After Happy: Pirates, Pipelines & Punchlines at Central Works - a Talk with the Playwright - Patricia Milton

0:00 Hey folks, welcome to Green Room On Air. I'm Ray Renati, your host. Thanks for dropping by. Hey, if you like this program, don't forget to like and subscribe. Or if you're listening on your favorite podcasting platform, please subscribe there. Really helps with the algorithm. All right, on with today's show. Today, our guest is Patricia Milton. She is the resident playwright at Central Works in Berkeley, California. She's written numerous plays for them and has won several awards for her playwrights, her playwriting in the Bay Area and in the United Kingdom.

0:40 I am very proud to have her as our guest today. And she has a new play that is on right now. And it's at Central Works. And it's called After Happy. It runs through March 29th at Central Works, and you can get your tickets at centralworks.org, and I'll put the link in the show notes. Let's get on with the show and with our guest, the renowned playwright, Patricia Milton. Oh, good afternoon, Patricia. Thanks for coming on the show in the green room here. How are you today? I'm doing great. Thanks for having me, Ray. You bet. You have a new play coming out that's going to be produced at Central Works in Berkeley, right?

1:30 Yes. It's called After Happy, and it's comedy. And I got the idea from two different articles that I read. One was about a pirate festival, an annual pirate festival that takes place in Lake Charles, Louisiana. And i saw some pictures of it and it looked absolutely wild and i thought it was very funny it's in celebration of the actual pirate jean lafitte who was actually like a horrible person i don't know why they're celebrating.

2:14 But anyway and the other thing i read was about a an oil company executive also in louisiana who was starting a greenwashing kind of a scam actually to buy a forest and say that the forest was eating up all of his greenhouse gases so that his oil was now net zero carbon and so the play talks a little bit about the whole greenwashing thing with carbon offsets which is That's a big problem right now.

2:54 So you're dealing with current events in a comedic way. Yes, exactly. We need that. All my plays do that. Pretty much I have a comic point of view. My worldview is comic and usually the characters that I write are comic. I have written two series plays and they're. So serious. I didn't enjoy writing them, so I stick to comedy. Great. Well, comedy, I think, is really hard to write. But for you, maybe it's easy. Yeah, it comes naturally to me.

3:37 And to me, there's something very healing and very... It just really brings people together to sit in a room together and laugh. There's nothing like it yeah and i think we really really really need that now no i agree the world has become a very serious and uh crazy daunting place and laughing sounds like the best medicine yes yes that's in the play, not in the hospital but so are you the resident playwright at central works Yes. It's Gary Graves and myself. Oh, okay.

4:19 Great. How did you come together to start writing plays for them? Well, I've been a playwright, let's see, wow, since probably 2009. I mean, I was a playwright when I was a little kid. I wrote plays and put them on in the garage. Yeah. I stopped for a really long time to make money and have a career and everything. But I started again in 2009, and I had a writing partner. So I co-wrote plays with my writing partner, Andy Black. And Andy and I had very similar kind of artistic visions and so on.

5:04 So we wrote a bunch of plays together, including musicals. And then I kind of went off on my own. I like to write plays that feature women, women protagonists, and usually more women than men. I like to give women actors parts because often they're the girlfriend or mother. They don't get a lot to do, so I like to have them be very active in the play. And i took a course at berkeley rep school of theater they teach playwriting and the instructor there is gary graves so i wrote a play there and gary liked it and he had a they had an opening for a play to be written by a playwright and he asked me to do it now this was when they were using what's called the central works method which is you select a topic and you select the actors you cast it and you don't you haven't even written a word and then over a course of several months you write the play with the actors with the director and then it goes out so i had never done this before.

6:31 I don't think I'd do it again. Was there a lot of improvisation involved? You know, there really isn't. The actors, they have a lot of input into their characters. Yeah. So they can say, well, I don't think my character would do that. Okay. Or they would do research. So that was about the financial meltdown. One of the actors had been with, I think Chase, JPMorgan Chase, so he had a lot of background in that. Okay. But, so, and other people did, you know, just read newspaper articles and so on.

7:12 So, there was some financial institution that had a moat, that had a moat around him, so he used that. Wild. And are you attending rehearsals for the play? Yes, I did. Well, we've opened. We did open. Oh, you opened, right, like last weekend, right? The last day of February and through the last Sunday in March. So we still have some time here. Yes, and I do always attend rehearsals and I do rewrite during rehearsals, which is hard on the actors, But if it creates a better show, they're happy to do it.

7:55 And I get feedback from them saying, can I say this instead? Well, that's great that you do that because a lot of playwrights don't want to touch a word of anything they've written after it's done. The thing I love about playwriting is it is collaborative. So you collaborate with the director, obviously. To me, the play is a blueprint. And I am, I mean, I want the words to be said as they're written, but if an actor comes up with a great idea, you know, I'm going to take it. Well, that sounds a lot like writing for film or television. Have you ever done that?

8:38 Because I know they change the scripts a lot on the set quite often. Well, and there's usually not improvisation on stage. Right. So, you know. Yeah. Yeah. You don't want to do that to your fellow actors. Yeah, exactly. I know. Throw them way off. Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of times actors have really, really good instincts about a scene and what their character wants. Yeah. Maybe better than me because I'm not an actor. I see. Hey, do you have any ideas of what you want audiences to take home with them after the play or to think about?

9:19 Well, I do try to, I mean, I hate to say, you know, I want to educate, but I do a lot of research for all of my plays. I spend, you know, months researching. It's one of the things I really love. And if I ever stop writing, I'm going to keep researching because I really love to learn about all kinds of interesting things. Yeah. So I did research climate change. It's very depressing. But this whole idea of greenwashing is very very interesting and i hope people will be skeptical when they hear oh we're we're putting out greenhouse gases but see we're net zero because we're doing xyz it's just it's not happening yeah yeah it's it's a myth right It's not even a myth, it's just a lie.

10:15 Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And what's kept you with Central Works all these years? You know, there are a lot of reasons. I love the theater. The theater there is intimate. It's very small. It's a small space. And it is a thrust stage. So the audience is actually on the stage. Right there. And I find that very exciting. If you go, say, to Berkeley Ref or any of the larger theaters, ACT, something will happen on stage, and it takes a second to get to you. Right.

11:02 There's like a half second before you get it. Yeah. And that's not true at Centerworks. It happens at the same time as the actors get it. Yeah. So, to me, that's what I love about theater, is that everybody in the room is going through the same experience at the same time. And there aren't very many art forms where that happens. Maybe music, dance, are the other two. I was thinking about that. I just saw paranormal activity at ACT. I don't know if you've heard about this.

11:44 And I was sitting pretty close, and there are moments where it's set up where things happen, like, one right after the other to create the fear. But I was wondering if the people, like, way up in the balcony had the same experience I had being just a few rows back. And I was thinking, probably not. Nope. Yeah. Absolutely not. I don't think so. Yeah. And Aristotle said that one of the things that you need in theater is spectacle. And Centerworks is so small, we don't have any backstage space to put, you know, sets or anything. So we're very spare as far as sets go.

12:27 So the spectacle is the acting. Yeah. You know, that you're right there with the people. And it's really, really great. All this spectacular acting. This cast is wonderful. Wonderful, yeah. Interesting. I just saw a streetcar at ACT, and they did it without any props or set or anything. And there were people on stage, and then there was us way out of the audience. And I have to say, I wasn't too thrilled about it because I was so far removed. But I bet the people on stage had an amazing experience. Yep.

13:10 I didn't. And that's not to say anything bad about the actors or anything. I just, I didn't, I couldn't see what was really going on with the, with the actors. And when there's nothing else like set or props or sound, well, there was sound, but set or props that they're interacting with, then it's hard to really get a good feel unless you're just listening to the words and enjoying text. Tennessee Williams' words. So you were missing the spectacle. Yes. Having the actors in your face. I've written several plays that are set in the Victorian era that have sword fights with umbrellas, the lady captives. Yeah. And that's really fun close-up, having a sword fight right there in the- Yeah.

13:58 It's really, really fun. And there's also fan fighting, which was a thing in the Victorian. They had these iron fans that make this really loud noise. And that was fun, too. So you have to make sure it's safe, but it can be a lot of fun. Well, I'm the same way. I really enjoy intimate theater where there's a small space and everyone's super close. It's a completely different experience. I think it's better as well I just love it I even like musicals that are done in a small space you don't often see that but.

14:40 Not all musicals work in a small space, but there are more that will than you think. Mm-hmm. I agree. How do you- Also, when I'm writing, I think of the space, and I take that into consideration. Oh, okay. So there's three doors. So I always think of that, where people can come and go. I'm very used to the space. My plays have translated to other stages that are a regular stage, so it's not a problem, but I always keep that in mind. Yeah. Now, you said you started writing plays when you were a little girl in your garage.

15:22 Tell me more about that. Do you remember any of the plays? You know, I think it was, I had a big family, so I made them act, right? And I think we based them on like television shows at the time, you know, so like, I don't know, at that time, Get Smart or something like that. And then we'd make our parents come and watch. Oh, I love this. Yeah, and I wrote plays in high school and college as well. Yeah maybe that's where you got your knack for comedy they had all those hilarious sitcoms back maybe in those days yeah yeah yeah.

16:09 So, how many people are in this show? Is there three or four actors, it looked like? There's three actors, all women. Okay. Absolutely wonderful. Jan Zweifler, who is the co-director of Centerworks. She plays the Noble Oils executive. I'm sorry, the executive. And she is put in charge of the Pirate Festival. She needs to find a pirate queen. Which she doesn't have. And then her niece shows up unexpectedly, and we don't know why she's there.

16:49 But we do know that she fled after the hurricane, Hurricane Happy blew through their town, and she was recently arrested in Portland for a pipeline protest. So we understand that she's on the other side of the climate position than her aunt and then there's a third character. Named Steph, and she is the niece's friend who shows up in the middle of the play and kind of throws a wrench in the action.

17:33 And to find out what the wrench is, you need to go watch the play. That's right. That's right. Well, it was funny because I was writing a play and I had the two characters, the niece and the aunt, Cat and Brenda, and I knew there was somebody waiting in the car. And I didn't know who it was. Sometimes when you're writing something, you just know, like somebody's got a briefcase, and you know there's something in it, but you don't know what it is. I love to write not knowing that, and then it comes to you. You realize what it is. So it was Steph out in the car. She comes in.

18:13 What do you like about writing plays over say other forms of of writing like novels or tv or film like what is it about writing plays that attracts you well i think i just said about the collaboration yeah like that i'm sorry i don't know why i am oh that's fine yeah the collaboration i was curious about that oh i understand collaborating now but like how do you write a play with someone else i mean do you sit down together and write it and just come up with stuff or do you write your own pieces and then meet and fit them together how does that work no we do we actually did they they have things now where you can be on the internet yeah like google docs and you could be in two different places and write at the same time okay but andy and i wrote together they're in the same room.

19:04 I see. So we would take turns, one of us would be typing, and we would be talking back and forth. So we would talk through the scene. Yeah. So you pick a scene that you're going to do, and you talk through what happens in the scene, and then we just go through. And start filling it in and writing it. Yeah, yeah. And then there's a lot of rewriting always. Yeah. And we also have, and it's really important to have actors come in and read while you're writing a play so that you can hear it and hear where it's slow or people don't know what's going on or different things like that.

19:52 And you can do rewriting from there. yeah i also like plays because it's the other part of collaboration is you collaborate with the audience so the audience brings their own ideas their own background their own just everything their own lives to the theater and so you know sometimes that's good sometimes they hate your play because they were expecting something else or your play hit a raw spot or something. But I love that. I think it's really great.

20:35 You don't spoon-feed them at all. In a movie, you are spoon-fed because the camera goes, oh, look at this, and just shows you what the director wants you to see. But in a play, you can look anywhere you want. If you're in the corner, you can look backstage. I think that's really great, and you have to use your imagination. You know, they bring their imaginations and, you know, it's really play, you know? I mean, that's why they call it a play, right? Yeah. So it's very fun to have that as your job, play, you know?

21:21 The audience has sort of a life of its own as if it's its own entity. I know as an actor, it always feels that way. You know, this audience is like this, this audience was like this. And you get a feeling as though it's one organism, and it's really amazing. Well, there have been studies that the heartbeats of audience members, they get the same rhythm. They synchronize? Yeah. Wow. That's amazing. Yeah. I'm sure they do in a concert also, I'm sure. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, it is full. So, the show runs for how many more weeks?

22:07 Let's see, four more weeks. So, it's through March 29th. Okay. And, yeah, I just want to give a shout-out. My director is Gary Graves. Okay. And the actors are Jan Zweifler as Brenda, Laura Dunnigan as Kat, and Steph is played by Raison Aspaugh. Fantastic so and then is it what are the days every week that it shows sure thursday and friday at 8 p.m saturday at 7 and then we have a sunday matinees at 5 p.m sunday matinees are very popular so get your tickets fast for those thursdays are pay what you can and you can do that online or at the door.

22:59 So you can just go online and pay whatever you can. And it's in the Berkeley City Club. And if you have not been there, that is an absolutely beautiful building. Just amazing architecture by the woman who designed San Simeon. Really, really amazing. It is beautiful. I did a couple readings there many, many years ago, and I still remember how wonderful it was in there. Yeah. I live down in the South Bay, so I should get up to Central Works and see something. Maybe I'll go see this. Come on up. Yeah.

23:39 Great. So I will put all of the information in the notes so people, if you're watching this, you can just go ahead and click on that, and it'll send you right to the website where you can get tickets. Sound good? Very good. All right. Thanks for visiting the green room today, Patricia. Thank you, Ray. Okay. Have a wonderful weekend. You too.