At the PWC this week: Kate Tarker

Core Writer Kate Tarker is at the Playwrights’ Center this week, workshopping her new play Open with director Hayley Finn and actors Tony Sarnicki, Adelin Phelps, Ashley Rose Montondo, and Michael Wieser. Learn a bit about Kate in this mini-interview:

If I weren’t a playwright …

…I’d work at the front desk of a halfway decent motel that serves halfway terrible breakfast, near a National Park in one of the western states. Maybe this would be in Moab, Utah; I’ve been there once and I loved it. I would spend all of my time in the National Park. I guess that might eventually lead to me getting fired from the motel. If that were the case, I would hide in the park until I transformed into a rock in the desert for a thousand years. Every night I would sense the presence of the stars and contemplate god, dinosaurs, and time. Eventually I would probably get bored and write plays for my fellow rocks.

What’s something about you that may surprise people?

I’ve lived in Germany, Oregon, Michigan, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, The Republic of Congo, and Minnesota.

I don’t know how to drive a car.

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

The best thing you can do for your playwriting, or any venture, is take care of yourself on the regular. Honor your needs, take your inner child by the hand, don’t treat her wounds with liquor or cookies or unlimited internet access. You have a fragile soul. Give it love.