Samuel D. Hunter's recent plays include A Bright New Boise (2011 OBIE award for playwriting, 2011 Drama Desk Nomination for Best Play; currently in production at Woolly Mammoth Theater Company in Fall 2011), The Whale (upcoming production at Denver Center in Winter 2012), Norway (Phoenix Theatre of Indianapolis; Boise Contemporary Theater), Jack's Precious Moment (Page 73 Productions at 59E59), Five Genocides (Clubbed Thumb at the Ohio Theater), I Am Montana (Arcola Theatre, London; Mortar Theater, Chicago). His newest play, When You're Here, was recently workshopped at the Williamstown Theater Festival, and he is a contributing writer to Headlong Theater's Decade which will be produced by London's National Theatre in Fall 2011. He has active commissions from MTC/Sloan, Seattle Rep, South Coast Rep, and Boise Contemporary Theater. His plays have been developed at the O'Neill Playwrights Conference, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, PlayPenn, Ojai Playwrights Conference, the Lark Playwrights Workshop, Juilliard, LAByrinth, Rattlestick, Seven Devils Playwrights Conference, 24Seven Lab and elsewhere. Internationally, his work has been translated into Spanish and presented in Mexico City and Monterrey, and he has worked in the West Bank with Ashtar Theatre of Ramallah and Ayyam al-Masrah of Hebron. At Ashtar, he co-wrote The Era of Whales which was performed in Ramallah and Istanbul. Awards: 2011 Sky Cooper Prize, 2008-2009 PONY Fellowship from the Lark, two Lincoln Center Le Compte du Nuoy Awards, others. He is a member of Partial Comfort Productions and is an alum of Ars Nova´s Playgroup. He has taught at Fordham University, Rutgers University, Marymount Manhattan College and The University of Iowa. A native of northern Idaho, Sam lives in New York City. He holds degrees in playwriting from NYU, The Iowa Playwrights Workshop and Juilliard.

Check out his play with Samuel French:
A BRIGHT NEW BOISE

Question and Answer:

Q. Your new comedy, A BRIGHT NEW BOISE, deals with a reckoning between a father and son, the Rapture, and big box retailers . What were some of your major influences as you sat down to write this piece? How did you chose the break room of a Hobby Lobby (a mega craft store) as your setting?

I grew up in northern Idaho and attended a fundamentalist Christian high school while working at a local Walmart, so I guess the two experiences have always been sort of conflated for me. I think that in A BRIGHT NEW BOISE, the setting underscores the main character's objective--he wants God to come and deliver him from his life as a minimum-wage employee at a big-box store. There's also just something really interesting about the idea of a breakroom--it's like this awkward meeting place for a bunch of people who ostensibly have nothing in common other than their place of work. It's all about the tension between the two major themes in the play: banality and divinity.


Q. One of your main characters is an Evangelical who not only prays for The Rapture, but is working on an online novel about it. In a world where religion can be such a polarizing force for people, what drew you to this particular character? How did you approach writing about someone with such extremist views?

I think that essentially with all of my plays I'm writing about people we don't normally identify with. I'm interested in characters who aren't immediately identifiable, people we have pre-conceived notions about, maybe even judgments. Then the play is the process of recognizing the character as human, empathizing with them, and then, hopefully, understanding them. With A BRIGHT NEW BOISE, it was all about looking at the main character as a human being trying to navigate life in the same way that we all do. It's essentially just about a guy trying to reconnect with a son--but his extremist views come into conflict with his simple, very human agenda.


Q. You have degrees from NYU, the Iowa Playwrights Workshop and Juilliard. You´ve taught at Fordham University, Rutgers University, Marymount Manhattan College and The University of Iowa. Will you tell us a little about how all of your experiences in academia affected you as a writer? Any words of wisdom for aspiring playwrights out there?

I'm still figuring out how to write plays just as much as anyone, but if I had to give a piece of advice to an aspiring playwright, it would be this: write ten full-length plays. All of the education and teaching I've done has been really valuable for me, but in the end what really mattered was the amount of work I put into it. My first play was terrible. My second play was really bad. My fifth pay was better. My tenth play was a lot better. Just keep writing.


Q: What inspires each of you to take on a new project?

Whenever I feel like I don't know how to write the play, then I know that it's probably the play that I should be writing. I feel like I often come up with ideas for plays that I know how to write, that would work, that would tell a story--but they aren't exciting. If an idea feels difficult or huge or frustrating, then I know I should probably go forward with it.

Q: Any new projects you´re currently working on that you´d like to tell us about?

Woolly Mammoth's production of A BRIGHT NEW BOISE was recently extended through November 13. And I'm actually in Boise, Idaho right now working on a new play called A PERMANENT IMAGE that was commissioned by Boise Contemporary Theater. My good friend and collaborator, Kip Fagan, has come in from New York to direct it, and we open right after Thanksgiving. After that, I head into rehearsals at the Denver Theatre Company for the world premiere of my new play called THE WHALE, directed by the amazing Hal Brooks.