The 'Spy Play'

Playwright Walt McGough

I’ve always loved genre stories. Westerns, comic books, spy novels, speculative fiction...the pulpier the better. Much of that love comes from the escapist itch that they scratched for awkward-pre-teen Walt, but even now as a (slightly) less awkward adult, I still find myself drawn to genres, and the surprising way that new stories can live within them. A genre, after all, is just a container: a structure of shared themes or story beats within which a whole host of ideas and events and characters can operate. Working within a genre is often like handing your audience an old, comfy coat, which they can put on to protect themselves a bit as they venture into the wild unknowns of your story. It can help them feel secure. Which, of course, makes it all the easier to surprise them.

With that in mind, a few years back I decided on a whim that I was going to write a play in every one of the genres that I’d loved growing up. I’d have the Comic Book Play, the Western Play, the Space Exploration Play. The Farm is the Spy Play, and also one of the only ones to materialize thus far. Maybe the rest never will. Maybe doing something so defined is impossible for me, because as I worked on The Farm, it got harder and harder to keep it segregated into Spy World. Other genres and elements kept creeping in. Some film noir here, some crime procedural there; every time I turned around another genre was bleeding in through the edges.  I felt like those people in the old Reese’s Cup commercials: “You got Ghost Story in my Spy Play! No, you got Spy Play in my Ghost Story!” I decided to go with it, though, and just see what happened in the end. What I got was surprising, unexpected, and, much like Reese’s Cups themselves, ultimately delicious.

Alumni news, in brief:

Sinan Ünel's A Mad Person’s Chronicle of a Miserable Marriage will run at Provincetown’s Counter Productions Studio next week. A November run at NYC’s Stage Left Studio is also on the calendar...

What do director Robert Wilson and KAM have in common?

RW and I would love to hang 

and talk shop sitting in these.

We both love Philip Glass. Nope. We were both born in Texas. Nope. We are both past recipients of the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize. Nope. (I’ve been a runner-up a couple of times, but…kidding, kidding…) We’re both collaborating with Tom Waits on a new musical for the stage. Nope – but Bobby, call me!!!

Give up? We share a passion for chairs! Check out this cool Q&A from The New York Times. He actually designed a limited edition seven ages of man chair – wow!

At this theatre

Ever notice the “At This Theatre” feature included in every Broadway Playbill? Maybe not. It’s the page or so that gives a brief history of the theatre you’re sitting in, and of the notable productions that have played there. You might’ve missed it (back in the day, it used to be more prominent in the program) or skipped over it, thinking “Who reads that stuff?”

If the latter is the case, I’ll answer that question: Me. I read that stuff. I’m that guy. If I’m sitting inside one of those great theatres waiting for a play to begin, you can bet that I’m a) excited about what I’m there to see and b) that I’m loving the architecture and history of the house too. And yeah, I’m geeky enough to be super-excited when I go to a Broadway show in a theatre I haven’t visited before…and when I am revisiting an old “friend” (e.g., at the St. James waiting for the 2008 revival of Gypsy to begin, remembering the concert revival of Sunday in the Park With George at the same venue 15 years earlier). I tend to keep most of this geekery to myself. Until now, of course.

Bringing 'Mortal Terror' to the Stage

I love plays that view historical events and persons through a contemporary prism. I love being in rehearsal with a bunch of really smart, funny, opinionated theater artists. And I love William Shakespeare, who despite being married, possibly bisexual, definitely not Jewish, and almost 400 years dead, is one of the most important men in my life. Like Bob Brustein and Stafford Clark-Price – see blog entries below – I am a Shakespeare nerd. So odds were good that I was going to have a fine time directing Mortal Terror. 

Alumni news, in brief:

Zayd Dohrn

Want, a new play by Zayd Dohrn, will be part of Steppenwolf Theatre Company’s 7th Annual First Look Repertory of New Work this fall…

Even with the Broadway-bound Stick Fly, Lydia Diamond is not solely in an empire state of mind: Her adaptation of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye bows at Cleveland’s Karamu House Theatre in February. And speaking of Lydia, if you missed last week’s NYT feature story about her and Katori Hall (also headed to Broadway this season with The Mountaintop), check it out…

This winter’s South Coast Repertory production of Molly Smith Metzler’s Elemeno Pea will be the first directed by Marc Masterson in his new role as SCR’s artistic director …

Look for Steven Barkhimer onstage later this month, opening in Twelfth Night at Actors’ Shakespeare Project…

What box?

Sometimes it’s a struggle to be brave in our writing, to be artistically adventurous.

And while the fact that Bjork continually pushes the limits of her art is not news, I was positively blown away by this discussion (scroll down to Sept. 8) between the musician and CBC Radio’s Jian Ghomeshi about her forthcoming Biophilia. Out Oct. 11, it's the first “app album” – a fusion of music, nature, and technology. 

The interview is a lengthy listen – though definitely worth it if you have the time – and serves as further proof that for this amazing artist, the box simply does not exist. I especially loved the part of the conversation about structure and "shape," which took me back to BPT workshop days. Inspiring!

Test tubes are for losers!

Earlier this week, I sat down (well, I sat -- they were sort of globbily all over the place) with the stars of alum Ginger Lazarus’ new play, The Embryos.The play is one of three works featured in The Rhombus Readings this weekend at BPT.

KAM: So, uh, I had hoped to ask the playwright – You know, Ginger? – a few questions about her play. What are you two doing here?

EGGO: Huh? Whuh she say?

LEGGO: Whuh we doing here. Somethin' bout..."play."

EGGO: I like tuh play.

LEGGO: No Xbox here, stupid!

EGGO: Oh. ...Food? How bout food? Ask huh.

LEGGO: Yuh ask huh!

EGGO: 'Kay.... (ahem) Pizzzza??

Inside 'Mortal Terror'

Robert Brustein

Mortal Terror is the second play in a Shakespeare trilogy I have been writing, and it concerns the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, an event that bears an uncanny resemblance to the World Trade Center Plot of 2001. (The Jacobean version was meant to blow the twin towers of Parliament into the Thames.) I imagine Shakespeare, during this time, being asked by James I of England, to write a play justifying his right to the throne. Against his conscious will, he writes Macbeth, with its references to witches (James wrote a book about them) and the Gunpowder Plot (in the Porters speech).

I also imagine that Shakespeare and James's Danish Queen Anne came very close to an affair, and that he helped his drinking companions, Ben Jonson and John Marston, out of a lot of trouble with the King when they satirized the Scots.

The play also concerns the conflicts within an artist forced by circumstances to write against his will, and the way that even something intended as propaganda can become a work of art, if the artist is gifted enough. And, most of all, Mortal Terror is about Shakespeare's growing awareness of mankind's inhumanity to man.

- Robert Brustein, Playwright

Alumni news, in brief:

Lydia Diamond's Broadway-bound Stick Fly (full casting announcement here) made Time Out New York's list of 20 theater shows to see this fall. Members of the extended BPT family Theresa Rebeck and Kirsten Greenidge also made the list, for Seminar and Milk Like Sugar, respectively...

Walt McGough is on a roll: Not only is the BPT production of his play The Farm one of Boston.com's critic's picks for the fall, his Priscilla Dreams the Answer has been added to Fresh Ink's winter calendar... 

Rosie Perez will join the cast of Molly Smith Metzler's Close Up Space at Manhattan Theatre Club in December...

John Greiner-Ferris' 'Turtles' will be part of Interim Writers' An Evening of Staged Readings on October 11...

What Terrifies You?

With Mortal Terror going up on Thursday, September 15, I wanted to know from the people involved in the production: What terrifies YOU? (And those of you reading, please comment right here on the blog and let us know about your rational -- and irrational -- fears!)

Kate Snodgrass (producer/artistic director):

1. My refrigerator breaking down again. (It was a nightmare.) When it starts making humming noises, I begin to worry.

2. Daddy Long Legs. They breed at the cabin where I go in Vermont every summer. Sometimes I don't see any, but if it's August (I don't know why),they show up. Lots of them. LOTS OF THEM. They're harmless, but...They're hard to see except on the white bedspread when I'm sleeping and it's the middle of the night and they're crawling

up toward my head and jumping from the floor and the curtains (and they're fast), and then 40 of them sit on my face. (It's a nightmare.)

3. I'll have to move back to Kansas. Enough said.

Robert Brustein (playwright):

1., 2., and 3. The current Republican leadership terrifies me.

Georgia Lyman (actor):

1. Not living up to my own expectations

2. Prolonged illness.

3. Slugs. Not kidding. It's an irrational fear.

One!

BPT Friends Near and Far –

The first Playwrights’ Perspective post was one year ago today. Read it. It’s Jake waxing poetic about the promise of a new school year, and me (in the comments) being a smartass. In other words, not much has changed.

But since I’m forever interpreting our hits and misses by monitoring the blog’s statistics, what does a year look like in numbers? How about 188 (and this is number 189) posts about last season’s six BPT productions and the endeavors of its four staff and 38 alums (a number we need to grow, so keep us posted on all your doings, people) including reports of nine awards, three Off-Broadway productions, and one Broadway production. How’s that?

Will I Am

Stafford Clark-Price, right, in Robert Brustein's The English Channel

Let’s get this out of the way immediately: I am a bit of a Shakespeare nerd. I blame my mother for the love of language and Mrs. Fitch, my 8th grade English teacher, for casting me as Macbeth in our classroom reading of the play. When I was given the opportunity to play Shakespeare in The English Channel in New York, part one in Mr. Brustein’s trilogy, I was thrilled at the opportunity to try and breathe life into such an enigmatic historical figure at the beginning of his career.

In Mortal Terror, we meet Will at a very different time in his life. He is now a successful playwright, having penned Hamlet, Lear, As You Like It and numerous other smash hits. Unlike many artistic geniuses, Shakespeare was celebrated during his lifetime and it is during this period that the curtain rises on our play. Queen Elizabeth has just died and James has just taken the throne, bringing with him a new religion and retinue.

Alumni news, in brief:

Genevieve Jessee

Genevieve Jessee’s Girl in, but not of, the 'Hood – which she wrote and will perform – is part of the San Francisco Fringe Festival this week…

Will Fancher’s The River Was Whiskey is not just part of our 30^th anniversary season. It’s also on the production calendar at his (other) alma mater, Middle Tennessee State University…

Emily Kaye Lazzaro’s Grief and Surfing had a reading at Oberon last week…

When you get a chance, check out John Greiner Ferris’ new blog, which focuses solely on playwriting…