Buzzine Interview

I recently had the pleasure of being interviewed for Ben Kharakh's "Seriously Funny" column at Buzzine:

"Rutgers University is a massive institution, but when taking a class with Jason Grote, one forgets that there’s nearly 30,000 Scarlett Knights dispersed among the school’s various campuses. One should expect no less from the critically lauded playwright behind 1001 and Maria/Stuart, not that Grote needs to mention his rave reviews to win the class over — his quick wits and wealth of knowledge take care of that. And whatever the subject Grote’s teaching — be it composition, screenwriting, or otherwise — his students, like the audiences who attend his plays, will leave having laughed, been entertained, and gained some valuable insights.

Ben Kharakh: When did your interest in writing develop?

Jason Grote: I used to write my own comics as a kid, which were generally incomprehensible to anyone but me. I would also “direct” other kids in stage productions that were based on stuff that already existed, like Star Wars or the musical Sweeney Todd. In high school, I studied acting at a performing arts school and attempted some playwriting and sketch writing there — none of it very fruitful. Around the same time, I wrote an embarrassingly bad sci-fi novel about werewolves in a post-global-warming world, heavily derivative of the Frank Miller comic The Dark Knight Returns. A popular girl who sat next to me borrowed it and started reading it. She liked it and started circulating it among a bunch of other popular girls, and when they were done, they would give it back to me and I would keep hand-writing it in this little journal in serialized form. I never knew where it was going and I never finished it. I studied acting and directing in college in the early ’90s, and therein wrote my first real play, which was entirely derivative of John Patrick Shanley’s Danny and the Deep Blue Sea and Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story. It won an award and was produced, and seemed more successful and fulfilling than my acting work, so I set out to become a playwright. I had no idea what I was doing, practically or artistically, for a long time, but eventually I wrote some odd short plays and produced them in Equity showcases throughout my 20s. I also did some film writing with a DIY indie director, but that never really went anywhere. Eventually, I decided to get an MFA and formalize my education."

Click here for the full piece.