The Seven: New Works Festival 2011
 

Lyn Kidder
"Playing with Fire"
Ruidoso, NM

An Interview with the Playwright

How did you hear about “The Seven”?

I heard about The Seven from my good friend, Paul Adamian, terrific director and acting coach. We were working on a show together when I wrote my first ten-minute plays and he encouraged me to send them off.

What was the impetus/basis/inspiration for writing the piece?

My inspiration is part of an almost ludicrous obsession with Los Alamos. I have the same problem with the Civil War.

Is this play representational of your writing style? Is it similar to or different from your other plays?

Since most of my writing is not playwriting, I'm not sure what my style is, although I've noticed that I tend to like and to create quiet little stories in which nothing much seems to be happening, although there is a lot going on under the surface. No car chases, or explosions. Sorry.

What is the role of the short work in your playwriting career?

When I wrote my first book, the whole idea seemed impossible, so I told myself, "A book is just a series of chapters, and a chapter is like a magazine article. You've written magazine articles, so just write ten or twelve more and string them together and it will be a book." I feel like these ten-minute plays may work the same way--they are really scenes, in a way, so if I can write enough of them I should end up with a whole play. Right?  

What is your favorite play? Who is your favorite playwright?

There aren't too many plays that I don't like, if they are sincerely acted. I may kvetch a little about the costumes, or the pace, or how I wished I could have seen more of one character or another, but I'm always happy to sit in the dark and be carried away. My favorite plays are generally the ones I've recently seen--August: Osage County, The 39 Steps, Twelfth Night.


Lyn Kidder
Lyn Kidder (Playing with Fire) has lived in New Mexico since 1997. She and her husband photographer Frederic Moras have collaborated on magazine articles for New Mexico Magazine and other publications. She has wriiten three books: "Barrow, Alaska From A to Z," "Tacos on the Tundra" (both written while living in Alaska) and "Ruidoso and Ruidoso Downs," a photo history published by Arcadia Publishing. She was in the film Billy Shakespeare, written and directed by Deborah Voorhees shot in Ruidoso last year.

"I've always done theater in some form or another," she said. "I spent ten years working with a touring puppet theater. We wrote our scripts, which was good training for trying out material and seeing what worked, and throwing out what didn't.

"I got into writing ten-minute plays just because someone asked me to write one. It was December, so I must have had Christmas on the brain, because I wrote three of them fairly quickly. They were produced last year as part of Lincoln County Community Theater's 'Christmas Shorts.'"

"Playing With Fire came from a fascination with Los Alamos that began after moving to the state.

"There are so many dimensions to the story of Los Alamos," she said. "From my experience of living in isolated communities in Alaska, I felt that I could empathize with the people there, but of course there are so many unique elements--the secrecy, the danger, the urgency.

"I'm hoping to create a full-length play in which the ten-minute Playing With Fire will be one scene."