Austin Script Works' Time Steps: Max Langert [interview]

Time Steps: 11th Annual 10-minute Play Showcase
March 26-28 /Apri 2-4 / Th-Sa @8pm
Blue Theatre (916 Springdale Ave)
$10-12 / 454-9729 or info-at-scriptworks.org
[info]

This is the third in a series of eight mini-interviews with the winners of Austin Script Work's annual Out of Ink showcase, for which participating playwrights took no more than 48 hours to pen a 10-minute play and were required to use the following "ingredients": The play must go backward, from beginning to end; Include a sudden dance break that causes a shift in the action; Include three things your mother told you not to do. Max Langert, a delightful, talented fellow whom we've worked with in the past, had the following to say.

Give us brief intro to you—an idea of who you are and what you're about.

The next thing I have going is a production with Loaded Gun Theory. They're planning to produce a comedy of mine called Teacher, Teacher at the Off Center in June. I've done a few pieces at FronteraFest in years past but Loaded Gun Theory is the first local theatre company I will have collaborated with. They're cool.

I'm excited about the upcoming productions of course, but I'm also excited about a piece I'm in the middle of writing which is an extended monologue by a woman who correlates the success or failure of her relationships to the peak chart positions of love songs from the 80s. I started writing plays in college when a musician friend of mine said he wanted to write a musical but needed help with the words. After that I was hooked.

Lastly, here's a miscellaneous tidbit: When I was in college I got a very tiny part in a period-piece drama playing a prison guard. I was so nervous before going on stage that my nose started to bleed profusely. I'm still trying to get over that.

Give the title and a very short synopsis of your play. Is this something you had in mind before the Fling, or is this a new idea that was inspired by the ingredients?

The Importance of Respecting Your Mother is about a guy who cancels a regular card game with his mom in order to go on a date with the woman of his dreams, and suffers the brutal consequences of his betrayal. This is an idea I came up with after getting the ingredients, though I suppose there's a hint of autobiography in it.

Which of the three ingredients was the biggest challenge?

The going-backwards ingredient was the biggest challenge. In fact, I focused on it so much that I forgot about the dancing ingredient until I'd finished writing the whole thing. Then I had to rewrite it at the last minute with the dancing bit.

Did you write the play forwards and then reverse the scenes, or did it come to you in backwards order?

I came up with the rough outline of what would happen going forward first, then began writing the actual lines in backwards order. But had to keep checking every once in a while to make sure it still made sense in reverse. Sort of like when you're trying to say the alphabet backwards but need to keep double-checking that you're doing it right by saying it forwards.

Time Steps runs two weekends only, Thu-Sat at 8pm at the Blue Theater. Our last player today: Tim Thomas.

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