@dramatistsguild @hartplaywright

Arresting things are happening with playwrights in this region, and the new work they are developing is indeed changing the world. Playwrights here are not only being produced in the Show-Me state and the Midwest, many are showing off their aptitude for audiences in California and New York City. Among these talented individuals is a rising young St. Louis playwright named Taylor Gruenloh. His newest play, An Initial Condition, has enthralled audiences with such layered, complex, challenging and enchanting storytelling they can’t help but come away inspired and impressed by his depth of wisdom.

An Initial Condition—a love story about a mathematician trying to find a cure for a woman with advanced cancer—was performed in New York City earlier this year at the Robert Moss Theatre. A graduate of the MFA in Playwriting program at Virginia’s Hollins University Theatre Institute, Gruenloh first wrote An Initial Condition as an assignment from Playwright’s Lab director Todd Ristau. “I actually wrote this play as an assignment for my MFA program in a class called First Drafts. You write a new play every week for six weeks. I wrote the first draft of An Initial Condition in 72 hours,” said Taylor. “Because of the math involved (within the play)…Todd Ristau suggested a public reading of the piece for feedback.” Not long after the reading, the play was given “a production in Roanoke, Virginia that was a hit with critics and audiences alike.”

Produced last March in New York as part of a special joint venture between the Playwright’s Lab at Hollins and Moss’s 440 Studios in Manhattan, An Initial Condition was directed by Playwrights Horizons founding artistic director Bob Moss, and featured the same cast and crew that debuted the play in Roanoke in February. Moss, who has been involved with the Hollins Playwright’s Lab for the past five years, has been working with Taylor on the play’s development process since he first read Gruenloh’s script last summer. “He’s been so involved in this piece,” said Taylor. Speaking of the Broadway veteran, he continued, “Bob Moss challenges you as a playwright and holds your feet to the fire to find the truth within your own story. The investigation into character and truth during the rehearsals…came so simply to him. He never took over or was demanding about changes to the text, but every question Bob would ask (about the script) after rehearsals (helped me address) a textual concern that needed further investigation.”

Moss has stated he was so moved by the authenticity of Gruenloh’s characters and their situation, the play has remained with him ever since. This has proven to be true. Moss is currently directing the play in St. Louis (May 15-24) at Tesseract Theatre. “We’ve grown so much as collaborators,” Gruenloh says of Moss, “he wanted to come to St. Louis and be part of the production in my hometown—who I really wrote this play for.” There’s no reason to doubt this. As the artistic director of St. Louis’s Tesseract Theatre, Gruenloh has already been dedicated to the development of new work. And now: “The most important thing I’ve experienced is that a healthy relationship between the playwright and director is key to a successful production of a new play.”

All this seems reason enough to celebrate Taylor’s experience, but the true reward of his journey will likely give many playwrights in this region success of their own.

“The production of An Initial Condition in New York gives me credit as a national artist, which means so much to me as I continue building a career in St. Louis. The Playwrights Lab taught me so much about the workings of new play development on a national level, and now I get to implement all that knowledge in St. Louis, where I hope to be a leader in the new play movement.” In my opinion, he already is.

hwright@dramatistsguild.com

Photo (above): playwright Taylor Gruenlohm (L) and director Bob Moss ®. Photographer: Chad Runyon.

Photo (above): Emma Sala (L) and Owen Merritt ® performing a scene from Gruenloh’s An Initial Condition directed by Bob Moss. Photographer: Amanda Quivey.