Interview: IRT Playwright-in-Residence Wins Drama Award

James Still, the playwright-in-residence at the Indiana Repertory Theatre (IRT), was announced as the 2020 Indiana Authors Awards Drama Winner for his trilogy The Jack Plays. The Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Award winners receive an award made from Indiana steel and limestone, a $5,000 cash prize, and the opportunity to make a $500 gift to an Indiana public library.

The Jack Plays is a series of three plays featuring members of the same family, The Jack Plays travel from a Vermont Thanksgiving dinner, to the canals of Venice, and into a CIA operation in Yemen. Still's ability to give his characters' depth in all situations allows audiences to connect with the family and their struggles with grief and identity.

The IRT is the only theatre that has produced all three productions: The House that Jack Built (2012), Miranda (2017), and Appoggiatura (2018). Still has served as their first and only playwright-in-residence for 23 years. He has written more than 50 plays, including multiple pieces in the past eight months that were created specifically to be performed on zoom. The landscape of performing arts has changed this year and Still has adjusted beautifully.

"Rather than complaining about the limited nuances of zoom, I tried to write things that were embracing that technology," he explained, "Digital relationships are how we're living right now. I'm not that interested in writing about the pandemic, but I'm interested in writing about the responses people are having to it."

Though he currently lives in LA, the Kansas-native frequently commutes to Indianapolis for his work at the IRT. He writes and directs plays each season, while also creating new work for theatres across the country. He often has multiple projects he's juggling, but when one rises to the top and demands his attention, he never considers who will eventually be seeing it. "I can't think about the audience or the theatre when I'm writing. I need space to let the story develop," he said.

When writing The Jack Plays, Still didn't initially realize the stories were about one family. "I'd never written plays that were connected like that, but I love it when that happens in theatre. I don't know if I would have had the courage to write the trilogy if I'd known there would be three plays at the start," he said. "I didn't try to map out the plot, I just discovered the characters organically."

The three plays introduce audiences to Jack's family, but they never meet Jack. He is killed on 9/11 and the grief that loss caused radiates through the work. "I was interested in looking at grief as it spools out over time. The thing about grief is that you can't disconnect love from it," Still said. "For me, I'm always writing about two things: grief and love. They are intertwined in ways I subconsciously really wanted to explore."

He is fascinated by the idea that people can be shaped by someone they have never met or who is no longer with them. Jack's absence drives the plays, but the true focus is the people he has left behind and the way each of them cope with the loss.

"How do we get on with it, the hard work of practicing grief and love? You can't go around it, you have to go through it. I want to write about humanity and goodness," he explained. "I don't mean easy or sentimental, I mean, what is good about humanity. Grief and loss capture that and go hand-in-hand with love."

Still was surprised and honored by the award. He said, "Things take on even more meaning in these troubling challenging times. It's been so meaningful."

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