Interview with the Associate Producers


Ted Sod, Roundabout’s Education Dramaturg, sat down with Roundabout Underground associate producers Jill Rafson and Josh Fiedler to discuss the play and their work with the Underground.


Ted Sod: How do you define Roundabout Underground? Josh Fiedler: I would describe Roundabout Underground as a place to debut works from artists who haven’t been produced in New York. Jill Rafson: It’s a place where we can take risks and help launch the next generation of artists, particularly in terms of the playwrights and directors. It’s also meant to be the start of an artistic relationship between Roundabout and those writers. In addition to doing that first play, we commission them to write another work and will hopefully continue that relationship for a long time.


TS: Can you talk about your process in finding scripts, reading scripts and choosing scripts? JF: Most of the scripts come from agents we work with. It’s a very rare event that we are sent an unsolicited script that we read and fall in love with. Our second play, The Language of Trees, was written by Steven Levenson, who was an actor in a reading of Speech and Debate. He said to Robyn, “Would you mind reading a play that I wrote, too?” We all read it and loved it and then we helped him get an agent. But that’s a rare event. When you read so many plays, about ten-twenty pages in, you usually have a good idea if you’re responding to the piece or not. And the ones that we’ve chosen for the Underground are the ones that you just don’t want to stop reading. JR: We tend to go for plays of ambition. We’re looking for a voice and somebody who isn’t just going to write one good play, but someone we think has a lot of potential in them. Todd [Haimes, Artistic Director] always says, “It’s a space where we can aim high” because we can take the risk there. One of the times that we brought a play to Todd and he ended up not wanting us to move ahead, the play was a really strong comedy. Todd basically said, “It’s a funny play, but I want to do shows there where we’re not just going to succeed or fail based on how funny they think it is. I want us to be aiming for something a little bit bigger than that.” And so that’s something we really took to heart, and I think that the plays we’ve chosen have reflected that.


TS: Let’s talk about Suicide, Incorporated. Can you relive your response to the play when you read it? JF: I think I received Suicide, Incorporated right around the time when there was a series of suicides of young people in the news like Tyler Clementi. It was in the birth of that whole “It Gets Better”


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movement and I thought “this play obviously must be about suicide. I feel icky even reading it.” I sat down and I read it and ten pages in, I was still feeling icky. But then as I kept reading, the play turned into something I completely didn’t expect it to. It was hopeful, it was heartfelt and it dealt with the subject matter very delicately. JR: When I was reading Suicide, Incorporated, I didn’t quite know what to do with it. I put it aside for a while because it was sort of scary. But I read it a second time, around the time when Robyn and Josh read it, and I realized that it wasn’t cavalier at all. It starts in this high concept place, in this borderline absurd place with a company that helps you write suicide notes, which is kind of a crazy idea. But the journey it takes you on is so carefully navigated that you get from this place of borderline absurdity to a place of real honesty and as Josh said “hope”. That’s surprising and I think it’s what makes the play so special. JF: And we’re rarely surprised. Honestly. It’s rare that a play genuinely takes a turn in a positive way that you didn’t expect. And that’s what I love most about this play.


TS: What do you think Suicide, Incorporated is about? JR: I think it’s about asking for help. Andrew talks about questions of masculinity a lot. I know that’s a big theme for him and it does run through all of his work. I think Suicide, Incorporated really


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