Stout, Stout, Get it Worked Out!
Box Office Review: American Teens Are Morons
'Kick a Ginger Day' Spawned At Least 5 Attacks on Redheaded Kids
Intrepid L.A. Foodies Tackle 11-in-11 Nocturnal Challenge
Cool, Crafy, Community Event: Unique LA's Holiday Show
Playwright Jennifer Maisel has written plays that have been described as, "a sort of David Lynch on estrogen” and "inventive and sophisticated". Tonight her award winning "The Last Seder", in co-production of The Ensemble Studio Theatre-LA and Greenway Arts Alliance, opens at the Greenway Court Theatre on Fairfax. The The play tells the story of four sisters, who come back to their childhood house to celebrate Passover before their father moves into a nursing home. With both drama and humor, the holiday dinner reveals something about all of the family members.
LAist asked Jennifer about the LA production of "The Last Seder", her memories of celebrating Passover, and why playwrights need each other.
LAist: What inspired you to write “The Last Seder”?
Jennifer Maisel: Passover is my favorite holiday, the one that's really about your family. Every seder gets infused and all screwed up by your own particular family dynamics. I think that's why this play has broader appeal than a Jewish audience. Everyone can relate to dysfunctional holiday dinner. Seder means order and the idea of incorporating the traditional order into the structure of the play and messing with it was intriguing.
How did your family celebrate Passover when you were growing up?
It was always either at our house or one of my cousins' houses. Our family seder inevitably included some ritual bloodletting on the part whoever was working in the kitchen, my uncle ending the night playing his piano bar act on the baby grand and a battle over the afikomen. Various highlights included the year my aunt forgot to turn the oven on and had only raw turkey and gefilte fish to serve and my cousin's engagement to Herb (also her father's name) which provided a new yearly joke about the "bitter herbs".
The play won the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Award. How many drafts and readings has it been through to get to this point?
It keeps evolving and evolving. The play has had many readings and workshops and three productions prior to this one. For two of them I was part of the rehearsal process. And each time I've made changes, I think there are natural changes with each production, particularly with a contemporary play. Sometimes they're about how the world has changed technologically or politically. Sometimes it's because your actors or the director brings something new and refreshing to it and you find yourself wanting to shift things. Sometimes it's because getting productions in theatre takes so damn long, that in the interim I've grown as a person and a writer and I see things in a new way.
Many playwrights in LA write for film and television too. You have written films for MTV and have been on the staff for TV shows. How does the experience compare writing for the live theatre?
Part of the difference is the proscribed structure. To my mind, theatre has a much more organic structure. The play finds its own rhythms, rises and falls. No one is telling me that when I write it the turning point needs to be at page 27 or there has to be eight acts. Some of the delight of writing for film and TV for me is writing into those structures - the challenge of them can be freeing in its own way. But then again I love that in theatre you can make the impossible happen in staging in a magical way, that neither film or television can really ever emulate.
You are a member of several playwright groups: including Playwrights Ink, the Dog Ear Playwrights Collective, and Circle Rising. How does participating in these groups influence your work?
The other playwrights in these groups are really my life-line. They all inspire the hell out of me. They kick my ass when it needs kicking. They're insightful and supportive and insanely talented. It's essential to find that family of other playwrights for yourself. Playwriting is one of the most illogical forms of writing to attempt. Once you've written whatever it is you're writing, then you need a slew of people with various talents to work with you collaboratively to realize those words. All whom are pretty well aware that they're investing their time, talents, and souls and are most likely not making their fortune (or even gas money). This takes years to achieve, that time period from putting the first words down on paper until opening night of the first production. So having the folks that are there for me from the beginning of this process and through to the end is what keeps me going.
How long have you lived in Los Angeles? What is your favorite thing about living here?
It took me a really long time to start calling LA home, I was back and forth between here and New York so much. I think my favorite thing about living here is that I met my husband and had my daughter here.
Where would we find you on a day off?
Day off? What's a day off?
Where are your favorite places to eat?
K-Zo and Tender Greens in Culver City, Petite Sara for muffins and sandwiches and Nicks for breakfast, Sky's Tacos and Papa Christos (C and K) for Greek Food.
What is your favorite landmark in LA?
I have to say Union Station and Traxx - we had our L.A. wedding party there and the blend of art deco glamor and tourists with suitcases wandering through, it was just right.
What do you think of the theatre scene in LA?
Full of gems not enough people know are there. People will tell me that they will take trips to New York to see theatre, but you can't get them to take two freeways to see a play here. It's so hard to get people into seats in LA but there are so many theatre companies that really are worth the effort and the drive.
What inspires you to keep writing?
I'm not sure, sometimes it seems like more addiction to me than anything else.
The "The Last Seder" runs through July 27 at the Greenway Court Theatre.
WHAT: “The Last Seder.” West Coast Premiere.
WHO: Written by Jennifer Maisel. Directed by Joseph Megel.
Produced by Pierson Blaetz, Danny Fresh, Laura Jane Salvato and Whitney Weston.
With: Jenny O’Hara, Patty Cornell, Victoria Stern, Joseph Ruskin, Lauri Hendler, Elisa Donovan, Annika Marks, Heather Robinson, William Duffy, Douglas Dickerman, Chuma Gault, and Nick Ullett.
A co-production of Ensemble Studio Theatre-LA and Greenway Arts Alliance.
WHERE: Greenway Court Theatre, 544 N. Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90036.
WHEN: Opens Friday, June 20, 2008 at 8 p.m., runs through July 27. Regular show times: Thurs.-Sat. at 8, Sun. at 4.
ADMISSION: $24. Students and seniors, $20.
RESERVATIONS: (323) 655-7679 ext. 100.
Tickets: Greenway Court Theatre
photo by Mark F. Schwartz
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
Post a comment (Comment Policy)