ed, carpets were vacuumed, bathrooms were restocked and plants were watered. The highlight occurred when Hillary and I returned from one of our multiple trips out to the dumpster and the lobby had sort of a funny smell to it. "It smells like cleaning stuff," Hillary said, and not having any other suggestions, I agreed.Then Hillary had another revelation.
"Wait," she said, "I think the vacuum is in the trash pile." She was right. One of our trusty
vacuums was now sitting guiltily amidst the pile of black trash bags.
"That's it!" I said. "It's smells like broken vacuum!" As soon as David appeared from the storage room lugging another vacuum, our suspicions were confirmed. When asked about the dumpster-destined machine, David replied,
"Yeah, it started smoking a few minutes ago..." Tuesday, July 6, 2010 marked the first day I ever threw a vacuum into a dumpster.
But enough about the interns! Today I'm going to tell you all about Michael Bradford,
writer of The Parkville Project. I had so much fun interviewing Michael; he is
incredibly easy to talk to and offers up loads of information. But first, here's a little background on how he got into the theatre scene:
Originally from Kansas, Michael hitch-hiked around the country as a young man and then entered the navy, where he began writing poetry. While in the navy, he was lucky enough to see an August Wilson play - and from then on Michael knew he wanted to write plays. After serving in the navy, Michael went to UConn for his undergraduate degree and continued on to Brooklyn
College for his masters in playwriting. He received a fellowship at Manhattan Theatre Club, and then UConn hired him as Associate Professor of Theatre History, Dramatic Literature and Playwriting. He also serves as the Director of the Theatre Studies BA program.
Helene did most of the interviews for The Parkville Project, but it was Michael actually wrote the script. An aspiring playwright myself, I asked about Michael's writing process. How did her turen all of those interviews into just one family's story?
Michael had many questions to consider while writing. "How much drama can I add to real people's stories? How much can I manipulate?" Michael made a distinction between the "truth" of the play and a whether or not the story is "true." The "macro-story" (the overarching themes of immigration and separated families) has a lot of fact in it, while the the "micro-story" about Amalia and her family is not factual but very truthful. His goal was to weave many lives together into a larger story about the history of Parkville. "Writing this play was very different from any other play I've ever written," Michael said.
The script itself is highly unique. The play went through at least seven significantly
different drafts, with the script constantly undergoing revisions. Michael and Helene settled on an untraditional plot structure, with no obvious peripeteia (the literary term for the turning point or reversal of fortune). The structure alludes back to the works of Sophocles and Euripedes in ancient Greece, with the cast often acting as a chorus and individuals periodically stepping out to tell their stories.
When I asked how he got the idea for the specific stories of Amalia, Argulio and Eduardo, Michael responded that he had taught an acting workshop in Guemaras, Portugal, the town where Amalia's parents met. One of his students brought in a typewriter that he said had been dropped from the sky in Cuba...and the story began.
So although the craziness has died down since Tuesday, Playhouse on Park is still the place to be. We are expecting a sell-out tonight for our opening and we hope that word will get out about this locally relevant, highly powerful piece of theatre. Enjoy!
A pivotal moment between Eduardo and Amalia in The Parkville Project
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