AMERICAN THEATRE | The Subtext: Jonathan Spector’s Eureka Moments

Every month on The Subtext, Brian speaks with a playwright about life, writing, and no matter itches we’re scratching. This month Brian is joined by Bay Space playwright Jonathan Spector.

Spector is a playwright primarily based in Oakland, Calif., whose performs embrace Eureka Day (NYT Critics’ Choose), This A lot I Know, Finest Obtainable, Siesta Key, and What Comes Subsequent, Good. Higher. Finest. Bested. They’ve been produced and developed at theatres across the nation and overseas, together with Asolo Rep, Aurora Theatre, Colt Coeur, Syracuse Stage, Mosaic Theater, InterAct Theatre, Customized Made Theatre, Berkeley Rep’s Gound Ground, Portland Stage, Crowded Fireplace, Bay Space Playwrights Competition, PlayPenn, New Concord Challenge, SF PlayGround, State Theater of South Australia, and Simply Theater, the place he was the long-time co-artistic director.

Spector is a two-time winner of Aurora Theater’s World Age Prize, in addition to the Edgerton Award, Glickman Award, Bay Space Theater Critics Circle Award, Theater Bay Space Award, and Rella Lossy Award. He’s a core author at Playwrights’ Middle, and has been a MacDowell Fellow, a Playwrights Basis Resident Playwright, and obtained commissions from Roundabout Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, South Coast Rep, Manhattan Theater Membership, and Aurora Theater.

In his interview with Brian, Jonathan explains how he stumbled into theatre as an undergrad at New School of Florida and the way that led him to first turn out to be a director, unaware that being a playwright was even attainable. Directing took him to New York Metropolis, and later to the Bay Space. Someplace alongside the way in which, he realized he had needed to be a playwright all alongside, and he discovered about writing by studying submissions for the Bay Space Playwrights Competition.

Jonathan’s play Eureka Day, which dramatizes a debate amongst dad and mom over vaccinations for his or her youngsters, has had three wildly profitable productions in Berkeley, Calif., Off-Broadway, and on the Outdated Vic in London, that includes Helen Hunt and Mark McKinney. His play This A lot I Know might be produced by London’s Hampstead Theatre in December 2023.