6 Questions: Love’s Refrain: A Confession by Justin Sayre

Justin Sayre brings the world premiere of his solo play, Love’s Refrain: A Confession by Justin Sayre to The Club @ La MaMa next week, April 01 - April 10, 2016.  Justin took time out from rehearsals to answer our 6 Questions.  Tickets are selling quickly, so buy in advance!

1. What was the inspiration behind Love's Refrain?

I was riding in an Uber in LA and heard a story on NPR about the dimming of space, how someday in the distant future, space at least from our vantage point, will be dark.  There is a limited amount of hydrogen in the universe and when it burns up, so too will the stars burn out. It was heartbreaking to hear, and my thoughts immediately turned to love. The connections between the two sprung into my mind in brilliant details, and I just started writing. It's a piece grappling with my understanding of love and romanticism in the modern world. I don't know that it offers any answers, I wouldn't be so presumptuous to try, but I think it does come to resolution. 

2. How is this show different from your previous work?

Well I would like to think it all comes out the same sense of truth, but unlike The Meeting* and some of my other works for the theatre, this is all about my life. It's a piece I never thought I would write. I've always strayed away from writing memoir theatre, using the details of my personal life to make a broader point. I do certainly personal stories in The Meeting*, but this piece goes for the gusto. It puts it all out there in ways, that even I find shocking. It's also why I'm shaving my head for the show. I wanted it to be a lesson in vulnerability. I needed it to be all laid out, bare, exposed. It's a departure for sure, but I also think it's a natural progression for my work.  

3. What (if anything) should audiences know going in?

I think they should prepare for intimacy. We're do the show in the round, very little set, no props. Just me in a dress, and gorgeous lighting. I think it's bare bones theatre at its most ancient in some ways. A storyteller creating space. I'd like to think that they will laugh, be moved, learn something, but not come to a definitive answer. I don't think when we're talking about love there are any definitive answers. 

4. Who has inspired you?

That's a very long list. The great North Star of art for me has always been Eva Le Gallienne. But there are so many others, from Charles Ludlam to Ethyl Eichelberger to Jackie Curtis, and Tennessee Williams and James Baldwin and Toni Morrison. Those are certainly my great heroes. In my life, I'm inspired by my contemporaries and friends like Justin Vivian Bond, Dane Terry and Erin Markey. I'm encouraged by all that they are and do. I feel very lucky to be part of a New York scene that includes the work of these marvelous artists. 

5. What is the last good book you read?

Well I'm always reading a few things, so as of late, I just finished War and Peace, which makes me love Tolstoy with every single syllable. But I also read Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, which was a symphony. Currently I'm reading Visions and Revisions by Dale Peck, which is masterful; What Belongs To You by Garth Greenwell, which is dripping with gorgeousness, and A Murder Over A Girl by Ken Corbett about the Lawrence King trial, which is just an important book. 

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

For me working at LaMaMa is a dream. Being a part of a community of artists that reaches back to the likes Jackie Curtis to Jerzy Grotowski but continues to seek out the new and the inventive is truly an inspiration. I wear like a badge of honor. To be at LaMaMa feels like coming home.  

La MaMa presents

Love’s Refrain: 

A Confession by Justin Sayre

written and performed by Justin Sayre

directed by Matthu Placek

April 1 - 10, 2016
Fridays & Saturdays at 10pm; Sundays at 6pm

The Club at La MaMa
74A East 4th Street
(between Bowery & Second Avenue)
New York, NY 1003

Tickets: $18 Adults/$13 Students & Seniors

For Tickets and Info: CLICK HERE