A Big Wonderful Weekend

It's been a pretty crazy fews days here at PF.

On Sunday, we had a huge fundraiser "Brunch with a Playwright". Almost three hundred people attended, including 30 playwrights spread out at tables among the masses. It was a really lovely event, on a much larger scale than anything we'd done in the past and thanks to an incredible amount of hard work from the board and army of volunteers, it went off without a hitch.

My four personal highlights:

1) Prince Gomolvilas saying that he wished Playwrights Foundation was a person so that he could make sweet love to it in every imaginable position.

2) Philip Kan Gotanda's story about trying to talk to Sam Shepard at one of the first festivals. He followed him into the bathroom, sidled up next to him at a urinal and told him how much he liked his work. He was ignored.

3) Marcus Gardley's beautiful story which I can't really do justice to here, but the gist of this: When he had a play in the festival, a bunch of people from his old West Oakland neighborhood showed up at the reading, even though he hadn't invited them. After the first reading, an old wise black woman walked up to him and said "I'll be back". After the second reading, she walked back up to him, this time with a young boy in tow. "You see", she said to the boy "you can be anything you want to be, you can be a playwright."

4) A friend of my girlfriend's parents, who sat next to Peter Nachtreib at the brunch, asking me if he was seeing anybody, because she knew this nice Jewish girl who would be perfect for him.

The next day we kicked off our In The Rough Series, with Jason Grote's play- Box Americana, which had a fabulous cast and went really well.

Now back to the grind - we're trying to narrow our twenty-five finalists down to ten or twelve tomorrow. More on that later...

An Interview With Jason Grote

Jason Grote's play BOX AMERICANA:A WAL-MART FANTASIA will kick off the 2007 In The Rough Reading Series, with a pair of readings Stanford and San Francisco on March 26th and 27th.

He will also be teaching a three-day playwrighting intensive at PF. Full details for both can be found on the main site www.playwrightsfoundation.org

This will be the first in a series of e-interviews with the writers in our ITR series.

Jonathan Spector: For BOX AMERICANA, you were commissioned to write a play on a specific topic. How did that process differ from other plays you've written?

Jason Grote: I actually pitched the show to the Working Theater, to my ongoing - well, regret is far too strong a word, but it's proven to be one of the more difficult things I've ever written. My original idea was to adapt one of the many recent books about neoliberal economics, like
FAST FOOD NATION or NO LOGO. Perhaps thankfully, the rights for those books proved unavailable, and I had just read Liza Featherstone's SELLING WOMEN SHORT, about the class-action suit against Wal-Mart for systematic discrimination against female employees. The research became voluminous, far beyond that original book, one of the reasons
why the play has been so hard to write.

There are ironies here - I worked in retail for years, and have been working-class most of my life, but as a playwright I'm interested in what I used to call "lifers" - that is, people both in and out of management who had no other options than their retail jobs. So partially, the play is psychically difficult because it's forcing me to return to a place I'd really rather forget; it's also difficult because, even though retail as a job category is ascendant, especially for women, it doesn't pack the dramatic punch that, say, an organizing campaign in a coal mine might. In fact, boredom and stillness are intrinsic parts of the retail experience. This might be an interesting way into an avant-garde performance piece, but I am after all a playwright.

The other challenge has been "writing the Other." The characters that most reflect my upbringing are Danae and Janelle; my formative years were spent on welfare, in a ghetto in New Jersey, while my mom worked a crappy retail job. Of course, there are fundamental differences, one of them being race, another being opportunity; we got out of that situation, mostly because of education, but also because whiteness is worth something in our society, it has a price-tag. And, of course, race in our society, particularly blackness/whiteness, is a fundamental taboo.

JS: You've said that with each play you write, you consciously go in a different direction than the previous play you've written. How does BOX AMERICANA fit into this pattern?

JG: It doesn't, at least not consciously. I tend to look to other plays for structural ideas, but none seemed to apply to BOX. Also, there is the aforementioned racial dynamic. In 1001, I was writing Arab characters, but because the play was about identity and the creation of the "Other," it came more easily, plus the fact that - despite the years of history and the current geopolitical situation - that particular divide is not as loaded as the black/white one is. Of
course, in both cases, I have had really constructive dialogues with actors of color, but in a sort of quiet, non-public way, once trust has been established.

A funny sidebar; I have noticed that sometimes well-intentioned people will try to "protect" me when someone calls me on the self-evident fact that I am a white guy writing non-white characters, as if I'm suddenly under attack by the PC police. I believe that sometimes this
discussion is constructive and sometimes it's just knee-jerk, but it's a conversation I'm actually eager to have, and one that can only help the play. I am far more aggravated by the "dramaturgy police," who want my work to fit into the neat little well-made play box.

JS: Your play 1001 just ended a tremendously successful run at the Denver Center Theater Company, after a series of developmental workshops. How did the play benefit from it's development process? Were there times you were concerned all that development was going to damage the play?

JG: I was never really concerned about it, though I was often annoyed by it. I'm pretty good and sussing out bad advice and refusing it. I would rather lose out on an opportunity and keep my play intact than overdevelop it and put yet another predictable, mediocre play out there (which is not to say that I am infallible, just that I would rather fail on my own terms). But the fact is - and I say this with great respect and appreciation for the places which helped me develop the piece - most of the work was done by the time it emerged from the Soho Rep Lab in 2005. The irony of "play development" is that, the more a play needs work, the fewer places want to develop it; success has a thousand fathers and all that.

Most of the development was very pragmatic and related to production - for example, the first reading was three hours with no intermission, so I had to find places to make internal cuts without altering the structure. I also wanted to find places to introduce visual and textual cues to link the various stories Scheherezade tells (many of which are anachronistic and related by association rather than cause-effect linearity).

In the end, though, there was relatively little interference. Most artistic directors I've encountered will reject a play rather than try to change it, especially at the LORT level. If they took any interest at all in 1001, it means they understood it on some fundamental level.

JS: Prior to 1001, most of your work had produced in small downtown venues. What was the difference in working in an environment with so many resources?

JG: It was great. Contrary to the horror stories one hears about LORT theaters, they were generous, they understood the play, and they knew when to get out of the way but they also made themselves available when needed. I was worried that the play might get overproduced, but certain realities of the space (it was in the round), the set budget, and the play itself prevented this (though much credit is due to the director, Ethan McSweeny). I feel uniquely lucky, as I got to work in a well-funded institution that is in the process of reinventing
itself. I feel like these are the places where the exciting work is happening, as many of our more storied institutions are becoming ossified and predictable. Of course, it can be frustrating - many New Yorkers don't give Denver enough credit (or the rest of America for
that matter), when so much of New York theater has become deadly dull, in part due to the suburbanization of New York, which its own separate discussion.

JS: In addition to being a playwright, you also co-chair the writer the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab. Has delving into the processes of so many other writers affected the way you work? What do you gain out of writing a play in this environment?

JG: Communities of writers are invaluable, when they're really communities. The Soho Rep Lab has been a huge part of my development as a writer, largely due to the opportunity to watch how other writers work. I've also found community at places like the O'Neill and New
Dramatists. In a nutshell, my approach is what Jonathan Lethem recently called "The Ecstacy of Influence;" rather than try to try and be totally original, I try to have as many, varied influences as possible.

JS: Which older writers have most influenced your work, and who among your contemporaries are you most excited about at the moment?

JG: At the moment, I think we're living in a comedy renaissance - ours might be the funniest generation to come down the pike in a while. The names I give won't surprise anyone; Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, The Onion, The Office, Mr. Show. I like this group Kaspar Hauser a
lot. I've been really into short stories lately, mostly George Saunders and Deborah Eisenberg. I just read a book called DREAM by Stephen Duncombe, which is all about how progressive movements have, mostly in reaction to consumerism and co-optation, become staid and
medicinal and need to embrace laughter, joy, and fantasy. I think this applies to theater as well. I tend to like philosophers on the margins, like Slavoj Zizek, Hakim Bey/Peter Lamborn Wilson, Noam Chomsky, Subcommandante Marcos. The French Marxist and post-Marxist
thinkers like Foucault, Baudrillard, and Guy Debord are out of vogue at the moment, but I still adore them, ditto for Edward Said. I like Hannah Arendt a lot, even though she's sort of neo-classical, and of course Walter Benjamin is great.

I tend to look outside of theater for influences, mostly to film, fiction, and contemporary art, though I am influenced by a lot of my peers' work. I really like Sheila Callaghan, Anne Washburn, Lisa D'Amour, Erin Courtney, Thomas Bradshaw, Young Jean Lee, Stephen Adly Guirgis. Then there is the recent avant-garde: Mac Wellman, Chuck Mee, Erik Ehn. I like a lot of what the Wooster Group does, as well as their progeny, like Elevator Repair Service, Radiohole, and the National Theater of the USA. I think Maria Irene Fornes is one of the most influential artists of the late 20th century and I think her legacy deserves to be remembered.
Then, the classics, of course: Euripides, Shakespeare, Chekhov, Brecht, Beckett, though every playwright should know them as a matter of course. I also like Arthur Miller, in part because he's so uncool.

You can visit Jason online at www.jasongrote.com

(This Spring in the Bay Area you can see work by these writers mentioned above: a reading Sheila Callaghan's brand new play, That Pretty Pretty, also in Playwright Foundation's ITR Series; Anne Washburn's I Have Loved Strangers at Just Theater; Lisa D'Amour's Anna Bella Eema at Crowded Fire; and Stephen Adly Guirgis's Jesus Hopped The 'A' Train, currently running at the SF Playhouse.)

The Home Stretch (Nearly)

I spent most of the day going through the stacks of submissions, reorganizing, shifting, reading through ones we're passing on to make sure we aren't missing any gems.

We're entering a really exciting phase in the selection process, as we've now narrowed it down to a manageable number to really talk about in our committee meetings.

As it stands now, we've got about 20 plays that at least two of our readers really want to champion, and another 30 or so that at least one reader feels really strongly about.
The first group will get read by the whole committee, and the second will be read by two more readers, who will help determine if it ends up in that final group. Then they'll be a lot of arguing, a lot of teeth gnashing, some voting, more arguing, and eventually a decision. Theoretically we're going to finish the selection process by the end of the month, although that's looking a little too optimistic.

At this point, every play I'm reading is really strong, which is both invigorating and anxiety inducing. If you've ever been a reader of any kind, you know there's no better feeling than picking up a play by someone you've never heard of and being astounded by the quality of the writing. It's happening a lot right now, and we only have five slots in the festival. Hence the anxiety...

My Favorite New Advice Column

I just discovered a wonderful new forum/blog that The Playwright's Center is running on their website.

It's called Litup, and is sort an "Ask a Literary Manager" column where playwrights and others can get direct answers to their questions and discuss new play issues they want to bring forward. It's moderated by a Adrien-Alice Hansel from Actor's Theater of Louisville, Mead Hunter from Portland Center Stage, and Elissa Adams for The Children's Theater Company. Check it out.

In The Rough Reading Series - All The Details!

Playwrights Foundation joins forces with the Lark Play Development Center (NYC) and the National Center for New Plays at Stanford U to bring eight brand new plays to the stage though our developmental reading series, In The Rough.

San Francisco Readings: Traveling Jewish Theater, 470 Florida St., (between 17th and Mariposa) $10 - $20 sliding scale by donation. Info & reservations: www.playwrightsfoundation.org or call (415) 626 045 x110

Stanford Readings: CERAS Hall, Stanford University, $20

Box Americana: A Wal-Mart Fantasia by Jason Grote
Mon 3/26: 7:30pm, Stanford University
Tue 3/27: 7:00pm, San Francisco

Me Given You by Geetha Reddy
Mon 4/9: 7:30pm, ,Stanford University
Tues 4/10: 7:00pm San Francisco

Love Song for the Night in Gail by Marcus Gardley
Mon 4/16: 7:30pm, Stanford University
Tues 4/17: 7:00pm, San Francisco

Untitled by Sheila Callaghan
Mon 4/23: 7:30pm, Stanford University
Tues 4/24: 7:00pm, San Francisco

Sid Arthur: A Tale of a Modern Buddha by Tanya Shaffer
Mon 4/30: 7:00pm, Stanford University
Tues 5/1: 7:00pm, San Francisco

Layla and Majnun by Nastaran Ahamdi
Mon 5/7: 7:30pm, Stanford University
Tue 5/8: 7:00pm, San Francisco

Smudge by Rachel Axler
*Sun 5/13: 7:00pm, San Francisco,
Mon 5/16: 7:00 pm, Stanford University
*Please note this reading is held on Sunday

Boom by Peter Nachtrieb
Mon 5/21: 7:30pm, Stanford University
Tue 5/22: 7:00pm, San Francisco


ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHTS:

Jason Grote’s plays include 1001, This Storm is What We Call Progress, Hamilton Township and Box Americana. His work has been presented at Denver Center Theater Company, The 92nd Street Y’s Makor/Steinhardt Center, Baltimore Center Stage, The Brick, Circle X, Clubbed Thumb, CUNY’s Prelude ’06 Festival, The Glej Theater in Ljubljana, Slovenia, HERE, The Lark, The Lincoln Center Directors’ Lab, The New York Fringe Festival, The O’Neill Playwrights’ Conference, Soho Rep, The Williamstown Theater Festival workshop, and The Working Theater, and published in various anthologies. Honors include a nomination for the 2007 Kesselring Prize, finalist for the Weisssberger Award (still under consideration), an NEA Grant via Soho Rep, a Sloan Commission from Ensemble Studio Theatre and The P73 Playwriting Fellowship. He teaches playwriting and screenwriting at Rutgers University and is a member of PEN and New Dramatists.

Geetha Reddy is a three-time recipient of PlayGround's Emerging Playwright Award. In 2005 she was awarded PlayGround's June Anne Baker Prize and in 2006 she was awarded a PlayGround Alumni Commission. Her play "Honey, I'm Home" was showcased at the inaugural San Francisco Theater Festival and featured in PlayGround's 10th Anniversary production The Best of the Best of PlayGround. Recently her plays were performed in the Santa Rosa Actor's Theatre "Quickies" festival and the Best of SF Fringe Show "Three Plays About Your Mom."

Marcus Gardley is a poet-playwright who teaches Creative Writing at Columbia University. His play dance of the holy ghosts just premiered at the Yale Repertory Theater in March. He has had five plays produced some of which are: (L)imitations of Life, March 2004 at the Empty Space Theater in Seattle; like sun fallin in the mouth, August 2003 at the National Black Theatre Festival Winston-Salem, North Carolina and livin tired, July 2003 at the Yale Summer Cabaret. He was a finalist for the Alliance Theatre Graduate Playwriting Competition 2004, the sole runner up for the Princess Grace Award 2004, a Sundance writer in residence at Ucross in 2003 and the summer lab in 2006. He is the recipient of the Eugene O’ Neil Memorial Scholarship, the Bay Area Playwright’s Foundation Fellowship and the ASCAP Cole Porter Prize. His play Love is a Dream House in Lorin premiered at Shotgun Players last fall. He holds an MFA in playwriting from the Yale School of Drama and he is a member of New Dramatists.

Sheila Callaghan's plays have been produced and developed with Soho Rep, Playwright's Horizons, South Coast Repertory, Clubbed Thumb, The LARK, Actor's Theatre of Louisville, New Georges, Annex Theatre, Moving Arts, and LABrynth, among others. Sheila is the recipient of a 2000 Princess Grace Award for emerging artists, a 2001 LA Weekly Award for Best One-act, a 2001-02 Jerome Fellowship from the Playwright's Center in Minneapolis, a 2002 Chesley Prize for Lesbian Playwriting, a 2003 Mac Dowell Residency, and a 2004 NYFA grant. Her plays have been produced internationally in New Zealand, Norway, and the Czech Republic. She has been commissioned by Playwright's Horizons, South Coast Repertory, and EST/Sloan. Her full-length plays include Scab, The Hunger Waltz, Crawl Fade To White, Crumble (Lay Me Down, Justin Timberlake), We Are Not These Hands, Dead City, Lascivious Something, Kate Crackernuts and her opera Elemental with music by Sophocle Papavasilopoulos. Sheila is a member of the Obie winning playwright's organization 13P.

Tanya Shaffer’s original plays and solo performances have been produced at the Berkeley Rep, the San Diego Rep, A Contemporary Theatre in Seattle, and TheatreWorks, and have toured to colleges and festivals across the country. Her most recent play, Baby Taj, which premiered at TheatreWorks in 2005, was chosen by the San Francisco Chronicle, the Oakland Tribune, and the San Jose Mercury News as one of the Top Ten Shows of the Year and nominated for an American Theatre Critics Steinberg Award. Her book “Somebody’s Heart is Burning: A Woman Wanderer in Africa” was profiled in Vogue and USA Today and chosen by the San Francisco Chronicle as one of the Best Books of 2003. Her stories and essays have appeared on Salon.com and in numerous anthologies.

Nastaran Ahmadi received her MFA in Playwriting from Yale School of Drama in May 2006. Her plays have been produced in Louisville, New York, and New Haven. They include: The War Is Over (Yale Cabaret), Layla and Majnun (Yale School of Drama, Carlotta Festival), For Art (Shalimar Productions, NYC), Red Town, Utah (The Flatiron Playhouse, NYC), Pardon My Queen (Yale Cabaret), Broomer’s Gym (Actors Theatre of Louisville), Devil Caught Rope (YSD), …and Fishes (Yale Cabaret),and One Long Comfortable Gulp (Shalimar Productions, NYC). Nastaran is the co-recipient of the 2006 ASCAP Cole Porter Prize in Playwriting.

Rachel Axler is an Emmy award-winning writer for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Her plays have been produced by Vital Theatre, Lookingglass Theatre, Spring TheatreWorks, Slant Theatre, NY Int'l Fringe, Brooklyn Rep and Cal Arts, and she wrote the screenplay for a short musical film, 11 (music: Brad Alexander, lyrics: Jim McNicholas) which was produced by Raw Impressions. Short pieces of hers are published in editions of Monologues for Women, By Women (Heinemann), McSweeney's Internet Tendency, and In Character. 2004-2005 Dramatists Guild Fellow. B.A., Williams College. M.F.A., UCSD. Member, Dramatists Guild.

Peter Sinn Nachtrieb is a San Francisco-based playwright whose works include Hunter Gatherers, Colorado, Meaningless, Multiplex and The Amorphous Blob. Hunter Gatherers, which was developed at the 2005 Bay Area Playwrights Festival, had it's world premiere this past summer, produced by Killing My Lobster, and was hailed as one of the Top 10 Bay Area Theatre events in 2006 by the SF Chronicle and several other newspapers. His work has been also been seen Off-Broadway at SPF, the Bailiwick Theatre (Chicago), South Coast Rep, Seattle Fringe Festival, and at many other Bay Area Venues such as Impact Theatre, Playground, and several others. He was a recipient of one of the first ever TBA/New Works Funds grants, and has also won a Playground Emerging Playwright Award, the Highsmith Prize, and placed first in the Scene Competition at the Mother Lode Drama Festival in 1992. He holds a degree in Theater and Biology from Brown and an MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. He is currently under commission from Encore Theatre Company (full length) with whom he recently received an Emerging Playwright Award from the Gerbode and Hewlett Foundations. He’s also working on a short play about Nanotechnology for The Magic Theatre/Sloan Initiative. He frequently writes at the Z Space Studio and promotes himself online at www.peternachtrieb.com