02 Feb Michael Gene Sullivan Artist Talk
Posted at 19:49h
in
Rough Readings
by marketing
Michael Gene Sullivan
What made you want to become a writer?
My fourth grade class had to do a drama project, and I convinced my fellow students to write something about school funding. They agreed, but all dropped out of the creation process, which left me to write a play about elementary school students marching on City Hall, demanding adequate education funding! Power to the People! It was hilarious and revolutionary, and the teacher and Principal liked it so much our class put it on for the entire student body.
I’ve been trying to have at least that same impact ever since.
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What does the day-to-day process of playwriting look like for you?
People will asking me what I’m doing, and I tell them “I’m working on a play,” and by that I mean right then – in my head, while we’re talking. I’m always working out problems, changing characters, upping the stakes in my head. Most of my time is taken up with research, and since I write political comedy that means reading and watching the news and whatever I think is funny constantly. Then I go for hours long walks – really long – with a notepad, stopping when my ideas crystalize to write. Oh, and I write first drafts of my plays out longhand, as my typing sucks.
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Are there other storytelling mediums you have explored besides playwriting? How are they different?
I’m a big fan of Edgar Allen Poe, and when I was in college I wrote horror short stories. At one point a friend who I let read my work told me her psychiatrist told her to stop, as my stories were driving her insane.
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What advice would you give to an aspiring playwright?
Strive to be your own favorite playwright. This is different from being the best – that’s too subjective. But revel in the fact that no one can tell a story in the way you can, the way you think is best to tell it. You won’t start as your favorite, but if you keep it up you can unashamedly get there.
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When writing your play did you imagine a certain audience that you were writing for? How do you think this affected your writing process and the writing itself?
My goal is always the same – to entertain the audience while infecting them with revolutionary ideas, inspiring them to leave the theatre and overthrow corporatism, racism, sexism, xenophobia, transphobia, homophobia,, and all the other reactionary crap that divides and oppresses the Working Class. The active goal of any show should be that if everyone saw the play and understood it everything would change for the better.
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Are there any contemporary plays or playwrights that inspire you?
Too many to mention, but any play-playwright dealing directly with issues, and working to whip up the audience to revolutionary action rather than subdued contemplation has my vote.
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Were there any past theatrical movements that you felt inspired your work?
As a writer for the San Francisco Mime Troupe my influences include all of SFMT’s past writers before me, as well as the reality of Theatre of the Oppressed, the wacky, brilliant bravery of Moliere, the irreverent insanity of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Bugs Bunny, Rocky and Bullwinkle, and all the gritty or comedic 1930’s film classics in which the average person fights the powers that be and wins.
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Reserve your Pay What You Can tickets now.
Saturday, February 6 at 2:00pm PST
Monday, February 8 at 7:30pm PST
About The Great Khan:
The Great Khan is either a comedy with dramatic overtones or a drama with lots of comedy about two working-class, Black American teenagers – Jaden and Antoinette – who are struggling with the same issue: how to grow up Black in a country that treats them like criminals-in-training at best or a runaway slave at worst, a country that sees them as either precocious perpetrators or pieces of meat.
Wouldn’t it be easier to just fulfill the nation’s stereotypical view of them?
Then Genghis Khan shows up.
Michael Gene Sullivan is award-winning playwright, director, and actor based in San Francisco. Michael’s plays have been produced and performed at theaters throughout the United States, and in Greece, England, Scotland, Spain, Columbia, Ukraine, the Netherlands, Argentina, Canada, Mexico, as well as at the Melbourne International Arts Festival (Australia), the International Festival of Verbal Art (Berlin), The Spoleto Festival, (Italy), and The Hong Kong Arts Festival.
Michael is been Resident Playwright for the Tony and OBIE award-winning (and despite its name never, ever silent) San Francisco Mime Troupe, where he has written or co-written over 20 plays. He is also a Resident Playwright for the Playwrights Foundation, and was awarded a 2017 artist residency at the Djerassi Arts Center. Michael’s non-Mime Troupe plays include the award-winning all-woman political farce Recipe, Red Carol, his critically-acclaimed one person show, Did Anyone Ever Tell You-You Look Like Huey P. Newton?, and his stage adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984, which opened at Los Angeles’ Actors’ Gang Theatre under the direction of Academy Award winning actor Tim Robbins. 1984 has since been produced nationally (most recently at the Alley Theatre in Houston and national tour with New York’s Aquila Theatre) and in 14 countries around the world, translated into 5 languages, and is published in the United States, Canada, and Spain.
Michael and his wife, Velina Brown, were also recently profiled in American Theatre Magazine: http://www.americantheatre.org/2017/02/14/michael-gene-sullivan-and-velina-browns-political-partnership/
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