An interview with Ken Weitzman

PlayLabs 2015 continues with a reading of Halftime With Don by Ken Weitzman on Tuesday, October 13 at 7 p.m. The second reading of Halftime With Don is Saturday, October 17 at 1 p.m. Reserve your seats here. We talked with Ken about the play and what keeps him writing.

Tell us about Halftime With Don.

This play started brewing a decade ago, the moment I read about the discovery of CTE, the progressive, degenerative disease of the brain they’ve been finding in deceased football players. I started to research and track a great many former (and current) NFL players decimated, body and mind, at startlingly young ages. I read extensively, I met with Bennet Omalu, the man who diagnosed CTE, I interviewed former players. One former player I had coffee with told me he sleeps in his recliner chair every night because he can’t physically get in and out of his bed. That became the image I started with and from there the character of Don came to life. By inhabiting him, a man of God-like strength who now struggles to get through the day, a storm of emotions kicked up inside me: from shock, to horror, to great admiration, to love. It’s my hope audiences are able to feel all these things and more with their own experience of this character and the play as a whole. Oh, and by there way, there’s a great deal of humor in the play. It’s funny. Truly. I promise.

What’s something about playwriting that you had to learn the hard way?

All of it, each time, over and over again. The oft-repeated Moss Hart quote right? You never really learn how to write a play; you only learn how to write this play. Does anyone learn the easy way?

What play do you wish you would have written, and why?

Two come immediately to mind. First, Who’s Afraid Virginia Woolf?. A relationship death match combined with utterly brutal humor. Very much what I’m drawn to and often try to write. The second is really a scene more than a play. It’s from a Victor Lodato play called The Bread of Winter. A woman is on a date that looks like it might go well until the man she’s with asks for her bra. When she gives it to him he stuffs the entire thing in his mouth, and garbles “kiss me” over and again. I saw a reading at the O’Neill in which the great Kevin Geer actually did it. It was riveting, horrifying, and bizarrely funny (though I think I was the only one laughing). Wow.

When did you know you wanted to be a playwright?

I still don’t. I just seem to keep writing them. Truth is, I think about quitting every damn day. I think, “After this next one I’ll put myself out of my misery.” But there’s always a next one. Always one more I have to, want to, need to write.

 

About Halftime With Don:
Retired NFL player Don Devers has had over 30 surgeries, experiences violent outbursts, and relies on a blizzard of yellow Post-It notes to offset his ravaged memory. When a longtime fan appears at his doorstep, Don seeks to salvage his life with a single act of heroic self-sacrifice. Reserve tickets »

About Ken Weitzman:
Ken Weitzman’s plays include The Catch (Denver Center), Fire in the Garden (Indiana Repertory Theatre), The As If Body Loop (Humana Festival), Arrangements (Atlantic Theater Company, Pavement Group) and Spin Moves (Summer Play Festival). Devised work includes Memorabilia (Alliance Theatre), and Hominid and Stadium 360 (Out Of Hand Theater). Awards: Weissberger Award, TCG/Edgerton New Play Award, Fratti/Newman Political Play Award, Elizabeth George Commission for an Outstanding Emerging Playwright. Commissions: Arena Stage, the Alliance Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, South Coast Repertory. Weitzman received his M.F.A. from UCSD and has taught at Indiana University, UCSD, Emory and Stony Brook University.