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Interview with Joe DiPietro and Joel Dorr, Editor-in-Chief,
DramaBiz Magazine
DramaBiz: You’ve got a few premiers happening…How did this
world premier of “The Last Romance” at the New Theatre Restaurant
come about?
Joe DiPietro: Because I had gone out to see “Over the River and Through
the Woods” and really liked it, and Marion’s [Ross] worked there
before, I think she’s done, “Barefoot in the Park” and she
loves them. So, when I was writing this play, I was like I know a bunch of
other theaters, and some that are prominent in other cities, and Marion was
like we would love to do it there, let’s do it there. So Richard read
it, and called me up crying, so I said okay.
DramaBiz: So you said okay?
DiPietro: Yeah, I said okay, they were ready. I give a lot of credit
to theaters that really know what they want, and go after it, like anything
it’s very flattering, and seductive.
DramaBiz: So what was the connection with you and Marion?
DiPietro: Well, Marion had done a production of my play “Over
the River and Through the Woods” at the Old Globe.
DramaBiz: I saw it….it was fantastic.
DiPietro: When you’re a writer and your work gets produced in
New York, a lot of other theaters end up doing it, and you normally don’t
know about them, until sometimes months later, when you get a statement from
The Dramatist’s Play Service, or whoever your licensing agent is, saying
that the show happened. So I’ve had a couple of big productions in places
and didn’t realize it until it was over. Then I would meet artistic directors
that would say we would have loved for you to come, but no one called me.
I think that people think writers, once a play is done, are either dead or
unreachable, for some reason.
Marion had called me, and said that she was at the Old Globe, which is a terrific
prestigious theater, and she was doing the show. Marion, who I love, is very,
very career-oriented still, so she was like you have to come out and see it.
I’m like ‘Mrs. C’ is calling me to come out and see my show
at The Old Globe, and I was like yeah, I’m coming, so that’s how
we met. Then they did the play twice in Kansas City, and for a while they
were saying, ‘okay write a play for us.’ They do a lot of important
theater, so that’s why I came out with “The Last Romance.”
DramaBiz: The New Theater Restaurant is not atypical of where you’ve
had your work premiered. Had you ever thought of doing a premier at a dinner
theater?
DiPietro: I’ve never, ever been to see anything in a dinner theater,
I grew up in New Jersey, which there aren’t any dinner theaters, that
I know of, so when she told us it was a dinner theater, I had that bit of
snobbery of a dinner theater. Then I went to see it, and saw the production
and the quality of it, and I thought it was really fascinating, I thought
it was great. You know a lot of times dinner theaters get knocked, but they
really have a lot of people see theater, and they see a lot of good stuff
there, so once I was there, the fact that it was a dinner theater didn’t
even dawn on me, because I loved the work.
DramaBiz: Yes, we did a feature story on them and I was very pleasantly
surprised.
DiPietro: Well I look at different things, they’re more of a theater
that happens to serve food…It’s amazing, how successful they are,
they have money on hand, which is amazing and very different.
DramaBiz: How did Joe DiPietro get his first big break?
DiPietro: It all happened quickly and at the same time. I had always
written, and when I was in my twenties I was in advertising and writing a
bit at night. I loved theater, but didn’t know how to go about it. I
had no education [in theatre], I had an education in literature, but no education
in writing. When I was in my twenties, my attention span was not very good,
so the thought of actually writing like novels and stuff when any shiny object
distracted me wasn’t in the plans. So it sort of happened when two things
happened simultaneously, I had written “Over the River and Through the
Woods” which was essentially my second play about my family, my grandparents,
and it got accepted by the O’Neil Theater Center. The first thing I ever
sent there, and it got accepted, this was a story institution that I sort
of knew about when I was just starting to write .Words couldn’t even
do my feelings justice, and at the exact same time that was happening, a series
of sketches I had written had gotten picked up by a theater called The American
Stage Company, and they became “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now
Change.”
DramaBiz: I saw that in LA…Of, course I didn’t know who the
hell you were then. Just kidding.
DiPietro: Oh, there you go, that thing pops up all the time…
DramaBiz: How long had you been writing when all this happened?
DiPietro: It must have been about three or four years. I was sitting
down writing one-acts--actually thinking about it—yeah, it seemed longer
at the time, I always had a lifelong interest in theater, and always went
a lot, and I always thought that I would write someday.
DramaBiz: Okay, so you did “Over the River and Through the Woods,”
then you did sketches which turned into…
DiPietro: “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change” for
the American Stage Company, and what happened is that the producers that had
picked it up at the American Stage Company said do you have anything else?
I had “Over the River and Through the Woods” which I had just developed,
and so they optioned that too. Suddenly I had two things going that were relatively
on a good track with people that I liked, and sort of cared about. There were
stops and starts of course, but both of those shows moved relatively and clearly
over a couple of years, into New York.
DramaBiz: And that started opening doors, meeting people…?
DiPietro: You know it did, and I really didn’t realize when people
were asking me, well how did you get the connections, and I was like…I
had no connections, I didn’t go to Yale Drama School, I didn’t know
anyone, I really just started by writing sketches that were done in basement
theatres in New York City for the weekends. 11 o’clock shows, you invite
friends, and they buy drinks, and that’s why they let you produce your
show there. Bare bones. I wanted to do it, it was fun, social. What also happened
when “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change” opened, it got
pretty good reviews, but it didn’t get great reviews. It was a show that
the audience really found and loved, and so I was never the flavor of the
month, so I never got a ton of calls from Hollywood, or offers for ten other
shows. Looking back, that was actually very beneficial to me, because I really
had to sort of figure out how to make my way in theater. I wanted to stay
in theater because I love it so much, so I was very fortunate to have a musical
that was fairly successful when I was just starting to write that really supported
me for a long time.
DramaBiz: Let’s move on a little bit, how do you measure success
as a playwright? It sounds like you’re not all that interested in doing
screenplays or television.
DiPietro: How I measure success as a writer is that I get to get up
every day and pretty much write whatever I want to write, I get to write all
day. Not that I write all day, mainly due to procrastination, but I basically
can write theater. Sometimes you take a project because you think it might
earn some money, and well money’s good to pay the rent and eat and all
that stuff, but I basically can get up and write down like weird things. I
can write shows that I think are going to be produced, I can write a play
for Marion Ross…
DramaBiz: And tell me how you wrote the play for Marion Ross?
DiPietro: I think they said would you write a play for us? They’re
two of the world’s nicest people, and you know, you can see why she was
so successful. I loved their work so much in “Over the River” it
would be nice to write another play for them. I hadn’t really written
anything for a star like that, and so I thought that this would be an interesting
thing that I’ve never done. As a writer, I like to get a little different
challenge somehow. So it was that, but it was actually a lot of pressure,
because you want it to be good, you don’t just want it to be good for
their personality’s. I knew I could write for their personalities, so
that’s what I was sort of aiming to do. Basically, because I knew that
they had been married for 18 years and are deeply in love, I wanted to write
characters that didn’t have an immediate chemistry. I thought that would
be a really clear intention.
DramaBiz: So, do you have any pointers on developing a good working
relationship with directors?
DiPietro: Absolutely, I think that the best thing that you can do like
the play. If you don’t like it, or if you have large questions about
it, you should not do it. Let some one else who likes it, do it. Which is
not to say you have to love every moment, but, and then I think that you should
also talk as much as possible to the writer. Establish a cordial relationship
you don’t have to be friends or anything, but you really need to get
into each other’s heads. Try to figure out exactly what the writer is
trying to say with this piece. Try to figure out how you are going to express
that, visually and acting wise. Along with the writer, and I think that if
you are on the same page, the plays have wonderful possibilities. I think
that if the director wants to do a different show than the writer, or vice
versa, than the show is in trouble. But it’s really communication, and
being honest with yourself. Do you like this material and what it’s trying
to say? Do you want to jump on board? If not there’s this push me, pull
me thing that develops--no chemistry and that gets reflected on stage.
DramaBiz: So with this “Memphis” piece, how did you get with
David Bryan on this?
DiPietro: Well, that was kind of interesting…
DramaBiz: He’s never done that before, has he?
DiPietro: He had written. David Bryan’s from Bon Jovi. He’s
a keyboardist, and he had written. Those guys are in their forties now, and
they are also thinking, well what happens when rock-and-roll ends? Of course
they are doing unbelievably now, so maybe they are thinking, ‘how else
do we want to expand?’David had been thinking about theater, and he co-wrote
a version a popular teenage girl’s book called “Sweet Valley High.”
When I met him, and I didn’t know any of this, I had already written
a draft of “Memphis.” I wrote some lyrics in it, and I know a lot
of talented theater composers, but I thought that this show is actually about
the roots of rock and roll. How can we make this music sound as authentic
as possible? I thought I would love to have a real rocker to do this, and
I don’t know any. I know tons of theater composers, so I gave it to my
agent and he just sort of sent it out. When they send out a script it sort
of goes into this black hole, who knows where, it’s out, somewhere in
a pile, I don’t know. So I get a call about 4 or 5 months later, ‘Hi
Joe, this is David Bryan, I am the keyboardist for Bon Jovi, and I just read
your script Memphis, and I want to know how to write the score.’ You
know, rock stars don’t usually call me, so we chatted, and he seemed
really pleasant and he really loved the script. I thought you know what, pick
a song, a lyric in the script, and write music to it. Send it to me and then
we’ll talk. He said ‘okay;’ Two weeks later, there was a Fed-Ex
at my door. There was a CD, and I put it in, and he picked the second song
in the show, which is sort of the main characters declaration of who he is
and what motivates him. I literally played the music through once and I thought
I hope this guy isn’t crazy, because he’s the guy! I just heard,
every note every word, it’s amazing, and I just literally thought, he’s
the guy. It’s a great song, he gets it, it sounds like a real rock and
roll song to me. Then we met, and he was a great guy, so we had a really great
collaboration.
DramaBiz: The show started at the North Shore Theater…
DiPietro: It started, and there were two productions, one was at North
Shore Music Theater, and then at Theater-works in Palo Alto. So we had 2 very
successful productions.
DramaBiz: So going forward, at this point, have you worked on it since
the last production?
DiPietro: Yeah, there were several rights issues with, it was owned
by a different producer, and David and I waited until the rights ran out with
this gentleman before we got up again. Since the first production we had several
inquiries from producers about the availability of the piece, so I gave it
to Chris [Ashley]. He loved it and that was before he became the artistic
director here at La Jolla. He said ‘let’s get Sergio to do the dancing,
cause it’s perfect for him,’ and the whole creative team came on
board. They got the perfect folks for this.
DramaBiz: This will be a good show for Chris to launch his tenure at
the Playhouse.
DiPietro: Definitely. It’s about the first white disc jockey to
play rhythm and blues on the radio in Memphis, Tennessee in 1950s. And though
there’s a lot of fun, there’s a great rock and roll story, but it
also deals with a very serious time where racism was rampant and segregation
was really horrendous. So it deals with that and it talks about how music
sort of led the culture and helped people. [It] was the precursor to civil
rights type of thing, so it’s grittier.
DramaBiz: How do you jump back from projects, you have got all these
projects in a wide range of subjects like “Fucking Men” on the West
End and then back to “All Shook Up” or I Love You, Your Perfect”
around the country, how do you jump back and forth when writing?
DiPietro: A couple of things, I am a writer who likes sort of working
on one piece for a bit, and then putting it aside, and working on something
else, and then going back to that other piece. What also happens in this business
is that everything happens at once. So I had really been writing since “All
Shook Up” pretty much for two years straight and then suddenly I was
very fortunate that people were interested in the things that I was doing.
They sort of got produced, roughly in the same six month period, and as a
writer, you don’t want to say no! No I need a rest, or no, I’m too
busy, so you sort of make it work. So, it is a little weird, walking into
an audition, and having to remember, okay what show is this today? You know
like what are we looking for? Yeah, but it’s only good things.
DramaBiz: Have you guys, made any changes in Memphis here at the Playhouse?
DiPietro: Oh, yeah, there are major changes, first bringing creative
people like Chris Ashley and Sergio Trilio to the dance here, I mean, the
meaning of the show, the changes are used, just the feel of the show and the
way the show moves, and the level of the acting…
DramaBiz: Have you re-written any of the songs?
DiPietro: We have, actually we have a brand new opening number, which
is much different, and I think an improvement, and we have a new song for
the main character’s mother, which I think is a lot of fun. That’s
the song that we were working again. In every show there’s that one song
that you just can’t get right until the very end. This is the song and
this is the fourth version, but knock wood, I think it’s going to really
good.
DramaBiz: So, doing lyrics, was that a different thing for you, versus
writing a play?
DiPietro: It is, you know, and I wrote the lyrics for “I Love
You, You’re Perfect, Now Change” and I essentially did that very
naively, because at the time, there were these sketches, and now were going
to turn this into a musical. I remember thinking well you know the sketches
are funny, but I want the jokes in the songs. Songs to me in theater, especially
then, you had the British musical invasion, you know really serious stuff,
and I was like I don’t want witty songs. I want jokes in the songs. Jimmy
Roberts, my collaborator, learned how to write lyrics, and helped me. The
lyrics, which I wrote with David for rock and roll, are a different type of
lyric then the theater lyric. He writes sort of a traditional theater score,
I think that it’s important that the rhymes all work and are exact, and
that there’s rhyme schemes, and that type of thing. In rock and roll
songs, if the rhymes are too perfect, it doesn’t fit. This stuff doesn’t
go with the music, the rhythm kind of throws it off. David, which is why I
love his music, writes grooves. I mean he writes melodies and grooves, and
every once in a while I’ll try doing a fancy internal rhyme and it just
feels like we have to get rid of this cause it’s like what are you doing,
it just doesn’t sit on the music right” So I really enjoy writing
actual lyrics with David.
DramaBiz: I did want to say, your new script “The Last Romance”
was funny and engaging, but in particular I felt it had such heart…
DiPietro: Oh, well thank you…
DramaBiz: Aging, mortality, family, and all of that are such huge themes right
now, because the baby boomers, we are them, but how do you classify “The
Last Romance”, is it a comedy, a drama…
DiPietro: I’d classify it as a romance even though it’s certainly
“knock wood” funny. But it’s about a serious relationship in
the latter part of two people’s lives, and the responsibilities of having
the family. Those are serious subjects. The more I write, the more I like
taking really serious subjects, and making them fun and funny. If you do fun,
you can get people to laugh, they’ll follow you anywhere. It’s amazing
if you hit them with earnest, and serious, people just turn off like I don’t
need this. If you get them to laugh and you can entertain them on a more serious
subject, they’ll go with you . So, yeah, I consider it a romance.
DramaBiz: I think that show in a regional theatre like this, would
be like slam dunk, the patrons will go nuts for this.
DiPietro: Well, The Old Globe had talked to me about doing it, and
Marion wanted to do it at the New Theatre, so there you are, she was really
like, “wow,” so I was like “oh!” I wouldn’t have
thought of that.
DramaBiz: The actors in The Last Romance are older does that present
any issues?DiPietro: In new plays you have to really know how to treat them,
and this is a tricky one too, because the actors are in their 70’s or
80’s. It’s not a play that I’m going to go in and change lines.
It’s like, get the lines and these guys will get the lines down. But,
you need to be at a comfort level that they know what they’re saying,
with “Memphis” I can change the lines up to the day before the critics
come, because you can. It’s one of the first things that I think about
when I’m writing a play for them, is that I have to make sure I have
it down, because they have to feel comfortable.
DramaBiz: Well, all three actors were great at the play reading. They
had never met Marie?
DiPietro: They had never met, and it was like ‘can you play the
sister?’ I know this woman, she’s perfect. She’s an old broad.
She was in Vaudeville, she’s a smoker, a gazillion stories, just perfect,
perfect…
DramaBiz: So how do you keep the momentum going?
DiPietro: My first sort of thing is that you have to love to do it.
You write your first couple of things, and if you’re fortunate enough
to have people interested in your writing, it’s a heady ride because
suddenly people were actually paying to listen to what you had to say for
two hours. It messes with your mind in a way, and there were many people in
the entertainment industry who have one or two things, and then they sort
of disappear. You have to sort of top yourself. What I always have concentrated
on--no matter what ups and downs my writing has taken--is always just try
to concentrate on what I’m writing and make sure it is something meaningful
to me. It has to say something to me. I find when I’ve done that, other
people take an interest in it. I think you always have to go back to the writing,
because in terms of just career trajectory, how a show’s accepted or
reviewed, or long it runs, or where it runs, and how many people do it, it’s
more often than not going to disappoint you.
DramaBiz: What I see is that once you start trying to write what you
think they want…
DiPietro: They don’t know what they want anyway, it’s not
a science. You have to keep telling yourself this all the time. You have to
keep going back to the love of the writing and doing that, cause once you
start second guessing yourself, you’re dead.
DramaBiz: It’s a give and take, I like what Christopher did here,
bringing in Mo`olelo, a local theatre company and naming them the company
in residence, and giving them a space to work. Especially, because Mo`olelo
is paying equity wages to actors that are local, and non-union.
DramaBiz: Speaking of artistic directors, what is important for them
to know about working with a playwright?
DiPietro: A few of the things from an artistic director, I would always
want them to produce my plays.
DramaBiz: Rotate my plays…
DiPietro: Every playwright thinks they should have 4 shows running
right now, and I can understand that. When working with an artistic director,
the best thing you can do is to have a relationship with a theatre. You need
to know that if you can send a play, it’s going to get read by the artistic
director and they’re going to talk about that play with you. And perhaps,
develop it, do some readings, some workshops, whatever the process is, and
have a reasonable shot at getting an actual main stage production. I mean
that’s sort of what you want from an artistic director, that level of
communication and support. Because the thing is, when the writer writes a
play you don’t know where the play is going. I now know Chris [Ashley]
as a friend, and we work well together. Anything I write, he wants to read.
Doesn’t mean he’ll do it, or doesn’t mean it should come here,
but if he wants to read it. He’ll give me smart notes on it. With a director,
you really want some one whose work you like. You need to have seen something
they’ve done, and that you feel you can really talk to about any issue
with the play, and things that are going to make it better. I know giving
this show [Memphis] to Chris, he’s going to make this production better
than it is actually on the page. He also wants my opinion on all aspects of
it and make me part of the process.
DramaBiz: If you could change any part of the playwright’s working
relationships with the theatre, where would it be?
DiPietro: It so depends on the theatre. When a play’s sent out
to a theatre, know who exactly is reading it. Is it the artistic director
reading it? Is the reader reading it? Is the literary manager reading it?
If there’s any interest in it? What the writer wants is to have an actual
honest dialogue with them. Most writers get a sense of sending a script out
to a black hole. Not every person who reads your play is going to give you
the sort of support of a structural basis. But I think of all the times you
send something out to a theatre, and you don’t hear anything. Or if you
have an agent, or your agent just hears no. You want a little more honest
dialogue going on, which is tough, I suspect they read a lot of plays. That’s
a problem.
DramaBiz:
I s there anything you’d like to share with us or our readers?
DiPietro: Well, what writers like about theatres is how fantastic it
is when they commit and produce a show. I always love when theatres have some
sense about the next step and wonder ‘how do we help you get this show
to another theatre or to a commercial producer, where to go next.’ Because
a lot of times you have a show, and it goes up and it goes extremely well,
then it closes and it’s well, what do we do next? So, any help from the
theatres who take an active interest in placing the show in another venue
is great and it really helps those theatres, too. I have had theatres that
ran a very successful show, but they did nothing to sort of further it. They
said they were going to, and you know, that’s tough, because the play
could’ve got better reviews. Writers also need to understand that when
you go to regional theatre, that it’s kind of a show-to-show kind of
thing for them. So, I always go up front and ask, okay, what is this theatre
going to do for me? You almost have to get the next step of your play at least
prepped before you start this step.DramaBiz: Well, thank you and break a leg
on both “The Last Romance” and “Memphis.”
# # #
©2008 Dramabiz Magazine. All Rights Reserved.
