As we continue our “Look Back” series, which examines the history and development of the Samuel French Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival, today we profile distinguished playwright Shirley Lauro. Shirley was an early winner of the Festival: two of her short dramas, OPEN ADMISSIONS and NOTHING IMMEDIATE were winners of the 4th OOB Festival in 1979 and were subsequently published in the OFF OFF BROADWAY FESTIVAL PLAYS, 4TH SERIES.
Since her OOB Festival win, Shirley has enjoyed a number of successes and accolades as a playwright including several Drama Desk awards and a Tony Nomination. We recently interviewed Shirley to find out a bit more about her two OOB Festival-winning one acts, as well her more recent Samuel French publications:
OOB Festival: Shirley, let’s talk about your experience with the OOB Festival first. You had two winning plays as part of our 4th Festival in OPEN ADMISSIONS, and NOTHING IMMEDIATE. Can you talk a little bit about where you were in your playwriting career before the Festival? What was that early OOB Festival experience like?
Shirley Lauro: The two one-act plays together with a third interrelated play, I DON’T KNOW WHERE YOU’RE COMING FROM AT ALL!, were put on together as a workshop production at Ensemble Studio Theatre for four or five performances. I had produced my very first play, THE CONTEST, on their mainstage a season or so before. An editor from Samuel French came to the workshop, liked all the plays and suggested I put them in French’s OOB Festival, which I did. Of the three, both OPEN ADMISSIONS and NOTHING IMMEDIATE won.
After winning it, the value of the Festival for me was Ensemble Studio Theatre became very interested in OPEN ADMISSIONS and chose it for their Marathon of One Acts. At the time of my win in 1979, the OOB Festival was very young and just getting its ground legs. Consequently, the cast, director and I did the mounting and producing of the piece completely. It was an excellent experience at the start of my career in grass-roots theater and much came from it.
OOB Festival: Since the OOB, you’ve had an incredible playwriting career; your work is frequently produced throughout the US and internationally, and the full length version of OPEN ADMISSIONS went on to be produced on Broadway, receiving one Tony Nomination, two Drama Desk nominations, a Theatre World Award, a New York Times pick for the “Ten Best Plays of the Year,” and the prestigious Dramatists Guild Hull-Warriner Award. Can you talk little bit about your evolution from the Off Off Broadway Festival to the Broadway stage? What were some other important milestones in your post-OOB Career?
Shirley: OPEN ADMISSIONS was presented as part of EST’s Marathon and got excellent reviews across the board, eventually being named one of the “Ten Best Plays of the Year” by The New York Times. A theater/film producer came to the play and optioned it for a full-length with a potential movie deal to follow. So I began to visualize my story as a larger work, and began to write the full-length version, going back to the deep motivations and lives of the cast of two characters that lead them to the confrontational situation they find themselves in when the one-act starts. The play came to Broadway and subsequently was a CBS film starring Estelle Parsons and Jane Alexander. [editor's note: Read the original New York Times review of OPEN ADMISSIONS.]
Other playwriting milestones include my play A PIECE OF MY HEART, produced first at Actors Theatre of Louisville and then at Manhattan Theatre Club. This play is presently having a very rich life with nearly 2,000 productions around the world to date – including productions in South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, England, The Edinburgh Festival, and Paris. It was also chosen for a production when the Vietnam Wall was dedicated in D.C. and presented twice more in D.C. on Veterans Day. Recently it was named by The Vietnam Vets of America, Inc., “The Most Enduring Play in the Nation on Vietnam”.
I’ve had success with a few newer works as well: ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT premiered in Chicago where it received a Jeff Nomination as “Best New Play of the Year ” and enjoyed its New York premiere with the Red Fern Theatre Company. Currently it’s in revival at CityShow in New York and its West Coast premiere will be at ArtsWest Seattle in 2012. My latest play, THE RADIANT, about Marie Curie just enjoyed its world premiere at New Theatre in Florida. It has received a TCG/EDGERTON Award as one of 40 new plays of 2011-12 of significance, a Dramatists Guild Fund grant and a Sloan/EST grant. I also finished co-editing an anthology recently entitled: FRONT LINES: POLITICAL PLAYS BY AMERICAN WOMEN which was an Honoree of The Coalition of Women in the Arts and Media.
Other major fellowships and awards: the Guggenheim in playwriting, three NEA grants, and a NY Foundation for the Arts Grants in playwriting. I’ve also been a resident with the Edna St. Vincent Millay Colony, Yaddo, Alley Theatre, and have won a TCG/Edgerton Award, and Jewish Foundation for the Arts Fellowship.
OOB Festival: OPEN ADMISSIONS, about a black student confronting his white teacher over an affirmative action policy, is one of the few OOB-winnign plays that has been published as both a one act and a full length play. For our playwright readers out there, what advice to you have about expanding a shorter play into a longer work? Do you have other plays that exist in both short and long form?
Shirley: I have no other plays that I’ve expanded to full-lengths. In terms of advice, I would say that it’s a very challenging task, and the playwright must feel sure that he/she really has a larger story to tell. Most of the time one chooses the one act form because that’s the vision of the piece – a streak of a vision in which everything is contained in expressing the author’s point of view on the material in a short form.
OOB Festival: Let’s move on to your more recent Samuel French publications: SPECKLED BIRDS, ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT, and CLARENCE DARROW’S LAST TRIAL. You demonstrate a huge range in style when pitting these plays next to each other: while SPECKLED BIRDS is a coming-of-age story, CLARENCE DARROW is a suspenseful trial drama, and ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT is a surrealistic historical drama that tells of the female experience throughout the reign of the Third Reich. How do you find your ideas for new plays? In the case of the three plays above, were there specific events that led up to their creation?
Shirley: I’ve mentioned ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT. I was drawn to the play because I am interested in issues that involve women and War. This play centers on four German Gentile women growing up during Hitler’s Reign and the struggles they faced with education, marriage, children, work, patriotism. I’ve always been interested in women and war. I wrote A PIECE OF MY HEART, which preceded this play, about women in Vietnam. It was inspired by a book of interviews from women who went to that war in various capacities. From that experience, I sought and found another book of interviews about women in Germany in World War II, and that was my inspiration for the play.
SPECKLED BIRDS originated from a commission I received from Theatre Works USA, to write about the Depression. I found that I didn’t have to go back to the Depression years to write about the “haves” and “the have-nots”; by accident I saw an article in the paper about a poor girl living in a trailer in a rich community, forced to attend a preppy school. That was my inspiration of this coming-of-age play.
CLARENCE DARROW’S LAST TRIAL was inspired by a trip I took to Hawaii. When I visited their courthouse in Honolulu, I saw information that stated that Clarence Darrow had fought his last major court trial there, in Honolulu. This intrigued me, and I went on to explore that trial, and CLARENCE DARROW’S LAST TRIAL was the result of my explorations.
OOB Festival: Any new productions or works you’d like to share with us?
Shirley: I’ve mentioned THE RADIANT before. This play, centering on Marie Curie and her life after her husband, Pierre, killed in a freak accident, leaving her a penniless widow with two young children to support, focuses on her romantic involvement with Pierre’s student, Paul Langevin. The play, the result of four years of research premiered (mentioned above) in Florida, with Angelica Torn as Marie and has garnered at TCG/Edgerton Award, a Dramatists Guild Fund grant and a Sloan grant.
As a final comment, let me say, I am interested in women, women’s issues, and women in War. But beyond that I am interested in “The Little Guy” – thrown into circumstances that are overwhelming and the struggle to survive those circumstances. I think that that interest and search sums up most of my work.
For more information on Shirley and her plays:
- Shirley’s Website–featuring a complete biography, list of plays, and line-up of performances (It’s impressive!)
- In NYC: CityShow’s production of ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT, playing now until May 22nd at the Producer’s Club.