Q&A; -- The play’s the thing

Every summer for the past four years, South Coast Repertory has

presented readings, workshops and productions of new plays as part of the

Pacific Playwrights Festival. New works by Richard Greenberg, Donald

Margulies, Amy Freed and more have appeared on SCR stages, several going

on to full productions in Costa Mesa and elsewhere.

This year everything will be a little different, as the theater

company prepares to renovate its existing stages and open a new theater

by the fall. The festival has been separated from the Hispanic

Playwrights Project, and the dates have been moved to April 26-28

(although previews of the two main productions -- “The Dazzle” and

“Getting Frankie Married -- and Afterwards” -- will open in late March).

Jerry Patch, dramaturge and director of the festival, sat down with

Features Editor Jennifer K Mahal to talk about the changes and what makes

the Pacific Playwrights Festival so special.

How was the decision made to split the festival this year, so that

the Hispanic Playwright’s Project will be held in the summer, while the

main festival is in April?

It was necessitated by the construction that we’re doing. The

construction for the new theater and the refurbishment of the existing

facility is going to force us to close from around the first of May to

the first of October because the whole front of the building is coming

off and they’re going to redo the lobby and other things.

We really just didn’t have the space or the time [for both]. We were

barely able to sandwich the Pacific Playwrights Festival in at the end of

April. We also wanted to bring “California Scenarios” back, a show that

we inaugurated last year and we are going to reprise it. It’s outdoors in

Noguchi Garden, the sculpture garden we call California Scenario, and the

end of April is just not when you want to be sitting outdoors. So, first

of August is fine and that’s when we’ll do it, late July and August.

When is the festival generally held?

For the first four years we did it, we ran it in June.... We put it as

late as we could, it’s literally a week before we close the building that

it’s taking place this year. Next year, it’s going to happen in May, and

it will probably stay there a while. This has to do with our new

production calendar.

How has the playwrights festival grown in the last four years?

We really started out with the aspiration to simply hold a regional

play development festival. I had worked for almost 10 years at the

Sundance Institute in Utah, and when that affiliation ended, we thought

well, play development was sort of drying up in the festival sense. The

Bay Area Playwrights Conference had stopped. The Los Angeles Theater

Center, which had a lot of new play development, was gone. So we thought

this would be an interesting thing to do just regionally. And it turned

out by the second one that this was a national event and it very quickly

has become that. It’s gone from sort of a regional idea to a national

one.

It’s also evolved into something that become a source of new plays for

other theaters. We’re very eager for that to happen. You know, many of

the plays we’ve produced, but we’re always delighted to see other

theaters produce the plays that come through the festival.

Our sort of poster child is Amy Freed’s play “The Beard of Avon,”

which was here last year and which got six other productions in its first

year and at some of the leading theaters in the country. And that play

has not yet been to New York.

Normally the circuit is a play goes to New York, it gets recognized

and then people do it across the country. That’s even been true of plays

that we’ve done here like “Wit” or “Collected Stories,” “Sight Unseen,”

“Three Days of Rain” -- they will go to New York, they’re anointed in New

York and then they get done all over the country. We really like this

idea that they can be done all over the country first. It’s a good thing

for the writer because it makes playwriting a viable way to make a living

for them instead of having to write television or movies just to make a

living, or whatnot.

What play in the festival’s history has gone on to be the most

successful, in your opinion?

Well, I think “The Beard of Avon” is probably the short answer. There

are a number of them. “Everett Beekin,” Richard Greenberg’s play, went

from here to New York. There’s two by Greenberg that have gone on and

been done in New York and around the country. “Beginning of August, Tom

Donaghy’s play, got done here and in New York. “Mystery of Attraction”

has been around.

But I think if we’re going to say which is the most successful, it’s

probably “The Beard of Avon.” There’s a play by David Lindsay-Abaire,

“Kimberly Akimbo,” that won a major literary prize last year....

How are the plays that are in the festival chosen?

Plays come to us from agents. They come from writers. They come from

other theaters who submit them for inclusion in the festival. And I and

my colleague, Jennifer Kiger and I read them, and Linda Sullivan Baity,

who this is her first year on staff. So the three of us read them and

essentially the plays that we think are at the top of the heap, we pass

on to David Emmes and Martin Benson. And then the five of us talk about

them, and that’s how the plays get picked.

Do you have any specific criteria for the plays or do you sort of

rely on knowing what you like when you see it?

Very much that. Writers very often ask us, “What are you looking for?”

And the answer is exactly that, we know it when we see it. But we don’t

think we’re as smart as the writers and we almost never ask a writer to

write to a particular vision or idea. We do that for some of our

educational touring shows, in order to fit with curriculum. But, normally

the most we’ll ever do is a writer will say, “Well, I’ve got two or three

plays in my head. I’ve got this idea and this idea and this idea.” And we

will say “Well, you know, this one,” -- we’re talking about a play,

them writing a commission for us -- “this one is probably more within the

parameter of being produced here.”

That’s as close as we ever get to being prescriptive.

How many of the plays in the festival are commissioned versus

submitted?

I’d say in any given year it’s a third to a half. And the reason that

it’s so high is we commission a lot of plays. I would guess that our

outstanding commissions right now might total the next two or three

theaters combined.

How do you determine which plays get a full staging versus the ones

that are readings?

In previous years, we have had workshop productions of plays, and we

don’t this year because Richard Greenberg’s “The Dazzle” is on stage

getting a full production. One of the conceits we have is that we like to

bring plays back from the preceding festival in full production. So this

year “Getting Frankie Married,” Horton Foote’s play, is, was in last

year’s festival. So now people who came last year to the reading can now

see it done in full. We think that’s fun. I hope they think it’s fun too.

We may well go back, when we are finished with this construction, to

including a workshop production in the festival. Generally those slots

have tended to go to younger writers who really would benefit more from

having a more fully realized production and a longer rehearsal period.

How do you achieve the balance between the up-and-coming

playwrights and the ones who are more established, such as Richard

Greenberg and Beth Henley?

This is a notion that I came up with at Sundance that -- I don’t claim

it’s original with me, but I didn’t learn it from anybody -- that one

year when I had Tom Murphy at Sundance and Donald Margulies and Howard

Korder, who are two front ranked American playwrights who were there, and

then we had some younger writers.

And sort of the stratification of the playwriting community there was

really interesting, because everyone there knew that Tom Murphy was the

great writer that was on the mountain. I mean he was an international

writer of significance. And they also knew that Donald and Howard had

good careers, you know Donald had recently won the Pulitzer and it wasn’t

like they were chopped liver. And then there were these kids who were

kind of starting out and they had all of that enthusiasm and that sort of

inspired Murphy and Howard and Donald and took them back to when they

were starting.

So, there was this kind of symbiosis or synergy that came out of

artists being at different stages in their careers that they sort of

bounced off of one another, and that really impressed me. I though this

is a good way to do this. And you can’t do it all the time, but for sure

this year the -- Richard and, certainly, Horton Foote, who is an American

master, Beth Henley, who is a Pulitzer Prize winner, those are the

established writers. And then Julia Cho, Julia Jordan, Steven Drukman

and, really Lynn Nottage is somewhere in between Beth Henley and the

three I just mentioned.... So you just try to slot it that way so there

are reference points.

Quite honestly, it also makes writers more comfortable with one

another and reduces the possibility that anything like this becomes

competitive, because all writers want their plays produced. That’s what

they want. And if there are seven other writers in the room, there are

seven other people who want their play produced, and there are only so

many slots.

What is your favorite part of putting this together?

You’re talking to me, but this whole theater supports this operation,

and I thrill every year to how good they are at it, from the people who

plan the lunches to the tech department that arranges rehearsal spaces. I

mean, I just don’t have to worry about that stuff, it’s all taken care of

and it’s beautiful the way that happens....

I like picking the plays, I like finding plays to do. I think we have

a good time doing that. And then it’s fun to see this community come

together and to see actors -- it’s interesting the level of actor you can

get for a four day play reading as opposed to a ten week run, commitment

to rehearse a play for four weeks and play it for six. People who are in

television series or who have substantial film careers will not do the

play, they can’t find the time. But for four days, they like to come out

and scratch their theater itch. You tend to wind up with some kind of

powerhouse cast. And sometimes the plays are well served by that and

sometimes it just doesn’t matter, but it gives a frisson to the whole

thing.

And, again, if you are a young writer, to have the star of a

television series, you know, to have a Jane Kazmareck or Brad Whitford

reading your play is “Wow, I guess I’m worth it.” And I can’t tell you

how much that means six months later when you don’t know what to do with

your play and you get up and it’s time to go to work and you have to

believe that what you’re doing is worthwhile.

BIO

Name: Jerry Patch

Age: Late 50s

Residence: Irvine

Occupation: Dramaturge and director of the 5th annual Pacific

Playwrights Festival at South Coast Repertory. Patch has been with SCR

for 35 years.

Education: Bachelor’s in speech and drama from UC Santa Barbara,

master’s in rhetoric from Cal State Fullerton.

Family: Two children, Darcy and Brendan

Community Involvement: Professor of theater and film at Long Beach

City College

Hobbies: Tennis