Steven Drukman

Steven Drukman's newest play, "The Bullet Round," received its world premiere at the Arena Stage in Portland Oregon, in 2009. His play "In This Corner" (on the Louis/Schmeling bouts) premiered in January 2008 at the Old Globe in San Diego and won the Critics' Circle "Best New Play" award. Other produced plays: "Another Fine Mess" (Portland Center Stage, Pulitzer Prize Nomination for Drama, 2003), "Going Native" (Long Wharf Theatre), "Flattery Will Get You" (Connecticut Rep), "Collateral Damage" (Illusion Theater, Minneapolis), "Snowmaiden" (Bob Hope Theatre, Dallas). Also: "Truth and Beauty" (South Coast Repertory, Pacific Playwrights Festival). Drukman's work has been developed by the Mark Taper Forum, Intiman Theatre, Sundance Theatre Lab, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Playwrights Horizons, South Coast Rep, New York Theatre Workshop, Orchard Project, many others.

Awards: Edgerton Award for New Plays, Craig Noel Award, Paul Green Award, Alfred P. Sloan Award, Ovid Foundation, Boston Theatre Works, Heinemann finalist, others. As an actor, he has been directed off B-way and regionally by Anne Bogart, Maria Irene Fornes, Richard Foreman, Arnold Wesker, others. Film credit: "East Broadway" (2006). Other writing: 'The New York Times,''The Village Voice,' 'The International Herald Tribune,' 'The Nation,' many others. Former theatre critic for 'Artforum' and WNYC-FM (New York public radio). Former senior editor of 'American Theatre' magazine. His book of edited screenplays by Craig Lucas was published by Alyson Publications.

Steven holds a B.A. from Oberlin, an M.A. from Wisconsin, and a Ph.D. from New York University.

Whose work would you recommend for emerging writers to study?

Well, I teach emerging writers, and I make them read a panoply of writers, depending on the lesson. e.g., in a lesson on subtext, maybe they would read Pinter or Chekhov. In a lesson on action-as-negotiation, they might read Mamet. In a lesson on putting the unconscious on stage, maybe...Fornes? (Incidentally, those are four playwrights everyone should read.)

But they should read novels, too--just to understand how prose is so different, and see films, just to see how film can be, in some ways, easier for someone who's trying to make mimetic art that's ACTIVE. And learn something about music. And art history.

In all these fields, I have my favorites--but that's all they are. I love contemporary writers like Coetzee and Roth and Delillo and Munro, and I just read Wells Tower's collection of short stories, and I guess I was inspired to write, just because good writing inspires me. But all I'm really revealing here is my taste.

If you could remove a single personality from theater history, who would you choose and why?

Noel Coward--the bastard still owes me money. No, kidding. Ummm...this will sound harsh, but Lee Strasberg. I think he did a real disservice to actor training in his muddled up mucking of Stanislavski's system. Then again, some glorious actors came out of the Studio. So that's not fair, perhaps. Still, I think he had a tendency to glorify personality, which may have been a factor in his top students feeding the star system in LA, which as we know continues to have a deadly effect on the professional theatre. Odd and ironic, too, when you consider that THAT very star system was what prompted Stanislavski and Danchenko to found the Moscow Art Theatre. So, yeah, Strasberg--but that's a tough question!

If you could choose a single person to work with for the rest of your artistic life, who would you choose and why?

Well, the reason I write plays at all is because of my buddy Fritz Ertl, who also directed and developed these new scribblers named Paula Vogel and Mac Wellman....many moons ago. I was happy writing for The New York Times (well, no, I'm never happy--but I was settled with it) and he started reading scenes of my first play, and he organized a reading, gave me a deadline, and now...here we are. So, because he's to blame, I guess I'd say Fritz.

What writers do you know that should be produced more and why?

I never ever answer these questions because invariably I forget someone, and invariably that is the friend who reads this interview and sends me a nasty e-mail.

What piece of conventional wisdom about playwriting have you found to be the least helpful?

Ugh, there is so much bad advice. "Write the last scene first." Sounds like a good idea, you won't get stuck without an ending, but who can do that and really truly explore one's characters in the process of writing? If characters take you somewhere you never intended while you are writing your play, follow them! (That's good advice.)

"Write what you know." Hello? Unless you mean write what you know AND NO ONE ELSE KNOWS. That's different.

"Start with a thesis." That's the theory in that silly book called "The Art of Dramatic Writing." You are not writing a school paper, you are writing a play.

But you know what? It's all bad advice if it constipates you. There are no rules. There is Aristotle, and I teach Aristotle, and it doesn't get better than Aristotle. But think about it: dude never wrote a play.

How do you define success as a playwright?

Someday I'll be able to answer this question--I'll let you know.

What is most helpful to you as you sit down to write a first draft?

All first drafts are different. Ideally, they just come out--you are practically taking dictation from your characters and seeing them move and hearing them speak and then whoa! who's that coming in the door?? egad, I better figure out who SHE is, and why is she so angry, and she WHAT? she had his baby years ago and reared him to be a 21st century Lord Mountbatten? I didn't know that, but I better keep writing!

But, unfortunately, real life dictates that sometimes you can't just ride the wave, you have to churn the waters up a bit. These are the more agonizing first drafts. But I always always always write from beginning to end. I may KNOW, roughly, what that last scene is, but I don't let myself write it till I get there.

If you were to write a play that took place in a snow globe, what would it be about?

Shirtless, humpy young men and girls with gorgeous breasts. All of them flirting, saying impossibly clever things, and having trouble in their relationships/work/family. This way, it would be like TV and, so, like too many crappy plays that litter our stages these days. Harrumph. (Besides, what else happens in a snow globe?)

"I am a closet [_________]."

TV-enthusiast. And if you DARE tell anyone...