Interview with playwright Michael Hollinger

For so many theatre artists in Philadelphia, the gravitational pull to New York City approaches the irresistible. It is a constant lament in this town that armies of our most promising artists bivouac in Manhattan, Brooklyn, or North Jersey.

Michael Hollinger

And this is just one of the things that makes playwright Michael Hollinger unique.

Born in 1962 on a farm in Lancaster, PA, Michael now teaches at Villanova University. For all his success, he has thankfully never left town. Asked about what Philadelphia and the environs contributed to his writing, Hollinger responded with an oblique insight about his creative process: “The way I work likely betrays less of a regionality than say, for Southern or Western writers. I’m always foraging very far afield from the start. The unfamiliar grabs and fascinates me and in the process of writing, this strange thing actually lives within me in a powerful way.”

This may help explain a highly-produced, highly-eclectic oeuvre that includes Opus, a dramedy about a classical string quartet; Incorruptible, a madcap comedy featuring monks and minstrels; and Ghost-Writer, a serious meditation on creativity and interdependence. Written in 1996, Incorruptible has been staged over 100 times in the U.S. alone; it has undergone several translations as well. Opus is a very popular piece among regional theatres (50+ stagings) and while Ghost-Writer debuted at the Arden Theatre in 2010, it has had over a dozen productions since.

Beginning in 1994, Michael has had an informal but important relationship with the Arden Theatre which has premiered seven of his full length plays as well as produced his translation of Cyrano at the Folger Theatre in D.C. He refers to the Arden as a common-law marriage. “They are under no obligation to produce my work, but I’ve always given them the first shot at my new plays.”

The story of Hollinger and Arden has elements of serendipity but Michael was involved with the theatre in various ways throughout the early 90’s. He took acting classes, provided scripts for industrial work (directed by Terry Nolen, Arden’s Artistic Director) and helped dramaturg shows. When his full length play An Empty Plate In the Cafe Du Grand Boeuf landed on Terry’s desk, the relationships he had at Arden had already been forged.

Currently drafting a new play–working title Flesh and Blood—about kidney transplantation, Michael’s subject matter is leading him on a rumination about what parents and children owe each other. Naturally, this is of a piece with Michael’s creative process. For him, it is the alien situation that intrigues. None of his family have had organ transplants; there is no personal experience there. In this sense, Hollinger’s writing is akin to Tom Stoppard’s—where each playwright starts the journey as far away from home as possible and then through the writing, find ways to come back. “I’ve never been interested in exploring issues between parents and adult children before but here, with this premise, these issues are concrete, not merely psychological.”

Theatre Exile in Philadelphia has scheduled a reading for Flesh and Blood in May 2013 where it will be heard for the first time. “Nearly all of my plays have been written under the pressure of a deadline for some public presentation. However stressful this can be, the eleventh hour pressure continues to work for me.“

ttirney@dramatistsguild.com