I are from that and Margaret's gone. Uh Tom isn't there anymore. I mean, he's alive, but he's not there anymore. Of course, we're not there either, but but really the people that were put that first one together, which is Mar Margaret and Jerry and and Martha and Jeff and I, the the other three are they're gone. And Helen and Joan and Helen. That's my other thing, of course, I was going to say is because Helen was Helen contributed to it, you know. I mean Helen was if it wasn't for Helen it couldn't have happened. So uh she was so nice. I mean she was a very kind lady you know we used to go and see her. We had so much fun. We were working on bus stop and we became such good friends that we would just go over and sing for her friends. you know, she wanted she would invite us over and we would she would the ladies that lived in the retirement community where she lived and we would go over and Jeff and I would, you know, bring some bring a singer, you know, and we would do songs from the show and she was like she was like so proud of it. She would like show off, you know, and she came to our first show out there was called Front Street Gaes Dodge City's Hottest Review which took place in Dodge City, Kansas. So, we stayed in uh in Kansas territory for that. She came to that and she was uh she was just a really nice lady. A really nice lady. And it was so clear to see her in all of Bill's plays. You know, you can clearly see I mean Bill's, you know what I I've said to Jean that fascinates me is it's so clear to me, not to get dark, but it it it's so clear to me that if you read Bill's plays that he was going to commit suicide. It's like so obvious because in every single play if there isn't a suicide there's talk of suicide and even the first draft of bus stop do you know there was a suicide in bus stop in the first version of bus stop uh which is in at the end of the second act in the play where now Dr. Lyman goes off and then the sheriff comes in and says, "Christ, somebody puked all over the back house." Well, in the very first version, the sheriff came in and said, "Christ, there's blood all over the back house." And Dr. Lyman had killed himself. He had taken a knife and killed himself. So the third act of the play aside from the Bo Sheree and the other stories became was also a police the sheriff investigating what everybody saw and was this a you know was this a murder or did he kill himself? Uh clearly it wasn't right for the piece but his in his first draft he had that suicide and so many things he talked about suicide. So I said to Gene, I said, you know, nowadays if you read somebody's work and you saw so much focus on suicide, you would say, this person, you know, really, we better help this person. We better have an intervention or do something because clearly this is where this person's life is leading. But in those days, you know, in the 50s, 60s, nobody, we didn't have Oprah, we didn't have um, you know, self-help books, we didn't have Dr. fill or any of that stuff. And uh somehow nobody noticed. And yet if you read all that work, you know, as a body of work, you see it in everything he wrote, the published and the unpublished. Uh it's very sad, you know, and also what you see in the books. It's so amazing to me that that when I first went to Independence, uh well, when Helen told me about Independence, how she didn't want certain things to be published or to be in the library because she was afraid that they would um hurt people, you know, and people how they didn't want to be identified with the books and didn't want them in the library. By the time we went there for the inch festival, people were coming up to me and saying, "Oh, hi. I'm Bill's Rosemary. Oh, hi. I was this. I was this person. I was that person." And everybody seemed to like glory in the fact that they were actually in these in these plays and in the in the novels. And I thought, isn't that sad that that couldn't have happened in Bill's lifetime that they could have appreciated the fact that he wrote about them? You know, I'm just reading um Vivian Vance's um biography and she was also a close friend of mine. In fact, Viv was going to play Grace in the bus stop in the musical bus stop that Josh Logan version that I was going to do with Bernardet as an actor and play Bo. Viv was going to play Grace and she had been a childhood friend of um of Billing and in one of his major works there's a major character that is Vivian that's based on that's based on Viv Viv and um in fact in the novel it says the missing it talks about the biography talks about a missing two years of her life. Well, the missing two years of her life is what he wrote about in that in his work. And um but they were both they were they were really really good friends. She also had a family that was very um troublesome. My mother was very religious. Told her she was going to go to hell. You know, she she was a sinner if she was an actress. And all these terrible things would happen and and um so had a lot of psychological problems. and went to therapy for a long time. Outwardly she was Ethel Mertz and she was happy. She was a big Broadway star before she was Ethel Mertz and she was like happy golucky and all these wonderful things but inwardly um there was that same suppression that Bill Ling writes about and I saw it in Helen too. you know, I saw it was a time and an error when they an an era when they grew up, I think that um things weren't talked about, you know, and I once wrote the um liner notes for a a recording. It's an interesting story actually. I was in a restaurant in New York eating and I was talking about Bill Lingge and I was talking about bus stop. This is in the 80s, early 80s, 82 I guess. And this woman at the next table turns to me and said, "Oh, you know, are you in the recorded record business?" And I said, "Yeah." She said, "Oh, I am too. I work at Kadaman Records." And uh she said, "You know, that name sounds familiar to me." She said, "I think I saw something in the back room that uh that has that name on it." So she we exchanged numbers and the next day she called me and said, "I found this box." She said, "All it says on the side is in. we don't know what it is. Can you identify it for us? So, she sent me the tapes and it turned out to be Bill reading, you know, you've heard the records, right, where he reads uh he reads People in the Wind and he reads Come Back Little Sheba. So I identified it and I wrote the the liner notes and um in the liner notes what I said is something I still believe. Um and that is that whereas Tennessee was very blatant about the sexuality and very blatant about you know all the issues he was dealing with and whatever uh whatever homosexuality any kind of devian whatever it was he was like pretty much right up front. Uh whereas Ine all ines characters are very suppressed and it's very um under the surface. So it's there if you want to get it. It's not there if you don't want to choose to see it. And that's what I think is great about his writing is that's what life is. I mean, that's what people are like, you know, and uh he sort of opened the closet door for all these people in the Midwest and exposed their their secrets and their their sexuality. And I love that. I love that. I mean, I I think he is still and maybe now that you know, last summer bus stop got incredible reviews at the Shaw Festival in Williamstown. And I hope that once again that he can be recognized as one of our greatest living not living one of our greatest American playwrights living in the 1950s because he was I mean he was recognized as that then. He also wrote a lot of things that I think in the unpublished works that nowadays would not be shocking to anybody and our you know standard operating procedure. I mean but in those days they were quite scandalous. um the psychology he went into about people, you know. Um from what I know about him, he was a very kind man. I know that uh Jerry told me quite a bit about him. I know when I met him, he was a very kind man, but I was young, so you know, you're like, "Oh my god, it's William. I can't believe it." Uh, and as an adult over the year, that's what's also been interesting in re-examining Bus Stop is my perceptions of it as a 30-year-old when I first started working on it. Totally different from my perceptions as a 58-year-old man and also totally different as in the perception of the time that's gone by. you know, um, Helen, well, you know, you know, all the characters she was. I mean, she's Renie. She's, you know, she's all those little girls. She's all those, you know, troubled little girls. And,

um, she really loved him. She really, really loved him. and she really wasn't equipped to deal with his problems. I mean, his issues. And I think a lot of those issues, I'm sad to say, came from growing up in that environment, in that at that particular time, you know,

where where everybody was supposed to conform. You know, somebody from Independence quotes in in in Vivian Vance's book, they say, "Oh, well, all his plays were lies. Nobody was like, this is the this is the ironic statement in this book that isn't meant to be ironic, but I find quite ironic." Now, we know that Viv was, you know, had psychological problems her entire life. Vivian Vance, um, which she readily spoke about. You know, she was at the end of her life, she was doing a lot to help pe me mental illness because she went through therapy her whole life. She had breakdowns. He should have had nervous breakdowns. Um, Bill, we know that he was in and out of institutions and dealing with his alcoholism and uh and dealing with guilt, you know, over things that he shouldn't have been guilty about. Um, but he wrote really about these people. Well, this woman from Independence, I can't remember her name, says in this book about Julian Vance, well, none of these none of these stories about these people in his stories are true. you know, we all we were just normal kids, you know, doing the exact normal thing and we were nothing like those people in his stories. You've got to remember when you're reading these plays that this, you know, he may say that, but this is the same independence that produced a Vivian Vance and a William

In. Do you know what I mean? Hello. Of course. Yes. And hello. So, um, anyway, would you like to know? But as you said, it was it was an era more so than an individual city. I mean, oh, it was a whole era of suppression, the McCarthy era. Are you kidding? Everybody around the I mean, I look back at my own family and my parents were from Ohio and they moved to California and my father who who's a wonderful man who passed away in April. In fact, one of the greatest things about independence was for a couple years my parents were able to come and it meant so much to them and they got along with the community so well because they grew up in Ohio and it was a similar very similar town, very similar community. So they got along just great. I mean they loved Margaret, they loved those people and um they loved everybody. They had a great great time and um so yeah it was the whole country was suppressed. the whole country was living in this this fictitious world where we don't talk about the fact that we have a god as a president and who and Kennedy but he's also slipping girls up the back stairs you know and and sleeping with Marilyn Monroe we don't talk about the fact that Marilyn Monroe was probably murdered most likely we don't talk about the fact or we didn't talk about the fact you know that Judith exer got pregnant by Kennedy um I mean none of that stuff was now I think it's maybe too much now I think there's a too much of let's be open and let's let's write about our scandals and let's write about our sexuality. Let's talk about more information than I need to know. More information than anybody needs to know and you know and Tom Cruz should keep his mouth shut and things like that. I mean but but during the 50s yeah nobody talked about these things and that's why I think Bill did such a great job of capturing the reality of people. I mean look at look at Doc and Lola. I mean those are so real. I mean, you know those people and and you know that's his you know who those people are right that's really his aunt in Witchah in Witchaw his aunt and his uncle who are also in dark at the top of the stairs so amazing to me when people write about William and they talk they want to write you know they write biography things are in other books about him the biographies write in the plays I mean he always wrote in in all the most of the short stories and in the plays they are really about real people I doubt that he ever really made anybody up from scratch match. I know that he knew those people cuz they're so real and they recur. I mean, the aunt recurs, you know, his mother in dark at the top of the stairs, a little boy in dark at the top of stairs. There's his autobiography, you know, um or at least the first part of it. Uh in the older plays, he always he always the Virgil character. This is something I love. This is something I talk about when we work on bus stop.

Um, I think that what I what Jerry Lawrence and I used to sort of uh raise our eyebrows at is there was a lot in independence once they were open about talking about Bill's homosexuality. It suddenly became too much of an issue and suddenly pe all people you would say what do you know about we image and they would say well I know he was a homosexual. Well, you know, as Richard Chamberlain said, you know, if somebody tells you they're homosexual, all it means is that if they're having sex, it will probably be with somebody of the same sex. That's all it means. You could be a heterosexual and have a torture chamber in your basement, you know, and do all kinds of perverse things, but to society, if you're a heterosexual, fine, that's that's totally acceptable. You're a heterosexual. that somehow the purest maybe a homosexual has the most pure relationship but oh my god it's under this dark cloud. So I was kind of shocked there was so much focus on this and even people who gave lectures you know they he's homosexual he's a homosexual but that's he may have been a homosexual but that's not but that has nothing to do with what he was about there are any number of great playwrights Stephen you know writers Steven you know Alred Albby certainly doesn't mean anything there also it just it's like saying a straight writer can't write about homosexuals because he's straight or she's straight you know it's ridiculous so I felt there was too much emphas emphasis on on that aspect of Bill. However, in the plays, what I think is amazing is that he really did write about when I was at Josh's one day, Josh Logan's one day, Josh got a phone call from Bill and of course we're working on bus stop because we what we did for those first six months was we would do presentations for David Merrick and for Roger Stevens and the producers who would be involved in producing the show. And so I was there quite a bit and Josh would work on the script and sort of like try me and we it was fun. I mean we had a great time and Bill was constantly calling from California with ideas and and input and uh he called one day and Josh was in his little office over there and Josh came out and said who I love dearly by the way too um who also was a manic depressive who had other issues. Well, Josh came out and said, uh, um, can you believe that, Billing? He keeps trying to tell me that Virgil is a latent homosexual. Now, can you believe that? And I just thought it was so funny because Jo Josh is talking like it's a real person. You know, first he's like, can you believe he said that about him? Well, that's impossible. And me and then on the other side of the coin, Billing wrote the character. So, Billing says, well, you know, really Virgil's a late homosexual. Then probably he is because Bill Ling wrote the character. and so skillfully and so beautifully and so tastefully and so truthfully and that's Billing you know Dr. Lyman is Billing is the alcoholic side of Billing quoting Shakespeare. Um but Billing but Virgil's relationship with B is very much like certain relationships that William had in his real life with some now very well-known actors. And uh and then he proceeded to elaborate on that relationship in other plays. Each play that became a little more obvious, a little more obvious. And finally, just right by the time he gets to where his daddy, it's the same relationship with the guy except the guy is is openly is openly gay. And I thought that was pretty daring for the time. I thought that was very very daring for the time, you know. I think it's very kind of daring now. And it's kind of better than what they write now. When everybody writes these characters, you know, he wrote them, he made them very real. He made them very truthful and very honest and troubled and of the time, you know, but I did feel there was a little too much emphasis. Just because somebody writes those characters, that doesn't mean that the emphasis should be on that, right? I know that trouble I know it troubles Jean, too. It troubles Gene. It troubles um it troubles a lot of people, but he's certainly one of our He is what a great playwright. I mean, have you read the short stories? I've read some of them. Have you read some of them? Have you read the little novels he wrote? Which ones did you read? I read Miss Wyoff and My Son is a Splendid Driver and it's wonderful. Have you read the unpublished ones? No, I have. Go in there and read the unpublished stuff sometime. Um, it's fascinating. You know, it's and he writes, you know, there there are some people in this town that I would love to know who they are because ob there's I'll tell you what he writes recurringly in a lot of the unpublished work. There was an Italian family and the Italian family apparently had a son who was like, you know, very um popular with the women and gorgeous and uh I would expect Warren Batty is an Italian, that type. And um he writes repeatedly about this young girl having a relationship with this in different versions of the story. He was trying to get it right. He also writes about another boy that um in his last novel, The Boy from the Circus, which was laying on his desk with the rejection notice when he went out in the garage and killed himself. He received it, put it on the desk, and Helen came in and found the novel with the rejection notice and walked out in the garage and he was gone. Uh but he was he had various drafts trying to get this story right. And the story is about a boy who was in the merchant marines was a sailor or something and he used to work in fields and he was older than the other kids but he ended up going to into the independence college junior college and um and he was gorgeous and he caused some scandal because he was in a um the reason I think this must be true is because he doesn't just write about it once he tries to get the story right in different versions and uh someone was directing a a pageant at the school and the kid was apparently dressed in tights or dressed in something small. Now this is you know you're talking the 1920s and uh or I think it's a jock strap in one in one version with glitter on it or something and caused a big scandal in the town because this teacher or this person who put the the um the event together had this boy parading indeently in front of the town. He writes that story over and over again. So, I suspect it's a true event. Um, one of the stories Helen never wanted at the time to be published was he he wrote a lot about the the um the two bankers wives. Do you know that story? Well, in Independence, Kansas, I know that the there were feuding bankers and their wives, I guess, were pretty responsible for Well, the wives are the whole thing. The wives were inseparable and the wives went to Europe together. They went everywhere together, right? They were very different, but they he writes wonderful funny stories about them. They went to Europe and they had learn they went to England and they had a great time. They sent everybody postcards. They went to France and they apparently the story is they got off the uh the train and one of them said lube leagues. And the other one said, "No, no, no. It's le bagges." And she said, "No, it's Leagues." She said, "No, it's Lees." And she says, "No, no, whatever it was." and they fought and the next thing you know one of the women came home. They never spoke again. The ladies of the town split because they could never invite one. They could never invite them both to the same function. It escalated to the point where the husbands who own the one bank split up and then the other husband built a bank across the street to compete with the other one and that's why there are two banks. But it's because these two women in independence fought and this would have been like the turn of the century. So I mean something like that would happen then, right? I mean, so those were the kind of things that thought, well, while these people are still around, you know, we mustn't let them know that Billy exposed this sc or the man that shot himself in the foot. That's another thing. You know, the man that shot himself in the foot, Sinclair. Harry Sinclair. Um, Harry Sinclair had an affair with someone in Independence. This woman then went off to Witchah or Kansas City and uh disappeared for nine months or whatever or six months um and came back. Well, the next thing the people at Independence knew they were getting mail from Harry Sinclair's wife and he about their daughter that they had. Uh and they didn't even know that she had a daughter, you know, that they had a daughter. and um they were surprised actually that the wife had even committed to having a daughter. Um, so years later when Billing was in New York, he got a late night phone call from Truman Capot saying the princess I don't and I can't remember the name. The princess so and so wants to meet you. And he it was like 11:00 at night and Bill said, "But wait." Oh, first he said, "I have a surprise for you. Somebody wants to meet you." And he said, "You've got to tell me who it is because I'm not leaving my house and getting dressed at 11 o'clock at night." So he says, "The Princess so and so." And he said, "She really wants to meet me?" and and he thought, "You're not just making this up, Truman." And he said, "No." And she was sort of an um she had notoriety because she was Harry Sinclair's daughter who had married a very wealthy prince and she became the princess. So she she got there and she did want to meet Billing. And he walked in and he was shocked when he first saw her because he recognized her immediately. He she looked exactly like the woman in town that everybody knew had had the affair with Harry Sinclair when he was a kid. So his reaction was startled to say the least. And um they sat down and she said uh I want to ask you something. She said you know I'm adopted. She said my parents um someone in Independence was pregnant and moved to what had the baby in Kansas City and so they adopted me. And Billing realized she didn't even know that Harriet Sinclair was her real father. her biological father. They had told her her whole life that she was somebody else's child that she that that they had adopted. So she um Bill couldn't tell her, you know, he knew exactly who that he knew Harry Sinclair. Who could he say that's your real father and your mother was? He just couldn't bring himself to say he figured if they had told her, you know, she would have been in her 30s or for this time maybe 40s. He couldn't tell her that that was her, that he was a real father. Well, we need to find her and have her endow the festival. I wonder if she's still around. Who knows? That's a wild story. I had heard that one before. Oh, there's a lot of stories. I got somebody else here. I think Adam is here. So, did that Oh, we I there many many things there and and uh how can I tell all of that? But I'll choose the best and I'll I'll piece it together with things that we have from other people and tell that important part of I wish you know I miss I wish I could talk this little I'm sure they're all gone now. Those ladies. Oh, I love Stella and Nora. Stella and Nora. Oh, I didn't say Stella and Nora. Oh, I Stella and Nora. What happened to the brother that lived in the attic? You remember the brother that lived in the attic? Well, brother. Well, Steinbergers, you know, Steinberers were Well, Steinberers are in picnic, you know, and well, they're in uh chemical.

I solved that. Okay. All right. So, we'll just visit informally here and I'll take some sound bites here and there. Uh you you Brooklyn's home. So, uh how did you hear about or end up in Independence? I first heard about the festival in American Theater magazine and it caught my attention because it seemed like an really lively festival with important playwrights from all over the country in the middle of nowhere. So, I was intrigued and I poked around a little and heard about these playwriting residencies and saw that uh a couple of playrs that I really admire including Melanie Marik had had lived in the in house and done this residency and and I wanted to do it and so I I approached Peter and sent him some work and that's how how it all started. So, you heard about it and approached him. I did. I I I did approach him directly and but I knew Melanie Marik and asked her about it and she was one of the people who recommended me. So word on the street is is good definitely. it it and actually uh it was probably close to two years ago that I first wrote Peter and there wasn't the word there wasn't a lot of word on the street about this res residency at that time and uh so so was a a little bit of a of a of a secret um but but but the people who had been there that I spoke to were just raving about it and so I was determined to go if I could. So for a lot of people in the audience uh at distribute in April have no idea about how a play gets written. I mean they're they're nineto-5 people with jobs and uh what does it mean to someone like you to have a residency? What does that mean? Why? Um, well, it it's really a huge gift because it's it's so it's so difficult to to survive as a playwright in in America in 2005. And just to have the the the time and space to focus primarily on writing a play is is extraordinarily rare. and and I I know that it's rare for even even the most successful playwrights uh the most well-known playwrights. So, so it's just it's just the uh ability to to focus a lot on on a play makes all the difference in the world uh in being able to to really enter in into the world of the play and and let that become more real than than the noise on the street or juggling day jobs or you know or other kinds of writing assignments. So, it's yeah, it's an enormous opportunity to to complete a play in a different way. We interviewed someone the other evening and while we were getting ready, he had his Blackberry out and he was scrolling through all of these emails and and I thought, well, you can't even escape that in in Kansas, but there's so many distractions these days. And uh so I I guess Independence would in some ways be kind of a uh safe haven or a little more remote than Brooklyn. It it it's radically different. Um I was really able to lose myself in in the work in a way that I'm rarely able to in in Brooklyn or or actually many other places. It was really one one of the best writing residencies I've I've ever had. Uh I'm going to ask you to hold that thought just because Right. Oh, right. Exactly. So relevant. I could even play that and people say, "Oh, yeah. They're in New York. How do you concentrate in New York?" But we'll let that get out of the way a minute and I'll ask you that again because that's a good statement. This seems to be a crossroads here for Yeah. Yeah. Lot of sirens.

Okay. I think we're gone there. So, so Independence is a haven. It's really pretty different from where you work in Brooklyn. It's It's radically different than than try trying to work in Brooklyn. uh I was really able to to lose myself in the work there in a way that I'm rarely able to in in New York. Uh because of the quiet because of the support from the Inch Center. Uh I got an enormous amount of work on on two full-length plays accomplished there. So what were those plays? What were you working on? Um one was something I'd been preparing to write for some time. It's a play inspired by uh the freedom summer in 1964, the civil rights movement and for me kind of an ambitious play requiring a lot of research um as well as finding a way in and I I don't know if I could have uh begun that play in in Brooklyn, New York uh for lots of reasons and I was really able to to begin that play which was for me a a huge accomplishment and actually now uh about a year later I'm I'm finishing that play but definitely that I got a great running start and the other piece was was a at that time a brand new two character play uh that I was able to really advance both because of the time writing in the in house and having a workshop directed by Peter at the center which was a a great help in terms of of focusing the play, getting getting response from an audience, hearing questions from these two amazing actors who spent several days working on it. So, it's not only time to do the writing, but Peter then the inch festival then pro a little bit intimidating and it's here I am holding forth about my plays. That's what it's all about. That's what what the inch festival is all about, I think, for people who've come in and gotten to sit down at lunch with Arthur Miller, Neil Simon. You know, it's quality time, too. They're just less distracted than if they're at a lunch in the Sardis. I think Oh, definitely. People who've gone to the festival have just remarked many times, I can't believe I was in Independence, Kansas having fried chicken at Riverside Park with Peter Schaffer. Um but you said I was starting to say that it's not just the time to write the play but then the festival also provides this opportunity to hear the play which again most people don't think about that as a part of that whole process how important that is to hear it that really was one of one of the best parts of the residency was was working with Peter on this workshop where he brought two terrific actors from New York to spend several days mostly around a table uh reading the play, asking questions about the play for that very pure process aspect also putting together in a pretty short time this really strong public reading and that was attended by by a good cross-section of people from Independence who were a great audience uh very open-minded um knowledgeable about about theater. Um, cur curious about about theater and and there was a talk back afterwards and really really useful to get the responses from from this audience from independents. Um, not not jaded in any way. Um, but but certainly not for the most part not not naive either about about theater. Um, and frankly I, as Peter could tell you, I I'm not a fan of of talkbacks for for lots of reasons. Um, I like feedback, but I'm not a I don't love getting up there and just sort of, you know, hearing hearing audienc's instant responses to a reading. But this this was um the best talk back I'd ever had. Um, again, just because the audience came to it with a real kind of curiosity about new work that there was sort of no prejudgment of like, oh, well, he better prove to us that he can write a play. Um, but just good good questions about about the play and good responses to to their experience of the play. And I have to think that that is a growing awareness on that group of people's part. uh from having seen more about the playwriting process because I'm sure the first time they heard a reading of a play at a festival, they expected it to be a finished product and they're now learning to that they can participate and uh that's good, right? And and but that's that's sometimes why I don't like talkbacks because you'll get audiences who think that participation means that they they can then now begin to rewrite your play for you. And it wasn't it wasn't that at all. It w it was it was a real sort of joy about sharing in the process and and just wanting to share their their impressions of the experience. Pretty sophisticated really. uh knowing that that what was most helpful to me was was hearing about their gut reactions to this piece. You lived in the inch house and uh what about meals, transportation, and so forth? How does that work for for you? Well, meals are one of the great things is is that you you can eat really well ve very inexpensively. I I still I still am sentimental about about how how well you could eat for for next to nothing there and how how easy it was to just get get food. Um and getting around is is simple. Well, I mean, you you did need a car um to get certainly to get to the college usually, but uh it's it's such it's such a small town that it wasn't it wasn't at all daunting to uh to leave leave to teach a class, you know, 10 minutes, but well, I didn't do that, but to but to leave for a class shortly before it begins. there's sort of not the the like in New York if I have to go into town to teach a class I really have to start thinking about it a couple hours in advance and and there's just so none of that there. It's it's um the ability to get to get to the supermarket or to get over to the in center is is isn't a big part of of planning your day. So so that makes makes you much more able to focus on on the work. And so did did you teach high school or college classes? I got to teach both. I got to teach at uh Independence Community College playwriting workshop. Um but also and even more meaningful to me was I got to teach a playwriting workshop at at a high school in Sedan, Kansas, which was one of the great teaching experiences I've ever had. It was it's it Sudan is a town uh considerably smaller than Independence and uh the students there most of them had virtually never seen live theater and it was really an experience of watching them discover what theater is and that they could put their stories up there on stage and and that that experience really transformed them and was so exciting to see that that theater really does have the power to change people's lives. That was that was what te teaching at Sedan was about for me. That's great. Did they see their own works read by they did uh we work mostly in Sudan. I co-taught the class with with my co-resident Keradvitch. So we work with them for for the eight weeks of the residency and then they actually came by bus the 40 minutes to independence to the ine theater and uh we spent a long day rehearsing uh readings of the short plays that the 10 students in this from this small high school had written. Um people from the in center community performed in the plays for the most part. Um, so there were even some professionals um like Hannah Joyce Hovind uh performing in these in these pieces and and that that was really um an extraordinary climax for them because they've been working on these plays and and really enjoying it. Um but again had didn't really know much about theater and then suddenly to see it up there on stage and to see an audience captivated by their stories was was so so meaningful to them. So, what's uh your back in Brooklyn? Um, have you recommended to anyone else that they come out enthusiastically? Yeah, I'm I'm pushing a couple of people because I know that that it'll be a great experience for them. Um, def definitely I I I think that that most playwrights uh would would want to do this um because it because it In some ways, you can you can make of it what you want. So, so in other words, there's there's sort of no agenda of well, you must have a play that's at a certain level in order to workshop it. Uh Peter was wide open to the fact that that the play we workshopped was was hot off the printer. um pretty pretty messy and and just just well we'll we'll it was pretty much a playwright driven approach to developing the play which which was a great opportunity. Um often you can't get a workshop of a play unless it's at a certain point and unless it's the I didn't I didn't have to audition the play. Peter said what play do you want to work on? and and that's that's a rare opportunity.

You've said many things there that I can use. And uh I I hear I'm already in my head doing the editing between you and an Oh, good. uh may even have to go over to Sedan and get some pictures. That'd be great. Oh, I I mean I could go on and on about Sedan. Um, I know it's not that relevant, but but it w it uh um well I so it may not be as relevant to the to the independence audience, the Sedan thing, but I think we're trying to show that uh it's not just independence anymore. It's uh with Peter's guidance, it's reaching out into area high schools and colleges at 24-hour plays that he does gives a lot of people a taste of theater that, as you say, many of them wouldn't have otherwise. So, Right. And I I got to to work to spend a long night on the 24-hour high school plays with high school students from all over all over the area. And and uh again, it was something I was a little unsure how how are novice playwrights going to write a play in in 24 hours, but uh they did. They were really good plays. And I have I've seen the college production. I haven't seen any of the high school 24-hour plays. And you felt they were pretty they did it. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Um and and that I think that's one of the other great things about the residency, things like the 24-hour plays. I actually got to see um meet me in St. Louis, which was the the Niwala production that year and or just the way that people come together for the events at the Ine Theater. It's it's theater there really seems to be something that that the community participates in. It's it's um it's so it's so different from from theater in New York. And uh I guess in some ways some of it is some of it like the knee walla play is community theater. Um, but that's that's a really great thing to have to have theater be not just an entertainment or some elite thing, but something that that's um a a big important happy social event for for a whole community that everybody gets involved in. I think that's getting back to to to the roots of of why theater is a really essential thing, especially in this country for for fostering community and giving people a sense of, you know, where they fit into their their community. And community seems to become a dominant word used in these past few days as we've talked to people. It's I'm beginning to find in my mind a common theme there that I'm going to build around on the for the tribute is community. I you know I haven't been in a lot of I haven't spent a lot of time in small towns but I do think that there's something really unusual about independence as as a a community that that has an appetite and a love for the arts and artists. Uh it's a the I think I think the sort of the serious artists there may be a small community but they're they're unusually ardent and then the people who aren't artists are are really so hospitable to to to the playwrights and the people there. Um, you know, having to having to get a haircut and and hearing the enthusiasm of the barber about the festival and how she'd done costumes over there is uh just makes you realize that that it's there's a real fabric in in that town supporting this this thing. Very good. You've said many nice things I can use. Oh, I hope so. I mean, take take what's helpful and the and it's good for me as an independent person to hear that outsiders think see that fabric and that community still alive there because the town's changed some in my time that I've been there and so I wonder are we losing something but it sounds like it's still there. Thanks. Oh, thank you. He made fun of her. Oh, he did. Yeah. What did he say? You know, just kind of guess Oh, he made fun of how you know her sort of model. He was very serious last night talking about Africa and so forth. The AIDS project. All right. Cell phones off, candy wrappers unwrapped. Yeah. Okay. We're going to talk about Independence and uh Okay. Um so we've talked about to several of the people that been back to Independence, but as you suggested last night, you're probably on the the younger end of the spectrum here. You make our average age look good. So, this is good to be talking to somebody. I'm one of the kids. You're one of the kids, the the kids. Uh, how did you come to find out about the festival, get invited there? How did Peter find you? How did you end up there in what would have been three years ago now for Arthur Lawrence? I think um from what I've been able to gather in my two years at the festival, it's a in many ways a family affair and my involvement with the festival was literally uh through family. Peter Alenstein's brother David uh had directed me in a production of The Chosen with Theodore Beckel in Miami and in Jersey at the Papermill Playhouse. Um, and just so happened that um, Peter was looking for someone who could play Con from Arthur Lawrence uh, Home of the Brave and young Jewish fellow with lots of problems and I had played a young hidic fellow with lots of problems. So, it was a no-brainer and David introduced me to Peter. what was a wonderful find because I was on the other end of the uh project in Witchah saying who are we going to get to do this says I have somebody perfect in mind and so it was a happy accident it was uh you're a Jersey boy so what was it like coming to Independence Kansas had you been to Kansas I had been to Kansas because uh I had an itinerant upbringing we actually lived in Omaha Nebraska for what I call my Tom Sawyer years when I was about 12, 13, you know, um got a corn field in the backyard and we'd go out into the back backyard with our BB guns and sort of have adventures. Um and during that period when I lived in Nebraska, we had visited Kansas City and we had been through Kansas and visited the Midwest, took the opportunity to poke around. I hadn't been back um until I guess what what was it 2003 or no 2004 um and had been a New Yorker for almost 10 years at that point. So uh it was quite an experience to wake up at 6:00 in the morning New York City and hail a cab and end up in a town that maybe doesn't even have any cabs. I couldn't find any when I got there. But um a a very surreal experience 11 hours later to be in a in a town of 8,000 when you were in town of 8 million just that morning. 8 million. I lost track of New York. Yeah. It's probably growing a little faster than Independence Kansas is these days. Maybe. Although the inch festival has uh brought some a lot of high profile to to the little town of independence. But it wasn't maybe quite as much a shock to you to come out from New York to Kansas as it has been for some of our people who haven't been to the Midwest. Maybe not. Um, however, uh, it makes for a very, uh, a very interesting four days because you have, you know, your urbanites from New York or LA converging on this tiny little town. Um, and there's nothing that brings you closer to the other uh strangers in a foreign land than than that dynamic, you know, uh kind of band together and try to figure out where okay, what is this and and uh how do we survive here? And and by the end of the four days, it's uh it's just been a wonderful experience. Yeah. To be welcomed with such open arms when you come from two cities that are so doggy dog, you know, your every day is a fight is a a really nice feeling. Uh, I heard them talking in the play last night about the neighborhood and uh, yeah, Independence is a neighborhood, I guess. But, uh, is there different similarities between a a East Coast neighborhood and a Independence Kansas community? I think so. I think there's a there's a Midwestern gentility that I remember from when I was living in Omaha, Nebraska. And u there certainly is a is a gentility in Independence that and reservedness to sort of play your cards or keep your cards close to the vest. Um that there there is an indefinitely in New York or Jersey. You sort of tell people what you think of them um in no uncertain terms. Um, luckily I'm singing a very difficult show vocally. So, uh, it's bad for my voice to yell at anybody. I I can't be as much a New Yorker as I have been in the past. Now, I remember I'm a canon. I remember the first time coming to New York and just being very uh put off by these people who were in my face and and just got to the point pretty quick, you know. Well, they say I mean they say that New York is the smallest is the largest small town in the world and uh there is a you know you stick around New York long enough longer than we spend in independence longer than four days and you figure out that there's a there's love under the uh the f-words that the litany of four-letter words that are coming your way. I finally figured that out. Yeah. So then you made one uh trip to Kansas and we invited you back. What' you come back for the second time to help with? The first time was Arthur Lawrence. The second time was Tina How. Both very very very New York playwrights but very different New York playwrights. Arthur Lawrence as a Jewish playwright who started writing plays about the Jewish experience in the war. Tina how as an upper east side socialite. Uh both of them in their own way I think were were uh it seemed to me a little shell shocked by by suddenly being in the middle of of the Midwest and a tiny little town. Um and both equally but differently charmed by that experience too. And the town took to each other too in their own ways. Oh yeah. I mean, Lawrence sort of irrassable individuality and and and and Tina How's um uh wit were both I think charming at least to me and and I think the audiences appreciated appreciated that too. Um you did a scene uh tell me about it here in a second uh 14ina how and and just as an aside I really appreciated how much uh preparation you had made u just it was ready to go when you and Robin stepped on the stage there wasn't much more to do and yeah initiation by fire and I remember calling you or emailing you and saying u very hesitantly would you consider wearing a you know bathing trunks or something for this and describing the scene and hey you did the whole gamut so tell tell this audience about the scene and we'll probably use some B-roll of it while you're talking. Well, it it was um much like the prior year. It's there's a a lot of activity in four days and um you know, you're living a busy life in New York or wherever you LA. Um and suddenly, uh there's this 4-day conference to go to and you've got scenes to prepare. And I mean, I spent a lot of time on the plane out there making sure I was, you know, on top of the scripts I was reading and that scene in particular. Um, I gave special u attention to because it was part of the the uh the big presentation for Tina How and I didn't want to let her down. I knew I'd be meeting her for the first time. And if I had to do it in a bathing suit, well, that's the price you pay for in immortalizing Tina House. one of Tina House's greatest plays in the festival. Well, probably you almost had to do the whole festival in bathing suit. I remember you got in on a Tuesday night, I think, two in the morning. I met you some horrible hour and they lost your baggage in W. No baggage. Yeah, it could be worse. It was It's only a four four day conference, so it could have been worse. But yeah, that's a little harrowing to not have your your personal effects. They retrieved it though. I hope that they did. They did. It all it all worked out in the end as uh everything seems to at the end. It's it's a frenetic four days and yet everything culminates in a happy ending. uh four days and and I'm always amazed uh at how busy Peter keeps people but uh people seem to like to be busy there who come out for the four days. Oh yeah, it's exhilarating and everyone's equally as busy and it's uh creates a little fraternity, you know, of the people that you come together with in many cases strangers you've never met before. uh people who are you know that live in in New York if if you're from New York or in LA and um you don't have any opportunity to really meet each other and suddenly you're all working frenetically to put these things together um in a very short span of time. Um and I've maintained relationships with the people I've met. It's it's almost like um theater camp for grown-ups except you're you know this stuff you're doing is far more weighty than than uh you know a pageant for your parents. But the but the the camaraderie is uh is is similar and unique. You don't get a lot of opportunities for conferences so much in the theater because what what is really your conference is your rehearsal period with your cast or whatever. But uh but unless you're working on a production with other people, sometimes it's hard to come together. And this is a really great way of uh having a reunion of the two coasts, so to speak. That's a great uh theater camp for adults is going to make it into the evening. I can tell you that. That's great. Uh what what I've learned from visiting with people this time uh asking them about their trips to independence that surprised me was uh the amount of interconnection and uh growing experience that it is for the actors and directors and producers who come in. Uh I've always assumed that it was for us in Kansas and this was kind of an imposition to ask all of you to come there. No, it's not an imposition. And the other thing that I think is really exciting about it is that it's a celebration of the playwright. And um just personally, I've been lucky enough u in my you know young life as an actor to almost exclusively originate roles or do plays that are new enough so that the playwright is still in the room. I think I've only done two things where the playwright was no longer living or wasn't in the room. Um, and so to come to to be so used to working with a playwright and to see the excitement in a playwright uh when you're breathing words life into the new words that they've written or they're writing words rewriting so that things fit you, you know, to to be at that level of um collaboration with playwrights and then to come and see uh and to help uh contribute to what is essentially a roast for a playwright who's had a a you know a a long and varied career and see the joy on their faces when they go back and remember when they were writing for actors who were breathing the first life into the characters they had written. I mean that's a it's a kind of nice uh it's it's nice to see that cycle um since I'm at the beginning of it. You are at the beginning an exciting beginning. um April 2005. You're there to help with Tina How and uh none of us know that in the background is uh a next chapter spinning in your life. I guess you knew a little about that. Well, when when when did we do it? And and the 20th of April around there. About 20th. Yeah. So about 10 days prior, I had received my um offer to star in my first Broadway show ever, and negotiations had just begun. Um I was uh privately nursing plethora insecurities and and worries. Um was a big deal and now it's come to successful fruition. But then I was a I was a mess. So, it was a nice um a nice escape from that private turmoil to to uh to have something external to myself that I had to to partake in. None of us knew there was any turmoil going on. You were focused. Most actors do have turmoil going on 247. So, now you know. Well, u you're you're one more you're a different kind of story for the end festival that that you're an I knew you win story. So, we're all going to be watching back there and cheering for not only the success of this play, but all the future plays. Well, thanks. I wish I could be there. This is uh this is one I'm sorry to miss. Well, we'll get you back there someway, I'm sure, someday. Um, but for the record on tape, I want to say that last night was just an exciting night in the theater. Thanks. Such talent. It's great. Thanks a lot. And you said some wonderful things. Exactly what I want to hear. Good. I'll sprinkle you in. You'll be on one of those screens several times. You know what it's like out there. So, it's a lot of fun. I can't wait to get the DVD. Yeah. And we'll send we'll send you a DVD when it's all done. When it's all edited. Right. All right.