New Haven-based Pulitzer-winning playwright Donald Margulies is the featured guest on the latest “AT OffScript” podcast produced by American Theatre magazine. The series marks a milestone in the magazine’s history: 150 complete play scripts have been published in American Theatre since it was founded in 1983. Two of those 150 scripts are by Margulies, which he jokingly calls “a dubious achievement” during this interview with American Theatre editorial assistant Diep Tran.
“Offscript,” which is just four episodes old, doesn’t yet have a consistent host/interviewer or a consistent interviewing style. Tran’s done too of them, and is the most cordial; she throws Margulies for a loop simply by asking him “How are you doing?,” followed by “How often do you come to the city?”
Part of his response: “I live in New Haven, and have done so for most of the past 30 years.” Not only is the playwright a resident, but Sight Unseen had a mainstage production at Long Wharf Theatre in 1993 and Last Tuesday world-premiered at the same theater in 2003 (on a double bill with an earlier one-act, “July 7, 1994” under the collective title Two Days).
The chat with Margulies, at 25 minutes, is by far the longest OffScript interview to date. He’s able to spin fairly long anecdotes and provide clear descriptions of the processes by which Sight Unseen and Last Tuesday were written, workshopped, produced and published.
The earlier episodes of AT OffScript, all available for free at the iTunes store, feature Richard Foreman, David Lindsay-Abaire and Young Jean Lee. None could be considered in-depth, especially since they stick very closely to the specific plays by these authors which were published in American Theatre. Each short interview contains at least one question which lays flat and goes nowhere. (Young Jean Lee is asked what she thinks about other companies’ productions of her works; turns out she’s barely seen any.) Overall, the short interviews which run in the magazine as prefaces to the plays contain more information and insight. And Foreman fans would be better off listening to the more comprehensive talk with him posted last week on the New York Public Theater’s own Public Forum podcast.
Still, American Theatre’s achievement of publishing 150 plays in such an accessible form deserves to be celebrated, and this breezy podcast is an easily accessible way in which to do it.