11 Apr Interview with a Playwright: TD Mitchell
We’re stoked about next week’s reading of VRTU-L by TD Mitchell. We caught up with TD before she flies out for these readings to talk about this incredibly timely and harrowing play. It’s the sixth in our 2016-17 Rough Readings Series, which is always PAY WHAT YOU CAN. Reserve your seat now!
Monday, April 17 at 7:30PM – Roble Hall, Stanford University
Tuesday, April 18 at 2:00PM – Custom Made Theatre, San Francisco
What intrigues you so much about the military/veteran experience that you would continue to explore it in your work?
We’re sending missiles into Syria without a formal declaration of war. The US has been in the war business nearly all of my adult life, with zero homeland sacrifices borne by the general public and a startlingly small percentage of citizens who serve. Keeps me up at night. This is the last of a planned trilogy.
What is the major difference of this play from the rest in the veteran series?
This is a wild departure in writing style and form for me. My prior plays have linear plots and are anchored in the structure and rules of traditional dramatic realism. I’m pushing way out of my comfort zone to disrupt that habit, to try to get into the Absurd and Abstract. Right now, the piece feels like an awkward, gangly Frankenstein’s monster. …But our nation appears to be in an absurdist monstrosity realm right now, so maybe this messiness is where the play should be…
What kind of experience have you had with the Virtual Reality technology that prompts this idea of incorporating it into this play?
I’ve spent time in a design and digital animation lab for a tour of their work and get a sense of what’s possible in a theatrical context. I intend to collaborate with a VR game designer a few script drafts down the road. –This raw first draft reading is strictly analogue, though, so I can hear where technology might enhance our experience of the story.
But what drove me there in the first place is the history and extent of our military’s use of games, and the pros and cons of that. And where does online culture align or collide with, or hijack society’s perception of truth and reality?
To whom would you like this play to speak? Is there a target audience at the moment of its inception?
There isn’t, no. Some writers can work backward from an audience end point, but I’m not one of them, with new plays. However, there are built-in jokes, references, double meanings, behavior, visuals and sounds specific to computer and online language that’ll be missed by people that haven’t been online much. Hopefully it won’t completely exclude them.
Is there a quote from the play that you would pick out to give your audience an introductory taste of the story?
Is. This. Real. Life?
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