Hey y’all! Who is getting excited for the Seabury Quinn Playfest this April!!! Next in our interview series is the Third Year playwright, Jeffrey Chastang! Jeff has become well known in the playwriting program for his soulful madnesses, his love for desser and of course his fascinating and intriguing character relationships in his plays! 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 as a mainstage production, DAUPHIN ISLAND.
In Dauphin Island, both lead characters seem to be loners/outsiders, are you usually drawn to writing characters that are outside the norm?
Yes I am. I feel the same way myself sometimes. LOL.
If your play had to have a soundtrack, what are some of the songs you think would be on it and why?
Reach Out, I’ll Be There (Four Tops), Under The Moon And Over The Sky (Angela Bofill), A Natural Woman (Aretha Franklin), A Fork In The Road (Smokey Robinson & the Miracles), Off Shore (Ray Bryant), City, Country, City (WAR). These are songs with a lot of depth and feeling with the themes of loss, desperation and discovery. Also, they’re songs Selwyn, Kendra and I grew up with.
Who are some of the playwrights who have influenced your writing?
Definitely August Wilson, Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee Williams, Alice Childress and Edward Albee.
What is a fun fact most people don’t know about you?
I’m a film noir and detective movie fanatic! The Thin Man (1934), The Maltese Falcon (1941), Out Of The Past (1947), Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970) and Shaft (1971) are some of my favorite flicks. Never ask me about music and movies, I won’t shut up! LOL.
You’ve read about and now fallen in love with JEFF and want to be him! Now Come check out the production for his play DAUPHIN ISLAND at the 21st Annual Seabury Quinn PlayFest: Forum Theater, April 15th, 23rd & 24th at 8:00pm. April 18th at 2:00pm
Here is the blurb for it:
Suspicion and fascination dovetail when en route from Detroit to a new job on Dauphin Island Selwyn Tate interrupts the self-imposed isolation of Kendra in the Alabama piney woods. DAUPHIN ISLAND dramatizes the risks involved when two displaced souls intertwine.
More about Jeff
Michigan-born Jeffry Chastang was the recipient of the Kennedy Center Roger L. Stevens Award for his first play FULL CIRCLE, which was produced by Detroit’s Plowshares Theater Company. Plowshares also produced his second play …CONTINUED WARM, which was named Best New Play by the Oakland Press. He was commissioned by the Alabama Shakespeare Festival (ASF) to write BLOOD DIVIDED, a play marking the sesquicentennial of the Civil War in Montgomery, Alabama. BLOOD DIVIDED also received an Edgerton Foundation New Plays Award. Jeffry’s play PREPARATIONS was developed in ASF’s Southern Writers Project. As an actor his professional credits include FENCES, THE OLD SETTLER and A SOLDIER’S PLAY.
