Having a World Premiere of an Amy Freed play here at Artists Rep is a BIG DEAL

She is one of the nation’s hottest and most-sought-after playwrights, and is known for writing wickedly smart and sharp-witted plays that embrace the unexpected. Freed was a Pulitzer Finalist for Freedomland, and has been the recipient of many other playwriting awards including the Joseph Kesserling Award (NYC) and the Charles MacArthur Award (Washington DC) and has several times been a recipient of the LA Critics Circle and Bay Area Critics Circle Awards.  She recently completed a Mellon Foundation Playwriting Residency at DC’s Arena Stage and is an Artist in Residence at Stanford University.

And she knows her architecture. Her dad was an architect.

“All of us have seen what has happened to the modern city under the influence of the starchitects of the last several decades,” Amy said in an interview with Jonathan Frochtzwajg for the Portland Monthly. “I grew up looking at sort of the iterations of modernism, the simple skyscraper. Then, as the ’60s turned into the ’70s and postmodern theory impacted everything, we started seeing this whole other form, the bloated, towering, crazy shapes, emerge on our cityscapes. I think what’s happening to the cities we live in and love has been a cause of consternation for a lot of human beings on the planet… “

In the interview, Amy goes on to talk about what audiences can expect from her play, how it ended up premiering at Artists Rep and what it takes for an actor to pull off the lead role. Read the rest of the interview here.