James Magruder is the funniest person alive, and he's not even a stand-up comic. It's something I learned about him when we first met, and it's something that comes through in his writing, be it his fiction or his plays.
You'll get a sense of it when as he discusses his new book "The Play's The Thing" (Yale University Press, 2024). Subtitled "Fifty Years of Yale Repertory Theatre (1966-2016)," it's a serious work of historical significance, which in Magruder's capable hands manages to "be "seriously delightful and entertaining," according to Tony Kushner, and is described by Amy Bloom as "a chronicle of joy, vision and knowledge, gossip and witty truths."
Gregg Shapiro: James, I'd like to begin by asking to tell the readers about the genesis of the book "The Play's The Thing."
James Magruder: Around 2014, James Bundy, the Artistic Director of Yale Repertory Theater and Dean of the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale (formerly the Yale School of Drama) commissioned another writer to chronicle the first fifty years of Yale Rep. He was unhappy with the sample chapters the first writer submitted, so he called me on my birthday in 2015 to see whether I would take over. I was broke, so it was an easy decision. I had no idea how the project would take over my life.
How long did it take for you to complete "The Play's The Thing" from start to finish?
Eight years. Two years of research, two years of writing, one year spent on a crash editing diet, then a final three years spent running an arduous production steeplechase for Yale University Press. If it were a human being, it would be in the third grade.
The book's title, "The Play's The Thing," is a line from Shakespeare. What do you think of the title and how much, if any, input did you have when it came to titling the book?
I had two other titles in mind: "Staying in the Moment" and "Serving the Play." I was overruled at some point — marketing reasons, naturally — but when all is said and done, YRT and the drama school have always put the play text first, in the case of the school, for almost a century, so it's a very appropriate moniker.
As a Yale alumnus, with a doctorate in dramaturgy and dramatic criticism from the Yale School of Drama, how would you describe your memories of your time there?
I was a mean, arrogant, but entertaining SOB. Dramaturgs back then, and to a lesser extent now, carried little status in the American theatrical biosphere. I made a lot of friends and a couple of frenemies. I've never regretted matriculating there.
Would it be fair to say that your status as a Yale School of Drama alum made you an ideal and qualified person to write "The Play's The Thing"?
Yes. If I were a director or design or management alum, the book would have been naturally skewed to their biases. I was trained to read and analyze new plays-in-vitro and assess new and classic plays in performance.
What were the challenges and rewards of a project such as "The Play's The Thing"?
What started as a money gig became a labor of love by the time I began to write it in 2018. For two decades, I'd been used to "making shit up" in my fiction and my plays. Now I had to write fairly, accurately, and thoroughly.
With no background in long-form non-fiction, I learned as I went. Today, skimming my little hardcover third-grader, I feel that the book encompasses my accumulated beliefs (and prejudices) about how to make theater. It is my testament of faith. That outcome I could never have predicted.
Please say something about your interview process regarding the subjects included in "The Play's The Thing."
I'm a good listener, but my gregariousness is a front. I never relish meeting or talking to one stranger, much less the 127 people I called or met with for "The Play's the Thing." I dreaded every interview beforehand, then wound up 90% of the time having an absolute blast. Theater people are more than eager to share their recollections and opinions.
What do you think each of the artistic directors or deans of the Yale School of Drama would view as their primary contribution to the school during their tenure?
All four regimes had uneven seasons. It's par for the course for a theater that is also a teaching hospital for students. Robert Brustein willed the theater into existence and rescued the school from oblivion. He had great taste, was a compelling leader, but some faulted him for front-loading the mind over the heart.
Lloyd Richards, the first Black man to run a major American theater, corrected Brustein's blind spots about female playwrights and playwrights of color. His most lasting achievement would be the permanent enrichment of American literature by making a great playwright out of August Wilson.
Stan Wojewodski, Jr, matched Brustein's high mind and taste, but expanded the roster of artists who worked at the Rep and, with his interest in dramatic form and design, enlarged what a production could look like, and how a play might behave.
James Bundy, an actual alum of the directing program, has managed to avoid the mistakes of his three predecessors and build on their foundations. He has also put superhuman effort — and material resources — into EDIB (Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging) issues for the school and the theater.
Would you agree with them?
It's more a question here of would they agree with me [laughs]!
Robert Brustein, the Yale Repertory Theatre founder, passed in October 2023. How do you think he would feel about the book?
Although he approved my quotes, he didn't live long enough to read the book. He answered a final question about August Strindberg for me from his sickbed. I'd like to think he'd be proud to see what he had wrought.
Please share a few of the things you learned about the Yale Repertory Theatre in the process of writing the book that surprised you.
I joked for years by calling YSD/YRT "Thespis' House of Horrors," but the process made me proud to be an alum. Stepping back to look at the entire institution, after decades away, was eye-opening.
In addition to your work as a playwright, you are also a novelist and short story writer. Please say something about the different writing muscles involved in writing a book such as "The Play's The Thing."
My hitherto underused truth and accuracy and research muscles got a huge workout, but not at the expense of entertaining myself as I wrote—essential to how I work. Yale Press ran a ton of interference along the way, but they didn't attempt to alter or modify my voice. The book reads like a Magruder. I hope you'd agree with me, Gregg, on that point.
I agree wholeheartedly. The theater community has a long history with the LGBTQ+ community. Being an out gay man, would you say that such a connection existed at the Yale School of Drama?
Not in the 1980s, when I was a student. The gay actors were not out for fear of never getting hired. Nearly all of the male design students were gay, but they only celebrated their status once a year at an insiders' party. In the fifty years of the Rep, I covered, there were only a tiny handful of plays with queer content produced. The fifth Artistic Director might change that.
Are there plans for you to do readings and book signings in support of "The Play's The Thing"?
The pie-in-the-sky idea is a forum at the Lincoln Center Library of the Performing Arts with Tony Kushner, who wrote a wonderful blurb for the book, and alumna Meryl Streep. We can all stay tuned for that. There will be a book party in New Haven and one for me in Baltimore, but no one wants to hear me read about Brecht, Shaw, and Beckett [laughs].
Have you started thinking about or working on your next book or theatrical project?
My last book of short stories (or so I think), titled "No One is Looking at You," is coming out next March. I'm writing the book for a new musical based on my friend Amy Bloom's novel, "Lucky Us." Come to think of it, I've also pitched a gay adaptation of Carlo Goldoni's 18th century "Holiday Trilogy" to Yale Rep. In these terrible times for live theater, Yale Rep is basically the last place in the country that can support that kind of work.
James Magruder' 'The Play's the Thing,' $60, hardback and ebook, 600 pages, Yale University Press www.yalebooks.yale.edu
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