6 QUESTIONS: Kirk Lynn

Playwright Kirk Lynn is very busy.  The Rude Mech's show STOP HITTING YOURSELF just finished up a successful run at LCT3, he has written the libretto for BUM PHILLIPS ALL-AMERICAN OPERA now in rehearsals and beginning performances on March 12th at the Ellen Stewart Theatre and his play YOUR MOTHER'S COPY OF THE KAMA SUTRA will be opening at the end of March at Playwrights Horizons. So we were thrilled that Kirk took time out from his schedule to answer our 6 Questions!

1. How did you become involved with this project?
I've known Luke [Leonard, director] and been a friend and a fan for a long time. Peter [Stopschinski, composer] is a longtime collaborator. Peter writes a lot of music for Rude Mechs and when Luke presented the challenge to me I thought this would a great opportunity for Peter's music to take the front seat. Opera is musically very expansive and free. There are some memorable lines in opera, but 99% of it is memorable music.

2. Are you a football fan?

I feel about football the way I feel about everything: I love it! It has smashing and soap opera and gambling. I wish there was a little more sex, but sure. I love football. I cheer for the underdog most of the time and when they start winning I switch teams.

3. How is football like opera/theater?

Great drama. The least talented person is more talented than me. So often the divas are great at living within the fiction/the game, but terrible at living in the normal world. And on opening night/game day the fans like to dress up/paint their faces and look at one another as part of the spectacle.

4. What have you learned from the making of BUM PHILLIPS ALL-AMERICAN OPERA?

I think a lot about the ways that success can come into our lives in the clothing of failure. Bum really wanted to win a superbowl, but if he had so much of what he valued after that might not have come to him. I think about the things I wanted and the things I have, and I am so much happier to have what I do, than to have what I have wanted. I wonder if I can train myself to look at my next failure as an unknown success.

5. You are one of six Artistic Directors for the Rude Mechs, how does your work outside the company affect the company?

All the Rude Mechs try to work outside the company. It renews our spirits, exposes us to different compositional methods. It allows the possibility that people will love us again for quirks that we find annoying in one another. We come back to one another with new ideas for making work, excited to be home in one another's annoying quirks.

6. What does working at La MaMa mean to you?

La MaMa is theatre history. I think especially if you grow up in San Antonio TX, you long to be a part of these names and places. I think I first heard of La Mama when I was reading Sam Shepard plays. And then later I became good friends with Peggy Shaw who has a history with you. So it means that you can long for things in your teens in San Antonio and some of them will come to you at the age of 41!

BONUS QUESTION: Is there an idea that you had had for a while that has not come to fruition?

I really want to make musicals/operas from Mark Twain's THE MAN WHO CORRUPTED HADLEYBURG and O. Henry's THE DUPLICITY OF HARGRAVES. I will someday, or it will be a failure that allows a lot of other things to happen.

La MaMa presents 
Monk Parrots' 

Bum Phillips 
All-American Opera 

Concept, Direction, Production Design by Luke Leonard 
Libretto by Kirk Lynn 
Music by Peter Stopschinski 

Commissioned and produced by Monk Parrots (New York) 

March 12 – March 30, 2014 
Thursdays – Fridays – Saturdays @ 7:30pm Sundays @ 2:30pm 

Tickets: $25 Adults; $20 Students/Seniors; a limited number of $10 tickets are available IN ADVANCE as part of La MaMa's 10 @ $10 ticketing initiative. But hurry, these tickets are only available in advance and the sell quickly! 

A special benefit performance on Thursday, March 20! 

For Tickets and Info: Click Here