7 Questions with John Shea (playwright)

John Shea

   
1. When did you attend BPT's BU MFA program, and what was the experience like for you?
I attended the BPT program from September 2001 to May 2002. The experience was my first brush with the “professional” side of theatre. So, being a professional experience, I saw the good, (Kate’s guidance and oh-so-gentle approach to writers,) the bad, (not really bad, but the tough, Derek Walcott’s brutally honest approach to writers,) and the ugly…all right so there was no ugly, I just wanted to complete the trio. The experience was terrifying, exhilarating, and I left with a very well rounded view of what life in the theatre would be like.

2. How many plays have you written? What has been your biggest success? Your biggest failure?
I have, now, 11 full length plays and dozens of shorts (my store pile for Boston Theater marathon submissions…). I think my biggest success was with, Erin Go Bragh-less, being accepted into the National Playwright’s Conference at the O’Neill Center. Had I known
what a big deal it was, I would have been too afraid to submit, but I had never heard of the O’Neill when I entered….  My biggest failure…I hope you’re talking about playwrighting here.  Let’s just say I don’t have enough of a production history to have any failures YET…and we’ll leave it at that.

3. What is different about this current play - Welcome to Somerville, Permit Parking
The only thing different about this play is the size of the cast…17. I wrote it out of sheer frustration. Stylistically, it’s very similar to my other Somerville plays, and since producers aren’t producing my 9 and 10 character plays, nor my one and two character plays, I decided to write what I wanted, and not worry about cast size. It was actually very liberating and a hell of a lot of fun….

4. Why do you need that many characters to tell THIS story?
I need this many characters because it is really the story of a city, a city finding its own identity in the shadow of Boston across the river. It’s a city where familiarity can be comforting and dangerous, a city where everyone knows everyone’s business and the large cast makes clear just how entwined everyone’s life is with those around them. What affects one, has a trickle down affect, invading (infecting perhaps,) the lives of many. I could have shown this as effectively with a smaller cast. My smaller cast plays (the 9 and 10 character plays,) focus on a particular group in a particular neighborhood, this play takes in the entire city…at least I like to think so.

5. This concert reading is the closest to self-producing you've ever gotten. What are you learning about being a producer? Why use local readers?
Being a producer sucks….too many decisions, and this isn’t even a full production. From designing print materials and paying to have them printed, advertising and blogging as often as possible for free publicity...(luckily, Somerville Access TV gave me a wonderful spot)…organizing actors and scurrying to fill a role.  But, I do like having total control. I guess I was surprised by how much energy is in constant motion.

I wanted to use local actors for two reasons: one, their friends and family and I made it hard to say, “no,” and two, they have an authentic sound, accents, inflections, that will lend a natural rhythm to the play. It’s set in Somerville, why not use Somerville voices?

6. What kind of feedback are you getting from the community? It's based on pretty recent
news, isn't it?
Oh boy…yes it’s based on recent events and the backlash…I mean feedback, has been quite interesting. Some are embracing Somerville being in the spotlight, some think I am portraying Somerville in a negative light and some have just openly attacked me, trying to ruin my reputation (as if I needed help ruining my reputation.)  I've been called a drug addict, a drunk and it's been said I have an ongoing relationship with prostitutes. (If I could afford an ongoing relationship with prostitutes and drugs…I would have no problem producing my own work.) So, now I know firsthand what it’s like to be publicly vilified, wasn’t fun.

7. What's next for you?
I am going to keep producing. I like the idea of Community Theatre in Somerville for the Somerville Community…most of my plays take place here, they should be done here using local people. I am going to produce my two character play, The Painter, (not set in Somerville oddly enough,) in the spring and take things from there. I would love to fully produce, Erin…  It’s my favorite piece and the play that got me into the BPT
program (under a different title…), then dragged me into the world of professional theatre.

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You can read more about Welcome to Somerville, Permit Parking Only at http://www.playsbyshea.com/

The First Year Out

Anyone who goes through an intensive Creative Writing workshop knows the feeling of directionlessness after the final class.  How will I keep writing?  Do I have to make a living, too?  I asked Walt McGough (who received his diploma three days ago) what the first year out has been for him. 

 

Walt: I would wager that the only near-universal feeling for playwrights leaving a writing program is one of complete, abject panic. Questions start swarming as soon as you step outside of BPT's walls (or at least they did for me): "What do I do now?" "Should I start something new, or keep editing?" "How am I supposed to write plays without a weekly deadline imposed on me?" In short: "How do I stay inspired?" 

 

BU's program is a pressure cooker of good writing and great ideas, where you spend a large portion of your week sitting in a room with smart people and talking about making the art that you love. That can really spoil a guy, which made it easy to feel adrift once I was out on my own. And, yeah. A bit of panic ensued. But it got better! So much better.

And the way it got better, weirdly enough, was not writing. Not immediately, at least. Cast out into a strange and frightening world, I found that I couldn't even start thinking about writing without first establishing what I was writing for. I mean, The Art, obviously, I guess, but I needed something more concrete to un-block myself. So I researched and found new reasons. I started by just asking people I knew if they knew any festivals/contests/workshop opportunities I should be trying for, or any theatres around town I should be paying attention to. Then I went to the Dramatists Guild's reference site and pulled a few things that looked interesting. Then I started looking around Boston, and seeing what companies were in the neighborhood that I should be paying attention to. Then I laid that info all that out, put it in some kind of order, and soon I had a big honking spreadsheet full of submission information, selection criteria, and most importantly, deadlines. Beautiful, beautiful deadlines. Spaced regularly enough to keep me working. Some of the submissions involve re-tooling stuff I have left over from class, but the ones that I like most are the ones that force me to write new stuff. Because doing that reminds me that I can write new stuff, even when I'm not in school, and that's an exciting and necessary reminder. I still have good days and bad days, and it's not like I'm churning out manuscripts by the dozen every morning, but I'm still moving forward, and plugging away.

And in the meantime, I'm just recently figuring out the last piece of the puzzle: support networks. Turns out, all those smart people I got to talk to every week at BU? They didn't just disappear. They're still around. Most of them, anyway, and they're still all excited about theatre and it's still fun to talk to them about it and even share work sometimes. I also lucked into a job with SpeakEasy Stage Company, which means that I get to spend my day working in the business side of things, and get a better feel for the Boston theatre landscape. And then, also, I got engaged right after school ended, and that's been pretty fantastic all the way through.

So, yes. Blind, abject panic. But then it gets better. And it keeps getting better. And with any luck, it will continue to keep getting better. Just as long as I keep writing, and building, and continuing all of the great grand enjoyable work that I got started under the watchful eye of dear ol' BPT.