 three, two, one, and we are live. Hi, everybody. I am joined by this incredible cohort of American Theatre Voices. I'm so excited to have this conversation. So a couple of you viewers have asked about writing for comedy specifically, how you do it, how you know if it's funny to anyone besides yourself, how you develop it, all the things. And so I thought of the funniest plays that I've seen and read in the last years, and they are written by the people gathered here. So thanks everybody for all of you for joining and sharing your wisdom. I'll just start introducing myself and share some pronouns and throw it to each of you since we don't know what order you're sitting in on my zoom setup. We'll just do that and then I'll get started so Lauren Gunderson my pronouns are she her hers Jonathan would you go next. Jonathan Spector he Larissa how will you go. Hey Larissa fast or she her hers. Tori would you go. Or Samson she her hers. Mike. Mike blue. He is. Oh no. That's good. Leah. Leah and I not going clear she her her. All right, awesome. So I'm, I would love to, since there's a lot of us, I'll be doing the like calling on us, you know, like we were in an elementary school or something. But yeah, so I think what's so exciting about what all of you have done is write excellent theater that is really, really funny, and you can do both of those things separately, but you all of you did them together. And for some of you, I know, say for like Larissa, your work doesn't always land in hilarious you write a lot of different kinds of plays, but your play Thanksgiving play was absolutely breathtakingly funny poignant political. Would you maybe start and talk about how you come came to write that and just how the comedy came to be in that. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, it's funny because people that actually know me as a human and not a playwright, just assume I would be writing comedy that that's what I do with that. My friend, you know I could tell the people that have known me a long time that came to the show we're like oh my god it's just you talking in four voices, you know that that's just, I will do any as another friend said I'll do anything for the joke like in my life. So, so it's interesting that in theater and in my other writing. I think because I write primarily in the Native American world. Non Native American people have such a, you know, dramatic view of Indians and so I get asked to write a lot of dramatic difficult dark horrible things. A lot of history which is mostly bad. And, you know, when I got to this play this was one of my very few plays I've written I've only done two that were commissions. So I was like great and I can finally just do something that I want to do. Native people humor comes first you know you laugh or you cry and so most people choose to laugh and so I mean you can't get together with Indians more than two minutes and they're all just in hysterics, you know, I mean the jokes are ridiculous and it's constant. And I think it's just the most natural way to express indigenous issues. So that's where it came from just being the natural way to do it. It's tricky because it's a satire. I will say it's a comedy in a satire so Thanksgiving play is a satire but I put a comedy inside of it which I call the sugar to help medicine go down because I want it to be fun I want us to have a great time and I want people to laugh and enjoy themselves in the theater that's the best thing about theater. And when you sit in a room for people. The first time I was sitting in is actually when I was in New York, and I remember the first time I was in with an audience and there's this joke at the very beginning they call the unifying Joe, because some of my jokes are specifically for the native audience and some are for non native folks. And that's all the unifying jokes that happens in the first three minutes to make bring everybody together we all know it's safe to laugh and when that the first time I hit that with an audience and I heard the entire like every single person lose it at the same time so that's the best feeling in the world there's nothing funnier than that not just as a writer is an audience member and I love creating that side love to be doing only comedies I just can't get people to hire me to do. That will be our goal post pandemic is to get Larissa writing comedies all the time. I mean I will say just for to like dive into a practical if it's a comedy you have to laugh early right if you wait for like if it's minute 10 and your comedy before you get that big laugh they're not going to ever get a big laugh again. No actually I have several jokes before the three minute mark. The three minute mark is the one that lets everybody know this is for it's safe for all of us to laugh and we can all laugh together as one and it doesn't hit the audience against each other because some of my work does intentionally get the audience against each other. But this is like that three minute joke is the one that says, hey everybody this is for all of you. It's a low it's low hanging fruit. We're all in this game together. Yeah, that's great. Tori can you talk a little bit about if pretty hurts or any of your other plays and kind of how you tap into that voice of comedy do you use it. How do you set it up how do you tell the audience to laugh kind of how does how does comedy work in in your voice as you're Yeah, sure. I mean, I see myself as like a comedic like socio political writer, and I grew up on a lot of like satirical political television. So like, I loved watching on the family as a kid. Through his company. Different strokes like shows where like you would have like innately the setup of the show was like about politics and the characters and they're engaged with each other they're always going to be struggling with like race politics gender politics things like that and so And with satire it's like if you just force yourself to be brutally honest, it cuts through the idea of like where's the joke that is actually the joke is like oh I'm just actually just going to say how it is. And I think that for pretty hurt that was pretty easy. It was just like okay just like take all of the politics, like the PC culture out of beauty and how we talk about beauty and just like speak about it in ways that we talked about with our friends when you're looking or in the mirror, you know, like even like go deeper to when the things you don't tell your friends. And just like stayed on stage. And so, for me like I don't feel like I necessarily am like okay where's the joke in this I'm like okay if you just cut the bullshit. It'll be funny and I'm just like let that instinct just roll and just like it's ingrained in me of like watching those commies and growing up and learning storytelling through like sitcoms like and sitcoms that did that were really tackling social issues and not in like really balancing that entertainment and like, you know, wrapping it up in 30 minutes and like making people like they want to come back for more which is something as like a playwright I kind of struggle with with like the wrapping it up and I don't always agree with that but just like just learning that skill set really and then letting the instinct of like what it means to like be black women in America it's like I have to make a lot of things like you have to find the humor like it's embedded in my culture to like find find the humor and tough things. And I kind of just really rely on what comes naturally to me and then I let my training come in afterwards. Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, I totally resonate with that that that idea that what's brutally honest is kind of shocking and shocking is disarming and disarming is yeah what's funny. Yeah, now Mike, can you tell us a little bit about I mean all of your plays I find hilarious but I think people probably most know you at least recently from teenage Dick and would you talk about that and I mean they're Shakespeare at the kind of core of that but then it's totally how do you how do you roll in it how do you find your funny or do you even think about it. I feel like I most of the stuff that I write is comedy so it's hard for me to like, like I can't get itchy with drama, like, so if anything, if the sort of baseline is comedy I think that like, I think a lot about how to like get people on board like it's sort of this universal laughter but for me it's like, I feel like a lot of theater is has trained us to like take things in a really naturalistic way so I think that like out front I try to push really hard on the jokes and on getting people on board that like okay can we all accept that this is the reality of the situation like okay now can I stretch you a little bit farther so that like where we land is like in a place that's a little bit more absurd and a little bit looser and so that like our kind of starting precepts are farther along than like normal theater will allow for. Yeah absurdism like how do you create something that's like strange and wild to begin with. Yeah, because I feel like even with like theater training that like actors are like, I'm going to like naturalism this for you and it's like no please don't like and so I think there's a lot about like teaching both like your collaborators and the audience about like what the rhythms of this world will be and like what sort of like, let's all like go through the kind of standard jokes until we get it like the real laugh and not like try to milk every you know what I mean like it's like, it's like, it's almost a lot like about a musicality of comedy, like, and trying to get people on my particular tune. There's always rhythm and yes, Leo, would you tell us about some of your work, I mean, I mean the play that that I was so struck by that my friend Lily tongue crystal directed here in the Bay Area. Oh God the audience was like not it was like, it's so funny that you couldn't, you almost couldn't hear the next line where it was like all right everyone yes it's funny. Tell us about how that play came. Yeah, just talk about your your process comedy do you think about comedy I mean even your naturalistic plays and one of which I saw a humana was, there's so much funny to it, it's a different kind of funny than that felt more heightened and everything but would you talk about some of how you come to comedy. Um, I think for me, I do tend to write in two different realms, or I've noticed that about myself. I don't do it intentionally but the first realm I write in is deeply personal, and I think like Tori was saying like, anytime you're honest with yourself, mainly like, even if you're not expecting things to be funny is just funny. Like a lot of the time I'll just like, whenever I'm writing a play inspired by some like personal event like God said this are Kentucky, which could be viewed as semi autobiographical. I tend to look at my notebooks from the era where I was experiencing that a traumatic event. And whenever I'm like free writing those traumatic events like I'm like crying and like, it's so awful but then whenever I look back at him like a year later I'm like, oh my God, this is hilarious. So like I think a lot of my humor definitely comes through in honesty not trying too hard to construct a joke. Whenever I'm approaching satire, I'm deeply fascinated by pattern of behavior collectively as a society, and things that we are told that are good, and deeply examining how privilege and just a bunch of hokey shit gets inflated with like works of genius or things that everybody does and it's not necessarily that I'm like mad about it, but I like examining that through humor and the only place that I can really like openly make fun of it. While trying to figure out, you know, why I'm being told that this is the way I should live is to write about it from a humorous standpoint. And that's how a lot of my empirical plays like Two Mile Hollow, which is a play that satirizes the white people by the water genre, where people of color just play white people in a big house by the water came to be because I think like in 20. It was like a different time back then I think it was like 2012 like we noticed that a lot of plays by a certain theater company in New York, and we can't like, I can't say what it is because The Manhattan Theater Club did like seven white people by the water plays in one season. We were all looking at it and be like, what the fuck, this is the same play, like 18 times, and, but you know, on like a deeper level, I started just started thinking about like why that was producible, and like, and how long I've been told as, you know, a person who moved to America as a child and who's biracial who came from, I don't know, like humble beginnings that this is like the ideal art form. I think that theater is a unique place to do that in TV and film, you know, like, I've also done comedy writing in that realm, it's like, you have like the five point sketch structure or you submit jokes for a packet, and that that's like a math problem almost. So a theater so free, like you can just, and sometimes it's funny and sometimes it's not. That's usually how I approach comedy and theater. That's awesome. Okay, so Jonathan, what's your, what's your space so Eureka day is your probably most famous play certainly at the moment, wildly popular in New York and word winning and all that fun stuff, but it's so crisply funny taking down, frankly, the part of the the world where you and I are are from the Bay Area. How did you come to run but I mean I've known you're writing for a long time and there's always this kind of wild humor to it and how do you how do you do what you do or what was that played. How did that one come about. Yeah, I mean I think I don't. I mean, I think I when I'm writing I, I don't think too much about, I mean I'm always trying to amuse myself first in the writing. And so I, you know, and hopefully it's sort of trying to tackle something bigger than just being funny. And then I don't understand, like I don't really understand how the comedy works until I am in a room with actors for an even more in it with an audience of some kind, like, it's always surprising to me like which, even if there's a lot of stuff that I think is amusing or funny like I don't really joke as much, you know, gets a much bigger response than another I, I don't understand that until I see it with an audience and then you can sort of, you know, begin to unpack it, but I feel like. Yeah, there's something sort of mysterious about about it in a way. I mean in eureka day being sort of most extreme example I've ever had of that where the first, the first preview of the first production there's there's sort of a big scene where sort of people in a room are having this meeting that's being streamed on Facebook live and then you see these comments and all through the rehearsal process all we were wondering is like is anybody going to read those comments are they just kind of kind of ignore them and can they still track the play if they're ignoring them. And then at that first preview like the audience was so responsive that you couldn't hear, you know, half the scene and you know all of the production team we're all just sort of looking around at each other like what is happening because none of us. I'm anticipating that and and and then of course you start to be able to sort of shape it and move from there but I. Yeah, I mean I feel like that's one of the wonderful things about about writing things that are comedic is it's just the most intense way of feeling like this is a form that only really exists with live people in the room and you can only really understand that way. And then you can begin to sculpt it and it and sort of try and I mean sort of like Mike was saying you can try and sort of like build the rhythm of those. You know, like the way a scene build so that you know you can feel when there's like a missing sort of step here to get to the sort of the way the place you wanted to peak with the comedy in a moment but but I feel like that work, at least for me I can only really do once there are sort of other other humans. I'd love to talk about how all of you have worked or the best versions of relationships with directors and actors during a process of creating a comedy because that's the alchemy of that is so delicate and necessary. It also occurs to me, kind of thinking about all the plays that one tenant that I certainly use when approaching comedy is that if you write where the characters know that they're funny it's not very funny. But if the characters, the characters must think that they are in a very serious drama for it to be funny at all. The audience can laugh but if the characters kind of are in on it. It's suddenly like more. But so that and that's kind of a case for intensity and passion in the characters and, and it also seems that all of these plays are political. I mean, inherently I think the funniest plays are political the ones that aren't are kind of charming or can be silly and enjoyable but the ones that deal with it are saying something bigger but using comedy as a magnifying glass to get close to it and to relax people around you as as Larissa you were saying make the medicine go down if you're like everybody have a good time great now learn your shit. Come on in closer. How do you how does anybody kind of responds to that Larissa me let's go back to you in terms of the idea of talking using comedy for for politics and using comedy for that kind of question of social change and social justice. Yeah, I mean, it's definitely you just funner. I personally, I mean there's lots of fantastic plays that are really tough and hard on you as an audience I don't go to the, I don't go to them. Unless they're really really good friend I can't get out of it and it's opening night and I'm stuck. I just I don't like it I don't like going and having people preach at me for an hour and a half or two hours I just don't. And even if I'm wrong, I still you know if I'm right either way I just I don't want it I'm not interested. That's not what I go to theater for. And so now everyone knows why I didn't show up to your play. But yeah, so if I know you're going to be like teaching me stuff and telling me stuff and changing me overtly I am just not going to go. So that that's the number one to get me to go to my own place and get my friends go to my place. You know, I was also thinking, you know, because both, because Mike and I worked with the same director, and response to nagle on in New York recently on Thanksgiving play and, and like all of your plays practically I think. I was just thinking about the room and what you know just now when you're saying that is like it. That is imperative though like, I've done a lot of productions of things can play where I've been there. And the whole first week is spent trying to get the actor to stop being funny. Which is hard because you cast these brilliant comedians right because I have to understand timing that to know how to stop when people laugh and after that let me know make sure everything's heard that then understand the constantly changing pace of comedy. My plays are night and day different if it's a white audience or people of color night and day. So you have to have, you know, good comedy actors and know how to listen and pause and respond to the laugh and keep going and push through when they need to. But then you also get them in the room you have to say okay. Now you need to just be a real person and believe this because these people are in real situations and they really, if you don't as a character, you know, we all believe in ourselves we believe what we believe we think it we're right. If we have that same process in the room. I seriously every time first week is just trying to get them to just be actors, you know, believe in your character, you know, endow them with like the reasons they believe in themselves, because like what Tori was talking about if they don't 100% believe it and go for it, and trust that that's like what their character will live and die for. It's not going to be funny at all. And for me a lot of it just and I just picked good collaborators to good directors, not every director. So the thing I've learned not every director can direct comedy. It's a real science. Such a science. I've had so many readings of the Thanksgiving play that were horrifically bad and not funny at all. And it was all director. Yeah, and it's clearly I mean not that, you know, everything I write is funny but it's been proven to be pretty funny. So, you know, I was like, wow, but I could see the director like doing these things to just kill jokes, kill jokes, kill jokes, and, and it's a real science. The reason I worked with Marissa Juan-Stupenegal in New York on that on the Thanksgiving play was because I was told he's a comedy machine. And I was like, great, that's what I need. I need a comedy machine to come in. And, and I do lots of, I do lots of building jokes I do three joke setups. There's two jokes and then the third one is the joke and people have to understand how to build that if you hit every one. It's just exhausting and no one can hear anything and it takes forever and plays 10 hours long. You know, you have to know how which jokes to play last through how to build it how to hit the peak joke how to hit the joke now this may be a small joke that's going to come back in 10 pages, you know, you have to understand all that you need someone who is such a strong calibrator of every single moment. I mean, Ritz is, I will say Ritz is, I mean, I worked a lot of fantastic comedy directors but I was just, he's on my mind because Mike's sitting there in my screen. And I think, you know, like, literally getting down to like beat by beat, like, no, no, no, this beat has to move always has to move like this and this beat always you have to like get through this word and get, you know, and it's just it's so calibrated perfectly, and it can't change. You have to listen to the audience but yet at the same time you can't change the rhythm of the jokes and the rhythm what's important and all that and I don't know if I answered anything. No, you did. I just, I just drink a Coke zero I'm a little it a girl getting. I mean, I do think that certainly all of us, I'm sure have experienced that the like worst version of the comedy where it's just flat and slow and Siri and it's like, I would rather die. But but the and then when it's proven done well, it is like this muscular craft that these actors have to have this athleticism of language to know this syllable is funnier than this syllable so like punch this hit the continent, and then the big large scale the macro ideas of how the you have to start this character and seen one here so that in scene 10 we can have them turn around the corner and we're like, Oh, I totally know what they're thinking or whatever. You know what I mean, like it's the macro the micro and it's, I will always cast a comedy actor in anything, especially drama, because I know that they're actually frankly better actors, they can have that that that detailed detailed work that they know how to to turn on and so anyway it's like if you're funny I know that you can do anything if you're serious I'm like, Can you do anything comedy actors are consistent. Yes, like they know how to hit it every night, you know and not drop it and not, you know that's amazing it's an amazing change it you might ruin it. Tori well what's your experience with kind of great directors actors like how do you get, how do you get the comedy kind of from the page and your idea to to their bodies. Yeah, I will say that. Directors director that came to my mind as far as like precision and repetition is Margot Boyle. She's very like I had a chance to work with her in grad school. And she was just very much like she she will write down like, like you said about the script like every beat of it. And she made sure that like, she's a drill sergeant in the rehearsal room and she was just like this is how it should go and it should feel like muscle memory to you like let's take it from the top let's take it from the top like she's got that and I'm a very like I come from a sports background. And so for me it's like working with her it's like a dream come true in the space because you're just running drills over and over. And so everybody feels comfortable and I think the way she makes actors feel like every night when you're going out there you know exactly what you're supposed to do you know exactly where you're supposed to be and like the audience is there to to what you're offering and like don't let them shake you or give you too many applause that you like forget the rhythm you know what I mean she gets that like sort of energy into the actors and so like I think of her as like a director who really knows comedy and knows how to make sure that that there's some sort of continuity every night with with the shows. And I'll also say that like for my professional career I've been really blessed to be able to work with a lot of actors who I grew with in grad school and who have been like worked on you know my when I plays in my school projects here and there and so every time like when we've gotten to the professional world they're like I know what Tori's asking I know what she wants I know the rhythm like I know her musicality and that's been really helpful especially in like short rehearsal periods like at playwrights horizons the rehearsal period is so short and you use that you use the the preview process a lot for like rehearsals which is like very cool and also very frightening and to have like some actors that you work with in the past and that like sort of know you as a comedic writer and know your your your quirks that's been that's been super helpful and they're and I will agree about working with funny actors and comedic actors because then you know that they can do drama. But that they love the funny you won't ask us who love the funny and who aren't like after the tears because then that's a whole other situation when when when people have to cry. So you know there's that yeah they have to love the funny. That's a great way of saying it and it's true like once I find the actors that get it. I will never let them go. Exactly. Yeah, they're the first. No, no sorry just these people. And I mean I would say just since I think we should all name great directors of comedy I was thinking of Meredith McDonough and Sean Daniels as two of my comic like I can just trust that they're going to they're going to get it. Mike do you want to talk a little bit about directors since you and Larissa were sharing one but but what how do you kind of like work with them to make the music and to go off of what Tori was just saying about musicality which you brought up first that rhythm and stuff. Yeah, I have been lucky to work with merits on nearly all of my plays and we came up as interns together and he just he really gets like what I'm trying to do and he works like a motherfucker and he works so hard and then like he makes me like I used to want to work a lot and then I got a little bit lazy and he kept me so it's good that he like keeps me on that, but he's very precise and but I'm thinking about like just sort of you know this rhythm question a little bit like I think that it applies not not just to like individual scenes but also to sort of like the overall rhythm of a process and being receptive to that. And how like it's funny to me that like as I see rehearsal processes that like the first week is like really fun because people are having a lot of like they're on on book and really enjoying the language and then like the second week kind of sucks because people push too hard and they're like trying to capture that, you know, like, I guess what I'm saying is that processes also have a rhythm and that like, and I've been kind of attuned to that lately and that like first preview, like first couple previews is like tough because people are learning kind of how the audience is going to respond and then, and then people chill out and they figure out like kind of like what the, like breakpoints are and like where the audience like wants a breath and where you should push through and you know what I mean so I think that like, there are collaborators that are really receptive to that and that are hearing the audience but also leading them and not letting the audience dictate like where the stops are but like, like, receptive to sort of what the energy is like, I don't know if I was mentioning about like athletics and I think that it's actually like, I used to be this really slow cross country runner and like you could you could tell like when a race started like, Oh, I went out too fast or like oh like I'm like really nervous or you know like I took this too leisurely you know what I mean and so I think that there's like a rhythm to processes to that. Yeah, that my strongest collaborators are receptive to. Mike, do you do you give the note faster funnier, or do you not. I try not to like really I, if I feel like there's like, like not all of the juices being squeezed out of the arms that I might like give a little gesture towards that but like, mostly I try to let people discover it themselves. And just like asked that they be truthful but like one of my biggest actual like sort of notes is not faster but to hit to punch line endings. Because I, I often back load a line if there's any information that you need to hear because if there's a lot of laughter they might not catch the beginning of a line. So there's not as much like story critical information in the front of a line and also like because you're doing a relay with your scene partner you have to hit the end of your line so that your scene partner knows to start. Yeah, that's great. I always talk about Q pickup. It's less about like saying the line fast it's picking up the queue, which is a similar like making sure that both of them are really clear but I'm the jerk that's always like faster funnier faster funnier. I really try hard to resist because it's like I would get in there and you know like I would. I hate myself for doing it but I do it every single way. Can I can just say real quick on that what I do is I do the hey guys I'm just trying to figure out the scene could you just read it straight through like don't pause don't just go straight through for me so I can figure out the words. And then they're all like oh my god that was so funny we're so good I'm like oh wow whatever I know I'm just I'm just figuring out the words. My God that's genius. Just just a quick line through just a quick one just just a speed through guys. Would you talk about your relationship with with directors like what's worked really well for you or and like who's your, who's your comic director of choice. I do not have a comic director of choice, but I, I'm always looking. I also recently worked with Moritz. He's great. You know, like to to my hollow specifically hasn't been produced in New York. But I has had nine productions, regionally, and the world premiere was like a simultaneous world premiere with four theaters of color around the country and I didn't know any of these directors and many of the processes. I just go in for like 10 days, and then have two previews again these are like small theaters of color, for the most part so it's not like a whole like four week long, three week long preview process is just like, we rehearsed it to previews, it opens, right. I, because like that was initially so nerve wracking for me, I did write out extremely concise like playwright notes before the script because for me, and I think for most of comedy like tone is just a play killer. For me, like, I just really honed it in to every single potential collaborators, or a collaborator that I didn't know that you had to strip the actors down first. Like the first week of rehearsal has to be completely stripped down, like, make them act like they are in a completely naturalistic play, and then you can start having fun but then by the time I would come in, like they would be so scared of overdoing it that there was so much room to play. And for me, like, I love actors who like like comedy actors are amazing but consistency is the most important you don't have to be a stand up comedian as long as you can like fully commit and live in the world. And I think as writers of comedy we do ask a lot of our collaborators like we ask our actors to do the craziest ever. And like our directors like we get all angry if people aren't laughing, I mean I don't but you know you know like they they always think they're like, they weren't mad at them if it doesn't go well, you know, and like I just get sad. Yeah. There's just like a little bit more pressure for output from like audience reaction. So, like, above all, I'm just looking for like consistency and kindness and Lily tongue crystals a great example of somebody who I think I was only able to be at like seven or eight rehearsals and she just called me every day. And was just like, is this okay like like this is what's happening. Tonally is a correct and I'd be like any it sounds okay, there's no way for me to know until I get there. But yeah kindness above all, like I think, especially in a comedy room you have to work with a director who creates a warm safe environment with actors, actors get a little bit more slack I think. Yeah. Drill surgeon. That's really really nice a really nice drill sergeant. Yeah, or at least can create the illusion that they're nice in front of me. It's such a great thing about tone how do you how do you convey tone like did you use examples it's like this kind of a thing, or like it's like this play but bigger like how do you it's like such a nebulous thing to try to describe on the page how it took me a really long time to understand how to talk about my own tone. When I'm not writing, and even when I think I'm writing in it in that in naturalism I think it's maybe a hair or two above just because I use a lot of monologues and music but in terms of like my comedies and satirical play. It took me, like I used to direct all of my own work will disclosure and all of my 20s I had a collaborative theater company, and I come from that background so like when I switched over to like having other people direct my plays like it took me a long time to like take a take a front seat as a playwright because there's like oh you're the director you do whatever you want and then I saw like a lot of my work being tanked. So I was like I have to learn how to talk about like how my work fails. And for me, like through trial and error, like like a lot of trial and error, I learned that my work fails when actors lean into any irony at all. I stole this phrase actually from young Jean Lee who's also very, very funny. Like, she, she, she wrote like every, everyone is sincere and means everything they says, they say. And I was like, oh that just means like, that just means that and I tried doing that and quite work for my work because, but then I just morphed it into everybody is earnest. Everybody is grounded, and then it just opened up like that opens up a lot of room to play, I think. And this thing of like sometimes a great play doesn't need the actors help to make it funny like the funny is there, they need to be exactly what you're saying earnest, honest, authentic, really true to that character because if they're like I'm going to help this joke thing you're like no no no and that's dead now you killed it. And I think that once they have, because like, a lot of comedy actors like, initially forget that they're actually playing characters, like that they have to get to know in their bones. And then, like, any great actor once they do have it in their bones, like, then they can like play with a joke, but like they have to get level one down first. That's amazing because your clay, I would have never guessed that you started in naturalism for for two mile hollow, because it like it goes so big and so amazingly, like, yeah, work has truly hilarious. Yeah, like added on later. But it makes great sense and it makes it like even more true of it. So Jonathan tell us about your experience with directors like what's really works. Yeah, how does how did your week today kind of that experience over. Yeah, I mean, I've had a chance to to work with some really good comedy directors, but I think it's definitely something I'm still trying to to understand. And I feel like the note I give the most when I, if I like, come into a process that I haven't been a part of the whole time is just I write with a lot of line breaks which is maybe my way of trying to be controlling about the rhythm. And usually when something's not working, it's because an actor is like blowing through the line breaks. And that's like the note is just like, you know, use the text as what I said, yeah, and then and then when they do it works and But I think it's still I mean I actually I mean if I can sort of throw a question out to everybody I, I think something I'm really trying to figure out I don't, I haven't found an answer is like when you're, how you determine from a conversation is it possible with a director like if, because directing comedy is such a technical thing and when you see people who have that skill, and they just know like oh this person needs to turn out, you know, half, so that we can see their reaction so that this joke like that stuff. So you get that from like the coffee you have with the director to sort of get like how you determine if they're the kind of person who has that the, that's those skills and that and that those instincts and I have not figured out how to determine that I mean people can talk really particularly about the themes of a play or the ideas or or sort of what it sparks in them but this whole this other thing which is that like very technical comedy skill. I haven't figured out how to suss that out when having conversations people about a play so I'm curious if anybody else has any insight, how do you all do it. Any ideas. I mean I think the reason Merritt is so popular on this phone call specifically it's because he has a body of work that you can look back at and be like oh he's good with comedy. And he's just like a arbitrary not arbitrary but he's just like a specific example but I think, like I've heard a lot about Margo to just the same thing Tori was saying that she's very precise and musical and that I don't know other than that like a word of mouth it's really hard to find directors who are you call us call us all. I think asking something that's like, like so hard and intimate because it's not just about like comedy right like I mean it's like who's going to be an interpreter of your work and like, there's all these coffee setups and and it doesn't really tell you like, I wish that there wasn't a shortcut but I feel like it's a lot of us get shotgun married anyhow like so it's like you learn by you learn by either succeeding or tanking right and then but then there's also just sort of like seeing their productions and seeing like what they've done before like a lot of times if director hasn't done much new work that's like a flag for me. I think is when they say I have no questions like I've had multiple, like, I have no questions about this and then it just like. So I don't have the like shortcut to getting a good result but I do have some shortcuts for getting better. I mean, I talked, I do a lot of research on people personally like anytime I meet with a director I've talked to everybody you've ever worked with. You know afterwards if we tell just personally then I, if I haven't seen their work which since I'm not in a New York playwright often, you know I haven't seen a lot of these folks. So, yeah, I just talked, I literally go through their resume and I just call people call people call people and say hey what are they is it fun was it funny did it work because you know and I just go through every comedy they've done and if they haven't done comedy I honestly at this point I'm just, I'm not. I don't feel like I haven't experienced the skill to hire someone who hasn't so unfortunately I won't be giving anyone their first chance. Someone will I hope but that's not going to be me because I just need any people to be funny I don't know how to fix it myself yet. So if the director doesn't know how I don't know how to. Is it okay to like talk technically I mean I I think sometimes I can just get to the point and being like, let's talk about how this scene, this scene this first scene how does it work where's the first joke how do you as a director work with the, how do you make the room feel welcome how do you, you know, I mean that I feel like the folks who can't jump in and talk process and details that's not my people anyway, even if it's like one of my more serious plays, like no let's talk like practical. How do you tell them to go go go, you know how how do you tell them to, to, you know, like, like we were saying how do you find the authentic but also keep the comedy rolling and I don't know I feel like I could have I've had some coffee is that can get that deep that quickly and if they're kind of not prepared for that conversation or don't have that in their vocabulary that's a pretty big red flag to go I'm not sure if we're going to speak the same language, at least speak it quick enough to play process. And the other, I mean the other thing I've been thinking about a lot and, and I mean I sort of speaking to what Leo was saying about is like what you put in the text is when you, you know, if you've been like enough see a play have four or five six productions like there's certain things you just know about how the play works and like what, and, and how you transmit sort of that information to a director because some of it's some of it's very technical and very small and it's really like about how this moment works, but that this is the only way for that moment to work like it has to do this thing. And how much of that do you kind of put in the play text when you're publishing it and how much do you just sort of like trust that people will find it on their own. And maybe we can kind of use the last 15 minutes because we've already done chat and for so long. And to talk about some like practical stuff for writers and any directors watching out there kind of. It occurs to me that there are, we kind of can't say it enough, especially to younger writers kind of getting started in this field to know your own work first and trust that you know it best. It doesn't mean you can't learn from actors you can't learn from a great question by a dramaturg or conversation with the director but the answer is in you, as to if this is how it goes and it feels like, especially with comedy it's easy for a young writer to kind of be swept away from their own story at a certain point and kind of being able to say, you know what's funny and if it's funny to you that actually can be the answer that can be like no because it's funny to me that you don't actually have to adjust and I mean you can find the right collaborators but there's a reason why you wrote this the way that you did and trying to make sure that especially young writers can get that message that it's yours you you wrote it you you made this thing and so you have an answer to how to how to make it funny. Are there other kind of practical things that you would want to tell people coming into this fields, writing their first comedy going is this funny am I funny. How do I know how do I find the right collaborators I mean what's the kind of I know what we always get the like, what advice would you have a young people. But what's your, what's your kind of download for free and folks or especially for people of color that it's okay if the white people don't get the joke. It's fine. They don't have to. I have plenty of jokes that you know I go through my, I don't, the Thanksgiving plays all people that can present as white so that not they're not necessarily all white that they they present as white so tends to be a pretty white room and every rehearsal process like I don't get this joke it's not working it's like, it's not for you. I don't worry about it when the native show up, you trust me they're going to find think it's funny. And then the first audience I'm like, oh look, there's, there's the native person there's you know I know exactly where they are in the audience, and it's for them and that's okay and I just was dealing with this with a young writer just this week again, like well I keep getting this feedback that they don't get this they don't get that they don't think it's and it's like, it doesn't okay, they don't have to get it. Everything is not for the white people, like, it's okay, and Thanksgiving plays specifically for the white people it's to try to get them to do change right, and, but they don't get, they don't get everything, and that's great they don't, they're not, they don't, and that's hard for some white folks for sure, they're used to getting everything, and everything is for them, and everything is not for them in my plays and that's okay and I think that's especially young writers, they're constantly like, oh well I have to change them to schools, oh my, I never went to schools, I don't know, I've never taken a writing class, I don't know what they tell you but I can get writers, native writers coming to me constantly being like, well they said I have to change this, they can't talk like that and all these things that make them indigenous, they're specific to their community and it's like, you've got just, I don't know what you have to do to get the grade, but you just forget all that, that's all bullshit, you do whatever you want, it's your show, you know, and you write your people your way and the white people don't have to understand but endlessly, especially from grad students, I guess endlessly, they're trying to bang all the color out of people and I don't know why I've never been. Thank you, what's your kind of, your advice for folks? That's a loaded question, like I'm thinking of like, I agree with Larissa saying about like, you know, the jokes for your community and like making sure that you, that you're continuing to write for yourself I think like, like Sarah says like, just like this lesson on like the gift play and like write your play for one person, for the audience of one, even if that's you, if that's your mom, if that's your best friend from kindergarten and like just focus on that audience and nobody else and like let that be your first draft and let it be a second or third, let it be how many drafts you need it to be until you want to show it to other people and you're ready to open like your mind and your heart to, you know, the questions about does this work? Is it producible? I mean that's a whole other level of being a playwright. Like, we don't make a lot of money in this business so you have to love it, so you need to love the process of it. You need to love sitting in front of your computer and dreaming of these worlds and creating these characters and loving them and spending years with them and then if you want to move forward past that you do have to start thinking about, you know, like, how is that producible work and in certain playhouses in that, in certain audiences, right? And that's like, that's a whole other monster of a thing and I think for like writers of color, it's a specific navigation that you have to have about like knowing that the mass majority of drama turgs and artistic directors that are receiving your plays and your submissions are gonna be white people. And the only way it's gonna get past them onto the next desk is if you translate something in your play for their ears and their eyes and their heart. And that's like a whole other monster of a game to figure out like, how do I embed my culture and how does the foundation of this my culture and how do I embed things that like white people understand that may stay in the play, may not stay in the play by the time you get your first audience, be strategic about it. But like, if you wanna be produced there, there are things that like playwrights of color has to contend with that like white playwrights don't have to. And so my advice specifically to playwrights of color is like, do you at all times, start off with that audience of one and then from there we'll start talking about the technical stuff and being producible. But it's important, you won't get to that point if you start erasing your voice at the very beginning. And so, yeah, it's a lot of advice. It's a lot of strategy and stuff that goes involved that's involved in it. But I think the beginning of it is just like protecting your voice, protecting who you write for and then moving forward to all the stuff that will have to happen after that. Mike, what's your thought about that? About advice-ishness. I don't know. General, maybe somewhat helpful things too matters. Or not, you could just tell us what you're gonna for dinner, if that's fine too. No, I think start out by writing short plays. Like, I did a lot of 10 minute plays starting out and I think that that helped me to nail down my style because it's just like a low stakes sort of like way to just figure out like a movement and then like while you're sort of chiseling away at your full length stuff, it's like you're just working things out. But, and then I also think you have to like read a lot of other people's plays and steal their shit. And I think that you have to figure out how to like cultivate your rehearsal persona like however that is. But like I think that I like was mistaken in thinking that like, oh, if I like write the perfect draft it'll speak for itself and then like people will do it. But like there's this whole other component of like being in the room and translating your blueprint. So there, you know what I mean? So I think that like getting into as many processes as you can, whether it's through readings or through 10 minute play fest where you're like working on that skill of like, how do I impart this vision to others? Is it just like a whole different component that I thought like didn't exist but does? Awesome. All right, Leah and Jonathan, Leah, would you go first? What wisdom can you bestow? Yeah, I think, sorry, my fiancee came in. The room you didn't know was on the Zoom. I think that there's a vast difference between like actual comedy and like theater funny. And like a lot of like theater funny mistakes. It's just like so like, it's like very academic and like you could just be like, oh my God, two people are wearing hats and then like all these old people will be like, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. And like, you know, just like I think challenge yourself to try to be better than that. Just, you know, like if you can move past your own pain and like hurt like an injustice through comedy and make yourself feel better by seeing all of this turmoil through different lens, then I think that you've, you're on your way to accomplishing something and you will probably touch other people through your humor. And I saw this really unintentionally funny tweet the other day, I forgot who it was, but it was a playwright. And it was something like, oh, it must be such a burden to think you're so funny. And it's like, it's not though, like it's a burden to think you're a genius. So like, like when you write from a comedic lens, just remember that you can really do whatever you want, especially in theater, you can be as crazy as you want, at least like in your first drafts, you know, because we're not as respected as drama writers anyway. Just blow it up, like, like, like do it for you and just start there. That's great. Jonathan, we'll end with you. And then I'm gonna try to just prep you all to tell people how to experience your stuff right now in whatever ways there are. So Jonathan, advice first and then we'll plug our shit. Yeah, I mean, I guess I would say that the sort of, the ballast to like the lack of respect is that theaters wanna produce comedies. So maybe you don't get the respect, but you do get the production or something. And yeah, I think advice is just like, you know, reading a lot of plays and seeing a lot of plays and because part of what you're doing is you're honing your own taste and sort of that's like a thing that moves in parallel to honing your voice. And you're sort of trying to get those things, I think as close together as they can without probably ever being able to actually have them fully meet. And then just sort of writing to, you know, for yourself as your first audience and to amuse yourself. And I think, and Washburn says the thing about like, try and write the play that only you and no one else would like. As a sort of, you know, sort of works. That's great. That's awesome. All right, well, thank you. This is amazing. Thanks for making me laugh and making me think. And it's so nice to virtually meet some of you for the first time in this weird way because life is weird right now. But I will tell you the stuff that I know about. Mike, your show is streaming, Dean H. Dick is streaming right now. How do you find that? It's being produced by TheaterWit so you can Google that and hop on there. Awesome. And then Leah, I know your Nevada tan is on Audible. Is there other stuff that we can, have yours that we can enjoy in this virtual time? Nope. Nope. Just that. Just that amazing, awesome play. Please go check it out on Audible, Nevada tan. Jonathan, are you streaming things? What are you doing? Not really. I have some workshops coming up, like these development things that have said they're going to stream them. Like play, something a playpen. Great. This is going to stream. We'll keep an eye on it. We'll see. They do that. Buy all of our plays in some fashion and read them in some way too. Larissa, do you have anything listenable or washable at the moment? No. I don't do streaming. No. I kind of thought that about you. I don't know. I'm like, whatever. Now Thanksgiving play is going to be coming up though at a bunch of, I was like in 20 cities this year, instead of like another 10 next year. So you'll find it somewhere. It's one of the most popular plays in America right now. Thank goodness because it is genius and amazing. Tori, how can we engage with your work at the moment? I don't have anything streaming right now. I did have a show on Play Per View and depending on how long we're doing this, I might go back to Play Per View for another show. But it was cool. It was a great experience. I think anybody who wants to, they're doing like this initiative where not only do you get to have a play reading that streams nationally, but also the proceeds get to go to a charity of the playwrights choosing. So that's really cool. And so we were able to help a woman shelter in New York. So that was really cool. So if anybody's in the theater and they need for wanting to watch theater and be donating to folks in need, then I suggest Play Per View. Play Per View. All right, fabulous. Thank you all. You're fabulous. I hope you have good drinks and good food after this in some quantity and period. And I can't wait to give you like high fives and hugs in real life. And one, you know, postman.