IT Awards Nomination Interview

By Doug Strassler
July 22, 2007
OffOffOnline.com

Related Article: IT Awards Herald Some of Off-Off Broadway's Best

How did you find out about your nomination?

Here's how. I wrote SHANGRI LA, which was presented at Queens Theatre in the Park. I got a call from the Marketing Director at QTP, telling me that SHANGRI LA was nominated for four IT awards, including Best Production of a Musical. (there is no award for Best Book of a Musical, so I wasn't nominated personally. And the music was not original - the Shangri-Las were a sixties girl group from Queens, and we used a lot of their songs.) I didn't know SHANGRI LA was even eligible, so this came as a nice surprise. Then I turned on my computer and there was an email from Prospect Theatre saying that WEST MOON STREET was nominated for 8 IT awards, including Best Full Length Original Script. So it was a nice afternoon.

What does it mean to you?

I looked at the IT webpage, and how the nominations were decided upon. I was very pleased that both shows were nominated by a group of my peers.

What was the WEST MOON STREET experience like? Were you surprised/pleased with the reaction to it?

It was a very satisfying experience. The director, Davis McCallum, and the cast did a terrific job. This type of "high style" comedy is not easy to pull off. A lot of productions of Wilde plays feel stiff and "British," especially when performed by Americans. The Prospect production was lively and uninhibited. It felt fresh and contemporary - but not anachronistic, which was exactly what I was going for in the adaptation. What surprised me most about the critical response was that the play was compared favorably to Wilde. Wilde is an iconic figure, and my fear was that even if people liked the play, they would say, "It's not as good as Wilde." They didn't, and to be favorably compared to Wilde is, needless to say, very satisfying.

Where did your inspiration for the show come from?

My plays are usually inspired by language - how people talk, and what they hide or reveal through language. I wrote a play called HAZELWOOD JR. HIGH, which was directed by Scott Elliott for the New Group. It was about a group of teenage lesbians who commit a murder. But murder was just the vehicle through which they explored other issues such as peer pressure, friendship, etc. The language in the play always circumvented the horrible reality of the situation. After that, I wanted to write something completely different, language-wise. I was reading Wilde's short fiction, and stumbled upon a novella, "Lord Arthur Saville's Crime." I thought it would be a real challenge to try to write like Wilde, whose characters do not speak like teenage lesbians from Indiana. After I began working on my adaptation, I was struck by how similar these two plays were thematically, despite being completely antithetical regarding language: they both dealt with murder, and concern groups of people use language to disguise rather than reveal their true feelings.

What are you currently working on? What are some of your future plans?

You asked. Here goes. I'm directing a show called BOTANICAL GARDENS by Todd Logan, a Chicago-based playwright, which opens at the 78th Street Theatre Lab on Sept. 3. I'm directing MINSTREL SHOW, OR THE LYNCHING OF WILLIAM BROWN which opens at New Jersey Rep on Sept 26. I'm co-directing (with Will Pomerantz) a play I wrote with Anthony Arnove and Howard Zinn, called THE PEOPLE SPEAK, which opens at the Culture Project on Oct. 3. I wrote the treatment for the "franchise musical" of Disney/Pixar's RATATOUILLE, and I hope to write the show if Disney decides to go forward with it. I'm working with Joe Brooks a new version of his musical METROPOLIS, which was on the West End in the nineties. And I'm working on two new plays: MAMA'S BOY, about Lee Harvey Oswald's mother Marguerite, and JANE AUSTEN'S LADY SUSAN, adapted from her only novella to feature a "femme-fatal."

Again, feel free to write anything that my questions have not hit on. I look forward to hearing from you!

I must say that to be nominated for both Best Production of a Play (WEST MOON STREET) and Best Production of a Musical (SHANGRI LA) makes me particularly happy, as they are two very different shows.