At the PWC this week: Cristina Castro

Many Voices Fellow Cristina Castro is workshopping her play How the Colds Were Razed (As Told by Gorilla Girl) at the Playwrights’ Center this week with director Jennie Ward, dramaturg Christina Ham, and actors Jon-Michael Reese, Megan Burns, Christian Bardin, Chris Carlson, and Kimberly Richardson. The workshop will conclude with a free public reading on Wednesday, January 27 at 12:30 p.m. Learn a bit about Cristina in this mini-interview.

You’ve been involved in several workshops as an actor and a Playwrights’ Center intern. How are those experiences informing your own workshop?

If there is anything I have learned that I will carry with me: It is OKAY to have NO CLUE about what’s going on in those pages I wrote. There’s a table full of talented, insightful, and experienced artists who will happen to those pages. They’ll dazzle and challenge me in the best ways and I’ll realize what story is there and how best to tell it. The Playwrights’ Center has taught me (with all the hats they’ve let me play in) that the support of your fellow artists is vital to honest and engaging storytelling.

You’re an actor as well as a playwright; what does having this year to focus on writing mean to you?

It may be strange to say, but I am comfortable with Acting. We have a history and a working relationship. I dig it. Playwriting, on the other hand, makes me feel giddy, deeply confused, fearless, lost, beautiful, and nauseous.

So this year I am going to be somewhat of a hungry bull in an expensive China shop filled with delicious cakes and tea.

I’m going to make mistakes, write some weird stuff, and possibly break a few things (accidently of course).

Being a little intimidated and nervous, I think the best course of action is to be hungry for every opportunity that comes my way and offer every ounce of Cristina I can to everything I do…and have a freaking great time along the way.

What playwriting advice do you have for others?

As an extremely early career writer all I would say is what I say to myself constantly: You know more than you think you do, so quit stalling. Sit your butt down and write the damn thing.

What do you respond to when you go to see a play?

Imagination, language, and unexplainable magic.

Who or what inspires you?

Without a doubt or hesitation: Actors inspire me.

The sincere authenticity of each and every one I know. On and off the stage.

As a writer, good actors intimidate me in the best way. I love it. It’s like a middle school crush. When I talk to them I make bad jokes and struggle to control the impulse to ask them to slow dance with me.

Great actors demand great plays and I want to give those weirdos what they want.

It’s like, “Oh, wow. You’re a crazy, magnificent and talented person. Let me write a play for you.”