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Go in-depth with the leading artists and professionals working on stage today when you go Downstage Center. Downstage Center is the American Theatre Wing's acclaimed weekly theatrical interview program that spotlights the creative talents on Broadway, Off-Broadway, across the country and around the world, with in-depth conversations that simply can't be found anywhere else. Now in its sixth year, Downstage Center, produced in association with CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, has been featured by the Associated Press and Slate.com as the place to go for theatrical talk. New editions will be available every other Wednesday from this website, where you can listen online, download the programs or subscribe to the podcast. |
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David Lindsay-Abaire |
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With:
David Lindsay-Abaire
Playwright David Lindsay-Abaire talks about returning to his South Boston roots with the play Good People, how the characters are amalgams of the people he grew up with in that private neighborhood and why he chose it as the setting for a play about the class system in America. He also talks about moving beyond his "Southie" roots as early as seventh grade, when he received a scholarship to a private school and how he had to learn to fit in there; his earliest plays, written for his classmates at that same private school; his theatrical studies at Sarah Lawrence College and later at The Juilliard School; his professional "Plan B", a career in arts administration, fostered by his work at New York's Dance Theatre Workshop; his excitement at his first New York production, A Devil Inside, at SoHo Rep, which began his long collaboration with (and perpetual atonement for) actress Marylouise Burke; how Manhattan Theatre Club, now his longtime creative home, showed early interest in, and then almost passed on, his breakthrough play Fuddy Meers; the origin of Kimberly Akimbo in a chance comment by a friend about his infant daughter; his candid thoughts on Wonder of the World and why it shouldn't have too elegant a production; his experience with writing musicals, including High Fidelity and Shrek, and why he'll always write both the book and lyrics for any future musical projects; his shift to naturalism with Rabbit Hole and how the film differs from the play; why he's still part of a writer's group and how the group helped him to strengthen one particular character in Good People; and how he has always followed Marsha Norman's advice to write about "the thing that frightens you most."
Original air date - May 4, 2011
Running Time - 56:13
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