Congratulations on being published. How does it feel?
It’s amazing. And I feel very lucky. There are a lot of writers that go their entire lives without being published. I think what Martin and Rochelle do is truly a gift to writers like myself. And it’s a wonderful resource otherwise unavailable to theatre people, you know, outside of New York who don’t have an opportunity to see more unique, more challenging work like what we see Off-Off Broadway. The Dentons are pretty wonderful people.
I understand you were stationed in Germany with the army. What was that experience like?
That’s right. I was stationed in Germany, in Baumholder. The U.S. had taken possession of the military installation there after WWII. Hitler built the site there because the town is almost constantly covered in dense clouds. I mean constantly. Great tactically, not so great for one’s morale.
It's not often we speak to veterans. Why did you join the army?
Well, I’ll tell you, I’ve always had an on-again, off-again relationship with theatre. I love it, I hate it. Joining the Army came during an off-again phase. I wanted something drastically different from my life. Plus, I was flip-flopping in college, dropping out, switching schools. The Army gave me a sense of discipline and instilled a work ethic, which, although I still feel like I’m one of the laziest people I know, has helped me as a writer. There are times when I miss the structure of the military. That and the boys in uniform.
You're from a town in Indiana called Monticello. Tell us a little about your hometown.
Monticello is a very small rural town and I grew up in a time when kids could still run wild through the neighborhood until dark on a summer night. And I don’t mean to be sentimental at all. It was just a really safe place where a kid with an overactive imagination could live out his daydreams. I would pretend a cornfield was a strange alien world where I, an intergalactic pirate, was stranded. Or the neighborhood cemetery held countless mysteries, tales of ghosts, unsolved murders. Or the abandoned farmhouse served as a rendezvous for Cold War spies. And I was usually bionic in all the scenarios.
What led you to New York?
I always imagined I would end up in L.A. [Los Angeles], actually. My best friend from college moved up here…actually we were supposed to move up here together but I got scared and ended up detouring through grad school…but he came up here and after school it just seemed like the place to be. I love New York, but I do think I will one day end up in L.A.
Let's spend a minute talking about your play. Where did the idea for second. come from?
Originally, I wanted to write a contemporary adaptation of Frankenstein and, around the same time, I was working on a short play about two thugs and a mysterious man they had abducted. The two merged at some point and just morphed and mutated over time.
Where do you get your ideas, in general - from one particular source or from a variety of them?
Wow, I have no idea where my ideas come from. But I do have a very real fear that they’ll stop coming. I try to write as organically and honestly as possible, which I guess is to say that I write with no structure, outline, or any sense of what the hell I’m doing. Then, hopefully, the story begins to reveal itself and I can go back and edit and shape the whole thing with an attention to plot and characters and all that crap. It’s the finding the ”thing” that’s the hard part.
Like a couple of the other writers we've spoken to you have a degree in Acting. Do you still act, or are you strictly focused on writing now?
I’m a recovering actor. I’m pretty much focused on writing these days.
What led you to playwriting?
Originally, I started writing as a way of giving myself work as an actor because no one was casting me. Then I discovered that I enjoyed the process of writing a lot more.
For you, how do both acting and writing compare as modes of creative self-expression?
For me, writing is a far more personal venture. As an actor you already have a text, a director, a costume designer…and I don’t mean to belittle the craft. But a writer has nothing but a blank piece of paper and a butt-load of self-doubt. Actors and directors will ultimately have to bring some of themselves to the piece but for the writer…it all comes from within…it’s all that there is.
You are Playwright-in-Residence for Tobacco Bar Theater Company. How did that happen, and who are they?
I don’t know, but I wish they’d stop bothering me. Kidding. Tobacco Bar is made up of graduates of the University of Florida, which is where I went to grad school. The Artistic Director, Joe LaRue, was a classmate and one of my dearest friends. He directed the production of second. that was produced by Tobacco Bar at Under St. Marks. Later they invited me to be the company’s resident scribe. This spring we’re producing Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s new play Golden Age, which is tremendously exciting.
Who - or what - are your artistic influences? What kind of work really inspires you?
Oh god, I don’t know. I’m so fickle. It depends on when you ask me. I like the tenets of Mamet’s Practical Aesthetics and I think his writing has certainly influenced me. I like work that seems brave and honest, but then, who doesn’t, right? I just saw a one-woman show that my friend Caitlin Miller wrote and performed called Way to Go! It was just her, a very few props, and, like, a chair. Simple. But it was brilliant. I mean, I’m a sucker for a huge Broadway spectacle, too…but I think that really great theatre often happens in the simplest of fashions. Sort of the Occam’s Razor of theatre or, what’s-his-name, Aristotle's idea that "the more perfect a nature is, the fewer means it requires for its operation." Don’t me sound smart, Pa?
What do you like - and maybe dislike - about the general state of theater these days?
Hell, the same things as everyone else, I suppose. Too much celebrity, too little substance. We’re in these really crazy days, you know? Wars, a madman for a president, disease, tragedies at every turn…it makes sense that we’d want to see Mamma Mia! No one wants to be reminded of the atrocities we’re allowing to happen. But I think we’ll start to see new voices coming from theatres in the East Village, important voices making themselves heard over all the yelling. And I’m a huge fan of regional theatre. I think what they’re doing…there’s a fantastic SPT [small professional theatre] in Gainesville, Florida called the Hippodrome State Theatre and they do some of the wildest, smartest stuff I’ve seen or been in. So, it all balances out in a way, I guess.
Are you working on anything new?
Yes, I am as a matter of fact. Tobacco Bar is hosting a new ten-minute play festival this summer and I’m working on a piece for that. We’re also trying to round out that evening with some really fun new stuff. And I’m working on a screenplay of a story that’s been fermenting since I was about ten years old.