About the Play:

Mind Control deals with three roommates learning to cope with their addictive tendencies in a very titillating way.

About the Author:

Debbie Lamedman is author and editor of eight acting books published by Smith & Kraus, Inc.  Debbie’s produced plays include phat girls, Triangle Logic, Eating in the Dark, Just Add Love, and Out with the Old.  phat girls is also featured in the Smith & Kraus anthology, New Playwrights: The Best Plays of 2003. Debbie was co-bookwriter for the musical How the Nurse Feels, which had staged readings at both the ASCAP/Disney Workshop in Los Angeles, and New World Stages in New York City.  Debbie’s latest work, Ignorance is Bliss: a Global Warning was a commissioned piece which had its world premiere in April 2010 in Pittsburg, Kansas. Debbie received her MFA from Brandeis University and is a proud member of The Dramatist Guild. You can find out more about her at http://www.debbielamedman.com/.

Debbie’s Forty Days to Forty Plays Interview:

OOB Festival (OOB): Tell us a little about your playwriting career. When did you start writing plays? What are some of your proudest accomplishments as a playwright?

Debbie Lamedman (DL): No one is more surprised about my playwriting career than I am.  It feels like the road found me and not the other way around.  I’ve always been involved in theatre and got my degree in Acting.  It was in graduate school, where I was urged to write my own one-woman show that I got bit by the writing bug.  I wrote my one-woman show strictly to showcase myself as an actor, but slowly I started to realize that writing suited me best.  I ultimately wound up taking that one-woman show and fleshing it out so it became an ensemble piece for 10 to 12 actresses. Seeing the metamorphosis of that piece was definitely one of my proudest accomplishments.  And as I watched how that play has touched audiences and performers alike, I realized I could finally wrap my head around the fact that I was a playwright.

OOB: Your bio above reveals that you are quite the published author—you’ve penned eight books on acting and the business of actor.  How does your position as a teacher of acting technique effect your approach to playwriting? Other than your one woman show, have you acted in any of your own work?

DL: Well, I started out acting.  I have my degree in acting, and I wrote my one-woman show while I was in graduate school.  I wrote it specifically to showcase myself as an actor, and I realized after a time that writing actually suited me better. When I started teaching acting, I realized how much I loved the craft. And I believe that having trained as an actor has only enhanced my ability as a playwright.

I learned everything about writing plays from acting in them, so acting has taught me how to create structure for my pieces; how to create believable three-dimensional characters and to create action and conflict within the relationships of these characters.  I hear myself saying to my students, “What’s your objective? What do you want from this other person?”  And “Raise your stakes!” And then I think, am I doing that in my writing?  All the acting training I went through has now become a checklist for me as a playwright.

As far as acting in my own work, I think I have put that on the shelf for awhile.  I’ll never say never, but right now I’m not interested in performing.  I love the process of seeing actors bring their own interpretations to my work and discover things I never thought of for a particular character.  There may be another one-woman show for me down the road…I have some ideas…but not right now.

OOB: You also author a blog about the business of playwriting and theatre, as well as other things.  As blogging and the online world is still a relatively new thing for many authors, can you talk about your experience authoring a blog?  Why did you start one and how has your experience been, as a theatre blogger?  Do you find that the blog has changed your playwriting at all?  

 DL: I started the blog about two years ago, and had no idea what I was doing.  I wasn’t really writing about anything.  And then my collaborators and I went through the Disney/ASCAP workshop and I wanted to document the experience to help me wrap my head around the process. That’s when I started blogging more specifically about playwriting and theatre.  In the past few months, I’ve stepped it up a notch and have been actively networking in the blogging world.  I have met so many wonderful artists, writers, painters from all over the globe.  It’s an incredibly supportive community. As a matter of fact, a few of the east coast writers I’ve met through blogging are showing support by attending the Festival.  How cool is that?

The blog keeps me writing and that is definitely a positive thing. I used to write about anything, but now I plan my posts very carefully because I know my reading audience is growing.  As far as the blog helping with my playwriting, I’ve written a couple of short stories which may be the impetus for a new play. I posted one of the stories on my blog and got really good feedback, and one of my blogging buddies posted another story on her writing blog, so like I said…it’s a great place to try out new work and new ideas.

OOB: Talk about your entry to this year’s festival. How did you come to write this play? Was there a particular inspiration behind its creation? What do you hope festival audience will take from your play?

DL: This play, Mind Control, started out being one thing and before I knew it, became something else entirely.  I’ve heard writers say that before, that their characters sort of took over, and that’s what happened to me writing this one.  I had originally wanted to focus on bad habits or addictions and how they can wear us down or take over our lives.  I had been writing a lot of material for teens and I wanted to write something of a more mature nature.  Well, like I said, the play started to go in this other direction and I just let it go where it wanted to go.  I hope the festival audience will find as much humor and truth in the piece as I do.

OOB: What is the history of your festival entry? Do you plan to hone and further develop the play in upcoming rehearsals? Has it already been produced?

DL: Mind Control was written in the AOPW workshop in Los Angeles.  The only production it ever had was the showcase we did for the final week of the workshop.  I always thought there might be more to this piece and I’m not sure if it has the potential to be developed into a longer work.  But I am always open to exploring new possibilities, so we’ll see what happens.

OOB: Tell us a little about your producer? How did you come to form your relationship together?

DL: I took a playwriting workshop in Los Angeles with Playwright Lisa Soland.  It was the best decision I ever made to take that workshop.  Lisa is one of the most supportive writers around, and not only does she provide great insight in to making the writing better, she pushes you to submit your work!  So Lisa encouraged me to submit Mind Control, which I originally wrote in her workshop.  I am actually acting as the liaison, so I suppose you can say I’m self-producing.  The process is a bit overwhelming, and I usually feel most comfortable only wearing one hat instead of several, but this is an exceptional opportunity which could not be passed up.

OOB: Looking back over your personal history in the theatre, what emerges as your favorite memory? Is there a particular story you’d like to share?

 DL: Recently, I was fortunate enough to have a premiere of my play “Triangle Logic” at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.  The opportunity to work with the actors, who were all graduate students, along with the director, who is a dear friend of mine, was a wonderful and rewarding experience.  The opening night audience was incredibly enthusiastic and afterwards we had a talk-back session that was lively and inspiring and lasted almost as long as the play itself!  I remember saying that I wanted to bottle that moment so I could take it out from time to time whenever I needed a boost.  Writing is hard.  Writing is solitary.  Writing can be very lonely.  But nothing compares to watching an audience watch your play and react in the way you hoped they would; to see actors bring life to your characters, and bring qualities to those characters you never imagined…this makes the process all worthwhile.  This is why we do it.  Needless to say, not all my experiences in the theatre have been that joyful, but when the good ones come around, I treasure them, hold on to them tightly, and remind myself that with the right group of people, lightening can strike more than once.