Meet Eric Dufault and Lydia Brunner

Eric: Hi Lydia!

Lydia: Hi Eric! Well, to begin with the obvious: Where did you grow up? And when did you start to think seriously about being a playwright and why?

Eric: I grew up in Pepperell, MA, a little town on the border of New Hampshire. Very small: horses, foxes, turkeys.

I never had this perfect Road to Damascus "I'm going to become a playwright!" moment. I wanted to be a writer when I was young and impressionable. Somewhere in high school I made the responsible decision to move away from prose writing; I could easily see myself becoming some hunchbacked hermit all alone in the MA hills.

I began writing plays, and that migrated into college, and here I am now. Beyond the collaborative aspect, I like the possibilities and limitations of theatre. For me, it forces a "story-first" mentality. Also, I think you can do weird stuff well and get away with it.

Right back at you: You grew up in CT, right? Did you always live there? Do you feel like it influenced your writing in any way?

Lydia: I grew up in Ridgefield, CT, but I was born in northern California. I rode across the country at about one and half sitting on my grandma’s lap. Ridgefield is about an hour from the NYC and a ten minute drive from there to the town they based the The Stepford Wives on. The town has a Main Street complete with a local pizza place, and a candy store full of middle school kids.

I think it factors in some of my work, but it’s hard to explain how. The isolation affected me, and certainly the lesson that wealth conceals but does not solve unhappiness.

I did not want to be a playwright until a few years ago. My first year at Columbia, I was dragged along by a friend to a reading of a play written by his teacher. We wound up at the bar with the cast, playwright and her husband. Someone bought me a beer, and the playwright asked me why I hadn’t signed up for her class. In the dark, I couldn’t think of a reason not to.

Alright, back to you. What's the weirdest thing you've written into a play? What's the best moment of theater you've ever experienced? And what writers do you admire? Would you say that your work has a particular style?

Eric: I'm going to swap up the order that I answer these questions, if just to make things difficult.

We talked about how difficult and unpleasant it is to describe your own work, so I'm going to tread carefully with these answers.

I'm sure I have a style, though I don't quite know what it is. It's dangerous to try to identify and stick to a single style anyway, right? You just become a parody of yourself. That being said, there are common trends in my writing, and writers who have clearly influenced me.

Though I'm sure they're real common influences all over the playwriting world, the two playwrights who impacted my writing the most are probably Sam Shepard and Sarah Ruhl. I think they do really similar things, one in that gruff cowboy way, and the other in that wistful poetic way. Their best plays both make their own universes with their own rules, but allow them to be really accessible. They're also real funny! Lately I've been really into Mickey Birnbaum and Stephen Adly Guirgus.

Some of my early college-era plays were pretty weird. I grew up reading lots of comic books, and I think the hyper-compressed comic book writing of the sixties fed into the way I thought (think) about stories. I would try to pack as much as possible onstage; there'd be lots of historical figures and talking animals. One play had Vincent Van Gogh, Harry Houdini, Pinocchio, and a pair talking bugs. I think I've become more restrained since then. But talking animals do come up a lot.

Best theater moment as an audience member: I saw some Boston production of the Tempest when I was a kid (it's my favorite Shakespeare); I don't even know how much I understood or enjoyed it, but that motherfucker is burned into my brain. So much magic!

These are good and difficult questions, Lydia, so I'm totally going to boomerang them back to you. How would you describe your writing? Who're your writing crushes/influences? What was the first play you ever wrote? Do you have a "magical moment of theater" story?

Lydia: I too, have trouble describing my writing style. I’d agree that it depends which play is being written and that style tends to follow the content. But I guess I like violence, sex and humor. I’m more interested in families than romance. Most of my characters don’t finish their sentences.

I really like quite a few playwrights. For the more contemporary sort: David Lindsay-Abaires, Sam Hunter, Adam Bock, Julia Jordan, Joe Fisher, Craig Wright, Stephen Adly Guirgis, and Martin McDonagh jump to mind.

My first play was a pretty awful treatise on a doomed romance, full of half poetic language without much plot. But I quickly moved on from that type of work.

I really like theater that frightens you. I’d say the moment in SoHo Rep’s recent production of Blasted when the whole space goes black was probably the most memorable experience at a play. You hear something like a bomb, and then the sound of heavy objects being thrown. You sit in the dark for what feels like an eternity while these sounds get louder and louder. I clutched a stranger’s arm for dear life. Then the lights came up and the entire set has been dismantled and blown apart.

Eric: Wow, Lydia, I feel as if I know you so much more both as a person and playwright! And I’m sure you could say the same for me! Sure am excited to see what we come up with!

"Lonesome Winter" Opens December 2nd

The Management and Horse Trade Theater Group

Present

Lonesome Winter

A Christmas comedy for the suicide set!

Written by Joshua Conkel and Megan Hill

Directed by Meg Sturiano

Winter Lipschitz is lonesome. She has no friends, an addiction to the Shop at Home Network has run amok, her nipple hair is out of control, and on top of everything else, her cat Sparkles hates her guts. After a failed suicide attempt, Winter is visited by life coach Debbie Metzger-Bolger. Will Debbie give Winter the tools she needs to get her life back on track? Or are the Pearly Gates the only thing in store for poor old Winter?

Featuring Nicole Beerman*, Megan Hill*, Kirsten Hopkins*, Nick Lewis, and Joshua Conkel

December 2-19^th@ UNDER St. Marks
Thursdays-Saturdays at 8, Sundays at 2
Tickets Available at www.smarttix.com

*Member’s of Actor’s Equity. Equity Approved Showcase.

Meet Ryan Dowler

Angela Hanks interviews new member Ryan Dowler (the dude on the left, not the chick on the right.)

AH: If you could perform one character from a play, who would it be?

RD: George Deever in All My Sons. Best walk-on ever. Or twenty years from now, Ray in Blackbird. Preferably anyone who’s an asshole and then isn’t an asshole and then still just might be an asshole.

AH: How does music inform your work? Does it? Or do you just like to rock out to awesome awesome jams?

RD: I’m one of those people who listens to one album over and over and over again while I work. It kind of acts as white noise to distract that part of my brain that wants to look all over or daydream or what have you. In high school, it was Weezer’s Blue Album and then a Ben Folds Five album over and over and over, and now lately it’s been Raphael Saadiq. When the album ends and iTunes switches to a new song, my brain goes, “B’wha?” and I have to start the album over.

In general, I always prefer music to no music. My girlfriend Molly and I just moved to NY and we live in this building with all these older quieter people and Molly keeps telling me to turn the music down. I keep trying to explain to her that in the building we’re the Randle P. McMurphy contingent and the Randle P. McMurphy contingent isn’t supposed to turn the music down. If anything, we owe it to them to turn it up. To be fair, it’s all like Ray Charles and Loretta Lynn and its not even that loud.

AH: Where do you like to write?

RD: I just came here from Athens, Ohio where I had the perfect place to write, a place called Donkey Coffee. There are so many places to sit, different rooms and kinds of tables to choose from and every table has it’s own little lamp. What it is, it’s cozy. In New York cozy means small, but in Ohio cozy means smartly lit and warm, with a place to hang your coat. There was a table on the second floor with a big window where you could watch the snow fall and the people walking on the street. There was a couch in a great big room with paintings better than windows, where you could sit and write for hours next to sleeping teenage couples wrapped up in limbs and sweaters and scarves. Not a bad thing to see if you’re trying to write about the better parts of being a human being.

I almost missed out on a year and a half of very productive writing time at Donkey. Athens itself is a place of contradictions as an environment for writing. A lot of great writers – Laura Jacqmin, Dana Formby, David Mitchell Robinson , to name too few -- have come out of Charles Smith’s program at OU lately, but the workload in terms of writing is intense (3 full-lengths and 60 short plays written and staged in 3 years + all the classes on structure and theory + teaching). You’re really getting your Malcolm-Gladwell-10,000 hours- thing, but the location can be very isolating, for good or ill. Winter in rural Ohio can get pretty depressing and I remember I had one of those graduate student therapists because I was having trouble leaving my house.

She said there must be somewhere else you want to go to do your work. And I said there is one coffee shop I like, but I can’t work there anymore because everything I’ve ever worked on there – every essay, every lecture, whatever -- is a piece of shit. It was a pretty pathetic show, but I completely believed it, and walking through the door just brought all that back and it was all very distracting and sad. Finally the thing that happened – Winter ended and I stopped being foolish and in a kind of Saved-by-the-Bell Scheme, I started writing there to get close to another more talented playwright that I had a crush on, who’s now my girlfriend.

I haven’t really found a place in NY yet. A lot of them are lit like a Wal-Mart. I like that Café Grumpy location in Greenpoint, but it’s very far away. Ditto Flying Saucer, but they won’t take any cards. Did you see that Joan Rivers documentary? I want to work in a coffee shop that looks like Joan River’s apartment. That’s what I want. Where you can transition from coffee to beer when the time is right. Also it takes credit cards. And has a little lamp on every table.

AH: You do know that your last name rhymes with another Youngblood's last name, right? How do you feel about that?

RD: Darcy Fowler is actually the first Youngblood/er/y that I met. There shouldn’t be much confusion. She’s much more socially adept and bright than I am. She’s the one I’d choose first to be on my softball team, based on what I imagine leading/being on a softball team might be like.

There’s actually an actress in L.A. with my full name. She’s much more googleable than me. Old friends sometimes contact me to congratulate me on my plays and on playing “Pregnant Girl #2” on The O.C.

Dirty Thirty

In recent weeks, especially in the Wasserstein dust-up in our comments section, there's been a lot of discussion about ageism and Youngblood's "under thirty rule" in particular. I've been thinking about these comments a lot. See, in one month and three days, I, your humble blog administrator, will turn thirty.

They won't give me the boot immediately, of course. I'll get to finish the season and you'll probably be able to see a few more warped brunch plays from me. But still, it's bitter sweet. Sweet: I've been in Youngblood for three wonderful years and in that time my writing has grown exponentially as have my chances at becoming an actual, factual, honest-to-goodness career playwright. I never went to graduate school, and in many respects I feel Youngblood (and running my own theater company for six years) was my graduate school. There's no education like a DIY education, I can tell you that. But bitter: thirty is young for a playwright, isn't it? Why can't I stay another five years? Or ten?

I know why.

Theater is not a place for young people. I see all sorts of problems with the institutions: racism, sexism, classism (the one nobody likes talking about.) But ageism? I can certainly see how the search to find the next great young playwright, as one commenter put it, could be annoying to somebody who found playwriting later in life. Even so, that's maybe one or two or a small handful of young playwrights. The rest of us have to wait until at least thirty or later for any modicum of success. And why? Because the whole industry is controlled by people who are middle aged or older and they want to do their own generation's plays.

I don't mean that as an insult. I like plays by writers around my age too (when I get to see them.) I just think it's disingenuous to say that ageism is such a big problem when you can barely get young people into a theater*. Unless you mean ageism against young people, but I don't think that's what these people mean. The reason there is no "over thirty" playwriting group is because THE WHOLE INDUSTRY is an over thirty group.

I'm going to miss Youngblood terribly, but you know what? There are tons of writers' groups in this city. I hope I'll find a new artistic home when I go, but I also understand why I do have to go. Although it may seem otherwise to some, a place for young playwrights to grow together is fundamental to the health of the art form. I'd like to be in Ma-Yi, but I'm not Asian. I'd like to be in the Public's Emerging Writers Group, but I have an agent and they don't allow that. This is okay. There need to be more groups like Youngblood, not less. Groups for queers, women, people of color, writers without MFAs...

Theater should be for everybody, shouldn't it?

*On that note, and this should be a whole other post, if you are interested in getting young people to your theater then you should do plays they want to see instead of using an edgier font on your marketing materials. Just a little tip from me to you!

Meet Rachel Bonds

Christopher Sullivan interviewed fellow newbie Rachel Bonds.

Christopher Sullivan: Where did you grow up? Do you feel like it had an impact on your writing?

Rachel Bonds: I grew up in Sewanee, Tennessee, which is a tiny college town in the mountains. There are literally two stoplights in the entire town. It's a beautiful place, a very quiet place. I spent a lot of time growing up getting lost in the woods. Though everyone there knows everyone there, so in another sense, it was difficult to ever really be lost or to blend in. It's the opposite of New York. I miss it very much sometimes.

It's absolutely had an impact on my writing. I think it has spurned my fascination in the idea of isolation, in the strange or frightening things that happen in small places. I was also raised by academics, which instilled in me a deep love and reverence for books and an obsession with language.

CS: How would you describe your work? Are there elements/themes/ideas you find yourself returning to again and again?

RB: I'm interested in our quotidien language, in our often inarticulate methods of interaction. I'm interested in "yeah" and "oh" and "okay" and "um" and the possibilities that live in these little words. I'm also interested in theatricality and magic and a character's ability to suddenly speak very elegantly and eloquently. I think my current work explores what happens when these two elements collide, when the everyday world of work and bosses and "yeahs" and "okays" meets with something whimsical or dark or otherworldly. I write a lot about grief. And fear. And death. Dark things. Time passing. I find myself returning again and again to the things in my life that I can't seem to put into words or explain. I keep trying to find a way to explain them. I'm a bit haunted.

CS: How do you balance your work in theater with day jobs/supporting yourself? Do you find there is always a conflict between the two?

RB: I've been lucky over the past four years to have a very flexible job that's allowed me to work from home and fit my writing in around it. In the past year, however, I've found I need more and more time to write and really need to fit my day job around my writing. Working from home has also taken its toll on me, as I've spent a lot of time alone in my apartment with a computer going crazy and suffering from lack of human interaction. I recently decided to leave my job. So. Come January I'm looking for part-time work that involves human interaction.

CS: Any artists/writers/companies you find particularly inspiring lately?

RB: I've been a huge fan of Pig Iron's work over the past several years. I'm interested in devised work and I think they've collaboratively created some smart, theatrical and gorgeous pieces. I'm also an enormous fan of Nature Theater of Oklahoma. I'm a little obsessed with Melissa James Gibson and Jenny Schwartz. And I love Tim Crouch. And I recently saw ERS' Gatz, which I can't stop thinking about.

CS: What are your interests outside of the theater?

RB: I have a background in creative non-fiction---though I've recently gotten away from essay-writing as I focus on my plays. I love to cook—I have a farm share with the Greenpoint-Williamsburg CSA. My boyfriend and I have been making our own pasta lately. I love to travel...I wish I could afford to do more of it. I also love dance parties. I run a lot, too, which helps keep me sane. I'm quietly and slowly training myself to run a half-marathon. What else? Yoga. My bike. HBO shows. Looking for a new job. Cats and dogs. Coffee.

Meet Alex Borinsky

In true tit-for-tat fashion, new Youngblood member Darcy Fowler now profiles fellow freshman Alex Borinsky.

So sayeth Darcy:

Alex Borinsky. I walked into Grey Dog. He was sitting at a small table, scribbling away in his notebook, black coffee by his side. He looked focused, thoughtful, calm. A hint of a smile on his face. It made me smile. I think I figured out why. There’s a light that emanates from him.

The Place

He grew up in Baltimore Maryland, home of John Waters and The Wire. Baltimore, he says, is a very dear but troubled city. Never too big for it’s britches, which was something that Alex seemed to appreciate. Maryland’s also known for it’s jousting. Alex doesn’t joust. Not even a little.

The People

Some of Alex’s favorites include Chekhov, Beckett and to my excitement, The Muppets. He resonates with Gonzo, the strange and kind hearted Muppet that may or may not be from outer space. Favorite Muppet moment: “There’s a skit where Zero Mostel talks about his fears, and all these scary looking Muppets appear.” I you tubed it. It’s incredible. [Ed: link here.  Plus, check out what Zero gets up to behind Sam the Eagle around 5:30 of this one.]

The Playwright

Alex found his love for writing through poetry. But that was really just for himself. He found his love for playwriting at Yale. He talked about one particularly amazing teacher whose very being “oozed the pleasure of making plays and using language.” She always put emphasis on the joy of the process.

Also while at Yale, Alex (who is also an actor) worked with an experimental theatre group called the Control Group. They stretched themselves, experimented and explored. They made plays in houses, and backyards, and lit fires on rooftops during performances.

At school, Alex wrote his first play: The Polish Egg Man, and he didn’t look back.

The Present

He is currently part of the theatre company American Centaur, a group that puts playful twists on Shakespeare (americancentaur.weebly.com). He’s also a huge fan of dance, and his serious obsession with American Puritans is just starting to reemerge.

Alex presently lives in Harlem, amongst many picturesque dilapidated buildings.

Meet Darcy Fowler

As profiled by fellow newbie, Alex Borinsky.


Darcy Fowler laughs very generously and her whole face lights up when she smiles. She was one of the first people I met in Youngblood, and I liked her from the start. I’m looking forward to seeing one of her first plays, The Bird and the Two-Ton Weight, when it goes up this winter at E.S.T.

The Place

Darcy grew up in Massachusetts, on the Marblehead-Salem border. The town is sea-shantyish, she says – lots of lobsters and lobstermen. It’s witch country, too: here and there, a few people still claim to be witches.

The People

Darcy names Nicky Silver, Adam Bock, Aaron Sorkin, Laura Wade, Mel Brooks, the Marx Brothers, and Tina Fey when I ask her about her influences. Then she adds, “And my mother.” It becomes clear that we share a deep, aching love for the Muppets. Of the lot, Darcy identifies mostly with Fozzie Bear, the hard-loving comedian with a heart of gold. Her favorite play of the moment: The Pavilion, by Craig Wright.

The Play

The Bird and the Two-Ton Weight tells the story of a girl who comes home after death of her mother to act as the glue that will hold her family together. She finds a mysterious parcel on the front porch that seems to be her mother’s notebook. The play unfolds around the ways in which this notebook moves the girl through her grief.

Later I asked Darcy how much her plays emerge from her own experience. She answered that they start with her own experience, yes, but that the process of shaping the play involves a growing confidence in a structure and set of characters that draw the play away from the impulse that inspired it and towards a life of its own.

Darcy says that she enrolled at Syracuse to study acting, but that the faculty encouraged her and her classmates to make their own theater, to find confidence in their own voices. The Bird and the Two-Ton Weight came out of that encouragement. It was the project on which she says she discovered that “I had this voice I didn’t fully know I had.”

The Present

These days, Darcy writes, performs with the Story Pirates, and develops a webisode with friends called “You Make My Dreams Come True,” about a group of girls who start a Hall and Oats cover band (http://www.youmakemydreamscometrue.com/. Seriously good.). Though the majority of her roommates are musicians, Darcy at first denies any musical skill of her own. “If I could I would play the drums,” she says, and pauses. Then: “I play the drums when I’m drunk. It’s a great way to get out excess energy.”

She is an ardent apostle of the Ditmas Park neighborhood of Brooklyn.

Meet Christopher Sullivan

Newly minted Younblooder Christopher Sullivan was interviewed by fellow newbie, Rachel Bonds. This is what he had to say.

Rachel Bonds: Where did you grow up?

Christopher Sullivan: I grew up in Warwick, New York, which is a sleepy little town about an hour north of NYC in Orange County. It's a popular fall destination for city goers who want to go apple picking and attend our annual "Apple Fest" (the name more or less sums it up). Growing up there I couldn't wait to get out, but now whenever I'm home I try and stay as long as I can to see my family and take in the foliage. Being so close to New York also sort of tainted my view of what a city is, because my idea of a city was completely shaped by this one, so when I began traveling and visiting others there was a certain disappointment. It makes it hard to imagine living somewhere else.

RB: How would you describe your work? Are there elements/themes/ideas you find yourself returning to again and again?

CS: I'm terrible at answering this. It depends. I tend to go back and forth between a very naturalistic style, where I try and really pin point how people speak and act, to a more heightened, "poetic" (I hate calling it that) language where the characters are a little more free
with their words. I feel like in the past couple years I've really expanded my horizons in terms of a character's language. I like to work with monologues. I've been trying to let the surreal happen and mix into the real world as if it's no big deal. That's something I find really interesting. I had a character who ate flowers when she was nervous.

As far as subject matter goes it usually lingers around couples, relationships, families. America always seems to make it in there. My plays are sort of always a half hearted, tongue in cheek love letter to America.

RB: What do you find frustrating in theater? And what do you find exciting?

CS: I've always been frustrated by the inaccessibility of theater. Number one, it's expensive. Even downtown off off Broadway stuff is almost always going to cost at least 20 dollars. That's crazy. Sure, I understand all the costs that go along with producing theater, but when you think about the kinds of art that are cheaper, or even free, it's no wonder the theater has a tough time attracting new audiences. I feel like every time I go to the theater the audience is almost
always much, much older, and when it's not, it's younger people who already work within the theater. So there's this exclusive, stuffy, formal atmosphere that I find totally uninteresting. And I guess a lot of people are just used to that. Most of my friends are in the music world, so I'm going to a lot of smaller shows and I've talked to countless people who would love to go see plays but have no idea where they are, what to see, and then don't have the money to drop 30-40 bucks on a play they would otherwise probably completely enjoy. It's a goal of mine, and I know a goal of many others, to try and make theater more accessible to someone who on a Friday night would go have a drink and see a band, to try and get that person to go to a play too.

Because, to answer the other question, there is something wonderful and exciting about theater that you don't get out of other art forms. To be in a room with actors where anything can happen is a great thing, and I think people who don't go see plays often have a sort of antiquated view of what theater is and does, and how fun it is, and how so many new playwrights and artists are doing these exciting, hilarious, touching things. To me theater is like a 'best of' of other kinds of performance. It's got everything.

RB: Any artists/writers/companies you find particularly inspiring lately?

CS: A few years ago Will Eno really changed the way I thought about writing plays. There was something so free, an almost disregard for the audience in Eno's words that I was immediately attracted to. There always seems to be a constant frustration in his characters as they contradict themselves over and over, feeling huge emotions and ending in this sort of ambivalence that really struck a chord with me. I got into Adam Rapp not too long after that and really appreciated the dark weirdness to his writing.

There were a lot of good records that came out this year. Probably my favorite so far is by Andrew Cedarmark, a young guy who comes from this community of "buzz" artists in Brooklyn and New Jersey. He plays this fuzzy, garage rock that's both epic and quiet and packs a big punch. You struggle to hear the vocals over the mess of all the music, which is pretty common these days, but there's something about the way he does it that seems to aid the overall experience. Like he's struggling to be heard and you're struggling to figure out what he's saying. I think that's something I like in theater, too.

RB: What are your interests outside of the theater?

CS: I'm a huge news/politics junkie, and spend most of my time reading the paper, listening to NPR/WNYC, or some kind of nerdy news podcast. I have a politics blog and webseries called "Tick Tock with Chris Sullivan" where I play this sort of roving reporter covering fake news stories. (Shameless plug www.ticktockwcs.blogspot.com). I've also made a few short films and hope to work more in film and TV in the future. I work at an events management company/women's rights non-profit owned by a very wealthy French couple, so when I'm not there I'm trying to sleep, out running around seeing music, movies, going to parks with big trees and the like. Right now I'm trying to put together a series of shows at DIY spaces in Brooklyn with short plays in between bands, so we'll see how that goes.

Wasserstein Prize "Do-over"

Check out the New York Times' Arts Beat blog post about TDF's decision to reconsider the nominees for the Wasserstein prize. Big props to Mike Lew for his fantastic letter, and to the petition signers!

Petition to Reconsider the 2010 Wasserstein Prize; Reading Series for Jilted Finalists

Elyse Singer (as well as Carson Kreitzer, Kate Moira Ryan, and Zakiyyah Alexander) have put together a petition asking TDF to reconsider their decision not to award the 2010 Wasserstein Prize (see previous Youngblog post for further details). Please consider signing the petition here.

The petition software is a bit finicky, so after you've signed it please double-check to make sure that your name is listed. There is a preview page, a signing page, etc., but if you receive a message saying "Thank you for signing" you're good to go.

Over at 2AMt there's a proposal to produce a national festival of readings of the nineteen finalists' plays and live-stream the readings online. If you have a theater company that would be interested in participating, or if you're one of the finalists and feel comfortable stepping forward, or if you're merely curious, read about it here.

Onward,
Mike

No Wasserstein Prize in 2010; Selection Panel Cites Lack of Outstanding Plays

According to one of their rejection letters, the Wasserstein Prize will not be awarded in 2010 because the selection panel could not find a play they thought was "truly outstanding." As a member of Youngblood and Ma-Yi and the Old Vic network I see truly outstanding plays by emerging female writers on a pretty much daily basis, so as you can imagine I'm outraged by their decision (not to mention the slap in the face it lands on our many talented peers who were nominated).

This is the response that I sent to TDF (c/o Executive Director Victoria Bailey), who adjudicates the prize.

-Mike

Dear Ms. Bailey,

I recently had the chance to review one of the rejection letters for the Wasserstein Prize. As stated in the letter, "We regret to inform you that of the 19 nominated plays, none was deemed sufficiently realized by the selection panel to receive the Prize. As a result, the Wasserstein Prize will not be presented in 2010. While the panel thought that many of the scripts showed promise, they felt that none of the plays were truly outstanding in their current incarnation." This decision can only be interpreted as a blanket indictment on the quality of female emerging writers and their work, and is insulting not only to the finalists but also to the many theatre professionals who nominated these writers and deemed their plays prize worthy. This decision perpetuates the pattern of gender bias outlined in Julia Jordan and Emily Glassberg Sands' study on women in theatre, and the message it sends to the theatre community generally is that there aren't any young female playwrights worth investigating.

I have personally witnessed a vibrant community of emerging female writers whose work is truly outstanding and whose plays are brilliantly realized. If the selection panel can't engage with that community under the current guidelines, then blow up the guidelines. If you can't find a script worth celebrating, then celebrate a production. After all, plays are meant to be experienced and not read on a page. If you can't find a production, then celebrate a body of work. If you can't find a young writer whose body of work is sufficiently expansive, then remove the 32 year old age cap on eligibility for the prize. After all, there are precious few writers - male or female - whose plays have received national attention by the ripe old age of 32. And if you still can't find an emerging writer at any age whose body of work is worth celebrating, then celebrate a vision. Celebrate a promising voice. Celebrate a writer of startling potential. But above all, you must celebrate and not condemn -- you must summon the same generosity of spirit that Wendy herself showed young artists.

Wendy Wasserstein's legacy as one of America's most prominent playwrights is both beautiful and haunting -- a beautiful testament to Wendy's prolific talents and a haunting reminder of how difficult it is for women writers to get the attention that they deserve. I know you're aware of the inequalities that persist in this business -- the dearth of production opportunities for females and for writers of color. This award should help to combat those inequalities by bringing more attention to voices that are continually shut out of the conversation. If this were the Pulitzer Prize, then it might (or might not) make sense to set a bar that compares the most prominent plays in recent American history, and in certain years decide that no play reaches that bar. But this is an advocacy tool - not just a prize - and in an industry that is hostile to providing equal resources for all voices, there can be no bar to advocacy.

I hope that we can have a further conversation about this. I know that you personally have been a tireless champion for playwrights, and the field certainly owes you a debt for your years-long effort creating Outrageous Fortune. This year, the Wasserstein Prize has been used to pass judgment on a generation of talented writers, and that decision perpetuates the very cycle of exclusion that this award seeks to redress.

Respectfully,
Michael Lew
Playwright