This week we had a tete-a-tete with the fabulous playwright Kelleen Conway Blanchard to find out about our Fall Mainstage, Last Stop on Lilac.
You’re the creator of the funny, bloody, fabulous “Last Stop on Lilac”. What is the play about?
KCB: Last Stop on Lilac is about greed and glamor and power and secrets. Set in splashy 1960s Hollywood it’s a noirey dime novel come to life with dance numbers and gore galore.
Who are you? Have you worked with Annex before?
KCB: I’ve been lucky to have worked with Annex on some of my very favorite projects including Kitten’s in a Cage and Blood Countess and The Underneath. I love the sense of absolute possibility and risk Annex embraces. It’s very pure.
Which artist(s)–theatrical/visual/a
KCB: My big influences tend to be artists that embrace the weirdos and celebrate what some folks call brow and low class. Those are my people. Also I enjoy art about how we all work- you know-trying to figure out murderers and despots and middle managers. Why? I want to know.
What is your biggest challenge as a playwright?
KCB: For a playwright and let’s be real- for anybody- I am pretty bad at grammar and formatting and proper parenthesis. I have a hard time with all of that. It’s like math. Like word math. No. Nope. So. That’s hard for me. Also, plot and stuff. Whatever
What has been the most rewarding?
KCB: The most rewarding thing about this process has been getting to collaborate with some incredibly talented hilarious people. People who are freakin’ committed and kind and really good at what they do. It’s a hopeful thing. Isn’t it? That a bunch of very different people can get together and make something. Just make a cool new thing together. A cool new thing with blood and dancing. That’s a light in the dark. Well. I think it is.
Thank you Kelleen for your beautiful words and glamorous black comedy. To find more out about Kelleen Conway Blanchard’s work visit her blog http://thisisprettycreepy.
