The Velocity of Eric Coble the Prolific Cleveland-Based Writer’S Career Is Packed with Impulsive Twists and Crises Averted

PEOPLE

The Velocity of Eric Coble The prolific Cleveland-based writer’s career is packed with impulsive twists and crises averted

BY CHRISTOPHER JOHNSTON

Estelle Parsons and Stephen Spinella in The Velocity of Autumn at Arena Stage. TERESA WOOD TERESA

OU’RE PLAYWRIGHT ERIC COBLE. YOU’VE SPENT On her day off from the musical Nice Work If You Can Get two decades getting more than 40 original plays and adapta- It on Broadway, Parsons traveled by train to D.C. with a tired, tions produced on six out of seven continents and racking up sore throat, greeting all with whispers that she was sorry, but numerous awards. Now, it’s April 2012, and Estelle Parsons she was very sick and would do her best. As she quietly curled is lined up to perform the lead role in a reading of your first into her chair with a cup of tea and her script, Coble’s hopes Broadway-bound play. No worries, right? sank. “Great,” he thought, “she’s got 90 minutes of talking and Y Coble still shudders at the memory of the looming catas- big emotion. This is going to go really well.” trophe. Larry Kaye, Broadway producer, had enlisted Molly Then it went really well. As the play opens, Alexandra, Smith, artistic director of Washington, D.C.’s Arena Stage, asleep in her favorite chair, is startled by Chris, who climbs to direct Academy Award winner Parsons and Tony Award a tree to sneak in her window. “Estelle screamed, ‘Get out of winner Stephen Spinella in the reading of his high-intensity my house!’ full out,” Coble says, incredulous. “She went to two-hander The Velocity of Autumn. level 10 immediately, laying waste to him—she was just on Previously produced in Boise and Cleveland (where fire for 45 minutes.” Afterwards, he thought: That’s what Coble is based), the play captures Alexandra, an age-challenged professionals do. woman fighting to keep her home “It was really astonishing,” Coble continues. “As soon as and sense of self, in a surprise it was finished, Estelle fell back into whispering about how she encounter with her son Chris, was sick and how sorry she was. It was a total shock.” who breaks into her Park Slope For her part, Parsons recalls, “I was amazed, too, because apartment to prevent his mother I was not really up to things, and the play starts at such a high from executing her threats to level, and you can’t start it if you’re not up there. It’s a trap blow it all sky high with Molotov for an actress, because if you want to start slow and build up, cocktails. Parsons liked the script you can’t. I found that so interesting to do, and see where it when she read it, but wanted to led on this wild journey through the play.” hear it before she would commit. The Velocity of Autumn is the third of Coble’s “Alexandra Now, the rehearsal room at the Plays,” which the writer labels a triptych, not a trilogy, since Arena was charged with a sense they examine the same woman at three different points in of “If Estelle says ‘yes,’ then it’s her life—paradoxically, in the same year. The first,A Girl’s probably a go. If she says ‘no,’ Guide to Coffee, features Alex, a 20-something wrestling with Coble then we will have to rethink it.” her artistic bent and desire to explore the world while toiling

38 AMERICANTHEATRE APRIL14 as a barista. The second, Stranded on Earth, 2013. The only theatre available had 1,400 three other distinct styles—adaptations and takes place about 20 years later, when Alexa seats, which Smith and Kaye felt was too large children’s plays; his “WTF” plays, like My is a frustrated painter dealing with her role as for the intimate play. Instead, Smith got the Barking Dog, which feature magic realism wife, mother and commercial graphic designer play scheduled at Arena for fall 2013. and leave audiences either entertained and and wondering whether putting down roots Coble worked closely with her on refin- enlightened or confounded and concerned; was the right choice. ing the script, and after seeing nearly 20 per- and his more recent “talky dramas” like The “I was intrigued by the idea of how your formances of the highly successful production Velocity of Autumn. identity, relationship to the world and commit- at Arena, made a few “surgical as opposed to “There’s a maturity in the plays he’s ment to art change as you age,” Coble explains. sledgehammer” rewrites in anticipation of a written in the past two or three years,” The story for the third play was inspired Broadway production. In December, Kaye McLaughlin notes. “These characters express by his experiences with his aging mother, who, formalized a deal with the Shuberts for the themselves with a much greater sense of real- with his help, remains in her home close to 780-seat Booth Theatre, where the show is ism than some of the earlier plays that elevated his, as well as with his grandparents, neighbors set to open April 21. their comic elements. But what undergirds and even older actors he knows. “Alexandra’s “Even though everyone wanted to go last all of it is a real respect and understanding of a fiction based on about a hundred personal spring, everything has gotten better because the humanity the characters are fighting for.” truths,” he states. we waited that year,” Coble says. The evolving, mid-career playwright says Of the embattled mother and son, direc- Previews start on April 1, and those who he’s enjoying always learning, and he doesn’t tor Molly Smith (who is also making her know the wry-witted Coble appreciate the labor too much over the concern by some that Broadway directing debut) observes, “The two April Fools connection. “He’s one of the fun- he should just write “Coble-style” plays. “For characters have the conversations we wish we niest people I know,” says Kenn McLaughlin, whatever reason, I feel constitutionally unable could have with our parents and grandparents producing artistic director at Stages Repertory to stick to that,” he declares. who are aging and going through these huge Theatre in Houston, where Coble has had life transitions.” many productions. “When we are together, COBLE’S OWN TWISTING TREK TOWARD After the great success of the D.C. read- he can make me laugh until my sides hurt.” Broadway started in 1968, when he was born ing, the team did a second reading in New Although Coble built his early career in Edinburgh, Scotland. His mother, Jan, York in December of 2012 and had hoped to on dark, violent comedies such as Bright Ideas serving in the U.S. Air Force in Iceland at the open the play on Broadway in the spring of and The Dead Guy, he went on to develop time, had done her research and learned that

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Scotland had a lower infant mortality rate than performance in Damn Yankees confirmed his program. His arrival in Athens via Greyhound the U.S. Roughly two years later, Jan decided desire to be an actor. While attending Fort bus in the fall of 1990 marked his first time in to teach on a Navajo reservation, based purely Lewis College there, he fed his theatre jones Ohio and his farthest point east. His second on caprice, as was her wont, Coble says, adding by majoring in English but with a minor in year, Coble needed a class, so he signed up that to this day he’s still not sure why: “There acting. He did as many shows as he could get for playwriting. Then he entered a script was no tie other than her desire to be there.” cast in, and even performed in the evenings into OU’s annual new-play festival—“very They started in Shiprock, N.M., then and summers for a resident company founded autobiographical and a farce,” he says with did several scene transitions through tiny by two New York actors. a big smile. He also had an epiphany: The towns in different parts of the Navajo res- Working on everything from Shake- experience of having his play well received ervation and one Ute settlement, all in the speare to Shepard gave Coble a chance to by fellow students for its two-night run was Four Corners region of the Southwest, until “absorb, absorb, absorb” the diverse styles, analogous to his stunt spectacle at 15, minus he was 15. His official entry into the theatre words and rhythms of plays from the inside the bruises and broken ribs. “I don’t think life, he claims, occurred when he was in high out. “I learned everything I could about acting, I’ve ever said this before,” he says, “but that school in Ignacio, Colo. (pop. 700). In his and, unbeknownst to me, learned everything feeling afterwards was very similar: ‘Oh, I’d 15th summer, he and several friends, inspired I could about playwriting at the same time, like to do more of this.’” by Raiders of the Lost Ark, decided to stage because I was listening closely to the lan- Still not convinced that he was a play- a stunt-filled spectacular for their parents, guage,” he says. wright, Coble spent his third year as an acting featuring bike riders crashing into trees and Looking back, he sees even earlier play- intern at the Cleveland Play House, part of jumping off garages. The “accident-o-rama” writing roots on the reservation, where his OU’s program to provide professional experi- closed early, when the audience collectively mother fostered the Native American story- ence and enable students to earn an Equity screamed, “Stop! That’s enough!” telling tradition with her son and her students. card. (He got his MFA in acting, but OU later The addiction, however, had taken hold. She kept a scrapbook to record stories that adopted him as a playwright alum as well.) “I remember that evening just being on this little Eric would imagine and then provide Coble liked the Cleveland theatre land- high for a couple of hours,” Coble says. “That accompanying stick-figure illustrations. scape and the fact that it was an affordable, was really cool. We should do that again!” Still in his acting phase after graduating artist-friendly city, and his wife Carol Laursen The Cobles relocated to Durango, Colo. from Fort Lewis College, Coble enrolled (“on moved from Massachusetts to join him on the (pop. 11,000), where his sophomore-year impulse,” he says) in Ohio University’s MFA North Coast and take a job in a diagnostic

40 AMERICANTHEATRE APRIL14 dren’s Theatre, where Coble’s adaptation of Lois Lowry’s The Giver played in 2006 before going on to have more than 200 productions worldwide. “He doesn’t bring a lot of drama into the writing process. He puts the drama in the script.” Foote, knowing about Coble’s childhood on the reservations, commissioned him to write their first of several collabora- tions, Sacagawea, which premiered in 2002. The affable and popular writer has a solid following in Texas, too, thanks in part to his longtime friendship with Stages Rep’s McLaughlin. Since Coble’s Pinocchio 3.5 won the children’s category of Stages’s New Plays Festival in 2001, the theatre has produced one of his plays on its children’s or main stage STEVE WAGNER OWEN CAREY every year—until a couple of years ago, when Coble got too busy with other commitments. Of his friend’s Broadway debut, Heather Anderson Boll and Nick Koesters in Ryan Stathos in The Giver at Oregon McLaughlin says, “His distinctive voice is My Barking Dog at Cleveland Public Theatre. Children’s Theatre. just being discovered now. I am excited for him and for the next chapters of his life.” laboratory at University Hospitals Case Sojourner Truth, registered a big hit at CPH. Upon learning that his play was headed Medical Center. Coble accepted a position as Larger doors opened when Bright Ideas for Broadway, the low-key Coble says he an actor-teacher at Cleveland’s other LORT premiered in CPH’s 2002 season. Inspired by never had “a big, explosive, fist-pumping” member, Great Lakes Theater Festival (now his new-parent experiences with preschool, the moment. “It happens to be a bigger arena,” Great Lakes Theater). “satire of Macbeth” lances the Machiavellian he allows, “but I don’t feel that I’ve ‘made it.’ Realizing the city was also a great place lengths parents take to assure their child’s This is the next play. I would like to continue to raise kids, they decided to remain, and they admittance into a prestigious private school. to get produced. That’s been the goal from purchased a house in classic Coble fashion: From Cleveland, it moved Off Broadway to the get-go, as it is for every other playwright.” sight unseen. “It was a neighborhood we MCC Theater, was published by Dramatists So, true to the blue-collar ethic of his wanted to be in,” he shrugs. The couple has Play Service, and went on to have dozens of adopted hometown, Coble’s taking no time been married for 19 years and they have a productions throughout the U.S. out to bask in the Great White Light. Already son in college and a daughter in high school. Laura Kepley, recently named CPH’s a second play, Southern Rapture, has received Concerned about his community’s schools, ninth artistic director, has known Coble since an industry reading, with a cast including Coble ran for a school board position and is she ran the Playwrights Unit as associate John Larroquette, Judith Light and Jerry near completing his six-year term. “If you’re artistic director. He quickly befriended Kepley O’Connell, and has been optioned for Broad- going to put down roots somewhere, you and her husband, playwright George Brant, way. Outside New York City, Stranded on Earth might as well really put them down,” he says. after she relocated from Trinity Repertory was produced at Geva Theatre in Rochester Theatre Company in Providence, R.I., in in March, and will open at Cleveland’s new IN THE MEANTIME, COBLE BEGAN 2010. “He’s too young to say he’s the grand- Mamaí Theatre Company in June. This May, mining his Dramatists Sourcebook for national father of Cleveland theatre, but he is,” Kepley Coble’s new play Fairfield, a comedy about an theatre opportunities and submitted scripts says with a laugh. “He was such a fantastic elementary school where Black History Month to local venues. In 1994, Cleveland Public ambassador to Cleveland and the theatre goes horribly wrong, will be part of CPH’s Theatre produced his first full production, community for us.” New Ground Festival. He’s also working on Isolated Incidents, and the following year, Kepley, who directed Coble’s adaptation a translation of The Giver for a production in another of his dark comedies, Sound-Biting, of Les Roberts’s A Carol for Cleveland at CPH São Paulo, Brazil. premiered at Dobama Theatre. Also in in 2012, likes the way he has his own slant on Keeping to his prolific nature, he has six 1994, he became a founding member of the the world and incorporates different styles to or eight other plays floating in his head that he Playwrights Unit, a professional develop- accommodate it. “I appreciate that he writes hopes to write soon. Troubled by the lack of a ment program, at CPH. Two years later, plays that delight young children, and plays production on the seventh continent, however, when a playwright failed to complete a script that scare the heck out of adults,” she says. Coble assures that he is exploring ways to start for the Play House’s children’s theatre, he Last year the American Alliance for Children a one-night-only theatre in Antarctica. stepped in and wrote In a Grove: Four Japanese and Education awarded Coble its Charlotte B. Ghost Stories, which Playscripts, Inc. pub- Chorpenning Playwright Award for his body Christopher Johnston is a freelance lished and continues to be produced today, of work in children’s theatre. journalist, playwright and director especially around Halloween. In 1999, his “Eric is such a good collaborator,” says in Cleveland. His play Ghosts of War biographical play, truth: the Testimonial of Stan Foote, artistic director of Oregon Chil- premiered last year at Dobama Theatre.

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