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1100 Playwright Interviews

1100 Playwright Interviews A Sean Abley Rob Ackerman E.E. Adams Johnna Adams Liz Duffy Adams Tony Adams David Adjmi Keith Josef Adkins Nicc...

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Aug 26, 2011

I Interview Playwrights Part 380: Stephen Karam


Stephen Karam 

Hometown: Scranton, PA

Current Town: New York, NY

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  I’m finishing rewrites on Sons of the Prophet, a play that will have its New York premiere in October at Roundabout Theater Company. It’s a dark comedy about a guy coping with chronic pain. More generally, you could call it a comedy about human suffering. It explores the particularly messy portions of our lives – the times in which you find yourself coping with multiple life issues, and before any of them can be resolved – two more show up on your plate.

I’m also working on the libretto to a chamber opera with music by Nico Muhly called Dark Sisters, which runs Nov. 9th – 19th in NYC before moving to Philadelphia in June 2012. I’m also starting to re-write an absurdist farce that takes place in an abandoned hospital called Girl on Girl. The play scares away most people but I’m hoping mount a small production downtown, maybe self-produce with wildly talented friends.

Q:  Tell me, if you will, a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person.

A:  When I was fourteen, and completely closeted, I entered my public high school’s talent show and sang “Last Night of the World” from Miss Saigon in front of the entire student body. Earnestly. With a karaoke tape I purchased with my birthday money. I had thick plastic glasses, mild acne and baggy dress pants. So. That happened. In a more metropolitan city/town it would have been a coming out party. But this was Scranton High School, where I was merely identified as being a tremendous dork. Before I went on stage, I was somehow not burdened by the reality of how I appeared to everyone else. Afterwards I was. I began to take life - and myself - way too seriously. Now I’m trying to get that bravery back – not the courage to belt Bui Doi – but generally speaking, to take more risks as an artist. I mean, it’s only a play.

Q:  If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?

A:  The major non-profits would offer health insurance to writers they produce on their mainstage. The receptionist at a non-profit gets access to insurance, but playwrights aren’t afforded the option of coverage even for the year their play is running. Everyone shies away from this question because it’s tricky - playwrights aren’t staff members, nor do we work a set number of hours a week – so there isn’t an easy solution. But if the non-profits don’t step up to the plate and care enough to make this a priority, I think they’ll receive less and less high-quality plays since many of the best writers are spending 9 months a year writing for television so that they can meet basic financial needs and be able to see doctors.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Williams, Chekhov, Wilder, Shakespeare, Churchill, Orton, Craig Lucas, Paula Vogel, Tony Kushner, Robert Wilson; a handful of newer voices whose work has excited me recently: Melissa James Gibson, Young Jean Lee, Dan LeFranc, Keith Bunin, Annie Baker.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Any kind that moves me. I like being moved. Laughing out loud. I like being scared. I like dance/movement driven work. I like not knowing what’s going to happen next. Feeling like I’ve been gut-punched, it’s all good.

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A:  Do whatever works for you.

My path in NYC was anchored around a day job that had nothing to do with writing or the arts. For around 7 years I had a permanent 30-hr/week job at a Canadian Law Firm working as a legal assistant. It was a good fit and gave me health insurance. I could leave the job behind when I left the office. It left me the headspace and the energy to create. I opened four plays in seven years in three different cities during that time. Using vacation days!

That being said, most of my colleagues have gone the MFA route. I’m sure I would have loved that experience; I still think about going someday – I love the notion of having the space and time to dream big while also having some sort of solid mentorship. I missed out on all that.

Read as many plays as you can get your hands on. Experience as many other art forms as you can, don’t just read/see plays. I’d also remind writers starting out that many exciting new plays get rejected by subscriber-based theaters. A rejection is not always a reflection of the quality of the work, but sometimes a reflection of the kind of play the subscription-based theater favors.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:

--Sons of the Prophet http://www.roundabouttheatre.org/offbroadway/sonsoftheprophet/

--Dark Sisters http://www.darksistersopera.org/

Aug 22, 2011

I Interview Playwrights Part 379: Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig



Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig

Hometown:
I'm not really of a place. But I hope to be someday.

Current Town:
Austin, Texas.

Q:  Tell me about Lidless.

A:  It's a work of speculative drama imagining the consequences of the United States government authorizing the use of the female body in the 'War on Terror,' and specifically, to make a Muslim man stop praying.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  I spent the past ten years working on my 'artistic' muscles if you will, and focused too much on that at the expense of other components of what I consider to be a healthy, balanced, vibrant life. The 'writing' work will always be done - I know how to be alone in a room and spend thousands of hours growing an idea into a literary work. What I know less about and am working on is how to not become too cynical or despairing when the work I am doing has a lot of darkness, and how to grow in and maintain human relationships over time. A lot of the theatre-making process is similar to a nomadic childhood - a really intense finite period, and then dispersal. A wise man once told me that you can't make new old friends.

Q:  If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?

A:  I would bankrupt all the media conglomerates and support the emergence of a truly independent media. Then theatre producers wouldn't have to rely on a single reviewer to make or break their shows and could be much braver and bolder in their programming.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  He's not exactly a hero because he is also cynical asshole, but Edward Bernays was a pretty amazing manipulator of the masses and stager of street theatre. I love the way Ariane Mnouchkine works and wish there was a Cartoucherie in Austin.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  The kind where systemically oppressed people realize they are performing their oppression in a ritualistic fashion, stop doing that, and build an alternative.

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A:  Try thinking of yourself as an ecosystem that has it's unique needs and features. Understand what this ecosystem needs to grow and sustain itself over time - not weeks or months, but years and decades. You might have a daily writing practice and largely monastic life. You might travel and do other work for nine months of the year and then have a really focused and intense three months of writing. Try lots of different practices and ways of provoking yourself and expanding your frames, writing, and rewriting. Let go of what isn't working and hold on to what is. Don't think someone else's bizarre idiosyncratic writing ritual is going to work for you - but try it just the same. And stop doing what isn't helping you.

Read "The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property" by Lewis Hyde to get an idea of the range of economic relationships an artist can have to their work. Spend some years outside your culture of origin. Long enough for it to start to seem alien and for its rituals and identity-constructions to seem as constructed as anything you might make for a performance. Pursue a life of downward mobility. Try to be as little a wage-slave as possible so you can spend as much of your time thinking, reading, writing and interacting on your own terms for your own reasons. Don't be afraid to spend two or three years on a play before showing it to anyone. Don't try to be too much of a careerist about it - your work will suffer.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Lidless, the play I described above, is having its New York premiere at the Walkerspace September 20 - October15, produced by Page 73 [www.p73.org] and directed by Tea Alagic. I am honored to collaborate with such an amazing group of theatre artists, and can't wait to see what we collectively create.


www.francesyachucowhig.com

Aug 19, 2011

Compulsive Love

We're trying to raise money right now in order to film a web series I wrote.  If everyone who sees this gives three dollars, I'll be funded.  Do you have three dollars to spare?  For 50 cents more, Kevan Tucker the director will kiss you.

http://www.indiegogo.com/Compulsive-Love-1


Compulsive Love loves IndieGoGo from Tim O'Neill on Vimeo.


Aug 18, 2011

I Interview Playwrights Part 378: Karen Smith Vastola


Karen Smith Vastola

Hometown: A small town in upstate New York

Current Town: New York, NY

Q:  Tell me about Buried Words.

A:  I began work on the play while in Columbia MFA program. It had a reading at Rattlestick Playwright’s Theatre. More revisions. There was more developmental work done (revisions) at the terraNOVA Collective playwrights group. Accepted by 2011 Fringe Festival. Rehearsed for three weeks under the direction of Johanna Gruenhut. More revisions and new scenes added. It started as an imagined conversation between two grown women remembering childhood events with a mother who evoked a mixture of fascination, fear and anger. These three emotions fuel their imaginations. Ultimately it became about these same two women as children reconsidering the violence of both parents towards themselves and each other through the acting out of past events.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  Most recently, I began work on a play set in a long distance train ride across the US. Time, home, references...are suspended for its travelers. Within a small, crowded space travelers are forced to deal with issues of class, race, and each other’s very different needs. Conflicts, outright clashes, possibly understanding may develop. I am also revising two plays for younger actors. The first called Useless Inc. includes Coco Chanel, Ayn Rand and a time-traveling mannequin set in the old Hollywood and Paris in the early 1900’s. The second is a very loose adaptation of the Pinocchio story set in World War I.

Q:  Tell me, if you will, a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person.

A:  A hardscrabble life where one of the options was voluntarily asking for safe haven in an orphanage three blocks from my house. A strict Catholic education that put the both the fear of the retributions of sin and the belief in miracles which kept me on the straight and narrow until I could leave town. A sister who held an imagination and sense of adventure that symbiotically entered my being.

Q:  If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?

A:  A national theatre system that is subsidized by the government, similar to the one in Great Britain, so that all classes of people could afford to buy a ticket and artists who wanted to make theatre could have a place to practice, It happened once in this country as part of WPA in the 1930’s. It put a lot of people back to work, and more Americans across the country, in every region, saw more theatre, then they had ever seen before. Also, an end to all bias- gender, race, sexual orientation, religion and age. It‘s written into the laws for government funding, but a lot of folks ignore it and few challenge those who control the choices. Sorry that’s two things. Writers can’t count.

Q:  
Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Behn, Calderon, Everyman, Schiller, Durrenmatt, Beckett, Genet, Pirandello, Wilder, Williams, O’Neill, Wilson, Pinter, Kane, Bond. Still with us heroes: Albee, Churchill, Kennedy, Guare, Ruhl, Parks, Fornes, Kushner, Adams, Hare, Eno, Gibson, Moses, Machado, Stuart, Koteles, Szymkowicz, Walker, Walsh, Lawson, Cohen, Vourakis, Swedeen, Empfield, Wallace and Wertenbaker.

Q:  

What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Committed. Intense. Truthful. Highly theatrical. Highly Imaginative. Ideas that abound. Anything directed by the Peruvian director, Gisela Cardenas, the French director, Mnouchkine or the American director Johanna Gruenhut. Theatre Complicite, Elevator Repair Service. Abbey Theater, The Civilians, Performance Lab 115, Flux Theatre and watching plays written by all of the previously mentioned theatrical heroes.



Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A:  Write. Write alone and with a weekly group of writers whose opinions you value. Attend Grad school if you can afford it, become homeless, but gifted, and then apply to grad school for scholarships. Send your plays out. Befriend members of your own tribe- actors, directors, stage mangers, etc. If theatre companies don’t want to do your plays, produce them yourselves – on the street, in churches, your studio apartment. Never give up - life for most is long. Believe in your work and keep people close who love you and also believe in your work. Any art is a difficult choice. Persevere and Revise!



Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Go see my play Buried Words at the Kraine Theatre, 85 East 4th Street- August 15, 20, 24, 27 & 28. It’s part of the International New York Fringe Festival.

Aug 14, 2011

I Interview Playwrights Part 377: David Grimm



David Grimm

Hometown: Born in Oberlin, Ohio

Current Town: Brooklyn, NY

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  Trying to start a new play. Just got back in town from workshopping two new plays: one at Portland Center Stage’s JAW Festival, with director David Esbjornson. It’s called TALES FROM RED VIENNA. The other at the Huntington Theatre in Boston, with director Peter Dubois. That one is about the Hays Production Code in Hollywood in 1934 and its called THEY DON’T MAKE ‘EM LIKE THAT NO MORE. I’ve also been working on my first musical for the past two years with Harry Connick Jr writing the music and George C Wolfe attached to direct. Trying to develop a couple other musical projects. Oh and adapting an old pre-code movie for the stage for drag queen, Varla Jean Merman.

Q:  Tell me, if you will, a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person.

A:  For six formative years of my upbringing, I lived in Israel. When I was in the third grade, I developed a crush on Karen, one of the popular girls. I desperately wanted to be her friend. To be accepted. To be one of the cool kids. I was terrified of approaching her, for fear of being rejected.

Somehow, I got it into my head that the ideal way to share my feelings with Karen would be through writing her a note, rather than in person. I’m not sure why but I blame my education in classical literature.

Anyway -- I wrote the note and, during recess, slipped it onto her desk. Immediately I ran outside and did my best to act nonchalant and casual. However, I soon became aware that the popular girls had gathered like swarm of buzzing bees, whispering together heatedly and pointing in my direction. Had they all read my note? My face flushed with shame but I kept up the act.

Back in class, Karen had vanished and no one seemed to know where. When the teacher (a particularly sadistic young woman in a mini-skirt, platform shoes, and a beehive) inquired as to Karen’s whereabouts, one of the nastier girls chimed in with sing-song cruelty: “David left a note on her desk and she went home crying.”

Crying? How could that be? Had my words of affection and adulation been so traumatic to her as to bring her to tears? Was the prospect of my friendship so horrible to contemplate? What had I done?

Cruella (I don’t remember the teacher’s name) sent me out to find Karen and bring her back.

Standing at a dusty crossroads in the middle of nowhere (the town was still being built and carved out of the dry desert land), I had no idea in which direction Karen had gone. I returned to the classroom a failure. A shamed failure, at that. But Cruella wasn’t done with me. Having failed to bring Karen back, I was to stand before the whole class (40-45 students) and tell everyone what horrible thing I’d written to her to cause her such distress. I stood there, but wouldn’t speak.

That was the first time I realized the power of the written word. It was also the first time something I’d written got me in trouble. I’ve been doing some version of that ever since.

Q:  If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?

A:  Only ONE? Well then, I’d change the ticket prices to make it affordable. I hate that theatre in America is the privilege of the upper classes, as opposed to the art of the masses. I hate that it speaks to one socio-economic bracket and ends up saying the same thing over and over to them, preaching to the choir.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Marlowe for putting free verse on the stage; Shakespeare for eclipsing him; Moliere for poking at hypocrisy; Wycherley for doing it in English; Wilde for his wit; Orton for his naughtiness; John Guare for making it American.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theatre of language and ideas. Theatre of scope and ambition. The collective theatrical imagination gets smaller as the filmic imagination expands. Why is this? Of course, there’s the economic considerations, but is that the complete answer? Have we put a price tag on our imagination? What a shameful turn of events if that is so.

I love theatre that dares. I love theatre that has epic size and consequences and good stories. A feast for the ears as well as the minds and the eyes.

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A:  Read plays.

For quite a few years now, I’ve been teaching playwriting. Yale School of Drama, Brown University, Columbia University, and now at the Dramatic Writing Program at Tisch School of the Arts, NYU. It continues to amaze me how poorly read so many graduate playwriting students are. This past year, I had a student who had never read a play before being accepted into the program.

Art doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Writing a play is not only a communication between artist and audience, but between the writer and his/her fellow writers. It is a response to what has come before. The more you read, the more you understand what others have tried, and the more there is to respond to. Read plays, dammit.

Aug 13, 2011

I Interview Playwrights Part 376: Claire Moodey


Claire Moodey

Hometown: Erie, PA

Current Town: Brooklyn

Q: Tell me about < the invisible draft >

A: < the invisible draft > is a play I describe as a radio play silent movie. There are two characters: Our Man of the World, a silent movie, and the Girl with a Backpack, a radio play, who interact in a space between reality and its representation. Their scenes blossom into stop-motion animations inspired by Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities. So what that boils down to is a non-narrative multi-media exploration of human experience, specifically the necessity of translating that experience in order to communicate. How's that for a mouthful?

I first started daydreaming about doing a project based on Calvino's book almost four years ago. When I first thought about the piece, I believed it was an art installation with some meandering actors or puppeteers of installation pieces not unlike Punchdrunk's Tunnel 228 which was in an old Tube station in London a couple years ago. About a year and half ago, I started writing and suddenly a lot of text started to congeal around the same set of ideas and then move further away from Calvino's book. Voice & Vision Theater, headed by Jean Wagner, has been incredibly supportive as I've developed this, my first play. Jean suggested I take a class with playwright Lisa d'Amour and then set me up with Saviana Stanescu through V&V's new mentorship program. These are both artists whom I admire and respect tremendously whose input on the show has been invaluable.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  This show has been pretty much consuming my time in the last couple weeks, but I have a some other ideas which are itching to get out. One of them has to do with color theory and Schubert, which is all I want to say about it just yet! I'll be headed up to Vermont for the last week of performance at Bread and Puppet Theater this summer after closes, which I am looking forward to, and I hope to do some more performing and lighting work this fall.

Q:  Tell me, if you will, a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person.

A:  I first got into theater when I was about nine and my brother Sam, who is now puppeteering in my show, was an Oompa Loompa in "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" at the Erie Playhouse. I went to see the show and spent the time really jealous that I wasn't onstage and humming along with Willy Wonka's song "A Touch of Magic". I had a huge crush on Willy Wonka and then auditioned with my brother for "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" a couple months later and have been hooked ever since. I'm not sure what that story says about me, but I think it is funny!

Q:  If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?

A:  I would make it less expensive-I think as humans we need art, we need forms of expression and play which theater makes available in a unique way. When this medium is inaccessible due to cost, I think audiences disengage, the work suffers, and we all miss out on an opportunity to come together as a community and participate in a ritual of culture, which helps us to digest our world and lives on several levels.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Samuel Beckett, JoAnne Akalaitis, Mabou Mines, Dario Fo, Dimiter Gotscheff, Christoff Marthaler, the woman who played Emilia Galotti in Thalmeier's production, the list goes on...

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I am most excited by watching theater in languages I don't entirely understand. Or understand near fluently, but not quite. It opens you up to rhythms and the musicality of the stage, the imagery in a different way; I think differently when not using English and that has the possibility of making me more acutely aware of some visceral responses which sometimes I ignore. This is also part of my interest in highly physical clown and puppet theater. I like the experience to be immersive in some way, whether or not that means you walk around and interact with the players is irrelevant.

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A:  Write a lot, dream a lot, and don't be afraid to ask questions of just about anyone. Both seek things out and let them come to you. That's what I tell myself anyway! Any advice for me?

Q:  Plugs, please:

A: < the invisible draft > opens tomorrow at Theater for the New City's Dream Up Festival and plays through next Saturday, the 20th! My stellar team of collaborators and the staff at TNC have been working tirelessly on what I believe is a beautiful production. Jonah Rosenberg has been working on the project with me for about nine months, brainstorming and engineering the sonic world of the Girl with a Backpack, played by Briana Pozner. Lotte Marie Allen, a print-maker and animator, joined the project this past spring before the workshop at Theater for the New City's Scratch Night and her vision has been invaluable to the development of the visual world of the play. Both of them are outstanding artists, as is Matteo Paoloni, the Roman actor playing Our Man of the World who has helped generate a lot of ideas in rehearsal. And this summer, Milo Cramer, Harriett Meyer, and my brother Samuel joined as puppeteers. They have been crucial as we've constructed and learned to operate the set, which is made of old moving maps.

Aug 11, 2011

375 Playwright Interviews (alphabetical)

Rob Ackerman
Liz Duffy Adams
Johnna Adams
Tony Adams 
David Adjmi
Keith Josef Adkins   
Derek Ahonen
Kathleen Akerley    
Zakiyyah Alexander
Luis Alfaro
Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro 
Lucy Alibar
Joshua Allen
Mando Alvarado 
Sofia Alvarez 
Christina Anderson  
Terence Anthony
Alice Austen 
Elaine Avila   
Rachel Axler
Jenny Lyn Bader
Bianca Bagatourian   
Annie Baker
Trista Baldwin
Jennifer Barclay 
Courtney Baron
Abi Basch 
Mike Batistick 
Brian Bauman

Nikole Beckwith 
Maria Alexandria Beech
Kari Bentley-Quinn 
Alan Berks
Brooke Berman
Susan Bernfield
Jay Bernzweig
Barton Bishop
Martin Blank  
Lee Blessing
Jonathan Blitstein
Adam Bock
Jerrod Bogard
Emily Bohannon
Rachel Bonds
Margot Bordelon
Deron Bos
Hannah Bos
Leslie Bramm
Jami Brandli
George Brant
Tim Braun
Delaney Britt Brewer
Jessica Brickman  
Erin Browne
Bekah Brunstetter
Monica Byrne
Renee Calarco   
Sheila Callaghan
Darren Canady
Ruben Carbajal
Ed Cardona, Jr.
Jonathan Caren
Aaron Carter
James Carter 
David Caudle
Eugenie Chan 
Clay McLeod Chapman
Christopher Chen
Jason Chimonides  
Andrea Ciannavei
Eliza Clark
Alexis Clements  
Alexandra Collier
James Comtois
Joshua Conkel
Kara Lee Corthron
Kia Corthron  
Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas
Erin Courtney
Cusi Cram
Lisa D'Amour
Heidi Darchuk
Stacy Davidowitz
Philip Dawkins
Dylan Dawson
Gabriel Jason Dean
Vincent Delaney
Emily DeVoti
Kristoffer Diaz
Jessica Dickey
Dan Dietz
Lisa Dillman
Zayd Dohrn
Bathsheba Doran
Anton Dudley
Laura Eason
Fielding Edlow
Erik Ehn
Yussef El Guindi
Libby Emmons
Christine Evans 
Jennifer Fawcett 
Joshua Fardon
Catherine Filloux   
Kenny Finkle
Stephanie Fleischmann
Kate Fodor
Sam Forman 
Dana Lynn Formby 
 
Kevin R. Free
Matthew Freeman
Edith Freni
Patrick Gabridge 
Anne Garcia-Romero
Gary Garrison 
Madeleine George
Meg Gibson
Sigrid Gilmer 
Peter Gil-Sheridan
Gina Gionfriddo
Michael Golamco
Jessica Goldberg
Daniel Goldfarb
Jacqueline Goldfinger
Jeff Goode
Christina Gorman
Craig "muMs" Grant
Katharine Clark Gray
Elana Greenfield   
Kirsten Greenidge
Jason Grote
Sarah Gubbins
Stephen Adly Guirgis
Lauren Gunderson
Laurel Haines 
Jennifer Haley
Ashlin Halfnight   
Christina Ham
Sarah Hammond
Rob Handel
Jordan Harrison
Leslye Headland
Ann Marie Healy
Julie Hebert 
Marielle Heller
Amy Herzog
Ian W. Hill  
Andrew Hinderaker
Cory Hinkle
Richard Martin Hirsch
Lucas Hnath
David Holstein
J. Holtham
Miranda Huba  
Quiara Alegria Hudes 
Les Hunter
Sam Hunter
Chisa Hutchinson
Arlene Hutton
Tom Jacobson  
Laura Jacqmin
Joshua James
Julia Jarcho
Kyle Jarrow
Rachel Jendrzejewski   
Karla Jennings
David Johnston
Nick Jones
Julia Jordan
Rajiv Joseph
Aditi Brennan Kapil
Lila Rose Kaplan  
Jeremy Kareken 
Lally Katz
Lynne Kaufman
Daniel Keene 
 
Greg Keller
Sibyl Kempson 
Anna Kerrigan
Kait Kerrigan
Boo Killebrew
Callie Kimball
Alessandro King 
Johnny Klein 
Krista Knight
 
Andrea Kuchlewska
Larry Kunofsky
Eric Lane 
Deborah Zoe Laufer 
J. C. Lee
Young Jean Lee
Dan LeFranc
Andrea Lepcio
Victor Lesniewski 
Steven Levenson
Barry Levey
Mark Harvey Levine  
Michael Lew
Alex Lewin  
EM Lewis
Sean Christopher Lewis
Jeff Lewonczyk
Kenneth Lin
Michael Lluberes
 
Matthew Lopez
Stacey Luftig
Kirk Lynn
Mariah MacCarthy
Heather Lynn MacDonald 
Laura Lynn MacDonald
Maya Macdonald
Wendy MacLeod 
Cheri Magid
Jennifer Maisel
Martyna Majok  
Karen Malpede   
Kara Manning
Mona Mansour 
Warren Manzi 
Israela Margalit 
Ellen Margolis
Ruth Margraff
Sam Marks
Katie May
Oliver Mayer
Tarell Alvin McCraney
Mia McCullough  
Daniel McCoy 
Ruth McKee
Gabe McKinley  
Ellen McLaughlin 
James McManus
Charlotte Meehan
Carly Mensch
Molly Smith Metzler
Dennis Miles
Charlotte Miller 
Jane Miller  
Winter Miller
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Yusef Miller 
Rehana Mirza
Michael Mitnick
Anna Moench
Honor Molloy  
Alejandro Morales
Desi Moreno-Penson
Dominique Morisseau 
Hannah Moscovitch 
Itamar Moses
Gregory Moss
Megan Mostyn-Brown
Kate Mulley 
Paul Mullin
Julie Marie Myatt
Janine Nabers
Peter Sinn Nachtrieb
Brett Neveu
Don Nguyen   
Qui Nguyen
Don Nigro
Dan O'Brien
Matthew Paul Olmos 
Dominic Orlando
Rich Orloff
Marisela Treviño Orta
Jamie Pachino
Kristen Palmer
Tira Palmquist

Kyoung H. Park
Peter Parnell
Julia Pascal
Steve Patterson
Daniel Pearle 
christopher oscar peña
Brian Polak 
Daria Polatin
John Pollono 
Chana Porter
Craig Pospisil
Jessica Provenz
Michael Puzzo
Brian Quirk  
Marco Ramirez
Adam Rapp
David West Read 
Theresa Rebeck
Amber Reed
Daniel Reitz
Molly Rice
Mac Rogers
Elaine Romero
Lynn Rosen
Andrew Rosendorf
Kim Rosenstock
Kate E. Ryan
Kate Moira Ryan
Trav S.D.
Sarah Sander
Tanya Saracho
Heidi Schreck
August Schulenburg
Mark Schultz
Jenny Schwartz
Emily Schwend
Jordan Seavey
Christopher Shinn
Rachel Shukert
Jen Silverman
David Simpatico 
Blair Singer
Crystal Skillman
Mat Smart
Alena Smith
Tommy Smith
Ben Snyder
Sonya Sobieski  
Lisa Soland
Octavio Solis
E. Hunter Spreen 
Peggy Stafford 
Saviana Stanescu
Nick Starr
Deborah Stein
Jon Steinhagen
Victoria Stewart
Andrea Stolowitz
Lydia Stryk
Gwydion Suilebhan  
Gary Sunshine
Caridad Svich
Jeffrey Sweet
Adam Szymkowicz
Daniel Talbott
Kate Tarker 
Roland Tec 
Lucy Thurber
Paul Thureen
Josh Tobiessen
Catherine Trieschmann 
Dan Trujillo
Alice Tuan
Jon Tuttle
Ken Urban
Enrique Urueta
Francine Volpe
Kathryn Walat
Michael I. Walker 
Malachy Walsh
Kathleen Warnock
Anne Washburn
Marisa Wegrzyn
Anthony Weigh   
Ken Weitzman
Sharr White
Claire Willett
Samuel Brett Williams
Beau Willimon
Pia Wilson
Gary Winter
Bess Wohl   
Stanton Wood
Craig Wright
Deborah Yarchun
Lauren Yee
Steve Yockey
Kelly Younger
Stefanie Zadravec
Anna Ziegler

375 Playwright Interviews

Bess Wohl 
Wendy MacLeod 
Kate Mulley
Octavio Solis
Ian W. Hill
Monica Byrne
Don Nguyen 
Dana Lynn Formby
Dennis Miles
Marco Ramirez
Warren Manzi 
Mia McCullough 
Ellen McLaughlin
Tom Jacobson
Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro
Hannah Moscovitch
Alessandro King
Alex Lewin
Laurel Haines
Renee Calarco
E. Hunter Spreen 
Michael Lluberes
Kathleen Akerley  
Sonya Sobieski 
Gwydion Suilebhan 
Jane Miller
Eric Lane
David West Read
Katie May
John Pollono
Mona Mansour
Miranda Huba 
Lydia Stryk
Rachel Jendrzejewski 
Karen Malpede 

Daniel Pearle
Heather Lynn MacDonald 
Gabe McKinley
Keith Josef Adkins 
Brian Quirk
Israela Margalit
Kia Corthron
Christina Anderson
Jenny Lyn Bader
Catherine Trieschmann
Oliver Mayer
Jessica Brickman
Kari Bentley-Quinn

Daniel Keene
James Carter
Josh Tobiessen
Victor Lesniewski
Abi Basch
Matthew Paul Olmos
Stephanie Fleischmann
Chana Porter
Elana Greenfield 
Eugenie Chan
Roland Tec 
Jeff Goode
Elaine Avila 
Ashlin Halfnight 
Charlotte Meehan 
Marisela Treviño Orta
Quiara Alegria Hudes
Kait Kerrigan
Bianca Bagatourian 
Kyoung H. Park
Honor Molloy
Anna Moench 
Martin Blank
Paul Thureen
Yusef Miller
Lauren Gunderson
Jennifer Fawcett
Andrea Kuchlewska

Sean Christopher Lewis
Rachel Bonds
Lynn Rosen
Jennifer Barclay
Peggy Stafford
James McManus
Philip Dawkins
Jen Silverman
Lally Katz
Anne Garcia-Romero
Tony Adams
christopher oscar peña
Lynne Kaufman

Julie Hebert
Aditi Brennan Kapil
Elaine Romero
Alexis Clements
Lila Rose Kaplan
Barry Levey
Michael I. Walker
Maya Macdonald
Mando Alvarado
Adam Rapp
Eliza Clark
Margot Bordelon
Ben Snyder
Emily Bohannon
Cheri Magid
Jason Chimonides 

Rich Orloff
David Simpatico
Deborah Zoe Laufer
Brian Polak
Kate Fodor
Sibyl Kempson
Gary Garrison
Saviana Stanescu
Brian Bauman
Mark Harvey Levine
Lisa Soland
Sigrid Gilmer
Anthony Weigh 
Maria Alexandria Beech
Catherine Filloux 
Jordan Harrison
Alexandra Collier
Jessica Goldberg
Nick Starr
Young Jean Lee
Christina Gorman
Ruth McKee
Johnny Klein
Leslie Bramm
Jennifer Maisel
Jon Steinhagen
Leslye Headland
Kate Tarker
David Holstein
Trav S.D.

Ruben Carbajal
Martyna Majok
Sam Marks
Stacy Davidowitz 
Molly Rice
Julia Pascal
Yussef El Guindi
Meg Gibson
Daniel McCoy
Amber Reed
Joshua Fardon
Dan O'Brien
Jonathan Blitstein
Dominique Morisseau
Fielding Edlow
Joshua Allen
Peter Gil-Sheridan
Tira Palmquist
Sarah Hammond
Charlotte Miller
Deborah Yarchun
Anna Kerrigan
Luis Alfaro
Jonathan Caren
Jennifer Haley
Sofia Alvarez
Kevin R. Free
Ken Weitzman
Michael Golamco
J. C. Lee
Ruth Margraff
Kirk Lynn
Tanya Saracho
Daria Polatin 
Delaney Britt Brewer
Alice Tuan
Alice Austen
Jeffrey Sweet
Dan LeFranc
Andrew Hinderaker
Brett Neveu
Christine Evans
Jon Tuttle
Nikole Beckwith
Andrea Lepcio
Gregory Moss
Hannah Bos
Steven Levenson
Molly Smith Metzler
Matthew Lopez
Lee Blessing
Joshua James
Chisa Hutchinson
Rob Ackerman
Janine Nabers
Cory Hinkle
Stefanie Zadravec
Michael Mitnick
Jordan Seavey
Andrew Rosendorf
Don Nigro
Barton Bishop
Peter Parnell
Gary Sunshine
Emily DeVoti
Kenny Finkle
Kate Moira Ryan
Sam Hunter
Johnna Adams
Katharine Clark Gray
Laura Eason
David Caudle
Jacqueline Goldfinger
Christopher Chen
Craig Pospisil
Jessica Provenz
Deron Bos
Sarah Sander
Zakiyyah Alexander
Kate E. Ryan
Susan Bernfield
Karla Jennings
Jami Brandli
Kenneth Lin
Heidi Darchuk
Kathleen Warnock
Beau Willimon
Greg Keller
Les Hunter
Anton Dudley
Aaron Carter
Jerrod Bogard
Emily Schwend
Courtney Baron
Craig "muMs" Grant
Amy Herzog
Stacey Luftig
Vincent Delaney
Kathryn Walat
Paul Mullin
Kirsten Greenidge
Derek Ahonen
Francine Volpe
Julie Marie Myatt
Lauren Yee
Richard Martin Hirsch
Ed Cardona, Jr.
Terence Anthony
Alena Smith
Gabriel Jason Dean
Sharr White
Michael Lew
Craig Wright
Laura Jacqmin
Stanton Wood
Jamie Pachino
Boo Killebrew
Daniel Reitz
Alan Berks
Erik Ehn
Krista Knight
Steve Yockey
Desi Moreno-Penson
Andrea Stolowitz
Clay McLeod Chapman
Kelly Younger
Lisa Dillman
Ellen Margolis
Claire Willett
Lucy Alibar
Nick Jones
Dylan Dawson
Pia Wilson
Theresa Rebeck
Me
Arlene Hutton
Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas
Lucas Hnath
Enrique Urueta
Tarell Alvin McCraney
Anne Washburn
Julia Jarcho
Lisa D'Amour
Rajiv Joseph
Carly Mensch
Marielle Heller
Larry Kunofsky
Edith Freni
Tommy Smith
Jeremy Kareken
Rob Handel
Stephen Adly Guirgis
Kara Manning
Libby Emmons
Adam Bock
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Liz Duffy Adams
Winter Miller
Jenny Schwartz
Kristen Palmer
Patrick Gabridge
Mike Batistick
Mariah MacCarthy
Jay Bernzweig
Gina Gionfriddo
Darren Canady
Alejandro Morales
Ann Marie Healy
Christopher Shinn
Sam Forman
Erin Courtney
Gary Winter
J. Holtham
Caridad Svich
Samuel Brett Williams
Trista Baldwin
Mat Smart
Bathsheba Doran
August Schulenburg
Jeff Lewonczyk
Rehana Mirza
Peter Sinn Nachtrieb
David Johnston
Dan Dietz
Mark Schultz
Lucy Thurber
George Brant
Brooke Berman
Julia Jordan
Joshua Conkel
Kyle Jarrow
Christina Ham
Rachel Axler
Laura Lynn MacDonald
Steve Patterson
Erin Browne
Annie Baker
Crystal Skillman
Blair Singer
Daniel Goldfarb
Heidi Schreck
Itamar Moses
EM Lewis
Bekah Brunstetter
Mac Rogers
Cusi Cram
Michael Puzzo
Megan Mostyn-Brown
Andrea Ciannavei
Sarah Gubbins
Kim Rosenstock
Tim Braun
Rachel Shukert
Kristoffer Diaz
Jason Grote
Dan Trujillo
Marisa Wegrzyn
Ken Urban
Callie Kimball
Deborah Stein
Qui Nguyen
Victoria Stewart
Malachy Walsh
Jessica Dickey
Kara Lee Corthron
Zayd Dohrn
Madeleine George
Sheila Callaghan
Daniel Talbott
David Adjmi
Dominic Orlando
Matthew Freeman
Anna Ziegler
James Comtois