Interview: The Prolific Playwright Lisa Sanaye Dring Begins Her Southern California Domination with HUNGRY GHOST at the Skylight

The first of playwright Lisa Sanaye Dring’s simultaneous world premieres in southern California Hungry Ghost opens August 26, 2023, at the Skylight Theatre, with the second SUMO starting September 26, 2023, at La Jolla Playhouse. The much-in-demand Lisa graciously made some time between pre-production meetings for Hungry Ghost and prepping her numerous upcoming projects to answer a few of my queries.

Thank you for taking the time for this interview, Lisa!

My pleasure, thank you for reaching out.

What was the catalyst behind the creation of Hungry Ghost?

I found out that I was a recipient of the Humanitas/Stage Raw in April of 2020 which is, ya know, when everything was happening. One wonderful thing about that award is that they also let you into a writers group, and you don’t have to pitch a project to get in. You can decide that after. So it was a month into the pandemic and I was trying to imagine what I could possibly say amidst all the change. And I saw a video article on The Atlantic about Christopher Thomas Knight who was a hermit who lived in the forest of Maine for 27 years. He chose to escape from society and only returned when he was arrested for theft, as he had been burgling from vacation homes for survival.

I thought: this man isolated himself to find solitude and freedom, whereas I find myself isolated and am experiencing alienation and fear. What can I learn from him? 

What would your three-line pitch for Hungry Ghost be?

Dean and her partner Amanda are getting ready to start a family in a secluded house that Dean inherited from her estranged mother. But, their future begins to unravel when their new home is burgled by a mysterious hermit—a Stevie Nicks worshiping, hot Cheetos eating trickster—who haunts the forest.

Hungry Ghost is a frighteningly funny meditation on identity and isolation, seeing and being seen, and the insatiable hunger in us all to be truly free.

That’s the official logline—if that’s cheating let me know and I’ll give you something else.

What cosmic forces first brought you and Jessica Hanna together? Jessica directed you in your solo show Death Play at Circle X Theatre in 2016.

I was having a late-night dinner with Jen Kays at Fred 62 (which is coincidentally right next to Skylight). I told her that I wanted to write a solo show and I needed a director whose first language is the body. Jen told me I needed to work with Jessica Hanna and I thank my lucky stars she did.

How would you describe the characters of Hungry Ghost. Dean and Amanda?

Dean and Amanda are both well-spoken, bawdy and giving. Dean’s acerbic and trying to wade through grief. Amanda is giving to a fault and has fully bought into the myth of family—for better and for worse. They love one another and fight all the time and play a lot.

How involved do you get in your premieres’ pre-productions?  

Skylight Company’s been supportive every step of the way. I am a writer/director who has been working in ‘hyper-theatrical’ spaces where the design is at the fore of the show, so far the piece has a lot of design built into the writing. This is all to say I came in with lots of questions, ideas and curiosities about the design. And the team we’ve built is just spectacular. 

Jess and the Skylight staff have welcomed me to every and any meeting—I want to say that I have been really moved by how open, generous and artist-forward this process has felt. I haven’t been present for every conversation because: 1. I trust Jess implicitly and like her taste. 2. These designers are dope. 3. I have been focusing on the script.

When does your script become set in stone? After a public reading? Post dress rehearsal? 

Ahaha. Never! I kid. Sort of. 

What’s beautiful is that I workshopped this piece under the direction of Shem Bitterman and Steven Leigh Morris in the Humanitas/Stage Raw group and then have been developing the piece further in Boston Court’s Writers Group which is run by Jessica Kubzansky, Adrian Centeno and Margaret Shigeko Starbuck. So we’ve had a lot of input from very smart people.

The piece was workshopped with Skylight this summer and I did a ton of edits. Once we got our production cast I revised during table work and imagine I’ll do small edits after our designer run. And I think the play really tells you what it is during previews—so I don’t know if we’ll need to shift it more but at that point you also have to ask yourself what you’re doing to your poor actors - you can’t shake too much around by that point. Not that these actors couldn’t handle it - they are brilliant, and I feel like we hit the cast lottery - but you want to make sure you give them enough time to really enjoy opening and the run.

I digress - the answer is, ‘I don’t know.’ I imagine I’ll make some more adjustments to the script after this production (as I cross my fingers that it will get another).

You have earned participation in various writers’ workshops in Los Angeles. Would you name a few pointers you’re learned in each one?

Oh, yes - I mean, community is really everything. Especially in the pandemic, having people that I was accountable to, whose work I got to read and whose feedback I got to hear was critical to me making anything. I always try to be in an official writer’s group and am also a part of two groups of writer friends who connect about work regularly. I’d probably still be a little blob on the floor if it weren’t for my wonderful community of geniuses.

Pointers: be hungry for notes. If people understand your play and are giving you feedback that hurts, let it hurt. Listen to it. It will season you and ferment the piece. If the people you’re getting feedback from don’t grok the piece at a core level, then their notes won’t help - they don’t understand what you’re aiming for, so how could they help you get there? The problem is, of course, one’s own ego, the great bumbling minotaur that it is.

Lead with your heart in these groups. Some of these people have become my best friends and that is only possible when we show up with our full selves. And understand that the organizations hosting you are often providing you with a reading and public workshop, and producing up to six readings (sometimes in one weekend) is bananas - so try to make your hosts’ lives easy and help where you can.

Did you always want to be a playwright?

I was an actor - and still am, although much less so. After my parents died, I had to cultivate new meaning for myself, and I did that with words and embodiment in Death Play (which we spoke of earlier). It was then that I felt writing’s power: to not only be a tool in understanding the world, but to be an agent of world-making unto itself.

What were your parents’ reactions when you told them your career choice?

Ahaha! Well, ain’t this awkward, considering.I kid!

My mom was alive when I went into acting - I think I promised that I’d also double major in psychology (lies).

She was incredibly worried but knew that I was going to do it whether she wanted me to or not. And of course, she tried to be supportive - she got on board eventually, through what I’m sure were terror-infused gritted teeth. To her credit: when I got my first equity gig understudying at East West Players and got to go on for one show - she was the first to drop everything and drive to see me onstage.

When did you find out that you would have two simultaneous world premiere productions in Southern California, Hungry Ghost at the Skylight Theatre, and SUMO debuting at the La Jolla Playhouse in mid-September? Congratulations on this, by the way!

THANK YOU! Yea, holy guacamole, right?

I found out that last summer that La Jolla Playhouse was going to produce SUMO on the day that Roe v. Wade was overturned, which also was the day I tested positive for COVID. I was acting in a workshop in Pittsburgh and found myself relegated to a hotel room, weeping profusely out of sorrow and concern as well as joy and deep gratitude. Such a strange moment. 

Last November I had sent my play to Tyree Marshall and then a week or so later I was having breakfast with Gary Grossman (at Fred 62!) who told me they were going to produce Hungry Ghost. It was a very good day.

To be honest, it’s a very good life.

What else is in the future for Lisa Sanaye Dring besides your simultaneous world premieres?

Next year my play Kairos will be produced by Know Theatre of Cincinnati and in the summer, I have a rolling world premiere coming up - with one production in L.A. and one elsewhere - that I’m not sure I can talk about yet. I’m also cooking up some film projects.

Thank you again, Lisa! I look forward to experiencing your Hungry Ghost.

Thank you!!!

For tickets to the live performances of Hungry Ghost through September 30, 2023; click on the bottom below:

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