I understand you recently appeared in a production of The Glass Menagerie at Actor’s Theatre of Louisville. How’d it go?
I had a great time in Louisville. It's such a beautiful play and a great theater. It was my first time working at a big regional theater. It's a lot of fun. We did a couple of student matinees that were amazing. It was great to bring this play to today's teenagers in Kentucky. They were so into the play and especially the Gentleman Caller scene. I felt the young girls cringing and ooing and ahhing right along with Laura. They really saw it through Laura's eyes. I commented to the actress playing Laura, after the performance that day, that when I kissed her it felt like I was kissing the entire theater. It was amazing. I learned a lot as an actor during those student matinees. The fact that theater is a real exchange of energy between the actors on stage and the audience had never come across as strongly to me as during those performances.
How did you first start writing?
I started writing because I was sick of sitting around waiting for the phone to ring. I was trying to be pro active and write parts for myself but then it became something else entirely. It got to a point where I hated being in my own stuff and I very rarely do it now. I find it much more fun to be outside it now. And I think it's better for the play too. I have had actors play roles that I wrote for myself and they would do something completely different then what I was thinking. And they took it to another place. A completely different level. I think that's what beautiful about theater. It's a collaborative art form. If you have one guy doing everything you lose that. It's the biggest lesson I've learned as a writer. To give up control and the exact vision of what I was thinking when I wrote it. Because it's never going to be that. It's always going to be different in some way. And if you are working with talented people who you trust. You want them to have the freedom to make different choices. You got to let it go.
Do you have a preference between acting and writing, or do you like them both equally?
No, I like to do both. I go through stretches where I'm just acting or just writing but it's such a great thing to be able to have the other one to go to for a while. I don't see how people can do only one. I think I would burn out. I pursue them as if they were two totally separate careers. Some people know I do both. But a lot of people just know me as an actor or vice versa. It's kind of nice that way.
Your play, Maggie May, tackles an age-old scenario: that of a guy trying to win back his ex-girlfriend. What was the inspiration for this play?
It's an amalgamation of several different relationships. Maggie is sort of several girls I've dated and Donny is this character that I seem to repeat in my plays. And he's usually played by Ean Sheehy. I think Ean is a comic genius and one day the world will discover him. I hope he still does my plays. Mark and Charlie were based on real guys that I met down in Couzemel, Mexico. I friend of mine's brother actually worked on a fishing boat down there and he took us out and I did get sea sick. So certain parts of the play I guess you could say are autobiographical.
Your play shares its name with a famous classic rock song by Rod Stewart. Was that an accident, or did you do it on purpose?
No. I mean, when I was thinking of a name for the girl I thought of Maggie and then that song came up in the process of writing the script. It's a great song though. I loved the fact that in our production we didn't play it till the audience was filing out. We kept them waiting for it. I like that. That way it's not so on the nose.
Your leading lady was played by actress Christiane Szabo, and the production was directed by her sister, Jocelyn. How’d you get hooked up with the Szabo sisters?
Yeah, I really give Jocelyn and Christiane credit for getting this play going. I wrote it as sort of an exercise and put it on the shelf and then when they were starting their company and looking for plays I gave them some scripts and they picked this one. We did a reading of an early version of the script which was very different. And that went well and then they really did the rest. They raised the money and made it happen. I found their energy inspiring. I thought if these girls are working so hard on this. I better do some rewrites and give them The best material I can to work on. Again it comes back to the collaboration. I wouldn't have had the energy to make this play happen on my own.
Were there any inherent advantages – or pitfalls – to working with two siblings on the same production?
They were easy to work with. Jocelyn had never directed before and was very open to my suggestions and help. And she encouraged me to be at all the rehearsals, which was fun. A lot of directors like to not have the writer around. And Christiane had been in another play of mine, The Group at EST with Ean Sheehy. So, I already knew her. It was a real easy cast to work with.
As a writer and an actor, how does one feed the other – if at all – for you?
I write for actors. I think being an actor helps me in that I know what's going to work from the actor’s point of view. A lot of times when I'm writing. I'll ask myself, would I want to say that line? And if I don't I'll cut it. It also helps being a writer when I'm acting because it takes me out of my self indulgent actor mind and I'll find myself sticking up for the playwright. It can also make me take liberties.
We had a situation in Louisville where the director had staged the breaking of the unicorn way down stage right in front of the audience. When the unicorn was broken as plain as day I had two lines to say, "Did something fall off" and "Oh, is it broken?" In the way the scene was staged the lines didn't work. It was an argument I had with the director and I felt that if Tennessee were in rehearsals he would have said, "Oh, just cut those lines" because that's what I would have done as a writer. I ended up having to keep the “Is it broken?” line and during one of the student matinees a girl in the front row said, "Daaahhh", I wanted to say "I wish you were here for rehearsals.
Who inspires you creatively, both as a writer and an actor? Who are your artistic influences?
As a writer: John Irving, Tennessee Williams, Horton Foote, Kenny Lonergan, Charlie Kaufman, Woody Allen, Joseph Campbell, and Rilke. These artists are all writers whose work inspires me and that I love to go see. But the first time I realized writing a play was something that I could actually do was when I saw a small production by a theater company called Malaparte. It was a play called Veins and Thumbtacks by Jonathan Marc Sherman. He was someone who was young and in New York working in small theater and I just loved that play and that production and I related to the writing and thought that's the kind of stuff I want to bring to the stage. I think true inspiration happens when it's close to you. And that felt close. I thought, "I could do that". Also my most recent theater experience was Gem of the Ocean by August Wilson. I find him truly inspiring and a real genius of a writer. His characters have the history of Tennessee Williams characters. That's something I would love to bring into my writing. I feel a fear of exposition sometimes. I love dialogue and it's very tricky to get that character history in there without sounding expositional. But it makes such a difference in the work. I admire those masters who aren't afraid of exposition.
As an actor: The usual suspects: De Niro, Pacino, Sean Penn. My favorite actor working right now is Mark Ruffalo. I think his work is amazingly truthful. And I love the writer actor connection he has with Kenny Lonergan. They make each other better. That collaborative thing always does that. Also a stage actor in Gem of the Ocean, Ruben Santiago-Hudson. He is a truly underrated actor. He was amazing in a relatively small role.
Where are you from originally?
I'm originally from Medford, Massachusetts a suburb of Boston. About five minutes north on Route 93. I grew up there and went to high school there before going to college in Upstate New York.
How did your cultural background and upbringing influence your future artistic career, if at all?
My cultural background didn't really influence my work, but I grew up around the theater because my Dad was an actor. There are pictures of me as a kid sleeping in the backs of theaters. I think it crept in by osmosis or something. I remember a pretty profound moment while watching a rehearsal of a community theater production of Oliver! that my Dad was doing. I was a really shy kid and was always interested in being around it but I would never dare to be in a play back then. I was watching rehearsals and I was fascinated with the Artful Dodger. Not the actor but the character. He was who I wanted to be in real life. I felt that in me but my inherent shyness and fear kept me from being that. And I remember having this thought at that moment, I was probably six or seven years old. But I realized that I could never be like the Artful Dodger in real life but if I could be an actor then I could pretend to be like that. That was the first time that I remember having an idea what acting was and how you could lose yourself in theater and become someone else. I guess the rest of my life has been a journey to do that.
What’s up next for you?
I don't know what's next. I just signed with an agent for my acting work so hopefully the auditions will increase. I'd like to work down in Louisville again. I've also recently began shooting some short films on my digital video camera. I feel the film thing calling a little bit. I have to get a new computer to edit on. But people always tell me my plays would make good movies so who knows. I guess I'll just keep acting and writing and trying to make a living.