BWW Interviews: JOSHUA METZGER

When it comes to other people, there may be disagreements. Sometimes they are polite, sometimes they are vehement. But when it comes to family, fighting can reach a different stratosphere. Put that fight on stage, and audiences find it highly entertaining.

A three-way family dispute gets underway in Joshua Metzger's latest play, Sitting Shiva, which was presented at the New York Fringe Festival last summer. Metzger hopes to get the play produced at other venues. Although there is a built-in audience for plays on this topic - the various Jewish communities throughout the English-speaking world - it is the type of play that would resonate with any family that has adult orphans. In a nutshell, three brothers are sitting shiva (accepting condolence calls) for their father. Mark, the eldest, follows the Jewish tradition of having low seats, praying and greeting guests (not visible to the audience). His youngest brother, David, is the most prosperous of the trio, and his middle brother, Henry, is now unemployed. The envelope, please. In this important packet is their father's will, and that's when the ritual of sitting shiva starts to sizzle with sibling rivalry and dark family secrets. Memories are shared, old scars are reopened, and new wounds are inflicted as the brothers bicker about their father, their lives, and their future. Can the family survive sitting shiva?

Sitting Shiva is Metzger's third play. His previous plays also have strong Jewish themes. He grew up in Queens and attended high school in Manhattan before earning a B.S. in economics from New York University College of Business and Public Administration and a J.D. degree from New York University School of Law. Currently based in Los Angeles, he has a day job as an executive with several start-up Internet companies.

But theatre has been his passion since childhood, when his parents took him to see shows in Manhattan. His first play, The Second Generation, was selected for the National Playwright's Conference at The Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center in Connecticut in 1997. It was also presented at the Passage Theatre Reading Series and Octoberfest at the Ensemble Studio Theatre in New York. His second play, Photo Opportunity, was produced as a staged reading at the Museum of Tolerance at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles in early 2013 and The Road Theatre Company featured it in The Word @ The Road Reading Series.

Metzger's most recent play is partially autobiographical. His father died the year before he wrote Sitting Shiva, which he says gave him "some personal experience that helped bring some additional perspectives to the material." With regard to Sitting Shiva, he says, "One can ask exactly what is being mourned. "A shiva home gives a unique opportunity to have a family in the same home for a one week period. With no break. One of my inspirations for the play was seeing August: Osage County and imagining a different setup inside a Jewish home. The shiva period creates that atmosphere."

What about his creative atmosphere? What's the most challenging thing for him when he writes a play? "First and foremost, finding the time to write! Next, I would say is finding a group of actors willing to help shape the material. It is really only through listening to the words on the paper that the material can develop and grow."

Metzger really admires the plays of Herb Gardner, especially Conversations with My Father. "And since I took my father to see that play, I guess you can say that play spoke to me," he says. "I like Jon Robin Baitz's writing. Arthur Miller, of course. All contemporary playwrights...because the classics are obvious."

The best advice Metzger ever got about writing for the theatre is "Keep writing!" he recalls. "And I will never forget Lloyd Richard asking me at the O'Neill from behind his desk as I sat in my initial meeting with him: 'What is your play about?' he asked. The way he asked it and the way I fumbled my answer taught me so much. I ask myself that question every time I write."

Metzger is in the middle of a new play about a family dealing with a terminal illness. He has also written two novels, both unpublished, but is working with an editor to get them ready for publication. He is also an avid live sports fan and has the longest running fantasy baseball game on the web (www.baseballmanager.com). Three plays, two novels, and a busy day job. Even overachievers would be impressed.

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