Tarhearted.

THEATER AND MFAs AND STUFF.

There has been some excellent discussion this week about elitism in the theater and whether the rise of the MFA helps to create a greater class disparity for playwrights and a theater for the wealthy. I won't rehash (much) what has been said here and here and here, but I'm going to agree with Scott Walters, who very clearly lays out how privilege works in the theater and how the MFA programs, agents and theater staffs are all complicit in an unjust system. Put simply: you can't have diversity without diversity in class as well. Also, and not to be cynical, it stands to reason that what's true of THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD is also true of the theater industry.

Anyway, I've come to respect Scott's work a lot. I think he's one of the fiercest advocates of the working class in the theater as I've come across, and it goes without saying that I like that. It's funny given that my introduction to his blog (and, really, to the theater blogs in general) was a post in which he republished a New York Times review of my play, The Chalk Boy, in which the critic basically said that I was tarhearted (not true) and that I hate small town America (half true*) and then went on to use my play as an example of Ruralism, a prejudice against rural people. My response is one of the first things that come up if you google me. So despite a rocky intoruction, I have a lot of respect for the man. (By the way, The Chalk Boy is getting published. You can buy your two billion copies right here. Look for MilkMilkLemonade coming soon!)

Like I said, I don't want to rehash what's already been said, but I do want to be honest about my feelings. Whether it exists or not (and an upcoming study seems to indicate that it does), I do percieve people with MFAs to have a lot of advantages that I don't have. And I want them. Seriously, gimme those!

The problem is that I absolutely do not want to go to graduate school. Even if I could go, which I can't, I just plain don't really want to. What can I say? I'm working class. I want to work. I want to make plays and just learn by doing. Isn't that valid? That's what playwrights did in the WHOLE HISTORY OF EARTH prior to the past twenty years or so, isn't it?

When MilkMilkLemonade was going on I was a nervous wreck, but over the moon as well. We were turning away audiences for lack of space, getting almost unanimous rave reviews, and garnering a lot of word of mouth, and I got two publishing opportunities while the run was still happening. I thought perhaps something might come from it, even the smallest opportunity. And, to be fair, a few small doors did open. A little downtown theater I love has asked me to submit, which is good. (Finally, an invitation to be considered!) And the play is being published, so there's that.

Still, every single big theater in Manhattan was invited (and actually, many of them came.) I know for a fact that a few people from said theaters happened to love the play a lot. Also, the play was covered and reviewed heavily by the mainstream media as well as on blogs. Lit Managers and Artsitic Directors have no excuse for not knowing about that play, and it does seem unfair that somebody who just graduated with an MFA would have a better shot at an opportunity than me after I've spent the last decade actually making theater.

Don't get me wrong, college is great! I'm all for education...  but folks who go to trade school learn something too.

*I later regretted my response to Scott, because I kind of apologized for my play when in fact the review was sort of lame. Actually I do kind of hate small town America. I'm not crazy about the cities though either, and I think that my anger is justified and a legitimate place from which to create art. The Chalk Boy is a rad play. I stand by it.

FOUR THINGS.

Thanksgiving was beautiful and I'm back to work and feeling renewed. The Boyfriend and I had ten people over and managed to throw together a lovely Thanksgiving meal. Now, here are four things I'd like to bring your attention to:

1. I watched the beautiful french musical, Love Songs, or Les chansons d'amour if you're so inclined. It made miss miss Paris so hard. It's still my fantasy to live there somehow. Too bad it's near impossible. Anyhow, it's a beautiful film with hot boy-on-boy action and it stars this hot piece:

The music is stunning and at a lot of moments it really reminded me of one of my favorite films of all time, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.

Here is the trailer:

2. I'm so in love with this San Francisco band, Girls, and their single "Lust for Life."

"The Girls" was always one of my band names on reserve, in case I ever had one. I won't, so I'm glad to gift it to them, sans "the."

The video is also adorable. The dude with the short hair who mouths the lyric "maybe if I really try with all of my heart..." is super cute.

I love New York a lot, but I'm a West Coast boy at heart. I would love to live in San Francisco, but I'm afraid that I wouldn't be able to find a job there.

3. I wrote an episode of Hooray! Confidence. This is a web series that my friend Nikole and I want to make about two alcoholic, hateful, loser shut-ins who embark on a journey of self-improvement. It'll be kind of a ghetto Absolutely Fabulous. Or something? Anyway, fun stuff! details to come.

4. Episode One of my soap opera, Sinking Hearts, is finished. I don't want to say much about it yet, but inspirations include Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman and The Metamorphasis by Kafka.

JULIE BROWN RETROSPECTIVE.

I'm not talking about that annoying English "downtown" Julie Brown with a face like a foot. I'm talking about red headed Julie Brown of Just Say Julie, the greatest MTV show ever, and of hit films such as Earth Girls Are Easy. This one:

I don't know why, but I've been missing Julie a lot lately. I was obsessed with her as a little boy, and even had her record, Trapped in the Body of a White Girl, which contained instant hits like "I Like 'Em Big and Stupid" and "The Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun."

Apparently, the real Miss Julie got her start in gay clubs. No surprise there. The ego maniacal valley girl character she created for herself was practically a drag queen. And everybody knows the gays are early arbiters of cool (except for approximately half of Americans, who are retarded and don't matter anyway.)

Julie is now on a Canadian soap opera, but it's my new dream to write a play for her. She would be PERFECT for my writing. The above picture feels like a production shot from a Conkel play already. Maybe she could star in the Broadway production of my new play, The Sluts of Sutton Drive.

Let's revisit the magic of Just Say Julie. Shall we?

IN DEFENSE OF QUIRKINESS.

The Boyfriend and I caught Sarah Ruhl's new play, In The Next Room or the vibrator play this weekend. It's extremely rare that I get to see a Broadway show because I refuse to pay more than $20 for a play and I'm allergic to the elderly, but we had free tickets so we went.

I was really excited. I'd read two of Sarah's plays and admired them very much but had never had the pleasure of seeing one. There's been a teensy Sarah Ruhl backlash in some parts lately, due to people who don't care for "quirky" theater. God, I hate that word.

It seems like the pendulum goes back and forth, with people saying theater should be this way or that way, only to have it swing in the other direction a few years. Lately I've noticed that there's been a lot of writers on theater blogs moaning about "quirky" plays. As a writer of plays that would almost definitely fall into that category, I feel compelled to defend them. 

While I agree that writers can be too clever for their own good, sending their plays into smug precociousness or annoying cuteness. I also think though that highly theatrical work, when executed well, taps into an audience's imagination in really unique ways.

To me, one of the things that is interesting about theater is how fakey-fakey it is, at least when you're working within my budgets. I can't hope to recreate reality, the way the television and film often attempts to do, so I tend to go the other way. I call attention to the theatricality, to the presentation of a play, and the artificiality of it all. I like it. I don't want to hide it.

The same goes for the audience and actor connection. Everybody is in a room together, so why pretend otherwise? In my play, The Chalk Boy, the main character turns to the audience in the last scene and says, "Sorry I've been ignoring you," before she goes into a speech about the ghost of a boy she loves. It's too embarrassing or difficult for her to tell the other characters, so she tells us and now we're simpatico. Characters don't need to speak to the audience, and lately they haven't been in what I've been writing, but audiences shouldn't be made to feel like the play could be happening in the room without them, should they? These are just two things I've done in my plays that could be considered "quirky" maybe. Except none of this is particularly "quirky." Brecht created the former trick and the Greeks used the latter. Why is it "quirky" now?

Is it the plots that people think are "quirky?" Strange stories with random plot turns and over-the-top characters? Because the Greeks, Brecht, Shakespeare, Moliere... those stories seem pretty "quirky" to me. And Angels in America is about as "quirky" as it gets.

Maybe I misunderstand what people mean by "quirky?" A lot of times it just feels like "those kids and their crazy rock n' roll" syndrome. A college professor of mine complained that younger playwrights were writing plays with quick scenes, lots of locations, clipped dialogue, and plays that were more visual than language based. My response? Um... so? People always adapt the form to suit their times. That's a good thing.

Which brings me to In The Next Room or the vibrator play. It was nice. We liked it a lot. It didn't seem at all "quirky" to me, and significantly less "quirky" than her other two plays I'd read. Frankly, I thought a play about vibrators could have stood a lot more boldness and "quirkiness." The play takes place in 1888, and at many points it felt like it was written 1880 too. It felt extremely conventional to me, which isn't a bad thing at all. Like I said, we liked the play. I like representational theater a lot too, because I have sophisticated tastes (ha!) and I can like different things all at once. I happen to think there's room in the theater for all kinds of writers, or should be, which seems to be an unpopular opinion these days.

I just worried because I thought, if people hate this for it's "quirkiness" then i don't stand a fucking chance.

P.S. The set was really pretty. And it snowed onstage! I love Broadway!

DISPATCHES FROM THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST.

Sorry I went away. I went on vacation to visit my family in rural Washington State. It was strange, but ultimately pretty relaxing. It was strange because I haven't been home in years. Seriously, it's been years. I'm also one of those people that feels anxious when I leave New York, so I didn't actually calm down until right before I left Washington. Things about the Northwest I'd forgotten or just plain missed include:

-Rain. Good god, it didn't stop.

-Wolves. Wolves on everything. Every tee shirt, coffee mug, etc. Wolves or Native American women with earthen pots. Oh, or salmon art. Lots of salmon art.

-My childhood was much more blue collar and less suburban than i remember.

-When the ferry isn't your main source for getting around, it's really lovely and relaxing. I now see why tourists like the trip to Bainbridge Island. It beats the hell out of a subway ride.

-At some point in any conversation with my dad he will inevitably tell me that he's proud of me and that I'm his "greatest work of art."

-Seattle is an awesome city that i miss dearly. I wish I'd gotten more than one afternoon there. I toured the new Cornish College of the Arts campus, which is amazing, and got to talk with my old mentor who is the Theater Department Chair there.

-Riding in a car with my chain smoking mother is like being inside of a smoker's lung. All of my belongings have to be Febreezed.

-My nieces Karma and Amelia are the cutest, sweetest set of twinsies since Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny Devito.

-People get a lot older while you're not paying attention.

-Crazy Native American "S" towns: Suquamish, Snoqualmie, S'klallum, Sequim (pronounced "squim", Snohomish etc.

-People in rural Washington only decorate with brown.

-Dream catchers, dream catchers, dream catchers!

I didn't get to write as much as I would have liked. I worked on my soap opera a little and wrote two scenes of the play I'm writing for Playwriting Month. Its title is alternating between Hooray for Hot Dogs and The Sluts of Sutton Drive, and it's about two women in a small Washington town who take a stip-ercise course that changes their lives.

I'm glad to be back in New York, but missing home again.

BONERVILLE.

Hey, you. Yeah, you! Do you like pancakes, never ending Bloody Marys, and sexy ten minute plays? Sure you do. I could tell. That's why I'm inviting you to the Youngblood Bruncha Sutra this Sunday. My play is entitled Bonerville, and is the story of a fleeting intimate moment between two strangers in a rest stop men's room outside of Des Moines. It was inspired by this vintage cover art:

$18

Sunday, November 1st
doors open at 12:30pm for buffet and seating
show starts at 1pm

COME EARLY - the food and seats go fast!

RESERVATIONS REQUIRED:

call (212) 247-4982 x107

Bonerville by Joshua Conkel

Starring sexy, sexy Anthony Johnston and Frank Harts

Directed By RJ Tolan

In closing, just for fun, I submit to you Awkward Boners.

THEATER, YOU KILL ME. PART ONE BILLION.

Grannies the world over  like to say something retarded about God and opening windows... or something? I wonder if it works in reverse. I had the most amazing summer as a playwright! First there was all the success of MilkMilkLemonade, for which I'm really grateful and proud. Then I wrote a piece about health care for Youngblood that I was really happy with. (It occurs to me that I never wrote about it here, but it was called America, You Kill Me. and featured Nikole Beckwith* covered in blood with a wind shield wiper stuck in her side. At the end of the play she crushed Bobby Moreno's head with her boot and it splatter blood and brains everywhere. Big hit!)

Well, it seems God or whoever saw fit to close a damn window already. I just found out I didn't get into the Soho Rep's Writers/Directors Lab for the second year in a row. Insert sad trumpet sound here. Rejection sucks, but it's just part of the game. Entry to the lab is super competitive, so I'll try not to be too hurt. Also, in years past I feel like there were six writers and directors each and this year there are only five. I wonder why that is. Anyway, I'll keep applying because I'd really like to do it some day and, besides, it's good practice just to submit to any and all opportunities.

I'm also stoked for Jess Barbagallo for getting in. She's crazy awesome and talented and was recently in MilkMilkLemonade, for which Time Out wrote this little piece. She's an incredible talent and I hope I get to make theater with her again some day. Adam Greenfield is an acquaintance and fellow Seattle-ite, as well as being an amazing director so that's cool too.

There's just one thing that is sort of sticking in my craw about this. Katherine Ryan is one of the playwrights but she's also the Co-Chair of the lab. Meghan Finn is one of the directors but she's also on staff at Soho Rep. I noticed this happened last year too. It's not really that big a deal, it's just a little... I don't know exactly, but it bothered me today when i read the list and it bothered me last year too. Soho Rep is obviously free to choose whomever they wish, but I can't help feeling the teensiest bit... I don't know... miffed.

It's certainly not a big deal compared to something else that I got rejected from. The Boyfriend ran into the curator of an unnamed theater festival at a party and asked him point blank why he didn't accept my play. (The Boyfriend is kind of immodestly appalled when I get rejected from things, because he's awesome.) Said curator straight up told The Boyfriend that he didn't read my script and that he just green lighted his friends and people he'd heard of. Ouch. So I'm using that experience to soften the blow of Soho Rep, because really... it could be a lot worse.

I'll keep applying, obviously. I'll wear down their resistance if it's the last thing I do. If I didn't have some degree of tenacity I'd still be serving onion rings in a shit hole by the ferry in Kingston, Washington.

Like my girls, Reba and Beyonce... I'm a survivor.

*Nikole Beckwith backstage before America, You Kill Me.

JOSHUA CONKEL IS FAMOUS (KIND OF.)

Holy shit! NY Press just named MilkMilkLemonade the best Off Off Broadway show of the year!

Check it out.

I'm so honored that I don't really care that they got my name wrong. I can't tell you how much I miss the show and wish we were still doing it. Somebody PLEASE make a deal with me so I can produce it in your theater. Who do you have to give a beej to in this town? Not to toot my own horn, but the play received nearly across the board raves, we turned away audiences almost every night, it's immediately got picked up by Playscripts, is getting published in Plays and Playwrights 2010, and was called Best Off Off Broadway Show by NY Press. Please, please, please little theaters of New York.... don't you want to help the career of a youngplaywright and make money at the same time?

Also, as my friend Jeff pointed out, because of a bit role as the "mean gallerist" in this movie (in which I'm also credited incorrectly) I'm now only three degrees from Kevin Bacon!

Josh Conkel, who was in Love You Back with Elli Fordyce, who was in Playing Doctor with Michael Ciesla, who was in Taking Chance with Kevin Bacon.

I'm a "Joshua", for the record. Anyway, I'm famous! Now I can get super tan and get the lip injeections I always wanted. Just like Cojo! See you at Fashion Week!

P.S. If you ever need a mean gay receptionist, waiter, gallerist, proctologist, day care provider, grifter hobo etc. for your short play or film then I AM YOUR GAY. Seriously, I'm a pro.

WOOLIE BULLY.

I'm supposed to write a sexy play for Youngblood's November Brunch, which is erotically themed. My instinct, or course, is to write about furries, or pony play, or adult babies or something. I don't write sexy very well. When you deal almost exclusively in the absurd and the ugly, erotic is a tall order. And they want it erotic. Actually erotic. I have no idea what to write.

I feel like prostitution is cliche. I can't even decide if I want to write something gay or not. Gah!

While doing some research, however, I came across woolies.

You're welcome.

THEATER, YOU KILL ME.

So this post got posted here and here and now everybody hates me, including a playwright I really admire. This is the reason I didn't write about theater on blogs for years and years and abstained from commenting on theater blogs. I was afraid of something like this happening. It's time to bring that rule back. I have a pretty nasty sense of humor, and often things get taken too seriously, so I really should have seen this coming. (Special thanks to 99 for being so awesome and getting my intent.)

I was only trying to be cheeky about a very real insecurity I have. The truth is that I do feel like a second class citizen in the theater for not having an MFA. That may or may not be imagined, or partially imagined, but it's how I feel. A lot of us feel that way. It wasn't my intention to insinuate that only rich and undeserving people go to Ivy League schools or MFA programs. My intention to point out that maybe it's not fair or wise to make that the only point of entry into the industry for playwrights.

I'm sorry for having offended those artists, but I'm not sorry for posting my own feelings on my own blog. I'm really struggling with class issues right now, and I get the sense that a lot of other folks are too. Because it's not just my frustration with being a playwright; it's my frustration with being an American in general.

I've just worked so hard, and to still be struggling feels bad. I've had to fight really hard for any little scrap of something, had to do things that were demeaning and even humiliating to me, and for what? Am I any better off now than I was then? What was the point? I might as well have stayed in Washington State. The point is, I'm really jealous of some of my friends in New York, and I'm trying not to be.

And, in terms of being a playwright, what do I expect to get? What is success in this industry? How do I compete against writers with amazing educations or writers who don't have to work day jobs? How do I measure my success in an industry that doesn't really exist?

A couple of weeks ago I reminded myself on this blog that we make (or should be making) theater for our communities because we love them and want to put on a show for them. I forgot that already! Ugh! I don't know why I get so caught up with these grody ideas about success and material things and competition.

I don't know. Blech! Feeling like you don't have a shot at life sucks. Feeling like the system is rigged sucks. I should just go cut hair like any other self-respecting sassy gay.

Hey... maybe then I could get a TV show! America, loves a sassy gay (as long as they're on television and not real.) Too bad for me the theater blogs don't.

I was born to be blue collar,
Tarhearted