin to the fireflies.” </i><br />
<br />
Q:  Tell me, if you will, a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person. <br />
<br />
A:  Great question. Ummm… Mud pies. I remember, I was the best at them. My friends would make a mud pie what would last for just moments before crumbling. But mine would last for days… weeks even, and stay perfectly round and smooth. I was in Georgia, where the dirt is red. And I remember at 4 years old, trying to explain to my friends “you have to dig really deep until you get to the sticky dirt!” well, later I realized, I had discovered clay. (Interesting that also became my first fine arts medium.) And, I guess, that experience is not different with my writing or who I am. I try to dig really deep down into myself… where things get pretty sticky…and honest. And from that place, I try to pull up the dirt and turn it into something smooth, refined—beautiful..…and something that can have long lasting impact…. Hahah, there it is. It’s all just Mud pies! <br />
<br />
Q:  If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be? <br />
<br />
A:  I’d change how dependent it has become on technology. Perhaps it’s my overall puppetry and street theatre background, But, I’ve been a part of powerful performances that needed so little. Where the humans are the instruments, hand held lighting, and images created by the hands. I think of theater in Bali, where performances are made by the light of oil lanterns, banana stalks, and humans. And it will sound contradictory, because I too love the big shebang and glam of large performance spectacles! But it feels like the difference between the current action packed movies vs. the deep build of the old black and white films. Simplicity is grand and difficult to achieve. I often joke whenever doing a load in for a show, that I’m gonna create a theatre company called “Theatre in the Bush!” because when traditional theatre was happening in the bushlands of South Africa, or when the theatre of Aeschylus was being performed on rounded dirt floors of Greece…I just don’t think there was all of the hoopla of cables and electricity! I think the writing and the story should be the most beautiful and electrical thing present. <br />
<br />
Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes? <br />
<br />
A:  Two of my favorite directors are Julie Taymor and Zhang Yimou, for their imagination and keen ability to create BEAUTY. Paul Robinson, for using art for political impact. Zora Neal Hurston’s ability to translate her work as an anthropologist into theatre. Her work as a playwright is not so highlighted, however, she was writing these creative, humorous, rhythmic plays steeped in folklore and science! I’m inspired by Dan Hurlin, as a multi disciplined artist, that has carved a niche for himself in the theatre world that incorporates all his art forms as visual artist, writer, director, puppeteer, and dancer. Erik Ehn, who totally shatters the form and restraints of how a play lands on the paper. Alvin Ailey--- who wrote and created powerful theatre via dance. I’m inspired by theatre artists that push and blur the compartment of this thing called “theatre.” <br />
<br />
Q:  What kind of theater excites you? <br />
<br />
A:  Ritual theatre. Processional Theatre. Experimental Theatre. Theatre that is immersive. Theatre that has substance and meaning. Theatre that is heavily visual. Theatre that takes place in unexpected places. (I’m a sucker for flashmobs.) I don’t tend to be moved by naturalistic theatre; However, I am moved by intelligence. So, writing such as “Freud's Last Session” by Mark St. Germain, that was staged as simply two men having a conversation in an office, to me, it was exciting and steeped with audience participation. Participation via the mind and so much engaging thought. <br />
<br />
Q:  How do you imagine ultimately using your voice as a writer? <br />
<br />
A:  One of the most exciting pieces of theatre I’ve seen to date is the 2008 Bejing Opening Olympic Ceremony. Ultimately, I would like to write and create such an anthropological storytelling spectacle that inspires the hearts of a global audience. ( I’ll need a lot of electricity for that! ) <br />
<br />
Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out? <br />
<br />
A:  Write a play a day. It’s good practice for self-acceptance. <br />
<br />
As my playwriting coach and teacher Cassandra Medley told me, when I felt my work was too visual and lacked proper dialog “Take what you deem as your limitations as a playwright—and embrace them your unique style as a playwright.” <br />
<br />
And submit, submit submit. <br />
<br />
Q:  Plugs Please: <br />
<br />
A:  Curing the Void - <a href="http://www.eventbrite.com/o/fringenyc..." target="_blank">FringeNYC</a> - The New York International Fringe Festival Saturday, August 22, 2015 from 12:00 PM to 1:20 PM (EDT) <a href="http://www.eventbrite.com/d/ny--new-y... York, NY</a> <br />
<br />
Luyanda Sidiya’s SIVA (seven) see it wherever you can!<br />
<br />
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