A Conversation with Chris Danowski, playwright of FROGWOMAN

from our friends at B3 Productions:

Ilana Lydia sat down with author Chris Danowski to explore his process and journey in writing FrogWoman, which plays at The SIC Sense Theatre November 9-17, then being reimagined at Aside Theatre in December

How has FrogWoman been featured in your diverse career as a playwright?

It keeps hopping back into my life, haha. There was a production in 2001, then in 2010, and now, so it regenerates and comes back to life every 8-9 years, and I read somewhere that there is a tree frog that only lives outside of Payson, Arizona, that regenerates like this, every 8-9 years. Of course, I read about this after I wrote it down, which is to say, I made it up.

What’s different about FrogWoman from most of your other scripts?

It’s much more linear, and to me feels like a more traditional structure.

Did you learn anything from writing FrogWoman, or seeing various productions of it?  What?

There are some old scripts that come back every once in awhile, and I kind of cringe, because I see so many of the things I forgot to do when I was writing it. This one, though, always makes me giggle, and I get caught up in watching it, and the performers seem to be having a great time, and that’s probably my favorite thing to do in a theatre, watching performers enjoy what they’re doing. So I learned that, I learned that I like that very much. Um. Over the years, there were many drafts and subsequent drafts of this, and with each draft there was more layering, and more attention to rhythm. So I also learned that what they say about writing and re-writing, it’s true, and although the surrealist in me says that the first draft is the rawest and closest to the bone, it’s not always the most interesting.

If FrogWoman were a physical gift you were giving each audience member, what would it look like?

It would look like a little frog in a top hat that is at your feet, and it’s singing to you, and it tickles you as you are having a whispering, giggling conversation with your friends at a panel discussion about media and representation.

Didn’t you just release a new book?  What’s it about?

That’s “Dog’s Ear,” from Hoot n’ Waddle Press. It’s a literary experiment where I want to see if I can put the reader in a particular kind of space where you are having the experience of remembering an impossible love, caught in the tide pool of it, while time is moving forward around you. And you’re not really there, in that tide pool, you stepped out of time, and you can’t find the way back in (and maybe don’t want to so much).

What adventures are on the horizon for you?

By the time the show is open, I’ll be in the U.K. as a lecturer in performance at the University of Portsmouth. Right now I’m waiting for the U.K. visa to come back, so I’m anxious as hell because everything feels very ephemeral and I’m like a ghost, half here and half there. I like in between spaces though, and this one feels massively important, the biggest adventure always being who to become next. There’s always a next.

FrogWoman by Chris Danowski runs 11/9, 11/10, 11/16, 11/17 at The SIC Sense Theatre, curtain at 8PM.  Tickets are available at www.thesicsense.com.  It will then return, reimagined, at Aside Theatre, and play 12/7, 12/8, 12/14, and 12/15 at 8PM, and 12/9 and 12/16 at 2PM.  Tickets for the December shows are available at www.asidetheatre.com.  FrogWoman is directed by RC Contreras.

FrogWoman is the story of a starlet who has surgically turned herself into a frog. She has a manservant named Burley who is as good as three men put together, but side by side and not on top of each other like her circus friends. In a world controlled by an unseen Voice of Authority, will FrogWoman ever break free from the confines of her fame and find her true froggish nature? Will she ever find true love? And most curiously, will she ever find out who’s spending her money?