Today we’d like to introduce you to John Patrick Bray.
John Patrick, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I began writing plays in 1994. I was a senior in high school and taking night classes in Communication and Media at Dutchess Community College in Poughkeepsie, NY. My twin brother and I wrote a script for an advanced production class and folks kept griping at us that what we had written was more of a play than a film. Rather than give up on the script, we adapted it for the stage. With the help of the DCC Programming Board and a group of wonderful folks from a community theatre we worked with, we produced the play in the fall of 1996 at DCC. By that point, I was completely in love with film, TV, and live performance. I wasn’t quite sure which direction I wanted to head.
I finished my bachelor’s at SUNY New Paltz with a concentration in performance and directing. During that time I also co-wrote another one-act play with my brother and directed or assistant-directed a few plays with the student group, The New Paltz Players. I was still torn between acting and playwriting. I only applied to one school for an MFA, The Actors Studio Drama School at The New School, and was accepted into their playwriting program. During those three years, I also continued to perform in classes and as part of the ASDS Repertory Season in a cutting of The Good Doctor, which was ultimately invited to The Actors Studio itself on 44th Street. I essentially received two educations in NYC: the first education was grounded in Method acting (Strasberg, etc.) and sensory-based playwriting at the school; the second education was much more experimental, as I found I loved Off-Off Broadway productions and the more visual theatrical productions at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (I love the work of Robert Wilson). From there, I just kept writing, meeting people, and finding homes for my work. I became a member of the Rising Sun Performance Company, an Off-Off Broadway troupe, in 2004 and have been one of their resident writers since 2006.
It’s a long story of how I ended up in Louisiana, but I went for my Ph.D. in Theatre Studies at LSU in Baton Rouge. I continued writing plays and was able to teach playwriting and develop an evening of horror-based one-acts written by students and produced as part of LSU Theatre’s Studio Season. I moved from Baton Rouge to upstate New York (dividing my time between my hometown of Highland and Riverhead, Long Island – another long story) and taught as an adjunct at SUNY New Paltz where I helped coordinate a new play festival, a project co-curated by the Department of English and Department of Theatre.
Here at UGA, I teach the dramatic writing sequence and I co-moderate the Athens Playwrights’ Workshop (APW). I created the APW with a then doctoral student, George Pate, in the hopes of having a writer-centered, process-focused workshop here in Athens. The APW has been up and running since 2011. It is non-curricular, and open to students, alumni, faculty, staff, community members; truly, anyone who can make it out here. Our members include seasoned writers, folks who are just trying their hand at writing, and others who just like to hang out with us. It’s a terrific group!
Has it been a smooth road?
Looking back, it’s been mostly smooth. I think when you’re in the thick of working on a particular project it can feel rough, but when you come out on the other side you can line it up with other experiences and compare and contrast them and kind of take stock. So, taking stock, it’s been mostly smooth (outside of those student loan repayments – yikes!). Both as an artist and academic, I’ve been truly fortunate. The biggest struggles are probably internal – most artists I know have “impostor syndrome” which is not easy to shake. The other struggle I have is creating works that will surprise audiences without losing them. I enjoy playing with huge theatrical moments on stage (surprising costumes, a puppet, a song in a play that is not a musical, etc.), which is not really what theatres that are struggling with funding wish to produce – theatre is very risky financially, and producing plays that verge on the surreal is riskier still. There have been several missives from wonderful playwrights who have encouraged the rest of us to write plays with 2-4 characters, in one location, modern dress, and little-to-no-set in order to better our chances of finding productions. I’m just not able to do that. Fortunately, I’m still finding homes for my plays, particularly with the (now defunct) Onion Man in Chamblee, Axial Theatre in Westchester, NY; The Greenhouse Ensemble, and the aforementioned Rising Sun Performance Company; and in 2017, I had my first LORT production with Barter Theatre in Abingdon, VA. So, the struggles have been worth it.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Playwright story. Tell us more about the business.
There’s a certain amount of entrepreneurship that has to go into a playwriting career – a lot of meet and greet. I would advise anyone who wanted a career in playwriting to join The Dramatists’ Guild of America, Inc., to read and see as many plays as possible, to hang out at theatres and volunteer in some capacity, and to self-produce their own work in festivals. I would also suggest writers to find developmental opportunities not just for individual scripts (which are definitely beneficial, don’t get me wrong) but as a home-base to try new things and develop as a writer within a community of other writers and theatre-makers.
As I mentioned, I’m co-founder of the Athens Playwrights Workshop (APW). The APW is an example of a writer-centered workshop where we have members who bring in pages, east some baked goods, perform a writing exercise or two, etc. It’s a great community and as mentioned it is open to anyone and everyone (though we do not censor the works, so anyone 17 or under should talk with a parent or guardian before asking to join our group). We meet on alternating Monday evenings at the University of Georgia. We will meet on the following Monday nights at 7PM this semester: February 25, March 18, April 1, April 15. Please email me at JohnPatrickBray@gmail.com for more information.
For any writer in the business, my advice is to always go where you’re loved, go where people really get you and your work. If you have that, if you have that home, that community, it makes all of the difference in the world.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Many playwrights are now turning to television – for example, Bekah Brunstetter writes and produces for both American Gods and This is Us; Jay Holtham writes for Marvel’s Cloak and Dagger; Jane Anderson wrote for Mad Men; two of our Academy Award Nominated films of 2016 were written by playwrights – Manchester by the Sea and Moonlight. The industry has taken note that playwrights know how to build stories from the desires and needs of well-rounded characters. I think more playwrights will ultimately find steady work in television and film; that said, for many of us theatre is our first passion (if not our only passion), and we’ve been finding ways to create our projects even in the most dire of economic circumstances. We just won’t go away! 😉 And I do want to stress this one more time: if you’re a writer just starting out be sure to read plays, see plays, visit theatres, volunteer, and do try self-production. You will learn so much from producing your own work about the nature of playwriting and theatre as a whole.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.johnpatrickbray.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/399102243554599/
Image Credit:
Members of APW – both in our meetings and our public readings., Also pictured: a self-published anthology of plays by APW members.
Getting in touch: VoyageATL is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
