Meet Sydney Green

We were lucky to catch up with Sydney Green recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Sydney, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?

Immediately, I think of my characters. Often when I get an idea or an urge to write, the people that inhabit the world come quite quickly to me, and they stay with me throughout my writing process. I hear them, so to speak. As a result, I write because I know what they want to say and it has to get out of me somehow. I write a lot about untold stories and hidden histories, and perhaps part of why that feels so very pressing to me lies in that I deal with voices waiting to be heard every day.
As for re-writes and getting these words and characters up on their feet, or to a degree dramaturgy as well, it is still about the people. Now those people are physically in the room with me and corporeal, and I often have a real, temporal duty to get it done for them–as well as the audiences that come after them. My work ethic comes from my empathy with and my dedication to others. Writing for myself, even writing for the characters that materialize, is paltry in comparison in writing for real bodies, actor, audience, and beyond, that make the imaginary tangible.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I am a playwright based in New York City. I consider myself a queer Jewish artist, whose work centers absurdist stories that protest the makeups of our lives and forefront the pains we attempt to bury under the surface. I have been writing in some capacity since I was given a star-speckled poetry book to write in when in fourth grade, and I have not stopped since. Today, I deal mostly in theatrical worlds that center lesbianism, unexpected connection, and our struggles for empathy in a loud and lonely world. I write in heightened language for heightened worlds. Sometimes this manifests as Joan Crawford overseeing a poker game for five would-be-somebodies in Hell so they can maybe be absolved of their sins (my most performed play: The Gospel of Joan (Crawford)) and sometimes it manifests as a journey through the English countryside between a resurrected King with no heirs and a trans son with no father (my most recent play: Deep-Cutting Henry VI). Always, plays about the people for me. In questioning if we deserve second chances, who defines our gender, who defines ouselves, I am asking myself, my actors, and my audience to consider the implications for us all of not asking. Because theater introduces us to who we can be, even if also shines an ugly light on who we are.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

I can say I’m wrong. You might be reading this and thinking that, yes, everyone is wrong a lot of the time. But, there’s this notion in American theatre that what the playwright says goes, whether it works or not for the play at hand. I learned this one while assisting Sarah Ruhl on a reading of Becky Nurse of Salem, and having to build up the courage to tell her she had repeated the number of something differently 3 separate times in the play. She took it in stride and fixed it, and I went: damn, I want to be like her. Look. I’m not perfect. Sometimes I do not like hearing the mistakes I made, but I always listen. Because I am not a god. Yes, I created this world. But. until that script is locked, tell me what doesn’t work! As theatermakers, we have to want–beyond our own purposes, for it work and make sense; otherwise, nothing comes across. So, if you walk into a room, prepare to be wrong. The amazing thing about theatre is it is a constant process of collaboration and re-creation. Yet, that only happens if you let it.

I love being wrong but honestly I also love knowing things. At my core, I’m truly a researcher. I love rabbit-holes and weird facts, and I’m quite obsessed with the how and why of nearly everything we do–from how generational trauma alters our DNA to how we learn to accept our identity to why we love. For me, everything has a story. When I write about lesbian Addams families at the brink of nuclear destruction, I know to look at Cold War-lesbian relationships, 1950s product placements and monster aesthetics in contemporary media. If I’m writing about a sapphic Jewish witch in the woods, I know to look up how witches are connected to Jewish stereotypes and when these notions emerged. If you want a fully formed world for your writing, read, read, read. It is okay not to know everything, ask those questions–in fact, never stop questioning–but also dig deep on the internet, in books, and beyond for even a hint of what you’re looking for. Information is a spring-board, not a creativity-killer.

Related to this but a bit more personal: Find something you love outside of the theater, and make it yours. When I was an undergraduate student at New York University, I fell in love with archaeology. I had always loved history, but–as I learned about how much what we leave behind can teach us, and as I even got into the dirt myself on some excavations–I found something very human in the bodies and objects we and time bury. That human sense has never left me, even as I transitioned back into the theatrical world. Thus, when I write, I picture myself digging up our bones. They are not pretty or pearly white. But, they are ceaselessly human, and at the end of the day that is the peak of theatre: to find out the truth even in the most absurd stories.

Before we go, any advice you can share with people who are feeling overwhelmed?

I go outside. I get fresh and sunlight. Usually, I sit by the water. As playwrights, we’re so often cooped up inside with our laptops and a cup of water that’s been empty for hours. Not only is this stagnant (and thirsty), but it’s one of the worst places to get inspiration from. Plays need people, and playwrights need to be amongst the people.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://sydneygreenplaywright.com
• Instagram: Sydney558
• Twitter: SydneyRoseLee
• Other: National New Play Exchange: https://newplayexchange.org/users/60664/sydney-green

Image Credits

Headshot by Rexx Lott Photography
Photos 1-3 Katie Woo
Photos 4-5 by Mariana Baranova-Suzuki
Photos 6-7 provided by the O’Neill’s National Theater Institute