Carol K. Mack

Playwright/Writer
New York, New York USA

Where do you look for inspiration?
I’m often inspired by overheard conversations on buses or on line at the supermarket. Cell phones can work well for playwrights as the other end of the conversation remains completely open to imagination. Sometimes, mid-work, a word or gesture by a stranger can point to the solution of a ‘moment’ or a problem in a play in progress. My other major source of inspiration is myth and folktale.

What play or production changed your life?
The play that changed my life was Peter Pan when Uta Hagen sent me off to audition for Wendy and I finally realized I would never get to play Lady Macbeth or Blanche Dubois or any of the characters I longed to “be” so I began to write the powerful and interesting protagonists I could inhabit in my imagination. I have always used Uta Hagen’s great acting techniques in writing and in teaching writing.

The production that changed my life was the incredibly moving way that my play Without A Trace (about a blind pianist) was produced in Scotland by Sounds of Progress, a group of very talented disabled musicians and actors with a mix of other actors and directed by the amazing Gerda Stevenson. This production illuminated the experience I think is unique to theatre, that of an entire audience being transported from their world beyond the fourth wall to the world of the play. When an entire audience is moved deeply, sometimes to tears, that moment becomes a kind of communion unlike any other experience! For a playwright the imagined “world” begins as text, and what a gift it is when realized by the talents of actors, designers, and director. In this play the musicians and actors were “seen” as the extraordinary artists they are and not “seen as” disabled. After 9/11 and because of the “Scottish play” in 2002 I realized that a play could change and/or powerfully inform the beliefs of audiences and lives of a company. This pointed the way for me to work for social change via playwriting.

What is your best escape? Walking, especially through Central Park.

Carol K. Mack‘s one act plays published in Best Short American Plays editions 1984-85, 1990, 1993-94, 2005-06 Applause Books; other plays published by Heinemann Press, Samuel French, DPS, Smith Kraus. Books published by Arcade, Holt, Skyhorse, Profile Books; plays staged at E.S.T., Berkshire Theatre Festival, A.R.T., Humana Festival, Women’s Project. www.carolkmack.com

Georganne Aldrich Heller

President of Irish Theatre & Film Production
New York, New York USA

In November will be celebrating her twenty years in producing new Irish Drama in New York and Los Angeles honored by The Consul General of Ireland at a special celebration party at The Odyssey theater Los Angeles. She has worked exclusively all these years on introducing new Irish plays and playwrights to the USA. As producer, Georganne is opening three Irish shows this month: two in Los Angeles: FORGOTTEN by Pat Kinevane, WHO’S YOUR DADDY? by Johnny O’ Callaghan; and one in Dublin: the award-winning THE PROPHET OF MONTO by JP Murphy which premiered in New York City at the 1st Irish Theater Festival at The Flea Theater, transferred to Dublin with original cast and director. She hopes to bring this to London next year.

Where do you look for inspiration? Observing people and meeting people when I travel.

What’s your favorite…
Book: At the moment- Alice Munro short stories
Movie: Casablanca
Line from a play: “I didn’t go to the moon, I went much further—for time is the longest distance between two places” Tennessee Williams/ The Glass Menagerie
Favorite guilty pleasure: A day of room service in a luxurious hotel
Cocktail: Cranberry juice with soda water!!!

What play or production changed your life? Ladies & Gents, an Irish play which I produced in the public toilets in Central Park! We had five hundred people on the waiting list when we closed!
Is there anything you still dream of doing? This all the time…
I feel most like myself when I ….am extremely busy!
What is your best escape? A day of room service in a luxury hotel!
What’s the one thing nobody knows about you? Well it’s a secret!

Georganne Aldrich Heller is the president of Irish Theatre & Film Production.  Most recently, her credits include the world premiere of The Prophet of Monto by John Paul Murphy for the 1^st Irish Festival at The Flea Theater and My Old Friends by Norman Sachs and Mel Mandel at The Victory Theatre, Los Angeles.

Romy Nordlinger

Actor / Playwright / Theatre Teaching Artist
New York, New York USA

I look for inspiration in people who dare to be honest about who they are and live on their own terms. I am always inspired by kindness and empathy, particularly on an overcrowded subway!  I will forever be inspired by the kids I teach theatre with in special education who amaze me with their creativity and love and lack of self- consciousness.  Though some of their bodies are bound to wheelchairs, their spirits are boundless.  It sounds corny but I am so jazzed by smiling and by receiving a smile – the kind that comes from the inside.

My favorite plays are The Zoo Story and this line “WITH GOD WHO IS A COLORED QUEEN WHO WEARS A KIMONO AND PLUCKS HIS EYEBROWS, WHO IS A WOMAN WHO CRIES WITH DETERMINATION BEHIND HER CLOSED DOOR…” And T. Williams’ Orpheus Descending – “What else can you do on this earth but catch at whatever comes near you with both your hands until your fingers are broken.”

My favorite authors are Dostoyevsky, Zola, Orwell and so many others it’d be too many to list – and choose from. If I had more time I’d read and read!  I’m pretty obsessed with the New York Times. The first place I’d go to if I had a chance is Egypt or the duck pond on 112^th in Central Park. I love the Sex Pistols, Joni Mitchell, David Bowie, Woody Allen, Virginia Woolf, Mozart, Camus, Shakespeare, calamari, and my husband Adam Burns (but perhaps not in that order). I’m not so crazy about math or sardines. I love people who are passionate and aren’t afraid to say they are. I am most frustrated by people who don’t appreciate enough – though I can’t say I always appreciate enough.

I love red, I love to dance (though I can’t take choreography and my college fencing teacher said I have no eye/hand coordination) and I feel most myself when I’m acting, writing or teaching. I feel most myself when I’m sharing an emotion, be it happy or sad, as long as it’s alive.

Romy Nordlinger Theatre/film: Resonance Ensemble Member, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Kirk Theatre, NY Fringe Festival, Primary Stages, Circle Repertory, Fleetwood Stage, Wilma Theatre. Law & Order CI, One Life To Live, All My Children. Playwright : Lipshtick @ NY Fringe, Sex & Sealing Wax @ Midtown Festival, Feeling Part @Theatre For the New City, Broadville @ The Source. www.romynordlinger.com/