Talking With Writers is a series of short conversations with PlayGround writers.
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Talking with Writers: Geetha Reddy
May 26, 2009
Geetha Reddy’s “Net” is one of the seven new short plays produced as part of the 13th Annual Best of PlayGround festival. In addition to being a festival playwright this year, Geetha has had numerous plays presented at and commissioned by PlayGround. She agreed to a quick Gchat/email discussion with fellow PlayGrounder Sam.
SAM: So, we're in the last week now - how's this year's festival for you, so far, in comparison to past years?
GEETHA: This has been one of my favorite festivals. Mark Routhier created a full production with sound and music and brought an unexpected richness to the play. Aaron and Soren are of course magnificent in playing two sides of the same coin.
SAM: I saw both the festival production of "Net" as well as the Monday Night Playground reading - I’m wondering how you experienced the Monday Night version versus the produced festival version.
GEETHA: It is usually very different but this is the first time where the festival production of my play is as spontaneous as the Monday Night reading. PlayGround hired a choreographer to work with Aaron and the production team rigged some special effects and that keeps the play on its toes. Pun. Sorry.
SAM: I think your pun was well integrated into the response, so it was welcome - yeah, I thought it still captured that sense of spontaneity, as well. You've worked a lot with PlayGround, but also with Playwrights Foundation, and other theater groups - what is it about PlayGround that keeps you involved there?
GEETHA: I love short plays. And PlayGround has the most amazing community of writers, actors and directors. It is easy to become isolated as a writer, but PlayGround strikes the perfect balance of fun, and challenge. That keeps me coming back.
SAM: Had you written a lot of short plays before PlayGround?
GEETHA: No. I took a class at Berkeley extention and then started submitting to PlayGround because some of my other class members were too. Like Cass.
SAM: Oh, you and Cass were in the same class?
GEETHA: Cass Brayton, Mike Lutz, and Brian Couch. The latter are PlayGround alum as well. John Fisher taught the class.
SAM: How did you get started as a playwright, in general?
GEETHA: Yikes. That is a big question, it was a long festering itch. Like a lot of good first generation American kids I pursued a professional career and family life and dismissed artistic dreams as impractical. But after a career and starting a family I was like, “now what?” So then came a class, and then PlayGround. I can't say enough about PlayGround's role in my growth as a playwright. PlayGround's confidence in me gave me confidence in myself. Having readings with professional actors and directors in the PlayGround company forced me to raise my game. And the commissioning programs have continued to point a path forward... Did I mention PlayGround?
SAM: I attended, in the fall, a PlayGround workshop, and someone had said something along the lines of "I didn't start writing plays until I was older, unfortunately," and you responded with something like "how do you know it's unfortunate? maybe it's a good thing you started later." So do you think you'd be a very different writer if you'd started at a different time in life?
GEETHA: Well, I'll never be a child prodigy so this may just be a rationalization--but coming to writing via the scenic route does, at least, come with a unique point of view. The other benifit of having a second act (in your life) is that you are less like to be tripped up or swept away by the things that happen in all endeavors- the politics, the hubris, the glamour, the money (I know- what money?) and the failures.
SAM: What do you think of Bay Area theater, or of being a playwright in the Bay Area?
GEETHA: I am with the cranks who think that Bay Area theatre and local writers in particular are underappreciated. I do feel like the geography of the Bay Area works against theaters and their abilty to draw audiences and choose 'risky' plays. I grew up in Pittburgh PA, but I can't really compare being a playwright here versus other places.
SAM: What projects do you have coming up?
GEETHA: Aaron Loeb and I are collaborating on a play with Central Works in Berkeley that will open this fall. Better get back to writing.
Geetha Reddy is a five-time recipient of PlayGround’s Emerging Playwright Award. In 2005 she was awarded PlayGround’s June Anne Baker Prize. In 2006 and 2007, she was awarded PlayGround Alumni Commissions. Recently her plays were performed in the Santa Rosa Actor’s Theatre Quickies festival, the Best of SF Fringe Show Three Plays About Your Mother, and on the Writer’s Block, a KQED podcast. In 2007, her play Me Given You was included as part of the Playwrights Foundation In the Rough reading series. Her PlayGround commissioned play Safe House was selected for the 2008 Bay Area Playwrights Festival. Theatre Bay Area recently named her one of the Bay Area’s top “Up & Coming Playwrights”.