welcome to a taste of theatre where everyone is the star today stars shining bright on tony seeger oh maine well i'm actually living in a very small town called lovell lovell i'm actually on the edge of the national forest so i ninety needing tigers city wow and we're going to see a clip of her play rope of sand tony please kindly introduce yourself well thank you first of all for having me i have watched a couple of the shows that you posted and it's a very interesting and it's a wonderful idea to talk to playwrights about why they find theater so exciting they want to try to do this yeah i've been writing plays for well over thirty years it's i find playwriting the most challenging kind of writing i've written novels short stories many other kinds of writing but playwrighting theater is my furry first love and play writing is is something that's very near and dear to me and i also consider it the most difficult writing because all you have is dialogue  so and it's a kind of thing that you can kind of struggle with for a very long time before you find your way through a play you know you can really hit a lot of brick walls but it's it's writing that i love to do or britain sixteen plays now and there's nothing works citing me than a wife theater and seeing your own work performed live that is so true and what started you writing plays well i was i was involved in theatres a young person my man my patches in theatre i loved all aspects of it from from building sets and make up in costumes to directing and producing and acting it gets there's no aspect to it or i don't well so it's just something that maybe i'm maybe in another life i was in theater and think in this life you still are right that's right still trying to be and when you started thirty years ago writing in theatre what was the drive the kept you going to continue in this path well it's something that you know in me that i want to communicate i want to communicate about difficult subjects you write in theater it's all dialogue there's no description you can hide behind that style and so your people have to really go out a thing in in situations that they find themselves in the way they conflicted and dealing with difficult subjects and that was  something that really really appealed to me the kinds of things that perhaps i wanted to see in theater and i wanted to see channel and i also find that when when my characters aren't talking i  with you always start with something in your life that actually there's a piece of it that gets you started and then you expand from that to other things and that's what i did i started with a certain frustration i had and i started with certain conversations and i thought after a while ok you've got some pretty exciting conversation you don't have a play and then it was a real struggle finding the core of that place why are these conversations happening what is this conflict about you know what's actually happening there before it was born and actually finding the title which is from a poem by george herbert forsake  rupert see and that is what broke it open and i suddenly knew this is what the play is about freeing yourself from artificial constraints now i know what i want to say wow that is awesome pscale and so forth the cars in you know she sort of lived a very different kind of life she's sort of the black sheep and this this family has been visited by a terrible  tragedy the father and son who've gotten together on this occasion have lost the youngest sibling who committed suicide and they're completely distraught over this they don't understand it but something in them prevents them from really talking about it so even though you can feel that they're emotionally want to talk about it they can't and so they keep putting all these barriers up when the cousin arrives with  certain mentos that she wanted to to give to or uncle that that her cousin left with her the last time you visit she breaks the whole thing open she's just different she just keeps bringing up subjects that they don't want to and explodes very very fair and i noticed in your play that you also added dynamics of race in there as well well this happened completely accidentally and it was fascinating a production was done in this play in new york and the director renee read three guest who were directed several my turn came in that place is kind of famous for rainbow kid asking and she came to me and she said how did you feel about a mixed race family and i thought i never thought about that at all i mean i wrote a play about a white family but i thought i trust renee she's a fabulous director i something that she's seen you she wants to do i'll just go with us and rene just cares the best people do a great job i'll be happy and she blew my mind was the conservative father and son i never even thought of and here it was happening and it was fabulous and race is never mentioned in the play because i did write it but there it is on the stage and when i t together we we were we're in this time manic and it it created a whole nother level of tension and edge to it in a bike and it and it just i felt that it actually improve t play became my favorite production of any of my plays of everything else because i just it taught me something about how you know you you write a play you think you've written it and then  you see a production and you realize oh this is an interpretation that never occurred to me and it puts a whole new layer on it i thought it was fabulous so i it was very exciting and the play was nominated for three awards so i was excited to that is awesome and can you tell me what is it that you want everyone to walk away with after seeing this play well there are no easy answers and this family is  to watch for you know you could you might see a piece you're suddenly to look at that there's something that i want to deal with and i'm not getting down to you can see how these people they're not helping themselves they're fighting themselves and i think that that really does come out in the planning and that was one of the things that's why that that title is so important because the whole idea of of freeing yourself from artificial constraints w was there something that people walked away with as a result of this new interpretation from the director that you didn't think was part of the production well that you know i felt the lines work great and i thought the actors did a great job it was just it was a revelation for me to see a whole nother layer in this book and to see it work so well and also because it i what what the niece is trying to convey is that she is she's a painter and she was in such despair over this suicide that she actually painted but it was because she read this poem and she thought the whole idea here is that the it it's made of st it can fall apart you can you can free yourself you don't you don't have to submit yourself to this constraint and you think you're all bound up in and she found that so freeing that was the thing that sent her off to visit her auckland telling him that you know she she actually comes to see him because she says i want to i want to give you this it's a gift i want to tell you this and put he had accepted it all big she's not yet and now with that one little piece of information handing a news people who who find themselves so trapped by their largess you know what i mean oh yes yes and they and they and they think that i must be happy because look i'm affluent look at all these things i have the core i live i must be had and but they know they're not to go that they feel they feel trapped in their life and so she was she was trying to bring this message to her uncle you you know you can be free you can throw off these artificial constraints and you can see her struggling with him to get this across and he rejects it in every way he can and how long did the play and and i take my hat off to renee she's she's just a terrific director and how they'll be plenty of people watching this all across the country and then some of them  desire to say reach out to you is there website that people can find us or an e mail address that someone could possibly write to message i d s well if they go to working words dot and  me they'll just bases see a splash screen of some of the things that we have some of our other writing that's available on the web and there is an e mail for me there oh that's wonderful ok eric and you've been doing this now for thirty years and i'm quite sure there's a lot of things you've learned in this business so what types of things would you like to share with becoming playwrights can't possibly one day sit in your shoes thirty to thirty years with their you experience don't give up and and don't think you're the only one finds this form of writing very very challenging because it is and you know when when when you get stuck do something else and come back to something else and come back just keep coming back and look at your work with eyes and and you'll find your way through it you'll find your way through it but try not to get that everybody who does any kind of creative writing struggles with it because it's don't give up well that's great advice that is really good advice and also i always say every playwright has a ministry to serve what would you say yours is i i i do have a drive to communicate and to communicate things that perhaps other people are trying not to look at and this play i think that we've talked about illustrates that  but but i would say that's generally true of me i think of i think of theater you know the greeks thought of it as a purge purge of the emotions and i do think that is a big part of it that is what you're trying to do to your audience this is really get them to feel emotion put them through something so that when they leave they are thinking about something they're at think about something that they weren't thinking about before they they came to stirred something in the and they're having a discussion about it you know if it cord so i'm always trying to do there well so it sounds like what you're saying is you're your ministry is to get people to talk about issues that they normally wouldn't talk about yes yes yes yes and if that if that if it stirs up something that you know you wouldn't of thought it you wouldn't have talked about it if you're saying that you know i wouldn't have think that's good wonderful so we're going to now watch a clip of rope a stand from tony see here and thank you for coming on a taste of theater where everyone is a star including well i want to talk to you some more of course get all your news and so on because now i have to do a few things if you'll excuse me for a moment just a few phone calls it will take a moment or peter if the doorbell rings when you went through for me are you lot younger i don't think he felt left out exactly just younger yes and very eager to be accepted by his older brother there's nothing unusual in that only the intensity of william always tried very hard everything you did school sports you always try very hard to be proud of that is proud to be as good even though it was ten years younger one can't help competing with an older sibling it's only natural i suppose and as they got older they worked it out to their oh yes peter william worked all of that out long before yes or so it's true peter does present some pretty stiff competition for anyone done quite a bit with his life already yes the clinic sounds very impressive we always expected to see great things from you from all the young people in the family i mean admittedly expectations are higher for a boy but we always thought to be pretty remarkable how do you know i haven't i was them how do you know i haven't done anything noteworthy with my life or will we don't do we tend to be pretty closed about what you do if you're winning all kinds of prizes you're not telling us about now you know price is still painting from time to time i dabble a bit this is quite nice yes a brother like that one myself they had a very prominent spot as you can see why did you paint it i don't believe i've ever seen it before you know well let me see it's been some time no i really can't recall probably the last good thing i've done though working on anything now no no no it was you know maybe it would help relieve your mind or something i don't think so they say sometimes you produce your best work when you're the most depressed well that may be true for some people the great artists i just paid for pleasure pass the time that sort of thing sure i also paid to produce food you can make beauty out of pain i don't know didn't ke say beauty is truth and truth beauty it's one of the most famous lines in all poetry well it's a beautiful poetic line but but it's not true then how can it be beautiful by keats's definition all right he gave me an example of something beautiful that's also falls well what if we didn't agree on the beauty of it or the falseness i don't believe the truth is such an arbitrary thing people disagree about all the time we agree on this painting it's a starting point yes i'm why go further it's nice to agree on something why not go further why stop at sunsets and baskets of fruit well i like sunsets and baskets of fruit oh yes of course i do too but beauty can be many things may be more than we can realize if we can't realize them how can we appreciate them i mean not immediately realize like those things we would normally turn away from pain for instance i don't know about that but it's not the sort of thing i tend to think about and i don't know that i'd like to it's not very pleasant to  on such things perhaps to try and understand them i don't know that people ever do understand anything in that way i don't know that's the place i am not arts place my art or my idea of art which is i like to make people feel better when they look at my paintings not worse there's nothing wrong with that people don't learn anything from what's frost on them forced on them political change is a good example besides if you were surrounded by beautiful things the made you feel good just by looking at them wouldn't that be nice i guess it just comes back to that definition business again as i would take her fluids or no she did go in for a rest after all but there was a just before quite lovely actually now there's beauty for you or maybe you would have called the music sappy perhaps only if it were well you know what i mean no i don't well there's always been a way as a young person you were always so serious never seem to like movies with happy endings things like that remember only when they were contrite and audiences go to plays and movies to be emotionally manipulative don't that the greeks talked about that the catharsis of emotion and so forth escapism isn't cathartic karo but people need an escape from their daily lives from the pain of it they need things that will help them to feel better but you can't really escape anything watching a movie you can only pretend well yes then how does it help you don't read so much into it it will no not for me you should was it yourself apart like the earth should i lie then well one of those things the do it happily naturally what about those a happy ending with truth in it very beautiful any minute now you're going to tell me how to negative well there is a certain amount of acceptance of things as they are the normally comes with time that you've never shown but your other want to try risky carl not need sorry used to call me uncle well it sounds as though you've been giving this matter of art a love to see it i don't know that you would well could be quite good maybe you should be more sort of above it i don't know well tell me what the subject matter is to have the idea it was because of bill yes i see you don't want to hear about it well if you feel you need to high needed to understand what happened yes yes i was saying i don't know that's the way i suppose that's where all your questions about art and beauty come from some just think the p p d was beautiful i i guess i wished you'd been there with me when you painted yes see what i went through i guess it's impossible to convey now i'm sure you felt a great number of things i don't even know how it started why i had not even sure i knew at the time but one side story it quite took me over yes that's right i missed a funeral you don't have to explain no it's the painting i wanted to tell you about the painting you ha