Interview with Liba Vaynberg, Playwright

Liba Vaynberg is a witty, yet poignant playwright whose background in acting has given her a deep sense of character and passion for empowering female creators in the entertainment industry. Her plays have debuted off-Broadway at United Solo, Dixon Place, Stonewall Inn, etc. Her show, Schiess Book, won Best One-Woman Show and the Backstage Magazine Audience Choice award at the United Solo Festival. She's also the co-creator and co-star of the award-winning mockumentary web-series, "Tales of Toverud" along with Allison Minick.

We encountered Liba's terrifically funny and heart-stirring writing in the back of a gaming cafe one Saturday afternoon in the UWS of Manhattan where her play Round Table was premiering for a live reading produced by Fault Line Theatre. The play incorporated nerd culture, facing one’s mortality, and the pitfalls of relationships. Liba's writing stirred a full house to cackling laughter and emotional resonance. We had a chance to interview her regarding her plays, career as an actor, and perspective on a creative life.

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They Create: You have degrees from Yale in Molecular Biology and International Studies. How did you go from that to creative pursuits like writing?

Liba Vaynberg: I always knew I wanted to do theater; I was really scared to do theater of any kind because the odds were so stacked against me to be an artist. I’m Jewish, so my parents were like “You have to be a doctor.” And I was the oldest daughter of three sisters in my family, so all the immigrant cultural barrier pressure was very present. I sort of let myself get in my own way a little bit because I was like, “You know what, it’s very unlikely that I would succeed as an artist” – just thinking about it from a mathematical or quantitative perspective. So I thought “I’ll go to a school that has a strong arts program, but I will be a pre-med just in case.” What I realized though is that when you stack up your day, there’s no such thing as a contingency plan because what you spend most of your day doing is who you are . . . You can’t be an artist in your free time. You’re not an artist unless you’re an artist. It’s that simple.

And secondly, I was looking around at all these people who were staying up all night to try and get high grades on their MCATS, and I realized this is not a joke either. This is a full time pursuit; I can’t be a doctor on the side – that’s disrespectful to that profession. These people feel passionately about pursuing this. If I decide to become a doctor, I’m going to spend four years at medical school, and then I’m going to do a residency, and then I’m going to do a specialty, and then I’m going to be a fellow – like that’s going to take ten years. Same thing with being an artist – it’s going to take around ten years. Life’s not that long; I’m going to spend those ten years doing what I really care about.

TC: How did you make the transition into acting and writing after Yale?

LV: At Yale, I did long-form improv. I’ve been doing it since middle school, and I think it’s the first and foremost training ground for everything I’ve done. I think in improv beats a lot of the time. After Yale, I got my MFA from Columbia in acting. There’s this interesting thing that happens when you’re trained as an actor where actors are taught humility and to wait for your moment as a member of the team, especially as female actors. And I find that is often the opposite impulse of creating your own content. We’re in a market that is so oversaturated, and I feel like we’re constantly told: “Just breathe, relax, it’s going to be okay.” I feel like it’s not going to be okay unless you do something about it.

I’d always been writing for myself, but I needed to write to feel empowered as a woman in this industry. The first thing I wrote was something that I’d been working on for three to five years in little bits which was my show Scheiss Book. It’s a show for one woman except it’s nothing like Emma Stone’s show in La La Land. It’s almost like the anti-nostalgia show; it’s very real, it’s auto-biographical, and it’s about what it’s like to grow up very sheltered with immigrant parents who don’t talk to you about sex and what happens when you finally start trying to grow up . . . So I wrote that and it was super liberating because it was the first time I felt like not just an actor but also a writer with a theatrical voice.

TC: How has acting informed your writing?

LV: I was sitting with my friend Amy Berryman, also an actor-writer, and we decided that we were going to start writing plays for each other. We started reading them in a coffee shop together, and then we quickly realized that we couldn’t really hear the play with just the two of us. So we started reading them at my house around my table. So that’s how the writing really came out . . . My rule remains this – when I write a play, would I want to audition and be in that play? And if the answer is yes, then I’m on the right track. Actors tend to be on the bottom of the barrel a lot of there time so that has really informed the work because  I want to serve the actor.

TC: For your writing, are you a “planner” or a “pantser”?

LV: For visual mediums, I’m definitely a more of a pantser because if I can see it, I know how to splice it. For my plays, I’m the opposite of a pantser: tons and tons of rewrites, slowly, over the course of time. I love Malcolm Gladwell’s take on this stuff: he writes about two kinds of geniuses. There’s the Cezanne genius and then there’s the Picasso genius. So Picasso just sits down in front of his thing and just goes and he’s done and it takes him twenty-five minutes. And then Cezanne sits there at his canvas for hours, weeks, months, years. He apparently would go back to his exhibits once they’d already been shown and be like, “You know what, I need to fix that painting; it was wrong.” Other examples of this are Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. I am definitely in the Cezanne, Leonard Cohen camp . . . And I think it’s because I come at it from the background of an actor; I’ve auditioned for so many ridiculous, ridiculous parts where I’m like was the playwright thinking of the human who was going to have to sit at home and memorize these lines and then come in and perform this? I don’t think they were. So I try to be very conscious.

TC: How do you approach writing stage direction?

LV: When I write, I try to focus on what will sound good and be fun for two actors to do and that’s the only thing that matters. But plays also do exist on a piece of paper. I feel like that’s not the final way they’re meant to be consumed – they’re meant to be consumed out loud, etc. So I don’t really care what they look like on the page or what the stage directions are, but I’m learning that I actually really do need to care what the play looks like because I send it to people. When I see people who are strictly writers and don’t act – their plays are really beautiful on the page. They’re these gorgeous stage directions, whereas I’m always like “Who cares about the stage directions – nobody sees those,” like that’s not what’s going to be communicated in the final portrayal of the play. But Tennessee Williams has beautiful stage directions; there is value in evoking the stage picture on the page because people are going to read it first.

TC: What does your research process look like for your shows that involve fantastical and historical elements?

LV: My research process tends to be somewhat intense at the beginning. After that, I try to create the rules and structure and constraints in the world such that I can do whatever I want to do that way I’m not beholden to the research, but I can use the research in whatever way I want to. For example, in Round Table, while they are engaging in LARP, I have said that this group of people plays their own version, which happens all the time – that way I don’t have to be wedded to the rules of one particular LARP community. And in my other play After Mozart, a play about four women in Mozart’s life, they’re all dead, so it happens in a sort of Caryl Churchill, Tom Stoppard world. That way I use the history, and I’ve read all of Mozart’s letters and primary source material, but I have freedom to create the characters I want to create. I find that history is a fertile ground from which to grow your own trees. Do you know what I mean? I don’t want to be tending a garden someone else has already grown. I would rather fertilize my own stuff.

TC: How did you make the transition to the video medium with “Tales of Toverud”?

LV: My friend Allison and I went to drama school together . . . We both watch Game of Thrones, and we had this moment where we were like: how does this happen? People sit down at a table and make decisions like, “Okay, we’re going to zoom in on her ass.” Like people sit down and talk about this – there are billions and millions of dollars that go into these things. So we were thinking “How do executives get around a table and make these decisions with no irony?” So basically “Tales of Toverud” is a mockumentary about two women [and] a high-flying, romantic, Outlander meets Game of Thrones epic-style show. So I’m the George R. R. Martin character and she’s the executive producer. The style is Curb Your Enthusiasm: we have milestones and outlines for each scene and characters that we’ve been given ahead of time, but other than that it’s entirely improvised, and then we edit it ourselves because that what you have to do when you’re improvising because that’s where the script becomes real. The story reveals itself to you more than you imposing it.

TC: How would you recommend a new playwright go about producing their first play?

LV: The first thing is you have to write and finish your play . . . I’m not saying that in a trivial way; you can’t produce something until you kind of, sort of know what it is. Because what it is is going to influence who you target in production.

The second thing is to invite people, especially if you’re a first time playwright, invite people that you really trust and love [to read it] . . . That’s when the play is actually born. The play is born in somebody’s apartment when you have friends come over and read it out loud. Because you need to hear it! That’s what happened with Scheiss Book; I invited a couple friends over and I paid them for the day and paid for their lunch and I read it out loud to them. Then we walked to get lunch and we came back and we just talked about it – what worked, what didn’t work, what felt long, what felt short, what should we get rid of.

And then the third step is apply everywhere, and have the courage to tell people what you’re doing. Your personal community of friends are who are going to help you, but you are responsible for promoting your work to them and also to strangers. When I did Scheiss Book for the first time, I contacted The Barrow Group and did a workshop there (and I almost threw up). But they were like, “Sure, no problem.” But like, I had to send all those emails. [I was] mostly self-producing. But if you run the first thirteen miles, you’d be surprised at how many people will help you run the next thirteen miles. But the first person who has to believe in your work is you.

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Liba is working on her next play, a second one-woman show Queen’s Quest, and a TV pilot adaptation of her play, Round Table. She will be making an acting appearance in an upcoming episode of HBO’s "The Deuce". She and her co-creator, Allison, are releasing new episodes of “Tales of Toverud” each week. You can watch them their website.

Now That It's Over - A Reflection On NaNoWriMo 2017

We made it. NaNoWriMo 2017 is in the books!

How do you feel? Joyous? Drained? Hungry? Same.

I participated in NaNoWriMo for the first time this year, and it was so much more than I expected in every way. When I finished writing last night, I anticipated feeling some sort of profound sense of completion. Instead, I simply felt ready to keep writing. 

Maybe that's the point of NaNoWriMo at the end of the day. Sure, it's about finishing a novel in a month , but I think it's more about what comes after - how you decide to continue writing in the spirit of what you learned during November.

I don't know about you, but I struggled throughout the 2nd and 3rd weeks. My initial enthusiasm and dedication to quality went out the window when I realized I had completely forgotten to re-outline my 2nd act. Suddenly, a dedicated planner (me) had been dropped into her worst nightmare - having to finish a novel as a pantser. I almost gave up then and there. I wasn't happy with the direction my story was going, so why should I waste another 15 days writing something that was worthless? 

For whatever reason, I pressed on. I didn't want to step outside the bubble of writing and friendship November had given me. I also wasn't sure if I'd start writing again given the discouragement I felt.

When I finished my story last night, I realized I'd gained something far greater than a novel: I'd re-gained my fearlessness in my writing. I'd shed the tired of habits and rules I'd given myself for how I should write, when I should write, what I should write. Instead, I simply wrote. I let the words come out, even when they weren't good. 

Writing requires a kind of freedom; NaNoWriMo awoke mine.

Even if you didn't win NaNoWriMo (which, by the way, if you're writing you've already won), I hope you found a similar sliver of hope through the process - something that will feed your writing in the days to come. Because, after all, that's why we do NaNoWriMo; not to just write during November, but to write every month. 

Now that it's over, you may be asking yourself the looming question: What's next? 

Maybe it's finishing the rest of your story. 

Maybe it's plotting a new story.

Maybe it's picking up a good book and drinking a cup of tea - you've earned it.

Whatever it is, I encourage you to use the habits, the friends, and the resilience NaNoWriMo gifted you this past month to continue on with your writing. Take the good, leave the bad, and press on. If you get stuck or just want someone in the process with you, we're always here for you.

Happy December and happy writing.

-Katherine Oostman, Co-Founder of They Create

G I V E A W A Y | Dec. 1st - Dec. 10th

We're partnering with our friends at Wild Mind Creative to gift you with a complete novel editing package! Visit this post on their Instagram page for details of how to enter. 

Plot Paradoxes: What To Do When It All Starts To Clash

Artwork by Thomas Broome

It's like you're standing in the middle of a room. There's a door on the ceiling, another on the floor. The windows are sideways, the couch doesn't quite fit, and the lamps don't have lightbulbs. Your plot has gone askew. You had a blueprint and you thought you followed it - but somehow things went a little wrong . . .

A friend and writing buddy of mine, Scarlett, messaged me the other day about NaNoWriMo. We both decided to give it a go this year, and she was trying to amend a plot paradox that wasn't cooperating.

Plot Paradox (n.) - A section of a story where the planned outline of the plot and the manifested elements of said plot do not align. In other words, the WIP grew a mind of its own and now the projected ending of story doesn't quite fit.

I knew exactly what Scarlett was talking about because I've been finding those little wormholes throughout my NaNo novel as well. She explained the characters, the previous events, and what was supposed to happen to me and asked if I had any ideas.

The good news is that human (and thus characters') psychology is not a math calculation in terms of what we are capable of. The bad news is that the readers' believability is a tiny target on a dart board you have to hit. Even though the possibilities of reality (or otherwise) may be broader. 

In other words, whatever happens in your plot, you have to earn it.

Scarlett found a path through her paradox that, maybe wasn't her ideal for the finished book, but was close enough to bridge the two pieces of her story together (what she's written and where she is trying to write toward).

The perfectionist in me can find it infuriating when I reach a plot paradox. Even though I try to outline in detail, there's always something that slipped through the cracks. I tend to find it in the middle of my story. This makes me want to delete the file and start over. There's too much mess to save what's there, I tell myself. But I've tried that approach in this past, and it just makes for a lot of false starts and few finished pieces.

What I have trouble digesting is that sometimes paradoxes leave room for alternative scenes I would never have otherwise imagined. Sometimes, our mistakes are ways to better understand our story world or characters - or a better perspective for the writing entirely

I'm working on remembering that first drafts are sketches. They're supposed to be messy. They provide the blueprint for you to go back and build out the rooms, paint the walls, and rearrange the furniture of your story's home. 

Especially if its your first novel or script, the goal should always be to get the story out. Otherwise, your doubts and frustrations might end up strangling your creativity.

Then, come December (or whenever the draft is finished for those of you not doing NaNo), we shall tackle the slightly askew frame, peeling shingles, and creaky doors with a tool box of revision techniques to make a story that's cozy and inviting for readers.