Inside A.C.T.

posted by Philip Kan Gotanda January is new-play development month at A.C.T. Although we continue to work with playwrights on new works throughout the year, First Look heats up this month with a series of readings and workshops. The readings are not open to the public, but you can find more information about this program here .  One of this January’s featured writers, Philip Kan Gotanda (author of the A.C.T.–commissioned hit play After the War ) shares his thoughts about making a career in playwriting. Young writers: I would encourage working to cultivate relationships with theaters you respect. More specifically artistic directors. This is as important as the work itself. A playwright is someone who writes plays that are produced, not sit in someone’s hard drive. I think it wise to have working relationships with more than one theater. Ideally a larger, nationally respected institution, then a smaller black box experimental house, and finally, in my case, an Asian American...

posted by Philip Kan Gotanda January is new-play development month at A.C.T. Although we continue to work with playwrights on new works throughout the year, First Look heats up this month with a series of readings and workshops. The readings are not open to the public, but you can find more information about this program here . One of this January’s featured writers, Philip Kan Gotanda (author of the A.C.T.–commissioned hit play After the War ) shares his thoughts about playwriting and his new work I Dream of Chang and Eng . I have this thing where I sit on plays for years before I write them. I can literally feel them inside of me. It’s a kind of amorphous nonspecific locus of knowledge that bumps around inside of me sucking up whatever it deems necessary to building a particular literary house. And it pulls in stuff from every conceivable exchange or encounter, waking or sleeping. My play Ballad of Yachiyo waited around for a good seven years before a night in the hospital k...