You Don’t Understand by Shelagh McFadden
LOCATION
The Road on Lankershim – GALLERY
5108 Lankershim Blvd.
North Hollywood, CA 91601
(Street parking or paid lot parking at 5125 Lankershim Blvd)
You Don’t Understand
By Shelagh McFadden
Directed by Tom Knickerbocker
CAST
CHLOE- Sorel Carradine
RAFA- Adam Duarte
*Appears courtesy of Actor’s Equity Association
SYNOPSIS
Chloe’s temping at a cable TV office in Highland Park while she looks for a “real” job. She thinks she has nothing to learn from her Mexican co-worker … but she may be wrong about that.
TICKETS
No reservations or advance tickets. Admission is by donation ($15 suggested).
MEET YOUR PLAYWRIGHT
SHELAGH MCFADDEN recently returned to playwriting after several years focused on other people’s work. During that time she produced more than 40 staged readings for The Blank Theatre’s Living Room Series, serving as dramaturg on many of those plays. She’s especially proud of her dramaturgy on The Blank’s workshop and mainstage productions of Aliza Goldstein’s A SINGULAR THEY, which won the L.A. Drama Critics Circle 2016 Ted Schmitt Award for outstanding new play. Thanks to Amir Levi for luring her back to writing with Sacred Fools’ We the People, and to the folks at The Road who booked her short play for SPF9.
An Interview with Playwright Shelagh McFadden
1: What is the name of your play?
YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND
2: What was your first job in the theatre?
Director of Development at MCC Theater in New York.
3: Do you ever model characters after real life people?
Absolutely! I spent ten years as a solo performance artist and did three autobiographical one-woman shows, so that’s where I come from. When I write a play that’s fiction, the characters may be unrecognizable from their real-life inspirations, but it’s all grounded in fact. I buy into the old saw from Shakespeare about art being a mirror held up to nature — let’s take a good look at ourselves as we are, and then create work that helps us figure out what’s going on.
4: As an artist, what subjects tend to draw your interest?
Everything I write tends to be about a woman in transition against a background of social change.
5: Do you have other passions aside from playwriting?
I’m pretty much all-theatre-all-the-time. I love to see plays, especially new work, and I love helping other people develop their projects. I’m absolutely mad about rehearsals!
6: Are you currently working on any new projects?
Yes, I’m working on a full-length play set in the world of YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND, and I’m also researching a historical piece.
7: Here’s a fun question! What is your favorite dessert?
My preference is the cheese plate with a nice dessert wine. Or fresh raspberries, especially if whipped cream is involved.
8: Any acknowledgements or words of encouragement?
Always happy for an opportunity to offer encouragement! When playwrights I’m working with despair that they must lack talent or they wouldn’t need to do so many rewrites, I tell them about the time I heard Arthur Miller speak at the Dramatists Guild. Someone asked him how many drafts he normally wrote of a play. He waved a hand around like that was an impossible number and said it usually took 8 drafts before he even knew what the play was about — then the real rewriting began. Keep going!
9: Describe your play in 3 words!
Knowing the “other.”