I Interview Playwrights Part 671: Ruby Rae Spiegel

 
Ruby Rae Spiegel

Hometown: Brooklyn, NY

Current Town: New Haven, CT

Q:  Tell me about your play on the Kilroys List.

A:  Yes! It’s called DRY LAND, and it’s actually going to be produced this September by the fantastic young group, Colt Coeur, and I’m going to be working on it this summer with Adrienne Campbell-Holt, my director, at New York Stage and Film’s Powerhouse workshop, and then at the Ojai Playwright’s Conference.

DRY LAND is my first ever full-length play, which is about two girls on a swim team in central Florida attempting to abort one of the girl’s pregnancy. One of the ways DRY LAND was born (an awkward pun) is that I’ve swum all my life (I was on a swim team for a good chunk of middle school— impressive, I know), and have always found pools and locker rooms fascinating—the echoes, the pattern of the tile on the floors when you swim, the way the female body looks in a racing bathing suite and a swim cap (etc.). I find myself drawn in my writing to settings that are on the periphery—half of my last play was set in a bathroom at a Barmitzvah—so the girl’s locker room felt like a natural choice.

The more emotional core of the play came from a feeling that I had about a year and a half ago after I had had sex with someone that I liked, but wasn’t particularly close with, and was afraid that I had become pregnant. That intense feeling of aloneness, that the problem affected me and only me and that it resided in my body, literally on my person, was really startling and stuck in my mind for a while after the possibility of pregnancy was a material concern. The final puzzle piece was when I read an article in The New Republic called “The Rise of the DIY Abortion,” and I saw theatrical potential in the kind of intimate bodily acts that are demanded of you if you attempt to abort a fetus non-surgically. Also from a political standpoint I found it interesting that articles that detail these realities are somewhat common, but seeing them embodied is somehow too close to that experience. Of course many women do embody that reality, so maybe showing it on stage could be a kind of radical form of empathy for that surprisingly common, yet often silence experience. So bringing those pieces together, the aesthetic interest in pools, the personal emotional connection, and the interesting political and theatrical story I saw in the article, created the groundwork for the play as it stands now.

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I’m working on writing the script for a short film by the artist, Chris Rubino based off of a Donald Barthelme short story. A friend from school connected us and I was just really excited about his vision for the project, and the challenge of both adapting something and writing for film— neither of which I’ve done before.

Q:  Tell me a story from your childhood that influenced who you are as a writer or as a person.

A:  This story actually kind of relates to the subject of DRY LAND. So my mom brought me to a pro-choice rally when I was like four or five, and I was pretty bored at first— it was crowded and loud and not the most kid friendly place. But about halfway through I perked up and started chanting along with the crowd. My mom was so proud—they were chanting, “What do we want? Choice! When do we want it? Now!” I was halving a blast, shouting at the top of my lungs, and then my mom put me on her shoulders. She soon realized that I wasn’t actually shouting the real words. I was yelling, “What do we want? Toys! When do we want them? Now!” (I thought it was a pro-toys rally.)
This relates only tangentially to my writing— but I misspell almost every other word I write (I’m dyslexic) and I’ve found that some kind of wonderful things actually come out of it. Spell-check thinks that I mean a different word, and oftentimes I end up keeping the misunderstanding because it was actually better than the word I first intended. Not that a pro-toys rally is better than a pro-choice rally, but you get what I mean.

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

A:  I would make it free. Or at least super cheap. I know everyone pretty much says this, but it just shows how important it is!

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Right now my biggest heroes are Annie Baker and Sarah Kane. How I Learned To Drive by Paula Vogel was my first favorite play, and the Shipment by Young Jean Lee changed the way I saw the political reach of theater. A lot of my artistic heroes are actually conceptual artists and photographers, like Lorna Simpson, Carrie Mae Weems, Glenn Ligon and Cathy Opie, because they constantly teach me about the intersection between form, aesthetics, and content. Also I think the short story has a lot to teach about theater.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Good theater. I know that sounds somewhat stubborn, but I think I’ll like anything, from a splashy Broadway musical to a five hour long performance piece in a parking lot if they’re done well. Seeing something executed brilliantly is always exciting.

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

I don’t feel like I am at a place to be giving out much advice, since I’m still trying to figure it out myself— but the one big thing I’ve learned is not to take too much advice in general. Try things out, see if they work for you, but always listen to what you feel you need even if it seems strange. I’ve been told many times to try to make a schedule for myself where I write every day for a few hours. I’ve tried it, and it just doesn’t work for me. Maybe my advice is to not take too much advice from people who have a strong sense of the “right” way to do it. This isn’t a radical position, but I definitely don’t think there is one right way to work!

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  A reading of DRY LAND for Powerhouse at Vassar on July 27th at noon, and another reading at the Ojai Playwrights Conference on August 10th also at noon.
AND the Colt Coeur production from September 6-26 at HERE Art’s Center in Soho!

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I Interview Playwrights Part 670: Gabrielle Reisman

Gabrielle Reisman

Hometown: New Orleans, LA / Urbana, IL

Current Town: Brooklyn, NY

Q:  Tell me about your play in the Kilroys List.

A:  CATCH THE WALL follows a pair of middle school girls in New Orleans as they try to make a bounce music video to honor the memory of a slain local MC. It also follows their young Teach For America teachers, who struggle to enforce a button-down charter school culture in the laissez-faire climate of New Orleans.

Before going back to grad school, I worked for several years as a teaching artist in New Orleans public schools. Public education after Katrina was a massive pedagogical experiment. After 2005 most (now all) of the public schools in the city became public charter schools. Their survival was dependent on their ability to raise standardized test scores fast. Most schools I worked in were staffed with first or second year teachers with Ivy League liberal arts degrees and no formal teacher training. Schools lauded these young teachers’ educations over their local counterparts’. We repeated call and response mantras like, “Where are we going?” “We’re going to college!” We never talked much about what college actually was. There was something overtly classist about it. There was a fairly large communication gap. So much of what my student's said was misunderstood and misinterpreted by these new transplant teachers.

One of the cultural clashes I saw most was over students’ relationship to bounce music. Bounce is a super fast New Orleans strain of hip-hop. Dance music. Bounce is loud, raunchy, unapologetically local, and beloved by most kids I taught. The kids in CATCH THE WALL run bounce as a form of resistance, a push back in part on the rigidity of their school, but also a tribute to where they are from- a basic call and response to be seen.

There are no easy answers in education reform. New Orleans is a city where contradictory things are true all at once and on top of each other. And then we celebrate that. I’ve heard CATCH THE WALL described as a “sprawling, thumping amoeba.” It is a wild play- a dance club crashes down on a classroom, a janitor strips off his uniform and becomes a charter school founder, a ghost inhabits the body of a young teacher. Quite a bit of the play lives in the imagination of these students and teachers. It’s lawless, in a lot of ways, and asks a lot of open-ended questions.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  I'm working on a draft right this moment of a three woman adaptation of KING LEAR called STORM, STILL. where Lear's daughters play all the characters for each other in their father's backyard. It's part eulogy- Lear has just died- and part chid's game of pretend. It's pretty fast, and funny, with a lot of swapping of men's hats, and reinterpreted Shakespearian soliloquies, and everyone in the audience eating BBQ chicken and drinking sherry at some point.

THE PANAMA LIMITED is another fast paced piece that I'm working on about transformation, and the ways we build relationships from shared fantasies, and parrots. There's a queer couple that are failing at having an affair, and a pair of train hoppers looking for a fabled community to home them. All four take a trip to a wet Southern city where their tracks all begin to intersect. There's a couch that becomes a boxcar that becomes a hotel bed that becomes a boat. There's some fire shooting from people's hands, and people taking mercury. Sometimes it's a little sexy and sometimes it's a little sad.

I also write collectively with Underbelly, a multiple playwright/designer collaboration that builds journey plays in forgotten spaces. We're in the very beginnings of a new piece about the Dust Bowl. We're hoping to workshop that a little in Austin in September.

Later this summer, I'm planning to wade into a brand new play about miracles and disaster politics, and about the ways we live in the aftermath of natural and man made disasters called ST. BRIAN OF PERPETUAL LIGHT.

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

A:  When I was about ten, the other neighborhood kids and I formed our own nation and quietly seceded from the United States. We called the country Anabru (the name of our hometown spelled backwards). We wrote up a constitution where kids could vote, and run businesses, and I guess theoretically drive cars. Only kids could hold public office. Once you entered puberty you had to resign from government as your capabilities for logic would be compromised by adulthood. Our neighborhood was sandwiched between the downtown and the railroad tracks. We garbage picked things for shanty cities, for a national detective agency, a short lived restaurant, an olympics. We signed treaties with other child nation states that emerged during Anabru's sovereignty. Every day was an exercise in recasting our pretty funky neighborhood as something magic, and mythic- recasting ourselves as founders, and rulers, and explorers. I served two terms as president then resigned. I'm still pretty invested in that kind of recasting.

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

A:  Demystify the resources. Talk openly about money. Artistic Directors and other gate keepers (but also really all of us): once a month take yourself on a date and go see a new play in a place you would never ever go to. Get off at the wrong subway stop and wander around in another neighborhood. Get lost more. Eat suspicious things. Say yes to strange places and new food and talk more to strangers and see if it opens up the way you are envisioning your own resources. Let both the art and the business of theatre be an exercise in hospitality.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Kirk Lynn for pushing me to eat more plays, and instilling an ethos that a rising tide lifts all boats. Lisa D'amour in the way she pushes for connectivity and inclusiveness in New Orleans and New York. Laurie Anderson. Naomi Wallace. Sybil Kempson. Jeff Becker. The Rude Mechs. The awesome playwrights at UT whose smart teaching and input made a massive impact on my plays. The Celebration Company at The Station Theatre, where I grew up making plays and seeing new work.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I love plays where the invitation is part of the performance. Plays that are funny and scary at the same time. Plays that queer space. Plays that are going on the journey with me and maybe don't know everything. Also singing and dancing. I've been really, really into singing and dancing lately. I'm beginning to think it's the best, and maybe everything should just be a song.

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

A:  Make your own work. Put your plays up on their feet in your yard or basement or out on the street. You will learn so much as a writer an theatre maker. Be friendly. Be hospitable. Say thank you. It you want to go to grad school, take a couple years off first. Get a job that's not in the theatre. Make things with your hands. Work, work, write, travel, listen, read plays, see plays, talk to strangers, expand your taste. Listen. listen.

Q:  Plugs, please:
A:  Underbelly as a company, but also Katie Bender and Abe Koogler, the two amazing writers who I collaborate with. They are so dang good! Read their plays now!
Will Davis, who is such a super smart director and theatre thinker. Also Sarah Saltwick, Basil Kreimendahl, Arron Carter's kick-ass plays.

Theatre makers in New Orleans! There is so much vibrant, risk-taking work getting down in this city. Goat in the Road, The NOLA Project, Southern Rep, Skin Horse, ArtSpot. The New Orleans Fringe Festival

NNPN's New Play Exchange.

My brother Walker's new restaurant, Kebab. My brother, Morgan Orion, who is a brilliant singer-songwriter.   

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I Interview Playwrights Part 669: Mac Wellman

Mac Wellman

Hometown: Cleveland, Ohio.

Current Town: Brooklyn, NY.

Q: Tell me about your upcoming reading at New Works Brooklyn.

A: Apropos of THE OFFENDING GESTURE:

Item.
In Helsinki in 1941 Tor Borg’s dog, named Jackie, was able to perform the Nazi salute– when his master said “Heil Hitler”. Somehow this came to be known by the Germans, who were outraged, and summoned a meeting to discuss the matter with Finnish authorities. (This scene is presented in the play.)

Item.
Iraq was indeed created by one Winston Churchill in the 20's. It can be argued that it is an unworkable nation as such, and never ought to have been made in the first place as the three main nationalities (Sunfish, Shits and Turds in the doggish world) of Sunnie, Shiites, and Kurds have little in common but a palpable hostility.

Item.
Adolf does mean “Noble Wolf”, and his favorite joke is the one recounted, and likewise for his favorite movie. The legend of the “Corn-wulf” is an old German one, and Germany is “The Land of Evening”.

Item.
But the dogs however sweet and loveable are not much when it comes to abstract thinking– their logic is sincere, but very doggish. Jackie’s desire to save Finland from invasion by redirecting Noble Wolf’s ire elsewhere is however understandable. Churchill’s bulldog “Wuffles” is, as she reveals a fabrication, but as such it does the job.

Item.
The Nazi party was indeed the first party of No– as Noble Wolf admitted on several occasions, but it surely was not the last. Oddly, Noble Wolf and his top Nazis wrote down very little– they knew it might not be wise considering many of their policies. Hence, the strange practice known as “working towards the leader” which involved trying to intuitively grasp what the Leader (Fuhrer) wanted done.

Item.
The moon cats observed and comment on the dogs’ predicament with a mixture of scorn and sympathy. I imagine I’d ask either Michael Roth or David Van Tieghem to do the music. Once that is done we’d figure out how too split up the moon-cats’ tercets

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:   Taking notes on various things, poetry and a novel, not a play. And a Morphology of Small Errors (political)....

Q:  What can you tell me about the MFA program you run at Brooklyn College?

A:  You should ask others about this as well! I have little regard for notions of "creative writing", and try to get students to learn how to think (no one can teach them how to write!) and how to learn on their own, but as part of a generation (their own).

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 once walked around our house backwards because according to my parents I "wanted to see what it looks like".

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

A:  Invent ways of doing theater that were not dependent on a craven and mediocre press. Furthermore, the corporate obsession with the bottom-line is a terrible problem with our theater.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Just look at the folks you interview

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theater that is alive in the moment....

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

A:  Don't listen to your elders-- except obviously for me.

Q: Plugs, please:

A: Recent ones: Benson, Burke, Jarcho, Stess-- all terrific.

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I Interview Playwrights Part 668: Ross Howard

Ross Howard

Hometown: Wigan, Lancashire (UK)

Current Town: London

Q:  Tell me about Picture Ourselves in Latvia.

A:  Well, it’s billed as a contemporary comedy on contemporary England. Where “Desires are suppressed and aspirations muddled for both the staff and patients of a psychiatric ward. Rank and rule clash with what the heart and mind want in this environment of division and distraction”. And that pretty much nails it. People should still go though because I haven’t given too much away there. I always liked how Lorca depicted Spain in THE HOUSE OF BERNARDA ALBA. That’s not all he achieves in that play, but I remember his example, in particular, and the aspect of an environment with a sort of metaphorical framework having a lasting impression on me. So that was my starting point or seed if you like. It’s about some men and some women living among one another and all the inner and outer noise and physical and mental confines that come with that. And if we’re going to be even broader about it, it’s about England. Maybe the New York audiences will think “And America too probably”. And I could see that, having spent some time there. Anyway, that’s my play. You’ll have to see what the relevance of Latvia is. I’ve also been told it’s very funny. I should mention that. It’ll be my third collaboration with the brilliant Sarah Norris. Sarah directed the New York production of my play ARTHUR AND ESTHER back in 2007 and last year with the company she co-founded, New Light Theater Project, she directed my short play FRISKY & THE PANDA MAN at the Samuel French Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival. We were fortunate enough to be named one of the five winning finalists with that. So we’re looking forward to this a lot and we hope people like it.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  Two things. A slightly surrealist family drama about a Latin American immigrant family in the US called HYENAS IN THE BACKYARD. All about narrative and owning memory, family, identity and all that kind of thing. Perhaps you'd call it "postcolonial".  I saw that definition the other day and it sort of fits with what I've been doing. Also the characters are predominantly female. So that’s interesting for me. The play’s been knocking about in my head for a couple of years, so it was about time I got going on it. And then I’m also working on a solo piece about a female life coach just starting out and that's entitled LET’S GET DIFFERENT (WITH TINA WINDERMERE). I'm enthused about both plays and I'm optimistic they’ll both be ready by the end of the year

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

A:  It’s not a story per se, but growing up in England, where by comparison people don’t directly say what they really want to say, means you’re sort of born into the task of trying to figure out what the hell it is people want you to do, or not do, or you are trying to decipher what they want for themselves. It’s a pretty good grounding for writing for the stage, I think. I should also add that moving to the US in my 20s and living among Americans, as I did for a time, gave me the pathological optimism you need to make playwriting some sort of vocation, despite all its obstacles. That might not be quite what you're after but I think that combination explains why I’m a playwright today.

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

A:  It’s a shame it’s too expensive to put on plays. On the whole, theatre needs considerable funding, and then on a certain level, the need for funding perhaps influences the content of the work that would attract funding. And then we get into this business of social initiative-led work (not as a whole a bad thing) or where a play’s topic seems a little more important than the quality of the work. I’m assuming that’s the reason behind a lot of poorer stuff we see anyway. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt here. But we've all got to find ways around this and I'm sure the smart people out there will find them.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  I admire a lot of playwrights, and I have to say most are American, so congratulations on that front. But if you’re going to use the word “heroes”, then Chekhov and Arthur Miller in particular stand out. They both wrote with a great conscience and compassion but neither one of them were afraid of throwing their characters under a bus when it came time to. I think those are good principles to write plays by.

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

A:  Be patient. Take an interest in everyone you meet. You should anyway, let's face it. But write as much as you can and in different ways. Stretch yourself. Read and watch a lot of plays. Get to know and listen to actors. Write a play while always bearing in mind that the reader is in no way obligated to finish it, so you have to make them want to. Then more broadly, imagine what your ideal body of work will say about you and be specific about what you want it to look like and proceed with that in mind and take responsibility for it. It is true that collaborations and connections are important, and you need opportunities and breaks and favours from others, but to have something that you’re solely responsible for will keep you focused and independent and it will always be something to come back to and to gain confidence and move forward from. And you’ll probably find through doing that, you’re going to attract other people, collaborators and opportunities to you anyway. From there, as you were: Be patient, take an interest in everyone you meet and repeat. Those are my main things.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  PICTURE OURSELVES IN LATVIA is presented by New Light Theater Project and runs at the Access Theater, New York from July 10 through to August 9. Also NO ONE LOVES US HERE, ARTHUR AND ESTHER and my collection of short plays OUR WALK THROUGH THE WORLD are now available and published by Samuel French.

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I Interview Playwrights Part 667: Susan Ferrara

Susan Ferrara

Hometown: Chicago

Current Town: New York

Q:  Tell me about your play at TerranNOVA.

A:  It’s called THE WONDER. It’s a solo piece that follows a New Yorker through the city on an ordinary Tuesday morning: the ordinary people we meet, the ordinary things we see on an extraordinary day.

It’s a story that’s been rattling around in my brain for a while so I’m looking forward to sharing and performing it. I’m extremely lucky to have two amazing directors collaborating with me, Julie Ann Emery and Kevin Earley.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  I finished THE WONDER rather quickly and am working on a new draft of a play called, THE SILVER KITCHEN PLAY, a conversation with memory that takes place in a run-down Chicago kitchen. Also outlining episodes for a new web series (MEAN SECRETARY) and researching a play about women war reporters called THE FIELD.

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

A:  Growing up, we had this huge picture window and every summer I’d watch my dad mow the lawn in shower shoes, a speedo and a button-down shirt – opened and tied in a Carmen Miranda-like knot at his waist – while all the kids on the block sat on the curb, watched and laughed. He chain-smoked Camels. Would smoke them until the ash reached the filter, then he’d flip them in the driveway. If he thought something looked good, he did it, wore it, said it – the whole shebang. I grew up watching and listening to him; watching everything. My dad mowing the lawn in a speedo is nothin’. I’d like to say that story is simply his calling card. There are a million stories about my dad problem solving in a way you wouldn’t expect. And I kinda love that.

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

A:  Nothing. Theatre has always been what it is. The reflection changes, the challenges may adjust to the reflection – but that’s theatre. With what we have available to us, we always figure out a way to write, produce and bring to life our stories.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Ruth Gordon, Kathryn Hunter. Too many to list. Buzz Goodbody, definitely. And then there are all my friends, my husband; the people I know and love, whose work inspires me daily.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  The kind of theatre that makes me feel like I’m eavesdropping. Or sitting in the audience watching while the entire production is whispering “WATCH THIS”. Anything that makes me feel like I’m nine years old watching the ballet for the first time.

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

A:  Surround yourself with supportive people who challenge you to be the best version of yourself. Live a life. Have a laugh. Be kind.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  susanferrara.com

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I Interview Playwrights Part 666: Steve DiUbaldo

Steve DiUbaldo

Current Town: Brooklyn, NY.

Q:  Tell me about your play you're having read at Terranova.

A:  It’s called “Boomer’s Millennial Hero Story.” It will have its reading at The Cherry Lane on June 16th at 3PM as part of TerraNOVA's Groundworks series. Jenna Worsham is directing.

Here’s a blurb! --

A down-home, piano-playing American Storyteller of the Boomer Generation guides us through the "heroic" first twenty-five years of “Millennial” Montgomery Walter’s life. From a childhood full of trophies and medical over-diagnosis and self-esteem building, to 9/11 to the market crash to Occupy Wall Street, this raucous vaudevillian journey takes a dark absurdist look at class, generational cause-and-affect, and American folklore in a world where ideas never truly die.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  I am currently beginning the process of collaborating with a composer on a folk-blues album/score that will accompany my play, “Under The Water Tower.” Next month I’ll be going to North Carolina to hang out with my old AAU basketball team as research for a new play I’ve been working on about kids from varying socio-economic backgrounds who share a hotel room at a tournament while vying for division-1 college basketball scholarships, with the slimy backdrop of the NCAA recruiting world. I am developing those with The Middle Voice – Rattlestick’s apprentice company – who RULE.

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 was always moving, usually at the end of a semester or school year. I spent a lot of Christmas and/or Summer breaks in a new place, daydreaming about what my new school would be like, the kinds of friends I would make, and especially the kinds of girls there’d be. And I’d spend time missing all the people I had just left behind, wondering what they were doing. I didn’t discover my love for writing until I was about 19 or 20, but by then I’d had years of practice conjuring characters and places and events and seeing how close the reality was to my imagination… as well as filling in my own blanks of what the people I left behind had become by now. And then Facebook ruined all that, but luckily I had fallen in love with writing by then. I still find myself dreaming of the new and aching for the old, in my work and in my life.

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

A:  Tickets cost too much and nobody gets paid enough and I wish more people saw plays who weren’t in the theater. That’s a three-for-one!

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  The not boring kind. That’s cheeky but I mean it! I like plays that must be plays, made specifically for the stage. Plays that ask big questions and challenge an audience to think, but don’t push an agenda. I like characters who are trying hard to be good people. Anything that makes me glad I went to the theater instead of laying in bed watching Netflix. I love poetry and the inherently American. Gross, funny, vulgar, ballsy, weird, sexy, dangerous…

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

A:  I should really be asking this question, and not answering it. From what I hear, and what I tell myself -- keep submitting work, don’t compare or compete with other writer’s journeys, find a way to make your own theater, and most of all, surround yourself with amazing people – people who are smart and kind and talented and who genuinely like your work and you likes theirs too. Patience. And, much like the rest of life, never become an asshole because things are going great or because things are going not so great. Work your ass off and don’t take advantage of your gift. We’re lucky to have found this.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Check out TerraNova’s “Groundworks” Series. TerraNova is an AWESOME place. The people there are tops. And if you don’t know these writers, get to know them and see their work. They’re great and I couldn’t be prouder to have been a part of it.

http://www.terranovacollective.org/groundworks-new-play-series-2014.html

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I Interview Playwrights Part 665: Judy Tate

Judy Tate

Hometown: Chicago, Illinois

Current Town: New York City

Q:  Tell me about your upcoming show at the The Kitchen Theater.

A:  It's called Slashes of Light and it is the coming of age story of a young girl in the 1960's in an all-black private school on the South Side of Chicago and her relationship with her friend, a budding radical; her smoldering crush; and the new white history teacher who comes to town to teach them.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  I have several projects going. Some are writing projects and others are education projects. I am the producing artistic director of The American Slavery Project, and the co-artistic director of a theatre company for kids at risk,  sponsored by Manhattan Theatre Club's education program called Stargate.  You can look at the video here:http://www.manhattantheatreclub.com/education/stargate/

Q:  Tell me about the American Slavery Project.

A:  The American Slavery Project is a "theatrical response" to revisionism in this country's discourse around slavery, the Civil War and Jim Crow. We support work about the era by African descended writers.  We were founded in 2011 in recognition of the sesquicentennial of the Civil War and the dearth of work on NY Stages about the era from our own perspective and in our own voice. ASP has produced staged readings by several award-winning writers and created an original piece called "Unheard Voices" which brings life to the African descended men, women and children slaves, free people and indentured servants who lived their lives on the streets of New York during colonial times.

Our website is: http://www.americanslaveryproject.org

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 8 years old my parents bought me a "Showboat". It was a replica of the steam paddle boats that would go up and down the Mississippi doing plays. It had scenery you could change, characters on little pedestals and a book of scripts. It fascinated me and I played with it for hours-- directing my play characters, reading all the parts. Then, after looking at those scripts, I decided I was going to write my own and adapted a story to be performed. It was Rumplestilskin. I dressed my sister up in green leotards and tights and put pointy ears on her. Then I hired all the other characters from kids on our block. The king, the towns-people, et al. I played the princess, of course, and I gave myself a song.  "I can't spin this straw, straw, straw, straw into gold"! We toured backyards throughout the block!

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

A:  It would be cheaper and more inclusive.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  I don't have heroes. Especially not in theatre. I don't like the idea of icons and pedestals.  In my mind people who live ordinary lives in what we look back on as extraordinary times - like during enslavement in this country - those people might qualify as heroes. People who made it out of concentration camps, or walked their families out of war torn countries like Rwanda, got out of the south alive during Jim Crow - they're maybe heroes.  But not theatrical people. That being said, I have a lot of respect for many theatrical people for various reasons. Among them, Lee K. Richardson & Ricardo Khan along with Louise Gorham, who founded Crossroads theatre, Eugene Lee who founded the Black and Latino Playwrights Festival, Woodie King, who founded The New Federal Theatre, Stella Adler who taught acting and respect for the playwright, Keith Josef Adkins, playwright and founder of The New Black Fest and many, many writers of plays and fiction. Among them: Toni Morrison, José Rivera, Lorraine Hansberry, Ntozake Shangé, August Wilson. Harvey Fierstein, Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins, Cassandra Medley, Cori Thomas, Alexander Thomas, Harrison Rivers, `all of the writers of the American Slavery Project's "Unheard Voices".

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Work that pinpoints and then illuminates a specific feeling, attitude, time or cultural phenomenon. Theatre that awakens understanding in me. Theatre in which I can get lost. I like theatre with complex characters. But I also like many different forms. I work in realism with a little magic thrown in, but I like other styles, as well.

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

A:  Write a lot. Re-write a lot. Tuck a play away and visit it a long time later.  You'll see new things.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Slashes of Light runs from June 11 - 29 at The Kitchen Theatre in Ithaca, NY
http://www.kitchentheatre.org/slashes.html

The American Slavery Project can be viewed at:
http://www.americanslaveryproject.org

Stargate Theatre Company performs Saturday August 16thVisit http://www.manhattantheatreclub.com/education/stargate/

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I Interview Playwrights Part 664: Sukari Jones

Sukari Jones

Hometown: Oxon Hill, MD

Current Town: Brooklyn, NY

Q:  Tell me about Location, Location, Location!!!!.

A:  “LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION!!!!” is a story about a 9yr old physics prodigy, Asali, who doesn’t want her mom, Gladys, to die. To save her mother, Asali builds a time machine, but she breaks it, and in the end learns that schematics and equations don’t always add up to the solution to a problem. Because time breaks everything. This is the hardest thing I’ve ever written. It’s my first straight play. And it hits way too close to home. I don’t know if it’s any good, but I know it was good for me to get it out of my bloodstream. I’m very scared that people are going to actually see it. Very terrified. And very relieved.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  Only musicals, and both with composer Ben Krauss: #1 is a trio of 20min pieces about people in motion, traveling from uncertainty and, unbeknownst to themselves, into danger; #2 is a Motown-sound adaptation of Othello where the protagonist is the leader of a dysfunctional 4-man band, trying to “crossover” as a successful Black soul artist in the 1960s.

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 will cut and paste a lyric I wrote with Eric Day that accurately describes my life. The song is called “It’s All About Me”

I am seven

And today, Mom is taking me to Oxon Hill farm

Today is the day I almost die

But don't worry

I don't die

I am smiling

Cause today, mom will buy me lemonade in a red cup

Today is the day I will dance with a llama

Don't be jealous

Llama llama llama

It's all about me

La la la la la la

It's all about me--yeah yeah

We're gonna feed the ducks today

Ducks are my favorite

It's all about ducks

And it's all about me

I am holding

Out my hand

Full of twelve day old bread

But this duck is trying to eat me instead

Maybe I'm too delicious

Maybe the bread's too stale

Stop it duck! Don't eat me! This girl is not for sale!

Mom!

Help!

I'm dying and ripping my dress!-No!

Mom!

Save me!

S-o-s-o-s-o-s-o-s-Oh!

I think of my tombstone--Of all the luck

Here lies Sukari: Eaten by a duck

Mom is laughing cause she doesn't care

That I could have died today

I hate my Mom. I hate all Mamas

I even hate the llamas

Yes I am cool. Yes I am free

But mom didn't help

My life's up to me

It's all about me— La la la la la la

It's all about me—yeah yeah

From now on I know

From now on I see

Wow…It's all about me

La la la la la la...la!

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

A:  That I wasn’t the sole person of color in the audience and/or cast 99% of the time I go out to see a show.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Henry Krieger, Bill Finn, Michael John LaChiusa, Jeanine Tesori, Jerome Kern, August Wilson, Lynn Nottage.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theater that uses the stage as a lab to do an experiment. To investigate something. To test out something wacky. Theater that makes everybody uncomfortable, and then you ask yourself why? And you learn something about yourself you didn’t know. Theater dabbling in sci-fi, that tackles race, class, gender at all. Everything Exit Pursued By a Bear does. Theater where I can afford a ticket to the show.

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I Interview Playwrights Part 663: Mfoniso Udofia

Mfoniso Udofia

Hometown: Southbridge, MA

Current Town: Newark, NJ

Q:  Tell me about your play you're having read at Terranova on the 23rd.

A:  runboyrun, is the 3rd play in the Ufot Family Cycle. This play follows an older married couple who, for the past 30 years, have been living the same day over and over again. After a sudden burst of frustration, time finally starts moving ...but in both directions. The couple has to navigate through illness and memory in order to discover if they can learn to love each other.

I wrote this play because I wondered at the nature of unconditional love and the circumstances/fears that prohibit us from expressing it. To me this play is a bit of a haunt. With a lot of a terror. It's a vat of loneliness. With the tiniest pinprick of hope.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  I'm travelling to Space on Ryder Farm as part of their Writers Group, and will be working on the 1st installation of the Ufot Family Cycle, The Grove. This play was the first play I'd ever written and follows a young first-generation woman who is torn between her traditional family and her own burgeoning identity. I am also working on the 4th installation of the Ufot Family Cycle which is currently untitled. This play was commissioned by the National Black Theatre as part of their "I Am Soul Residency."

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 and my father are instrumental to who I am as a writer. He is a brilliant literary-research-academic savant who uses language to carve himself into new spaces. She is a scientific genius whose love and patience know no bounds. I have too many specific stories about why they are the reason I write in the fashion I write. It feels wrong to pick one over the other...so the explanation of how/why I write is simply: my mommy and my daddy. They armed me with the stories, the skill, the dedication and the sheer tenacity.

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

A:  More plays from more voices. More international theater.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I like a dense, epic play. I don't mind sitting for 3 hours in the theater if that 3 hours takes me on the journey of a life time. Also, I love an honest and unapologetic voice. I'm more enamored by a possessed play that harbors slight structural imbalance than I am with a well-made play with no heat.

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