We can have a real convo, reach out! But if you want to know more about me first…

We meet for coffee or on zoom, and I ask you, “What kind of play are you working on?” You tell me about your play, and then ask me,

“What kinds of plays do you focus on?

I love to work with writers as they create two kinds of plays:

a.) brave love stories

Plays like the world premieres* of Lenelle Moïse K-I-S-S-I-N-G, directed by Dawn M. Simmons, Craig Lucas’ I was most alive with you directed by the playwright, Lydia Diamond’s Smart People, Kirsten Greenidge’s Our Daughters, Like Pillars with director Kimberly Senior, and Melinda Lopez’s adaptation of Yerma with director Melia Bensussen

If we can have a conversation about how bell hooks’ work illuminates the text, it’s a good match. Once I started looking for it, most great plays are a struggling-to-love story, whether that’s in the context of romance, family, society, faith, the cosmic.

b.) plays that would seem at a thematic level to be an intellectual drama but on the surface work as a searing comedy

Plays like the world premieres* of The Niceties or Tiger Style

I love work where the laughs from the audience clue us into the ways our beliefs are different from each other, where people ask ‘...what are they laughing at,’ and then they start to think, and then we’re all laughing, until maybe we stop.

I ask you, “How do you like to work with dramaturgs? What kinds of dramaturgy have worked best for you?”

You ask,

“What’s your approach to conversation about a script?”

I believe the writer works best when they have someone firmly in their corner, chattering about what’s working ecstatically, and occasionally prodding about soft spots in the construction. I’m rigorous as heck, but also not much for critique and the ways it can narrow the scope of an artists’ vision. I like to talk about opportunities and curiosities and leaving nothing on the table. Sometimes I’ll make a straightforward suggestion if I think it’s the clearest way to communicate, but I’ll never make the same one twice, and I’ll probably forget it by the next rehearsal. 

I will want to talk about dramatic mechanics, about the ways that the elements of focus, tension, contrast, escalation, and surprise can open audiences’ hearts. Inspired by Samin Nosrat’s philosophy of cooking, I learned from mentoring younger dramaturgs that those five simple, versatile ingredients are the unified field theory of stunning performance – from farce to tragedy – and when something isn’t clicking, that’s the checklist in my head (no Aristotle). 

I’ll have a conversation about anything anytime, but I don’t give “notes” about plays on the page, I want to hear the words out loud together, and have a conversation about what was thrilling today and what was boring today and what we’re interested in and what is beside the point. I believe, as a field, dramaturgs have titled us toward plays that work best in a close reading of the literature; I want us to find the thrill of a one-time, in-the-room ride, filled with intriguing set ups, clever misdirects, and juicy pay-offs that inspire unique, individual, divisive thoughts in audiences. I don’t love when we lead the witnesses out in the darkened seats. 

I ask you, “are you looking for research support?”

You ask,

“So do you do research dramaturgy?”

I’m intellectually very nerdy and obsessive about research, though almost only with primary sources, almost never with sociology or anthropology. Research provides texture and fuel and mulch, but no answers and never leads to ‘corrections.’ I can name my favorite cheats in every historical play I have worked on, and I’ll roll my eyes if audiences are condescending about them. 

We ask each other, “What else should I know about you?”

*The world premieres in the first list, I was a significant dramaturgical partner across the full developmental process to premiere; the plays in the second list, I was a co-dramaturg on breakout hit plays that had a long life of development that stretched before and after me at multiple institutions. Equal joy, but not equal credit.