Playwright Michael DeVito answers our Fringe Asked Questions on his new play "In Loco Parentis" which can be seen at the 4th Street Theatre, New York City from August 14-28. Ticket info and performance times are available here.

BTF: Will you tell us about your show?

MD: In Loco Parentis is about a teacher [Mr. Browning] and his student [Carly] studying Hamlet together. Hamlet becomes a kind of portal for Carly’s talking about her mother’s death, three years earlier, and dealing with her unresolved grief over that. In the meantime, the two get to know each other pretty well and they develop a relationship that is difficult for either of them to define, and which gets confused for romantic attraction. The play is about the nature of attraction, about how we define ourselves, about theater and its relevance in our lives, and it also explores the American high school experience, which is often fraught with all the wrong kinds of pressures. Carly, amidst trying to cope with grief over this incredibly traumatic event, is also trying hard to get into a great college, and Browning helps her look at that and ask why she is so driven. Of course, the reason she’s driven has a lot to do with advice her mother gave her before she died, and a parallel develops between Hamlet’s father’s expectations and the girl’s mother’s expectations—they are both living with ghosts, in a sense.

BTF: How and when did it come about?

MD: I’m a high school English teacher, so it was inevitable that sooner or later I’d write a play about teaching. Over the years, teaching Hamlet to really driven high school students, I’ve had the experience a number of times of having a student in my class who has lost a parent, and one of the things I tend to concentrate on when I teach Hamlet is that aspect of inevitable parent-loss that each of us has to face. I’ve had a few conversations with students who found it difficult to talk about that aspect of the play. The girl in this play is a fictional amalgam of all of those students, and I’ve been able in the play to explore a lot of the joys and frustrations of teaching literature.

BTF: What's your story?

MD: I’ve been writing and work-shopping plays for years with a lot of other terrific playwrights who are out there working hard on their craft, and often not getting much recognition. This company is a group of people that have been brought together by a passion for this story and this script. I met Jonathan Warman, the director, when I was asked by Emerging Artists to find a director for a reading of the play they did in June, 2009. Desmond Dutcher, one of the the leads, was also in that reading. From there we cast Kristin, Kareem and Marc through auditions, I got in touch with friends to find the scenic designer and Jonathan found the lighting designer. Everyone in the company is a serious artist who has been working hard for years, looking for a break. Maybe this is it.

BTF: How bare bones is your show?

MD: The reality of theater today is that there often isn’t money for big productions, so I’ve been trained to write bare bones. So it’s less that the show is bare bones and lacking something than that the script doesn’t call for anything set-wise that isn’t easily affordable. Consequently our scenic designer can have some fun being creative, and she does. I don’t want to push this comparison too much, but Shakespeare’s productions were pretty bare bones, too. We’ve got four terrific actors and a good script. And lighting. This time we have a lighting guy. Very exciting.

BTF: Do you have any influences?

MD: My influences are pretty mainstream – Miller, O’Neill, Williams, Wilder, great American dramatists who told stories about real people in greatly designed dramatic situations. And so many of the playwrights I’ve worked with, with whom I’ve talked about how to write dialogue, how to keep an audience riveted. I think I take something from every play I read or see. I’ve been learning a lot from Donald Margulies and Conor McPherson lately. The company is pretty diverse. Jonathan and I joke about how this script seems different from a lot of what he has done. Kristin, who plays Carly, studies with Terry Schreiber. I can’t speak knowledgeably about what has influenced her as an actress, but I can tell you she is amazing.

BTF: If you were meeting your prospective in-laws for the first time, how would you describe the work you do?

MD: The first thing I’d say is that I’m a high school teacher. Most people know what that is. That’s how I make my living. But I’d also tell them that I write plays that I hope they would enjoy, even if they are not typical "theater people." I think one of the shames of New York theater is that, at least with indie theater, most of the audience seems to be industry folks and friends of the company. I hope that one day indie theater will thrive as an alternative to Broadway. Many people who are not in theater think that going to the theater means going to a Broadway show, but the best plays I’ve seen in the last five years or so have been in 50 seat black boxes.

BTF: What shouldn’t an audience expect from you?

MD: Technical wizardry. I have nothing against technical wizardry if it serves the drama, but I’ve always considered the greatest challenge a playwright faces is the ability to create interchanges with language that are electrifying. So I hope that an audience will not expect that I try to wow them with a lot of stage pyrotechnics. My characters talk to each other. Hopefully their conversations are riveting.

BTF: If this is your first festival, what do you think you’re in store for? If you’re a pro, what is it you’re in for?

MD: I wish I knew the answer to this question, but I guess that’s the point. This is my first festival, and I’m absolutely giddy with anticipation. I have no idea what to expect, except that the show will be worth the price of admission. I hope people come to see it, and are moved by it.

BTF: So what's the fun in Fringe?

MD: For me, so far, the fun has been in how appreciative everyone in the Fringe has been about the play, and how flexible and open they’ve been in helping me promote it. It’s really an amazing team of producing artists, which makes me very hopeful that In Loco Parentis will get some attention. It’s nice to be told that I’ve written something that people should see. That’s what I’m always trying to do.

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