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1100 Playwright Interviews

1100 Playwright Interviews A Sean Abley Rob Ackerman E.E. Adams Johnna Adams Liz Duffy Adams Tony Adams David Adjmi Keith Josef Adkins Nicc...

Stageplays.com

May 31, 2014

CAN YOU COME?

In NYC

A reading of

Violent Bones
By Adam Szymkowicz
Directed by Jen Wineman

With lots of amazing actors too numerous to enumerate.

Fri June 13 at 4:30 pm

Violent Bones is about being young, successful and broken. Kidnappings, stabbings, novel writing, a SWAT team and lots of interns.

RSVP to readings (at) primarystages.org

Primary Stages 307 West 38th Street, Suite 1510 | New York, NY 10018

Also come see my play Clown Bar at the super fancy new space, The Box Starting mid June and running for 2 months on Saturdays. Tickets at www.pipelinetheatre.org


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May 29, 2014

I Interview Playwrights Part 662: Matt Moses



Matt Moses

Hometown: Marine Park and Bay Ridge, Brooklyn

Current Town: Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn

Q:  Tell me about The Cloud.

A:  It’s a comedy that takes place in the internet.

I was thinking of the internet as a sort of magical Shakespearean forest. The kind you see in As You Like It and Midsummer. In THE CLOUD characters use their smartphones and computers (and knowledge of each other’s passwords) to masquerade as one another.

Director Wes Grantom, the design team and a great group of actors have done a fantastic job of bringing it to life. It’s running at HERE until June 1st.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  The main things right now are rewriting a new play called Index Crimes. It’s about a NYC police officer who takes on his superiors after witnessing injustices within the department. I’m also working on a new play about a girl who comes to believe that she’s the love child of Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinksy.

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 dad’s a journalist. When I was about 7 I visited him when he was working at the Federal Courthouse in Manhattan during the trial of the Westies, a notorious Hell’s Kitchen based crime family. It was scary seeing the accused murderers and their family members in the courtroom. My father told me that if you look into a mobster’s eyes you can see that they’re dead inside.

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

A:  Would be great if there were more venues in the US that did large cast plays by American writers.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Pinter, Richard Nelson, Paula Vogel, Ken Prestininzi, Michael Frayn, Maria Irene Fornes, John Guare.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  All sorts really. I love great acting. I love when it’s funny. A good story is nice. Dense language skillfully navigated can be thrilling.

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

A:  Write good scenes.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Come see THE CLOUD at HERE Arts Center til June 1st. Link to tickets and show info is here: http://here.org/shows/detail/1432/

Also, I perform every Friday night at 10:30 at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in Chelsea with house group The Law Firm.


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May 28, 2014

I Interview Playwrights Part 661: Lucas Kavner


 
Lucas Kavner

Hometown: Plano, TX

Current Town: Brooklyn, NY

Q:  Tell me about Carnival Kids.

A:  It's about a Southern guy moving in with his son in Manhattan. I had the idea after seeing a dad doing laundry in my apartment's basement and his son was showing him how to use the machines, how to get a laundry card. The whole scene really stuck with me.

In my play the dad used to be a touring musician but stopped playing in his 20s, and he comes to New York City with only a vague job lead and the desire to spent time with his kid. Instead, everyone ends up falling down far stranger rabbit holes.

It's also about sex.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  I have a Sloan commission through E.S.T that I'm working on through the summer about the invention of chewing gum in Staten Island. A bunch of TV/Film things are in various stages of development, some of which I'm working on with my friend Nick Jones, another writer who has appeared on this very site.

Acting-wise I'm probably heading back on tour with this Stephen King/John Mellencamp musical I've been working on for about 3 years. This'll be the fourth iteration of it that I've been a part of.

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

A:  In 8th grade I moved to Plano, Texas from Los Angeles, California and struggled to make friends. I was angry and weird and said "dope" a lot, because everyone in California said "dope" at the time.

About halfway through the year our Texas History class was assigned a video project about the Whiskey Rebellion of 1791 and I took it very seriously. I found costumes, wrote a detailed script, really tried to make the production values stand out. Our group got close during the filming and they became some of my first friends in Texas.

When we screened the finished video for the class, it got an amazing response. Kids laughed! I felt great. But our teacher gave us a B-minus because we took "too many liberties with the history" and the group with the boring PowerPoint video got an A. After class I flipped out at the teacher and got sent to the principal.

In retrospect, I really have no idea what this says about me. Maybe I was far too passionate about the Whiskey Rebellion.

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

A:  We all say it, but affordability is just The Biggest Thing. If the people who actually LOVE theater, who are active members of the community, can't afford to see it, that's such a profound problem.

The affordability thing ends up playing into so many other things, too. Because when only old, rich white people can afford to see new plays then the plays have to cater to the old, rich white people. And that often leads to very boring plays.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  McDonagh's The Pillowman had a major impact on me early on. I had a rather life-altering experience working with Amy Herzog and Tamara Fisch on 'After the Revolution' at Williamstown. I love Kenneth Lonergan and Kneehigh and the Mad Ones. Sarah Burgess is a playwright I hope we'll be seeing a lot in the coming years. Also that Arthur Miller guy is cool.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Shows about real characters, rather than ones with Overarching Macro Messages in neon letters. Genuinely funny plays excite me, as do things I would never think to write myself -- L'Effet De Serge at Under the Radar from a few years ago always comes to mind. It was so simple: just a guy bringing some friends over to test out his weird inventions. But it was so endearingly honest and fun. When it comes down to it, I just really want to be entertained.

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

A:  Put up your own stuff. There are so many opportunities to do it -- apply to the Fringe, to Ars Nova's ANT Fest, for a slot at a comedy theatre. There's really no excuse for not putting your work up in NYC, if that's what you want to do.

See/do improv. There's a weird disconnect between the improv and theatre communities here, which I think should be bridged. Improv is often meant for comedy and comedy alone, but the best improv is also weirdly moving. Some of the best scenes I've ever seen onstage have been on improv stages, and I think it can really inform one's writing.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Carnival Kids runs June 5-28 at TBG Theatre. The wonderful Stephen Brackett directs. I also have a play for teens running this weekend at 52nd Street Project. They're the best.

And I perform made-up musicals with Hello every Friday night at 9:30 at the Peoples Improv Theater.


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May 23, 2014

Upcoming-- everything that's been announced online somewhere already

First is a reading of my brand new play I'm still revising.  Come see it with me in front of an audience for the first time.  Cast of thousands!  Under 90 minutes!

Violent Bones
directed by Jen Wineman
June 13 at 4:30 pm at
Primary Stages
307 W 38th St, NYC

You probably want to watch a video about my reading and the other readings by my incredibly talented writing group:


http://youtu.be/-D6vm51GwdQ


But wait, don't go yet.  What about productions?  Here are some.

Productions:

Clown Bar (remount of production #2)
Pipeline Theater
Opens June 14 at the Box, NYC



Nerve (production #15)
Paper Wing Theatre Fremont
Opens May 30th
Monterey, CA

Hearts Like Fists

Production #9
Tiny Engine
Durham, NC
Opens July 30

Production #10
Ad Astra Theatre Ensemble
Topeka, KS
Opens August 7

Production #11
California State University Fullerton
Fullerton, CA
Opens September 26

Production #12
Know Theatre of Cincinnati
Cincinnati, OH
Opens March 27, 2015

Production #13
Stephens College
Columbia, MO
Opens April 9, 2015

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May 16, 2014

I Interview Playwrights Part 660: Calamity West



Calamity West

Current City:  Chicago, Illinois

Q:  What are you working on now?


A:  I’m about to launch myself into a playwright’s initiative with Sideshow Theatre Company (Chicago.) They’re being gracious enough to provide me with a year of resources to write …whatever it is I want to write.

I just opened my adaptation of A Doll’s House (IBSEN IS DEAD) last week, so I haven’t had the luxury to dissect what this particular project is going to look like exactly…but I know it has something to do with America in the 1960’s…I know it’s going to explore fame, I know it’s going to explore personal exploitation, and I know it’s going to have something to do with addiction…

…beyond that…? I’m not quite sure (giggling while typing).

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

A:  Umm…there were woods in my backyard growing up.

My brother and I would play there a lot.

We would have to cross a bridge to get into the woods, but the moment we were there...? We could be whatever we wanted.

We created alternate universes in those woods.

We were hunters, gold miners, fur trappers…so yeah, I think it was the nature of that very safe, very small, very sacred wood that made me believe in The Imaginary…or…allowed me to believe that The Imaginary could be a reality.

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

A:  BECAUSE YOU ASKED, ADAM SZYMKOWICZ!

It feels like the fire of our artistic ancestors is systematically being put...the fuck…OUT. And it’s really, really disheartening.

I want us to change that.

We seem more concerned with script accessibility and personal gain than actually saying something worthwhile in our craft. I think about storefront theatre, right? I mean, storefront theatre was created to counteract the despondency attached to commercialized theatre. The hope in the storefront legacy was that it would eventually rub off on commercial theatre. But the opposite seems to have happened. Even critics don’t say anything critical anymore, they’re just writing consumer reports.
And just to water this down a bit, if we think about A Doll’s House, or The Crucible, or Dutchman… I mean, those works were made to piss people off. And they did! A lot! And we can franchise those works as much as we want and congratulate ourselves (or maybe DELUDE ourselves) into thinking that things have changed since then, but in a lot of ways things are exactly the same. So let’s talk about that. Let’s CREATE about that. Let’s CHALLENGE AUDIENCES about that.

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: ANNIE BAKER. Harold Pinter. Amiri Baraka. Sophocles. Spalding Gray. Lorraine Hansberry. Eugene O’Neill. Sarah Kane.

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

A: Most days I feel like I’m just starting out too. So I’ll give the advice I give myself:

#1 you don’t have to be poor to be a playwright

#2 you’ll create your best art when you’re taking care of your body and your relationships.

#3 don’t get a credit card

#4 don’t go to law school

#5 “As an artist, you’re constantly in a state of becoming. If you can remain in that state, then you’ll probably be all right.” – Bob Dylan

#6 if you want to be smarter than Steinbeck, Woolf, Lebowitz, Bukowski and Fitzgerald combined: don’t start smoking cigarettes. No matter how cool you think it will make you look, or how provocative you think it is, or how apropos you think it is for a writer to do, just don’t. You’ll never regret not smoking.

#7 if you have parents, be kind to them. Even when you get upset because they don’t seem to understand what you’re doing with your life…because let’s be honest…YOU don’t really know what you’re doing with your life (and I say that with admiration). Tell them you “love” them. Dedicate all your plays to them (at least the good ones). Because they’ve earned it. And without them, you literally wouldn’t be writing plays at all.

#8 Kick back.

#9 listen to Harold Pinter’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech/lecture at least once a month. It will be good for you, I promise.

#10 Be you. No one else is going to do it, so you should.

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May 11, 2014

I Interview Playwrights Part 659: Ariel Stess



Ariel Stess

Hometown: Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Current Town: Brooklyn, New York

Q:  Tell me about I'm Pretty Fucked Up.

A:  I’m Pretty Fucked Up, which will premiere at Clubbed Thumb’s Summerworks in June, is about three best friends who are ditching school to drive up into the mountains of New Mexico. It’s also about the students and staff back on campus who are dealing with an emergency lockdown. So the play is really about danger and freedom and captivity and responsibility.

The play started for me on a writer’s retreat with some Brooklyn College buds. I knew I wanted to write about this invincible, on-top-of-the-world feeling I recalled from sophomore year of high school when I first got my driver’s license. I remember driving around singing along to songs on a mixed tape and seeing the whole horizon in New Mexico stretch out before me and knowing that once my parents gave me the keys to the car, I could go anywhere and no one could stop me. So there is some of that in the play, kids driving around, feeling really free and in charge of their own lives, for the first time maybe ever. There is also a security guard back at school who is grappling with his role as protector during a big emergency.

The play, I think, also celebrates what can happen when nothing at all is happening, when we’re waiting for something to happen like when we’re driving, or flying, or waiting in elevators, or going out for recess. The play hangs out in those in-between moments, moments when we either choose to or are forced to relinquish control over what we’re doing, where we’re going, and why.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  I’m writing a monologue-diagram about Crown Heights with Mabou Mines, which I’ll be performing at the end of May. I haven’t appeared in my own stuff before and I never write one-person monologue plays. I read it to a few people last week and realized that reading it aloud helped me to touch base with what a story is, how simple it can be, and what it feels like to tell one. I’m also working on a full-length about seven 24 year-old women living in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.

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

A:  Theater should be more affordable. What can we do? We keep saying this. How do we solve this problem?

I would also like theater to find a way to help audiences approach new work, to help audiences approach plays with non-linear narratives, plays where time and space misbehave and misunderstand one another, plays that depict the shortcomings or the collapse or rebuilding of our communication structures. Plays that put us in precarious positions where we feel something that we are not accustomed to feeling. I don’t want plays to confuse people just for the heck of it. I am interested in theater that does not resolve the quagmire of our existence but rather carves out space to stew in it. I’d like theater to find a way to help cultivate audiences who can feel comfortable walking into these new narrative structures and sensations, and by comfortable I mean that they should feel proud and capable of sitting there and getting a little stirred up. I don’t want audiences to feel completely alienated or locked out of the art form. I don’t mean that we all need to speak like academics. I mean that we need to be able to circulate some tools to help audiences feel empowered to come try out new plays and new forms. I don’t quite know what those tools are. But I want theater to start thinking about it.

I know I know, I gave you two things but they both have to do with making theater more accessible, I think.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Let’s see, BECKETT. Chekhov, Buchner, Ibsen, Aeschylus, Pina Bausch.

Living heroes: MAC WELLMAN, WILL ENO, Erin Courtney, Robert Wilson, Richard Maxwell, Julia Jarcho, Edgar Oliver, Clubbed Thumb, Jeff Jones, Joanne Akalaitis, New Georges, the Bushwick Starr, and of course Little Theatre.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I just saw An Octoroon last night by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. An Octoroon does not resolve anything about racism and/or the history of slavery but rather it situates everyone inside of the building in a space where we must consider, confuse, misunderstand, regret, hate, reject, laugh, accept, weep, get defensive, get repentant, get confused, again, get guilty, laugh more, become ill, become whole, become fractured, and then steep in a disease we either don’t know how to or perhaps refuse to ameliorate or both or something else. The play does not solve any problems for anyone in the house. It immerses us in the mess we are in. And it makes us all feel. And it is completely surprising. It keeps shifting under us.

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

A:  Put up your own work on your fire escape and invite some friends who you trust to come see. And invite friends who you trust to be in it. And be kind to yourself. As Mac Wellman says, when you sit down to write, “put on your genius hat”. Also I think it’s important to start out messy. Make strange shapes.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  I’m Pretty Fucked Up directed by Kip Fagan at the Wild Project June 13th – 22nd
http://www.clubbedthumb.org/im-pretty-fucked-up/

Crown Heights Project at Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center May 26th - June 1st
http://www.maboumines.org/productions/2014-resident-artist-program

Heartbreak at the Bushwick Starr in May 2015.
No link yet because it is too far away…

**

Upcoming work by friends:

The Food was Terrible by William Burke at the Bushwick Starr May 14 – 31st.
http://www.thebushwickstarr.org/CurrentSeason.html

New Georges Jam on Toast – check out all of these plays at Dixon Place May 14th – 31st!
http://www.newgeorges.org/featured/2014-dont-mean-to-boast-its-jam-on-toast/

41-Derful written and directed by Jenny Schwartz at the Wild Project May 30th – June 8th
http://www.clubbedthumb.org/41-derful/

Nomads written by Julia Jarcho directed by Alice Reagan at Incubator Arts Project May 30 - June 15
http://www.incubatorarts.org/nomads.html

16 Words or Less written by Peggy Stafford directed by Portia Krieger at the Wild Project June 26th – July 5th
http://www.clubbedthumb.org/16-words-or-less/


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May 1, 2014

I Interview Playwrights Part 658: Amina Henry


Amina Henry

Hometown: White Plains, NY

Current Town: Sunnyside, Queens

Q:  Tell me about Happily Ever.

A:  HAPPILY EVER is a dark fairy tale based, in a somewhat tangential way, on Shakespeare's play TWO NOBLE KINSMEN. It's a meditation on romantic love. I think romantic love is something that all of us, particularly women, want, but the play is really about how damaging our ideas about love can be to our self-esteem, and how destructive these idealized notions can sometimes be for real-life relationships.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  In my Bookshop Workshop writing group, I'm working on a play about a Jamaican dancehall queen competition that takes place in Pittsburgh - there will be a reading in June so I suppose I should finish my first draft. I'm excited about it because it's the first time I've ever included elements of my Jamaican-American identity in my work as a playwright... I'm just about finished with a first draft of a play about a homeless man and the ghost of a murdered prostitute. I began writing it thinking it would be the libretto to an opera, but now I think it may just be a play with a lot of poems. We shall see. The Salt Makers is a fun experiment with Noh drama that I've been working on with several very talented folks and we'll present what we've got so far at the Little Theater series at Dixon Place on May 12th. I'm also working on a modern re-telling of Cinderella. Also, I'm researching for projects I have on the back burner. I like to stay busy.

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 10 and in the 5th grade I had a best friend who had a huge crush on a boy at our school. This boy had a girlfriend, but I took it upon myself to manufacture a romance between the boy and my friend, writing long letters to my friend presumably from the boy, giving her little presents and telling her that he'd given them to me to give to her, making up lengthy conversations that I had presumably had with the boy about how much he wanted to break up with his girlfriend and be with her. It made her so happy and after a certain point I didn't know how to tell her the truth because this fiction I had created made her so happy! At 10, I felt that telling this lie was for the 'greater good' in some way. Since then I have continued to write fictions that I hope make people happy - or, at the very least, make people feel SOMETHING.

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

A:  More inclusion. A greater diversity of people being a part of the theater experience would be amazing.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Eek - this is such a hard question! I'll give you who first pops into mind because there are so many. William Shakespeare. Henrik Ibsen. Frantz Kreutz. Bertolt Brecht. Adrienne Kennedy. Lorraine Hansberry. Edward Albee. Eugene Ionesco. Suzan-Lori Parks. Mac Wellman. MAC WELLMAN. Erin Courtney. Ethan Lipton. Young Jean Lee. Jackie Sibblies Drury. Sibyl Kempson. Marc Bamuthi Joseph. And that's just playwrights. There are many other theater makers - directors, actors, ensemble groups, producers, theater companies - that are creating culturally relevant, lovely work that interests me such as Universes, Rady&Bloom Collective Playmaking, Rehabilitation through the Arts, Marc Bamuthi Joseph and The Living Word Project, The Civilians, Pearl d'Amour, New York City Players, Nature Theater of Oklahoma, Morgan Gould and Friends, everything that is Clubbed Thumb...to name a few. I am also very inspired by a lot of visual artists who have a certain amount of theatricality or drama in their work.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I don't like smug theater, so any theater that isn't SMUG in this pretentious "aren't we so smart, we totally GET it" kind of way is something that excites me. I'm excited by theater that makes me feel included. I'm excited by honesty, earnestness, bravery, experiments with form that are rigorous and mindful - theater that poses challenging questions rather than providing easy answers. I love to laugh, and cry and feel all the feelings, so theater that makes me feel is very exciting also.

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

A:  Read books. Experience culture - literature, art, music, theater, dance, tv. I rather enjoy going to museums. Be aware of what's going on in the world, and not just the theater world. Write as much as you think you can, and then write MORE. Work hard at it. Surround yourself with people who delight you and also challenge you. Also, find a way to make money other than writing plays - playwrights don't make money writing plays.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Happily Ever, Brooklyn College, May 2-6
http://tickets.brooklyncenter.com/eventperformances.asp?evt=73

The Salt Makers, Little Theater at Dixon Place, May 12
http://www.timeout.com/newyork/theater/little-theatre-1

Also, some of my theatrical colleagues have things coming up:

The Food Was Terrible by William Burke, Bushwick Starr, May 14-31
http://www.thebushwickstarr.org/

A Beautiful Day in November on the Banks of the Greatest of Great Lakes by Kate Benson, Dixon Place, May 16-31
http://dixonplace.org/performances/new-georges-presents-the-new-georges-jam-on-toast/

Let Me Ascertain You, "F*cking and Dying", The Civilians, Joe's Pub @ The Public, May 17
http://thecivilians.org/programs/index.html

Nomads by Julia Jarcho & Alice Reagan, Incubator Arts Project, May 30 - June 15
http://www.incubatorarts.org/nomads.html




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