@dramatistsguild

How would you describe your process of writing?

“Driving an 18-wheeler at 80 miles per hour with no idea where you’re going.”

If you couldn’t be a playwright, what is your second choice for a career?

“Professional Panda Huggers make 32K a year.”

How do young playwrights see things differently than the “old guard”?

“…there’s a sense of immediacy and accessibility in our world that is unlike any other generation before us…I think we’re good at grabbing attention because we have to be.”

Welcome into the head of Madelyn Tomko, 2015 winner of our (second) annual DG Young Playwright Award, in partnership with Horizon Theatre Company through their annual week-long playwriting intensive for competitively selected high school and college students from around the nation. Before selecting a 2016 recipient, I wanted to check in with Tomko and see what’s been going on for the past eleven months.

The short answer is that she’s interning with Chicago Dramatists. The long one is that after graduating from (hometown) Point Park University’s Conservatory of Performing Arts, “I got a new job, quit that new job, moved to a new city I have never been to before, and signed my first lease…” The next step was to shift her focus from writing as a spare time activity to one that forms her professional life. “I didn’t realize my love for theatre and writing could be combined until I took my first playwriting class!” Actually, she originally “came into” theatre as a resistant “angsty” preteen who was dragged by her parents to a fourth-grade summer drama camp and after spending the first day “interacting as a monkey” realized there was a welcoming place for being “funny, goofy, loud, and free-form.” Tomko also has a background in music, starting with imposed piano lessons from an early age. Each year she would beg to quit and her mother would sagely promise “just one more.” The pay-off came in high school with a birthday gift: the score for Spring Awakening. Realizing she could play something so cool, and do it well, led to her involvement in music ensembles as it also became a key aspect of her approach as an artist. Tomko says she uses music as a private way to be within herself and also as a creative tonic for writing when she “can’t come up with the words for an idea or feeling.” Along with photography and visual art, she uses music as inspiration for her plays rather than incorporating those elements into the piece. Elaborating on her writing process Tomko says that “I often start in the middle of a scene—usually at the height of the action—and then go back and figure out how we got there.” She also keeps an image file on her computer that leans heavily on pictures from sources such as National Geographic and uses them to help start or dig deeper into a piece by asking what is happening at that place or who is that person and what kind of life does she live.”

Despite the use of international images, Tomko states that “I have a very American personality and that definitely translates into my writing.” She also acknowledges that “I’m young…and still exploring my voice as a writer, so I’d hate to limit myself by saying ‘I am X’.” For now she leans toward stories that are “environmentally driven,” meaning that the setting influences mood and tone and “is as much a character as the human ones.” For example, her full-length play Stairwell takes place in the back stairwell of a high school where eight characters, each a teen “archetype,” come to “show more of their true selves than in a classroom” and to “deal with the kinds of questions and dilemmas real teens deal with.” Tomko says her intent is to show how every story is interwoven and to “deconstruct what an archetype is.” She also mentions that she favors plays that “start out seeming like a regular slice of life and then introduce something fantastical or incredible into it.”

Regarding the future, when asked what subject she would never write about, she answered: “straight white men.” Also, differential equations. I have no idea how those work.” Tomko rules out graduate school (for now) as “I would be using it as a crutch—an excuse to avoid facing the ‘real world.’” She added that “One of the great things about theatre is that you don’t need to be in school to be learning your craft.” Certainly Chicago Dramatists is part of that. As for advice to other young playwrights: first, write about things that are really important to you (otherwise why bother) and second, find a group of people you can share your work with.

-Amen

For more about Horizon Theatre Company’s New South Young Playwright Festival, go to www.horizontheatre.com.

pturner@dramatistsguild.com

Madelyn Tomko