Tony Taccone: Artistic Director
and Playwright by / Laura Brueckner

Tony Taccone is no stranger to championing new work. During his first artistic directorship, at the Eureka Theatre, he commissioned a young playwright named Tony Kushner to write a piece that would become “Angels in America.” Since he became Berkeley Rep’s artistic director in 1997, the theatre has produced an impressive number of world premieres. Until recently, though, Taccone’s role was chiefly directorial. Now, as the playwright of not one but two plays premiering this season, Taccone talks about getting the playwriting “bug.”

How did you become the playwright for “Rita Moreno: Life Without Makeup?”

It was default. We’d determined a long time ago that it’d be really fun—we thought that Rita’s life was so eminently interesting and important. So we started looking for a writer, and a lot of people turned us down. Not because they didn’t want to do it, but because of time. So I agreed to take notes for it. After a while of taking notes, though, I started to get ideas. I mean, I started to get ideas as a writer, not as a director. So I broached it with her, and she said, “Fantastic! Great! Amazing!” And then, of course, she saw the script and was like, “Oh, my God—this is not at all—I’m appalled!” [Laughs.]

What about Jonathan Moscone and “Ghost Light?”

When we went into it, [Jon] said, “Let’s create a piece together.” And I was like, “What does that mean?” He said, “I don’t know.” And I said, “Well, what are you gonna do, go into a room and do improvs with actors about assassination?” Then I started taking a lot of notes, and I got this idea about a structure for a play. Now, you’d think, “Well, Jon’s going to write this piece and Tony’s going to direct it.” Right? But writing a piece about your own life? It’s incredibly close to home. And it became clear to both of us that I was the one generating all the writing, and that it felt right.

The two creative processes must have differed wildly.

Both projects were tricky. In Rita’s case, we’re talking essentially nonfiction. Everything that she talks about happened to her. It’s just that the way it’s being expressed, and the structure in which it’s being expressed, plus [balancing] entertainment values versus the emotional inner workings of the persona she’s playing as “Rita Moreno”; that’s the trick. In Jon’s case we’re talking fiction—inspired by some events in his life, but it’s fiction. But it traffics in the illusion that it’s nonfiction, so the complication of it is enormous. And they both had times when they were...scared? Because you have to decide what level of truth you’re going to traffic in—what you’re willing to reveal. And I have to say, even though they had different processes of arriving at it, they both ended up at astonishingly transparent attitudes about it. And they let me write the play.

What was it like to be in the playwright’s seat for a change?

I totally regret like 40 percent of the things I’ve ever said to writers, I’ll tell you that. [Laughs.] You get into these, like, timeline situations, where you’re in rehearsal, and everybody else is going out for drinks, but you’re going home to come up with a rewrite sometime between now—which is pretty late in the evening, as it turns out—and when it’s due, which is really early in the morning, so the literary department can print out the new pages. And everyone’s waiting, and you’re like, “Ohhh fuck.” You know—it’s complicated.

Have these projects changed your perspective as a director?

We’ll see how it plays out. Certainly my patience for things has been increased. It’s a different digestive process for a writer than a director. As a writer, the interconnectivity of the work is something you carry with you in a deeply visceral way. For example, you can be in a dramaturgical session and everybody, including yourself, can completely agree that scene two has to go. As a director, you’re like, “Okay, so give me a new scene two tomorrow, and we’ll work up the new scene.” But as a writer, you’re aware of how scene two, however flawed it may be, connects to so many other things. If you just lose scene two, you have some real problems that no one else can feel as intensely as you do. And you’re going to have to fix that too. The system of logic you’re working with as a writer is just really different.

What can you tell us about your next play?

Totally imagined people! I don’t care as long as they’re dead, or not ever living. But yeah...I’m writing a play. I’m a little hesitant to even talk about it because it’s at such an early point, but I’m interested to write something that’s set in the future. And I have another project I’m starting to be interested in...so yeah, I’ve definitely caught the bug.