INTERVIEW: College friendships are subject of new play ‘What Else Is True?’
Photo: What Else Is True? follows a group of college students brought together in an improv class. Photo courtesy of Danté Crichlow / Provided by Everyman Agency with permission.
David Rosenberg’s new play, What Else Is True?, follows a group of college students who form bonds while participating in an improv acting class. The show, which plays Aug. 15-26 at A.R.T./New York Theatre’s Jeffrey and Paula Gural Theatre in Midtown Manhattan, explores their friendships and how they transform each member of the group. And then, like so many college experiences, it’s over, and these aspiring actors need to move on with their life.
The play is billed as a comedy, directed by Jake Beckhard and Adam Coy. The production comes to New York City courtesy of the Egg & Spoon Theatre Collective. Portraying this circle of friends are Olivia AbiAssi, Serena Berman, Dylan Guerra, Sam Gonzalez, Ed Herbstman, Jawaun Hill, Adam Langdon and Ema Zivkovic, according to press notes.
Rosenberg is an accomplished actor and playwright. He also has in development a new play called Wicked Child, which will be mounted in Miami in the new year, according to his official biography. Another one of his plays is I Would Never Lie to You. Audiences may also know him from his recent turn in Broadway’s Death of a Salesman.
Recently Rosenberg exchanged emails with Hollywood Soapbox. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
When did the idea for What Else Is True? first come to you?
I started writing this play in 2018, as I was entering my final year of grad school. I was (and still am) pretty in love with the people I went to school with, but I was thinking a lot about our working dynamic — how we communicated with each other, how we didn’t. I was thinking about, in particular, the little lies we needed to tell to get along and work together day to day. I was also thinking back, as I neared the end of grad school, to who I was seven or eight years earlier in undergrad. By design, college encourages young people to focus on themselves, and to look inward. And that’s a good thing! But maybe a byproduct of that is that we end up blind to the needs and feelings of the people around us.
But also, I’ve been doing improv since high school, and I find it by turns intoxicating and a little bit nauseating. I wanted to write about the way improv brings people together, how thrilling it can be to make something amazing instantaneously — but also how horrifying it is when it doesn’t work.
Do you have fond memories of being this age and exploring the possibilities of theater?
You know, the main thing I remember about this age was being too caught up in my own preconceived notions about theater to properly explore any new possibilities. I had big dreams about the kind of stuff I would make and set ideas about what I liked, and those ideas prevented me from really trying anything new. (I thought I would be one of the shining stars of the American musical theater, which was … cute, I guess.) And that’s a little bit what this play is about — how ambition can stand in the way of possibility and growth.
But certainly my college improv team showed me, in a really visceral way, how much fun it is to make things with your friends. It’s a very particular high, getting laughs with your best buddies in college. One of the great things about this play for me personally has been returning to that ethos of doing dumb bits and making stuff you’re proud of with your best friends. Some of my closest friends in the whole world are working on this play — including both directors and a good chunk of the cast. And I’m so in awe of all the people I’m just now meeting. In that way, it’s been a great throwback to the joy and good vibes of college improv.
Would you say your characters are different at the end of the play? Has inclusion in this improv group changed them?
Oh jeez, I hope my characters are different at the end of the play. I think this play is, for most of the characters, an inflection point between youth and adulthood. For some of them that means stepping into a well-earned confidence. For some of them that means empowering themselves to advocate for their needs and bet on their talent. For some, it’s about jettisoning childish behavior that can’t survive into adulthood. When they look back on this improv team, some will see it as a pivotal moment of growth and change. Some will barely remember it at all. But they’ll all have grown because of it.
How is growing up wonderful and horrible, sometimes simultaneously?
I think a lot about shame, as a sort of necessary evil in growing up. I look back on who I was in high school, or college, or 20 minutes ago, and I can’t believe I did the things I did and said the things I said. The great thing about youth — and college specifically — is the freedom to try on new ways of behaving. But of course some of that behavior is disingenuous, and if you’re like me you spend so much time going, “Who even am I, and when will I learn to be normal?” It’s so painful, living with that much self-consciousness and shame. But it’s also a mechanism for growth. You start to learn who you are by virtue of who you are not. And that’s so exciting! Part of the thrill of youth is the gradual discovery of your adult self. And the joy of that, the things you learn about who you’re becoming, makes the shame worth it.
Have you been involved in the rehearsal process?
I have! And I’m doing my best to be an absolute menace in the room. Actors need to be monitored and judged and condescended to. Directors need to be contradicted, stridently. Rehearsal is a place for humiliation, and I take that responsibility very seriously.
But actually: this rehearsal process has been the most fun I’ve had in a long while. I’ve been rewriting throughout, and man there’s nothing better than bringing in new pages and trying them out in the room with talented, smart people. We’ve been finding a ton of new bits and moments, trimming down the play to its absolute leanest, plus adapting the script to fit these actors, who are so good. We have such great actors. I can’t believe any of these people agreed to do my play.
Does your own acting inform your playwriting? Are the two complementary?
The great thing about being a playwright is you have total control over the play, and the great thing about being an actor is you have very little. It’s really nice and really healthy, I think, to bop back and forth between those roles. And I do think they complement each other. Having a feeling for the embodied experience of the actors you’re writing for makes it easier to write for them. You want to protect them, too. You start to think, what would I need as an actor to feel good about this scene, before you write it. Hopefully that’s useful for the actors in the play.
And as an actor, there’s this skill you have to learn where you can recognize the playwright’s intent between the lines of the play. I’d like to think that my writing makes me better at that. But maybe the directors I’ve worked with would tell you I’m wrong, who knows?
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
What Else Is True? by David Rosenberg will play Aug. 15-26 at A.R.T./New York Theatre’s Jeffrey and Paula Gural Theatre in Midtown Manhattan. Click here for more information and tickets.
