Quick Q&A’s: The Anti-Depressant Festival

I talked with three of the playwrights who have shows at The Anti-Depressant Festival (through July 4th, at The Brick)

Tell me about your show Suspicious Package rx.

It’s a show that takes place entirely on iPods, so there are no actors physically in the piece. Six audience members show up and they each get an iPod which has instructions for them and voiceovers and flashback scenes. Basically your iPod is your character that tells you to walk around to different locations in Williamsburg and gives you things to do and lines to say to other people. There’s a bit of mystery that gets solved at the end. It’s a lot of fun, and we all have a drink afterward.

Do you always do participatory theatre?

I do tend to do theatre that involves the audience more. I did a different version of this show for last year’s festival – different characters, different plot – and it was such a success that they wanted me to do another one. I did another show last year that was like a film question and answer, and the audience asked the questions. I like the idea of participatory theatre. I think most often it is executed poorly but when executed well it’s amazing and can be totally fun. That’s what I strive to do. Participatory theatre that’s not crappy and lame. A lot of the work at The Brick involves the audience and you have the freedom to do that. They don’t want to see an Ibsen revival.

Tell me about your show Infectious Opportunity.

It’s about a screenwriter who’s known for living with HIV who’s just written a movie that’s getting a lot of Oscar buzz and media attention. You find out through the course of the show that he’s been faking having HIV for the past ten years to boost his career. It started out as a semi-innocent white lie to get close to someone in college and then he decided to ride along with it. Now he’s realizing that obviously this may not have been the best way to go. He has this Jiminy Cricket sort of imaginary friend named Josie, based on someone he actually met who was actually infected with AIDS, and she’s a voice in his head who is constantly taunting him to get him to do the right thing. It’s something like an escalating nightmare, or like watching someone slowly painting themselves into a corner. On his blog, Mac Rogers called it a tragedy about what happens when someone’s need to be liked above all else becomes the dominant goal in someone’s life.

How does having Nosedive, your own theatre company, benefit you as a writer?

When I write something I can be pretty confident that within the next few months it will be staged. That pushes me, because I have these people waiting for the next script so I can’t be lazy. I have to write. Having a great team and having the same collaborators is a great boon. We’ve all been fans of The Brick for a while now and vice versa. This was the perfect opportunity.

Is this a good time or a bad time for indie theatre in New York?

I think it’s a really good time. I’ve been seeing a good amount of shows the last few months and I’ve not seen a lot of empty seats. The fact that we can do emails and online promotion stuff and get the word out about indie shows for free and very easily has probably helped a lot.

Tell me about your show Adventure Quest.

Plot-wise, it follows the structure of an old school 1980’s computer adventure game like King’s Quest or Quest For Glory. It uses the peculiar structure of those games to explore freedom and happiness and death, lots of death. The main character who is basically in every scene gradually becomes more self-aware and starts questioning the nature of the quest he’s on and how the world works. All the characters are essentially set up in this two dimensional world. For instance, in those games you could get frustrated very easily, you would have to type in a very specific command in order to get an action accomplished and if you didn’t use the right vocabulary the game wouldn’t let you do it. That kind of frustration can be heightened in a theatrical setting. When you have that as a device, it lets you comment on a lot of different things.

Do you use the rules of adventure video games toward a real-life theme?

It’s a lot about questioning what role you’re set up for and how you’re supposed to do things, and what happens when you try to find happiness by breaking out of that role. The old school adventure games are really fascinating – they didn’t coddle you the way that a lot of games do nowadays. In Kings Quest if you forget to do something early in the game, the game is unwinnable.

In what ways is The Brick an important venue for artists right now?

Someone compared The Brick to La Mama and I think that’s really true. It is a cultural epicenter. It’s wonderful that we have it and that people know about it. I have honestly never seen a venue that so constantly puts up risk-taking, interesting, compelling work. They aren’t going to put up something cookie-cutter. When I go in there, I know it’s going to be interesting.