Hey y’all! Who is getting excited for the Seabury Quinn Playfest this April!!! Next in our interview series is the Second Year playwright “heartthrob,” Aaron Johnson! Aaron has become well known in the playwriting program for his madnesses ripe with spectacle, his beautiful and funny father son/daughter relationships in his work and of course his friendly Wisconsin background! Read my full interview with him below and learn more about him and his awesome new play that will be featured in the Seabury Quinn, RANDOM HOUSE.
As an OU playwright, you are gaining a reputation for loving spectacle. What do you think interests you about them and are there any spectacles in your Festival play, Random House?
Because spectacle is fun and it gets an immediate visceral reaction from an audience. Not only that, it can also set up the atmosphere of a play. My play, The Random House, is set in the home of a hoarder. At the very beginning of the show, the audience gets to see a house overrun with piles and piles of junk. This immediately sets up the atmosphere and also the expectations of what an audience is going to see.
If your play, RANDOM HOUSE, was a magazine, which would it be and why?
Better Housekeeping. Because the hoarders in the house need better houskeeping skills obviously. I guess a better magazine to describe it right now would be Worse Houskeeping.
If you could have ice cream with one famous person, who would it be and why?
Well, depends on the kind of ice cream. If we’re going Vanilla I’d make things a little more basic and formal and say Queen Elizabeth. If it’s something more crazy like Red Velvet Chocolate Cake then I’d go Lady Gaga. Ideally, the perfect combo would be Neapolitan with Alan Alda.
What is a fun fact most people don’t know about you?
I can actually clap with one hand. Not kidding. Ask me sometime. I can show you.
You’ve read about and now fallen in love with AARON! Now Come check out the reading for his play RANDOM HOUSE at the 21st Annual Seabury Quinn PlayFest: Friday April 24th at 2pm in Baker Theater!
Here is the blurb for it:
After her grandparents’ untimely deaths, Rory, and her mother Rose, must settle their estate. To make matters worse, her grandparents were hoarders and there’s piles and piles of junk to sift through. As Rory goes through the remains of her grandparents’ cluttered lives, searching for meaning in her own, her estranged uncle Ryder comes into town also searching for something. Something that Rory and Rose might not be willing to give.
More about Aaron
Aaron Johnson hails from the land of cheese in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. He received his Bachelor of the Arts degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he majored in English with an Emphasis in Creative Writing and in Theatre and Drama. While not officially specializing in playwriting in his undergrad, Aaron took the only playwriting course offered twice and completed his creative writing thesis as a play instead of fiction or poetry writing which the school usually requires. During his time at UW-Madison, Aaron completed three full length plays, multiple One-Acts, and numerous short plays which were all workshopped and some eventually produced at the university in staged readings. In his Theatre and Drama major he specialized in props and was props master for a number of university shows including Ti-Jean and his Brothers and Eurydice. Working his summers during college as a technical writer, Aaron decided to take a year off from school and work full time but the call of academia was too much for him to resist though as he is currently pursuing his MFA in Playwriting from Ohio University. Aaron’s writing tends to take the complex and unnoticed topics of today’s culture and bring them to light by using them to create dramatic conflict and then ultimate understanding. Using these undiscovered topics and coupling them with a realistic style will grow people’s curiosity and actively induce them to gain knowledge about today’s world. Aaron fells immensely privileged and grateful to be working towards his MFA in Playwriting at OU with such great and inspiring mentors, colleagues, and friends.
OHIO 