Playwrights-on-Playwrights: Adam Szymkowicz

You may remember this post from those halcyon days of April, where we promised to have playwrights engaging critically with the full body of work of fellow playwrights. Well, after a much longer gestation period than expected, I’m thrilled to report that the hot steamy playwright-on-playwright action is about to begin!

Here’s how it works: 6 playwrights will read through 6 plays written by Adam Szymkowicz. You may know him as the talented playwright of Flux’s production of Pretty Theft, or as that charming blogger who interviews the playwrights.

The reading playwrights are:

Larry Kunofsky
Crystal Skillman
Brian Pracht
Johnna Adams
J Holtham
August Schulenburg

The six plays we’re reading are:

Nerve, Food for Fish, Pretty Theft, Incendiary, Hearts Like Fists, and Fat Cat Killers

We’ll read through a play of his every two weeks or so, and then each of us will contribute a response.

What do I mean by response? I don’t quite mean a review. I’m more interested in us figuring out how these plays work, not whether or not we like the way they work. That doesn’t mean we can’t be critical; we can. After all, conflict is interesting. But I’m less interested in ideological playwright flame wars than I am with deep reading; the kind of perceptive, sustained attention we all wish for ourselves.

I feel like this kind of deep reading is missing from our discourse, and when it does occur, it’s usually lavished on dead people. I want us to talk meaningfully about plays that are being written now.

We’ll be posting the first response from our readers to Adam’s play Nerve later today, so keep your dial here, playwright lovers.