JC: PHEW! I can’t wait to see you! How have you been Mia?

MR: I’ve been great Jon! I can’t wait to get back in the room with you and The Morning
the Sun Fell Down. The play has changed so much since we were last in the rehearsal
room together. What excites me most about working on this play is how funny and
heartbreakingly honest the characters are. You have us staggering on that crazy line
between laughing and crying from the moment the play begins. I’m thrilled to dig back
into the Hauser family dynamic on this new draft with our stellar cast!

JC: I have 400 pages of this play that I’ve had to condense. There’s no shortage of
material when writing about family. I grew up with polar opposite parents. My mother is
a free spirited hippy artist and my father, a pragmatic doctor. I’m exploring the effects of
contrasting parenting styles and the triangles that occur when we have to align ourselves
with one over the other. This play explores the difficulty of separating from our families
as adults, especially when they need us. Talk about conflict! Tell me what you’ve been
up to?

MR: I just finished working on a great new play by Johnna Adams, Alcestis in Baghdad,
produced by the MFA Playwrights Festival at Hunter College, where I’m a professor
in the Theater Department. It’s a beautiful play about a midwestern housewife who
shows up unannounced in Baghdad, believing she’s on a mission from the god Apollo
to sacrifice herself in order to save her soldier husband’s life. It’s a piece that beautifully
juxtaposes the mythological epic journey with the contemporary family drama. I know
you just got back into town from being on the west coast. What have you been up to
since I last saw you?

JC: ME? I’ve been re-working The Morning The Sun Fell Down. Before that, I was at
The Old Globe in San Diego with my play The Recommendation, directed by Jonathan
Munby.

MR: Congrats on your Old Globe production! Can you tell me more about the play?

JC: It’s a highly theatrical story about class boundaries and I was very proud of its first
production. I’ve also spent some time in Los Angeles with my family, thinking about film
and TV, but who doesn’t think about those things? Oddly enough, being home with my
family put me in the perfect position to work on The Morning The Sun Fell Down.

MR: So you did a lot of thinking about Film and TV in LA. Can you expand on that?

JC: Well before I came back to New York I was working on a network show, gearing up
for a life in TV. I took a break from it when I got into Juilliard because it was always a
dream to be working in theater and I now see how tricky it can be to cross mediums, but
it’s possible when done correctly. I think people like Sarah Treem and Carly Mensch do
it well. But when you’re running a TV show and you’re on the level of a Liz Meriwether
it seems a lot harder to balance.

MR: If you had been in NY, what two things would you be thinking about instead of TV
and film? In Kathmandhu? Tokyo?

JC: In New York I’m way more social and busy keeping up with the cool stuff everyone
else is doing. Definitely no shortage of friend art. If I was in Kathmandhu I’d probably
think about the durability of my shoes. I’d want a lot of pairs of clean socks. Tokyo,
I’d feel a handicap with the language barrier and be incredibly tempted to take a train to
Jigokudani Park in Nagano to see the macaques bathing in the hot springs. Me and the
macaques– we speak the same language. How’d you know Tokyo and Kathmandu are
on my destination wish lists. Are you psychic?

MR: I knew you were going to ask me that question! Don’t we all tap into clairvoyance,
though, sooner or later? You don’t have to answer that. I already know what you’re going
to say! Jon, as a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

JC: There was a long period where I just wanted to be Marty McFly in Back to The
Future. I would’ve settled for Indiana Jones or Venkman from Ghostbusters. I guess it’s
appropriate that I aspired to be fictional characters in movies rather than map out a career.

MR: I can relate. I dreamt of growing up to become the perfect hybrid of Watts and
Amanda Jones from Some Kind of Wonderful. Seems like Lea Thompson was pretty
important to both of us in the 80’s, eh? Speaking of that formative time, your play takes
place in Santa Barbara, close to where you were born and raised. Your ability to capture
the essence of Southern California in the atmosphere of the play is pitch perfect. What are
three of your favorite things about Santa Barbara living?

JC: I like the sound of the train at night. Where my mom lives, you hear it at 2am, 4am,
6am, it seeps into your dreams. I like wearing flip-flops. And hiking in the Santa Ynez
mountains, passing the estates in Montecito, wondering about the people who live behind
those gates. Those houses are massive. What’s it like to have your own private empire
in paradise? It must make dying really suck. Or maybe you have it all so quickly you’re
like, “Get it over with!”

MR: Ok, since you’re a bona fide SoCal native, can you recommend the best place to get
a taco in Santa Barbara? This is important.

JC: Art thou visiting the west coast soon? Truth be told, I grew up in Los Angeles but
I spent a substantial amount of time in Carpinteria, a small coastal town adjacent to
Santa Barbara. The thing I love about the west coast is, it’s where all the seekers and the
searchers end up, because it’s as far west as one goes before they hit the east. There’s
been generations of migrants heading west, in search of whatever, gold, freedom, or an
academy award…. The land is idyllic, and the people all have a distance in their eyes,
like they’re still looking for something that may never come. Or they have it already and
are like, “That’s it?” No one ever seems fully happy, or if they are it’s with an affect,
even though they’ve crafted their whole life in the pursuit of happiness. This is probably
a gross generalization, and applies in a way to any region, but there’s a specifically tanned
version of it on the coast of Southern California.

MR: Well put. I grew up in NY but California’s always been a second home to me.
My yearly visits to my family in SoCal confirmed the myth that it was a magical land
where the food just tasted better and Hughes-ian narratives of the American experience
unfolded on the daily for its flip-flop clad teens. Everywhere I went seemed to evoke
the immaculate artifice of a soundstage where the sun was always shining and no one
ever had to wear a real jacket. As an adult, I spent many years living in the stupendously
beautiful Bay Area, where I discovered that jackets were, in fact, totally necessary.

JC: Isn’t California such a myth for New Yorkers? It has such a sense of otherness.

MR: So true. It’s right up there with that childhood dream of becoming an astronaut. But
to quote another SoCal native, back to the lecture at hand: Tacos?

JC: For Tacos head to Carlitos!

MR: Even though it’s a crappy chain that serves grade D beef, don’t you agree that Del
Taco is also really good? Wait, do you even eat beef?

JC: Yes, The Del Taco on Santa Monica and Cahuenga at 2AM I’m currently very big
on limiting my intake of meat. I actually prefer veggie meat when it comes to burgers and
such!!! Where is the best place to get a veggie burger in New York?

MR: Honestly, I hate veggie burgers, so it would be disingenuous of me to answer that
question. Why are they always so dense and flavorless?

JC: That’s veggie meat. Fake meat is awesome. You spend your whole time eating the
burger thinking, “Does this taste real?” And you’re like, “I guess it does…. I’ll take
another bite and find out.” And then it’s all gone!

MR: What’s your favorite thing to do with your spare time these days, wherever you
might be?

JC: Oh man. I’ve spent too much time writing. There’s a point where it becomes
unhealthy. I’ve been playing a lot more guitar these days. And I took up boxing. So
watch out!!!

MR: Ooh can you play Stairway?

JC: I tend to play depressing Elliot Smith covers. I used to play in a band back once upon
a back in the day. But that’s not going to be discussed.

MR: Dark times. Speaking of the darkness, Is there anything you’re working on
right now that makes you want to hit that punching bag, or your head against a wall,
repeatedly?

JC: This play is particularly frightening. I’m asking myself a question about my
dependency on others, on my parents, on my friends. What does it mean to be an
independent person in this world. And is that even healthy? My worst fear I guess is
never finding that kind of freedom, and I’m finally coming to terms with it. Maybe that’s
not such a bad thing.

MR: I tend to think the most interesting work comes from a place of discomfort, where
an artist is willing to take a risk exploring uncharted territory and to surprise himself with
what he finds on the journey.

JC: Well Partial Comfort it is!

MR: Now that’s what I call some slick product placement! In writing this play, what’s
been illuminated for you about what it is to be independent in this world?

JC: I think the importance of acceptance. Of who we are, where we are at in our lives,
how much capacity we have to change ourselves. So what is getting you most excited
these days in the theater?

MR: Work that feels dangerous, tests our boundaries and challenges our complacency.
I don’t want to shut off when I enter a theater. I want to feel so present that I lose track
of who I am, where I am, and have to excuse myself for having to pick my jaw up off
the floor afterward. I like to see theater that exploits the power of what it truly means for
performance to be LIVE. Liveness to me suggests imperfection, a roughness around the
edges that cuts into us with the raw honesty of what it is to be human. Some shows I’ve
seen recently where I wasn’t making my grocery list in my head and felt all of the above:
Chad Beckim’s After, Erin Courtney’s A Map of Virtue, Hoi Polloi’s All Hands, Gob
Squad’s Kitchen, and of course ERS’ Gatz. What does Jon Caren want to see more of
when he goes to see theater?

JC: I hear people say they don’t like naturalism, that they’re sick of it, but I think it’s about
focused naturalism. I like to see truthful experiences that reflect the world I am living in.
I want to see characters and be able to either identify, or at least know who they are out
in the world in a new light. There shouldn’t be a feeling of separatism between the plays
we go to and the world we live in. I think when people are bored of naturalistic plays, it’s
because the plays aren’t reflecting new information about the human experience. So I
guess I want more theater than kind of seizes me and reflects the endemics of our culture
in a way that puts me in my place in the world. Which is why I am so grateful to be
working with you. You have that hunger, and you mine it and cultivate it in your work.
So? What’s going to explode in you?

MR: My overwhelming excitement about what this month holds! First and foremost,
our reading next Monday night! After that I’ll be starting rehearsals with Women’s
Project for We Play for the Gods, an uber-collaborative piece that an incredible group
of playwrights, directors and producers have been conceiving collectively over the past
year. The show opens at Cherry Lane in June. Hope you can make it.

JC: How exciting is Partial Comfort and how much do you think they should be
producing this play?

MR: Partial Comfort blows my mind. Look at Welcome Mat. Every single play in the
series is equally amazing! Partial Comfort’s work is always rock solid and the company
is so talented it’s sick. Not to mention that Molly and Chad are producorial pros and have
total hearts of gold. How much do I think PCP should be producing this play? Thiiiiiis
much (imagine me with my arms stretched out very very far). How do you feel about
working with PCP?

JC: I have to say as someone who spent many years self-producing theater in bars and
small theaters in Los Angeles, I have so much respect for this company. They contribute
such a high quality of work downtown. This is the stuff that myths are made of over
time. Chad and Molly have all my respect. PS, How great is our cast?

MR: Our cast is amazing! I won’t be able to stop if I let myself start gushing! Wow, I
guess I’m excited about a lot these days…I can also not be excited. This is me not being
excited. As you can see, I’ve restrained myself from using an exclamation point.

JC: You and I suffer from the same disease. An inexplicable need to add an exclamation
mark to most sentences, and the fear, that if we don’t, they aren’t met with the same
fervor that is in our hearts. It’s a true exercise in trust and restraint not to use one. I’m
proud of you. (That was so difficult, not to end with a “!”)

Chad Beckim (CB): Okay, Miss Crystal – so I’m going to ask YOU some questions:
Last year’s retreat was our first experience really working together; I’d seen you in a
couple of things, here and there, and I’ve always loved what an open book you are as
an actress…really expressive. Were you an expressive little kid? What’s your earliest
theatrical memory?

And also, what’s your favorite 80′s rock band/musical group, and why?

Crystal Finn (CF): Okay, good. Then I will ask you some questions.

My first theatrical experience was working at a Renaissance Fair in Northern California
with my parents starting when I was three (they were potters): I stood outside the booth
and hawked pottery; I also danced for the bag pipe guy and people threw coins at me. I
did that for years. In retrospect, I don’t feel I’ve come that far. In a good way. So the
Renaissance Faire is probably to blame for how overly expressive I am. The reduced
Shakespeare troupe got there start at that particular Renaissance Fair so those guys and
the belly dancers were my idea of what acting was.

As to the 80′s—I mostly listened to my Dad’s music at that age which was Dylan….I think
the closest I could get to an 80′s rock band was Dire Straits.

Okay now for you: At last year’s retreat you were just starting to write this play that we
are reading on Sunday and, aside from how fast and furiously you wrote, I was pretty
impressed with how much actor input you wanted. Not just stuff like, this is what I feel
my character wants, but also which line should go where in this scene? What do you get
out of working that way–so fluidly, and so inclusively? Don’t you ever distrust actors-
-since so many of us as a group tends to over-estimate our intelligence. But it seems to
work so well for you. What is the secret?

Also: the main character in this play “The What” knows every lyric to every rap song of
the 80′s. You share this trait I believe. How did this come to be. And WHY!?

CB: Ha! Great questions…really great. No one has ever really asked that of me before
(the rap stuff, not the other stuff).

First: I actually remember working with you last summer as we were talking through the
play, and seeing your eyes while the lads were giving me feedback, and finally telling
you, “This is okay, it’s my process.” Because I know a lot of folks don’t work that way.

I literally wrote my first “official” play for the membership of Partial Comfort. I had a
gloppy mess of a piece (this was for one of our first retreats) that was all over the place.
And I remember after the reading one of the actors came over to me and said, “There’s
really something there.” Which made my day, because I was terrified it was bad. And on
the ride home in this monstrous old van, that same actor and I were driving and kind of
firing ideas back and forth, you know, the ol’ magic “What if” – like, “What if this might
be the event that kicks the play off, or what if that might be the event…” And I went
home and started writing again, really fast – I had an entirely new play two weeks later.
During workshop of it for our first official Welcome Mat Series, we were all in the room,
Group Theater style, just firing off ideas about what did or didn’t work.

And that kind of stuck, I think.

My general sense is that if I have these really wonderful folks around me, folks whose
voices and input and intelligence I trust and respect, then I have to honor that. I’d be a
fool not to. (I actually read somewhere that some folks believe Shakespeare was written
by committee…) And I feel confident enough in the trajectory of whatever I’m working
on to have a sense of what feedback from my collaborators does and does not work, and
to quickly take a stand when I sense that something doesn’t fit.

As for the Hip Hop – I grew up in Maine, which is not super culturally or racially diverse,
and I think because of that I was always fascinated by other cultures, which included art
and music. And my dad is a huge Motown guy – he’ was actually a drummer, when I was
a kid – and on Saturday mornings he’d be playing Motown on his record player (my dad
had tons of albums) and drumming along to it and my brothers and I would listen while
we ate breakfast.

And when Hip Hop started becoming a thing in the early 80′s as I was in my early teens,
I gravitated towards Run DMC and LL Cool J – along with “Yo! MTV Raps” – and just
immersed myself in all things Hip Hop. I worked at the family mom and pop store and
would take all my earnings to the mall to buy rap tapes, and then listen to them until I’d
saved up for another round of tapes.

Whew! That’s a lot.

So. Potters. You’ve mentioned this to me before, and I always have this image of your
mom and dad in the dark in the kitchen, working with clay like Patrick Swayze and Demi
Moore in “Ghost.” First, was that the case, and second, do you plan on seeing the new
musical version of “Ghost”?

CF:I like to hear that actors can have an impact on where a piece goes or how it
changes. Usually I think our job is to do this by showing the writer different options
but It’s very liberating to have a playwright who actively wants the actor’s opinion. I
wonder if your interest in rap music influenced you as a writer in other ways that you are
not even aware of: rhythm, musicality, theatricality. Too much?????

As for the pottery. I would say, no: it was more like Leslie Nielsen in Naked Gun. I have
a friend in the musical–so I would like to see it. I haven’t asked if the pottery-throwing
scene made it to the stage.

Can I ask some questions about the play we are reading? The new draft seems
to have really focused in on questions of adulthood, and also-I’m almost afraid to
write the words: “manhood.” What it means to be a man, what does society expect
from men. Does being a Dad mean certain things about the kind of man you are
supposed to be. Saying those things sounds so cliché, but your play doesn’t take the
questions for granted and really explores the pressures and limitations of our definition
of “manhood.” Yes? No? Where did the idea for this play come from?

 CB:Absolutely. Again, I’m not sure that playwrights are as open as I am about it, but I know
without a doubt that a lot of my writer friends write for specific actors, and trust said
actors to impact the script, whether through conversation or via performance.

As far as the musical tastes go, I could see some of my work being influenced by rhythm
and theatricality of my musical preferences. It absolutely makes sense.

(I was actually walking down the street and reading part of this interview on my phone
and laughed at an image of your parents, “Leslie Nielsen-ed” out, making pottery. And
if “Ghost: The Musical” cut out that pottery scene, they should be banned from the
theater for life…that scene is ESSENTIAL to that production – whether cinematic or on
stage.)

And quite masculine, actually. Shirtless Swayze, getting down and dirty with Demi in
the pottery, is pretty rugged. Which is a nice segue to the play. I write REALLY fast, as
you remarked earlier, and generally have long gaps in between drafts. So it’s nice to be
forced to reflect after another huge round of rewrites.

Manhood. A huge theme. Not what the play was about, initially, and it’s cool that it
morphed into what it is now. I like being surprised by the process.

But I think you’re spot on with it. What is manhood anyway? Does it differ from place
to place? My brothers and friends that I grew up with in Maine would say yes, and
then joke with me about being metrosexual. And this might be dicey, but I think that
across much of the blue collar U.S., the concept of manhood is wildly different in New
York City than other places. And perhaps it’s just having grown up in a part of the
country where the vast majority of men work outside – construction or pouring concrete
or something like that – but when I think of “men,” I think of my grandfathers, of guys
toiling outside, working with their hands in the sun, foraging and hunting and fishing and
whatnot. By that definition, I sometimes think that, if the world were suddenly thrown
into “Walking Dead” (or non-zombie apocalypse), I personally might be done for. I’m
not going to battle with a weapon or sword…unless zombies are terrified of playwrights
who can iron and sew a button. In which case, I’d be the Emperor of the World.

And what does that mean to the concept of Fatherhood? How does being a New York
City father differ from being a father somewhere else? I’d like to think that the play
explores some of this, and hopefully less limited than my brief exploration above. (Right
now some very masculine New Yorkers are reading this and planning to beat me down,
I’m guessing…although now that I think of it, they’re probably not on the Partial Comfort
Mailing list reading blog interviews. So I might be safe.)

I can’t really pin down exactly where the play came from, actually – usually two or three
ideas are floating around out there and collide in my head at the same time. This play
was born out of an exploration of the claustrophobia of New York City living spaces,
coupled with that magic “What if my parents had to suddenly live with us?” and “What if
said parents arrived with some awful secrets in tow?” And it snowballed from there.

Whew. That’s a lot. Okay. Winding down now.

Three more:

a) If you were immediately reincarnated as an animal, based upon how you’ve lived your
life, what animal would you be, and why?
b) Do you have any performance rituals that you adhere to?
c) What’s your favorite breakfast?

CF: I’m excited to read the play! Last three…

Animal: I have to go with dolphin since as a child I thought I was a dolphin in human
form. When my family went to the beach I wrote the dolphins notes that I put in glass
bottles and threw into the ocean, probably polluting shorelines everywhere.
No performance rituals.

I guess my breakfast food is a kind of performance ritual: Ezekial bread with almond
butter…..eat it pretty much every day. Never felt weird about that until just now.

Looking forward to the reading!

~ Monday, 4/23, 7:30. FREE. ~

GK:  I’ve heard that actors write amazing plays. We met as actors doing a Mac Wellman play together at The Flea. Instead of asking how your experience as an actor informed your writing cuz that’s played out, I’ll ask you this… did you like acting with me more in Sincerity Forever or Tent#5 ?

SM: Well you were really good in both. Although I think I looked better in both the Klan Costume as well as the military get up. But that experience—of acting with you—actually helped put me on the path to writing. When in Tent 5 someone very close to me (my girlfriend who is now my wife) said “Greg is really good in that”. And I was like, “what about me?” But she was clearly impressed by you. And after she said that I noticed that you did have a way of making things that were somewhat ‘out there’ sound pretty real and I thought, hm, maybe I should do some more writing and little less acting.

GK: We both grew up on the streets of New York, listening to hip hop, and attempting to stop people from snitching. Being a New Yorker is a large part of my artistic identity. Is it yours? Discuss.

SM: Of course.  It used to be more on the surface, when I literally wrote about Stop Snitching (i.e. Nelson) or about really New York-y stuff like weed delivery (Craft) and Landmark Education (Bigger Man).

Now, as I don’t spend all my time on the blocks of Brooklyn, I’ve started to write about subjects, hopefully, that aren’t strictly NYC- based. That said, my dialogue is still pretty influenced by the city, there’s a pace and a sarcasm built into most of the characters that remind me of the city and it’s deli men.

And, finally, as NYC changes, as it always does, I find that I’m writing a bit about mythology of NYC. Not like the Bowery Boys mythology but about the basic bohemian struggle of trying to make it while and living is cramped places with your family.

GK:  One of my favorite plays of yours is The Real Deal (your adaptation of/homage to Von Horvath’s Don Juan Returns From The War). It contains a scene where a ring of fire spontaneously ignites around a character. I have always admired the embrace of the other-wordly and the unexplainable in your work. Where did that come from and what does the word “firey” mean to you?

SM: Aw thanks. Glad you like it.

“Firey” is a term you and I coined about ‘non-realistic’ theater, but really it applies to the trend in a lot of playwriting to be imaginative/poetic.  And I have to say, I’m proud of that play too, as that quality often gets squished out of plays in order for them to find production.

The Real Deal was a play I wrote a Brown, under the guidance of Paula Vogel, and the idea was that the fire in the character’s minds grew literal and then became the world (like the violence we have in ourselves we play out in war and sex).

GK: You have a lot of kids. I can never remember how many. Was that something you always wanted? As an artist/father and as a child of artists, what’s some advice you have for those of us who aspire to have a family and are in the arts.

SM: I have so many kids, it’s crazy.  This is actually very germane to The Old Masters (which you are doing a reading of on Monday). I wrote that play about 6 months after my son, Ozzy was born. And the play originally set out to be an art mystery but is really about a guy and his wife freaking out –and doing some ugly stuff–before their kid is born cause they are afraid it means the end of their dreams.  I was really afraid this was going to happen when I had kids. And while of course things get really different, I like to think that having kids actually helps your life in the arts. Not just in some Pollyannaish way like kids make you a better artist (although it’s possible they do). In a way that kind of forces you, as an to say okay, here’s my life, as a writer, I’m going to do it even with kids. And money may get short, but I’m going to keep doing this thing because that’s what I want to do and my kids deserve a father who goes after his ‘dream’.  Also, it’s kind of awesome to have kids in the theater and as a kid who spent a lot of time in the theater it’s a lot of fun to hang out with goofy actors.

GK:  What do you have planned, artistically, in the coming year?

SM: I wrote a short film that  Daniel Aukin is directing and I’m hopeful that is going to shoot this year. Also, I spent time last year developing a TV series pretty intensely and I’m looking forward to continuing to work on  that type of thing, and develop a new show. I just wrote a pilot.  And, even more cryptic. I have a play that—not Old Masters–I’ve been working of for the past year  and I’m really excited about that should be happening with it at some point in the next year.

And in general, I’m just really grateful that I get to keep making stuff and working with the folks I like.

AND NOW SAM ASKS GREG …

SM: You’re an accomplished actor and playwright. What’s more annoying for you:  when as a writer you know you could do better than the actor who’s been cast? or as an actor, when you know you could do a better job than the play you’re being asked to read?

GK; Thanks for asking this Sam. The first one is more annoying because you have to get up out of your chair, make your way down from the back of the theater, push the actor off the stage, fight him or her if they try to come back, and then do your thing (luckily, I know all my plays by heart so I don’t need to find a script first). As an actor, if you don’t like the script, all you have to do is say different lines when the audience is there. The stage manager usually corrects you after, but you can just nod and smile. This is especially easy with dead playwrights. Or when you’re doing shows out of town.

SM: How has being a knicks-fan affected your career? Our friendship? Has that helped or hurt your career?

GK: Being a Knicks fan is the perfect preparation for the rejection, vulnerability, and loss, that one will inevitably experience from a career in the theater. To be fair, I also get a taste of the highs of a theater career by being a Giants fan, while you get a triple serving of sadness by being a Met-Jet die hard. Although, being your friend has made me a Jet-Met guy vicariously because your emotional life is inextricably bound with the rise and fall of those teams, so I have to root for them to win because otherwise you’re like a tiny inconsolable baby.

SM: 10 years ago, I wrote my first play, CRAFT, and you were instrumental in that process (helped me write and starred in the play). How have things changed since then? How have they not?

GK: I think you’ve changed my life in many ways. For instance, when we first met you put me on to Cam’ron and J-Love mixtapes, while I brought you MF Doom and convinced you Common was nice.

Working on Craft really was instrumental in defining what I wanted out of a life in the theater. The experience of working on that play with you is really all I’m looking for now from a show that I do. I feel like we understood each other in some essential way and wanted to help both ourselves and the other person express that simultaneously. Going over to your house late at night, working on the script, eating sandwiches from Bageltique. Joy and a sense of purpose mixed together. And then seeing the response. The happiness I got from delivering the line “mad girls up in the AIDS clinic”. Not only because my ego enjoyed getting those laughs, but the thrill of helping to express someone else’s vision and heart, and sense of humor is addictive. That writer-actor relationship can get real close to Platonic love. You know what else it was? That’s one of the only times I’ve thought “There is no one else in the world who could communicate this part as well as me.” Actually, I don’t know if I’ve ever had that feeling again. The success of that show was instrumental in me continuing both to act and to eventually write. That kind of fulfilling collaboration, when you’re working with people you love on stories that you are excited to tell, is all I really want. Although now I need to get paid for it because I have more pride and more bills. But basically, I’m just looking for that experience again. It’s kind of like how you always remember your first kiss, how I can remember the taste of her braces mixed with mustard and Entemann’s chocolate chip cookies and the intense roiling in the pit of my stomach, and how I always make Danielle put mustard covered nickels in her mouth before we kiss now, looking for that same feeling.

SM: Tell us a little bit about what you have coming up on the writing front and the acting front. I think this is called the shameless plug section.

GK: I am writing a play for the Williamstown non-eqs this summer as part of something called the Foeller Fellowship. Our friend Oliver Butler Butler is directing, who I’m very excited to work with in this capacity. We go in a room for a week with the actors, and from that I (we) devise a play. And I recently got my first commission.

Acting-wise, I don’t think official announcements have been made so I won’t mention any specifics but at the beginning of next year I get to revisit a play that I love with wonderful people I adore at a super cool space I’ve never worked at.

Check out what they have to say … and then come check out our FREE reading of Trevor, next Monday, 4/16 at 7:30 PM. Atlantic Theater Company’s Studio Theater (330 West 16th)

The reading of Trevor will feature: Jane Houdyshell, Christopher Evan Welch, Crystal Finn, Frank Harts, Jeff Biehl, Danny Mastrogiorgio and Heidi Schreck

Trevor actor Danny Mastrogiorgio and playwright Nick Jones

Lila Neugebauer: Hey, Nick.

Nick Jones: What up, Lila.

LN: How are you doing?

NJ: I’m good.

LN: Tell me about the inspiration for TREVOR.

NJ: Trevor was inspired by the horrific news story about a woman whose pet chimpanzee went berserk and attacked and seriously disfigured her best friend. What I found interesting about that story was not the mauling itself but the details which emerged about the relationship between an older woman (who had recently lost her family) and her chimp. They had a seriously close relationship and the chimp was basically being raised as a human, drinking wine on occasion and being allowed to drive the car (this may not be true, but was one of the details that was printed at the time, and which ended up going into the play). Also, the chimp was once in show business, but was now too old to work, since after adolescence chimps get too wild and aggressive to be used in film and tv. The premise of an out of work chimp actor trying to get back on top seemed juicy to me, particularly if I could establish that the stakes of his delusions had the potential for extreme violence. The original story was a tragedy, with real victims, but it’s a story where I felt I could understand the point of view of everyone, and sympathize. This play is an attempt to tell a similar story, in which everyone has good intentions, but in which the result is tragedy, and tell it partially from the chimp’s point of view. At the same time, I should add that I recognize it is absurd to think I can “get inside the head” of an animal, and depict that in a play with language, and that that sort of anthropomorphizing of an animal is part of what laid the groundwork for this and other tragedies, and contributes to the suffering of countless animals who are trained to act like humans and then “betray” their trainers when they act as they normally would and should be expected to act.  In the end, the play is fanciful, and Trevor is less about animals than about miscommunication and thwarted hopes and dreams.

LN: Why do you believe in comedy?

NJ: I am a suspicious person. Morally superior theater makes my skin crawl, even when I believe in the message. I think it’s a little haughty to pull the rug out from under something and let yourself remain standing and looking cool. I can’t say I think a comedic mode is appropriate for every story—comedy, or at least my comedy, is destructive in that it’s usually poking fun at things in life, or literature, that I find absurd. But I think that’s a healthy destruction.  I suppose you could say that comedy is just a mode that best suits my overall state of dubiousness.

LN: In your plays, you tend to pursue an absurdist premise to a point of excess; you like to take a joke too far. How do you know when to stop?

NJ: Most of my revisions are done with the intention to take a premise as far as possible without jumping the shark, or jumping the shark so far that jumping the shark becomes the normal state of things. Sometimes taking things as far as possible means just making something feel real and emotional (dramatic) despite the ridiculous nature of itself. I never want to undermine whatever fundamental logic and reality I establish for myself at the outset. I am really interested in identifying those things that audiences will immediately revolt against, giving it to them, and trying to keep them from revolting. The way I see it, you can do that by A) making them think they are part of a serious exercise (art) in which they are confronting serious problems that they are helping solve by thinking about or B) through comedy, in which the uneasy pleasure they take in basking in the unpleasant or absurd overwhelms their own sense of themselves as someone who is better than the things they are witnessing. For some reason, I tend to think approach B is the more morally superior of the two. Approach A will probably result in better reviews.

Ok, now I’m going to ask you some questions, Lila. What excites you about working with me?

LN: Your work can genuinely make me laugh to the point of physical discomfort, even when I’m just reading it alone in my apartment. That’s a rare feat. Also, I enjoy that you’re willing to push audiences way outside their comfort zone, through absurdist, lunatic and occasionally grotesque theatricality. Comedy might be the best forum for subversive ideas, and I think subversive thinking is pretty vital these days. Also, I’ve found that we both possess the weird capacity to have 3-4 thoughts at the same time, and I find that reassuring. As well as helpful to our collaboration.

NJ: What kind of theater excites you, besides mine?

LN: I’m excited by theater that takes me down a rabbit hole, that disorients and re-orients me, that leaves me in an altered state. I like theater that invests as much in silence as in language. I love rigorously executed, immersive events in non-traditional spaces that open my eyes to the possibilities of space all around me. I want an experience in the theater that can’t readily become an anecdote. Like, how do you explain ERS’ GATZ to someone? You can’t. You have to see it. Not all of that has to happen at once, but getting one or two of those is really great.

NJ: What do you have coming up, besides working with me?

LN: This month, I’m developing new works with playwrights Mia Chung and Dipika Guha, and also workshopping another play of yours, MATTERHORN. In May, I’m continuing my work as Associate Director on STOP THE VIRGENS, a psycho-opera that premiered at St. Ann’s Warehouse this past Fall (created by Karen O and KK Barrett and directed by Adam Rapp) — which we’re taking to the Sydney Opera House. Then I head to Williamstown Theatre Festival to direct THE VALLEY OF FEAR, this year’s Free Theatre (outdoors), and then I’ll be in Louisville, KY, workshopping a new piece with my company, The Mad Ones, while we’re in residence with Actors Theatre of Louisville’s Apprentice Company.

Ok, now we’re going back to you for just a few more quick, highly pertinent questions.

You’re about to move to Los Angeles to write for Jenji Kohan’s new show, ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK. What excites and/or terrifies you most about this venture?

NJ: It’s always great to confront things I don’t understand or which scare me. Through writing for this show I will have an opportunity to grapple with 2 big ones: women and prison.

LN: If you could have one super power, what would it be and why?

NJ: Keeping myself from playing with my phone.

LN: You’re from Alaska. What makes you especially Alaskan?

NJ: I am less afraid of bears than sharks. I am more afraid of people than bears.

LN: You occasionally moonlight as a performer. What’s the one great role you’re determined to play before you die?

NJ: James Bond.

LN: You’re also a puppeteer. Are puppets the future? Are they the past? Elaborate.

NJ: I have several projects in the works with puppets or “puppet elements” in them. I’ll tell you about them later. I have to get back to work.

LN: Is it too early to mourn? Is it too late to ride?

NJ: I have to go.

LN: A bunch of your short plays are about to go up at The Flea. How’s that going? Any other plugs?

NJ: Ok. I’ll stay for just a little longer.

Tickets are on sale for my evening of shorts, THE WUNDELSTEIPEN (AND OTHER DIFFICULT ROLES FOR YOUNG PEOPLE) at the Flea, April 27th – May 23rd.

Also, I am working with a composer named Natalie Weiss on a musical piece called BORDERLAND about the sex reformer Ida Craddock, which will have a presentation with members of the Brooklyn Philharmonic at Galapagos on May 2nd. http://galapagosartspace.com/event/brooklyn-philharmonic

And there’s this reading, which is Monday.

PCP: you were involved in the Welcome Mat reading of AFTER. this January.  How has the play and your character Susie changed since then?  What speaks to you about Chad’s play?

JACKIE: The play has changed quite a bit, but most of the adjustments were made to the Liz and Chap scenes and to the overall structure of the play. Susie’s general arc is the same – there were just some internal cuts within scenes and some small additions. The most devastating change for me was Susie being cut from the fight. I was hoping to get a hit or two in there.

JACKIE: Susie is a wonderful character – she’s sweet and bright, but she, as we all do, has some deeper issues. Through the course of the play, we get to see different sides of Susie and hopefully understand why she is the way she is. I think overall, she’s a woman who has been stifled by her own insecurities – she has been so influenced by outside, sometimes abusive forces, that she’s struggled to find her own voice. I guess she’s unique to me because she does some quirky things that are not unlike things I would do. And she makes some really awkward comments which we all do from time to time…right?

PCP: Anything on the horizon for you after AFTER.? 

JACKIE: I have a webseries coming out. We just had a sneak preview last week at MOCA, but I missed the event because we had a show that night! It’s called Pretty Precious Unicorns and it was borne out of a short play reading I did with Second Generation. You can find the trailer here: http://prettypreciousunicorns.com/. It’s quirky and funny and features a lot of my wonderful actor friends.

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Catch AFTER. in its FINAL WEEK!

Until October 8th!

Wednesday – Saturday at 8pm

Saturday at 3pm

Wednesday and Saturday’s matinee are PAY-WHAT-YOU-CAN!

PCP: AFTER. is the 2nd collaboration with playwright Chad Beckim, the first being ‘Nami in 2006.  Tell us a little bit about your collaboration – what’s unique to you about Chad’s plays?  What do you enjoy the most about them?

Susie (Jackie Chung) and Monty (Alfredo Narciso)

ALFREDO: Chad is so gifted at creating vastly different characters; every character in his plays has their own voice and cadence, which makes for beautiful music on the stage – hearing the color of his characters in symphony.  Chad is also a great collaborator; I find, more than many playwrights I’ve worked with, a willingness to work with the actor, listen to the actor, to adjust what isn’t working and to re-write. That is a very generous and egoless attribute. He is a joy to work with.

PCP: Monty’s story presents an interesting challenge for an actor – portraying someone who has been falsely incarcerated for 17 years.  How did you prepare for such a challenge?

ALFREDO: Stephen Brackett said in an interview, and I paraphrase: “I feel a tremendous responsibility to tell Monty’s story”. I concur wholeheartedly. I did quite a bit of research online and read an incredible book that was edited by Dave Eggers called “Surviving Justice”, but the straw that broke the camel’s back for me was watching a documentary called “After Innocence”; in the doc, they followed the life “after” prison of about a dozen exonerees. After (we just can’t escape that word now, can we?) I saw the distant look that every single one of those men possessed in their eyes, I felt an instant responsibility and desire to inhabit and tell that story. It was actually the thing that made me decide to do the play.

PCP: The relationships that Monty makes now that he’s a free man are anything but simple; both Warren and Susie are dealing with their own kind of “prison” (for lack of a better word).   What do you think that says for Monty’s future friendships?  

Warren (Debargo Sanyal) and Monty (Alfredo Narciso)

ALFREDO: I can imagine a reticent man like Monty would welcome such loquacious people in his life. In my own life, I can be very quiet at times and rather enjoy listening. Being surrounded by talkers, I find myself coaxed out of my shell and finding my more gregarious tendencies.  When you live so deeply inside of your head, you have to let the light come to you. But, who knows? That’s the joy of the play; we have no idea what life will bring for Monty once the lights blackout. But we are hopeful…

PCP: What’s next for you after AFTER.?

ALFREDO: I just dropped my computer, so, hopefully, it won’t be a trip to the apple store.  For the first time in a while I don’t have anything lined up; I will most likely spend the next little while reflecting on life and choosing what direction to go in. Perhaps, a career as an ocularist? Or a Barbie dress designer? The options are endless…

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AFTER. continues this week at The Wild Project, 195 E. 3rd Street 

Tuesday – Saturday night at 8pm, Saturday at 3pm

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday at 3pm are PAY-WHAT-YOU-CAN at the door!

The first trailer to PCP’s AFTER., with insight from Chad Beckim.

PCP: You’ve designed for quite a few theaters in New York and beyond.  What are some of your recent highlights from the past year – whether it be designs for theater, dance, or live performances?  

GREG: I had a great time working on Broke-ology with Tazwell Thompson at TheaterWorks Hartford. I think the collaboration between everyone involved really hit the nail on the head in regards to what we wanted to do with the show. Soldiers Tale at Pace University with Jody Oberfelder Dance Projects was another standout because we took the story and put in a modern setting, something not commonly done with that piece. The show had lots of technical elements that both supported the dancing onstage and our ideas of the type of modern story telling we wanted to express.

TheaterWorks Hartford's BROKE-OLGY, lighting by Greg Goff

PCP: Like the rest of our design team, I’m sure you have had times when you’re working on multiple projects at once.  What are some of the challenges you face with the differences in projects?  What keeps you grounded during those periods (besides coffee)?  

GREG:  A challenge I face while keeping track of multiple projects is keeping my thoughts and ideas focused on each individual show when I sit back down in the rehearsal room. A way I’ve learned helps me stay focused is to write everything down, for me it’s that simple. When I write something down it becomes engrained in my mind. I love technology, and have moved towards a more digital way of working and tracking progress on shows. However, the minute I’m confirmed as the lighting designer that show gets a yellow pad I keep with me at all times. I keep important details, ideas, budgets, dates, etc. on that pad, it’s with me from the first phone call until opening night.

What keeps me grounded is a balance in my life, which took a very long time to find. I often feel the need for creative expression, but even the most consummate artists need other things like proper sleep, immersion in other arts, and a social life outside of our wonderful theater family. Having this balance in life keeps me hungry to imagine, explore, create, and express every time I sit down in rehearsal or at the tech table.

PCP: What were some of your impressions from your first reading of the play?  How have they changed/grown since meeting the rest of the design team?

GREG: My first impressions of the play were various thoughts of two completely different worlds, things that oppose each other. I don’t want to give much away but things like comfort versus fear, or freedom versus oppression. Feelings like those will make their way into the language of the lighting in the play. Hopefully audiences will feel that, either consciously or subconsciously, while experiencing After.

Those impressions have only grown stronger since I’ve had more meetings with Steven and the other designers, but it’s not because everyone intends to do the same. We think our individual pieces make the whole, not all the design elements saying the same thing.

Jody Oberfolder Dance Projects SOLDIER'S TALE, lighting by GREG GOFF

PCP: Last week, we asked our set designer Jason Simms if there was a specific space he loved to design for or wished he could design for.  He of course gave a very diplomatic answer, saying that it’s his responsibility “to fall in love” with each space to make the most out of it.  Do you feel the same way?  

GREG: I do and don’t, for me it’s less about “falling in love” with the theater and more about imagining how it can work for me given how the set interacts with the theater, or if it makes no mention of it. Sometimes set designers intentionally choose not to show parts of the theater, an example of this would be shows that use a lot of masking, be it by blacks or architecture that is hidden behind scenery. Other times set designers leave things open and exposed. In each case my design is in response to what we’ve established in design meetings and what actually comes to fruition onstage after load in. Based on the above I may mask all the fixtures and only light the actors and set, or I may expose some of the lights and highlight elements of the theater itself, or I’ll do some combination of the two.

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Click here for tickets.

Beginning September 14th at The Wild Project

PCP: Jason, you’ve been designing so much within the last year, with many productions in New York and surrounding theaters. What have been some recent highlights for you?

JASON: Working at The Public on Urge for Going with Hal Brooks and Mona Mansour was a true pleasure because of the amount of support (both physical and emotional) the staff at their provides.  Designing Greg Keller‘s play Dutch Masters directed by Brian Roff at the Berkshire Theatre Group was swell too.  Also, A Thousand Clowns directed by Davis McCallum at Two River Theater was great fun.

A THOUSAND CLOWNS, Two River Theatre Company, Dir. Davis McCallum

PCP: Partial Comfort audiences were first introduced to your work in Sam Hunter‘s A Bright New Boise.  For Sam’s play, you created an incredibly welcoming and life-like breakroom in the back of a local Idaho Hobby Lobby, complete with a hallway window, a working coffee pot, and a strike door – just so many elements to that set that we loved. We’re curious to know: when you look back on the design, is there one aspect of set that excited you the most – color, perspective, even that nasty fridge that we salvaged?

JASON: The fact that I was able to put a real room on stage was incredibly satisfying.  Watching characters on stage behaving like real people and doing real things was the goal of the design.  The Boise set was a space that could be activated by the action of the play.  Sam wrote a play that took place in one space, which meant we could focus on the reality of that space and make it as real as possible.  It was a literal “dissection” room.

PCP: Now that you’re working with us on Chad Beckim‘s After., what were some of your first impressions of the play and how did that shape your initial design?  And how do the perspectives of the scenic and sound designers influence your work?

JASON: After. is an excitingly different situation than Boise.  With multiple locations that are essential to the story, we are approaching the design in a way that is completely different.  I don’t want to give away too much, but I think the audience is in for a treat and departure from the usual.

As with any project, collaboration with the other designers of a project is about discovering a language that is unique to the project that we are working on, even though we are using different mediums to speak it.  The hope of any project is that these things will come together to create a world in which we can tell the story in the most interesting way possible.  It takes a lot of trust and faith between all the designers and the director.

URGE FOR GOING, The Public, The Public Lab, directed by Hal Brooks

PCP: Having worked in off-off theaters, is there a specific space that you love to design for or wish to design for next on account of its layout, its limitations, its ambience?  

JASON: I think part of the job of being a set designer is being able to fall in love with any space.  The space is the physical limitation of what a set can be, and every space has its own set of limitations.   One of the joys of working in off-off  and off-Broadway spaces is the diversity of “character” each space presents.  For Example, The Anspacher at The Public is a challenging space because its layout dictates so much of what the design can be.  I’m always looking for new challenges because they help me grow as a designer.  So, I guess, I would love to work in any space that I haven’t already.

PCP: You work on a lot of original plays – any theater classics you’d like to work on?

JASON: I believe that another part of a set designer’s job is to be able to fall in love with any play.  At the moment, I am working on two “classics” outside of NYC:  Sweeney Todd and Fefu and Her Friends. I have also designed classics such as Harvey, The Crucible and On Golden Pond (all outside of NYC also).  I would love to design The Skin of Our Teeth by Thornton Wilder because I think its relevance never dies.   

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Beginning Wednesday, September 14th

Click here for tickets, or visit www.partialcomfort.org/on-stage-up-next/

Image by Joyce Chan.

PCP: Whitney you’ve been our resident costume designer for quite some time.  Do you have any highlights from past PCP productions? Favorite elements you’ve used that really were signature to a character, specific challenges that you found rewarding, etc.

Whitney: Yes, I’ve been the resident costume designer since 2008 when I designed Chad Beckim’s The Main(e) Play. Each show PCP produces presents its own unique challenges, from figuring out clever costume transitions to sometimes working out special makeup effects. The pinnacle of my PCP design career would have to be putting the half-naked Andrew Garman in blackface for The Bereaved.

PCP: What were some of your first impressions of the characters in AFTER upon reading the play? For instance, any particular images that struck you? How did these impressions shape your initial ideas for your designs?

Whitney: I love Chad’s plays because the characters he creates are so well drawn and specific. I feel that by the time I’m done reading the play, I really know who they are. This piece is particularly interesting to me because the characters reside in Queens. I’ve been living in that borough since I moved to NYC, so I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on what these characters might look like. I see and interact with them every day. I use my gut instinct for initial ideas, do a lot of research (and people-watching), and find the actors to be tremendously inspiring for all the nuanced details.

PCP: From the design meetings, it seems like the designers are moving towards an abstract approach to creating Monty’s environment (Monty is our protagonist in the play). How much do the perspectives of the set/lighting/sound designers influence what you do? 

Whitney: The scenic and sound designs are definitely going in an abstract direction. It’s my job to keep the characters grounded while helping the other designers establish the time and place of each scene. When you’re working with these types of design elements, its important that the costumes define character and tell a clear, consistent story in an abstracted environment.

PCP: Do prefer designing for original plays where new characters are created or is it more comforting to work on a play that is already familiar to you?

Whitney: So far this year, I’ve designed two Shakespeares, one classic farce, three operettas, a burlesque show, and another new play. I’m very lucky to be able to work on such a variety of projects. I LOVE musicals, but I have to say that new play development is my favorite. It’s exhilarating to be a part of an intense collaboration, where everyone is so instrumental in the creation of a new piece. It’s also exciting to have constant access to the playwright. I find working on new plays to be incredibly rewarding.

PCP: On a tight off-off-broadway budget, you’ve gotta be crafty. Any tricks of the trade or resources in the city that are your “go-to’s”?

Whitney: It’s true. You’ve got to be crafty and clever. Right now I’m really happy that all of the stores are having their end-of-summer sales! Modern dress shows can be surprisingly expensive. I try to shop at places that have good deals with clothes that would be appropriate to the characters and their financial situations. Sometimes things can be bought and embellished, recut, or re-imagined. It’s about keeping an open mind. I’m also very lucky to have a great network of talented designer friends who frequently let me borrow from them. A lot of times things from my own closet end up on stage and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t “borrow” my fiance’s clothes sometimes!

- These images are from Whitney’s design portfolio.  The first is a design for Jenny Seastone Stern’s character Melissa in Tom Bradshaw’s The Bereaved. The second is Karen O’Kane, a character in the musical Jubilee that Whitney recently designed with Ohio Light Opera.  

- Whitney’s designs will be featured in After. beginning September 14 at The Wild Project.  Tickets now available!