黑料门

A dramaturg is not quite a playwright, not quite an artistic director, not quite a producer. It鈥檚 a little of all of these things, but a job entirely its own. Some equate it to a kind of editor in a theater company: a person who solicits original scripts, reads and evaluates whatever texts come in, prepares adaptations and translations, and generally helps set that company鈥檚 artistic vision.

A few years back, a group of 黑料门University Chicago theater students interested in dramaturgy organized an informal club. It鈥檚 a practical seminar, held on Friday afternoons in Mundelein Center鈥攁 way to build camaraderie in the Department of Fine and Performing Arts (DFPA), which is expanding its size and ambition. When the students are able, they host guest speakers. And every so often, they land a big fish like Philip Dawkins.

Dawkins graduated from 黑料门in 2002. In the 17 years since, he鈥檚 built an enviable career as a prolific playwright, with shows routinely staged in influential theaters around Chicago (Steppenwolf, Raven, North Light) and beyond. Four of his plays have been nominated for Jeff Awards, the prestigious Chicago theater prize, including his critical breakthrough, 2011鈥檚 The Homosexuals. He was thrilled to hear that 黑料门was staging its own production of Failure: A Love Story, his 2012 script about three sisters in the Roaring Twenties, at the Newhart Family Theater. So thrilled, in fact, that Dawkins carved out time to attend the opening performance and, three hours before curtain, entertain Loyola鈥檚 budding dramaturgists.

When Dawkins enters the classroom, he is wrapped in a bear hug by Mark Lococo, Loyola鈥檚 director of theater. (It doesn鈥檛 take much to corral Dawkins, who is rail-thin.) Then he assumes his position at the front of the room鈥攍egs crossed, a whiteboard at his back, three dozen students assembled before him. The set-up is reminiscent of Inside the Actor鈥檚 Studio, and Lococo stands in as the James Lipton-style moderator. As an interviewee, Dawkins is garrulous and articulate, with a mind that darts around quickly鈥攚ind him up and let him rip. After spending nearly two decades in the drama trenches, he鈥檚 accumulated all types of useful advice, too.

Playwriting is not a talent鈥攍ike building a house, it鈥檚 a craft that anyone can learn how to do. (鈥淵ou work hard, watch the house fall down, and then rebuild it.鈥�) Write only when your ideas have had time to simmer; theater should be a 鈥渃onsidered response.鈥� Do all sorts of research and then put that research away. (鈥淒on鈥檛 prove to the audience how smart you are.鈥�) Don鈥檛 get cute and fall in love with your own voice. Show up and demonstrate your competence. Finding collaborators is like finding lovers. (鈥淵ou know when it鈥檚 right, and you know when it鈥檚 not.鈥�) Perhaps most importantly? 鈥淩emember that most theater is terrible.鈥�

As a kid in Phoenix, Dawkins was first introduced to theater at the high school where his mother taught math. She would attend the school plays to support her students, and Dawkins would tag along, thrilled by the transportive pageantry. He started acting at the local theater company, Theater Works, and checking out from the library 鈥渙ld, hardback, Ivy-league colored鈥� drama collections, absorbing material without fully comprehending all the nuances. At home, Dawkins would stage one-acts starring his GI Joes and Troll dolls. 鈥淚 used to put on plays for my parents,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hey must be very patient people.鈥�

When he matriculated at 黑料门in 1998, the theater department was slowly gaining its footing. At the time, there weren鈥檛 enough students interested in playwriting to fill a class, so Dawkins formed a four-year mentoring partnership with Nicholas Patricca, now a professor emeritus of theatre. (He earned a scholarship by performing an original monologue about lobsters.) By his senior year, the department produced Dawkins鈥� first full-length script, a loose adaptation of a Truman Capote short story. The whole operation felt slightly rag-tag, albeit in a creatively nurturing way. 鈥淭he point of learning how to do this is to do it, and to do it in community, and to do it in service to the world,鈥� he says. 鈥淸At Loyola,] that was very much how I experienced theater.鈥�

Out on the job market, Dawkins learned to take risks, and to act calmly when complications inevitably arose. His costume design construction teacher from 黑料门hired him as a freelance stitcher right out of school, which helped with bills. (Teaching drama would eventually cover the rest; hardly anyone gets wealthy writing plays.) To theater directors across Chicago, he made his availability and enthusiasm known, chipping in at dramatic readings whenever there were openings. And he wrote, and wrote, and wrote some more. He鈥檇 storyboard acts using Post-It notes slapped on the wall, or call himself and leave long voicemails of potential dialogue. The reception he received for The Homosexuals proved to him, once and for all, that he could  鈥渨rite things and people will show up and watch it.鈥�

Failure debuted at Victory Gardens (the old Biograph) in 2012. He鈥檇 been circling the idea of loss, of how people process grief and mortality. The real inspiration for the show came on a walk through an Indiana graveyard, when Dawkins and some friends came across an odd family headstone: FAIL. Could he write a set-piece about a clan of Fails? 鈥淚 knew who my sisters were and what was going to happen to them right away,鈥� he says. 鈥淭he whole thing happened in my head, somewhere on the drive between Gary and Pilsen.鈥�

Set in 1920s Chicago, the story centers on eccentric sisters who, on the precipice of the Great Crash of 1929, all fall for the same financial trader鈥擬ortimer Mortimer鈥攁nd subsequently die. The show鈥檚 tone is more reminiscent of a fairy tale than a horror story, though, and it evokes the central themes and styles that cut through the bulk of Dawkins鈥� plays. There鈥檚 charming banter, some grotesquery, dark wit, earnest sentiment, and a healthy heaping of empathy. 鈥淚 like taking characters or stories that are very specific, that leave little wiggle room for universality,鈥� he says, 鈥渁nd then daring people to come and find out that we鈥檙e all the same, despite our vast differences.鈥�

When the last of the would-be dramaturgs exhaust their curiosity and file out of Mundelein, Dawkins accompanies April Browning, DFPA鈥檚 managing director, on a walk to Newhart. It鈥檚 serene inside the theater; a lonely technician shuffles along the catwalk, adjusting lights. Dawkins grabs a seat in the fifth row, easing into a plush red chair.

Opening night on his own college campus is an appropriate setting in which to reflect. Dawkins鈥� pace, he鈥檒l admit, has slowed as he鈥檚 gotten older. 鈥淚鈥檓 not the person I was when I was 19 and didn鈥檛 know anything and thought I knew everything,鈥� he says. 鈥淚鈥檓 made out of criticism now.鈥�

Even so, he keeps plenty busy. On his docket at the moment: an historical script for a Minneapolis children鈥檚 theater company about a meatpacking plant strike, a translation of a Qu茅b茅cois play by Michel Tremblay, and a queer adaptation of A Christmas Carol. Ideas flow as freely as ever. There are plot devices and lines of dialogue that he鈥檚 never used and can鈥檛 quite shake. Titles, even. Before he retires, Phillip Dawkins will write a play called I Will Take You There and Leave You. He just needs to figure out what it鈥檚 about.