Interview with a Playwright: Tanya Shaffer

1) Where do you most often find inspiration?
The inspiration for most of my major projects has come from international travel. For me, the richness of entering into another culture is fascinating because it shows me alternatives to even the most basic ways of viewing the world which we take for granted. It shakes up my worldview and puts everything in perspective. Within that framework, the inspiration comes from individuals I’ve met in my travels and the dynamics of the relationships that have sprung up between us.
Apart from travel, I’ve drawn inspiration from my own relationships and from political/historical figures and events which I find inspiring. I work very slowly, so it takes a long time for an idea to germinate. I am currently working on a piece inspired by the life of the Buddha, which percolated in my head for about five years before I actually started working on it. With a subject as big as that, it took a long time to figure out what perspective I could bring to it that would be uniquely my own.


2) What one tip can you offer aspiring playwrights? 
Write rather than thinking about writing. Find groups of people, ideally fellow writers, whom you can go to regularly for feedback and support. Form relationships with local theatre companies to the greatest extent possible. And produce your work. If no one will produce it for you, figure out how to produce it yourself, even if it’s on a shoestring, even if it’s just a few performances. Plays need to be performed. You learn so much by getting things up on their feet, and learning that you can produce your own work is tremendously empowering.

3) How did you get your start in playwriting? Where and when was this seed planted?
My parents took me to see a lot of theatre when I was growing up. I acted in my first show when I was eight, and pretty much didn’t stop for the next twenty-five years. I also wrote regularly in my journal since early childhood. At age nine, I wrote in my journal, “I want to be an actor and a writer on the side.” It wasn’t until my last year of college, though, that I started putting theatre and writing together, initially in the form of a solo show. I toured my first solo show for a couple of years right out of college. Then I went on a trip to Central America, and when I started to write a solo show about it I quickly discovered that it didn’t want to be a solo show – it wanted to be a multi-actor play. Now that I’m a mom of two young kids I don’t act much anymore, and the writing has taken center stage, career-wise. I find that very satisfying.

4)What was your most embarrassing high school moment?
I swear to you I don’t remember.

5)Beckett or Stoppard? One word only please.
Stoppard.

Tanya Shaffer's [Incoming Resident 09/10] plays and original solo performances include Baby Taj, Let My Enemy Live Long!, Brigadista, Miss America’s Daughters, and The People in the Park. Her work has been produced by TheatreWorks...

To read more about Tanya, visit the PF website at
http://www.playwrightsfoundation.org/index.php?p=72#Tanya

Interview with a Playwright: Peter Sinn Nachtrieb

1) Where do you most often find inspiration?

From cardiovascular exercise, from actors, from news, from pop culture, from sleepless nights, from music, from non fiction reading, from public transit, from past experiences, and often in the time between when I get in bed and when I go to sleep.

 2) What one tip can you offer aspiring playwrights?

Be willing to look at your writing as a separate entity from yourself.  Thus when making the big cuts and changes that you must make it won't feel like you're cutting your leg off.  It's much easier when you think you're cutting the leg off your child.

 3) How did you get your start in playwriting?  Where and when was this seed planted?

From a combined love for theatre and comedy.  I started as an actor in plays and musicals as well as being a fan of comedy records, Monty Python, Douglas Adams, etc..  Sketch comedy was my first real writing for stage, then solo performances, then a one act, then short and full length plays when i started wanting to write parts that i would not be particularly good at performing.

 4) What was your most embarrassing high school moment?

Performing a scene from David Mamet's "Edmond" at school assembly.  The one where he strangles the waitress.

 5) Beckett or Stoppard? One word only please.

Yes.

Peter Sinn Nachtrieb is a San Francisco-based playwright whose works include boom (TCG's most produced play 2009-10), T.I.C. (Trenchcoat In Common) , Hunter Gatherers (2007 ATCA/Steinberg New Play Award, 2007 Will Glickman Prize), Colorado, and Multiplex. His work has been seen off-Broadway and...

Visit our website for more information on Peter and all of our Resident Playwrights. 

http://www.playwrightsfoundation.org/index.php?p=72#Peter

Interview with a Playwright: Christopher Chen

1. Where do you most often find inspiration?

Thinking about death.

2. What one tip can you offer aspiring playwrights?

Go deep,deep,deep inside yourself. It's fun!  

3. How did you get your start in playwriting?  Where and when was this seed planted?

I initially entered college as a music composition major. Then I wanted to switch to English literature. Then to film. Then I stumbled upon theater which combined all these impulses nicely. I took acting, playwriting, and directing classes at Berkeley and joined an Asian American theater group. I really wanted to direct something so instead of looking for something that would fit my aesthetic, I decided it would be easier to write something on my own. I accompanied my first writing/directing debut on cello.

4. What was your most embarrassing high school moment?

It's all blocked out.

5. Beckett or Stoppard? One word only please.

Beckett

Christopher Chen [Incoming Resident 09/10] is a native San Franciscan. His play Into the Numbers premiered at the Beijing Fringe Festival in September 2009 (translated into Chinese), and won second place in the 2008 Belarus Free Theatre International Contest of Modern Dramaturgy (translated into Russian)…

Visit our website for more information on Chris Chen, and all of our Resident Playwrights.

http://www.playwrightsfoundation.org/index.php?p=72#Christopher

Playwrights Foundation Interview: Brian Thorstenson

Hello, This week’s playwright is Brian Thorstenson. Enjoy.

Question: Where do you most often find inspiration?

Brian: Most often? Characters out in the world, people I see and hear during the day. Next would be stories I've read, mostly in the paper. They all act as some kind of trigger to get me thinking about a play.

Question:  What one tip can you offer aspiring playwrights?

Brian: Keep developing your writing practice. That will get you through the ups and downs of working in the theater.

Question: How did you get your start in playwriting?  Where and when was this seed planted?

Brian: I started out as an actor, but got tired of the kind of parts I was doing so I wrote a play for myself. I only realized much later that I had been wanting to write for a very long time.

Question: What was your most embarrassing high school moment?

Brian: Oh god, there were so many starting with horrible haircuts and bad outfits. Maybe dropping my lunch tray in the middle of the cafeteria at the height of lunch and it clanging and clattering to the floor.

Question: Beckett or Stoppard? One word only please.

Brian: Unimaginable.



To learn more about Brian Thorstenson, and the rest of our Resident Playwrights, visit the page below:
www.playwrightsfoundation.org/index.php?p72"

Interview with a Playwright: Garret Groenveld

Where do you most often find inspiration? 
A: I take inspiration from my whole full life: the odd shape of someone's head on the bus, an emotional article in a trashy magazine, notes in public bathrooms or something one of my large extended family says in an off-handed way.  Most of the time, it's just the sound.

What one tip can you offer aspiring playwrights?
A: Don't be afraid to risk sentiment (let your characters be emotional), but avoid sentimentality (unearned emotion) through chosing specific details.

How did you get your start in playwriting? 
A: I won a contest in 8th grade as part of International Day with a short play about Napoleon and Josephine.

Where and when was this seed planted? 
A: I really fell in love with it when I had my first play preformed as part of PlayGround (in the very second Monday night, when it was still on Saturdays) when the Dean of the English Department, who was sitting next to me, gasped at one of my lines.
 
What was your most embarrassing high school moment?
A: When I fell asleep in French class and the teacher called on me.  I didn't know what to say, and I didn't know what the French swearwords were, and my classmate whispered to me the answer that I repeated: "Merde."  "Merde," indeed.
 
Beckett or Stoppard? One word only please.
A: Guare.  

To learn more about Garret Groenveld, visit our Resident Playwright Page at:
www.playwrightsfoundation.org/index.php?p72"