About PlayFest 2020

Immerse yourself in the world of new plays as The Basel-Kiene Family joins City Beverages in presenting PlayFest 2020! This year’s new play festival features six groundbreaking new works that will each be presented as a livestreamed virtual reading.

Get to know our second featured playwright, Tammy Ryan. Her play, Take My Hand and Wave Goodbye, is a compelling drama about love, grief, and family.

Orlando Shakes: What questions are preoccupying your mind as a writer at the moment?

Tammy Ryan: Lately, I have been very interested in the idea of fear as a motivator of human action: fear and the assumption of scarcity and how that seems to be shaping a lot of our society’s current issues. I’ve also started to become interested in the challenge of how to scare audiences in the theater and how to write a thriller for the stage.

Orlando Shakes: How did you get into playwriting?

Tammy: I went to SUNY/Buffalo to study theater and English literature. I wrote the first act of my first play while a student there and gave it to my acting teacher, Jack Hunter. When I asked him (a week later) if he had read my play, he told me I better write the second act, because he was going to produce it – which he did a few months later at the back of a bar called Nietzches. I made my rent that month and I thought playwriting was infinitely easier than acting. Playwriting has gotten harder since that first play, but I still think it is easier than acting. I have great respect and admiration for actors.

Orlando Shakes: When you’re writing, what does an ideal day look like to you?

Tammy: Quiet, no interruptions, someone cooking for me, a nap between writing sessions, strong espresso late afternoon, writing until dinner time – which someone has made for me, mindless television, then a good long sleep, up early, repeat.

This is my preferred routine when drafting a play, which I try to do in 3 to 8 week spurts, if possible. I used to go to residencies for a few weeks to do this, but lately I’ve been trying to figure out ways to recreate the residency experience at home.

Orlando Shakes: How do you define your creative process as a playwright?

Tammy: When I get an idea, once I feel inspired, jazzed, excited –I start collecting pieces for that play, sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously gathered from the world: people I know, actors I know, observations, memories, finding connections for my characters with my own life events, world events, the news of the day etc., until I have a couple of notebooks filled with character descriptions, sketches for scenes, notes on themes, a few beginnings and an imagined ending, etc.

Then when I feel it is time, I usually write what I call an action map, which is basically an outline with an initial plan for the plot of the play. I will rewrite this outline continually as I draft, but it gives me a path or a map to follow at the beginning. When I begin the first draft, I like to write quickly straight through until “End Of Play,” if I can, averaging about 5-10 pages a day, some days I only do 3 pages, but the idea is to keep going forward step by step. This can take anywhere from 3 weeks to 3 months (because in my life there are interruptions).

Then, once I have a first draft, I let it simmer, ideally a month or two. Then I’ll have a reading somewhere with actors, hear it out loud with actors, get their feedback, sometimes with a director or dramaturg in the room, though not with an audience initially, the feedback from actors at this point is the most valuable.

Then I’ll work out a plan for revisions and do that first set of rewrites the way I wrote the first draft, straight through as much as possible, scene by scene, or at least 5 to 10 pages a day. Next, I’ll read the play with a small invited audience, before getting into a rehearsal room, which is where I really want to be, getting feedback through hearing the play, working thorough the play and learning as much as I can, while being energized by my collaborators.

Orlando Shakes: What was your initial inspiration for writing this play, and what fueled you throughout the writing process for Take My Hand and Wave Goodbye?

Tammy: The first inspiration for the play was in 2009 when we received news of a sudden, unexpected death of a member of our family. The impact of that death, particularly on my daughters, indelibly re-shaped our family from that moment forward. For the next five or so years, our family experienced a lot of loss, and so, grief was something we were all dealing with, it seemed year after year. Along side this, there was the great grief I felt in response to the rampant gun violence in our country, and our inability to do anything about it. The massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018, when 17 people were shot, 11 died – less than a mile from my house – confirmed for me that I needed to write this play whether I wanted to or not, not just for myself, but for my community, my city.

Orlando Shakes: List the first four words that spring to mind to describe your play.

Tammy: Love, grief, sisters, marriage.

Orlando Shakes: What playwrights have inspired your body of work?

Tammy: Early on Sam Shepherd, Marsha Norman, John Patrick Shanley, Brian Friel, (I love most Irish writers), Caryl Churchill, August Wilson, David Lindsay-Abaire. Lately I’ve been inspired by fellow writers of New Dramatists.

Orlando Shakes: Who are some current playwrights you would recommend to those interested in new plays/ playwrights?

Tammy: New Dramatists resident playwrights such as: Jessica Dickey, Andrea Stolowitz, J. Julian Christopher, Mia Chung, Mashuq Mushaq Deen, Sam Chanse, Erin Courtney, Lynn Rosen, Will Arbery – and so many others, check them out at www.newdramatists.org

Orlando Shakes: If you are willing to talk about it – what new projects are on your horizon?

Tammy: I’m at work on a commission from the Pittsburgh Public Theater entitled North of Forbes, which is an adaptation of Agatha Christie’s first novel: The Mysterious Affair at Styles. My working title comes from the description of a section of very wealthy real estate in Pittsburgh, and it takes place in the summer of 2016 right before the last election. Right now, I’m trying to figure out the best way to poison my victim, following Christie’s plot as much as possible but updated with contemporary correlatives. I’m anticipating having a lot of fun writing this once I get to the drafting stage. I’m being even more methodical in my process than usual, because Christie herself was a very careful (and clever) plotter of her work, and I’m trying to honor that, as much as I can right now. Plus I’ve been immersing myself in the genre as much as possible.

Learn More About the Reading

Be a part of Tammy’s creative process and book tickets to Take My Hand and Wave Goodbye where you’ll be able to provide live feedback after the reading.

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