This weekend is very special for MadLab. Mr. Christopher Lockheardt will be traveling all the way from the Boston area to be here, in Columbus for his show, Happy 9/11 and Other Completely Non-Offensive Tales.

On Friday and Saturday night, we will be welcoming Mr. Lockheardt to MadLab. After each show, there will be a talk back with the writer. We encourage you to come, see the shows and meet the mind behind the work.

To prepare you for this great weekend with Chris, we did alittle pre-interview. It may help you spark some questions you were dying to ask.

Happy 9/11 and Other Non-Offensive Tales

Friday, Saturday, March 16th and 17th at 8pm

Go to: http://www.madlab.net/MadLab/Buy_Tickets.html for tickets or call 614-221-5418.

An Interview with Christopher Lockheardt:

Since this will likely be the first question asked at any talkback for this show, let's just get it out of the way - what the fuck is wrong with you?

  The same things that have always been wrong with me. I just have more polished rationalizations for them these days.

 Who do you most relate to: Steve, Gina, Ellen or none and why?

Definitely Steve. Those are my words in his mouth. The idea for the play first came to me on 9/11/08 when I sent the following email to my brother: “My wife says I should resist the urge to greet people with ‘Happy 9/11!’ today. I'm not sure I can though.” (Further proof that I am the least funny person in my family comes in my brother’s reply: “Maybe ‘merry’?” A line, of course, I stole for the play.)

 I had teased my wife Maria that morning, saying I was going to spend the day greeting people with “Happy 9/11!” I remember how frightened she was that I wasn’t joking. She worried that I would make people really, really mad. It was her fear that her poor, judgment-impaired husband would suffer society’s wrath for his levity that led me to write the play. The punishment she feared for me seemed so disproportionate to the crime that I felt compelled to explore what would actually happen if someone did use that phrase for reasons other than provoking their spouse.

 Do you have a favorite playwright of all time and if so, why is that person?

 My favorite playwrights are the ones who share something with me and who are masters at skills I covet. I like Samuel Beckett because we share the same birthday, and also because he presents recognizable truths through unrecognizable characters. I like Harold Pinter because he also bases his plays on brief lines of speech he overhears in his head, and because he trusts his audience enough to not answer their questions.

 What two characteristics do you believe a good writer of short one acts should have?

 I also think a playwright attempting a short play needs to trust his audience. You don’t have enough time to tell them everything, or anything for that matter. So don’t try. Just give them colorful dots and they’ll happily connect them. (Besides, having everything spelled out for you is boring. What would you find more interesting? Listening to two strangers talk about something mundane, or listening to one person talking into a phone and trying to figure out from just one side of the conversation whether its topic is mundane or sinister?)

 The second characteristic is a willingness to think small, but dream big. Some playwrights panic at the thought of communicating a full thought in a few pages, so they make that thought so huge nobody will miss it. Characters in these ten-minute plays are always dying of cancer or walking to the altar or choosing a path where’s there’s no turning back. They stand at a pivotal moment and must question everything they’ve ever believed. It all ends up rather ponderous and generic and, paradoxically, trite.

Then other playwrights will throw in the towel at the start and say, “Well, since there ain’t enough time to say anything worth saying, I’ll just tell a funny joke.” Unfortunately, there’s no joke in the world funny enough to spend ten minutes telling it.

 The short plays I enjoy the most are the ones that take a small moment, a nibble of life, and either zoom in on it or stretch it out like taffy or tilt it on some axis just the tiniest bit, so that it springs free from our assumptions, letting us suddenly recognize the teeming insanity that underlies are utterly sane little lives.

What was the first play you ever wrote and how much do you hate it now?

 The first play I ever wrote was titled “Mouthbreathers.” It was a handful of pages long and was about a women trying to talk her urbanphobic boyfriend into moving with her to the city. I wrote it, not so coincidentally, for my high school girlfriend who adored travelling into Boston and couldn’t understand why it made her suburban boyfriend such a nervous wreck. We eventually broke up after I enrolled in a college in the farmlands and she in a college in the roughest section of Boston. (Life is so predictable sometimes.)

 My first play that was ever produced was a one-act I wrote in college titled “Sammy’s Game.” It asked the question, “What would happen if a sorority girl serial killer snuggled up in the lap of an alcoholic pederast for a bedtime story?” As it turns out, very interesting things.

 And I love those plays! Really, the only play of mine I dislike is “Not Funny,” and that’s simply because it’s my most popular play. I don’t trust a play everyone likes. It makes me feel like I didn’t take enough risks with it. (Which is an odd thing to say about a play where a guy bleeds out on stage.)

Other than a playwright, what is the other occupation you would most like to be?

 I don’t consider “playwriting” as my occupation. It’s simply a hobby, something I do for sheer pleasure. I hate to even collect royalties from my work for fear it will distract me from my simpler motivations. I generally donate my royalties back to the theater. (They need it more than I do anyway.)

 But I actually do make my living writing: I’m a science journalist, which is a blast in more ways than I can count. Meeting all my adult responsibilities with a salary drawn solely from me arranging interesting words in a pleasing manner seemed such an impossible dream as a kid, even though it was the only one I ever had. (Besides being a stuntman, which was a bit of stretch for a kid afraid of heights.). But I do. So I guess I win life!

Do you have a favorite show you have written and why?

 I have a file full of unpublished plays that I love as only the parent of ugly children could love. I know they’re special, even if nobody else can see it!

 But, if asked out of earshot of my filing cabinet, I suppose I would have to confess that my favorite play is “Luke Meets Charlene at a Really Nice Bar.” First of all, it’s the only interesting title I’ve ever come up with.

 Second, it was the first play I felt that was born as much from craft as from inspiration. My initial plays were puddles of jokes and stark emotion. They worked, but they were formless. With Luke Meets Charlene, I set out to challenge myself, to bring form to function. Ending the play with the same words that began it, but giving them a completely different meaning, is a bit showy, I’ll admit, but it gave me confidence that I was starting to understand how to shape a play as well as fill it.

MadLab presents: Happy 9/11 and Other Completely Non-Offensive Tales by Christopher Lockheardt.

Opening TOMORROW through March 24th!!!

A great cast of many new and very talented people and also some MadLabbers you have grown to love over the years doing some of what they do best.

Tickets are on sale now so you better get your seat!! See below for tickets.

Oh, and you may see me there too.

MadLab Theatre presents: Young Writers Short Play Festival (High School Writers only)

When: Submissions due: January 15, 2012
... (See all other important deadlines below)

Description:
MadLab Theatre is extending its outreach to young playwrights in local and regional high schools in Central Ohio. The goal is to produce a group of 15 minute short plays written by high school students for its Young Writers Short Play Festival in MadLab’s 2012 theatre season. Playwrights can submit their short play to MadLab any time between now and January 15, 2012. Scripts will be selected in February 2012. After this, playwrights will work with known and published playwrights as adult mentors to workshop, stage read, and revise scripts as needed. This learning environment will provide education and creativity for young playwrights work to be produced for the very first time. MadLab will then produce all chosen scripts in end of July/Early August 2012.

Details and Deadlines:
Submissions:
1. PDF or MS Word format.
2. 15 minutes in length max or at most 15–20 pages.
3. Play should be able to be produced on a theatre stage. Your stage directions and needs should be geared toward stage rather than film.
4. Content is open to what playwright wants to write.
5. All submissions should have title page, character description, brief synopsis, and set and prop needs.
6. Submissions should have name, address, phone number, email address, school and teacher listed. (We will not accept a submission if we do not know where it is from).
7. All submissions are due to MadLab Theatre by 5pm January 15th.
8. Submissions should have subject line reading “Young Writers Short Play Festival” and should be sent to michelleb@madlab.net.

Other Important information:

• Submission Deadline January 15, 2012
• Plays will be chosen February 2012
• Playwright workshops with local playwrights in March 2012 (specific dates TBD).
• Final revised play to be completed by end of March 2012.
• Auditions for Young Writers Short Play Festival will be in April 2012 (specific dates TBD).
• All Directors and Actors for Young Writers Short Play Festival will be chosen by MadLab. Playwrights will be invited to attend and work with their designated Director.
• Young Writers Short Play Festival to be produced July 27,28, and August 3, 4, 10, and 11th 2012.

Send submissions to:
Michelle Batt, Artistic Outreach Director
michelleb@madlab.net

Communication Information for MadLab:
Michelle Batt, Artistic Outreach Director
michelleb@madlab.net

This Saturday, come to MadLab's Speakeasy where you can enjoy gambling, liquor and flapper girls galore.  Below are the details!!  We hope to see you there!!

Speakeasy!! A MadLab Fundraiser

Saturday, September 24th

8pm-1am

227 N. 3rd Street

Columbus, Ohio 43215