Mike Aguirre's "Somewhere in this Favor'd Land" - 5/19 @ 6pm

Mike Aguirre is a graduate from Indiana University with a B.A. in Theatre and English.  A suburban Chicago native, Mike has worked with the Windy City Players, First Folio, Steppenwolf, The Wilma Theater (Philadelphia), and the Hexagon Theatre (South Africa).  Since arriving in New York, he’s worked with The Pearl Theatre (City Center), Wide Eyed Productions, has taken classes and worked with Anne Phelan, John Grabowski, and Chelsea Rep and Lab, and is a company member with Rising Sun.

• Your play Somewhere in this Favor’d Land will be performed as a part of our Dark Nights series this week at the Richmond Shepard Theatre. Can you tell us about what inspired it?

I’ve always wanted to write an homage to baseball.  I’ve always wanted to write an homage to Wilder’s Our Town.  I think the play is a combination of the two (but don’t let those two subjects turn you away from the show!)  At its heart is a story about change in America and how change shapes a conservative town, a father and son.

• You are part of Wide Eyed’s very first Apprentice Playwrights Program. Can you tell us a little bit about what the process has been like?

At the beginning of the process, I wrote a very different play that… I just didn’t think it worked for many reasons, so it’s had more changes that I can account for since the early stages of the idea.  But that’s been the beauty of the process with Wide Eyed.  I started in the theatre as an actor, and any actor will tell you that you never get it right at the first rehearsal.  It takes days, weeks, months.  You grow with a character even during performances, and I am learning that the same is true with writing a script.  Half the battle is getting it down on paper.  Then it goes through so many steps listening to actors and directors interpret your work, seeing what moments are good and more importantly, what moments need to be thrown away.  I remember reading an article about John Guare where he says that playwriting is a ‘blood sport’.  You have to be brutal with what stays and what goes, what moments are honest and what are contrived.  I’m very new to playwriting and it’s something I’m still learning how to do.  Tim Butterfield, the Artistic Director of Wide Eyed and the director for the play, is an expert leading a writer through the process, so it’s been a challenging but fulfilling one, and I’m grateful that there are programs like Wide Eyed’s Apprenticeship which invest the necessary time it takes in developing a script.

• When did you know that you wanted to be a writer? What made you start writing plays?

I hate admitting this, but I think I had this grand idea of writing plays that I could act in after I was tired of auditioning and auditioning, begging people to put me in their shows.  It was selfish, at first.  But once I began studying the structure, taking classes, having discussions with other professionals and learning to appreciate this rich tradition of story-telling, I fell in love with it.

• Who or what has been your biggest influence as a writer? What inspires you to get to the page?

Seeing any productions are the biggest influence: seeing what’s out there, what creative things are being done, and what I can do to add to it always gets my mind going and gets me motivated. Also, my parents used to tell my brother and I stories when we were very young.  They would make them up on the spot at bedtime, and they would always leave a cliffhanger of an ending for the following night.  Their story-telling and creativity probably had the biggest impact on pursuing a life in the arts.

• In terms of your creative process, do you have a particular ritual when it comes to writing? If so, can you share it with us?

A glass of wine or a few beers always help. I also don’t own a computer, so I suppose part of the ritual is stealing my girlfriend’s laptop to do some writing (Thanks, Ali)!

• Can you tell us about any other projects you’re working on right now?

A one-act I wrote entitled Almost a Fantasy has been accepted into the NY Fringe Festival this summer.  It’s being produced by Chelsea Rep and Lab and Rumination Theatre, and it’ll be very exciting to get back into a rehearsal room this summer.  It opens in August.  Hope everyone can come see it!

Liz Magee's "The Attendant" - 5/18 @ 6pm

Liz Magee recently received a BA in Theatre Arts with concentrations in Performance and Writing for the Stage from Marymount Manhattan College. Her short play, If You See Something, Say Something won Manhattan Rep’s Fall One-Act Competition and was a semi-finalist in the Riant Theatre’s Strawberry One-Act Festival. While at Marymount, she was head writer of the sketch group “Comedy Schmomedy,” received the award for ‘Best TV Script’ for her spec script of Modern Family, and was the recipient of the Gold Key for Academic Excellence for Writing for the Stage.

• Your play The Attendant will be performed as a part of our Dark Nights series this week at the Richmond Shepard Theatre (Thursday, May 18 @ 6pm - see Facebook). Can you tell us about what inspired it?

A few years ago, while still a student at Marymount Manhattan College, I had written the beginnings of a play that took place strictly within a bathroom at a high school. I wasn’t happy with what became of that piece — with the exception of the I-still-find-clever title “Stalling”. But I remained intrigued with the concept of setting a play within a restroom of sorts. At the moment, I find I am prone to first establishing a consistent setting — usually a confined space — and then I begin to explore potential characters and circumstances that the particular space calls for. 

• You are part of Wide Eyed’s very first Apprentice Playwrights Program. Can you tell us a little bit about what the process has been like?

This program has given me the greatest gift a young, distracted writer could ask for: DEADLINES.  Throughout the past few months, we would meet to workshop our work, which meant I needed to bring in something to workshop. In addition to this, the community that formed has been invaluable to me. Not only is it always exciting to work with new people, but to have feedback sessions with new WRITERS was terribly exciting for me. I must admit, I have learned a great deal from each writer involved and without this program, The Attendant might have still been on the to do list. Thanks Tim!

• I’m under the impression that you have worked before with Michael Kinnan, your director for this staged reading of The Attendant. Can you tell us a little about that working relationship?

Oh, where do I begin? Well, Michael and I both attended Marymount, where we participated in a Playwright / Director / Actor workshop. I was assigned a group of actors and a director to specifically write a piece for, that director being Michael. You could say we just ‘clicked’. A natural symbiotic relationship was born and is still developing. We continue to serve as a source of support and encouragement for one another as well as a source of critique and challenge. We are constantly learning from each other while growing into these roles of director and playwright through our frequent collaborations. Plus, we both love Mad Men.  

• You were kind enough to answer some questions earlier on your creative process as your monologue, Jeans, was being performed in our recent production of A Girl Wrote It. Now that the show is over, do you have any additional thoughts on that piece?

This was a particularly scary experience for me at first. I had written Jeans during a ‘free write’ session during a playwriting class over a year ago. Meaning, it was written with no intention of being performed. I submitted the piece on a whim and I am so glad I did! It has been an immensely encouraging experience to have such talented ladies (Carly Knight under the direction of Kristin Skye Hoffmann) bring life to a piece that may have otherwise been neglected. There were many layers of humor and intimacy that I hadn’t even recognized within the piece until these gals got their hands on it. 

• Can you tell us about any additional projects you’re working on right now?

Hm. I suppose it’s time to start writing a new play, eh? I will say that my next play is likely to be another female-centric piece. This is not because I am especially fanatic about women’s issues, but I entered college as an actress, where the female to male ratio was 5:1. I dream of a future where there is more material for a scene study class of mostly women besides that scene between Claire and Catherine in Proof. Gotta represent.

Doug Williams's "Now I am a Wrecking Ball" - 5/17 @ 6pm

 

Douglas Williams is a Silver Award Winner from the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts. His plays include The Death and Life of Uncle Gene, Shitheads, and Now I am a Wrecking Ball, which is being developed with the support of Wide Eyed Productions. His play P.E. was published in the March issue of The Inciting Incident. He lives in Brooklyn with his girlfriend, Sarah. 

• Your play Now I am a Wrecking Ball will be performed as a part of our Dark Nights series this week at the Richmond Shepard Theatre (Thursday, May 17 @ 6pm - see Facebook). Can you tell us about what inspired it? 

I think it’s interesting when people get to be a part of documenting someone’s life, especially an artist--the way they can sort of glorify everything they did. There is a great documentary about Stanley Kubrick called A Life In Pictures. It’s basically three hours of everyone discussing and dissecting his genius. I love Stanley Kubrick's work and I do think he was a genius, but while he was filming The Shining he was a real jerk to Shelley Duval. They have footage of it. Years later, in this documentary about Kubrick, Shelley Duval goes into how it was just a part of his process, how it was just a part of who he was a director. She totally lets him off the hook. I think that kind of thing happens pretty often in these sort of retrospective programs. So I wanted to look at that. Sort of glorifying someone who wasn’t that great of a person.

• You are part of Wide Eyed’s very first Apprentice Playwrights Program. Can you tell us a little bit about what the process has been like? 

It’s been great. It’s the first writers group I’ve been a part of and I’m really so proud of the work everyone’s been doing. It’s pushed me to finish this play, I don’t think it would have gotten written otherwise so I’ll always be thankful for that. If anything, I think the program is too short. I wish I could continue on with this group for another year or so. 

• When did you know that you wanted to be a writer? What made you start writing plays? 

Well I grew up making films so I never really thought of myself as solely a writer, I just wrote screenplays so that I could film them. When I was at Temple, I took this incredible class with Ed Sobel called American Playwrights. We read plays like True West and Topdog / Underdog. I remember realizing how dangerous theatre can be, in a way that film wasn't for me at the time. I wrote a play that semester that was really bad, but that was sort of how it started. 

• Who or what has been your biggest influence as a writer? What inspires you to get to the page? 

There are lots of people who inspire me and not all of them are writers. The things that inspire me directly are my friends, my family, my girlfriend, things that happen to me, things I see. Writing is fun because it makes you pay more attention to things. You can see something and store it away. It’s not like, “Oh I am now being inspired;” it’s a lot more fun than that. 

• In terms of your creative process, do you have a particular ritual when it comes to writing? If so, can you share it with us? 

Not really. I try to write at least two pages everyday and when I get that free time always fluctuates. I like to write at night. During the day I feel like I should be outside or paying bills or cleaning my apartment. At night everything kind of calms down, I can sit down and focus a little more. 

• Can you tell us about any other projects you’re working on right now? 

I'm working on a one-act called The They Committee for the theatre company I grew up with. The Stonington Players do this one-act festival every year, and I always try to write one for it. It's fun because they like big casts because they have so many people eager to be a part of the festival--it gives me a chance to write in a different style. I'm also working on two other full lengths at the moment. After this reading I'm planning on stepping away from the project for a little while and then coming back to it with fresh eyes in a few weeks. It's been a long process but there is still a lot of work I plan on putting into the play. 

Amy Gijsbers van Wijk's "Second Skin" - 5/16 @ 6pm

Amy Gijsbers van Wijk is entering her junior year at the Macaulay Honors College at Brooklyn College (CUNY). She was born and raised in Houston, TX before moving to New York City on the artistic-pilgrimage, and for college. She is majoring in Theatrical Authorship Studies, a self-designed interdisciplinary program (of playwriting, drama history, and theatre training) and being mentored by Erin Courtney and Mary Beth Easley. Second Skin is her first full-length play, but will surely not be her last. Her previous works include Blasphemy, and The Bystander Effect, which were performed in aWe Creative Group’s “24 HourPlayFun,” a twenty-four hour playwriting/acting event. She has also co-written a musical performed at Macaulay, Error 404!, about two students who get trapped in the Internet. Check out her blog, Diary of a Young Playwright.

• Your play Second Skin will be performed as a part of our Dark Nights series this week at the Richmond Shepard Theatre (Wednesday, May 16th at 6pm - see Facebook). Can you tell us about what inspired it?

The origin of my idea kind of rids the play of its mystery, but. . .(pausing for mystery) I was hanging out with some friends, and a newly-introduced friend-of-a-friend asked me, “If I was in one of your plays, what would my name be?” That’s where I got the name of the main male role, Marc. He said, “What would my story be?” and the main plot of the play, of a plastic surgeon who performs reconstructive surgery on his wife after she has a car accident, just popped into my head.

• You are part of Wide Eyed’s very first Apprentice Playwrights Program. Can you tell us a little bit about what the process has been like?

The process was a lot of fun! So, we [myself and the other interns] were chosen through an interview and selection process: writing sample, resume, and interview. Then, we met up at the end of January with ideas for a play, and kept meeting at various levels of progress: an outline, the first five pages, the first fifteen, and so on every three weeks until we finished.

On a more detailed level, our meetings would last about three hours, and as we had more pages to turn in they’d last almost all of an afternoon, into an evening. We’d read through each new part, having each one of us read the characters and stage directions. Then, we would go through this really nice feedback process: first, what we liked about the play. Then, did the playwright have any questions for the others? Then, did the others have any questions for the playwright? It was a great process. Tim, the Artistic Director, had it organized so nicely.

After it was written, we had a reading process with a bunch of actors from Wide Eyed and the New School and Brooklyn College, and various other connections. From that, we asked actors to be involved, and Tim helped us find directors or we could ask someone we knew. Then, the rehearsal process was more up to us. [Wide Eyed's resident playwright] Laura Maria Censabella did, however, read each of our scripts and/or see our readings, and give us feedback as well.

All in all, it was a great process.

• When did you know that you wanted to be a writer? What made you start writing plays?

I’d done writing variously since I was in middle school. I didn’t realize I could be a writer (I’d just won an award) until the end of middle school, and I spent the following three years trying to write short stories and poems – more poems than anything.

When I was a freshman, Macaulay Honors College collaborated with aWe Creative Group for one of the “24 Hour PlayFun” events, and I wrote a play overnight (a ten minute play). That was when I realized I could write a play, because I never had finished one before then, and that I also loved the theatrical process. I kept writing plays after that, and I still am. It’s both the form that challenges me the most and I feel the most comfortable in – fiction always felt like walking uphill, 18 miles in the snow; and while I love poetry, and do still write it and find my work highly influenced by poetry and poetic style, I never had the desire to pursue it seriously. Playwriting combined my interest in acting and theatre, which I had participated in growing up, and my love of making up stories and characters in my head.

• Who or what has been your biggest influence as a writer? What inspires you to get to the page?

It’s hard to pinpoint a single influence, because I feel that as a writer I’m extremely susceptible to everything around me as a source. Sometimes I just hear lines, or think lines, to myself (usually when I’m walking or talking to people), or sometimes I’ll hear someone deliver a story or line and I’ll copy it down. I eavesdrop a lot, that’s inspiring. Or if I’m people-watching, I try to think, “What makes those people interesting? What do they remind me of? Who could I make them” and go from there. I also think it might be the fear that not-writing makes me not-a-writer that’s partially inspiring.

• In terms of your creative process, do you have a particular ritual when it comes to writing? If so, can you share it with us?

As a college student, my writing mantra tends to be, “Write when you should be doing something else,” or “Write when you can.” I had a New Year’s Resolution to write everyday . . . I haven’t been doing too well at that.

I do like to start writing by hand for the first draft, but I find that I do it less in playwriting because I’m often writing in a rushed moment, or towards a page count.

• Can you tell us about any other projects you’re working on right now?

I started working on a play as part of a playwriting course I’m taking with Benjamin Gassman, and that’s developed into something I’m kind of in love with at the moment. It’s called Broken Eggs: a play. I also may be writing another musical as part of Macaulay’s SING! event, where students team up on the campuses and write, direct, and perform a thirty-minute musical, but that won’t be until September or October.

A Girl Wrote It: Laura Maria Censabella, Playwright

Laura Maria Censabella’s plays have been produced or workshopped by The Philadelphia Festival Theatre for New Plays, The Women's Project & Productions, The Working Theatre, Interact Theatre in L.A., the American Living Room Series at The Ohio, the AthenaWorks Marathon, the Belmont Italian American Playhouse (which commissioned her play Some Girls), the Pacific Resident Theatre, The Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin College, and Ensemble Studio Theatre, where she is a member and runs the professional Playwrights Unit.  Her one act play Interviewing Miss Davis was produced in 2010 in Ensemble Studio Theatre’s One Act Marathon of Plays.  She is currently working on an EST/Sloan Foundation Commission to write a new science-based, full-length play.  Her children’s musical O’Sullivan Stew, written with composer Frank Cuthbert, was produced in 2010 by Greene Arts Foundation and an abridged version toured the NYC public libraries under the auspices of Urban Stages.  Her new children’s musical commission from Urban Stages The Last Pine Tree on Eagle Mountain, (also written with Frank Cuthbert) will begin touring the NYC libraries in April.

Ms. Censabella has been awarded three grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts: two in playwriting for Abandoned in Queens and Three Italian Women (a/k/a Carla Cooks The War), and The Geri Ashur Award in Screenwriting for her original screenplay Truly Mary.  Truly Mary was subsequently developed at The New Harmony Project with director Angelo Pizzo and producer Michael London.  She has also been a two-time participant in the O'Neill Playwrights Conference for Abandoned in Queens and Jazz Wives Jazz Lives and has received writing fellowships from Yaddo, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, The New Harmony Project and the O’Neill.  Her short play Posing was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and The Actual Footage won the Tennessee Chapbook Prize for Drama.  Both plays are published in Poems & Plays (Numbers Five and Seven), as is her play Stones Fall, Birds Fly (Number Sixteen).  Her play Interviewing Miss Davis will be published in the St. Petersburg Review this spring.

Ms. Censabella's teaching experience includes the New School for Drama (current), Sarah Lawrence College, the Actors Studio Drama School, Columbia University's School of the Arts, Columbia College's Undergraduate Writing Program, City University's MFA Writing Program, The Sewanee Writers' Conference, and Summer Literary Seminars in St. Petersburg, Russia.

She has written the short film adaptation Physics for HBO's Women: Breaking the Rules series, and for two years she wrote for daytime serial television, winning two Emmy Awards.  Her half-hour independent film Last Call (directed by Robert Bailey and starring Jude Ciccolella and Dana Dewes) was an official selection in festivals throughout the world, including the Avignon Film Festival, the Other Venice Film Festival, the Hermosa Shorts Film Festival, the Sedona International Film Festival, the Queens International Film Festival, Anthology Film Archives’ New Works Series, Long Island International Film Expo, Cinema City International Film Festival, and the Breckenridge Film Festival where it won the Best Short Drama Award.  It is released by Cinequest on a compilation DVD entitled Second Sight: Cinequest Favorite Short Films, Volume II and is available on Netflix (search: Second Sight, Vol. 2) or for download on Jaman.

She is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Writers Guild of America, East, and the League of Professional Theatre Women.  She received a degree in Philosophy from Yale University.

• You are Wide Eyed’s resident playwright this season. How did that come about? Can you tell us a little about it?

I saw Tim Butterfield’s production of This Is My Gun by Dan Bernitt at the New Voices Festival at the New School for Drama and highly admired it.  I felt that he had penetrated the essence of the play, and gotten moving, specific performances from the actors.  He then told me about Wide Eyed Productions and asked if I had any one acts to submit for their upcoming festival.  The Wide Eyed company responded to the pieces I submitted and selected two for A Girl Wrote It.  Tim then spoke to me about the mentorship program for early career playwrights that Wide Eyed runs and asked if I would act as Playwright in Residence for the company to provide another perspective for those playwrights.

• Our upcoming production of A Girl Wrote It features two of your pieces: Posing and Stones Fall, Birds Fly.  What inspired you to write each of these pieces?

Posing came out of a dream I had where I heard the 19-year-old girl—who is the protagonist of the piece—speaking to me.  She is reminiscent of many of the girls I knew growing up in Queens.  Girls with incredible heart who have big dreams but lack the guidance and support to make those dreams a reality.  Also, girls who have fallen into really bad patterns with men as a way of getting the love and support they so crave.  Tim has told me she reminds him of many of the girls he knew in Arizona, and others have told me that she reminds them of the people they knew where they grew up, so I believe she is an American archetype.

Stones Fall, Birds Fly is inspired by my uncle who grew up on the lower east side and once confessed to me that he believes he is the reincarnation of Leonardo Da Vinci!   For me that’s a metaphor for all of us.  We all long to soar in this world, but gravity is always pulling us back to earth.

• Stones Fall, Birds Fly was performed as part of the Ensemble Studio Theatre Playwrights Unit March Madness Festival 2008. Do you have any thoughts yet on the previous mounting versus this incarnation of your piece?

That was a script-in-hand workshop.  I’m looking forward to seeing a full production with Curzon Dobell who is an actor who is new to me, but whose work excites me.  I’ve admired Sherri Eden Barber’s work as a director for a number of years now and can’t wait to collaborate with her as well.

• When did you know that you wanted to be a writer? What made you want to start writing plays?

I was an undergrad at Yale in the Theater Studies department and wanted to be an actor.  However, when I compared myself with some of the talents in my class—David Hyde Pierce, Bronson Pinchot, Ellen McLaughlin, Kate Udall—I realized I didn’t have what it takes.  I was too self-conscious and the school didn’t give training in how to break out of that.  However, we were all required to take a Collaboration Course where we got to write and direct as well.  Suddenly, when I began writing, that self-consciousness fell away and there was no wall between the audience and me.   I felt utterly free to be who I am and express what I need to express without worrying what anyone else thinks.  I also had a range of experience that was different from my average classmate.  I grew up in a lower middle class immigrant environment, which was a new perspective for them.  In addition, I had taken time off from college and had lived in the Bowery at the tail end of the jazz loft scene, when Keith Haring was still chalk painting on the sidewalk and hard core punk rock was beginning.  I lived right down the street from the jazz club the Tin Palace and CBGB’s.  It was a wild time when the only store on Broadway was Canal Jeans, and it opened my eyes to so much in the world.  Not least, my mother and grandmother are war survivors—my grandmother worked with the partisans in Northern Italy during WWII—and they shared many of their stories.  Additionally, as I grew up I was nurtured by my Aunt Marie who was severely disabled and that gave me another perspective on the world.  My mother also suffered from PTSD from the war.  Perhaps all that is more than enough to create a writer out of anyone!  When I became a writer, I vowed that I wanted to give voice to the people I grew up with—people who have no voice.

• In terms of your creative process, do you have a particular ritual when it comes to writing? If so, can you share it with us?

If I have the time, I love to write a story out as a prose piece first, either a personal essay or a short story.  This allows me to explore the back story and themes first.  Once the back story gets out of my system I can figure out what the present action is and use the themes that I discovered from the prose rendering as my guiding threads.

That’s the ideal situation and I’ve used it for a number of successful pieces.  It’s not always possible to do that though.  For a longer piece, I like to think about it for quite some time and collect notes in a notebook or computer file, whether ideas for scenes, bits of dialogue, research, and/or character detail.  A lot of what I collect ultimately doesn’t wind up in the piece.  At a certain point—and it can take quite a long time—I start to feel a story structure coming on.  This last part, unfortunately, can’t be rushed and lots of times I get impatient and decide to plunge into the story even though I can’t see its broad brushstrokes.  Most of that gets thrown out but those false starts help me see what the play is not, so I’d like to imagine they’re valuable.

Once I have something that I believe has a pulse—and it could be just the initial start of something—I bring it into the Ensemble Studio Theatre’s Playwrights Unit, which is a group that I founded and that I continue to run.  I watch people’s body language to see where they are engaged and that can be just as helpful as any comments that are given.  I also collect the group’s criticisms, and particularly treasure their clarity questions, which tell me where I’ve communicated and where I haven’t.  Generally, the work to be done is all about going deeper, but sometimes it needs a complete restructuring.  If the piece already has a beginning, middle and end, I’ll usually call a director and arrange a private reading with actors and then sort through the Playwrights Units’ comments with the director.  If the piece is just a fragment, I’ll think about which comments seem most right to me and proceed from there.

It’s never a certain process—there’s always groping for the story and its real meaning.  There’s always apprehension about going into uncharted territory, and you have to renew your courage daily to continue to face what you fear most.

• Who or what has been your biggest influence as a writer? What inspires you to get to the page?

My grandmother who lived through and fought against Fascism during World War II.  She was a great storyteller and had phenomenal adventures that she actually lived.  My father who loved theatre so much as a young teenager growing up in Greenwich Village that he would second act Broadway shows or use the money he saved from numerous jobs (he grew up without a father and was quite poor) to see as many plays as possible.  Although I didn’t see a lot of theatre as I grew up in Brooklyn and Queens (by then it had become too expensive), he and I did watch old movies together.  Although he only had a vocational high school degree, we used to sit together and discuss the story.  He was quite astute as to what wasn’t working.  He had the soul of an artist even if he could never get the training he needed.  He always supported the dreams of my brother and me.  There are so many talented, insightful people in this world who don’t get the chances they deserve.

• Can you tell us about other projects you are working on right now? 

I’ve done many drafts of a new one act play called Dumb Bunnies about two scholarship coeds at Yale in the 1970s who decide to pose for the very first Women of the Ivy League issue of Playboy.  It’s a 35-minute study of what happens when intelligence and opportunism collide.  I just finished the third draft of a new one act play called Chicky about the night that Chick Corea comes to perform at the famous New Haven music club Toad’s Place and two young Yale lovers (in a multi-racial relationship) decide to rehabilitate a down and out, alcoholic jazz musical genius.  The play is all about getting him to the club to stage his comeback and the truths the young adults discover about themselves along the way.

I am in the middle of production for a 35-minute children’s musical called The Last Pine Tree on Eagle Mountain.  It was commissioned by Urban Stages’ Outreach and was written with composer/lyricist Frank Cuthbert.  It will tour the New York City public libraries beginning April 4th in honor of Earth Day!

Finally, I have an EST/Sloan Project full length commission to bring science and science-related topics to a wider audience.  My play focuses on the biochemistry of romantic love and currently focuses on an inner city teenager who wanders onto the Columbia University campus, and as a lark, decides to sign up for an experiment in the psychology department.  She winds up changing a professor’s life, and hopefully, he changes hers as well.  We’ll see.

A Girl Wrote It: Liz Magee, Playwright

Liz Magee recently received a BA in Theatre Arts with concentrations in Performance and Writing for the Stage from Marymount Manhattan College. Her short play, If You See Something, Say Something won Manhattan Rep’s Fall One-Act Competition and was a semi-finalist in the Riant Theatre’s Strawberry One-Act Festival. While at Marymount, she was head writer of the sketch group “Comedy Schmomedy,” received the award for ‘Best TV Script’ for her spec script of Modern Family, and was the recipient of the Gold Key for Academic Excellence for Writing for the Stage.

• Your monologue, Jeans, will be performed as a part of our upcoming production of A Girl Wrote It. Can you tell us about what inspired it?

I wrote this monologue during my last year over at Marymount Manhattan College. To be honest, it was written in a “free write” setting, with no direct intention of it being performed. For this particular project, my professor at the time was strongly encouraging us all to write outside of our natural style - just to see what happens. Writing in this manner is rather discomforting at times, but this particular case has resulted in the discovery of a more intimate, stripped, style that I will continue to explore.

• When did you know that you wanted to be a writer? What made you want to start writing plays?

Well, I started off as an actor. While in college, I found myself being tortured by the physical and emotional demands of my acting classes. I just wanted to be doing script analysis all day. I eventually had to force myself to ask that ever imposing question - why am I doing this? Why theatre? And over time I realized, it was the storytelling. Using people - actual living, breathing bodies - to tell stories or convey ideas is what excites me. So I figured I should be on the other side of all that and start writing…

• Who or what has been your biggest influence as a writer? What inspires you to get to the page?

Oh jeeze. There are countless writers/authors who provide influence, from Beckett to Tina Fey, the list is endless. But I will say that most of my friends are very talented performers, and more often than not, I find myself writing pieces for them, or creating characters with them in mind and then finding a story from there.  On the other hand, it is a personal goal of mine to bring in outsiders with my writing. Theatre people will come; they always come. Sometimes I attack a blank page with the intent to entertain or enlighten someone who is specifically not of our theatrical community.

• In terms of your creative process, do you have a particular ritual when it comes to writing? If so, can you share it with us?

Hm. I guess my ideal writing circumstance would be: at home, in my bed with my cat sleeping on my feet. It’s important that my cat be sleeping on me in some way because I don't have it in me to disturb his slumber,  so I always end up pushing out a few more pages. In all seriousness, I don’t really have a ‘ritual’. I prefer to be home alone with snacks, but I also find that I am able to write beside my boyfriend while he plays his grotesque video games.

• Your play If You See Something, Say Something won Manhattan Repertory Theatre’s one-act competition last fall, and was seen this March at The Riant Theatre’s Strawberry One-Act Festival. How has working on Jeans compared to that process?

If You See Something, Say Something was developed in a playwright/director/actor workshop; meaning, I wrote the piece specifically for a designated director and group of actors. It was very much a collaborative effort throughout the development of the play and I was able to work with the same director and essentially the same cast with both competitions. Whereas with Jeans, this is taking a piece (not even intended for performance) and working with an actor and director who were in no way a part of the piece’s development. It’s very exciting. Having a piece explored with fresh eyes has already been an invaluable experience as far as how my work is perceived on a first impression basis. I am very fortunate to be working with Kristin Skye Hoffmann and Carly Knight, for they have already provided me with insight about the piece that I had otherwise overlooked.

• Can you tell us about any other projects you’re working on right now?

Right now I am working on a series of lady plays. These plays will consist of only (or mostly) women, because there is simply is not enough plays of this nature. “The Attendant” is the play I am developing through Wide Eyed’s apprenticeship program. It is an examination of a bathroom attendant’s work shift at a trendy bar in an unspecified city.  Yes, the whole play takes place in a women’s restroom. (Readings of "The Attendant" will be held at the Richmond Shepard Theatre Sunday, April 22nd at 6pm and Friday, May 18 at 6pm!) 

Accepting Submissions: Apprentice Playwrights Program

Apprentice Playwrights

Wide Eyed Productions
Apprentice Playwrights Program (Internship)

Wide Eyed Productions is now accepting submissions for its Apprentice Playwrights Program. Playwrights will work with Wide Eyed throughout the 2011-12 season on various aspects of their writing careers. WEP will provide the playwrights with workshop and reading opportunities as well as career development support. Playwrights will also serve as administrative/production interns for the 2011-12 season.

WEP will be taking on 3 apprentice playwrights for the 2011-12 season. The playwrights will receive the following:

workshop opportunities for one act plays
access to WEP’s stable of ridiculously talented actors
staged reading(s) of a one act play in front of an invited audience
mediated and structured audience feedback sessions after readings
sponsorship into playwrighting competitions (possible production support if accepted)
career development coaching
industry contacts
insight into production process
mentorship from both WEP’s Artistic Director and Resident Playwright
opportunity to work with WEP’s new devised work program

To Apply:
Send Cover letter and a one act play sample to ArtisticDirector@wideeyedproductions.com. In your letter, tell us why you would be a good candidate for our program. Every application will be considered.

Wide Eyed Productions is a New York City-based collective of artists dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in risk-taking, relevant theatre. Our core ensemble is committed to the birth of new works and also the rebirth of the classic texts. Through our collaborative process Wide Eyed discovers and creates theatre that both stimulates the imagination and awakens the public's passion for high standards in the performing arts.

Salary:

N/A

Company:

Wide Eyed Productions