#80 - Stephen Adly Guirgis: Sometimes You Don’t Find a Way Through

“I’m aspiring, even at 57 now, to try to be more free.” What’s in
this episode? What is a multi-hyphenate to Mr. Guirgis? How writing
made him respect other writer’s writing. Why do people think
multi-hyphenates aren’t a thing? Scene work with Daphne Rubin-Vega
“I can’t believe in myself 100%, but if I believe in myself 51% –
it’s enough to keep going.” Work that isn’t as dangerous as it used
to be.  Being okay with being hurt. Loving acting, but not
loving writing. LAByrinth Theatre Company  Stephen Adly
Guirgis is a Pulitzer Prize Winning American playwright,
screenwriter, director, and actor. He is a member and a former
co-artistic director of New York City's LAByrinth Theater Company.
His plays have been produced both Off-Broadway and on Broadway as
well as in the UK. His play Between Riverside and Crazy won the
2015 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and is currently on Broadway, playing
at the Helen Hayes Theatre through February 12th. Guirgis was most
recently in the film Funny Pages and you can now purchase Guirgis’
newest play Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven, published by TCG
Books. Stephen Adly Guirgis brings his prodigious gifts for
exploring the lives of social outcasts to new heights in this play
about the inner workings of a women’s halfway house in New York
City, where the unmoored residents struggle with addiction, abuse,
and mental illness. Between daily therapy sessions, they clash with
the staff and each other, form alliances, and fall in love.
Harrowing, humorous, and heartbreaking, Halfway Bitches Go Straight
to Heaven roaringly brings to life the experiences of women who
society has tried to shuffle out of sight and out of mind. Learn
more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices