Playwright Jordan Essoe

The Road Theatre Company Proudly Presents

The Eighth Annual
SUMMER PLAYWRIGHTS FESTIVAL

8 Days! 30+ plays!
Receptions and live music nightly!

This year’s festival will include a 50/50 parity of male and female playwrights and runs Sunday, July 3Oth through Sunday, August 6th at The Road on Lankershim, in the Historic Lankershim Arts Center in North Hollywood at 5108 Lankershim Blvd, North Hollywood  and at The Road on Magnolia at 10747 Magnolia Blvd, North Hollywood  at the NoHo Arts Colony!

 We will feature spotlights on all the playwrights of full length plays over the next few weeks. This week the spotlight shines on Jordan Essoe, author of Fribley Ashtray.

What is your familiarity with The Road and the Playwrights Festival? If you have been here before how would you rate your experience? If not, why did you choose to bring your play here? Have you seen work produced here?

My first experience with the Road Theatre was as an actor, playing a cockney rocker who wrote heavy metal songs about Ibsen, in “The Night We Bombed Lincoln Towing,” at the Summer Playwrights Festival in 2015! I got to sing and play guitar, put on eyeliner, hook up with the bartender, and, of course, bomb a towing company. Steven Young’s script was a blast, and Ann Hearn’s directing was inspired. You could tell immediately that everyone at the Road was incredibly talented, authentic, warm, and encouraging. And they love and shepherd writers. I fell in love with the company.

What is your process for writing and rewriting? Anything you care to share here as advice for other playwrights would be welcome.

These days I try to begin with just letting the ideas flood, and capture as many of them as I can. I write a lot quicker than I used to. Last year I finished my second play, and it took me over a year to complete it. My third play I wrote in 7 days! “Fribley Ashtray,” the piece I have in this year’s festival, essentially came together in about 2 weeks, in a fever of ideas and intense research. I’ve had a chance to polish it a little more since. Like tuning a guitar, you listen very hard to see what material is harmonizing and what is not. But I trust in the initial inspiration. That is the best advice I can offer fellow writers -- the ideas and characters that come to you with the most force know more about you than you do about them.

What is the value of having your work done here at The Road in California? What are your expectations and hopes for your play for the future?

One aspect of the Road’s philosophy as a company is to seek out new, exciting plays, help develop them, and help find them an audience. The Summer Playwrights Festival has become essential to this model, because they are able to showcase so many brand new works, and then, very often, select a few to program into full production. I am ecstatic to premiere the play in this setting, among a roster of astonishingly talented fellow playwrights, with the incredible backbone of a theatre company that has supported me in so many ways, working with amazing fellow actors, and offering it to the Los Angeles theatre community. I love the characters and world of “Fribley Ashtray” and I want it to live a long, happy life! I couldn’t be more excited.

Remember: The Road on Lankershim is located in the Historic Lankershim Arts Center in North Hollywood at 5108 Lankershim Blvd, North Hollywood  and The Road on Magnolia at 10747 Magnolia Blvd, North Hollywood  at the NoHo Arts Colony! There is street parking available in both locations, but come early, at least a half hour before curtain.

Because SPF8 is a fundraiser, tickets are by donation only and are only available at the door! Suggested donation for a single performance is $15 –or this year, try a weeklong festival pass for the suggested donation of $50!