Where the new play’s the thing

Jerry Manning, pictured here in the Rep's Leo K. Theatre, is nurturing Seattle playwrights. Photo by Bob Suh.

Seattle Repertory Theatre has nearly a dozen new plays in the works through commissions and collaborations with Northwest writers. The theatre’s artistic director, Jerry Manning, invited City Arts into his office to talk about creating opportunities for writers.

For years I worked for an off-Broadway company called New York Theatre Workshop, which was a true workshop in every sense of the word. We’d do four or five full productions a year but we would do as many as 200 readings and workshops. The artistic process was all about making new work.

In many ways, that’s the philosophy I’ve embraced: Scatter hundreds of seeds, and some of them will sprout. One in a thousand will come to fruition, but scatter the seeds far and wide. Begin to build relationships with writers, and give them a home to experiment.

It’s not that I don’t like Shakespeare, but I love being part of making something brand new. The tug-of-war, the necessary, healthy push-pull between a writer and a director doesn’t happen on a play that’s already published. You can sit at your typewriter for months and write a beautiful play, but until those words are in the mouth of an actor, until the actions are embodied with blocking, it’s just ink on a piece of paper.

Thirty years ago, good writers didn’t think twice about writing a play for 18 actors. Because of diminishing resources, young writers these days have to think much more theatrically than John Steinbeck or George Kaufman had to. Now they have to find more creative ways of getting a fuller voice onstage. “Okay, if I have six actors and two of them double here, or if I did this fun thing dramaturgically...”

I’m interested in Seattle Rep actively participating and telling Seattle stories onstage, or stories of the Pacific Northwest. There are some major playwrights in this town: Robert Schenkkan, who won a Pulitzer Prize; Cheryl West, who’s doing Pullman Porter Blues with us at the Rep; Steven Dietz, who is one of the most produced playwrights in the country; and August Wilson, may he rest in peace, lived here.

But after the top tier, it becomes difficult to find people who write plays, not because there isn’t good writing, but because there’s not enough opportunity. Over time, maybe there will be a Seattle school of playwriting. I’m determined to find space, time and resources for Seattle writers. AS TOLD TO LEAH BALTUS