RezaRitesRi.com

by Reza Corinne Clifton

From the play, “Line,” by Molly Rice - another winner of the 13th International Playwriting Festival at Perishable Theater. Photo by Marya Errin Jones

Laura Jacqmin is author of “Gotham is Safe Again,” and one of the winners of this year’s Festival. Read about the festival itself by clicking here.

(RCC) Talking to artistic director, Vanessa Gilbert, she indicated that there was about a two-year hiatus between this festival their last one. One reason she was so ready to hold this year’s was to honor the more than 600 entries that came in. Do you remember how long ago it was that you submitted your manuscript? Had you or have you since submitted “Gotham is Safe Again” to any other festivals or programs? Has it been performed or directed elsewhere?

(LJ) I submitted GOTHAM in October 2005, so I didn’t have to wait too long. I’ve submitted the play to a few other festivals, but nothing has come of it. I stopped after I found out about the production at Perishable – this is the theater I want to be working with! Aside from a few developmental readings at OU and beyond, this is the first time I’ll get to see a full production of the play.

(RCC) Do you remember where you were when you got the news that your play had been selected? As a RI native, I don’t think I’m in an objective place to measure or assume anything about your excitement level. How does this honor measure up with others you have or would like to attain, like the Kitchen Dog Theatre’s New Works or the Contemporary American Theater Festival? Is there a cream of the crop, most distinguished playwright’s festival/honor?

(LJ) There is a prevailing school of thought that says every playwright should aim for a New York production, and that regional theaters exist in some strange vacuum where all that gets done are Neil Simon plays. A production is more exciting than a reading any day, and a production with a company that is a good fit with your work is the best possible situation. It’s easy to say that a New York production will get you the most “worthwhile” exposure, but whether that’s true or not depends on the playwright. Eric Coble lives in Cleveland; Adam Rapp lives in New York. Each is a successful playwright; each has different aims.

(RCC) I was thinking of you as a student still working toward her MFA on the one hand, and as a co-founder of a theatre festival—the Yale Playwrights Festival—on the other, and was thinking about how I’ve been curious about how generations share space, time, and authority. Do you get concerned as both developing playwright and festival co-founder that the permanence of Perishable’s Festival, or other theatre and writing festivals including the one you started at Yale, may in some way be stifling opportunities for younger playwrights or avant-garde playwrights?

(LJ) The festival at Yale started as a gripe that there were no opportunities for undergraduate playwrights at the college level. A lot of people conflate Yale School of Drama and the college in their minds, but the two are almost entirely separate entities. There are typically 1 or 2 playwriting classes offered per semester, but there was a question of where a student’s work would go after class was through. Most plays aren’t ready for full productions, but they are ready for a reading and feedback from pretty prestigious mentors. The festival has hosted Edward Albee, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Tracy Letts, Rolin Jones – the list goes on and on. I’m pleased that the festival continues into its 6th year.

Regarding generations, each festival is so different that it’s hard to generalize about the opportunities it generates. Do I feel that some highly regarded festivals are very careful to only work with “emerging” playwrights who are already being produced on the professional level? Certainly. But there are an equal number of festivals that are truly searching for a distinctive voice instead of a recognized name. It has to depend on the strength and potential of the work.

And for every theater company looking for straight, naturalistic plays, there are a handful looking for something a little bit more theatrical, a little bit more stylized. The whole point of going to the theater is to see something live – something alive. If we wanted to see a kitchen sink drama, we could stay home and watch television.

(RCC) Tell me a little more about your play. Both in the summary and in talking to Vanessa, your play has been likened to a comic book. Can you tell me a little more about the play or about how a comic book format materialized into a stage-ready format? And what encouraged you to try a concept like this?

(LJ) I started with a concept – a play about a theme park of some kind – and then let the play evolve into something language-based. Each scene has a supertitle; each scene is a little entity unto itself, much like panels in a comic book. The style is again, more focused on language and character – trying to paint a picture with each moment. I’ve always been a comics fan, and though some of my tastes run to the simplistic (I grew up on Archie and Uncle Scrooge, and didn’t discover Batman till much later) it remains in my head.

Plays rely on images, whether it’s stage images or images created through the language. I hope that GOTHAM will be a potent combination of both.

(RCC) The festival ends in about two weeks. Now I noticed that at least with this festival, you winners have (or are seeking) MFA’s. I’m trying to get an idea of what a playwright’s career trajectory is like. As far as you know, is the MFA the most predictable route for exposure as a playwright? Characteristically, what do the next steps look like after a playwright is recognized as you have been at this festival? And specifically, what do your next steps look like? (Do you have any aspirations to pen a film? Or do you strictly want to keep with theatre? Is there another festival you’ve set your sights on?)

(LJ) It varies from writer to writer. Some absorb craft through osmosis: reading plays, seeing plays. Some want to develop their craft to a point where one is never hindered while writing. A playwright’s voice will always come through for them, but if your craft isn’t at its peak, you start to get blocked. I’ve seen plays undone by simple structural problems – we don’t know which of the many stories we’re supposed to be following, for example. Who are we supposed to care about? What are we expecting (or not expecting) to happen next? If the audience doesn’t have some thread to hold onto, they’re going to get lost. A lost audience isn’t a good thing to have.

A number of writers dismiss the MFA. Some aim for a degree in order to teach. (It’s an interesting conundrum that many playwrights know how to write, but don’t know how to teach. It’s a process thing – if you can’t dissect your own craft, how are you going to teach other people how to write?) Some feel they need some time to just write and build a body of work.

I went into my MFA right after I graduated college. Looking back at my earlier plays, I feel I got lucky on a number of occasions, and my voice was almost strong enough to carry my work. But not always. Right now I’m in my final year of the Ohio University MFA, I’m working on three different plays, and I’m yards more confident in my work than I was when I first started.

After a festival like the WPF, all a playwright has to do is keep writing and trying to get their work out there. Also, a playwright has to make ties to the companies that are interested in their stuff! The Public may not be interested in doing the world premiere of your play, but do you really want all that pressure right away? Right now I’m working on a play about the collision of hip-hop culture and the Jewish community, and my thesis play, 10 VIRGINS, which is a play for 5 women, 1 man and 5 puppets that uses fairy tales to explore proper girls’ behavior. I’m excited about the project and keep aiming for a production of my full-length work.

I used to be interested in writing for film, but it feels like such a different animal. I like theater. I don’t feel writing is a question of getting your Message out to as many different people as possible; art does not ultimately change the world. Hopefully it can change someone’s mind, or make them think. When some unique energy is darting between every person in a live audience – to me, that’s much more exciting than a bunch of people staring at a screen chomping on Twizzlers, and it always will be.

Jacqmin’s play runs the weekend of October 26 through 29 and the weekend of November 2 through November 5 with the works of the other festival winners. Read the post above entitled Comics and Theme Parks at Women’s Playwriting Festival for more information about the 13th International Women’s Playwriting Festival or visit www.perishable.org.

Reza Corinne Clifton is a community organizer for high school reform at RI Children’s Crusade for Higher Education. She is also a freelance writer who is regularly published in several RI-area publications. Her articles can be seen at www.RezaRitesRi.com and she can be reached by emailing rezaclif@aol.com.

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