Adam Szymkowicz's Blog, page 90

I Interview Playwrights Part 485: Gina Femia

Gina Femia

Hometown: Brooklyn

Current Town: Brooklyn- currently the same house I grew up in

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I'm currently finishing up a new play that I've been developing in Crystal Skillman's class at Sam French called We Are the Gods, which I'm really jazzed about. It's definitely the biggest play I've ever worked on, with Greek gods falling from the sky and landing in a post-apocolyptic world where men have become extinct because Hera stole them from Zeus. It's just a little epic. Surprisingly, it's also a coming of age story about growing up in a hopeless time.

I'll also be participating in Write Out Front: A Playwright Happening which Micheline Auger is curating. It's an amazing event where playwrights are given time to write in the storefront of the Drama Book Shop while having their work projected on a screen behind them so people passing by can see what they're working on. It's a brilliant event; not only does it bring awareness to what a playwright needs, it will show what the playwright does. There's no escaping us!

And I'm working on my solo show, Happily Never Ever, which I'll be performing as a part of the Estrogenius festival in the fall. It's basically about a freaks show where all the "freaks" involved are fairy tale characters with both real and imagined "deformities"; for example, Rapunzel is the bearded lady while Beauty is the see-through woman.

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 kindergarten, I always wanted to play with the legos during play-time, but the teacher would only let the boys play with them, probably because they weren't pink. I hate pink. I was really disinterested in playing house and too shy to make friends anyway, so I'd wander over to the round table in the corner that had packets of white paper stapled together and plenty of thick markers. I couldn't draw words yet, but I wrote stories anyway. I didn't let that minor detail stop me from having fun.

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

A:  I'd have people go to see theater in the same way they go see movies and I would have them be funded in the same way sports get funded. Everybody needs theater; I just wish they knew that.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  I'm definitely inspired by the now, the playwrights and theatremakers of today who will become the legends of the future and I'm fortunate that there are so many (in no order)-

Crystal Skillman, Daniel Talbott, Erik Ehn, Dael Orlandersmith, David Adjmi, Jordan Harrison, Lucy Thurber and Cassandra Medley. Susan Bernfield and New Georges. And Stephen Adley Guirgis. The game changed when I saw Jesus Hopped the A Train.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Anything that breaks the boundaries of what is possible while telling a story.

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

A:  Don't wait; just do. Write on the subway. Have a reading in your living room. Buy the $1.00 deli coffee for 3 months instead of Starbucks' and spend what you save to rent a rehearsal room for 8 hours, grab a bunch of actors and jam on your script. Cry when you're sad, smile when you're happy or else you'll go crazy. And always be sincere, sincere to other people and sincere to yourself and the stories you want to tell and the theater you want to create.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Write Out Front: A Playwright Happening will start August 13th and run through September 1st. There are 70 playwrights participating and you can find all the information as it unfolds here.

I Interview Playwrights Part 484: D.W. Gregory

D.W. Gregory

Hometown: Lititz, Pa.

Current Town: Washington, D.C.

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  Revising A Grand Design, a dark comedy inspired by the sniper shootings of a decade ago and waiting for the composer of a new musical to crank a few more songs so we can set up a workshop.

Q:  How would you characterize the D.C. theater scene?

A:  It’s grown a lot since I came down here in 1991, a lot of young talent moving into the area and new companies springing up. Dog and Pony, Flying V, Pinky Swear are some of the newest, doing exciting new work. The Capital Fringe Festival infused a real sense of energy and purpose into the scene, I think, raising the profile of Washington as a theatre town. The city is still dominated by a few large companies that rake in the bulk of the funding and are reviewed on page one of the Post’s Style section, while the rest have to fight for attention. But it does seem to me there is a gradual movement towards more opportunities for local playwrights, which I find encouraging. Theatre J, for example, has launched its Locally Grown initiative---and that’s a real boost to have a theatre of that size and caliber taking a serious look at local talent.

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

A:  Sexual abuse at the hands of my oldest brother. The disconnect between what I knew of my own experience and what certain family members insisted my experience was became a powerful influence in my life and ultimately my work. I was essentially raised to lie to myself; becoming a writer was about unwinding the lies to find a truth. It wasn't until I was able to face my experience as a child that I found my voice as a writer. And now it’s the drive behind every play I write, to wrestle with a problem or a question and make sense of it, to arrive at the truth of something. There is a lot of power in the need to conceal, to rewrite history, or remake facts to fit the stories we tell about ourselves. Finding a way to blow all that apart is great drama.

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

A:  The fact that Americans don’t believe it is worth supporting through public funding. We’re the only country in the Western world that expects the arts to compete as if they are businesses. They’re not. They never can be. They exist to nourish the soul, not to make money, and we should value that. Unfortunately, many Americans do not.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  When I started to write plays I lived in upstate New York where the local library had scant offerings, but they stocked the major writers of the 1950s. So I read Inge, Miller, and Williams, which I guess is not a bad foundation. When I got into graduate school, the world opened for me and I discovered the Greeks, I read Marlowe for the first time, I stumbled onto Caryl Churchill and Irene Fornes, and I found a delightful and overlooked contemporary playwright named Mary Gallagher, and the biggest influence of all--Bertolt Brecht. But I have eclectic tastes. I’d always loved Chekhov but never fully appreciated him until I tried to teach a course in dramatic literature and found myself face to face with a roomful of undergraduates who thought he was a bore. And it was my challenge to show them how funny The Cherry Orchard really is. Chekhov was right when he said it was a comedy.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theatre that breaks away from naturalism without surrendering story or character. Something that is structurally inventive but emotionally wrenching. Theatre that goes to the heart, that is unabashedly lacking in cynicism without being the least bit cloying. Dramas that don’t blink. Comedies that kick you in the gut while you’re not looking.

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

A:  This advice is borrowed from Ira Glass. Be prepared to suck. Learning to write well requires a long, long apprenticeship. Mastering the form takes literally years and it takes a long time to find your voice and your style.

As for me, I would say the earlier you start, the better, but no matter when you start, give yourself five years before you write anything worth showing to a theatre. Don't try to get your stuff produced right away. Join a group or hire a tutor and write crappy plays. Write a lot of them, keep a journal, develop a keen eye for human foibles and a keen ear for natural language. Don’t underestimate the power of your own story, but don’t make playwriting your avenue for revenge or personal therapy. Nobody gives a shit what happened to you as a kid. Your job is to write plays so stunning that when I come to see them, I can’t get them out of my head; so make me stop and take a deep breath and think twice about something I never doubted before. Whether I laugh or cry, make me pay attention and never, never let me off the hook. You are not writing to make me feel good, you are writing to reveal the world to me in a way I never saw it before. You can't do that unless you are willing to go there yourself and bleed along with your characters.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Coming up in October, Salvation Road, a drama about a boy whose life is turned upside down when his sister gets involved in a religious cult. Opens October 26 at New York University’s Steinhardt School, followed by a production in November at Walden Theatre in Louisville, Kentucky, and a production at Seton Hill University, Greensburg, Pa., in April 2013.

I Interview Playwrights Part 483: Samantha Macher

Samantha Macher

Hometown: Leesburg, VA

Current Town: Los Angeles, CA

Q:  Tell me about War Bride.

A:  WAR BRIDE is my newest play. It was written for and developed with the SkyPilot Theatre Company of Los Angeles where we exclusively mount world premieres of new work written (mostly) right here in town by our ten company playwrights.

Our Official Synopsis (because I can't give too much away): Controversy erupts in a small California town in 1945 when a local hero returns from World War II with his Japanese bride.

We open on August 11th and run through September 16th, Saturdays and Sundays at 8pm and 7pm (respectively) at TU Studios, 10943 Camarillo Street NORTH HOLLYWOOD, CA 91602

Tickets available at skypilottheatre.com

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  Presently, I am working on a film project with the Three Affiliated Tribes of North Dakota. Though we are unsure what form this project will take, I am helping them structure, and then writing a full-length film that will tell the story of Cpl. Nathan Good Iron, an American-Indian soldier who died fighting for the US in Afghanistan on Thanksgiving of 2006. The goal of the project is to educate non-native audiences about the military sacrifices made by a people historically oppressed by the country they fight for.

Coming up in 2012-2013 I will be traveling around opening some of my plays in Clarksville, TN at Fronkensteen Theatre Company, and in St. Louis MO, at Tesseract Theatre Company. After that, I may possibly head back east to Virginia to do some directing projects with the New Works Initiative sponsored by the Playwright's Lab at Hollins University. I may also do some directing here in LA this fall, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for that too.

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


A:  Well, I suppose I can start by saying I've always been a drama geek. Fascinated with performance and stage, I did everything I could to always be in or around it. Whether it was being in choir, or being in a ska band (briefly), I always enjoyed expressing myself through the performing arts. When I did theater though, I really enjoyed it the most. I always felt at home, and I always felt like I was doing something important.

Needless to say that when during my senior year in high school, our drama teacher decided to indefinitely postpone our fall musical for one reason or another (probably budget), I was FURIOUS. So, in my fury, I sat down and just WROTE the fucking (fifteen-minute) spring musical. Then, cast all my friends, went into rehearsal, and after pestering the powers-that-be, performed it in front of everyone.

What was beautiful about that experience that I take with me even now, is that I wasn't the only one who wound up writing a play in reaction to the loss of that performance opportunity. It was couched in a festival of three new student works that ere all written in a reaction to losing our show. That was the best part.

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

A:  Theater needs to be relevant to their audiences. If more theaters and theater-artists considered their audiences more carefully, they would be able to sustain themselves. That said, I'm not suggesting that every theater in America needs to be doing a hit Broadway musical, or needs to pack a season with light comedies for the sake of ticket sales, but if you're going to present an audience with challenging work, make it a dialogue rather than a lecture. Figure out a way to engage your audience so they're excited to support you. If you start a conversation with your audience about your work, especially new work, they're often eager to talk to you about it. Those conversations can potentially make the one-time theatergoer into a consistent, passionate audience member. That makes for happy collaborators all around.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  1. Todd Ristau, the head of the Playwright's Lab at Hollins University is probably my biggest theatrical hero. He is a champion of new work, a fantastic playwright/director/actor/producer, a networker of epic proportions and an amazing and insightful professor. I'm not sure how he finds time for sleep.

2. Lady-playwrights all over America, but specifically in Los Angeles. Less than 20% of all plays being produced in the greater LA area right now are written by female authors (www.lafpi.com). Working against those odds is tremendously challenging, and often disheartening, so I give so much credit to the women who get up every day and fight those odds.

3. Otherwise, my theatrical heroes are my genius actors, my wonderful directors, my visionary producers and designers, my completely brilliant playwright friends... basically anyone who has ever invested their time and energy into my little plays.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Anything that is not boring. That's a loose definition, but I don't really know what excites me 'til I see it.

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

A:  There's a home for every play somewhere, you just need to find the right collaborators and the right audience.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Come see my play, WAR BRIDE!

Roles for (non-twenty year old) women are far too few in American theater, and this play has two leading ladies, and a strong ensemble of female actors and dancers. We have also authentically cast both Japanese and American actors and dancers, filling a gap in the Asian acting community.

Check out our trailer... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OwAM45Db5M

...Then buy your tickets at:
www.skypilottheatre.com !

Also, I'd like to take the opportunity to plug the best playwriting program in all the world: The Playwright's Lab at Hollins University.

http://www.hollins.edu/grad/playwriting/index.html

Then, I'd like to take a second to entice you to take a stand against discrimination in the arts. Support the Los Angeles Female Playwrights Initiative.

http://lafpi.com/the-study/

Finally, I formally invite you to check out Original Works Publishing if you'd like to read my play THE ARCTIC CIRCLE *and a recipe for Swedish Pancakes
http://www.originalworksonline.com/arcticcircle.htm

Or YouthPLAYS Publishing if you need a charmingly irreverent Christmas comedy for your high school this year.
http://youthplays.com/plays/view/199/UnHoly_Nite

HLF opens tonight!

My play Hearts Like Fists opens tonight in L.A.  and runs until Sept 1.

I Interview Playwrights Part 482: Laura Maria Censabella

Laura Maria Censabella

Hometown: Born in Brooklyn, grew up in Queens, NY.

Current Town: Now live in Brooklyn.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I have an Ensemble Studio Theatre/Sloan Foundation Commission to write a science-based full length play. The science I am working with concerns the biochemistry of romantic love, which, of course is very fun to work with. And yes, there is real science behind it!

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

A: My mother suffered from PTSD from growing up in Northern Italy during World War II. My grandmother did dangerous work to fight Fascism and help the partisans, and she was almost killed in front of my mother several times. In order to exorcise those demons, my mother was given shock treatment in the 1970s. The shock treatment did almost nothing for the PTSD but it did deprive my mother of language for a while. Before the treatments she spoke English and her native Italian. After them, she could only speak in basic sentences in both languages. It was a tragedy for her as she was extremely sensitive and wanted to have the words to express how she felt. She often turned to me to provide the language for her thoughts. It was a profound and scary responsibility for a 12 year old, and yet, when I did manage to capture the nuance of something she felt, her gratefulness was rewarding. I believe, without being conscious of it then, that that was the beginning of my vow to give voice to people who have no voice.

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

A: More slots for productions! All theatres have such limited seasons these days.

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: When I was a child, the only women playwrights I was exposed to were Lillian Hellman and Lorraine Hansberry. Both of them wrote such passionate, engaged plays. I didn't dream of becoming a writer then, no one in my working class neighborhood wrote so it wasn't even in the realm of possibility, but their sensibilities inform my work.

Of course, I have many more writer heroes such as Arthur Miller, Caryl Churchill, Thornton Wilder, Horton Foote, etc.

And then there is Romulus Linney. I am currently writing this from the Sewanee Writers' Conference where I presented a 15-minute tribute to Romulus. Romulus had probably the most profound influence on me because I knew him for 24 years. Our friendship began when I was just starting out and we both had productions at the Philadelphia Festival Theatre for New Plays in the same season. Through his struggles, honesty and willingness to keep working in even the smallest venues, I arrived at a new definition of what success means in this art form.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: Truthful theatre. Theatre that takes emotional risks. Theatre that is emotional. And there must be a story. I'm fine with fracturing that story, or finding innovative ways to tell that story, but to me storytelling is the greatest art, we absolutely need stories to live and that's what I come to the theatre to see.

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

A: James Baldwin said: "To be a great writer, find what you're most scared of and run straight toward it." That about says it all.

Q: Plugs, please:

A: Here are some links to my work on the web.

The first is the trailer for my short film "Last Call."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iddWgx4EwT0&feature=plcp

Here is the link to the Ensemble Studio Theatre's Playwrights Unit, which I run:

http://ensemblestudiotheatre.org/programs/playwrights-unit/

Clown Bar

My play Clown Bar which was produced last year as part of Cino Nights is now available for sale as an e-book for the low low price of $1.29.  It works with all e-readers.  You can find it here:



http://www.indietheaternow.com/Play/PlayDetail/272



Description: A clown noir play about a former clown
named Happy who has returned to the seedy underground crime world to
find his brother’s killer.

I Interview Playwrights Part 481: Megan Gogerty

Megan Gogerty

Hometown: Des Moines, Iowa

Current Town: Iowa City

Q:  Tell me about Feet First In The Water With a Baby in My Teeth.


A:  I don't want to oversell it, but it's brilliant and I'm a genius.


I'm kidding. Hopefully obviously.

It's a half-true confessional comedy about a woman (me, kinda) who has a baby and then a few years later, becomes a mother. Along the way, I tell you the most efficient way to slaughter a chicken with your bare hands. So it's educational, too.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  I'm writing a new solo show, and I'm about to release the eBook version of HILLARY CLINTON GOT ME PREGNANT, my first solo show about Hillary Clinton getting me pregnant.

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

A:  For a really long time, I thought "A stitch in time saves nine" was about time travel. Because Ben Franklin was such a forward-thinking fellow. But who were the nine we had to save? He was a Founding Father - was it a message about the Supreme Court? Then I realized it was about sewing and lost interest.

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

A:  I wish more theaters offered child care so I could attend it more regularly. My gym offers childcare: for $5, I can take a Pilates class while my kid runs around in the next room. Everybody wins.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  So many. Too many to name. Vogel. Parks. Tomlin. Chris Rock counts as theatre, doesn't he? Holly Hughes. Tennessee Williams. Tom Jones & Harvey Schmidt, the creators of The Fantasticks, which is totally underrated by us theatre snobs. Dario Fo. Eddie Izzard.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I was teaching a class in Britain and made all my students see the revival of The Black Rider, the collaboration between Robert Wilson, Tom Waits and William S. Burroughs. And I was totally electrified, and therefore completely surprised that my students all hated it. The theatricality, the choreography, Marianne Faithful as the Devil! Amazing all the way around. What was wrong with those stupid kids?

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

A:  Make theatre - actually make it instead of talking about it or waiting for others to notice you. Make it in the mall. Make it on a street corner. Get your work in front of an audience any way you can, because that's how you'll grow.

Q:  Plugs, please:


A:  Well, the aforementioned eBook HILLARY CLINTON GOT ME PREGNANT, coming soon to an e-reader near you! Also, my play BAD PANDA is premiering in Baltimore in October: http://ironcrowtheatre.com/season/  for details.

I Interview Playwrights Part 480: Colby Day

Colby Day

Hometown: Alamo, CA

Current Town: Brooklyn, NY

Q:  Tell me about Giant Killer Slugs.

A:  Giant Killer Slugs is a creature feature written for the stage, which means there's slime, teenagers, and a lot of really campy 50's slang. It was originally a screenplay that I wrote while at NYU. I converted it into a stage play after seeing a call for "unproducible" theater scripts last year. They didn't want it, I'm assuming because the stage direction "hundreds, thousands, millions of slugs" was too frightening, so I sent it to the Literary Manager of Pipeline Theatre Company, who really loved it, and it found its little slug home.

Slugs essentially became a theater piece because it felt like such an impossibility. As a result, a lot of our conversations in designing the show have been about how to capture the feel of those schlocky 1950's science fiction films, from the special effects and wardrobe down to what it feels like to sit in the theater. There are tons of characters, and so many scenes, because these movies move fast, and hitting exactly what these films feel like, on stage, and in 3-D, is essential to making it fun for an audience.

It's a really crazy comedy, but something I really strive for is characters with grounded, realistic motivations. The saying goes tragedy plus time equals comedy, but I think comedy is always present. The comedy comes simply from the fact that the tragedy we're watching unfold for characters is something that we think should never be taken seriously. When those situations, like giant slugs who eat people, are met with deathly earnestness, that's the comedy this show taps into.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  I just finished a feature film script, so that will be what I'm rewriting for the near future. It's a dark, claymation movie set in the North Pole. I'm trying to make it The Dark Knight of Christmas claymation movies, so that's a really fun tone and world to play with.

I have a short piece The Great Molly which Pipeline produced last season that I want to expand into an epic, three act story about a young girl who becomes a world-renowned magician. I've always wanted to say something about the American Dream, and this feels like something that might be large enough to do that, while maintaining room to squeeze in some juggling and/or fire-breathing.

Daniel Johnsen (who has directed all two of my full-length plays) and I are also floating around an idea for an opera with puppets, but I don't want to give too much away. I can say that it also has magic in it. Clearly I like magical things.

I've also got a television pilot in the works, and some web stuff going on hopefully.

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

A:  There was only one family with children who lived on our street besides our own, but no matter how hard my parents tried, my brother and I refused to be friends with them. Instead, we stayed at home and filmed our own versions of The X-Files, Indiana Jones, and fake commercials. Thankfully, none of those video cassettes still exist. I hope.

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

A:  Submissions guidelines. Look, I get it, theater is expensive. Yes, it's hard to produce plays, especially if there are 50 speaking roles. But, do we really need theaters out there demanding that playwrights only write plays with 2-4 characters (ideally with one setting and minimal props/costumes)? I have run into well-respected writing fellowships, grants, and theaters that will not accept work with more than 4 characters. You wouldn't even accept Romeo & Juliet for your staged reading?

I know firsthand that theater costs a lot, and yes, it's a logistical nightmare to schedule rehearsals for a 14 person show, but, do we really need to self-impose even more limitations on what is already a difficult medium struggling to carve out a niche opposite film, television, and online content? Mightn't watching and marveling at how exactly a small theater manages to deal with many characters, location changes, and other logistically creative problems be something theater has to offer that no other medium provides?

It seems to me a lack of imagination, in what is supposed to be the medium most inviting of imagination, to impose practical considerations on the playwrights. If you want to run a theater company, you better be brave, because theater is incredibly risky. You've already set yourself a remarkably foolish challenge, so why not embrace it? It's a shame to, in order to be economically viable, refuse to even consider work of a larger scale than a kitchen sink drama (or comedy), unless your mission as a company strictly prohibits it from an artistic standpoint.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  I think my big three dead playwrights would be Thornton Wilder, Tennessee Williams, and William Shakespeare. Those seem like such a boring three, so I feel like I have to defend my choice. I am the first to admit that I have a hard time reading Shakespeare, but the man had a knack for low-brow comedy that my high school English teachers failed to explain to me until I'd seen productions of his plays. Thornton Wilder captures what it means to fall in love, with people and with life itself, and Our Town will always be a classic for that reason. And Tennessee Williams' Camino Real, while definitely a flawed play, has a sincerity in its fantasy that I owe a great debt to.

As far as contemporary voices go, I think Pipeline Theatre Company might legitimately be my heroes. They've championed my work with passion and diligence, and I have seen nothing but love and determination poured into everything they've ever done. Evan Twohy and Alex Mills are two contemporaries of mine who I am enormously fond of, and who've taught me more than I'd care to admit to their faces. Glenn Hergenhahn, Raven Burnett, Andrew Farmer, James Monaco, Jessica Fleitman, Ruben Carbajal, Carys Edwards and Lauren Gunderson have all written phenomenal things that I wish I'd done first.

I'd also consider every playwright out there who has found a television writing job in the past five years my hero, because hopefully one of them will find me and tell me how to do that for myself.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Anything with guts. Theater is about spectacle, and wonder, so shows with large scopes, or an unusual setting immediately perk my interest by demonstrating that they're going to take some risks. Theater should be an exciting event, not something you sit through feeling like you have to pay attention and take it seriously. Break my heart a little bit, but help me pick up the pieces again too. It's corny, but, theater should inspire audiences to imagine, and explore what it means to live our lives together. If something is funny and sad at the same time, you've nailed it as far as I'm concerned.

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

A:  I feel like I'm still starting out, so here's the advice I give myself: Find someone to be your champion. If nobody will, do it yourself. The old guard has never understood what was new, different, and going to be the next big thing, so why would you want them to produce your play anyway? You're a young upstart, find other young upstarts.

Being in Pipeline, I know for a fact that there are tons of young theater companies looking desperately for plays with characters in their age range. Every year a new company graduates from pretty much every drama school in the country. Find them and write plays for 20-somethings to produce.

The best writing advice I ever got, and it took me a long time to appreciate it, was "Write what scares you." If you're worried a scene is too trite, make it the most trite, cliche-riddled scene you've ever written. Work through what you're afraid of on the page. Don't stop yourself from doing it. Also, "re-write" means "write again," not "edit slightly." I'm afraid to do it every time, but words simply are not precious. Words literally spew forth from our mouths and fingers incessantly. Our job is to find precisely the correct combination, which sometimes means starting over from zero.

Go to all the rehearsals, and listen to how directors talk to actors. Your director should be your best friend and you should be able to talk until early morning about what the play is about, and how to make it that way. You'll learn in the room that some things you write aren't actable. Rather than making this a problem for your actors, make this a problem for yourself. How can you write them so they are actable? This is a great learning experience for realizing that the line you thought would be so funny and clever coming from this character, doesn't actually make sense when you think about it from this character's perspective. Let your actors improvise, then you can decide what fits for the character and what doesn't.

As for building comedy, it should be a serious business. The best way to write something funny is to take your characters seriously. Would they really do this, or are they doing it because it's funny to me the playwright? Be a sadist, and hurt your characters. Doing the worst thing you can imagine to them will often give you the best dramatic and comedic outcomes.

Q:  Plugs, please:


A:  My feature film I Don't Want to Kill Myself screens at The Art of Brooklyn Film Festival August 8th. Tickets are available here.

And please do come see Giant Killer Slugs, running August 22nd - September 2nd at Theater for the New City's Dream Up Festival. Pipeline's website has more info and tickets are available here.

Follow me on Twitter, like my movie & Pipeline on Facebook. My website: www.colbyday.com.

I Interview Playwrights Part 479: Jeffrey James Keyes

Jeffrey James Keyes



Hometown: I grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the 80's. We lived near a forest in a neighborhood called Bay View, which is just off of Lake Michigan: I spent my childhood climbing trees, diving off the back of sailboats, chasing fireflies, and dreaming big. I couldn't think of a better place to grow up.



Current Town: I live in Washington Heights, in Manhattan. Instead of walking my dog through the forest I take her on adventures through the uptown urban jungle. In addition to being a playwright I'm lucky to work as a travel writer and photographer, I often find myself writing late at night in the great European capitals.



Q: Tell me about The End Of Days.



A: I've always been fascinated by the quiet and human moments that happen during extraordinary events. The End of Days is the story of a travel photographer who becomes terrified the world is going to end. He finds himself in New York City on the last night of the End of the Mayan Calendar and hunts down the girl he's supposed to be with. My play is a dark love story; a response to the question, if the world is going to end tomorrow, who would you want to spend your End of Days with? The End of Days will be performed at the Soho Playhouse as part of the New York International Fringe Festival. Terry Berliner is directing this new production featuring Adam David Thompson and Libby Winters. Chris Eleftheraides, Maribeth Fox, and Jonah Chmielewski-Fox are the producers. Jonah, our executive producer, is two-years-old and he's quite demanding.



Q: What else are you working on now?



A: My next play, 17, is about four teenage boys who go on a backpacking trip on Isle Royale, a remote island in Lake Superior. I additionally have three other plays baking in the oven and two television pilots on the cooling rack. When I finished graduate school, a good friend approached me about collaborating on a book that's been keeping me busy. I'll be in Sweden next week taking pictures and building editorial content about a number of events in Stockholm, then August will be all about the Fringe Festival.



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



A: My family didn't have a lot of money growing up but we always used to travel extensively throughout my home state. I think the landscape of Wisconsin and the Great Lakes influenced me tremendously. I remember going up to my family's farm in Ashfield, near Lake Superior and reading Steinbeck by moonlight on my farmhouse my great grandparents built. My family used to rent a cottage up in the North Woods near Verna Lake in Minoqua and my sister would bring suitcases of books to read while we listened to the loons on the lake. Whether we were hiking and rock climbing in Devil's Lake or running between ancient Native American burial grounds in Aztalan, I was always listening, collecting stories, and experiencing nature and local tradition wherever I happened to be. I recently went back and read Goodbye, Wisconsin, a novel by my relative Glenway Wescott, and I got nostalgic for the Wisconsin of my childhood. I feel it was the ultimate launching pad for me to experience and take note of the world around me.



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



A: I have a pretty experimental background but I'm completely obsessed with realism. I would like for writers to take care of their audience more. I'm all for spectacle, glamour, and mystique but I think theater fundamentally should tell a story with a beginning, middle, and end. There's plenty of room to play within those parameters, but I'm drawn to going to see plays by writers like William Inge, Arthur Miller, Eugene O'Neill, Thornton Wilder, and Lanford Wilson because I feel as if I'm constantly learning and gaining insight about life through their masterful storytelling.



Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?



A: I have been blessed to learn from some extraordinary individuals. I moved to New York to study theater performance with the late, great Lawrence Sacharow. Larry was without a doubt the most influential person in my career as an artist. He got me hooked on Anton Chekhov and encouraged me to study and learn from the great Russian dramatists and writers and introduced me to the work of Jerzy Grotowski. In 2000 he brought me to Italy to dig deeper into experimental and physical theater by studying at the Work Center of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards, with Natalia Federova of the Moscow Art Theatre, and at Ellen Stewart's LaMaMa-Umbria. Larry's passion and devotion to theater and the arts reminds me I can always work harder and do better. My real life heroes are, of course, my boyfriend Chris, my family, and my circle of friends. I would do anything for these people, and want to write great stories to share with them and everyone.



Q: What kind of theater excites you?



A: I'm excited about all kinds of theater. I'm always impressed by the work of Moises Kaufman and the Tectonic Theater Project. I additionally loved David Cromer's production of Our Town a few years back and could have seen Tracy Letts' play August: Osage Country a hundred times. In New York, I typically love the programming at The Atlantic Theater Company, The New Group, New York Theatre Workshop, and Second Stage Theatre. As much as I'm a "traditional narrative junkie" I'm always blown away by the work of more experimental directors like Anne Bogart and Ivo van Hove. I also enjoy going to spectacles like Fuerzabruta and De La Guarda because there's something so ritualistic and expressive about these works that grabs you by the core and forces you to wake up.



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



A: Writers obviously need to set aside a significant amount of time to daydream, write, and read each day but downtime is just as important. I've always been inspired by Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and the "Lost Generation" of expatriate writers from the 20's because they lived life to the fullest and were still able to generate a ridiculous amount of material. Get in the car and drive somewhere you've never been, talk to strangers, grab drinks with friends, immerse yourself in nature, wander around in museums, and expose yourself to all kinds of other artwork. Most importantly, take time to take care of yourself so you can be creative and present with your writing and in the room.



Q: Plugs, please:



A: The End of Days will be performed at the Soho Playhouse from August 15-25. We only have five performances: Wednesday August 15 at 5:30pm, Sunday August 19 at 7pm, Thursday, August 21 at 8:45pm, Wednesday, August 22 at 7pm, and Saturday, August 25 at 5:15pm. Tickets are available for $15 in advance by visiting the FringeNYC website here: http://www.fringenyc.org/basic_page.php?ltr=E - just scroll down to my show and select the day you can make.



 I will also be participating in two extraordinary playwright happenings in August: the Write Out Front Project, inspired by Micheline Auger, and The 31 Plays in 31 Days Project. If you're in the New York area, be sure to come to see the work in New York Madness. I'm proud to be a Unit Writer with this group of daring writers who present strong and consistent work with guest artists at their monthly events.

I Interview Playwrights Part 478: Carlos Murillo

Carlos Murillo

Hometown: b. Freeport, NY. Grew up in Levittown, NY, Caracas, Venezuela, Bogota Colombia, and Garden City, NY. Spent my formative years in Brooklyn, NY.

Current Town: Chicago, IL

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  A bunch of stuff - just put the finishing touches on a revision on A THICK DESCRIPTION OF HARRY SMITH, based on a workshop production we just did with P73 - and also actively looking for a place to do a longer run in NYC and elsewhere. In the process of writing/trying to finish a commission for Steppenwolf - which is about a literary hoax. Also beginning work on my first TYA play for Adventure Stage here in Chicago - we're working closely with the community served by the Northwestern Settlement House where the theatre is located. That piece is scheduled for production in April 2013. I am also a teacher - I head the BFA Playwriting Program at The Theatre School of DePaul University, which is an on-going work-in-progress.

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 was a notorious underachiever in grade school. In sixth grade I decided I would only do homework assignments that interested me, everything else I would only put in a half-hearted effort, turn in late, or simply not do at all. The stuff that jazzed me were projects that involved some sort of creative effort - I would put my entire self into them at the expense of everything else. I loved doing things that involved glue, magic markers, clay, cutting out images from magazines, blowing things up.... My 6th grade teacher, Ms. Jural, was kind of evil. I remember she wore her long grey hair in a tight braid, and she peered over her bifocals at the class with unmasked condescension bordering on hatred. It was clear then as it is to me now that teaching 6th grade was a form of condemnation for her.

One day she gave us an assignment to write a short story on any subject. Out of character for her, as most of the work she assigned us triggered in me a feeling of paralysis. This one, though... my mind exploded and I let my imagination run wild every available hour that week (at the expense of all other homework) concocting a crazed tale of a rogue worker at a NYC burger joint who chemically altered a cheeseburger so that it would grow to enormous proportions and wreck havoc on New York City. (I borrowed liberally, if semi-consciously, from Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, which I had just seen for the first time.)

The day the story was due, Ms. Jural had each of the students read their stories. I could not wait to be called on - I reveled in the chance to share this early product of my imagination with my classmates. They ate it up - laughed in all the right places.... their responses grew more vocal, more rowdy in proportion to the outrageousness of the story as it unfolded - by the end, things got a little out of hand... I hadn't intended to, but by the end of the story (which was way longer than the assignment asked - a pattern I have repeated in many of my plays) Ms. Jural had lost control of the classroom.

At the end of each story, Ms. Jural would offer a quick summary evaluation. When the chaos died down after my turn, I waited eagerly for her response, because I thought I had done so well. Her response? One word: "Overkill." When she handed the story back a few days later, a giant letter C graced the title page.

I think that's when I became a writer.

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

A:  I could go on for pages and pages about this. I think the majority of folks would agree that the patient is gravely ill, and unless there is a wholesale rethinking of our current producing models, we're all gonna be in a heap of trouble. For the exception of a few places like NY, Chicago, Minneapolis, LA, DC and a handful of other cities, there aren't a whole lot of places that have self-sustaining, healthy ecospheres for theatre makers and audiences. The original purpose of the regional theater system, at least as I understand it, was to plant seeds in those parts of the country where those ecospeheres were non-existent. Which would suggest that those seed theatres would function as a kind of agora specific to the community it served, where artist and audience would would be in dialogue in a very direct, community- and geography-specific way.... in other words, the regional theatres would embrace regionalism in the very best sense of the term, employing home grown artists and administrators to create work that would speak to their specific audience. Didn't turn out that way - I think the system, and the good intentions that gave rise to it, has devolved to a point where regional theatres have become similar to movie multiplexes - where old chestnuts and the hits from last year's season in NY make their rounds, where there is little to distinguish the programming theatre to theatre throughout the country, and anything that speaks directly to the concerns of the community gets lost in the shuffle. Lost in that is any real commitment to PLACE and all that that entails. And when they do generate work on their own, it's so often with an eye to future life in NY, and not the needs of their particular community. This isn't a very friendly environment for anyone to work in.

My proposal: at the end of every season in NY we can make a pretty good guess which plays will make the "most produced" list the following year in AMERICAN THEATRE. Why not follow the Broadway touring model for those plays? Put together four or five road companies that will bring those plays to all the theatres that want them. Maybe that sounds icky and too commercial - but the reality is that a good incentive to produce those plays - aside from the quality of the works themselves - is the box office cachet that comes from something that comes with the NY Times stamp of approval. I imagine (and this is probably naive on my part, as I really have no business sense) that taking this ready-made approach would free up a lot of local resources that could be channeled into fostering local talent and new work generated by and for the communities that theatres are supposed to serve. Everyone wins - people are employed, theatres sell tickets and space can be created for the unknown.

I also think the successful big theatres around the country ought to commit to developing young artists in their communities in meaningful ways - Steppenwolf is doing this with great success through their Garage Rep series. Each year they throw the door open for small, young companies (most of which are the spiritual descendants of the "adrenaline, gaffer tape and a dream" model of the original Steppenwolf that started in a church basement) to produce a rotating repertory of shows. It's hugely successful - and mutually beneficial: the small companies get a bump up for being annointed by Steppenwolf and learn a thing or two about producing in the process, and Steppenwolf reaps the benefits of attracting younger audiences into their theatre, and perhaps more philosophically, they do honor to their own historical legacy by paying it forward to the next generation.

Lastly, I think the spate of new, excessive, starchitect designed buildings, complete with bridges to nowhere, that came during the illusory flush years should have sparked community-wide outrage when the world came crashing down in 2008. People rightfully raged at the banks for their gross mismanagement and absurd compensation for CEOs - why isn't there the same anger in the smaller scale world of the theatre? Millions squandered on buildings, six figure salaries for administrators, while compensation for actors, playwrights, directors and designers has remained pretty much flat - sounds to me like the theatre is not much different than latter day capitalist America. Think of the monstrous resources that went into putting those things up - I like to think that it's not the form of the building that makes the institution, but rather the contents within.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  People I learned from directly that changed my life and/or shaped a lot of my thinking about what we do, and who have influenced my role as a mentor to students: Maria Irene Fornes, Morgan Jenness, Robert Woodruff, David Greenspan, Shelby Jiggetts, Eduardo Machado, Luis Alfaro, Anne Bogart, Todd London.

Then there are the historical models - Georg Buchner, Bertolt Brecht, Richard Foreman, Tadeuz Kantor, Sam Shepard, Joe Papp, Frank Wedekind, Eugene O'Neill to name a few.


Then there are non-theatrical folks whose work, to me, is a kind of theatre: David Bowie, Sex Pistols, Pink Floyd, Harry Smith, Italo Calvino, Roberto Bolano, Bob Dylan, Rem Koolhaas, Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, Wilhelm Reich, Terry Gilliam, Lenny Bruce, Bill Hicks, Eric Hebborn, Richard Nixon, and so on.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theatre that makes me feel like I've LIVED through an EXPERIENCE (as opposed to OBSERVING someone else LIVE THROUGH/EXPERIENCE something)... where I feel like some essential part of me/my soul/my mind has been rewired. Where I lose the consciousness that I am watching a made thing - but going through something that forces my mind to travel great distances inward and outward - inward in the sense that my own demons are exposed, and outward in the sense that my consciousness of the impossible complexities and paradoxes of human existence is heightened. So often I watch things and I become all-too-conscious of the parts that make up the whole - the quality of writing, directing, acting, design, etc. I sometimes think that's the curse of making the stuff - it's very difficult to completely give over. Those are only partial experiences, many of which I value a great deal. However, those lived-through experiences versus those partial experiences, which feel more like observation, to me is the difference between a deep tissue massage and a casual back rub. A few examples: the recent production of ICEMAN COMETH at The Goodman Theatre - all 5 glorious, soul-destroying hours of it... Reza Abdoh's QUOTATIONS FROM A RUINED CITY... Andrei Serban's FRAGMENTS OF A GREEK TRILOGY... all of those pieces were traumatic - made me feel like my soul was in danger, that what was taking place before my eyes was like a hand forcing my mouth open, reaching in and rearranging my insides... but having gone through them I became a bigger human being, and possibly a better artist.

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

A: 
1) Characters have bodies distinct from your own.
2) Those bodies come in all shapes, sizes, colors. They move through the world in very specific, idiosyncratic ways.
3) Those bodies are decisive in so many ways - they shape thought patterns, speech, the experience of emotion, self-perception, perception of the "other" - the whole concept of need & expression is intimately tied with the body in space.
4) A play, in many ways, is a collection of distinct bodies trapped in a space - your task is to follow the dance that ensues.
5) Your task, in writing the play, is to forget your own body, and to imagine being inside a body not your own, and honoring all the messy complexity that entails.
6) In doing so, you honor the integrity of your characters not as products of your imagination, but as actualities that exist in the world independent of you.
7) If you can honor their autonomy, they might tell you truths you'd never arrive at on your own.
8) Overwrite until your characters have said and done everything they needed to say and do. Then be merciless with yourself.
9) Forgive the brutal honesty, BUT: hundreds and hundreds of plays are written and circulated through literary offices, agencies, contest judges, publishers, grad school selection committees each year. They need another play like they need a hole in their head. Make yours COUNT. Make yours NECESSARY. Make yours something NO ONE ELSE IN THE WORLD COULD POSSIBLY HAVE WRITTEN. Make yours prove that it NEEDS TO EXIST.
10) Lastly - the first image is perfect and hopelessly imperfect. Embrace both.[image error]