Austin Script Works' Time Steps: Katherine Catmull [interview]

Enjoy some java, a bagel, and the fifth installment of our 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. The lovely, lauded, and multi-talented Katherine Catmull gets us started today.

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

Most recently I did a short piece I wrote for FronteraFest 2009 called Wool & Water—it was the beginning of some bits I'm writing for a collaborative Alice piece that Shannon Grounds is getting together. Before that, the last time I'd been on stage was October 2007 when I did Happy Days with Capital T Theatre--this fall, I won the B. Iden Payne award for lead actress in a comedy for that show. That's the longest I've ever gone without being on stage in 25 years. I am rehearsing a tiny hilarious play about food for the UT New Works festival now.

I am also working on some writing projects of my own these days. Writing is insanely hard for me, but rewarding in a really specific way. Performing my own stuff is more fun than I can say.

I work most with Hyde Park Theatre, of course, and also with Refraction Arts Project.

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?

My play for Out of Ink this year is called Harrowing. It's a guy being debriefed after he harrows Hell. I find that whatever's on my mind around Weekend Fling time tends to work its way into the play I write that year—like whatever's in the fridge gets tossed into the soup. And I was in fact thinking about the Harrowing of Hell then, but I cannot for the life of me remember why. I think I'd been thinking about Dante's Inferno, which talks about the Harrowing at one point.