Thursday, May 28, 2009

Kern: Blogging BLOODWORKS

Jon Kern:

The play I’m working for my Bloodworks reading is called We In Silence Hear A Whisper. It’s based off an idea I had in 2005 when I was in grad school thinking, “How would you write a play about the genocide in Darfur and make it not suck?” Now, when I tell people I’m writing a play about Darfur, they tend to look at me like I just farted in a puppy’s face. I take it they think I’ve engaged in a foolish-to-inappropriate endeavor.

I know I’ve engaged in a foolish, perhaps inappropriate endeavor. Why else would I sit on an idea for 4 years? [Not always but often] I have a tremendously hard time getting myself to write. My body will literally fight itself. My muscles twist and tighten. My chest spasms. Paroxysms of silence shudder my limbs. I can feel words travel my throat that are never heard [‘cause I don’t speak them] and are never read [‘cause I don’t write them], until my throat grows cramped and soar like the calves of a psychotic runner, the kind who enjoy taking off their socks to see how bad their feet have bleed.

I think I should do something else. That’s the sane response, right? I tell myself, “You should ­­­_____" or "Really, what you ought to do is ______" or "Wouldn’t doing ______ be a lot more productive and helpful for ________?” Problem is, I can never fill in the blanks. All my thoughtful wishes for a different life are a virgin madlib. What else can I do? What else will anyone let me do? What else am I any good at? And so here I am, having to write a play for Bloodwork by decree of Baron Gillis and Vicomte Tolan, and I thought, “Let’s do that I idea you are super terrified to do! If you’re going to do this shit, do it stupid!”

Writing a play that touches on genocide – a current genocide – does offer a lot of ways to suck. I certainly don’t enjoy self-flagellating, liberal theater that wants to punish you for showing up. And I don’t enjoy academic lectures delivered by actors; if I had a passion for academia, I would’ve gone to a real grad school so I could currently be sitting in some small city or college town playing politics for a tenure track. And I’m not really sure if I’m qualified to speak for experiences that are the foreignest of foreign to me. And I don’t want to talk just about western, white people as much as I personally like them.

Horror needs to be named. Abject cruelty needs to be exposed. Evil needs the stage. Otherwise, the crimes we humans inflict on each other go unsolved. Worse, they get forgotten. One of the many lessons I’ve taken from the Bush years is that while knowledge of awful things is awful, ignorance of them is far worse. Ignorance is Miracle Grow™ for awful things. Ignorance is Cialis for the four-hour fuckpages of awful things. Yet if we’re going to open our eyes to evil, perhaps shake evil’s hand, perhaps chat evil a few questions at a dinner party, we have to experience the witnessing of that evil as a compelling event - as something aesthetic, worth seeing like any other object competing in the markplace of stimulation. The acceptable aesthetics of evil: that’s the fucking question. That’s the challenge that’s sat inside me for 4 years.

So here I am.

My reading of We In Silence Hear A Whisper is on June 3rd at 7pm. I’m excited to discover that night how badly I’ve failed, and I offer you the schadenfruede to discover along with me. I’m hopeful that I won’t, but a little suspicious that I will. Either way, we’re alive and ready to find out.


NB: If you are fortunate enough to have extra money or time, these people do good work - Doctors Without Borders and The International Rescue Committee. Please help them out, if you can

Jon's Bloodworks reading is next Wednesday (6/3) at 7 PM @SEAPORT! - 210 Front Street (@SEAPORT! is located at 210 Front Street, in the South Street Seaport--A/C to Broadway/Nassau, 2/3/4/5/J/M/Z to Fulton Street. Walk down Fulton Street to the Seaport, turn left before The Gap and the BODIES exhibit-- @SEAPORT! is half a block down on the left.)
Admission is free.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

News: Bloodworks - TONIGHT! and TOMORROW!

BLOODWORKS - TONIGHT:CAKE LIGHT

by Courtney Brooke Lauria
directed by Jordan Young

A play about people’s connection to one another. A play about people’s connection to theater. A play about people’s connection to electronics. All lit by the glow of birthday candles (kinda).

And tomorrow night:

RETURNING HOME

by Erica Saleh
directed by Kel Haney
featuring Jessica Barr, Paul Downs Colaizzo, Andrea Maulella, William Peden, Joanna Simmons & RJ Tolan

A play about second choices, second chances and a woman who thought the past was past until the man carrying her secrets walked through the diner door...

Coming up:
Tues June 2 - ANNA MOENCH
Weds June 3 - JON KERN
Tues June 16 - NIKOLE BECKWITH
Weds June 17 - JESSE CAMERON ALICK
Tues June 23 - PATRICK LINK
Weds June 24 - JOSHUA CONKEL
Tues June 30 - ELIZA CLARK
Weds July 1 - ROBERT ASKINS
BLOODWORKS: 2009 Youngblood's annual reading series Youngblood (Ensemble Studio Theatre's company of playwrights under 30) is proud to present BLOODWORKS - our annual reading series, featuring a brand new full-length play from each of our member playwrights.
ALL READINGS are @ 7pm and are free of charge @SEAPORT! - 210 Front Street
@SEAPORT! is located at 210 Front Street, in the South Street SeaportA/C to Broadway/Nassau, 2/3/4/5/J/M/Z to Fulton StreetWalk down Fulton Street to the Seaport, turn left before The Gap and the BODIES exhibit.
@SEAPORT! is half a block down on the left.has just started to teeter on its axis.
This year, for the first time, the BLOODWORKS readings are hosted by Dog Run Rep at the @SEAPORT! space at South Street Seaport.

Friday, May 22, 2009

News: Moench's BRAINS - this weekend!

anna&meredith,
in conjunction with The Looking Glass Theatre Space Grant,
is proud to present...




BRAINS infuses a triumphant medical breakthrough with the fervent energy of religious passion and pro football. An explosive and hilarious tour de force layering theatrics, athletics, and dance,

BRAINS will slap you in the face with truth and send you searching for God.

May 21-23 at 8pm, May 24 at 7pm

First place winner of Spoke the Hub’s 2009 Winter Follies!

Written by Anna Moench
Staged by Meredith Steinberg
Produced by Carolyn Sesbeau
Featuring Molly Gaebe, Mike James, Elisa Matula, and David Nelson

Tickets $18, at http://www.lookingglasstheatrenyc.com/ or call 212-352-3101

The Looking Glass Theatre422 West 57 Street (between 9th and 10th Avenues)
ACDB1 to Columbus Circle, NRQW to 57th St/7th Ave

anna&meredith presents BRAINS in conjunction with The Looking Glass Theatre’s Space Grant Program.

Graphic by Carolina Paula

News: Kern Reading - This Week!

TONIGHT & SATURDAY:
Tapefaces: Legend of a Kung Fu Master

Thursday May 21 @ 7pm
Saturday May 23 @ 3pm

at Walkerspace, 46 Walker St. [south of Canal, west of Broadway]

To complete his destiny, a bi-racial kung fu master journeys to find his family. What mysteries are solved by blood? And why does saving people from mobsters and pirates always interrupt you when you're trying to sing?

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

NEWS: Bloodworks - Tonight!... Tomorrow Night!

BLOODWORKS: 2009 Youngblood's annual reading series

Youngblood (Ensemble Studio Theatre's company of playwrights under 30) is proud to present BLOODWORKS - our annual reading series, featuring a brand new full-length play from each of our member playwrights.


ALL READINGS are @ 7pm and are free of charge

@SEAPORT! - 210 Front Street

This week:
Tuesday, May 19

SILVER TO A TRADING AGENT

by Sharyn Rothstein

directed by Michael Silverstone

with Bill Cwikowski*, Richmond Hoxie*, Ilene Kristen*, Aidan O'Shea, Jane Pfitsch and Patricial Randell*

It's the fall of 2007 and the economy has just started to teeter on its axis. Catherine Murdoch is the head of wealth management at one of the world's biggest banks, and she's known for her commitment to honest investing. But when she's passed over for CEO, Catherine must choose whether to hold fast to her ideals or to engage in riskier - and more rewarding - investing on behalf of her clients. Wall Street, the current economic meltdown, the role of women and whistleblowing collide in this new play about some of the dirty choices that got us where we are today.


Wednesday, May 20

BURY THE IRON HORSE

by Michael Lew

with Louis Changchien, Cindy Cheung*, Jackie Chung, Eunice Ha and Natalie Kim

"This is it, bitches: Iron Horse Park."

This is the Seattle park where three sisters reunite after a long estrangement.
This is where their parents fell in love and started a salmon cannery.
This is where Dad took them on hikes and Mom skinned salmon.
This is where Dad left them.

Through six interwoven camping trips, a family comes together and falls apart, and three sisters return to bury the Iron Horse.

* member of Ensemble Studio Theatre

Coming up:
Tues May 26 - COURTNEY BROOKE LAURIA
Weds May 27 - ERICA SALEH
Tues June 2 - ANNA MOENCH
Weds June 3 - JON KERN
Tues June 16 - NIKOLE BECKWITH
Weds June 17 - JESSE CAMERON ALICK
Tues June 23 - PATRICK LINK
Weds June 24 - JOSHUA CONKEL
Tues June 30 - ELIZA CLARK
Weds July 1 - ROBERT ASKINS

This year, for the first time, the BLOODWORKS readings are hosted by Dog Run Rep at the @SEAPORT! space at South Street Seaport.

@SEAPORT! is located at 210 Front Street, in the South Street Seaport
A/C to Broadway/Nassau, 2/3/4/5/J/M/Z to Fulton Street

Walk down Fulton Street to the Seaport, turn left before The Gap and the BODIES exhibit. @SEAPORT! is half a block down on the left.

Friday, May 15, 2009

Lew/Bloodworks: wuht-woe

Do I really has Bloodworks next Wednesday? But I only writes 64 pages yet! Wuht-woe.

So here's a little blurb of my play which is still - eh - in progress. I don't have a title yet but I do have the story:

The play takes place over several interspersed camping trips at Iron Horse Park in Seattle, Washington. The location stays constant but the timeline jumps from various points from the 1970s up through the present. It’s about a second-generation Japanese-American dock worker who falls in love with a first-generation Filipino immigrant. She gives up her nursing job to pursue his dream of starting a salmon cannery, and the two build up the business together and have three daughters. But then industrial salmon farming cripples the cannery and tears their family apart. In the present day, the three daughters meet up after a long estrangement to go camping at Iron Horse like when they were young, and to sort through the pieces of their broken family.

It’s going to be a comedy.

OK, back to writing the thing. I've got my diet coke by my side, it's a beautiful Friday afternoon but I've closed the curtains so that solves that, and "Poison" is done downloading from itunes. Come see the play if you can. Wednesday May 20th, 7pm at @Seaport! (210 Front St. - in the shell of a former Liz Claiborne. no joke)

By the way I think this is my first self-posted blog post since like 2006. But don't worry I'll post again in three years or less.

Yeah, that's right. In 3 years I'll still be underaged enough to keep my spot in the 'blood. I'm riding this thing til the bitter end. Hi, Sharyn Rothstein!

-ML OUT




(POISON!)

AlumBlood News: Amy Fox & Lloyd Suh

In addition to the furious season finale that is Bloodworks, our Youngblood Alum Amy Fox and Lloyd Suh both have plays opening this week:


AMERICAN HWANGAP

by Lloyd Suh
directed by Trip Cullman

Now-June 7, 2009

Min Suk Chun returns to the ex-wife and family he left 15 years ago in a West Texas suburb, to celebrate his "hwangap" - the Korean expression for the much-revered 60th birthday that marks rebirth. But what's in store for his next life cycle, if it starts with no pants and a bottle of Jim Beam?

With Michi Barall, Mia Katigbak, Peter Kim, Hoon Lee, and James Saito

Tuesday-Friday at 8PM, Saturdays at 3PM and 8PM, Sundays at 4 PM

The Wild Project
195 East 3rd Street(Between Ave. A and Ave. B)

http://www.playco.org/


BY PROXY

By Amy Fox
Directed by Terry Berliner
Now- May 30th
By Proxy follows Sonia, an MD/Ph.D. specializing in Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, who must confront unsettling questions when her research comes into conflict with her growing suspicions about the deaths of several infants. Originally commissioned by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the Ensemble Studio Theatre, By Proxy is being produced by the professional arm of The Collaborative Arts Project (CAP21), which offers playwrights a first chance to introduce their work to the public and the industry.
With Polly Adams*, Jordan Bloom, Denny Bess*, Julie Leedes*, Grace McLean, Jonathan Todd Ross*, and Josie Whittlesey*
These actors are appearing courtesy of Actors Equity Association.
Equity Approved Showcase.

PERFORMANCES:
May 15-16, 8PM
May 19-21, 8PM
May 26-30, 8PM
May 16 and May 30 - 3PM Matinees
THE SHOP THEATRE @ CAP21
http://www.cap21.org/theatrecompany.html

Thursday, May 14, 2009

The Youngblog Changes its Stripes

With a heavy heart, it was time to acknowledge that our snappy looking light-grey-on-black Youngblog was a little hard on the eyes after a minute or two. And now that there are actually posts that are well worth reading top to bottom, that was becoming a problem.

So welcome everybody to the new, downy-white Youngblog. Let us know what you think!

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

News: Bloodworks - TONIGHT!

BLOODWORKS 2009: Youngblood's annual reading series

TONIGHT!!!: Wednesday, May 13 - SPECIES NATIVE TO CALIFORNIA - by Dorothy Fortenberry

Youngblood (Ensemble Studio Theatre's company of playwrights under 30) is proud to present BLOODWORKS - our annual reading series, featuring a brand new full-length play from each of our member playwrights.


ALL READINGS are @ 7pm and are free of charge @SEAPORT! - 210 Front Street

Tonight: SPECIES NATIVE TO CALIFORNIA

by Dorothy Fortenberry

directed by Becca Wolff

with Jack Davidson, Sharon Freedman, Florencia Lozano, Irene Lucio, Alex Major, Christian Ramirez, Erica Sullivan and Paco Tolson*

* member of Ensemble Studio Theatre


Skip and his daughters, Zo and Mara, live on the land - as rich hippies do. Gloria and her son Victor live with them, as "part of the family." And Jeff, Mara's boyfriend, just wants to make a good first impression. But when economic crisis comes to the vineyard, ghosts return to break the families' fragile balance. Mexican folk tales meet Mendocino County in this new play inspired by The Cherry Orchard.


And coming up...:
Tues May 19 - SHARYN ROTHSTEIN
Weds May 20 - MICHAEL LEW
Tues May 26 - COURTNEY BROOKE LAURIA
Weds May 27 - ERICA SALEH
Tues June 2 - ANNA MOENCH
Weds June 3 - JON KERN
Tues June 16 - NIKOLE BECKWITH
Weds June 17 - JESSE CAMERON ALICK
Tues June 23 - PATRICK LINK
Weds June 24 - JOSHUA CONKEL
Tues June 30 - ELIZA CLARK
Weds July 1 - ROBERT ASKINS

This year, for the first time, the BLOODWORKS readings are hosted by Dog Run Rep at the @SEAPORT! space at South Street Seaport.

@SEAPORT! is located at 210 Front Street, in the South Street SeaportA/C to Broadway/Nassau, 2/3/4/5/J/M/Z to Fulton Street
Walk down Fulton Street to the Seaport, turn left before The Gap and the BODIES exhibit. @SEAPORT! is half a block down on the left.

GOOGLE MAP

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Alibar & Beckwith: InterBlood INTERVIEW

"NIKOLE interviews LUCY and it is beautiful"

NIKOLE
I gather that you bake a lot? is there a common thread for you between creating a cake and creating a play; internally, intentionally or intrinsically? or is it a complete deviation from your writing based creative process?

LUCY
I wish I knew a smarter-sounding thing to say, but honestly, I just really love making cake for my friends.

NIKOLE
You are currently working on a screenplay for the Sundance Lab that was based on a play of yours. What has the transition from writing for stage to writing for the screen been like for you? How has the play evolved as it emerges from it's theater cocoon into something new?

LUCY
It’s funny when you’re adapting, because it forces you to focus on the actual story, even if the events change. So it’s about a little girl in the rural south, and her dad gets sick, and that brings about the end of the world. That’s what we kept from the play, “Juicy and Delicious”, but we’ve changed the location to south Louisiana, and really taken advantage of all of the fun things you can do on film that we can’t afford to do onstage. Like helicopters! I mean!In the play, math and science start to fall apart, and that’s realized in grits raining from the sky and eggs flying through the air. Now we have melting glaciers and floods. There are still grits that rain from the sky, though. We kept that.

NIKOLE
You are from the lovely American South, I feel like your work often reflects that atmospherically, your plays also encompass a lot of magic and/or wonderment. Are these two things connected? Did you grow up in a magical place or do you make magic where ever you go? Both?

LUCY
My friend Ruben Polendo said this great idea that I hope I’m not butchering too badly— “I not so much interested in documenting what something looks like as I am showing what it feels like.” (Ruben, I really hope I didn’t screw that up). So maybe “expressionistic” is closer. A parent gets sick, and it feels like the whole universe comes unwound. Or, you know how you’ll be just smitten with someone, and you won’t say anything or give yourself away but they’ll hug you hello and all of a sudden you feel like you’re hit by this cosmic tsunami. Does that sound dirty? I mean it in the most glorious way. So what I love to make plays about are those moments that are too big for words.

NIKOLE
You have a huge shiny heart, which i think is reflected not only in your writing but your talking, standing, emailing, and general presence. What kinds of things live in your heart and how do they make their way into your work?

LUCY
Oh, Nikole, you are so sweet. Here are things I love—working with other inspiring, smart, positive artists, great music, cooking, lifts and falls, hot love stories, Christmas, sweet love stories, complicated love stories….avocados! I love avocados. And love stories.

NIKOLE
When you were a little kid, were there certain things you always pretended to be?

LUCY
June Carter and a protoceretops.

NIKOLE
What are some plays you've seen or read that have really stayed with you?

LUCY
Oh, gosh—Radiohole, and Wooster Group—really everything I’ve ever seen from them has made me so, so so excited. ERS and Young Jean Lee. Faye Driscoll. Tim Crouch and Heather Woodbury. Neal Medlyn is a genius. I love The Civilians, and Nature Theatre of Oklahoma. There’s a playwright Sibyl Kempson who is just tremendous—funny and terribly smart, and sometimes heart-breaking, and challenging, and so enlivening. I could keep going…

NIKOLE
What's your writing process like? Do you talk it out to yourself? imagine it objectively? imagine yourself as various characters?

LUCY
I’m usually quick to start working with a director, since most of it is created on my feet. I’m working with this great director Portia Krieger on “Slutty Slutty Butterslut” and “Marietta Christmas Spectacular” right now, and it’s great. She’s really sharp and clear.

NIKOLE
What are two things (big or small) that have changed your life?

LUCY
1) My dad and my brother are both bluegrass banjo sensations.
2) I went to the Experimental Theatre Wing at NYU, and Rosemary Quinn taught me so much about—not just making art, but making community. I would see how her positivity and focus made everyone do better work, so I try to bring that with me when I’m in the rehearsal room or the audience or onstage.

"LUCY interviews NIKOLE and it is also beautiful"


LUCY
Who are some artists making you excited to be working in the theatre right now?

NIKOLE
Well not to sound like a huggy Easter Bunny but, the Youngblood crew that is cookin' right now is pretty inspiring and exhilarating. I'm excited and honored to run in the same pack. Greg Moss is another playwright that makes me feel inspired and humbled to be a part of this organism right now. His plays are beautifully bizarre and often otherworldly while at the same time tunnel right into you, in a very direct and universal way. Really transportive. This is a very electric time for young playwrights; there is a lot to look up to and a lot to mess with. Maybe it always feels like that, i don't know. I just became a young playwright, so i have nothing to compare it to. Also the actors in this city are a gift. I did a reading of my first full length this past March and it felt like Christmas. My cast and director were amazing, they made me and my play feel like the prettiest girl at the dance. All the short plays I've done with YB have been so well acted that I even once jumped up and down during the show. I love to write with actors in mind, so that is especially thrilling to me. I adore collaboration. I have a very long list of friends i want to work with and there is nothing more exciting than that.

LUCY
One of your trademarks is undiluted support, encouragement, and positivity towards your fellow writers. Is that learned behaviour? Do you feel like people have encouraged you? Or that not enough people have encouraged you? Or have you just always been like that?

NIKOLE
Whoa. I'm blushing. (composes self) Well, being an artist is to be a part of a community and supporting the work around you is just as much a contribution as the work you generate. Two halves of a whole. I grew up in a very tight knit (aka small) arty community in ye olde Newburyport Massachusetts and the outpouring of support and enthusiasm from all sides has basically become the definition of "home" in my book. Artists from all mediums and sensibilities working together and showing up for each other. That's when you really feel like you're a part of something bigger than you, something amazing. That's not to say that we were always gathered in the town square with joined hands singing "Coombiah" or whatever, in fact we never did that; but we did make some really killer stuff and the relationship i have with the community as a whole and the individuals in that community has always informed my work and will continue to do so even from far away, because support like that becomes part of you. And if i can help make someone feel a sliver of that, it's as big and satisfying an accomplishment as writing the words "end of play".

(footnote: also after getting booted out of public high school I found my way into a Sudbury school and my experience there was a magical component to the arts community of my home. I consider it all to be connected.)

LUCY
What are some shows that made you want to do what you do now?

NIKOLE
The first play that ever changed my life was subUrbia by Eric Bogosian. I read it (and played Sooze) when I was eighteen (i had been working as an actor since the age of 10) and it illuminated in me the kind of energy and fire I wanted out of every theatrical experience. I am prolly one out of 453 quazillion people that had that same epiphany reading that same play at that same age. I would happily embroider the crest of that club on all my blazers.
When I was 21 I did my first Charles Busch play, I played Chicklet in PSYCHO BEACH PARTY. We laughed at every rehearsal. I loved every show. And we performed that play on and off for a year and a half I think. Something like that. I thought it was amazing to repeatedly be just as honestly entertained and invigorated as each new audience who was seeing it for the first time. (plus his book WHORES OF LOST ATLANTIS, a "fictionalized" account of making these plays with his friends in the back of some bar all the way to his first new york times review is the first book I ever cried at the end of. From joy)

When I was 22 I read all of Durang's plays back to back. I loved how involuntary my reactions were to his work. I'd be laughing and at the same time horrified at myself for laughing while also abandoning and discovering various parts of myself along the way. Then one day I was watching the news and when they announced finding someone's body in a river and I laughed, I knew I had accidentally saturated myself a little too much. But when I laughed and then was horrified at myself for laughing and then realized I was just in my studio apartment, not in a play; it was almost like theater came to me instead of me going to the theater. For two seconds. Until I was just horrified.

When I was 23 I read PTERODACTYLS by Nicky Silver. Usually when something is effecting you in a major way, you observe it after the fact. Like you don't see the tectonic plates shifting but you see the volcano they made. But I felt the plates shifting. It was like discovering a secret door in a house I had lived my whole life in. The intricate balance he creates between the two halves of bittersweet and the velocity of his writing is amazing; delicate and ferocious at the same time. He is somehow able to create this exagerated reality without sacrificing any honesty. My heart woke up reading that play.

Since moving to the city I've seen a lot of shows that have stuck with me in some way; The LAByrinth Barn Series is always a great place to go to get pumped on new theater, THE FOUR OF US at MTC last year was really exciting to me, The Wooster Group's HAMLET was killer, Adam Rapp's ESSENTIAL SELF-DEFENSE was great, it felt like a bunch of friends making this weird play together and I love that. I mean, there is a new play happening every three seconds in this city and even stuff I don't think is that great makes me excited to be doing this. Like I said, you gotta have stuff to mess with. Blah Blah Blah, I talk too much.

LUCY
How do you handle it when you’re not inspired?

NIKOLE
I do what everybody does, I Facebook. I watch "Kittens Inspired by Kittens" on youtube. Um, I try to shake it off; maybe try something else, like I draw a comic or write a letter, strum uninspired cords on my ukulele and sing "I am so not inspired". Or I say I am going to do that and then I facebook or watch the Kittens Inspired by Kittens Girl explain WWII on youtube.

LUCY
What inspires you?
NIKOLE
Things that are funny and sad. Everything bittersweet. I think Jim Henson is real inspiring.

LUCY
What is a book that everyone should read, that would bring Illumination and Great Happiness?

NIKOLE
Wow. That's a lot of pressure. I'll just list some books that have made me cry; WHORES OF LOST ATLANTIS, DRY by Augusten Buroughs, TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE, EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE.

LUCY
In ten years, how do you want your life to look?

NIKOLE
I've always wanted to adopt a one eyed goat and a three legged cow. Or vise versa. Maybe a sheep. Gather up some misfit farm animals that have been through the ringer. But not enough to have a farm farm. I'm not a farmer. And I'd have a couple dogs that run around and we'd all hang out in a heated barn. I'd write and they'd eat stuff. 35/55 min out of the city, or something like that. But that seems more like 15 years. So, i'd also have kids. In ten years? Making plays, paying a mortgage, trying new things. Basically the seeds I am planting now to have fully sprouted and made new seeds all their own. Plus a mortgage. And I'd love to have a biweekly potluck dinner going.

LUCY
What is the most valuable thing Youngblood has done for you?

NIKOLE
Community. Being a writer is loner-ville USA, I spend a stupid amount of time alone. It is invaluable to have a network of folks around you, especially folks you can feed off, work with, get inspired by, show up for and answer to. Plus it also has connected us all with a network of directors and actors and artists and all that AND I love a deadline. If deadlines were a person, I'd ask them to move in with me. YB keeps us all writing all the time. Really inhibiting the amount of time I spend dwelling in writers block or whatever. You push through it cause you have to.

Monday, May 11, 2009

Fortenberry: Blogging BLOODWORKS

Dorothy Fortenberry shares more thoughts about her Bloodworks piece, SPECIES NATIVE TO CALIFORNIA...

One of the things I'm trying in this piece is to blend the formal structure of the play with the dramatic and emotional lives of the characters. So that, when structures break in the world of the play, the conventions of the play universe also stretch and tear. Over the course of the first act, events get to the point that straight-ahead naturalism won't quite fit anymore, and Act Two begins with a character speaking directly to the audience. Then, in the second act, the theatrical rules are suspended -- the old rules are thrown out (along with the old way that all the characters used to live). By the time the play ends, a new order has taken place, and the theatrical conventions of before have returned (even though they're being practiced in different ways).

I know this all probably sounds incredibly abstract, but, hopefully, when an audience experiences the play, it will feel natural and intuitive, maybe not even noticeable. Things fall apart, and then they get put back together. Some people, their lives, and a play.

Dorothy's Bloodworks reading is this Wednesday (5/13) at 7 Pm @ SEAPORT!
(@SEAPORT! is located at 210 Front Street, in the South Street Seaport A/C to Broadway/Nassau, 2/3/4/5/J/M/Z to Fulton Street. All Bloodworks readings are at & PM free of charge.)

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Fortenberry & Kern: InterBlood INTERVIEW

Dorothy Fortenberry explains to Jon Kern how being the last one to know that stench is coming from poo on her own shoe reflects her life in a larger sense; Jon explains to Dorothy how he treats language like a Stretch Armstrong doll:

Jon Kern: In the plays of yours that I’ve heard, such as an early draft of your Bloodworks play SPECIES NATIVE TO CALIFORNIA, you demonstrate a nuanced and comic view of liberal political culture and attitudes. From where did you get your insight into the personal quirks of this political species, and what is your own relationship to ideas and behavior commonly labeled “liberal”?
Dorothy Fortenberry: Yeah, wow, that's pretty nail-on-the-head. One of my friends, a dramaturg, described my work by saying that my "project was taking the piss out of liberals." And, she's pretty much right. In SPECIES NATIVE TO CALIFORNIA, it's exploring a sort of knee-jerk multiculturalism and nature-appreciation that I don't think is wrong—I mean, I like nature—but it's also very comfy. In GOOD EGG, it's reproduction and women's choices (I actually mean choices here and not just abortion). And even CAITLIN AND THE SWAN opens up questions about tolerance and sexuality—what are we okay with and why?Whence the fascination with liberals? I guess a lot of it is exposure. I grew up in Washington, DC, went to a fancy east coast high school, a fancy east coast college, and a fancy east coast grad school—all the while not thinking of myself as a fancy east coast person. I think I tended to look at the people around me at a distance, and it made some things pop out—and some things really hit home. While I do have some conservative habits and beliefs (get to know me! find out what!), the liberal I am making fun of is almost always myself.

JK: Recently, your play CAITLIN AND THE SWAN tore it up at Under St. Marks, notching a ton of praise-tastic reviews. How do you handle success? What is your favorite and least favorite thing about being awesome?
DF: Yes, I am now internet-famous along with some guy's surprised cat and Tay Zonday! Um, seriously we got some lovely notices - for a great job done by Joshua Conkel and The Management, and I am so happy about the show. Luckily, the population of theater-blog-readers is tactful enough that I don't get mobbed getting my latte each morning. In terms of being awesome, I really try to take it day by day.

JK: You have a wonderful, humor-twinkled, critical eye for your own life experiences. What story from your life most commonly makes you think “Well, that’s me”?
DF: Okay, true story. Once I was doing research at the main DC public library building for a play I was working on. This is a big, urban public library downtown, so, as always, it’s full of all kinds of people. And I'm at this table reading my books, feeling really good about myself for how successfully my trip is going, when I notice that someone around me kind of smells. I look around and there are a couple somewhat shabby gentlemen nearby. No big deal, I think, and keep reading. But the smell gets worse. And my inner monologue becomes "Just read your book, don't look at the smelly men." I even try not too sniff too loudly in case they take it the wrong way. At this point, I totally could have just checked the book out and gone home, but I didn't want to offend them. It's not their fault they smell, right? So I finish the book—finally—and walk out of the library, and I'm waiting at the crosswalk when I realize I can still smell the smell. I look down and there's dog shit on my shoe. It's been there the whole time. And that's my life.

JK: What’s the meanest joke you’ve ever said? If not said, heard?
DF:
Roses are red
Violets are blue
At least that's what they tell me
Because I'm blind
(I wrote that on my middle school poetry wall in 7th grade. I got in trouble—for being mean, not for stealing it from Gary Larson's unpublished Far Side cartoons.)

JK: When did theater first insinuate itself into your life? Have you always pursued the path of a playwright?
DF: Theater got in there early. Way before soccer. I probably saw my first live performance in nursery school, and then I acted in class plays and school plays starting in grade school and going through high school. I did drama at summer camp (not swimming; I still can't really swim) and saw my first professional show when I was in 4th grade. It was CATS. And I hated it, of which I am still proud. I first wanted to be a playwright at 13 or 14, when I had maybe 2 pages of dialogue under my belt. I first seriously considered doing it like for real when I was about 23.

JK: Your husband, Colin Wambsgans, is a composer. Are you two able to bond over the connections between music and theatrical language?
DF: So the big unfairness of our relationship is that I think primarily in words and he thinks in sounds, but we have all our conversations in words. It's kind of like being married to someone who speaks French and making them learn English and never getting past "Bonjour" yourself. I often feel like if I wanted to be really fair I would make us have half our conversations in glockenspiel. I think that's why it was so much fun to work on a musical together (we wrote one called BICYCLING FOR LADIES about terrorist suffragettes)—I could speak in words and he could respond in music and we could carry on a dialogue that way.

JK: When writing, do you envision an idealized image of your characters? How clear a picture of the world on stage do you carry?
DF: Hmm, not very. I think a lot in speech, rhythm, and energy, but not so much in physical type. Similarly, I know a lot about how the worlds feel, but usually very little about how they look. Often, when I think I know something about a character physically, it turns out that I'm using a physical trait for a life experience one. Like, I'll think a character is tall and strong, but what I mean is that she isn't used to being treated as little and delicate. And there could be an actor who is physically small but her energy is equally "I got this."

JK: Like myself, you’re the product of a fancy, expensive education. What’s the most useful lesson you learned while spending thousands of dollars a year to do so? What’s the most useless shit you picked up [useless shit can be fun trivia or grumbles & complaints or both]?
DF: Most useful lesson? It's going to sound like a cliché, but persistence. [At the Yale School of Drama], [w]e had a weekly class where working artists and theater professionals came in and talked to us, and I was always amazed by the stories of the playwrights across the table. And these were folks I would kill to be, and they told their stories of "how did I get here" and it was always really circuitous and strange. I kept thinking somewhere there would be a linear playwright who just rationally advanced up the ladder, but I never met him. Gradually, over three years, I changed the way I thought about success and how it's achieved and when. Which is good, because I think according to my old definition of success I would now be a failure. The most useless? The idea that you can size up quickly who's going to be "important" and make them your friend. Be nice to everyone, sure, but there's no need to size up peers. You can't know who's going to be rich and famous. So stop talking about it.

JK: What is your favorite recipe to eat? What is your favorite recipe to cook?
DF: To eat? Mashed potatoes. To cook? Kale and sausage lasagna.

JK: What five things are most likely to worry you tomorrow?
DF: Why haven't I done better re-writes of SPECIES NATIVE TO CALIFORNIA? How will the rehearsal and reading go? Can we really trust the stress tests, or are the economy and our banking system totally doomed? Why aren't I a more organized person and better employee? Why aren't I a less organized person and better artist?

JK: On winter retreat, Mike Lew gave you the nickname Dofo, which has stuck in Youngblood. In that spirit, what would be your pornstar identity? Rollerderby alias?
DF: Hmm, I know that my porn name would be middle + first street = Ashley Columbia. Which I frankly love. I think she might now be a Real Housewife, actually. Rollerderby alias? Undine Slagg.

On that note, Dorothy turns the tables on Jon...:

Dorothy Fortenberry: In addition to your playwriting career, you are also an improv star with We Are Colossus and the author of the hilarious and informative "True Facts." Do you feel like being a comedy performer influences your playwriting, or are they separately defined spheres for you?
Jon Kern: I was an improviser before I ever finished a play, first with a group named JENNY, and then after grad school, I was on a Magnet Theater house team called the YES ANDERSENS for two years. I use a lot of improv principles when I write, such as callbacks, pacing, and avoiding questions. I also take playwriting concepts into improv, such as demanding everyone stick to my assigned script and giving writer’s notes to the actors. The two big mantras of New York improv are “Don’t Think” and “Truth in Comedy.” Since playwriting is a fucklot of thinking, only one of these applies when I write. My improv experience though taught me how to embody characters physically, how to heighten the energy of a scene, how to punch a joke or add a button, and how to make each line carry meaningful information. And if you want to have a discussion with the pretentious twat that lives inside my head, he will gladly explain his theory that comedy is an ethical philosophy.

DF: Your VICTORY brunch play HATE THE LOSER INSIDE gave people physical pain via laughter, in part because it had an amazing grasp of the low-budget commercial lexicon. Why do you know what terrible commercials sound like so well? For real, where does research fit into your writing process?
JK: I'm one of those guys who will talk back to 2am infomercials. They weirdly combine the aspirational with the sleazy, and I have a deep love for that form of junk culture. So for HATE THE LOSER INSIDE, I had all the research already jammed into my head. My research process usually consists of me trying to write, then freaking out about how I don't know what the hell I'm talking about, and then reading stuff online or even buying a bunch of books to fill in gaps. My brain can scramble fact and fiction so readily, I am always fearful that what I'm saying is complete bullshit. Also, I can project authority and confidence in knowledge that I don't really have. It's an attitude that helped me throughout college, but now I don't know how to break the habit. So most of my research is done to help me become the man I can seem like.

DF: I've also noticed a (perhaps complimentary) trend in your writing to invent new turns of phrase ("sexing," "bitch nipples")—what draws you to developing a specific language for your plays? Does it come out of a particular character or an environment?
JK: Didn't Shakespeare invent like 900 new words or phrases? That guy knew how to rock it. I think I tend to make up words because something is broke in my brain. In a recent New Yorker article, I read that synthesia results from an excess of neural connections between sections of the brain. It was hypothesized that creativity works the same way. So probably a bunch of wires in my skull are all screwed around, and now I compulsively remix the words I hear. I enjoy simple substitution games [e.g. “George Washington Carver studied peanuts” becomes “James Madison Mincer invented soy lecithin”] and treating language like it’s a Stretch Armstrong doll. Words are fragments of sound, as much as they are tiny packets of meaning. I find that the content of words is less interesting than the music they create in my head. So often I’ll think of some phrase that sounds funny and reverse engineer a character out of why someone would speak like that.

DF: In addition to Youngblood, you're a member of the Ma-Yi Writers Lab. What's it like being in two groups? Are the feedback styles different? Do you feel like there's such a thing as a "Ma-Yi play" or a "Youngblood play" or do you workshop the same work in both groups?
JK: There's a long history of crossover between the Ma-Yi Writers Lab, which is a pan-Asian-American theater group, and Youngblood. Mike Lew, Kyoung Park, and I are in both groups, and the Lab features Youngblood alums Lloyd Suh, Qui Nguyen, and Mrinalini Kamath. Ma-Yi meetings are a looser vibe, with people usually bringing snacks for all. Also, the Lab is much politer and better at math as a whole. I bring the same exact work to both groups, but typically a Ma-Yi play is 186% more Asian-y.

DF: We're both newbies and joined in October. What is the biggest surprise about what being in Youngblood is like versus what you thought it would be like?
JK: Since joining Youngblood, I drink more than I used to. I guess I wasn't expecting that. Also, when I joined Youngblood, RJ and Graeme promised me my own human skull goblet from whence I could sup the blood of the innocent. Right now I'm having to sup the blood of the innocent out of plastic Dixie cups, and that doesn't really do it for the peasant villages I lord over with unjust tyranny. Something about a plastic Dixie cup just doesn't say, "Fear me! Or I'll rape your children!" More like "Fear me! And then meet me by the old chestnut tree for the three-legged race!"
RJ!
Graeme!
Human skull goblet NOW!

DF: Is there a typical first for you, as you begin a new piece (line of dialogue, image, character, idea), or does it vary piece to piece?
JK: It varies.

DF: Do you hate re-writing as much as I do? If not, why not?
JK: Re-writing can be frustrating because the text and characters you already have carry implications that block you from further discover. The joy of writing is that freedom of release as language waterfalls from the tropical paradise of your open mind. That freedom is harder to find as your play accumulates. Yet when you’re in a re-write and that block clears, it’s like the clouds have parted and a choir of angels have built a beer garden in the sky, where they’re pouring nothing but crisp Czech pilsners for free. I think the frustration comes when we mistake the empty page for freedom. Real freedom is finding harmony with what you are doing at any moment, which leads to a connection with your work that blurs the limits between the self and the world around. That oneness is real freedom, and I agree it can be a bitch to find at certain stages in the writing process.

DF: What did you think you'd be doing 10 years ago? 20?
JK: Well, 10 years ago I was 18. I had gone to college thinking I'd become a psychiatrist but decided to concentrate [U of Chicago term for major] in Sociology when I didn't want to do any of that medical stuff. So I really had no idea about 10 years later. 20 years ago I was 8, and I probably imagined I would grow up to do something important that made my parents proud. I've been pretty much devoid of intelligent planning all my life, which is what led me to playwriting.


DF: You're from New York and went to grad school here. What's your relationship as a writer to the city? And what's it like having your parents come to all your work?
JK: Wow, those are big and separate questions. I've never written about New York, but there’s no doubt I’m a product of the city. I was raised to be a behavior watcher out of the boredom of countless subway rides. And if you keep your ears attentive, you can always slip in and out of intriguing conversations. New York (every borough of it, even Staten Island) is a ninja training camp for honing the skills of a playwright. My parents have come to so many of my shows, at this point I think of them like regular audience members, albeit ones who I will see later and who will tell me everything they liked and didn’t like. My mom and dad are enormously kind, generous people. Their dedication has taught me that if you care about others, you ought to express that by investing your time in support of their passions. I know the day after I strangle my parents because they don’t know how to mute a television, I will think back to all the performances they have seen and feel very fortunate to have such memories.

DF: The Internet -- playwriting friend or foe?
JK: More like a lover who does not know when TO SHUT THE FUCK UP. When it's good, it's too good to walk away from, but damn if there aren't times you wanna just . . .


Dorothy's Bloodworks piece will be read this Wednesday (5/13); Jon's will be read Wednesday, 6/3. All Bloodworks readings start at 7Pm @Seaport.

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

Lew & Link: InterBlood INTERVIEW

Michael Lew and Patrick Link, simultaneously interview each other, folks. (And then wrap it up with a round of "lightning fast" Q & A):

ML: In group you seem to be known for a solid presence but having little to say. Care to comment on your taciturnicity, Patrick? Patrick?
PL: HA. I think if I'm quiet it's a combination of being naturally shy and also the fact that I'm still learning how to discuss work in ways that are specific and meaningful. I have a huge respect for people who can give eloquent feedback that is passionate and smart, and I've learned a lot from listening. It's an area I hope I get better in as I develop.

PL: What were you like when you first joined YB?
ML: I joined Youngblood in 2005, so this is my fourth season. Starting out, my niche was definitely the baby of the group which meant being wide-eyed and acting out and feeling like a precocious kid who lucked into a sweet deal. But now I'm one of the senior members. Which means feeling more responsible and caring more about the course Youngblood takes and feeling like a wizened old man who lucked into a sweet deal.

ML: How do you feel your writing style fits into the group dynamics? What is the most useful way for other writers to approach and critique your work?
PL: I've been playing a lot with stillness lately. In my last full-length, HAIRDRESSER, the main image is an older woman sitting and getting her hair done and feeling the pleasure of fingers running through her hair. KNOT THEORY has two guys delayed at an airport who barely move, and my last brunch piece had a bailed out CEO watching his reflection in his office window. I think these plays are active, but the action is very subtle. Spare dialogue. Time passing. Characters taking breaths between things.

I think this is more of a phase than my signature style. I'd like to widen my dramatic lens. Lately I've been wanting to write a big, badass, high-seas adventure or something epic set in another time period. Something with lots of movement. Con Air or something. That might be fun. I'd like to write with more sweeping zest. I'd like to see if I can't do the opposite of what I've been doing. In terms of writers approaching and critiquing my work, I'm not sure I require anything unique. I want to know the same things everyone wants to know. I find almost anything useful.

PL: Where did Neckface [a graffiti artist in Mike's play, STOCKTON] come from? Did you do a lot of research for him? Do you normally? Have you ever tagged?
ML: Neckface is a real tagger and I started noticing his work all over the place when I first got to New York and had a sublet in Williamsburg. It stuck with me. Then, when I was writing STOCKTON and doing research on the city I discovered that both Kara Walker (another artist whose work has stuck with me) both grew up in the city and it felt like a fated pairing. That here was this celebrated vandal and this celebrated visual artist both spawned from the same shit town. I haven't tagged. Yet.

ML: What's the dumbest thing you've ever done?
PL: I once got my finger stuck in a large spool of thread and had to have a maintenance man saw it of me. It was on for hours. This was like...5 years ago.

PL: Your job at New Dramatists sounds pretty sweet. Any not so sweet jobs before that? What's the worst job you've had?
ML: I've been at New Dramatists for 4 years now and am on my way out because you can't apply for membership there while you're on staff. It's been a great time. The only real jobs I had before that were freelance writing jobs, internships, and assistant directing gigs. None of them were really "the worst job ever," but the status of internships and A.D. jobs can be so lowly that it gets old. Like I AD'ed for the drama dept and had to haul a bunch of heavy bags back to their office on opening night just before first performance. On the way to the office I was sweating it out hoofing it in my suit thinking, "What does hauling these bags have to do with the 4 weeks of assistant directing I just did? Am I an artist, or an intern, or am I a coolie?"

ML: Patrick, let's wrap this up with a bit of a lightning round. Favorite medieval weapon?
PL: Mace.

PL: You?
ML: Crossbow.

ML: If you went on a vision quest, and you saw an animal that would be your spirit guide, what animal do you think you would see?
PL: An owl.

PL: Inside your heart there is a small wooden box. Inside that box is a toy from your childhood. What is that toy?
ML: Mum-Ra action figure from Thundercats. Not the one where he's a raging force of evil but the one where he's an enfeebled mummy. Not available in stores. Only available if you clip 5 proofs of purchase from other action figures and send in for it. It came in a small, nondescript cardboard box. It now lives in a small wooden box in my heart.

ML: Which condiment can you most justifiably call "the condiment of seduction?"
PL: Some say ranch. I say honey mustard.

PL: If your life were a video game, how would the character of Lew fight off the bad guys?
ML: Close, melee attacks. Feral backbiting, claws, and cheap headbutts.

ML: What difficult word are you most likely to drop casually into a conversation, hoping it makes you look smarter but secretly fretting you don't know what it means? What do you think that word means?
PL: I use the word 'mercantile' very loosely. When I say something is mercantile, I really just mean 'lame'

PL: Last question: what's the fastest, simplest way to make Mike Lew happy?
ML: Perfect timing.

NEWS: Bloodworks- More information

Bloodworks Reading Series STARTS TONIGHT!
located at @Seaport!
210 Front Street at the South Street Seaport
2, 3, 4, 5, J, Z, M to Fulton Street or A, C to Broadway Nassau

All readings at 7PM

TONIGHT!!!: Mira Gibson's DADDY SODA
directed by Kel Haney
with Abigail Gampel*, Bailey Noble, Lance Rubin, Scott Sowers* and Megan Tusing
In a town where God's busy with people cleaner than you, this broken family learns that rising out of the gutter may not lead to a better place.

* member of Ensemble Studio Theatre

(And next week: Weds., May 13th-- Dorothy Fortenberry's SPECIES NATIVE TO CALIFORNIA...full schedule of readings to follow...)

Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Alick & Weiss: INTERBLOOD INTERVIEW

Jesse Cameron Alick & Emily Chadick Weiss chat it up about whose hometown/state is more hardcore, their humble beginnings as poets, and their day-jobs (which are both rather awesome, actually...):

JCA: As a kid, did you always want to be a playwright?
 
ECW: Definitely. I started writing plays when I was 12.   I also wrote poems which my mom embarrassingly put on the Wall of Emily at my Bat Mitzvah. 

JCA: In honor of the recent Hometown Brunch, did you have a playwright you loved and adored during your formative years?
ECW:All our years are formative ones I say. Some of my faves growing up were Neil Simon, Wendy Wasserstein and Richard Greenberg. Also on the musical front - Stephen Sondheim and William Finn rock. I remain admirers of all of them.

JCA: Why did you decide to become a playwright?
ECW:I picked out of a hat and that's the profession I got. 

JCA:What do you do when you’re not chained to your computer writing?  Don’t you have some sort of rad day job? 
ECW: Currently I'm assisting the writer/director Marc Lawrence  on the movie "Did You Hear About the Morgans?" starring Sarah Jessica Parker and Hugh Grant. It comes out December 18 - should be good!

JCA:What’s the best day job you’ve ever had? 
ECW:Assisting on the movie is pretty interesting. 15 hour days, but I get to go to New Mexico for five weeks and stay in a fancy hotel! 

JCA:When you’ve got writers block, what inspires you?  What gets you out of your ruts?
ECW: I haven't gotten writer's block yet, but if I did, I would read and go for a hike. 

JCA: What time of the day do you usually write? 
ECW: I like morning or just as the sun is setting. Night time is tough because that's when I like to do most of my socializing.

JCA: Any interesting writing rituals? 
ECW: I write upside down like a bat.  

JCA: Don’t you know Mandarin or something?  Any plays written in Chinese in the works? 
ECW: I have my first year of Mandarin under my belt - studied in Stanford and Beijing all to go see the 2008 Olympics which were AWESOME! Hen Hao! 

JCA: What’s your favorite topic to tackle in your work?
ECW: I like embarrassment. And I always write about some sort of love. 

JCA: I especially love your work that plays with heightened reality and reality that isn’t quite reality (ie NODDING OFF) – what appeals to you about this sort of style? 
ECW: That's just what comes out. But glad you liked it!

JCA: Is it true that you're the youngest talent in YB? 
ECW: Not anymore I'm afraid. I am proud to share age 24 with Ms. Anna Moench and Mr. Patrick Link.   Hats off to our youngest, Ms. Eli Clark.

JCA: Who would win in a fight, RJ or Graeme? 
ECW: Tie. They are Ying and Yang.

And then, Emily interviewed Jesse...


ECW: Where you from man? And what's your ancestry?
JCA: The only place MORE hardcore than you Emily - Montana!   My family is actually from Grenada though, a small island in the west indies - where I actually recently got my citizenship. Now I'm just one of the millions upon millions of Montanans with West Indian Citizenship.  

ECW: Have you always wanted to write?
JCA: I've always written poetry (since I was 7) but I actually wanted to be a lawyer until I was 15.  I took latin classes and law classes and was captain of the debate club.  I think it was the suits that attracted me the most.  Somehow just wearing suits wasn't quite enough though...

ECW: What's your favorite thing in life besides writing?
JCA: Religion!  I'm a big fan of studying religions, practicing them, talking to folks about them.  

ECW: I hear you assist Oskar Eustis at the Public - is that cool?
JCA: Ummm - do we know if Oskar reads this blog?  Just kidding!  I actually love the Good Mr. Eustis.  He's such a supportive warm individual.  Not only his his heart in the right place, but so are his politics.  He keeps me VERY busy though - like insanely busy, like text message me at 7am to midnight kind of busy -  he's really the hardest working man in show biz.  But he's never a jerk to me - even when he's got everyone else yelling at him.  He kind of rocks.  BUT I'm actually assistant to ANOTHER person also - the talented playwright Suzan-Lori Parks - who is the most lovely woman to work for EVER!  She gives me advice on my love life too.  

ECW: If you could have written any play, which one would it be?
JCA: Othello.  Don't ask me why.

ECW: What do you not like about your writing? 
JCA: I tend to philosophize...a lot.  In long long paragraphs.  That go on far too long.  And are way too heady.  Like really really heady.  I sometimes bit off more than I can chew...but I keep on knawing anyway...

ECW: What do you think happens after we die?
JCA: "Our souls are unwoven and used to continue the weaving of the tapestry we call life.  All memories, pleasure and pain, are like ink on a rainy day..."

ECW: Who are your favorite writers?
JCA: If we're talking playwrights: Suzan-Lori Parks, Tony Kushner, Caryl Churchill
    If we're talking novelists: My dad and James Baldwin
    If we're talking poets: Mari Evans and Rumi

ECW: What's up with your awesome scorpio belts?
JCA: I'm a scorpio and I'm all about keeping big things very close to my crotch.  Hmm.  That came out wrong.  Or did it?  

ECW:What's your advice to people who want to be playwrights?
JCA: QUIT NOW.  muahaha.  Sorry, kidding.  Good question - I would advise anyone who wants to be a playwright to become a student of human nature.  Listen to people.  Hang out with a diverse population - people you love, people you hate, people you agree with, people you don't.  Everything will pour into you and make you a better writer.  

ECW: What's the one question you wish I asked you?
JCA: I wished you had asked me "Would you like to go on a date?" - but I keep on suggesting and you keep on shooting me down, so I suppose I should just settle for seeing you every Wednesday at Youngblood meetings!

  
 

Saturday, May 02, 2009

News: BLOODWORKS - New Venue

Loving the Victory Brunch? Wanting more? Join us every Tuesday and Wednesday 'til July...

COMING NEXT FROM YOUNGBLOOD:

BLOODWORKS 2009

Our annual reading series, featuring a brand new full-length play from each member of Youngblood.

MAY 6 - JUNE 30

Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 7pm

More details coming soon!

This year BLOODWORKS will be at a brand new venue - @SEAPORT! at the South Street Seaport.