Interview with a Playwright: Kevin Artigue

The 2016 Season of Rough Readings continues with a fresh set of new plays still in development. The Late February Rough Readings features The Most Dangerous Highway in the World from playwright Kevin Artigue. We were fortunate enough to ask him some questions about this work and the Producing Partnership with Golden Thread Productions:

Rachel Finkelstein: It's a pleasure to speak with you! I'd love to hear how you first learned about the Kabul-Jalalabad Highway, and what compelled you to write a play on it?

Kevin Artigue: I can’t exactly remember! I think I first saw a picture in an old library book researching a different play (also set in Afghanistan). But it was a series of articles by the journalist Dexter Filkins that sparked the first images for the play. What stuck with me was the idea that these drivers were purposefully risking their lives, driving way too fast, taking stupid risks - and why? The mystery of their death wish stuck with me. And in the middle of the exhaust and chaos was a charming, hopeful little boy eking out a living. 

Kevin Artigue

The image of a car soaring over his head while he directs traffic – I wanted to see that on stage. 

RF: How did you come to know the characters you feature in the play?

KA: I’m not from Afghanistan so I had lots of homework to do – which continues to this day. The process of getting to know my characters starts with a superficial first draft that slowly gets better, becomes more grounded, moving outside in. But the key to my understanding of my characters and the world of the play is thanks to the faith of Golden Thread. They have provided me with moral and creative support for the last three years, including vital introductions to the Afghan community. These contacts and conversations have enriched and transformed not only my play, but my life. Writing this far outside my experience has been tough, but I believe worth the extra effort.

RF: So, what is your connection to Golden Threads Productions and their New Threads Staged Reading Series? How are you collaborating them to bring your vision to life?

KA: My collaboration with Golden Thread began three years ago with a staged reading of an early draft, and has continued to this day. They have championed this play and supported its development. Together, we took the play to the National New Play Showcase in 2014, and out of that successful week we hatched plans for a production. In preparation for production in May, Golden Thread has provided me with all the dramaturgical love a playwright can ask for, including access to experts and cultural consultants. As the first writer of non-Middle Eastern descent to be produced on their mainstage, I feel honored and humbled.

RF: The play has a beautiful dreamlike repetition to it - what was the driving force behind that use of language?

KA: Some of the characters in the play are caught in a literal limbo, wandering off after their car accidents in a state of amnesia. Slowly, in pieces, they begin to remember what happened. As memories come back to them, the language circles and builds until it clarifies and makes more sense.

RF: And to close up, is there anything you'd like the audience to keep in mind going into the reading?

KA: I’d like them to know something that took me a while to really see: that Afghanistan is more than a war torn “graveyard of empires”. We’re bombarded with depressing images and stories of war, trauma, and suffering. While these images of Afghanistan are mostly accurate, they are biased, and override the simultaneous bigger story of the vast majority of Afghans who manage through hope, perseverance, religion, and humor to create meaning and order in their day-to-day lives. A need for meaning and order we can easily recognize in ourselves. 

RF: Definitely - I look forward to seeing it! Thanks again for speaking with us.

The Rough Reading Series is Pay What You Can. The 2016 series begins with "The Most Dangerous Highway in the World" by Kevin Artigue, playing Sunday, February 21st, 5:00pm at Custom Made Theatre, San Francisco and Monday, February 22nd, 7:30pm at Roble Hall, Stanford University.

Read more about "The Most Dangerous Highway in the World", Kevin Artigue, and the Rough Reading Series at  Playwrightsfoundation.org. 

Save a Seat with an RSVP! Email rsvp@playwrightsfoundation.org or call 415.626.2176.

Interview with a Playwright: Dipika Guha

The Rough Readings Series is wrapping up for the year with Lifted by Dipika Guha! We had the chance to interview Dipika Guha on her process, motivation, and experience as a Resident Playwright at PF.

You can view the entire interview on Vimeo, but here's just a sampling of some of her remarkably insightful thoughts:

Dipika Guha

"As a playwright, we have the opportunity to begin the world again when we write plays, and my plays tend to be set in imagined worlds that draw very real resonances from history, but they're always slightly askew...I think there's an attempt in that to foster a kind of imaginative space."

"I think tragicomedy in particular strikes me ... of life being both things simultaneously, that speaks to me as being true...There something in that multi-genre device that is thorny and poses the question rather than a simple solution."

"I think point of view can be embodied in a very direct way...where you are forced to take another perspective. And I think the more perspectives we can take on the world right now, the better it is. We do live in a globalized world, but it's also a world of such iniquity."

"There's a sort of pressure to devote ourselves from imagination and from play, and I think I'm drawn to everything that preserves that in the writing of my play worlds."

"There is such a diversity of aesthetic and voice in this room it's truly thrilling to be part of the [Resident Playwrights] Initiative."

Dipika Guha's Interview

The Rough Reading Series is Pay What You Can, and is closing out the year with "Lifted" by Dipika Guha, playing Tuesday, November 17th at 2:30pm at Custom Made Theatre in San Francisco and Wednesday, November 18th at 7:30pm at Roble Hall in Stanford University. 

Read more about "Lifted", Dipika Guha, and the Rough Reading Series at  Playwrightsfoundation.org.

Save a Seat with an RSVP! Email rsvp@playwrightsfoundation.org or call 415.626.2176.

* Member of Actors' Equity Association

Rajiv Joseph gets "Gruesome"

It's quite the start of a year for Playwrights Foundation alumnus, Rajiv Joseph.  Now we all know about his Broadway debut and Pulitzer finalist Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, but we cannot forget his other works!  Currently running at the Second Stage Theatre, also in lovely New York City, is Gruesome Playground Injuries, a play where two lovers compare their lives in the form of their physical scars.  Playbill.com has the scoop:

Courtesy of Second Stage Theatre

In the case of Gruesome Playground Injuries, now playing at New York City's Second Stage Theatre, Joseph came up with the title before the story had taken shape. "I was having drinks with an old friend of mine," recalls the playwright, who recently had Gruesome produced at Houston's Alley Theatre and at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre in Washington, DC. "He was telling me stories about the many bizarre mishaps that have left scars all over his body, and I realized that if you were like him, you could mark the chapters of your life with injuries. As soon as he got up to get us more drinks, I took out a piece of paper and wrote down the title of the play."

Read the rest, get to know the playwright, and go out and see Gruesome Playground Injuries before it leaves, if you're in the area!  Don't forget Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo opens in March with Robin Williams in the eponymous role, and will be THE play to see this year.

Our friends over at the New York One-Minute Play Festival blog have given us and our playwrights a little bit more press, and we're seeing double. 


First, they talk to Garret Groenveld.  Garret, one of Playwrights Foundation's resident playwrights, recently was a finalist for the Global Age Project with his work The Serving Class.  Not only a playwright, Garret reflects on the First Annual One-Minute Play Festival with a little bit of his background in poetry:

And here’s a case for poetry.  Critiques often say, “The writing was poetic.”  When it’s not, it might be elegant, it might be labored or it might even be full of flourish, but not poetic.  It’s poetic when it transports, when the unexpected is achieved through a combination of language, metaphor and spatial relation on the page/with the audience.

And then goes on to show his frustration with it:

I also argue against poetry.  Just say it, already and get over yourself!

Read the rest of his interview HERE.

The other mention we have is with Bay Area Playwright Festival and ROUGH Readings alum, Geetha Reddy.  She gets out all of her frustration, but telling the New York One-Minute Play Festival blog just how difficult it is to be a writer sometimes:

Here is what happens when your director sends you this email:
“Love your one minute play! Can you cut 30 seconds?”

First a Tantrum:
No. No I can’t. How can you ask me that!

See her hilarious account over at the NYOMPF blog.
Thanks for the New York One-Minute Play Festival for posting these, yet again, and DO NOT FORGET! This weekend: Saturday, 18 December, and Sunday the 19th are the FIRST EVER... FIRST ANNUAL San Francisco One-Minute Play Festival.  Tickets are ALMOST sold out, so don't forget to grab yours here!

PF Alumni Get the Star Treatment!

Two recent veterans of our humble theatrical organization have recently received quite the star treatment.

First up, we need to congratulate past ROUGH Readings playwright, Rajiv Joseph for his Pulitzer Prize finalist play, Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, for getting its BROADWAY Premiere! Oscar winner Robin Williams returns to Broadway, this time not for his unique brand of stand-up comedy, but as the eponymous character of "Tiger," with Tony nominee Moisés Kaufman directing.  The curtain goes up for previews March 11, 2011, and tickets are on sale now!  Playbill.com has the scoop:

"Rajiv Joseph's ferocious comedy…follows the intertwined lives of a tiger (Williams), two American marines and an Iraqi gardener as they roam the streets of Baghdad in search of friendship, redemption and a toilet seat made of gold."

Another Playwrights Foundation vet's star is rising.  Marcus Gardley, of various ROUGH Readings, and Bay Area Playwrights festivals of yesteryear has received enormous praise for his play Every Tongue Confess at The Arena Stage in DC, from The Washingtonian, having been awarded 3.5 out of a possible 4 stars:

Something is rotten in the state of Alabama in Marcus Gardley’s new play at Arena Stage, Every Tongue Confess—particularly in Boligee. The town is suffering through a litany of strange events—the temperature is 103 and rising, hailstones are falling and melting into the arid ground, and a string of churches have been set on fire. To make matters worse, ghosts seem to be lurking...

 Every Tongue Confess only runs until January 2.  THAT'S ONLY ANOTHER MONTH! Theatre-goers in these areas, do NOT sleep on these two plays, believe me.  Even Playwrights Foundation Artistic Director, Amy Mueller made it out for Every Tongue Confess, so it's worth the country-wide flight, and while you're there, make sure to book a flight and tickets for Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, as well.

Write on, playwrights!

Festival Alum Reflects on Writing One-Minute-Plays

Bay Area Playwrights Festival alum, and all-around cool lady, Erin Bregman, shares her thoughts on writing for the FIRST ANNUAL SAN FRANCISCO ONE-MINUTE PLAY FESTIVAL (December 18th & 19th at the Thick House, in Potrero Hill) with the NY One-Minute Play Festival Blog:

Six weeks ago I opened the longest, most exciting email I had ever received from someone I didn’t know–it was Dominic D. soliciting writers for the 1^st annual San Francisco One-Minute Play Festival. (Actually, that’s only a half truth. The email was partially authored by the beloved Jill MacLean of the Playwrights Foundation, but we’ll let that particular detail slide for the sake of superlative.) Like any responsible person would do after receiving an emailed request from a total stranger, I wrote back immediately and accepted his proposition.

Read the rest over at their blog: “Writing a one-minute play wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought it would be.”

Come see Erin, and our whole plethora of plays, playwrights, and actors December 18 and 19 at the Thick House: 1695 18th St, between Carolina and Arkansas.  Tickets are $15: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/137981