Inside Look into Quotidian Theatre Company Production of The Night Alive

-          By Catherine Gregoire

 The Night Alive runs through November 20, 2016. Members of The Writer's Center get a 50% discount. Get tickets here.

Jack Sbarbori is the founder of the Quotidian Theatre Company and a long-time friend of The Writer’s Center. It was a delight to sit down with him and to chat about Quotidian’s new rendition of The Night Alive by Conor McPherson. Sbarbori is a passionate fan of McPherson, so much so that he’s directed nine of his plays over the years. 

It isn't surprising, then, that he decided to take on The Night Alive, which is McPhereson’s newest work, a tantalizingly dark drama about love and revenge. In the dialogue below, Sbarbori’s passion for directing and appreciation for McPherson’s skill, are palpable.

TWC: What is it about Conor McPherson's work that attracts you?

JS: He writes plays that are so honest and real about the human condition. For the most part, he talks about how flawed human nature is and how we need to stop and consider things. There’s such a reality to his work. I was first attracted to theater by playwright Horton Foote, who although has an entirely different way of writing, also gets down to the real parts of the human condition. The funny thing is their styles are entirely different, so much so that when we did our first play by [McPherson] my wife and I thought, “Oh, this is going to be tough on the audience.” I’m not saying I recommend to people interested in directing or starring in shows stick to one playwright…but I can’t help myself (chuckles).

TWC: What would you say this particular production captures both in accordance with McPherson’s style and beyond it?

JS: The reason I’m so anxious to present it is that it’s a unique play by McPherson in that it’s, and this is odd to say, it’s not as easy for the patrons to have a full understanding of as most of his work. There’s such a reward when you’re listening to it and you’re trying to understand what exactly is happening. It’s an unusual play because, though McPherson calls himself an atheist, in so many of his plays and especially in this one, it’s clear that there is a surge of “What is God about? Is there an afterlife? If there is, what happens?” It’s such a reward to watch what he’s doing with that. 

Years ago, Horton Foote used to say that the plays he loved the most were the ones that in intermission he could just walk among the patrons and listen to them discuss and argue and find different spins on what exactly is happening and why they happen. That’s another way Conor McPherson’s work is so much like Horton’s. I doubt that, especially in The Night Alive, the people would have the exact same understanding or feeling of what they saw, why they saw it, and what it means. With all the [McPherson’s] plays I can’t say, “this is his best one,” but this one is special. I’ve been building the set for two months now because I wanted to get it just right, and I’m very fortunate to have actors that are just perfect for the roles.

TWC: Has your approach to this production differed from past productions?

JS: Well, I had the time because I usually direct a little more and this year I didn’t. I had the opportunity to work on this particular play for probably a year and a half. Of course the beginning parts were not that adventurous, but I feel fortunate that that’s what I want to do. Luckily my wife agrees (chuckles). I feel very blessed to do something I’m passionate about.

TWC: What do you hope audiences will take away from this production?

JS: That they enjoyed it, and that with this particular play they don’t have to have a complete set of understandings as I did, but that they understood what he was doing. He was exploring things to try to find out what’s happening. Marvin Gaye had a song called “What’s Going On,” which is still popular in the Oldies category. It’s basically “what’s going on?” and it’s repeated a lot in the music and the actors happen to say that just randomly throughout the play too. They don’t quite understand it, the audience doesn’t quite understand it, and it’s sort of a search of “what’s going on.” I had to get the rights to do that song in the play, but it’s hard to do the play without it.

You know . . . it’s so nice that we found this place [The Writer's Center] back in 1989. We just appreciate the opportunity to do what we love.

The Writer’s Center has the honor of hosting Jack’s The Night Alive from October 21 through November 20, 2016. Whether you’re a Quotidian regular or you’re new to theater, you won’t want to miss it!

Writing Dialogue for Actors by Richard Washer

Enough with the "he said-she said." It's time to show--not tell--your story. Playwright and TWC workshop leader Richard Washer on the collaborative experience that is dialogue and playwriting:



Writing Dialogue for Actors
by Richard Washer

Each genre of writing presents its own set of unique challenges for writers. Playwriting is no exception. Some of the basic tools and skills can be gleaned from reading one or more of the plethora of books on playwriting, or by taking workshops where a writer can practice, test, and hone such skills. But playwriting, at the end of the day, is a collaborative craft and as such playwrights write for other interpretive artists. The more a writer understands the craft of these artists, the better the blue print we call a play script is likely to be.

This is hard to convey in a workshop. I provide anecdotes from my experience as a writer, director, and dramaturge to convey a sense of how much an actor or designer can bring to all aspects of a play. While this is helpful, I can see in the eyes of everyone around the table the hunger to experience this. And in these moments I am reminded that the best instruction I received came from watching seasoned and talented actors take my words through the paces of rehearsal, previews, and production. However, as ideal learning experience as this might be, it’s not a practical one. It should come as no surprise that theatres are not likely to spend any of their budgets on helping a new playwright learn.

So, I started to look for a way to bring this experience to my playwriting workshops. I brought in actors for the last meeting of a workshop so that the writers in the group could hear their words performed. But the lack of follow-up always troubled me. There was no time to comment, discuss, or debrief on this experience and focus on lessons learned.

A while back a local high school invited me to offer some playwriting workshops and figuring there was safety in numbers I asked an actor (Hope Lambert) to join me. Hope not only brought her experience of working on new plays in New York, Washington D.C., and National Tours to the workshop, she also articulated and demonstrated the actor’s approach to the craft in a friendly, fun and inviting series of exercises. Watching her I realized that she brought my anecdotes to life and even more importantly, made the writers active participants in the lesson.
Hope and I now offer various presentations of this workshop (one-day or one-weekend seminars, short-term workshops of four to six meetings and longer-term workshops). In all of these the focus is on developing a basic understanding of the actor’s craft and using that knowledge to write dialogue that engages an audience in a story.

If you are new to playwriting or you are frustrated with trying to bring your dialogue and characters to life, this workshop will help you: better understand what the actor looks for in a new script; break out of the habit of TELLING the story and move into showing the story by appealing to the actor’s skills in your writing; have fun in a safe environment trying out some new acting skills and applying them to your plays; and along the way, add to your writing toolbox a deeper knowledge of the collaborative journey you take the instant you put dialogue on paper.

Richard Washer will be leading “Dialogue: A Practical Approach” at The Writer’s Center starting September 27.

Richard Washer, M.F.A., playwright and director. Richard was a co-founder of Charter Theater, a company devoted to developing and producing new plays. His recent productions include Quartet at the Hamner Theater and Getting It produced at the National Conservatory for Dramatic Arts. Richard is the Inaugural Playwright in Residence at First Draft Theater and a workshop leader at The Writer’s Center since 1994.

The Tricky Part: An Interview with Martin Moran

This is an excerpt from an interview published in the Spring 2009 issue of The Carousel. Richard Washer is a workshop leader at The Writer’s Center and company dramaturge for Charter Theatre. Martin Moran, author and Obie Award-winning actor, will perform part of his one-man show, The Tricky Part: A Boy’s Story of Sexual Trespass, a Man’s Journey to Forgiveness on Monday, October 19 at 7:30pm at the Center.

About Martin Moran:
Martin Moran grew up in Denver and attended Stanford University and The American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. He lives in New York City where he works as an actor and a writer. He has appeared in many Broadway and Off Broadway plays including Titanic, Cabaret, Bells Are Ringing and Floyd Collins. He was awarded a 2001 Fellowship for Creative Non-Fiction from the New York Foundation of the Arts. He won a 2004 Obie Award for his one-man play, The Tricky Part, which New York Times theater critic Ben Brantley praised for the quiet victory of "rendering chaos with this kind of clarity." Moran continues to perform The Tricky Part all over the country. Read more online at the book's website here.


Which came first, the writing or the acting, and what are your earliest recollections of having a passion for that particular form of expression?

When I was boy, I remember harboring a quiet notion that I’d be a writer. I’m not sure if it arose from seeing my Dad’s byline (he wrote for The Rocky Mountain News) or because I just loved books. But the first passion that truly gripped me was the stage and that happened sophomore year of high school when I landed, by what felt like total chance, in a musical, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum. I played ‘Hero’ and the instant I stepped on stage, a bundle of nerves wrapped in a toga, I was intoxicated by the attention and by this event called Theater, this vivid experience of human connection. I was hooked, as they say. Theater saved me and, as it turned out, has given me a life. Writing came much later, in my early thirties. It came with an imperative to tell a certain life story.

I am interested in the intersection of the processes you engage in both as writer and actor. How does the craft of acting inform your writing or the craft of writing inform your acting?

Both crafts require a kind of hunger to inhabit, to illuminate, human beings and human experience. Both crafts share, I think, the exercise of compassion. And the practice of one helps me grow more transparent and confident, I hope, in the practice of the other.

The Turkish writer, Orhan Pamuk, once said: “…a writer must have the artistry to tell his own stories as if they were other people’s stories, and to tell other people’s stories as if they were his own, for that is what literature is.” To imagine and/or enter into another’s story, (their) being, even as you enter deeper into your own, this is the gift, the challenge of crafting a narrative or playing a character. I had a friend who used to say regarding the creation of a character: If you can walk him, you can talk him.

The desire to communicate, to offer to others a human story—as writer or actor—is fueled by love, I think: an ache to uncover our common plight and joy, to shorten the distance between ourselves. What draws me to both pursuits, I believe, and where they intersect, is a devotion to the portrayal of complexity. We can so easily fall into a black and white, Us versus Them, a “you’re-either-with-us-or-against-us” view of the world. This objectifies human beings, allows us to bomb, to violate, because people become things, inconveniences. Both writing and acting are a way of recalling, exchanging, and raising consciousness.

Can you name some influences on your work (either in writing or acting) and how they have impacted your work?

My earliest influences came with music (my high school voice teacher) and movement and so I was most drawn to a kind of physical and musical form of story telling. In my twenties, I worked with theater makers like Meredith Monk and Anne Bogart and studied for a time with the French Director Ariane Mnouchkine. I was a dancer and always found movement the thrilling aspect that made theater distinct from work on the screen. And, of course, my love of Broadway musicals influenced much of the direction of my career.

I began to turn my ear and my heart more intensely toward literature. The narrative poets Stanley Kunitz, Akhmatova, playwrights, Brecht and Miller and so many others began to teach me about the power of words and of concision, the force of narrative and of myth. As I began to write for the stage, Spalding Gray’s worked influenced me a great deal.

You have adapted work for the stage (from your own book). Can you identify one joy and one challenge associated with adaptation?


One joy and challenge was learning how grappling with one form nourished the other. The imperative I felt to make the play intensely engaging helped me ultimately find the narrative structure of the book. And the desire to make the words on the page as clean and vibrant as possible helped me find the lucidity of the play.

A big challenge, especially with the play, was deciding what parts of the story belonged in and what out. At every turn I needed to cut and find what was revealed by what was omitted.

The big challenge when approaching the play was always the question: “What makes this an event in the room, alive in the moment?” This is a very different question from what keeps the story true and engaging to a reader sitting alone in a chair. The intimacy of a single reader is different from the communal experience of the theater.

What’s next for you professionally?

Gee, I don’t really know. I sort of wake each day attempting to cultivate faith in what is and what may come. I am at work on a collection of essays about my experiences working with refugees seeking asylum here in the US. I am auditioning for the odd acting job here and there. I was invited to write a piece for Ploughshares’ fall issue and am agonizing over it. I just played a small part in a TV pilot for a Showtime series called “Possible Side Effects.” I have no idea if it will get picked up and go on. It’s all a mystery.

Helicopters and Vultures: An Ensemble Performance

This Friday evening at 7pm, Henry Mills and Stephen Fleg (aka DJ Fleg) will deliver their stirring performance Helicopters & Vultures with a special guest appearance by poet Tala Rehmeh. This is a free event. This event has gotten a good deal of buzz around town. Check out this recent article about this eclectic performance piece in the Gazette.

Can you describe your performance Helicopters & Vultures? I understand it’s an ensemble performance and you also employ different creative forms.

Henry Mills: Helicopters and Vultures is the culmination of the last six years of my exploration of poetry and performance, and Stephen Fleg's exploration of DJing, piano and production. It’s not quite a play, a poetry reading, or a concert. It’s somewhere between those forms. I take what I like best from each form and each element complements the other.

Stephen Fleg: Helicopters and Vultures is a poetry and music performance where the music intertwines with the poetry, with the overall goal of taking readers inside the world the poems create.

All forms of art are the same thing, each containing a foundation through which creativity can be channeled for the purpose of expression. Each individual form appeals to a certain sense. By combining art forms, we are, in essence, combining senses. Thus, the result, this show strives to emulate the human experience through appeal to the different senses. The goal is not only to project our combination of arts onto others, but to infuse it into others so that it becomes just as much a part of the audience as it is a part of the poet’s. Having worked on this show with Henry for sometime, I feel that our performance has transcended either poetry or music and I often get chills during our rehearsals. I know the audience will leave our show with the same feeling.

After you came up with the idea for Helicopters and Vultures, what came next? How did it evolve into this fascinating performance?

Henry Mills: Although as a whole it is not a narrative it does have the “lets go on a journey” quality. I explore the tradition of survival in the bloodline of both my El Salvadorian as well as my Jewish side. In both cases, there is a history of displacement and rebellion.One of the things I discovered in reaching into both sides of my family lineage is the universality of struggle and love.

Stephen Fleg: The music behind the poetry is created using a piano, electronic samplers, turntables and a synthesizer. As a musician and producer I had all of these devices at my disposal and as we went through the process of creating these music-poem pieces, I tried different methods and different instruments to achieve the feeling of that particular poem. Some are simple and use only the piano, others have nothing at all and still others are multifaceted, using sampling machines, and the Moog synthesizer at the same time.

What if anything would you like for your audience to take away from your work?

Henry Mills: I hope people walk away haunted by the same ghosts that haunt me.

Stephen Fleg: I would like the audience to come to our show and be transported to our world for 45 minutes and then return to their own, taking with them, not just notes or words, but the understanding of the other lives explored in this process. It is through this type of understanding that we as people can transform our sympathy into empathy in relations to those around us, ultimately making the world more peaceful place.

A free performance of Helicopters and Vultures will take place at The Writer's Center on Friday, June 12th at 7pm.

Instructor Wednesday: Playwright Richard Washer on DC Theatre as "Second Rate"

Okay, so the DC theatre scene got slammed recently. When I heard about that I thought, Hey now! And I knew I just had to invite WC instructor Richard Washer to share his thoughts on the matter. Richard is a playwright, director, and educator, and has led Playwriting and Mixed Genre workshops at the Writer’s Center since 1995. He currently serves as Company Dramaturge at Charter Theatre (which incidentally got its start at The Writer's Center. His play Quartet was scheduled to be produced early in 2009 at Charter Theatre, but that's been put on hold for now. These are lean times for the theatre, which makes Slate's comments all the more egregious (at least for me). Anyway, enough of me. Here's Richard:

A recent article in Slate claims that Washington theatre is "… still second rate at best" caused me to laugh and sigh in almost one breath. I have worked in the Washington theatre community for some twenty-five years now (that statement alone is enough to make anyone sigh). The last ten years I have worked with Charter Theatre, a company devoted to developing and producing new plays, and this has provided me with the opportunity to meet and work with some of the most talented local artists (actors, designers, directors, and writers). That privilege of that experience alone is enough to make me laugh at the absurdity of the statement. Besides, it seems pretty clear to everyone that this is an instance of sloppy journalism. So why even honor it with another moment of attention? Because I sighed.

I sighed because I thought this conversation had finally faded away. I sighed because I felt like Washington theatre artists and residents are once again being called upon to defend our theatre community. And many are speaking up. Helen Hayes, Vice Chair, and Glen Howard over at DC theatre scene have begun a lively conversation on this topic. There are now more than sixty professional companies in Washington. A number like that reflects a vibrant and engaged community on both the part of the artists and the audiences that support and attend the events.

But I also sighed because in some ways the judgment that theatre here is second rate conjures in my mind the extra effort it takes to get the word out to the greater community about the good work being done. It's not just a matter of producing quality work. It's a question of reaching out to people who don't go to theatre, but would enjoy it if they did. If you are not a theatre enthusiast, or an artist working in theatre, an article dismissing the entire community as second rate can drown out any invitation to participate in theatrical events.

I have every confidence that President-elect Obama and his family will open to the Washington Post's "Guide to the Lively Arts" and be overwhelmed by the diversity and richness offered by the theatre community here. By all indications, from what I have read in recent articles, they will attend some performances. And they will judge for themselves. By then a careless, thoughtless and misguided comment made in Slate will be long forgotten.