Stephen Belber was born in Washington, DC in 1967. He is a graduate of the Julliard Playwriting Program and is the author of numerous plays which have been performed on Broadway, off Broadway, and regionally. The playwright has received commissions from Manhattan Theater Club, Playwrights Horizons, and The Arena Stage. Stephen has written for television shows including Rescue Me and Law and Order: SVU. Several of his screenplays have been produced including Drifting Elegant, Tape, and Management, his directorial debut which premiered at the 2008 Toronto Film Festival. Management stars Jennifer Aniston and Steve Zahn.
BELBER: I did a lot of acting in high school. In college I was trying to be a novelist and doing a lot of prose writing. I wrote a novel when I got out of school and went to work and, somewhere along the line, I realized I missed acting. At which point I started writing one-person shows that I would perform. It was a way to combine the two. I was living in Washington, DC and working at the Hard Rock Café. I was living, working, and doing these shows at night. Eventually, when I was twenty-five, I decided that if I wanted to take this seriously I had to move up to New York. Once there I started taking night classes in playwriting at Playwright’s Horizons theater school. It wasn’t particularly hard to get into, but it was a great program with great teachers, just really strong people.
Eventually I wrote and started doing a one-man show downtown in New York. The first one I did, when I moved to New York, was at CBGB’s at CB’s Gallery. I performed it on Monday nights and split the door [with the Club]. I did that at Nada as well. I would just invite my friends, which was sort of pathetic, but you have to start somewhere.
Somewhere along the line I became aware that Julliard had started [the Playwrights’] program. I applied to, what I believe was, the second year of the program and I was accepted. I had already applied once. [Julliard] tries to take the playwrights soon after college. So I was in my mid-to-late twenties, I guess. It’s not a masters degree. You don’t pay. You have these weekly seminars with [Marsha Norman and Christopher Durang]. And you have access to the Julliard actors, the Julliard library, the Stellar Cafeteria, and you eventually, if you are lucky, get a full production and lots of little productions. So there’s no obligatory reading, no syllabus, no compelled work as you would have with a masters at Columbia or such.
But it was probably the first time that I started really getting into reading a lot of plays. They had a great library and basically learned to take myself seriously as a writer. Julliard gives you access to a real venue and actors who are extremely talented. And you can read your work the day after you write it if you want. Every Saturday you have the actors at your disposal and you get criticism once a week and you can sit in on various classes. I think Michael Kahn started that whole playwriting arm to create a web of relationships between actors, directors, and writers who could then to go out in the world together, which has completely worked in my eyes.
HYLTON: What would you say is the biggest benefit of this type of program?
BELBER: I would say for me it was really just having tremendous actors at my disposal. Rather than having to call up people and beg them to come over to my living room, Julliard provided casting help with anything I wrote and would then invite a pretty distinguished crowd to see the readings. Like people who had Tony Awards and wouldn’t have typically shown up in my living room for a reading.
HYLTON: And from a contact/career standpoint, aside from the obvious help it gave you by giving you a lot of time working on plays and experiences seeing them produced?
BELBER: Contact wise it was great. There are a lot of actors I still work with and I can call them up now and say, “Will you do my reading?” or “Would you come over and read this for me?” I think the three other writers in the program with me at Julliard came out with an agent afterwards. I didn’t at first, which was quite distressing. They give you a showcase at the end of each year to invite industry people and you definitely feel the pressure. When I got out of the program I was highly aware of what was going on in the professional world in a way that it’s very easy to become jealous because suddenly you’re aware of who has an agent and all of that. But you get over it because that’s the way the game works a bit..
HYLTON: So before getting an agent how did you get your work seen by theaters?
BELBER: I was basically pounding major pavement. I bought The Dramatists’ Sourcebook. The SoHo Rep [production] came about because I was trying to co-produce a lot of stuff, which really meant hustling around town to get people to let me use their space. My wife was directing a lot of my work. We would do something at Nada and then someone from SoHo rep would come and say, “Hey, do you want to do that in a late night slot?” So I was applying like hell to all of these programs around the country and sending scripts to places off Broadway like Manhattan Theater Club and Second Stage on my own. It was brutal.
If I could get reimbursed for some of that stuff, for my ten years of sending out those scripts, I’d be a millionaire. It was kinda dumb. But, I literally sent scripts everywhere. I tried to send one or two a week and follow up with calls.
And the theaters just get annoyed. Because I know my writing wasn’t up to par at that point and I’m sure I bugged these people. I see them around town now and they walk the other direction. They think I’m going to give them a script out of my pocket. And the agents are so harsh. I spent a really long time trying to get an agent and I’m sure that without Julliard, I still wouldn’t have one.
HYLTON: Did you send out mostly full scripts or mostly samples?
BELBER: Depends on what [the theaters] were willing to read, what their rules were for submissions. But mostly I wouldn’t hear back. And even when I had an intro from a friend of a friend, it didn’t work. I tried to get friend’s agents to read my stuff for a few years and I think it worked once. It’s tricky.
HYLTON: So if you had a suggestion to make to young writers aspiring to get produced right now what would it be?
BELBER: I would think that if you can get your work into little theaters, even if not a lot of people see it, it’s worthwhile because it does create a foundation of relationships that are fun and useful. Even if it’s like the guy who was running your lights one night ends up being a hot agent at CAA. I also think it’s the best way to make your work better. I know that the eight or nine years of pounding the pavement and doing shows and doing readings made me not only better but able to write change and sculpt my work, to write on the run, and to understand how to say what I wanted to say. basically compelled me to hone my craft.
HYLTON: What about self-marketing?
BELBER: I’m always so afraid of being obnoxious, so there were times I simply wouldn’t follow up for fear of offending. But that’s just a judgment call based on your personality. What’s important is that the work is the priority. Which is easy to forget sometimes. You have to send out a really good piece. Because that will do the talking for you. So I guess, my overall suggestion would be to make sure that your craft is the priority and the submissions are secondary.
HYLTON: In the end do you think that some of your productions were a result of blind submissions?
BELBER: Not really blind submissions. The only one that worked was this one cutting edge theater that I found through The Dramatists’ Sourcebook. I won the second prize in their competition. And that was the one thing that I can point to that paid off from the blind submission process. And I have an ongoing relationship with the theater now, which is nice.
HYLTON: What can you tell me about your experience with The Death of Frank at the Fringe Festival in New York?
BELBER: The 2000 Festival one was my first. It’s a great thing, and it’s a lot of work and it’s not always incredibly well organized, but for what they are doing it’s amazing. Another piece of mine finally was performed there in 1999 I believe, and it taught me a ton about how and if that play worked. And of course it’s like the one play of mine that a lot of the downtown publications, like Time Out and The Village Voice, liked, because it was a dark piece that no one was going to do uptown. To the extent where people now refer to it in their reviews. In fact I think when Time Out came to review Match they were like, “Too bad he couldn’t do what he did in 1999.” So, they like dark. But The Fringe is incredibly helpful. It costs what, three hundred bucks and you have to pay for the lighting person— but in the end it’s more than worth it.
HYLTON: How does having an agent affect your submission process at this point?
BELBER: I can’t tell. It’s obviously great to have that on your side. I always delude myself into thinking, “Oh, I’ve met a producer. They’ll check out my work.” But I think it’s still better coming from an agent. Like these guys who did Match. I knew them, we’re good friends, actually, but they sort of blew me off for a couple of years until I submitted it through an agent, with Frank Langella attached. And the agent can also get actors attached. So agents do help, although now I feel I have developed more relationships. I feel I can call people and say will you read my script. But the agent knows more people than I know. He spends his day building those relationships.
HYLTON: I know you have stuff coming up in Hartford and Huntington. Are you still applying for those kinds of things on your own?
BELBER: Those two no. Those were requests, which was nice. The O’Neill I still apply to and occasionally New York Stage and Film at Vassar and the Sundance Theater Lab. I applied for eight years to the O’Neill and finally got in last year and I went and Lee Blessing, who it seems has an open invitation to the place, came up to me and was like “Hey man, you should come up more often.” And I was like, “I’ve fuckin’ been trying.” He’s an excellent guy. My wife is directing a world premiere of his this summer in West Virginia.
HYLTON: What is your experience with Naked Angels?
BELBER: I didn’t have any real relationship in the past with them. I knew someone who was a founder and that’s how Tape came about. She said, this would be great for our company and she attached Geoffory Nauffts who was also a founding member and who ended up directing it. A long time ago I had gone to the “Tuesdays at 9” readings that they do and I remember being highly intimidated by it. Submitting for the readings and never getting picked. It’s a great organization. I saw Kenny Lonnergan reading the first act of This Is Our Youth, when it was a ten-minute play. It was cool.
HYLTON: What was your experience with the Humana Festival?
BELBER: Tape went out there, after the downtown production of it with my buddies. That was great because, more than anything I had done to that point, it made me semi-legitimate as a writer. It is just a great festival. And I think you can still submit blindly to Humana. I had almost gotten in, with my play The Death of Frank, a couple of years before that. And I remember thinking “If I get into this, I’ve got it made.” And it’s true, you get tons of productions, get published, and people around the world read the play and decide that they may want to do it. So it really is a good festival.
HYLTON: Can you tell me a little bit about the difference being on Broadway (as with Match) versus being in smaller venues? I ask this because your plays seem frequently to have a smaller cast and make use of a small space.
BELBER: I don’t think Tape would ever have worked on Broadway. But although Match has only three characters, it feels bigger because the topic is bigger. Tape was about ambiguity and minutia whereas Match just feels like a bigger play and thus inhabits the larger space better. I’ve been accused of Match being a sentimental play. Which is true. I’m a sentimental guy. And maybe off Broadway is a better space for more subtle material. If Tape is characterized as anything, it has to do with the human inability to perfectly put your finger on something. And in Match you can definitely put your finger on something, very precisely, but it doesn’t necessarily get you where you want to go. It’s less obscure, but maybe a little more accessible. Match is about larger forces and has bigger themes in terms of family and art and the loneliness that can creep in as life gets longer.
HYLTON: Did you write Match knowing that it was going to a large venue?
BELBER: Yeah, I started writing it and as soon as I knew that I was writing about this particular character, the one played by Frank Langella, who was inspired by someone in my life. I realized I was heading toward more commercially viable territory. And my normal instinct was to run away from that (Laughing). But this time I decided, “Ok, this could be fun, let’s see where it goes.”
I had a friend who had just acted with Richard Chamberlin in The Sound of Music, on Broadway. And she was like, “Richard Chamberlin is looking to do a play. You should write something for him. It’ll take you two weeks.” And so I had that in my mind for a while when met this guy in real life who was such a big, beautiful, complex character. And I thought “Ahh, I could get Richard Chamberlin to play that.” So I came up with a story around him. And my friend actually gave it to Richard Chamberlin and he passed on [the script] saying it was too many lines.
But the husband of the woman who was in The Sound of Music, a great actor named Rob Lunney knew Frank Langella vaguely and he got him a script through Austin Pendelton. And Frank Langella called me up and said, “You wrote this part for me but you didn’t even realize it.” And he started helping me get producers attached basically.
HYLTON: So, you were involved very early on.
BELBER: Yeah, it was nice because we went to one producer but it didn’t work out. And then the Araca Group picked it up. The guys in the group are my age and six or seven years earlier we had all done a show together off, off Broadway. So it was nice to get the script to them.
Ray Liotta was a thing where a lot of names were being thrown about. And people were saying, “We need a star, we need a star.” I came up with his name because he had that type of star quality I thought they were looking for, but also because he was perfect for the part. And so many times when you’re looking for star quality you sacrifice that. My Dad had some movie index guide and I looked under all people under that age. I went through it page by page until, “Oh fucking Ray Liotta.” And luckily we got him, despite it’s not being as big a part as Frank’s although it is just as vital. I think [Ray] had a personal connection to it and he was the first person we went to.
HYLTON: Were you involved in the production after it got to the director?
BELBER: Yeah, I was, since it had never been done before. There was a lot of rewriting. In fact, Ray Liotta had some very strong opinions that were really helpful. He gave me ideas that I hadn’t thought of that were really fresh. Frank had been involved and we had actually done a three-day workshop a year [before]. So we were all sort of blind to something and Ray came in and helped us figure it out in a very astute way. So there was a lot of rewriting in rehearsal and during the three weeks of previews we did a lot. It was pretty hardcore.
HYLTON: Have you involved the actors in the rewriting process of other plays you have written?
BELBER: We work-shopped Tape off off Broadway and did a production of it. And I would get together with all three actors (Dominc Fumusa, Josh Stamberg, and Phoebe Jonas) because I was particularly close with them. We changed the script constantly. It was so early and we really had no idea at times what the play had to say. So fine-tuning was a fun part of that. That’s one skill I have sort of developed a little bit. I go slower now, listen to the actors, make adjustments on the script, and go with the flow a little more.
HYLTON: What do you like in terms of a relationship between yourself and a director?
BELBER: I like a director who pushes me hard and tells me to articulate and understand why I’ve written certain things. Because I think I write out of instinct a lot. I know if something feels good or sounds nice, but sometimes I have to make sure I can back it up with a reason. And Nicky Martin is a good example of someone who forces me to explain what I really want to say.
HYLTON: You mentioned that your friend said it would only take you a couple of weeks to write Match. How long does it take you to write your plays? I ask because I heard that by 1998 you had twenty plays produced in New York, with six produced in 1998 alone.
BELBER: Well, I don’t know about that, but yes, that was a particularly good year. I’m sure it’s a flaw because none of them are particularly historically important documents. I envy these guys who write one every three years and it’s a masterpiece. So I do worry about that. But that being said I do like to sit and crank it out- at least the first draft. And as I said, I like to write on instinct, which means that sometimes I write twenty pieces and am lucky if one of them happens to hit a chord with people. So I am trying to learn how to take my time a little bit. But Match was quick because I went out to dinner with this man, who inspired the role, and he made such a profound impression on me that I immediately came home and scribbled down the anecdotes he’d just told me, many of which are in the play. So, once I had that, and once I’d figured out the plot framing I literally wrote it in less than a week.
HYLTON: Do you know what’s going to happen at the end of the play when you start writing?
BELBER: Often not. In Match I had a story and knew essentially where I wanted to go with it. Tape, yes, but some of the stuff in it was much more organic. But please know that I hate to use that word. In Match some of the smaller details I found along the way, but I hit upon that story fairly early, and even though I thought I knew it was a simple story, I felt it deeply. It hit a chord with me and I was emotionally attached to it and had good luck with it.
HYLTON: Which writers inspire you?
BELBER: Albee is a big influence. He goes darker than I go in Match, but his writing is a huge influence in general. In terms of Match, I purposely let myself go into a classic, conventional sort of, almost parloresque type of drama to see what I could do with that. I’m sure the ones that don’t get produced are trying to be more like Tom Stoppard. Sam Shepard was a huge influence, Caryill Churchill, Arthur Miller, Peter Barnes, Thornoton Wilder, Eric Bogosian, and Stephen Adley Guirgis. All these folks have profoundly shaped my work.
HYLTON: Congratulations on Management, your film writing/directing debut. What can you tell me about the film?
BELBER: Management is a film I’m extremely proud of on many levels. It may not be for everyone, but it is entirely part of my self-proclaimed mission to bring well-rounded, oddly true and theatrically grounded characters to the screen. Management began as a one-act play, and thus, like Tape, Drifting Elegant, The Laramie Project and, hopefully soon, McReele and Match, it went through a genesis from stage to film that felt organic and strong, becoming better and learning more what it and its characters wanted to say along the way. It has, without a doubt, made me want to direct more movies, for it is an incredibly exciting and hugely satisfying way to chase the fulfillment of one’s vision from A to Z.
