CC & NJ Guy
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CC & NJ Guy
Playwright Zoë Rhulen On Crafting “Dirt”
A garden that won’t let go, a city that won’t quite receive you, and three sisters who pull up their roots to discover what follows when you leave home. We sit with playwright Zoe Rulin to explore Dirt, a 90-minute, magic-forward play that transforms displacement, loss, and belonging into living theater. Zoe shares how moving from New York back to rural Colorado during the pandemic seeded the image of daughters planted in their mother’s garden and the haunting question: can you ever truly return?
The conversation opens the creative toolbox behind a workshop production. Zoe walks us through securing space support, crowdfunding, and building a world on a budget with designer Vincent Gunn—think clotheslines, fabric, and suggestion over spectacle. With director Tyler Christie and a game cast, rehearsals become a laboratory for dramaturgy, where character logic, pacing, and cause-and-effect get stress-tested in the room. It’s a candid look at how new plays are made: messy drafts, precise notes, and the grind of reworking act two until it sings.
We also travel through Zoe’s evolving body of work. Medusa Prays reframes a familiar myth, putting Medusa and Athena into a sharp, modern reckoning with power and mercy. Six Red Seeds slides Persephone and Hades into a contemporary impact fund, where climate, capital, and consent collide. And Zoe reveals a new full-length in progress that threads Picasso’s relationship with Marie-Thérèse Walter through the Minotaur’s shadow, interrogating art, desire, and self-mythology.
If you’ve ever wondered how a script becomes a stage event—or why certain images take root and refuse to leave—this is your front-row seat. Come for the award-winning origin story, stay for the practical writerly advice: set timers, embrace bad first drafts, and get your work into the room. Subscribe, share with a theater-loving friend, and leave a review with the moment that hit you hardest.
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Live from Crawford Studios. It's CC and NJ Guy. How's it going? Good. How's everyone doing?
SPEAKER_01:Good. Good. We got a uh special guest with us tonight. We have Zoe Rulin on with us. Hi. Zoe. How are you, Zoe? So, Zoe, you're a playwright with a bachelor's from fine arts and dramatic writing from New NYU.
SPEAKER_02:Yep, that's right. That's right.
SPEAKER_01:Dirt won the Princess Grace Award in Playwriting. Pretty cool. What is that, by the way? If you don't want to ask him.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Okay, so the Princess Grace Foundation was a foundation that was started by Grace Kelly when she was alive and then sort of continued and broadened out by her family after she died. Basically, when she died, her family found that she was sponsoring all of these young up-and-coming artists and sort of helping them get their start. And so after she passed away, so tragically, her family decided to continue her legacy by starting a foundation in her name that does exactly that, that provides support to emerging artists. So now it's grown immensely. And so they support artists in theater, film, and dance. I applied through Neudromatus for the Princess Grace Fellowship and was accepted. And so I was the uh playwright honored with the by the Princess Grace Foundation this year. And Dirt is the play that got me the fellowship and won the award.
SPEAKER_01:That's awesome. And that's going to be starting in January 31st all the way through the 8th of February.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So we're we're gearing up. We've got about two weeks to go till opening.
SPEAKER_01:Nice, nice. So can you can you give us a little insight on how well let me ask you this real quick before we get into the story, the play. How did was this something that you were always interested in doing from like, you know, from when you were younger, or was it something that just popped up and you were like, hey, you know what? This interests me and I want to go ahead and get into that.
SPEAKER_02:So I was always in the arts. I was always like an artistic kid, but I I didn't know what I wanted to do always. Like when I was really young, I did a lot of visual art and then I used to sing. And there's this art school in Denver, Colorado. It's a middle school high school called Denver School of the Arts. So when my family and I moved to Colorado, I auditioned to go there and I got in. Um it's a magnet school, so it's a public school, but magnet school with an arts focus. So you had to audition for a particular major. There were 10 of them. Uh, and then you spent sort of like the first half of your day doing academics and the second half of your day doing whatever your art was. So I got in there for vocal music and started doing that in sixth grade. And then uh my junior year of high school, I actually changed majors. I re-auditioned for theater because I looked at the theater kids and I was like, they're getting a better education than we are. They're getting to do like way more stuff. They were doing directing and Shakespeare and trapeze and and like, you know, sound design and all this other stuff. And we were just singing in a choir for 90 minutes every day. And so I was like, I want to do it there today. Sounds like they were having fun. Yeah, and learning like so many things. So I auditioned, got into theater and was doing acting. And then a friend of mine had done this youth playwriting program through a theater in Denver called Curious, and they recommended that I apply for the program, and I did, and I got in, and so then that's how I started writing plays. Yeah, it's a super cool program. It unfortunately doesn't exist anymore. Dee Covington used to be the education director at Curious Theater, and when she left the theater, the program sort of dissolved. But I I hope that they bring it back because it's an amazing, amazing program. Basically, what they do, they give up all of their rehearsal space, Curious does, for the month of July, to writers between the ages of 15 and 21. And on the first day, a playwright, professional playwright comes in and lectures about beginnings. In the middle of the month, a professional playwright comes in and lectures about middles. And then at the end, a professional playwright comes in and lectures about endings. And then over the course of that month, you write a one-act play. And at the end of the month, it gets a what we call a scripted hand reading. So the actors have the scripts in front of them, but they're um they're not. So they're they're acting, but they're holding their scripts. They're not off book.
SPEAKER_01:Almost like a table read almost.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, but they have but they have blocking. Um, so they're like moving around and doing stuff. They just they have the script in front of them because they're not memorized. But you get one of those with their curious as professional actors and curious as professional directors. So it's an amazing, amazing program. And so I started doing that when I was 16 the summer that I did it for the first time, which was just amazing to get to work with professional actors and professional directors when you're that young. So that's how I that's how I'm gonna treat anybody famous?
SPEAKER_01:Anybody good?
SPEAKER_02:Uh yeah, well, so the funny thing is like playwrights aren't really famous, right? There's kind of no such thing as a famous playwright, right? If I ask you guys, besides me, can you name another one?
SPEAKER_01:No, probably not. Right, probably not, exactly.
SPEAKER_02:Shakespeare probably is like the only one.
SPEAKER_01:Probably.
SPEAKER_02:But to me, yes, they're famous, right? Like Christopher Diaz was um was one of the playwrights. Lloydsa was one of the playwrights. Um and to me, they're famous. They're they're a big deal.
SPEAKER_00:But you know, most people have never heard of them. So like if if playwriters aren't well known, but their plays are well known, so it's kind of like your name is attached to the play, but people, I guess, know you know the play more than the playwright. So it's got to be like an interesting like kind of world to be in, because it's like, oh, everybody knows the play, but they don't really know the name maybe associated with it. Like you is it like that kind of thing?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, well, so it's yeah, I guess it sort of depends, right? So in the in the community, in in the theater community of of playwrights and and anyone know each other we know each we know each other, and definitely there are playwrights that I would consider famous, and it would be freaking out if I met them.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_02:But yeah, you know, like for the general public, right, you've all heard of everybody's heard of Hamilton, but like could you have told me that it was Lynn Manuel Miranda who made it? Maybe, maybe not. Like he's one of the ones who some people know. So it's just kind of a funny yeah. It's kind of a funny thing.
SPEAKER_01:I would know him more by face.
SPEAKER_00:Like I would know, hey, that's the guy who did Hamilton. The reason I know him is because he was on Curb Your Enthusiasm. But there you go.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. No, totally. And that and that happens too, right? Like playwrights who pivot into TV and film, they're way better known.
SPEAKER_01:So this play dirt. Can you give us a little this is what I got when I when I looked it up. So the story revolves primarily around a small group of interconnected characters dealing with an aftermath of death and trauma and loss. Rather than processing the pain directly, the characters often deflect, lash out, and joke, intellectualize, and retreat into s isolation. Is that kind of on money?
SPEAKER_02:Or that's that's really interesting. It's like a psychological examination of the play, right? Like I would never say that that's what the play is about, but that's super fascinating that that's that's what comes up. Like that's really interesting.
SPEAKER_01:And actually, I have to be honest, I AI'd it because like I told you on the phone when we were talking, reading the script was difficult to kind of follow it. Totally. You know, so it's like, all right, I'm gonna put this through AI and see what it comes up with. Yeah. Yeah, and give me a synopsis of what's going on. How did you come up with the play?
SPEAKER_02:So what I the way that I talk about it, what I say that it's about like so for example I think again, I think it's really interesting because that's basically like a psychological analysis of what's going on in the play. But if I were to say, what is it about? What's the plot? It's magical. That's the first thing I want people to know. It's not exactly in a world like our world. Um, it's about three sisters who are planted in their mom's garden. And then over the course of the first act, they pull up their roots and they leave the garden. And then in act two, they wind up in a city and the dirt from the garden follows them there and kind of interferes with their lives a little bit. And you might say that it's up to the audience to sort of decide whether the dirt is trying to hurt them or trying to help them or sort of both at the same time. So that's how I talk about it and what I would say it's about. How did I come up with it? So it's inspired by I moved home back home with my parents in 2020 during the pandemic. Um, and it was inspired by that experience of I had lived in New York for nine years at that point, and then I moved home, and this feeling of like, wow, I really don't fit here anymore. And this question was coming up of once you leave home, can you ever really go back? And that's where the plague came from. And then in addition to that, my parents live in a pretty rural part of Colorado, and all of a sudden there was just way more dirt around me, way more trees and animals and wildlife and wilderness than uh than what I was used to. And so that was coming up for me as well.
SPEAKER_01:So that's awesome. I think that's great that you, you know, that you've been able to take something out of your situation, you know, life, because it is hard. Like I've moved around a lot. I've been I've I've pretty much a gypsy most of my life. I must have lived in like a dozen different places. And you know, when you go someplace new and it's not where you're from or or going back somewhere, it's never usually the same as it was when you were there originally. You know, so you can kind of identify with that. So I'm sure a lot of people identify with that when uh um when they see it. So how long is the play? I mean, is it is it fairly long?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So when we read it, it reads at about like an hour and twenty minutes. It's not that long. It's a lot of pages, it's 130 pages, but it reads pretty quick. So our goal is for it to be under 90 minutes when we're done with staging and everything, so that we'll we'll run it without an intermission. It'll be 90 minutes straight through, no intermission.
SPEAKER_01:Are you nervous? Yeah, it probably are.
SPEAKER_02:It like honestly, it depends, it depends on the day. Um, today I did a lot of writing myself and a lot of work on the second act of the play, because we're gonna dive into or dig into the second act of the play tomorrow. Uh, so I did a lot of work on it myself today. And so those are the days when I'm more nervous when I'm at alone at my desk tinkering with stuff and not really sure if it's gonna work. And so I think tomorrow, once I get in the room with actors and everybody else, um, and then I see that it's all gonna be fine, then no, I'm not nervous. So it really, it really depends on the day. Like we're having a ton of fun.
SPEAKER_01:It's getting closer, you're getting preoccupied. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah. It's also interesting because I'm to a degree self-producing this workshop production. So basically the theater gave us the space for free and their um tech staff and their front-of-house stuff. So it's definitely supported by them by art arts on site. Yeah, it's huge. It's a huge deal. Yeah, space is the big expense. It's always the biggest expense. So the fact that we got the theater, that the theater believed in the play enough to offer their space to us uh is really amazing.
SPEAKER_01:That is pretty cool. Yeah. Because like, where would you come up with the funds if you had if you weren't able to do that, right? I mean, you have to pr raise it somehow, but that didn't you didn't need to do that. So that's really awesome.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so we we did do a crowdfunder because we're gonna basically, you know, I fundraised essentially for everything else to pay the actors and costumes and set and all of that. It's great the arts on site is going to support us doing the production, but we're a little bit sort of co-producing it with them. So I'm wearing many hats. I'm the playwright and I'm trying to do edits and make sure I'm happy with the play, but then I'm also looking at marketing and looking at ticket sales and all of these other things. So I feel a little bit like an octopus. I'm sort of juggling a lot of things right now.
SPEAKER_01:But well, that's good though, because you're yeah, yeah, you're you're multitasking. Are you gonna be in it as well? Are you in the play as well or no?
SPEAKER_02:No. Um, I don't act anymore. Thankfully. I feel like it would be way too much to act and have written the play at the same time. I know there are people who do it, but I I don't know how it's a lot of work.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's gonna be a ton of work. Yeah. Because you're trying to like get things going and then I gotta get you know, get up on stage and start acting and then see how things are going. It's gonna be a lot it's a lot of juggling.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and and also like how do you see the play when you're inside it, right? I love that I get to sit kind of on the perimeter and watch it and figure stuff out. And also not for nothing. Like, I'm not a great actor. I never was, and our actors are really good. So I'm glad it's it's them and and not me.
SPEAKER_01:Right. And and and I'm assuming that that helps you too by being able to watch from the outside. You'll be able to like say, Oh, I'll probably change this up a little bit and we'll do this a little different, depending on what you know how things roll out the first time. Yeah. I would imagine that's some of the things you would be looking at.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, for sure, for sure. And yeah, like I said, it it changes a lot once you get in a room with actors and you hear it out loud out of their mouths. It's so different than sitting at my desk and trying to imagine what it's gonna sound like. I get a lot more clarity when we're all in the room together. And and and the folks who we cast, it's Max Singer, Maya Smoot, Mary Kate Glenn, and Kari Buckley. They're all amazing and super down to help with the collaboration. So they're all offering suggestions and uh they've been really, really supportive with uh what we call the dramaturgy. Is that a new new word for you guys? So it's sort of like how the play is made. So dramaturgy can be two different things. On a on a period piece, like a Shakespeare play or something, the dramaturg does all of the historical research and makes uh you know, explains different words and what they mean and the historical significance of things and making sure everything is accurate. But on a new play.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's a really important job. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. On a new play, what they do is help sort of they're sort of like story midwives or doctors or something where they're helping make sure that the story makes sense and that all of the building blocks are in place. And if a character does something in one scene that it makes sense for what they do in the next scene, or you know, so so when I say that the actors are helping with the dramaturgy, they're helping with that kind of stuff where they are saying, like, I don't think my character would do this because of this, or like, wait a minute, I'm confused by this line because didn't they do this in the other scene? You know, that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_01:Right. So that's pretty cool. Because then they they analyze it as they go and say, hey, maybe we should just switch it up. That's yeah, I yeah, that makes sense. What kind of uh this is new to me because I haven't gone to a like a Broadway play in a long time. And when I was a kid, my my grandmother used to take me all the time. What kind of sets are you gonna have? Is there a lot of um like is this just like a fantasy type setting?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. I would I would say that. I'd say fantasy is a good way to think about it. Yes. So this is where it comes into play that we're calling it a workshop production because we're kind of trying to do sort of like a sketch of what it would be. We keep talking about, oh, in the Broadway version of the play, we would do it like this because it does take place in a garden. So in an ideal version, these three women would be in a pit of dirt, but we don't have the budget uh to be able to do that, let alone the cleanup which would be required at this theater to reset it for the folks coming in after us. Yeah. So, so no, we're not doing that. So we have this amazing set designer, his name is Vincent Gunn, who has come up with a um way to sort of represent the garden with on our budget without having to do that that big broad strokes version. So each sister has her own row in the garden that's delineated by a clothesline. Um and so it's basically like a wooden garden box that has three clothes lines, and the clotheslines have uh fabric hung on it that's gonna get treated to look like, you know, plants and moss and that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_00:So I got I got a question. So as a playwriter, when you do like meet with the actors and start, you know, rehearsing and they go over lines, are do you also kind of like wear like almost I I don't know if this is the right term for theater. I know for movies and TV, a director is like a title. Is that a title in theater or is there a different name for that? Because you're not like because you obviously, while the play is going on, you're not like, hey, I need you to do this and that. So it's different, obviously, with film and TV, but uh is there like a name for like a person who like, or is that kind of fall under the playwright?
SPEAKER_02:Or yes, there are there are directors. Um, I would say most of the time it's a playwright and a director working together. So yes, I have a director. Um his name's Tyler Christie. It's really special, actually. We're we're really good friends, and we met 10 years ago at an internship at New Dramatis, which is where I now have the Princess Grace Fellowship. So everything, it's it's the production is really special because it feels like very full circle in that way. So, but we've known each other 10 years. So we have a really good shorthand, and uh, so that's been really fun. But yes, so his job is to do exactly what you were saying is uh on a film set whereas so he sits in rehearsal and he watches the actors do their thing and then he gives gives notes and adjustments. And so it's it's you know obviously different than a film because you're not doing it take by take. Like once they're up there and an audience is there, then there's no there's no direction happening. So we've gotta get it, we've gotta get it where we want it before we open.
SPEAKER_01:Right. Then that's where the you know everybody's rehearsing and all that comes in so that hopefully everybody's right on point and doing what they need to do. Yeah. That's really good. It's really interesting. Yeah. So I said 90 minutes. Pretty cool.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Are your parents gonna come in to see it?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. It's very cool. A ton of people coming.
SPEAKER_01:Um when you were younger, were you doing was this something that you were already like kind of in a direction to do it? I mean, even when before you even got into this type of uh you know, into the arts, was it something that you were like interested in even before you thought about doing anything like that? Yeah, no. You went to like plays and all that all that stuff?
SPEAKER_02:Uh-huh. Okay. So I definitely went to plays and like I said, I did some acting in high school. So that so that's I guess I would say sort of like my my entrance to it. I never thought about writing until my friend suggested Curious New Voices, the program that I did. I never thought about it. I was always a performer. I was always sort of like in front of the camera, as you would say, um, rather than behind the scenes. I never thought about writing until my friend suggested that I apply. And you had to write a one-act play to apply for the program. So I remember I wrote my first play in the back of my parents' car on my way to my grandparents for Christmas. I like wrote a one act in the back of my dad's suburban and it got me into the the program. But then even after I had done the program for a couple of years, I still thought I was gonna do acting. I For acting schools for undergrad, and then when I and then I went to the new school for my first year here in New York, and was the all freshmen at the new school in the liberal arts program are undeclared. So I was thinking that I was gonna do playwriting and acting at the new school, and then I decided I wanted to transfer schools, and even then I auditioned for acting programs, and it wasn't until I had my audition at Boston University for the acting program. As a transfer student, you're allowed to bring supplementary materials. So I brought my playwriting portfolio, and the man who was auditioning me is looking through my portfolio and he goes, What's your biggest weakness as an actor? And I was like, Oh, it's it's my head, it gets in my way. And he was like, Yeah, it does. But in your writing, it doesn't. So why are you doing this when your heart is so clearly in something else? And that was, yeah, that was a big wake-up call for me. Uh I was staying with a friend at the time and she called me and was like, How is your audition? I was like, it's the best audition I've ever had. I'm not getting in.
SPEAKER_01:But but it was able to direct you to give you great advice.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that was awesome advice. That's uh, you know, that's like one of those, as they say, like a blessing in disguise. Seriously, I know. Because otherwise you'd be trying to act, and like you said, it would maybe not pan out the same way. And we're writing like flourished. So that's awesome. Totally.
SPEAKER_01:It's just funny how certain things open different doors, you know. You that somebody sees something else in you that you wouldn't normally be thinking about for yourself, right? That's awesome. Yeah that it worked out that way for you.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I I wish I knew who he was and I could say thank you because I have I have no idea who he was. And he really like changed the trajectory of my life.
SPEAKER_01:It's cool when you have people in your life, whether it's a school teacher or somebody, you know, that changes you, it gives you a direction to go in. And you're like, yeah, I'm not sure. But and then you wind up doing it, and you're like, oh, I never even thought of that, you know.
SPEAKER_00:Sometimes it takes someone else to see something that you don't see yourself, right? You know? And then someone else sees you, go, oh, you know what? You're right, you're right. And then before you know it, you you take off, you know?
SPEAKER_01:It's true. Because we're kind of like our own worst enemy. You think, I know I am too much in my head, you know, like you overthink things, right? When you think about it. And then someone else who's on the outside is looking and saying, Hey, did you ever consider doing this or that? I I was watching it, you know, you're good at this skill or that, you know. So it's good when you have that positive input.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:You know, some people would have probably taken it differently though, Zoe, right? Think about it. Like, what do you mean? I'm not a good at, you know. But the whole writing thing is great. And then on top of it, you sent me two other stories that you wrote as well. Are these things you gonna are these stories later gonna come up that you're hoping to do later on as well?
SPEAKER_02:One of the ones that I sent you is a play of mine called Medusa Praise. It's a 10-minute play. Um, and that one I wrote it for a 10-minute play festival in the city uh through a theater called Red Bull, which actually has nothing to do with the energy drink. It's uh named after a theater that did Shakespeare plays illegally. I don't know exactly when, but that's at a point when Shakespeare's work in England was illegal, this theater called Red Bull was doing them underground. So that's what the theater's called. And they do this 10-minute play festival every summer, and you have to submit. It's a competition, you have to submit to get in. They always pick a theme, and the theme that year was alchemy. And so I wrote this play about Medusa and Athena, and I got into the festival. So this play had a kind of like what I was talking about earlier with a script-in-hand public reading. So it's two actors with the scripts in front of them acting, but they, you know, not off book, not memorized. So it had uh it had a big reading through the festival. I think it was in 2022. Yeah. Uh, and it's actually gonna be published. I think I'm allowed to say that. It's yeah, it's gonna be published in an anthology of the of the Red Bull plays. So that's that's coming.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, is it just one 10-minute play, or is it just whoever wins, no? Oh, or is it just other or are there other people along with you who can bear other 10-minute plays as well?
SPEAKER_02:For the festival, I think there's like six or eight. So basically they pick um they took pick two more well-known playwrights and they write a 10-minute play on the theme, and then six, six of the winners also get their 10-minute play stage. So it becomes kind of an evening link piece of theater when you string them all together.
SPEAKER_01:Can you give us a little uh insight of what it's about?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, sure. Um, so I got really interested, you know, I was thinking, I was thinking about alchemy and what was, you know, it's a competition, right? They get a ton of submissions, they get like 350 submissions, if not more. Uh, and so I was like, okay, what's a story that I can pick that's gonna make me stand out? When I think about alchemy, you know, like magically turning one thing into another, you know, rumple-stilled skin, I feel like everybody's gonna do that. That's the big one that came to mind for me, especially when you think about, you know, gold and um the philosopher's stone and all of that stuff. So I was like, okay, I don't want to do that one. What's another version of somebody turning something into something else? And I thought about I thought of Medusa, right, turning people into stone. Uh and I started doing a bunch of research on her, and I was really surprised to find, you know, I always my whole life I've seen Medusa pictured as a monster, right? Like I think that's how how most people would think of her, right? Yeah, you know, like the the the snakes, and she's sort of the snakes. Yeah. She's like a scary monster.
SPEAKER_00:Isn't that isn't that what her like the the type of monster, I guess you would say, is a gorgon or something like that?
SPEAKER_02:Yes, yeah. Yeah, totally. Um, so that was what I was always you know thinking about when I thought I thought about Medusa. But then the more I read about the actual story, what what really happens in the story is that so Medusa and Poseidon have a sexual encounter in Athena's temple, and Athena gets really mad about it and curses Medusa with the, you know, if anytime you look at someone, you're gonna turn them to stone. So she doesn't actually start out her life that way. She doesn't sort of start out her life as a monster.
SPEAKER_00:It's like an act of jealousy against her, you know, kind of.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, we're not really sure why Athena does it. Like if it's yeah, if it's jealousy or if it's this is disgusting, you know, some some readings are like Athena is very asexual, and so like this is disgusting. How could you defile my temple in this way? It's really, it can go either way. Um, but you know, when you think when you think about it, there's nothing, there's nothing in a text anywhere that says that Medusa wanted this to happen, that this was a consensual act. And when you think about it, right, like Poseidon is a god. What is what's she gonna do? So it's a curse, yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's like a curse, and it's sort of like, wow, you really took this out on the weaker person, the peop the person with less power in this circumstance. Like, why aren't you why aren't you cursing Poseidon? I really feel like this is probably his fault. So that's where the play sort of came from, and it's this conversation between Medusa and Athena, where Medusa basically expresses that very thing to Athena. And Athena's very headstrong and doesn't want to reverse the curse because that would you know set a bad precedent. Um, but at the end of the play, she she realizes that what she can do is send someone to kill Medusa and release her from this sort of endless cycle that she's in. And so it sort of takes the Perseus slaying of Medusa and makes it a merciful act rather than what it how it normally is.
SPEAKER_01:Wow. Well, that's interesting. That is really interesting.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. It was really fun. It was really fun. You get you get sort of like Medusa and Athena talking to each other for 10 minutes, and then um the guy who was reading stage direction sort of came on as Perseus at the very end. It was, you know, it's a good time. It's fun. It's playwriting is fun for that reason because you can take these very historical characters uh that that you know you've known your whole life and you can turn them on their head or yeah, make them say whatever you want. It's it's fun.
SPEAKER_01:That's what's the great thing about imagination, right? Because you can kind of just direct it into, you know, however your mind's perceiving it and just go in that direction.
SPEAKER_00:The cool part is is you take what you imagine and put it into action. So that is that's the magic, you know? Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_01:It's very good stuff. I like it. And then you have another one that you sent me as well.
SPEAKER_02:It's called Six Red Seeds.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:So that's also a mythology play. Um, that's a full-length play about, so it's a contemporary adaptation of the Hades and Persephone myth. Uh, I don't know if you guys are super familiar with Greek mythology, but basically she's the goddess of spring, he's the king of the underworld. Uh, but so this play is a contemporary adaptation of that myth. Um, it's set in an environmental impact fund, contemporary modern, modern day. So it's three characters: the Zeus character, who's the CEO of the impact fund, and then Phoebe is the Persephone character. She's kind of like his right hand, and then there's the Hades character, whose name is Howard, who's a executive of an oil and gas company. So it's sort of like taking that story and putting it into a modern day context.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, that's pretty interesting. I like that. While still having the mythology involved in it at the same time.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. It's it's subtle, but if you know the myth, it's definitely there.
SPEAKER_01:Very cool. I like it. I like it a lot. Question for you uh if someone wanted to start up and do this, what kind of advice would you give them as far as, you know, writing a story and how to come up? I mean, not necessarily come up with it, but how would you direct them to say, hey, just start writing and then just go from there?
SPEAKER_02:So the the two pieces of advice that I give to people who are starting out or who have been trying and not really having very much success is number one, the hardest part of writing is the butt in the chair part. Like you just have to sit down and do it. You just have to make yourself sit down and actually write. So that's a piece of advice number one. A trick that I like for that is to set a timer. So on days when I really don't feel like writing or I'm gonna tackle a scene that's really complicated and I'm sort of dragging my feet and I don't want to do it. I just set a 30-minute timer and I say, okay, you're gonna sit here, you're gonna sit here on your own work on this scene for 30 minutes. And if you still can't figure it out after 30 minutes, like you're allowed to get up. But for 30 minutes, you're gonna sit here. And usually it takes maybe 20 minutes, and then I'm in it and I'm rolling and everything's fine. That's been my experience is that that on those days it usually takes about 20 minutes, but then I'm there. So that's piece of advice number one. Try and do it for like th at least 30 minutes every day if you can. Um, and then number two, this is very important. This is even more important, is don't be afraid to write a bad first draft. Just write, don't be afraid to write a bad first draft. Just write a bad first draft. Everybody's first drafts are bad, they're horrible, they're just that's how they are. That's what first drafts are. So, but if you're sitting there and you're judging yourself while you're writing and you're editing while you're writing, you'll never finish the thing.
SPEAKER_01:You gotta Right, you're defeating the whole purpose. Yeah, you just gotta get the idea on paper, you know. And then you could critique it later on and just sit there and go, oh no, I like that. I want to switch things.
SPEAKER_00:Before you know it, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. A lot of people make the mistake. They're they're judging it as they're writing it and they're and then they go, Oh, this is no good. I'm not even gonna bother finishing it. Um so I would say those are the two, those are the two big pieces of advice that I have. And then once you've done that, the next thing, because this actually took me a while to learn, I sort of had those two pieces down and wasn't really sure why my writing wasn't progressing, especially if you're doing theater, the next step is get other people in the room. So once you have your bad first draft, get actors, get directors, get other people feedback in in as soon as you can because the play is going to change so much once you have that. And you cannot sit at your desk and make it perfect by yourself. I thought that I could for so many years and I resisted and I sat at my desk with my little perfectionist brain on and tried to tweak, tweak the heck out of it. And it's just, it's not how it works. It it only gets good once you get actors and a director in in the room and you're sort of bouncing off of each other.
SPEAKER_01:Right. Outside collaboration, right? And everybody's just throwing these ideas at you, you know. Uh that's really interesting, good stuff. I like it. Um you have any more planned? And yeah, I'm sure you're writing some other stuff too. I'm sure these are not the only three that, you know, that you shared with me. I mean, I'm sure there's a lot more that you got going on.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so I have to. Um, so so I have the new dramatist Princess Grace Fellowship, and that finishes end of May, beginning of June. Uh, so I'm gonna use the fellowship to write a new play, and the reading date for that is already scheduled. It's May 12th. So I have to write a new play by May 12th. I don't have a choice.
SPEAKER_01:Have you started yet? It doesn't sound like you saw it yet.
SPEAKER_02:Um, I have started and I know I know what it is. Uh so the play's gonna be about Picasso. It's gonna be about Pablo Picasso and his relationship with Marie Trez Walter, uh, who is uh a woman who he was a young woman who he was involved with. She was 17 when they started seeing each other. She was 17, he was 45, so it's about that dynamic. But she's one of his, she's she's in so many of his paintings. She's one of his primary muses. And so the the relationship is really interesting to me. But then also when you look at his work from that period, he's like obsessed with the minotaur, which is another mythological figure. I'm really into Greek mythology, if you can't tell. I love myths and magic and monsters, like all that is really my thing. Yeah, we're sort of sympathy in that way.
SPEAKER_01:A little bit a little bit of a geek in you, right? So the same way too.
SPEAKER_02:Definitely, definitely.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we love that stuff. So yeah, continue. I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, no, no, no. I like I think I'm glad to be here. It's it feels sort of in alignment. So, yeah, so the minotaur, right, is this figure from from Greek mythology, um, a man with the head of a bull, and he's an abomination and imprisoned in a labyrinth for for his whole existence. And every seven years, a um youth from Athens gets sacrificed to the minotaur, and the minotaur eats them, theoretically. So a lot of the paintings of Picasso's from the years when he's with Marie Therese and after, actually, he paints himself as the minotaur. He does drawings of himself as the minotaur with Marie. So I'm sort of I'm very curious about that and if he felt like he was a way thinks about it. Right. I know. It's like, yeah, does he think that he does he feel like he's a monster? Is that what's going on in in that? So so that's sort of what the play is gonna be is the first act is the minotaur and one of the women who get sacrificed to him. The second act is gonna be Picasso and Marie, and then the third act is gonna be an art history professor and his student. So sort of taking, examining the dynamic, but putting it again in present day.
SPEAKER_01:Very cool. It's like he's got his own demons and he's expressing it in his paintings.
SPEAKER_02:Totally.
SPEAKER_00:You know?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, he must maybe perceived himself as like a bad person or something like that. Well, maybe because he was dating someone who was so much younger than him. Yeah, yeah. That's probably maybe. I feel like what Picasso well Picasso is super long ago, right? He was like 1920.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, this relationship is 1930s, but yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Okay. Well, I was gonna say if it was like because I I forget Picasso is more recent. I'm thinking I'm gonna fuse with other artists that are like much older. And I was like, oh, maybe back then more socially acceptable.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, it de it definitely was.
SPEAKER_00:Or maybe that's not the right wording, but you know, you know what I mean.
SPEAKER_02:No, I yeah, I agree. No, I think it like it definitely was at that time.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. But he probably still, for some reason, perceived himself. I wonder why he perceived himself like that. I mean, he's such an interesting take.
SPEAKER_02:He says some really fucked up things. Like, am I allowed to curse? I don't know.
SPEAKER_00:We curse all the time on this.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no, we we curse on it.
SPEAKER_02:But um, I'm reading this autobiography by another woman who he was involved with. Um I my French is terrible. So her first name is Francois, and the last name is I think Guy Lot. Um, she's also a painter anyway. The book is it's called Um My Life with Picasso, and it's so interesting because she goes, she'll she'll she's has a ton of reverence for him and his work, and she speaks really positively about him. And then in the next breath, he's saying really horrible things about women, and you're sort of like, oh my goodness, what is going on here?
SPEAKER_01:So he was like a womanizer at the same time, I guess.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, he had really he really had zero respect for for women at all. He, you know, I I wish I had some of the quotes handy because they are just, I mean, right, it's he doesn't he doesn't he doesn't beat around it. Like he really, he just he says what he means.
SPEAKER_00:So I wonder if he perceived himself as a monster to him in a positive way or a negative way. He's like, Yeah, I'm the monster, yeah. Or was he like, I feel terrible, but I still do it. You know, like one of those things, right?
SPEAKER_02:I don't know. I know. That's what I'm so curious about. And like maybe I'll maybe I'll figure it out in the play, and maybe I won't.
SPEAKER_01:Right. Especially because he picks that particular um character in theology, right? I mean, so like you said, every what was it, every seven years?
SPEAKER_02:Mm-hmm. Yeah, every seven.
SPEAKER_01:So it's like it's just uh yeah, you could go either way on it. So whatever he's having a tug of war with, but himself, obviously, right? You would think he's you know, we all have our demons in some way or another, right? So um but they say they say uh painters are very uh you know, artists are very uh eccentric. Is that the right word? Yeah, thank you. So they uh it's kind of strange to begin with. But you know, but that's that's what's so good about art, because that's what brings out that part of people when they're doing that kind of stuff, you know. Because of that. It's the creativity. The creativity, right? That creativity comes out, and you know, so that's that's really good stuff, yeah. So you have to have that done, obviously. Yes, before this is over. Awesome. Well, listen, it was great having you on with us.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, thank you so much for having me. That's really fun.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, thank you for being with us. Appreciate it. So uh as we always do our own thing at the end, Kenny's not here, so I'll do it for him. I'll do Kenny's thing, love, peace, and hair grease. I say live longer, prosper, and keep on watching the plays.
