1. DEAD AIR is a recent play you’ve submitted to The Baltimore Playwrights Festival. What is it about?
It revolves around a beloved daytime talk show host who has worked her way up the media ladder from local radio personality to national treasure. One of her trademarks has been regaling her audience with the latest achievements of “my son the genius.” What the audience doesn’t know is that her son, while indeed a genius, is a reclusive young man who is his mother’s severest critic. When the producers demand that the woman bring her son on the air, the family has to face the consequences of media celebrity in conflict with personal privacy.
2. What was the inspiration for DEAD AIR? Did the play develop along the path of that inspiration or go in a different direction?
I worked in TV in New York a while back. I saw firsthand the disconnect between what audiences perceive about an on-air person and the reality. In addition, I came to believe that celebrity can take talented people down a path of compromise that can ultimately destroy their integrity. The conflict with the son has some roots in my own youth. While I was far from a genius (!) I sometimes felt pressure to fulfill my parents’ aspirations despite my own shyness and self-doubt. It never boiled over in real life as it does in the play, but I guess I still feel deeply that the temptation to fulfill one’s dreams through children is fraught with danger.
3. At what point is a play ready for rewrites and how do you handle the revision process?
First, I write a draft without judgment. I don’t worry about whether it makes sense, whether it’s stageworthy — I just get it all down. After I get a reasonably coherent first draft, I try to have an informal reading at my house (or these days on Zoom) with friends. No critique, just a chance to hear it. At that point, I do indeed start fixing what doesn’t make sense, what’s not stageworthy, repetitive, or (probably my worst habit) dialogue that sounds more like the playwright than the character. Then, I’m usually fortunate to have some more formalized readings in front of trusted friends and colleagues. One final point I would make about revision. It’s never over. My play All Save One went into professional production after several readings and rewrites. The director, Carl Randolph, and I worked well together. At his request. I went in for the first week but then I stayed away the following week so he and the actors could work without feeling the playwright’s presence. Each night that week Carl and I would talk via email. One night, he asked if I could take a look at a four-page passage in Act Two. He and the actors were rehearsing it that day when they suddenly said, “I think our characters have covered all this by now. Do you think we need it?” It was an astute observation, and one I should have noticed. I took a look that night and emailed back: “cut it.” Bottom line: a play isn’t a play until it’s performed in front of an audience. Up to that point, it’s all still a draft.
4. Tell us about yourself.
I’m a local boy who grew up in PG County and then lived in New York for a good many years. We moved back to the area seven years ago and I was beyond thrilled that some of the theater folks I had known from college days here still remembered who the heck I was. Through their generosity, I was able to get back into both performing (something I have done since the age of ten) and writing. A lot of my life experience seems to be dovetailing right now: my theater training and experience is rewarding me with creative opportunities, my graduate work has resulted in teaching gigs at area colleges, and my unbelievable good fortune in meeting and marrying the perfect guy and being sustained by him and my fabulous friends for decades has kept me grounded during tough times.
5. What are you working on now?
Thanks once again to the Baltimore chapter of the Dramatists Guild, I have just had a reading of a first draft of a play called The Other Cheek: a famous atheist writer is randomly attacked. He meets his young attacker and it turns out that it wasn’t quite as random as he thought.
6. What is coming up next for you?
It’s so tempting to spill the beans, but so much of what I think will happen in 2021 has to be kept under wraps, either by contractual agreement or because we don’t know yet what the post-pandemic world will mean. Fingers crossed. I also have a possible production of a drama/dance adaptation I conceived, based on the Edith Wharton story “Roman Fever.” And, of course, like all playwrights, I’m submitting my scripts all over the globe for awards, grants, readings, productions. Anyone who reads this is more than welcome to check out my website (www.gregjonesellis.com) and contact me if they have buckets of production money and a theater just waiting for my work! Or if they just want to say hi.
I’d also like to give a shout out to the BPF. Having submitted many a script to many a panel, I have to say that I have been impressed by the efficiency of BPF’s process, along with the quality of the critiques that I have received from panel judges. I have taken all of the comments seriously and found the constructive criticism truly helpful in the revision process — and a welcome boost to my morale when they’re complimentary!