Interview: Playwright Marisa Smith and MAD LOVE at NJ Rep

New Jersey Repertory Company (NJ Rep) will produce the new comedy, Mad Love written by Marisa Smith, the author of Saving Kitty, and directed by Evan Bergman. The show will be on the Long Branch Stage from October 20th to November 20th.

In the play, Sloane Hudson, a wealthy, beautiful, recent Ivy League graduate and product of the campus hook-up culture and frat basement pong tournaments, doesn't believe in love or marriage. She does, however, believe in babies and wants one soon so her tummy can bounce back and she can still wear a bikini. The problem is she needs a sperm donor who passes muster. Enter Brandon, who has all the right stats, but the wrong attitude. Brandon, meantime, has enough on his plate living with his brother Doug, who just fell in love with Katerina, the hooker from the Ukraine. Cabbage soup, a rare baseball card and a lizard named Pogo all play a part in this romantic comedy for cynical times.

Broadwayworld.com had the opportunity to interview playwright Marisa Smith about her career and Mad Love at NJ Rep.

When did you first realize your talent for writing?

I never really thought I had a talent for it although in school I knew I could write a million times better than I could do math ( and I had a sixth grade teacher with the tuneful name of Miss Humm who told me I should write) until my first play was produced about 10 years ago and I heard and saw the audience reaction. Then I thought maybe I could write for real.

Tell us a little about your education/training.

Like many playwrights I started out as an actor...acted all through high school and college (Wesleyan) and then came to NY, studied with the great Wynn Handman and slogged along teaching figure skating and acting for a few years...frequently getting cast as a hooker which always amused me. Clearly they were casting against type since I looked like a soccer Mom...I soon realized that the acting life wasn't for me and moved into publishing theater books where I could put my knowledge of theater into good use. My publishing company, Smith and Kraus (Kraus is my husband Eric) now has over 650 titles in print.

Tell us of a few playwrights/authors that you admire.

That's an impossible question: I admire so many and of course Shakespeare is in a class of his own....But if I had to name just a few, and the ones that had the most influence on me and I'd have to say Chekhov, Edward Albee, Moliere. There are too many contemporary playwrights that I admire to name!

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?

Write every day even if it's for 15 minutes. Focus. Write what excites you. Tell a story.

How do you like working with NJ Rep?

This is my second show here and I love it. I think it's so inspiring that the theater only produces new plays and I wish there were more theaters in the country that followed suit. It's a great company and I'm very excited about their plans for the future in terms of the theater complex they are planning.

Why do you think Mad Love will resonate with NJ audiences?

Mad Love is a comedy but the issues that inspired the play, and that underline it are definitely in the current consciousness, i.e, the issues of college culture, frat life and the ramifications of the so-called hookup culture.

For the future?

I have two new plays that I've just finished. Also, Jennifer Coolidge (BEST IN SHOW, LEGALLY BLONDE, TWO BROKE GIRLS) would like to do my play SAVING KITTY ( she starred in it last summer at the Central Square theater in Cambridge) in NYC so we are working on trying to make that happen.

Anything else, absolutely anything that you want BWW readers to know!

Please come support New Jersey Rep!

New Jersey Repertory Company is located at 179 Broadway in Long Branch.

Previews begin Thursday, October 20 with Opening Night Saturday, October 22nd and the show will run through Sunday, November 25th. Tickets may be purchased by calling 732-229-3166 or at www.njrep.org.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Marisa Smith

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