"You envy them probably a bit. You want to be like them."
Jeremy O. Harris on developing taste and learning to write a play.
Ciao, everyone.
Today in Feed Me, Jeremy O. Harris discusses the importance of befriending peers (and seeing movies and plays with them), publishers are still figuring out what role Substack plays in their industry, Madrid fears a “Barcelona-isation” of the city, and who is reading Glucose Goddess?
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Guest Lecture: Jeremy O. Harris
This interview is part of a Feed Me feature called Guest Lecture. In this series, I introduce you all to an expert who I’m curious about, and give paid readers an opportunity to ask them anything they want. Past guests have included Audrey Hobert, Andrew Ross Sorkin, and Lina Khan.
Jeremy O. Harris is a playwright, screenwriter, producer, and actor. Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to moderate a conversation with him (and Pete Ohs and Will Madden) about Erupcja, which he co-produced, co-wrote, and acted in. If you have the opportunity to hear him speak live, you should take it. Today, he answers your questions about developing taste, working with friends, and his favorite book he read during his 23 days in jail in Japan.
“Is there a contemporary playwright or artist right now whose work genuinely excites you and that you feel deserves way more attention?” - Leanne
I produce most of those people. That’s how I choose what it is I want to do next. When there’s someone who is unsung, I cling onto their work like a madman and tell everyone I know to watch it or read it or enjoy it. I’d say contemporary playwrights I’m enjoying right now are Else Went, Tori Sampson, Gracie Gardner, and Misha Chowdhury. I’m missing so many but these are the first I thought about.
“What do you do when you hit an energy slump and need to keep writing? Can any beverage force the muse’s hand?”
No beverage I’ve encountered can force the muse’s hand. At least not a muse that amuses me at all. But everybody meets their muse differently. Patricia Highsmith was drunk 90 percent of her day as she wrote according to her journals. I think her beverage of choice was a gin martini.
“To dedicate oneself to being an artist is to commit to an incredibly lonesome life. One doesn’t make it without peers as much as one can’t make it without seeing many different models for what a life of an artist looks like.”
“Might be a silly question, but how did you *learn* to write a play? A specific class/program? Watching/reading them? Just starting somewhere and figuring it out?” - Leda
Read a lot of plays. Watch a lot of plays. Act in some plays. Write as you’re doing all of it. This would be how I taught playwriting. Because that’s how I learned.