This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:18] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Hello and welcome to The Drama Book Show.

[0:20] David Rigano: My name is David Rigano.

[0:21] Dylan Glick: And my name's Dylan Glick.

[0:24] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Yeah, we got Dylan back.

[0:26] Dylan Glick: Thanks for having me back.

[0:28] Mark-Eugene Garcia: So we had playwright becca schlossberg in to talk about some of their plays, moderated by their friend Jamie Lamchek.

[0:36] David Rigano: And it was one I was really looking forward to because Becca emailed, like probably in January about can we do this event?

[0:45] Mark-Eugene Garcia: And at that point, we were so far booked ahead that the only thing we had was September.

[0:49] David Rigano: Uh-huh.

[0:50] Mark-Eugene Garcia: And I was like, hey, this is the thing.

[0:52] David Rigano: Okay.

[0:52] Mark-Eugene Garcia: I would love to do this. I want to do this, but I don't have till the fall.

[0:55] David Rigano: And they were like, of course.

[0:56] Mark-Eugene Garcia: And I was like, so that was probably the furthest I'd like scheduled ahead somebody.

[1:01] David Rigano: It was like nine months ahead.

[1:03] Mark-Eugene Garcia: They were real go with the flow the whole time.

[1:06] David Rigano: It was really fun.

[1:08] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Yeah, it really was.

[1:10] David Rigano: And was Discus a staff pick of yours?

[1:12] Mark-Eugene Garcia: I don't, here's the thing. I don't know if Discus was a staff pick of mine, but it's one that I've loved for a while.

[1:17] David Rigano: Number one.

[1:18] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Number two, it's like one of those plays that like I will tell like customers it like ruined my life.

[1:23] David Rigano: As it like ripped my heart out.

[1:24] Mark-Eugene Garcia: I love those.

[1:25] David Rigano: Thank you.

[1:26] Mark-Eugene Garcia: And also, yes, they're so good and so angsty and uh but yeah, I don't think it's a staff pick, but I recommend it to people all the time.

[1:33] David Rigano: And there was one time where Becca's partner Trevor came in and was buying a copy, and as he was ringing up, I was like, oh, that play ruined my life.

[1:42] Mark-Eugene Garcia: And he was like, oh, and then we chatted about it a little bit, and now, whenever they both come in, they say hi.

[1:47] David Rigano: And so I was very excited for the event. I just love that play and I love their work.

[1:50] Mark-Eugene Garcia: That's so cool.

[1:51] David Rigano: So it's a contemporary retelling of a Greek tragedy.

[1:55] Mark-Eugene Garcia: It's between Apollo and Falling in Love with a Human Named Hyacinth.

[1:59] David Rigano: And it is gay and sad, and it ripped my heart out.

[2:03] Mark-Eugene Garcia: And so it's really great time.

[2:05] David Rigano: There's also a lot of like flexibility within casting.

[2:08] Mark-Eugene Garcia: There are some like roles for non-binary gender queer people, which I think is really cool.

[2:11] David Rigano: And yeah, it's a great time.

[2:13] Mark-Eugene Garcia: And also Greek mythology.

[2:14] David Rigano: Yeah.

[2:15] Mark-Eugene Garcia: And to that point also, that was something that I remember discussing with them, like more like discussing with them both before and after the event, just like getting more gender non-specific writing in there.

[2:30] David Rigano: And obviously, there are a lot of gender fluid people who are writing more specifically gender fluid characters and specifically non-binary and trans characters.

[2:39] Mark-Eugene Garcia: What I've been doing a lot lately is just not specifying.

[2:44] David Rigano: Yeah.

[2:45] Mark-Eugene Garcia: And leaving it open.

[2:46] David Rigano: And that way they can be played by trans or non-binary actors and then played as a trans or non-binary character without it having been me like making if I write it that way, then it sounds like I'm saying something about the trans or non-binary experience that I don't feel I have a place to say, but that shouldn't obviously stop trans or non-binary people from being in my plays.

[3:13] Mark-Eugene Garcia: If they're good for the character.

[3:15] David Rigano: Oh, that's good.

[3:16] Mark-Eugene Garcia: They discuss Discus as well as the Untold Yippie Project and Three Boys.

[3:21] David Rigano: So let's jump in and hear this discussion.

[3:23] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Let's hear it.

[3:23] Jamie Lamchek: Hello.

[3:24] becca schlossberg: Hello, my girl.

[3:26] Jamie Lamchek: Hi, Becca.

[3:27] becca schlossberg: Hi.

[3:27] Jamie Lamchek: Got a real hot one here.

[3:33] becca schlossberg: I was just thinking about the fact that you and I have known each other for half of my human life.

[3:39] Jamie Lamchek: Gross.

[3:40] becca schlossberg: Disgusting.

[3:41] Jamie Lamchek: I love that.

[3:42] becca schlossberg: That's so much crazy.

[3:44] Jamie Lamchek: We are here tonight to talk about your many beautiful works.

[3:47] becca schlossberg: We are indeed.

[3:49] Jamie Lamchek: How are you feeling?

[3:50] becca schlossberg: Do you feel good?

[3:51] Jamie Lamchek: Yeah, I feel good.

[3:52] becca schlossberg: What an unbelievably friendly room I'm looking at to a lot of smiles.

[3:57] Jamie Lamchek: Oh, wow.

[3:57] becca schlossberg: And waves, people listening to the podcast.

[3:59] Jamie Lamchek: That is true.

[4:00] becca schlossberg: People are waving.

[4:01] Jamie Lamchek: I didn't make that up to make us sound popular.

[4:04] becca schlossberg: I guess one of the things that I wanted to start with was to talk about you've written so many plays, you have, and so many kind of varying topics across those plays.

[4:16] Jamie Lamchek: Like you really have a pretty tremendous diversity of work.

[4:19] becca schlossberg: There's a lot of disparate elements that connect your plays.

[4:21] Jamie Lamchek: You often are interested in different time periods, in different sort of degrees of fantasy versus reality.

[4:29] becca schlossberg: Some of your plays are like kitchen dramas, I would say.

[4:32] Jamie Lamchek: And some of them are more wide-ranging that deal with mythology.

[4:36] becca schlossberg: Some of them, such as Three Boys, for instance, even are like Aesop fables that deal with animals.

[4:41] Jamie Lamchek: Your settings are vastly different, very imaginative, but your emotional beats, I would say share a lot of commonalities.

[4:51] becca schlossberg: And you can tell me if you think I'm wrong about this.

[4:53] Jamie Lamchek: You're very interested in like inflection points in preexisting relationships, kind of moments when things boil over between longstanding relationships, people who've known each other for a long time, and especially between people who are totally unqualified to discuss their own emotional states, which I think is really interesting.

[5:12] becca schlossberg: And it maybe doesn't say anything about you or anything.

[5:16] Jamie Lamchek: But I just think maybe it says a couple of things.

[5:16] becca schlossberg: Maybe it says a couple of things.

[5:22] Jamie Lamchek: Thinking of three of what I would consider like your kind of big prominent ones that are that feel very important to me.

[5:27] Jamie Lamchek: Discus shows us the story of a boy who has the misfortune of falling in love with a god who sees himself as infallible.

[5:34] Jamie Lamchek: The Untitled Yippie Project concerns bright young men whose ideals stand in direct opposition to their hearts.

[5:41] Jamie Lamchek: And Three Boys is about the, in some cases, literally impotent rage of a trio of dogs who lack the agency or language to live on their own terms.

[5:49] becca schlossberg: And all of these, I would say, in their own distinct ways, are love stories.

[5:54] Jamie Lamchek: Which I would argue the majority of your plays are, which is, I think what's so beautiful about them and why they reach so many people, especially young audiences who love to perform your work.

[6:03] becca schlossberg: I'm so drawn to that aspect of your work.

[6:05] Jamie Lamchek: It's one of the reasons why the first thing of yours I heard, which was in college, which might have been Three Boys, or maybe I don't know.

[6:12] becca schlossberg: I don't know if that was probably the first one.

[6:15] Jamie Lamchek: Yeah, definitely the first connection.

[6:16] becca schlossberg: Yeah, I remember saying to myself, like, oh, they've cracked a code.

[6:19] Jamie Lamchek: Like they've figured out something really true about the way that people talk, the way that people think, and I was so moved.

[6:27] Jamie Lamchek: And everybody, for those of you that didn't go to college with Becca and myself, which is probably like 90% of you, people were clamoring to perform in Becca's work and to direct it and to work on it.

[6:39] becca schlossberg: Like it was, they've just been a superstar for as long as I've known them.

[6:43] Jamie Lamchek: So I wanted to go back in time.

[6:44] Jamie Lamchek: I wanted to talk to you, specifically ask you about where these kind of where the love for these kinds of stories, these sort of complicated dynamics and these love stories between people who have a really hard time expressing themselves come from.

[6:59] becca schlossberg: I wondered if you could talk a little bit about your influences as a writer.

[7:03] Jamie Lamchek: Specifically, knowing you as well as I do, I know that movies have been a very major part of your artistic development.

[7:10] becca schlossberg: I would say, somewhat their relationship to film is somewhat mimetic.

[7:15] Jamie Lamchek: Like they, they will Becca and I lived together for a period of time and it was always Oh, which film are we watching every morning this month?

[7:24] becca schlossberg: Which which one is it?

[7:25] Jamie Lamchek: Is it now?

[7:26] becca schlossberg: Is it The Empire Strikes Back?

[7:28] Jamie Lamchek: Is it Bridesmaids?

[7:30] becca schlossberg: Is it like this beautiful French film called Tomboy?

[7:33] Jamie Lamchek: What which one is it?

[7:34] becca schlossberg: So I would love to hear you talk about the early things that you saw when you were young that really helps create that sensibility for you.

[7:42] becca schlossberg: What a lovely introduction.

[7:44] becca schlossberg: Thanks, Jamie.

[7:45] Jamie Lamchek: Yeah, yeah.

[7:45] becca schlossberg: And absolutely true.

[7:47] becca schlossberg: I think like a lot of people, maybe who are first getting into theater, like movies were just they're more accessible in many ways.

[7:54] becca schlossberg: And my mom and dad were both big lovers of movies.

[7:58] becca schlossberg: So I would say the first like big influence for me, like the first like movie that kind of I think like still ripped out my heart is Stand By Me.

[8:07] becca schlossberg: Still my favorite film.

[8:08] becca schlossberg: Something about like the intimacy between these young men, the vulnerability, the brutalness of the world around them and the sort of like, yeah, intimacy and vulnerability that they have with each other.

[8:22] becca schlossberg: I think still is so unique, so subversive.

[8:25] Jamie Lamchek: Totally.

[8:25] becca schlossberg: The performances are incredible, the direction is incredible, has moments of like real intense dramatic catharsis, and then moments of real humor too, which is great.

[8:35] Jamie Lamchek: Train scene.

[8:36] becca schlossberg: Yeah, it's one that definitely stands out for me and one I've seen 6,000 times.

[8:39] becca schlossberg: And one that I think no matter where I when I've watched it in my life, I feel the same thing.

[8:46] becca schlossberg: Which is really like striking about a movie.

[8:48] Jamie Lamchek: I feel like that actually really changes over time.

[8:50] becca schlossberg: Absolutely.

[8:50] becca schlossberg: I definitely like now watching them, I'm like, oh, I'm much, much older than them.

[8:55] becca schlossberg: Like I when I first watched it, I was like, oh, these guys are much older than me.

[8:59] becca schlossberg: How cool.

[8:59] becca schlossberg: And now far surpassed them.

[9:02] becca schlossberg: But yeah, definitely like loved movies about outsiders, the outsiders specifically.

[9:09] becca schlossberg: Although I would say for me personally, love that book.

[9:13] becca schlossberg: Honestly, for a more than the movie.

[9:15] becca schlossberg: Love that the current musical as well, but the the book was like such a cornerstone of like my literary language.

[9:23] becca schlossberg: It made me love reading and want to read.

[9:25] becca schlossberg: And then yeah, like things like Billy Elliot, things like Matilda, things like I was thinking about this movie the other day, Ordinary People.

[9:31] becca schlossberg: That was one of my dad's favorite films.

[9:33] becca schlossberg: And love that film with the same thing, like Timothy Hutton, the vulnerability of his performance.

[9:39] becca schlossberg: It's so commanding.

[9:40] becca schlossberg: It's and again, the brutalness of the world around him and the sort of like vulnerability that he finds and the catharsis of expressing himself finally after this real journey of repression in that movie.

[9:54] Jamie Lamchek: So beautiful.

[9:55] becca schlossberg: Yeah.

[9:55] becca schlossberg: Oh.

[9:56] becca schlossberg: And uh Peter Pan, obviously.

[10:00] Jamie Lamchek: I say of course because this is one of the primary things that maybe the first thing that bonded Becca and myself was that we both grew up watching the like I'm gonna say 1965.

[10:09] becca schlossberg: Yeah, something like that.

[10:10] Jamie Lamchek: 1965.

[10:12] becca schlossberg: Yeah, they first did it in the 50s, but we watched the color version.

[10:16] Jamie Lamchek: That's right.

[10:16] becca schlossberg: It's like it's a color it is a color production of Peter Pan that aired on like NBC in 1965.

[10:23] becca schlossberg: That like my dad had taped off of a VHM.

[10:26] becca schlossberg: I watched non-stop.

[10:27] Jamie Lamchek: And it's Mary Martin is Peter Pan and Cyril Richard, who's become kind of a folk hero to us.

[10:33] becca schlossberg: Absolutely unbelievable performance.

[10:34] becca schlossberg: As Captain Hook playing just he's so crazy.

[10:37] Jamie Lamchek: He's cool cam.

[10:39] becca schlossberg: Oh my god.

[10:40] becca schlossberg: Tell the ship.

[10:41] Jamie Lamchek: We the ship.

[10:43] becca schlossberg: We used to just quote that to each other over and over again back and forth.

[10:46] Jamie Lamchek: And that's when I was like, oh, that's my soul name.

[10:51] becca schlossberg: And watching Mary Martin as a 40-year-old woman who is also a boy.

[10:55] becca schlossberg: I was like, that's my gender identity.

[10:57] Jamie Lamchek: This yes.

[11:01] becca schlossberg: Like that's phenomenal.

[11:04] Jamie Lamchek: That actually segues really beautifully into my next setup and punch, baby.

[11:09] becca schlossberg: You just got me there.

[11:10] Jamie Lamchek: That's awesome.

[11:11] Jamie Lamchek: Literally, my next note on my cue card here says, gender.

[11:15] becca schlossberg: I'm a little gender.

[11:16] Jamie Lamchek: Specifically, I think this was especially true earlier in your writing career.

[11:20] Jamie Lamchek: With some of your more recent works, this expanded a bit, but several of us who were fans of your work from college onward often would talk about the Becca boy, which was like an archetype that would appear over and over again in your work.

[11:33] becca schlossberg: Usually a like young people are giggling because they know what I'm talking about.

[11:39] Jamie Lamchek: It goes back.

[11:41] becca schlossberg: An archetype that would appear in your work, usually your protagonist in a lot of your early work was a young man, our age, or maybe a little older, maybe a little younger, who was hallmarked by all those things that you're describing here.

[11:54] becca schlossberg: A sort of toughness, but like a deep fragility and vulnerability that you were really interested in like excavating.

[12:01] Jamie Lamchek: And you've always, it seems to me, been drawn to these characters that are young men who have this softness that the world is trying to destroy and cannot do.

[12:13] becca schlossberg: And so I wondered if you could talk about how that pertains to your own experience, if you so choose with gender identity, or if that just is a character that you're interested in, how that kind of dovetails with your own, whether that's people that you know, whether you feel like that's you, just to talk a little bit about that character.

[12:31] becca schlossberg: Yeah, I think my plays, and I did start writing plays when I was pretty young, have always been a means to express myself and to journey through something.

[12:45] becca schlossberg: How old were you when you wrote your first play?

[12:48] becca schlossberg: 18.

[12:50] becca schlossberg: Which was about a very troubled young man, which was my first play, Just Like I Wanted, which was about suicide. Although Eddie, uh, although an actor of any gender can play that part. So yeah, I think the plays for me were always a venue in which I could express myself, and I do think there was this yearning to connect with my masculine side and explore that. As someone who grew up in a time when non-binary wasn't even like a word in the popular lexicon, it was just I found myself being drawn again and again to that experience to I think supplement my own, bringing the internal external, bringing the kind of wild fantasy life and imagination that I had and trying to put it in my work. And yeah, I do find even now, although I think it's changed for me a little bit, but even now I do find that kind of character like very deeply appealing.

The idea of going from repression to expression is like a really satisfying arc to me. Yeah, so I think that's why I've always gravitated to it. And I've always been like tried to be like very empathetic to people who are going through the same kind of struggle, and that's often why like the gender casting in my plays is very flexible, and I try and just remember the young girl that I was being like, I want to play the boys' part, boys have the better parts. I wanted to just express myself in that way, and so I think that, or vice versa, or anywhere in between. I feel like the stories of my plays are one thing, and I feel like the text of it can be in place, but the casting is really another.

And I feel like theater is actually like a really beautiful venue in which you can imagine yourself to be whatever you want to be, and people accept it. They yes-and it because that's not like TV or film where it's like we are depicting reality. It's nobody sits in a proscenium theater and they're like, this is real, I hope. But if you say to an audience, like, I am this, they'll go with it. If that's in the text and support it, they'll absolutely yes-and it. Well, it's like the line that we always talk about with Peter and the Starcatcher when they're like, we ask you now to imagine a grown cat in flight. In our first apartment in New York, we had a poster that I had handmade where I cut out letters from like wallpaper samples that said that because we loved that line so much.

[15:11] becca schlossberg: Yeah, it's just like a simple, funny, yeah, like really evocative line that, like, oh, okay, yeah, sure. Like, I won't imagine a cat in flight.

[15:18] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Oh, absolutely.

[15:21] becca schlossberg: And there was nothing, there was just like a silhouette of a black cat flying in the magazine. Yeah, it's not, yeah, but it wasn't realistically depicted. It's asking you to use your imagination, which is such a powerful aspect of theater that I love.

[15:38] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Yeah, yeah. I feel like that sense of imagination and that sense of play animates a lot of your work. I think of a play that you wrote in college that was an adaptation of the Thousand and One Nights that was a trunk show where you just have like a, there was like a trunk on. I feel like there was literally a trunk on stage, wasn't it?

[15:57] becca schlossberg: I think there was, yeah.

[15:58] becca schlossberg: Out of which we would just pull, we. I was not in it. I was very jealous. Uh, out of which, out of which we would, the actors would pull different pieces and costumes and transform things. There's a real kind of childlike element of play in that. Okay, now we're gonna do this. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that sense of play and how you feel like that manifests in your work now.

[16:22] becca schlossberg: Yeah. But it's funny, I feel like a random memory of an actor once saying to me, they were like, my favorite thing to do was play with the other kids like after school, and that's why I like want to do theater. And I was like, I guess it's like simple, but it's so pure. It's just it is. It's like we wanna like all like play pretend together. That's I feel like a reason why we're all doing theater. And yeah, I just try, I think these days to write as if I'm the audience. I am trying to entertain myself. And like I think I'm trying to be playful, also because I'm naturally playful. Such a weird way to say that. This is so. How can I say I'm naturally playful in a straight turn over? But yes, I am. For anyone who's not, for who's listening to this after the fact, you cannot imagine how close to the microphone their mouth just got. It was crazy. Just want to make sure you can all hear the ASMR.

[17:17] Mark-Eugene Garcia: It's a fully playwright ASMR. I'm sorry, go on.

[17:21] becca schlossberg: So yeah, good case in point example, I guess. Nothing else needs to be said. No, yeah, but uh, I do, it's funny, like these days I've found myself more drawn to comedies, so that playfulness is coming in handy. And I think there's also a part of me too that's do we have to take this all so seriously? Like I feel like I've seen a lot of play, like obviously those plays are important and I love those kinds of plays, but there is a part of me that does want to be like, oh no, we need to dig this out seriously. Because again, I think it's just fun in a way. It's people performing in a box. I don't know. I just try and open it up a bit.

[17:54] Mark-Eugene Garcia: What always makes you laugh?

[17:58] becca schlossberg: People yelling really loudly.

[18:01] becca schlossberg: Like randomly. Like I think we were talking about this the other day. Like the, I forget the British comedy show. Oh my god. Trigger Happy TV. I don't know if anyone's ever. I'm in a laundromat. This is like a hidden camera show from like the early 2000s where like a British man with a huge, like comically oversized telephone would be at like an art gallery or something, and the phone would ring like deafeningly loudly. And then like you'd scream into, scream into the phone. I'm at a gallery. A gallery in Holland. Or the movies for a second day, you know, go hey Roger, what do you call the middle of a song? Gee, I don't know. Up like unbelievable. Yeah, I don't know. I that something about that really tickles me. The quiet loud dynamic is very good.

[18:47] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Yeah.

[18:48] becca schlossberg: Yeah. And I don't know. A lot of different things. I do find myself honestly tough audience at things. I wish I was a little bit more of a loose sort of laugher, but you're discerning.

[19:14] Mark-Eugene Garcia: That's what makes you a good writer.

[19:14] becca schlossberg: Yeah. Sorry, I was still let that go and then I couldn't. I'm so sorry. How close am I now?

[19:14] Mark-Eugene Garcia: No stop.

[19:14] becca schlossberg: It's so weird.

[19:14] becca schlossberg: Yeah, I, yeah, I don't know. Uh, those that's definitely the first thing that comes to mind.

[19:12] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Yeah, absolutely. It's you have a discerning sensibility. I think that's what makes you a good writer. If you laughed at everything, your work probably wouldn't be as soak.

[19:19] becca schlossberg: Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. I was going to say that you're fang that your work would suck.

[19:24] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Can we talk a little bit about your process? Can we talk about how it's like the this is just something that I'm always really fascinated by? I've seen you in the throes of the writing process before, but I would love if you could talk about it for the audience. Do you find yourself thinking in stage pictures that it's then your job to commit? What comes first? Do you hear the dialogue in your head and then just notate it down? I would love to hear about how these things evolve for you.

[19:47] becca schlossberg: Yeah, differently. That's what I've learned over the years. Three Boys started with the title. It's the only one of my plays that has ever started with the title. It's always been like scrambling at the end to give my plays a title. But yeah, Just Like I Wanted came from a very real need to have a conversation about teen suicide with my community. Yippies definitely came from an image. My dad was the one who inspired that one because he told me about the Yippie takeover of Disneyland. And I just thought that was a very colorful image. For people who don't know, would you like to talk a little bit more about what that is? Because this is still a piece of history that is not super well known, which is why the play is so fantastic.

[20:25] becca schlossberg: Yeah, so in 1970, a group of Yippies who were like more radicalized version of the hippie movement stormed into Disneyland and took it over. And it's open until funny, because today is 9-11, but up until 9-11, it was the only time in the history of Disneyland where they shut the park early. And there were just like a lot of antics that day that I found very colorful, I guess both from being in the setting of Disneyland and then also from the Yippie movement and their sort of color and eccentricity. And they went to, it was called like Tom Sawyer's Island at the time, took down the flag, were bothering and poking like the character mascots, were in areas that they weren't supposed to be in until unfortunately like violence escalated, and then the National Guard or the Riot Squad or something was brought into the park and broke it up. It's funny, it feels like it gains more and more relevance. Um, like a really interesting movement that I just found myself like really fascinated with and yeah.

[21:28] becca schlossberg: So that definitely imagery discus more oh that I want a little bit of an image too. Patty Lynn, who's sitting in the audience there, pitched me the idea of writing a play for her company, which is Hunger and Thirst, where they do reinvented classics, and I was thinking about classics and consulted you and because way more about Greek mythology than I do. And you, I was that kind of kid. And you were like, you should do, you should do a queer myth. You should absolutely do a queer myth. And I was like, oh yeah, that's cool, because there are several and they're less well known. And yeah, something about Apollo and Hyacinth, and I think that they liked to play discus together, and then I just thought of oh, discus, like a circle, the circle of life that Hyacinth's that he becomes a flower is that kind of parallel to the circle I thought was like potent. Spoilers for the ancient Greek of ancient Greek myth of Hyacinth and Apollo. It doesn't work out, but most of them don't.

[22:29] becca schlossberg: Yeah, no, very tragic. But really interesting kind of metamorphosis, and so yeah, and then it really just starting with those images, I guess it yeah, it can be I'll hear a little bit of dialogue. Lately I've been writing in order. I've been writing like scene by scene in order, because I think that kind of helps me track the arc. But if I'll get an idea for the ending or I'll just hear something from a different scene, I'll usually jot that down.

[22:52] Mark-Eugene Garcia: And when you say you hear something, you mean the idea, like you can hear like the voices in your head or like the dialogue itself, or I can hear something out in the world that you then want to use.

[23:02] becca schlossberg: Oh no, like I feel like I can hear the dialogue in my head. Like something that one character says, maybe the response back, usually like a little snippet that I can pull from that maybe like that little snippet is like the heart of the matter, and then it's extrapolating from there. Like what is, what are they really like fighting about? What where do they really need to travel to?

[23:24] Mark-Eugene Garcia: That's interesting.

[23:25] becca schlossberg: Yeah, yeah, it does I don't know. I g uh maybe from writing plays for as long as I have been, I guess it feels like I think in dialogue sometimes. It's the easiest way for me to think in people talking as opposed to I guess a novel form, something like that.

[23:40] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Maybe like a sort of a strange question, but when you hear it in your head, whose voice is it?

[23:48] becca schlossberg: Usually me.

[23:49] becca schlossberg: Yeah.

[23:50] becca schlossberg: Like I play all the parts in my own brain.

[23:53] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Like share before you.

[23:55] becca schlossberg: Yes. Thank you.

[23:58] becca schlossberg: Doing all the parts of In the Heights in college, like doing, yeah, I've I've yeah, that's usually how it goes for me. Occasionally I'll picture an actor. And sometimes that actually helps me refine, like picturing, okay, how would they say this, or what is the cadence here? That kind of thing, but usually it does start with, yeah, like trying to they're inside my head, I get inside their head, and then we wrestle it out.

[24:20] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense.

[24:21] becca schlossberg: I think that really comes through in the work. I mentioned at the top of this that your work is very popular with colleges and with high schools. When you are writing, do you find that you're you have this kind of performers who are young in mind? Are you thinking about your audience? Are you thinking about who will go on to produce the work, or does that sort of come later?

[24:41] becca schlossberg: It does come later. I'm obsessed with coming of age stories, at least right now. So it does make sense. By the way, that's like the joy of my life.

[24:50] becca schlossberg: Oh yeah. College and high school kids. I want to say my words, like as a former theater kid, that's so deeply meaningful to me. And yeah, so I think maybe just at this stage I've been in in life, I've just been writing for younger voices and coming of age stories.

[25:05] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Yeah, I don't know too much more about that one.

[25:07] becca schlossberg: Yeah.

[25:08] Mark-Eugene Garcia: How does it, if I could just put a pin in that? What do you think it is that they respond to in your work? Let's say like the student directors that are choosing your work who are choosing to put it on.

[25:22] becca schlossberg: I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if I could speak to that. Like maybe that they like the two-hander aspects of it sometimes.

[25:30] becca schlossberg: They like the monologues of it sometimes. I do try and again, because I think I hear it in my head and I try and picture it as I'm writing, I really do try and keep actors in mind and really think, oh, what would they like to say? How can they like clearly tell a story? How can I bring them from like point A to point B? How can I make them laugh or entertain them? Like I really try and keep the actor in mind. Make it if I were ever to perform it myself, I would want to perform it. Yeah. Maybe it's I've been again, because I started so young, maybe it's just a carryover from that. I was writing for people my own age and people I wanted to work with and my friends and yeah, so I think I've hovered around that area. But I'm whatever it is, I'm so glad that they do seem to respond to it.

[26:18] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Wow, that's awesome. I could monopolize your time all night, as I have done many times throughout our friendship. But it only feels right and fair that I open the floor to questions, which we can now take. So if anybody has any questions about anything that you think Becca would be really good at answering or bad at, because that could also be fun.

[26:37] becca schlossberg: That'd be fun. Just make it entertaining.

[26:40] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Yeah. Hello.

[26:42] Audience Member: Hi. I'm Alahadra longtime. What you're working on now, or if not what's specific? Maybe things you're thinking about.

[26:55] Mark-Eugene Garcia: The question was—

[26:55] becca schlossberg: No, no, please.

[27:00] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Thank you. I just didn't want they were about to jump right on there. And I said, No, we're making a podcast. We gotta repeat the question. Audio first. This is why you have Jamie Lamchek moderate your shit, because I'm insufferable. The question was, what are you working on now? What's incubating? What's going around up here right now?

[27:16] becca schlossberg: Ooh. So much. First of all, question from the original Zephyrus of Discus. Just Alejandro Vanasia. Hell yeah. Oh God. Okay, so many things. So my main sort of focus right now is I am working on an anthology of plays called The Inner Child Plays. And jumping back and forth between them. So they include a Dybbuk Bat Mitzvah, now I'm just calling it Whipping Boy and Reasonable Adults. So all of them feature a child on stage being played by an adult actor. I guess to really hit this point home, it's about the inner child. All of them are really varied tonally, thematically, but I'm really curious and exploring, and again, probably through for my own personal exploration of just like exploring healing the inner child, connecting with the inner child.

So I'm really going back and forth between those works. I'm working on a commission piece for an actor named Jordan Kaplan called More, which is about a man's journey through fatherhood, being estranged from his own family and his Jewish identity. And then I'm working also on a book, I guess. My first book called The Clearing, which is about a—it's funny actually, this ties back to movies very much. So it's set in the future. It's about a young person who is being kept by a very wealthy family as an entertainment system because books and movies and art have been outlawed, and they are the last generation to watch movies, so they recite movies for this wealthy couple, and then they meet someone else at this mansion, and things ensue.

So yeah, a bit of YA dystopian fun stuff. Yeah, so a lot of different things percolating, but I try and put them in piles, come back, you know, that kind of thing. But yeah, really excited about everything.

[29:17] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Yeah. Just want to submit for the record that book sounds sick as fuck. Can't wait to remember.

[29:21] becca schlossberg: Thank you. I'm very cool as hell, man. I think that rules hopefully maybe a screenplay one day.

[29:26] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Hey now.

[29:27] becca schlossberg: So that would be dope. Any more questions? Anyone else?

[29:30] Audience Member: Yes, hello.

[29:31] becca schlossberg: Hi.

[29:32] Audience Member: What was the most surprising response to a piece of your work?

[29:36] becca schlossberg: Oh, I love that question. The question was what was the most surprising response to a piece of your work? Hi, Alana. I think a lot of different things have surprised me over the years. I've been very lucky that way. The response I've gotten to my first play, Just Like I Wanted, yeah, it makes me like I think emotional to think about because I just—responses I've gotten, emails I've gotten from kids being like, I was thinking about this, and this play really helped me express myself, and now I'm not anymore. And also honestly, the fight that kids have gotten into to get that play produced at their high school and them like going to bat for that play. I just like that has really surprised me and really touched me.

Yeah, so probably that, although honestly, anytime you get any kind of response as a writer, it's great because I feel writing can be kind of a lonely thing. We do it in isolation. The nice thing about theater is we get to share it with other people, but yeah, any kind when you birth it and it's out there and people respond to it, you're like, oh yeah, yeah, people are now involved, and that's great. So yeah, that's any kind of response is really cool.

[30:42] Audience Member: Hi. Who are your playwright heroes? Or who's inspired you over the years? And part two, what is the first play that you remember?

[30:57] becca schlossberg: A lot, a lot. Playwrighting heroes, John Leguizamo, love that dude. Sarah Jones, love her, Amy Herzog, like Maria Irene Fornes, like truly so many. I just read Jonah by Rachel Bonds, and I was like, so emotional. It's such a good play, if you haven't read it. Yeah, like I feel like there's like new things discovering all the time, and first play to leave a mark on me, The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh. Saw that for my 16th birthday. I was like, Mommy, can I have a ticket to The Pillowman? Took the train in and saw that play and blew my little mind, and only time I've ever screamed in a theater out of fear. I was genuinely frightened by it. Which is also such an underutilized aspect in theater.

But there's a part where a little boy like jumps up from the bed and he's bloody and covered in a blanket, and I screamed, and nobody around me screamed, but I screamed. Spoilers for The Pillowman. Yeah, so he's definitely a big one as well. It's just like his sort of fun with language. Like always grabbing on to like a word or like a phrase and being like, why is that? I was just, I love that. Yeah, so brilliant. So yeah, probably The Pillowman. Oh, Equus by Peter Shaffer. Love that play too. So good.

[32:27] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Any other questions?

[32:28] Audience Member: Hi. Question for me, we're talking about how your relationship with movies love or I'm wondering if there are any places more said relationships just changed as well as thinking about how your relationship to some movies has changed as you've gotten older. How has your relationship to some of your own plays changed as you've gotten older?

[32:49] becca schlossberg: Is that thanks, buddy? They feel very vulnerable. They really do. They're revisiting adolescence. They're a bit harder sometimes to approach. I haven't, to be fair, I haven't seen or read Just Like I Wanted in a very long time. I think because I'm a little afraid to, it would be a lot to revisit that chapter, I think, in my life. But I love that play. That play was everything to me. That play like got me into playwriting, really, set me on a path. But yeah, I think I feel differently about all of them over the years, but I really do love them. And I think even the ones where I feel like I really fucked up or have failed or I didn't communicate the thing that I was trying to communicate, I feel like I think I can look back on them now and be like I think I was really struggling with that and like that has been like a very kind perspective that I think you only get in time.

But yeah, I mostly I feel really proud of my kids like they're—and I guess inner child healing—like very proud of past little me that was just like I want to do this. I don't care if they're messy if nobody likes them I just had a desire to put them out there. They're out there for better or worse they're out there but yeah I think I look back at them with a lot of fondness though.

[34:10] Audience Member: Hi, hi, hi Monet. I think this isn't a daughter question but the world is such a harsh place to be in right now so I'm curious like how you approach writing in this environment and what do you think the responsibility of the playwright is yourself. Maybe not all playwrights just for yourself.

[34:33] becca schlossberg: The world being such a harsh place right now how do you approach writing for yourself and what do you think is the responsibility of a playwright or for you during this time perhaps just yourself as a playwright?

[34:48] becca schlossberg: Yeah that's a great question. Maybe because I've again I've always been the playwright that's tried to bring the internal external and I am as is everyone we are reflective of our environments, right? Like we absorb like sponges the world around us and we reflect it back and that's what we're allegedly doing in theater. It's the mirror, right? So I think for me though, it might honestly be different than maybe your typical kind of topical play. Because I'm of the belief that maybe like a particular moment play, if we're doing it, if you're writing about, if I was gonna try and write about right now, I don't think that I could do it successfully because we're so enmeshed in it. I think it's only with like retrospection that we can make a sense out of anything.

If that so yeah, I think for me, I do try to absorb the world around me. I try to have a lot of empathy, and I hope that is reflected in my work. And in particular, I guess the thing about the world right now, and something that I'm clinging on to is that kindness, joy, compassion, those are deeply subversive acts. And so I try to infuse that in my everyday life and also in my plays. And again, lately I've been writing comedy, so I'm really because I feel like people need to laugh right now so bad. And that's something that maybe you could easily dismiss, but I comedy is so important. Yeah, I think I'm really focused on that right now to try and maybe help people through this moment. I hope, you know.

[36:30] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Hell yeah. Do we have any more?

[36:32] Audience Member: Hi.

[36:33] becca schlossberg: Hi, Garrett. You talk about your favorite books, favorite movies, you could adapt a movie or film for the book by the stage that has not yet been adapted to the stage public.

[36:46] becca schlossberg: Ooh, if you could adapt a piece of media for the stage that has not yet been adapted, movie, book, TV, what would it be?

[36:58] becca schlossberg: Ooh. Okay. A couple of thoughts. Why isn't Nightmare Before Christmas a musical? Yeah, no, clap it up. Hocus Pocus. That honestly. Maybe that would honestly be my answer. I want to make Hocus Pocus into a musical and write maybe the book for that. I'm also—this is like maybe a long-term thing, but and I have to review it, but I want to make like Maniac McGee into a screenplay. Yo. I just remember that like images from that book like really sharply. Yeah. I remember being such a great book and really enjoying it. And so I was like, oh, I wonder if there's anything there for I guess not a stage adaptation. Probably, but I don't know. Yeah. So I guess those are my answers.

[37:45] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Very good answer. My quick answers.

[37:47] becca schlossberg: Yeah.

[37:47] Mark-Eugene Garcia: I have a question.

[37:48] becca schlossberg: Okay.

[37:49] Mark-Eugene Garcia: It's David. Also that I have like a handful of years older than you when I saw The Pillowman at that same moment made me curse out loud in the theater. Thank you. Hell yeah. I love the way people were talking about gender when it came to casting and when it came to the production of the plays and not needing to adhere to any strict gender. I was wondering how that comes into play when you are writing and if not yet, but how you think about the character's gender and if and when it needs to be specified, and if you ever feel that it doesn't need to be specified in the text.

[38:29] becca schlossberg: Yeah, that's a great question. How do you think about the gender of your characters when you are writing them? Like when does gender matter in your writing? When does that come into play? It has varied depending on the script. I think with writing a new play, reasonable adults, the protagonist of it right now is like a young boy, he's 12 years old, and I've had a lot of thoughts. I'm like, look, it'd probably be a young girl too. Or wouldn't that be cool if it was like a protagonist that could literally either be a boy or a girl, and it doesn't like really matter, or non-binary, like it doesn't really matter necessarily. It's set in a particular time, but I think yeah, like sometimes I think I'm often playing with a kind of hierarchy of gender.

Again, there in especially previous work, there was this focus on the masculine and the kind of hierarchy of male characters being on top and everyone else being the pyramid that sort of holds them up or whatever. So yeah, but I think just to show that power structure, like I'm thinking about Discus and Yippies in particular. It's always interesting to me the supporting ensembles and how those can be fluid. And I there is a certain point, I think, where I'm like, oh, this can be either gender or any gender. Yeah, I don't exactly know. I again I think it coming from a playwright who's non-binary, it just is a natural sort of part of the process that at some point I'm like, now what gender is this character?

And then if it can be open, leave it open. If it can't, again, for usually for a very clear purpose that I'm trying to tell in the hierarchy of the story, then I'll close it. But again, but then there's casting, so casting could also be something totally different if it's clear in the text this is what this character is, or this is how they identify, or it's a time period piece where non-binary wasn't much of a thing yet. Yeah, I think there it's usually for me, I think after I think I'm so concerned while I'm writing with just character, and then I'm like, oh okay. I don't know. Gender doesn't necessarily factor in super quickly sometimes. And then afterwards I I'll have a reflection and be like, oh, I guess this could be either or any gender.

And it's also people like Jamie and people, many people here have also really encouraged me to write for women, write for non-binary people over the years. And I've really taken that to heart and know the kind of necessity of that, because we need more of those characters and more of those leading characters, I guess, in particular. So yeah, it's a weird nebulous process, but it's it is always one that I go through when I'm when I'm writing or when I'm casting.

[41:35] Audience Member: Any advice you can give to young writers?

[41:38] becca schlossberg: Oh, we love that. Any advice for young writers? To be a young writer. Oh my god. I'm exhausted. I need to go to bed. Don't do this. I think just do it. Just do it. No, like I would say write, don't judge yourself. Try to just get it out there. You can always make it better. But yeah, if you feel an impetus to write, oh my god, you should absolutely write. And there is such a power and such a catharsis in maybe feeling like you have a secret and getting it out through playwriting or through writing. And I think mostly that. And also I was schooled with the thought of also read other plays, see other plays, know what the people before you have done so you can respond to it or you can reject it.

I think it is important to have an understanding of the conversation that you want to take part in. Yeah, that's what I love about this place. That's been my knowledge base for plays for a very long time. And so I would definitely encourage you to read plays, see plays when you can. You can also go to the Lincoln Center Performing Arts Library and watch plays, which is also something that I used to do in my youth. Yeah, yeah. Those are my sort of big pieces of advice.

[43:11] Audience Member: What is a play that you wish you'd written?

[43:17] becca schlossberg: Oh, that's a tough one. Like, uh, stump them. Motherfucker. I bring a real like a real animosity to the function that people don't really know what to do with. Punchy. The first one that came to my mind was like let the right one in. Yeah. I really like that. I loved that play. Oh my god, that play is stunning in its sort of simplicity and its physicality, what they were able to do with that. It's still like one of the best things I've ever seen. I love, I guess how restrained it is in a way. So yeah, maybe I would say that one, or I'm talking about this play again, but equus just so beautifully constructed, so gripping. Yeah. Oh, this is cliche, but John Proctor is the villain. Yeah. Oh my god.

And honestly, like very in wheelhouse, young people, what a brilliant sort of thesis. And I if you had asked me the question about plays and influences like a number of years ago, I definitely would have said The Crucible of the Crucible was one of my favorite plays growing up, which is interesting in retrospect and interesting in especially after when seeing John Proctor is the villain, which kind of rightfully tears at a new one. It do make you think. Yeah, loved that play. Was deeply moved by that play. Oh, also, I get cliche. Like, oh Mary, who wouldn't want to write that silly nonsense? True, it's true. Oh, just yeah, just God bless them. Love Las Cola's gold. God bless Coluscola for real, though.

Oh, good. This is a fall of jump property. Oh, I thought that was all O'Mary. I was like, that's a very subdued spine. Wait, stop. That's so bad. It's an entire shelf full of both of them. Yeah, which they're also great reads. They're and the productions of them I thought were fantastic. It's a really good representation of like page to stage. Like it really, it's like a one-for-one, which is not always what happens. And like those two plays are just yeah, those are I think last times for me. I've been like truly tickled and truly damn, I wish I wrote this. Those are good ones.

[45:47] Audience Member: Okay. I think your four favorite movies were.

[45:54] becca schlossberg: Oh, four favorite movies. Go. I've been preparing for this smile. Stand by me. I haven't obviously dated aspects of it, but the original West Side Story might gateway drag into musicals. Yeah, it's never the same. And then it's probably this is hard. Like three and four is hard. Um I would say it's either Billy Elliott, Matilda, or Back to the Future, E.T., like the Spielberg, man. Oh my god. So that's a top six. Yeah, top six. That's great. Top six. Yeah. Perfect. Movies that truly left like a thumb print on my identity. And and I returned to like again and share them with new people and just yeah, just love them and love their warmth.

[46:59] Mark-Eugene Garcia: I will ask one final time if anybody has any questions. And if not, then I feel like I think we did the thing. I think we did it.

[47:20] David Rigano: Wasn't it just some I always love hearing authors talk about their work, but that one in particular, I just felt like jazzed.

[47:31] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Yeah.

[47:32] David Rigano: It was just a full of light.

[47:34] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Yeah.

[47:35] David Rigano: And they it was the kind of discussion from them that makes you want to go right.

[47:41] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Oh, yeah. It definitely filled me with a lot of joy.

[47:44] David Rigano: Yeah. I think that's something that that happens a lot, at least I know with me, is that I'll be part of these discussions or these events and then immediately want to do that. Be like, oh, that gave me an idea for something. I have to write. Oh, you made me think about something in one of my plays from an angle that I haven't thought about it before. Because another writer talks about something in their process and it triggers maybe something that you've been having difficulty with, or just reminds you of your own work, but in a new light. So you're like, all of a sudden, new possibilities. I need to go home and write that down.

[48:22] Mark-Eugene Garcia: And I think that's what we're trying to do here is to showcase the various ways that we all look at theater and that we all create because there's no one way to make theater, or there's no one way to write a play. And by having so many different authors and creators in here, it just shows how much our voices matter.

[48:39] David Rigano: And yeah, and that we writing can be so solitary. And so with these kind of events, we really do get a chance to learn from each other in terms of and then steal from each other and in terms of what our own process is.

[48:56] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Yeah. I feel like it's like going off of what you said about it being solitary. I feel like it's nice to come here and be able to talk to other people and just be inspired. And if you feel in a rut, get the wind back in your sails, like that kind of stuff.

[49:08] David Rigano: Exactly. And speaking of all the different voices that we have, David, what are who are we talking to next week?

[49:13] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Next week is another like collection of plays. We're not focusing on just one. So it's the plays of Nguzi Anyanwoo. And they brought their sister Chi Chi with them to be their moderator. And I loved that because the two of them together is such a good dynamic. I met both of them separately. And so to see them like bouncing off of each other, it was such a cool episode. Just like with Becca, when you bring someone who has known who's been like your friend for forever, and you have this relationship, it makes the interview so much better.

[49:48] David Rigano: And when it's the person who's known you your entire life.

[49:51] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Exactly. That's why I had you do mine.

[49:53] David Rigano: Yeah.

[49:54] Mark-Eugene Garcia: If it wasn't going to be Lori Linny, it's gonna be right.

[49:59] David Rigano: All right. Remember that all the books we talk about can be found here.

[50:02] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Oh, fuck. Remember to follow us on Instagram at Drama Book Show Podcast.

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[50:13] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Give us likes and reviews and all that fun.

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[50:16] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Yeah. Help our algorithm grow.

[50:19] David Rigano: Or just rainbows and blue moons.

[50:22] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Yeah, we're all and cookies.

[50:24] David Rigano: I like cookies.

[50:25] Mark-Eugene Garcia: We're all just playwrights trying to spread the good word of theater.

[50:28] David Rigano: Remember, all the books that we talk about can be found here at the drama bookshop.

[50:31] Mark-Eugene Garcia: And so can we.

[50:32] David Rigano: And we will see you at the bookshop.