EPISODE · Jan 25, 2010 · 1H 5M
Doug Wright (#253) - January, 2010
from ATW - Downstage Center · host American Theatre Wing
Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award honored playwright Doug Wright (2004 Tony Award winner for Best Play for “I Am My Own Wife”) discusses his virtually genetic passion for theatre and how that matched up with his conservative Texas childhood; his escape to New Haven and later New York for college and grad school; his early work at the O'Neill Theatre Center and the Yale Repertory Theatre; why he describes his early plays, including “Interrogating the Nude” and “Watbanaland”, as having been fueled by rage; how “Quills” was inspired in part by the political culture wars of the mid-90s; where he found inspiration for the macabre and comic one-acts collected as “Unwrap Your Candy”; how he feels about having personally revealed himself in his writing, both as a character in “I Am My Own Wife” and in his essay for the book “The Play That Changed My Life”; why he signed on to collaborate with Scott Frankel and Michael Korie on the musical of “Grey Gardens” after the failure of his only prior musical, “Buzzsaw Berkeley” with Michael John LaChiusa; what drove him to actively lobby for the position of bookwriter on Disney's “The Little Mermaid”; and whether he plans to do more directing after adapting and staging Strindberg's “Creditors” at the La Jolla Playhouse in the summer of 2009.
What this episode covers
Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award honored playwright Doug Wright (2004 Tony Award winner for Best Play for “I Am My Own Wife”) discusses his virtually genetic passion for theatre and how that matched up with his conservative Texas childhood; his escape to New Haven and later New York for college and grad school; his early work at the O'Neill Theatre Center and the Yale Repertory Theatre; why he describes his early plays, including “Interrogating the Nude” and “Watbanaland”, as having been fueled by rage; how “Quills” was inspired in part by the political culture wars of the mid-90s; where he found inspiration for the macabre and comic one-acts collected as “Unwrap Your Candy”; how he feels about having personally revealed himself in his writing, both as a character in “I Am My Own Wife” and in his essay for the book “The Play That Changed My Life”; why he signed on to collaborate with Scott Frankel and Michael Korie on the musical of “Grey Gardens” after the failure of his only prior musical, “Buzzsaw Berkeley” with Michael John LaChiusa; what drove him to actively lobby for the position of bookwriter on Disney's “The Little Mermaid”; and whether he plans to do more directing after adapting and staging Strindberg's “Creditors” at the La Jolla Playhouse in the summer of 2009.
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Doug Wright (#253) - January, 2010
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