CAREER NARRATIVE

A SHORT NARRATIVE OF MY PROFESSIONAL LIFE by FRANK GAGLIANO

In his seconding letter to my being inducted into The College of Fellows of the American Theatre at the Kennedy Center in April (2014), Fellow Marshall Mason stated: “Frank Gagliano was a pioneer in the surge of Off-Broadway writers articulating a new theatre dynamic in the 1960s.” And Fellow John Cauble added: “He is an audacious writer whose work touches the human essence.”

I can’t say how much of a pioneer I was, but the 60s “surge” embraced the plays I was writing: “Absurd,” compressed, rebellious, flauntingly propulsive and explosively rhythmic language, often within sexual and 2 violent subject matter, and with a strong dose of off-the-wall humor — and with, yes, a healthier dose of audacity.

Women writers came charging in, and writers like Megan Terry, Alice Childress, Marie Irene Fornes — all of whom I knew and with whom I’d talk playwriting — showed me a new, muscular, audacious, feminist playwriting technique and subject matter that influenced my own work and, from then on, inspired me to center many of my plays on strong female characters: Marie and Adrienne (In The Voodoo Parlour of Marie Laveau); Irene (The Farewell Concert Of Irene and Vernon Palazzo); Madeleine (The Total Immersion of Madeleine Favorini); and the Madeleine from my children’s play, The Hide and Seek Odyssey of Madeleine Gimple.

The 1960s Off Broadway movement also provided me with actors, directors, designers, producers and audiences in sync with my vision and method. All my 1960s plays were produced in NYC professional venues, in which I was able to express my compassion for all Americans, during that time, freeze-framed in the horror and obscenities of the Vietnam War and punch-drunk from disintegrating urban dystopias and cultures of political corruption, as well as a general pollution of air and soul. All of that became my subject matter and contributed to my finding and exploring how our “human essence” survived in, and navigated through, all of that muck.

The first Off Broadway play that brought me some attention (Conerico Was Here To Stay, produced by Edward Albee) dealt with an amnesiac, stuck on a 3 graffiti-ravaged subway platform, trying unsuccessfully to avoid the violence around him as he journeyed to find his identity and human essence. And so was born my major subject that continues to this day: Innocence, trying to navigate through pervasive corruption.

And, from my earliest plays, “the journey” became the foundation of my technique. As one critic wrote in the 1977 “Contemporary Dramatists” (St. Martin’s Press, page 288), “The odyssey format is a prevailing technique of Gagliano’s dramatic structure. Most of his plays are literal journeys or metaphysical journeys from light to darkness.” I would add, from darkness to even more darkness (i.e., my breakthrough play, Father Uxbridge Wants to Marry— https://gaglianoriff.com/ project/father-uxbridge-wants-to-marry/).

When I left New York for Florida State U and the University of Texas and West Virginia U, exploring a greater America and new geographical landscapes, the human essence and odyssey structures continued in my straight plays, but also supported my original book musicals: The Resurrection of Jackie Cramer (sung-through Off-Broadway Rock piece, Composer Raymond Benson); Congo Square (produced in 2010 by the Pittsburgh Playwright’s Theatre Company (PPTCO), directed by Marci Woodruff, Composer, Claibe Richardson); From The Bodoni County Songbook Anthology, Composer Claibe Richardson; workshopped at NY’s Vineyard Theater, produced by Pittsburgh’s Pyramid Productions (directed by Ted Hoover), and given an amazing concert reading performance at Carnegie Stage, Melissa Martin director; my original text for the cantata for chorus and orchestra, San Ysidro” — 4 in memory of those massacred in a McDonald’s Restaurant in San Ysidro, California, 1988, Composer James Reichert)—right through to the original musical piece, (The Magical Moscow/McDonald’s Miracle Of Love) with Pittsburgh composer, James Rushin, for the Musical Theatre Artists of Pittsburgh — all employ the odyssey structure, as well as variations on the Innocent-navigatingthrough-corruption theme (currently active in my newly discovered theater piece, The Private Eye of Hiram Bodoni, and my newly revised adult fairy tale with music, The Prince Of Peasantmania, (composer, James Reichert) in which I cheekily call my hero—Prince Innocent).

I continue to be (again, from Contemporary Dramatists) “indefatigably experimental…. Art, not success, is his (Gagliano’s) objective, and he relies on no easy formulas…. Whatever world is inhabited by his characters, they are usually given to elaborate flights of language. . .like arias without music.” I took the spoken aria to its logical conclusion, in my play, In The Voodoo Parlour Of Marie Laveau, subtitled, “an unsung voodoo chamber opera,” sprinkling “Laveau” with spoken arias. “Laveau” was given its world premiere production at LA’s Ensemble Studio, directed by Larry Peters (1986). After many readings and productions, over the decades, throughout the US, “Laveau” had an excellent production at the Pittsburgh Playwrights Theater Company (2011), directed by Kim L. The journey from “elaborate flights of language” to writing lyrics for musicals was inevitable, logical and seamless, it would seem. ( https://www.gaglianoriff.net/wp-content/uploads/ 2019/08/PlaysIntro.pdf )

As WVU Benedum Professor of Playwriting (and occasional visiting professor at Carnegie Melon U), I taught my students playwriting techniques, and also encouraged in their work, instinct, spontaneity, risk taking (a balancing act).

The text analysis of great plays (from Hamlet to Waiting For Godot) helped me to devise a series of elegant techniques I culled from the common denominators of playwriting used by major playwrights of all periods: Wants and obstacles (the actor’s great need); the “why this day is different from any other day” pressure—the play’s trigger at the top of the play; Looking for The Center Of Pain in each developing character; disturbances in the universe (my term for “givens”); the Dramatic Question; my concept of pressures and pressure shifts; the Dramatic Event—which I define as, a new pressure journeying to a consequence (NP+J+C=DE).

When I responded to my own write-a-monologue-play assignment with my students in the 1980s, I wrote, My Chekhov Light, which, over the decades I have read/ performed all over the United States (most recently at The New Dramatists in New York City)—and throughout the world, including the 2012 International Chekhov Conference in Yalta, at Chekhov’s estate, where I also gave the Keynote Address ( https://gaglianoriff.com/ anton-chekhov/ )

In my stints as Artistic Director for major play development workshops (especially, CMU’s The Showcase of New Plays), I helped choose over 100 American and Canadian playwrights to develop, and learned from all of them—including from two then 6 emerging playwrights — Doug Wright and Nilo Cruz — who went on to win Pulitzer Prizes. My main influences: The Absurdists of the 1960s, Georg Buchner (Woyzeck), Shakespeare, Chekhov, Giuseppe Verdi (especially the use of cabaletta), Federico Fellini, Johnny Mercer, and currently, Wes Anderson.

Bedrock influence: George Steiner’s definition of drama (from his book, The Death Of Tragedy): “Drama is language under such high pressure of feeling that the words carry a necessary and immediate connotation of gesture.” From that, all else follows. At least it has been following me throughout my career. . . .

And I continue to create. Current work in progress: “The Endgame Procession”— [A Theatre Piece Memoir Collage In Ten Clearings]