Next up is David Laughlin, author of The Bagelers. This dark comedy will leave you laughing and hoping you never have to be in a police station. Two teenagers turn themselves in after a late night shenanigan involving bagels. Left in the hands of a frustrated dispatch officer, the night turns out to be comically disturbing. The bagel is exploited in a whole new way.
Tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you from, where did you grow up, and how did you get to FSU?
Sure. I grew up in Kansas City, Kansas. I…did, like, some theatre in high school and got interested in theatre that way. Went to college in Durham,NC, at Duke and ah, got interested in film there. Spent about four years, almost four years, doing my undergrad in English and a minor in film and video. Decided around junior year that I wanted to go into screen writing. Yeah, so then I graduated, spent a couple of years making money and ah, did some writing to build up a resume to apply. So I...stayed there and did that. I looked a some schools and FSU had this split theatre/film writing thing which actually I didn’t know about until I got down here. I just thought it was screenwriting with this tiny little theatre component. But yeah, a little after the interview, I discovered that and somehow they were cool with that and, yeah, I got in here and it was great! Awesome. I was very excited. Came down here, did the semester with the production students over at the film school and came over to the theatre school not hugely jazzed about it. But I really rediscovered how much I like it. It’s been great.
What we want to explore with this interview is the process of playwriting from the perspective of the playwright. Before we expand on that, tell us: why write plays?
Uuuh, well there area lot of reasons. I think one of the primary ones we all think about is the amount of control a writer gets in theatre. When you’re writing for the screen, because it’s only distributed, like through the film, this one time rather than done in multiple productions. You sell off a screenplay and then it’s somebody else’s and they develop it however they want and you lose control in a really frustrating way. And the culture in theatre is much more supportive of what it is you’re trying to do as a writer. Ah, much more respectful and a lot of times, a lot more intelligent about how it’s produced. I mean, case by case but…but then there’s a lot of things about doing a play which are interesting There are…it presents challenges. You get to just sit with characters in a room for along time and play with dialogue whereas in film you have to get in and out of a scene very quickly. In theatre it’s expected to linger on well, not linger on, but you can spend a long time to get at the meat of what it’s about.
Let’s talk a bit about developing characters. Where do the ideas come from? How do you find them or more accurately, how do your characters manifest themselves? Do you hear a line in your head? Do you hear a voice? How do you give the character a voice?
If they start talking to me I go to the doctor! (Laughs) How do my characters….. You mean, like, how do I originally get ideas for them or…? (Where does that voice come from) I get my stuff can you strike that from the record oh my god….I tend to come up with more of a concept for a plot-centric view. So I tend to have a couple of characters at the beginning of an idea which are just sort of, I know I need someone in this role and I know I need someone in this role. Like, my current play, I knew I wanted to do it around an interrogation and this kind of...well, bageling. People can find out what a bageling is if they come. So I knew I was gonna have a cop and I knew I was gonna have someone being questioned. I thought well, it would be interesting if there was this team so I thought alright, so I’ll have a girlfriend and a boyfriend and I’ll make them teenagers. And well, then I’m gonna have a lawyer, so I got a lawyer and I though aright, so I’ve got five characters which is a very…. It’s not the most organic way to create characters but I tend to start with little bits of people I know and then…just see what am I going to need them to do. Try to create situations that would bring them to do that. Based on how they do that, it starts to influence what the plot is. So, I mean, I’ve got one of the less character-driven mindsets of the playwrights, being plot-driven. It has it’s advantages and disadvantages.
What is it that lights that proverbial fire under your butt?
Besides deadlines? It was based on some past experience. There was a …I knew a bageler and I always thought his story was very funny. It was one of my brothers and his friends did this activity called bageling and I always thought it was absolutely ridiculous. And then I drew also on previous legal experience which I always had passionate thoughts about. So it was an interesting way to explore all those things which a lot of people encounter at some point ‘cause everybody gets into trouble and most people, at some point, have to deal with the police. So it was interesting to see the police’s perspective and I think the most rewarding part of it was… I realized, I’ve got this police officer and I need to send him here because that’s what’s going to happen in this play. How can that happen and still portray someone who might actually be a police officer and might be a real person and so it’s like digging into what would create a person like that without letting them be some sadistic conventional dude.
Can you be more specific about your past experience without incriminating yourself?
I’d rather not. (laughs) You’ve got that thing pointed at me like it’s the barrel of a gun!(talking about the recorder)
What drives you to create?
I don’t want to sit in a cubicle. And I figure I can get paid to just sit around? What drives me to write? I, ah, I really, I always appreciated when I was little just how powerful being in the audience for a story could be. Um, and I when I watched when I was little, I’d think oh, shit, that could change just a little bit there. That’s what got me interested initially. And like, nowadays, I find the process of creating that experience to be a very powerful psychological experience itself. Um, and when it works out, it’s very rewarding. So I guess that’s a very general answer.
Do you remember the movie Misery? James Caan played an author who wrote novels, fiction. His character had distinct rituals that he went through when he wrote and also when finished a novel: he preferred certain paper, he had the whole cigar and champagne thing set up when he finished the final page… Do you have rituals?
Do I have rituals? Let’s see… I often write, look, I mean, as far as in grad school, I’ve been writing for deadlines often enough that my rituals tend to go out the window. But when I’m, when I’m, at best I have… I always like to get away from home and have my apple and my cashews. I have this habit of just sitting there at my computer, at my little laptop thing… I have this habit of like, I have an idea and suddenly I’m pacing, and five minutes later, I realize I’m pacing and I think everyone in the film school’s like (gives a l) No, I don’t really have a lot of rituals. I’m not very set in stone. I should, though. I should. I like that champagne thing. (pauses) I go to sleep. Maybe that’s mine. I just don’t want to think about it.
Are you familiar with the phrase “writer’s block”?
I am. I’ve never had writers block per se. I’ve never written as much as I have in grad school so I always have three projects going at once. I’ve definitely had times where I’ve been very unenthusiastic about pieces. I mean, even with Bagelers, wrote the initial draft back in the beginning of the fall and I had about three months I was working on the full-length [version]. By the time I came back to looking at it, it was just so far from my mind and I was like, oh, God, I have to go back to this play? What am I gonna do with this? But as soon as the production came on board, I started talking with my director and they started asking questions about it, um, my enthusiasm just went through the roof because it’s like… There’s just something great about the production experience that makes it all very real, very quickly. And suddenly, you have to answer for something outside of your head. It’s great. It really brings this huge amount of energy. I found that with New Horizons last year, also.
All the New Horizons plays are in rehearsal right now. Most people know that the director of a play drives the artistic vision of the show. But you wrote the show. Tell us what it’s like working with a director; how it feels to have to give up control of your “baby.”
Um, I think it’s just, you know, I’ve been trying to learn to maintain that division of labor. To leave them to their job and when I do that right, everything tends to go better. They know what they’re doing, so… Yeah, I mean, once it’s in rehearsals, I don’t see it as my role to manage the energy. I think if I was doing that, I would be overstepping my bounds greatly. Which, anyway, I try not to do.
OK. You’re in rehearsals and things are moving along. What happens when the director wants to change or, gasp, CUT part of your script?
Oh, yeah! All through the first New Horizons, Alison Frost had a…..very pointed questions about…after the first act, she was like, I just don’t get this first act. Why is this happening here, here, and here? I was like, yep, you’re right. It’s not working. As a writer, you’ve got what’s on the page and you’ve got this whole kind of world of ideas that are supporting this whole invisible structure in your mind of what’s on the page and you don’t often realize what’s there, oftentimes. You read that, and it just triggers whatever’s in your head about what’s on the page. And someone who reads it just as it is can often call you very quickly on what’s not working, if it’s just not working at all. Suddenly, you’re seeing it the way they’re seeing it; it’s really weird. I mean, you can’t know it without them asking it. But yeah, she challenged that and after she was done, she was like, ok, now, this third act? That doesn’t work either. I don’t mean acts, I mean parts, you know?
Do you have an emotional response?
Yeah, um, like, there was one choice I made with Bagelers that I was gonna have the police officer’s internal characteristics drive the ending of the story. He was going to make a choice internally and it really wasn’t working. Anthony was having a hard time, like, man, I don’t really know what’s motivating me here and the director was giving me the same note. So was my playwriting teacher. And so eventually, I was like, alright, I’m going to have to create an external event to drive him into this and it was very difficult. I was very proud that I had created, you know…because I tend to have plots drive the characters, I was very happy because I thought I had created a character that was driving the plot along. I was like, yeah, look at me! And so that wasn’t working. So yeah, I made this big change and that was really difficult. But I mean, as far as, I get attached to the overall work just in terms of accomplishment. But I don’t tend to get emotional about a particular character. I don’t cry when my characters cry.
When did you first recognize yourself as a writer? Do you have any words of wisdom for new playwrights?
I’m giving advice?!! The first time I recognized myself as a writer. The first time I knew that I had knack for it and wanted to do it was for screenwriting class. I was getting very positive feedback and I was very… I was excited about it in a way that I had never been excited about doing anything else. I pretty much knew what I wanted to do. Because I already knew I wanted to go into film. Any advice??? I would just say…it takes a long time and a lot of planning. Life planning. You know, if you wanna go to grad school you’re gonna need a bunch of stuff so you need to spend the time writing it. You don’t want to turn in a bunch of crap. You have to get up before work for a while and write. That’s what I did for about a year. Got up at like, six am and write for two hour\s and go to work. And there are practical things like you’re not going to make a whole lot of money. So if you want to come out of grad school and not be in a huge amount of debt, you should consider making some money before you go in. I’m still gonna be in a huge amount of debt. That’s terrible advice. I don’t know! Just be practical; it’s a cool thing to do but you’ve still got to feed yourself. I haven’t really accomplished anything as a writer yet, I mean, professionally, I mean, I’ve had a lot of student and personal success and I feel really uncomfortable advising.
Now that I've run you through the ringer, is there anything that you wished I had asked but didn't?
I have to think about that. (long silence) You didn’t get that did you? I dunno, I always like technical questions. I’m always feel comfortable talking about technical stuff, like answering a question about a particular plot point then I can give a really definitive answer. I guess it’s like if you were interviewing an engineer about how he makes an engine…that’s terrible. Let me give you another example. An airplane engine. It’s like, what advice would you give to an aspiring engineer, and you go I dunno, man, just watch yer turbines and make ‘em right. I don’t know. That just makes no sense at all, does it?
I can edit that out.
Thank you. (laughs) I can’t really think of any questions. Um….. No.
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