28 Feb Aaron Loeb Artist Talk

Posted at 21:53h in Rough Readings by
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A chat with The Pitch playwright

Aaron Loeb

On Monday and Tuesday next week (March 2 & 3) we have a chance to hear Aaron Loeb’s new work The Pitch as it brings psychological suspense to the world of Silicon Valley.

Want to hear The Pitch? Reserve your Pay What You Can seat now. 

When did you write your first play? What was it about & how do you feel about it now?

It was when I was 14. It was called “Roadtrip” and I imagined three of my friends in their 30s on a roadtrip together. I started it because I had an English assignment to work several vocab words into a piece of writing (I remember one of them was “unpalatable.”) I haven’t re-read it in 30 years, so I remember it as a work of undiscovered genius that will someday be unearthed and celebrated as it should have been in its day! (I’m fairly certain if I tried actually reading it, I would find it pretty unpalatable.)

Do you have an established writing process or do you approach each project differently?

I’ve become comfortable with the truth that I am a “burst” writer. I think about the thing for a long time — sometimes years — then I write huge chunks very quickly. I want to be disciplined and write every day. I either can’t or won’t. I generally approach a play in layers. I have to understand the characters and the theme or high concept, then the broad structure of the plot, and then the beats. I know a lot of writers who start at a key character interaction and grow out from there. I start outside and work my way in.

What has been your most ambitious undertaking as an artist?

The Trials of Sam Houston, which world premiered at Dallas Theater Center in 2018. It was eight years in development and covered (in one way or another) about 120 years of history. The play has actors switching times and rolls rapidly.

What was your catalyst for writing The Pitch?

A pitch! Roland Weinstein, a board member for San Francisco Playhouse, and Bill English (Artistic Director of Playhouse) pitched me the idea of a play about the people in coffee shops in San Jose pitching tech start ups. They knew it was my world and could be interesting. I immediately loved the idea and agreed to write it and got straight to work on taking three years to think about it.

What are you hoping to learn from The Pitch appearing in the Rough Reading Series?

I’m still in the “big themes and broad plot structure” phase of this play. Is it clear what this play is about? There’s some very realistic and very theatrical stuff in it — is it clear why? Does the story surprise, delight. Is there catharsis? The big stuff.

What do you want audiences to take away from your work?

My whole body of work? That it is not easy to be ethical, but it is possible. I am obsessed with the systems — both external and self-imposes — that stand between us and our own sense of what’s right. But if you are waiting for an engraved invitation to do the right thing, it will never come.

Do you have any advice for an aspiring playwright?

The classic advice I got when I was studying playwriting: read and watch everything. I am a huge fan of theater. I love other playwrights. If you can’t be an unabashed fan of other writers and theater in general, interrogate that.

But the best advice I ever got was from the late, great Stuart Browne: always say thank you. To everyone. Theater is hard and everyone you’re working with chose to be there and work on your play. Thank them all. The way Stuart said it, “There’s a guy whose job it is to hold the stage door for you when you leave — say thank you. Always. Whole careers are built on gratitude.”
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What’s your favorite thing to do when you aren’t writing?
I play a lot of video games. Like… a lot.
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What’s one thing you try to do every day?
Say thank you. Thank you for asking!


About Aaron Loeb

 

Aaron Loeb’s work has been performed around the world. His full-length plays include Ideation (which premiered Off Broadway in 2016), The Trials of Sam Houston, The Proud, Brown, First Person Shooter, Blastosphere (with Geetha Reddy), and Abraham Lincoln’s Big, Gay Dance Party (Off-Broadway premiere in 2010). Loeb received the Will Glickman award for Best New Play in the Bay Area for Ideation in 2013. He is the resident playwright of San Francisco Playhouse and a member of the Dramatists Guild, Inc.

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