An Interview With
Josh Koenigsberg

Al's Business Cards

 

You say in your bio that you were born in a converted horse stable in Greenwich Village. That actually makes you something of a rarity among the authors we've published—almost none of them are native New Yorkers. What was it like for you growing up in Manhattan in the '90s and '00s? Were you exposed to theatre and the arts from an early age?

Yeah I was definitely exposed to a lot of great things growing up in New York City from great theater to great crazy people in the subway. The biggest culture shock I had as a kid was switching from my local Greenwich Village hippie grade school to a fancy Upper East Side private high school. I went to The Dalton School, where I was so intimidated by everyone that I used to literally hide in the theater. One day while I was hiding I saw that they were holding auditions for Noel Coward's Hay Fever, and the girls were really cute, so I decided to audition. I got the part and was hooked from that point on. The theater department was really progressive and did plays by people like Maxim Gorky, Eugene Ionesco, and Tom Stoppard—and on top of that there were student-run "senior projects" where we could put on our own productions in the black box theater. There was A LOT of Christopher Durang. We all sipped cappuccino, had heated debates about art and pretended we were grown-ups. It was great.

You note that your important mentors have included Chiori Miyagawa, Dominic Taylor, Chuck Mee, and Kenneth Lonergan—all such different kinds of artists! What specific things do you think you learned from each of them about how to be a playwright?

Yeah, that's true—they're all totally different from each other! I never realized what a funny group of writers that is. I think one of the things they all have in common, though, is that they're all really good at pinpointing things that work in playwriting, without feeling the need to enforce some strict standard for what makes a 'good' play. That's especially important to a young writer. Chiori and Dominic were my first real playwriting teachers, so they challenged me a lot and taught me how to recognize something that 'worked' in a play, even if the play didn't 'work' as a whole. Chuck taught me to be more confident in my voice and trust my own taste and Kenny (who I'm excited lets me call him 'Kenny') has recently become my all-purpose mentor for playwriting and otherwise. He's a genius; the type of guy who after reading your play goes, "I don't really have any notes. Except maybe to (insert short note that makes your play a thousand times better and is so simple that you want to punch yourself in the face for not having thought of it yourself)."     

Where did the idea for writing Al's Business Cards come from? In my review, I compared it to La Ronde—were you at all influenced by that play in crafting the structure of Al?

Yes, the fact that you were the only critic to mention La Ronde made you instantly my favorite critic. I always wanted to do something in the style of that play, even if it wasn't going to be a straight-forward adaptation like, say, The Blue Room. But I loved how that format—A meets B, B meets C, C meets D, etc.—lends itself to the theme of "cause and effect." How one small thing has enormous unforeseen consequences. So yes, La Ronde was one of the three main things that led to me writing the play. The second was that a friend of mine literally overheard the conversation that starts the play about the business cards. He was on a film set and two gaffers were talking about getting new business cards and how the orders got mixed up and it was spoken in this way that reminded him of my style, I guess. As soon as he told me about their conversation I had an idea for where that story should proceed. And the third thing was I wanted to write a part for my friend Azhar Khan. Azhar's one of the best actors I've ever seen and he was having trouble getting parts because he's a light-skinned Indian who everyone thought was Hispanic. It was this crazy thing. Al is very explicitly based on him. Without the Jersey accent, of course. 

Because you're such a young playwright, I'm curious about what kinds of plays you hope to write. Is Al indicative of the kind of work you think you'll be doing in, let's say, the next ten years? Or are there other genres/forms that you are interested in exploring as an artist?     

Oh boy. The next ten years? Not really sure. My hope is that I keep thinking of interesting things to write about. Raymond Chandler once wrote: "Everything written with vitality expresses that vitality; there are no dull subjects, only dull minds." Isn't that great? Does it seem like I'm changing the subject? That's because I am. The truth is, I never really know how to describe the kinds of stories I want to tell except to say that I want to tell them. But in terms of trying other genres, I would absolutely love to. I would love to try to write a great psychological-horror play without it being campy and jokey. But that's the thing—I never try to be jokey to begin with, even though most people classify my plays as "comedies."  I just write and a lot of times I even try to be serious, but everyone always goes "hey that's funny stuff." It's a weird thing. When I actually try to be funny, I just sound cheesy and desperate but when I try to be serious, people think I'm funny. Maybe there's a lesson in there somewhere? 

But I do think there should be more great genre plays, like The Woman In Black or Detective Story. How come no one writes plays like that anymore? I don't know if those are the types of plays I'll be writing, but someone should. 

In your program bio, you piqued my interest by noting that you work off-season as a farmer in upstate New York. Tell us about your farming career: how did you get involved with the farm, what do you do there, and where can we get your produce?

So in high school, my friend Josh Morgenthau and I used to wax poetic about one day starting an Artists Commune. He was going to paint and I was going to write and we were going to get five or so other people to do various things. We were going to live on 300 acres of old farmland property in upstate New York that had been in his family for years. As college was finishing he was still serious about it. I told him I'd move there with him if I didn't get into grad school. But I did, so I said I'd at least go up there for the summers.

Once he moved there though, I think he realized just how great the old farmland would be if it were used as, say, a farm. So in the summer of 2007, I went up there with two other friends from our high school to help him start the farm. It was the greatest summer of my life. Every morning we would get up and say, "how do you feed 800 chickens?" and then google it and do it. 

Now the farm is a local powerhouse. It's called Fishkill Farms (as it's based in Fishkill, NY). For more information about farmers markets, pick-your-own offers, and a complete list of our wonderful fruits and vegetables, visit: http://www.fishkillfarms.com. The best eggs you'll ever have in your life. 

I'm proud to be the only one aside from Josh who's continued to work there since Day 1. There's a huge staff of people now who actually know what they're doing. I like to call myself the Michael Clayton of the farm in that I'm the farm's "fixer." Not in the literal sense as I can't fix any broken machinery, but if someone says they suddenly need 100 new boxes to transport apples in or that a chicken has escaped, I'm their man.   

When I asked you where you live and who you live with, you said "I live on the upper-east-side with my 24 Amazonian fish." Tell us about the fish!

Once again this story involves my good friend Josh Morgenthau. Josh owns a great little apartment on the upper east side which I rent from him at a highly reduced rate but with one catch: Josh is an avid fish collector and I have to take care of his fish. They're all from different parts of the Amazon Jungle, where Josh lived for a summer. The first week of taking care of them, I killed two by accident. That was bad. But I'm pleased to say that I've done such a good job since then, that six more Amazonian fish babies have been born under my watch. The circle of life.   

You've been working with a couple of interesting theatre groups, namely At Play Productions and Naked Angels. How did you get involved with those companies and how has your experience been with each? Any plans for future work with either of them?

At Play was really a happy accident, much like 13p, in that we met because we're all selected as part of a development program. The Old Vic and the 24 Hour Play Company selected about 35 emerging theater artists, ages 30 and under, as its inaugural members for the Old Vic New Voices program. We got to put up a 24 Hour Play at the Atlantic Theater which Kevin Spacey hosted. There were six writers, six directors, four producers, and the rest were actors. We all liked each other so much that we decided to keep making theater together. Thus At Play was born. The experience of making something out of nothing is always great, but doing it with 30-some-odd friends is even better. And what's also great is that all the various members have become so successful since we started that when we combine everyone's accomplishments, it makes us sound like a real power player in the theater world. Sort of like in Power Rangers when they would all combine to make the Megazord. Not that I ever watched Power Rangers. 

As for Naked Angels, I became involved with them because I happened to like The Wire. I was in a TV writing class at Columbia University with Andy Donald, and for some reason we were the only two in the class who had seen The Wire, so every week we would obsess over it with each other. We got to be good friends and two years later he was named the associate artistic director of Naked Angels. His first task there was starting an emerging writers group who would not just develop work with the company but help start a brand new radio show called Naked Radio. Luckily he asked me to join. So if I had never seen The Wire, my life would be worse in many ways.    

Anyway the first episodes of Naked Radio should be up any day now to download as a podcast. Check out www.nakedangels.com for more info. Also I'm developing my next full-length play with them. It's called The Mnemonist of Dutchess County, and it will have a First Mondays Reading on June 7th at The Cherry Pit. It stars one of my favorite actors, Will Rogers—who, like me, is both a member of At Play and Naked Radio. Which hopefully speaks to me continuing to collaborate with At Play and Naked Angels for a long time...

Interview with Josh Koenigsberg was conducted by Martin Denton April 2010

Read more interviews with the playwrights