 I just sat and rocked in a rocking chair on the porch and read books, and that's all I did all summer. And when I turned 13, my mother said I had to get a job. Actually, I think she was very wise to do that. So I got a job. But then she also decided after my play, this musical was done, that she went to the locals, what is it called, basically amateur adult theater group. But they had community theater, yes. But they had a beautiful 50-seat theater with lights, and she taught them into letting us put on my play there. And originally, I directed it even though I was 14, maybe 15. It's been an unfortunate thing. But then my uncle, who had theater experience, came back to town. And so he directed the second half of it. But in any case, I cast myself in the supporting role of the, anyways, the supporting role. And I must say, I loved the supporting role because he had one scene, excuse me, one song, introducing it to me, one song. And I had a lot of time offstage, which it let me enjoy the whole experience. So I didn't have that anyway. I'm sorry if I keep going this way. It's too long of a version. But anyway, I was in my place in high school. Then in college, I didn't do any of my well-nominated comedic names in there. But then I went into the pression, and I kept auditioning for plays and not getting in them. And so then when I got in as a playwright to Yale School of Drama, I thought, well, surely I will not do any acting there because there are actors here who are planning to do it professionally, and I couldn't even get cast in college. So then weirdly, because of the Yale cabaret, I ended up being in all sorts of plays because the actors were so busy. They needed as many non-acting major people to be in the cabaret. So I ended up doing that. And I loved actually being in a place that I didn't write and it gave me a lot of experience in terms of a acting and knowing what actors needed from the playwright. Because sometimes we'd be in a play that I didn't write in, and we would find the same part. So we would discuss how we'd be able to do it in front of ourselves. And then weird, I was the only playwright who asked to take the singing class with the actors. And so I did that, and Sigourney and I, but it was in my class with me. And we put on a show at the cabaret at the end of the year where we did singing. And Sigourney and I did a number together that was funny. And a few years later, we ended up doing a cabaret show together in the room because of that. Well, in any case, because I was in this cabaret, Robert Brewstein had decided to do this co-authored show called The Idiot's Caramazole, and Aleosha the Monk. It was, well, to about a big name, Meryl Streep as a student was playing Constance Dornette, who was the main character. And she was the 80-year-old crazy translator. And she was supposedly translating The Brother's Caramazole, but she was mixing it up with Chekhov, and Long's Journey into Night. And Aleosha in this version, oh, and also Anayas Nin was in it, who was an obsession of my co-author, Albert Inarato. I didn't even know who Anayas Nin was. But Anayas Nin became obsessed with Aleosha the Monk, who's actually from The Brother's Caramazole. And she turned him into a pop star. So I ended up being cast in the actual production as the pop star, Aleosha, who got to sing the rock song Everything's Permitted, which is something that Ivan Caramazole talks about from The Brother's Caramazole. So I'm going to just shut up and say something about it, from time to time I was in my own place. [?]. ?] I was not, I replaced, when the actor in the actors, I was good casting the actor's nightmare, But we didn't think it was a great idea for me to be in Sister Mary somehow. It was just too, I don't know, sort of the authorship to be in that play. And it wasn't a me character, but the main act, after the play had been running for about a year, the main actor took a two week vacation, and I got to play the actor, and the actor's name there, and it was wonderful fun. And then I just want to say that one thing I'll show you, that a year later, or six months later, Nancy Marchand was now playing Sister Mary. And a few of the other actors were now new, because the other ones had left after a year of their own volition. And the same actor had to take a vacation, but his understudy wanted to go to a wedding. And so he said, could Chris take over for this weekend? And I was fine with it, but the other, the actors said, we're willing to do it as long as we don't have to have a rehearsal. So I did the actor's nightmare, which is about this person who's never been to rehearsal, with Nancy Marchand and other actors without a rehearsal. And actually it was great fun. I must say, it went along well. And Leslie, I had the pleasure of seeing you do high dive here for City Theatre. So maybe that's the great starting point for you to talk about acting in your own work. Yeah, I wrote high dive about, it was about turning 50. So by then I already had, I mean I came at things very differently than Chris. In fact, I auditioned for Yale and didn't get in. And there are times now when I still think about my acting audition at Yale and I just hang like that. I really didn't know anything about it. I came out of college, not particularly well trained, becoming a theater major at the very last minute. I didn't really have any kind of tool set. And I went right into Vistos, which is Volunteers in Service to America. And I was in the ghetto in Ohio teaching theater to kids in a very isolated, and it sounds noble, but I wasn't good at it. And it was, I mean I did try hard and we did do plays, but I never understood really what the point was. And then I came out of that and moved to New York with a lot of vigor and passion and just not a lot of skills. And I didn't have a community. That's the problem with not going to a conservatory or a graduate school where you come out knowing people. So I arrived in New York very much in Maverick and very alone. And I really started being at my own stuff purely out of desperation. I didn't have any other way of doing it, you know what I mean? I mean I didn't have anyone to call. I had no community. So the very first thing I wrote when I arrived in New York, not thinking I was a writer, it was a play called Footlights, which I actually think I talked about. Did I talk about it? Where I did 12 different characters and I changed from character to character only by changing my shoes. So the only thing that was on stage was shoes. And the whole play went from the floor up, you know, as my posture changed, the character changed. And then I got an agent and then I moved on. But it is how I started that. I wrote for myself. And once I did that, I wrote for myself a lot because I can do it. I know how to write for myself. So there were other things that I did along the way. And then when I was turning 50, I had this experience of trying to jump off the high-dive board for a whole week. And I could never actually jump off the board. So I wrote that play that was a really different play because the audience was given scripts and they had to read lines to me while I stood on the high-dive. It worked so well. Thank you. It was funny and it was risky. It was a risky thing to do and I really enjoyed it. So actually now we're at a point. There's another one accident I've done since then like plan day and 24 years in plays that you know. But now I'm in a position where I've just written a play that turned 60. And this isn't a solo play. And as I was writing it, I was trying to pretend that I wasn't writing it for myself. I really was trying to pretend that. I was thinking, no, no, I'll just sit in the back. But it's definitely, you know, so when it came time to give it to other actors to read, and I did a couple of meetings of it and then had the theater club and had some good actors read the role. And I got a lot out of that. And I knew that it was really my role. I really didn't want to do it. I have to say that it is out now actually just got a production. And it's going to be opening a year from now at Bay Street and Zeg Harbor and Crime Minute. I'm delighted that they let me go in and I realized that it's a premiere and not every director wants to work with the playwright who is also in it. There are minuses to that because the playwright isn't available to keep writing. You know at some point you have to stop. It's also the kind of thing and I've done it. I was in my own play in Pittsburgh called Bluntly Day. And the actor would be talking to me and I would say, I'm going to change that line. I'm going to change that line. And the actor would be like, ah! And I'd just get a piece of paper and I'd change it and say this. And then I'd say, no, no, don't say it like that. Which really, really is so important. That's so awful. I am a little nervous about doing this this summer. I have to behave better than that. I hope that the play is more finished than the one that opened in Pittsburgh. And I do imagine that if the play, hopefully the play moves, that I won't go with it. That I will step out. What's the title of that play? Out of the City. And it is opening out of the city. I did see an actress here do high dive. And it was so interesting having seen you do it and know that it was so much your story. I mean, 100% your story and your emotions and then seeing somebody just play you. I know that's what you do. I have to tell you that my son here, I'm his heir. And there was a production of high dive running in Poland and in Slovakia for months. They were doing me and they sent me a disc of it and we watched it in Slovakia. Wow. There was a band on stage on the diving board. Oh, it was a very different interpretation. But we can understand it so we enjoy it. Do you both feel as confident as actors as you do as playwrights? I can't say that. Okay. I think as an actor that I'm a good actor, but I don't think I'm particularly special. I think I had a modest career as an actor and I don't think I was as hungry as an actor. And I don't think I wanted it as much. When I became a writer, I felt more myself. I liked being in control of things. And I think I do have my own voice that I am more specific, more unique as a writer than I was as an actor. And I've actually had the same thought about myself in that in high school I liked to write plays and I very much enjoyed being in them too. And I was interested in doing both, but I had a thought which was I think I'm more unusual as a writer than I am as an actor. So I had the same thought. That having been said, I like acting and I miss it a little bit. I've seen you in some movies though which I mean if you didn't write them you just had small parts in different movies. Yes, true. I've always gone, that's great. Yeah, well actually if I may, well a couple things come to mind. My long term time agent who's died a few years ago, by now probably 10 years ago, Helen Merrill, I really knew her. She was wonderful. And I was lucky to have found her rather than she found me. But she said to me early on that she said be careful, she said I wouldn't do that much acting because I think you'll confuse critics and audiences. Are you a writer or are you an actor? So I listened to that because at the same time I was being sent on auditions for commercials. I never got one, but it could be very good money. So anyway, I sort of put that in my pack. But then when my play Titanic, I was not in it. Sigourney Weaver not known yet was in it. And it got mixed but friendly reviews when it was on at 11 at night. And a friend of ours from from the school who had some family money decided to move it to off Broadway. But it only was an hour and 10 minutes or something. And so we decided to do a curtain raiser. And Sigourney and I had, because of the singing class we'd been in, we had done a sort of ad hoc 20 minute version of this act together. Which we eventually called Doss Lucetania Song Spiel. And it was a parody. We pretended that we were experts on rep and third vial. Which the rep did much of. And I actually loved them, but they're extremely eccentric in their writing. So when we did Titanic, Sigourney and I decided to do a half hour version of our night club act. And it was, the reviews were just ghastly, especially for Titanic. And anyway, it was really a ghastly thing. And that's when my reviews were so bad I said to my agent, will anyone ever do a play of wine again? And she said, yes, people can get reviews. Which is mostly true. Not always true, mostly true. But anyway, so then I went on and had this American film. And right after the terrible reviews and it was such a relief to go to the O'Neill and everybody liked the play. It was a lovely experience. And then Sigourney, main alien. And all of a sudden she was famous. And she was friends with the people who were producing and had written banishes. And for some reason or other, I don't know how it happened. But they said, why don't you and Sigourney do your cabaret act at 11 o'clock at night after vanities? And there's one dressing room. So we would show up at 10.30 and I'd be in the dressing room with all these women. It didn't matter. In any case, we decided to do this cabaret and we rewrote it from the earlier version. And I think made it better. And oh gee, one of my friends was very worried and said, should you be doing this? You think it's a good idea? And also, so we started the first time, the first couple of performances, I was a little nervous. And an acquaintance, I'm not going to name him, came to see. Sister Mary had just been done with ESD and got the weight reduced. And Dusseless-Itanian was going to happen shortly afterward. And this friend came and we went out for dinner. And it was like 9 o'clock and I just had to be at the theater at 10.30. And he said, is your cabaret act going to be reviewed? And I said, yes. And he said, gee, I think Sister Mary said, but if you can stop it being reviewed, you're not very good in it. So I had to, not only was it terrible, but I had to perform in like an artwork. So anyway, I had a couple of duets at the beginning, and then I had a solo called The Young Sailors Lesson. It was like a parody of a Kirk Vile song. And a little bit of a surrogate of Johnny Stewart's song. So anyway, and I had to walk downstage. Because I was walking downstage, I thought to myself, you're not very good. But then I thought, that is a terrible thing to say to yourself when you're on stage. I said, I'm sorry, I'm sorry to myself. And then I got, for some reason it made me giddy that I was having this conversation with myself. And I got good then. That's great. And then we got great reviews. We got fabulous reviews. And we became a sort of a cult thing. And I remember because we had, it was really crackpotty, because we would say that Bertolt Brecht wrote Barry Lyndon in the movie. So Gordie played Marissa Barenson, and I played the five-year-old son. Then we had this thing that we said that Brecht had written Ava Perone, The Demon First Lady of Wainless Areas. And he combined Sister Rick and Sister Ray with Sweeney Todd as a beat-up. And it was, I'm glad we didn't know at the time, but Stephen Sondheim then came and laughed and laughed at it. And anyway, it was a wonderful experience. So I don't remember what I was answering. But that was a fun experience. Oh, I know why I said that. Oddly, because of Dustin Satania, I started to get cast in things. Not a lot, but somewhat. And then around the time I got cast in my own play, The Marriage Bet and Boo, playing the character of Matt, and that's my one biographical play. It's about my parents' marriage and extended family. And Matt is actually me. I did not expect to do it, but in the early readings for Joe Papp, I didn't do the part. And then very weirdly, Joe Papp was famous for not seeing things outside of his own theater. But he saw me in the Young Playwrights Festival thing, and anyway he suggested that I do it. And I was scared because I thought, oh god, what if this seems pathetic that I'm in my own play and there's a lot of sadness in it. But then I thought, I can't do it. Joe Papp is bothering me in a part in my own play. I definitely should say yes. Also, he told me that I'm getting... What was Christian Karr's play? I'm getting my act together. She wrote it, but it was Joe's idea that she's playing it. Anyway, that ended up being one of my favorite experiences ever. And I'll just tell one thing about it, because I had worked with Jerry Zaks as a director about three times now. He was going to be a director, so I felt a lot of comfort in him. But in the last couple of plays, he could actually ask me to come to the first read-through as an author and then go away for a week and then come back so that he could get a rapport with the actress going. And that was fine with me because he always would listen to my comments, and that's all I really wanted. However, now that I was in it, I couldn't go away for that week. And not only that, but the first day of... Maybe it was the second day, because we didn't... I'm not a big believer about being around the table long enough. Anyway, so did Jerry. So the second week, we were probably... I'm sorry, the second day, we were probably... David was starting to direct it. And Matt had different... I'm sorry, not directed, but I liked it. He loved it. Anyway, Matt had to play himself at 30 and at college, and then there's a little boy. There's a little boy you don't want to do too much. Anyway, Jerry was blocking it. He said, why don't you try sitting on the floor by the couch? And I went, sitting on the floor? And I saw his face go, you're resisting me. And I said, alright, okay, I'll try it. And anyway, I just... But as the day went on, there was this unspoken tension. And then I thought to myself, I am getting an acting paycheck. And so I, of course, have to try what he asked me. I mean, I did try it, but I needed to not show an initial question. Question, there was me the author thinking, is that a good idea for them? So I actually apologized to them at the end of the day, and I said, I'm getting an acting salary, and I'm sorry, I will not do that again. And then it was great. And I was very glad that I needed to apologize. Smart. Did that turn out to be a great acting experience being in it? It was wonderful. And not only was it wonderful. Leslie mentioned Olympia of Caucus. We had so many wonderful people, but some of them gave indelible performances. And I went down and saved his role in Olympia and was so wonderful and a part of it. And that a bunch of us for the whole run would go off stage. We were off stage, but we had all watched from the wings. There's one that he was singing in an Olympia hit. It was just wonderful. The thing that was very strange about it is that it was my family of origin. And, of course, it's fictionalized to some degree, but there was a lot that was not. And I remember that two actors said to me somewhere, I can't remember if it was in rehearsal or when they were in performance, they said it was one day where you said some line and it seemed so true it was disturbing. Or not disturbing, but they said, it was just really, really weird. So it was really, really odd. And I also thought to myself, I have a feeling I seem very out-going this weekend, but I am out-going because that's what I feel I should be. But I am shy. And if you put me at a cocktail party with people who don't know who I am, I can't talk to anybody. I don't know how to make chit-chat with people. So in any case, I just thought that how did I ever get in this play that is so self-revealing? Because in the second part, there's an awful lot about separation from parents and all that. Anyway, it was very self-revealing. And Jerry, by the way, was such a wonderful director. And he gave this direction the last scene that died. He's very sad. But Matt, who is now 30, which I was about 36, was in the hospital and booed. They were going to divorce. But he showed up as a visit. And Jerry's direction after he went through once was, he said, now, obviously he's sad. Do not play the sadness. This is actually a good visit. For them, it's a good visit. And Beth has stopped trying to change booing. She's just accepting him. And then he also gave Beth and Matt some disagreements in the scene for the final time. And he said, you know, do them pull out, but then let it go. You're not holding onto it. And anyway, I just found that so a wonderful direction. And then it was just a very special scene to be in. And I will just say about how things can go along with other productions. I saw productions, actually the first one I saw a year after the public one had closed. And it was a production that never got any laughs. And the last scene, they had the hospital scene like it was Beckett. They were in solo, what you might call it, spotlights. And they looked out and didn't talk to each other. It was one of the worst productions I've ever seen. However, the one we were in, I loved. And I liked the revival a couple of years ago as well. I know that you guys haven't really directed your own work much. Have you directed your series? I directed one act play that I wrote called Death Day for a deaf friend of mine. And I directed a play in The Atlantic called There You Are. And I think I've done others, but I can't remember if I have. Do you think, in general, a playwright directing his or her own work, is there an advantage to it or are there drawbacks to it? I know, for example, Edwin Albee has often directed his own work. And some people think that's great. Some people think you're eliminating that extra brain and creative input and collaborator. So I just wonder how you feel about directing the work that you've written. I actually don't have the patience for it. It's like the first day I want them to be better. I've often heard some serious users who say that they like my work having the extra vision of a director. The vision is too strong of a work, but the participation and so on. And also, the times I've directed, I'll tell you, when I directed Playing Knot by Me at the Young Playwrights Festival, I really enjoyed it, except for the fact that I didn't have breathing time. On the break, everybody comes up to you and the set designer comes up and it's really hard, and it's the playwright you get to. I never smoked, so I didn't go out for a smoke, but I went out for coffee or to take a walk and just have a break. And then the other thing, I don't know where I was going, but I will say, though, that if I see something that's horribly directed, I will somehow wish I had it directed or something like that, but I have enjoyed working with directors. For me, I really need the director to be open to listening to my thoughts. And with a couple of the directors, the first director I worked with at Yale was a lot of fun, and he just let everybody talk anytime they wanted to. He was so loose about it, once we had a professional production of his, he was still very young, and I was very young. And the actress was not understanding the section where the writer turns into Martha from Virginia Woolf. And he talked to her and she just couldn't get it. And I said to her, would you talk to her some more? And he said, why don't you talk to her? I can't seem to get through to her. And on the one hand I thought it was nice, and on the other hand I thought, oh, you're giving up. And then I tried and I couldn't get through. She wasn't being difficult. And I guess she'd seen Virginia Woolf. She just didn't get how to put it in. It didn't matter though because it was a brief part of the play and she was very good at both of it. But anyway, so mostly I'd not like to. Oh, just one more thing though about, I know what I wanted to say. And Leslie said she wants the actress to get there right away. If I were to direct more, I would have to control myself about wanting results. I really like them to get it right. Well, maybe we're in a different way. Many of the actors get it right at the first read through. They just know how to do it. And then what happens is the second week they start to doubt it. They change it and get it more. Right. And the people who are good directors I feel... Tolerate. Tolerate it. And let it. And try to get it right. No, it's really true. No, it's true. And I have one example. I just wanted to give my play, Miss Witherspoon was directed by Emily Mann at MacArthur. And Emily is a lovely person. I really like her and she's the director. And there was this character, this actress who was fabulous. She got it. It wasn't Miss Witherspoon. It was another partner play. And she got it with her audition. And at some point she announced in rehearsal like a week and a half in that she wanted to play it in a different way. She didn't like this particular way of doing it. And the way she did it made it not work. It simply didn't work. And I went as... Oh, I just... It was painful. And it was also late in the play. And I thought, if she doesn't change, can I rewrite it in some way? And I couldn't. It was... What she had to say was interval to what happened to the ending. So I went aside to Emily again. I wouldn't say this out loud anymore. And I said, are we in agreement that it can't work this way? And she said yes. And I said, and do you think you'll be able to get her back? And she said, yes I do, but I think it'll take two or three days. And I said, well I'm going to go home for three days. Because it'll give me an ulcer. But I'll come back. And I came back and she was back. And so, you know, who goes to Emily for knowing how to do that? One of the things that I think that I struggle with as a director is that I have a very definite rhythm in my head of how the actors speak. So that I can tell that if actors are not hitting a certain word in a sentence like that one word, I know that one word will just change everything. You just hit that one word so I'm not getting, like you can tell that I'm tense, which isn't helpful for that. And I also think that I'm inclined to give line readings, which people say they don't want. But I have to say that, I know that Rich told me, that when they were in rehearsal for Take Me Out, that Joe Mantello had just the greatest finesse because he's an actor, director. And Joe, in this really conversational way, was able to talk to an actor and drop the line reading right in, and keep going. He just had the way to do that, which is much different than he's saying, no, no, just say it like this. So there is a way to do that, which I don't trust. I don't have his finesse. He's really excellent that way. I have a lot more questions, but I know you guys do too. We don't have too much time, so we'd like to ask questions on this subject. As a playwright, what are the most important elements you feel a director brings to the production? Could or should bring to the production? You know, Mike Nichols is famous for saying that the 90% of direction is casting. And the casting is, first of all, the playwright and the director are always there together if it's a first production alert. And it's one way of finding out that you're in sync if you're liking the same people. And I almost always like the same people, not as the director. I've just been lucky that way, but so the casting is almost the most important thing. And I've had a few times, well twice, where we had to fire people and it's always the director who has to do it and it's always traumatizing for everybody. But it was really necessary. And then the third time, at the first reading, I saw we made an enormous mistake and I went to the director and to the producer and said, I've been down this route before. He's not going to be able to get it. It's better to replace him right now. And neither of them agreed with me. And I was just stuck. And then I really did my best to help the actor very genuinely and he never ever could get it. Luckily he wasn't a lead, but it was a great experience. And then, G, what else would you say you look for in the director? I'm just always impressed by the process of the characters come into the characters, how the actors grow inside the... how they're gently guided to understand beat for beat for beat of the play is about. So I'm really interested in directors that actually divide the play into beats so that we really do understand that this story, this larger story, is being told in these small ways all the way through and that each one is clear. And some directors work in a way of actually making sure a beat is clear before it moves on. And that can be very effective to have a really... make sure your story is being told and that it isn't vague in some way. And I know that stories can be interpreted in lots of different ways, but we do come at it wanting to make a point. And it's nice when you sense that you agree on what that is. And also, the aesthetic of a play, I'm not always confident about. I'm not always confident that I understand how my actors should dress. I'm not always confident that I understand what the set is. I do know when the set is wrong. I can tell. One of my plays, not any of you, was actually, for some reason, the set was an arc. It was a boat. I never understood that. It really wasn't. It was just a round wall like that. It was a famous New York designer, so it was confusing to me. But I didn't have enough confidence in my own aesthetic to say, I don't know, is the set right? So it's nice when you have a director that you can trust his or her aesthetic that it's going to look right. I have a much better sense about lighting. I know what kind of lighting I want and don't want and I really weigh in on that. I can't tell when things are wrong. I can't always say why it needs to be different. I sometimes get boggles. I really appreciate directors who can help me figure out why this is right. I think we have another session coming up. Is there one more real quick question? Yes. Time frame between new works. When you start to get down on paper to finally getting an arc on stage, is it damaged? Oh, wow. I don't know if there's an average. I'll tell you. A play gets faster than musical and a movie can take anywhere from two years to 20 years. So I would say I write a play and then if it's up in a year, that's good. I agree. And it sometimes can be. And then sometimes it's also... I've discovered it feels to me like the regional theaters have started making their following season earlier than they used to. That it used to be if you got them a play in January or maybe even March, they might consider it. And, matter of fact, my play Why Torture is Wrong and the people who love them got into the public quickly because they lost a play. So otherwise it wouldn't have been a full year later. I just want to say thank you. I hope that you both will still act in your own work because I'd love to see you on the stage. I'll try to do it. I will. The two of you will be active in your own work tonight. That performance is from six to seven-third. So the plan for the rest of the day is we're going to have another quick break. Then we have our final session, sort of symposium type session from four to five. And we've got quite a panel for that. A few local artistic directors as well as Christian joining us again. Our representatives from Seattle French will really be talking about when playwrights submit their work, when they're commissioned to do work and some of the intricacies of that. So I'll say just as a reminder to stop at the desk out in the lobby to get your parking validated with one sticker. And if you have people coming in tonight as guests no, no, no no, no no, we have to have an adjustment. So that will information will come later. We'll continue.