The world premiere reading of Jerry Lieblich’s latest play, Nostalgia is a Mild Form of Grief, directed by Lee Sunday Evans, is coming up on July 12 as part of our Bonfire Series. Read our interview with Jerry below to learn more about this project and also his strange pre-occupation with teeth.
And reserve your seat now for Nostalgia is a Mild Form of Grief, July 12, 7:00PM, South Oxford Space (138 S. Oxford St., Brooklyn).
Pipeline Theatre Company: What do you want us to know about your play?
Jerry Lieblich: It’s about associative memory, thick spaces, and the difficulty of encountering your own history.
PTC: When and where did you decide to start writing this play? Why?
JL: I started the play at this beautiful and intense and difficult silent writing retreat that Erik Ehn runs in the middle of the desert in Texas. The idea is to come in with nothing, and leave a week of monastic silence with a completed draft of something. This play is that something. It’s a big and wild and wooly creature, and I’ve been doing my best to befriend it.
PTC: What excites you most about this project?
JL: It’s technically very difficult (which, I love a good puzzle) while also being incredibly close to my heart. I’m really experimenting with writing from my own autobiography here, which is something I haven’t really done before (and which I find rather terrifying / difficult). So from a process standpoint, it’s incredibly fulfilling.
PTC: In once sentence, tell us something strange that happens in your play.
JL: Time collapses into itself (whatever that means).
PTC: Are you working on anything else? What?
JL: I’ve just started doing research on a new play about the German mystic/scientist/crazy person Athanasius Kircher, and his strange rivalry with Descartes. I’ve never written anything historical before (I’ve never even taken a history class), so this feels very outside my wheelhouse. I’m also developing a new show with my company, Tiny Little Band, about ambition, heroes, myth, and tech startups. We’re going to Maine in a few weeks to workshop that one, so that should be fun (or at least bucolic).
PTC: Two truths and a lie, go:
JL: I once broke a tooth bungie jumping
I have a weirdly vivid memory of losing a tooth while eating Rice Krispies Treats Cereal (which used to be a thing, and used to be my favorite cereal)
I have recurring nightmares of my teeth falling out
PTC: What’s next for you?
JL: I’m actually writing this as I’m preparing to go to my parent’s house for the weekend, with my girlfriend. Research or pleasure? Who knows.
About Nostalgia is a Mild Form of Grief
by Jerry Lieblich | directed by Lee Sunday Evans
July 12, 7:00PM
138 South Oxford St., Brooklyn
Reserve Your Seat
Katie, a photographer, goes home to look at some baby pictures. What she finds is a house oppressively thick with her own history. Maybe remembering the memory will make it easier this time…
