A few questions with Jamieson Ridenhour who will be teaching our first Magnetic U courses on the topic of playwriting.
1. You’re teaching our first Magnetic U classes on the subject of playwriting. What do you hope students will take away from these 5-week courses?
I hope students come away feeling like they have the confidence and the tools to write whatever they want. I want to demystify the whole process.
2. How did you get into theatre and specifically into playwriting?
I’ve always been a writer—at age ten I was saying I wanted to be a writer when I grew up. I majored in Theater in college, and took a playwriting course there. But I was primarily a fiction writer until 2009 or so, when I was one of three instructors running a college theater program in North Dakota. I wrote a play for that program, and really found a voice, I think. There’s a particular type of story that for me always ends up as a play—a compression of time and place, usually, that seems to work best in real time and in person.
3. What themes do you find yourself returning to while writing?
My themes are pretty consistent across all my writing: the mutability of memory, internal truth vs. external persona, failed redemption, and hauntings, real or metaphorical. Love and ghosts.
4. What projects are you currently working on?
I’m currently in the middle of the third season of an audio drama called Palimpsest. We’re on a mid-season break dictated by the virus, but I’m still writing. I’m also in the initial stages of a novel, and have a one-act play sketched out that I want to write soon. Bloodbath, my next full-length play, starts production in September. I like to stay busy, and I like to have more than one project going, that way if I’m blocked on one I just jump to the other until things get clearer.
5. Any advice for aspiring playwrights?
Don’t be afraid. Don’t worry that you don’t know exactly what you’re doing. And learn to weigh criticism and suggestions for revision against your own vision. Playwriting is a much more collaborative process than other kinds of creative writing. Being open to changes is crucial, but so is knowing what hills you’ll die on.
6. What is something you wish someone had told you when you were younger about playwriting, theatre, or life in general?
That there’s no rush. Growing as an artist is a life-long process, and stumbling occasionally is part of it. Take your time, learn your craft, and use your mistakes to grow. You’re going to write some crap. Move on.
7. What is your writing process like? Do you ever voice or act out characters or plot lines?
I write a lot of rambling notes by hand before I ever start the script—rough outlines of narrative beats, snatches of dialogue, questions for myself I want to answer. Sometimes I’ll write out a full scene if it’s a pivotal set piece. I draw a rough stage plot on the whiteboard in my office, and then draft the play start to finish—I always write in order, though lots of folks don’t. I send bits of the draft to a couple of trusted folks for feedback, but mostly I save revision until I can do a reading/workshop. That’s where I hear if the dialogue actually works. I don’t perform out loud while I’m writing, but I do sometimes use the stage plot to draw out movements like a football diagram to make sure action sequences are feasible.
8. Who are some of your biggest inspirations for playwriting?
A lot of my inspirations are from other media. Joss Whedon for dialogue, Peter Straub or Shirley Jackson for thematics. Old horror movies. A new band I’ve discovered. But getting my primary theater training in the late 80s, I was steeped in lots of mid-century theater: Williams, Beckett, Synge, Miller, etc. Contemporary writers: I saw Martin McDonagh’s The Lieutenant of Inishmore in London twenty years ago or so, and it blew my mind. That’s when I began to see how you could pull off the particular blend of horror and humor I shoot for. And, you know, Shakespeare’s not bad.
Biography
Jamieson Ridenhour is the writer and producer of the popular audio drama Palimpsest, writer and director of the award-winning short horror films Cornerboys and The House of the Yaga, and the author of the plays Grave Lullaby, Terry Tempest: The Final Interview, and Some Thoughts on the Upcoming Apocalypse, all of which world premiered at Magnetic. Jamie’s short fiction and poetry has appeared in Strange Horizons, Andromeda Spaceways Magazine, TheNewerYork, Across the Margins, Mirror Dance, and Architrave, among others, and has been podcast on Pseudopod, Cast of Wonders, and Radio Unbound. His ghost play Grave Lullaby was a finalist for the Kennedy Center’s David Cohen Playwriting award in 2012. He has taught writing and literature for twenty years, currently at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, NC. His new play, Bloodbath: Victoria’s Secret, premieres in October of 2020 at Magnetic. You can find more of his work at www.jamiesonridenhourwriter.com.
Registration is now open for our first ever Magnetic U courses featuring Jamieson Ridenhour teaching Playwriting Basics and Playwriting for Teens. Find out more here: https://app.arts-people.com/index.php?class=magn