Playwright Spotlight: Your Best One

Meridith Friedman, author of Your Best One (a PlayFest presented by Harriett’s Charitable Trust 2017 new play reading) talks crafting new plays and the inspiration behind her latest work.

Meridith Friedman

OST: What is the biggest challenge about crafting a new play?

MF: For me, it’s always coming up with that first spark of an idea. Finding something that I’m so intrigued by, I’m willing to spend the next couple of years wrestling with it.

OST: Why are you passionate about the subject matter in this play? What inspired you?

MF: This play is the second play in a three-play trilogy, commissioned by Curious Theatre Company. It’s been such an interesting experience to revisit these characters at different stages of their lives – to see how they’ve changed and how they’ve stayed the same. I’ve always loved digging into the minutiae of relationships, and there’s so much to unearth when time has passed.

OST: What themes or ideas are you focusing on with this play?

MF: Your Best One centers around reunions and separations – it’s about how we know when to let go and when to hold on.

OST: Describe your play writing style in one sentence. What should the audience know about you?

MF: I grew up in Madison, WI and moved to Honolulu, HI when I was eight. In all of my plays, I attempt to (figuratively) move my characters from Madison to Honolulu – I drop them in a situation or circumstance that is decidedly out of their element and watch how they grow and change and respond to their new environment.

OST: Tell us something unique about your writing process. For example, do you have a sacred writing place or a special writing talisman? Do you secretly love rewrites? Is there music that gets you in the mood for writing?

MF: I tend to write in floods – I am not someone who sits down everyday at the same time, in the same spot, and writes for a set period of time. 1am to 8am is typically when I’m most productive.

Meridith Friedman’s play Your Best One will be performed as a staged reading at Orlando Shakes on Saturday, October 29, 2017 at 2:30 p.m. in the Margeson Theater.

About Meridith Friedman:

Meridith was born in Madison, Wisconsin, and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii. She received her BA from Connecticut College, and her MFA in Writing for the Stage & Screen from Northwestern University. She currently resides in Los Angeles and writes for television. Her work has been produced, developed, and workshopped at theaters and festivals across the country, including Curious Theatre Company, Kitchen Dog Theater, Stage Left Theatre, LOCAL Theatre Company, Chicago’s Theatre on the Lake, Actor’s Theater of Charlotte, The Kennedy Center, Chicago Dramatists, The Johnny Mercer Writers Colony at Goodspeed Musicals, Florida Repertory Theatre, The Ashland New Play Festival, Orlando Shakespeare Theater, Florida Studio Theatre, the NNPN National New Play Showcase, New Repertory Theatre, The Lark, Actor’s Express, The Greenhouse Theatre Center, The Samuel French OOB Short Play Festival, The American Southwest Theatre Company at NMSU, and the Abbey Theatre in Orlando. Meridith has been a Playwright-in-Residence at Curious, a Dramatist Guild Fellow, and the recipient of a Downstage Left Playwriting Residency at Stage Left Theatre. She was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Drama at Kenyon College during the 2011-2012 academic year, and taught screenwriting to undergraduates while completing her graduate work at Northwestern University. She has also taught playwriting to talented high school and middle school dramatists at Interlochen Center for the Arts and Curious Theatre Company. She recently completed the book for the musical, THE 30TH YEAR, which was part of the inaugural New Musical Discovery Series in Orlando. She is currently co-writing the book for a new musical about art theft, and developing an original television pilot about the Supreme Court.