Adam Szymkowicz: April 2014

Apr 30, 2014

I Interview Playwrights Part 657: Cori Thomas

photo by Christine Jean Chambers

Cori Thomas

Hometown: Born in New York City but grew up all over the world as Dad was a diplomat

Current Town: Brooklyn, NY

Q: Tell me about When January Feels Like Summer.

A: I have had a few regional productions, but this is my first New York City one. I am so excited for my friends and family to see this. It was at the 2008 Sundance Theatre Lab and had it's World Premiere in March 2010 at City Theatre Co. in Pittsburgh, directed by Chuck Patterson who sadly suddenly passed away in December. He was very instrumental in my evolution as a playwright, and I miss him very much. He did know this production was happening and in a funny way pointed me towards my current director who I am so thrilled to be working with, Daniella Topol. The cast is phenomenal: Debargo Sanyal who originated his role in the Pittsburgh production and Mahira Kakkar, Maurice Williams, J. Mallory McCree and Dion Graham. These actors in these roles are like a theater wet dream. Also, it thrills me that my two artistic homes, EST and Page 73 are co-producing. As a final irony, the first performance is the day before my birthday. I'm getting a really really special birthday gift this year! You probably want me to tell you about the play. I'm not going to. I think it's a play best enjoyed if you don't know what to expect. For those who are prudish, there is some strong language in there.

Q: What else are you working on now?

A: The 2nd play in my Liberia play trilogy PA'S HAT which had it's World Premiere in May 2010 at Pillsbury House Theatre in Minneapolis. The last 2 plays in this trilogy are co-commissioned by Pillsbury House and EST. I also have a NYSCA play commission through Page 73 that is also set in Liberia. As someone of Liberian Heritage, it is important to me that Liberia as a subject and theme get some attention.

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 wanted to be a singer when I was younger. The fact I cannot really sing is irrelevant. When I was 12 I saw a high school production of The Glass Menagerie and I fell in love with the theater which was good for people's ears out there. The fact this production was in Switzerland, most probably performed by people who did not speak English fluently, and despite the fact it was a school production I was still moved beyond belief by the story of Laura Wingfield. I wanted to someday be able to move people the way I had been that day. I think I have a tendency to take a sort of "normal" subject and then infuse it with some odd twist usually multi culturally inspired. I felt odd as a kid. I was biracial. My parents were from different cultures and did not even speak the same language. I identified with Laura and seeing someone who was as odd as I felt on that stage made me not feel so odd. I think I try to do that with my plays. I put unusual people in regular circumstances and hope the audience identies with them.

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

A: Ticket prices.

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: Tennessee Williams, Athol Fugard, August Wilson, Lorraine Hansberry, Bobby Lewis, Uta Hagen, Chuck Patterson.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: The kind of theater that makes me lean forward holding my breath as I wait to see what's going to happen praying someone's cell phone doesn't go off and ruin the magic.

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

A: Write. Write. Write. Get live people to read your play out loud, preferably actors, then rewrite. Then repeat that process. Send your work out. See as much theater as you can. Read as many plays as you can. Don't give up.

Q: Plugs, please:

A: WHEN JANUARY FEELS LIKE SUMMER Produced by EST and Page 73, directed by Daniella Topol. Discounted tickets if you buy before the first preview on May 28 . www.ensemblestudiotheatre.org

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Apr 29, 2014

I Interview Playwrights Part 656: David Van Asselt

David Van Asselt

Hometown: I grew up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, home to the Amish. The fields next to my house were plowed by mules and I was sent often to he neighbor’s farm house for fresh eggs and milk. It was a little bit like growing up in 1880 and when I moved to New York City the contrast between that rural background and Guiliani’s New York City was immense.

Q: Tell me about Fable.

A: I wrote a partial first draft of Fable when I started Rattlestick in the mid 90’s. Because I couldn’t solve the ending, I put it aside. It wasn’t until three years ago that I suddenly realized how to end the play and what the missing pieces were – so I went back to it and wrote the version that is being produced by Piece by Piece and Rising Phoenix Rep. When I began writing the play I had been reading and translating Brecht plays (strictly for myself!) and so a kind of Brechtian structure became a starting point for FABLE. But when an angel and devil sort of appeared in the first scene, it became a “fable” that mixed a bunch of genres together in, hopefully, a fun sort of way.

Q: What else are you working on now?

A: I am presently at work on two plays that (at least in my mind) for a kind of trilogy with FABLE, each of which tries to engage with the world that we are making. There is also a play which is almost finished about a mother returning home after a career spent working for an NGO in a third world country and how she needs to make peace with her family.

Q: Tell me about Rattlestick.

A: I started Rattlestick with Gary Bonasorte in the mid-nineties when Circle Rep had just closed its doors and we both felt there were simply too few outlets for new plays. Like me, Gary was a playwright, and at first we were just a group of seven playwrights producing each other’s work. Then we decided to enlarge that to focus on becoming a place where many new playwrights could get their work produced. Gary died in 2000, a victim to the AIDS plague. His death was pretty devastating. Gary was full of the kind of life-affirming joy that one finds rarely on this earth, a joy which I try my best to bring to the theater each day.

Six months after Gary died, the attack on the Twin Towers occurred and we had to cancel the plays we had scheduled for that season. There were two bleak years when I really wondered whether it was meant to be, but I felt I had made promises to playwrights to produce their work, which I felt I needed to somehow honor. There was a year or two when I literally raised the money, production-managed the shows, built the sets and ran the payroll. Then Sandra Coudert came on as Managing Director and we were able to put the theater back on its feet. When Sandra left to start a family, Brian Long became the new managing director and we took another big step forward. Big enough, in fact, that I was finally able to start thinking about writing again.

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

A: Back in 30s we had a program, the WPA, that included a national theater that was incredibly successful. It was run by Hallie Flanagan, and it provided a way for Americans all over the country to have access to live theater. That program got shut down by right-wing congressmen, but I would so like to create that possibility again – access to live actors performing on stage – and make theater-going a regular part of life.

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: Eugene O’Neill, Hallie Flanagan, Ellen Stewart, Terrence McNally

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

A: I wish I had some sort of intelligent advice, but playwriting is so singular and everyone’s journey is so unique there is really no useful advice that I can think of. Maybe, simply, persevere and don’t compare your journey to that of another. To use an example from a different field, the composer Elliott Carter didn’t write his first masterpiece, or, for that matter, find his individual voice, until he was 50 some years old. Playwriting is one of those most difficult forms of art to create – that is why if you look back through history the number of major playwrights is far smaller than the number of poets or novelists. But it is a beautiful and life enhancing experience and one I hope in my small way to keep alive.

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Apr 26, 2014

I Interview Playwrights Part 655: Barbara Blumenthal-Ehrlich

Barbara Blumenthal-Ehrlich

Hometown: Chicago

Current Town: Boston/NYC

Q: What are you working on now?

A: Two plays: ROMEO CHANG and FEATHERWEIGHT.

ROMEO CHANG (It’s my eye doctor’s name, and I love it) It’s about a pregnant woman with a terminal illness who needs to stay alive long enough to have her baby. She turns to an ancient Chinese healer, but he’s got problems of his own. So it’s a little dicey how the whole thing’s gonna turn out. Plus her husband is not on board with this Eastern medicine stuff AT ALL.

And FEATHERWEIGHT, I put it in a drawer after a workshop at New Georges a few years ago. I just couldn’t figure out what to do with it .But time is such a gift, and now I’m back at it. It’s about a woman with cancer who assumes a literal notion of “battling” her illness. She enlists a professional fighter to help her stay strong and beat her disease. But then her estranged husband shows up and she’s forced to decide if she’s a lover or a fighter. Her very survival is at stake. (By the way, all my plays aren’t about terminally ill women).

Q: Tell me about Boston Public Works.

A: I’m so excited about Boston Public Works. We’re nine Boston-based playwrights who’ve formed a producing collective modeled after the wonderful folks at 13P. I’m P8.Our mission is simple: Produce one play by each member playwright, and then we implode. (The Welders in D.C. are doing the same thing.) We launched in January, and the theatre community’s response has been overwhelming. We kind of short sightedly planned our kickoff party on Super Bowl Sunday. Plus it was bitter cold. But an overflow crowd of artists and patrons came out, and for the first time, I felt like part of a larger creative community. It was awesome and completely energized my writing process and work.

Boston is really blowing the roof off new theatre. Polly Carl and David Dower are here now. And established theatres like the Huntington and New Rep have playwriting fellows programs. It seems like just about all the big and small established Boston theatres include one local writer in their seasons. And smaller, fringe theatres are popping up all over the place. I’m part of a playwrights workshop called Interim Writers, which does cutting edge readings in Harvard Square every month. The city’s really en fuego with new work, and Boston Public Works is just an exciting outgrowth of all this activity. It’s pretty cool.

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 came from a very quiet household. Both my parents grew up in turbulent families. So they kind of reflexively set up this tranquil environment. It wasn’t like living in a library but pretty close. I think I turned my imagination inward, and now all those crazy pent up thoughts are coming out in my plays.

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

A: Ummm…. There’s lots of stuff I could say. But really, it is what it is. Nobody’s holding a gun to my head and telling me to write. Nobody’s forcing me to play by their rules. So really, I have full artistic freedom. And through Boston Public Works and other artistic collaborations, I’m finding my way. The avenues are out there to self produce: Kick Starter and Indigogo and basements of bars. I’ve seen some of the best theatre downstairs at Jimmy’s in the East Village. Thank you Rising Phoenix Rep.

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: The established guys like Chekhov, Beckett, Fugard, Paula Vogel, Caryl Churchill. And the recent guys like Deb Margolin, Naomi Wallace, Adam Bock, Jessica Dickey, Daniel Talbott, on and on.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: I just saw THE SHAPE SHE MAKES at A.R.T. and can’t get it out of my head. Likewise for moments of BILLY ELLIOT (and I don’t really like musicals), and Deb Margolin’s THREE SECONDS IN THE KEY which I saw years and years ago. There’s been lots of stuff in between that just kind of sticks to my ribs -- plays that create parallel worlds that help me make sense of mine; work that couldn’t happen anywhere but the theatre; shows that make me lose track of time, make me forget my own physical body, and transport me emotionally into the story unfolding on stage. I’m getting all sparky just thinking about it.

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

A: Rewrite. Even when you think you’re done, rewrite. Even when you think you’re done for real, rewrite some more. And rewrite some more after that. Find artists you trust to give you smart feedback that you can listen to without being defensive. Not as easy as it sounds.

Q: Plugs, please:

A: THE FAINT TASTE OF CAT FOOD AND SOUR MILK, playing this month in Colorado Springs’ Six Women Playwrights Festival.

ROMEO CHANG in May in the Boston Theatre Marathon Warm-Up Laps.

SISTER SISTER published in Indie Theatre Now.

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Apr 21, 2014

I Interview Playwrights Part 654: Matt Hoverman

Matt Hoverman

Hometown: West Redding, Connecticut

Current Town: Manhattan

Q: What are you working on now?

A: THRILLSVILLE - a comedy about a difficult but lovable, developmentally disabled woman from an upper middle class family whose brother moves her into a Medicaid-run residence after it’s revealed the trust fund meant to pay for her lavish apartment was drained by their parents before their death. And I write for a few TV shows on PBS Kids (including ARTHUR and WONDER RANGERS.) My 4-character comedy THE GLINT (about two aging voice-over actors and the women who love them) is also headed for Broadway in 2015, produced by Nelle Nugent and directed by Michael Wilson.

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 parents fought like cats and dogs… except Monday nights at 9pm. That’s when M*A*S*H came on. I’d hide on the staircase and listen to them laughing together. I’m a big believer in the power of laughter to disarm and connect. And I love to write about savage people. And I like to write plays and TV shows that have helpful and hopeful messages for kids on staircases listening to their parents laugh at the TV.

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

A: I studied playwriting at Brown and acting at the University of California, San Diego- two programs hot for experimental theatre. It was fun, but I hit my breaking point when - playing one of only two human beings in a 3-hour puppet rock musical about William Blake - I requested a handkerchief to wipe away the tears of my wife in a tender scene - and was handed a 3” x 5” piece of lucite. Years later, I came up with the idea for a class on solo performance that focused on the simple, human connection of autobiographical storytelling. I have since taught the 7-week class about 70 times and I've helped shape hundreds of solo shows - many of them winning awards and rave reviews, and all of them coming from a simple, human, authentic place. I don’t want to change or get rid of abstract or experimental theatre, but I am starting to train teachers in my method, and I would like the kind of direct, heart-to-heart work that I encourage in my classes to survive me.

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: Oh geez, I love the lunacy of Charles Busch and Julie Halston, the big-hearted irreverence of Randy Newman (he was working on FAUST at the La Jolla Playhouse when I was at UCSD), David Lindsay-Abaire (I saw a production of FUDDY MEERS at Oregon Shakespeare that changed my life), Spalding Gray, Horton Foote and the farceurs: Alan Ayckbourn, Feydeau, Moliere, Ben Travers, Ray Cooney, Michael Frayn etc... and my students!

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: Plays that are human and real, but which also have a level of comic proficiency. Comic size that is also attached to something real, or at least joyful, recently: ONE MAN,TWO GUV’NORS; LEND ME A TENOR, Matthew Warchus’ BOEING BOEING and THE NORMAN CONQUESTS. TRIBES.

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

A: Live. And write about what you, and only you, know. Write it in your special way, no matter what other people seem to be liking right now. Look for the moments in your work when you feel, “That’s it! That’s my voice!” Next time, write more like that. Self-produce. Fail and learn from your failures. Be very, very encouraging of yourself. Pass through cynicism, but don’t stop there. Write for your grandbabies, as if you were comfortable with them knowing the dirty bits about you. Write for the ages, for the kids on the stairs, hungry for your hard-won wisdom. You don’t have to impress us. Just remind us of what it means to be alive.

Q: Plugs, please:

A: As mentioned, my play THE GLINT is scheduled to be produced on b’way by Nelle Nugent in 2015, directed by Michael Wilson. So keep your eyes peeled. For other current stuff:
MattHoverman.com
And for more about my classes: createyourownsoloshow.com

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Apr 20, 2014

I Interview Playwrights Part 653: Joshua H. Cohen

Joshua H. Cohen

Hometown: East Greenwich, RI

Current Town: New York, NY. Hudson Heights. I can see the GW Bridge from my bedroom.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I’m writing this from the control booth during a session for the world premiere recording of my musical Tamar of the River. So that’s exciting. I always have several projects going simultaneously. Currently, I’m doing a down-to-the-studs gut renovation of my play Sam I Am, in response to some great feedback I got following a reading in December; writing a new opening number for my musical Ordinary Island, a show I’m eager to see move forward; and a new score, my first rock musical, Burned, updating A.A. Milne’s play The Lucky One to the 2007-08 financial crisis.

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

A: As a kid, I always found theater more interesting than real life. Which I suppose explains a lot, but doesn’t make for a decent origin myth.

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: Tom Stoppard, for the way he hides fragile and broken hearts behind promiscuous and robust intellect. Arthur Miller, for the urgency with which he personalized the political. Songwriters like Michael John La Chiusa, Jeanine Tesori, Flaherty & Ahrens, expanding the kinds of stories that can be told in song and how they can be told. And of course, John Eisner: every play development program I’ve encountered seems to be following in the footsteps of what he started at the Lark.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: I’m fascinated by how fiction shapes fact, how the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves become truth. Performance as the quintessentially creative act – especially in the political sphere. Come at reality sideways, and I’ll follow you.

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

A: Be nice to everybody. I sent out hundreds of submissions every year, but both full productions I had last year came out of friendships I’d cultivated for years.
Plugs, please: The Tamar of the River world premiere recording will be released this summer from Yellow Sound Label, featuring most of the original cast, including Margo Seibert (Adrian in Rocky) as Tamar. Check www.JoshuaHCohen.com and www.TamarOfTheRiver.com for details.

crossposted to Kanjy Blog

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Apr 17, 2014

I Interview Playwrights Part 652: Benjamin Brand

Benjamin Brand

Hometown: East Lyme, Connecticut 06333

Current Town: Los Angeles, California 90066

Q: Tell me about Taste.

A: Just over a decade ago, I read a news story about two men who met online. One wanted to eat another man, and another responded that he wanted to be eaten. At the time, I was writing only feature films, and Taste just poured out of me, as a real-time, single-location screenplay.

I’d never written anything as easily or as quickly before, nor have I since. I was drinking a lot of gunpowder tea at the time, but I don’t think that explains it.

For the next five years or so, I worked with a wonderful film producer, and we kept ALMOST getting the film made. There was a lot of excitement and a lot of heartache. Last year, my manager Adam Goldworm encouraged me to adapt it to a stage play, which was a pretty modest endeavor. There were some close-ups in the screenplay that required a line of dialogue here and there, but not much else. Perhaps I had written a stage play in the first place.

Stuart Gordon — who has a background in theater and film —got involved as the director, and Sacred Fools came along. Suddenly, I’m a first-time playwright.

Q: What else are you working on now?

A: I’m writing a miniseries for NBC about Eliot Ness’s time in Cleveland in the 1930s. In my spare time, I'm writing a kids “chapter book” about a boy, his crazy uncle, and the hunt for a lost treasure.

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, in public school, we studied ancient Egypt, and I was obsessed with the glory of the pyramids. At the same time, in Hebrew school, around Passover, we talked about the enslavement of the Jews in Mitzrayim. Sometime in third grade, I was shocked to discover that Egypt and Mitzrayim were actually the same place.

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: My artistic heroes — theatrical and otherwise — include Patricia Highsmith, Wallace Shawn, Mark E. Smith, Daniel Pinkwater, and Amos Vogel.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: Anything that makes me a little uncomfortable in my seat (aside from the seat itself).

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Apr 15, 2014

I Interview Playwrights Part 651: Christie Perfetti Williams

Christie Perfetti Williams

Hometown: Born and raised in Oswego, NY. Moved to NYC after college graduation and lived there for 11 years.

Current Town: Brick, NJ

Q: Tell me about An Appeal to the Woman of the House.

A: It's about a husband and wife who get a knock on their door one night and their lives are forever changed.

Q: What else are you working on now?

A: A novel...it's been a long time since I worked on one of those. It's fun and naughty.

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

A: Oh boy. Me in a nutshell?! As a kid, I used to insist that before we started a Barbie doll playing session, we had an outlined premise, conflict and conclusion. And God help the poor friend who deviated from it.

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

A: There need to be more and better parts for women. Period.

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: If Sam Shepard knocked on my door tonight, I'd runaway with him. My husband would understand.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: I love simple stories with great dialogue. Sets, costume, funky gels - I don't need all of that. The barebones of theater turns me on.

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

A: Write your hearts out. And don't stop.

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