Interview With A Playwright: Jonathan Spector

Preparations for the 2016 Bay Area Playwrights Festival continue with a fresh set of new plays still in development. Our next interview is with playwright Jonathan Spector. We were fortunate enough to be able to ask him some questions about his hilarious (and at times disturbing) play Good, Better, Best, Bested about war, intimacy, and cultural consumption:

BAPF:  You mentioned in a previous interview that the setting of Las Vegas appealed to you because it was an entire city built to encourage people to only care about their own pleasure in the present moment. What drew you to exploring individualized experience in contrast tocollective experience?  

JS: I'm interested in how we as individuals respond to large scale events that don't affect our lives directly. How much time do we or should we take out of our day to think about, or take some action towards, a tragedy involving people we don't know? The machinery of Vegas, built to part people from their money, works particularly hard to get you to privilege what is happening right now for you over anything else. 

BAPF: Additionally, the characters featured in this play are extremely
characteristic of what one assumes they will find in Las Vegas.
Theatrically, why might it be important for us to hear their opinions
about issues like foreign policy or global tragedy? 

JS: It's not. What's important, at least for the play, is less about
people expressing an opinion and more about them navigating an
experience.  

BAPF: Do you believe the responses in this play demonstrate a genuine
representation of our modern-day society when it comes to tragic
events?  

JS: I hope so. 

BAPF:  Thanks so much for talking to us! We look forward to seeing your play brought to life!

Interview with a Playwright: Elizabeth Hersh

The playwright interviews are just one way for audiences to connect with the plays being read at the festival, giving you an inside scoop into the minds of the playwrights and their ideas about their play. Natasha is back with another interview, this time with Elizabeth Hersh whose play Shelter in Place explores what happens when social media privacy is no longer private.

Elizabeth Hersh

Natasha Brown: Thank you for letting me interview you. First question, is your style distinct or does it change depending on the play?

Elizabeth Hersh: I hope my style changes depending on the play. This play is very sparse; the characters don’t talk a lot. This style is very specific to this play, not necessarily my writing. However, I do write stuff that’s dark, gruesome and, hopefully, funny. I guess I do have some consistent styles, but the way the characters interact, the way the scenes progress and the structure come from the specific story I’m trying to tell.

NB: Are there any interesting stories about how your play came into being?

EH: There is a character in the play who appeared because I ran into them at my girlfriend’s parents’ house in Northern California. They had a cleaner who brought her adult daughter along to help out. She wore this crucifixion t-shirt and made my girlfriend’s mom hide all of her Buddha ornaments because they made her feel uncomfortable. She would yell at her daughter whilst we were all eating at the table and it was just this incredibly awkward and tense situation. It made me think about the tension between the service industry and the employer; “I am paying you to clean up after me.” It’s such a weird interaction. She inspired the Cleaning Lady in my play.

NB: That is both hilarious and absurd. I’m curious about the face blindness concept in the play. Did your play start with the concept or did it come in as you were working on it? How much do you want the audience to be conscious of this?

EH: I didn’t even know it was in the play until my girlfriend, who works as a director, dramaturg and new play developer, was talking to me about it. Sometimes, people come up and talk to me and I don’t know if I know them. I recognize people I’m close to very well, but if I meet someone a couple of times and then see them out of context, for example seeing someone from work outside of work, then I find it difficult to place them. This leads to a lot of people thinking I’m rude or that I don’t care about them. It’s not so much of a big deal now that I can explain it to people.

My director is legally blind and we share the same experience of the unease that comes from thinking you know someone but not really being sure. That’s a feeling I want to create in the play - this unease at who these people really are.

NB: After reading your play, I wasn’t surprised to find out that you are a sound designer. Sound is such a presence throughout the play, from the vacuum interrupting the conversation very early on to the blackouts being filled with sound. How does sound link to the privacy issues in the play?

EH: When I was writing the play, I felt that sound was a threat to the family. It’s part of the invasion of their space. It’s something that they can’t control, it’s all around them, and it’s dangerous. I try to write really openly for directors and not pre-design the show. As a designer, I like when directors allow designers to play and collaborate. I try not to get too attached to the ideas I have for the sound as a writer.

NB: Yeah, I can imagine that may be quite difficult sometimes. What do you want the audience to experience whilst watching your play?

EH: Fundamentally, I want it to be entertaining. This show in particular is created to grab the audience by their stomach and pull them through the whole thing. I want them to be laughing until horrified and then laughing some more. I want for the audience to come out and think “What the hell just happened?” I think essentially this play is looking at intimacy - what we think we know about people, why we isolate ourselves and what it means to really know someone. I’ve only ever had a couple of informal readings for this play so I’m really excited to see how a live audience reacts to it.

NB: I’m excited too! Last question, whose work would you recommend for emerging writers to study?

EH: Phillip Ridley – he’s brutal. Caryl Churchill. All of the wonderful female playwrights I’ve ever read. I’m sick of all the cis hetero monogamous dead white men playwrights. Emerging writers should also read a lot of fiction and go and see dance and burlesque. See performance art; see things that are pushing boundaries, new things. We don’t need to see old plays season after season anymore. Theatre’s job is to push the aesthetic of our culture farther from the centre. As women playwrights, we should seek out support and read as many plays written by other women as possible. Also, read things that stretch outside of racial lines. Suzan-Lori Parks! I taught Topdog/Underdog at San Quentin Prison. It was super intense. The prisoners were racially and educationally diverse. One of them had a PhD, and some earned their college degrees whilst in prison.  It broke my preconceived notions about how our society functions. As young playwrights, we need to be the people putting art out there that allows us to see our privileges.

NB: Thanks, Elizabeth!

Shelter in Place is showing on July 18th at 8pm and July 27th at 12pm. Get your tickets here!

The Bay Area Playwrights Festival gives voice to emerging and established playwrights who are pushing boundaries and have the potential to shape the future of American theater and culture. The festival runs from July 18-27. Click here for the calendar and special event details for the whole festival. Shelter in Place is showing on July 18th, 8pm and July 27th, 12pm. Get your tickets here!

Interview with Phillip Howze, playwright of "abominable"

Welcome to the 37th Annual Bay Area Playwrights Festival! I'm Natasha, one of the interns at this year's festival, and I will be posting a series of interviews with the playwrights in the next few weeks leading up to the festival from our incredibly talented playwrights.

The plays have been chosen, the artistic team is being finalized, and everyone at Playwrights Foundation is working very hard to make this year's festival one of the best yet. Keep checking back with our blog to stay updated on backstage scoops and information on our engaging special events throughout the festival. 

I was fortunate to interview the brilliant Phillip Howze whose play abominable is really worth checking out. 

Phillip Howze

Natasha Brown: Thank you for letting me interview you. Let's kick things off! First question, is your style distinct or does it change depending on the play? 

Phillip Howze: With each play I’m becoming more aware of getting out of the way of the play and letting it be what it wants to be. The play is shapeless for a very long time. It takes a while to figure it out. Every play is different and it takes on the features and qualities that it intends itself to be.

NB: That makes sense. Are there any interesting stories about how this play came into being?

PH: I wrote the first draft of this play a couple of years ago, very quickly. It started as an exercise with a great professor of mine at Yale, Paula Vogel. She challenged us to write a play with a certain prompt and ingredients. Actually I’m not very good with authority so my first thought was “no!”, but eventually the idea became kind of freeing once I went with it. The draft changed dramatically over time. I’m really happy to work on it at the festival in its current state because I think that I’ve gotten to what is actually at the heart of this play.

NB: And we're happy to have you! Whilst reading your play, the hole reminded me of the digging of the hole in Suzan-Lori Park’s The America Play. I was excited to see the imagery again. The tone of this play, however, is different. What are you hoping to accomplish with the hole in your play?

PH: Of course Suzan-Lori is someone I love and admire. I think she describes that hole as a kind of metaphor for the history of America. Recently, in Florida all of these crazy sinkholes were opening up all over the place. My parents live there and I visit them and often think about that geological phenomenon. The hole in this play is likely more literal. But it is ambiguous whether the husband is digging himself into it or out of it. Of course anyone who sees it may project whatever they want onto it. I encourage that.

Suzan-Lori Parks

NB: You play around with the use of sound a lot in the play, whether it is through the blackout transitions or words being distorted in some way. The writing is also very lyrical. What do you want the audience to experience whilst watching your play in terms of the soundscapes?

PH: As a writer, I’m interested in the visual and aural landscape too. There is a lot in this play about listening versus hearing – the idea of something going in one ear and out the other. How does that information change on its route? How does your imagination change it? Everything goes through a filter and that filter is how we are interpreting or making meaning of the things we are engaging in. In part, I think the heightened speech and sound in the play reflects that disruption. 

NB: I agree. This play really highlights the economic strife of the family in very bleak and despairing ways. However, I’ve heard that you actually see the play more like a comedy. Could you tell me more about this?

PH: It’s strange because the story, though dark and eerie, is also incredibly funny. In life, we laugh to get through the hard moments. And I think that this family laughs a lot with each other, despite their circumstance. There might be a tragic framework, yes, but the characters don’t know that. They’re trying to have a good time together. For the spectator looking at it, it might seem abject but that’s only one half of the story. We can choose to laugh with them. In a lot of Shakespeare’s tragedies, there are flits of comedy throughout. A similar combination of light and dark are operating in this play. 

NB: Last question: whose work would you recommend for emerging writers to study?

PH: It’s important to read as much as you can. Read everything you can get your hands on. Never stop reading. Playwrights who have been meaningful to me over the years have been many, but especially the Classical writers. The Greeks. I love a lot of Shakespeare’s plays. But go to witness a lot of theatre too, because it will motivate the work that you’re making and it’s always been an important thing to me to be part of the community in that way. Get involved. Bear witness to things that are happening around you. And read the newspaper. Trying to stay informed about the world is a very important part of being a writer.

NB: Thanks, Phillip! 

The Bay Area Playwrights Festival gives voice to emerging and established playwrights who are pushing boundaries and have the potential to shape the future of American theater and culture. The festival runs from July 18-27. Click here for the calendar and special event details for the whole festival. abominable is showing on July 19th, 4pm and July 26th, 8pm. Get your tickets here!