A CONVERSATION WITH PLAYWRIGHT JONATHAN SPECTOR
What year(s) were you at the New Harmony Project?
I was at New Harmony in the summer of 2021. I was originally supposed to attend the conference in the summer of 2020, but we all know how that went. When I finally had the chance to go in 2021, I was so appreciative that they held spots for the artists who had been accepted the previous year. It was one of the first in-person theater things I did coming out of the pandemic, and because of that was extra meaningful.
Can you talk about a favorite memory or two? If you were asked to describe NHP to someone, how would you do it?
I remember spending a lot of time walking around the strange and lovely little town, the wonderful community of artists, and an overall sense of calm and quietude.
Where do you find inspiration for your writing? What other writers (in any genre) do you find inspiring?
Plays for me usually begin as an encounter with something I don't fully understand and get curious about. There's a Peter Brook phrase, "the formless hunch.” And that's very much what it is. Just this vague but persistent sense of "there might be a play here." And then it's usually a long and circuitous process of following that hunch wherever it leads.
For non-fiction writers or fiction-adjacent writers, I will read anything from Eula Biss, Jon Ronson, Peter Orner, Patrick Raden Keefe. For books on writing specifically it's hard to beat Annie Dillard's The Writing Life. Sherry Kramer just wrote what is probably the best ever book on playwriting. Highly recommend it.
What's your writing process/ritual?
Unfortunately my process feels mostly like initial excitement and research, followed by a seemingly endless period of avoidance, procrastination and self-loathing, which somehow results in a play. Something I have been talking a lot about with my therapist is trying to accept that my process is what it is, it's not going to change, and so the goal is to just have less anxiety and misery around it. Rather than feeling like I'm doing something wrong, I've been trying to reframe it as doing something right, and the problem is not the process itself, but the amount of time and energy I spend beating myself up about it.
I also find it very useful to hear work out loud with actors (or just other writers) pretty early on. I am quite certain everything I'm doing is total garbage early on, so hearing other people respond to it sometimes provides the necessary energy to keep going.
What advice would you give to a playwright approaching their first major production?
Be as clear as you can as early as you can about what's important to you about the play, so that you and the director and the whole team can all be rowing boats in the same direction. If it's the first production of the play, there may be some of this you don't know, that's fine. If something feels like it's heading in the wrong direction, it's better to speak up earlier rather than later. At the same time, you've been living with this play so much longer than everyone else, and they will need time and a process to be able to find their way there. So you have to be patient while letting them get there organically (actors especially). It's a tricky balance.
Don't listen to anyone who tries to tell you that you need to stay in your lane. It's your play, there's no area of the production which you don't get to have an opinion about. You just need to do it respectfully, and through the proper channels (which usually means it's better to voice this to the director so there's no confusion or contradiction for anyone else).
Do you have a dream project that you're dying to work on?
There's a couple of films I'd love to adapt into a musical or giant stage spectacle, but thus far have not been able to get the rights...
Can you tell us a little bit about Eureka Day?
Eureka Day is about a small, progressive school in Berkeley, California. The characters are the head of school and board of directors, who make all their decisions by consensus, in an effort to live their values. When their school has a mumps outbreak, they struggle to find consensus over the school's vaccination policy. It's set in 2018, and despite the description, is very funny.
It was commissioned by and premiered at Aurora Theater in Berkeley in 2018, and is now running on Broadway with a total if-I'm-dreaming-don't-wake-me cast which includes Jessica Hecht, Bill Irwin and Amber Gray. Plus the inimitable Anna Shapiro directing. Conversations about the play moving to Broadway actually began just before Covid, way back in fall of 2019, so it's been a long and bumpy road to get there, but I'm incredibly grateful that when it finally happened, it came together in this way, with a production I'm so happy with and proud of.