Jacqueline Lawton: So, to start could you tell me a little bit about where you live (maybe where and what sort of neighborhood)--describe the street where you live--what can you hear if you open a window, what can you see if you look out that window.
Jon Klein: I live in a townhouse in Frederick, Maryland. It's a long commute to DC (where I teach at Catholic University), but my wife and I were charmed by that civil-war era town and the Catoctin Mountain area when we came out to see my play BETTY THE YETI at Maryland Ensemble Theatre.
JL: Then tell me a little bit about your favorite place to write. Do you write in the same place or in different places? Describe your favorite place.
JK: Frankly, I write wherever and whenever I get the chance. I've learned that a writer can't be too picky about time and place, especially when under a deadline. I write at home, hotel rooms, in the office, you name it. I try not to write on airplanes, though!
JL: Give us a little background on where you're from originally, where you grew up, how you ended up where you are now...
JK: I'm from Louisville, Kentucky, where I apprenticed at Actors Theatre of Louisville and came into my first contact with the development and production of new plays. Later on, I had two full-length plays produced in their famous Humana Festival, so I felt that my biographical, geographical and professional worlds finally came together! I was an itinerant playwright for 25 years, moving to wherever I got regular productions - New York, Minneapolis, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle and Los Angeles were all places I called home for long stretches of time. I've now been living in the DC area since six years ago, when I took over the MFA Playwriting Program at Catholic University.
JL: Were you always drawn to the theater?
JK: I knew almost nothing about theatre until I started to perform as an actor in plays in high school and college. And I knew nothing at all about new plays and playwrights until I apprenticed at Actors Theatre of Louisville. I wrote my first play at the age of 24 during that apprenticeship - a ten minute play which won a $100 prize and was produced as part of an evening of short plays at Actors Theatre. To this day, the most exciting event of my professional career!
JL: Describe for me all the sensations you had the first time you had one of your plays produced and you sat in the audience while it was performed...what was different about the characters you created? How much input did you have in the directing of that work?
JK: I learned immediately about the differences between the play you hear in your head and the play that is actually being performed. Occasionally those differences were a little frustrating, but they were mostly exciting and revelatory. I had open communication with the director, which is something I've continued to enjoy ever since. So yes, I was "hooked", and a playwright was born.
JL: Who or what inspires you to write? What do you hope to convey in the plays that you write--what are they about? What sort of people, situation, circumstances, do you like to write about?
JK: I write in a broad spectrum of styles and subjects - comedy, drama, docudrama, theatre for young people, musicals, adaptations, and historical epics (like CHANCE AND NECESSITY). I challenge myself not to write the same kind of play twice in a row. I usually begin with imagined characters in a specific situation - then ask myself why that interests me, and whether there's a potential play there.
JL: What compelled you to write CHANCE AND NECISSITY, which we are presenting at Diving Board?
JK: A friend of mine, who's a microbiologist at Duke University, introduced me to the world of Jacques Monod. Monod is famous in the scientific community, but not really with anyone else. I did some research and found there was a marvelous story there, especially when you include his relationships with Albert Camus and Jerzy Kozinski. I applied for and received an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship (an award which encourages theatre that promotes science and scientific stories), in conjunction with its development at Ensemble Studio Theatre in NYC. This draft represents the work that came out of the workshop and reading there.
JL: What’s next for you as a writer?
JK: In an extreme change of pace from this play, I want to invite people to see my adaptation of the famous children’s book BUNNICULA, now running at Imagination Stage in Bethesda. And in another change of pace, I'm writing a new musical called PRESTO CHANGE-O, for the Victory Theatre in Los Angeles. I also have plans for a few other plays - when I get the chance!
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