When I read Amy’s play, Model Behavior, I immediately understood why it had scored so high in our peer review process. It’s short, fun, and totally on point with this year’s theme: Curves Ahead. Of course, it also helps that the discussion the play’s two window mannequins are having is about what’s sexy and what’s a ready-to-be-retired, in an age where we are finally starting to get better at embracing our individual curves.
If you aren’t familiar with Amy, then here’s your chance to get to know a little more about this exciting (and Pulitzer Prize nominated) playwright!
What is the title of your play?
Model Behavior
Why did you decide to submit your work to the ONSTAGE Project?
I support theater festivals which promote work by women playwrights.
Describe your writing space…
I typically write at our dining room table. Our cats keep me company while I write.
If you could have lunch with any playwright alive or dead, who would it be and what would you have for lunch?
I would choose Sacha Guitry as my lunch companion and order cassoulet, a dish he shared with Monet. I am writing a book about Guitry.
Why do you write for theatre?
I have been innately drawn to writing for theater since I was a child. I wrote my first play when I was five years old and performed it for my kindergarten class. It took me decades to get back to playwriting. Four years ago, on a trip to New York with my husband, I stayed up all night writing a play and it was produced by a New York festival. I have been consistently writing plays ever since: one play, Somewhere I Can Scream, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in Drama.
Who is your favorite fictional character of all time and why?
Count Dracula, the fantasy figure based upon the legendary ruler. Vampire novels are my guilty pleasure. The Count is the ultimate dark figure who steals away in the night and still fascinates us on the stage, screen, and in books.
Do you have any upcoming productions elsewhere that our readers should know about?
Alexander the Great: In Love and War, a play commissioned by Evolution Theatre in Columbus, Ohio.
Please share the synopsis for a full-length of yours that our readers should know about!
Somewhere I Can Scream
Synopsis:
A former Olympic gold medal winner turned college professor has an affair with his medical student lover, culminating in unforeseen consequences. Based upon a real-life murder trial, the play deals with incidents of police brutality and a possible miscarriage of justice. These issues are just as relevant today as they were during the actual 1929 investigation.
More about Amy:
Amy Drake is a Pulitzer Prize nominated playwright, member of the Dramatists Guild of America, Board member of the International Centre for Women Playwrights, and Theatre Communications Group member. Her play Home Body was nominated for four awards in the Midtown International Theater Festival (MITF), New York. Voted Theatre Roundtable Best Director for Night Must Fall and was assistant director for the Actors’ Theatre production of Servant of Two Masters, chosen by The Columbus Dispatch as a Top Ten show of 2012. Amy is a published academic writer, conference speaker, and poet. Amy holds a B.A. from Ohio Dominican University and a M.S. degree in marketing and communication. Her education includes creative writing and history summer programs at Cambridge University, UK, graduate studies at Reed Hall, Paris and playwriting at the Kenyon (College) Summer Institute. Amy has been accepted to the Yale Writers’ Conference 2016. Her new play, Alexander the Great in Love and War, will be performed in the Evolution Theatre Festival, June 2016. Her book, Unmasking Shakespeare: Shakespearean Plays and Commedia dell’Art, will be published by Lambert in June 2016 and available on Amazon.com.
Don’t miss Amy’s play, July 14-16, at Acadiana Repertory Theatre’s production of this year’s ONSTAGE Festival: Curves Ahead.
