Eye On: J.C. Lee, playwright by / Theatre Bay Area Staff

J.C. Lee is a pretty normal 28-year-old guy. He grew up in New York City, graduated from a reputable four-year university, went backpacking with his boyfriend after graduating and settled into the Bay Area for a few years before heading off to grad school back in New York. He loves comic books and Lord of the Rings. Oh yeah, he's also written eight plays (or, as he puts it, "eight readable plays") and has had five of those plays produced. Lee may be a normal 20-something, but he is already racking up the credentials of an extraordinary playwright.

Currently in his first year studying playwriting at Julliard, Lee began his playwriting career as an undergrad at Bloomsburg University. "I've been a writer all my life, and I started out as an actor in elementary school," explains Lee, "but I had never thought to write plays until college, when my freshman roommate brought home a flier for a student playwrights' festival and suggested that I combine my interests. That was a really smart insight from a football player." Lee made it into the festival and has been writing nonstop ever since. "I probably spend three to four hours a day writing or digesting art and literature that will inspire my writing," says Lee. "That's in addition to the time I spend on my classes, of course."

Lee's "just do it" approach to writing carries over to his blog, rantsravesandrethoughts.blogspot.com, which he updates regularly with thoughts on politics and the arts, as well as his theatre methodology. "I write a play like I imagine a pop song should be written," explains Lee. "A pop song is simply structured, it's succinctly timed and there's an emotional core that is genuine but also not treated overseriously. I think if you can manage that balance, you can create a successful thing. In contemporary times when so many demands are placed on our attention, the pop song is in some ways the perfect unit of dramatic energy."

Lest his playwriting formula make it seem like he writes exclusively about sunshine and rainbows (or boys and dance floors), rest assured: Lee delves into the morbid with the best of 'em. In his This World and After trilogy, which is currently receiving its world premiere at Sleepwalkers Theatre, Lee explores the apocalypse (and beyond!). Though This World Is Good, Into the Clear Blue Sky and The Nature Line tell very different stories, according to Lee, "They are all thematically linked in an exploration of what an ending and what a beginning are. In 2006 when I wrote The Nature Line, I was really taken with this 'end of the world' idea. I took this idea and it really got into my blood."

In addition to exploring the apocalypse, the trilogy betrays a recurring preoccupation of Lee's: family dynamics. "The shape of love in a family is a powerful and interesting force that appears in pretty much everything I write," he says. "I'm interested in juxtaposing what we would call an 'everyday love' with a fantastical theatricality." This juxtaposition is most salient in Lee's Into the Clear Blue Sky (opening at Sleepwalkers Theatre in April), which reimagines an ancient French myth about the rise and fall of the sun and the moon into a tale about a sister traveling to the moon to pursue her older brother in order to solve the mystery of her blackened hands. The play combines mythology, complex family relationships and Lee's trademark sense of humor.

Given how prolific he has been over the last decade, it's no surprise that Lee has quite a few stories up his sleeve. "I've just finished two plays that I'd like to develop somewhere, and right now I have a commission from South Coast Repertory Theatre that I'm working on. I also want to retell the Achilles/Patroclus love story from The Iliad. I was at the gym a while ago and the movie Troy was playing. It's an awful movie, but it got me thinking about the Achilles/Patroclus love story, which is, I think, the oldest recorded gay love story in Western literature. I was sort of surprised that it wasn't treated as such in anything that I've read. There's so much theatricality in the imagery of their relationship, and it looked like a gap that I could fill. Also, I think that it's about time for a really big, crazy, bloody gay war play to be created."

Having recently secured representation from the Gersh Agency, Lee is entering a new chapter in his career. "I have a small crew of people believing in me, which is remarkable, especially for someone like me who grew up with his family in a one-bedroom apartment on the Lower East Side in New York. I grew up not having a lot. Writing is lonely and hard sometimes, and to have people or a major institution saying, 'We think you have an interesting voice and we want to support you,' is staggering. It makes my work better. I just want to keep telling stories in the theatre and I'm blessed to be able to be in a place where I have the support to keep doing that full-time."