Austin Script Works' Time Steps: Meg Haley [interview]

We continue our series of mini-interviews with the eight 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. Here's how Meg Haley, author of our favorite entry this year, answered.

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

The Out of Ink festival is effectively my current project. I'm always writing, and have been since I was 18, though never as much as I would like. I also don't work consistently with any local companies (unless you count ASW... though I'm certainly open to the notion!). I'll be working loosely with Grrl Action at The Off Center where they will be looking at a sort of docu-drama I wrote about eating disorders in this country. I'm thrilled to work with these women! I am passionate about theatre that challenges, in the broadest sense of the word; children's theatre, the audience's definition of theatre, the status quo, etc. My plays are often short with punchy realistic dialogue inside a distictly theatrical world, and are socially conscious in one way or another. Come out to the festival for a taste!

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 theme of Where the Sidewalk Ends, Don't Ask Don't Tell, has been rolling around in my head for a while. These particular characters in this particular situation however, just popped out onto the page.

Which of the three ingredients was the biggest challenge?

Working in the mother's rules kept escaping me...but I hope it plays out okay!

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

I love writing endings so I wrote the last line first. Of course that made finishing it (or writing the last line of the first scene) extremely painful.

Time Steps runs two weekends only, Thu-Sat at 8pm at the Blue Theater. Next up: Max Langert.